writing

Try Again Tomorrow

/ Lisa / Leave a comment

I’m listening to a song called ‘Try Again Tomorrow’ by Audiomachine. It’s on my Creativity playlist on Spotify and it was the first one to start playing when I decided to come up with something to write about today. The title made me smile because, wow, what a temptation. Isn’t that the easy way out? Every photo here is a way I have found to put writing off lately.

I’ve been waiting for the next story to show up and tinkering in the meantime with what I call ‘snippets’. Little moments of dialog that a character is whispering to me occasionally. I don’t know what her story is yet but she has an intriguing voice and an even more intriguing question.

A visit to the rose gardens in Portland, Oregon

I’ve also been waiting for an idea to write about here that isn’t something I’ve already shared. I mean, it’s not like my life is fascinating and full of adventure to blog about.

So maybe I will try again tomorrow.

Except, putting things off is becoming an excuse. Which is why I laughed a little when the song started playing. All writers know if you want to write, you need to put your butt in the chair. Waiting for the muse rarely works as well as creating a routine and working on something, anything, to prime the pump.

A walk in the woods.

So what have I been working on? I’m learning to make journals. My excuse is that I’m still working with stories in a way, hands on paper, with just the pen missing. And the words. Also, the daydreams.

Last weekend I chatted with my son’s partner and she was telling me about a story she’s writing. We had so much fun talking about characters who suddenly decide they are going to take off on their own path and leave us following. It made me miss the excitement when that happens. Or when you are so sucked into the story that the world disappears until you suddenly come up for air and realize the whole day has also disappeared.

Driving to work this week, I thought about how long it’s been since I posted here. I don’t think I’ve had enough time lately to spend in my mind, if that makes sense. Too busy, too many changes, too many worries. Daydream time has been put off until tomorrow. Or the next day. Or next week. You know how it is when life gets busy and luxuries get forgotten along the way.

I don’t want to force a new story before it’s ready to come into the world. No premature book babies. I’ve learned that never turns out well. But I’m starting to feel antsy and missing writing, which is a good sign. I think the kettle of cold water is beginning to simmer.

So what song is playing now? ‘On the Nature of Daylight’ by Max Richter. One of my favorites on the Creativity playlist. But I think I’ll skip ahead to ‘I’ll Meet You Halfway’ by the Partridge Family, one of those guilty-pleasure songs you’re embarrassed to admit you still love to sing along to. And then I’ll put my butt in the chair. Maybe. Or maybe tomorrow. It’s getting kind of late in the day…

Epilogues in Fiction

/ Lisa / Leave a comment

Be forewarned, there are spoilers here relating to a book.

I just finished These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant. It was a great story I thoroughly enjoyed. Until I got to the epilogue. I’ve never read a book where the epilogue ruins the whole story. Typically they let you have a few more moments with a character, see how they managed after the drama of the story. This epilogue fulfilled that role, but, for me, left a gaping plot hole. It would be interesting to hear from anyone who has read the book to see what they think. Maybe I missed something, which is entirely possible.

The premise of the book is that a father had his baby daughter taken away by grandparents. He retrieved his daughter and since then they have lived out in the woods, helped by an old friend and a hermit neighbor who watches over them. The premise is believable and well-written, there are great subplots, and the story is easy to sink into. The characters are fully developed and as a reader, I was immediately invested in their story. You know from the beginning that there will have to be a reckoning, but the journey to that end keeps the reader hooked.

Warning again, here comes the spoiler.

Finch, the daughter, witnesses a murder. The consequences mean that father and daughter may now be identified and found. The father will have to turn himself in, he knows he will lose his daughter and face jail time, and that Finch will be returned to the evil grandparents. Before this can happen though, the hermit steps in and, in the middle of other plot twists, says he murdered father and daughter and has proof. He is arrested and it gives father and daughter a way out.

And then the epilogue. A few years later. Finch eventually went to live with the grandparents and went to college. In these last pages she is returning to the cabin in the woods to see her father. She has lived a full life in her teen years, and her father let her go to the grandparents because he realized she needed that full life.

Wait just a second.

The grandparents were the antagonists, but suddenly in the epilogue they are the good guys. The solution to all the past drama is that grandparents and father simply don’t speak to each other. There are no consequences for the father., or for the grandparents in how they initially took Finch. We never get to see the father face the grandparents over what happened in the past. The old hermit, presumably sitting in prison for murder, continues to do so even though father and daughter were clearly never murdered. The grandfather is actually a judge, but does nothing to show the hermit was innocent after all. They all just let him continue with whatever sentence he was handed for confessing to something he didn’t do.

The epilogue made me not like any of those main characters that I had just spent a few days with. How did no one in the editing side of things not sit up and say ‘hey, wait a minute’. How did no one mention to the author that there should have been some culminating interaction between the father and the grandparents to tie up the main reason for the whole plot? Not to mention the fact that a young girl who loved the hermit could simply just shrug shoulders and move in with grandparents who buy her a car and send her to college.

Like I said, this was the first time the final ending pages of a book ruined the whole thing. Typically when I check a book out of the library and love it, I’ll buy a copy so I can reread it. I actually was planning on doing that but now I can’t get past the epilogue.

Has anyone had a similar experience with a disappointing ending? What book was it, and why did the ending fail? I see this as a good lesson for us writers so I’d love to hear your stories.

Creativity in Driftwood

/ Lisa / 2 Comments

Last week my husband and I took a vacation to the Oregon coast. We like to go there during low tides or after storms to look for agates and rocks of all sorts. We hadn’t been in a long time and we both were very in need of a break. Plus, this was our dog’s first road trip to the ocean.

On one of our walks we saw a young man building a structure out of driftwood. He was busy digging a large hole in front of the structure, tossing out sand and oblivious to our passing.

We see people doing things like this with driftwood, typically building a simple pile of sticks for kids to play in, or to sit in while they have a small fire. But the things this young man built were different. For one thing, there were several of them along the beach. For another, they were complicated. Good sized, intricate, wood woven into arcs and organic shapes, and clearly more like artwork than just playing around building a camp.

On top of that, we noticed other things as we walked in the vicinity. Closer to the waves there was a simple circle of stones, already getting covered in sand. There was a slender piece of driftwood upright in the sand, decorated. I took a photo, which is below, but you can’t really see the details. There were feathers, shells, pieces of beach grass, and stones decorating the wood. I felt uncomfortable after I took the photo, as if I’d gone into someone’s church during service and started snapping pictures.

My husband spotted a ring of sand. It may have been a hole originally, like the one we saw the young man digging. But the tides and waves left only a hint of what had been, and left patterns of movement in the sand that showed what change looked like. It was like a subtle reminder that nothing remains constant.

I’ve been thinking about those structures since we got back. Why was the young man building so many? Why did he build them at all? Did he see them as transitory art, or were they just something to do with the things he found on the beach? Did he want people to use them? Did he sit back later and watch the afternoon crowds and how they interacted with his creations? Or was he, too, transitory, and moved on without looking back?

That led to more questions. I wondered if people saw the creativity, or just saw camps. I wondered if people respected them, or destroyed them. Did kids play in them and dream adventures? Did homeless people sleep in them at night?

So many possibilities. So many stories.

I wonder if that young man knew he would make imaginations soar? I hope so.

Oh, and Corbie loved the beach. The picture below is him with the wind blowing his ears up. He was the most well-behaved dog we have ever traveled with and we made sure to pay attention to what sticks he played with.