11/6/2023
Los Angeles
Dear Friend,
I could have the wind blow down the cliff and tangle your hair in knots. But why would I do that when I could bring everything in this world to life? Let’s give the wind a face and two naughty hands! The wind has a spirit that wants to tie my hair into knots on purpose.
My fantasy novel is sparkling with these kinds of conversions, transformation, animations. In the first draft I wrote, “The wind rushed down the cliff side tangling our hair.” I circle back around around with a red pen and adjust the words to read, “The fairies of the wind rushed out of the cliff side, tumbling through our hair, tying it into knots.” I underline the word “fairies” because I am yet undecided whether I will specifically name the mystical creatures. I’m fond of the possibility that I might create a world for you that includes all the fairies without ever once calling them by name. I’d like to give your imagination the opportunity to create something fresh without previous labels and associations, whenever possible.
This is the fun exercise of most of my writing sessions. How do I explain what I’m seeing without using the obvious words? How do you bring a fairy to life inside of someone’s mind without ever calling it a fairy? Tricky, tricky.
Today, I’m playing with these wind fairies (though I’ll never tell you they are fairies…although I suppose it is too late now to say that), at a park in Glendale, California. I woke up before everyone else, poured a cup of steaming green tea, waddled in my pajamas down the sunny sidewalk to the local playground park where the grass is stained with dog pee, and set up writing shop on the plastic bench-table that was still damp with dew. Thankfully my sweatpants were thick enough that my butt didn’t get wet and cold. I’m still loving typing this novel on my iPad with the magic keyboard case. It is a game changer. I would never want to bring my laptop to the park first thing in the morning but I also don’t want to write this whole story by hand. I appreciate the ability to cut and paste too much. So this iPad is the greatest technological upgrade of my year! Now that I’ve put in my time today, an hour crafting this fantasy — today the characters were running away from a city, escaping through the fields, racing towards the ocean — it’s time to go back to the music studio.
I’m in Los Angeles this weekend writing a song with The Friz. We’ve been in the studio for four days, playing in our imaginations. You won’t be surprised to hear that our song is about mermaids and fairies. I can’t seem to escape the world of fantasy but I don’t mind. This world needs more magic, more people playing make believe, more women writing songs about mermaids and novels about fairies.
Love & Rainbows,
Cha Wilde