Today's Morning Page - Who is this character in my story?

I browsed face book when I got up. I didn’t write my morning pages first. I had a fairly light sleep because of some poison ivy on my arm. I am trying to dry it up with a steroid cream which I got with a prescription. I didn’t want to cover it because I had covered it up too much already. I want it to have some time to breathe. So I was conscious not to put that part of my arm under the covers even though it did want to be warmed up. Yesterday I had emailed my sister about a new part to a story I had written. I felt uncomfortable with a character because she was cussing and I wanted to know how it affects the story from my sister’s point of view. So I thought about it all night in the space between deep sleep and light sleep. It was a little more difficult to get up when the alarm went off and I took a number of snoozes. I had about fifteen minutes before the sun began to rise so I checked face book instead of beginning my morning pages. She had answered my questions and I was delighted with her answer. The sun is rising now and the chickens are let out and fed. I took a short walk back there because I had to find my dog. She must have found something because she was making a lot of activity in some under brush under the big maple at the back. The walk was good.

Yesterday, late afternoon Chloe and I went to the library. She checked out a lot of books. More than she can carry. Mark and I both had to take a stack. I worked out some more details with my Elsie book. I have done as much as I can do at the library and now need to print out the pages. I will make a mock book to practice reading it and to see how the words flow from page to page while reading out loud to a couch full of stuffed animals. With my work finished on the Elsie book I took out a piece of paper and began to write. I wrote about my character and how I felt about her walking into my story and using foul language.

“I was writing early this morning, just like I always do. 

 Only, today I was writing, “The House”. I had left the

 story in a creepy condition and was quite anxious to 

 discover who was at the door.  So, this morning when I 

 began to write the scene turned up a crude character 

 whose language was vulgar. I thought to stop it, but then

 I would have to change the story. Her very use of these 

 words defined her current characters condition. She 

 wouldn’t be the same person if she spoke like I do. After 

 I published it I began to wonder if I should let a 

 character cuss in my story. It has bothered me all day, 

 but then I realized that it isn’t my story really. I’m the          writer, writing it down. Something here is trying to be 

 said. It’s a problem when a book is published page by page.

 It is also a blessing. Edits will have to wait until it is          ended. Changing anything now will change the whole story. 

 The course of the story is what I mean. I have as much 

 control over this as one does of a dream. I hope the strong          language doesn’t spoil it for you my dear reader(s).”

I am becoming amazed at the process of writing this story. I am always just as curious as you. I think all week about the possible scenarios and how they could play out, but when I sit down to write the character takes over and I am but watching a show. I pay attention to which words I use to describe what is happening. I pay attention to grammar and tone. I do have some responsibility here. My sister confirmed my feelings that I should let the character be who she is because that is who she really is.

     “I think it's real. This woman obviously is not a good 
      person. Even the house is trying to keep her away. Real             writing says it like it is. There is bad language in 
      this world and it is part of this bad character. I love 
      it. You have me hooked. Love it. Love you”


    I am learning as I write. I chose to write this story because it played the most music in my head. I have other stories to tell someday, but I will try not to tell them all in the one story. Some stories will need their own pages to express themselves on. I’m not completely sure yet which story this one will be but I have a few very good ideas. I usually spend only one day a week obsessing and writing “The House”. I have other things I do. I garden, and preserve and care for the chickens. I have a home-school and a home.  I tend to take care of mostly everything here as my dear husband is always taking on large projects around the place. This month he is refinishing the garage. One new corner post was necessary because he found that ants had eaten the old one almost completely away. I worried about my garlic hanging in the garage, should the garage fall down. He has almost finished replacing the siding now and received a new window from his father to replace the old rotten one.  Someday it will be a brand new garage. He said it might have been easier to just start over, tear the old one down and build a new one, but I don’t know. Have you seen the inside of his garage? It isn’t used only for storing my garlic. A whole years worth.

by Elizabeth Williams, daily writing exercise, 1,000 words.

