Curiosity: The Writer's Best Friend

When you were a child, did you drive the adults around you nuts with your questions, until someone said, “Curiosity killed the cat.”

I never liked that statement. I wanted to know how the cat was killed, what did it do, and why did people keep bringing that up.

We are all born with curiosity. If it wanes as we age, that has to be our fault entirely. If we think there is nothing left to learn, we should put ourselves in a challenging situation and find new ways to rekindle our curiosity.  Reviewers should not be telling us what film to see, or what book to read; we should be curious enough to find out for ourselves. We should travel slowly when we are in new places, so that the curiosity has a longer time to build. On long canoe trips, I used to love bending rivers because it gave us more time to wonder what lay around the next point.

Dorothy Parker said, “The cure for boredom is curiosity.”

Moms who are home with children all summer, know this beyond a shadow of a doubt. Babies fascinate us with their curiosity.The photograph at the the top of this page comes from what could be the lost city of Atlantis. Archeologists have discovered a dearth of statues and buildings, all submerged by time and the ocean, lost but not forgotten to those who have always been curious.

During the recent move, I decided to part company with our old set of encyclopedias. I was loathe to do so. It just pained me to no end because there were so many times we, as a family, would look something up, all curious to find the answer. I used to look up new destinations and read about their history. The whole reason we ended up in North Idaho has to do with curiosity. Thumbing through an atlas at my father-in-law's house, I saw a map of this region, saw the French names of the lakes and became curious. Who named them? When? Could they have possibly come from the voyageurs? Could you get to North Idaho by canoe from Montreal? When the answer came back yes, I wanted to see this region. As luck, or fate, would have it, we were offered two free nights in a time share condo and decided on taking a slight detour on our way to British Columbia from California. We had our children with us, and the first lake we came upon was none other than our beloved lake Coeur d' Alene. We were heading north on Highway 95. I saw a sign for a boat launch and asked my husband if we could just go down that road and take a peek. We did and it was as if my hair stood on end. Funnily enough, we now live down that same road and on my way home from shopping, or an event in town, I see, once again, the very spot where I caught my first glimpse of the lake. Motivation and reward are tied to curiosity. I remain eternally grateful.

As far as writing is concerned, I am drawn to subjects I am curious about. I read biographies because I want to know how certain people found their way. What were the deciding factors? Who were their mentors? I am curious about the places we have inhabited. How did we get there? How did it work out for my forefathers? What events transpired to either help or hinder their way?

What will I write next? I am curious to find out because at this point, I do not have a clue.

Somewhere in Time...

I recently came across some valuable advice regarding the writing of historical fiction. The cautionary note indicated that the writer should not get lost in the research.  Luckily for me, I am one of those people who like the process of creating something; the journey is fun and I do not really want to get to my destination. This may explain why I often sit in my car in the driveway when I am returning home from a trip to the market. History should never be top heavy in the story; it should be there, but not in the way. What we want to see is how the characters react to the changing times, not to read about every last parliamentary procedure, or tiresome debate in the Senate. We need to have a light hand with that ingredient, yet it is just as important as butter is to a good batch of shortbread cookies.One fantasizes about writing the definitive work, and the writer wants to know every single last significant detail about the time, but then it has to be as a thick, velvet curtain at the back of the stage.

When I set out to write a story set in 1630, I  wanted to capture, for myself most of all, what it would have been like to live in back in Boston when Europeans were new to the continent.  I read everything written on the subject and then some. Due to the fact that my characters traveled back to England in the midst of the civil war, I had to cover that as well. Once I began to grasp the enormity of losing every safeguard put in place, and seeing England fall into a military dictatorship, I did want to cover it in great detail. Too much history came the response from my first readers, and so I had to chop and chop. Still, the story of the struggle remains.

While I am not a big reader of the genre known as historical fiction, I do love reading a gripping tale when I feel as if I have been transported to another place and time. To me, that is the key.

Last evening, we set out in the boat from our dock here at the southern end of Lake Coeur d' Alene. Given that we were after hours to some degree, and needed to fill up on gas, we decided to try the town of Harrison. Having always been a fan of the place, I was happy to go over and take our chances. We were told to go up to the bar and find the man who could help us. It gave me time, while standing and holding the boat, to think.

 Harrison has all the makings of a place that time forgot. Handsome brick buildings suggest that it was a town on its way to becoming a small city back in 1890, when a branch of the O.R. And N. railroad put in a stop. A large sawmill, moved up from St.Maries, meant that a substantial operation had begun. However, a large fire broke out at the same mill, in 1917, and  destroyed most of the town. When the steamships discontinued service, they were all but cut off and the town ended up having a different future. It is one of those places, where when looking at it from the water, you sense that you knew what it was like to live there one hundred years ago. As I stood on the dock,  waiting for my husband to return from One Shot Charlies, the bar where the man who could pump the gas happened to be visiting, I thought of potential stories regarding the town and how I always feel that way when I am there.

An enchanted place can often spark the impetus to write historical fiction. Those wanting to know more about the era, will often be drawn to the story.

In the movie, Somewhere in Time, the late Christopher Reeve plays a man who being stumped in his efforts at writing, decides to take a small trip and travel to the famous Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Michigan.  Once there, he becomes, captivated and obsessed regarding a photograph in the lobby. Desperate to know the hotel in its hey day and perhaps meet the person capturing his imagination, he accomplishes time travel and returns to 1917.  Of course, this is a metaphor for all writers and are we not lucky, that we have an imagination and picture what that may be like.

Time is running out to enter our contest here at writingnorthidaho. For details, read all about it in the sidebar.A picture can inspire 500 words.

Kudos, Goodbye, Earth Day and Writing

It is Writing North Idaho's honor to send kudos to our own Jennifer Lamont Leo for winning first place for her recently completed novel in the Inland Empire Christian Writers Conference. Congratulations, Jenny! We are so proud of you.





Writing North Idaho is sad to say a fond goodbye to one of our own. Nancy Owens Barnes is leaving WNI as a regular contributor to pursue other adventures in her full life. She hasn't left us permanently as she will return as a guest writer  and occasional technical guru. Her insights into our craft of writing will be missed but all her previous posts are available by clicking on her name at the lower left sidebar. We have all learned from her posts.

We wish Nancy all the best adventures possible in her expanded life of writing, book promotions, travel, sailing on the  lake in her father's restored boat and spending time with family and friends.  Please visit her web sites nancyowensbarners.com and southtoalaska.com.  Thanks, Nancy, for many jobs well done!       

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Today, April 22, and every April 22 for 43 years, people around the world have celebrated Earth Day. It is estimated that this year approximately one billion people will participate in some act that shows our love of and respect for planet Earth. ("If you are talking about the Earth as a proper noun, as a planet or celestial body, then you can capitalize Earth and use no article (the): How far is Earth from the Sun? But it is also fine to leave it as lowercase and use the with earth if you are talking about it as the planet we live on: The earth rotates on its axis. It is ok to do the same with the sun and the moon. When you are talking about the ground or soil as a surface or stratum, then you must lowercase the word: The archaeologists excavated the earth at the site. The word earth is derived from Greek era. Here is something interesting - we never hear people say the Mercury, the Pluto - but we do say the Earth, the Moon. Using the definite article "the" in front of an uncapitalized [sic] "earth" has its roots in the worldview that we are separate from and fundamentally different.") [http://dictionary.reference.com/help/faq/language/s05.html]

It is globally considered a day to plant a tree, pick up roadside trash, beautify a park, or any number of other activities that inspire awareness and appreciation of the earth’s environment. Some interest groups have used Earth Day as a podium for their belief that there is unprecedented climate change happening world-wide and use April 22 as a tool to draw people to their agendas.

What does that mean to us as writers? If you are a poet, today is the day to write a poem about the view out your front window, the lake where you kayak, your neighbor’s flower garden or the clouds on a spring day. If you garden, why not think about adding a place in your yard where you can sit in the summer shade and write or edit? What better place to do the onerous job of editing than in nature’s beauty? It makes the task much more palatable. Use Earth Day as a writing prompt and compose a story that comes to mind. It could be set in the past, the present or the future.

English Point National Recreation Trail and Park is near my house. There is a five mile groomed trail that meanders through north Idaho national forest land.  Wooden benches are placed along various points. One of my favorites is a place that gives a magnificent view of Hayden Lake. I think that is how I will spend my day: a five mile hike with a long stop to view the blue lake, evergreen trees, nature and to write another post for this week.

Hayden Lake, Idaho, U.S.A.

An interesting story is how Hayden Lake got its name. During the late 1870s, the first homesteaders, a Mr. Strahorn (first name unrecorded) and three soldiers from Fort Sherman (downtown Coeur d'Alene, ID on Lake Coeur d'Alene, 7.5 miles south of Hayden Lake), Matt Hayden, John Hager, and John Hickey, settled in the area. Legend has it that Hayden and Hager, whose homestead was on this lake played a game of seven-up to determine who should name the lake. Hayden won the card game.

Celebrate Earth Day in your own way and enjoy what Earth has to offer!

No Small Potatoes

There has been a movement afoot in literature to focus on one commodity, and make a book of it. People have written about salt, wine and chocolate. This led me to wonder if anyone has written about what the great state of Idaho is known for, namely, the potato.

How did this come to pass? How is it that when a person from Idaho travels, he or she is inevitably asked about potatoes. It turns out that Idaho was a trail blazer in this regard when in 1937 the Idaho Potato Commission was founded. This body, funded by a tax paid by potato farmers, set out to advertise on radio and later television, to create a brand identity from a single crop. A seal was fashioned and customers were encouraged to look for that mark when purchasing what was to become our famous potatoes. Lots of other states grow the crop, but the affection and identity formed by the commission created a market for thirteen billion pounds of spuds, one third of all those sold in the United States.

