Lynn Jatania's Blog, page 2

A Good Surprise

One thing I struggle with in writing is the element of surprise. A good story always has surprises, don’t you think? A turn of events that the characters – and the reader- just didn’t see coming.

Writing about surprises doesn’t come easily to me because I really, really dislike surprises. For any given life event, I like to have a plan in place. And I don’t like to be surprised with gifts or parties or other things like that – it always feels vaguely undeserved and I’m never quite sure how to react.

But surprises can be good things – not just in your stories, but in life, too. I think I need to learn to be more surprise-positive.

Here’s a nice surprise I got the other day.

I had tickets to see the immersive Van Gogh art exhibit downtown on a Saturday morning. I’d had the ticket for months and had been looking forward to going by myself.

But when the day arrived, I just…forgot. I had a list of errands to run as long as my arm, I had cleaning to do, and I had to drop this kid here and that kid over there. Between all the hustle and bustle, I forgot it was art day.

At first I thought I’d just skip it. But then I thought, you know what, you really wanted to go, woman up and just march on down there. Apologize for missing your time slot and through yourself on their mercy and just DO IT.

So I went downtown, but my two teenaged daughters back at home worried. They were afraid I wouldn’t get in, and I’d be disappointed. They felt somewhat responsible for the hustle and bustle part.

So although I DID end up getting in, and loved the exhibit, my daughters still went ahead with a surprise – their own backup plan.

They searched the internet and figured out how to construct their own projector using a magnifying class, a box, and a cell phone. While one was on construction, the other one did internet research and assembled a set of Van Gogh slides combined with tour-guide style fun facts.

Then when I got home, they pulled me into a dark corner of the basement for my own private Van Gogh tour. It was delightful, charming, moving, touching – and so, so apprecaited.

As surprises go – this one was a solid winner.

Makes for a good story, too.

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Bittersweet

I recently wrote a story that I’m hoping will be the first in a set that makes up a larger project.

One part of the story concerns bitters. I did a LOT of reading about bitters while writing the story.

Bitters are a strongly flavoured alcohol that you add, a few drops at a time, to certain mixed drinks to enhance their taste.

There are many different kinds of bitters and the one you choose for your mixed drink makes it distinctive – brings your own personality to it, you could say.

To make your own bitters, you need to take a very high proof alcohol – whiskey or bourbon are popular starting points – and add certain flavourings. You might choose dried berries or nuts. You might add strong spices like star anise or or cinnamon or cardamom. You might want to throw in some vanilla beans, cacao nibs, or wild cherry bark.

You can get creative with it. Put your own stamp on it.

(Or you can just buy your favourite flavour combinations at the liquor store.)

In my story, bitters are used to make a variety of drinks but the featured beverage is a Manhattan. Here’s how to make it at home:

2 oz rye whiskey

1 oz sweet vermouth

2 dashes Angostura bitters

1 maraschino cherry (or, if you’re like Edie in my story, two or three)

Shake ingredients over ice and strain into a lowball, or if you want to be fancy, martini glass.

It’s not to everyone’s taste, but there’s an interesting balance between bitter and sweet if you’re willing to take it for a spin.

Just be sure to have someone else drive you home – these do pack a punch!

Manhattan cocktail with whiskey.

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That’s What Makes You Beautiful

Over the past few years, I’ve started to collect original works of art. They are all very small pieces, but I’m so happy to own something that is unique and really fills me with joy.

My husband and I sadly don’t share a lot of overlapping taste in art, so that’s why I’ve been keeping it small. With smaller pieces, I can gather them around my laptop at my desk, where I can look to them for inspiration, or peace, or just a small moment of happiness while I’m working or writing.

I thought I’d feature a few of them here in the blog because there’s a strange synergy between visuals, and music, and writing. When I look at my favourite pieces of art, it’s like all the things I love about my favourite songs and my favourite stories in visual form. I guess by this point in life I’m a bit of a Known Entity – I like what I like!

