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QaR
June 2009 
unfolding the butterly and loving it!
Posted on Nov 13th, 2008
by 
quietlaughter
quietlaughter
It has been quite awhile it seems since I last sat down to write an entry here (or anywhere)… it hasn’t been that long in terms of days, but long enough to seem like there has been a gap in the kind of writing that I promised myself I would try to keep up. I am failing miserably at it!
A lot has been happening since my past entry – drove to Nova Scotia and back again for what was probably one of the best holidays I can ever remember having. I came home feeling energized and filled with purpose – heavy on the feeling energized part. November 1st I jumped into the National Novel Writing Competition along with 20 or so others from Diving Deeper. The competition involves writing from November 1st to 30th with the goal of having 50,000 words by the 30th. Much to my surprise, ten days later, I arrived at 50,000 words and the better part of my first novel written. The story that I wrote isn’t entirely finished, some characters keep jumping up and wanting to say something more…. But when it is finished, then I will begin the editing process, and see where that all will go. It has been a very interesting and enjoyable process so far – much more so than I ever anticipated! Here is a brief synopsis of the story:
Unfolding The Butterfly is a story of transformation that looks at crucial intersections in a person's life - the events that shake and change people.
Quinlan is having dinner in a restaurant with his sister, Lola. He just finishes telling her that he has been transferred to a small Southwestern Ontario town by his company. He asked to be transferred because he felt he could no longer live in the city. Then they witness a horrific crime outside the window of the restaurant just feet from their table. A man is killed in cold blood on the street. The killer sees Quinlan and Lola through the window, and tries to kill them as well before the police arrive. By the grace of God, the killer misses, and flees.
Quinlan convinces his sister to come with him to Port Glasgow to hide until the police capture the killer. Reluctantly, Lola agrees. They make the trip down, confident that they are safe, until Lola sees the killer watching the house. Lola runs. She disappears. Quinlan is convinced that it is the shadowy killer he saw in Toronto. Quinlan tries desperately to find her after getting an interrupted cell phone call. He thinks he sees her lying in the street, but when he goes to her, he discovers young woman who was badly beaten. He takes her to the local hospital to get medical help. The unknown woman presses a wadded message into his hand before being rushed into surgery. The letter holds a clue to where the killer took Lola - the only clue Quinlan has that will lead him to his sister. He has no choice but to follow the message to find Lola. His quest leads him Isla who is the key to the entire mystery.
What does it take to truly transform a life? Learning the art of unfolding the butterfly.
~
Now, I am about to embark on another big project for the next week…It actually has been an on going one since the beginning of September, but next week is when the big winter coat giveaway happens at work. I have already mentioned that mountain recently…. It is going to be a very special, if not exhausting week.
Needless to say, my mind has been a bit busy with everything… it’s a good kind of busy. I am loving it!
la
A lot has been happening since my past entry – drove to Nova Scotia and back again for what was probably one of the best holidays I can ever remember having. I came home feeling energized and filled with purpose – heavy on the feeling energized part. November 1st I jumped into the National Novel Writing Competition along with 20 or so others from Diving Deeper. The competition involves writing from November 1st to 30th with the goal of having 50,000 words by the 30th. Much to my surprise, ten days later, I arrived at 50,000 words and the better part of my first novel written. The story that I wrote isn’t entirely finished, some characters keep jumping up and wanting to say something more…. But when it is finished, then I will begin the editing process, and see where that all will go. It has been a very interesting and enjoyable process so far – much more so than I ever anticipated! Here is a brief synopsis of the story:
Unfolding The Butterfly is a story of transformation that looks at crucial intersections in a person's life - the events that shake and change people.
Quinlan is having dinner in a restaurant with his sister, Lola. He just finishes telling her that he has been transferred to a small Southwestern Ontario town by his company. He asked to be transferred because he felt he could no longer live in the city. Then they witness a horrific crime outside the window of the restaurant just feet from their table. A man is killed in cold blood on the street. The killer sees Quinlan and Lola through the window, and tries to kill them as well before the police arrive. By the grace of God, the killer misses, and flees.
