Sand Dunes and Soul Food

I sit propped against a sand dune on the beach, the sand moulded to my body, cradling me.  It's night time and a small fire flickers at my feet, keeping me warm and lighting the small area around me.  I can hear the popping noise of the wood as it burns, hear the sea lapping gently at the shore and smell the salty, bonfire air.  Usually I'm the only one, but occasionally a person will emerge from the shadows and we'll talk.

This is my safe place.  The internal world I went to when I needed to escape.

I'd forgotten about it until I read a friends blog fernenland: When I am feeling bruised So why don't I go there any more?  Is my life so much better that I don't need to hide inside myself?

Then I realised the difference is my writing.  When I have a problem, a worry, something niggling away at the back of my mind, I write about it.  Sometimes it's obvious (see White Van Man),  sometimes it gets worked into a story, my characters working through the issue, saying what I'd like to say and what I'd like to hear.  Plus I put my muse through far worse things then I ever have to deal with in real life.

When Fernenland goes out with her camera, she finds herself in a different space, seeing things she wouldn't normally have noticed and that's how I feel about my writing.  When walking down the road, I'm looking at everyday things and searching for the beauty in them.  Or catching snippets of conversation and letting my imagination fill in the missing parts.  A man walking down the road...he's actually just  murdered his wife and is now off to plant the evidence in her lovers house.  Or that strange looking knot on the tree trunk is really the door to a fairies house, you might just catch her peeping out from the corner of your eye.  It does lift your spirits and energise you.

People find this space through different mediums such as meditation, exercise, photography, art, music, words. So go out and explore, feed your soul.

(Thank you Fernenland for letting me link to your blog and inspiring me again.)

An aside

Normally I take a tiny spark of inspiration, mull it around in my mind (usually while out doing the school run in the rain), then sit down and write something.  A writer I follow on twitter described the process as being on a par of making a stew, the pot is constantly simmering away in the background and bits are added until the finished food is ready to eat, complex layers of flavour and aroma having been allowed to organically build up.

Every time I see a spark, a glimpse of something I want, it slips though my fingers.  Or if I manage to catch it and try to massage it into something more, it goes flat and limp.  So instead I read; I read everything I can get my hands on, in the hope that it will help. 

So I've pulled myself together and decided that maybe I should sidle up to it, not look it directly in the eye and just start.  It's the starting that's important and it's the starting I haven't been doing.  A synopsis looks forlornly at me and I'm still on the fifth chapter of a story.  My poor protagonists have been sitting around in a desert waiting for me to get my act together since last month.  I just hope they haven't got sunstroke.

Then there is my muse, the person who inspires me, fills me fire, whose magic no longer works.  Shouldn't I be able to do this alone?  I did before I met them.  It's been like having a lover whose left me.  I was perfectly fine and capable before they came into my life, even happy, but when they left, they left a large and gaping hole.  I know what I'm missing.

But look.  I'm writing and it feels good. 

A muse

Medium height, long dark hair,  she is curvy and very attractive.  Her dark brown eyes stare deep into mine as we stand almost toe to toe, eyes on the same level.  "Go on!" I give her a little shove.  "You can't make me." comes the growled response.  Hmmm, I try some music, skipping through using shuffle, trying to provoke a response in her.  In the corner of my eye, sand is slowly, relentlessly trickling through an egg timer.

Then something sparks in her eyes.  There is a smile that slowly reaches down to her pouting mouth.  Her two friends appear by her side and somewhere in the back, half hidden in the shadows is the only male of the group.  He's the hardest to see, intensively secretive, but I smile encouragingly at him, trying out my best 'come hither' look.

It's like an artists brush has touched blotting paper, colour and life starts to appear, spreading out from her.  We stand more relaxed, smiling and looking around ourselves.  Her friends are whispering in her ears, egging her on to tell me what they've been up to.  Her mouth opens but just before the words come out, the last grain of sand falls to the bottom and everything freezes.  "Sorry!" I mouth as I turn to leave.

My muse stands there looking really, really annoyed and frustrated, her face a reflection of mine.  She's not amused...