Here’s my latest piece – it just arrived in the mail last week and it’s now hanging directly over my computer. It’s called Here Comes the Sun and it’s by Newmarket artist Josee Savaria:

Here Comes The Sun by Josee Savaria

It’s just 8 inches square, but that picture doesn’t do justice to the colours squeezed in there. It’s a riot of patterns, colour, secrets, and joy. It makes me want to write something that matches. Hope you love it too!

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Being Creative and Social Distancing

I’ve read lots of posts online, in blogs and on social media, by creative types who are excited about this time of social distancing. They’re making the most of the stay-at-home order to just create. They are flourishing with this unexpected gift of time to write or paint or draw or knit or sing.

I am not.

I am trying to be gentle with myself over this. It is a weird time for everyone. Many people, including myself, are worried and feel a higher level of stress than normal. I mean, I have it relatively good – all my kids are still at home, so they are safe and accounted for; we have plenty of food and supplies; my husband is able to work from home so income is still coming in. It’s pretty much the dream quarantine situation.

But I still have concerns. I worry about how the kids will finish the school year, and how they will maintain friendships. I worry about what to cook every day and what we will do if stores close. I worry about my own small business and how it will survive.

On top of my mind being busy and buzzy with fretting, it’s also strange for me to have so many people around all the time. I’m used to everyone else going off to school and being alone for several hours a day. Usually this is work time, but I often snuck in some creative writing time, too. Trying to find the space I need – mentally and physically – to lose myself in a story is really hard when you’re sitting next to someone who is on a conference call, or someone else who is watching a video about Minecraft, or someone else who is asking for help every step of the way as she tries to bake a cake.

So while I imagine this time period will result in some amazing production of art of all kinds, I’m not sure what my own contribution is going to be. And that is okay. Because in these weird times, I just need to be kind to myself, remember that getting through it is the primary goal, and not piling on to my stress and worry by feeling like “I should” be making the most of this time to write.

It will be what it will be, and we’ll get through it. And I know, and trust, there will be stories to come in the aftermath.

How about you? Have you been creative during the shutdown?

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On Poetry

Like most people, I don’t read a lot of poetry.

(At least, not in the last 20 years or so. I did go through a very pretentious period on late high school where I would have a worn old hardcover tome by T.S. Eliot or Wordsworth or Cummings in my backpack, clearly marking me as Queen Geek of the all the Geeks, and proud of it.)

I think poetry is maybe the purest art form. Poets write because they really, really have to. They aren’t in it for the audience, because the audience for poetry in general is very very small, and for your niche is likely to be even smaller. They certainly aren’t in it for the money, or getting their work in the kind of magazines you see in airports, or winning awards that will make them internationally famous.

They’re in it for the art, I think. I admire that.

In the past several years, I haven’t had time to read as much as I’d like to, and I didn’t think I would want to give up what precious little reading time I had to poetry, which takes time to sit with, to ponder, to re-read and let it worm its way into your heart.

But I’ve read several very interesting books of poems lately, by some sort of fluke, and it turns out – I loved it. A beautiful poem is like a little nugget of gold. I can read it in a few minutes but it sits with me all day, giving me something to turn over and over in my mind whenever I have a free moment.

I’m going to be adding more poetry to my ever-growing stack of books on my bedside table, for sure.

Poetry might not be your jam. But if you’re interested in some offbeat, cool works that challenge your (maybe) ideas of how stuffy poetry is – consider these.

(Just noticed they are all women. Also interesting.)

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Treasure Hunting at Used Book Sales

When I was a kid, I read a lot. I think it’s the key to becoming a writer.

First, you become enchanted with the stories of others, setting your imagination on fire.

Over time, you learn how stories work, almost instinctively. You identify with your favourite heroes, you boo your favourite villains. You know you need to find an emotional core and follow a basic structure.

Then you discover you have stories of your own that you’re dying to tell.

So, in my mind, readers become writers. But I have found that between the pressures of everyday life, and working, and writing my own stories – it’s my reading that has suffered. I just can’t find the time to read like I used to.

