Writing about Writing

Nightmares

/ sarahelund / Leave a comment

Here’s the truth, friends. I have nightmares. Lots. Frequently.

Growing up, it was hellish, but now the typical nightmares (you know the ones: being chased, family and friends dying, falling, embarrassment) are no longer that bad. I mean, they are that bad, but after like 20 years of experiencing them, they don’t have the same impact. Mostly, now, I don’t even wake up from these ones. I ride them out.

Today, however, I’m suffering from a nightmare hangover the likes of which I usually don’t feel unless it is one of those rare, devastating, mind-fuck terrors that JT has to shake me awake from.

Last night’s nightmares are haunting my morning, and I hate how it makes me feel.

***

Nightmares have proved to be permanent, unchangeable, unfixable features of my world (so screw all of you who assure your children that they’ll “grow out of it”). But aside from my sleeping hours, I’ve led a pretty charmed life. Everybody has bad times, but I’ve been lucky enough to always have people to love and support me. I’ve had opportunities. I’ve had successes. On average, I’m happy.

So I’ve rationalized that nightmares balance my psyche. They open up the dark, shadowy corners of my mind. They provide a roiling grey counterpoint to my whimsy.

Nights spent amongst monsters and horrors also help fuel my writing. It’s true. I’ve had stories more creative than my waking mind can manufacture spring from my sleeping one. That’s why, on most days, I can say it’s good to have them. It makes me more interesting. It makes me a better writer.

On other days – days like today – I can’t convince myself that there’s anything beneficial to nightmares, except, perhaps, that they flavor my optimism with bitterness, which is refreshing if not pleasant.

Sweet dreams, readers.

The moral, or Unromantic ever after

/ sarahelund / Leave a comment

Good readers, is it my responsibility to write a story than embraces my belief (or lack of belief) in something or other? Do I have to agree with my own moral?

I’m working on this story. It’s a love story (don’t judge, okay?),  and it’s got me thinking.

Here’s what I don’t believe:
I don’t believe in love at first sight, soul mates, or happily ever after. Despite my own situation, I don’t think that monogamy is “right,” and I definitely don’t think that marriage is necessary. (And while engagements are something to celebrate, I also don’t think they’re an “achievement.” I would have liked people to show half as much enthusiasm at me finishing either of my degrees as they did at JT and I agreeing to continue in our successful co-habiting while wearing rings.)

Here’s what I do believe:
Relationships, like anything worth winning and worth keeping, require effort, energy, and (borrowing from Moody) constant vigilance. Most of all, I believe they require a choice — a choice you consciously make on a regular basis to be the best partner you can, to create the relationship that’s most healthy and fulfilling for you both (or all, depending on your situation).

But my story is operating on a premise in which I don’t believe – one of the aforementioned. I’m writing it because it makes me feel that soppy hopefulness that love stories should make you feel, but I fear I’m perpetuating a myth that Disney implanted within every child of my generation and which I can point to as a direct cause of the singleness of at least a couple of my friends — the myth of “meant to be.”

If I have convictions, I have a duty, at least to myself, to find a way to make my “unromantic” notions of love into something aspirational. I’ll have to learn to write the kind of love I believe in, even if that means shelving that soppy hopeful feeling for a while.

NaNoWriMo “fail,” Toronto inspiration, and other news

/ sarahelund / Leave a comment

Hello dearest readers,

Hey, remember that time that it was November, and I committed to NaNoWriMo without a plot?

… apparently that doesn’t work for me. I didn’t “win” this, my second year of attempting, but I did learn that I shouldn’t try for NaNoWriMo on a whim.

This last month was not as productive as one would hope, writing wise. I wrote maybe 20,000 words on my NaNo project, but stalled due to 1) an awesome vacation to Florida and 2) the busiest work month I’ve ever had. I’m not using these things as excuses (especially not the vacation, on which I certainly could have written more), but working half again as many hours as I typically do certainly demanded that some part of my schedule be sacrificed. For my brain’s sake, I let it be the writing.

Why was I so busy at work? I was put on a national project  that was all kinds of neato. It centered on innovation,  and I was working with the kickassiest team imaginable. At the end of November I was even sent to Toronto to help out on the day of (and days leading up to) the big event. It was tremendous. Toronto and I have a much better relationship than before: I got to see one of my best girls in the world (and eat much Korean BBQ with her); I fell in love with the people with whom I got to work; I even enjoyed the Toronto vibe — after I had thoroughly mocked the lack of cold weather hardiness in the very non-Prairies people. Picture me, scampering down the street, jacket open, smiling up at the medium grey sky, breathing in the cool breezes. Now picture others, Canada Goose jackets zipped to the neck, scowls and shivers as adornment, squinting eyes braced against the buffeting winds. They thought I was peculiar, but I hope there was a charm to it.

I really enjoy going somewhere new. Though I’d been to Toronto before, it was never as an adult and never on my own. It’s a small kind of exploration, but I enjoyed finding my way down the city streets, trying to make up shortcuts through the downtown buildings (with limited success — my sense of direction is comically bad), absorbing the emotional atmosphere of the place.

I feel like I could write it now – the feel of downtown Toronto – much better than I would have with my teenaged, chaperoned memory of the place. But I will not. Instead, I want to write characters. ‘Cause boy did I meet some.

Once upon a time and other beginnings

/ sarahelund / Leave a comment

I think “Once upon a time” is a splendid beginning. I use it sometimes to get me going if I’m writing something of the fantasy persuasion. If another genre, it’s my habit to say “So I guess it starts with…” which was a suggestion from someone or other on the NaNoWriMo forum last year. It never fails to encourage more words to appear on the page.

I’ve decided to begin writing a story on here. No planning. No pre-determined length. No vicious internal editor. Just putting (digital) words on the (virtual) page for you to read at your leisure. Why? Because I’m a person who loves beginnings, even when they all pile up on one another to drown me in the excitement of their newness. Look for this to start in the new year.