Anxiety

I was thinking this morning as I was getting ready to get on here and start my writing exercise about anxiety. There are a lot of words for it and ways of explaining it. There are also a lot of opinions about it. Whether it’s good or bad. Whether it keeps us going or destroys us. I was thinking that it may be a topic to do my morning exercise on and then wondered if I could find one thousand words on anxiety. It may be that I can. It is up to my fingers you know. So here it is. If you don’t have to write about anything at all, just write, then you let your soul talk. Your fingers bring the inner self to the front and what you see appearing on the page in front of you is a surprise. It’s not at all like thinking carefully about every word. Yesterday afternoon it took me an hour to carefully choose twenty words. They are very important words and I may change them again as the creativity flows. They are on the first three pages of Elsie Rabbit’s Easter and that’s why they are so important and also why it took so long. I even got frustrated in the middle of it because after taking a minute to focus my attention to teaching Chloe how to make a paper airplane she insisted on interrupting me every five minutes with updates as to how the planes were doing and what was going on at the paper airplane airport. So I got frustrated and yes, a little anxious. I said, “you know, I need a place to work where I can shut the door.” It wasn’t very nice of me. I felt so bad that I got writers block. I thought about packing it up for another day but resisted. Pretty soon I got back to my words and worked out loud. So everyone could hear everything going on inside my head. I asked her if she had enough planes and if so, could she please just go and play. My husband was having stress of his own. The water pipe going from the well to the house has been plugging up gradually and finally the dribble is not working for either of us and it is time to deal with it. He tried to blow the blockage out backwards with an air compressor but it only made it worse. So now our little stream is even smaller. He had turned the water off to the house so that he could do this stuff. Since every job which needed to be done at that time required water, I decided to work out the text and picture layout for my first three pages. I would like to get three pages a day figured out. I will be ok with two pages a day. After all, a small step forward is movement. As long as something is happening every day. Sometimes I am so excited and happy about my book and at other times I’m completely nervous about it and wonder if I’m seriously over the top disillusioned. Whether or not I should be spending my time this way. I’ve read enough now to know that all authors, whether it’s their first book or their tenth or twentieth have these same feelings of inadequacy and self doubt. They don’t last long and I put them all in their place in my head. We had some level of stress going on in our house and then to top it off, I reminded my husband that I am completely out of chicken feed and can be ready to leave whenever he is at a point. He was getting a little quiet which I am learning is what happens when a man has a big job to do and is challenged. The thing is that these things are our personal challenges and we are able to deal with them, it will just take some time. But these things are only stressful if we fight them. I channeled my brain to focus on the words on the first three pages. My husband made a plan to put in a new water line. And Chloe played airport with her new airplanes which I might add, her dad rebuilt for her since the ones I showed her how to build weren’t that good. Somehow I should have known that he was a professional paper airplane maker. We went to get feed and it was a nice quiet drive. Our level of stress is not too high and our anxiety level is even lower. One reason is that we haven’t turned on the news for a long time. We don’t concern ourselves with too much that doesn’t have to do with us. We can look things up on the internet if we need to. I look up international news sometimes to keep up a little on stuff going on. I checked on the fires going on out west. I have family living close to some of those fires. I also checked on the news from the middle east as I am interested in what is going on with Israel. I check these things from the internet though. I don’t turn on the TV at all. I don’t want all that anxiety coming into my living room. I don’t read the newspaper either. I don’t want to be bombarded with information all day long about things which don’t have anything to do with me. I do select information. If I want to know something I can find it out. This is after all the age of information. What I don’t need is more stress than an ordinary afternoon will provide. Since my anxiety levels have gone down I have become more creative. Even though channeling that creativity may produce stress of it’s own, it is always something that I can do something about so it turns into a challenge. It appears that I’m not very good at talking about anxiety. I still got one thousand words but not much on the subject. Maybe another day I’ll nail it.

Elizabeth Williams, 1,000 words a day, exercise.

The World Within My Mind

It's probably a little risky, letting you all have a glimpse into my mind.  This is from my daily writing exercise.  1,015 words.

