Story Magic

Several months ago, I sat in a writing workshop put on by the wonderful Writer’s League of Texas, and the instructor had us do some quick writing using the skills we were learning about. I wrote about a mailman who fell in love with a woman to whom he delivered mail.  At first he admired her from afar. Then he began reading her mail to learn more about her.  Then he began sending her mail.  There was a boyfriend involved, the mailman grew jealous, the writing exercise ended before I found the ending.  There were a lot of descriptions of her clothing, all of it yellow.  I don’t know why.

I thought no more about these people until last week when I was browsing the stacks of the local library and came across this book:  The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman, by Denis Theriault, translated by Liedewy Hawke.  The back of the book told me it was a story of a mailman who reads people’s mail and falls in love with one of the people whose letter’s he delivers. I was intrigued.  I was hooked.  I checked it out.

What followed was a lovely story about a man’s obsession with a woman through the poetry she writes and sends to one of the people on the postman’s route.  In an effort to continue his relationship with the woman, he takes greater and greater risks, makes wild choices and sees his life unravel because of them.  It is a fun story with a poignant and thought-provoking ending.  It is a far better than the one I began to write in that workshop, and I am grateful that fate brought it to me.

So, the idea so similar to mine.  What’s that all about?  Elizabeth Gilbert writes about it in Big Magic.  Gilbert tells of a story idea that leapt from her mind to that of Ann Patchett when the two met and exchanged a kiss.  She continues to say that instead of assuming or accusing Patchett of stealing her idea, she believes “that ideas are alive, that ideas do seek the most available human collaborator, that ideas do have a conscious will, that ideas do move from soul to soul” looking for a conduit to expression.

Now, I’m not saying that I had the same idea as Theriault, because his book existed prior to my writing exercise, but I do believe there is some magic out there that gets books into our hands the moment we most need them, at the time when they will have their biggest impact.  I believe in synchronicity in the stacks.  I love the idea of ideas having lives of their own, of their searching for someone to bring them into being, a partnership as it were. 

What is this story trying to tell me?  I don’t know.  Yet.  That’s the magic of words, stories, and reading.  They sit with you and continue to work on your soul, teaching you long after you’ve closed the pages.  Perhaps it was a call to interact with more poetry, or to go back and look at old writing exercises.  Perhaps it was a call to discover a new writer.  I think it may have been a call to be more daring in my writing, to take more risks, to make worse things happen to my characters.  What’s the worst that could happen?  Okay, let that happen.  Then what?  Push the boundaries of what’s possible. 

Next time you close a book, ask yourself what it shared with you and why.  And if you’re looking for a good, short read, try The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman. 

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Saint Francis of Assisi

A Review of "Francis of Assisi – A Revolutionary Life", by Adrian House

 

This is a book I have long wanted to read.  How long?  Sixteen years.  It’s been on my TBR list since I worked for our community’s start-up library and oversaw collection development.  One of the perks of the job was to be able to buy some of the books I was interested in.

My interest in St. Francis dates back before then.  Intrigued by the cloistered life and fond of animals, I was drawn to this figure who preached to birds and founded a religious order.  I’ve had the Prayer of St. Francis hanging on my bedroom wall for almost 20 years.  In some ways, you could say I was a groupie, albeit a very ignorant one. 

Like countless others, I knew the story of a man who renounced his family’s great wealth and his partying ways, removed his clothes and took a vow of poverty, then went off to preach to birds.  I had a lot to learn.

This book by Adrian House more than filled in the gaping holes in my knowledge; it did so in an entertaining and thought-provoking way.  It is a dense book, filled with too many Italian names and places to keep straight, but as I kept with it, I was rewarded for my persistence.  I continually came across insightful passages connecting Francis’s journey and thoughts to modern times or to other historical events.

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Pilgrimage

The year is 1568. Queen Elizabeth sits on the throne of England. Mary, Queen of Scots, has fled Scotland seeking refuge with her cousin Elizabeth. Instead, she finds herself imprisoned and turned over to the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury. In March of 1568, a young stonemason, by the name of Robert Smythson, leaves Caversham, where he has been working for the Queen Elizabeth’s cousin Sir Francis Knollys, and travels to Longleat in Wiltshire, to join the workforce of Sir John Thynne. He will spend the next twelve years building one of the most beautiful homes in England for a man renowned for his demands for perfection and stinginess, before moving north to oversee the design and building of Wollaton Hall for Sir Francis Willoughby and finally Hardwick Hall for the Countess of Shrewsbury.

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Trees, continued

I first mentioned my current obsession with trees here.  Please, allow me to continue to ramble on.  My current WIP takes place in a dense forest, similar to or based on the dense forests in southwest Germany or the Alsace region of France.  The story is fairy tale-like, evoking (I hope) the magical forests of classic fairy tales.  Trees shelter and protect characters in danger, they warn of intruders, they supply needed medicines, and generally act as a force for good for all the forest inhabitants.

Then, I came across this delightful book:  The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate, by Peter Wohlleben.   This is not a case of life imitating art, but surpassing it.  This is a case of truth being equal to or better than fiction.  Turns out, trees found in dense natural forests really do all those things, at least for each other.

Wohlleben manages forests in Germany, and he writes with great affection of trees interconnected with one another through their root systems, sharing nutrients, supporting and nurturing sick trees back to health, even supplying nutrients to a seemingly dead stump.   He tells of trees releasing toxic substances to deter pests, then other trees reading the situation and releasing their own toxic substances.  Trees are communicating with one another for the good of the entire population, they work together to establish a local climate or ecosystem in which they all benefit.  Overall, he sees a group of related trees functioning as a single unit, much like an ant colony.

Other topics include the maternal instinct of some trees, who actually slow the growth of young trees, because a slower growth is associated with longevity, the interaction between trees and other organisms such as mosses, birds, or ivy, and how trees recovery from injury.   Time is measured differently for trees, with units of decades or even centuries, rather than hours or days.  The dramas that unfold in a tree’s life cycle unfold very slowly.

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A writer’s prayer

Let the air and ideas float around me
While I sit among papers and words.
Let me submerge myself in fable and adventure
And grasp the whisper on the wind.

Today let me live in possibility,
Allowing myself to wander in wonder,
Daring to imagine the infinite
Possible combinations.

For you, O Lord, are a God of word and story.
The creator, who created me to create.
To live a life of self-expression and
Quiet the voice of denial and doubt.

I pull hope from the corner of my heart,
And banish wounds of criticism and fear.
I hold my offering gently in my hand and ask
Your spirit to breath it into life.

O creator God, create afresh in me.
Allow me to dig deep and bring forth
Character – both within and without.
Bless the work of my hands, O Lord.
Bless the work of my hands.

 

By Katherine J. Scott

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