Week in Seven Words #574

This covers the week of 1/17/21 - 1/23/21.

barely

Running water in a denuded wood. The bareness makes us wish for a fir or a pine. There's only some greenness – crisp holly leaves by a splintering log.

checkup

His office is comforting and old-fashioned. The sofas are upholstered in blue and yellow, and in a glass case he's arranged a variety of charmingly odd statues. Dust is the dominant smell, with a hint of aftershave. The appointment takes a while, longer than expected, but I'm glad he isn't rushing through it. The results feel more exact.

disturbing

She assumes I slept better because I stayed up reading a book. But the truth is I don't know why I sleep better on some nights and worse on others.

fragrant

The wood chips from different evergreens give off a sweet aroma like mango.

needing

I needed to hear that I have what I need. (Besides trust. I need more trust.)

subject

I don't know what a given conversation will be like. Sometimes, it's about the pandemic and what's happening to the economy. Other times, it's about eggless cake batter and nothing else.

tamed

The heating unit that has been squealing is now purring.

Week in Seven Words #379

puncturing
Canceled plans give the weekend a deflated feeling.

runner-up
The fat trophy on his desk, the one I can imagine filled with mead, is a trophy he made for himself, celebrating something athletic (the inscription is small).

sullying
When he makes a nasty comment, it's similar to how he might squat and defecate in public and look you in the eye while doing it. Even if you turn away, you're left with the image of him exulting over his excrement.

supporting
She has another nightmare, but this time she also has someone's hand on her shoulder, comforting her.

trustworthy
She likes affection, but what she values more is trust. Let them give her the keys to a car or house, the permission to plan a wedding or offer investment advice, and she'll be happy.

twinned
One of them is enthusiastic about life and wants to learn more about it; he'll open his window and take pleasure in a tree branch, crooked like an elbow. The other one, who is roughly the same age, keeps the windows shuttered and rarely opens the door, but acts as if she knows exactly what's going on in the world.

worrisome
It isn't a good idea for her to read true crime novels, just like it wasn't a good idea for her to look through WebMD for hours. Now she'll think someone is going to brain her with a statue, possibly because she has rabies.

Our Little Sister (2015): Exploring Forgiveness and Trust

Title: Our Little Sister
Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Language: Japanese
Rating: PG

Our Little Sister is a movie that brings more beauty into the world, not just entertainment. It doesn't show unnecessary drama. Any tension arises from the characters' circumstances; the writers didn't shoehorn arguments into the plot. Much of the movie is grounded in what makes life beautiful, like sharing food and conversation with loved ones. I also like how the movie explores forgiveness and trust.

Three adult sisters who live together learn that their estranged father has passed away. He had abandoned his family for a love affair with a woman who became his second wife. His first wife, the sisters' mother, also wound up abandoning them at some point after. The eldest sister, Sachi (Haruka Ayase), stepped into the role of mother for her younger sisters.

When they attend his funeral, they meet their teenaged half-sister, Suzu (Suzu Hirose), for the first time. Their reaction to her is curiosity and kindness, and they invite her to live with them.

Week in Seven Words #262

bedazzle
The sun's out, and the sand looks like snow, white and glittering.

commitment
She gives me her trust like she would her child. I cradle it with awkward care, feeling its quiet hammering pulse and knowing I must never lose hold of it.

deceptive
On the playground, she encounters children who lie charmingly and convincingly, who are friendly one day and insulting the next. She doesn't know what to make of them; they confuse her. Beyond what they do, it's the why - the why is at the heart of the bewildered hurt.

greased
Sleek men attend to their ale and steak.

raring
The dog, at the end of her leash, recognizes my scent, whines, leaps and strains to get close, to be petted and present her belly for a rub.

sundering
Between me and him - a window pane, the twisted branches of a tree.

wrestlers
In their academic gowns, they circle the stage and size each other up, as if their battle of wits will be a physical brawl.

NaNoWriMo Notes #1: Trusting Yourself When You Write

November is National Novel Writing Month, which I'll use as an additional push to keep my novel-writing on a tight schedule and maybe finish this draft of the book earlier than my 12/18 self-imposed deadline.

One issue that's important to me and that I struggle with is trusting myself when I write. In Ann Lamott's book, Bird by Bird, I came across a great analogy for what it's like to write an early draft of a novel:

E.L. Doctorow once said that “writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” You don’t have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you.

and later she writes:

You get your confidence and intuition back by trusting yourself, by being militantly on your own side. You need to trust yourself, especially on a first draft, where amid the anxiety and self-doubt, there should be a real sense of your imagination and your memories walking and woolgathering, tramping the hills, romping all over the place. Trust them. Don’t look at your feet to see if you are doing it right. Just dance.

Letting go and just writing is still something I need to work on. What helps is to remind myself that I need a warm up period - usually during the first fifteen minutes or so of writing I'm too worried about how things will turn out; I'm too much at a remove from the work. But if I let myself ease into the writing, my grip loosens on the steering wheel and I can drive into that dark night, with only a hazy idea of my destination and some milestones along the way, and focus instead on what the headlights are showing me. If I drive without trusting myself, the car will move in fits and starts, and I'll inch along, lose momentum, and stop at the side of the road, unable to continue.

What it comes down to is fearlessness and trust. I must be able to trust myself and what I'm capable of when I write. Instead of fearing the blankness beyond the blinking cursor, I need to barrel into it with everything I have. Sometimes it doesn't seem like much, but time and again I surprise myself. A character that seemed to go nowhere suddenly has a story, a motive, a purpose that makes sense. A location I mentioned in passing twenty pages back becomes I place I can walk through and touch and smell. I just have to keep writing.