Moral

Dreaming in California – Not Yet the California Dream

40th Trial: Totally separate from my writing. San Francisco Housing. Enough said.

Weekly Hours Spent Writing or in the Pursuit of Plot: 1 hour for plot – you would think with a 5 day drive to California with nothing to do much change CDs and ignore strange sounds coming from tired tires, I would have more time to consider the project and product our leading lady will immerse herself in.

Weekly Choice of Tea: Peach Tranquility

Biggest Success: Making it to San Francisco. Through all of the chaos of moving to a new city, I have been able to save some energy to consider a schedule for writing, swimming, and travel planning.

All of it is true. Jamie and I packed our cars just two weeks ago and came to the west in the same desperate desire for a next adventure. In our own way we pioneered a new life;  passing through the green crops that filled the rolling hills of  Iowa, the snow capped mountain ranges and deep canyon lined roads of Colorado, the vast red desert lands of Utah, Las Vegas, and the immensity of Arizona canyons. The road to California was primarily heat, dust, and desert. There were exit signs that were nameless, as if the roads that came from it went nowhere. The stars at night were as impenetrable and clear as they were in Indonesia. America is no longer a land without differing landscapes and cultures to me, and is just as vibrant as the countries that make up many other continents. It takes a drive across country to see it as such!

The next three years in San Francisco will be the most momentous of my life. Here I will finish my novel, gain all the experience to create my own business, and discover further the west coast of our wonderful nation. Something More British will document the entire process, and in turn create a network of aspiring writers (and anyone else!), so that we may all continue to pursue what seems impossible to us. You always have time to pursue your dreams, no matter how hard driving 14 hours a day across the desert can be. Or finding a new place to live in a city filled of chaotic opportunities. Or even when we allow careers to exhaust us. You only thrive when you are being who you love. How we look at our circumstances make our reality what it is, and you can change your reality in the same regard. That is the true plot of my novel, and in its own way it will show that our reality can bend in the way we accept nature, self, and love.

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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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