Today is the Middle Of NaNoWriMo, or 25,000 Words

Just My Books and I

Candles from my Dad and Grandma to guide my way

 Writing has changed from when I first began thinking seriously that I could write a book. Well, no, I'd been thinking I could do it since I was a toddler, but getting started, Now That was a different matter.

     I began with a blank notebook and a stack of note cards and a trip to the library to dig into the multi-volumed encyclopedia set of course. This was how I had begun writing all those required papers back in Jr. High, and High School, and at College.

    Now I sit at my computer or tap on my hand ha
eld device and when I need to answer a question I don't have to drive to the library, or even walk across the room to get a stack of notecards, and when I need to know how to describe Mr. Vesuvius in detail, I can read other people's descriptions, or see their paintings, pictures and video.

     When I started my Nano Novel I was already knowing it would be a conversation between two boys, one living in the days leading up to the 79 AD eruption of Mt. Vesuvius at Pompeii, and one living in the months before the 1980 eruption of Mr. St. Helens. But I am a Nano "Pantster" meaning I don't outline ahead of time, but take my characters and a faint idea and we jump off the Nov. 1st cliff and fly by the seat of our pants toward the goal.

     So I have spent some time writing, alternating with time on Google earth seeing street view and satellite views of the volcanoes. I have watched you-tube video of kids snowshoeing on Mt St Helens and of a determined old man who died because he wouldn't be evacuated since he was a Mile and a huge forest say from the volcano and his mountain wouldn't hurt him.

     Then I have taken every day at work, and grabbed a scratch piece of paper and on every break and lunch time, written or sketched in my novel. So some editing happens there, when I type from a pencilled written piece first, but editing is not supposed to slow down the passionate rush of story this month.  Oh, and neither is blogging.  Oooooopsy daisy.

My sons loved the same picture book I did
Look Out for Pirates
So I made them a poster with their faces

My life has been filled with books, and it started with these, the kids picture books that were always abundant in our house even when we were low on money for almost everything else. On the wall is the quilt from my crib that my grandmother made for me.

You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be
I had a Mother who read to me.
  --Strickland GillianOr 

The Growth of a Story

When I began to tell my sons stories about Duffy Barkley and the fantasy world of Uhrlin, it was only natural to incorporate the things I knew with the things we imagined.  So I told them short stories and the stories grew longer as my children asked questions which had to develop answers.

 My love of dolphins and merpeople is one of my first memories, and as a small town, Wyoming, land locked child, I remember fighting with my mother when I was barely a toddler, angry that she hadn't named me "flipper."  I also had an intense love of Keiko, the free-willie whale who lived for a few years just north of us when my own children were toddlers, and the killer whales markings influenced the coloring I chose for my own mer-people and their Princess SeaBee.

 The lovely water of the Smith River in summer always reminded bye of living, liquid jade, and provided the first inspiration for flowstone.  Flowstone, is a colony of microscopic creatures who form a group which can be solid or liquid based on how fast they vibrate and which lives symbiotically with a tamarin like creature, forming the clothing and homes of the city of Oohline.  From a distance Oohline looks like a cluster of green grapes or a pile of glass fishing floats.  Well, finding one of those floats washed up on the beaches where  we live now is a goal like a treasure hunt.  Then one day, building sand castles with my youngest son, the castle kept crumbling and he'd scoop up and re-use the sand, and the idea of a city, where the rooms could detach and move around was born.  And the boys loved trampolines, and we thought how much fun it would be to live where the land was like a trampoline, and then we wondered if you would even walk if the land was that springy, so the tamarin, monkey like creatures began to roll up like a ball and bounce, and so did their flowstone bubble homes.

 I started sketching and painting images from the story which made me think of even more details.

I was a teacher of young children with severe handicaps, a role I grew into after being blessed with a brother with Down's Syndrome.  Most of my students had been amazingly strong, loving people who thrived with teaching and attention, and the ones I found able to express themselves had very strong opinions, so I made my main character a very opinionated 9 year old with Cerebral Palsy who hated being told "No"

 I wrote out our stories and drew a map and edited and re-edited the book, and still thought of it as a simple thing that I could share with the two boys I loved so much.  And then I printed it, and a sequel and now I find myself in the curious, wonderful position of not being the only one who knows and loves Duffy.

 I grew up by Yellowstone, so part of my fantasy land had strong ties to that amazing landscape

 but I live in the redwoods by the sea so towering first and ocean found a place there too.

 And my best friend as a child, was this chimp, named Judy after the one on Daktari, and many of the characters in Uhrlin have something of Judy in them, and something of the toddlers my children were.

Now, I am delighted to look on line and discover other people talking about my characters, and reading my books and leaving wonderful reviews on the kindle and paperback sites on Amazon.  I always wanted to be a storyteller, but i had never realized how much of myself would show up in my stories, or how much fantasy is shaped by my life.