Writing Out Loud

(I wrote this with Dragon Speak and didn't take the time to edit or change the mistakes. I just want to get it up to remember. So proceed, realizing there will be funny gibberish between.)

She sat next to him, searching his face, reflecting the same mingling of fear and curiosity.

Comments and screamed orders for him to leave, to look away, and to remember his place. His thoughts obeyed, envisioning leaving the cavern, returning to the main caverns. There was water to be hauled, fuel to be gathered — a hundred mundane tasks left for his hands.

His body rebelled, frozen in place as his thoughts turned taking a very different route. Unsure of who moved forward, he felt the forbidden lips touch his; a single brush severing his resolve.

As usually happens during a kiss scene, the scene completely stops in my head as though someone pushed pause on the movie I'm watching. I sit back, making large circles with both arms as though that will set the film rolling again.

"And…"

Nothing comes. I sigh. "I really suck at romance."

Maybe it's because I've never actually kissed. I don't remember ever kissing. I don't remember anyone ever kissing me. Maybe on the cheek when I was three.

My first inclination is to interrupt the kissing, but common sense tells me that would be bad for Decharo. A friend. Interrupting, would just make it awkward. Anybody else would get him into a whole slew of trouble. He's already going to be in trouble in the next scene. My thoughts returned to characters in them scene.

"All right guys. So now what you do?"

Decharo breaks the third wall, entering from his world into mine and getting that rather sort of a cocky attitude that all my characters get want to venture into dialogue with me.

"Well, we could just keep kissing."

"For the rest of the book?" A laugh works its way into my skepticism.

He grins. "Sure. Why not? It's bound to be better than whatever you have planned."

I wince. It probably is. I'm already working to make Decharo's future better than the original story implied it would be, but I am as uncertain of his future as I am of my own.

"I don't know." I avoid his remark. "Romance just still silly to me. I have no idea what it's like to kiss."

His eyebrows arch. "You mean I've done something that the author hasn't?"

"Yeah, yeah." I try not to let bitterness seep in. "Rub it in, all you want. Just shows me how what happens after you kiss."

I can see in Decharo’s face that he's thinking there's a vast difference between what happens in the story after he kisses, and what he would like to happen after he kisses.

I mentally forced him away from my world and back into the story, then pause to answer a text from Rob. Decharo Shannondant go right back to kissing, which makes me frustrated thinking about how in the world. I'm going to describe it, and then makes me grin because Decharo's nearly as good as guarded as myself, and they are pretty dang cute doing it. I chew the inside of my lip, wondering if I can manipulate events to give them a happy ending.

Okay. So what do I see in this scene? There sitting on a rock, conveniently shaped. Sort of like the bench. Shannondant is in the cranberry dress, but as they zero in on the sleeves. They start changing shape I can clearly see the picture anymore. Then I get distracted because my vocal program is doing funky things with the grammar, and it's throwing me off.

Back to the picture.

Bits of white are poking out of Shannondant steps scalloped sleeves kind of like Italian Renaissance. If that even a fashion in Erilerre? Now she suddenly looks like she stepped out of “Ever After."

Whatever. She's clean and neat which must've taken efforts the she lives in the caves with the rest of them. His close are tan, probably made out of some animal hide. And they are not dressed for winter.

I mentally manipulate the image. This is why I hate description. It constantly changes on me from seeing the story, to just filling in blanks when ever I'm trying to zero in on what I'm actually seeing. This is not what they look like when the actual scene was happening.

So they're still on the rock. Her hand is still on his cheek, which seems inappropriate, but then again, she is Shannondant and she's been awfully pushy in this scene. She should be wearing a cloak. The caves are cold and wet, and she is a princess, so it should be a fairly nice cloak. However, she lives with a bunch of men who are not fashion conscious nor have an overly high opinion of her, because she is a woman. So I give her a plane cranberry, woolen cloak. Perhaps to make it pretty, she's in bordered tiny designs on the front of it. Yes, I like that. Little Celtic knot the trail around the hood and down the front of the opening. They are yellow-ish gold. Her sleeves are tight now, tight and layered under hair hangs down in a long, thick braid down her back. It's rolled around the top and yes Decharo, she is beautiful. Now that I can see more clearly what she's wearing, I replaced her into the picture, balancing on a leather Brown shoe and leaning forward to kiss him. I'm pretty sure was her who initiated the kissing.

