Kim Batchelor

Writer of magical realism and other imaginative fiction

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Feb 08 2018

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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Written by Kim · Categorized: Creativity, dream, Writing · Tagged: meditation, NaNoWriMo

May 05 2017

Flying

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For most of my life, I have been acrophobic–afraid of heights. Once, when I was about ten years old, I found myself clinging to the wall, as far as I could get from the railing, while standing 12 stories above the ground at the base of the Iron Man statue in Birmingham, Alabama.

I experienced airplane travel starting at six years old, but in spite of decades traveling by air, as an adult I went through a period of white-knuckle flights during any kind of turbulence. Luckily, that only lasted a couple of years–after I learned the statistics on how rare it is to die in a plane crash.

My acrophobia sometimes creeps in during sleep. I find myself in planes without ceilings. Or I step from elevators reaching the highest floor of a building and discover that the walls haven’t been built yet. I keep my head down on the topless plane or cling to the floor of the unfinished structure trying to figure out how to get down.

But in my dream life as a child, I always loved flying. My favorite dreams were of jumping off swings and soaring over backyards in my dreamy neighborhood. Skirting the clouds, approaching the moon, experiences that, for most of us, only happen in our imaginations, or while we sleep.

In spite of my continuing fear of heights, flying often finds its way into my magical realist novels. My children’s book, The Island of Lost Children, a modern take on Peter and Wendy, is naturally full of children flying. In my novel, GEM of the Starry Skies, the main character, Gwen Mora, takes to the skies, fueled by her growing love of astrophysics. And in The Mists of Na Crainn, the main character, Lyric Doherty, experiences signs that she’s developing the ability to ‘soar’—a wind-swept capability that keeps her above ground but close to the treetops.

Me, I only wish I could fly in real life. Part of me is an acrophile, someone who loves (imaginary) heights. But I’m not inclined to slip into a hang glider or wingsuit. I satisfy my craving instead in my writing and occasionally by climbing aboard the Soarin’ ride at Disney.

If wishes were horses…then Pegasus would be real. Or maybe just a character in my dreams.

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Written by Kim · Categorized: Creativity, dream, Imagination, Magical realism · Tagged: flying, skies

Apr 02 2017

Dreamscape at the Bottom of the World

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The boat moves slowly through the milky haze floating above the waters of the Ultima Esperanza sound. Passengers brave the damp cold on deck for as long as they can, taking in the views of the mystical landscape–the dreamscape of waterfalls cascading over cliffs that rise on either side. When the bitter cold is too intolerable, they slip back inside to warm themselves.

Occasionally a guide will point out the places where animals in warmer times congregate. But not now. Now, only condors watch over us, soaring across those occasional patches of gray sky where the haze clears.

At dawn that Easter morning, I waited at the dock a few blocks from my hotel in Puerto Natales, a town a few hundred miles from the southern tip of Chile. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the trip that day. At first, I lamented the bleak day, the chill that seeped to the bones. I soon realized that something that seemed almost spiritual slipped in with the white wisps of clouds come to earth.

Two nights before, I’d flown into Punta Arenas, the southernmost town in Chile. The flight from Santiago  was the most anxiety producing of my life.  The plane flew over a region largely claimed by nature. Much of the last hours, I saw nothing on the ground—no lights from towns or cities. Only completely blackness.

Suddenly, a force brusquely nudged the plane and the currents of air tossed it about. Through the window, I could see flakes visible as they descended from the inky darkness and through the plane’s exterior light. Snow.

The plane finally dropped lower as it started its descent, but I couldn’t see where it would land. Only one patch of amber luminescence which in time showed itself to be the tiny Punta Arenas airport.

The edge of the that town of just over 100,000 people is battered by the waters of the Strait of Magellan, nicknamed the “dragon’s tail” by early explorers.

The southern region is most of all a place of wind. Brutal wind. On the Ruta del Fin del Mundo (the “Route of the End of the World”) that runs the 152 miles from Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales, a monument dedicated to the wind stands at the halfway point.

We took that route to reach Puerto Natales, surrounded by patches of the snow that had fallen the night before. For many people Puerto Natales is the jumping off point into the natural wonders just north of Punta Arenas. An hour or so away from Puerto Natales is a national park which is home to the Torres del Paine (‘paine’ means blue in the indigenous language of the Tehuelche—also known as the Aonikenk—people), a cluster of mountains so stunning that someone once used them in an advertisement for the Canadian Rockies. The snow of the night before dusted the ground around us as we traveled.

The boat continues its journey up the sound, winding through the waters that skirt the national park. Three hours into the trip up the sound, we leave the boat and walked a path through the trees to one glacier. Afterwards, I hike with the other passengers to a lake where the remnants of another glacier float along its surface like irregular ice cubes in a giant punch bowl. We all return to the boat to retrace our journey, sipping whiskey to mark the occasion.

A few years later, this time during the Chilean summer, I will return to Puerto Natales. As before, the boat will sail just after dawn, but on that trip bright sunshine will light the way and the sea lions I had not seen on the previous trip will make an appearance. In only a short while, I will realize, though, I have traveled to a new and different land.

The future is another country to be visited at a later point in the itinerary. I savor these moments now moving toward our destination in Puerto Natales. I don’t realize it now, but I prefer the bitter cold, the frigid moisture. Most of all, I favor the ghostly mist surrounding us without knowing all that it conceals.

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Written by Kim · Categorized: Chile, dream · Tagged: condors, glaciers, mists, mountains, uiltima esperanza

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