Writing what you know allows an author to relax, shove aside the arduous task of plotting, the exhausting job of establishing characters and to free one’s self from the process of over-thinking. Lost in the process of thought you are less likely to experience the present moment through your heart. The surprises and fun are often locked, moribund, inside the structure of your best efforts.
Strive for spontaneity in your writing. Don’t struggle to achieve a particular outcome, or force your characters to fit a particular role. To grasp after structure and details often means that your effort shows up on the written page without the easy balance of a relaxed spontaneity. If you can open up your heart and stop relying on your thinking thoughts, turn off the editor in your head, you can become the observer of pure imagination, and tap into your memories, through Zen.
Writing from experience catapults you beyond the mind and straight into the realm of sense experience with all of the details to be remembered. With the help of Zen, been-there, done-that memories flood in, opening your mind, allowing the creative juices to flow without fear of not getting the details right.
That’s not to say you don’t need to research the setting. The river might have changed course since you last floated down it on a raft, but you’ll find it comforting to write about places you’ve been and things you’ve seen firsthand. So sit back comfortably on your cushion, hold your spine erect and make your body so comfortable you almost forget you have one.
Follow the passage of your breath in and out without any need to alter its rhythm. Allow your thoughts to come as they will, but don’t hang onto them. Acknowledge their presence and allow them to go just as they came. Do not reinvent the wheel, but use the richness and texture of your experiences to give you a needed boost.
You’ve all noticed a baby crying on its mother’s lap. Did the child tug your heartstrings because all your little ones have left the nest? Are your memories of their childhood pleasant?
Or are you remembering the moment an offspring broke your heart? Perhaps you were doing the laundry and she came down and sat on the stairs. She didn’t say anything for the longest time. The spin cycle started… You could see that she was trying her best not to cry, just as you were.
Capture the moment. Use it to your advantage. Put those feelings into the scene you must write.
Remember your grandfather plowing the field behind the house where you grew up, the white mule pulling his plow, the smell of the rich, dark soil. Did you hear the sound of just-snapped pole beans dropping into a metal bowl like the first sprinkles of a rain on the metal roof. The memory of the year blight killed all your father’s tomato plants and you had to do without your greatest pleasure — eating your fill of tomato sandwiches in the summertime — passes through your mind and you taste the sweetness of vine-ripened fruit.
Now, remember the gurgle of the river, the lonely coo of a morning dove as you floated by, the dank smell of the riverbank, the sun warming your back. Reach deep inside for all those memories you long-ago tucked away, of noisy streets and jostling crowds, the man running to catch a train, his dejected look when the train pulled out without him, the nervous chatter of weary travelers awaiting their turn at immigration.
Put yourself on the deck of a passing cruise ship because you booked a stateroom on a ferry plying the waters of Alaska’s Inland Passage. The three day journey to Bellingham, Washington took you through a pod of Orka whales, past lonely lighthouses. The vastness of the wilderness overwhelmed you. Incredible. One evening the Captain’s voice came to you over the loud speaker as the ferry made a scheduled port stop. A bell dinged once. Raindrops slid silently down your cabin window. You snuggled under the thick wool blanket with a thriller you hoped to finish reading instead of going ashore.
How much different is a Princess Cruise from the trip you took? Surely the passengers wouldn’t need the down jacket you wore on shore in Haines, Alaska.
You settle deeper into your cushion. Allowing your mind to continue to wander. This time you’re in Tuscany, the sun again warm on your back. Taxi drivers kid each other outside your hotel in the musical Italian language you like to hear, but can’t understand. The stone sidewalk is rough beneath your feet as you walk past the taxi stand. The smell of garlic and tomatoes simmering on someone’s stove makes your mouth water.
Let Zen be a part of your writing. Unfetter your mind, but keep your butt firmly in your chair, hands on the computer keyboard as words flow from your fingertips. You’ve seen all these things, if only through the books you’ve read. You’re a writer. You feel things, absorb things, tuck away memories you hope to use one day.
My special thanks to John Evans of Marin County for helping me tap my memories.
