~ Evolution and Creativity ~

It’s time for another group posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world – or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join us, click on the tab above and sign up. We post the first Wednesday of every month. Every month, the organisers announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG Day post. Remember, the question is optional!!!

OPTIONAL IWSG Day Question: How has your creativity in life evolved since you began writing?

I was seventeen when I began writing. Fresh out of school, I was a teenage mum with a newborn baby to care for. My boyfriend and I had moved out of home, away from our families into the city. In the early eighties, the days before personal cell phones and computers, this meant being totally isolated. It’s hard to imagine, now, isn’t it. But, we were on our own in the big, bad world. I studied for my bursary year by correspondence, while washing forty nappies every day by hand in the bathtub. As my boyfriend was in his first year as an apprentice photolithographer, he only made $96 a week and that was all we had. I bought bulk packs of macaroni and different powdered flavouring and made macaroni cheese with a different flavour added each night. We had one car, and we lived in a dingy apartment building. Our flat was infested with cockroaches, and at the front and back of the building it was nothing but tarmac, there was no view, no garden or green area of our own.

That scenario was the perfect breeding ground for the artist to come forth. I had to escape somehow. The cheapest, simplest way to escape my life circumstances was to pick up a pen and write.

When my son was sleeping, I wrote children’s stories and let my imagination go wild. I didn’t ‘know how to write’ and the stories were pretty bad, looking back. I remember a well-known writer saying once, ‘Every writer has those first manuscripts lying in a bottom drawer that should never see the light of day.’ The writing was crap, and yet, I was trapped in a poor, isolated and uninspiring life, and writing stories gave me the hope I needed. It was like self therapy. Every day, I expressed myself creatively through the written word and by doing so experienced that new, more inspiring reality. This became my outlet, my sunlit garden, and the saving of me.

Every day, whenever I got the chance, I’d pick up the story and write a little more. I’d climb through the green window into the meadow beyond, and there I’d be free.

As my son grew up, our life circumstances began to improve and have their own flowering.

My writing changed too. With each writing workshop, course, conference and lecture I attended, my understanding of the craft developed. My work gained more structure, more form and substance.

My first born son became an adult, and suddenly, I became more independent, I had more freedom. By the nineties, I had a job. I had money, and I was still writing in my spare time. There was the beautiful fruit of my stories developing into purer forms.

Every day, whenever I got the chance, I’d pick up the story and write a little more. I was still drawing and painting my characters in tandem with writing the prose.

I remarried and had two more sons. We had a home with a lovely garden. As my life circumstances and finances settled, I didn’t have a desperate desire to escape my world anymore. In order to continue to work at a steady pace on my stories, I had to learn discipline. Just as I had to attend to the grown-up business of marriage, house maintenance and child-rearing, I also had to learn B.I.C. Butt In Chair is hard to do as it takes immense concentration. I accepted the challenge.

Every day, I’d sit and write a little more. I decided to stop drawing my own illustrations, and I focussed on the words.

I gravitated to writing middle grade fiction twelve years ago, and it felt like I’d found my niche.

Writing has become an integral part of my life. I have come to love every step of the novel writing process. I don’t have an agent or a publisher. I’m my own boss and in the last three years, I’ve self published two books and had two short works included in two others.

My creativity in life has definitely evolved since I started writing? How about you, has yours?

Keep Writing!

Yvette K. Carol

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“Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?” Mary Oliver

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~ Ever Written Your Way to Transformation? ~

It’s time for another group posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world – or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join us, click on the tab above and sign up. We post the first Wednesday of every month. I encourage everyone to visit st a dozen new blogs and leave a comment. Your words might be the encouragement someone needs.

Every month, the organisers announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG Day post. Remember, the question is optional!!!

This month’s co-hosts:  Dolorah @ Book Lover, Christopher D. Votey, Tanya Miranda, andChemist Ken!

OPTIONAL IWSG Day Question: How do major life events affect your writing? Has writing ever helped you through something?

There was a time, not too long ago, when I wasn’t drawn to the idea of the optional IWSG Day Question. I preferred to write what I wanted to write instead. Then, one day I was stuck for ideas, so I turned to the question offered. And, I’ve been a convert ever since. I’ve only missed one month and that was because I couldn’t come up with an answer! But, apart from that, I’ve come to relish the Question – even looking forward to it – to see what the clever upper-ups at IWSG Headquarters have come up with next.

