Mina Witteman – author | editor | teacher of creative writing

Posts from the “A Bit of Everything” Category

Gone Writing – Day 42

Posted on February 12, 2016

Today’s writing was about morphing two apparently disparate ideas into one. The morphing process had me push the envelop big time and somehow in this process this elusive muse of mine planted two words in my brain that seemed completely unrelated to my project (night sky and farmland). It sparked a train of thought that had me arrive in the end at ‘skywalk’ and ‘pig’ (or maybe I just sigkilled the process there because I felt this could lead to bad things only).   And it did. I googled skywalk and pigs and whaddayaknow, an oldie popped up: Pigs in Space.   Did I manage to morph my two ideas into one? Nope. I quit writing for the day and diddled around on the Internet. Thanks muse! That was really helpful.…

Gone Writing – Day 41

Posted on February 11, 2016

Walking down the marina in San Diego my eye caught the name of a boat. The muse. I found my muse! Granted, he manifested a tad different than I had imagined but I took his/her/its picture, just to be sure. Then hopped on a plane to my next destination, New York, where I will attend the Winter Conference of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.   To pass time on the flight I decided not to write but to read. A friend had recommended I read Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, a book that I had missed when it first came out – at that time my mind wasn’t into anything jesty with a two-year-old who had a tendency to stop…

Gone Writing – Day 40

Posted on February 10, 2016

a downward current pulls her under sinks her like a grain of salt water bars the sun from warming refracted rays distort and turn her vision blue liquid pressure bursts her eardrums clogs every pore with brine her heart gives out as oxygen is crushed from the alveoli and anoxia destroys her brain   if only she would shift her weight in time reach up her arms her course would change but no one told her or she never heard my sunshine how painless it can be to rise again break through the surface fill her lungs with air and reclaim life    

Gone Writing – Day 39

Posted on February 9, 2016

Is there no end to this writing trip? Actually, there is. I have one more week to go before I fly home to settle back at my desk in Amsterdam, where – I hope – the line edits for my new Dutch middle grade Boreas en de duizend eilanden (Boreas and the Thousand Island) will be waiting for me.   Am I excited to go back home? I have mixed feelings. It’ll be great to wander around in my own house again, to sleep in my own bed, to eat the delicious spelt bread from the store around the corner, and above all it will be absolutely fabulous to see my favorite curly-headed boy in real life again. Skyping and texting is an excellent way to keep…

Gone Writing – Day 38

Posted on February 8, 2016

Almost 200 years ago Felix Mendelssohn wrote “Every day … I am more sincerely anxious to write exactly as I feel, and to have even less regard than ever to external views; and when I have composed a piece just as it sprang from my heart, then I have done my duty towards it…”. His words were quoted in a Brainpickings article about artistic integrity, a website I frequently visit on my procrastination tours. Where I would never compare myself to an artistic genius like Mendelssohn his words do resonate with me, because the book I am writing now is one that I write exactly as I feel and one that comes from my heart.   I realize that the locations and pictures might have…

Gone Writing – Day 37

Posted on February 7, 2016

green-eyed monsters visit me smack me left and right warp my vision fry my brain in cold-fusioned passion i try to communicate through the wicked tubes that connect you and me i shut my eyes for the devils that are out on the bay today no sailing for me no water no wind no people my muse calls in and whips me into writing forces me to finish this wretched piece of fiction then slips away like a pipe dream i end a story that consumes my heart that sears the rims of my darkened soul my mind tries to protect procrastinates scours the net for snippets of sweetness and love finds none i cry for characters that die my hands slick with blood dripping from their broken skins i crave the muse’s resurrection hunger for his twists to bring them back to life and i wonder…

Gone Writing – Day 36

Posted on February 6, 2016

Signs. Incarnations. You believe in them or you don’t. I do. The other day, I told a friend some news that had me set back and she responded not only with an encouraging note but told me she’d seen a hawk that day while thinking of me – vision, power, rebirth, teamwork – and a lone goose – bravery, confidence, communication, determination. That lifted my spirits. Another friend had some powerful stuff happening at the exact same time I had the same powerful stuff happening. It forged a close bond between us.   It happens too when I write my books. While working on my debut Deedee’s Revenge (De wraak van Deedee), a crow with an important role cropped up in the story. The next morning a crow settled on a branch in the tree outside…