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In Time for a Watchman

32nd Trial: Grey VS Gray. Still clueless

Weekly hours writing or in the pursuit of plot: 6hr

Weekly choice of tea: Ginseng Tea from the Goad household

Biggest Success: Began Chapter 6 and finished Harper Lee’s ‘Go Set a Watchman’

I was apprehensive to begin reading Harper Lee’s ‘Go Set a Watchman’ because, really, I felt the same way Scout did in the novel itself. Do not change Atticus. Do not alter the precious childhood memories produced on the streets of Maycomb County. ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is in us all, with its innocence and its political strength. Lee’s newest release seemed to put us all in check, because Mockingbird left at least myself feeling strong in the ideas of right and wrong, of the ignorant and of the discriminated. And with that strength we could challenge all racial adversaries with the radical mindset of the now developed Jean Louise.

I bring this novel and my review of it to my blog because it harnesses the human power and ability. Watchman supported segregation and hope through slowly lessening prejudice and increasing one’s faith for the future. How can we have a fair and just world? By turning a light switch on and off? Or do we, as Atticus feels, keep our differences until all demographics are on an equal playing field when it comes to education and abilities? I take pride in my strong opinions, as does the family I grew up in, however the element of bigotry threatens my arguments. It threatened Jean Louise.

And yet in this world we need bigots to shout out Right, just as much as we need people like Atticus to keep balance and foster the strength to build. I liked both Jean Louise and Atticus in their opposition, however Jean Louise did annoy me. I find that I dislike extremists–there is nothing progressive about them really. Without a certain amount of balance, understanding, and give, proper change is impossible within a society. It is due time that we set out our watchman, know ourselves and know our environment. With consciousness comes intention, and with intention comes supportive action. Just like a wisp of smoke in the billiard room, politics fly from my mouth with littler substance than the falling snow.

“A man couldn’t vote simply because he was a man, in Jefferson’s eyes. He had to be a responsible man. A vote was, to Jefferson, a precious privilege a man attained for himself in a–a live-and-let-live economy.” Harper Lee, Go Set a Watchman

Next week I fly to Southeast Asia, where Jamie and I will discover new lands and the inevitable inspiration that comes with the beauty and power of the world. I have been familiarizing myself with as much of the culture as I can, reading their beliefs and customs. I am intrigued with the triad of the Hindu religion, the yantra-mantra-tantra triad. Yantra specifically, as it is one’s harness and guidance of their intention and will. I shall go to S.E. Asia, and with my literary inspiration, set my watchman!

 

Will Always a Romance Make

31st Trial: Saying goodbye to Alan Rickman and David Bowie

Weekly Hours Spent Writing or in the Pursuit of Plot: 5 hrs

Weekly Choice of Tea:  Gingerbread Latte

Biggest Success:  Finished typing up Chapter 5 and began brainstorming on Chapter 6

 

Chapter five proved to be an important chapter in my opinion. It has given the book a deeper level, where we now have shaved off the introductory surface of characters and new places and looked more inward. Into the guts of it all!  I am sure no matter how much I spell out the book’s morale the reader will come up with their own interpretation- but alas, one can only hope their message is getting across. Not only do I sense a change in story direction, but it was the novel’s first meet-cute. Anyone who knows me will expect ardent romance and excessive longing within this book, and so with butterflies and giddiness I confess the first stage of courtship has began!

“A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.” -Austen, of course!

How biased I am! A story without the hope of love or the pangs of the heart is no story I would willingly pick up. Action, adventure, and mystery are all very well, and I do sometimes take interest in it if I have had my fill of sappy romance. But a world without love and romance, holds little interest in my mind because that alone is unrealistic. I walk out of the door everyday and fall in love with one person or one object regularly- and that is what makes life worth living. I remember seeing Alan Rickman as Colonel Brandon in the movie Sense and Sensibility, and with his deep voice and sweet gazes he grew deep roots into my heart. In high school, I listened to “Changes” by David Bowie and was taken by his voice and peculiarity. Though these two men have died, I will think of them and the moment I fell in love with them as contributors to my romantic and intellectual education. As expected they were British, and I look to that country yet again with admiration, professing always that something more British will always a romance make.