I love the October Question!

 

Writing has helped me through every hard time and helped me to get through every trial I’ve experienced. There have been times, after the losses of family members, when I’ve stopped writing altogether. Dried up and couldn’t write, at the same time I didn’t want to be near anything about the online world, at all. There have been times when I’ve needed to retreat in silence and stillness and be with the grief.

After hard times, writing was my way back into the world of people, and into the fray via the internet. Sometimes, I would resist for longer than others. But, eventually, every time I suffered a blow and was devastated, I returned to my normal life by sitting and translating what I had been through into words. Writing blog posts, writing for my monthly newsletter, writing fiction.

Writing always provided the catalyst for my positive evolution, through the sadness and out onto the other side, of having grown through the experience.

In that place, I could contribute again and be of service through writing my stories, and other stuff, along the way.

My father died in February of this year. Within about three hours of getting the news he had passed, I was off the grid. I’d sorted out what needed to be done for the household to run and for the world to excuse the boys and I for a week. Then, we were on the road for my parents’ seaside town. I stayed off line and away from my cell phone, feeling  I needed all my energy and attention on the unfolding events as we laid dad to rest.

We returned home, and I was a different person. I could feel it, I knew it. You are so changed when you lose someone important in your life. I’d always suspected losing dad would be the most painful, and so it was. I couldn’t face writing or any sort of social media. I remained in this “other” space for weeks. I’d cried so much over the week of sitting with his body and then burying him that I was completely dry of tears. I had wept until I couldn’t shed anymore. So, I did my daily exercises and tended to the kids, ran the household, and went to Toastmasters, gave speeches, without really being there.

I was on automatic without being fully engaged in my life.

One of my fellow Toastmasters said I had lost weight that she could see it in my face, and she expressed worry about me, which really touched my heart.

One day, I opened my computer and I made myself open my work-in-progress. I sat in front of my laptop, and I started editing and rewriting and the energy started to flow again. I felt myself literally coming to life, through the passion I have for my stories. My writing ushered me up from the void into the land of the living again. I was once again able to engage with my children and others in my life fully and I was working on my book.

I felt such deep gratitude!

Has writing ever helped you?

Keep Writing!

Yvette K. Carol

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I put things down on sheets of paper and stuff them in my pockets. When I have enough, I have a book. ~ John Lennon

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~ Times They Are a-Changing ~

“People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.”~ Maya Angelou

This famous saying is one of those truisms that seems well said when we hear them as young people, yet sinks in deeper and deeper the older we get, the more we realize the profound truth.

Today marked a certain milestone.

My youngest son turned thirteen. He boldly crossed the threshold to teenager. To commemorate, I gifted him his grandfather’s razor. Though he isn’t shaving yet, he soon will be. The razor is good quality and with continued care will last him for years. I know the gift hit the spot because he examined the razor minutely, popped open the lid and looked inside. He had to plug it in and turn it on. As he navigates these wild waters of his teenage years, I want him to feel supported and to feel loved.

I’m glad he liked his gift, and I’ll freely admit I’m relieved he’s not using the razor, yet. He might be jumping with giddy glee from milestone to milestone, but, poor mama back here needs to sit down a minute and get her breath. We’re at the stage now where his childhood is hurtling by so fast it’s giving me whiplash.

Today also happened to mark another important milestone.

It was the day my beloved “adopted grandfather” Bruce left Toastmasters. He retired after having been in the speakers’ association for twenty-six years, much to the chagrin of all present, especially me.

Unfortunately, I didn’t know either of my grandfathers. Both sets of my grandparents lived in England. As a consequence, my entire life, I’ve idolised grandfathers and that patriarchal figure in the family.

In my writing, the grandfather figure always plays a key role. In the series I’m working on at present, the Chronicles of Aden Weaver, the first book starts off with Aden’s conflicted relationship with his ‘Papa Joe.’ It ends in the third book, which I’m writing at present, The Last Tree, with Aden now the grandparent telling his grandchildren a bedtime story.

My maternal grandparents, Evelyn and Alfred Leonard

To me, that is the penultimate circle of life, when you have the child and the elder present in a story. I may have never met my own grandfathers, however, I can indulge in the experiences I missed out on by vicariously living through my characters, and I must say it is very soothing and healing to do so. I thoroughly recommend it.

