Write It Where You Are

Wandering off into the world to write you heart out takes a lot of moxie ( I love that word), finesse, and plain old determination.  In my last post I spoke about the heart of adventure writing being about the removal of thyself from your local writing haunt, and gaining inspiration from your environment while you work.  I have found this process to be very helpful while creating my narratives in a few different ways:

1.  Setting 

Writing scenes are easier if you are in the scenery (or a similar setting) that you are writing about.  Think about it; how many times have you been scratching the old skull-noggin, trying to figure out what realistic, mundane detail could give your work a tinge of reality.  I personally love to have my characters pick their nose; a simple, gross thing really, but let's face it...there are two kinds of people in the world: those that pick their nose, and those that lie about it.  A similar setting will work too.  If you are writing about an ancient bazaar from a more antiquated time, go to your local flea-market and see how people haggle and interact with one another.

2.  Over the Wall  

Silence, peace, and distraction free...the forceful way.  Sometimes when I need to write,  I really don't want to.  Sometimes writing is way more of a job than a career (jobs suck, careers are fun).  I found that packing up my stuff and hitting the back country put me in an environment where I had nothing else to do but write.  It got me through some tough, dry spots and helped me push through.  I'm not saying the writing is always going to be without it's flaws, mind you, but I am saying that you can force yourself into keeping the pages rolling.

3.  Inspiration   

Sometimes you need to get out of the house and away from things that are familiar to get some inspiration.  It's important to recharge your creativity tank, and the way I've found to do that is to go somewhere beautiful that is quiet where I can think.  I've sat on top of lonely mountain peaks overlooking rolling hills and valleys while conversing (like a crazy man) with my main character about why he would do the things he does.  Sometimes I think about the big picture, or shout out my frustration to a godless sky.  But I always come away with some kind of fruit for my works, even if it does mean a major rewrite (why!?  Why can't it ever be good enough!).

THE CAMPER, THE HAT, AND THE BABY 'SQUATCH

One of my first adventures ended quicker than I originally planned.  I was having a really hard time concentrating at the house, and I kept finding other, more interesting things to do (I sat on a couch mouthing the word "bored" over and over again for days).  I had been planning the trip for a few months, researched the crap out of the gear I needed, finally figured out how to solve the all important power supply issues, and gathered up three day's worth of freeze-dried foods (food is important.  I like food.  Food doesn't like me.  I've also been bitten by the diabetes bug.  I need food).  

I kissed my wife good bye, told my seven children "toodles" and then dashed out the door.  I got in my 1988 Ford F150 rust bucket, floored it up into the mountains, and hiked my happy butt deep into the wilderness.  It was early in the morning, and early spring, too.  The weather had been in the 70's for the past two weeks, and I swear...I...swear...the weather was supposed to be sunny, warm, and only in the 60's at night.  That was probably true where I lived in the valley, but it was NOT true in the high places!

So there I was, the air quite chilly, ready for my own personal adventure.  I hiked all morning out to where I wanted to be for three days, enjoyed the solitude for a moment or two, and then hung my hammock.  The first problem I encountered was the amount of people that happened to frequent that part of the trail.  I was not the only person who thought the area was pretty, apparently.  I forgive the passersby, even though one guy stayed and chatted it up for an hour and a half.  After I got my camp all gussied, I hopped in my warm hammock nest with my trusty laptop in hand, and began pounding away at the keys.

All was well.  The sun was warm during the day, even if the air was a little chilly.  That was okay, you know?  I enjoyed my quiet time, and got pretty far in a chapter.  Soon the sun began to dip below the Western ridge line, and the dreaded shadow of on coming night was upon me.  I'm sure you're thinking I kept working, feverishly engulfed in my own, twisted genius spilling out onto the digitized page...I did not.  Nighttime meant sasquatches, bears, and balrog, not of which I was prepared to battle.

I took my nightly regimen of pills, and decided that, while the twilight still held, I would go ahead and knock myself out with my sleeping pill (which never, EVER kicked in).  The night came, and from the seasonal pond near the camp came the familiar chirping of the crickets and the grumbling calls of the tree frogs.  I thought to myself, "as long as the critters still call, nothing big is coming through.  I'll be fine."  

Silence. 

 Holy terror of satan himself.  There wasn't so much as a cricket's fart, it became so still.  I reached out in my pack (only a foot away from me), grabbed my can of bear spray along with a little bar-shaped flashlight.  I held it tight the whole night, too.  I kept imagining some hairy foot sticking out from underneath my tarp shelter, the angry  face of Harry  from "Harry and the Hendersons" staring down at me.  If not sasquatch then a bear, perhaps, come to paw at the big, greasy meat sack that I was, hanging from a tree like a bagged lunch.  Then there was the balrog, ready to drag me to hell.  You see, during the day you might hear the rustling of the leaves in the woods and your mind  says, "oh!  That's a cute little fury squirrel!"  At night though, everything is bigger.  The same sound then produces, "Oh Mother of God!  Sasquatch, yetis, devils and giants!"  Needless to say, I didn't sleep much, though I do remember passing out for about an hour or so.