Now, close your eyes and remember, then let your fingers do the work. That’s what I did when writing Restored Dreams, my latest release from Desert Breeze Publishing, Inc., a novel inspired by an old Victorian house about ten miles from where I live.
The house is now home to the Lakeside Historical Society, but I had no difficulty imagining holiday celebrations within those century-old walls, the homeowner carving a twenty-six pound turkey while his growing family looked on.
Who once lived in this house? I pondered.
In waltzes Treasure Montgomery, my house-poor heroine trying to keep the old house she inherited from her great aunt in good repair on a teacher’s pay. Can she?
Sure, if she lets Buck help. He’s a champion rodeo rider, now retired, who came to her town on a mission to help the underdog.
If Treasure refuses to accept charity from Buck or anyone else, how is she ever going to replace her leaky roof and prevent further damage?
Restored Dreams is available for download here: http://stores.desertbreezepublishing.com/-strse-template/Toni%20Noel/Page.bok
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Blurb: Restored Dreams
Her roof leaks, the plumbing, too, but on a teacher’s salary Treasure Montgomery can barely pay the taxes on her property, so the list of needed repairs to the grand Victorian house she inherited from the aunt who raised her continues to grow.
Treasure surrounds herself with other people’s children, seeking some fulfillment in an otherwise empty life until she meets Buck. A retired rodeo rider turned philanthropist, Buck willingly donates his labor to anyone who needs a helping hand, spending his father’s ill-gotten fortune to make amends for his father’s bad deeds, but Treasure wants no part of his charity.
Buck persists. Treasure resists, and he turns to subterfuge to get around the obstacles she throws in his path. She learns the truth and fears she might lose her house to Buck. How wrong can a woman be about the man with whom she’s fallen in love?
Excerpt: Restored Dreams
Teaching at Lakeview Middle School is a breeze. Holding this Victorian house together is what’s sapping my energy, Treasure Montgomery thought as she approached her ranch east of San Diego.
She stepped into her kitchen after a long day in the classroom, turned her back on the paint peeling off the hundred-year-old cabinets, and reached for The Thrifties.
First things first. I may as well get this over with.
The unread mail could wait. Finding another repairman to finish her upstairs bath repairs couldn’t. Not when the man she’d hired to do the work had ripped up her floor, then quit.
She started making calls.
Nine calls later, she was no nearer finding a handyman she’d trust to do the work. Some of the men she talked to had even laughed at her.
“You’ll pay what?”
“Try me again next fall.”
“Get real, lady.”
What am I going to do?
At the sound of a vehicle turning down her drive, Treasure glanced up. Who did she know who drove an antique truck?
Through the kitchen curtains — those needed replacing, too — she watched a tall man unfold and step out of the carefully-maintained blue truck. His jean-clad legs, like parallel train tracks, were slim and straight. A wide-brimmed Stetson hat hid his face, but she had no trouble making out wide shoulders that narrowed to the belt slung low at his waist.
He was billboard handsome, and not anyone she knew, but he’d look great on her horse. Make that any horse.
Experiencing the usual uneasiness the sudden appearance of a stranger brought, Treasure froze, debating her options as she stared at the closed back door.
Lock it and pretend no one is home?
No. Aunt Bee did that. Not me.
The sound of footsteps crossing her porch caused Treasure’s heartbeat to stutter, then drum in her ears.
The man’s knock, as cocky as his walk, rattled the door.
Wouldn’t do to let the stranger know she’d cautiously watched his approach, Aunt Bee would have advised. Treasure patted her hair, making certain her hair tie still kept her long black hair neat, then waited a moment longer before answering the knock.
“Yes?” she said, opening the door a crack.
“Miss Montgomery?” the man said and removed his hat.
Hmm. Tall. Bushy brown eyebrows overshadowed his eyes but overall, she liked his looks, although he could use a haircut. Chestnut curls hid his ears and the back collar of his denim work shirt.
She nodded.
“Evening, Ma’am. My name’s Buck. Angela Turner called to say you got yourself in some kind of bind and could use my help.”
“Never trust a man with a Southern drawl,” Aunt Bee always warned, an Aunt Bee-ism Treasure wanted to heed, but this man’s mellow way of speaking touched something deep inside, warming her and almost making her smile.
Treasure sighed. “I’m sorry, there’s been a misunderstanding. You see, I teach with Angela and happened to mention that the man I’d hired quit. She never should have called you. I told her I didn’t like the idea of hiring a stranger to work on my house, no matter how highly you come recommended.”
“Appreciate that,” he said, grinning.
“You’re the carpenter who did the Community Hall roof?”
“The church, too,” he said with a grin guaranteed to make women swoon.
Not Treasure. Her first night out with a devastatingly handsome man, he’d destroyed her trust. Now she was immune to good looking men, but apparently not immune to this man’s softly-spoken drawl.
Watch yourself.
Buck cleared his throat. “Nice rural setting for a Victorian house. Now, if you’ll just show me where–”
Unnerved, she tugged on her long hair. “No, I-I can’t do that, but thank you. I’ve lived in Lakeview almost all my life.”
Her stammered words rocked him back on his heels and he cocked his head. “It’s gonna be kinda hard to estimate the work involved if you won’t let me come in.”
Now she felt foolish. She hesitated a moment longer, then stepped aside. “You’re right. It’s just that I don’t have much money, and Hank, the man I’d hired, came–”
“Cheap?” he finished with another wide grin and ducked entering the house. “I understand he quit.”
As he straightened, Treasure gulped. Beware men who–
No. No more isms. This is my house now.
Aunt Bee hated men.
Even after what happened to me, I don’t.
Right or wrong, a man deserved the chance to prove himself.
Even Buck?
His wide shoulders seemed to dwarf her kitchen, and her.
In need of reassurance, Treasure patted her hair again. “It’s the master bath, upstairs. I guess it won’t hurt to just let you see.”
“No, ma’am.”
The way he said ma’am made her feel like a queen watching her favorite knight paying homage on bended knee, a sensation she’d never experienced before.
“This way.” Shoving the uninvited image to the far recesses of her mind, she led him to the stairs, then started up, suddenly self-conscious, feeling his eyes on…
Not my hair, my butt.
“I’m afraid the hall outside the bathroom is a mess,” she murmured, turning sideways to direct his attention elsewhere as she reached the top step.
No, no. This is worse. Now his eyes are on my–
“That’s understandable,” he said with a knowing grin. “You’d have no use for me if everything was in perfect repair, now would you, ma’am?”
Treasure laughed as she reached the landing and turned right. “True.”
“Hmm. Nice view.”
She clenched her fists. How dare he?
She swung around, prepared to boot Buck down the stairs for his unwelcome remark and discovered him peering out the landing window at the barn and the rolling hills beyond.
Oh. That view.
“Is that all yours?”
“I own everything to the base of those hills.”
“Nice,” he repeated, striding toward her.
“Yes, it is,” she agreed, scurrying ahead of him down the hall. And you’re even taller than I thought.
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Toni Noel - No hitting below the belt in Toni Noel’s romantic suspense novels chock full of intrigue. She hits the unsuspecting reader right in the heart in Law Breakers and Love Makers with a hero to fall for at the same time he is falling back in love with the heroine. Her second novel, Temp to Permanent released by Desert Breeze Publishing, Inc., is about an office romance with a suspenseful twist. Decisive Moments pits a gutsy photographer and the owner of the boarded-up house she desperately needs to photograph. He is equally determined that no one enters his childhood home, the scene of terrible tragedy when he was four. In her latest release, Restored Dreams, a house-poor school teacher and a cowboy philanthropist disagree on how to repair her Victorian home. Before writing fiction, Toni, working in the communities where she lived, established two church libraries, presented puppet shows for preschoolers enrolled in Head Start, and worked with city officials to secure a library for her growing community.
Contact Email: toninoelwriter@gmail.com
Website: www.toninoelauthor.com
Blog: http://www.toninoelauthor.com/blog.html
Other Links: twitter @toninoelwriter
Buy Links: http://stores.desertbreezepublishing.com/-strse-template/Toni%20Noel/Page.bok
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