i have nothing left to give said the muse disconcerting news that forces my writer’s imagination to find release in solitary thinking in fantasies dreams words that propel me into ian’s blue hawaiian spiral wings send me soaring over red hot molten rock that burns the trees winding through lush green valleys forests that climb up steep cliffs where ropes of sugar sweet white fizz cascade down until my brain whirls like an airfoil pours out novel words new lines to paint a story like the goddess of fire gushes passion from her pit and coats the earth’s crust in black and silver mahalo pele
Mina Witteman – author | editor | teacher of creative writing
Posts tagged “#amwriting”
Totally unrelated to the writing. Or maybe not so unrelated. In 2013, Tesla’s Elon Musk released the Hyperloop (Alpha) white-paper. In order to accelerate the development of a functional prototype and to encourage innovation amongst students, his company SpaceX organized the Hyperloop competition. A couple of students of Delft University of Technology decided to accept the challenge and formed the Delft Hyperloop Team to design the best Hyperloop pod possible. They invited other students to apply for a spot on the team and I was super proud when my son Olivier, who studies aerospace engineering at Delft University, was accepted and put in charge of the pod’s batteries. Since, the team has worked crazy hard to design their pod and to realize their dream: winning the competition and changing…
Tagged: #amwriting, #breakapod, Delft Hyperloop, Elon Musk, Hyperloop Challenge, SpaceX
A friend posted a picture on Facebook of a heron that he said looked like a murderbird plotting a murder. ‘Whoa,’ I commented, ‘I thought I was the murderbird plotting murders. Is that bird gonna write my books now?’ No, seriously. I do slip a lot of dark into my young adult stories and my adult thrillers, including murder, unintentional killing, suicide, and other vicious betrayals of and by mankind. Why? I ask myself that question with every new story and usually end up blaming my muse, even if I know, deep down, that I must have a dark and ruthless streak or his ideas and inspiration wouldn’t strike a chord. For what it’s worth, I never set out to write about death. I do know…
Tagged: #amwriting, Crime, Heron, Murder, Murderbird, Protagonist, Up the stakes, YA
Four weeks on the road and I moved from San Francisco to Hawaii, not just to write but also to research the third book of the Boreas series, and more specifically Wayfinding or Polynesian navigation, finding your way without instruments, like compasses, maps, or GPS but solely on what you see around you, the stars, the rising and setting of moon and sun, the ocean swells and how waves lap against the hull of your ship, the currents, the winds, the direction birds fly. There’s several ways you can research stories. One is sitting at your laptop and surfing the Internet. You can also go out and meet people, pick their brains, hear their stories, learn about their lives. Obviously, the latter one will most likely…
Tagged: #amwriting, boreas, Flypside, hawaii, here be dragons, Polynesian navigation, research, Shy, Wayfinding
What else makes me happy? Reaching my daily word count, even if it’s with a sad scene. My muse crawling back up to me. Finding the perfect wave ring to go with the book. And this: Tasting the salty spray in my face, while I listen for the quietest sounds within the thunder of 40 ft kahunas crashing down on the beach.
Tagged: #amwriting, jaws, kahuna, Maui, muse
clouded skies a sluggish brain prose that will not flow force the words out wrest them from your gut squash them into scenes or procrastinate and let the mind roam free on a breezy afternoon sail a boat into the sunset feel the wind brush your skin smell the limu lipoa loaded with dictyopterenes taste the brine that settles on your lips watch the waves roll under hear snippets of adventures from people nearby let kahunas push up high in the channels camp on an island with a zebra and lemur sup from the keys up to maine be rudderless and steer on sails forge new memories find new scenes new words remember think let your writing soar
Tagged: #amwriting, brine, dictyopterenes, kai kanani, key west, limu lipoa, procrastination, will rich
So… method writing. A friend forwarded me a link to the BBC article: “Could ‘method writing’ be the future for novelists?” The article reports of the author Hodgkinson who launched his Method Writers project, for which he invites other authors to try techniques similar to method acting to find out if that works for their writing too. Similar to Lee Strasberg’s method acting, in method writing the author would immerse himself in his character’s life by using his own memories of emotions and sensations to identify with his characters. Is that a novelty? From Strasberg’s website: “Strasberg meant that what is called “Method Acting” is nothing new, but rather as old as Western Civilization itself. For centuries, cultures used different words and phrases to describe “good” acting:…
Tagged: #amwriting, bbc, boreas, Haleakala, Maui, memories, method acting, method writing, YA
Mina Witteman 