Memories

I have come to the conclusion that memories are bizarre little snippets of the past, easily twisted and mutilated to suit our subjective perspectives.

As I nurse my father, I find myself remembering things that I thought long forgotten. They're not memories I can easily describe, or even pinpoint, because the strangeness of them relates directly to the fact that they're just emotions. I don't even have images to put with the feelings, but the well of sadness and nostalgia seems to become deeper with every one.

Many of them relate directly back to memories of my mother. She died in 2009, and for a long time I refused to deal with the grief her death caused. She was my best friend. My father and I were never close. My parents divorced when I was in Grade 3, and he was a bit (okay, a lot) of an ass for most of my childhood. I even had a wicked stepmother and two stepsisters! (I may have fantasised about being a certain Disney princess for most of my teen years.)

When my mother died, it seemed to shock my father into taking responsibility for his kids. Too little, too late, I thought. And for a few years, we struggled to find any way to connect. He was trying to be a father to an adult woman who spent most of her time wishing he had died instead of her mother.

His diagnosis forced us to finally lay the past to rest, and in the space of a few months, he was not just my father, he was also my friend. His illness is, in a roundabout way, a blessing that I wouldn't want to change.

Throughout the progression of the disease, he has shown himself to be a gentleman in the truest sense of the word. The man I thought he was, self-absorbed and uncaring, has proven to be just a mask. He has dealt with the trauma of losing his independence, becoming completely reliant on others for his well-being, and physical care, with humour, love and grace.

Even now, as we deal with the reality that we are possibly witnessing the last few days of his life, he makes an effort to smile at my ridiculous sense of humour, though he is barely conscious most of the time. If I happen to break down in front of him, he reaches for my hand, not to take comfort, but to offer it, though he cannot move much more than a finger and is reliant on us to move him.

Cancer is, possibly, one of the most debilitating illnesses a person can experience, but in a strange way, I am grateful for it.

It has shown me that my father is a man worthy of respect, whose humanity and dignity were kept intact, not by our care of him, but by the revelation of his true nature in the face of adversity. He has, throughout the last year, been accepting, grateful for our care and uncomplaining of his situation.

I am so grateful to have seen him as he truly is. A man of incredible strength, and uncompromising dignity.

My Dad.

Long Time, No Post

So... life happened and blogging took a backseat for a few years. Oops? 

It's been a very busy few years, but I think the last year has been the most eventful. The reason I'm back here is simple: I need a "safe" space to write about how I'm feeling, that isn't necessarily private. Keeping a diary would be an option, if it weren't for the fact that I don't want to. Blogging seems appealing somehow. 

It probably stems from a desire to wallow in self-pity (because who doesn't want to wallow every now and then?), but I'll try not to be too miserable, so I don't bore the internets to tears. Aren't I kind?

In October 2015, my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and given three weeks to live. It sucked. In February we were preparing for his funeral. By August, it looked like he may actually live to a ripe old age. Last week, we took him to the oncologist to discover that the experimental drugs he was on have stopped working, and in the last few days, his condition has deteriorated to such a degree that he's once again bed-ridden and struggling to remain coherent for longer than a minute at a time. 

Before anyone begins suggesting remedies and alternative treatments - thanks, but he's not interested. I tried at the beginning, but have since decided to respect the fact that it is his journey and all he needs from me is my support and love. 

As for me? I'm coping. I'm angry, sad, happy, relieved, stressed, and a hundred varieties of emotional states at regular and irregular intervals. I just need to process, and writing a blog seems to be the best way for me to do so. 

So hi! Again. Maybe this time I'll stick around for longer than a few weeks. :)

Proving God’s Existence

The other day, I found a video a friend had shared on Facebook. It was a simple PowerPoint slide show with background music that someone had made with the idea of sharing it to spread the wonder of God. A Christian God, of course.

Even though I’m not personally Christian, I can certainly see the value and beauty in many of their stories so I clicked on it, looking forward to a poignant message about the value of a spiritual belief that inspires and promotes love, kindness and acceptance.

