Go for a Walk · 2:15am Jan 17th, 2015
Authors can make anything they want come alive. We have an unlimited special effects budget, thousands of potential castmembers begging for a chance to get out of our brains, can shape whole continents by writing in a notebook, and if physics are not cool enough for our story, we can roll our own.
In the world of their story, an author has infinite power. But your story world is only as big as your imagination. If science has taught me anything, it is that that hyper-creative "imagination" that I used to have with all its infinite combinations of "ideas" was bumbling the world around with five pairs of oven mitts. You do not know how little you know until you actually sit down and try to describe how to count to a little kid or the difference between sea green and grass green to a blind person.
This is the beginning of true creativity: when your mind locks up just trying to figure out what the question is. The brain can no longer rely on all those pretty little words we had arranged for those questions and must dig down, grasping for that underlying meaning that had to have been there at some point. We felt it then. If only we can imagine it anew, we can help someone else feel it too.
Writing is communication. Communication is ripping these feelings and ideas out of the fabric of reality and finding some way to shove them into the mind of another person. If we are out of feelings, we have no words. We can make as many squiggles on our page as we want, but we will not be saying anything. It is the difference between a kid making vroom vroom noises with Tonka trucks and actually driving a big rig with our own bare hands.
Go for a walk. Not the sissy kind of walk where the only things touching the ground are the dead soles of your shoes. The full-frontal walk with all of your being. Hug a tree and dig your fingers into that rough scraggly bark. Let the image they give you burn itself into your brain. I have no arms. Share it with me. All of it. When you can do that, you will be a writer.
Now if you will excuse me...
Let's go fly a kite, because we have story building to do!
I think I know who I'm going to promote in my blog. Hint, hint.
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Or, you know, a whale
2.bp.blogspot.com/-9plpZTpjsHM/UGXugDCicoI/AAAAAAAAFDk/fs4O9eh1Ltc/s400/100-foot-giant-flying-whale-2.jpg
... that is also a kite.
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My money's on Obs. You can't resist the beard
Well said
2727781 I think Obs his fine. *start winking at you*
2727781 A whale works too, including a whale blimp.
static.dezeen.com/uploads/2008/01/03-manned-cloud-bd1.jpg
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Dear Santa, I know it's only January, but I found this one awesome thing I can't live without...
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*Looks behind himself to find Bulk Biceps*
Indeed he is
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Thank you
2727816 He'll get it for you, eventually.
I slumped against the trunk, exhaustion buckling my knees and slamming my head into the tree. For a second I saw stars, sparkling nonsense blocking the dapples of light the midday sun sprinkled across the grass. I turned and wrapped my arms around the bole, trying to stay upright, but I couldn't even reach part way; it was like trying to hug a house. I continued to slide, crazed shards of bark tearing into the soft flesh of my underams as my t-shirt rode up on my shoulders.
I ended prone, sprawled awkwardly face-down, as my feet finished betraying me. Roots knoobled my chest, hindering my breathing as I gasped raggedly for air. I closed my eyes and tried to push away the shock, collect my resolve, regain my purpose here. It slowly oozed back, just as I felt my nose begin trickling blood.
Must have banged it harder than I thought...
I tippped my head back, squinting upwards. Laying here the tree seemed impossibly large, a blur of brown and green extending infinitely from earth to heaven. Sunlight limned the leaves, capping the forest in dancing gold and green. I wiped awkwardly at my lip, laughing breathily as I smeared a bloom of blook across my palm. I rolled onto my side, reaching as high up the trunk as I could, before placing my bloody hand against the trunk.
"Aaaaah..." I sighed as an awareness filled me, a sense of the tree and the forest. It was huge and calm, green and sleepy. Still, it saw me.
"Please?" My voice was tiny, instantly lost in the green expanse, my savaged throat unable to draw out more than a whisper. The sentiment was carried, though, and that was enough.
I felt the dirt move beneath me, roots sifting through the earth. I tried to roll over, but barely got halfway. My arm collapsed, smearing a misshapen handprint over my head. My resting place started to form, a shallow depression appearing around me. It grew with agnoizing slowness, inching downwards with frustrating lethargy. I heaved at my lumpen body again, finallly landing on my back. I stared straight at the sun, peering between leaves and branches as dirt began pouring in around me. I felt it seep into my clothes and hair, the dry, sandy soil silk-soft and warm against my skin. I surrendered myself to the earth, letting it cradle and rock me. A reassuring weight was gathering, layer after layer rolling over my legs, arms, chest; finally, it crawled over my nose and eyes, blocking the light completely and instantly.
I let my awareness sink down, losing myself first in the deep green life surrounding me, and then to the deeper darkness. I barely noticed when my battered body stopped breathing.
Finally, some peace...
Not really sure why I wrote this. It has very little to do with actually touching trees. Just, I've had the idea of being part of the earth stuck in my head for months now, and it's always seemed super restful to me. When i want to fall asleep I pull the covers over my head, and imagine emerald grass marching up over my back and shoulders, the sun gently warming my living coverlet.... Sorry. I enjoyed your article. The actual act of creation, when a swirling mish--mash of influences actually turns into a sentence, is definitely hard to pin down or explain. I'm actually going to bed now.
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Wow. Ripped that piece straight out of your heart. I think that qualifies as your writer's card.
I tried to screw Gravity but she is just not my type. Too needy, she holds anypony and everypony close. Stallions, mares, heck even griffons and other creatures are held in her indiscriminate hooves. This would be the worst relationship ever! Why get involved with a mare that has such a big list of those she holds close?
Don't get me started about her attitude!
Seriously, that nag, Gravity, is such a downer. Everything has to fall. No exceptions. Well, unless you fly beyond her grasp.
When I unfurl my brown wings and thrust myself into the sky, she is there gently tugging. Its like she does not want me to get away. Again, so needy.
I need to get another marefriend.
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I wonder if CB would appreciate this song?
With a few bucks for paper and things, you can have your own set of wings.
Lets go fly a kite, watch out for stuff that it might be caught on, that's not right.
Let go fly a kite, watch out for a drone, in the sky you are not alone.
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Well, if Gravity is too clingy, you might try Weak Nuclear Force. Be careful, though: she's a bombshell.