• Books
  • Events
  • Tale Lady
  • Welcome
  • Bio
  • Contact Leanne
  • Writing

Leanne Pankuch Author

Leanne Pankuch Author

Tag Archives: the writing life

Haunted by Inspiration

27 Saturday Jun 2015

Posted by leannepankuch in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

bannerman castle, creativity, dreams, fiction, haunting, hudson river, hudson valley, mystery, the writing life, writing, writing ideas

There is a twilight girl who has been visiting me lately. She makes her appearance in those moments between waking and dreaming, or when the rhythms of life allow the mind to wander. She is but a child—eight or nine years of age—with hair of a strange white gold that is, somehow, also red. She wears an odd, old-fashioned dress of a drab and nondescript color that hangs on

her thin body. In semi-consciousness I see her walking along on a dirt path or sitting upon a broken rock wall with her chin resting on her pulled-up knees. I see her always from behind, at first. Either I am walking through the woods and come upon the path and the girl unexpectedly, or I am wandering amid a messy Victorian-ish garden and I catch sight of her through a cascade of vines. As I approach, she turns and looks at me through the corner of her green-gold eye, then she fades into nothing.

And even though I try to fight it—try to stay with the halfdream—sleep arrives…or slips away from me.

I know this girl’s name and I know her story. I know it because I am her creator. She came to life in a novel that I began months ago while taking a two-hour train ride along the Hudson River. The story began without planning, without warning, as inexorable as an avalanche. A magic combination of synapses fired in my brain, triggered by the images I saw outside the train window—a massive old house half-hidden on a rocky outcropping on the river, a strange stone fountain covered in dead vines, a ruined castle, and a wooden rowboat half buried in sand and—bam! My writer’s brain went into overdrive.

Bannerman Castle, Pollepel Island

Bannerman Castle, Pollepel Island

I wrote all the way into the city and all the way back home. The intricate weaving of mystery and history and horror frantically vomiting itself onto the blank pages of my notebook.

And then, once I returned to my routine, I found little time for writing. The next few days passed quickly, then the next few weeks, and then…well, here we are.

The girl and I.

She doesn’t bother me while I’m working, kind little haunting-thing that she is. She usually peeks in the window while I’m folding the laundry. Or sits in the corner chair in the kitchen while I make dinner, kicking her feet and silently waiting.

Okay, okay…I’ll make time, I promise.

But I don’t.

Last night I woke groggily after having fallen asleep on the family room couch and stumbled upstairs to bed. As I quickly drifted off, her ice-red hair flashed in the mirror hanging on the closet door. I tried to focus my eyes and mind and force her to materialize, but sleep won out.

And just before I opened my eyes this morning, I found myself on the wooded path. As I approached, I saw that she was not alone—the dead young man who also sits at the center of the novel was with her.

They both ignored me. I stood beside them and they seemed not to see me. I opened my mouth to speak and no words came out. It was a horrible feeling—as if I no longer belonged with them, no longer existed.

Then today I found myself in the middle of a rainy afternoon, all caught up on the laundry and the latest episode of my current favorite creepy drama (curse you cable TV). Cleaning out my purse, I happened to open my writer’s notebook to the page where I began the original story.

As I read the words—my words—the girl, Trill, came back to vivid life, I read and was consumed by the power of my own storytelling until…

…it cut off mid-sentence.

That’s all I’d written? I was sure I’d gotten farther. Of course, I knew what should happen, what I intended to happen, but when I let the next scenes play out in my writer’s mind I found that the plot was now altered. My girl wasn’t who I thought she’d been at all.

Her lips curled into a sly smile. She looked at me out of the corner of her gold-green eye.

Clever, clever little story ghost. Haunt me any time.

In Memoriam: A Promise to my Lost Idea

08 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by leannepankuch in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

creativity, eureka moments, grammar girl, ideas, Skye Boat Song, the writing life, writing ideas

statue-9 (2)

Yesterday, Saturday, in the middle of completing a complicated and extensive electronic travel expense report for my “day job,” I got an IDEA. A blessed writing idea. Something that I saw online, on my phone, or thought of as I waited for receipt images to upload, or heard outside my window caused that elusive lightbulb to flare into life.

I perked up immediately, sat taller in my chair, felt my heartrate increase, always so ecstatic to know that my creativity hadn’t died a tragic and permanent death in the struggle between being true to my writing soul and making financial ends meet.