Decharo is still not dressed for winter. But then again, he probably really isn't. His clothing is ragged. Nobody cares much what he looks like, so long as he has something to wear. But I'm working on description, so I'll look him over. His sleeves are baggy as are most Erish shirts, so there's plenty of room for work. There's a few slight tears, and smudges from the dirt and probably cinders from the fire. His hands are still cracked, laced with black dirt and ashes. Even if he scrubs them, they still won't ever look quite clean. Like your hands look will look after you worked on the engine of the car. Oh, there is his cloak. Sitting beside him. It's gray and woolen and rough and looked scratchy. They must've set it aside whenever they decided to cut his hair.

His pants are made out of some sort of animal skin. I guess waterproof helps keep the cold out. His boots go to his knees, and looks to be the newest thing about him.

I suddenly wondered Shannondant will keep any of that here. That's on the ground, and half of me thinks it's cute, but most of me thinks that’s just kind of creepy.

He needs something to keep them from looking like a pirate, so I give him a vest also made from a soft tan leather. There. Now I have a definite picture that looks like he belongs in Eirlerre. There's not much also around. Rocks, walls, and a torch for light. He’ll have to bring her back to the main part or someone else will. Even flustered, he would not leave her there alone.

Which reminds me that I actually need to get back to the story plot. I turn on Pandora, and the slowly dreamy piano music accompanies the scene which just makes me think of camera shots drifting around the couple as they kiss. Her hand goes to his face. One of his hands inches to her waist, though he is more hesitant. I go ahead and let the scene play out in my head, even though it's not forming words that I can actually write down.

His hand creeps from her waists up to brush his thumb through her hair. He's always wanted to touch her hair. Now creeps around the back of her head, pulling her closer. 300 more words, and I could be at a word count for an entire day. If I can just learn how to do this using quality words that are actually part of the story.

Dreamy piano music is coming to an end. I hope a new musical bring insight.

Scenario number one begins.

He pulls back, looking into her eyes, his own eyebrows drawing down as panic seeps in. Realizing what he's done. "I'm sorry."

She watches him calmly. "I'm not. You shouldn't be either."

He gets up and leaves and she sits a bit frustrated. I don't think that was it. I change the dreamy piano music.

Pandora has a sense of humor. A Jamaica beat accompanies the lyrics, "Today, I don't feel like doing anything. I just want to lay in my bed."

It completely evade the caves. It cracks me up and ruins the images as my characters start dancing around. Good by Bruno Marrs. Hello Loreena MeKennit. Beneath a Phyrigian Sky begins with a haunting song of pipes and a violin that sounds like it’s coming from the middle east somewhere. Close, but not quite.

“The old ways” begins, sounding much better.

Unfortunately, the song makes me think more of Andrew and Clara. Though on reflection it works for Decharo and Shannondant as well.

And here I am, beautiful violin music, nearly had a nano word count, and still without a good scene. Oh well. At least I know what they're wearing. I think about the bay, my black book and pencil, and decide that was might be a better way to write after all. So here I go, off to write the way I normally do. It's usually more streamlined and effective.

I procrastinate, realizing that when all is said and done, I still don't know how to write a kissing scene. Perhaps someone will interrupt them. After all. For the story to work, they don't need enough time to reflect on their feelings for each other. That part comes later.

So. Now to find who or how they are interrupted with, or by. I wonder vaguely if I’ll ever actually be able will to write out loud like this without completely rambling like I've just done.

Diamonds

I've always been a pearl girl.

But today I've been thinking about diamonds.

Setting aside the ideas of engagement rings (and the slave-labor often used to create them) I've been thinking about the diamond itself.

I think a diamond is the perfect picture of an Christian woman.

It's strength, beauty and transparency all wrapped up together.

When you consider that every diamond was once coal that underwent immense pressure and heat to turn into a clear substance. Miners must removed 250 tones of earth to find one 1-carat stone. Then the stone is cut in precise ways by a master stonecutter so that light can shine through and reflect off of the transparent surface. A thing formed from undesirable circumstances, cleansed, cut and used to sparkle and reflect light onto others. At the same time, it is the strongest substance on earth.

That sounds like what God does with a woman.

Sounds like what he's doing with me.

You Should Have Seen it in Color

I should be in bed.

Who know color could be so exciting. I seriously feel like I'm bringing my family back to life with this. Unfortuantly, my computer got rid of the other picture I did (twice) so I'm posting this before I loose it too. And I should really go to bed after this. I'm getting up in about six hours...

But seriously... isn't she a cutie?

Especially compared to this?

If I could paint a picture...

