linda collison's Sea of Words
charting a course from imagination to publication
On a spring day in 1981 I made my first parachute jump under an old military T-10: A big round olive green ‘chute blossoming over my head just seconds after letting go of the strut of a Cessna 205, 2500 feet above a snow covered Colorado wheat field.
Photo courtesy of North London Skydiving Centre
I was 27 years old. My life at that time was proving quite a challenge. I was divorced; a mother, a nursing student. Money was scarce, I was working and going to school, trying to rebuild my life. Jumping out of an airplane was one of the scariest thing I had ever done. So frightening and so exhilarating that I had to do it again. And again. And well over a thousand times more. I became a certified freefall jumpmaster, then a skydiving instructor. I made lifelong friends and I competed in Nationals on a four-way team with Bob Russell, a man who I’ve been married to for nineteen years this November.
Two freefall jumpmasters with a student in the middle. Photo courtesy of North London Skydiving Centre.
For more than a decade, skydiving was my passion. I still dream of it. Some of my best friends are skydivers or former skydivers, and once a skydiver always a skydiver, it’s like a secret society.
Skydive Arizona, in Eloy; a skydiving resort and home of the U.S.P.A. 2011 Nationals
Photo courtesy of North London Skydiving Centre
I haven’t made a skydive in over a decade but I still have my gear. Bob just took his in to have his reserve ‘chute repacked — just in case. We’ve been temporarily living in Tucson, 50 miles from one of the premier drop zones in the world: Skydive Arizona . Home of the United States Parachute Assoication National Skydiving Competition. Which Bob and I competed in twenty years ago this month with our friends Steve and Mike. Yesterday we met Steve at Skydive Arizona and enjoyed a heartwarming reunion. Also at Eloy this year is my first jump course instructor and friend, Ellen Bakke Monsees; a world class competitor on Moxie, a winning all-female team.
Moxie: A world-call, all-female skydiving team. Like them on Facebook
Two of my teammates, twenty years after
I gave up skydiving a decade ago but I still dream about it. I remember how it felt to leave my cares on the ground, to live an entire lifetime in fifty-five seconds of freefall, the earth far away but not forgotten and too quickly approaching.
19th century novelist Stendhal
Are there too many books in the world? No! Are there too many books for one person to read in a lifetime? Absolutely! The dilemma feels similar to Stendahl’s Syndrome, a temporary response of being physically and emotionally debilitated while in the presence of great works of art.
According to Wikipedia, “the illness is named after the famous 19th-century French author Stendhal (pseudonym of Henri-Marie Beyle), who described his experience with the phenomenon during his 1817 visit to Florence in his book Naples and Florence: A Journey from Milan to Reggio. Although there are many descriptions of people becoming dizzy and fainting while taking in Florentine art, especially at the Uffizi, dating from the early 19th century on, the syndrome was only named in 1979, when it was described by Italian psychiatrist Graziella Magherini, who observed and described more than 100 similar cases among tourists and visitors in Florence.”
Just thinking about all the books I will never be able to read no matter how long I live makes me feel light-headed and rather sick. So what to do?
Free sample chapters in electronic format offer a slight remedy, at least for me. I have quite a collection on my Kindle of first chapters of books by various authors, which gives me an idea of the writer’s voice and style, as well as the subject matter. Sometimes I am compelled to buy the book, sometimes I am not, but my book awareness has greatly expanded. I know a little about a lot more authors, I am able to better keep up with new books as well as classics, not to mention the ever expanding sea of mid-list titles.
Even with free sample downloads I still buy tons of books. I buy hardbacks, paperbacks – new and used — I buy many e-books because my Kindle is great for travel. I always buy books by my favorite authors, I like reading their entire oeuvre and as a writer myself, I like following how my favorite authors develop over the years. I read a lot of nonfiction: History and biography are great favorites, and I love a good literary novel. My favorite authors, living and dead, are those who have insight into the psychology of their characters and who are able to bring alive the setting. Character-driven fiction, whether historical or urban contemporary, is what I most enjoy. Frankly, I don’t care so much what happens in a novel; what concerns me is how it affects the character.
In order to manage my literary case of Stendahl’s syndrome I concentrate on my favorite literary authors and on emerging authors in my genre, historical fiction. And of course I cannot neglect all of the wonderful nonfiction and scholarly books that I rely on for my research. In fact, as most historical fiction authors would agree, you can get happily lost in the research and never write the novel! One way to stay focused and write what only you can is by staying in touch with other like-minded authors who are producing. For inspiration there’s nothing like talking with a creative, productive author. In my next blog I’ll chat with historical fiction author, Alaric Bond.
Stay tuned!
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past” – William Faulkner
What drives me to write is a desire to connect with other lives, to imagine and recreate them. Sometimes, like you, I imagine my own self in former times, embellishing the experiences here and there for dramatic effect. My portals to the past are good music, certain artists, old buildings, certain books, travelling (by any means but particularly by water) and dreams. I’ve also discovered that a couple glasses of wine helps me slip through the wormhole with ease.
Right now where I am in this time, the sun is setting over the ocean, I’m watching it from the sunroom with a glass of Kendall Jackson Private Reserve in my hand. I’m waiting for Bob to come home so we can make fish tacos and share the scraps of our day. I just spoke with my grown son on the phone, and I’m still feeling anguished over a problem he is facing. But a couple of months from now I won’t remember the particulars of this day.
I forget so much more than I remember — even the things I do remember somehow change. I find that distressing, do you?
If so, rest assured a couple of hundred years from now, long after you and I are dead, someone will remember this day for us. Someone will recreate your day and mine, they will somehow capture the essence of it, pastiche a few details and share it with others. Maybe it will even be you and I who does this, in different forms under different names. OK, it’s not near late enough to be having this conversation and I’m not drunk enough, but the topic won’t let me be.
As a writer I am driven to try to capture the essence of people, some living, some long dead. Or are they dead? Have they ever lived? They exist in my mind very clearly, I can tell you that. Maybe fictional people are as real as nonfictional ones. Maybe there are no fictional people. Have you ever read Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder? If not, you must. “I am large, I contain multitudes,” writes Walt Whitman. Maybe we are all the same person. This stuff drives me crazy!
Anyway, people in different centuries are more alike than different. It’s the similarities that fascinate me more so than the differences. In the first draft I’m trying to capture what it is we have in common, what we all can relate to. All of the historical details can be researched, fact checked, woven in, but the heart of the story is how we are alike, and that must be an integral, organic part. You can’t edit that in, it’s like Voice. To find the beating heart of the story might require a little time travelling.
And how to do that? Maybe you already do it without knowing it. You are already in that time as well as this time, as well as an infinite other times. (I don’t make this shit up, I have read Brian Greene, have you?) You see, it’s all happening simultaneously but your awareness, your consciousness, is partitioned off from its other selves so you seem to be only able to experience one moment in one life at one time.
Do you see what I’m burdened with here? This is the kind of thinking that drives one to write, or drink. Or both. Thank God, I hear Bob coming in the door. Time to make fish tacos! Which I won’t remember six months from now. But someday someone will, I’m quite certain.
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