Tag: adventure

Here’s to the Silent Void

October 10th, 2020

Here’s to the silent void we send all our stories into.

Here’s to the hope they come out well.

Here’s to the waiting, the listening the watching, the wondering if it was real.

Here’s to the dark nights we all spend alone over black keys, crying into nothing about people we’ve never seen.

Here’s to the caffeine, the deadlines, the “making-ends-meet” that all fade away as if they never were the moment the words come.

Here’s to the voices in our heads. The ones that tell us write, even when it seems mad. The ones that never shut up, even when we tell them to.

Here’s to the unpublished, the rebels who dare to believe that the beautiful is possible even when the most miserable, depressing, and practical reality spits in our face.

Here’s to those of us who haven’t got a shred of proof that everything’s going to come out alright in the end, and here’s to those of us who don’t care to have it. Those who don’t dream, but plan, and plot, and whisper the possibilities in each other’s ears like revolution.

Here’s to dancing in the rain. To telling lies just because they fall a certain way from your tongue. To forgetting. To singing to the sky. Here’s to the swords we fight with, just to keep one single silver moment alive.

Here’s to never paying the slightest attention to “what can’t be done.” Because we believe in the promise we made that one day, it will.

Here’s to building the world of fairy stars and colored smoke. The one we believe in. The one we love.

Here’s to making it more than lifeless ink.

Here’s to writing the one word that lives inside them all–

Alive.

Advertisement
On Daring to Write…despite all the voices in my head telling me not to…

September 12th, 2020

I think everyone has a small grimy goblin sitting in the back of their head saying all the things we shouldn’t dare to do.

Well. At least, that’s the way it seems.

Mine is particularly vocal. And I hate it with a passion that is not to be denied.

Most people would say caution is a good thing. Knowing what you are and what you can safely do. No bumps, broken bones, or accidents. You avoid saying the wrong thing if you say nothing at all.

Caution is not particularly helpful when trying to write. In this post alone, I’ve probably deleted as many lines as I’ve left typed. Why is it that I have to feel I’ll break if my characters fall? Is it because I think I really am flying with them as the pages dance by?

Or is it from all the criticism I hear of books that seemed alright, but somehow gained, I don’t know–an antifandom? of people who hate the story to its core. What about the books that are simply ignored? Not good enough to warrant a second look? What about the books, so delicate, so innocuous, that bring so many subtle, terrible things to life, poison minds, and send the good things in the world crashing to the ground?

All because of the smallest little words?

Books can do that. It isn’t even all they can do.

It’s quite paralyzing, really.

So I don’t write. For all the little reasons. I say tomorrow will be better and set my titanic drafts aside. Procrastinate. Later. It’s just a waste of time to sit with fingers poised over black keys, not typing a single word. It really is.

I don’t try to give writing advice. I don’t know if what I do works for anyone else because I’m only myself. But I know what I have to do when this happens.

Lie to myself. At first. Don’t misunderstand. Writing is all about telling yourself stories, after all.

So I don’t write. I indulge the bad TV-chocolate-hot tea-good book-new movie-no blogging-unhealthy lifestyle habit. And behind the lie, the rest of my brain is still awake, watching for the slightest glimmer of something in my ordinary life that might spark an adventure. A story.

I have to remember how much writing feels like flying before I can forget about the fall. I have to remember that I still am head over heels in love with what I do before I can take that first step into empty air and make something new.

And then I can forget about who might one day be watching my every word. I can sit down at my laptop, take a deep breath, imagine where I’m going,

and just

write.
Someday-Never

September 2nd, 2020

Everyone has a Neverland. That’s what J.M. Barrie seems to say.

He says a lot of other things that people have henpecked bloody over the years. That’s not the point.

Everyone has something, somewhere, someone, they keep close when they shut their eyes. And, so it would seem, it’s only by forgetting, by refusing to admit this secret wonderful exists that the world has gone dull and grey.

Perhaps it’s just a fancy.

It’s true for me. I’m a writer. I don’t have to close my eyes to see a secret world of beautiful things. I carry it with me like a soft sweater on my shoulders no one sees. It’s there. Dark blue, in case you were wondering about the color. Although some days it takes on a purple shade.