Rickman and I

The Extraordinary Snowfall

30th Trial:  Began another show on Netflix. Thank the powers-to-be that it is only one season

Weekly Hours Spent Writing or in the Pursuit of Plot: 6 hrs

Weekly Choice of Tea:  Earl Grey

Biggest Success:  Finished Chapter 5

I woke this morning to a winter wonderland. I have settled myself in Ohio, where now the chill in the air makes me feel as though I am home for Christmas yet again. Yet it wasn’t the excitement of running down the hallway to see a tree base full of presents, it was the excitement of the extraordinary. Most mornings I do not wake with such an unexpected snowfall to greet me, especially my years spent down south with the warm, red soil.

There is nothing more exciting than surprise. Adventure awaits, and ultimately always follows! I immediately put on my jacket, hat, and gloves and leashed my dog for our winter walk. After a mile I realized how ill equipped I still was when the piercing wind howled against my face. My suffering was still little against the beauty that surrounded me. A land of untouched snow. Boo Radley quickly mucked up the restful snow with her tint of yellow and messy paw prints. But we were happy.

I set to writing afterwards, with a hot cup of Earl Grey tea, and joyfully concluded chapter five!!! Since being home I have been able to write a lot more, plan a lot more, and sleep a lot more (I could be doing more of the first two and less of the latter). And yet I can only see my place here as extraordinary. I have travel on the horizon and a purpose that evades definition or shape, giving me the hopeful youth of freedom. Each day, if we can only wake up with the eye for the extraordinary, or the ability to see it within the folds of the ordinary, then we can begin each day with more hope, love, and the chance to be better versions of ourselves.

Now, I am off to beat my aunt at Scrabble—cause like I said, though ordinarily she beats me to a pulp at that game, today is a new day!

Art, Love, Loss, and Literature

29th Trial:  Interpretation.

Weekly Hours Spent Writing or in the Pursuit of Plot: 1hr. I am not sad about the lack of writing that has happened this past month–though any reader to this blog must be. I have decided that before Feb 1st, I will have completed chapter 5 and IDEALLY chapter 6.

Weekly Choice of “Tea”:  Gingerbread Latte

Biggest Success:  Jamie and I purchased tickets to visit Vietnam! Everything we own is now in boxes and storage…why not see the world before we have to be responsible adults again?

 

How does one interpret? Art, love, and the inevitable goodbye? Any absence or void leaves behind it a remembrance, just as any writer or painter leaves behind an echo of their voice. Do we look upon such voids or legacies with sadness and loss? Or with warmth and admiration? I had a very eventful visit with Jamie’s family over Christmas break, one in which I was left to ponder loss, love, and art. For one, Jersey their beloved husky, died the morning after Christmas after two emergency visits. The void was suffocating as it was quick and unexpected. While my heart was heavy with the feeling that something was taken that shouldn’t have been, others felt the memory of Jersey lived on and was enough to make their hearts light.

Secondly, we saw the Cleveland Museum of Art, where interpretation thrived in the whimsical strokes of Renoir and Degas, and hardened in the corners of Picasso. They created art that speaks volumes today, and still takes people by alarm and uncertainty.

Thirdly, we saw The Danish Girl, where I cried at any moment of love, longing, and insecurity. It was truly a story of acceptance, and the characters surrounding Eddie Redmayne were, to me, unparalleled in kindness and unprejudiced temperament. I was stunned by the attitudes and the beauty of each character we followed, and my interpretation, while my own, could not be more in favor.

Lastly, I have been so inspired by the aforementioned events, that I look toward the upcoming event in my chapter where I hope to illustrate my thoughts on reality and interpretation. To accomplish this, I reached back to 2014 where I stood in front of the infamous mural by Herakut while I was in Miami, FL.

This mural is pictured for you, and I would love to hear any interpretations you might have!

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Happy Christmas!

28th Trial:  Balance. I have said goodbye to the office that has up to this point become like-family to me, and am now balancing a life on the road and a purpose to substitute.

Weekly Hours Spent Writing or in the Pursuit of Plot: 2hr at a wonderful new coffee shop near home. The Greene shall now become a Room of my Own to escape and write.

Weekly Choice of Tea:  Green Macha Latte

Biggest Success:  I am making a  move from Charlotte! Together Jamie and I are devising a travel scheme and our official move out to California. AND I am now a licensed chiropractor in California!!!

 

Happy Christmas to everyone!!! Here are a few photos from my travels home so far, a few staples that must be visited and enjoyed. In the literary regard– no deep thoughts to unveil there. I am happily content with playing ball with my dog in my parent’s home, watching Christmas movies one right after another, and sleeping in till 10am. Minimal progress has been made on my novel, much to my dismay, but I fully plan that next week you shall hear a different tune.

