Reading and reality

I'm reading two quite disparate books at the moment. One is Dante's Purgatory (so much lighter, tone-wise, than the Inferno, which I suppose should be expected, really. I like the symmetry, too, of his having cast off a belt in hell and being gird again at the foot of the seven-storey mountain with another belt, this time of humility. I'm making all sorts of fun notes as I read. An English major is always an English major. :) But I digress...), and the other is "Career of Evil," the third in the Cormoran Strike series written by J.K. Rowling under her nom de plume, Robert Galbraith. It was a Christmas gift from my brother Daniel.


As I was reading along last night, Strike, the one of the two main characters, has to follow a lead to Scotland. He takes a train to Edinburgh and then a car borrowed off a friend to Melrose, which is an hourish south. Strike arrives and "deposited the Mini in a car park beside (Melrose) abbey, with its dark red arches against a pale blue sky."


I parked our rental car in that same lot during the trip Mom and I took to Scotland in June, 2014, and the abbey ruins are, indeed, stark and bold against the sky.

The beautiful ruins of Melrose Abbey

Walking through the Wynd, Melrose.

In the book, Strike sets off in search of a house which is addressed on the Wynd. He wanders up the high street "to the central square, where a unicorn-topped pillar stood." When he misses it, he doubles back on the High Street and found the "narrow entrance in the walls to his right, only large enough for a pedestrian, which led to a dim inner courtyard. ... (the) home had a blue front door and was reached by a short flight of steps."

And I knew exactly where he was, because the Wynd is a small alley that cuts through from Bucchleuch Street, where our B&B was, to Melrose's High Street. And in the middle there really is a small courtyard, with a shop, and a museum and that house -- which when I was there, had pots of red flowers on the steps -- that are only accessible from that courtyard.

Toward the end of the chapter, Strike also walks "to Millers of Melrose, a family butcher he had noticed on his troll around the town" where he buys some meat pies for his return journey.


I even have a picture of Millers' butcher shop. Why would I take a picture of a butcher shop, you ask? Well, as my mom and I were walking off our dinner the night we got to Melrose(amazing food at the King's Arms, and banoffee pie for dessert that I still want to try and recreate sometime), we went to the center of town, home of that unicorn-topper pillar, and then wandered a bit before turning in for the night. Close to the center of town was one butcher's shop which bore a rather hoity-toity sign that declared it was owned by "Martin Baird: High Class Family Butcher." It was only when we reached the bottom of the same street that we spotted Miller's. Mom and I were a little tired, still, and in a goofy mood, because I said something about it clearly being the low-class butcher of Melrose, and we both just dissolved in giggles. Maybe you had to be there to find it funny...

Snobby butcher

Millers: butcher to the people.

Anyway, maybe it's because I haven't traveled terribly extensively, but there is still a strange thrill for me reading about places I've now been. It happened after Rome as well, a sense of wonder and of somehow being in on something, in the know because you're not just imagining it, but have seen it and experienced it for yourself. And even, as in this case, when the book is fiction, you know the author (Rowling, although of course she's Scottish herself, so it makes sense) has been there, too. It's a tenuous connection, really, but I also know what it's like to see or experience something, even something tiny, and then include it in something you're writing. It just makes writing, and reading, all the more real.

The writer once I was

I used to write all the time. I have folders upon backpacks filled with scribblings. Poems, random musings, journals, fun quotes I found and saved in the hopes of topping chapters with one day, the unfinished Elizabethan love story (72 pages worth!) I started when I was 13. :) I wrote my first story when I was five, and as the years went on, I was almost ridiculously prolific. I was a sucker for lengthy, sometimes almost Dickensian descriptions, historical accuracy and multi-syllabic words. And letters, oh the letters I used to write to my cousins, the occasional overseas pen pal, my best friend from kindergarten (we wrote each other letters beginning in third grade and didn't talk on the phone until high school. We kept on writing in to college, and didn't see each other physically until I was in her wedding in 1999). I've kept most of the letters I've received, and wonder often about the fate of mine.

In the last several years I've started short stories (and actually finished a couple), two novels (one made it to 30-some odd pages, the other about 15...so far) and only a handful of letters (most, in fact, were only cards). Last year a good friend from high school and I decided we would write letters to each other (she now lives in Texas). We wrote each other exactly one letter a piece and then I, well, I kept meaning to write, and then months went by and I haven't written her a letter since.

And I was a dedicated, one might say obsessively Victorian-like journal keeper. They're all mismatched, my journals, some large, some small, one a book of bound graphing paper, filled to the margins. Some of my entries are about serious things like family events or school. Mostly they're silly musings about boys who I spent entirely too much time worrying about and obsessing over. In recent years, there have been more writings about faith and my walk with and toward God. But the last time I did any serious journaling was in Rome and immediately after I returned. A year and a half ago.

And of course the ironic thing is that I write every day. I'm lucky in that I make my living writing. It's what I got that creative writing degree to be able to do. But I feel like many of my stories for the paper are mundane and lacking in creativity, boxed in by inch counts, dumbed down and shortened for people who don't have long enough attention spans to read to the end.

Maybe that's my fault. But sometimes I wonder if my creativity has vanished or simply gone on an extended hiatus. I have ideas occasionally, but I'm lucky if I get beyond writing them down. They come at the most inopportune times, while I'm in the shower or getting ready to go somewhere. The majority of the time, the last thing I want to do when I get home from writing at work all day is sit and write some more. Writing used to be a joy for me, a necessary outlet almost as integral as breathing. Now, mostly, it feels like a chore. I at least tried to keep my hand in at one point. Three or four years ago I used to play a game with my editor: I would try and use big words in stories and see how many she'd let me keep, or how many actually made it into the paper the next day. Once I managed to squeeze in triumvirate, and was most proud of using prestidigitation several years ago. Now we have this new rule that no story can exceed 20 inches (roughly 500 words), and I wonder how much further we can be curbed and still be able to tell a decent story.

My editor now jokes with me occasionally that I'm really sitting at my desk writing my 15th novel (the number keeps growing) and that I'll complete it by lunchtime. If only. It was never my dream to write the Great American Novel, not really, but to have one well-written one that I'm proud of published? Now that I dream of.

And I know this post smacks somewhat of bitterness and regret, but I don't want that, ultimately. God gave me a gift in my writing ability, and I don't want to waste it. Sitting here typing, I realized I can do something about that. While I think Lent would be the ideal time to rededicate myself to writing creatively or introspectively every day, I need to get back in the habit, and I shouldn't have to wait until next spring. I should be able to discipline myself to do that, writing a little (not on the computer, but by hand), whether it's journaling or something creative, be it ever so meager an effort, for the next 40 days. I'll start today...well, as it's after 1 in the morning, later today, although this post should count, right?

I pray for the intercession of St. Francis de Sales and St. Maximillian Kolbe, patrons of writers and journalists, for their help in sticking to my resolution. Counting it out, 40 days from today is August 14th. I can do that.

I just realized August 14th is St. Maximillian Kolbe's feast day. I sit here amazed.