The worst part was waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of chewing.  God awful, mouthfuls of flesh being savagely torn asunder.  It was my worst nightmare.  I new it was a bear (sasquatch) eating out of my pack.  Being the careless camper I was, I kept my food right by me too...not a foot away.  I grasped on tight to my flashlight and bear (sasquatch) spray, and tried to gain the courage it would take to move and vanquish my worthy foe.  Believe it or not I did...I did!  I had the courage!  I peeled back my nest quickly, pointed the light and...

Blinded myself.  

The freaking flashlight was pointed right at me.  By the time I turned it around and adjusted my eyes to the now pitch black darkness, whatever was there was gone.  I calmed myself by assuming it was just the hammock bouncing up against the pack, and that no little creature (sasquatch) was munching in my pack.  It was, after all, sealed up nice and tight.  But the sound of chewing continued.  I had convinced myself enough and ignored the sound, which went on most of the night.  

By the time the grey of morning came,  I was very tired...tired and really, really needing to use the bathroom (defending oneself from sasquatches all night may cause you to be too scared to go pee-pee).    So I sluggishly got out of my hammock and started to head back into the bush.  I didn't have my glasses on.  Why didn't I have my glasses on?!  If only I had my glasses on, I could have positively identified the  baby 'squatch (raccoon or opossum) that scurried away from my area.  I went and did my thing, watched the sun come up over the mountains, and then packed up and left (I check out of hotel Scare-the-%#*@-out-of-you two days early).  One of the last things I did was put on my Boston Red Sox ball cap.

You know what I did with that hat the year before?  Swam in the ocean with it.  It was as salty as the sea, and probably more so from my own sweat, too.  When I got home and took a nice, long, hot shower, I got dressed and reached for my hat.  It was then that I noticed a small, chewed through hole in the band of it!  Whatever the creature, it must have been after the salt in my hat, and had hung out with me the whole night to get some.

You want to know what I learned?  Solo camping in the middle of nowhere is terrifying!  But it gave me an experience I'll never forget. Not to mention, it gave me a way to jump start my creativity and really open my world up to new possibilities.  

Have you ever had an experience like that?  If so, tell us about it in the comments below.  Please remember to share this stuff and pass along my chicken-nuggety bits of writing awesomeness to your friends! 

Getting Bored of Writing Your Novel? Take a Hike!

The sun beats down on the back of your neck.  Early in the cool morning, it's rays were a welcomed friend.  By midday, though, it became a torturing little leech, sucking the comfort right from you soul, and by night you wish you could've had it's truth telling shine for just a few moments longer.  The smell of pine in a quieted forest, a top a mountain that overlooks a deep, deep canyon...the faint sound of tumultuous white water, raging down it's predetermined, ancient path.  You are in the wilderness, far from things made by the hands of men.  Only God and His work remains before you... 

If you didn't read this and finish with a mental image of yourself standing on a mountain top with the faint sound of angelic voices rising in a deafening crescendo, please read this again...okay, fine, but I hope you get the point.  In my last post I wrote about three things that inspired me to write my narrative, but only really spoke about the first two.  Today I wanted to expand on that third thing, and it's all about the activity of writing in the wilderness.  It's some kind of weird mesh up of camping, hiking, writing, and gadgetry to get you there and back again...and naturally, the inspiration of it all.

I call it "Adventure Writing" (insert Superman theme music).  As far as I can tell, it's not a thing...or it probably is, but the great oracle of the interwebs (google) could only prophecy of people writing about adventures...that is not what this is.  This, my friends, is far more active in nature (pun intended).

Hammock style on the edge of a cliff

The heart of adventure writing is getting out and away from the deadly monotony of sitting at home, staring at a lifeless screen, and "working" away on your narratives.  Let's face it:  writing a novel is A LOT of hard work, and most of it isn't what we thought of when we wanted to be novelists (I for one still have this image of a half crazed, manic version of myself bent over a laptop with feverish eyes repeating the same phrase over and over again).  Adventure writing is a weird synthesis of living out what we see in our heads, and the discovery of unknown places just outside of our comfort zones.  No one has ever gone to the places we create; we are the forerunners of a pristine, new world, and when you venture out into the wilderness, it has an odd familiarity to it.

The picture above was taken when I was out in the Linville Gorge wilderness area on one of my first overnight writing adventures.  I had spent the week before this excursion scouting out the area, learning it's maps, and figuring out the perfect place for solitude and beauty.  I hung my hammock as close as I could to a cliff on top of a ridge that dropped several hundred feet below, made a fire, and wrote until the fear strangled the last bit of creativity out of me (a baby 'squatch ate my hat, but more on that later).  It was more than just an experience; it was a fundamentally life changing event.

Go. 

 Get out there, and do it.  You will learn something of yourself, and something of your story.  Your personal, human frailty will emphasize, perhaps, that one thing missing from your character's personality.  Maybe you and I will learn some of the same lessons, and maybe you will discover something beyond beautiful.  At the very least, you'll come back loving your family just a little more.

If you want to hear more about my time in the high places, you'll have to subscribe or like, or favorite this thingy I do here...figure out some way to check back in!  Hit that google+ sign at the top right, and share the crap out of it on Facebook!

Have you ever felt like you needed a serious overhaul for your writing process?  Where did it take you?  What nuggety bit of deep fried goodness came from it?  Tell us about it in the comments below.