“I’ll just finish the report and get writing,” I thought happily.

Wrong-o.

I did finish the report. Then I took my dogs outside. Then vacuumed. Then caught up on a BBC show I was fascinated with. Then threw in some laundry. Then showered and went out to dinner. Then came home and finished the book I began during my recent work travel before falling blissfully to sleep.

It wasn’t until this morning that I remembered the writing IDEA. More precisely, I remembered that I’d HAD an idea.

No! (That’s a slow-motion “Nooooooooo!” with the IDEA slipping from my grasp, tumbling over the cliff into the oblivion of Mt. Doom’s lava furnace.)

gollum

Frantically I tried to back track—what, precisely had I been doing when I got the IDEA? I went back and read the emails I’d referred to. I visited Google maps. I pulled out my receipts. I looked at the photos on my phone (since I’d had to take pictures of paper receipts for upload). I sat in my desk chair and looked around my office at the papers and books surrounding the space. I listened to the unknown, insistently-singing bird outside my window. I scrolled back and reviewed an entire day of Facebook posts by family and friends. Was it that Grammar Girl post on the timeline?? No, unfortunately not. That post, about the origin of the phrase “the bee’s knees” had piqued my interest (I am an amateur etymologist/linguist), but it wasn’t the source of the IDEA.

What else had I done? I’d looked through the paper mail that had arrived while I was traveling—thumbing through the latest Anthropologie catalog—loving the designs and disgusted at the prices, as usual.

No, nothing there.

And I’d returned emails, connecting with 4 new people on LinkedIn and looking at a few “pins” that Pinterest friends had sent to me.

Nothing.

I’d gotten the “Skye Boat Song” (with Stevenson’s poem/lyrics) stuck in my head while folding laundry. I ran over the song slowly. “Sing me a song of a lad <thought> that is gone…” Nope. Nothing.

After sixty minutes—a full hour of anxious searching—I began to resign myself to the truth.

The IDEA was lost.

I imagined it floating over my head, like a person near death—having left his/her body—hovers over the living. It wanted to return, I knew. But I couldn’t save it. Because I couldn’t see it. Couldn’t identify it. Couldn’t reach it. Couldn’t pull it back.

Looking back, I, of course, know that I should have stopped what I was doing. I should have halted in the middle of preparing that very important expense report and made a note of the IDEA. I usually do just that, but, for some stupid reason yesterday, I didn’t think I would forget.

I’d lost ideas before in much the same way. I’d had “eureka moments” that slipped away into nothingness—fell victim to my busy life and cluttered mind. And after those losses, I’d researched the best practices in capturing ideas and vowed to always carry a notebook, always write down dreams immediately upon waking, and always record an idea the moment that it occurred.

And I’d kept those vows each time…for a time, at least.

It’s human nature, I suppose. We constantly lapse in our resolutions. We wake up with a headache or stomach upset after one too many glasses of wine, one too many cupcakes, or one too many forkfuls of spaghetti the night before and vow to moderate in the future, only to eventually indulge and regret once more. Or we plan to exercise, organize, or make time to write/create or educate ourselves and the first little bump interrupts our good intentions—bad weather so we can’t walk, a phone call from a friend so we can’t clean our desk, a sniffle or sneeze so we can’t attend a lecture or class, our favorite pen runs out of ink…

Thankfully, it’s also human nature to begin again. We learn from the past, but we move toward the future.

I do regret losing you, IDEA. I will endeavor to remember the loss of you each time the lightbulb of creativity gifts me with the impulse of a new IDEA. I swear to you that, when that moment happens, I will turn away from commonplace duties and give my full attention to the writing magic. I will heed the call of the muse over the call of the mundane.

Promise. Cross my heart. Unless, you know, I forget….

http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/the-bees-knees

http://lifehacker.com/5924377/how-do-you-capture-your-eureka-moments

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Follow on Instagram

Actively seeking inspiration is an important part of my writing life. Already planning another visit to @bonnethouse! #artasinspiration #creativity #amwriting #kidlit #fantasy #fortlauderdale
#wisdom

Follow on Twitter

My Tweets

Follow on Facebook

Follow on Facebook

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Leanne Pankuch Author
    • Join 656 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Leanne Pankuch Author
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...