Today’s a writing day. I can feel it in my bones, I can see it outside. It is the most perfect weather for a writer, here in Amsterdam. Like yesterday – when I did 5,000 words on the revision of my techno thriller Turing’s Deceit, a.k.a. Dark Fiber – autumn races past my window, pushing on every writing fiber in my body. A stiff northern wind brings me sunshine and bright skies one minute, hail and thunderstorms the next. It is as if the Northern gods urge me to write faster and faster, as if they want me and my protagonist to hurry up, and get us to Ragnarök to fight that mythical war against the great serpent. I am wondering whether my protagonist…
Mina Witteman – author | editor | teacher of creative writing
Posts tagged “Herengracht”
Last Friday the Amsterdam sky lit up with protest fires, built on the bridges by outraged squatters, thrill-seeking tourists and hormone-driven adolescents. Last night the skies lit up again. But this time it wasn’t the anti-riot squad that did the scattering, this time it was the sun. For me it felt like the Sun Spirit was telling me he was keeping his fingers crossed. It felt like he was sending me all the good luck in the world. I need those good luck wishes! I need them in relation to that wonderful skin-crawling adventure fantasy I wrote and that is on its way to the US: THE SUN SPIRIT! It is the first volume of the Warriors of the Sun tetralogy and…
Tagged: Amsterdam, canal, Herengracht, The Sun Spirit, Young Adult
The first day of October was an eventful one. It was the day new anti-squat legislation came into force. Squatters all over the country had announced protest marches and, needless to say, the Amsterdam squatters chimed in. It started peaceful enough, but I thought the group of squatters that lead the way were rather ominously hiding themselves behind black ski masks and scarfs. If you are politically engaged and want to stand on the barricades for better legislation, I wondered, why would you hide your face? Why would you not fight it openly? How will you gain sympathy if nobody is able to recognize your good intentions? It doesn’t feel very need-based or politically motivated what these squatters are doing. It did get out…
Tagged: 1 oktober 2010, Amsterdam, anti-riot squad, canal, Herengracht, krakers, ME, rellen, squatting
Every writer longs for it: that time that words seemingly effortless find their way from your head to your manuscript and your fingers become instruments creating works of art. It’s the time that sentences build themselves, that the plot moves forward at just the right pace: slow where it needs to ease the reader into your story, fast where it needs the reader to hold his breath and run along with the protagonist through hot and dry deserts and under ominously thundering skies. Yes, every writer longs for the FLOW. I long for that flow, too. Sometimes it’s music that gets me right there. A great song or an album on repeat – Levon Helm’s ‘Ophelia’, Eddie Vedder’s ‘Guaranteed’ or an album like Anouar…
Tagged: Amsterdam, construction, De wietman, flow, Herengracht, The Weed Man, writing, YA, Young Adult
Remember the frat boat I told you about a couple of posts ago? The one that went down in Herengracht? I was sure that its owners would leave it where it was, after rescuing some essentials, but I was wrong. Dead wrong, as it turned out. Yesterday they returned, the frat boys, and they didn’t come unprepared. They had hired the Klusjesboot – which is Dutch for The Handyman Boat, I guess – and with that I owe them an apology, as I was convinced they would leave the barge where it went down, floating below the water surface and making it a hazard for everyone cruising by. The Klusjesboot-man went to work with zeal, attaching bands and ropes and scaffolding-poles and I watched, intrigued…
Tagged: Amsterdam, barge, Boating, canal, Death, Herengracht, Mina Witteman, rescue, salvage, ship
Just outside my writer’s residence stands a mailbox. Like all others in my city it is a crimson one. High on its pillars, its back turned to the canal and slits invitingly opened to us all, this bright red everybody’s friend almost begs you to fill it up with your letters. Evening after evening the mailman comes by, empties it and hurries all letters over to the addressees. But, happy and helpful as it is, this red mailbox is a dying breed. Every day again less and less letters are deposited in its confidential entrails. The day the postmaster will come by to carry it off it is nearing quickly. One day soon this crimson mailbox will pass into obscurity like a forgotten writer.…
Sometimes nature plays ugly tricks on you. One day you have a boat, the next day… you don’t. A week or so ago a boat moored right opposite my writer’s residence after what must have been a jolly day on the Amsterdam canals. The boat – more like a giant raft – resembled an open air fraternity house, with comfortable sofa’s, rowdy boys, downy cushions, silly girls, a hefty stereo and beer on tap to boot. They were a happy bunch those boys, but they were clearly in need of some solid ground after a day’s sailing and drinking. So they threw out the fenders, cabled the boat to the railing, neatly covered up the sofa’s, courteously helped the squealing girls out and left.…
Tagged: Amsterdam, Boating, canal, Death, Herengracht, Mina Witteman, rain
Mina Witteman 