Charlene Carr's Blog, page 16

Introducing: Fiction Fridays AND With a K: Writing Services

If you’ve been following this blog you know I’ve been incredibly focused on making my dream of being a novelist happen – and I’m loving that!

I’m even starting a new post series inspired by this choice – Fiction Friday. It’ll be short pieces, some from the past, some brand new, that will give me a chance to get those creative juices flowing and you a chance to have an even better taste of exactly what I do in this Writing Life.

More on this in the next post!

What all of this means, however, is that I haven’t been focusing very much on my Communications business, and I haven’t been adding at all to my ‘Tips and advice’ blog section. I probably won’t for a while.

It’s not that I don’t still think learning how to improve your writing is important, I do. I think it’s incredibly important. I think it’s so important, in fact, that even though it’s not what I’m giving my readers right now, I still want any of you who are interested to have a great place to brush up on your writing skills. (And really, who doesn’t want to write just a little bit better?)

A former classmate of mine, Kris Windley, has an amazing blog at With a K: Writing Services. Her posts are fun, informed, and most of all, highly practical. Whether you’re writing copy for your business, composing an engaging newsletter, or trying to entice readers through your own blog, her series of posts will give you step by step guides on how to make your writing shine.

It’s the perfect time too – she has a giveaway this week that will put you in a draw for a book, Marketing for Creatives. So go ahead, check it out, and get writing!

How the Capelin Roll

I put on my coat, slip into my rainboots, and walk to the car with a spring in my step. We are on our way to see the capelin roll.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you can learn more here. But in short, the capelin are little fish that come to the shores of Newfoundland in droves. They literally roll in. I’ve been hearing stories of them for the past several weeks and something inside me has been bubbling. This is going to be exciting. This is going to be epic – of National Geographic proportions. I don’t say this to anyone of course – I know it’s possible we’ll see nothing. But I decide we’ll see just what I imagine. I imagine getting to the shore and watching in awe as the capelin roll along the waves, their silvery backs glinting off the water. It will be an inspiring display of genetic memory at it’s finest, working in tandem with the circle of life.

Okay, I know that’s a lot to expect from a bunch of fish, but what can I say, sometimes I let my imagination run away with me.

We pull up to the first spot we’d been told to look and the moment the door opens I smell them. The scent is pungent and strong and takes me back to childhood days on the shores of Prince Edward Island. I remain calm on the outside, but inside excitement boils. Trying to minimize possible disappointment, I tell myself it might not be quite as impressive as I hope and … it isn’t. We walk all along the shore looking at nothing but what you see off to the side – a bunch of stinky dead fish. (I know you can’t smell the stench, but trust me – it is there. It’s amazing how that scent changes from one that is hopeful and idyllic to one that represents nothing more than rotting flesh.)

After a few minutes we return to the car, a little less hopeful but not completely defeated. We approach the second spot. There are cars everywhere. Smoke rises from the beach. This scent reminds me of joyous nights by the fire – s’mores and camp songs, and cozying up in a sweater three sizes too big.

The shore is lined with people. Couples, families, children looking eagerly out at the water. Almost everyone has a net or a bucket and they are all just standing there, staring at nothing. Nothing that we can see, anyway. We stand there with them. I can see the capelin have been here. There are more corpses, waiting to rot, but any flash of a fin I see in the water is clearly dead – being tossed by the waves, which are the only thing that’s rolling. And we stand there several more minutes. Finally, I ask my husband – do you think there’s something we don’t know? Do you think they’re going to roll in soon or something? He tells me he thinks we’re supposed to be able to see them breaking through the surface. He points out the birds in the distance, wondering if they signify an approaching school of fish. He says all these people must be here for something. I nod, contemplating. Maybe they’re all just waiting around ‘cause everyone else is, I say. We are.

Just as we’re about to give up we notice a man with a net, his eyes scouring the shore. He looks like he knows what he’s doing. And sure enough, moments later we watch the man cast his net, finagle it for a few moments, and pull out a load of fish, just flip-flopping away. We watch him do this two more times and realize what we thought were just shadows in the water are actually the schools we’d been waiting for – there all along, but invisible to our untrained eyes.