After sitting through a few minutes of an endlessly repetitive narrative, I was sadly disappointed by the ending. In summary, an atheist professor spends months with his students trying to prove that God doesn’t exist by dropping a piece of chalk onto a tile floor at the end of the semester and telling them that if God was real, he would prevent it breaking into pieces. None of his students dare to disagree, until one semester a particularly devout young man does stand up for his beliefs and the chalk manages to stay in one piece by rolling its way down the alarmed professor’s clothing until it hits the floor. The professor, completely horrified by this “proof” of God’s existence runs out of the room and the student proceeds to hold a sermon for the rest of the class.

On the surface, it seems like a pretty cool tale and a happy ending for the Christians. After all, God proved his existence with a happy little accident, the atheist professor was humiliated and all the other students who were too scared to disagree with him and be called fools were left behind to listen to the glory of God.

As I’m writing this, I’m struggling to put into words why the whole story left me cold, and yes, even a little disappointed. Maybe it’s because it was overly preachy and self-righteous; or it could be that the ending was just a little bit far-fetched. Or maybe it’s just because the message it passed on lacked any sort of spiritual depth whatsoever, and was more just about shoving the necessity of mindless belief down the viewer’s throat.

So I’ve taken the basis of the story, and re-written it. In a way that, hopefully, shows what true faith should really mean, no matter what your beliefs. Happy reading.

An atheist theology professor at a university was well-known for questioning his student’s faith in God. At the end of every semester, he would end his lecture by asking his students to stand up if they still believed in God. By then, his reputation had spread and none of the students, knowing what was coming, would have the courage to rise to their feet. For, after asking them to stand, the professor would proceed to hold up a piece of chalk.

“If there was a God,” he would pronounce, “He would prevent this chalk from shattering when I drop it to the floor.” In front of them all, he would simply let the chalk drop to the tile floor, the sound of it shattering placing emphasis on the truth of his words.

One semester, a young man joined his programme. Being particularly devout, he prayed every morning for the courage to stand by his beliefs come the end of the term. Soon enough, the final lecture arrived and the professor stood in front of a hall full of students.

“Which of you is brave enough to stand by your beliefs?” He questioned them, holding aloft the piece of chalk. With a silent prayer, the young man rose to his feet, the movement creating a stir amongst the other students.

“I am.” Instead of replying, the professor simply let the chalk drop, and as before it shattered, pieces of chalk flying across the room.

“You are a fool. There is no God.” The words echoed through the silent room. For a few seconds, the young man stood quietly, his head bowed, only the redness of his ears showing his embarrassment. Then, as the rest of the students watched, he walked slowly to the front of the room, bending to pick up the pieces of chalk on his way.

Reaching the professor, he gently took his hand, placing the chalk in his palm. In a calm voice, he addressed the professor, the rest of the students straining to catch his every word.

“Sir, you have spent six months trying to prove to us that there is no God. This was your final test and while most people would accept that it proves your theory, I cannot. You see, God may not have stopped the chalk from shattering, but the need to prove themselves is an ego-based desire unique to humans. God may not have prevented you from dropping the chalk, but the desire to thwart another’s free will and choice, is a power-driven need of mankind. God may not have struck you down for defying him, but silencing opposing beliefs is the fear-ridden behaviour of cowards.

“I do not believe in a God who is egotistical, power-hungry or cowardly. My God is one who accepts and loves all, unconditionally; one who allows others the freedom to grow within themselves, learning from their mistakes, knowing that they have the safety net of unconditional acceptance from a being who sees them in their entirety, and still holds them up as His perfect creation.

“You may not believe in my God, sir, but that is okay. I do not think He would force you to convert to a belief that does not make you happy. He is more accepting of others than our fellow men would be.” As he made his way towards the exit, the young man stopped, turning back to his perplexed professor.

“Perhaps, if we were to be less concerned with proving his existence and converting others to our beliefs, we would realise that He has already proven it by giving us the capacity to love and accept others, regardless of the rules humanity tries to impose on spirituality.”

Busy-ness is...

A state of mind. 

Or so I'm coming to realise. It's a really strange feeling to wake up one day and realise that you haven't done everything you planned on doing, and it's only because you created such a feeling of being busy, that you didn't find the time for it. 

Let's take a look at my life for a moment. (Oh shush! I know it's boring.) 

I work from 8:00 to 16:30 during the week. These are hours that aren't available to me. An extra hour spent getting to work and then coming home brings me to 9.5 hours that are ostensibly "lost" to the necessity that is work. 

On Mondays I have music lessons at 17:30 to 18:30. (This is a fairly new development and one which I don't in any way begrudge.)