It’s one of the things that makes me different from the rest of the world.

I don’t give up on stupid ideas. I don’t see the slightest reason why they shouldn’t be real.

I don’t find anything strange about regularly climbing on top of roofs. About spending a year in a balloon. Sailing alone across the sea. About, after you’ve had a perfectly happy career, ditching everything to join the circus.

In fact, I find I’d rather want to.

Sometimes I think I’m quite alone. Days when I go for a walk in the rain and everyone I pass gives an odd look at the hair dripping in my eyes. When I’ve asked the wrong question or said the wrong thing.

So I’m asking.

I have a list of someday-nevers running in my head. Things I’d do if I only had a pinch of nerve and half a chance. And I think I’m not the only one.

So tell me. Did you want to learn to juggle? Did you dream to see the world? Open a florist’s shop? Sing opera? Rule the world?

What adventure do you have that just needs a pinch of luck?

What is your Neverland?
Life off the Page: Someday-Never

August 30th, 2020

So in the midst of reading Beowulf and falling in love with Anglo-Saxon poetry again, I started thinking about one particular castle I’ve wanted to visit and how awesome it would be to shout the Old English opening into the space.

Ignoring, of course, that at the moment I can’t travel anywhere.

But that doesn’t actually bother me. I wouldn’t be going right now anyway, so this just gives me another thing to add to my growing pile of someday-nevers.

To explain a term from my personal vocabulary: Someday-never (n). A thing which you are fully eager to do but have no specific date in mind for doing it. Akin to daydreams for a rainy day. Must be special to the individual imagining/planning. Common examples include going to Paris, having a picnic, falling in love, publishing a book, or getting ice cream from an old-fashioned parlor you’ve driven past sixty times. Not to be confused with conventional daydreams, bucket list, or procrastination.

The benefit of someday-nevers is that you’re equally certain you’re going to do them and that when you’re going to do them is not now. In other words, you have all the time in the world to plan out your perfect adventure down to the smallest detail.

So my adventure?

Step 1: Road Trip. I love road trips. The beautiful thing about them is that while you’re crammed in a small space with people you (at least moderately) like, laughing and talking and singing and telling each other to shut up so we don’t miss the exit, throwing each other snacks, missing the exit and winding up somewhere entirely unexpected…chances are you’ll find something you never anticipated.

Hence Lindsborg. Kansas.

Yes, you read that right. The castle I want to visit isn’t in Wales or France or some other fabulously exotic place. It’s in Kansas.

Step 2: Kansas. I stumbled into Lindsborg on a family road trip about three years ago, heading somewhere else, stopping there on the way–and finding myself in Little Sweden, filled to the rim with Dala horses, nerdy Nordic T-shirts, old houses, and on one lone hill, Coronado Heights Park and a castle.

Made off with a nice pendant myself.

Before you get too excited…the castle isn’t actually from the 1540s. It was built in the 1930s, near where Francisco Vasquez de Coronado came hunting for gold.

It’s still awesome.

The first time I went inside, I noticed the echo. The whole thing’s built of stone, with wooden posts here and there. It was as if I could already hear someone chanting over a mandolin, see the fireplace lighting up the room at night.

Which leads us to the Someday-never.

Since the time we left, I’ve been plotting a way to get back there with my violin. Deciding who I could drag along for the trip–because let’s be honest here, you can’t give a recital in a medieval-style castle and not have some equally nerdy friends along to hear the product.

Step 3: My perfect version:

Arrive about twilight. The castle is open to the public until 11:00 p.m. Pile out of the car. Breathe in some early autumn air. Hike up the hill, watch the sun finish setting from the roof. Light a real fire, hang a few lanterns or candles until the place comes to life. All of us would be in Ren faire garb, of course. And then the music. Fiddle tunes, Beowulf, old ballads–there’s a comic poem “Gae up and Bar the Door” that would fit in easily, and it always makes me grin. Maybe a dance.

Perhaps we’d have a feast on the tables inside. Perhaps we’d make ourselves think that we’d slipped back in time. Or perhaps we’d do something better. Perhaps we’d step into a world of our own creation. The sort of place anything can happen, because we’ve gotten this far already. Because the impossible is not really all that far away.