My hands are nearly numb with the cold, and so we decide to head home, perhaps coming back another day when the fish may be really rolling. In the car, sitting on my fingers to warm them, I start thinking about how we easily could have just stood there – staring into the water – and left again without knowing what lay right in front of us. I think of the novels I’ve been writing and editing – I have three on the go right now – and how I have these visions for the emotional impact I want the words to impart to the reader. I know exactly what I want them to feel, to understand, as my characters feel it, as it jumps off the page … But I’m not always so sure it’s jumping, and if it doesn’t, it will be my failing as a writer, not theirs as a reader. And in life this happens too – and then whose failing is it? Ours, or the person we fail to see, or maybe there is no point in placing fault at all.

I’ve been concentrating on this a lot lately, trying to see inside my characters so I can let the reader see too. To practice, I do my best to really open my eyes to the people around me. Focus my vision. It’s hard.

We were staring right at those little capelin, and all we saw was water. How often do we stare at the people around us – the man in line at the grocery store, the woman we pass on the street, maybe even our own family members, thinking we know them, thinking we see them, and that what we see is all that’s there? When in reality there is something more – something alive and vibrant just below the surface. How often do we walk away from someone because we don’t know how to look for the thing in them we’re really searching for?

I didn’t get my National Geographic experience, but I got something else – really cold hands.

What’s a ‘capelin’ moment you had been really waiting for, had all this expectation around, only to have it not turn out to be at all what you’d hoped? Did you end up gleaning anything else from the experience? Share in the comments below.

The Power of This Moment

My whole life I’ve struggled with being happy – or at least with being happy for any extended period of time. I’m sure I’m not alone in this. At times happiness seems like this elusive thing, in our grasp for one fleeting moment at a time.

When I was a child I was mocked and ridiculed for my weight, for my goody-two-shoe-edness, for my hair, my dimples, and for things I never quite figured out. At three different times I had friends turn on me and then endeavour to get our other friends to shut me out too. I had no idea why.

I’ve wondered if those experiences in my formative years set me up to be a generally unhappy person or, as my husband jokingly says, an emotional swinger. I have moments of elation but they’re often followed by moments of sadness, discontent, and listlessness. One thing goes right and I ride on that wave for awhile but inevitably some uninvited circumstance slithers my way and pulls me under with it. When this happens things that would usually only cause a moment of frustration or disappointment can pile on top of each other and leave me feeling completely hopeless.

Now, this isn’t an all the time thing but it happens enough, and sometimes for long enough periods of time, that for years I wouldn’t have called myself a happy person. That’s changing. I think this has something to do with finally deciding to follow my dreams and fully commit to that, even though it’s scary. I think it also has something to do with a book that is taking me a ridiculous amount of time to read but that gives me amazing insights when I do.

Last week in The Power of Now I read about the person who says, “When I obtain this or am free of that – then I will be okay.” And it struck me that that’s basically how I have been living my life. I am incredibly blessed in so many ways. I have so much good in my life but so often I let what I don’t have or what’s going wrong overshadow what’s going right. On a subconscious level I think this one thing needs to change for me to be happy. But the thing is, when that one thing does change there’s always going to be another one thing. I’ve railed to myself in the past – why can’t I be content, be happy with where I am and what I have at this moment? I’m finally starting to …

Close your eyes – seriously. Give it a try. (Okay, you’ll have to open your eyes to read what comes next but then close them.)Feel your body, feel yourself inside your body. Is there anything you truly need at this moment? Truly? Be really honest. Think about the word ‘need’ in it’s most basic form. I doubt there’ll be many of you who don’t already have whatever it is you really need. You’ve got life – and what’s more important and precious than that? You are complete, just as you are.

Now hold onto that feeling – you’ve got everything you need – right here, right now. You are alive. Isn’t that awesome? Isn’t that wonderful? Everything else is just frosting on the cake.

If you can’t be happy in this moment there’s a good chance nothing else will bring you happiness either – at least not that lasting happiness we all hope for. So focus on the now. And the next time you feel that little slithering hand trying to pull you down under into the doldrums go back to this moment, take a deep breath, and realize that you can choose to let that thing pull you under or you can simply acknowledge it’s presence – maybe it sucks, maybe it’s awful, maybe it’s really hard – but know it’s not you and it doesn’t have to define you.

