Category Archives: Discoveries

Courage to keep on track

February 17, 2014Books I write, Contemplations, Discoveriesvica

I promised to share my writing experience with you here in my blog. I must admit that I was afraid that as an unpublished author I had nothing to say. Two things helped me to overcome this fear.

The first was that by sharing my experience while I am gathering it, I could help my fellow authors, who go through the same at this very time, who are in the same boat with me, even though an ocean might be separating us, to feel understood and not alone.

And the second was a wonderful post, among many other inspirational posts by my friend and author, Menna van Praag on courage. She opened this post with the following sentece: “Courage is vital to living a fulfilling life & fulfilling your dreams”.

So, I decided to take some courage and to tell you what I wanted to tell.

My post today is about staying on track. You will see in a moment how this is connected to writing a novel.

In the last few days, I started to re-write my first novel.

I’ve edited various snippets here and there on different occasions, but now I came to the beginning.

One of the critique points and advices coming again and again, among other by Menna, and by my niece and best friend, Mihaela, as well as numerous books on creative writing, is to make the main theme, the main goal of the protagonist visible on every page, starting with the first paragraph, through every scene and until the very END.

The protagonist of my novel is based on my father. And the novel about his quest to find his family, which he lost as a child.

A thought struck me: I couldn’t possibly write the same sentence on every page : “I want to find my family”. The hints to this main thread had to be more subtle.

When I started to think of separate scenes and immersed myself into the words I have put on page in the first draft, the solutions appeared almost by themselves.

In the prologue, when Misha, my protagonist, was a child, rescued by a stranger, the solution was very simple. I just had to make him exclaim: “I want to my Mommy and Daddy!” or to ask “Are we going to my Mommy and Daddy?”

But in the first chapter he is in his twenties and the thought process is more sophisticated at this age. And above that, thoughts are not enough. As Menna told me after reading the first three pages of this chapter, I needed “to balance the internal story with some external action”.

So, I took time and put myself into the same room with my protagonist.

I asked him: “What could be there, or what should happen to make you think, yet again, about searching for your family and not pay attention to what was happening in this room?”

And then I saw it. It was a letter addressed to my protagonist from a person and a group of people, who devoted their time to bring families together, who lost each other during World War II.

Just before the start of the book, my protagonist wrote to them to help him with his search. And this letter might have had some news about his family.

This person, real by the way, or rather her letters appear later in the novel as well.

The funny thing is, this letter, in this scene, appeared so naturally. And there was no doubt about it. I shared this idea with my niece, and she said: “Yes, this is it!”

But how do such obvious and yet sometimes unbelievable answers come to a writer. Is there a clue?

I found the answer when I recalled what I was doing when I found the solutions.

What I did was the following. I joined the characters inside their scenes, inside the setting and I just was there. I listened, I watched. I let my imagination flow without stopping it, without analyzing it. And there was only one way it went. The way toward that best solution.

If we try to analyze it, then this probably sounds pretty weird. Just be there. What kind of answer is that?

But this is all I can say and it is as simple as it sounds. Visualizing the setting, getting the situation in front of my eyes, seeing this child craving for his parents, later seeing this adult in his twenties, starting out to find his family, all on his own. This helped me.

I was there, I was aware.

And just as happy coincidence wants it, I have discovered yesterday another wonderful quote in the blog The Kill Zone, posted by James Scott Bell, titled “Writing Wisdom From An Old Pro“, where he brought the following quote by a Hollywood screenwriter, Wells Root:

“A story maker’s urgent priority should be awareness.
A writer is always in his working clothes.”

Picture: Staying on track in Alps, 2007.

It depends how you look at it

February 10, 2014Contemplations, Discoveriesvica

On a long and utterly enjoyable train ride last year from Hamburg to Alessandria, I have discovered the following:

The world outside a moving train moves both fast and slow. The pace of this movement depends on what you focus. If you point and adjust the objective of your vision on the closer objects outside, like trees, building and turnpikes framing the tracks, they haste by and you feel being in a race competing the world outside. But as soon as you widen the objective range to panorama setting and include the farther situated objects, the world slows down to a graceful dance full of harmony.

You can have both. Haste and grace. But not at the same time. At any given moment you have to choose on what to focus: to be fast, not noticing the world around you and trying in vain to catch the details of the blurred images rushing by, or to slow down and enjoy every single detail of your surroundings, no matter how far they may reach.

There are moments when you need to be quick. But focusing on yourself doesn’t allow you to be quick in time. Because, the close-by world just rushes past you and blocks your view onto the wonderful world behind those hills spreading with their infinite possibilities and colorful adventures in time and space.

Picture: A happy attempt to hug the whole world, Vienna, Sep. 2013.

Considering same words in different languages can be very enlightening

January 27, 2014Contemplations, Discoveriesvica

Many of current philosophies and spiritual techniques are talking about the art of being present, mindful, being in the moment. I find the approach introduced by Ariel and Shya Kane, instantaneous transformation, the simplest to grasp and most helpful. They talk about awareness, about non-judgmental seeing and listening, about anthropological way to observe ourselves and others.

Their approach helps me to experiment with the way I view my life, myself, people and basically everything around me.