I feel like a child, eagerly dancing before God’s throne, with my arms fully extended, lifting my heart toward him saying, “Here! Here! Take it! Make it something pretty. I wanna see! I wanna see!”
You laugh maybe, but that’s the image I got today after I finished a prayer that I realized was entirely full of eagerness and anticipation and a longing to fulfill every purpose that God made me for. The words came easily, releasing my mind, body and heart to Him and His purposes, without fear or hesistation. I have things I hope is part of His will for me life – but more than anything I want to easily hear God. To be able to eagerly obey out of love and excitement. To know without any doubts that what I’m doing is someething He decreed and therefore will succeed exactly the way he wants. To be allowed to serve Him and live out my God-created identity no matter what it is or what other people think. To be in love with my God.
So far, when I pray for direction, He’s just said ‘wait.’ It’s hard but I’m learning. Yesterday I felt He was saying I would have to give up my idea of a sucessful timeline and actions according to where the world thinks I should be at for my age. It’s hard for me to wait. I feel like a racehorse, prancing in the gate, waiting for it to open. But I know there’s a reason and He knows what is best for me.
I’m so excited and eager to see what God is going to make me into and use me for. When I get to Heaven, I don’t want to feel like there was a role in the history of this world that I was meant to play –and didn’t. I am understanding God now in ways I never did before and I wish everyone in the world could realize how good God really is.
I wish I was an artist. How drastically different this picture is than the little girl hiding in the bogs I described a year or so ago.

Sunday, April 18, 2010
If I could paint a picture....
If I could paint a picture, I would paint the image that came to me in church today.

I saw a man seated. I could not see his face but the jagged scars in his wrists identified him at once. He was in a garden of soft green with flowers peeping from between the blades of grace. A tree is at his back, lowering branches of a weeping willow around the group gathered around him. His hand strokes the face of a little girl with golden curls and a light blue dress. She is laughing through sparkling blue eyes. Her sash is white, clean and unwrinkled. On his other side is another girl with dark hair and a headband, wearing a dress of forest green. She kneels in front of him, her hands touching his knee. She, too, is unafraid. Between the two girls stands another, holding up a string of beads. A work of art that she has labored over and eagerly shows for his approval. It is granted by the look on her face.
But in the far corner, there is something which at first glance mars the peaceful scene. One more girl in a tattered, drab gown somewhere between the color of green and grey. Her sash trails the ground, hanging at one side where it has come loose. Brown hair hangs half hiding her face, whips flying up, lacking the touch of a comb. She is not part of the group. Not even close to the group. She kneels by the edge of a bog, one knee sinking into it's soft ground, the other foot planted on more firm ground. One hand grasps the long stem of a cattail, the other disappears into the mud as she tries to push herself up. The apron she wears holds the marks of long smears left by her hands, marring the white surface.
Though she is busy struggling to get up and most of her thoughts are directed toward that, her face is turned toward the man in a pleading, longing but very fearful look. Something we cannot see reaches out toward her, drawing her back down the road that lays just on the far side of the picture. The road is made of dirt, though well kept, going off into a place that promises better than the bog. But what, we don't know. But the man is ahead, though barricaded by the creatures of perfection, light and happiness.
Creatures she feel would only shove her back toward the bog, kicking her chest and pushing her lower than she already is. And the man that she feels unworthy to approach, confused about who he really is, yet relentlessly drawn toward him. Longing for him, despite her overwhelming hesitation. If one of the girls were to go and offer a hand to take her to the man, the girl would draw back, becoming entrapped in the bog. Her trust has been long shattered and disillusioned.
Is it possible that the man could take her hand and they could walk down that road together? Or must she choose between the road and the man? Is she brave enough to do anything besides peek from the bulrushes?
I know not how the story ends. Nor will it be as a real painting, forever frozen in one second of a life. I feel sure that the man will leave the flock of butterflies to go after the black sheep. She may not be like the other girls. She may never learn to trust anyone but the man.
But I cannot see her as the awful creature that she perceives herself to be. I feel her hopelessness but know she is not beyond hope. I do not see a blackened, defective misfit. I see a little child who has been shoved into the bog one too many times by someone she trusted.
I cannot hate her and I know the man does not either.
She is her biggest critic. But when she sees herself, hatred melts, compassion is stirred. The girl in the picture doesn't know she is being watched. But when I see her, I cannot hate myself.
Posted by Lindsey at 5:06 PM 0 comments