On St. Patrick's Day, a dear friend by the name of Mary, told me about a book she had just read by Mary Pat Kelly. Entitled, “Galway Bay,” the novel is an actual oral history passed down from one generation to the next. Told primarily through the women, it is the tale of one immigrant family and their travails from Ireland to Chicago. While it is not about the potato famine, called An Gorda Mor in Gaelic, it is the great catalyst of the tale.

“They tried to kill us, but we didn't die.” This is the thread of the story handed down through the ages; it is one of incredible hardship and then survival.

When I was in school in Toronto, I recall the day the teacher told us that the famine was caused by a lazy population who stupidly lived on one crop because they could not be bothered to grow anything else.

"When that crop suffered a blight they starved," she told us, with the implication that they should have known better hanging in the air.

I remember looking out the window, trying to wed that story with what I knew about my own family, all of whom are avid gardeners and farmers. At home, I asked if the story were true and heard that food was exported to England all through those dark days. Imagine having to take the harvest to market, load a ship and return home to a house of desperate want. As the "croppies" were only given a scant bit of land to cultivate for private use, the "pratties" gave the highest yield and provided the greatest nourishment.

These are the facts: 750,000 were confirmed dead of starvation. Bearing in mind that many more died in the coffin ships landing in Montreal and Boston, this would be a severe underestimation. Without the hospitals, or the man power necessary to deal with the influx, the sick passengers arriving in Quebec were put on an island in the St. Lawrence and left exposed to the elements. Promised, land, cash and food upon arrival, they arrived to find nothing and no way home. The bit of land they left behind on the dear, old sod had been exchanged for the price of their passage. Cecil Woodham Smith reported that during the famine years, 257,000 sheep were exported to England from lands held by absentee landlords. 480,827 swine went over as well as 186,483 head of cattle. Not even mentioning other crops, the picture is clear.

Yet there is a happy ending to this tale. The Irish flourished in both the United States and Canada. Reading “Galway Bay” prompted me to look up the history of my maternal grandmother, Rose Cahill Gaudette. One of ten children in her family, I learned that her mother was the oldest in a family of ten. Going back through the generations, my blood ran cold when I saw the date. In 1848 Thomas Cahill arrived in Montreal. Famine. Coffin ship. Most of the passengers died and their bodies were tossed over. Of the living, it was decided to send the Irish on a barge to Toronto. The sun blazed and the fair skins burned. Once again they were placed on an island off shore. Yet the good people of the city, rowed out in small boats and volunteered to tend the sick, risking their own lives in the process. The Cahills made their way to the gorgeous Ottawa valley, carved a life in the wilderness, and flourished.

Because of “Galway Bay” and in memory of all the times my grandmother served her famous Boxty, the potato pancake, I planted a crop in my garden. Yesterday, I harvested the first of my bounty and served it with dinner. It is true. There is something about Idaho. I am proud to report that the potatoes were entirely delicious. Because of "Galway Bay," I will plant them every year from now on.

From one noun a great story may unfold.

Writing North Idaho

I  spent several hours  yesterday trekking back and forth across pine covered trails, and wooded land thinking about Writing North Idaho and what to write for todays blog.

I was blank, my thought process dry, nothing came to mind.  Over and over I kept asking myself,  what to write?  What to write?

 Let’s see. Maybe something about lyrics, limericks ,  or long form letters. While those topics interest me, they didn’t inspire me. No, not this day.  So I  continued my trek and walked some more, closer to the lake view, and our old log swing.  I sat for awhile and rested , while continuing to think about   Writing North Idaho,   until  Writing North Idaho   became  just north  Idaho, the bountiful and beautiful land all about me:

The majesty of age old trees

tall and upright,  like

guardians around the lake;

The soft, pale blue  sky

prettier than any pastel

painted by Renoir or Vermeer

and the quiet of peaceful

earth, unclaimed and free.

I began to contemplate the design of  nature,  and the acclaimed nature writers; John Muir and his Yosemite, Thoreau and his pond, Gifford Pinchot and his love for the forest,  and how their feel for words  bring the perfect  description  of flowers, and mountains and fields and streams to  enrich and elevate the reader to a place of peaceful reverie.


 Nature writing is about the environment, the care and respect of the land, it is also about the shear beauty and awesome creation of our Creator; a royal gift  to all of us to enjoy,  and cherish. Walking, and sitting in the company of so many big pines and white firs,  Joyce Kilmer’s most famous poem , Trees came to mind:

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair; 

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

If you have an interest in nature writing,  you might want to check out the two internet sites listed below. Both are filled with valuable information,  including how to keep a nature journal.

http://www.your-nature-journal.com/nature-writing.html

http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng385/natweb.htm  (Web resources on nature writing)


Postscript:  Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918) was an American journalist, poet, literary critic.  To learn more about Kilmer and his poetry visit :


http://www.risingdove.com/Kilmer/Trees.asp

http://www.everypoet.com/archive/poetry/Joyce_Kilmer/Joyce_Kilmer_contents.htm