Do you believe you can be happy – right now – despite your circumstances? Have you ever struggled to be content with where you are or what you have in life – how did you rediscover joy?  Please share in the comments below!

Go Ahead – Follow Love

The past two posts I’ve talked about fear and courage. My life has been filled with a lot of both of those lately.

Yesterday I was trying to think about what was meaningful for me to share this week – I came up with nothing.

Yesterday I also happened to have one of those days when, despite an awesome writing session that reminded me how much I love doing what I’m doing, I ended the day feeling fearful, uncertain, and stressed that all of my effort and all of my passion might never turn into a fulfillment of my dreams.

This morning I woke up to see my brother had posted this video. There are no more words I need to say.

A little bit of Courage can go a long, long way.

In my last post I talked about fear. On the other side of that is the elusive little quality of spirit we call courage. Courage can come in many different forms. The pursuit of courage is part of why we watch movies, read books, and follow the tales of notable people. We want to see the courage they display and see how they become the type of people who can overcome the odds, make a difference.

In today’s society we don’t have many opportunities to slay literal dragons (in my mind, there were actually societies that had this opportunity)but we do get small opportunities to be courageous every day. If you’re like me, you let many of these opportunities pass you by. For some, you actually are courageous but don’t acknowledge yourself as such. For others, you stay hidden in the shadows or simply don’t act.

In my writing, I strive to create characters who are courageous – who inspire. I don’t write action or adventure and so sometimes this isn’t easy. I wonder – do my characters have enough agency? Are they slaying their figurative dragons and doing it in a way that makes a reader want to continue turning pages? When it comes down to it, I usually have to focus on a more subtle form of courage. I have to find an inner fear and give my character a moment of victory as she overcomes it. And as she triumphs through these small, almost unnoticeable moments of courage, she paves the way to make whatever final choices need to be made for her to internalize whatever life lesson will help her grow into a memorable character to the reader.

You see, sometimes courage is as simple as just showing up or, once you have, not running away with your imaginary tail between your legs. Sometimes courage is nothing more than sticking it out through a brief moment that helps prepare you for the day a life changing moment comes your way.

I had one of those little moments myself last weekend. Despite my resistance, my excuses that there were probably better and more efficient ways to spend my time, I found myself in a room with about 120 strangers – most of whom were published and notable authors. So there I am, standing in a corner, trying to not look like the proverbial wallflower as everyone around me talks and laughs and makes introductions. Finally, I decide – food. I can at least get some food and then maybe I won’t look so out of place. I head to the table and within moments someone is talking to me. I’m pretty sure he’s mistaken me for someone else but I roll with it and start chatting to this author whose book I liked enough to write a 30 page paper on six years previous. I use the fact that, although he doesn’t know me, I know him and we’ve emailed, as my “in”. This chat lasts for a few minutes and I feel pretty good that I’m actually ‘mingling’ until, of course, somebody else claims his attention. To avoid standing there awkwardly I walk through the crowd, circling the room as I make my way through this endless cluster of literary heroes. (Apparently walking awkwardly is somehow less awkward than standing awkwardly.)

About three laps in, I’m about to leave. I’m even about two feet from the door but a little flicker of courage lights up. I tell myself ‘no.’ I walk through the centre of the room. I go back over to that author, who introduces me to the person he’s talking to, who then invites me out to dinner with them. I go. I spend the next several hours talking with a group of people I hope to one day be a part of. I get some tips. I share some stories. I see that they’re just people, just like me, and I think – if they can do it, I can do it. I will do it.

A poet who has been publishing for more years than I’ve probably been alive reminds me that sometimes we’ve got to make our own luck and gives me specific tasks she wants me to do on the road to making that luck. She even tells me to report back once I have completed those

tasks. And I admit it – her directions? They scare me.

But I was courageous that night, I conquered one moment of fear. I have it in me. It’s time I prepare for the next.

How have you shown courage lately, or how are you about to? Please share! Maybe your story will give me the courage to help me further mine!