I find myself on the island of Maui. Haven’t seen much of it yet, but going there reminded me of a family back in Amsterdam, who were so smitten by Hawaii they gave their children Hawaiian names: Maui, Lanikai and Ikaika. Names are important in stories. They reveal a lot about your character. I choose mine with care, knowing that often the name changes as I get to know my character better. Sometimes I choose a name of someone I know because my character resembles that person. Like with the names in my debut Deedee’s Revenge. I needed a name for a courageous protagonist. I picked Deedee, after a distant cousin, at that time a spunky girl just like my Deedee was. Deedee’s brother, her nemesis, has my personal nemesis’s middle…
Mina Witteman – author | editor | teacher of creative writing
Posts from the “A Bit of Everything” Category
You don’t have a story until you write it. That’s my adage and a spinoff from my overall writer’s motto: no guts, no glory. But … writing the story isn’t all. To me the most important part of writing is the revision process and I would like to add a second line to the adage: You don’t have a story until you revise it. Multiple times. A story needs to grow up. It needs to mature and it can only reach maturity if you mold and guide it, if you change and tweak it. I revise my stories multiple times and I think revision is where the true joy of being a writer blossoms. Yes, I also get discouraged every now and again, like when I hit the fifteenth…
Tagged: #amwriting, Les deux femmes nues, Picasso, Revision
A different day entirely. A day with ominous skies and sweeping rains. Mist. My weather. We went to the beach this morning at 6:30 with some Hawaiian and Scottish artists, and while the others were discussing art and colors, drawing and painting, I strayed away, walking the surf, feeling the sand course under my feet in its urge to follow the sea. What was I looking for? My muse, obviously. He wasn’t around but he did sent me some good inspirational vibes, like a trusted muse should. The vibes encouraged me to travel further than the looking, to focus on other senses, too. I felt the spray of the ocean mix in with the rain and touch my skin. I tasted the salt in the air. I also…
Categories: A Bit of Everything
While watching the sun rise over Lanikai Beach, Kirsten and I talked about how music and beats and general noise, like the lapping of waves on the beach, spurs us on while writing and the different kind of music or sound we need when we’re thinking, creating. For thinking, plotting, creating I need a quiet beat, either classical music, native American chants or just nature sounds. I love the sound of water and the sound of wind. A wordless beat that half-hypnotizes me and shuts me off from the real world. Uptempo or downtempo depends on the kind of project I’m working on. When I’m ready to write the story I connect it to music that will drive me toward a certain mood, a state of mind that allows…
Categories: A Bit of Everything
The biggest advantage of traveling without Internet is time. Time to read. Time to write. On my way to my next destination I wrote three scenes for the novel, read two books and reread part of another. The first two books were excellent but dark reads. Becoming Chloe by Catherine Ryan Hyde is the heartbreaking story of two teens on the streets. Throwaways, as Ryan Hyde calls them, not runaways because runaways have parents who want them back. Nobody wants Jordy and Chloe back. A dark book but one with a hopeful ending. The other one was The Nest by Kenneth Oppel, one of my favorite writers since his Silverwing trilogy, with gorgeous dark illustrations by Jon Klassen. The Nest is a harrowing story, of the sort that grabs you by the throat and…
While on my way I remind myself of my muse’s mastery replay his voice his words like mist on my skin tender brisk smoothing the serpentine twists of my memory rousing the radical thinking in my mind as he challenges me to live the sober lines and daunting scenes of my novel like a first
Tagged: #amwriting, Mina Witteman, muse, Poem
One more day and night to go before I travel on to my next destination. These past weeks were intense with days of glorious, sometimes even demonic writing and days of calm and reflective composing. Days of solitude and days when my muse popped in to shake up my thinking. Days when I shamelessly called in my writer friends Jim, Donna and Scott to brainstorm about this wretched project of mine. Days that I plunged so deep into the dark that I was beyond grateful to be enveloped by the loving care of the Adelson family. Good weeks. Productive weeks. Weeks that taught me my writing soars when I’m alone. The book ain’t half done and I have decided that I need to come back here to finish it. It’ll be a few months…
Mina Witteman 