One time, when I was about nine years old, I had to stay home for the day from school, sick with the flu. My mother – who was a stay-at-home mom at the time – had some kind of appointment and she was nervous about leaving me alone. So she gave me two Nancy Drew books she’d been saving for my birthday to keep me busy.

By the time she was home a few hours later, I’d read them both.

That kind of glorious indulgence is something I just can’t do anymore, but I’ve been working in the past couple of years to try to make more time for reading in addition to writing. I think it makes me a stronger person as well as a stronger writer.

Critical to this new initiative: used book sales.

I can’t speed read like I did when I was nine anymore. I have to read in drips and drabs (if I tell you most of my reading is done in the bathroom now, is that TMI?). So I can’t deal with the pressure of library book deadlines. Three weeks isn’t long enough for me to know I can get through a book; forget about the one-week deadline for new releases. And I don’t have a fortune to spend buying new books for my personal library, either; plus, $20 a book seems like a lot when I’m not sure I’ll like it.

(Don’t bother suggesting eBooks. I’m a strictly paper and ink kind of girl.)

A few years ago, a local church was having a used book sale so I thought I’d drop by and check it out. What I found was thousands of books and hundreds of people. It was almost overwhelming, but for $30 I picked up about 15 books – about a years’ worth of reading for me – just by grabbing titles I recognized from reviews and friends’ recommendations. I read them all, at my own pace.

And I loved them all, too.

Now I’m a pro. In additional to the annual church sale, I also visit as many other used book sales in the city as I can. I come ready with a list of my most-wanted titles, sorted by author, and a reusable bag or two.

I can usually pick up a year’s worth of reading for under $40, plus a few teen titles for the kids to try out. If we like them, great. I pass them around to all my girlfriends. If we don’t like them, it’s easy to throw them into my bin of donations for next year, at a cost that’s less than a single day of library overdue fees.

Plus, nothing can compare with the thrill of finding, on that last shelf or buried in that bottom-most box, the title you were really, really hoping to find.

It’s like coming home with a whole treasure box full of gold.

That church sale was just last week so I’m sitting on an abundance of riches right now. I can’t wait to dig in. If you need me, I’ll be in the bathroom!

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Writing for Introverts

Do you think you have to be an introvert to be a writer?

Writing to me is a very solitary activity. It’s hours spent alone on long walks or in the shower, just thinking and dreaming and wondering.

It’s hours spent alone doing research and jotting down notes about how things work and figuring out plotting graphs and charts.

It’s hours spent alone with a butt in a chair, just cranking out word after word after word.

I’ve never understood people who write in pairs, but even then, it’s my understanding that one of them plots out the story, while the other one fills in the actual text. I think James Patterson does this with a lot of his branded books that he didn’t actually write.

English authors Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman wrote the book Good Omens “together,” but they worked on it separately. After coming up with the initial idea, they took turns writing chapters and guiding the plot, sending their notes to each other until the book was done.

And Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote her books with the help of her daughter – technically her daughter was her editor, but really she did a lot of work to shape Laura’s memories of her youth into readable stories. I think Laura talked, and her daughter made notes and wrote, which meant a lot of working together, but a lot of solitary writing, too.

I’m an introvert. I love going for walks alone or waking up early before everyone else and making quiet notes in a dark corner on my own. I can’t imagine how my mind would make space for the stories I want to tell if I needed to be around people all the time. I feel like they would crowd out my characters – but perhaps that is precisely BECAUSE I am an introvert, and being around a big group is tiring and kills my creativity.

I definitely write better when I have the support of a writing community around me. They encourage me and keep me on track and get me excited to produce stuff.

So maybe the best writers are a little bit of both – introverts who like people, or extroverts who can work with alone time.

What do you think?

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Two Stories

Recently, two stories I wrote did well in contests. I know, when you’re a writer you should write for yourself, because you have something to say, because it hurts not to put it down on paper.

And I do feel that just entering a contest is a win for me. To meet a deadline, to write something new, to feel like it’s finished and at least one person out there is going to read it and react to it in some way – that’s is enough, for me, to feel like I have accomplished something.

