Sophistication or Bibliomania?

In a time where sophistication wasn’t measured by the size of one’s flat-screen television or the apps on a smart-phone, the library was where one proved one’s merit. In my travels, the library of the Festetics Castle in Keszthely, Hungary mesmerized me and put my own personal library to shame.

This library, as you can see from our video, is two stories high, with volumes across genres, across languages, and from across time. The detailed, dark woodwork and marble floors lend grandeur to the words protected on these bookcases. My only complaint was that these dusty manuscripts weren’t accessible to the literary tourist, but I could understand the desire for preservation.

My favorite room had a hidden door covertly concealed within the shelves. This was a library overflowing with stories, and surely not all of these tales were those written upon pages.

In 2010, those among us who treasure and build our collections of tomes might just be considered hoarders. There’s even a psychological disorder for those addicted to collecting books: bibliomania. But there’s something about the collection of books that can never be matched by a “library” on a Kindle. There’s something nostalgic and magnificent, something we as writers understand more than anyone else.

Am I alone in my ardor?

The Travelling Scribe

Summer is nearly upon us, and though we may not be in school anymore, the siren’s call of the summer vacation pulls at us like a memory of the students we once were.

When we travel, we as writers had a different perspective than most. We are students of humanity, explorers of cultures with a magnifying glass and an archeologist’s brush, and eavesdroppers of the world’s tongues. Writers don’t just go on vacation. We go in search – in search of what exactly may differ between us, but adventure, romance, character, scene, perspective, and mystic are all editing tools of the travelling scribe. Our familiar worlds and words are left behind.

In Barcelona, I once sat at a corner café as a leathery skinned old man pulled a thin leash behind him attached to a wooden dog. The carved creature on its stick legs bounced across every divot in the cobbled street, and perhaps it was this energy that kept the old man talking to the wooden pet. What drove this man mad – be it the ghost of a dead dog or the tragedies of his past – was surely heartbreaking. I haven’t yet entered this man or this moment into a work of fiction, but it has stuck in my memory for years, waiting for the opportune story to strike.

Hiking north on the Appalachian Trail in Connecticut, once I encountered a grizzly backpacker with his lips parted and dry headed in the opposite direction. He asked how far behind us was a stream. Confused, we explained how the last water source was five miles back and watched his reaction of sheer dehydrated desperation. According to our maps, a riverbed was two miles ahead of us; however, the drought of 2003 had dried it up. There had been no water during the last thirteen miles of his southbound trek. Imagine his mindset, his fear, his challenge. Imagine his glory at taking gulps from our water bottles.

Why do I tell you my stories today? I’m off again, capturing a new adventure, new details, new voices, new plots, new tastes for my tongue, and new accents in my ears. I also say this, of course, because my weekly blog is going on vacation as well.

I’ll be back soon. Happy writing and good luck with your pursuits of publication!

Inspiration on Ice

I'm not talking about triple axels or salchows here, (or any other figure skating terminology that I learned how to spell for the sake of this sentence). I'm talking about travel and how travel can inspire. St. Augustine once said “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” I whole-heartedly agree and argue further that new locations allow you to transform the pages of your own writing. This past weekend, I had a new muse: The Hotel de Glace in Quebec, Canada.

The snow can be so fine in Canada that the flakes look like glitter, sprinkled by some second grade angel with an art project in the sky. When you stand outside in negative nine degree weather, the chill hits not like a slap in the face but rather like a fog. The sensation of cold wraps around you, stripping your sense of feeling. Inside a structure made entirely of ice, though, there is surprising comfort. Staying the night in such a place brings fears of frostbite and (admittedly for over-reacting me) death, but waking up in the morning, triumph and my negative twenty degree sleeping bag reinforced this new inspired vitality. I know that in my head, there is a character yet to be written that will feel this pain and glory.

The Hotel de Glace was such an amazing piece of artistry. Ice sculptors carved every wall, every piece of furniture, and every chandelier. The magnificent detail motivated me to create a work of art of my own.

A new short story is coming from our weekend adventure, a story tinged blue from the cold and draped in Nordic furs.

Have you ever had your travels inspire your writing?