The rest of the week, I normally spend the first half hour at home feeding the animals and trying to decide what I want for supper. 

After that, it's time to study or practice music, and if I'm lucky, I'll find the energy to set up my laptop and write. If not, I tend to write on my phone. 

I resigned from my Saturday job in order to have more time. So Saturdays and Sundays are generally spent round the house, doing laundry for the week ahead, and just generally vegging out, with some assignments and studying thrown in. 

Generally speaking, I have a lot of time available to me. 

So why is it that I never seem to get round to everything I want to do?

The answer is simple: I tell myself I'm busy. I spend hours telling the entire world, and reinforcing in my own mind, that I'm hectically busy and just don't have time for everything. And while there may be quite a lot of activity in my life (work, writing, music, friends, readings, studies, dog training etc.), none of these things take up ALL of my time. There are complete hours spent doing nothing that somehow get overlooked. 

The thing is, I don't mind doing nothing. It's my way of relaxing and de-stressing and basically giving myself "me" time. 

What does bother me is the things I feel I should be doing instead of nothing. And the only reason I'm not doing them, is because I'm "busy". Thinking about the things I should be doing while doing nothing instead. (Does anyone else have a headache?)

What is the solution?

First off, I'm going to stop telling myself and the rest of the world that I'm so busy. Time is a state of mind, or so I've always thought, and I'm going to create an endless amount of time to do the things I want to do. 

Secondly, I'm going to prioritize. There are things I want to do that need to wait until I've finished current projects. And there are things that can't wait (like cleaning my room). Those will take precedence over everything else and I will try not to get distracted by the keyboard, or writing, or training the dogs until they're done. 

The third thing I will do, is to stop telling myself that I hate doing things like cleaning my room. All I'm doing is reinforcing the idea that the mess is necessary because cleaning is worse than the clutter. And let's face it, a clean room feels a lot better than a messy one and is a lot more pleasant to spend time doing nothing in anyway. 

Finally, I'm going to give myself permission to do nothing. Everyone needs time out. So when I feel that I need to relax, because I'm tired of doing something, then I will veg out for as long as necessary, content in the knowledge that everything I needed to do, is done and the rest can wait. 

And hopefully, I won't ever be too busy to do nothing. 

Detox = Delays

On Sunday I was supposed to host another #10KWritathon, write and post the 5th installment in the Planning for Pantsers series, and just generally be a productive writer.

Unfortunately, I chose Saturday to go see my homeopath who put me on a new eating plan, starting with a detox. Sunday was spent doing month end shopping, including all the things I'd need to stick to the eating plan and detox, and a therapy session in the afternoon.

We arrived home in time for a quick bath and a nap before going out for supper with the family - my aunt flew up for business and wanted to see us for a few hours. We got home just before midnight and by then I was finished.

My body has decided that detoxing equals sleep and killer headaches, although I've managed to keep my #writechain link going (thank goodness I changed it to something more manageable when I received my study guides), but aside from that, I haven't even looked at anything online since Sunday morning.

HUGE apologies to everyone who expected me to be around for the Writathon. I expected myself to be around, at least for most of the day, so it was rather disconcerting to suddenly realise that the hour I spent online in the morning was the most I'd spend writing all day.

To those expecting the next installment in the Planning for Pantsers series, I'm working on it and will have it up this Sunday instead.

I don't expect this week to be very productive, but my energy levels should start picking up as soon as my body has decided that it's clear of toxins and bleh stuffs. In the meantime, here's Munchkin urging me to hurry up and get my butt in gear (to feed her, but we'll pretend it's for the rest of it too).

Planning for Pantsers - The Thing about Themes

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

“Argh! I don’t have a theme! I NEED a THEME!”

And so a billion stories have remained unwritten for want of a theme.

What is this elusive concept anyway and is it really that important for a story to have one? Simply put, a theme is an underlying idea or common thread that flows from the beginning of the story to the end. It can be something as infinitely broad as Good versus Evil, or something more focused such as Betrayal.

Most brilliantly written novels will have several interweaving themes threaded through the story. Some are so subtle that you can reread the book several times before you finally spot them, feeling as brilliant as Sherlock when you finally do.