How exciting. To wake up every morning and approach a blank, white sheet of paper! I realize that I cannot do this forever, however, knowing that the next month will be this way is easy to accept.

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Skyline in Cincinnati

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My Painting hung at my Aunt’s Practice

Dublin Pub

Dublin Pub Birthday Toast

Coke

Stockings

My Muse Must be Magnanimous

27th Trial: Saying goodbye to a home that has become my Muse

Weekly hours spent writing or in the pursuit of plot: 1 Hour (in total since last post)

Weekly Choice of Tea: Christmas Blend

Biggest Success: Eating authentic Austrian Macaroni and Cheese. Philip, my Austrian connection and the one that helped Jamie and I out when she fell off the cliff side, full-filled his promise to make us macaroni and cheese using specific Austrian cheese. There. are. no. words.

It has been two weeks hence since I picked up my laptop to speak again to you all, and I beg that you forgive such absent-mindedness. Over the past two weeks I have been re-packing, selling with vehemence, and planning. Not to mention doing all of this and keeping the Christmas spirit alive! Luckily for me I am back on the couch you saw in the earlier post, sitting peacefully next to the fireplace. This week will be my last week working for a while, until I move to California and begin practicing there. Yes, you heard correctly! I will be leaving my dear Charlotte–a place that has given my novel its voice and its setting. I can only hope that my Muse will morph into the trees and oceans that meet me on my upcoming journey, and does not create a yearning within that dries one’s quill or locks prose in corners I cannot reach.

What is a Muse to me, then, if it be ever changing? Charlotte, and more specifically Noda, has given me song and inspiration as of late. And when I am in California, can She become the seals by the chilling waves of the Pacific? The sweet temperament of sun’s rays on endless coastal highways? Will she be spiteful towards me, for forcing change and inconsistency? My muse must be magnanimous, and without solid shape. A Boggart of sorts!

Do I look forward to this change, this immediate lack of work? Can idleness and inactivity give me any rest or repose? I will make a promise to this blog and to myself:  let anytime away from one passion allow another passion to thrive. Over the next month and a half I will be dedicated to my novel, and will dazzle you surely with witty sense and breath-taking revelations. Surely, I will!

A Room of Her Own

26th Trial: One must escape to create–I pull from Virginia Woolf’s quote a useful writing tip.

Weekly hours spent writing or in the pursuit of plot: 4 Hours

Weekly Choice of Tea: Sweet Macha

Biggest Success: Embracing the life of Carol K. (Grandma Perin)

 

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” -Woolf

I am not unappreciative of where Jamie and I live now, though the windows are painted shut and spots of possible mold intersperse the ceiling like a lethal starry night. The age of the Havisham-house is thick in the air, and Jamie and I share space with each other, our lovely dog, and a roommate of spectacular artist talent!  This is his home, and his space to work on his art. Where, among the dust and walls with ten-layers of paint, could my own personal creativity flourish? I attempt the impossible. I bite the bullet and sit down at the small desk in the corner of our small room, and write. I look at it with disgust typically, and my pen is useless within a half and hour. The attitude of my surroundings is not conducive! I have tried! Yet, tried in vain.

For me to have a successful time writing, I must scoop out $5 and go to a coffee shop in town. “Smelly Cat” is a room of my own, a space where I can focus and feel the juices flowing. I have found that not only a coffee shop makes a writer of me, as this week I house sat at a luxurious, clean, newly modeled home. I spent the majority of the evenings by the fireplace with Christmas music filling the background. I wrote an hour a night, gladly and progressively. What a relief! How simple the concept has become:   fill a space with the objective to calm you, soothe and caress your imagination, and give your mind the ability to think not on toxic fumes that leak from the walls, but instead on its limitless ability to create. The absolute cure for writer’s block as well! I constantly had Boo Radley’s toys or nose in my space where I read and wrote, and I found that there was plenty of room for her as well.

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I would like to end this post not with my acknowledgement of Woolf’s yet-again impeccable ability to hit the nail on the head, but with a tribute to a wonderful woman. Jamie described her grandmother as stubborn and unbending, and as Jamie laughed when she described such qualities, one comes to embrace them. Grandma Perin was a rock in Jamie’s heart, a kind and hilarious woman, who followed the Cleveland Cavaliers with the enthusiasm of a professional scout (of whom I believe she was in a past life). Her kids, her sports, and her home seemed to be her life. Today she passed peacefully, and Jamie and I are happy to think of where she could be now, of what adventures await her. Sending out love and hope to Grandma Perin!

