What lurks in the deep

 via burgerdreams

Last night I wrote a pivotal chapter in my novel.

I’ve finally hit my relatively modest goal of 50 000 words since starting in November 2008 (!) The story has swelled and is continuing to grow despite me, though I’m eager to end it – even if it means writing a purely arbitrary finale – so that I can begin the very scary journey of EDITING! (eek!)

Anyway, last night I wrote a pivotal chapter. It was emotional, scary and at times I wanted to stop but I couldn't. I find that writing upsetting scenes come naturally to me. Most of the time I struggle to write even 300 words in one sitting. But when the content is distressing or moving and when I find myself asking the question "can I show this to other people", my writing becomes fluid, I can punch out 1000 words in under an hour and it is mostly coherent.

I have a few scenes in my novel like this. Scenes that I seriously question whether I have the stomach to edit, expand and prepare for a second/third/fourth pair of eyes to read. The scenes are not morbidly grotesque or terribly depressing, but they are dark and confronting. Sometimes they are themes that stem from dark times in my own life - though they are always fictionalised extensions of what I have experienced.

Despite the fact that it is fiction, sometimes the emotion of traumatic scenes, that my characters face, get to me. I've gotten emotional while writing about four or five key scenes while writing this piece. One of which I don't know if I'll ultimately include at all in my second draft. I feel like I can communicate the scene well enough and it defines the behaviour of one of the main characters... but I don't know if I want the content, I don't know if it has a place in the bigger story, I don't know if I can go back to it to improve and manipulate the first raw scribbling.

Have you experienced this? What do you do when your content gets too close to home? What do you do when it gets too far from home and you find yourself a little lost

Ps. If you want to read an extract of my WIP click here (1) and then here (2) let me know what you think!

What, a disappointment?!

"the octopus in the room"

I wrote a comment on someone else's blog a few weeks ago, which I've really wanted to share here. I've held off until now, because it could be seen as offensive to certain members of my extended family. But this is it, these are my experiences, and I've lived to tell the tale and I've risen to make meaning out of these seemingly random events that I've encountered, and so and so and so... I'm hoping these people either don't go online enough to bother with this blog and/or appreciate the beauty that I have found in the midst of ugliness.

Sarah Wilson (Australian journalist) recently posted about lowering expectations as a way of being pleasantly surprised by life. I get what she's saying, don't set yourself up for a fall by expecting to much of yourself and others. But part of me feels like this is pretty defeatist. "If I train myself not to expect much, I won't be disappointed by the nothing that I get and therefore I'll be happy." It sounds ok, but all you're doing is trying to protect yourself from disappointment, as though you can trick yourself into not being disappointed, as though disappointment is something you can foresee and avoid.

I think the let downs are one of life's most useful things. The way a person responds to disappointment can either build or decay their character (and sense of humour!). I think that we should have the highest expectations of ourselves and others, as this is what propels us forward. 

If happiness is the goal, I think disappointments are a great opportunity to learn that real joy is NOT something that comes from the outside in. I expect a lot from the people around me, but I don't hold anyone responsible for my happiness.

A lesson: My 21st Birthday was spent in South Africa with my huge extended family. The gifts were beyond tragic: 2kg candles in the shape of faces, a holographic dolphin cuff-watch, and a furry leopard skin and diamante purse. But what topped this bizarre 12 year old themed list was the commemorative plate with a photo of my face stretched, so that I resembled a beardless swami, across the front from my most beloved uncle. The horrific plate was immediately passed around the large circle of Aunties who sporadically exclaimed “oh sooooo beautiful”, “sooooo thoughtful”. All of this could have sent me over the edge of self-pity and binge eating, but instead I kept a plate-stretched smile on my face and thanked every one earnestly for my gifts. Though I was not thankful for the trauma, I was genuinely thankful for the thought, the gesture, the kindness in their eyes, the love that I felt radiating from them toward me. Yes, I was very thankful!

I didn't need the Tiffany's bracelet or the subscription to Vogue Living or the Eames inspired wall hooks that's been sitting on my wish list for the last two years! I got a stack of crappy presents and something far more enduring and inexplicably valuable. (Don't you hate it when a writer writes "inexplicably", it's like "Come on, you're the wordsmith, give us an explication. That's just lazy." Well it's not lazy, it was beautiful beyond words, so why don't you back off cause you're ruining this touching moment.)

To be honest, that awful plate has given me more joy than any other gift I have ever received. I still have it, hidden in some dark place. One day soon, I’m going to dust it off, serve a delicious dinner for Mat on it and share the joy.

Out of reach

My father passed away when I was 13 years old. I closed the chapters of sadness and anger a long time ago, but the other night I had a dream about him, which woke me up and made me think.

