Sensual Writing and Why I Love the Smell of Smoke

Last week, as I was driving down a winding country road on my way to Bridgewater from Lunenburg, I caught sight of the billowing smoke of a small fire. Someone was obviously doing some roadside autumn clearing.

Without thinking, I slid the window open and inhaled deeply as I passed through the billows. I was preparing to experience the exquisite “taste of home”. As I breathed in the aroma of burning vegetation, memories of outdoor campfires and old wood-burning stoves flooded in from my childhood. A goofy smile slid across my face as I bathed in the joyful innocence of adventure, wonder and the comfort of the hearth. I’d had a wonderful childhood and the smell of smoke brought it back to me in its full glory.

What does this have to do with sensual writing? Everything. That’s because writing is metaphoric. That is what storytelling is: sharing universal truth through metaphor, delivered from the heart, where these lie. Sensual writing doesn’t just involve making sure to include at least a few senses like sight, sound, smell, taste and touch in your narrative--though this is a good writing mantra. To write sensually involves much more than the simple description of a sense, though this is certainly the first step (and something all too often neglected by novice writers).

Happy Birthday, Toulouse!... A Cat is a Cat is a Cat…Or is it?

To celebrate his birthday today, I treated Toulouse to lunch at The Knot Pub in Lunenburg. The Knot is a friendly pub where locals go to eat homemade food and tell stories. According to the staff, “the person sitting next to you could be a scallop fisherman, Christmas tree farmer, Norwegian sailor, world famous actor, musician, painter, or scholar – you never know who you’re going to meet at The Knot! The outside looks a bit like a quaint little seafaring shack complete with port hole in the front door. Inside the pub exudes sea-shanty charm, with lots of local boat building oak, nautical brass fittings, copper pennies on the ceiling, flags and other nautical things. The place even has its resident ghost, a lady who apparently glides by, especially when you’ve had a few too many pints.

Sarah recommended the Knot's Ale, made by the Propeller Brewery, a lovely nut-brown ale rich in complicated flavors that quench your thirst.

Galactic Party at the Lord Nelson Hotel!

Imagine a royal palace on an alien planet in a galaxy far far away…add hundreds of bizarre and wonderfully costumed aliens from all over the universe and you have Hal-Con at the Lord Nelson Hotel.

Hal-Con at the Lord Nelson Hotel was out of this world!

Toulouse and I attended Hal-Con last weekend, where I launched my latest SF thriller Angel of Chaos and gave several workshops. Hal-Con is the prime science fiction / fantasy / comic & gaming convention in Halifax; after an over-decade hiatus, it returned this year to a sell-out crowd of enthusiastic fans. Over 1,200 fans poured into the splendid lobby of this historic hotel on Halloween Friday and formed a moving sea of elaborately costumed SF and Fantasy characters beneath its sparkling chandeliers. Aliens, characters, and robots from Doctor Who, Star Wars, Star Trek, Iron Man, and many more universes milled about, entertaining hotel guests in the elevators, hallways, lobbies and Victoria Arms restaurant pub all weekend.

Nina Munteanu Launches Angel of Chaos at Hal-Con and the Hero's Journey

Angel of Chaos is ... a gripping blend of big scientific ideas, cutthroat politics and complex yet sympathetic characters that will engage readers from its thrilling opening to its surprising and satisfying conclusion —Hayden Trenholm, Aurora-winning author of The Steele Chronicles


I'm looking forward to attending Hal-Con, the premiere science fiction convention this weekend (October 29-31, 2010) at the luxurious Lord Nelson Hotel in downtown Halifax. I'll be launching my latest book, the eco-thriller Angel of Chaos (Dragon Moon Press) on Saturday morning at 10:30, with reception following, where you can eat and drink and ask me silly questions to which I will give you silly answers. You may also get an autographed copy of the book, which you can then sell on Ebay for a bazillion dollars.

The day before (on Friday at 4 pm) I'll be giving my popular writer's workshop in which I discuss common and effective plot approaches for compelling storytelling and expound on the "Hero's Journey" myth and the importance of metaphor that encompass heroic adventure in all writing.

The hero's journey encompasses 1. archetypes the hero encounters [or embodies] in the various stages of her adventure; and 2. the various stages of the actual journey itself. The kind of hero also defines the quality and form of journey depicted, based on the story/myth/message intended.

To write a truly compelling story is to resonate with the universal truths of metaphor within the consciousness of humanity. According to scholar and mythologist Joseph Campbell this involves an open mind and a certain amount of humility; and giving oneself to the story...not unlike the hero who gives her life to something larger than herself.

Note the words he has carefully chosen in the following quote:

"Anyone writing a creative work knows that you open, you yield yourself, and the book talks to you and builds itself....you become the carrier of something that is given to you from what have been called the Muses--or, in biblical language, "God." This is no fancy, it is a fact. Since the inspiration comes from the unconscious, and since the unconscious minds of the people of any single small society have much in common, what the shaman or seer [or artist] brings forth is something that is waiting to be brought forth in everyone. So when one hears the [artist's] story, one responds, "Aha! This is my story. This is something that I had always wanted to say but wasn't able to say." There has to be dialogue, and interaction between the [artist]and the community." This I call tapping into the universal truth where metaphor lives. A story comes alive when these two resonate (see my two previous articles on resonance).

What Do The Planet Earth, the Human Brain and Schumann Resonance Have in Common?

Everything in life is vibration—Albert Einstein


“All vibrating things in this world have their own, ‘natural’ frequency which they are most comfortable with,” writes Sanjay Aqrawal in an Ezine article entitled “Brain Entrainment and Schumann Resonance”. When a thing is subjected to an external force that makes it vibrate at a frequency it vibes with the most, the thing responds “joyfully”, by vibrating at the maximum amplitude (energy). The natural frequency of that [object] is known as its ‘resonating’ or ‘resonant’ frequency, and the phenomenon is known as ‘Resonance’. Physicists describe resonance as the tendency of a system to oscillate with greater amplitude at some frequencies than at others, using its stored vibrational energy.

Schumann Resonance (SR) is the global electromagnetic resonance that occurs as a set of peaks in the extremely low frequency (ELF) portion of the Earth’s electromagnetic field spectrum between 3 and 69 Hz, with distinct peaks at 7.83, 14.3, 20.8, 27.3 and 33.8 Hz. Lightning discharges excite SR in the cavity formed by the Earth’s conducting surface and the ionosphere.