Reflections of 2016: The Little Things

It's the last day of 2016, and there's quite a bit I didn't care for about this year, if I'm being honest. More challenges, too many good people dying, just a lot of terribleness and a general sense of dissatisfaction.

And it's easy to dwell on that, to find one's self thinking on all the things you wish had gone differently. But I want to say good-bye to 2016 and hello to 2017 with a sense of positivity and hope.

Resolutions are coming, goals I've started on this year that I want to see come to fruition in 2017, but for now, I am looking to bring some brightness and love into my little world.

So I am borrowing an idea that a twitter mutual borrowed from someone else: a list of things I love. Because some times, maybe most of the time, it is the little things that help us get through the tough days. Therefore:

A List of Little Things I Love

• the night sky/galaxies
• rain--the sound of it, the smell of it, the promise of it on the horizon as the moutains are consumed by dark clouds
• cool sheets and a warm blanket
• the smell of my pillows
• the feel of satin ribbons
• the smell of tomato sauce at every stage of its creation
• the texture of freshly baked bread
• pumpkin bread
• extra cheesy mac n' cheese
• Pepsi
• the smell of lavender
• soaring instrumental music (especially violin and piano)
• singing out loud without feeling self-conscious
• cats
• seeing something grow that I had a hand in tending
• new, uncreased book spines
• books!
• reading a new book in a series I love
• new episodes of a show I love
• Steven Universe and its music
• Yuri on Ice and its music
• The Hamilton soundtrack
• dragons, unicorns, and griffins
• Star Wars (The Force Awakens and Rogue in particular, General Leia Organa overall)
• learning an actor whose work I enjoy is an unproblematic fave
• remembering the name of an HITG ("Hey, it's that guy/girl"--when you see an actor all the time, but can never remember their name even though they're in everything)
• wrapping something perfectly
• folding origami perfectly
• finishing a piece of art (painting, jewelry, anything) and having it look the way I imagined it
• finishing writing a story
• learning a new skill
• see someone excited about and using something I made for them
• watching a movie with friends in an empty theater, so no one can complain if I talk during the movie
• Disney and fantasy art
• sketches 
• receiving an unexpected gift or a pleasant surprise
• feeling accomplished and productive
• finding the perfect gift
• hearing about good things happening to/for friends
• geeky references in unlikely places
• people catching on to and appreciating my geeky references
• feeling listened to 
• finding new art I love
• finding fandom fabric
• wearing something I love -and- feeling beautiful in it
• happy ending, or at least hopeful ones
• my armor: art nouveau Maleficent t-shirt, comfortable jeans, Maleficent socks, and my galaxy sneakers or ass-kicking boots

Drown all the boys and girls inside your head...

* not the actual line in a My Chemical Romance song, but that's what I thought it would be and I like my version better.

What seems to me a common piece of advice often given to aspiring writers is that of using all the senses when writing. Far be for me to talk back to the Powers That Be in the publishing world. On one occasion at my writers group, months, if not a year or two ago, one of the women there asked me how I remember events that occurred in my life.

That is how I remember to include the other senses in description.

The look of something is important, a symbolic splash of red or a flash or light or a poignant solitary blue flower in a gold vase.

But scents and sounds, I think, are perhaps tied for the second sensory method of remembering.

I’m not sure why I started thinking about this the other day, only that I did as I tried to fall asleep. One or two notes from a song on the radio (a song from a few years ago, but totally unrelated) elicited a memory of something. I can’t remember the memory now, it was a few days ago, but it was just this sudden and obscure memory.

That of course, led to my thinking about my own personal, “classic” example: listening to Ace of Base (not their “The Sign” album, but the one after) brought to mind “The Last Vampire” series I read by Christopher Pike when I was in 6th grade. I listened to that album a lot as I lay on my bed and read those books. I can’t think of one without the other, especially because I felt the mood of those songs seemed to fit the protagonist of the book series so well.

[small, unrelated side note: I’m typing this on Word and the dreaded green squiggly line has appeared under ‘lay’, which reminds me of a fairly recent post by Writtenwyrdd on the difference between lay and lie. Go, find it and check it out, while I try to figure out if this is actually wrong or Word is being fickle.]

[and some guy on Judge Judy said “tooken,” as in, “where he had just tooken my dog.” Interesting. Of course, in AIM a few days ago, I said “fighted” and didn’t even realize it at first.]

back to my original topic—

When my writing group member asked me how I remember things, I thought of scents, which, I believe, is a powerful way to add a sense of realism to a story.

I have no idea how to describe the smell of my mother on her pillows, but whenever I am changing the bed and catch a whiff of that scent, I think of being a little kid and curling up in her bed or on her rocking chair and that sense of warm protection and comfort.

Or catching a whiff of ‘something’ as I’m walking down the street and even if I can’t figure out what the odor is, it brings to mind some other memory.

So keep I mind those scents, fragrances and odors that elicit memories in your life and think about using that technique in order to bring realism and another layer of detail to your story, but don’t forget particular sounds. If your story is set in the contemporary world, a line or note from a song can have strong implications to a character, or the intonation in a stranger’s voice might remind them of someone they knew closely years ago, though this stranger looks nothing like the person brought to mind.

Play around with it, and try not to rely too much to a single sense in your descriptions.

Happy writing.

And I leave you with an awesome line from Heroes: "Life evolves, Father...Now I have to go save the world." *Hiro (whom we love)