Today, I was thinking about listening and thought of the German word “horchen” or rather the imperative “Horch!” The latter calls you to listen, to be attentive. The word “horchen” can be also used when describing children listening attentively and with awe to a story or a fairy-tale.

And then, there is the word “gehorchen”, the root of which is again “horchen”. This word means “obey” or “do as told”.

And when I thought of these two words I had an “AHA” experience.

Ariel and Shy say that not many of us can or want to do what and how told. Or as they call it, not many of us can surrender. Ariel and Shya make difference between surrender and succumb. They say that we surrender with our hearts, because we then embrace the idea or request of the other person as our own and we fulfill it with all our hearts.

But in order to be able to surrender we need to listen. Really listen what the other person says, from this person’s point of view. And only then we will be able to truly surrender. So, if you are able to “horchen”, listen to another person as though you are a child listening and being in awe with every word of the story told, then and only then you can truly “gehorchen”, surrender with all your heart.

That was a fun discovery and made me fall in love with different languages even more.

And here is a bonus, side-effect discovery: the contemplation above showed me that different languages are not necessarily misleading, as suggested in the legend of the tower of Babel and as we experience sometimes. Considering same words in various languages can also clarify and help in understanding tricky nuances of our lives. Because different languages offer different perspectives on the same thing.

Picture of a beautiful fairy-tale world around me: Aalborg in snow.

Taken care of by a small child

January 21, 2014A mother's diary, Discoveries, Memoriesvica

As many adults I think small children must be taken care of. This is true and comes naturally to most of us. But it still comes as a surprise to me that our small, not long ago having been toddlers, children are able to take good care of us.

My sister has a kind of allergy or phobia against peach skin. She gets goose-bumps all over even while thinking of it. A bit more than twenty years ago, I watched my three-year old niece peeling the skin of a huge peach. I wondered what she was doing, because the fruit was washed and she didn’t mind eating it with the skin before. As soon as I asked her, she answered: “Mommy can’t eat the skin, so I am peeling it.” She was preparing the peach for her mother. My sister had no idea she was getting a peach. It was her daughter’s idea to do this.

About a month ago, I have put my son into a position to take care of me. It was done unintentionally, and I might have done this before, but this time I became aware of this and enjoyed immensely the lesson I learned.

I came back from a business trip. I had big difficulties to remain awake, already quite early in the evening, because of a Christmas party with colleagues the night before. My son wished me to bring him to bed. In contrast to me, he had difficulties to fall asleep, so I suggested to undo the studio couch in the room adjacent to his and to try to fall asleep there together. He agreed. But even then he turned from side to side, sat up and played with his toys. He was fully awake.

I wanted to slow him down and to make him relax. I asked for his hand. I hoped that holding hands would prevent him from moving too much. But unbeknownst to me I reversed our roles. Usually, he holds my husband’s or my hand when he falls asleep. Now I asked him for his hand. He was taken aback with this. He looked at me thoughtfully, then smiled and said: “You may have my hand, Mama.”

This is the last thing I remember before my husband came to wake me up and to bring Niklas to his bed. As I woke up, I saw Niklas sleeping beside me and holding my hand. He haven’t let it go.

The next morning, I thanked my son for taking care of me. He was extremely proud and talked for a while about this. He has demonstrated me how he closed his eyes, when he saw that I was asleep.

One of the interesting things I noticed: like many children, my son doesn’t like helping. But he loves taking responsibility and taking care of others. As long as he can decide and take control of the situation, he is willing to do what is asked of him. But his way. One of his favorite phrases currently is “you should”. I wonder where he has taken that from … 😉

Picture: my big boy shuffling snow two days ago. He was angry when my husband and our neighbor shuffled away the snow ‘mountain’ he has created. My son was of the opinion, that the pile of snow standing in the middle of the yard wouldn’t disturb the cars coming out of the garages.

Upon the second look

December 31, 2013Contemplations, Discoveriesvica

Christmas holidays are packed with many impressions and events. And these events – meeting family and friends, going to Christmas market, going to cozy restaurants, cooking, going for a walk, to a playground, and many other – come with incredible density, that we often can only grant a first look on what we see and experience.

Photographs are the wonderful means not only to catch a memory but they also give us a possibility for a second look.

Here are some pictures of my holidays these year and my discoveries upon the second look.

A fir tree in front of a house: something caught my sight and made me to make this picture. And when the picture was made I noticed the harmony and how all three fit together: the house, the pattern on it and the tree had a sharp top, all pointing up and the contrast in colors making the bank in front of the house calling to take a seat and catch a breath and look around.

Hot coffee is one of my favorite drinks. Noticing damp raising from a hot drink in a picture, of which I thought to be at first of bad quality, made me sigh with pleasure.

The lights on the tree, above and under it, add a special magic to it. This Christmas tree is framed with light. I discovered this while looking at the picture. Upon the second look.

The picture below was made by mistake on our way to a Christmas market. And now upon a second look I really like it. Many of the pavements we walk are very special and we fail to see them while trying to reach our goals. I am grateful to this “mistake”. It made me appreciate the way I took.

The two pictures below attracted my first look, but looking at them together while writing this post made me realize that we humans are able to make wonderful things out of seemingly mundane things: cabinets with electrical equipment and walls can become eye catchers and smile bringers.