In my dream we'd planned to catch up before he went to court to hear the verdict of a trial against him. He was told to wear a very respectable looking suit, but all he had were an old pair of suit pants which he cut into long shorts and a non-matching tweed suit jacket. He looked like a crazed hobo.

But he was gentle and when he talked all I could think was how much I'd missed his voice, how much I'd forgotten what it sounded like. I had only meant to stay with him for an hour, but I felt that I controlled time, so I made one hour more like two or three.

I also felt like the "verdict" to come was in my control, but I didn't know which way I would let it go. Innocent and free to see each other whenever we wanted or guilty and locked away for 22 years. I woke up before I had decided.

Once fully awake, I felt a dull ache in my chest. When we both lived and resided in the same country, he was never really close to me for long enough - I only visited him every second weekend as a kid. Now, even if he were still alive, he would live 1000s of km away from me. Even in my dreams he is just a little out of reach. It's like that relationship was never meant to be.

It made me think. There are some people who, no matter how much you love them, you can't bridge the gap. Maybe we're not supposed to. Instead of living in the past, maybe we should look around for the people that are within reach and love and cherish and be thankful for them.

Ghost boy.

When I was 9, there was a very strange boy in my class. He was a trouble maker He was aggressive scruffy and a loner. He was also very fairskinned with white-blonde, wirey hair, which was the strangest thing of all in a predominantly "Coloured" school in South Africa, 1994.

At some point I realised that this strange person had a very strange attachment to me. It may have been because I seemed to be the only person in our school who was not afraid of him. It's likely that I yelled at him about something or the other. The truth is, I was afraid of him, of his unpredictability; I just yelled alot as 9 year old.

So one day while walking home from school, a bolt of fear hit me when I turned to see him following me. I gave him "the evils" and then kept walking a little faster, telling myself that in ten minutes I'd be home and my mother would shoo him away like a stray dog. He didn't try to catch up, he didn't say anything. These things that should have reassured me, only made the air between us more tense.

Finally, I was home. As I opened the door, I turned once more to see him standing at the bottom of my driveway, watching me. I pretended to look through him and rather confidently walked into the protection of my home.

My mother was in the kitchen making burger patties for dinner. I ran to her and began ranting about him. About how much I hated him.

She seemed to ignore everything I said, until I mentioned that he'd followed me all the way home. She wiped her hands and walked to the front door. I knew it! She was going to let him have it. I began looking around the kitchen for the broom, she would need that to chase him. I loved my mum, she really wasn't scared of anyone, not even creepy ghost-boys.

She opened the door wide enough for me to see that he was now sitting on the kerb of the pavement at the front of our house, looking out at the houses across the road.

Then she did the most absurd thing. Something I never expected, never imagined! She called out to him and invited him in.

I remember feeling panic, like a million tiny ants crawling up and down my arms and legs. Did she want to die today? Seeing him walk into my living room was surreal, like a nightmare that you keep willing yourself to wake up from.

She made both of us sit in the kitchen with her as she cooked a few of the beef patties she had made. I tried not to look at him, but I knew he was sitting very still. Very quietly he answered mum's gentle questions. I don't remember anything she said, I don't even remember the sound of his voice. I do remember my confusion and anger at this intrusion, at my mother's stupidity.

She took us to the table and plated up a fat, juicy burger each; with herb flavoured beef, tomoto, beetroot, lettuce and her spicy secret sauce. I ate about 1/2 of mine, sneaking looks across the table as he gobbled his up. He did not look up from his plate once. Despite how quickly he ate, he did not spill a drop of sauce, or one bit of  lettuce on his plate or on his thin, holey uniform. Mum brought out another burger and he gobbled that one too.

When he finished, he looked up, his eyes glazed with satisfation. He stood up from the table, blurted a soft "Thank you" in mum's direction and then let himself out.

I sat there, starring at the front door and then at my half eaten burger.

I always think of that. About how I saw that kid everyday, but never noticed what mum did in an instant. How she had ignored my reaction to him. How the external things about him that had repulsed me, were the very same things that made her extend kindness.

He never followed me home again

An ode to my mother

What is an ode? I'm not entirely sure. I should probably google terms before I throw them around. But I think I'm getting to the point where my head is so full of useless information that I have to set daily quotas of input, lest I explode.

Okay wait, I couldn't handle not knowing, so I googled ode and it turns out  that it's a bit too poetical for what I'm aiming for here. I'm going for more of a memory of my mother that reminds me of her character and innate goodness, which make me muse on how much I admire and love her. But that's far too long for a blog title, and not nearly as fancy as ode.
Okay now I've spent too long banging on about this and I've probably lost all your interest in what is actually a rather beautiful, moving and inspiring story...if I do say so myself.

So I'm going to end it there and start again some other time.