Dumbledore: “To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.”

Peter Pan: “..to die would be an awfully big adventure.”

The Effect of a Pause

25th Trial: CHANGE. I have decided on a change, personally and professionally! So much different weights are now placed on my shoulders. What is next? Where will I go? Will it all Succeed? Will I put aside my literary passions in a desperate pursuit of other future goals or will it be these passions in the end, that I have left to live on?

Weekly hours spent writing or in the pursuit of plot: 2.5 Hours

Weekly Choice of Tea: Sweet Tea. Tapping into the roots that I have developed here in the South

Biggest Success: Last weekend I spent a ridiculous amount of time watching Glee and The 100 episodes. I got so fed up with my addiction, that I have taken a 4 day break from them both.

A speaker came to Jamie’s work to discuss public speaking and self-presentation. Jamie then came home so animated from it, knowing well that I could benefit from the same information. As it happens, I come from a wonderful family-line that is popular for filling any silent space. A pause in conversation can only be wanting. And yet, is not a pause the most powerful thing in observation? In understanding? In absorption, healing, and dramatic effect? As a doctor, do I pause to make sure patients understand what I say, or understand myself what was just asked? Not only do I bring consideration of a pause to my professional life, but also in my methods of being a writer. How can you write of silence, inactivity, and the static background between sentences? I challenge myself today so create a pause in the next few pages.

But let me take this one step farther.  I do not pause enough to consider what will happen after the current chapter that I am on.  When I started writing I realized that I am going to take this chapter by chapter, however I can’t do that for the entirety of the novel. How choppy it could then turn out, and how easily I could lose the breath of certain morals that should flow throughout it. When I sit down to write, I must preserve an hour at least a week to consider the future of the storyline (I know, a simple concept that has sneakily evaded me until now).

Taking such a pause from the current chapter will satisfy novel planning, something I desperately need to work on. However, this does not mean to fill the writing hours with pauses filled with episode-watching on Netflix. I love watching episodes—a little too much! Lately it has been Glee that captivates me. No, I never watched it while it played on cable TV, and the fun high-school drama and breath-taking vocals give me a world to escape to. I have also been watching The 100, which is much different from the carefree world of Glee. It is a show that has recently proven to break my heart with abominable characters that do not act as I have trusted them to. I even went to bed crying after watching an episode, swearing never to watch it again! This series has recently taught me a valuable lesson:  do not escape the world you are in, nor are creating. Some storylines fail you. They cannot be trusted! I only want to be in the world before my eyes, and the world I intend to create. That, I can control.

I am reminded by Austen’s quote, “Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery”. Alas! WWAD (What Would Austen Do). Some pictures from my Inner Eye, developed during my Austen-days in the Lake District!

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Struggles Shared by the Reader, the Writer, and the Open-Water Swimmer

24th Trial: Getting caught in the art of story telling, without infusion of personal opinion, biases, political passions, and ultimately moralities. I have decided to begin a separate journal of my own passionate rants, of my hopes for what this novel will come across as. And then there will come a time during editing that I can infuse the story with my mind, and make a chain of thought so that it is not mistaken what my overall message is within it’s pages. It is too easy for me to write event after event, description after observation– but I am realizing one must deviate from the material to formulate the immaterial, such as leaving a scene to ponder on dreams, aspirations, ethical struggles, guilt, ect!

Weekly hours spent writing or in the pursuit of plot: 3 Hours

Weekly Choice of Tea: Pumpkin Spice tea

Biggest Success: Swam from Buck Island to St. Croix’s shore in a 5-mile swim race! Yes my friends, I did the big one, the one I’ve been training for! Little did I know the emesis that was to follow the rocking of the waves, as if the waters still teamed with pirate enthusiasm to pillage my stomach of all contents.

