What an Amazing Weekend

I had the most brilliant weekend. On Saturday I sat and read with Rachel on my lap - well, sometimes on my lap, other times climbing all over me like a monkey on a jungle jim! Or is that gym?? I finished two books inbetween Rachel's climbing. Anyway, today was pretty laid back too - since there's a public holiday tomorrow, I took today off and we ended up going to the chapel and letting the kids play sport in the hall while I sat and worked on a painting and Rich did some work and met up with the elders quorum president.
I've been writing for the last few hours - working on Salt Water and listening to a stream of CD's that have gathered dust for a while. I'm listening to my favourite song by Midnight Oil right now: Now or Never Land. I love that song it's got a pacific island feel to it. I hope nobody was imagining I might be considering beds are burning... Blech! If it wasn't for Earth and Sun and Moon, I would probably abhor Midnight Oil. It's amazing how music affects what you're righting! I was listening to a BYU Men's choir and when I went back to read what I wrote, I doubled over in fits of laughter! It was like reading something from the Baroque era. (Baroque: a style of art - if memory serves me from around the 17th-18thC - very grandiose and overdone) But it worked in the story and while this flow of writing might stop as suddenly as it started, I am finding the story exciting to write at the moment.
I don't actually see myself as a writer - I just have these stories that keep seeping out and I really just want to get them on paper. Even if they're never published, I want to have them written down - from start to finish.
I have a good idea of the outline, but as I write, things keep happening - unexpected things that surprise me and that amazes me about writing. In art you plan something, draw it out and more often than not, it's pretty much what one expects - there aren't any surprises. Unless of course the kids knock over a bottle of dirty water or the cat runs through paint and then leaves mucky coloured paw prints all the way across your very expensive paper! I love how the characters suddenly do something that you don't really expect them to do and the writing becomes like a living organism existing on its own with the most amazing magical feel to it. It's wonderful.
I don't know if it's just me, but I'm finding increasingly that I can predict stories and what will happen. I'm not sure if this is a result of reading a lot, or being older! It's like you don't have to read the rest of the story - and for me that's an OCD thing! Mind you, there are still one or two that have surprised me. I have to watch the end of a movie or read the end of a book. It's essential for me to see how the creator of a piece envisions the end of the story... The only movie I have not felt the need to endure to the end was Napolean Dynamite - sorry Joanne! That movie was awful!