Hullo, hullo! As you’ve probably guessed, I’m Anna Groover, from Girl with the Binder (girlwiththebinder.blogspot.com), my blog where I write overly long posts about reading, writing, and eating pokeberries (spoiler: don’t do it).
Clara approached me in February (I think, but who knows?) with
the idea of doing this blog swap, and you have no idea how excited I am to be
here. She’s always been an awesome
friend to me, since years ago when she came up to me sporting a cheek-splitting
grin, shook my hand enthusiastically, and said, “Hi, I’m Clara!!!” And you know what’s even better than doing a
blog swap with an awesome writer? Doing
a blog swap with an awesome friend.
Fortunately for me, she happens to be both.
My topic is officially writing and inspiration. If you’ve read my blog, you know that I have
trouble staying on one topic, and I tend to ramble, but for y’all’s sakes, I will
try to keep it as trimmed and succinct as possible (ha!).
I’ll probably put in little clips of my writing whenever I feel
like it, but the first, and main, piece is here; Rivenbark, one of my favorite things I’ve ever written. I was actually unsure about using this piece,
because it’s over a year old, and I have newer stuff, but in the end it came
down to inspiration, and Rivenbark is
a great example of inspiration. Below
you see the first two scenes of the book.
. . . . . . . . .
Theodore was reading the morning newspaper
as he did every day when his mother entered.
He had originally started doing it only to imitate his father, but it
soon developed into a habit. Mother
placed a kiss on his cheek and glanced over his shoulder. “Oh, Theodore, do you see that? The water situation just seems to get worse
and worse every day over there.”
He folded the newspaper, following his
father’s example. “Women should not read the news.
It ruins their disposition.” “Don’t
worry, Mother. I’m sure the drought will
be over soon.” He attempted to kiss her
cheek, hit her ear instead, and focused on the wall clock behind her, a little
ashamed of himself for being too distracted to give his mother proper
affection.
“And how’s my son today?” Father
bellowed as he stormed his way over the stairs, seeming as always as if his
very presence would tear the house apart in an instant. His grey beard was neatly trimmed, with not a
hair out of place, and his suit was flat and perfectly fitted. Theodore would never expect differently.
Still, he mused, perhaps a surprise
would be welcome just once. Perhaps
Mother would neglect to put her hair up before coming downstairs, or Father
would dress in a t-shirt and overalls.
At the thought, he smiled. The
image was just too ridiculous.
“I’m well, Father.” He took a sip of his black coffee and
straightened his tie. “And yourself?”
“Grand!”
And there. That was it.
The Norwood family had accomplished its daily morning interaction, and
they were set until dinner. Theodore
returned to his newspaper, feeling a strange combination of disappointment and
relief.
Father cleared his throat. “Actually, Theodore, there’s something we’d
like to discuss with you.” He waited for
his son to look up, a long pause taking place, during which Mother could be
heard pouring milk into her tea, adding sugar, and stirring. She sounded nervous, Theodore thought,
listening with rapt attention, though he seemed utterly fascinated with the
paper in his hands. At last, as she sat
down next to him at the table, he looked up, fully meeting both of their eyes
before speaking a word.
“Oh?”
“I’m going to see a client in Norway in
two weeks. We--your mother and I--due to
several complications in this case, are going to be staying there for four
weeks, which means you will be staying here alone.”
They looked at him for a reaction. Theodore didn’t give them one. It was obvious they expected some kind of
response: fear, irritation, happiness, et cetera. However, he didn’t see how them going to
Norway for four weeks would be that dramatic of a change. He was sixteen years old and could take care
of himself. The servants would prepare
food, and his time would be spent with Sebastian. The only things he would be losing were
distantly affectionate greetings in the morning and sober candle-lit dinners in
the evening that never amounted to much.
“Theodore?” his mother prompted, and he
responded with a smile. The kind,
charming smile he forced on his face when confronted with irritating but
important strangers.
“I wish you well on your journey and
thank you for your trust in me.” Father
frowned. Mother’s face fell. Theodore picked up his coffee cup and took a
sip, the dark liquid tasting like guilt in his mouth.
Two weeks later, he sat in that very
spot right after his parents left for the airport. He found himself looking at the clock, at its
habitually swinging pendulum. The tick
tock reminded him of the passing of time, and he almost growled in frustration,
but instead formed his features into a cynical smile. Clocks were prone to habit. How typical.
And how very depressing.
“It’s inexcusable,” Theodore announced. “Absolutely inexcusable, Sebastian. I find myself bored.”
Sebastian looked over at his friend,
noticing the way Theodore’s eyes were narrowed in frustration, his lips pressed
in a straight, firm line. Every feature
of him spoke rigidity. Though only
sixteen years old, Theodore Richard Norwood IV was more imposing a picture than
most adults.
“How about a trip to Arrowood?” he
suggested.
“I have been to Arrowood,” the boy
said, his voice dripping with disapproval.
“I like it. It belongs to
me. But I have been there, and there is
a whole world outside of mine that I have not explored.”
“And?”
“I want to explore it. I’ve come to realize that there is something
that appeals to me
about always taking the hardest way.” Theodore’s
gaze was unreadable, his face bathed in evening light as he stared out across
the river. A face like stone, Sebastian
thought. A wall more impenetrable than
any ancient civilization had ever built.