Spending time around my “adopted grandfather,” Bruce, has been a real tonic these last few years, also. I’ve enjoyed our friendship. Meeting him at Toastmasters each week has been a hoot.

On that day, nearly four years ago, when I dared try Toastmasters, I went along sceptical and highly self-conscious and absolutely terrified at the idea of tackling my all-time biggest fear, public speaking. I made myself go by assuring myself I didn’t have to join; I was just ‘going to have a look.’

When I arrived, I saw two silver haired gentleman standing talking outside talking. Bruce shook my hand and welcomed me warmly.

I felt an instant gravitational pull towards this venerable elder. I sat next to him for the rest of the meeting, and Bruce brightly asked questions about me at every opportunity. He said he was 96-years-old, a war veteran. He had recovered to sprightly good health after having both knees replaced at the tender age of 90. I had made a friend.

Needless to say, I joined the club.

After the nerve-wracked, heart-thumping, knee-knocking experience of delivering my first speech, I walked to the back of the room and Bruce stood there, clapping.

He said, “Congratulations, my dear! You’ve been blooded.”

It was something only a patriarch would say, and I loved him for it.

For the last few years, I’ve been lucky enough to be guided by him through many of my speech projects. At Bruce’s farewell party today, held not four days out from his 100^th birthday, our club said heartfelt goodbyes.

I gave a one minute speech and said, “Everyone asks Bruce, ‘what’s the secret of your longevity?’ It’s not vegetarianism. He makes every single person he meets feel special. For that reason, everyone he meets loves him. Bruce is surrounded by love everywhere he goes. That’s the real secret to his youth.”

Which brings us neatly back to where we started. How will you be remembered? By the way you made people feel.

Talk to you later.

Keep on Creating!

Yvette K. Carol

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One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.”~ Malala Yousafzai

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“Still here, still gone”

My mother passed away a year ago, today.

When my brother rang me on the afternoon of June 25^th, 2015, I was in the driveway, unpacking groceries from the car. I remember it was grey and overcast; I noticed the clouds and made a mental note to get the washing off the line. As I lifted out two bags of groceries, with my ear pressed to the phone wedged between my ear and my shoulder, I heard my brother say, ‘Have you heard the news? Mum died.’

‘What?’

‘She passed away in her sleep.’

‘@3$56&!’ I dropped the bags.

‘I know. This morning Dad woke up and tried to resuscitate her. When he couldn’t wake her up, he called for an ambulance.’

My brother says I was swearing like a sailor. I don’t remember it. Goodness knows what the neighbours thought.

Ma was in her eighties, a survivor of six “mini strokes,” it was not unexpected. Yet, the news still hit me like a ten pound weight to the chest.

In the year preceding, my mother had taken to talking a lot about dying.

On one visit, she was talking about her departure and I felt this need to truly thank her for everything. I thanked her for letting me return home and pursue my dream of being a writer in the early years. When I gave up freelance journalism at the age of 25, to pursue my dream of being a writer, my parents let me return home for a few years. Ma had always believed in me. I said I wanted her to stick around and see my first book published. I wanted that full circle moment, not just for me, but for the three of us.

So, when my brother rang me with the news, I thought, she can’t have died, our milestone moment hasn’t happened yet. No full circle moment. Life sucks sometimes.

Now that a year has passed since that day my family’s life changed forever, it’s a different kind of grief. It’s softer, not as sharp-edged. It’s settled onto a deeper level. Someone said somewhere that it was the little things they missed about their mother the most. I have found this to be true.

A woman who had talked our hind legs off her entire life, with whom we could never get a word in edgewise, had turned into a focused and intently interested listener in the last five years or so of her life. As I said in my eulogy, ‘She had moved on from only ever being the one doing the talking, to being the one who could also sit and listen.’

Mum had developed a real keen interest in my stories. She would ask and then really pay attention to me spinning my worlds. Mum had a childlike way of going there with me, which was deeply rewarding.

I miss our conversations. I miss her bright, watching eyes. I miss her laugh. I miss her spontaneous silly moments. I miss her sudden silly dancing. I even miss her crochet!

The loss of a parent is a cumulative sadness. I think my friend, author, James Preller expressed the compound nature of grief for a parent best, in a recent post on Facebook, when he said,

A day late, but this is my old man. I find that the day he died was not so bad; these things happen; but I miss him more now, feel it more now, ten years later. The missing accumulates, sedimentary, takes on heft over time. That weighty absence. And yet, and yet, an enduring presence too. My father. Still here, still gone.