When a story does finish well, it’s like icing on the cake. (Literally, as I usual reward myself with some kind of decadent dessert – two, if no one is looking.)

Anyway, I’m not sure if or when these will be published so I thought I’d add them here.

My short story Miss Julie’s Home for Wayward Girls won second place in the Canadian Authors’ Association National Capital Short Story Contest in May 2019.

Read Miss Julie’s Home For Wayward Girls

My short story Same received an honourable mention in the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge in April 2019.

Read Same

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Hitting the Creativity Limit

Is there a limit to creativity?

I’ve been asking myself that lately. I haven’t written anything in quite a while – other than a few very short practice pieces, it’s been a slow year. In fact, it’s been just over a year since I published my book, Ten at the Wedding, and since then I’m not sure I’ve really “finished” a short story. Just lots of ideas that I don’t seem to have time to follow up on.

But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been being creative. I’ve been doing lots of crafting and sewing. I’ve been designing websites in my day job as a WordPress developer, which for me is a creative endeavour. In my role as a Girl Guide leader, I’ve been inventing games and designing science experiments and planning theme nights.

It’s rewarding, and I like it, but I find it takes away from my ability to write. It’s like I have a finite amount of creativity in me – or at least, a finite amount of time to be creative – and that’s been funneled into other projects right now.

To write, I need both time, but also space. I need the mental area to dream, to make my writing project the only exciting thing in my mind right then. If other creative projects are also on the go, they distract me like shiny objects for a magpie.

It’s been so long now since I made time and space for storytelling that I started to worry that I’d lost it, and maybe would never write anything again. In fact, I was so worried that I was afraid to try.

So this week I forced myself to enter a contest. Contests for me are like Writing First Principles. They are the thing that got me into fiction in the first place. I respond really well to a) having a deadline and b) having a general guideline to follow, like a theme and word count. Given those two things, I WILL write. It will push the other shiny objects out of my head and make the space it needs.

I’m not gonna lie – it was hard. I hated everything I wrote – so much so that I threw out my first story completely and wrote a second. Then, I threw out that second one and wrote a third.

Then I went back to the first one and edited it until I could tolerate it, a little, and sent it in.

The thing is – I spent this week writing not one, not two, but THREE stories. They are definitely not the best thing I have ever written. They might even be the WORST things I’ve ever written. But by the end of the week I felt a kind of groove returning. The feeling of, Oh Right, I DO know how to do this.

I am, in fact, still a writer. It’s really good to know.

Do you worry when you take time away from writing? How do you find your way back?

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My Favourite Books

Much like writing, I come and go as a reader. When I was a kid I always had my nose in a book, but as an adult, life often gets in the way, whether it’s obligations or other hobbies I’m pursuing.

This past spring I did read more than usual, partly because I’m tracking my reading this year. I had a goal of reading 12 novels this year and I’m a very goal oriented person, so I’ve already hit that and kept going. Now I’m hoping for 20, but someone recommended I read A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, and it’s 1500 pages, so that could easily take me through to the end of the year. Can I count it for three? Or maybe four?

Someone tagged me on Facebook last week to post my “favourite” seven books, covers only, no explanations. It’s a fun thing and it got me thinking. It’s really hard to pick just seven favourite books, isn’t it? There are just so many out there, and so many good ones.

I eventually came up with a list of seven, and I was surprised at how many were just from the past couple of years. I can look on my bookshelf and see books I loved as a teen, or as a young adult, or even as a new mom, and I feel fondly towards them, but somehow I have lost the passion. I’m almost afraid to re-read them, for fear of seeing them through new eyes and having the original sheen worn away. What was I thinking might run through my head, or something more like, wow, I was really a jerk back then to think this was cool.

Why is it that when it comes to music, I prefer the old favourites that take me back to my golden years, but when it comes to books, I seem to prefer the here and now? Perhaps that’s a topic for another post.

For now, at least, here are the seven favourites I’m going with on Facebook. Okay, I lied – here are eight, because I just can’t choose. What would your favourites be?

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