“If you’re trying to make
things as difficult as possible, you’ll never be disappointed. Life will be regretless.” A hint of a smile cracked the stone
wall. “Of course, it’s hope that gets in
the way. It’s hard to prepare for
despair when there’s a nagging expectation that something good will happen.”
Sebastian didn’t say a word. He knew that whatever Theodore said next, it
would be important. Really, things that
his best friend said were almost always important. But Theodore was evidently restless, and that
meant anything could happen.
A bird called out as it dipped low over
the water, and Theodore’s eyes followed it, he evidently lost in thought. Sebastian tore a piece of grass apart,
waiting for his companion to speak.
“Pack your bags,” Theodore said
suddenly. “We leave tomorrow.”
Sebastian was used to surprises, so he
merely nodded. “Where to?”
Theodore looked calmly over at
him. “Somewhere far away. Somewhere very, very different.”
.........
Now, I said something very important back there that you may or
may not have missed. I said, “It makes
me excited.”
Rule #1: Never write
something that you’re not excited about.
So in case you’re wondering, yes, that “1” right there means there
will be more rules. I know, I know, this
is a post about inspiration! It’s
supposed to be wild and free, unencumbered by all the rules and regs of
structured life!
I’ll tell you right now, and don’t you forget this, that
without rules, without structure, inspiration has no place to thrive.
Now onward! Let’s see
about applying Rule #1 to our excerpt. I
was fantastically excited about Rivenbark,
because of Theodore. What inspired
Theodore was actually Anthony Lockwood from Jonathan Stroud’s Lockwood & Co. Not Anthony himself, though he is a beautiful
character, but how he was described.
Because he WASN’T. Before Rivenbark, my character development was
awful, no doubt about it. I just didn’t
know how to make a believable
character. My books have always been
very character-inspired (I write for the people, through their stories), but I
never actually loved my characters after I’d started writing them. At least not with the passion with which I
love Theodore, or with which I loved the characters I was reading. I didn’t understand a fairly simple, but
profound, rule of CD: more is less.
And so, when I began plotting Rivenbark in the months before NaNoWriMo, I went in with these
guidelines: Theodore is mysterious. This
is good. We do not EVER need to feel
like we know him completely. We will not
even know his thoughts, except for at the beginning and end of the book. Everything in between will be third person
subjective to the people around him.
That being said, the book is about him.
I was excited by this, excited to try out an experiment,
excited to go all in writing a character that even I wouldn’t understand. I mean, why do you think I wouldn’t write
from his perspective? I couldn’t!
Rivenbark was an
experiment. I was not expecting a masterpiece. I was not expecting it to be
publishing-worthy. What I was expecting
was to follow Rule #2:
Rule #2: Write what you
want to write.
Sounds simple, right?
Sounds a little like Rule #1, yeah?
But whereas #1 was forbidding something, #2 is commanding
something. Yikes, that sounds
harsh. But here’s the deal: you aren’t
inspired by something because of the something. You’re inspired by something because of you. Because
something in you is wired to respond
to that thing, whatever it is.
Do individuals change?
You bet. I change all the
time. You change all the time, even in
the smallest of ways. Can we change
which things we’re inspired by? Because
if what I said up there is true, it’s not about changing external things. It’s something that starts here, in us.
Rule #3: To be an
inspired writer, you must learn to control inspiration to a certain extent,
rather than let it control you.
Some writers take to structure easily. That’s Clara.
Then there are some who are disorganized, clutter-brained, and intent on
plowing on anyway. That’s me. I love my life. God is my Father. My earthly parents are pretty awesome
people. I have seven siblings, each
unique and talented in their own ways.
My whole life, I’ve lived in a really interesting area. I call it the country-ghetto, because it’s
pretty much a fusion of the two. My
childhood was full of conflict with my siblings, and I’ve still got scars from
that, but I never doubt that we all love each other, and we can have the best
times, we eight.
My point is, if I ask myself what I’m inspired by, all I have
to do is look around me. And somehow,
when I wrote Rivenbark, I stopped
trying to write something unique. I
stopped trying to be as good as everyone I read, and I wrote something I wanted
to write. I wrote it because I loved it,
because it excited me, and I gave my inspiration exactly the skeleton it needed
to grow right.
Look, I could write a whole book on this, but this post has
gone on long enough. I’ll try and wrap
it up for you.
Those two scenes you read were messy, and filled with things I
never followed up on. And they
accomplished exactly what I wanted
them to. I got excited. Theodore remained mysterious. Sebastian remained cool (not the right word,
but whatevs, you know). And I didn’t
care one bit that it wasn’t my neatest piece of work! It was glorious. It was fun.
And it was exactly what I needed in order to keep plowing ahead without
care.
Here’s one last thing for you to chew on until my next post,
which will address this a lot more.
Rule #4: Never try to
separate yourself from what you are writing.
I hope that was some sort of help. That was a pretty shallow overview of
Rivenbark and the inspiration behind it, so if you didn’t get all you wanted
out of it, come back and you just might get it.
Thank you, Clara, for having me on your blog! And thank you, readers, for reading
this. Please, feel free to ask any
questions you might have, and do go on over to my blog, Girl with the Binder,
where Clara has her first post up.