A lot of “How to Write” workshops/courses/clinics, suggest the necessity for deciding your theme before you write. While this may work for some, it doesn’t work all that well for me as a Pantser. I’m not sure about the rest of you, but I hear “What’s your theme?” and instantly I hit a blank. How do you sum up your pride and joy, the sweat and blood you’ve poured into the blank pages for months; in a simple phrase or a single word? What happens if you have more than one theme?

In my humble opinion; themes are important, there’s no doubt about that. Someone once said, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything,” and that’s what a theme does. It gives your book something to stand for.

However, I don’t think that you need to decide on your theme before you even start writing. If, for example, you decide right at the beginning that your book is going to be about Good versus Evil, well, good for you. But what is good and what is evil in your book? Who are the good guys, and why do they have to fight the bad guys? And why should we care?

Before you even decide on a theme, you should be answering the important questions: Why is Bob good? What makes him so great? Do we like him for being good, or do we want to punch his perfectly handsome face in because he’s just TOO perfect?

And if we want to punch him for being so sickeningly sweet, is there a situation we can put him in to make us empathise with him?

Therein lies the key ingredient to writing a book with meaningful themes. Creating characters and situations that readers can empathise and sympathise with, giving them challenges that seem impossible to overcome and yet the reader is with them every step of the way, cheering them on because even though we want to break their nose with our fist, we still want to see them succeed because they deserve to.

Themes are what book-reviewers, editors and publishers look for in your writing. As a writer, your only concern should be with telling a story that means something to you. Because if it means something to you, then guaranteed it will resonate with someone else.

Leave the theme for later, when your betas have read your novel and said “You know, I really love the theme of Unconditional Love that runs through your story, even though it was really difficult for the characters to get to that point.”

Then you can turn around in an elevator when you have a poor publisher helplessly trapped between floors and say, “My book’s theme is Unconditional Love. I’d LOVE for you to read it.”

How do you feel about themes? Do they make or break your book?

Planning for Pantsers - Explaining Essentials

Calvin and Hobbes - Bill Watterson

Last week we worked on timelines, and sorting your scenes into some semblance of order. When we discussed making scenes, we spoke about ensuring that something, anything, happened in every scene in order to keep the story interesting.

This week we’re going to be discussing two essential elements of stories, things your story HAS to have in order to tell one.

When I first heard about the character and story arcs, I struggled to make sense of it. Definitions were vague and indefinite and although I searched for examples to make it clearer, I didn’t find very many that were useful. It took a while before I was able to make it sound sensible in a way I understood. So, presented here are my - admittedly - a bit simplified, but hopefully clear, definitions and examples.

An arc describes a movement, from one point to another. When applied to writing, this refers to story and character arcs.

A Story Arc is the movement of the story from the beginning, to the end. It is what keeps the story moving forward, provides the focus of a climax, and then ends it after the challenges have been resolved. It can be the change from one setting to another, or the change that makes characters view their setting in a different way, but in order for an arc to exist, change has to happen.

The same is true in a Character Arc except that these can be internal - the change occurs because the character makes a decision to change, or external - something happens to force the change.

The two types of arc are dependent on each other - if there is no story arc, the characters won’t grow, or move from where they are at the beginning. If there’s no character arc, the story won’t move from point A to point B.

Both elements can have several different arcs - in a novel, the settings can change numerous times and various characters can undergo several shifts in their ways of thinking or acting.

The confusing thing about arcs, and something that I’ve only recently come to realise, is that you don’t need to outline them at all. You don’t even need to really think about them all that much.

Which sounds contrary to the idea of them being essential to telling a story. Stick with me here, while I attempt to explain my reason for saying this.

If you’ve followed this series since Week 1, you will have already dealt with creating scenes and then ordering them into your timeline. If you followed the rule of making sure that SOMETHING happens in each scene to keep your reader hooked, then change (the overall element of an arc), is already present in your novel.

In creating a timeline, you’ve ordered the elements of change, the movement, and created an arc. The characters and story undergo shifts within each scene, and each one brings them closer to the solution of the trials that you’ve put them through.

As with scenes and timelines, the only rule to making sure that the arc makes sense, is to remain consistent within the story telling itself. If you manage to do that, your arcs will fall into place automatically - which is great if you’re a Pantser who hates planning.

How do you feel about Story Arcs? Does the idea of finding one before you start writing leave you feeling intimidated? I'd love to hear from you.