Quinlan convinces his sister to come with him to Port Glasgow to hide until the police capture the killer. Reluctantly, Lola agrees. They make the trip down, confident that they are safe, until Lola sees the killer watching the house. Lola runs. She disappears. Quinlan is convinced that it is the shadowy killer he saw in Toronto. Quinlan tries desperately to find her after getting an interrupted cell phone call. He thinks he sees her lying in the street, but when he goes to her, he discovers young woman who was badly beaten. He takes her to the local hospital to get medical help. The unknown woman presses a wadded message into his hand before being rushed into surgery. The letter holds a clue to where the killer took Lola - the only clue Quinlan has that will lead him to his sister. He has no choice but to follow the message to find Lola. His quest leads him Isla who is the key to the entire mystery.
What does it take to truly transform a life? Learning the art of unfolding the butterfly.
~
Now, I am about to embark on another big project for the next week…It actually has been an on going one since the beginning of September, but next week is when the big winter coat giveaway happens at work. I have already mentioned that mountain recently…. It is going to be a very special, if not exhausting week.
Needless to say, my mind has been a bit busy with everything… it’s a good kind of busy. I am loving it!
la
Access: Public
Hi Leigh-Anne
Give a story to a busy person and you just know from the reader's view, its gonna be a great story. I am loving it unfolding too and added this to my notifications. Keep on writing as I know the world will change by reading your wonderful works. I can just feel that. You got the gifts of a great scribe. Have a wonderful season. ~kathy
Thanks very much Kathy :-)
I am glad that you are enjoying it now too! I have been writing more about the process that I have been going through – making notes as I have been sitting down to write the novel… or to be more precise, when I am not writing, so that when I do write, I can remember what it was that popped into my mind. It many ways, it feels like I have been working of the past year to reach this point – to participate on the writing competition (which isn’t really a competition against anyone other than against myself, which is the only kind of competition I like any more) and be open to whatever arrived. There is part of me that is a little in awe of what did arrive. A great deal of the time over those first ten days, I felt as though I was just transcribing what I was ‘hearing’ and ‘seeing’, trying desperately to keep up with the speed with which I was being shown what to write. It is difficult to really capture everything that happens in the story in a synopsis like I wrote. The stories of the characters’ lives intersect at different points with other characters that I did not mention, as well as the blurring of the lines between what is real and what is fantasy. This quote from Italo Corvino’s Six Memos for the Next Millenium jumped out of the book and clocked me one. It explains very well one of the main themes of the book:
“Still, all “realities” and fantasies” can take on form only by means of writing, in which outwardness and innerness, the world and I, experience and fantasy, appear composed of the same verbal material”
Anyway, I will keep you posted! By the way, the poem below All that remains in the wind, made it into the book as well. It’s from a collection of my poems that I titled ‘Inner Sky” from a few years back… somehow it just fit in too.
Thanks again Kathy for your positive support and encouragement!
Much love
Leigh-Anne
xo
All that remains in the wind
I
I am pulled at
Against
Like threads on
And unfinished piece of fabric
Loose and flowing
In the wild winter winds
Torn along the grounding line
Then flying, flying
Only to be caught once more
In naked branches
One by one those pieces fall
And fly on their own path
Away, away, away…
To be picked up elsewhere
By unknown hands
That part of me undone
Let go, unwoven, unraveled
Reclaimed then absorbed
As history does with time passing
Shredded flag now left waiting for the
Morning sun to rise and warm
The last remnants
II
Questions rise up in me
Like bubbles
in a glass bowl of water
I press my hands outward
to the edges
The smooth gentle curve
Beneath my fingertips
Watching out the glass walls
In the circle
I find no breath to guide me
To the surface, to the truth
To the wider space above
And make no move to be carried upward
Waiting instead for the ocean
To be released in its own time
III
When the valley is levelled to reach the mountains
my heart will soar with the clouds
my soul will reach down through the depths
Like the roots of a great tree
And all that remains will lay out like an emerald meadow
Filled wildflowers under the shining sun
~