“Villette” continues to influence me, I am happy to say. Within her plot comes Bronte’s sound judgement and sharpness of character that one can only aspire to in their own writing. Such is my trial as stated above! While laying on the sandy beaches in the Virgin Islands this weekend, I sought refuge from the sun into the shade of a Bronte novel, its dark tone enough to keep one balanced. I ventured to the land of pirates to fulfill a goal of mine–to swim 5 miles in the ocean. The race began as I had hoped and expected it to! Transparent waters that displayed the coral reef that webbed the ocean ground like large sunken nets. Every breathe I turned to take– to the right showed islands sitting in front of the raising sun, and to the left showed nothing but endless waves. My arms pulled in front of me, clearly viewed as if I was flapping them in air. It was pristine and beautiful. I marveled at my experience, and compared it to the pages of the novel that accompanied me there. While my experience was a beautiful one, it came with is own darkness. Nausea! Sea-Sickness! Puking into the waves till they calmed! Alas, like Bronte’s “Villette” it was a wonderful and yet abrasive experience in terms of humanity and reality!!

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Directly after my race!! I accomplished it, 2hr and 59min

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Post race-day lounge at Magen’s Bay in St. Thomas

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This beautiful gentleman helped it all happen! Here we we at the East most point of the US off of St. Croix.

And lastly, here is a paragraph from Bronte’s “Villette” so that you may taste the genius behind the ink.

“A strange, frolicsome, noisy little world was this school:  great pains were taken to hide chains with flowers:  a subtle essence of Romanism pervaded every arrangement: large sensual indulgence (so to speak) was permitted by way of counterpoise to jealous spiritual restraint. Each mind was being reared in slavery; but, to prevent reflection from dwelling on this fact, every pretext for physical recreation was seized and made the most of. There, as elsewhere, the CHURCH strove to bring up her children robust in body, feeble in soul, far, ruddy, hale, joyous, ignorant, unthinking, unquestioning. “Eat, drink, and live!” she says, “Look after your bodies; leave your souls to me. I hold their cure–guide their course:  I guarantee their final fate.” A bargain, in which every true Catholic deems himself a gainer. Lucifer just offers the  same terms:  “All this power will I give thee, and the glory of it; for that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou, therefore, wilt worship me, all shall be thine!”-Villette by Charlotte Bronte

To Write a Love Story is Certain

23rd Trial: Controlling the absolute jealousy of the literary genius, Charlotte Bronte

Weekly hours spent writing or in the pursuit of plot: 1 Hour

Weekly Choice of Tea: Chamomile

Biggest Success: Began Chapter 5! Enjoying the fall that surrounds me

As I have mentioned in posts prior, what do you say about your novel when asked about it? In one word or sentence can you sum something like that up? It is about Hope. Family. Philosophy. To write an epic love story is certain. I have begun to read “Villette” by Charlotte Bronte, a novel that is sadly shadowed by her more successful “Jane Eyre”. I am enjoying the perception of the main heroine of this story, as it displays the dark behind the events and people. No surprise there. The Bronte sisters are literary ninjas at mixing piety with sin, madness with love, and the shadows cast by a sunny day. In “Villette”, every moment has a balance. I am not overly happy for one circumstance, nor overly without hope at the same time. Young Lucy Snowe has an intelligent observation of people in their interactions, as well as in her own misfortunes. I read and felt a familiarity with this particular sentence:

“This I can now see and say–if few women have suffered as I did in his loss, few have enjoyed what I did in his love. It was a far better kind of love than common; I had no doubts about it or him: it was a love as honored, protected, and elevated, no less than it gladdened her to whom it was  given.”

I find this amusing in a way, as much as it is heartfelt and lovely. How certain am I that my life will encompass a great love? And my novel, the love story should be nothing short of timeless, and set apart from a perceived commonality of unions between two people! However, what does Charlotte mean by this comparison of common love and the elevated type? How can one set them apart, being the observer of other’s and the direct subject of but one? I find it intriguing to not define a romance so that no one could ever experience it, viewing it only as a fairy-tale;  but to illustrate the belief that many have actually found that true companion. It is not hard for me to imagine an elevated love, a love like no other, being a common thing. It happens under so many guises, as so many masterpieces happen with different pens and strokes. I have always dreamed of Mr. Darcy, walking to me with his long billowing tailcoat whipping behind him in his passionate haste to see me. And yet in my age, where tailcoats are not the height of fashion, exposure to many people through internet, transportation, and employment have created a stage very different from my fantasies. Moreover, who knew that my Mr. Darcy could very well be a misses? That begin said, my reality, though different, is as elevated in my estimation as the hearts bound within the novels I read. What I intend to write can be nothing more than the love and life that you, reader, experience on a daily basis. If I can but make you sense and feel the incredible story that surrounds you, I would have a purpose indeed!

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