Along the Borders

November 10, 2025 / Lisa / Leave a comment

The wonderful book Once Upon a River, by Diane Setterfield, opens with the lines ‘Along the borders of this world lie others. There are places you can cross. This is one such place.’ As soon as I read that opening I knew I would love the book. It’s an amazing story that is a mystery, a fairytale in some ways, and an homage to storytelling all wrapped up together.

I also love this concept of thin borders and other worlds and it’s been growing in me for a while. It’s becoming clear that this is what I want to write, and have leaned toward in This Deep Panic and Otherkin.

*A growth on the tree or a forest creature?*

I love also the question of what is real and what is not – and if not, who says so? Who has the right to say what is real and what is not? I’m not talking science here, obviously, as proof of what is real. I’m talking about myth.

Times change, our understanding of the world changes, and legends change, but at one point in time, that story was very real to the people who lived it.

I also am intrigued by the idea that our hearing and sight only make up a tiny spectrum of sound and seeing. The theory is that this means there is much more around us than what we are aware of. So, again, if someone sees or hears something not there, who are we to say it’s really not there?

Is your imagination starting to take off right now?

I want to write stories that look at those questions but I’m not sure how to go about it. I don’t yet have a story structure that supports the idea and I’m not a good enough writer to accomplish this. Yet.

But, wow, so many stories could come, and have come, from those questions of what is real and what isn’t, what is true, what was true, and why it’s no longer true.

I’m reading a book right now called The Lace Reader and it’s a mystery but also takes what you believe about the story and turns it upside down by the end. So many books do that, especially mysteries, and I don’t normally like to be tricked by the author. I dislike that whole ‘it was only a dream’ style of ending something. The Lace Reader is more subtle than that but that kind of misleading the reader isn’t what I mean here by asking what is real and what isn’t.

I don’t want to be tricked. I want to be left wondering if, just maybe, the story could be real.

I guess what I want is the magic of a fairytale.

How Do You Tell a Story?

November 3, 2025 / Lisa / 2 Comments

A friend and I were talking recently about the stories we tell over and over throughout our lives. She wondered about how some people will tell those stories almost verbatim each time. No matter who they are telling the story to, or how many years have passed since the event, the telling of it stays exactly the same, word for word.

*(All of these photos have good stories behind them)*

I was surprised by my friend’s surprise though, because to me, that’s normal. I told her I wouldn’t be surprised if all writers didn’t do that. Because what we are telling exists as a complete, finished story. Editing and revising are done, if they ever happened. The cause of the story exists fully formed and changing it with each telling would mean being unfaithful to the story.

She understood that but questioned the oddity of retelling in such an exact way. She wondered if it was a way to create an oasis in a crowd, a way to be isolated or protected by the familiar, when in an unfamiliar space.

Well, yes. Of course it is.

The story is known. The rendering of it has been practiced, rehearsed, delivered. The responses will be understood. Writers are observers, after all, and I’m willing to bet most are not typically comfortable in a crowd. And in situations where you don’t know what to say or how to fit in, stories are there to help.

I’d never really thought about this until my friend brought it up, but she is right. When I tell someone about something that happened, I not only use the exact same words, but even the same tone of voice. Maybe it is unusual and I just never knew that. It makes me want to listen to the stories friends and family tell, to search for variations.

Even as I think about this though, it makes me almost cringe. Variations aren’t just shifting the way you tell a familiar story. Variations change it forever. How many variations will it take before you no longer know what the true story is? My husband will say I elaborate, but even if I improve a story, I retell it the exact same way.

There may be safety for a writer in repeating the same story, but there’s also value in passing it on intact.

So how do you tell a story? Think of one that has traveled in your family for years. Do you repeat it the same as another family member or does it change with the speaker, or with the telling? Does it make you question what the true version is? Is their version their truth? That brings up the whole conversation around how people in the same situation can have completely different memories of the event later.

But now I’m losing the thread of this story. If I’m not careful I’m going to have to go back and change it.

Finding Inspiration in the Waiting Period of Writing

October 20, 2025 / Lisa / Leave a comment

Otherkin has been through the editing process and it wasn’t as brutal as I’d feared. It’s also passed muster with two beta readers. It’s now waiting and gestating. I need one more read-through after all the changes and then will start the publishing process.

In the meantime, I’m in that fallow period between stories, waiting for one to come through. This can sometimes be a stressful thing as fears surface. Will I get another story? Oh my god, what if I never write again?!? In other ways, it can be like a vacation, where you can let go of all the word – work and just let your mind wander.

One thing I’m doing is reading The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life by Suleika Jaouad, and what a wonderful way to keep writing flowing in between projects.

So…I was enjoying the rain and thunder and all the beautiful fall colors yesterday, and I came up with a theory and decided to do some research.

The theory is, that a person’s preference for silver or gold is tied to their favorite season. It make sense, right? For example, fall and winter are my favorites. As is silver. The color is like rain and snow and gray days. That also kind of ties into my favorite gemstone, which is garnet.

For research, I did a broad study by asking a sister, and of course, she blew my theory out of the water. I thought for sure summer would be her favorite, because she likes gold. But no, it’s winter. In some ways her choice of season makes sense because she hates bugs and extreme heat. But how can she like gold when she doesn’t list the yellows and golds of summer as her favorite season?

Maybe she’s just an anomaly.

Or maybe it’s my theory.