In the meantime?

I climbed a tree barefoot yesterday. Just because I felt like it. Rediscovered the Silmarillion fandom online and realized how much I need to read that book a second time. Watched it rain.

Image source: https://www.lindsborgcity.org/.
Unridden Train

August 14th, 2020

I used to live in a house across from a long stretch of railroad track. I could hear it, at night, lying awake in the dark. Freight trains. Not the kind anyone rode. When it was far away, it would be just a wail, almost like the cry of an owl, but longer, airier. Lost. No such phantom when it got close. The thundering, the squeal of metal groaning on the tracks. The whistle in the dark.

The whistles aren’t all the same, did you know that? Each one is different. The pattern of long and short, the number of repetitions. My favorite came less often, its tune a lonely, mournful half step down. Forlorn.

I cannot think of the train without thinking about the chimes. We had a wind chime, just outside my window. A big one, with a rich coppery voice. That was how I fell asleep every night in that house. Listening to the wind song and the tree frogs in the spring and the trains.

You could see the tracks, if you were looking for them. Fifteen minutes from the house, the road crossed them in a bridge, so you could look down on the cars full of coal rushing past underneath your feet. Then it bent so we followed it again, just visible darting through the oak trees.

Somewhere it disappeared, so I never knew how far it went.

Sometimes coming home, it would be ahead of us. And we were faster, and would chase and catch up to it, until we turned into our drive, and then the train would be going on, still thundering.

Somewhere.

I have never ridden inside one.

Whenever I was downtown, and I happened to cross an empty track, I’d look where I placed my feet. On the hot, rusted-red metal? On the soft, sturdy tie? No trains came there. Not often. Not anymore. But I felt them. I felt the rush of wind they made when they passed. I heard the roar and the screech, wondered where they were going. It was like the furtive energy in the air before a lightning-storm comes rolling in. You can feel it, feel it there. You can feel the pulse inside your head, pulling at you to run, wherever it’s going, to howl like a wolf, to soar.

And then I had crossed over, gone on my way, while the rails lay behind me, shimmering in heat and sun.

Where do they go, the trains that no one rides? What have they seen, leafy trees hiding them from sight? They are like living ghosts, or wood nymphs of the cities, things that belong to other places, other times. They have their own sort of mystery, their own kind of beauty, the great, heavy, metal beasts. If they could speak, what stories would they tell me? Would they say a word? Or would they keep their secrets, under the iron skin?

Is it the whisper of unknown places, of danger and scrapes and unpredictable adventures that is their own kind of magic?

One of my peculiar thank-yous to Tryep’s Possibly Mythical Stories for a post I happened upon telling his own stories of trains.

Sometimes you don’t remember what you’ve forgotten to miss.
The Harry Potter Project…continued (Reading Update: July 3, 2020)

July 3rd, 2020

After knitting my way through Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone/und der Stein der Weisen (and winding up with a pair of fabulous blue socks), I happened to notice the English audiobook was two chapters longer than the German one.

Couldn’t leave it unheard, now could I?

It turned out to be another hour of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Perhaps it’s too early to say yet, what with just having a small taste of it, currently emerging from a cocoon of writer’s block and still emotionally ragged from 60 episodes of the deeply beautiful Ever Night…

But there was a rickety flying car. And right there, you have four wizards, flying in a car, windows down, middle of the night, where they shouldn’t be. Exhilarating, don’t you think? And the suspense building up to it was quite perfect. J.K. Rowling has written her share of careless cliches…but this was quite something different. The kind of scene I read leaning forward a little bit, knowing that every word fits, every wrong turn is perfectly right. Just the way it should be.

And with that rickety car flying through the night, I had that familiar, fluttery lightness in my chest whisper to me that I might be starting to fall in love.

I was a little concerned something like this might happen.

Again.

Please understand, I fall in love with books on a remarkably regular basis. And have my heart crushed almost as often–Cornelia Funke’s claim in Inkheart that books “love anyone who opens them” is rather a beautiful lie. Still, I’m not sure there is anything that makes me so utterly happy as a good story, one I can carry with me wherever I go, and one that carries me away with it, whether I like it or not.

