Kim Batchelor

Writer of magical realism and other imaginative fiction

Meditating Stories

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As a writer, I tend to be a ‘pantser’ (“fly by the seat of my pants”) rather than a ‘plotter’ (relying on detailed outlines) when I write. Before participating in last November’s “National Novel Writing” (NaNoWriMo), though, I reversed course and created brief descriptions of a set of scenes ahead of time that I turned to when writing each day’s 1700 word installment.

My writing process each day usually begins with a short period of meditation. Resisting the impulses that strike at my mind—tasks that need to be done, places to go, people to see—helps me to empty my brain, to let the unexpected image or scene make an entrance. I realize the purpose of meditation is not accomplishment but mindfulness and relaxation. Still, I find it to be a useful tool to sometimes generate the unanticipated image that I use in my work.

One morning during NaNoWriMo, I sat down to meditate first. During the meditation, I experienced a peaceful scene of floating over fields of golden wheat, a light blue sky above me dotted with a few fluffy clouds and illuminated by a muted yellow sun. I let that scene carry me along for several minutes, feeling as if I were flying over a serene landscape. I returned to my pantser roots when that scene later made its way into my NaNoWriMo novel. A young woman with a disability that left her unable to walk soars in her imagination over a field where, unbeknownst to her, she accidentally bumps against the back of a young man working in that same field. In that moment, the paths of two of the four main characters—Angelique and Ash—cross for the very first time.

The great writer Pat Conroy once said that he couldn’t wait to get back to writing so he could “find out what [his] characters will do next.” I relate to that and have the same motivation that compels me to write. I find that a few moments of not deliberately imagining but letting my imagination take over allows stories to find their own way into my consciousness. Each day, after a brief period of meditation, I can’t wait to get back to where my mind guides me before I put a single word to page.

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The Story in Every Picture

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Three days before the end of 2017, I found myself facing the dilemma of having read only 29 of the 34 books I’d planned to read that year. I had three options to meet my Goodreads challenge: (1) fail or (2) cheat by indicating I had met my target. Instead I choose a third option—read some of the many graphic novels I’d purchased or downloaded. Over three days I read five different novels of varying lengths, each one completed in 30 minutes to two hours. Immersing myself in these often visually stunning and occasionally poignant works was much more of a pleasure than a chore.

A Witch on Chicken Legs and Other Stories

Baba Yaga’s Assistant, a middle grade comic book by by Marika McCoola and  Emily Carroll featured my favorite fairy tale character when I was a child. Baba Yaga is a witch in Russian folklore who consumes bad children and lives in a house on chicken legs. Becoming Baba Yaga’s assistant provides the main character, Masha, the opportunity to find a purpose after the death of her mother by helping bad children become good ones and thereby helping the children avoid her boss’s plate.

Two of the most beautiful were intended for adults–Beauty  by Kerascoët and Hubert–illustrates how important it is be careful what you wish for. Troll Bridge by Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran initially feels like a children’s fairy tale but delivers a much more adult message. It relates the story of a boy repeatedly avoiding the consequences of a troll whom he calls “all my nightmares given flesh.” When he reaches adulthood the boy now a man who has betrayed someone he loves gives in to the bitter end the troll has waiting for him. The grotesque scenes mix with beautiful illustrations of nature.

The Intersection Between the Real and the Imagined

The most poignant for me was Becoming Unbecoming . Using black and white and mostly muted tones, the author and artist who goes by Una tells a powerful story of the women in her small town in Yorkshire who were killed by a serial murderer—and how the police made inaccurate assumptions about the woman that kept the real killer from being identified putting more women at risk. She juxtaposes this story line with her own history of sexual abuse. The book was so powerful that I revised my manuscript, Gem of the Starry Skies. The main character Gwen reads the book and relate it to her own experience with being threatened by a boy at her school, a boy who had attempted to assault her at a party.

The Picture that Inspired a Fictional Place

What all of these books have in common is that they tell stories through the power of images. That fact reminded me  how my newest work in progress, set in a rural area, has been influenced by the image above that I found when searching stock images. The picture immediately took me to a place that seemed familiar yet also unreal and mystical. This is the countryside that is the home of the Sullivans—Ash and Naomi—a brother and sister whose lives are changed when an unusual carnival comes to town.

Pictures in my head—conjured from dreams, meditation, letting my mind wander—are  the seeds as well as the foundation of any writing I create. I look forward to what my subconscious will find next and the story it will tell.

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The Magic I Find at the Fair

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As I begin to imagine elements of the story at the center of my next novel, the world of a mysterious carnival, I think of the Arbor Fair, a place I created in my book, The Mists of Na Crainn.

While Lyric walked through the forest, Saoirse and Andrew behind her, colors gradually appeared through the slivers of space between the leaves and branches overhead. Clanking and voices came from all around her. As she cautiously moved forward, the colors became a stall of multicolored textiles—rugs and tablecloths and interesting tunics and long skirts. More stalls appeared beside and in front of that one. One stall sheltered by a tarp held glass containers of various sizes. One hung suspended over a small flame that boiled the blue liquid inside of it. As Lyric passed, the woman behind the table dropped powder into its narrow opening. A foamy sheet emerged from the opening and covered the sides.

The booths in the new novel will not be filled with sellers of goods, but perhaps people who can tell the future, who can conjure up tiny milky ways from collecting bioluminescent insects, or perhaps are unusual dancers or contortionists—something mystical and unexpected.

Like many writers, I look to real life and real places for inspiration. Fall brings with it one of my favorite events that may serve that purpose this year: the State Fair of Texas. I don’t ride many rides (except for the giant Ferris wheel) or play games on the midway, though I watch others who do. Instead, I admire the quilts that hang in the Creative Arts building, walk through the barns to see what animals are there to compete, and eat my fill of fair food.