Time to write. I’m a little late today. So many things going around in my head. So many unconquered stories. So many new ideas. Almost everything I see is a writing prompt. I feel that my mind is just like a large bottle of wine which has not been opened yet. There is so much to discover inside. So many roads to travel down. So many boxes to unpack. The more I look at the unopened the more I see inside it. The absolute possibilities. The treasures awaiting discovery. I’ve begun to close my eyes when I type like this because it is just like peering into something and I can’t see it clearly with all the distractions around me so I close my eyes. The details begin to appear and stand out better one from another. I don’t have to think about the white screen and the black type against it. I can look into the shadows and see shapes appearing and details emerging. I haven’t opened that bottle yet. I hope I do soon because I’m getting thirsty for a good taste of wine. Oh, it isn’t actually wine but it is wonderful. It is going to be so delightful. A world of discovery. I turned the lights down so that the bright lights don’t intrude so much as I look into my mind. Some day when I unleash it it is going to amaze me. I see sign posts pointing. This way and that. There is an old house standing on a hill. It may have been a writing prompt I latched onto about twenty years ago that I had forgotten about. It intrigues me. I turned off all the lights now so that I can see better. I have only the light of the computer screen and my eyes closed. There is a family of rocks. They came in with a meteor shower and somehow I heard about them that they are here. But I don’t remember seeing them I only read an account that I wrote down about them. I’m longing to find them and learn more about them and the planet they broke away from and the galaxy they once knew. There is a child in Germany who was left behind with Nuns when her family came to America before the second world war because she had tuberculosis. There are others too much more obscure that I can’t see clearly at all because I haven’t opened the door yet. I’m still looking through the window. It’s not like a room or building that I’m looking into. It’s like I’m in the room and my mind is on the outside and I’m looking through a dirty window at the world outside. I’m wondering what it all means and where it all ends up and will I ever get to discover any of it. Will I have the courage to open that door and begin that journey to all the lands? I sit here at my keyboard and I learn to type. I do know how to type, physically type. I type fairly quickly. Well, not as quickly as a lot of other people. But as quickly as I can speak. If I speak slowly, like to someone who is very hard of hearing. But much too quickly for my typewriter which is from a long time ago. The keys on it kept jamming because my fingers were going too quickly for it. Yes, I can type. But I’m learning to type from my heart. From the place where stories live, without it going through some sort of censor. I’m learning to let my fingers do the talking and I’m reading it at the same time as you. I’m not sure what the next sentence will be. It surprises me everyday. I’m on a road to discovery. I’m learning new things with every line. I didn’t know I felt that way. I didn’t know it looked like that. I couldn’t have guessed it would end up over there. I just have to let my fingers guide me and trust them as guides. It’s almost like I’m saying they are my feet. Like I’m walking on my fingers or something. But really I am. My feet have nothing to do with this. Except they do become useful when I need another cup of coffee. Then my feet are useful. And yes I will need the rest of my faculties at times. To do research of course. I have to do research sometimes. That’s just part of the discovery. I’m going to have to let a character show me what it is like somewhere else or take me to lands I’ve never been. I forgot about Patrick. He is in the box of ideas left unfinished. The stories begun and put away. I must have stepped through that door once upon a time. Maybe I was just looking through this window then too. There are others out there who I felt a familiarity with. Who’s stories I desperately wanted to record. So that they wouldn’t be lost forever. I love that they are all still there, waiting. Waiting for me to train my fingers to tell the story. Waiting for me to unlock that door. Uncork the bottle. Maybe they all fit together somehow. Maybe there lives twist around each other and connect. Maybe not. Time will tell. Time will show what is out there beyond that door. It isn’t dark out there really. It’s just the window isn’t letting me see clearly. Maybe it’s one of those old fashioned kind of windows that make the glass look wet. I had some of those in the house I live in now. We don’t have them anymore. I would have kept them but they let too much of the outside in. And I think they were missing the purpose of being there because you couldn’t really see very well through them anyway. So they were all replaced. I can’t wait now to go through the door and start discovering the world within my mind.

Elizabeth Williams 1,000 words a day. 

Shortcomings

This is from a daily writing exercise, One Thousand words a day. This article is 1,077 words.  It was a lot of fun to write and went very quickly.

