Cranky Without Writing

Last week filled with family needs, a school visit, and three days in bed with a bug. When I emerged, I was cranky from too much time away from writing, twitchy and irritable. But a little editing time and a really good book cured it. I wasn’t feeling well enough to have a serious writing session, but I managed a little editing, and then lost myself in a new story – Cinder, by Marissa Meyer.

It’s a first novel, and blew me away with how accomplished it is. It’s YA science fiction, I guess, but with a fantasy feel (rather like Tamora Pierce with a sci-fi twist).

I would have loved this when I was a teenager, when I could only read about guys having adventures, because there were no kick-ass girls in the stories I read. And it inspired me to get back into my own stories, reminding me of how great stories are, and how much I love writing for kids.

Next week: Family day, a school visit, and a winter holiday in the mountains. And, somehow, I’ll fit writing in.

Maureen

Writing and Meditation

I’m living in silence, after a meditation retreat in early winter. I find myself returning to silence in my head, over and over. It’s oddly comforting, and hugely creative, like a giant white canvas where stories can emerge.

I was trying to explain how meditation helps my writing, one day, and totally failed. I was at a discussion session for writers, and I’d said something about quieting the mind. One writer responded that she didn’t want her mind quiet, because she wanted the story in her mind (well, she said something much more coherent than that, but this catches the essence).

Here’s my better explanation. Meditation helps quiet the fussing in the mind – the thinking about what happened yesterday, or might happen tomorrow. It quiets the anxiety and the stories from our own lives we get wrapped up in. All the worries and anxieties and the stories we make out of them quiet a little, settle and calm.

Then there’s space for the stories we want to focus on ­– the stories we write. It’s like wanting to go star gazing and finding the sky covered in clouds. If we could clear away the clouds, even for just a little while, we could see the stars.

And that’s meditation.

Maureen

The Buffalo Are Singing

Finally, finally, when we’d conquered our endless to-do list and had a little break after Christmas, and my husband got a cold that lowered his voice an octave, he recorded himself singing, and then worked on the recording until we could pretend it was buffalo singing.

It took a while to set up (complications with compatibility with various systems), and it doesn’t work for Internet Explorer, but otherwise… take a look. It’s on the Veil Weavers page of my website ­– click on the buffalo below Josh and Maddy’s map.

http://www.maureenbush.com/_book_theveilweavers/

Maureen

The Recording Studio