I often wish that the fair was a better neighbor to the communities that surround it, especially because of the communities it brings together. At the fair, rural culture encounters city culture—and vice versa. Who knew there were miniature Hereford cows? Or that llamas wear expressions of constant disapproval? Will one of these animals this year spark an idea of something unique?

The pastimes of many—knitters, photographers, the people who concoct elaborate fried creations—take center stage at the real Texas State Fair. Fewer venues are better for people watching.

My visit usually ends with a trip on a gondola moving over the fairgrounds. As I look down on the lights illuminating the whirling cars and the crowds of people making their way between game booths, I already see a world all its own.

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The Magic of a Circus of Dreams

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In our times, the circus is transforming. A famous circus closes its doors forever while Cirque de Soleil continues in all its many forms. Small circuses bring novelty and entertainment to small communities even as their reliance on animal acts—especially when those animals are abused—sparks outrage.

I have two memories of circuses growing up. The first is of a terrifying moment when a gorilla escaped and climbed into the stands where I sat with my family. In my panic, I tried to scale a poor woman sitting in the row in front of me, trying to make my getaway. My mother pulled me back into my seat and assured me that the gorilla was a man dressed in a gorilla suit.

More pleasant is the second memory of something that took place later that night. The evening approached midnight. All the acts but one had finished. I looked up at the ceiling, at what seemed to be the highest point in the tent. Through the darkness, a spotlight illuminated a woman dressed in gold grasped a gold swing, surrounded by a dangling gold moon and dangling gold stars.

The woman seemed so far away, so high above me. Without a doubt, it was the most enchanted moment in my life as a child. I sometimes remember it as a woman dangling from moon and stars, swinging and performing feats in the night sky itself.

One novel that helped me connect back to that moment was Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus. I loved the story of two dueling magicians, one female and one male, both wards of men caught in a perpetual and deadly rivalry. But what I loved most about the book was the circus itself.

All over the tents, small lights begin to flicker, as though the entirety of the circus is covered in particularly bright fireflies. The waiting crowd quiets as it watches this display of illumination. Someone near you gasps. A small child claps his hands with glee at the sight…Rather than a single tent with rings enclosed within, this circus contains clusters of tents like pyramids, some large and others quite small. They are set within circular paths, contained within a circular fence. Looping and continuous.

Lately I’ve been inspired to create my own story of a mystical circus—The Carnival of Moon and Stars is its working title. Unlike, The Night Circus, there are no magicians caught in a rivalry that they can’t control. Instead, a simple canvas tent hides a mystical world that is refuge for a girl named Angelique, a girl with a secret . A teenaged boy named Ash, a boy who spent his life on a farm just outside a small town, sees the tent in the distance from his bedroom window. He is drawn to it, hoping to discover something outside of his small world.

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Lost Girls

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I have often wished into being a peaceful place for those who experience difficult lives. Perhaps a clearing in woods, a waterfall replenishing a quiet pond, a soft breeze always blowing through it. I wish for the scent of grass damp from morning dew and the perfume of assorted flowers coloring the ground around it.

Listening to the pain of those individuals is a privileged role. It’s not often an easy one. Not often a comfortable one. And not always a satisfying one. Still a privileged one, when someone shares their burdens and challenges.

As an educator and counselor in a clinic serving women, most of whom were in their teens and early 20s, I spent hours as a listener. Several times a day, I found myself sitting across from someone stressed, angry, weeping, hopeless. Often, I could provide some small measure of useful information. Often, I could only listen.

A well-dressed high school student wore a blank look as she related how she no longer had a place to live. We connected her with resources to find one. I wanted to take her home with me.

A 16-year-old girl traced the lines of her initials that she carved into her skin. Her mother’s boyfriend had assaulted her. Her mother took his side and forced her out of their home. The case was reported, as required, and I connected her with resources. The girl went on her way leaving behind that image of her scar tattooed into my memory, along with anger at her mother’s selfish actions.

I listened to the despair of a young woman who suffered from the agony of the aftermath of pelvic infections that left scarring. She shifted from anger into resignation after I explained the source of her pain. Only surgery could fix the problem—I could not fix her, the nurse could not fix her, but when we both assured her that the pain wasn’t just in her head, she managed a smile.

One morning on the way to work I listened to Joan Osborne singing, “What if God was One of Us?” A stranger on the bus trying to make his way home. Or a young woman struggling with addiction, exclusion, eviction, rejection. In the parking lot, I stayed in the car crying for a few moments before leaving it to start the day.

Some moments reminded me it was worth it. The woman I barely remember, beaming, who made a point of coming to tell me that she’d left her abusive boyfriend and had turned her life around because of my help. The teenager who didn’t care if she got pregnant who later requested birth control from the nurse after I asked her to put herself in the place of any baby she might conceive. And then there was the day that Tiffany showed up at the clinic, clear-eyed, in recovery, and employed outside of the sex industry. Smiling. A new woman.

I wanted to draw their pain from them, send it hurling through space to dash against a passing asteroid. At times, their stories feed mine. When I wrote of a girl who had to grow up too soon, I created an entire island for her to be a child again. When I wrote of a girl with an expansive imagination and a mother suffering from a serious illness, I gave her a starry sky and a quiet children’s garden in the midst of the city and a group of mentors and supportive friends.

I can only wish with an oasis for all the women I had the privilege to know. A place for them to feel safe, a place for quiet among the tumult of their lives. And even though I can’t make it for them, I send that wish out into the universe of quiet places.

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