The “weighty absence yet, enduring presence” is such poetry. I couldn’t possibly improve on this as a way of encapsulating my feelings about my mother, who passed away a year ago today.

I rang my father this morning, we spoke for a while. He’s okay. We’re okay. Yet, his wife of 65 years is gone. Ma’s still mourned. Still missed. Still loved.

On this, the first anniversary of her transition, my mother is, as James said, still here, still gone.

Keep Creating!

Yvette K. Carol

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Raising children is one of the most significant things that a person can do. It matters a tremendous amount, and women who choose to do it should be held in high esteem. ~ Paul Rosenberg

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Write with Wholeness

As a writer, the first reflex when anything happens is to write about it. After getting phone scammed and having no computer or net for a week, I kept a journal and intended to put it up on my blog, ‘The No-Internet Experiment.’ When I re-read the miserable snippets I’d written, I was reminded of something a former writing teacher and author, Joy Crowley, had warned us about, “Therapy Writing.”

One of the most prolific writers in New Zealand, Joy Cowley is the beloved author of 41 picture books and approximately 500 reading books or basal books.

Joy told us to watch out for “Therapy Writing.”

Therapy writing is when a piece is more about letting go of stuff being dredged up within us, than it is about fiction. ‘Experiences of our childhood will come up in disguise in our writing,’ she said, ‘I see many sad lonely childhoods coming out in people’s writing.’

‘Even accomplished writers will write bleak books that are directly from their painful childhoods.’

Yet, therapy writing has its place. It’s not that we should be trying to lock the memories and the deeply-felt wounds back inside ourselves again.

‘They need to come out,’ Joy explained.

We need a safe outlet for expressing long-held thoughts and feelings. Through writing we get to feel heard in a way. We feel the benefit of the curative treatment implied in the word therapy.

I remember one time, over thirty years ago, when I was starting out as a writer. I had submitted a short story to a big writing competition. My piece went on the reject pile, of which, the chief judge said, ‘the entries were so badly written, it was like people had sent in descriptions of their dismembered limbs dashed over with tears and blood.’

Though the critique had stung at the time, I’m sure he was right! I was still in that stage of discharging the humiliations of my youth.

Joy Cowley said, ‘Therapy writing is just something every writer has to go through.’

Naturally, the content of our lives will be our first resource when we start writing. Whether consciously or otherwise, we unblock that release valve on our childhoods, and give voice to all that went unsaid. We discharge that pent-up energy. A lot of teachers say our first stories or books are unsuitable for publishing for that reason.

Joy said to watch for therapy writing especially in our fiction. ‘How do you know if it’s therapy writing? You feel sorry for the character. You never feel sorry for your character!’

The task upon us as writers is to use all of our painful history and all of our strength to take our characters into the heart of darkness.

That is the challenge.

‘Take any protagonist’s belief system – it’s the writer establishing the story’s trajectory. It’s the writer saying, watch carefully now as I systematically destroy that belief system,’ film-maker and author, PJ Reece wrote. ‘Every story is a journey to the heart of darkness.’

‘You won’t write Pollyanna,’ Joy reassured us, ‘you will write with the wholeness of the human condition.’

As we mature as writers, we learn how to write with the wholeness of our lives, infusing our work with all the experiences good and bad. That way, we can create full, balanced stories. You use what you’ve been through in life; you dig into that well of experiences, good and bad, for the enrichment of your stories.

‘Struggle is what readers want, what we identify with, what we save our money for,’ said PJ Reece. ‘It doesn’t get more terrifying than shedding our skin, leaving our old self behind. And yet that’s just what the best authors do. They love their protagonists to death.’

I love that line. It’s so steely-eyed.

Ultimately, we draw from the wholeness of our human condition in order to fully subject our protagonist to their Waterloo. If we can’t do that, there’s no transformation. No pay-off. And that’s what we need to see: for our characters to go through fire and evolve into something higher.

‘A story is a promise that the hero will court disaster.’ ~ PJ Reece

How about you, are you able to subject your characters to disaster? Did you do therapy writing when you started out?

Keep Creating!

Yvette K. Carol

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‘Now let’s write our brains out passionately and with minimal reference to grids and rules. Let’s write from a love of the art and the heart of fiction.’ ~ PJ Reece