Of course I’ll still remain the stiff, reserved, and cold bookworm girl you could casually drop into the back of a Victorian teatime painting without anyone noticing the difference. I refuse to blindly accept a book as delicious until firmly proven that under no circumstances can I live without it. Harry Potter’s world has not yet done that.

But it might. By a narrow chance. And I think that quiet thrill, the possibility, like distant lightning, is what excites me even more.

Now, you see, I must keep reading.

I made it as far as the Weasley Burrow. That too, I loved at once. The gnomes, the old married couple arguing like an old married couple, the way it felt like anyone who walked through the door would feel as if someone said “Welcome home.” I think I could quite happily curl up in a sunny window there, scribbling in a notebook and just enjoying all of them go about their lives.

And of course there is also my first encounter with Dobby the House Elf. Of course I knew of his existence, what with nerdy graphic T-shirts and Mirkwood crossover memes (think about it, wonderful people, even I found it funny when I had no frame of reference), and a three-foot tall realistic statue on top of a shelf at a small comic con so Dobby could stare down at everyone casually shopping and casually scare me out of my skin with those freakish eyes.

Encountering him in the book is quite another matter. He’s not freakish, he’s charming! Seriously now, if I had the luck to meet an Elf with such good manners and an obviously tragic backstory? Put down the baseball bat clutched in self defense and ask him to stay for tea. An ugly little Elf who clearly broke into my house for unknown motive–

You know, this is strikingly like Hagrid, the almost-kidnapper. And a good many other things in this “wizarding world.” Things that under ordinary circumstances would be horrifying, horrible ideas that would turn out ever so very badly.

But that’s the way of it, isn’t it? Magic isn’t supposed to exist at all. And since we’ve broken that rule, it seems a good many others, sensible, good, sturdy, safe rules, essential for survival in ordinary life, have to go out the window with it.

And that, perhaps, is the reason I might be falling just a little in love most of all.
Reading Update: June 26, 2020

June 26th, 2020

It’s reading season.

Every summer, when I got off from school, the first thing in order was a trip to the library. I waited every year for the summer reading programs. Not for the prizes or for many of the events, though I won and went to a few. I lived for the challenge. How many books could I read in a summer? How fast could I have their little challenge done? Reading was one thing I was good at. And I did it over and over again.

When I got home, it would be toting a giant canvas bag with my family’s books all jumbled together. Sometimes two bags. I would sort mine out on the living room floor and then stack them in the order they had to be read (with some concessions as to size). Everyone laughed at me, and my little tower of books. But I read them. One after the other, after the other, letting them carry me away.

I think about my summers in terms of the books I’ve read. There was the long, beautiful summer of The Lord of the Rings. One sublime memory that lingered until Christmas, when I was hunched reading The Silmarillion in an office, next to someone’s glittering tree, oft-clutched bookbag at my feet. Perfect for hiding behind, really.

There was the summer shortly after that of The Invention of Hugo Cabret and Gregor the Overlander. Hardly a comparison between the two. But that summer, same as always, I had a stack of books with me wherever I went.

Right before I went to college, I was reading the final installments of Story Thieves and the entire volume of collected Grimm’s fairytales. Yeah. The entire thing. In some social circles, that’s a badge of honor. In others, proof of lunacy. And sometimes, it’s both. But it was all I could do not to laugh aloud when the other girls I was rooming with during university registration trooped into the dorm that night to find me already sitting up in bed, proper librarian glasses on my nose, and a giant, fat book of Grimm’s fairytales on my lap. Permitting me to ignore almost all the noise they made.

Perhaps I was a little rude then. At least I introduced myself with a proper reputation.

Long before those three summers, I was at a baseball field, completely disinterested in observing the practice going on, most likely having abandoned my shoes, buried in Small Persons with Wings. That was more a morbid fascination than anything else–certainly not a favorite fairy book. Yet it’s an indelible summer memory, to this day.

I still remember ages ago now reading the last few translated books of The Door to Time series on a front porch swing, arguing with my cat about how it was perfectly fine if she wanted to sit with me, but she did have to stop laying on the book so I could read. She was sometimes jealous when I would pay more attention to the pages than her, and it was a lengthy conversation. I really couldn’t tell you who won. I don’t think I went inside until I finished the book.

The summer of The Thief Lord and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Fog Diver. The summer I read the first half of Reckless. The summer I read Floors because I needed a laugh–maybe the same year I read Reckless again. The May I toted a sturdy, gilded-brown cover copy of The 1001 Arabian Nights and The Golden Braid into a university awards ceremony because I wasn’t the one being decorated this time and I had been to far too many high school graduations I couldn’t escape to come unprepared and be bored. The summer I smuggled Prince Caspian into the sporting arena and failed in my early days as a child stealth artist and had to “watch the game” with everyone else.

Don’t worry. I’ve improved incrementally since then.

My life is full of books.

I haven’t been to the library this summer. I don’t know if I will make it there before it’s done. I still have shelves crammed full with tomes from the Epic Library Sales, whispering to me like the voices of Inkheart. Telling me of good things. Dangerous things. Ordinary, bewildering, bookish, yes, sometimes dull. That’s a chance you take when you pick up a book. They aren’t all made of dragon fire and fairy lace.

But summers are for books.

I haven’t found one to make this year quite special yet. To remember it by.

So I wonder.

What book will lure me away next?

I hope it will be a very good adventure.
Life off the Page: Castle Music

March 15th, 2020

Where was I today?

Umm…playing “Meditation” on my violin inside a castle chapel/great hall and listening to the fantastic acoustics as my music reached the painted clouds?

Serious, I wasn’t just daydreaming when I was reading. It was real.

The castle is called Chateau Charmant, and it’s smack in the middle of a patch of woods in the Midwest. Exactly the place for a castle, really. Up on a hill with a fantastic view from the catwalk.

And that echoing chapel…

If I’m honest, I find it a little amazing I happened to be there myself. The short answer is simple enough–the mercenary historical fighters I went to the nerd con with were going and invited me along, in hopes of finding a good Renaissance faire location.

But that doesn’t really sound like a simple answer, does it? To someone outside the loop, it probably sounded like absolute gibberish.

To simplify it still?

I followed the bumpy gravel road through the woods, past the gate with the lions, over the bridge and up the hill, and found the castle.

And when I asked very nicely, the owners of the castle let me take out my violin and play.

This is why I don’t think it sounds real, even to me. Even if I do have half a dozen swordsmen ready to vouch for it.

Even if it was just for today, I’ve got to admit, sometimes it really feels like there is fairy magic in the world after all.

Happy day.
Nerd Cons and Adventures

March 8th, 2020

…and swords and the love theme from Titanic.

So I spent my Saturday with a group of mercenaries happily attacking each other with steel weapons, waving at the Queen, participating in the arrest of anti-heroes, and playing as much fiddle music as I could.

Is it true most people just have friends over to watch a movie on the weekends and order a pizza?

In the likelihood you are confused, the short explanation is that I joined a ~~gang~~ group of historical fighters who wanted a fiddler to set the mood. At a nerd con. I can’t really say it was a comic con when swords and dragons outnumbered comics at least 2-1. Legos probably beat both though.

Anyway. It only seems right to start with the implied job description.

Wanted: one fiddle player, also a bagpiper if possible. Should be able to learn march music. Wear cool clothes. Be comfortable watching grown men and women pummel each other to paste in the glory of medieval sportsmanship for the entertainment of all.

Or something like that.

You know, it’s really not every day you get to see Edna Mode, DC characters, and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I in one place. Could I really say no?

So tune the violin strings, fasten the cloak, and off I went to perform at my first convention!

I was a little worried about finding the group amid all the people at the con–but that problem was quickly taken care of. Apparently I should have remembered that steel armor is easily visible halfway across a field. And the Order wears bright red.

Granted, I also thought Dr. Strange was one of our company when I got there…but he was just admiring the weaponry. Stranger things have happened. Good costume, too.