Freedom

Tonight we ring in a new year.
I'm not making a resolution. A resolution makes me think of a contract that once broken, can never be restored. I'm making instead a New Year's challenge.
My theme for this coming year of 2012 centers around "Freedom." Recently I've become more and more attuned to efforts that work toward abolishing modern-day slavery. Between 12 and 27 million people today are slaves and many of these are forced to work in brothels. Many of the things we buy in stores were made by slaves.
My goal for this year is to further educate myself on which aspects of my life might help contribute to keeping people into slavery - and what I can do to not only stop this practice, but to help free and support the captives themselves.
"Chainless" is a project that I want to start working on. It involves many aspects such as researching which brands and companies make an effort to ensure that their merchandise comes from fair-trading practices. I'm also developing an idea for cutting a CD called "Chainless" that revolve around freedom and raising awareness for the plight of others.
God is making a lot of changes in my personal life as well and I want this year to be about freedom in my own life from sins I struggle with, fears that plague me and anything that is holding me back from living out what I was created to do. So my challenge to myself this year is to explore areas of freedom in all aspects of life.

In Flight

“Gah, she can’t even get a bag of peanuts open,” Darshon remarks.
“She can’t spell either,” Karl grins and jumps onto the bashing author boat of which Darshon is currently captain.
“Oh, hush,” I grin and resist telling the characters in my head out loud to shut their mouths for the sake of the man next to me who can’t see them.
“Who cares about peanuts…” Andrew is glancing out of the plane window, somewhat disturbed. “I can’t even see the ground anymore.”
“Andrew if you won’t get on a boat and Clara won’t get on a plane, and neither of you will touch an airplane, it’s little wonder you end up living on a farm,” I moan.
“Just shut the window,” Tehveor suggests.
“Yeah.” I turn toward Darshon who’s messing with the light buttons ahead. “Andrew’s freaking out and he’s got electricity. Why aren’t you? You’re from Eirlerre.”
One bushy eyebrow rises. “Because I’m from Eirlerre. Eating peanuts in a seat I’m not allowed up from seems a pretty tame past time.”
I smirk. “Unless I decide to make you allergic to peanuts.”
“You wouldn’t dare!” Darshon sounds rather dramatic.
“She might,” Karl remarks dryly. “She made me allergic to water.”
“Only in the spoof,” I say.
“Which is currently most of what you write.”
“Now, now. We’re revamping the original story and making you not quite as much of a sobber.”
“Small favors,” Karl mutters.
I turn to Tehveor. “Guess what? I’ve decided to work on the sequel and put “Swing” on the backburner.
“What???” Lila calls.
“Finally,” Darshon raises his hands to beseech Heaven with long-overdue thanks. Then he lowers them to cross. “Actually, I’ll believe that when I see it.”
I hum.
Trey pouts.
“Sorry, kid. Weekend project,” I offer.
“Yeah, well, that’s not fair.” Lila protests. “Tehveor already has a book out. We don’t.”
“Which is why I’m working on the sequel while people still remember who he is.”
“I’ll bet Swing is still produced first,” someone whispers, but when I look back they all look toward the ceiling.
Sometimes authorhood is a lonely place to be. Especially when the characters start ganging up on you.
“Why is the plane rumbling,” Tehveor asks and I finally understand where his mind has been this entire time.
“It’s the wind,” I explain. “Air pockets.”
I don’t say “turbulence” around Andrew but he’s already looking at me like he thinks I think he’s dumb and knows full well that he isn’t. “So the floatation devices are in case the plane falls out of the sky over water?”
“Yeah, pretty much.” I smile at him. “Don’t worry. We’re not going over water.”
“What are you singing?” Erik asks exasperated as I hum the same line over and over.
“Till I Hear you Sing Once More” I answer.
“Would you please sing the rest of the words, instead of those three lines?”
I think I’m offending Erik’s musical taste.
“Can’t. I don’t remember them.” I answer lightly.
“Perhaps you could make some up,” Andrew suggests.
“Or I could just keep humming it,” I answer.
“It is a rather catchy melody,” Andrew admits, looking toward Erik.
Erik folds his arms and readjusts his legs in the small space.
“Did you take your medicine?” I ask.
“Yes, Father…”
Lizzy purses her lips. “Me thinks he’s skipped...”
I grin and glance toward Danny’s family, new to popping into my world and also to being teenagers – at least the young ones.
Danny and Rosie are busy bent over paper on the table in front, packaged peanuts long forgotten.
Danny’s running his thumb over the nose of some passenger they saw in the airport.
“No, it was smoother.”
“It was beaked,” Rosie argues.
Danny grins. “It was not beaked.”
His daughter shoves his hand away and takes the pencil back from his hand. “It was! It was like this!”
She starts drawing a rather realistic beaked nose and Danny chuckles. “No, it was rounder.”
