Finding Yourself

Do you ever feel like you have lost yourself? Do you want to find yourself?

Your day job is not who you are. It’s only what you do. I am a medical transcriptionist. It certainly does not define me. It is only a small part of who I am. (And, quite frankly, it’s a part I would very much like to change.)

What is it that you are passionate about? What really gets you going (in a good way)? That’s who you are. In your passion, you find yourself. On Project Runway, some of the people say they have a “passion for fashion.” They identify themselves as designers. A few episodes into the season and you can really see who is telling the truth there and who is just giving it lip service. In the first episode, you can see inklings of who it might be, but sometimes those don’t come to fruition.

How/why does this apply to me?

I feel in many ways that I have lost myself in transcription. In the daily minutiae.

I identify myself, my true self, as a writer and jewelry designer. But those things are getting lost. I need to find myself again. I have to do this periodically.

Getting lost leads to burnout for me.

I have a week-long “finding” planned for October. It will be in Eureka Springs and include taking a bead class or two and attending a writers’ conference. (A day at the spa with my grandma will be in there somewhere too, but that’s kinda different.)

In the meantime, I need something to help find myself between now and then too or I may be too lost to care if I’m found or not.

Filed under: writing

Dialog in Writing

I just read something that made me think of something else. Well, it is definitely related.

In the August 2006 issue of The Writer, the “How I Write” page at the very end of the magazine is about Debbie Macomber. (Neat lady, BTW, she was a presenter at the OWFI conference a couple years ago.)

She says, “Dialogue helps define character, maintain the story’s pace, and convey emotion. I can’t imagine writing a story about it.”

Until I read that, I couldn’t imagine it either. But now I can. In fact, I have an idea percolating in my mind. Internal thought would be allowed, but no actual dialogue.

I wonder if such a thing would be marketable? Would anyone actually buy it?

I’m very tempted to try it.

In fact, here is a very rough draft, setting the stage:

The evening bell echoed through the halls, alerting the dormitory’s residents to the dinner hour. Footsteps scuffled down the hall, but no other sound followed.

Jordan Mitchell woke slowly. Pain blossomed from his throat. He tried to sit up. Tried to speak. Tears coursed down his face as the pain doubled with the attempt. An older man – a nurse? – came into view. He placed his hand on Jordan’s shoulder and urged him to lie back again. Jordan complied, but only because he had no way to protest and was – at the moment – too weak to struggle.

Time passed as it is wont to do. Jordan refused to accept his silent state though his throat healed and he could again eat solid foods. Through books he found in his room once he recovered, he learned he was an acolyte in a temple dedicated to Samhach, a so-called god of silence that Jordan was positive was invented. His anger deepened the more he read.

Over the past fifty years, he and several hundred others were all kidnapped, deemed trouble-makers by their respective towns. They were unofficially arrested, brought to the temple, and stripped of their ability to speak.

Theirs was a life of ritual. Of perpetual penance.

The tome reasoned there was no harm in letting the acolytes know the truth. Their location was never revealed. Looking out any of the multitude of windows only revealed gently rolling pasture where sheep and cattle grazed, gardens, orchards, and chicken coops.

The temple was entirely self-sufficient. Nothing was brought in from outside.

The writer of the tome further reasoned that while it was completely understandable the boys brought in would be angry, their anger – in time – would burn itself out.

Jordan decided that would not be the case for him. He would fight to get out. Everyone within these walls would know his anger.

Filed under: writing

Things to Make Me Go “Hmmmm….”

A while back, I created this half-elf character called Jyndral to use for a story called “The Lady Bard.” It never went anywhere. It felt like everything was too contrived.

As I had so much other stuff going on at the time, I let it go by the wayside. At the same time, I wrote a “prologue” for the story in the form of rhymed couplets.

I had an idea this morning as I was working on something completely unrelated.

There are 26 couplets. I could use one couplet at the beginning of each chapter to introduce it and to set the scene (for me) in writing it.

Here’s what I’m talking about:

HISTORY OF THE LADY BARD
(Prologue to The Lady Bard)

Listen to the tale of a maiden fair
With deep blue eyes and golden hair.

She hailed from the land they called Cordaire,
She started out life in a small hut there.

The gods conspired and fate decreed
The maiden live life as a cursed mixed-breed.

Forced from her home at age thirteen,
She discovered mage gifts before unseen.

She spent a wintry night in a cold dark cave,
Then a traveler came by and she was saved.

She and the traveler soon parted ways,
The maiden went to town, searching a place to stay.

There in town, she saw an old wise sage.
Rumor had it, he was a mage.

Training in mage gifts she was yearning
And approached the sage seeking learning.

To teach her he quickly agreed
Until he learned she was a cursed mixed-breed.

He sent her packing, on her way.
No place in town would let her stay.

Her search for learning had just begun.
Through many towns, she had been shunned.

In a village on the northern border,
An old hermit mage, her training did order.

At age fourteen, training incomplete,
The hermit mage died, working in the heat.

The maiden wondered where to go,
Many things she needed to know.

She covered her ears and wore a disguise,
Naught could she do to hide her eyes.

All though the land, she traveled round
Until a mage school was finally found.

The teachers at the school, suitably fooled,
Allowed this mixed-breed into their school.

Training complete, times were hard.
She heeded the calling to become a bard.

Bards traveled freely throughout the land
With history and music at their hand.

Again she donned the same disguise
And thus did fool a Great Bard’s eyes.

With work to do, the years passed fast
And the maiden was of the Bardic class.

The Great Bard knew she was a woman there.
When training finished, he ordered, “Leave Cordaire!”

In many towns, she tried to stay.
But, “Take your lute and be on your way.”

She traveled on to Sulward Keep,
Hoping there she could stay and sleep.

And even then, to stay for more.
To pass along music and folklore.

Thus is the tale of a maiden fair
With deep blue eyes and golden hair.

The whole thing might not work with the way I have it in mind, but it will, I think, provide a sort of framework to get it done.

Filed under: writing