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Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Writing Through Life's Tsanamis

Well it's Wednesday, the first of the month and as designated by Alex Cavanaugh, it's Insecure Writer's Wednesday. 

It's one of those years that it feels like the hamster wheel just never stopped spinning.  Somebody plunked me on the thing and it just kept spinning and spinning with no little red button that said...

Stop!

One family obligation after another, one crisis after another and all intertwined with that mundane day to day that has a person doing what they normally do - running to the grocery store, dry cleaners or remembering, that yes, we are almost out of gas in the car.  It's just been one of those years.  We all have them.  Whether it's a crazy week, a month that got out of control or once in a long time - a year that just spun into oblivion.  But everyone's turn comes along when life's craziness combine with what look like unexpected disasters, fortunately none that could be called nature's wrath - not a real Tsanamis, keep us hopping.

How does one keep writing through all of that?  I did but I don't think well.  I forgot that I needed to refresh the well where ideas come from.  And to do that I needed something fresh that didn't spell crisis.

So after a year of craziness I'm finally dusting off the travel journal, and while it's not the most foreign of shores, I'm heading south, looking for some relief from the edges of cold weather that's just beginning to sift in.  I want to shave a few days off that never-ending Canadian cold weather. 

While there's not much different as we first cross the border, the changes become more evident as we head further south.  Snow for instance.  There was no snow 500 miles north.  But here, there's snow.  Go figure.  And of course, there's no Tim Horton's.  The Canadian Icon is a no-show.  Not that I mind, I'm just saying. 

But what we did find was the funkiest little taco stand in a little town that provided - well, if nothing else, ambiance.  A chain  made unique by the tiny space it took up and the three over-sized men who ran it in an undersized kitchen.  From sticky doors and tables to well-worn floors - yes...  it was one of a kind.  Why did we eat there?  Well, it wasn't as bad as it sounded.  And if nothing else - well it was a story.  

But the good thing of all of this - getting away gets the creative process going again.  While I haven't forgotten the story that I have been too long revising, new ideas are popping up and I'm excited to put pen to paper.  I'm remembering why I travel - it inspires me every time.  It takes me into places that are not my norm exactly as I love to do with the characters in my stories.  Travel is rejuvenating and it is always fodder for a story or two.



Take a trip, anywhere.  Somewhere you haven't been before even if that somewhere is somewhere in your own city or town.   Like just the other day a trip on the city bus gave me an unexpected view into life as I don't normally see it.  The unexpected, a place where story ideas lie waiting to ambush us.

 And the journey continues....  Tomorrow onward - hopefully we'll hit Denver before rush hour.  

Ryshia
www.ryshiakennie.com

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