Most of the day I was free to wander around the con…so I did. I don’t know all the fandoms people make there…but I like seeing them. Exploring. Watching people squeal over other people’s costumes. Playing music behind someone and then disappearing. Realizing I need to learn tunes for Spiderman and Assassin’s Creed and probably dozens of other characters I saw during the day. Waving at all the people I knew from Dragonfest. Picking out different themes for each fighter as the knights entered the ring (well, the square, if we’re honest with ourselves. Why do we call it a ring? Anyone?).

I probably don’t have the time to describe everything that happened. The nice thing about places like that is it’s so far out of the ordinary, you begin to think that everything is normal–and anything wonderful could happen.

A favorite moment (if you can imagine this):

My new mercenary fellows have placed Deadpool is in the stocks (because money. Dr. Who paid them to do it). Another Deadpool is consoling him(self?), holding the prisoner’s hand and putting a pinecone on his head. Yes, a pinecone. I haven’t the faintest idea why. It’s purportedly a very tender moment.

Random girl standing by me suddenly turns and asks “Do you know the love theme from Titanic?”

Well, yes, actually, I did.

I started playing, two Deadpools holding hands, and it was one of those moments where we all looked at each other for that brief second before laughing our heads off. Of course the two Deadpools threw themselves into the moment, making the whole thing even more ridiculous.

I had to thank the girl afterward–it was quite brilliant.

And yes, they eventually let Deadpool out of the stocks.

Also played the tune later so Joker could hug Deadpool consolingly while they both cried buckets of tears. The Joker asked very politely, so…I didn’t ask questions as to the nature of the tragedy. It was the end of the day, and after that long smeshed between knights and comic book characters, everything started to seem relatively normal.

Relatively.

I imagine that’s how it would be if you stepped into a book–for a while, you’re baffled, but then you find your friends and charge headlong into adventure. And after a while, it starts to feel like home.

That’s the way I’d do it, at least.
Remarkable

February 25th, 2020

Tell me.

I’ve started to wonder.

Someone said two words to me today. “Just another,” they were.

The words sank down inside my head and stayed there, refusing to come out. Just another. One more, like all the rest. Just another one. Add it to the stack.

It’s true. Lots of times, it’s true. We’re not all beautiful or clever or brilliant or dazzling. We’re not all princes or wizards. We’re not all shining stars or burning fires. We get up in the morning and rush off to work and blink blearily at a gray world wondering–and sometimes not wondering at all. Just being, ordinary.

We’re ourselves.

But I wonder. I wonder if anyone in the world can tell me what that means.

You aren’t what you come from. You aren’t where you’ve been. You aren’t where you’re going, if you’ll even get there still. You aren’t what people think you are. You aren’t what you do. You aren’t what you don’t.

Everything.

I wonder.

Maybe some people are just what they pretend to be. Maybe they are ordinary. Maybe they are exceptional, but in a forgettable way. Perhaps the world will never shine more brightly or feel its shadows because you are there.

I wonder.

And then I don’t.

You’re something. Everyone is. Even if that something never has a chance to bloom. Everyone has a beautiful story, locked away inside your chest.

I want to hear it, that story. The sound it makes there, beating its wings so you sing as if you could fly when no one else is listening. Who are you underneath, where no one sees you. The laughter you forgot. Are you brave? Are you beautiful? When you close your eyes, do you hear the sound of your soul breathing like a sweet golden melody?

I don’t care if some stories never come true. I don’t care if they should. I don’t care if they’re lofty as the moon or simple as sticking bare toes in summer mud.

Somewhere, there’s a glimmer of remarkable. Hiding just around every corner in this world. And I want to see it, bright as Rumpelstiltskin’s gold and Rapunzel’s braid.

So come tell me your stories, your dreams–true, false, and make-believe. It doesn’t matter which to me. Tell me who you really are–a hero, a rogue, world-traveler, genius. It doesn’t even matter if you have a name.

Tell me.

I promise I’ll listen.

Tag: adventure

Wanted: one fiddle player, also a bagpiper if possible. Should be able to learn march music. Wear cool clothes. Be comfortable watching grown men and women pummel each other to paste in the glory of medieval sportsmanship for the entertainment of all.

A favorite moment (if you can imagine this):