It seems inevitable that I should write about my shortcomings. After all, isn’t the best writing truthful? We all have them. We try to fudge around them, over them, under them. We try to act like we are the only one ever to not have them and shame on anyone for exposing them. We read a lot lately about not noticing them. Looking beyond and believing something other than the truth about ourselves. I don’t think that looking at our shortcomings realistically and truthfully is the same as beating ourselves up. It is not the same as calling ourselves bad names and filling ourselves up with self-doubt. It is not the same thing at all. My shortcomings are mine. It is partly what makes me who I am. It is only considered a shortcoming because I have a higher, nobler goal for myself. I would like to imagine that I am something that I am not. But being honest about myself and the way I react to stuff is the first part it would seem in embracing who I am. If I truly understand my shortcomings and weaknesses then I can set myself up differently to compensate for it. If I am aware of myself then I can be more respectful of me. Before I can be respectful of who I am I really should meet myself. ‘Hello, how do you do?’ ‘Hello back, I don’t do well with changes to my schedule.’ Wow, there it is. I said it to my self. I also don’t do well with upheavals in my space. I also forget what’s going on, what time of day it is, what my tasks are and how important I am to the nourishment of other folk living with me. Good job we don’t speak to each other that way. I do share my shortcomings with my spouse on occasion. Usually the answer is something like, ‘tell me something I don’t know.’ So my spouse knows me pretty well. Better than I know myself I suppose. I always lived in a fantasy world about myself. It wasn’t a great idea but I didn’t realize that I was doing it. If you don’t really know who you are then you can’t help others to be considerate of you either. If you know that you don’t do well with changes then you can tell someone else that you aren’t ready for this or that change yet. You can figure out your role in the new changes and give them the green light when you are ready. If you get distracted easily, like I do, then you can make a list and let someone else know you are following a list. There are lots of ways that being real or truthful with yourself can help you. If you think you don’t need a list when really you do and you go about doing a little of this and a little of that and you are busy all day long and really tired at the end of the day but can’t remember what you did all day to get that way then maybe you really do need a list. That way you can look at it and tell yourself you are awesome. Tired and worn out, but totally awesome. Even if only one thing got crossed off that list you know you did something that day. Not that you should have to do anything at all, but you are tired and worn out so it’s nice to know how you got that way. If too many things need to be done at once and they are all pressing that’s hard for me. It’s on days like that I start going around in circles. Sometimes I want someone to say, ‘hey, do this now!’ I wouldn’t actually want anyone to. I don’t have a job. I don’t actually have a boss, so I wouldn’t want my spouse to say that to me in that way. He might try saying, ‘what are you working on right now?’ that might prompt me to check my list and find out what I am doing. If at the end of the day I really didn’t accomplish anything. I didn’t feed my family. I didn’t finish the laundry. That happened to me yesterday. I forgot that I was washing the dish towels and tablecloths and that I was going to hang them on the line. It was a perfect day for that. I forgot. I get excited about something and then I forget what I’m doing. So I went to the garden and worked out there for hours. On the way back to the house I thought about the dish towels and hanging them on the line. It was still early enough for them to dry. But by the time I got to the house I had completely forgotten and this job was not written on my list. If this stuff happens to you, don’t beat yourself up. It really is not the way to help yourself. Most shortcomings are not crucial. I can laugh about the poor rags in the washer and how I made them spend the night. I can turn the whole thing into a non-fiction short story. Maybe even a comedy. That would be great. It could even be a writing prompt. It is a little different with children. I mean when I forget to feed them. It gets a little awkward and I’m hoping they survive. I quickly peel bananas and cut up apples and wash some grapes. Then I’m reheating some homemade chicken noodle soup and frying up the mashed potatoes hoping that they will survive an hour or two of starvation. I do have to say something apologetic to them. Something like, ‘oh my gosh, look at the time, I am so sorry, I forgot to feed you.’ Being careful to respect their weaknesses now. Most kids don’t do too well with starvation. They get crazy you know. They don’t actually know what the problem is. They know something is not right with them and they may even start asking for desert. That is a big clue that they need a meal. So the point is that it is important to be honest about my shortcomings and make allowances for them so that no one has to starve or spend the night in the washer.  But if they do, I'll know how to handle that.
Elizabeth Williams 1,000 words a day.