“It was beaked…” Rosie’s grin takes on a mischievous glint and she begins drawing a triangle into the poor man’s profile. “It was just like this…”
“No, it… stop it. Now you’re just being cruel,” Danny wrestles the pencil back. I’m not sure if he’s arguing on the behalf of the man in the picture or his own delicate memory for facial shapes.
I turn away as the plane shifts again. “I’m getting dizzy.”
“That’s because your brain’s too small.” Darshon says in an accent that doesn’t belong to him. “It just kind of bangs around up there.”
“Oh – hush…”
“The retort’s getting really old,” Andrew chuckles lightly. “You should find a new one…”
“So who’s going to be more nervous at landing,” Tehveor asks. “You or Val?”
“Val,” I answer, shifting in the seat, secretly wondering if I’ll be able to walk by the time we get there. It’s halfway through the flight and so far we haven’t been allowed to get up.
“And then we’re going to see Danae,” Lyndsi says behind me. Up until now, I haven’t known she was there but she is and looking quite excited. I wonder if she’s really more interested to see if Landon lives with Danae.
And just so my other characters aren’t left out, I bring in my Roman’s. Malcomb is fascinated with the plane, commenting how many Christians could be transported very fast.
Felix is already discovering that projectiles can be dropped quite effectively from a plane. Suddenly Darshon is there, plotting with him and I regret bringing one of Jess’s characters into this scene.
I wonder how much time has passed and how much longer it will be. I think I’ve dressed warmly enough. It’s been a hot journey.
This morning when I put on my leggings over jeans, I grew a new appreciation for Super Man. Tights under regular clothing just doesn’t seem cool, though it’s not as bad as I thought.
My departing wisdom from my father was, “Remember up there, Yankees tend to be somewhat – abrupt, so don’t take offense.”
I just grinned all over that statement. So far I haven’t found a state quite as friendly as Texas, nor have I ever in my life addressed someone as a Yankee unless it was for the express purpose of teasing both the north and the south.
I’m with Val on that one.
War’s over. None of us were there.
I look out the patch of window and see just a bit of land. I wonder what state we’re flying over. It’s weird to think we’re not in Texas anymore. Weirder to think that when I land, I won’t be in the South.
“And weeks pass. And months pass. Time goes by. Still you don’t walk through the dooooooorrrrr…. Da dee, dee, dee, dee dee dee dee do da….. till I hear you sing once more…”
The sparsely-worded refrain goes through my head again and Erik moans, looking to Erik the Phantom. “This is your fault…”
Phantom Erik shakes his head. “Not mine. It’s not my fault copy write fell out of fashion and some imposter decided to rewrite my story. New York,” He shakes his head in disgust. “As if I would go there.”
“Watch it,” Scarlet growls. “New York is the best place on earth. Help me out, Andrew.”
“Mmmm…” Andrew hesitates. “Remember, Scarlet. We don’t live there at the same time. In mine time, the factory workers are…”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah…” Scarlet waves off his patient explanation of why New York failed his family’s dreams. “See, Erik? If you don’t like something, you can just change it.”
“Did you learn nothing from that first bag of peanuts??” Darshon asks incredulously.
I move from trying to tear the bag to trying to pry it open, then back to tearing. Come one. Stupid little thing.
This time it tears, as averse to the last time of prying. Tehveor laughs, “She learns a little. I think she cut down her time about a third.”
“She can be taught!” Someone exclaims but again as I try to identify the speaker, they ban together with various innocent looks.
I ignore them and eat my peanuts.

One More Daaay...

Today I woke in Grandma's closet.
Tomorrow I'll wake in Grandma's closet.
The next day, I'll wake in Val's closet.
I have become a closet sleeper. Not to worry. I've discovered I sleep even better in a closet than I do in a bedroom. Too bad my closet isn't big enough for sleeping.
But yeah. Tomorrow morning I'm leaving my beloved Texas and it's 64 degree weather and going to Wisconsin to it's 41 degree weather.
Don't worry. I'm armed with new scarfs from Christmas and some new outfits my parents got for me.
Today I spent packing, teaching my Colorado cousins to swing dance and trying to come up with my writing priorities for the new year. I've decided to put Swing on the back burner as my "weekend project" and turn my focus to "The Captive" which is the sequel to "The Secret of Sentarra" series.
It'll be fun to have a fresh manuscript to figure out the steps to editing and producing - this time hopefully in the proper order. Before I do that though, "Across the Distance" still needs the final read-through and then I'll be learning InDesign and proper page layout.
Then it's off to the proof-readers and plunging into revising "The Captive." It'll be good to write Eirlerre again. Tonight... it's late. And I need to go to bed.
Tomorrow is a traveling day.