A Break in the Clouds
October 27, 2013
With the clocks changing and the weather forecasters predicting floods and hurricane-strength winds tonight, perhaps this is a good time to prepare for a night indoors.
I could settle in front of the television to watch a film and call it research. Or I could read a book–ditto. Or I could sharpen my pencil, sort out a pad of paper and write about the storm. How will the wind sound? Will it whistle down the chimney? Will the rain rattle on the door trying to get in? Will the trees thrash about like ballet dancers rehearsing for The Rite of Spring? Will the wildness of the night send a shiver down the spine that no amount of blankets can warm away?
Having a record of the effects, sensations and emotions that the storm provokes will be useful every time I need to write about stormy weather in the future, whatever genre it may be for.
One of the best descriptions I've ever read is in Charles Dickens's David Copperfield at the time of David's birth when the trees "... bent to one another, like giants who were whispering secrets, and after a few seconds of such repose fell into a violent flurry, tossing their wild arms about as if their late confidences were really too wicked for their peace of mind..." Another is in T. H. White's The Candle in the Wind, Book 4 of The Once and Future King, where the wind "... sounded like inchoate masses of silk being pulled through trees, as we pull hair through a comb–like heaps of sand pouring fine sand from a scoop–like gigantic linens being torn–like drums in distant battle–like an endless snake switching through the world's undergrowth of trees and houses..."
If tonight's predicted storm helps me to write like that, I'll happily put up with a night of rattling windows and a garden that looks like the aftermath of a riot.
I could settle in front of the television to watch a film and call it research. Or I could read a book–ditto. Or I could sharpen my pencil, sort out a pad of paper and write about the storm. How will the wind sound? Will it whistle down the chimney? Will the rain rattle on the door trying to get in? Will the trees thrash about like ballet dancers rehearsing for The Rite of Spring? Will the wildness of the night send a shiver down the spine that no amount of blankets can warm away?
Having a record of the effects, sensations and emotions that the storm provokes will be useful every time I need to write about stormy weather in the future, whatever genre it may be for.
One of the best descriptions I've ever read is in Charles Dickens's David Copperfield at the time of David's birth when the trees "... bent to one another, like giants who were whispering secrets, and after a few seconds of such repose fell into a violent flurry, tossing their wild arms about as if their late confidences were really too wicked for their peace of mind..." Another is in T. H. White's The Candle in the Wind, Book 4 of The Once and Future King, where the wind "... sounded like inchoate masses of silk being pulled through trees, as we pull hair through a comb–like heaps of sand pouring fine sand from a scoop–like gigantic linens being torn–like drums in distant battle–like an endless snake switching through the world's undergrowth of trees and houses..."
If tonight's predicted storm helps me to write like that, I'll happily put up with a night of rattling windows and a garden that looks like the aftermath of a riot.
Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration
