CP at Large

Ides of February

2012-02-15T11:10:00.000-05:00

’Tis the season, sort of. The shortest month of the year that always seems the longest is halfway done. Seeds ordered in the frigid January darkness have arrived and planting dates are marked on the calendar. What little snow we’ve had is melting into the three-inch tall green shoots around the pond. Pitchers and catchers report in four days (yay!). And I just registered for my first writer’s conference of the year. I know, I’m behind on scheduling, but I’ve never been good at planning too far ahead. If I try, life steps in to remind me how foolish are my best-laid plans.

As anyone who has ever attended one of these events knows, the wealth of possibilities offered to writers of all experience levels is truly astonishing. The sheer number of options, many of them genre-specific, others more broad – or fan – based. Enticing locations all across the country – the prestigious AWP Annual Conference & Bookfair is in Chicago this year, I could stay with my son and save the hotel bill (honest, he said I could!), but it’s in two weeks. I waited too long for that one. Love is Murder is another Chicago event I’ll get to someday. And overseas: Geneva, San Miguel, Surrey…out of my price range, but so intriguing. With a limited budget, I need to stick closer to home for now.

My first outing this year, as it has been for the past two years, will be the Mad Anthony Writers Conference in Hamilton, Ohio. Not particularly exotic, but sponsoring local non-profit group does a terrific job of packing a great deal of information into two days, starting with a Friday session called Murder & Mayhem. What more could a mystery writer ask for? I registered just under the wire to qualify for the early-bird discount and look forward to their expanded three-day schedule in early April. Mad Anthony’s become a tradition for a trio of us from my weekly writers group, gals’ road trip and all, that I know will be a great time.

The always-spectacular Antioch Writers' Workshop in July right here in my new home town of Yellow Springs is on my calendar as well. It’s a week-long event that never fails to overwhelm with the amount of information offered on everything from the finer points of fiction, to poetry, to snagging that elusive book contract.

Conferences and workshops are about so much more than the formal sessions. I often get as much benefit (dare I say more?) from meeting fellow writers and basking in the non-stop craft conversations that fill hallways, dining rooms and sometimes even a local bar. The spirited interaction is a great reminder that, even in the solitary work of writing, we are not alone.

Do you conference? When and where? I need to start planning ahead…

Flow

2012-02-08T11:16:00.000-05:00

I follow far too many writers’ blogs, spending more time reading sometimes questionable words of wisdom about the craft than actually writing myself. It’s a procrastination tactic I struggle with daily. But every so often, when the synchronicity of the universe presents the same topic from different angles in a variety of my perusals, I’m sensible enough to take heed. This week the universe wants me to focus on flow – starting it, maintaining it, appreciating it.

Most writers will agree that when they’re “in the zone,” everything clicks. The words do indeed flow almost effortlessly from brain to hand to quill/crayon/pen/keyboard. Psychics call it automatic writing, the sensation of another being controlling the instrument. I’d rather think it’s more an unleashing of deep-seated thoughts and emotions too often buried under the busy-ness of life, or the pain of remembering. It’s that possibility of pain that keeps me from tapping those resources, of letting go of fears of what my words may reveal, how they may be received by potential readers.

When I do manage to get past those emotional roadblocks and write from the depths of my being, my words have power. Hubby has told me on many occasions that he can tell when I write from the heart. If my personal in-house non-fiction reading computer geek can see it, so can more discerning readers. I need to tap that source more often, allow the words to flow unimpeded. But how?

Last night I finished my current study of Gail Sher’s One Continuous Mistake: Four Noble Truths for Writers. She ends this slim but powerful volume with another Zen reference, urging writers to cultivate a “fresh mind.” Sher says, “The real work of writing is, day after day, to discover how to maintain freshness.” Even more compelling to me is the idea of “giving over the part of you that knows to the writing.” Giving over. Surrender. Release. Flow.

From a practical standpoint, author Johanna Harness posted a blog recently about her technique for priming the pump. She uses freewriting, figuring twenty minutes of uninterrupted writing, or about one thousand words, gets rid of the detritus and allows her to find that fresh mind. “I don’t know why it took me so long to realize I need to warm up with disposable words.”

Disposable words – there are few more frightening concepts for me in the writing world. I labor so intensely over each word choice that the thought of deliberately tossing any of them aside, of murdering my darlings, has always been heart-wrenching. It’s the main reason why I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo for three years. The month-long exercise encourages me to turn off the internal editor, get the thoughts down on the page, and worry about fine-tuning things later. In the case of freewriting, I may never use those particular words and phrases again, but it’s like opening a spillway, releasing the stale, stagnant water at the top and exposing the unpolluted springs below.

I can embrace the concept of freewriting better than the other technique offered by many writerly blogs, that of journaling. For some reason, journaling triggers memories of self-absorbed teenage angst poured out to Dear Diary. Semantics probably, but if it helps me get past my hesitation, I’ll take it. Freewriting, as Harness points out, is disposable. I don’t keep it in leather-bound volumes for the ages. If the occasional spew seems worthy of further consideration, I can save it; however far too often in my experience, the words have lost their luster by the time I return to them. Disposable indeed, but therapeutic, and useful at the time. I’ve even adapted the practice for my critical writing class, more to teach my students not to fear writing than to encourage narrative flow, but again, useful.

Sher ends her essay with, “What is the best way to write? Each of us has to discover her own way by writing. Writing teaches writing. No one can tell you your own secret.” For me, freewriting teaches writing, and done regularly, may help reveal that secret I can’t or won’t see otherwise.

How do you prime the pump and tap your hidden reserves?

Echoed in the wells of silence…

2012-02-01T09:54:00.000-05:00

~ Simon & Garfunkel

A growing trend in many of the writing blogs I follow seems to be toward compiling soundtracks to write by. I can imagine only a few things more detrimental to my writing than being surrounded by music. For me, silence is truly golden.

It wasn’t always this way. When my kids were young, I could lose myself in a book while they romped and the television blared. Now I’m so easily distracted almost any noise is a frustration. I’d love to join the throngs at the local coffee shops, laptops nestled next to the crumpets and hot beverages, immersed in the act of putting words on the page. But I could spend hours in such surroundings with only a paragraph or two to show for my efforts; it’s too much fun to people-watch and eavesdrop (what? don’t tell me you don’t do listen in – how else do you get story ideas or write great dialogue?)

I’m still reading Gail Sher’s One Continuous Mistake: Four Noble Truths for Writers – it’s my bedtime companion, giving me words of contemplation to still the bustle of the day. In one of her brief chapters, she addresses the notion of silence by quoting author Bill McKibben’s forward to an annotated Walden: “Without silence, solitude, darkness, how can we come to any sense of our true size, our actual relationship with the rest of the world?” Sher details a Chinese poet Wang Wei who identified three levels of silence: physical, spiritual, and the silence of mystical meditation. “When thought stops, words halt, and we move through light toward absolute stillness,” Willis and Tony Barnstone wrote when introducing Wei’s poetry. Sher finishes her essay on silence with, “Stillness shrinks us to our own size, empowers us to acknowledge our pain, lends us the air into which this pain can, momentarily, evaporate.”

“Absolute stillness.” “Mystical mediation.” Those are the places from which my best writing springs, evaporating from the depths of my mind only to solidify onto the page. I can’t find the words if my brain is flooded with noise, no matter how beautiful the music may be in other circumstances.

A soundtrack for my writing? The soothing sounds of silence, when my thoughts can take center stage, is enough.

Verbalizing my voices

2012-01-25T09:58:00.000-05:00

I don’t like reading aloud, especially my own work. When I write well, the voices in my head speak the words onto the page in soaring language, dulcet tones of surpassing beauty and emotional oration – at least that’s what I like to believe. If I read them aloud, as writers are exhorted to do at every turn, my vocal chords strangle the language and trample on the emotional vibrations. Such desecration pains me every time it happens.

I rarely enjoy listening to anyone read aloud. The first sentence I hear is overwritten in my brain by the second, which is overwritten by the third, until the fourth grasps for tenuous connections to earlier phrases and fails to communicate the author’s meaning. I’m subconsciously distracted by efforts to put the audible into words on a mental page where they can be studied and absorbed. In a book, I can see complete paragraphs at a glance, follow the flow of words from one thought, one phrase, one sentence, to the next, and see the discrete parts as a glorious whole.

Yet the literary world insists on oral presentations. We’ve all been witness to an esteemed author whose written words are a joy, but who when faced with reading to an audience is a less-than-stellar performer. That’s what reading aloud is – a performance. For the solitary author, accustomed to toiling away in relative silence, the experience of speaking in front of a gathering is often as personally painful as it is to the listeners. We are writers, not performers. We stumble and stutter and mangle the precious words we slaved over, the careful sentences crafted in hours of intense labor. This repeated pointless sadomasochism can only destroy a writer’s spirit.

In One Continuous Mistake: Four Noble Truths for Writers, author Gail Sher writes eloquently of the argument I’ve only vaguely been able to articulate over the years in classes, workshops, and writers groups:

“The written word also has a ‘look.’ It’s ‘build’ is alchemical, even as a woman’s build. In its timbre (mental ring) as well as its juxtaposition with other words, there is a resonance that can be squelched in speech. Though we may pronounce a word similarly, its silent sound is like ‘a white bird in snow.’ (Poets are sometimes loathe to read their poetry aloud, as if something precious will be lost sharing that version.)” (140)

I heartily agree.

Of course writing for performance is another matter altogether. Dramatists such as Shakespeare or modern screenwriters such as Aaron Sorkin offer language that can only be appreciated in its oral form. For the rest of us, leave our words on the page where they form the intended neural connection with devoted readers focusing on the work literally in hand, not the tonal vagaries of an uncomfortably positioned pseudo-performer.

Stop SOPA

2012-01-17T07:56:00.001-05:00

No post this week in support of the effort to stop SOPA

http://blog.siteground.com/stop-censorship/

Please punch my validation...

2012-01-11T12:20:00.000-05:00

If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. ~ Douglas Adams

With the inevitable life review ushered in by a new year, I’m reminded all too strongly that I can’t expect my life to change if I don’t change my attitude. The insanity of continuing old patterns of behavior yet looking for new outcomes looms large, and while I talk a good talk about changing my habits, when it comes down to actually performing, I stumble.

Instead of writing or tending to any of the several projects stacked in file folders on my desk, I ~~wasted~~ invested twenty minutes or so this morning taking an online personality test of sorts, this one called PersonalDNA. The results didn’t surprise me: empathetic, introverted, trusting, preferring experiences over things and small groups of close friends over large crowds. My assigned label of “considerate experiencer” is a bit odd, but I suppose the site needs to offer something unique.

The irony of this seemingly benign entertainment hit me only a few minutes later, as I mulled my continuing penchant for procrastination. Why had I spent that time answering ambiguous questions in hopes a computer program could tell me something new about myself? Once again I was looking for outside validation, this time in the nebulous “personality” arena as opposed to my usual anxieties over my writing. I’m always waiting for someone else to tell me I’m on the right track, that I’m worthy of – something, anything. That insidious need for approval is holding me back and I’m tired of it, but I can’t seem to break free.

I fill my desktop with aphorisms like “What other people think about you is none of your business” and “You wouldn't worry so much about what other people thought if you realized how seldom they do,” but I remain mired in self-doubt. Awareness of my crippling dependency on the acceptance of others doesn’t make my escape any easier, although I maintain awareness of any addiction – and that’s what this is, an emotional addiction seeded in the murky past – is half the battle. Unfortunately, the other half, the skirmishes I face every time I send out a short story only to have it rejected, or turn to a friend for counsel only to be brushed aside, don’t seem to diminish even as that awareness grows. Such dismissals only reinforce the niggling voice that says I’m not good enough.

That voice echoed all night and kept me awake more than usual as I replayed an evening spent in another search for validation of my feelings. After a weekly writers group, I’d only half-jokingly demanded Hubby provide answers to a vexing relationship issue I’d faced. He likes to fix things, so he tried, but ultimately we both knew the solution had to come from within me. His validation was accurate, and not unexpected, and offered with love. But I still needed someone to tell me what I already knew. I simply don’t trust my own judgment enough to ignore naysayers with private concerns and personal agendas.

Hubby knows me better than anyone else does, and certainly better than any online quiz. I should listen to him when he tells me to believe in my “considerate experiencer” self as much as he does.

His is the only validation I really need, while I figure out how to accept my own.

My mistake

2012-01-04T09:59:00.000-05:00

As I warned earlier here and here, I’ve now spent the past two weeks reevaluating my online presence and, by extension, my writing life. So much of my time on the ’net has become a myriad of not-so-subtle forms of procrastination, taking me away from actually putting words down on the page. Add to that friend base, build that platform, follow that blog roll, comment/review/submit to contests that often have little or no relation to my writing interests.

I’ve also been reading Gail Sher’s introspective One Continuous Mistake: Four Noble Truths for Writers. Her words kept me grounded during the chaotic holidays which arouse such anxiety in me that I can’t write anything of substance. The focus of her slim volume is to guide readers to developing and nurturing a writing habit, something I had, briefly, during November’s NaNo sprint but lost again with the holidays. (digression: As a devoted wordsmith, I flounder searching for a better term for the hysterical upheaval which strikes from Halloween through New Year’s Day. For me at least, the period is certainly not holy or holly-jolly. But that is a musing for another time.)

Sher’s Four Noble Truths are plain enough:
1. Writers write.
2. Writing is a process.
3. You don’t know what your writing will be until the end of the process.
4. If writing is your practice, the only way to fail is to not write.

If writing is your practice, the only way to fail is to not write. I need that emblazoned over my desk, looping on a soundtrack, tattooed on my forearm. The only way to fail is to not write.

All the other mileposts, the gauges of a “success” that the writing community imposes on us all, are distractions from who I am. I am a writer. See #1 above: writers write. Not writers publish; writers blog to develop a platform; writers tweet; writers Facebook/G+/review others’ work on Amazon or Goodreads. Writers write. All those other things are distractions with limited usefulness.

Almost two years ago, after yet another of my sessions of despair over ever “making it” as a writer, my grad school faculty advisor asked, (and I paraphrase), “If no one ever saw anything you wrote, would you still write?” At the time, my “Yes” was grudging. Today it is stronger, yet it wavers with the emotions of life. Sher’s book strengthens my response.

I often quote Emerson’s “Life is a journey, not a destination,” coupled with Lao Tzu’s “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” I need to learn to see my writing in the same way. It’s a process, not a product. I think that’s why the continuous communal buzz to market/self-publish/sell-sell-sell has always bothered me. Far too much of what is rushed to market is ragged, immature, and worthy only of standing as a step on that journey. That’s not to discount its value; rather, to delineate between exercise and performance recital. Right now I’m on the rehearsal schedule for that future recital. I may never make it in the eyes of the publishing world, but I’ll grow and learn and write every step along the way.

Because I’m a writer, and writers write.

Should I or shouldn’t I…

2011-12-28T10:43:00.000-05:00

As I continue my self-imposed social media review and purge, I considered not blogging this week since I haven’t reached any conclusions. Then I realized – I haven’t missed a week all year. (at least I don't think I have...) I can’t skip now!

Then I scrolled through my accumulated Google Reader stash and shuddered. I couldn’t contribute to the ‘where I’ve been in 2011’ or ‘where am I going in 2012’ parade. Which left me at a loss for a worthy topic to round out the year.

One blog I’ve begun following recently – which will most certainly make the cut as I decided which to keep and which to jettison – is Single Dad Laughing. If you’re not familiar with his work, check it out, parent or not. His year-end post is artfully titled “Don’t Should on Yourself,” something I’m very good at doing. I “should” eat better/write every day/walk more often/relax and let go/be kinder to my hubby-kids-parents-friends…all those things we pack into New Year’s resolutions that fall by the wayside when the holidays end and real life intrudes.

My “shoulds” robbed me of almost two days of my life this week, felling me with another migraine. I “should” relax and stop trying to do everything/please everyone/live up (down?) to society’s expectations for this time of year/avoid unresolveable debates with loved ones…but I do, even when I insist I won’t. And then the migraine hits, and I’m the one who suffers. Me and my poor hubby.

So – no more “shoulds.” Instead, I will eat better, write every day, walk more often, relax and let go, be kinder to everyone…And if I slip, I will start over again. And again.

Not because I “should,” but because I choose to.

Happy 2012! Let’s count down to the apocalypse together, writing all the way.

Year-end questioning

2011-12-21T09:27:00.000-05:00

I’ll skip right over the holiday itself (bleh) since I’ve already ranted about that a bit and move straight on to New Year’s resolutions. I’ve decided to take the rest of the year off to reevaluate my online presence, specifically:
-Why do I blog?
-Who do I picture as my audience?
-If a blogger posts on the Internet and no one notices, is there a point to all that effort?
-On a related note, how many of the almost seventy blogs by fellow writers that I follow daily truly offer something worthwhile?
-Do I really need to be active on Facebook and Google+ and Twitter and Goodreads and LinkedIn and …? Why?
-What is the respective benefit (if any) of each social media platform?
-How much more time would I have available to actually write if I didn’t spend so much time trying to keep up with all those outlets?

The new year already promises exciting new opportunities. Beginning in January, I’ll be teaching my first college-level class. Yesterday I received an email from a writer friend offering to connect me to a scientist who needs an editor for his most recent book. I’ve been invited to work more closely with the Antioch Writers Workshop, expanding my workfellow duties as we look forward to another great session in July. My third (and most promising) novel is in full draft and ready for rewrites. Looks like I’ll be busy in 2012 as we wait for the Mayan calendar to wind down.

So much of social media comes off as the cliques I avoided (okay, they largely avoided me) in high school. Why do I put so much time and energy into them now? What, if anything, am I doing wrong?

Your thoughts/comments/experiences would be greatly appreciated while I reassess my ’net life. Meanwhile, Happy New Year! I’ll be back in some hopefully improved form in January.

And Happy Solstice – let the sun shine in!

Perchance to dream…

2011-12-14T09:03:00.000-05:00

There’s a constant battle between the hemispheres of my brain, as if psychologist Julian Jaynes’ bicameralism has re-evolved. The hyper-logical left brain that craves order runs roughshod over the creative, emotional, more sensitive right brain, demanding explanations, searching for answers, discarding whimsy. It creates an often unbearable havoc, like Springsteen’s “freight train running through the middle of my head,” day and night.

A constant, conscious awareness of everything permeates even my dreams. I doubt I often reach the scientifically-designated restorative stage of delta sleep since I wake up regularly, in right about the ninety-minute cycle described as needed to reach REM. I remain too aware of my sleep, vigilantly observing my dreams. I know I’m asleep. My brain doesn’t disengage long enough to relax. I’ve read about lucid dreaming and while it’s an interesting concept, it doesn’t describe my mental turmoil. I’m exhausted.

I yearn for quiet, for internal peace, yet even concerted attempts at meditation aren’t able to break through the miasma that clouds my brain. Any snippet of a song, nothing more than a title or the fragment I quoted from Springsteen, lodges in my mind and runs in an endless loop for days on end, usually until it’s supplanted by the next earworm. I mentally rewrite scripts for the TV sit-com or movie we watched. The phrases coil themselves around news headlines, Facebook and Google+ posts, Tweets, and the latest ambiguous conversation with a friend or family member, twisting all the conflicting thoughts, words, and emotions into a tangled mass of confusion.

My only sure avenue for escape, fleeting as it may be, is my writing. When I manage to become engrossed in creating a new story, my tension eases. The rigid left brain seems content to impose its order on the words flowing to the page from the creativity of the right brain and for those few brief moments, the fractious hemispheres work in tandem. Time slips by unnoticed. I skip the hourly time checks which pepper my night and lose myself in a world where I have a semblance of control.

A semblance of peace.

Why do you write?

A blast from the past – refined…

2011-12-07T10:11:00.001-05:00

Last week, in the midst of post-NaNo depression (need to keep writing momentum on track…can’t start another novel until completing one of the four in finish/rewrite/edit stage actually is done…writers group expects output, now what?) I took a trip in my personal Wayback Machine (and I don’t mean the Internet archive…Google it, youngsters) and revisited a short story I wrote in 1991.

Yikes. Please don’t do the calculations and tell me how long ago that was.

Let me preface this by noting that a few weeks ago at my writers group, I brought in the opening of my first novel, Ties that Bind, which I completed in rough form as my master’s thesis in early 2010 and sat untouched since. One of my fellow writers commented how much my work had improved (his words) when comparing Ties to my latest WIP. I was flattered, but not entirely convinced.

The 1991 story proved him right. I’ve been rather proud of this particular story in my personal oeuvre, submitted it a few times over the years to various journals without success, tweaked it a bit here and there. After the last rejection, which was longer ago than I can remember, I stuck it in my files and forgot about it until now.

Good grief was it rough. The main characters were compelling enough, decent setting, interesting story line with a nice twist at the end. But I was appalled at the language – stilted, wordy, redundant narrative, unnecessary side plots…this was my idea of good? Maybe I have learned something.

I knew if I wanted to read it to my group, it needed a serious overhaul, no more tweaking. I turned to a technique introduced by the delightful Crystal Wilkinson at the Antioch Writers Workshop in 2009, and reinforced later during my master’s program. I printed out a copy and started retyping, editing and revising as I went. Within just a few hours I’d rewritten vast swaths of the text while maintaining the kernel of the original, tightening and focusing the piece. Along the way, I trimmed over six hundred words from the total.

My writers group was encouraging in their responses and seemed suitably impressed with the result. But I know that, even after twenty years, the story still needs a bit of polish before I inflict it on yet another journal.

Guess I have learned something. Now where’s the rough draft of that early novel…

Dec. 3rd book signing

2011-12-03T08:27:00.001-05:00

If you’re looking for different sort of outing this Saturday, consider the Lebanon Horse Drawn Carriage Parade & Festival, where yours truly and fellow writer Tami Absi will be signing copies of the Reflections from Women anthology The Moment I Knew, which includes our essays. I’ll also have copies of my Historic Warren County: An Illustrated History on behalf of the Heritage Advisory Council, and Tami may bring her Cup of Comfort publications. Our host is Chapters Pre-Loved Books, and we’ll be in their booth at Mulberry & Broadway from 2-4:30 p.m. Hope to see you there!

For the win...

2011-12-01T09:21:00.001-05:00

Excuse me folks, but damn! I hit all sorts of mileposts yesterday, that’s why this weekly post is late. Not only did I make it to the 50K National Novel Writing Month deadline I was convinced was unattainable, but I wrote a personal-best 9,800 words in one day and finished the first draft of my WIP. And it’s not rambling, fill-up-the-page lorem ipsum text either, it’s a story that works.

Damn.

I started November and NaNo with high hopes of reaching this point. Life intervened, as usual. A late autumn head cold, a couple of disturbing family crisis, and while none of them required my physical presence, they certainly took me out of my writing zone for several days. And of course, Thanksgiving (see last week’s post to see what the holidays do to me). My personal Black Friday hit with the realization my NaNo count stood at a paltry 38,500. I needed to write over 4,000 words a day for the next five days to get the win. Not likely.

So I did what I usually do. I found a rational excuse. I gave up on NaNo with the justification that I’d never intended to make the 50K, it was just a jump-start exercise for the stalled WIP and look, hadn’t I added almost 40K to my work? It was fine that I didn’t finish NaNo, really.

Only it wasn’t. My capitulation nagged at me. I went into a two-day funk, wrote nothing Saturday and Sunday and started the week staring at my NaNo spreadsheet (yes, I have one) which told me I needed to produce 5,470 words a day on each of the last three days to hit the mark. My brain told me I couldn’t possibly do it, but now it bothered me. The earlier justification wasn’t enough to overcome my sense of failure.

Then my wonderful, amazing, incredible support crew kicked in (that’s all of you!). Hubby offered food and drink and lots of hugs. Daughter and son gave me long-distance pep-talks via text, chat, and Skype. My fantastic writers group, friends and strangers I’ve collected on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter, all urged me to persevere. The NaNo forums introduced me to still more writer types and my circle grew exponentially. And the words started to flow. 3,742 on Monday. 2,885 on Tuesday. And the truly incredible 9,806 on Wednesday, reaching the magic 50K number at 9:46 p.m.

I proved myself wrong, and right. I did manage to complete the NaNo challenge, and while in reality it’s ephemeral, it’s also an internal boost, a kick in the pants. I proved to myself I can maintain a steady 2K word per day output of mostly decent stuff. But I also managed my original goal of jump-starting the WIP. I now have on my hard drive – and flash drive, and external storage drive, and email transfer – a 78,408 word completed first draft of Fatal Error: AYBABTU.

Because I pushed myself (with lots of help) to work through NaNo, my story evolved more consistently, new characters appeared and vanished, some died when I didn’t think they could, the bad guy who maybe wasn’t turned out to be even more so while the clueless puppet had me fooled, sub-plots I never considered before crept in, my MC learned lessons I didn’t know she needed. I’m a confirmed punster; how anyone writes a novel from an outline I’ll never understand.

See how well I justify? Thank you, everyone!

Skeletal expectations

2011-11-23T08:49:00.001-05:00

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Warning: if you simply love holidays, don't read this. I don't want to ruin your joy with my pessimistic realism.

It’s that time of year again, the dreaded, ever-longer holiday season, when the media overflows with unrealistic images of always loving families happily sharing generations-old traditions, mounds of (largely unwanted and unnecessary) gifts, and food. Lots of food.

I know I risk being labeled a Scrooge when I say it’s been many years since I’ve approached the holidays with anything remotely resembling joyful anticipation. The reasons for that are myriad, and they are often exacerbated by the demand for meticulously choreographed visits to several far-flung locations for too many dinners, all on the same tenuously hallowed occasion.

This year I’m trying to focus more on the intangibles, to reclaim some level of contentment by concentrating on family. As long as that term involves Hubby and our two children with their respective partners, we’re fine. Add in those special friends who have been with us through good times and bad and our world is complete.

The problem is those celebrations of oft-disputed origin force me to realize my reality doesn’t begin to jive with societal hype. The definition of “nuclear family” doesn’t coincide with my world. When the holidays arrive, “family” takes on a wider meaning that goes largely unnoticed throughout the year, although that is not by our choice. We have parents in three different towns hundreds of miles apart, siblings clustered in three states, and cousins we haven’t seen since our shared grandparents’ funerals. Yet we’re expected to rejoice in cramming too many people into a perfectly adequate but modest home to hear about the latest nephew’s first tooth.

My sisters and I have never been close, as much due to the age difference (five and seven years) as to my role as in loco parentis in their lives from far too early. When I see friends making vacation plans with their sisters, looking to those siblings before friends and sometimes spouse, I wonder how it feels to have such a relationship. And my brothers, even the one I spent six years in the same household with, are little more than familiar strangers.

Hollywood and Hallmark aside, I’ve learned over the years family is not necessarily defined by blood. My stance earned me a scolding from a cousin when she felt the need to remind me blood is always there for you, no matter what. Maybe, maybe not. But I didn’t argue. She’s family.

And that’s part of the problem. I/we don’t argue, or when we do, it’s to score points and puff up our own self-importance rather than resolve problems or share thought-provoking ideas. Because “blood is always there,” some relatives disregard notions of respect and civility, saying and often doing things that would never pass muster in polite society. Political and religious jibes, no matter how outrageous or hurtful, are fair game. How unfair, and how sad.

Because on the flip side, the elephant in the living room which we all ignore are the real issues that divide us, misunderstandings large and small that prevent us from truly sharing those Norman Rockwell moments. If we keep sweeping things under the rug, maybe we can stomp them into the floorboards and not have to face them. However, experience shows those hidden bombs eventually explode, with emotional shrapnel taking its toll on everyone in the family.

When it comes down to it, I think that’s why I dread the holidays. The ticking bomb is much more likely to detonate during frenetic periods of forced togetherness which are possibly alcohol-fueled and certainly overloaded with stress. I’m constantly on edge, waiting for the next scornful glance or hurtful comment, always hurriedly dismissed as “Just kidding!” People who take no interest in my life from January through November no matter how much I try to maintain contact – and I have tried, on many levels, and been repeatedly rebuffed – are suddenly in my world, force-feeding me theirs. Because of the chasms between us, emotional as much if not more so than physical, we shouldn’t expect to connect in any meaningful way around an overloaded dinner table twice a year.

But we do expect it, at least some of us, and society reinforces such unrealistic expectations.

How do Hubby and I survive? Deep breaths, lots of shared laughter, and regular reminders that, for all the difficulties, family is always there, maybe not for us in ways we’d prefer, but they’re part of what makes us who we are.

And this year we can visit Norman Rockwell at the Dayton Art Institute when it’s all over.

My first 'author' interview!

2011-11-17T20:35:00.001-05:00

Thank you to the generous and talented Ed Davis for the lovely review of The Moment I Knew posted today on his blog. While you're there checking out an amazing and humbling interview with yours truly, check out some of his other wonderful posts!

NaNoWriMo mental tricks

2011-11-16T08:05:00.001-05:00

When I planned out my writing activities for the month of November, taking into account the demands of National Novel Writing Month (yes, I do those things), I made sure I had my weekly blogs ready to go for the first two Wednesdays before NaNo started. This week I scheduled a NaNo update; next week (the day before Thanksgiving) will be my annual holiday rant (feel free to skip that one if you’re one who actually likes those events), with the last post of the month as a celebration of my anticipated NaNo victory.

Eh, maybe not so much. But I’m trying.

NaNo has been a struggle this year, but for different reasons than in my past efforts (2005, 2006 – both of which I completed successfully, thank you very much). As new homeowners with tons of yard work demanding attention before the snow flies, I’ve managed to do absolutely no writing on the weekends, which means I’m way behind. At this point, I should be over 25K. At the close of business Tuesday the fifteenth (mid-point), I was at 22,332. Not bad, but not on track for the win.

Back to the scheduling thing. Because I'm using NaNo to finish a WIP instead of the traditional new-book-in-a-month goal, I've found a different way to motivate myself. In addition to the daily NaNo word count, because I like round numbers (they’re comforting somehow), I can use the NaNo overall total as a marker. That also works for the grand total on the WIP. All told, I now have three different mileposts to shoot for; whichever one is closest to the magical zero-ending total is my carrot on a stick.

Yes, I'm a bit strange. You’ve just realized that? My son says I think too much, and he’s probably right.

Anyway, my mid-point NaNo effort stands at 22,332 words, with a grand total of 50,717 for the WIP.

I’ll call that a win. For now.

The Moment I Knew

2011-11-09T07:42:00.001-05:00

This is a modified replay of an earlier announcement of my most recent publication. The editor is sponsoring a blog roll during the month of November and I simply must participate as thanks for all her hard work putting this book together.

The Moment I Knew: Reflections from Women on Life’s Defining Moments, is the second anthology in Sugati Publications Reflection from Women series and I’m honored to have my essay “Powerful Eyes of Love” selected by Editor Terri Spahr Nelson.

This whole process has been an incredible learning experience, from the writing through publication. The essay started as a challenge exercise with fellow writer Tami Absi, whose work is also in the anthology, and I expected it would be light-hearted look at one of Hubby’s goofy hobbies (doing doughnuts in the mall parking lot after the first snow). Instead, as the words hit the page, they dredged up emotions I thought were long healed and morphed into a paean to his love and patience over the years as I’ve struggled to overcome what he calls my “ghosts.” Maybe I’ve not moved on as much as I thought, but the new awareness I gained from writing this essay is helping the process. The eighteen months since I wrote the piece have been a time of amazing growth, and I’m thankful to Terri for finding value in my words and choosing the essay for this collection.

During the months between acceptance and publication, I found myself fretting over the intensely personal nature of my essay. What was I thinking, sharing such a story? How would family react? Hubby read it before submission, of course; I never share details about him without his approval. Same with our son and daughter. But that still left parents and siblings, some of whom I was certain would be offended. Was it worth the risk? At one point, I nearly contacted Terri to withdraw my essay. Thankfully, I did not, and my anxiety thus far has been groundless.

However, that sense of vulnerability, of exposure, is a chance writers take when delving into personal issues. Even fiction can be fraught with peril, with readers parsing every sentence looking for clues to the author’s life and meaning that may not exist. But still we write, and if we are brave – or foolish – enough, share what we have written. I’m sure many of the women who opened their lives and their hearts in this intimate anthology suffered the same pangs. Yet as our stories reflect, we persevere, in life and in writing.

Terri asked that this blog roll offer a review of an essay from the collection, but I’m hard pressed to pick one. Tami Absi’s touching story of singing to her father in hospice? Mimi LaFrancis’ debut publication honoring her husband’s loving smile, so reminiscent of my own story, and yet so different? Or Lisa Clark’s reminder that the decisions we make to not act are as telling as the actions we do take, and can haunt us just as relentlessly.

Sugati Publications says, “There are some moments in our lives that are so significant they become etched in our memories and they leave behind indelible imprints. These moments often change us in ways we never expected. We asked women around the world: Tell us about the moment you knew. The top thirty most intriguing, captivating and touching responses are featured in this women’s anthology.” In my case, not only the writing of this piece but the sharing and publication of it have left imprints as well.

Copies of this unique collection of thirty essays and poems from women in six countries are available online at http://www.sugatipublications.com, at independent bookstores, and through Amazon.com. A significant portion of the profits from the sale of this book are donated to three charities that assist women: Women's Microfinance Initiative, the Nurse-Family Partnership Program, and Women Writing for (a) Change. If you purchase a copy online from Sugati, a greater percentage goes to these worthy organizations.

Again, my thanks to Terri and to Sugati Publications for the opportunity to share my story with the world.

Sugati Publications blog roll extras for the month of November:

Girlfriends special: Save 25% -- buy two books for only $22.00 (one for yourself and one for a friend) available only at Sugati Publications

Free shipping: discount code BlogSpecial (to use at checkout)

Multi-cross-genre literary creative non-fiction fiction

2011-11-02T08:34:00.001-04:00

A new connection on Google-+ (speaking of which, is there a new term I’m missing? they’re not Facebook Friends or Twitter Tweeps…Plussers, maybe?) is in the habit of asking pointed, sometimes thought-provoking questions of her writers circle under the hashtag #writing_ques:

What do you prefer to write - articles, poetry,
screen plays, flash fiction, short stories or novels?
My response: Novels, short stories, essays, articles, the occasional flash...

What are you working on now?
My response: Shopping novel #1, editing novel #2, writing novel #3, plus weekly blog posts, essays, and the occasional short story...oh, and tech writing, if I can find a contract

What is your ultimate goal for your writing?
I’m still mulling a response for that one, but her questions have given me pause on more than one occasion. Usually when someone asks what I write, I say mysteries; both of my finished (!) novels are mystery stories, not quite cozies, but not hardcore thrillers, either. And they’re as much psychological studies and relationship journeys as anything; does that make them “women’s fiction”? If I take inventory of my (thankfully) growing list of publications, I find true “mysteries” are far down on the list.

The mystery novels have yet to attract an agent and self-publishing is not for me at this point, so they don’t count in the final tally – yet. Of my short story credits only one, “Happy Birthday to You,” (I know, lame title – it was an early effort) is a mystery. Oddly enough, it served as the basis for novel #2 (and gained a new title in the process). The remaining five short stories fall somewhere between women’s fiction and literary (a whole other debate), although the latest, published in a terrific online journal, is just creepy enough for the Halloween season. But it’s not really a mystery, either – maybe psychological thriller?

Genre is so ambiguous and hard to pin down. I’ve seen a map that breaks out forty-two different possibilities, and I’m sure it continues to expand. In determining genre, writers are told to imagine where their work would fit on the shelf at the local bookstore. A talented author from my writers group takes that suggestion to heart. Every week before leaving our local Barnes & Noble after our meeting, he finds the place where his book would fit and makes a spot on the shelf for it. I should follow his lead on that practice, and several others as I can easily see him as the first of our group to publish a full volume.

It’s disturbing thought, this review of my oeuvre. My dream has always been to be a fiction writer, yet I’ve had far greater success in non-fiction, from Historic Warren County: An Illustrated History, through newspapers articles and book reviews, to a recent anthologized personal essay. Fascinating, really, how dreams and reality diverge.

Is this dichotomy normal? Maybe I’ll ask my new Google+ #writing_ques connection/friend/buddy to add that question to her list.

The eternal question

2011-10-26T08:18:00.000-04:00

Blame it on the moon, on the waning days of autumn, on some mystical alignment of the planets, but the past several weeks have been a wasteland for me when it comes to writing. Even a pair of reasonable successes were overshadowed by a handful of rejections (aren’t they all?). The mental saboteurs came out in force, reminding me of the miniscule chances of ever publishing a novel via traditional means, of the ever-growing slush pile that is self-published ebooks, of the lack of measurable income on the horizon for any but the most gifted and fortunate author in the sea of writers I follow on the ’net.

Why bother? echoes daily. My words fall into a black hole on the ether, or simply fill up my hard drive. My WIP languished, unable to hold my attention long enough to add to its meager word count. I searched my files for the why-I-write essays stored there, my own and others. I stumbled across a recent blog by Jonathan Allen, Shaggin’ the Muse, addressing that universal question when a quote from author Clive Barker resonated:

“I don’t find myself terribly interesting and that’s one of the reasons why I write in the mode of trying to escape from the coral that is me. The removal of the limitation that is the self into the place that is the image are things that are boundless, this is the mystical heartbeat of what I do. It’s always been that…I write out of anxiety and obsession, I write out of hope and passion. I don’t write out of stale marketing ideas because someone paid me a million bucks.”

Anxiety and obsession pretty much describes my life. But so does hope and passion. I need to focus on the latter. As the tabbed post on this blog notes, I write because I must. That is enough.

Last week, I returned to a previous novel that needs “just one more” good rewrite only to decide the potential I thought it held has faded with the summer sun. My writing group doesn’t agree, bless their ink-stained souls, and they urge me to shoulder on. That’s what we do for each other, besides pointing out overused adverbs and missing commas. We encourage and cajole and push and hector. Our weekly sessions offer not only accountability, but emotional support; for all of that, I am more than grateful.

Today I managed 750 words on the stalled WIP, including a new side story and a meshing of previously unrelated scenes.

Tomorrow, I’ll write more. And the day after that. And the day after that. Whether anyone other than my faithful writers group (and my supportive hubby) reads my words, I’ll write more.

That’s what I do. I’m a writer.

A legacy worth cherishing

2011-10-19T08:47:00.001-04:00

With the recent death of Steve Jobs, much has been written about his legacy. What will he be remembered for? Not having drunk the Apple Kool-aid, I’m not terribly concerned about where the company is headed without him. He was certainly an innovator, but there are others, possibly in large part thanks to his creations. That should be sufficient legacy for anyone, I would think.

The question did start an interesting discussion with Hubby. Do we have a legacy? Do I? What do I want to be remembered for? Is being remembered by future generations truly a driving force for some people? I’ve never understood the desire to see monuments and buildings carrying the family name. It’s not something I need or want.

Certainly as a writer, I hope my work (if I ever manage to publish something substantial) will be remembered. But me personally? Not so much. I’ve never had enough of a concept of self-worth to consider such an eventuality, and I don’t see that as something that will change in my next fifty years.

However, a gentle prod from the universe reminded me of the legacy I’ve already helped produce – our children. One is easy-going, letting life happen and pretty much riding the wave and living for today (like Hubby). The other is much more focused, task-driven, with at least one eye on the future, determined to finish something of note (like me, only more so). Fortunately Hubby and I have moved from our extremes to a more compatible center and don’t drive each other too crazy; not sure the kids will ever meet in the middle, but they’ve outgrown the teenage antagonism.

Now they’re of an age where life decisions are more profound. I’m pleased they still come to us for advice, and actually seem to listen to what we have to say. This week when my mom-gene kicked in to worry over what-ifs of the directions they seem to be heading, I had not one pleasant surprise, but two.

Somehow, in the chaos of our life, we managed to raise a couple of pretty smart kids, wise beyond what I expected to hear when I expressed my fears. To the laid-back child, I reiterated our “use your head” mantra from their childhood, all while hoping heart would not be silenced. To the Type-A child, I urged listening to the heart while keeping the head in counselor mode. It was only after I offered these words that I realized how they reflected the lessons of our marriage onto our next generation – balance.

I was humbled when both children responded with thoughtful, reasoned positions on the decisions they face, and an awareness of the future potential of their actions for not only themselves, but for the greater community. We must have done something right, and I am awed by the living outcomes.

I could ask for no greater legacy.

Pay it Forward Blogfest

2011-10-14T08:15:00.000-04:00

I’ve been slowly culling my unmanageable Google Reader list, working to keep only those blogs which are truly useful or entertaining, and making some progress. Then one of my regulars, Elle Strauss, posted a note about the Pay It Forward Blogfest organized by Matthew MacNish and Alex Cavanaugh:

“The idea is to introduce everyone to everyone else. We want this to be an easy post that allows you to meet and follow as many other bloggers as you can. In your post, we would like you to please list, describe, and link to three blogs that you enjoy reading, but that you suspect may fly under the radar of a lot of other bloggers. Or they can be famous blogs, as long as they're awesome.”

Usually I avoid these things, blog rolls and you-list-me-I’ll-list-you, but for some reason, the tone of Matt and Alex’s posts caught my attention. Now I have nearly two hundred new blogs to consider – yikes!

Picking three of my favorites (besides the wonders of Elle, noted above, which is already on the list) was not easy, but here they are:
• Natalie Whipple’s Between Fact and Fiction – humor, insight, and a real-life perspective on lots of issues I share
• Justine’s Tribal Writer – anyone who speaks to the “Badass Creative Woman” is worth a second look, and a third
• The Bookshelf Muse by Becca Puglisi and Angela Ackerman offers a fascinating series of tips on incorporating sensory description in writing through a series of thesaurus (thesari?) covering weather, emotion, character traits…priceless!

These last two definitely don’t fly “under the radar,” as suggested, but they’re definitely awesome and worth reading for lots of good reasons:
• TerribleMinds by Chuck Wendig – usually vulgar, often laugh-out-loud hilarious, always insightful
• The Vandal by Derek Haines – an ex-pat Aussie living in Switzerland. Need I say more?

I wouldn’t dare go back to my weekly writers group if I didn’t include the following efforts, all with their own unique quirks:
• Tami Absi - FrankenPig
• Lori Lopez - Lost in the Writing
• James Reynolds - WriterJames

Now to work my way through the Pay It Forward list and discover new gems! Hope you’ll join me -

Breaking up is never easy…

2011-10-12T06:57:00.001-04:00

Facebook, I’m breaking up with you. I’m not dumping you entirely; we can still be friends, and we share too many mutual acquaintances who are important in my life to ever sever the ties completely. But you’ve become too possessive, too nosy. Your insecurity is showing. You demand to know everything about me, where I visit, what I read, who I like and don’t like. Then you don’t have the common courtesy to keep that information to yourself, seamlessly sharing it with people I’ve never heard of. I’ve tried to stop you. I’ve applied all the available filters and privacy settings, avoided the ubiquitous games and apps, but it’s no use. And while I don’t like to be superficial, you’ve let yourself go, become cluttered and unwieldy and downright unattractive. Oh, I know, you’re trying new things, flashy news tickers (annoying!) and profile timelines (creepy, at best). Enough is enough. We’re through. I’ve found someone else.

Google+ is seductively clean and elegant. My professional friends don’t have to hear about the family reunion, and Aunt Jan isn’t inundated with writing advice and rants. I know FB tried to make that possible, but it was too little, too late. Many of the hard lessons I learned there can be implemented much more easily on G+, and I don’t have to try to undo the mistakes of the past, whether they were mine or the platforms. I’m starting over, wiser and more focused, aware of my social networking needs, my likes and dislikes. I’m more cautious who I allow into my circles, screening new followers and keeping overlap to a minimum.

I’ve also learned the hard way (thank you, FB) that it’s best, for me at least, to severely curtail the negativity. Political rhetoric, especially as the never-ending campaign cycle kicks into high gear, is no longer welcome. I’ll stick with pleasant family connections, humorous friendly chats, and informative writing notes and commentary. Social networking at its best, I hope.

FB won’t disappear from my life completely. I’m too paranoid by the publishing industry’s insistence on its vital importance in building a writer’s platform, although I’m not entirely convinced they’re right. I’ll still drop in (probably far too often, knowing me) to see what my friends are up to, add the occasional witty bòn mót to the discussion, keep up with the events listings for my writers group. But if you’re looking for me to chat online, you’ll find me on G+ or Windows Live Messenger. Drop me an email, send me a text. Always glad to connect.

As for Twitter, eh…seems more like a noisy teenager clamoring for attention than a useful tool. I’m there, but not enamored. But G+? I’ve found a new online home – hope you’ll stop by!

Different paths up the same mountain

2011-10-05T07:58:00.002-04:00

I’m amazed at the vitriol a Google+ query has provoked over the harmless, well-intentioned writing exercise called National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo, or just NaNo). One commenter went so far as to label NaNoWriMo participants – of which I am one – “morons and the ignorant,” “fools,” and “an embarrassment to writers,” possessed of “delusions,” with an extra stab at those who write romance novels (I do not), and then claim his comments were not hateful. I can’t imagine what he hoped to accomplish, or to gain, with such animosity, but I referred the thread to Nathan Bransford’s post Don’t Be A Jerk.

The commenter felts his remarks were “misconstrued and responded to based on those misconceptions,” and ended his several statements by wishing NaNo participants well. To be fair, he was not alone in his negativity. Others took NaNo to task for its supposed “tourist” aspect of writing by daring to allow hobbyists to call themselves writers for a month. There were thoughtful comments as well about the necessary work which comes after NaNo, work which founder Chris Baty stresses in his companion book, but my issue is with those who chose to tag NaNo itself with derision because it doesn’t take writing “seriously.” That aspect is up to each individual writer and shouldn’t be blamed on a light-hearted vehicle to help get folks writing. There are many paths up the mountain, and not all who embark on the journey are through-hikers. Barely twenty percent of those who begin NaNo cross the fifty-thousand word goalpost; those who do are entitled to a bit of celebration before they begin the trek of edits and rewrites, if that is their chosen path.

A more reasoned approach comes from Chuck Wendig’s always entertaining blog where he provides his customary list of advice for would-be NaNo participants, at least one of which the aforementioned abusive commenter would do well to heed: “We’re not all robots who follow the same pre-described program.” Lighten up, do what you to do in order to get the words down on the page. It’s not easy; NaNo is not easy – but it’s a trial run of what to expect in the writing life, and for many, the only time they will allow themselves to write. What their lives and egos do with the output after the game ends is their call. I hope they move on from what Wendig calls a “zero draft” produced in that thirty-day sprint, but the marathon of a dedicated writer’s life is not for everyone.

My 2005 NaNo effort became the basis for my creative writing thesis; my 2006 draft, after many rewrites, edits and revisions is with an agent for consideration. In the meantime, I’ve published several short stories, an anthologized personal essay, and a non-fiction history book. NaNo was not the end for me, only the beginning. It gave me the confidence to push forward with my writing, knowing I really could finish a novel-length manuscript. To deride such an accomplishment by anyone who makes the effort is cruel and unnecessary, whether they take the remaining difficult steps to publication or not.

A recent post by Jami Gold offered related advice to those who are bombarded with conflicting “expert” opinion on the publishing end of writing, wisely reminding would-be writers, “Every one of us has a different path to success because we each have our own definition of success…” If the path of NaNoWriMo works for you as it did for me, take it.

We’ll meet up again on the other side and celebrate our respective journeys.

Book review updates

2011-09-27T11:16:00.000-04:00

Since I’m in Toledo this week sitting hospital vigil for mymother’s hip replacement surgery, I’m not up to a regular, thoughtful blogpost. Spending all my energy on being the good daughter!

So to give you something to read since you were kind enoughto stop by, here are the latest book reviews I’ve written for MetaPsychology, a great reviewsite. Very different topics, but both highly recommended:

ThePsychology of Spirituality: An Introduction.Larry Culliford. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London. 2011.

The Quarter-Acre Farm: How I Kept the Patio, Lost the Lawn, and FedMy Family for a Year. Spring Warren.Seal Press/Perseus Books Group, Berkley, CA. 2011.

Let me know if you enjoy them as much as I did!

Banned Books Week

2011-09-24T08:43:00.001-04:00

In honor of this year's Banned Books Week, a replay of my post from last year:

http://cpatlarge.blogspot.com/2010/09/theyre-talking-about-banning-books.html

Will things ever change?

Celebrating success

2011-09-21T07:51:00.000-04:00

I have a new publication! My essay “Powerful Eyes of Love” is in the second Reflection from Women series anthology titled The Moment I Knew: Reflections from Women on Life’s Defining Moments. Editor Terri Spahr Nelson selected thirty essays and poems from women in six countries for this amazing collection. Copies will be available at Amazon.com in a few weeks, at independent bookstores (not sure where – ask your local bookseller) or online at http://www.sugatipublications.com

This whole process has been an incredible learning experience, from the writing through publication. The essay started as a challenge exercise with fellow writer Tami Absi, whose work is also in the anthology, and I thought it would be light-hearted look at one of hubby’s goofy hobbies (doing doughnuts in the mall parking lot after the first snow). Instead, as the words hit the page, they dredged up emotions I thought were long healed and morphed into a paean to his love and patience over the years as I’ve struggled to overcome what he calls my “ghosts.” Maybe I’ve not moved on as much as I thought, but the new awareness I gained from writing this essay is helping the process. The eighteen months since I wrote the piece have been a time of amazing growth, and I’m thankful to Terri for finding value in my words and choosing the essay for this collection.

Sugati Publications says, “There are some moments in our lives that are so significant they become etched in our memories and they leave behind indelible imprints. These moments often change us in ways we never expected. We asked women around the world: Tell us about the moment you knew. The top thirty most intriguing, captivating and touching responses are featured in this women’s anthology.” They are donating a significant portion of the profits from the sale of this book to three charities that assist women: Women's Microfinance Initiative, the Nurse-Family Partnership Program, and Women Writing for (a) Change. If you purchase a copy online from Sugati, a greater percentage goes to these worthy organizations.

And if you join the Reflections from Women group on Facebook during the month of September, you earn a chance to win a free gift book signed by the editor. Drop me an email and I’ll send you a signed bookplate, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Thank you for celebrating this success with me.

2011-09-14T09:28:00.000-04:00

It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it. ~ Steven Wright

Kevin Bacon’s six degrees of separation is a misnomer; after these past few weeks, I’m down to maybe three. Widely divergent parts of my life are colliding in the oddest ways:

Our daughter is dating a young man who once was engaged to the daughter of a woman I went to high school with, and with whom I’ve recently reconnected because of our thirty-fifth (!) reunion that woman’s older sister went to school with my mother.

That young man’s mother is friends with another friend of mine, a woman I worked with back in Toledo for six years whom I haven’t seen for almost that long.

At a Labor Day open house in the Dayton area, we met a barbershop quartet (we travel in the most fascinating circles!) who knows the choir director from the high school our children attended in a suburb of Toledo because he also sings barbershop.

One member of the quartet is dating the ex of a lawyer I worked with while at federal court (again in Toledo…hmmm) over fifteen years ago.

Another reconnect from high school recently “friended” a man on Facebook (related somehow to a teacher our children had in school) who shares a mutual friendship with yet another man I worked with for several years, none of whom are in the same field.

I’ll stop before it gets any more convoluted, and without even mentioning other bizarre connections that appear on Facebook and Twitter on a regular basis.

Is it really a small world, or has social networking simply drawn our circles closer and made us more aware of tenuous connections? Employers and professors, colleagues and family, writers and friends – it’s more and more difficult to remember who fits where, and shares what pieces of my life. Anyone who thinks they can operate in complete anonymity if they have any sort of online presence is sadly mistaken. At another recent gathering (I’m really not a social butterfly, but it events happens), the host was nonplussed when several guests mentioned using Google to find her street address. We all connect in the ether but often have trouble locating each other in real life, and she didn’t think about providing that information with the emailed invitation. It can be disconcerting to realize just how much data about us is available with only the most cursory Internet search.

But that’s life in the technology world, small or not.

2011-09-08T10:36:00.000-04:00

Extra post this week, with my entry in Chuck Wendig’s Flash Fiction Challenge. Revenge is the topic. How’d I do?

Sure I tapped the boss’s account; I’m a hacker. This time it was at Sylvia’s request. Above board, she said. Vital to the company, she said. Right before she fired me for violating security protocols I helped write.

But Sylvia’s an IT illiterate, got her job because of looks. She’ll pop the flash drive I gave her into her laptop to retrieve the incriminating lovesick emails she sent him. She’s never heard of thumb sucking. By tonight, the business data will be wiped, and I’ll hold all the cards. And the bank accounts. Not that anyone will ever know.

BTW – Chuck’s blog is well worth following, as long as you’re not opposed to great information surrounded by crass, vulgar humor and obscenities. He’s a hoot!

2011-09-07T10:42:00.000-04:00

My mood has been thrown completely off-kilter by the abrupt change from 90+ and sunny on Saturday to 65 and breezy on Monday followed by two days of chilly rain (with more forecast for the rest of the week). I can’t seem to force my way through the gloom. It’s turning the white page before me to gray, making it harder than usual to fill the blankness with words…the letters melt into the shadows. It’s much too early in the year for SAD (seasonal affective disorder).

I’ve read several pieces recently scoffing at writer’s block, espousing butt-in-chair discipline along with helpful tips on breaking through, even urging writer’s to produce from a sense of desperation at the possibility of starving. I wish I could say they were inspirational; instead, while showing me I’m not alone in my struggles, they’ve reinforced my despair. I’ve heard it all before, even shared some of it with fellow writers when they floundered. Now those words come back to haunt me with their ineffectiveness when a shroud blankets my mental functions. It’s similar to telling someone who is depressed to cheer up (been there, too). Yeah, right. If it were that easy, there wouldn’t be a problem, now would there?

I found a haiku I wrote several years ago that helps put things in perspective:

Light dispels shadows

Offering freshness and hope

In a dark, dark world

Light – that’s it. Preferably sunlight, but even a lightening of mood by focusing on the positive, reinforcing those neural pathways instead of strengthening the negative ones. Dig out a warm sweater, bake the bread I proofed yesterday, make a pot of comfort-food soup. And as a good friend just reminded me, persist! The words will come. These did.

2011-08-31T09:39:00.000-04:00

I wrote recently about all the emotional turmoil life was sending my way – or rather, that I was snatching out of the universal ebb and flow and clinging to unnecessarily. At the end of those musings, I even thought I had a handle on things, that I’d mentally resolved all the painful issues I tried to help friends deal with, being patient with my own feelings along the way, and was ready to move on mindfully.

Wrong.

My body rebelled against my unwise attachment to the status quo by felling me with a multi-day migraine; equanimity promptly went south…and left me gasping, literally, in the dark of early morning when night terrors wrenched me from a restless not-quite-sleep shot through with lingering but unrecallable dreams.

As is so often the case, writing came to my rescue. A 900+ word meandering sob-on-screen poured out during a weekly morning session with a fellow writer will likely never see the light of day (or a pair of eyes other than my own), but it helped clarify my thoughts – even the ones I didn’t know I had – by doing as French writer Maurice Blanchot says: “There can be this point, at least, to writing: to wear out errors.” I certainly wore myself out physically, mentally, and emotionally.

When Hubby came home from work and looked into my eyes, he knew, as he always does. He held me and comforted me, but he also gave me the emotional space I needed to work through the turmoil I couldn’t begin to explain. After a few quiet hours home alone together puttering around the yard, it hit me: the logical, analytical side of my brain was battling to make sense of feelings it had no business trying to explain. Pain just is; it’s a part of life, like eating and breathing. Beating myself up because I can’t find answers to questions I don’t need to be asking is an exercise in futility that only creates more pain. It’s a vicious cycle, one the Buddha tells us to avoid by letting go and simply living in the moment, accepting and experiencing every moment on its own terms before releasing it and moving on to the next.

In a book I reviewed recently called The Psychology of Spirituality, author Larry Culliford says, “When a loss is fully accepted, and only then, something is completed and the process can move on…painful emotions do not disappear but are transformed by the ‘catharsis,’ the release of energy, into their pain-free counterparts (anger/acceptance, shame/worth, etc.).” That day, from the nightmares, to the writing purge, to the Aha! moment in the garden, was my catharsis. I released the negative energy I’d been clinging to, all the pain my friends and I were experiencing, and flowed into acceptance.

I won’t be quite so cavalier this time and claim to have conquered the emotions, but I have learned a valuable lesson. It’s good to stop thinking occasionally, because while the unexamined life is not worth living, too much examination can make that same life unlivable.

2011-08-29T09:34:00.002-04:00

Thank you Fire Dog Lake for hosting an online chat interview with Terri Spahr Nelson, editor of the Reflections from Women anthology series, and contributors to the soon-to-be-released second volume, The Moment I Knew: Reflections from Women on Life’s Defining Moments – including me! My essay “Powerful Eyes of Love” joins personal stories and poems collected from thirty women in six countries in what is sure to be an inspirational collection with practical and far-reaching benefits. The publisher’s website notes, “In the spirit of empowering and supporting women, a portion of all of our profits go to agencies providing assistance to women and girls.”

The Moment I Knew will be off the presses any day now; advance copies can be ordered through the Sugati Press website.

2011-08-24T09:41:00.000-04:00

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood…

Choices.

From the moment we awake each day, we’re faced with countless choices. Red blouse or black shirt? Hair up or down? Green tea or café mocha? Most we make unconsciously, out of habit more than decisiveness, which is probably a good thing or we could find ourselves constantly facing what science now calls decision paralysis. When faced with too many choices (do we really need fourteen varieties of peanut butter on the grocery shelf?), it becomes easier to simply not choose – which, of course, in itself is a choice.

And then there are the big choices, with larger consequences. What to study in school; when and if to marry, and whom; where to live. Enlist in the military, buy that new car, accept that job offer. If and when we become parents (another choice!), it’s our job to teach our children to make wise decisions. Tough to do if we’re still in the process of learning that difficult lesson ourselves, and painful when we watch them follow our trial-and-error path. But if we’re lucky, we learn together and maybe they won’t make quite as many mistakes as we did along the way.

Society relishes watching people stumble over bad choices, whether it be celebrities – she married the guy how many hours after they met? – or politicians – he sent what kind of message from his congressional phone? – or the hapless people who display themselves on America’s Funniest Videos – what did that goof expect to have happen when he rode his bike off the roof of the garden shed?

And it’s far too easy to Monday-morning-quarterback the decisions of others, to make that determination of wisdom, or lack thereof, from a distance and after the fact when things fall apart. Too often we forget that even the most carefully thought out plan of action can lead to unexpected results. And while “it was meant to be” might salve the wounds for some, it shouldn’t be allowed to relieve us of responsibility for the choices we make.

It’s harder when the ones facing the painful consequences of poor decisions are loved ones. Then we have more choices of our own: when to (gently) point out logical expectations in the hopes of preventing another disaster; when to help bail them out of the often devastating results without enabling further thoughtless choices; when to simply be there to pick up the pieces and hold them when they cry.

I think this is a large part of why I enjoy writing fiction. Mostly, I hate making decisions in real life. You don’t want to dine with me at a new restaurant with a multiple-page menu; we could be there for hours while I decide. But when I write, I have something life rarely offers: control of the outcome. Decision paralysis isn’t a problem when I know where my characters’ choices will lead. Entering that dimly lit room alone with only a fireplace poker to investigate strange noises at midnight makes perfect sense to an author. I know who the bad guy is (okay, unless the characters get particularly obstinate and take matters into their own hands…fellow writers, you understand!).

Sometimes it’s good to take the road less traveled by; it does make all the difference. But do it with eyes wide open, not blindly or thoughtlessly, damn the torpedoes full speed ahead. Identify potential consequences and be prepared to face them with equanimity. It’s a lesson I’ve learned the hard way, and continue to learn every day.

And that’s not a choice I take lightly.

2011-08-17T10:23:00.003-04:00

Change is inevitable, except from vending machines. ~ Robert Gallagher

Why is it the universe seems determined to keep me off-balance? As soon as I’ve accepted that I’ll never find a ‘real’ job in the current economy and finally settled into a reasonably productive writing routine, a contract job appeared which required regular hours and real clothes every day. After a week or so I adjusted, found where writing best fit around the newly imposed schedule, and even acclimated the dogs to surviving without me for most of the day. Then for no particular reason, the contract was yanked out from under me with less than four hours notice and I was floundering again.

But I moved on, back to the discarded writing routine, with a few modifications learned during the contract (write first thing in the morning, after tea and toast but before email and Facebook), focused on new words early in the day when my mind is fresh, and saved research and the business end of things for later in the day when I shift from the desk to something other than housework or the possibility of a nap.

Then Hubby left town for a week on business and life is upside-down again. I thought I’d get even more writing done while he was gone; instead, I spent the week preparing for houseguests, obsessing over grubby floor tile and dingy carpets. He came home, the guests came and went, and another week of writing time was lost.

Once more I tried for the butt-in-chair regular writing time. I managed for a few days, only to be distracted by life again. A close friend needed my support when he lost a family member; another friend, not as close but much too young, died tragically. Five deaths in our extended circle in less than six weeks – and I expect to be able to concentrate?

I realized this morning during a rather frustrating attempt at restorative meditation that while I’ve been counseling those closest to me to be patient with their grief, I, too, need time to grieve. Maybe my sense of loss isn’t the same as they’re experiencing; maybe I’m simply being too empathic and absorbing their pain because I want them to feel better, but my emotions are real, too. I need to accept them, work through them in my own time, and then move on. No rush. No ‘shoulds’ about what I feel or when. But no denial, either.

Ego. Self. Attachment. All lessons I’ve been faced with again during these experiences. My ego took a beating when the contract was pulled; my irrational, approval-seeking self was on display for our guests, who really didn’t notice or care if the windows were streaked; my attachment to those I care about, and those who have died, has been shown for the ephemeral thing it is. The feelings are all real, but they are also to be faced, and accepted, and moved beyond.

I guess the universe is in synch better than I realized. Now to ease back into that flow myself, instead of fighting it.

2011-08-10T09:30:00.000-04:00

O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention. ~ William Shakespeare

elsaelsa.com

What is it about fire? Humanity as a whole marks the beginning of civilization with the harnessing of fire. It warms us, cooks our food, and in its wild, flaming state – preferably contained in a campfire ring – entrances us for hours.

But it also terrifies us. Uncontained, fire is a horrifying menace. Wildfires in the forests of California and the plains of Arizona and New Mexico have devastated countless lives this season, scorching untold acres of land. We load our homes and businesses with smoke detectors to enable us to escape its fury. Furniture and clothing are often drenched with fire-retardant solutions of questionable safety that we’re willing to overlook if they save us from the blaze.

Yet even as it burns through our communities, we are attracted to its flames, mesmerized by the flicker and gleam of indescribable colors. We have a condition named for the more extreme fascination: pyromania – fire madness.

Shakespeare had it right, as he so often did, when he yearned for a muse of fire. As writers, we need that spark of creativity, a gleam of horrifying reality, almost uncontrollable, whenever we embarked on a new project. It gives us impetus to do battle with our self-doubts; enchants us with possibility while terrifying us with fear of failure; and draws us into the deepest recesses of ourselves from which the best writing springs.

I generally prefer my muse to be a bit calmer, easier to control, but as a fellow writer noted in last night’s critique group, maybe we need to write in the throes of fiery emotion more often. That’s when bold, gripping, and powerful words explode onto the page.

And with the right kind of fire, we can also make s’mores.

2011-08-03T08:08:00.000-04:00

"It is the other who exposes me to unity.”*

Because Hubby’s grandfather emigrated from Schuivers Kapelle, Belgium, in 1920, our family has always had an affinity for things Belgian, even while not quite understanding what that meant. All I’d ever learned about the country over the years was the capital (Brussels), the two-language split (French and a form of Dutch called Flemish), and that they were really good at making beer and chocolate. This weekend, we were fortunate to learn more.

Through the auspices of the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Twin Lake, Michigan, and the local organizing efforts of the hard-working Brent and Rachel, we hosted a pair of musicians associated with Concert Band Maasmechelen from Maasmechelen, Belgium. For three days, we were privileged to immerse ourselves in their culture while sharing ours with receptive participants. The United Nations should be so successful.

Our guests Bart and Marijke (it took me a day-and-a-half to pronounce her name correctly) were delightful. From our first meeting in the parking lot of Wright State University’s Center for Creative Arts at two-thirty Friday morning (the group had transportation problems out of Chicago), we continually found common ground from our love of nature and hiking to a shared sense of being overwhelmed by too many choices in restaurants, supermarkets and bookstores. The four of us talked for hours about daily life, education, food, family gatherings and of course, music. Bart plays euphonium (baritone, for most of us Westerners, although there are subtle differences) and trombone; Marijke plays violin, viola, and cello, although not on this tour. For the U.S. trip, she is part of the organizing staff. We chuckled together over her task of asking each member, “Do you have your papers?” before boarding the bus to head north to the second of four concert stops.

We knew immediately upon our arrival home in the wee hours of Friday morning that things would go well because our dogs loved them, and they loved the dogs. We spent the day (after sleeping off their jet lag) strolling through downtown Yellow Springs and lunching on the patio at Peach’s Grill. American meal portion sizes stunned them; Marijke took lots of pictures of food and beverages, along with the scenery. We learned quickly to counsel them on when to share an entrée to avoid difficulties. The practice of taking leftovers home in a doggie bag amazed them, as did the standard glass of water served gratis at each meal.

Following Friday’s rehearsal at Wright State, we went to Abuelo’s for dinner (Mexican food is so American, isn’t it?). Saturday included a trip to the Yellow Springs farmers’ market and a visit to the Glen Helen Raptor Center. In the afternoon, we attended an informal wedding reception for friends in Waynesville where Bart and Marijke became the main attraction, graciously answering the same questions over and over as they were introduced to each new arrival.

Concert Band Maasmechelen’s performance Saturday evening at Young’s Jersey Dairy was woefully under-attended, but the musicians played like they were at Carnegie Hall. Enthusiasm, passion, and talent were evident in every piece from Bert Appermont’s “Saga Candida” to “Soul Bossa Nova” by Quincy Jones. In a nod to their American hosts, the band ended with a spectacular “Stars and Stripes Forever,” complete with a talented piccolo solo. And naturally Young’s provided the visitors with ice cream after the show.

In keeping with the international flavor of the visit, on Sunday the four of us attended the Celtic Festival at RiverScape Metropark. After enjoying a typically rousing concert, our Belgians went home with a CD of Dayton’s own Dulahan.

All fifty-eight members of the tour and their host families gathered at John Bryan State Park for a potluck picnic Sunday afternoon. Organizers managed to crowd nearly everyone onto the bridge over the Little Miami River for a group photo before we scattered for one last evening at home. We ended our visit with a campfire in the backyard where Bart and Marijke experienced their first taste of s’mores. Nothing like Belgian chocolate, of course (their parting gift to us – yum!), but memorable just the same.

Monday morning brought a sad parting, back in the Wright State parking lot where our adventure began. The group moved on to Frankfort, Michigan; Strongsville, Ohio; and Dowagiac, Michigan, before returning home August 10^th. Follow their journey at their tour blog – you’ll need Google Translate (it’s in Dutch), and technology provides an interesting perspective with unintentionally humorous results.

I’m still processing much of what I learned during our cultural exchange, about Belgium and about us, having been given the opportunity to see our world through another’s eyes. It’s not always a comfortable vision. Bart and Marijke take for granted many things we as a country are just recognizing as important: government supported recycling and composting programs, quality affordable medical care, alternative energies – their solar programs have been so successful, government subsidies are being phased out. In contrast, we take for granted our over-consuming, commercially-focused lifestyle. They were astounded at the wastefulness we surround ourselves with every day, from excess packaging to enormous food serving sizes where much of what is served goes into the trash. “Everything here is so big,” Marijke noted more than once.

But more important was how much we have in common with Bart and Marijke. From our love of animals, to family traditions, to Star Trek and the Franco-Belgian comics of Asterix et Obelix, our cultural differences faded away into camaraderie. We shared jokes and laughter, quiet times and intense conversation. And I’ll never look at a truck labeled “Penske” (Dutch = “little belly”) in the same way again!

It was an experience we will long remember, even as the lessons learned may not be realized for some time. I hope the exchange was mutually beneficial, and I’m reasonably certain they weren’t bored with our quiet lifestyle and not just being polite when we didn’t visit the Air Force Museum, the malls or a zoo. We parted with sharing email addresses and promises to meet again. They’ve invited us to Belgium for a Scottish games festival in September, and we want them to come back to Yellow Springs. I want to cook for them. I want to take them to the theatre and introduce them to our adult children. I want our friendship to grow.

Our Belgian family has two new members, and we couldn’t be more delighted.

*Maurice Blanchot in The Writing of the Disaster

2011-07-27T11:48:00.000-04:00

“Follow wherever your writing energy leads you.”*

Writing energy is in short supply for me these days, at least for any extended period. After the wonderfully overwhelming week at Antioch Writers Workshop, I came home eager to write, but thoroughly exhausted and lacking in any kind of energy. It took a few days’ recovery, and time spent absorbing the lessons learned from the morning sessions, before I could write anything.

And lo and behold, I turned to non-fiction.

For months, I’ve been working on an essay reflecting on my undergraduate studies in the World Classics curriculum at Antioch McGregor (now Antioch Midwest). Unfortunately, the program made such an impact on my life that the essay grew to nearly 9,000 words, far too long for nearly any publication I could hope to have accept it. It was also disjointed, unwieldy, and in serious need of editing. I just couldn’t make it happen.

After AWW, and some wise words from fellow writer and blogger Lisa Kilian, I finally did what I’d been resisting – I tore the damn thing apart, all but started over (still couldn’t bring myself to toss quite all of it), and ended up with just over 2,500 words of a much better essay. It needs a bit more fine-tuning, and my beta-reader for this project, while agreeing I needed to put back the personal commentary I cut out during my slash-and-burn session, asked two very pointed questions: who is my audience? What one specific point do I want to convey? With his encouragement, and push in the right direction, I’m more optimistic about actually finishing this piece than I have been since I started.

So where does that leave my fiction? I’m heartened by the fact that writers such as Orwell, Hemingway, and many others also wrote essays (not that I’m putting myself in their class by any means), but there are only so many hours in the day, and I have only so much writing energy.

Besides the essay, I have a novel in progress, one I’m shopping, one that needs heavy rewrites and two fragments, plus I have a book review due in a week. I have short stories out on submission, and a few that need edits before I can send them out as well. But I also have an insistent idea for a non-fiction book that I’d love to continue researching.

And like it or not, life, and family, require time and energy. I realize now, every day, why my writing languished while we were raising children. I simply can’t do it all.

Fellow writers, especially those with small children, how do you manage to keep your writing energy replenished, and directed to the proper outlet?

I keep picturing juggling torches or spinning plates…

*Matthew Goodman, author of The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York, etc.

2011-07-26T17:52:00.000-04:00

My first guest post is up at Lost in the Writing, a blog by fellow writer Lori Lopez. Stop by to read about my experience filming a video lesson for high school students and stay to check out Lori's work. Good stuff!

2011-07-20T08:12:00.000-04:00

Seems to be quite a few dog stories in the blogosphere this week…we have so much to learn from our canine companions!

Even though we’ve shared our home with several dogs at various times over the years, we’ve only recently taken up dog training. For most of our canine companions, once they were housebroken and learned the trash can was not a buffet, we pretty much lived together in genial chaos. But two weeks ago, with the addition of dog number three, our son’s five-year-old beagle Indiana on long-term foster care, we realized we had to get serious or go insane.

Barkley, our five-year-old English Springer, has begun acting out since Indy arrived, responding more aggressively to unexpected guests and perceived threats. (my apologies again to the kind gentleman who interrupted his evening walk to tell us about car lights left on!) I can only assume he’s trying to establish dominance over the newcomer. Either that, or standing guard so no more dogs invade his domain – look what happened last time he let down his guard! We’re holding regular practice sessions, knocking loudly on the front door at unexpected times and teaching them the proper way to respond. It’s a slow process, but it seems to be sinking in. Us, 1; dogs, 0.

The kitchen trash is another thing entirely. Barkley has taken a cue from Indy and now they share the fun of tipping the can and strewing its contents while we’re gone. I’m pretty sure eight-year-old Chi watches from across the room, unwilling to face the Wrath of Mom. We try bribing them with Kong balls and treats to keep them occupied when we leave, but so far the only solution seems to be removing the temptation entirely. Us, 1; dogs, 1.

Meals were a bit of a challenge. Chi and Barkley were content to watch while I filled dishes and carried them to their dining spot near the water bowl. Indy, not so much. It took some convincing to teach him patience, but I believe he’s following their lead on this one. No fighting over each other’s bowl, and no more attempts by Indy to claim Chi’s dish by marking it in the usual male-dog manner. At least he’s enough of a gentleman to wait until she’s finished eating to hike a leg in her direction. Us, 2; dogs, 1.

Bedtime is a round of musical chairs. Chi starts on the loveseat at the foot of our bed, then moves to the floor next to my side. Barkley starts on our bed until Hubby dislodges him (no puppies in our nighttime slumbers!), then takes either the loveseat or the actual doggie bed on the floor near my desk. Indy came with a bed our son insists he loved more than anything, only to find he’s completely uninterested in sleeping there. He moves from our bed, to the back cushion of the loveseat, and more often than not ends up in Hubby’s desk chair, where he’s elevated enough to keep watch on all of us. We’ll give that one to the mutts, although the bed remains ours. Us, 2; dogs, 2.

For the past year, our wide fenced yard has been sufficient to contain Barkley and Chi. Not for Indy. Since his arrival, on more occasions than I can count, he’s found openings just large enough for him to wriggle through and head out to explore the neighborhood. We fix and patch and replace fencing, but he’s very resourceful. Then Hubby had a brilliant idea: attach Indy to a long lead that allows him to reach the fence, maybe even get through, but not go any further. That way, as he finds an escape route, we can block it without chasing him up the block first. One by one, as he locates the gaps, we’re right behind him closing them up. Until we’re confident enough to let Indy run free in the backyard without running away, I’m calling this one a draw.

Stepping back, however, to look at the big picture, I’m not sure who is training whom. We’re engaged in a not-so-delicate pas de deux; they learn the behaviors we expect, we learn patience when we’re disappointed. They figure out what they can get away with, we decide how much we’re willing to tolerate, and bribe. We’re coming to understand most of their actions are simply what dogs do, whether it be chewing or barking or loudly wrestling with each other when we’re trying to work. Like when we were raising our children, we need to curb our expectations with reality, setting reasonable limits, and working to make those limits understood, all while taking into account individual personalities, theirs and ours.

Dog training. People training. It’s a toss-up, but as long as we don’t insist on a zero-sum game, we all win.

2011-07-13T14:53:00.000-04:00

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…

…with my apologies to Charles Dickens!

After four intense days of being ‘on’ with the fantastic community that is the Antioch Writers Workshop, I’ve reached a saturation point. My introvert self craves solitude, and quiet, and a few minutes alone to write something of my own. But by the time I get home from my workfellow duties, even when it’s mid-afternoon and I miss out on the opportunity of faculty lunches and the incredible workshopping sessions, my mind is numb. I can’t recall the words that buzzed and popped during the morning instruction or during the hallway conversations and quick chats while commuting. I’ve drained my energy reserves.

It’s encouraging to see the talented Nancy Pickard shares my need for quiet when I find she escapes the throngs of adoring students for a few minutes alone. And Matthew Goodman, whose work I admire tremendously, offers the caveat to all the novice and not-so-novice writers in attendance: get used to being alone. That one, at least, is not a problem for me.

The trials of being an introvert seem to be a common thread at AWW. Many of us grudgingly wear that mantle, wishing it were otherwise, knowing it’s useless to fight it. While we can leave some of the gatherings energized and motivated, too much community time is exhausting. I love the sharing, the discussions, the common struggles and shared triumphs. I soak it all in and yearn for more, but my mind rebels by shutting down.

When I fight the inevitable crash, my frustration grows and I berate myself for my weakness. Futile response, of course, and certainly not healthy, but it’s an ingrained habit I’ve only recently learned to recognize. Now that I’m aware of it, I gather the few remaining shards of energy and gently dissolve the negative emotions, resting instead in the powerful camaraderie of the writing community that, in smaller doses, gives me the strength to continue putting words on paper every day, no matter what the outcome.

A tremendously supportive spirit surrounds me at AWW, from the generous personal sharing of the faculty, who give of themselves far beyond any contractual agreement, whether it be in training classes, one-on-one critiques, or pitch sessions, to the gamut of students from published authors to those who are only beginning to dare self-identify as a writer. This is my third year in attendance, and I’ve learned that Tuesday/Wednesday is my breaking point, when my brain is full, my emotions overwhelm and I must back off, regroup, and focus on the important things to be gained from this highly charged week.

Balance. Time together, with fellow writers who understand the journey we’ve chosen; and time alone, to ponder, and imagine, and refill that energy reservoir.

I truly have the best of both worlds, if I can only remember to approach them with the proper mindset, in the proper time.

2011-07-06T08:01:00.000-04:00

A weed is a plant that is growing in the wrong place. ~ unknown

Garden mavens, you may want to stop reading now.

When we moved into our new home last July with its beautifully landscaped garden, I promised to learn how to tend the lush vegetation and I’ve tried, really I have. In the fall, I hesitated to pull and discard much, not knowing what was planted where, and as green shoots appeared in the spring, the wonder in watching the yard explode into color in first this patch, then that one, was a delight.

Now it’s mid-summer, and the early flowers have died off. I need to learn which to cut back, which brown stems to pamper a little while longer, and which to pull up and compost. “Eww, that’s a weed – get rid of it!” my more experienced gardener friends point out.

www.sageherbalhealing.com

I’ve never understood that. It’s green, it grows nicely. Some even produce delicate flowers. What makes it a weed, something to be eradicated with the vengeance of a Navy Seal?

As I was clearing the yard of downed twigs and branches in preparation for mowing, dutifully yanking up and discarding the nasty weeds, mourning a bit each time I tossed a lush green clump onto the pile, it hit me. Those “weeds” are the common folk. They’re prolific, don’t need planting or cultivating or nurturing. A little water now and then, which Mother Nature kindly sees to if we’re lucky, and they’re happy. No one needs to watch over them when we go on vacation or get too busy to attend to yard work...work we might prefer to pay someone else to do.

And somewhere in the murky mists of time, a gardeners union realized they couldn’t make money off those pesky common folks. They were everywhere, in the village square and the castle garden and everywhere in between. Nurserymen couldn’t charge a fee to tend to such defiantly independent plants.

The entrepreneurial spirit being what it is, the commoners were renamed “weeds,” the undesirable. If they weren’t rare and fragile, how could they possibly be valuable? Isn’t that why diamonds are considered precious? And since everyone who was anyone would rather have diamonds than limestone, those savvy gardeners could now make money eradicating the pests.

A handful of the more popular weeds, those with the brightest, most attractive blooms, were labeled wildflowers and seeds for them now appear on the home supply store shelves where dollars can be earned. But they’re still commoners, tossed into a stray, inaccessible corner or that last strip of soil near the alley.

www.planetnatural.com

No more! I have a new cause. If the Lorax (hubby’s alter ego) can speak for the trees, I’ll be the defender of weeds. Unless it’s a noxious plant that causes skin rashes or sick dogs, it’s welcome in my garden. The only criteria for me is aesthetics (on my subjectivity…okay, and maybe hubby’s), not monetary value, scarcity or official imprimatur. I’ll trim a bit here and there, thin things out and keep the plot within vague boundaries so we don’t lose the dogs in the tangle. But no more wholesale destruction of volunteer greenery. In my yard, weeds have been rebranded.

The lazy gal’s garden? Maybe. But I bet I’ll enjoy our patch of green just as much, if not more, than those who wage an unending battle to defeat the hardy common folk.

There’s a life lesson in there somewhere…

2011-07-02T09:11:00.000-04:00

My latest book review for MetaPsychology.net was posted this week: The Buddha and the Borderline - a heart-breaking personal story of surviving with borderline personality disorder.

Thanks, MetaPsych, for sending me fascinating books to read, and caring about my opinions on them!

2011-06-29T10:31:00.000-04:00

Apples and oranges and kumquats, oh my!

I’ve been struck several times this week by the propensity to draw invalid comparisons, everything from Cars2 versus Hangover II – really, do these movies have anything in common other than being sequels? – to an incident closer to home, Myrtle Beach versus Yellow Springs.

Perennial mapmaker Rand McNally is running a Best of the Road contest with categories ranging from Most Beautiful to Friendliest to Most Patriotic. Initial public votes narrowed the community nominations to six in each category before teams of travelers were sent out to visit the sites and report back.

Lovely Yellow Springs, our new home, is a finalist in the Most Fun category. We’re up against Glenwood Springs, Colorado; Park City, Utah; Vacaville, California; Santa Clause, Indiana; and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I’m not familiar with many of those places, but putting tiny quaint Yellow Springs up against touristy Myrtle Beach does a disservice to both locations. Fun, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Myrtle Beach offers golf, beaches, water parks, malls, golf, outlet shopping, golf, and did I mention beaches? Such frenetic activity draws a certain kind of visitor and I’m sure it’s a wonderful spot for the sports-minded.

Ah, but Yellow Springs is for downtime, for free-trade coffee at Dino’s or tea and vegan Twinkies at Brother Bears. Lively street conversations with thoughtful people who care about important, and not so important, matters. Wine tasting and live music at the Emporium. Dining al fresco at Peaches or Ye Olde Trail Tavern. Dancing in the streets when you least expect it. Art galleries and artisan shops from pottery to jewelry to fabric design. Buskers of all sorts. Friendly folks. Leisurely hiking at Glen Helen Nature Preserve, biking the Little Miami Trail, or just strolling the beautiful tree-lined streets, enjoying the fabulous gardens and homesteads which dot the town.

How can our intrepid judges, TravelingJules and TravelingJoan, be expected to compare two such diverse locations?

And as always, my thoughts return to writing. As a writers friend pointed out in her blog bemoaning the comments she received on a 250-word contest entry, “…many of those responding neither read nor write in the genre of my story… Some things are genre specific, what might work in one genre, may very well be the undoing in another.” How can readers objectively compare chick lit and sci-fi? Fantasy and cozy mysteries?

The simple answer is, they can’t, any more than Yellow Springs can stand up against Myrtle Beach. A story can be judged on its tone, character development, continuity, narratives, and mechanics. But comparisons? “To compare is not to prove,” says an old proverb. Often based on a false dichotomy, comparisons divide, set friend against friend, brother against brother, and writer against writer.

I need to remember that the next time I read of an author simultaneously churning out titles in three different series while I struggle with juggling a novel, an essay, and a short story or two.

I hope TravelingJules and TravelingJoan remember that as well, and enjoy Yellow Springs to its fullest without the added burden of unequal comparisons.

2011-06-23T08:18:00.001-04:00

Flash: Silence...

Honored to have my flash fiction "Silence" up at a great site, The Alchemy of Writing, today. Thanks, Bryan!

2011-06-22T08:52:00.001-04:00

Something’s burning…

And no, it’s not me torching my manuscript in frustration. Not that I would do such a thing. Lately.

I’m in the honeymoon stage with my WIP, in no small part because of my new Twitter best friend, #wordmongering. I admit I’m still struggling with the overall worth of the Twitter world – many of the posts are too inane to believe – but I probably felt that way when I first started on Facebook and now I’m addicted.

But #wordmongering, now there’s a gem. The group was started by a blogger named Monica-Marie as a way for writers to support and motivate each other. The plan is to set a timer, write for thirty minutes (or an hour) no matter what, then break for thirty minutes. We all have ~~excuses~~ perfectly good reasons why we don’t have time to write. With one tweet, #wordmongering erases them all. We can always find thirty minutes – lunch time, while the kids are napping, waiting for the laundry to finish or the water to boil.

Which is where I got into trouble. I put a pot of black beans on to simmer in preparation for our favorite soup and cornbread dinner and started a #wordmongering session. It stretched into two, maybe a smidge more, before I smelled something odd. What can I say? I was in the zone. At least it wasn’t bad enough to set off the smoke alarm and scare the dogs.

The beans were scorched, but salvageable. Smoky flavor works in soup, right? The pan was pretty awful, but I managed to scrub it back to its original shine. I noticed a few days ago the stove needed cleaning, but I figured it could wait at least a week or so, until the next time we had guests. Instead, it got the next thirty-minute time chunk. #wordmongering had to wait.

Charred beans and messy stove aside, #wordmongering has been worth it. Just the kick I need to keep writing. I’ve added more to my WIP in the past two days than I have in six weeks. (yes, I keep track, I’m OC like that) The ideas keep coming, the plot is moving a-pace, and I’m stoked. My new #wordmongering tweeps are funny and kind and supportive.

I’ll let you know how the soup turned out. Right now, it’s time to reset the clock. Thirty minutes #wordmongering…and go!

2011-06-15T08:35:00.001-04:00

Can’t see the forest for the trees…

Nice to know my revelations are shared. Earlier this week, fellow blogger Natalie Whipple related her grandfather’s apple trees to writing in “Editing is much like thinning a crop.” When I read these words, I had just spent an evening watching hubby tend to his bonsai forest, reacting with much the same apprehension as Natalie as he cut back, trimmed and pruned.

One beautiful little guy took what appeared to be a particularly hard beating. Hubby assured me it would be fine, he left just enough greenery on the stem for growth to continue. I try not to interfere with his projects. He’s certainly a better gardener than I am, but I couldn’t help asking, “Why such a drastic chop job?” Thankfully, he’s a patient man. He’s been trying to teach me this lesson since the early days of our dating life, when he dead-headed petunias at the local Putt-Putt Miniature Golf Course where he worked. Cut back the early, careless growth and the plant will thrive.

He has an impressive assortment of bonsai in varying stages of development, from beautiful, mature plants, to the wild child beginners, to the trimmed-back students. Last year, he bought a ragged, nearly-dead Japanese maple for next to nothing from Home Depot before they sent it back to the nursery, removed 75% of it and now has an elegant, orderly tree. Oftentimes, the branches he removes are repotted to sprout new bonsai. I’m always amazed at his results.

And yes, like Natalie, it all brings me back to writing. The beginners are like my first drafts, exuberant, a bit scattered, and definitely unruly. Some need careful editing, pruning back the erratic growth and trimming the excess. Others require harsher tactics, complete rewrites, maybe keeping only the kernel of the story, a character or two, and possibly the general plot while tossing the remains into me discard file. The WIP is freed from the burden of overgrowth with fresh potential to become the literary gem I want it to be, and with a little luck, some of those remnants will sprout new stories in the future.

I may need to add water (dramatic tension), maybe some organic fertilizer (setting, narrative description), and of course lots of sunlight (fleshed-out, driven characters), but at least now the story has a chance to thrive.

Kind of like hubby’s amazing bonsai.

2011-06-08T08:26:00.000-04:00

I thought I was wrong once,but I was mistaken...it's been lots more than once!

I admit it; I was wrong. My stubborn refusal to embrace social media and self-marketing in support of my writing efforts has been shot down yet again, maybe for good this time. While I strongly share Natalie Whipple’s admonition that “Writing and crafting the book should always be the main priority. The other stuff is just frosting, but what good is frosting on a cardboard cake?” I realize my dream of writing in solitude and sending my treasures off to the more business-minded professionals to handle practical details is just that, a dream.

Kristen Lamb’s insightful article, “Training to be a Career Author,” spells out in agonizing (to me) detail the new reality. I’ve been coming to that awareness slowly, painfully so, over the past two years, but recent posts such as Lamb’s, and the growing tide of colleagues who preach the wonders of networking with the fervency of the recently-converted, pushed me past the latest roadblock.

I joined Twitter.

I’m still not sure I understand why, and the intricacies of tweets, retweets, hashtags, and favorites elude me, but I’m learning. At least I hope I am. One thing I don’t want to do is annoy friends or potential followers with inane or redundant entries. I’ve noticed that trend in others, and that confuses me as well. Why post the same brief entry on Facebook, on Twitter, in a blog and then in an email newsletter, all of which encourage readers to follow along on each of those platforms? I don’t need to read the same information from the same ‘friend’ four different times.

Is there a way to avoid that? Am I missing something?

On the flip-side, with all those platforms to maintain, how much creativity can be left for real writing? How much does my WIP, be it a novel, short story, or essay, suffer because I’ve spent precious time and energy crafting a witty comment narrowed down to 140 characters for Twitter, expanded to 420 for Facebook, and enlarged yet again for my blog? I don’t want to become one of those Twits (?) who do nothing but retweet or share posts from other blogs.

I’m trying to be a good convert, really I am, but I remain unconvinced. I have noted, however, that while my nearly six-year-old blog has only fifteen followers, in barely two weeks and with just three dozen tweets (probably half of which are retweets), I’ve gained twelve on Twitter. How does that happen? And why?

Please, oh social networking tribe, enlighten me!

2011-06-01T10:01:00.001-04:00

Let nature take its course…

Trust the process – much easier said than done, whether it’s writing, finding (or keeping) employment, or life in general. But I was reminded again this week how the universe has a way of repeating the lesson until it takes root. Instruction came in a most unexpected form, as it usually does, and I’m still processing the outcome.

This weekend, our backyard menagerie expanded and the dogs are not happy. Chi and Barkley have pretty much adapted to the three bullfrogs, five turtles and dozen or so goldfish in the pond, and stopped chasing the garter snakes (for the most part). The squirrels are still fair game, but since there’s little chance Barkley will ever actually catch one, I’m not too worried. Chi just ignores them. Barkley chased off the rabbits and the skunks, and I think he’s finally realized the birds are unreachable, although I’m sure the bird dog in him will never give up trying.

But ever since our new visitors appeared Saturday evening, Barkley and Chi have been on alert, constantly vigilant, and making life…interesting. While we were enjoying a quiet moment around the fire pit with our daughter and her young man, an odd chittering noise started just past the edge of darkness, near the fence separating our yard from the neighbor’s. It almost sounded like a small child or two giggling. And it moved closer, and grew louder. Hubby found a flashlight to confirm his suspicions – raccoons. Four of them, juveniles, slipped through the wire fence into the yard, probably intent on the pond as the nearest water source. They ignored the fire, and us. The dogs did not ignore them, and we had to move inside to avoid a battle.

We spent the rest of the evening debating how best to handle the critters, and went to bed hoping Mama would corral them and return home before morning. No such luck. The little guys have taken up residence in the woodpile in our carport, and the dogs are livid. From just inside the gate at the edge of the backyard, Chi stands guard, barely able to see the stack, but she knows the kits are there. Barkley paces from the front door to Chi’s side, frustrated by his inability to reach the invaders. And it’s worse when the little guys go exploring.

A call to Animal Control was less than helpful. “Let nature take its course,” he said. If we want to catch them, they’ll loan us a live-catch trap, and come pick them up once the critters are contained, but that’s the best they can offer. Wonderful. Hubby and I considered scooping them into a bin and relocating the whole litter to Glen Helen, but that raises all new issues, not the least of which is getting close enough to snag them (by the scruff of the neck, we’re told).

After three days, the raccoons show no signs of moving on. They spend most of the day curled up together in the woodpile, barely visible. Nights, however, are problematic. No longer can we simply release Chi and Barkley into the backyard for a potty break without scouting the yard for our visitors. I have nightmares of one or both of the dogs tangling with four pairs of sharp claws and teeth, and while Barkley defeated the skunk that dared invade his realm, I’m not so sure he’d come of a raccoon encounter unscathed. Being nature lovers, we don’t want the raccoons harmed, either. It’s not their fault Mama vanished, leaving them to learn how to fend for themselves.

Funny, when we considered the perils of home ownership, wildlife never came up. Now we’re putting out 911 calls to family, friends, Facebook, and Twitter, asking for advice on dealing with the little guys. And while I’m thankful no one suggested violence, the answers we did receive are conflicting. Relocate them promptly. But they’re too young to survive in the wild on their own. Don’t touch them; Mama will return, maybe in a week. But what happens if she was hit by a car or something? Do we move them, feed them, ignore them…?

And then this morning, four days after the raccoons appeared, they are gone. Poof. We may never know what happened. Maybe Mama did come back; maybe they wandered off in search of food, or a home without barking dogs and nosy humans.

My four days of fretting were in vain, as is usually the case with worry. Do no harm, but don’t jump in to interfere when it’s probably not necessary. The universe, and nature, can take care of itself, if I just get out of the way.

Trust the process. Let go. Just be. Now to take that lesson to my writing, and to my life, before the universe decides I need further instruction.

2011-05-25T08:00:00.000-04:00

Once again I’m suffering from a self-imposed crisis of faith. No, not Saturday’s Rapture that wasn’t. Rather, a lack of faith in the wisdom of existing in the moment, going with the flow, taking things as they come without trying to control outcomes far beyond my ken…and any other clichés that fit the topic.

The Yellow Spring lifestyle I’ve dreamt of for so long: working at home, writing full-time, living our much sought-after voluntary simplicity (except, of course, for the whole mortgage thing), seemed to have finally taken hold. On those days when I was able to pull myself out of the financial-worry vortex and live in the moment, life was good. I was writing regularly, publishing a few little things here and there, maintaining a decent enough blog presence. I was settling in and making connections in the writing world both locally and farther afield.

While the elusive publication breakthrough has yet to materialize, I was learning to be happy in the now, to stop chasing after a monetary pay-off that seemed always just out of reach either through a 9-to-5 office job or a much-coveted book contract. I learned to “let go of the banana.”

And as soon as I reached that plateau of course, I got the call. Oh, not The Call from an enthusiastic agent eager to shepherd my novel to best-seller-dom – I’m still waiting for that one. No, I got a call from a recruiter about a job. Nothing earth-shattering, but at least something that sort of almost uses my writing talents. Temp-to-hire; okay, maybe three to four months; well, could I start today for a week or so? Nothing definite.

Tilt!

My oh-so-comfortable schedule of writing, chasing the dogs, baking bread, gardening, weekly coffee klatches with writer friends…poof! Be careful what you wish for.

It’s an opportunity I can’t ignore; I’ve been searching for an income for far too long. Hubby’s stress at work is piling up so I feel even greater self-imposed pressure to relieve it in any way I can. His weeks are a roller coaster of got-a-handle-on-things-no-problem highs to a heart-wrenching (for me) can’t-do-this-anymore-something’s-got-to-give abyss. But this temp job is a tenuous position. While I work for a few days, maybe a week, to fill an urgent project need, the company continues to interview for a permanent replacement. Huh?! Hello!

As much immediate financial stress relief as this position offers, I have to admit it’s not my dream job – not even close. I have my dream job as a writer, but it isn’t paying much these days. I’m simply looking to supplement my writing efforts with something at least vaguely interesting. And on the extremely unlikely chance anyone from said company runs across this post, I am not ungrateful for the opportunity. Everyone is very kind, I’m learning lots, and I’m glad I can be of service. I’m just very confused as to why the interviews continue.

What is the lesson here? Is Joni Mitchell singing in my ear, reminding me “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”? Am I to take this brief experience “For What It’s Worth,” with Buffalo Springfield reminding me to “Beware” the materialistic entanglements of corporate America? Or, as usual, am I simply over-thinking everything?

I realized this morning it’s all that and more, including the over-thinking. All this is also a reminder of how spoiled I’ve become, living the life of an academe these past almost five years, working for pay only sporadically. Many of my colleagues work full-time, and raise a family, and still find – no, make time to write. Why does the idea terrify me so? My physical endurance is somewhat shaky, with far more too-frequent migraines than I’d hoped after that mystical threshold of menopause. But I guess that’s my reality. Deal with it. If my friends can juggle it all, so can I.

So I’ve decided to reframe this time of my life. It’s not an upheaval, a crisis, or a chaotic reshuffling of the comfortable and the familiar. It’s a paradigm shift, with exciting opportunities for growth in any number of directions. If I can stay open, and flexible, and receptive, the universe is ready to reveal a new path to a future I’m sure I can only begin to imagine.

Not that I won’t still be waiting for The Call…

2011-05-18T11:59:00.000-04:00

Okay, so the squirrel climbing my pant leg to get away from Barkley wasn't quite what I expected when I intervened...

It was an…interesting encounter. I was trying to dislodge a hanging tree limb broken by the latest windstorm and in the process startled one of the many squirrels that occupy our backyard. Barkley, our English Springer, is always on the prowl for them; when this one dropped right at his feet, he pounced. It squealed. I yelled, trying to call Barkley off before he did any permanent damage. The frightened critter zigged and zagged through the pachysandra and found purchase on my pant leg. Luckily I was wearing long jeans and not shorts! He didn’t stay around long, only made it about knee-height before skittering up the tree again. Those few hectic seconds left Barkley adrenaline-fueled and disappointed, nosing through the garden for the one that got away. After shaking off the residual shudders for a few seconds, I left the tree limb until hubby could help cut it down.

I had the best of intentions in trying to remove the limb and in protecting the squirrel, but nothing worked out quite as planned. As I relived the event, sharing it with family and friends over the next few days, I realized it was a metaphor for my life. I usually make at least a quick perusal of the situation, looking for solutions before diving in. Sometimes I get bogged down in that decision-making and never take action, but that’s another story. When I do find the chutzpah to move forward, things often turn out quite differently than expected.

In 2004, we downsized and relocated to southwest Ohio with no friends or job prospects, confident in our historic ability to always find work in a short amount of time. Boy, did I get that one wrong!

In 2006, I went back to school to finish my long-delayed college degree because conventional wisdom said it would make me employable. I stuck with the fall-back reasoning that my studies in the Classics would give my writing more credibility (read: get my work published). While I grew personally and professionally in a myriad of other ways, again completely unexpected, credibility and meaningful publication still elude me.

In 2008, after finishing my bachelor’s degree, I dove right into grad school. Our driven, goal-oriented son urged me on. The thesis for a master’s in creative writing would be a novel which I intended to write anyway, why not get the degree as well? I was two-thirds of the way through the program before my wise faculty advisor finally convinced me that an academically-finished novel is rarely a publishable novel. I still have lots of work to do on that one.

In 2010, we bought our first home, something I never, ever, expected to see happen. But again, we were overly optimistic. I was graduating with a master’s degree in June; surely I’d find work in no time so hubby wouldn’t have to continue shouldering the financial burden alone. Not –

Here it is a year later, 2011, and while technically I’m living the life I’ve always dreamed of, spending my days writing and making a home hubby looks forward to spending time in after a long day in the classroom, it’s not at all what I expected. I’m shopping completed novel number two, looking for an agent who believes in me, piling up rejections on smaller pieces, and adding a few non-paying publication credits here and there. It’s lonely work, hard work, frustrating work, but it’s work I love…when I allow myself to stop fretting about outcomes and concentrate on the moment.

And when I manage to stay out of the path of the squirrel.

2011-05-11T20:28:00.000-04:00

How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were? ~ Satchel Paige

Age has never bothered me much. I don’t recall straining for sixteen (driver’s license), eighteen (alcohol, in my day), or twenty-one (adulthood!). It just was. Another year to survive, another number to mark off the calendar. Even fifty, that half-century milestone, didn’t cause a ripple. It was a big year, too. Married thirty years, finally earning a bachelor’s degree, diving into grad school, but the age? Eh -

But this year, on Friday to be exact, our daughter will be thirty. Yikes! That hits harder than any milestone of my own. How did I get to be the mother of a thirty year old?

As is my norm, I started comparing my life at thirty to her life now, see how I measure up or, more likely, fail to. She’s independent, “in a relationship,” more feisty and sure of herself than I ever was (or am now, most of the time). No children, which I keep telling her is fine, but insensitive family members and a personal physician who should know better have an impact on her psyche.

Not all women are cut out to be mothers. At eighteen, I was wise enough to know that of myself. Unfortunately, I allowed the patriarchal religious community we found ourselves in shortly after we married to convince me otherwise. I love my children dearly and can’t imagine life without them, but I also know they deserved a better mother growing up than I was able to be at that time. To thine own self be true, my daughter.

At thirty, I was ten years married, mother of two, fighting recurring bouts of depression and vague health issues no one could satisfactorily identify. The only concrete memory I have of that birthday was receiving the legendary ribbon-tied floral box with thirty long-stem red roses from my father. Never before or since have I had such a delivery. Other memories are lost in the haze of too many anti-depressants and too little sleep.

We worked hard to make ends meet, my hubby and I, but it was rarely enough to do more than make it to payday. We learned to be adults as we grew into our marriage, making it up as we went along. We still wonder how we survived. The constant struggles of never enough are the times I’d hoped to spare our children, but we failed in that regard. We were never taught to handle money well, so that particular talent was not something we were able to pass on to them.

And now she’s thirty – a milestone, to be sure, but I hope not a stumbling block. I want her to continue to grow into herself, to find her bliss. I want her to find a life partner and soul mate to stand by her in good times and bad, as I have found in her father. If her dreams include motherhood, so be it. But I hope it will be a conscious decision, for the right reasons. Her children, and her mother, will thank her.

Happy birthday to our beautiful Megan ~

The years teach much which the days never knew. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

2011-05-05T09:13:00.000-04:00

So many raindrops…

Rain. And still more rain. Total precipitation in the Dayton area topped 8.7 inches in April, half an inch more than the next closest record of 9.2 set in 1996; the normal average is around 4.5 inches. It’s hard to take comfort in ‘April showers bring May flowers’ when May starts off with more of the same. Our poor flowers are under water.

When I hear of the devastation suffered by those further west and south, of the monster tornados and torrential rains that have wreaked havoc on such a large swathe of the country, I feel guilty grousing about the weather. We’re fortunate, really, to have nothing worse than minor flooding in our corner of southwest Ohio. But after a month of very few dry days and very little sunshine, it wears on the psyche. I feel as helpless as the tulips struggling to stay upright in the constant deluge.

Mid-way through April, I shared the rejuvenating power of spring. The winter doldrums slipped away and my writing flowed almost effortlessly. I joined the earth in creation. As the showers continued, however, I began to sink. My brain became as heavy as the waterlogged earth, unable to absorb another drop, another word. My writing has become sodden and lifeless, and I flounder in the depths.

Today, long-absent sun rays reflect off the accumulated water pooling in backyards and farmers’ fields. The air holds the mustiness of damp earth, heavy and pungent in the almost non-existent morning breeze. According to the prognosticators, we have less than twenty-four hours for the land to dry; more rain is on the horizon for the weekend. And yesterday, I lost my umbrella…

But it’s May; I’m ready for those flowers. Some fresh ideas and words wouldn’t hurt, either.

2011-04-27T10:31:00.000-04:00

Stuff and nonsense

The appraisers on Antiques Roadshow always confuse me. Why do they insist on putting a value on items they label “irreplaceable”? What’s the point? There’s no way an insurance policy can make a person “whole” for a lost family heirloom. I’ll never again hold the desktop wooden cross my grandfather carved and shaped and assembled with his own hands, just for me. No amount of money can replace the feelings that evoked, the love it represented.

I’ve volunteered for several years at the Museum at the Friends Home in Waynesville, a fascinating local history museum brought together by a group of dedicated volunteers determined to preserve their community’s heritage. Yet I’ve watched members giving private tours who can’t resist pointing out the monetary value of the artifacts on display in the 1910 Quaker boarding home which houses the Museum collection, from the Stickley bookcase to the nine-foot Black Forest grandfather clock. Why does that matter? If all those items were destroyed tomorrow, no insurance settlement could restock the Museum and the oral histories they’ve collected would end up on a dusty library shelf. Those things are important because of the stories, the lives, the people they represent, not the dollars. Am I truly alone in that perspective?

Over the years I’ve watched in dismay as friends become emotionally distraught over family squabbles about “stuff” when a matriarch or patriarch dies. At a time when they should be coming together to remember and celebrate their lost loved one, they fuss about who gets Grandma’s china, or Dad’s coin collection, or Mom’s jewelry. Those scenes reinforce my satisfaction that our family has little in the way of material possessions.

Grandpa’s handmade cross was lost in a fire several years ago, but I still have his cheap drugstore pocket watch. He always carried one, and there’s an old black and white photograph of four-year-old me holding his watch to my ear, fascinated by the sound. From my grandmother, I have a serving spoon, probably acquired through redemption of her carefully collected Betty Crocker coupons. It’s stamped (not engraved, I’m sure) with an ‘L,’ and each time I have to explain to a guest why that is, when our last name begins with ‘P,’ I have the opportunity to share her life. Priceless.

Last year, when hubby and I bought our first (and last?!) home, Mom announced, “Now you can have the washstand.” I wasn’t expecting it, had no designs on owning it. It belonged to my great-grandmother, whom I barely remember, and possibly to her mother. We’re not sure. It’s rough, and beat up from years of loving use. Antiques Roadshow would scoff at it. Their loss.

Before Nana (my father’s mother) died, she asked me if I would like her family ring. My aunts looked at me oddly when I laid claim to it, but no one argued. It’s a gaudy thing, I rarely wear it and then only on my pinkie. Her fingers were much smaller than mine. But each stone represents a grandchild, a family member. More stories to share and to treasure. I don’t need to know a monetary value.

But these items are all just things. If any of my family asked for them, I would hand them over, no questions asked. Because it’s the people who matter, living or dead, not the stuff. And no one can take my memories.

My fear of losing those is a subject for another day.

See another take on “stuff” at http://www.storyofstuff.com/

2011-04-20T13:53:00.001-04:00

Giving back

Sunday afternoon hubby and I joined a good-sized crowd from the Yellow Springs community to celebrate Earth Day at the Glen Helen Raptor Center by witnessing the release of a rehabilitated red-tailed hawk. This beautiful bird was injured in Mercer County last August and nursed back to health by the dedicated staff of the Raptor Center.

The Center houses an assortment of raptors including a variety of owls, American kestrels, a bald eagle, several hawks, Peregrine falcons, and a vulture or two. All of the birds were injured in some way and many are unable to be returned to the wild due to the extent of the damage they suffered. Those who must be kept confined are well cared for in large runs which give them room to fly, and housed with a mate whenever possible. Sunday’s release was an educational and inspirational event I won’t soon forget. I learned the Great Horned Owl, barely two feet tall but almost as big around, weighs less than four pounds – astonishing! One of the birds has been mourning the loss of his mate for several months and is only now, very grudgingly, accepting a new female in his life. The eagle which has been at the Center for many years is thirty-six years old, testament to the excellent care they provide to these magnificent creatures.

Man continually destroys nature, but efforts such as those put forth by the Raptor Center fight the mindless insensitivity that is so prevalent, one bird at a time. In this season of celebrating the renewal of life, of welcoming spring, witnessing the return of this beautiful creature to its natural habitat was a spiritual moment far surpassing any organized church service constrained by four walls. Nature truly is my cathedral, and I was honored and humbled to be a part of Sunday’s ceremony.

Center Director Betty Ross

As Center director Betty Ross raised the rehabbed hawk for release, she recited their traditional words of farewell taken from a song, “Wild Again,” written for the National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association by Douglas Wood:
With our brothers and sisters, we all share one world,
and there's one common spirit within.
It's the wild things that help us survive on this earth,
without them we couldn't begin.
So, once in awhile we've a chance to give back, just a little from all that we take,
And a wild one returned to the circle of life is a part of the world that we make.

She ended with: “We don't know what will happen to the bird, but it is getting a second chance, and we wish it well.”

What more could I wish for myself, or for you?

2011-04-13T08:06:00.001-04:00

I realized after posting this I violated the cardinal rule of good writing…let a piece sit for a least a few minutes before setting it free. A few clarifications were called for. My apologies!

Not all who wander are lost

Tracy Clark-Flory’s April 11th piece on Salon.com, “In Defense of Wandering Eyes,” has garnered a bit of attention in the blogosphere. I ignored the headline for a day or two before giving in and reading the original post and the author’s follow-up. It resonated in particular because of an occurrence last Saturday. While I was out of town for a day-long writers conference (kudos to Mad Anthony!), my husband had coffee with a strange woman.

Strange to me, that is. The friend of a mutual friend who subsequently friended my hubby on Facebook – not sure how or why, and the whole ‘friend’ as a verb still bothers me – she hasn’t extended the same invitation to me. I was taken aback, but only for a moment, when his text informed me of the impending meeting (no, I won’t call it a ‘date’). It was more at her temerity in extending the invitation than in that he accepted. On the other hand, our mutual friend was floored. I could see the wheels turning. What have I done? She hasn’t known us long enough to fully grasp hubby’s personality.

He’s what is generally referred to as a flirt. I prefer to think of it as friendly; ‘flirt’ carries the vague expectation of romantic involvement, and that’s not what he’s after. Hubby is simply the consummate people-person. He’s open, and attentive, and always willing to listen. Those commodities, no strings attached and accompanied by a ready smile, are all too rare these days. It makes him very popular, especially with the ladies. I tease him regularly about his ‘harem’ of admirers. Listen up, men!

In the interest of full disclosure, his openness is what brought us together in what I readily label a full-court flirt from our high school days. If he hadn’t winked at me on the bus one morning, started a conversation, saved me a seat when he boarded before I did, my life would have been very different. I relive those days in more detail in an essay included in the next Reflections from Women collection due out next month.

That was thirty-seven years ago, and while I admit I haven’t always been as secure in our relationship as I am now, I’m one of those women Clark-Flory refers to who point out interesting sights to him when we’re out together, whether it be an overly plunging neckline or delicately patterned hose on a finely-turned leg. His glances are appreciative, not lecherous ogling, and he’s considerate enough not to do a full head swivel when I’m with him. But I can tell. It’s like any other art, be it painting, movies, or a good book. I know what he likes; why not allow him to enjoy it? He’s married, not dead.

And I know where he sleeps at night.

2011-04-06T10:52:00.002-04:00

A voice in the wilderness

I’ve been fairly successful sticking to my resolution of avoiding political topics, but yesterday’s headline, mixed in with the stalled federal budget and state-level assaults on line workers, is more than I can take. An anticipated one billion dollars is being raised to re-elect the President. How much more will be spent by his opponents?

The number of corporations and special interest groups who buy their way into political influence is staggering, and growing daily. How much more abuse can the crumbling middle class take before rising up in true protest, not just sign-carrying at the state house? Taxation without representation led to revolution more than two hundred years ago by the forefathers now held up as exemplars by those who would tear down the rights they fought to uphold. I fear for our country, more now than at any time I can recall.

And before the criticism rolls in, I’m not defending any political party; they’re all motivated by greed and self-interest. I see very little evidence of the civic-minded public official working for the good of the community rather than to solidify a personal power base and gain re-election.

More and more I withdraw from the media. I’ve already sworn off television news programs. They’re all so biased and one-sided, focused on meaningless sound bites and scandal instead of real news, as to be completely useless. I scan a number of websites for news headlines, trying to stay informed about the global community, but even that is getting to be too much to bear. The insanity is spreading, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

As I’ve said before, all I can do is concentrate on my own corner of the world – my family, my friends, my community – and do the best I can to make that corner a little better. Fiddling while Rome burns? Maybe, but democratic, non-violent options have been removed from reality by the almighty dollar.

One billion dollars on one election...seriously?!

2011-03-30T09:10:00.001-04:00

Moments to Treasure

I’m half-way through The Power of Myth, a fascinating transcription of Bill Moyers interview with Joseph Campbell in 1985-6. Their discussion often returns to the lack of important, shared myth, of ritual, in today’s society, outside of the churches, many of which are losing members at a speedy clip. Even in religious practice, Campbell believes the sacredness of ritual has largely been lost, replaced with “homey and cozy” ceremonies that no longer take its participants outside themselves to the transcendent experience. Familiarity and comfort take precedent over mystery and ecstasy.

“One important part of ancient ritual was that it made you a member of the tribe, a member of the community, a member of society,” Campbell says. And while he notes Western culture is more concerned with the individual than community, we still value shared experiences, when we can find them. “Where were you when Kennedy was shot?” Or for the younger generations, on 9/11. National sporting events like March Madness and blockbuster movies give us something to reference in daily interactions, to communicate with and through.

All this has been swirling through my brain, wondering at my own lack of ritual and tradition as I separate from the religion of my youth. How do we celebrate important events and mark the passing of time? A silly Facebook posting reminded me: we use movies.

At the opening of spring training, in celebration of the end of winter, hubby and I curl up for our annual viewing of Field of Dreams and Bull Durham. Major League is usually on the list, but I couldn’t face another Charlie Sheen marathon this year. The winter holiday season is marked by White Christmas on December 15th, never earlier. On Christmas Eve, we watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas in the original Dr. Seuss cartoon version, not the awful Jim Carey remake. And for twenty-plus years, we’ve shared New Year’s Eve with dear friends, grilling steaks and watching noteworthy movies we missed earlier in the year before switching to the ball drop in Times Square – another national shared experience.

The Facebook post referenced another treasured movie we haven’t seen in far too long, The Princess Bride, and there are others in our selected DVD collection that we rarely view. So I’ve decided we need to add more movies to mark annual events. The Princess Bride is good for Valentine’s Day (an annoying Hallmark holiday, but there it is). I have some issues with the latent misogyny in The Quiet Man, but it’s one of hubby’s favorite because of the setting, so it can mark St. Patrick’s Day. Independence Day goes without saying. For our wedding anniversary, The Way We Were, the first romantic movie we saw when we were dating (yes, we’ve been together that long). The soundtrack of Memories by Barbara Streisand became ‘our song,’ with teenage naiveté overlooking the fact it was about a relationship that failed. Since we don’t like horror movies, Young Frankenstein will do for Halloween and the end of autumn.

I’m sure I’m missing a few other good opportunities to establish new ritual in our life. What movies mark your special events?

2011-03-23T08:55:00.000-04:00

Left behind at society’s peril

The utter lunacy of No Child Left Behind was made plain to me this past week when I served as proctor for a local Ohio Graduation Testing (OGT) session, administering “assessments aligned to Ohio’s Academic Content Standards in reading, mathematics, science, social studies and writing that students in high school must take to demonstrate proficiency before graduation from high school” (Ohio Dept. of Education OGT site). I suppose NCLB was well-intentioned, but somewhere between Washington D.C., the statehouse, and the classroom, quality was sacrificed in the name of quantitative data. How many students can we push through school with the right test scores?

For six days (one for each subject test, and a make-up session), I watched students from ninth grade through well past graduation age struggle through ambiguously written questions. They were all but led by the hand through the process, prepped with review sheets and testing suggestions literally until the moment the bubble sheet answer document were distributed (the ridiculous volume of tests are not even computer administered and scored – how much paper is wasted every session?). Another proctor’s sole responsibility was tracking down students who didn’t show up, cajoling them into making an appearance. Some were testing for the first time; others had been through the routine many times and failed to make a passing score. One very, very sad and frustrated student was testing for the twelfth time, while site teachers scrambled to find a Special Ed diagnosis for her so even more special accommodations could be made to help her pass. How had she, her family, and the system itself allowed things to reach that point?

On Thursday, I was stunned to learn the students were paid $20 for each testing session they attended. What is the lesson when the value of an education takes second place to cold hard cash? I only hope they weren’t paid for repeated sessions; I can see some mercenary yet forward-thinking students calculating just how many times they could run through the tests and still graduate on time. Squeezing every dollar out of an opportunity, no matter how suspect the method, is one lesson society teaches well.

OGT was in its infancy, and a much earlier incarnation, when my children were in school. They both were eligible to test in eighth grade as ‘practice,’ and if they passed, never had to deal with the tests again. And they did pass, with high enough scores to earn state honors at graduation. Unfortunately, they still spent the next four years sitting through repeated review sessions. Don’t ever believe that doesn’t happen; when teacher evaluations are based on student test scores, teaching to the test will continue to be the norm. All that time could have been better spent exploring new material, and in learning something other than how to take a test to meet ever-changing standards. Music, theater and the arts are shunted aside in favor of the ‘important’ subjects and school is a chore rather than a mind-opening experience.

A recent blog post by Kathy Reschini Sweeney on The Lipstick Chronicles shows the failures of NCLB from another perspective. She’s a college teacher, and every year the students she sees are increasing less prepared for real learning. “They get an information dump, take a test, then flush it out and start on the next set of facts. As a result, they do have better vocabularies and I would even venture that they know more things. The problem is that they understand much, much less.”
In the politically motivated drive for control and standardization, we are failing to teach our children critical thinking skills, and how to learn from life rather than a review sheet. This is our loss as well as theirs.

As a lover of learning, I mourn this insanity and the damage NCLB does to the incredible potential of society’s children. Sadly, with the draconian budget cuts at all levels of government and the attacks on the value and credibility of teachers in general, it’s only going to get worse. The United States will continue to fall farther behind in the unstoppable movement toward globalization and it’s our own fault.

2011-03-16T09:42:00.000-04:00

Since our down-sizing relocation six years ago, I’ve spent huge chunks of my days alone. Working at home as a freelance writer and graphic designer, and for most of four years as a student, quiet time in my office space is the norm. I have my routine, the dogs know to be persistent when they really need to go out, and I live inside my head. I guard my time jealously, almost forcing myself out the door for errands, volunteer work, committee meetings, even lunch with friends.

So why did this week alone, while hubby is off in San Antonio teaching the next bunch of Certified Ethical Hackers, cause such turmoil? I was given my answer in Monday’s article “The Power of Lonely” by Leon Nevfakh: “in order to get anything positive out of spending time alone, solitude should be a choice: People must feel like they’ve actively decided to take time apart from people, rather than being forced into it against their will.” We didn’t get to choose this week apart, it was thrust upon us, at the last minute, and I rebelled mentally and emotionally. I recovered quickly enough, but the turmoil led to an awareness of how the universe had prepared me for this week even though I wasn’t paying attention (as happens far too often).

Just last week I started re-reading Anthony Storr’s Solitude: A Return to the Self, which is referenced in Nevfakh’s article. Only a few days prior, The Atlantic published “Caring for Your Introvert,” by Jonathan Rauch. All these pieces have come together to provide yet another lesson of personal discovery, and it appears I am not alone (!) in my interest of this topic.

As a fiction writer, I dwell in made-up worlds with made-up characters. It’s easy to get lost in those worlds, to find those people more comfortable to relate to than the flesh-and-blood characters I meet when I push myself out the door. I have a semblance of control that is quite naturally lacking in the ‘real’ world. In some small way, that make-believe omnipotence eases the anxiety raised by the horrific headlines of strife and tragedy, even while my fictional worlds deal with some of those same issues. At writers group last night, several of us agreed that while we don’t necessarily write ‘happily-ever-after’ endings, we do prefer to end on a hopeful note, a bit of an inspirational upbeat. For me, that’s one of the attractions of writing. It’s not delusion or denial of reality, but it’s hope for a better tomorrow in whatever world I find myself.

There are reasons for my solitude, my preference for quiet, that go beyond my work. But there are also reasons for me to step outside my comfort zone and experience the wider world. My life, and my writing, will be the richer for it.

How do you handle solitude? Do you embrace it or run screaming for the madding crowd?

2011-03-09T14:15:00.000-05:00

Springtime in our new home is a constant journey of discovery. Each day brings another green sprout in the garden and new guesses as to what it could be. A handful of tiny purple and white flowers appeared first and I thought they were crocuses (one of the limited number of growing things I can actually identify) until I found them scattered over half the back yard, not just in garden clumps. Crocuses come from bulbs, I think, so they shouldn’t be propagating at will all across the lawn. I’m waiting for new buds to push aside the remaining golden brown leaves on the beech trees. That I learned from our last home. Their lingering blaze of color helps winter seem not quite so frozen.

The white bottle-brush buckeye bushes along the sidewalk are so bare and spindly it’s hard to believe they’ll soon be covered in thick green leaves that hide the house from the street. Hubby tells me there are two lilac bushes out front, too, along with the hostas and rhododendron. I have no idea how he can tell from those dry branches, but I trust him.

Next to the driveway there’s a cluster of delicate white bell-shaped blooms. Lily of the valley, I thought. Wrong, apparently. A friend identified them as snowdrops. From photographs left by the previous owner, we know the patch between the front yews and the boardwalk will be likely be filled with daffodils interspersed with a few tulips. I’m not sure if the flowers I planted in the boxes out front will come back. I never can remember whether perennials or annuals bloom every year; the naming logic escapes me.

Fast-growing green stalks around the koi pond have me baffled, as do the dark purple flowers scattered among the pachysandra (I learned a new one!) under the big beech tree. They weren’t there in the fall. I know as the season progresses we’ll have cyclamen, day lilies, and yucca, as well as a number of other late-bloomers whose names I’ve already forgotten. But there are still surprises.

And the pond – its profusion of water lilies and lotus blossoms were part of the original attraction to our backyard oasis. Now the water is dark and murky. The fish survived the winter, while it appears the bullfrogs were not so fortunate. We’re not sure yet about the turtles. But the lilies and lotus. How do we resurrect them? Hubby says we need to drain the pond, clean out the winter debris, and replant the potted blossoms. This fall we’ll protect the pond better, but for now, we’re still learning.

As is so often the case, my wider world is a macrocosm of my writing, or vice versa, I suppose. Each time I begin a new piece, I stumble over names and words, finding familiar friends and meeting new germs of ideas. I anticipate the joy that comes with crafting a well-turned phrase, and sometimes mourn when those ‘darlings’ must be killed off. So many rote lessons I think I’ve incorporated into my routine escape me when I try to put them into practice. I have to turn to trusted friends in my writers group or online forums for answers. And like hubby in the garden, they never let me down.

2011-03-03T16:19:00.001-05:00

Share and share alike...

Why is it so much easier to be nice to others than to myself? I’m quick to offer mitigating circumstances for another’s misstep, rarely jumping to, “What else to expect? He’s just an idiot.” (okay, not too often)

But when I’m the one who needs understanding, the worst possible motivations are always first up in my mind. I’m undisciplined, I’m weak, I’m selfish, lazy, spoiled...you name it, I can find a way to make use of just about any derogatory term on the books. Even during three days of fighting yet another debilitating migraine, far too many of those unproductive hours were spent in bouts of self-flagellation cycling with unremitting pain. If only I meditated more regularly/better, if only I hadn’t had red wine with dinner, if only...if only. How ridiculous is that?

Hubby and I have had a number of good discussions recently about compassion, about seeing the world through other perspectives and realizing that while we can’t possibly experience life in the same manner as those we encounter, we can still have compassion for their struggles. It’s an ongoing lesson, of course, but much easier when the recipient of that compassion is another individual. Never myself.

A posting this morning from Tara Parker-Pope’s New York Times blog on Health titled “Go Easy on Yourself” couldn’t have been more timely. “Do you treat yourself as well as you treat your friends and family?” she asks. Of course not, don’t be silly! Why would I do such a thing? In her article, Parker-Pope reviews an emerging field of psychology labeled “self-compassion,” a way of thinking that proponents claim has links to everything from over-eating to happiness. I’m not sure I buy all the conclusions drawn from what seem to be rather ambiguous research, but the premise is worth considering.

As a writer, I constantly fluctuate between elation over the works I produce and total despair at facing yet another blank page or, even worse, editing a first draft and realizing it’s nowhere near the lyrical prose I envisioned. Is my negative personal attitude spilling over to my writing, or vice versa? When I talk to other writers, such thoughts seem to be fairly common but by no means universal.

Maybe we need a Self-Compassion Writers Group to supplement our critique sessions. We’re always quick to compliment each other’s writing; ‘love notes’ before criticism is the norm. I know I leave our group energized, if not occasionally deflated by the wonderful quality of writing I’m up against.

Come to think of it, many of our meetings are just that – compassionate. Only we call it loving support, with the occasional kick in the pants when we wallow too much in our misery. And we’re all worth that form of shared self-compassion, even me.

2011-02-23T11:01:00.000-05:00

Connecting the dots

I admit it. Sometimes I just don’t get it.

Try as I might, and I do try, there are some people I will never understand. We have a permanent disconnect mentally, emotionally, something. And more often than not, that pains me. I truly want to understand, and I’m quick to lay any failure to do so at my door.

And then there are the basic mechanical or factual issues that simply do not compute, no matter how hard I try. In nearly all cases, I’ve been a fast learner, never had to spend much time studying in school, and I think that may have been to my detriment. If a new topic doesn’t come easily, I get impatient. Until 2006, when I went back to college at age 48, I’d never really learned how to study. It wasn’t necessary. One pass through a book, one sufficiently detailed explanation by a competent instructor, and I was set. There have been isolated stumbling blocks, i.e., electricity, although I somehow aced high school physics even with a yawning gap of knowledge; music, in spite of my ever-so-patient son’s efforts to explain the simplest notational ideas; and, as I was reminded recently during movie night, modern art.

Hubby and I often spend an evening with a movie, usually Netflix or from the library. I hate paying outrageous ticket prices to sit in a noisy theatre, forced to watch the commercials I mute on television at home followed by a stream of trailers for movies light-years away from the kind I came to see...and don’t get me started on the price of concessions! Because of that, we rarely see anything first-run and our to-be-watched list contains a number of older films. Last weekend we finally got around to Pollock, largely on the basis of Ed Harris’ reputation as an amazing actor.

As expected, Harris’ performance was incredible. He so thoroughly inhabited the persona of self-destructive genius it was frightening at times. Much of the supporting cast was equally stellar, from Marcia Gay Harden as his driven but long-suffering wife, to another favorite, Amy Madigan, as Peggy Guggenheim. Pollock’s early work, when they were influenced by Picasso’s cubism, almost makes sense to me. I catch at least a glimmer of something familiar in the bold colors and odd shapes.

But I guess I’m too much of a realist to appreciate his later work. The drips and splashes that make up what I’ve seen in museums as Pollock masterpieces do not impress me. I don’t get it. I need to see something on the canvas I can recognize, not just color (which can be nice, but it’s not art). Impressionism is fine; a painting doesn’t have to be factual. I love most of Dali’s work, but his pieces are like a puzzle to be deciphered. Pollock’s are...a mess.

I’ve been told, of course, that I feel that way because I simply don’t understand art, that I’m unschooled. Bleh. Snobbish comments like that irk me. I get the same reaction to my arguments against opera and much of what passes as ‘literature.’

I’ve long believed art is a unique form of communication, of looking at the world in new and different ways and sharing that perspective with an audience. At what point does artistic freedom which fails to communicate something become a failure in itself? I can throw paint on canvas or words on paper to express myself to myself, to free buried emotion, etc. – all those reasons we are told to release our inner creativity. But I realize that much of what comes out of such moments is of value and of interest to no one but me, nor should it be. I don’t share those eruptions. They expend any inherent ‘value’ in allowing me to emote, and that’s enough. Vanity presses and self-staged art shows cater to the ego behind those moments, not to any artistic integrity that I can see. But society encourages such things.

And from the other perspective, how often does the media trumpet a former masterpiece worth untold millions (that’s another whole argument!) suddenly deemed all but worthless when it’s discovered to have been painted/written/composed by an unknown? Has the color changed on the canvas, or the words morphed on the page? No; but without that imprimatur of celebrity, few are interested.

Over the years I’ve visited many museums, read many, many books, listened to all sorts of music and wondered how much of what passes for art is labeled as ‘good.’ As a writer, I struggle to produce ‘good’ pieces, yet I know the bar is constantly moving, always tilted in some mysterious direction by unseen hands. If a work of art is so avant-garde that it must be meticulously explained (not just shades of meaning), does it miss the mark? Is transmission without reception communication?

Or maybe I truly am the one missing the point. Maybe art isn’t supposed to communicate, or be understood. Maybe it just is...something. Words matter to me; precise definitions and shades of meaning give flavor and nuance to my work. In that respect, ‘art’ escapes me.

I still don’t get it, but I’m willing to learn. If only I could pin it down.

2011-02-17T14:30:00.003-05:00

Expecting the unexpected leaves room for change

One of the more unusual things we inherited with our new home is a beautiful koi pond in the back yard. As attractive as it is, I was concerned about how the dogs would react. I wasn’t too worried about Chi. At 7-1/2-years-old, she’s lost most all the ‘puppy’ and is our sedate matron. I’ve found her dipping her paws in the edge, curious about the bright gold flashes under the water I’d imagine, but she’s never gone in after them.

But knowing Barkley, our 4-1/2-year-old English Springer Spaniel, I expected wet dog from day one. He surprised me, thank goodness, and only once since July has he taken the plunge. I wasn’t here to watch, but I’d bet he was chasing one of the two bullfrogs who reside on the water lily pads.

What’s been particularly interesting is watching their behavior change as the pond froze over. It didn’t take them long to adapt. Barkley bounds over it without hesitation when he’s in hot pursuit of the squirrels. Chi seems to have taken to the smooth, cool surface as her private resting place, rolling in the snow when it accumulates on the ice.

Now that the dogs have replaced the kids as my daily lesson-givers, I still find myself in awe of what they have to teach me. While my dire expectations of their curiosity have not panned out, I still cling to them, worrying unnecessarily, living the disasters that never come to be. I don’t allow Chi and Barkley the possibility of learning, too, and dealing with the situation in an acceptable (to me) manner. Unfortunately, I do the same thing to the humans in my life, myself included.

A recent disagreement with a family member sent me over the edge into a stress-induced migraine because I refused to let go of unrealistic expectations. I packed so much baggage onto a simple difference of opinion there was no possible way the situation could have ended well, and ultimately, I’m the one who suffered. Hubby did too, tangentially, and for that I humbly apologize. It doesn’t help at all that I thought I was protecting him when the whole thing started. I felt it was expected of me, and that in other tenuously-connected ways I was not fulfilling still other expectation. I got defensive. And when my misguided albeit well-intentioned motives were thwarted, I imploded.

By loading all kinds of history and expectations onto simple everyday interactions, I deny all of us the opportunity to change. How we have behaved in the past is not necessarily a harbinger of what will happen when faced with a similar situation. If I truly believe in the possibility of learning and growing, I need to let go of those restricting expectations that keep us locked in old patterns. The Dalai Lama said, “I am open to the guidance of synchronicity, and do not let expectations hinder my path.”

Chi and Barkley are outside now, chasing the squirrels and barking at the wind. Barkley just realized the ice is starting to melt. His steps are tentative as his feet get wet. He’s learning. Any bets on what to expect?

2011-02-08T11:27:00.002-05:00

Sounds of frustration

I don’t listen to music at home or in the car. The only radio I play is the occasional WYSO (NPR) talk show broadcast. Rarely do I play CDs. I don’t own an iPod, other MP3 player, or smartphone. I love almost all kinds of music (opera and rap being the exceptions that come to mind), so why do I avoid it?

Because once my brain hears a song, it won’t let go. It clings to the melody, running it in a constant loop for days – and nights – on end until I want to scream. Even the Muzak in the grocery store or blaring from the speaker over the gas pump can be a culprit. The (often) inane lyrics drive every coherent thought from my mind, making it difficult to write or even think at times.

My wise hubby, knowing how much I enjoy live performances yet despair of not being able to endure the soundtrack after the fact, suggested a desensitization process: listen to music all day, every day, for a week on the assumption my brain would no longer find melodies so remarkable and therefore would have no overwhelming desire to cling to them. Nice try.

The songs simply form a battle of the bands in my head, fighting for supremacy and making the raucous replays even more unbearable.

Discovery Health calls them earworms: ‘When we listen to a song, it triggers a part of the brain called the auditory cortex. Researchers at Dartmouth University found that when they played part of a familiar song to research subjects, the participants' auditory cortex automatically filled in the rest -- in other words, their brains kept "singing" long after the song had ended. The only way to "scratch" brain itch is to repeat the song over and over in your mind. Unfortunately, like with mosquito bites, the more you scratch the more you itch, and so on until you're stuck in an unending song cycle.’ They quote University of Cincinnati Professor James Kellaris who claims ‘women, musicians and people who are neurotic, tired or stressed are most prone to earworm attacks.’ Oh, good – so as a tired, stressed, neurotic (!) female, I’m doomed.

Kellaris advises getting rid of an earworm by:
1. Sing another song, or play another melody on an instrument.
2. Switch to an activity that keeps you busy, such as working out.
3. Listen to the song all the way through (this works for some people).
4. Turn on the radio or a CD to get your brain tuned in to another song.
5. Share the song with a friend (but don't be surprised if the person become an ex-friend when he or she walks away humming the tune).
6. Picture the earworm as a real creature crawling out of your head, and imagine stomping on it.

I’m rather partial to number six (none of the others work anyway), except the idea of an insect in my head recalls visions of Chekov’s misery in Star Trek: Wrath of Khan...not a good scene.

Even worse, I’ve found it’s not only music that sticks in my brain. Commercials, movies, television shows, even Windows Solitaire replays...my mind is like Velcro except for things like the story line I dreamt about last night, where I filed that document, or what I walked into the room to do.

Maybe if the earworms would leave, I’d have room for the important stuff. Anyone know a good exterminator?

2011-02-03T10:58:00.000-05:00

Ah, the benefits of downtime...

One arguably positive side effect of yesterday’s ice storm-induced power outage was enforced downtime. After using up the minimal battery in my laptop to finish a pending assignment and finding the back-up battery was not charged, I turned to my teetering pile of half-read and to-be-started books. My first choice was finishing an interesting book that, because it qualifies on my list as pleasure reading, had unfortunately been overtaken by more urgent matters. During the past few months as I’ve retooled my website, I made a conscious decision not to join the legions of bloggers who focus on book reviews; no sense in competing with the masses too directly. Matthew Goodman’s The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth Century New York has made me reconsider my decision, at least this once.

Wednesday was my lucky day, lack of heat in the house notwithstanding. Not only did my off-the-grid hours allow me to digest the remaining few chapters of Goodman’s remarkable history of the evolution of new papers and journalism, and the extent of human gullibility, but I found those final pages to be a philosophical delight. I highly recommend this story to anyone with even a passing interest in any of those topics.

The majority of this meticulously researched account details the rough-and-tumble world of New York City newspaper publishing in the early 1800s. Keep a scorecard handy to track the dozen or so papers mentioned with their revolving-door owners, editors and writers, many of whom appeared on a variety of mastheads. Goodman’s central character is Richard Adams Locke who arrived in New York from England in 1832. Locke’s life would make a fascinating story on its own. The Sun and the Moon takes Locke’s adventures in NYC, most notably his 1835 “Great Astronomical Discoveries” series (memorialized as the Great Moon Hoax) for the Sun, weaves them in with Edgar Allen Poe’s literary travails and P.T. Barnum’s humbugs to provide a unique and informative perspective of the country’s early years. Slavery, religious fanaticism, and labor unions all mesh seamlessly in the riotous days explored in Goodman’s work.

Only after five years have passed, and after his journalism career has crumbled, did Locke reveal the true impetus behind his Moon Hoax. No spoilers here; suffice it to say I came away with a greater respect for Locke than the already-lofty fellow writer’s admiration evoked by earlier pages.

Interesting coincidence: in the middle of writing this, I received a wrong-number phone call for ‘Matt.’
My respect and admiration encompass the author of this volume as well. The Sun and the Moon showed me an unfamiliar moment in our history. Goodman reveals such notable figures as Poe, Barnum, and de Tocqueville as contemporaries of Locke, offering a new dimension to my understanding of their work as well. While the complex and at times overlapping and redundant events are sometimes difficult to follow, the journey is well worth the effort. Goodman’s attention to detail coupled with his wonderfully vivid imaginative recreations of the era makes for a delightful reading experience.

I look forward to Matthew Goodman’s next work on another great name in American journalism (Nellie Bly, if I remember correctly) with great anticipation.

2011-01-26T16:25:00.000-05:00

Will it go round in circles..

Unless it’s Aaron Sorkin writing soaring rhetoric to be delivered by Martin Sheen, few State of the Union addresses will be remembered for more than a news cycle or two except by those politicians who use them as ammunition in the next election. SOTU speeches (everything is an acronym these days, of course) are rarely more than cheerleading or conciliatory words to bring a divisive people together, but just as likely to be an in-your-face diatribe that ratchets up rancorous partisanship so even less is accomplished in Washington than usual.

I don’t know if this year was anything out of the ordinary; a glance at the headlines would say not. I freely admit I didn’t watch the President’s address. After allowing myself to be drawn into the ‘hope and change’ promised during the election, only to see that hope crushed and the change watered down to business as usual, my disillusionment with politics is complete. Democratic, Republican, or (shudder) Tea Party – none of the established systems offer anything in the way of the so desperately needed real changes. Big business rules; mercenary capitalism trumps community good; and the little guy is only a rung on the ladder to boost the wealthy up another notch.

So be it. I’m done bashing my head against the proverbial brick wall. I’ll focus on making my corner of the world a little better place and leave the partisan turmoil to those who thrive on angry commotion. Regular readers will know I’ve said this before, but the SOTU extravaganza is a depressing reminder why.

Instead of wasting two hours on yet another scene of political grandstanding, where the media is more concerned about who is sitting where and how many times the speech is interrupted for applause than in what is actually said, I spent the evening with a caring, creative group of writers. We listened to each other, really listened, and offered support, encouragement and kind words. We debated, politely, about the relative merits of our work. And we left eager to share the positivity that such a gathering generates.

I seriously doubt much positive came out of Washington last night, but I’d love to be proven wrong.

2011-01-26T12:40:00.002-05:00

There Are No Rules - Are You a Renaissance Soul? Use It to Your Advantage

Can I allow myself to function this way?! Hmmm....

2011-01-22T09:42:00.000-05:00

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York;
And all the clouds that low’r'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. ~ Richard III

It’s only January 22, and the ‘winter of (my) discontent’ is firmly in place, with no ‘son of York’ in sight for relief. Usually I make it until at least early February before succumbing to the doldrums. I’m tired of being cold, of shoveling snow, of shouldering layers upon layers of garments to ward off the chill. The muse has fled (probably in hibernation!); I have no motivation. The stacks of half-read books on my desk, nightstand, and end table keep growing as I start a new book and lose interest after twenty or so pages. That’s no reflection on the authors. The call of Persephone is strong – I should be sleeping, not creating new projects.

From my DailyOm horoscope today (although according to new calculations, I'm a Virgo, not a Libra...):

"Feelings of distress can plague you today, causing you to second-guess yourself at every turn. You may consequently feel frustrated because it seems that the important matters in your life have slowed to a standstill. Any effort you make to resume your momentum will likely be blocked by what appear to be circumstances that are beyond your control. Yet you easily can overcome these difficulties today by adopting a flexible approach to your personal and professional duties and responsibilities...Even when our forward momentum seems to slow to a stop, we can see the hidden blessings in our situation. Your slow pace will not distress you today when you are flexible enough to cope productively with the change in your pace."

Either way, it's pretty much a reflection of my current state of mind, at least the first part detailing the frustrations. I haven’t made it to the hidden blessings. Maybe if I can find a way to thaw out...

I’ve made it through yet another final rewrite of my current WIP, printed a copy and set it aside to proof (back to my bread analogy) for a bit. In my current state of mind, I’m less than thrilled with it, hoping that with time I’ll regain my earlier enthusiasm.

Suggestions, fellow writers, on battling stagnation? Or at least the cold weather.

2011-01-19T10:04:00.000-05:00

To sleep, perchance to dream...

Two hours, almost an hour, another two of fitful sleep, ending with a gasping jolt awake by a myth buster.

No, not Adam Savage or Jamie Hyneman, or any of their MythBusters’ team (Tory Belleci, Kari Byron, Grant Imahara - love you guys!).

But the jarring realization it really is possible to dream of one’s own death and live to tell about it.

Maybe the death was not explicitly detailed, but the graphic, very real sense of being in an out-of-control vehicle that hit the wall was vivid enough. The mental awareness of death was certainly there. We even commented on it, Geo and I, as we said our final good-byes.

Speeding. Out of control. Hitting the wall.

Metaphors we use every day to describe the hectic pace of modern life, taken from actions that can lead to physical death if we don’t pay attention.

Thoreau tells us, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

I want that, too. I don’t want to reach the end of the life I have left to endure in this physical existence only to realize, at that final instant, that I never truly lived the days, the hours, the minutes which give meaning and purpose to the constant struggle.

And maybe that’s part of it – to stop struggling. To stop trying to contain what is impossible to control, but to at least slow down enough to experience it instead of speeding past, eyes fixed on some distant goal that may never be reached. That journey of a thousand miles is about each individual step.

Slow down and live – another common mantra transferable from the highway to personal existence, another myth busted. There is no inherent need for speed.

And I could really use a nap...

2011-01-12T11:25:00.000-05:00

Loving words

I find myself dwelling on my self-editing post from last week, because I’ve realized I carry that same habit into my online life. I have a number of Facebook ‘friends’ with vastly divergent ideological leanings, and far too many of my shared commentary, news items, etc., evoke passionate, often rude, response. The really rude ones I block; I don’t need more negativity in my life. If we can’t have a calm, rational debate about the issue at hand, don’t bother commenting. I try very hard not to post inflammatory items, only thoughtful opinions from various viewpoints.

Maybe too hard?

I’ve noticed that in the past few weeks, after a particularly disheartening series of exchanges with a family ‘friend,’ my habits have changed. First, I’ve blocked his posts. They are nearly always accompanied by snide tags that do nothing to further useful debate. They seem designed to incite argument. But now I find that, when it comes to my own posts, I’m second- and third-guessing myself. Will this news story offend someone? How will my ‘friends’ react to this editorial? Am I, in my random expressions of commonality with other writers, fanning the flames of the dissension I avoid on his wall? How productive is that, especially since I’ve chosen to avoid his thoughts? Maybe he is just as sincere in his desire to engage as I am, but simply less skilled in expressing himself. Or not.

Yes, I know, way over-thinking again, as always. However, I’ve found I keep coming back to the whole self-editing thing, at least for the past year or so (here: 120909 and here: 021110) as I’ve gotten serious about my writing, so it’s obviously an issue I need to resolve. Author and blogger Elle Strauss has a related post today called ‘Watch Your Mouth,’ so I know I am not alone in fretting over this.

I want my writing, and my life, to be open and honest as I share my journey in a search for truth in whatever form it may appear. Not a beat-an-opponent-over-the-head variety that will slam-dunk an argument, but a liberating freedom from falsity that can relieve the suffering we all face. In the Christian Bible, Ephesians talks about speaking the truth in love, something I try to do always. And in Martine Batchelor’s wonderful The Spirit of the Buddha, she talks about sati and sampajanna. Not only are we to be mindful and conscious of our actions (sati) but to “have a clear perception of one’s behavior” and its effect on the greater community (sampajanna). “One will therefore have to restrain certain desires... because one knows that it will be beneficial for each individual, who is also part of that community.”

That needs to be my focus in all this internal debate. Are my words – whether original or shared thoughts – loving and beneficial to my community?

2011-01-07T12:57:00.000-05:00

Hey, I heard this hilarious joke the other day...a man, a dog and a fish walk into a bar. No, that’s not right. How about: Geo told me another groaner...a man, a dog and a fish walk into a bar. No, not that either. How about just: So a man, a dog and a fish walk into a bar...

AARRGGHH! Constant mental self-editing...why do I do that to myself? Before every phone call, every meeting, every Facebook post (okay, almost every one – sometimes I respond in haste, and usually regret it), I compose and edit and rethink what needs to be said and how to say it. And then of course there’s the constant replay after – why did I say that?!

I’m a writer, so when putting together a formal piece, be it correspondence, an essay, or fiction, I want to choose my words carefully. Then of course the editing and rewriting process takes forever because I’m constantly second-guessing those choices, but at least that’s on the computer screen. The only criticism I face at that point is my own.

Mental self-editing is a real drag in conversations. It’s (one) the reason I’m not so good at social chit-chat. What if I say the wrong thing? If I disagree, I may offend someone, or start an argument. I hate confrontation, so I tip-toe around delicate issues. What if my obscure Classical references lead someone to think I’m being condescending? I’ve been accused of that more than once, but it’s completely unintentional, I assure you.

Today’s DailyOm calls this kind of behavior a defensive mechanism. My earlier paragraphs seem to bear that out. I’m afraid – of offending, of being misunderstood or ridiculed, of eliciting scorn. So I edit, and over-think, and hesitate, and often avoid any such communication until the last possible minute, sometimes beyond. How many opportunities have I lost by being timid? How many great people have I missed connecting with because my brain freezes when I try to speak?

I’ve been rereading Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Wherever You Go, There You Are for a book discussion group at the Yellow Springs Dharma Center. It’s about mindfulness, being in the moment, being aware of each second of life instead of wallowing in the past or fretting about the future...all those things my self-editing is not.

Maybe now that I’m aware of my self-defeating practice, I can get past it and leave the editing in my writing, where it belongs – mindfully, of course.

A dead man fell from the sky...: A book giveaway to celebrate the Oz release of The Pericles Commission

2011-01-07T09:08:00.000-05:00

A dead man fell from the sky...: A book giveaway to celebrate the Oz release of The Pericles Commission

I won Anthony Pacheco's giveaway of this great book last month - now's your chance to do the same! I like the cover of the Austrailian edition even better.

2010-12-28T10:42:00.001-05:00

A year in the life
For us Westerners who follow the Gregorian calendar, these are the final days of 2010. As such, our human need for closure leads to endless lists: celebrity deaths, top ten tech fads, top movies, worst gaffes, etc., etc. A year in review is supposed to somehow make sense of the preceding days, or not.

I’ve been working so hard to learn not to dwell on the past, where I’ve been mired emotionally for so many years, that even reviewing 2010 is a shift. That’s good I suppose, shows I’m making progress, but I still can’t resist at least a little year-end summary.
- We bought our first (and last?) house – yikes!
- I finished my master’s degree and for the first time in five years did not start classes in the fall. That was disorienting in itself and may prove to be a poor decision when the student loan payments hit next month.
- Geo built a geodesic cold frame greenhouse in the backyard and is immersed in plans for a new woodshop. At work he’s moved into management, something he never anticipated or sought, so 2011 will be interesting in many respects.
- Our daughter took up pottery, spindle weaving, rapier fighting and a new beau, not necessarily in that order. Her association with the Society for Creative Anachronism is expanding her world.
- Our son has taken the bold step and become the first family member in three generations to move out of state (except for my dad, and military service doesn’t count, because Ohio is always home). He’s in Chicago with his landscape-architecture-grad-student girlfriend waiting for admittance to law school in the fall, working for a bank and loving the big city.

And that’s enough looking back; looking forward is more productive, even though I need to keep reminding myself to live in the moment so I don’t miss out on life (perpetual goal number one). Since I can’t expect to meet a goal if I don’t know what it is, I have to have some idea what I want to accomplish in 2011.

Personal:
- eat better
- meditate daily
- walk outside daily, weather permitting, or on the treadmill for 15 minutes
- read at least one book per week
- find a new, local community service outlet so I can give back

Professional:
- weekly blogs on something more than life inside these four walls, although I love the life and the walls, that may attract more than six followers
- find an agent who believes my writing is worth marketing to take on novel #2
- rewrite and edit novel #1, which served as my thesis and is waiting to be polished for publication
- finish novel #3
- continue writing and submitting short pieces on a regular basis (not very specific, I know, but it’s all flexible)
- find that elusive non-fiction topic that will lead to a viable book proposal

Familial:
- all those new homeowner things we’ve never experienced before – seal the deck, repair the driveway, replace the screens on the porch, clean out the pond, paint the entryway wall
- regular ‘us’ time when we turn off technology and just be together, talking, walking, biking
- maintain and improve connections with those who are important to us, no matter the physical distance
- open our home to friends and neighbors at least once a month for a meal and conversation

Is any of that worth blogging about? Probably not in the grand scheme of things. I’ve always wanted this to be more than a journal; I have a real hang-up on the whole concept of journaling since I stopped writing a daily diary when I was maybe fourteen.

So my resolution is that this will be the last lame blog post I will make. In 2011, I will find a compelling, recurring theme that stretches my writing brain and also communicates something meaningful to those readers who click in.

Suggestions? What makes you return to a blog regularly? What can I offer you?

2010-12-22T14:38:00.000-05:00

Okay, all you pet lovers. How exactly should I deal with a snoring dog? Chi’s bed is too far away to prod her with an elbow, she sleeps through any scolding, and if I do happen to wake her up to silence the din, she just wants outside, no matter how dark and frigid. She is by far the loudest snorer in the room – no debates here about who else may or may not be in contention for that honor, please.

Barkley doesn’t snore; he ‘talks’ in his sleep. He whimpers, pants, woofs and grunts, all while his feet twitch and his nose sniffs out whatever he’s chasing across his field of dreams. Fortunately, his nocturnal excursions are short-lived.

But Chi can snore for hours, or at least it seems that way after being awakened for the umpteenth time. We can’t relegate them to another room. They whine and scratch at any door that separates us, day or night. I suppose earplugs are an option, but if I’ve adapted to hubby’s snores (sorry, said I wasn’t going to mention that, didn’t I?), I should be able to deal with the dogs.

I know, I know. If we had trained them properly when they were pups, it wouldn’t be a problem to bed them down in another room. But that’s history, and a philosophy of pet ownership that doesn’t fit our lifestyle. Chi and Barkley are part of the family; this is as much their home as it is ours. Sure, that causes problems at times, like when Chi sprawls across two-thirds of the couch, or when Barkley decides that bowl of cookies on the counter must be his dessert. Overall though, we co-exist wonderfully. They know when they can share our bed (afternoon naps only) and when they can’t. They know we will feed them and exercise them and always come home again when we leave them alone. And we can count on an ecstatic greeting after we’ve been gone, even for a few minutes. A warm puppy in my lap, their unconditional love, can overcome just about anything.

Except for the snoring.

2010-12-15T09:00:00.000-05:00

Who was it that first said, ‘You can’t go home again’...Odysseus? Of course he arrived home after an epic twenty year absence to find his home occupied by interlopers wooing his wife. And while that thought never echoes more strongly than after a visit to the parents, it’s not that I feel I’ve been replaced by an interloper, rather by a shadow of who I once was.

My mother (northern Ohio), father (Florida Panhandle) and in-laws all live in different residences, several times removed, from where my husband and I grew up. He and I have moved three times since our children went off to college (yes, we gave them forwarding addresses). In our increasingly mobile society, home is not realistically a place for most of us, but an emotional link. “Wherever we’re together, that’s my home,” sings Billy Joel, and that sums it up for me and the hubby.

But the parental ‘home’ concept is different, somehow more fraught with peril and complexity. There’s an immediate temporal shift when we walk through the front door, into ‘their’ space, and we’re kids again, subject to all the guilt-inducing burdens of being a ‘good kid.’ Meet those parental expectations:
"You need a haircut.”
“Growing that scruffy beard again, huh?”
“Putting on weight are you?”
“How’s the job? Get a raise yet?”
“Still driving that beater car?”
“What do you mean you voted for xx?”
“Why aren’t you going to church with us?”
...or be relegated to the kids table on the back porch while the adults carry on important discussions about NASCAR and pro football, the latest American Idol, the always enlightening organ recitals, and who got married/divorced/had yet another child with that good-for-nothing SOB.

Maybe the kids’ table isn’t such a bad idea after all.

But back to ‘home again.’ At what point do we graduate to being treated like adults with valid thoughts, decisions, and lifestyles? I love my parents and in-laws. And I’m sure the parental inquisition is not an intentional disregard for our feelings. In all likelihood they are as confused as we are with our evolving relationship. Throw in a generational shift or two as the younger set moves into adulthood, and things get even more dicey. I’ve never been the mother of grown children before; I’m constantly adapting to the shifting paradigms of our nuclear family status. And now Mom and Dad have not only their own grown offspring to deal with, but the idea that the grandchildren they fawned over for so many years are moving into their own lives. Change is always difficult, and when we feel out of control, it’s that much more frightening. Clinging to the status quo offers a sense of security, a ‘we’ve always done it this way’ that means one less new decision to face in our uncertain world.

When it comes right down to it, I don’t want to go home again. Most of my childhood was not a time I care to revisit. What I’d really like is to find that those adults I’ve looked up to for so many years are now my friends and partners on this journey through life. My dad and I are getting there, probably easier than it will ever be with the others because he didn’t raise me. We don’t have a lot of the parent/child baggage to shed as we age together. But even with him, it’s tough at times to be taken seriously, to be treated as an adult.

And now it’s the holiday season, when going home again is all but mandatory. Instead of dreading and bemoaning the next few weeks (and the past few, actually) as I generally do, I think I’ll look on those trips ‘home’ as my gift to the parents. If it makes them happy, even for those frenetic, too-short visits, to treat me like a teenager again (any younger than that and we’ll have to negotiate!) who doesn’t know how to drive in the snow or who can’t be trusted to contribute anything more than paper plates for the Christmas dinner, then so be it. I’ll focus on the ‘home again’ of hubby and me and we’ll get through it together, as we always do.

Do our children feel this way when they visit us? I certainly hope not.

2010-12-08T15:58:00.000-05:00

This afternoon I’m huddled at my desk watching the shimmering cold back yard, the oddly-still frozen pond, the stubborn orange beech leaves contrasting so beautifully against the white backdrop of snow. Sipping my fourth (fifth?) cup of tea, trying to stay warm and wishing the frenetic stress-inducing holidays were over and it was spring.

But it’s not. It’s early (can’t even stretch that to ‘mid’) December, and winter hit with a vengeance as soon as the calendar page flipped from November. Bone-chilling cold, icy sidewalks, blowing and drifting predicted for the weekend. So many of our fellow mammals are spot on with the whole hibernation thing, what was evolution thinking taking us past that lovely notion?

I must make the best of it, brew another pot of tea, pull on another layer of fleece, crank up the heating pad on my aching muscles, and keep my numb fingers moving over the keyboard. A book review to write, an essay to polish and resubmit (after four rejections, but we won’t go there today), a novel to finish editing, and a blog to update. My own personal deadlines, sure, but goals are important no matter the source, right? And another deadline down is another day closer to the end of winter.

I just realized all three of my novels, each at a different stage of completion, take place in warm weather, April through September, prime baseball season, with the occasional thunderstorm to cool the air. Nary a parka, mukluk or snow shovel in sight. My characters bike and swim, they don’t ice skate. I have one brief flashback scene that takes place along the Lake Erie shoreline in January. It’s bleak, depressing, and I shiver every time I read it. Sure hope that means it’s good writing and I’m not simply projecting.

It’s been said that all fiction is at least marginally autobiographical, albeit often idealized. In my case, that’s certainly true when it comes to the weather. And while I heed Elmore Leonard’s advice and never open a book with the weather, it is always at least a minor character, reflecting the internal tempests of my protagonists and the battles they face. Like me, my heroine is gloomy on dark, cloudy days; on edge – or in bed with a migraine – when the barometer drops and storms threaten, and more likely to be cheerful and productive when the sun shines and temperatures hover in the mid-seventies.

But I’ve lived in Ohio all my life except for a brief four-year stint in Wyoming where the weather is even more volatile, if that’s possible. I survived the Blizzard of ’78, among others; you’d think I’d have this winter thing down cold – pun intended. Alas, every year it gets harder to face the impeding winter, and I refuse to attribute such reluctance to my advancing age. I’m simply more willing to own up to my feelings and stop pretending to relish the changing seasons. I’m all for the circle of life, for plants regenerating in the frozen earth to burst forth again in the warmth of spring. I just wish I could join them and sleep until the ice is gone.

Now where did I put those open-fingered gloves my wonderful daughter crocheted...

2010-11-29T10:22:00.000-05:00

I don't believe in frettin' and grievin';
Why mess around with strife?
I never was cut out to step and strut out.
Give me the simple life. (link)

I’ll dive right in by saying I am not a fan of the holiday season...at all. Get the ‘Bah, humbug!’ out of the way and hear me out. I don’t like any Hallmark holiday, and an ultra-condensed six-week (we can only wish it were that short!) phantasmagoric overload of tinsel and twinkle and tinny rehashed music is just too much to bear.

I don’t need a date on the calendar to remind me to be thankful for my family and friends, for the life we share. That internal gratitude is all that keeps me going in the face of the often petty and spiteful society we find ourselves immersed in. Yet every November, we cram upwards of twenty of us into one medium-sized home (no McMansions in our family), juggle paper (or worse, Styrofoam) plates full of high-calorie food we avoid the rest of the year, stuff ourselves to uncomfortable condition, and then far too often scurry off to the other side of the family for round two. The too-short visit and the crush of bodies are not conducive to any real connection, no chance to catch up on events since the last get-together. We barely get past the when did you cut your hair...how’s school...are you still working at XX and it’s time to hit the road, especially for those of us who dared move out of town away from the family fold.

Hallmark, Hollywood and television would like us to believe holidays are a picture-perfect wonderland of love and tradition. Expectations are set impossibly high, stress levels rise to match, and exhausting efforts to recreate that Currier & Ives scene take over. If you buy into the hype, the whole thing can be nothing but a disappointment on at least some level.

Which is why I prefer less fuss, less hype, and smaller, simpler gatherings on more frequent occasions. We’ve started our own tradition of birthday dinners out, just hubby and me with our kids and their significant others, or with our parents when we can work out the logistics. On a good year, that gives up eight or more chances to share a nice meal that doesn’t destroy healthy eating habits in one fell swoop and to stay up-to-date on more mundane, but ultimately more important, topics of life. We stay connected. And we are thankful.

Don’t even get me started on Christmas...

2010-11-20T09:24:00.000-05:00

Communicating with food

Following is an essay I wrote for Anthony Bourdain’s Raw Food Challenge to explain ‘Food Well Done.’ It didn’t win – didn’t even make the top ten! – but I thought it came out well and I don’t want pass up the opportunity to share it further. Writing is all about communication, yes?

Food – a gift from the gods that sustains life. Food well done transcends mere sustenance and elevates life to that of the divine. Fresh, simple, prepared with care and attention to the innate qualities of each morsel, there is no more universal way to nurture the mind, body and spirit.

Breaking bread together appears in humanities’ earliest traditions. It is a sign of hospitality, of communion, of an end to hostilities. Whether presented as a state banquet, a wedding feast, or a family dinner, sharing a meal brings people together. It offers a time to pause from the frantic pace of everyday life, a time to share not only food but thoughts and ideas. It’s been suggested that early man started eating in groups to make sure no one took more than a fair share, and while that may be true, it’s a good bet the joys of simple camaraderie overtook greed as supplies became more secure. Food well done satiates the senses. It breaks down barriers, dissolves our selfishness, and reveals our largess.

From the early Roman sculpted grapes of Bacchus to Cezanne’s Still Life with Fruit Basket to the sensuous morsels in Chocolat, food is often the focal point of art. Whether in painting, literature, or music, food is commemorated because it is central to our existence. We begin our lives suckling and, if we are fortunate, our passing is celebrated with a joyful wake of good wine and comfort food for family and friends.

On a more immediate level, food well done can effectively communicate, nourish, seduce and placate. It is a sublime method of personal expression. Each nation, each culture, each individual has a unique way of selecting, preparing and sharing the food indigenous to their locale. Similarities abound and serve to highlight our global connectedness, yet the subtle differences and regional adaptations emphasize the individual needs and tastes of each community. Whether as Indian naan, Middle East pita, Mexican tortilla, or any of another thousand variations, man has found ways to combine simple grains and local spices into a staple recognized around the world. When everything on the plate is strangely exotic, go for the bread.

Food well done defies convention and dogma. It crosses boundaries in ways few other things are able. It is beyond description, and beyond compare. We know it when we see it, and when we taste it. It just is.

And here’s the winning entry, if you care to compare…comments always welcome!

2010-11-15T20:14:00.000-05:00

Not by bread alone...

As I’ve mentioned before in these ramblings, I bake all our bread. Twice a month or so, I break out the bowls and measuring cups, loaf pans and cooling racks, and have at it. It’s a form of therapy, almost a meditation.

Recently I’ve noticed how much the process of baking bread is a reflection of my writing life. I’ve studied the cookbooks (how-to writing books galore) from Betty Crocker to Great Breads and more. I know the recipe by heart (words, grammar, punctuation), which ingredients need to be treated with extra care (character development, dialogue) and how everything fits together in order to obtain the desired result (sentence structure, plot arc). I know I can be successful (published); I’ve done it many times.

So why do I always face that moment of self-doubt as I dump the soggy batter (first draft) onto the mat to begin kneading the dough into shape (editing, rewriting, still more editing)? I haven’t ruined a batch of bread in longer than I can remember – knock on wood! – but I worry, every time. Did I get the liquid too hot and kill the yeast? Too cool and not activate it? (too much dialogue/narrative descriptions, not enough action, or vice versa?)

After I’ve kneaded the dough for five minutes or so, it always comes together just fine, as do the words in a manuscript. But now what about that chilly draft in the kitchen (less-than-receptive writers group)? Will the dough rise properly (satisfying dénouement)? And then there’s the baking – too long, and the loaf is dry and tasteless; too short, and it’s gooey and unpalatable. How much time do I invest in rewriting a story? Too much, and I can edit the life right out of the best plot; too little, and the rough edges may frustrate a reader.

Sometimes there are occasions which require a different kind of loaf, something a bit more elegant than my usual oatmeal wheat bread (fiction). My specialties are banana bread from my grandmother’s recipe and a pumpkin bread (long-form essays and the occasional book review ) I stumbled across a few years ago. Each calls for a special set of ingredients (academic vocabulary and style), a different technique (introspection or objectivity). They are a welcome change of pace, and when I’m really daring and try my green chili baguette, a challenge (a full-length novel).

Whichever form I choose on any given day (or week, or month), the bread bakes, and the story is finished (eventually). The bread feeds and nourishes my family, a tasty addition to our meals. I can only hope my stories do the same for my readers.

2010-09-27T12:27:00.003-04:00

“They're talking about banning books again! Really subversive books, like The Wizard of Oz... the Diary of Anne Frank...” ~ Annie Kinsella in Field of Dreams

Banning books? Seriously? In my field of dreams, we as a nation, as a global community, have moved beyond such narrow-mindedness. But then, I still believe in an inherent altruism of humanity…at least most days.

This recognition - I can’t call it a celebration - of Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read (according to the American Library Association), is one of those things I dream of outgrowing, like the Tooth Fairy and a superstition of black cats.

I was telling my daughter last week about an incident from her high school days. My husband and I chaperoned the marching band spring trip to Baltimore/DC. Two charter buses of 80-some hormonally charged teenagers for four days. What were we thinking?! But I digress.

En route, to keep everyone entertained and to possibly preserve some of the chaperones’ collective sanity, the busses were equipped with DVD players and the kids watched movies. PG or PG-13 only, the band director was not a fool. But even that was not good enough for one overly-protective mom. When she discovered her precious (precocious?) teen had been exposed to the subversive Sixteen Candles, she went ballistic. The next Band Boosters meeting was taken up with a dreadfully serious discussion of how best to prevent such a travesty from reoccurring. She did not take it well when I told her she was not authorized to censor my children’s viewing habits.

Censorship at any level frightens me. When we surrender our responsibility for critical thinking and decision making to those in some perceived position of authority, whether it be a school board, a church or a government, we surrender ourselves. If you don’t like a movie, don’t go to the theater. If a book offends you, don’t read it, and tell your child why you find it offensive. Labeling anything off-limits, be it a book, or sex, or alcohol, without a reasonable explanation of why only serves to make it more alluring to a curious, growing child. Parents do a disservice to their offspring and to the world at large by denying the development of a fine-tuned discernment of crap.

These are some of the more egregious titles listed as this year’s challenged

Captain Underpants (offensive language, sexually explicit, anti-family)
Lord of the Rings (Satanic)
Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary (contains the term ‘oral sex’)
Fahrenheit 451 (about censorship)
Harry Potter series (occultism, Satanism, violence, anti-family - #1 on ALA’s most-challenged for 2000-2009)
Grapes of Wrath (obscenity, embarrassment to the region)
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (wrong Bill Martin – long story which displays the censors’ ignorance even more tellingly)
James and the Giant Peach (magic, disobedience, violence)
American Heritage Dictionary (39 objectionable words, including ‘balls’)
Grimm’s Fairy Tales (violence; misuse of alcohol in Little Red Riding Hood)

…along with the usual selection of classics like Brave New World and To Kill a Mockingbird

Seriously?

To quote Annie Kinsella again: “Who's for burning books? Who wants to spit on the Constitution of the United States of America, anybody? Now who's for the bill of Rights? Who thinks that freedom is a pretty darn good thing? Who thinks that we have to stand up to the kind of censorship that they had under Stalin?”

I proudly join Natalie Monzyk’s list of bloggers standing up to the censors. Won’t you join us?

2010-09-14T11:49:00.000-04:00

Wisdom of my elders

After an hour (okay, maybe forty-five minutes) of polishing an essay (see previous post) and thirty minutes trying to reread a book for which my review thereof is very nearly past deadline, I felt the overwhelming urge to ‘rest my eyes’ – yikes! I’ve become my grandfather.

Every evening after dinner, while perusing the daily Toledo Blade, Grandpa would be found tipped back in his recliner, paper over his face, snoring gently into the newsprint. Any disruption that suggested he was sleeping was soundly denied. “I’m just resting my eyes,” he always insisted.

Now I understand. When the eyes demand rest, they close. Period. No amount of will power or dodged determination can overcome the need for a break from constant input. Caffeine, splashes of cold water, or a walk around the room only stave off the inevitable. The eyes are the brain’s gatekeeper; when input overload hits, sleep will out.

That ten-minute ‘rest’ has refreshed me, and my eyes. I’m back at it…until I hit that saturation point again.

If only it didn’t happen quite so often these days. Just how old was Grandpa when we teased him?

2010-09-14T09:27:00.002-04:00

Anthony Bourdain's Medium Raw Challenge

2010-08-30T19:45:00.000-04:00

Much-appreciated critique

Kind words from Clarissa Draper at Listen to the Voices today as she reviewed the first chapter of my second WIP, Forty & Out. And boy, did I need that today! Now I have motivation to keep working on the rewrite of the ending for this book. Thank you, Clarissa!

2010-08-30T10:44:00.000-04:00

The paradox that is writing commercial fiction

An agent I met at this summer’s Antioch Writers Workshop, who was gracious enough to request a full copy of my work in progress, Ties that Bind (now posted on Scribd, if anyone is interested) has responded. Not, as she so perceptively noted, with what I wanted to hear necessarily, but with much of what I needed to hear. I’ve spent the past two days since her email mentally defending my work, railing (again, still!) against the inconsistencies in the ‘rules’ of writing. Rather than re-engaging that battle too strenuously, I’ll quote an earlier post from 043010:

“The most difficult part of all this learning-the-craft process is that as soon as I think I’ve got a handle on the rules, occasionally breaking them judiciously only to get slapped down for it, I pick up a book or literary journal that does exactly what I’ve been told not to do. Learning which of those ‘lessons’ to heed and which to ignore is mind-boggling. And all too often it depends on who the reader is at any given point.”

and move on…mostly.

The one specific I will detail is this: one of the last pieces of Ties that I wrote is a three-page prologue. I’m not generally a fan of prologues, but the story needed some history for the main plot to make sense without lots of flashbacks, which I don’t care for either. I’m still not convinced it’s the best way to handle the issue, but that’s where the manuscript stands at this stage.

Here’s the paradox: I have one critique from another well-respected professional who loved the prologue and the opening scenes, specifically: “The prologue is fantastic.” The AWW agent mentioned earlier had this to say: “And worse, the story actually starts on page 12, chapter 2. That's the first place we really see any sense of tension and conflict. You lose 2600 words if you chop the prologue and chapter 1. Building word count isn't just adding words; it's adding the right ones. Like bulking up means adding muscle, not just gaining weight.”

AARRGHH!!

This is even worse than anything in the oft-quoted Writers On Writing: Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle, by Elmore Leonard. I thought I had finally reconciled myself to ‘rules are made to be broken,’ since every one of those ‘always/never’ instructions is disregarded daily by best-selling authors everywhere. I know the rules; I truly thought I knew how and when to break them. Now this.

I am not entirely dissatisfied with the most recent critique. She offered several concrete suggestions on distance, being engaged, etc., that reinforced things I know I need to address. And I’m fighting the urge to frame her closing words and post them over my computer: “You're a good writer. You just need to write more!”

As I said in my response to her kind email, I need to trust my own instincts more and stop trying to please everyone, which is not an easy thing for someone who grew up as the family peacekeeper. But I will persevere.

Fellow writers, am I delusional, or just being my obstinate self?

2010-08-12T11:25:00.000-04:00

Our new life

The waiting is over. The change has evolved to reality. The house is ours (and the banks, of course) and we are ‘Springers.’ Yellow Springs, that is, not Jerry’s dysfunctional crew. Although we’ve officially been in residence for just over a month, there are still mornings when I wake up wondering where I am, only to be awestruck at the beautiful surroundings that are now our home.

We’re still working out the kinks, trying to decipher the mysteries of the multiple filters needed for the water softener, reverse osmosis system, furnace, and learning to set aside a shared fear of really tall ladders in order to wash the seventeen-foot high clerestory windows which run the length of the house. Drywall, massive amounts of gardening, screen repair…the list is never-ending, but it is satisfying.

The dogs have adjusted well. Barkley patrols the backyard, getting lost in the vegetation so that often all we can see is his stubby tail, wagging furiously at the wonderful smells. Chi is more content to lie on the deck and watch the hummingbirds and butterflies, with an occasional roll in the sun-drenched grass. Sadly, we lost our cat Reese just two weeks after the move. At nearly twenty years of age, and with increasing physical issues finally slowing her down it was time. She died curled on the loveseat with me, dogs at my feet. The many memories of her years with us, from birth to death, and her ashes scattered in the backyard keep Reese with us forever.

Biking the almost seven miles to his office every day has Geo well on his way to fit and trim. I am constantly thrilled at being able to walk the short couple of blocks downtown to the grocery, drug store, a real hardware, the post office – and so much more. Yellow Springs is good for us. We’re entertaining old friends, and making new ones. I hope to be able to give back to our new community soon as well, as I search for just the right fit among the many volunteer opportunities available.

And now that I have completed my life in academia (for now) with a master’s degree from the final class at Antioch University McGregor (reborn as Antioch Midwest), I am writing for writing’s sake instead of to meet the requirements of a syllabus. Not as much as I would like, not yet, but it’s gradually becoming a larger part of my daily life as I’d always hoped. An agent from July’s Antioch Writers Workshop is reviewing my first novel; I’ll probably only get a critique, but that’s a terrific start. While I’m waiting (not so patiently, I confess) for her comments, I’m revising and editing novel number two. I’ve also had two more book reviews (Remembering Our Childhood and Student’s Guide to the History and Philosophy of Yoga) and a short story accepted for publication, and have several more pieces out for consideration. I’m working with not one but two writers groups, after years of solitary labor, and the support and encouragement offered is immensely gratifying.

So that’s my life these days, in a brief summary that can’t do justice to the joy and gratitude contained in every hour. Now it’s back to revisions, and submissions, and searching for new projects.

Maybe I’ll take a walk in the garden first…

2010-06-18T13:55:00.000-04:00

“I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies”…or houses. And I’ve given birth twice. But we’ve never tried buying a house until now, and it’s almost as stress-inducing as preparing for childbirth and surviving labor. People actually do this for a living? Buying and reselling –‘flipping’ houses, or just moving every few years? Yikes! Not for me.

First, there’s agonizing over the decision to try getting pregnant. Okay, not everyone goes through that step, but bear with me. We discussed for months the possibility of buying a home, with my usual pessimism insisting it could never be done, Geo standing firm in his belief to the contrary. So we tried – looking at houses, that is. At our age, the baby train has left the station, thank heavens. And there it was, much sooner than either of us ever expected. The perfect home, in the town we dreamed of. How could we walk away?

A nine month gestation period has nothing on the hurry-up-and-wait involved in obtaining a mortgage. Endless inspections and financial disclosures, almost as intrusive as ob/gyn visits. Will the bank approve? What’s a mortgage underwriter? It’s a VA loan; what will the government say? Radon and termites…and more waiting for negotiations with the seller and mitigation of the issues.

And the cost! We were fortunate enough to have medical insurance for the hospital bills all those years ago. Now it turns out we pay for mortgage insurance. The numbers on the loan papers are frightening enough. Then we add interest, and taxes, and the insurance company wants how much annually? Add in the movers, and the carpet cleaners, appliance installation, painting…there goes the Caribbean cruise we hoped for, at least for the foreseeable future.

But just as the memories of an exhausting and painful labor and delivery faded into nothingness at the sight of our newborn’s face, so too the sleepless nights agonizing over this enormous financial burden will dim when we sign the library-sized stack of papers and take possession of our new home. It’s another lifetime commitment, not quite as emotionally charged – or satisfying – as the children, but close. Plumbing and electrical and exterior maintenance will replace braces and sports fees and college. Worthy investments, all.

One thing we’ve learned from being parents, and from the travails of normal living, is to be able to let go. As much as we want this house, as powerful as the pull is to have a place of our own, we remind ourselves daily of the suffering inherent in attachments to impermanent things. The house, the children, each other – all are temporal, all will pass away. We strive to appreciate (I can’t quite say enjoy!) this current stage in our journey, recognizing that what will be, will be. We don’t need a special physical structure. “Wherever we’re together, that’s my home.”

2010-05-27T18:02:00.001-04:00

Change – the only constant

Change is the focal point of my life these days, in ways I had no inkling of even a month ago.

On Saturday, we viewed the inside of a house in Yellow Springs that we have been drooling over the outside of for the past four months. We had barely stepped in the door when we knew we were home. Before my doubts and fears and m innate pessimism could take over, we submitted a bid.

On Sunday, the contracts were all signed. We’re actually buying a home, something I never believed would be possible.

On Tuesday, I submitted my thesis to finish my graduate degree, to end my formal academic life (for now).

Change.

My dream of making a living as a writer has taken a left turn as I realize that very few people have that luxury. I’ve had three rejection letters/emails in the past two weeks – two short stories, and one essay I really thought had a shot at publication. My thesis novel, while it more than adequately fulfills the academic requirements, is definitely not ready for prime time, and more often than not these days I wonder if it ever will be.

An editor I met at a recent workshop posted this depressing statistic on Facebook yesterday: "7% of books published generate 87% of book sales. And 93% of all published books sell less than 1,000 copies each." So I have to have a ‘real’ job to support my writing habit. Teaching is always a possibility I’m told, with my almost-conferred master’s degree. But I’m not a teacher. Could I teach college freshman how to write a coherent paper, to understand and maybe appreciate literature? Probably. But good teachers have a calling that is not mine. My calling is to write. But I still need to help pay the bills on that beautiful residence.

Today (Thursday), I had a ‘pre-screening’ phone interview for a decent job that would allow me to bike to work from our new home.

Change.

Moving to Yellow Springs will make it difficult to maintain relationships and community involvement we’ve developed in Waynesville. That possibility already has some friends and colleagues on edge.

Leaving the home office where I’ve struggled for the past five years as a self-employed writer, web designer, graphic artist and computer admin support tech and taking a job in the outside world will be a huge undertaking. I’ll need to update my wardrobe (such as it is), find day care for the dogs, learn to make it through the day without the occasional afternoon nap…and deal with people. My husband has often fretted that I’ve become something of a hermit; he may be right.

Taking on the responsibility of owning a home, for all the wonderful benefits, is a frightening prospect that is already keeping me awake at night. How will I react when the first mortgage payment is due?

Change.

I hope I’m up to it all. One day at a time…

2010-05-12T09:46:00.000-04:00

Antioch naming debate

Much ado is filling my social network these days from Antioch University McGregor alums who are less than pleased with the proposed school name change to Antioch Mid-West. At the risk of alienating those people, all of whom I admire greatly and respect implicitly, I believe the first skirmishes in the battle they seek to wage were lost many years ago, when Antioch College formed what was then the graduate level McGregor School focused on business and management. The name change and mindset shift were set in motion at that time.

As I often do when beginning research on an unfamiliar topic, I turned to the oft-derided Wikipedia as a starting point and found this on Douglas McGregor, for whom the school was named: “management professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and president of Antioch College from 1948 to 1954. He also taught at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. His 1960 book The Human Side of Enterprise had a profound influence on education practices. In the book he identified an approach of creating an environment within which employees are motivated via authoritative, direction and control or integration and self-control... In the 1970s, the McGregor school, a graduate level business school, was founded by Antioch College in his honor.”

Doesn’t sound much like the Horace Mann ideals espoused by Antioch which led many of us to the school in the first place, does it? I did not come to Yellow Springs, to Antioch, to follow the teachings of Douglas McGregor. As is obvious by my need to Google the name, even after four years as a student at AUM I knew very little about him. I’ve learned more since then, thanks to the wisdom of an AUM professor, and I have come to appreciate Douglas McGregor’s neglected philosophy with its “emphasis on community and the processes for eliciting effective participation.”

Initially, however, I was drawn by the reputation of Antioch, and of Mann. Again turning to Wikipedia: “Antioch College continues to operate in accordance with the egalitarian and humanitarian values of Horace Mann. A monument including his statue stands in lands belonging to the college in Yellow Springs, Ohio with his quote and college motto "Be Ashamed to Die Until You Have Won Some Victory for Humanity.” That is my beacon and my anchor.

As long as the university remains “Antioch,” I am not too concerned with the tag lines that come after - at least at this point! I am an Antiochian. Some at the college may not agree, preferring to cling to that title as exclusively for their students, but that tradition is what brought me here, and that is the bond we share. In early 2008, in response to a debate circulating on campus over claims to that moniker, I wrote, in part: “In my humble opinion, an Antiochian is a seeker of truth, one who is not afraid to question authority at any level, and one who admits the limits of their own knowledge and learning. An Antiochian is at this university to learn and to grow and to be exposed to new thoughts and ideas, not to be further indoctrinated in those beliefs society has deemed acceptable.” My opinion in that regard has not changed, and it is not dependent on the “McGregor” or “Mid-West” surname.

During my tenure in the undergraduate completion program, many of us in the World Classics Curriculum groused over the move to the new AUM building. We lost many of the traditions held dear by Classicans for nearly twenty years – meeting under the majestic trees on main campus to debate the philosophical topics of the day, a rousing graduation march through the winding paths tooting on kazoos and singing rowdy songs – but as one of the many wise instructors in that amazing program noted, the move from main campus was the time for us to begin new traditions, to decide what was important to pass on to the next group fortunate enough, and brave enough, to be called Classicans. That creation of tradition, of carrying on the tenets we share into modernized forms that can overcome the materialistic world that threatens to overrun such seemingly quaint notions, is more important to me than any name the powers-that-be decide to add after our beloved “Antioch.”

I am far more concerned with the decline of the Classics program, with the loss of that unique and powerful curriculum which was literally life-changing for me. Its dedicated professors struggle to reshape it into something that still has a place in evolving university structure. I would rather expend my energies helping them make that transition than fight over a name. “A rose by any other…”

To my dear alums and colleagues, my fellow Classicans, I salute your passionate response to yet another assault on the Antioch tradition. I respect, and in large part share, your disappointment. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned as a parent, it’s to pick your battles. This one cannot be mine.

2010-04-30T20:33:00.001-04:00

The voices in my head disagree...

So I’ve received my first rejection letter (email!) on my novel. Again with the point-of-view issues! Just when I think I’ve got it figured out and corrected, POV knocks me out. My grad program mentor offered her usual pointed advice, in the psychoanalyst question form: “Who is the narrator of your novel?...Writer and narrator are not the same thing…who is telling your story and why?”

Granted, she does offer more than just questions, but I’m still stuck. I thought I was writing third-person omniscient, but I’ve been told I waffle between that and what she calls “fly-on-the-wall” narration. I understand the concepts (I think); now if I could just figure out how they differ in the actual text.

The most difficult part of all this learning-the-craft process is that as soon as I think I’ve got a handle on the rules, occasionally breaking them judiciously only to get slapped down for it, I pick up a book or literary journal that does exactly what I’ve been told not to do. Learning which of those ‘lessons’ to heed and which to ignore is mind-boggling. And all too often it depends on who the reader is at any given point.

I’m waiting for a final read of my current thesis novel draft by my academic advisor. Which broken or misunderstood rule(s) will she hone in on? If it’s the same ones picked out by other readers, I guess I need to pay attention. But what of those oddities noted by one reader but not another? I have a number of those issues as well. I thought I had learned to be discerning in my acceptance of critique, but once again my confidence is faltering. I don’t trust my talent enough. I don’t give enough weight to the skill I’ve gained in thirty-plus years of writing. I don’t believe in myself, especially when someone whom I consider to be an authority disagrees with me. Even though sometimes, deep down, I think I might be right.

Who is the narrator of my novel? I thought I was, as the omniscient overseer of my fantasy world. If not, then the voices in my head have some ‘splaining to do…and I hope they do it soon.

2010-04-22T11:40:00.000-04:00

Finale, and a new beginning?

It’s all over but the shouting. My thesis novel is on its way to my advisor for final review. After twenty months of intense concentration, my journey as a formal student of academia is nearing an end. I continue to nourish dreams of further study in philosophy, and possibly more in literature, but the aggregate of my outstanding student loans stops me cold. It’s time to leave my studies and face the real world, to find a job or sell a book so I can claim actual income which, as we all know, is the only measure of validity in our materialistic society.

I mentioned the ivory tower dream in an email to a recruiter a few days; she hasn’t responded. I hope she understood my point. In writing, I am free to be whatever or whoever I am at any particular moment in time. It is my escape, and my salvation. But life demands more than personal fulfillment. We have rent to pay (or a mortgage?!), food to buy, the IRS to appease. So it’s time to face reality, and the dim prospect of finding employment in a depressed job market.

While my dream has long been to make a living with my writing, I am slowly learning that even stellar prose (which I hope mine will be considered, someday!) is not enough to attract an agent or publisher. Writers are now expected to be marketing experts as well. A friend and I attended the Mad Anthony Writers Conference in Hamilton, Ohio, last weekend (kudos to the conference team!), and while most of the sessions were entertaining and informative, several of them were downright depressing. A query to an agent or publisher is now expected to include a ‘platform’ and a marketing plan for how the proposed work will be sold, and to whom. Not that many years ago, it was enough to mention the expected niche market and identify potential readers en masse. Now it seems writers must provide websites, blogs, email distribution lists – the larger the better – and detailed plans for how and where their book will be sold. And I am sorry folks, but that is not my forté; I am a writer. That’s why I turn to agents, editors and publishers – the experts in those fields, or so I assumed.

But we all know where ‘assume’ gets us.

I understand the budget constraints of the industry; I really do. We’re all trying to do more with less. I have no problem whatsoever being a part of the team that sells my work. But I am at a loss when I come up against the current expectations I heard repeatedly at the conference (not to pick on Mad Anthony – I hear the same thing elsewhere these days). Consider this awkward analogy: would you hire a carpenter to build a house, bringing with her the necessary skills and tools to do the job expertly, and then also demand that she design the plans, obtain the necessary permits, provide the materials, and hold the open house? Of course not; those things are the job of a general contractor, i.e., a publisher or agent, in tandem with the craftsman.

If I were interested in self-publishing and all the marketing efforts required by such a move, that is the direction I would take. I am not. I know my skills and I know my limitations. I am not a salesman. I have no formal training in marketing and distribution. And it makes sense to me that, if a writer spends so much time developing that platform and maintaining a website and finding a market and promoting the final product, duties that one would think and agent and publisher would be doing, that said writer would have much less time to actually write the product that earns the income shared by all those participants in the long run.

I’m probably getting myself blacklisted all over the industry with this rant, but there must be a middle ground. Are there truly no agents or publishers out there who would rather see their writers at work on the next great novel instead of fumbling their way through marketing and distribution channels the agents and publishers already know – or should know? I mean seriously, isn’t that the area of expertise for them?

Let’s each concentrate on what we do best, whether it’s writing, marketing, publishing or selling. Yes, we should overlap and help each other out; that’s called teamwork. We can all accomplish more that way. But to ignore a well-written novel (or poem, or short story…) because it doesn’t come with a prepackaged marketing plan? Who does that benefit?

I don’t expect anyone to write my novel for me; in return, please don’t ask me to take on the job of the other experts on my team. Yes, I would love to remain in my ivory tower, toiling over the keyboard by candlelight (you know what I mean!). But when my book is finished, ready for exposure to the world, I will be out there with the rest of the team, following their expert advice on where to be and what to do to gain the most exposure for the product on which we all hope to earn a decent return. I am directionally challenged at best; please don’t send me out into the unfamiliar world of marketing and distribution without an experienced guide!

2010-04-02T14:06:00.000-04:00

A week of procrastination ended with this from the Southampton Writers Conference
Back to work!

2010-03-07T12:41:00.000-05:00

Think on these things...

My mind can’t seem to let go of the issues raised by my last post. Why do authors feel the need to write, and readers the urge to read, stories of graphic violence, inhumanity, torture and humiliation? What is there in the dark recesses of the human mind that gravitates to such topics to the point that such stories make it to print, apparently to avidly-waiting audiences?

For many years I have pointedly avoided most ‘based-on-a-true story,’ made for television movies because of their single-minded focus on personal violation or pain of one sort or another. To me, that is not entertainment by any stretch of the imagination. I read, I go to movies, I watch television (albeit rarely for the last two) to escape, to be entertained or informed, to forget the horrors of real life that are paraded on 24/7 news channels. I don’t need authors or movie makers to tell me that mankind continues to inflict unspeakable horrors on other human beings, or on animals for that matter. I know that; I share the pain of that reality every day. Why does our society seem so intent on wallowing in such grotesqueness?

I love to read mystery novels, but pointing out there is a dead body in the next room is a far cry from the graphic close-ups of CSI and its many off-spring, each pushing to outdo the other with ever more violent and bloody means of dispatch. As I mentioned last week, I was half-way through Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, geek that I am rather enjoying his incorporation of computer sleuthing in the intricate mystery he was weaving, when I was confronted with multiple graphic rape scenes, horrific serial killings, and torture. I set the book aside in disgust for several days before forcing myself to try again to find a kernel of redemption in the story that would justify the accolades his writing has received. I found the same issue with Reggie Nadelson’s Artie Cohen mysteries – they are awash in graphic death, including dismemberment of children. Much of what comes out of Hollywood is no better. My husband and I tried to watch the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire and were horrified by the vicious torture scenes. We stopped trying to understand when they turned to the mutilation of children. This is quality film making?

What I find most disturbing about these and myriad other popular novels and movies, next to the notion that the audience for such material is apparently large and growing, is that they all begin with a writer who imagines such atrocities, creating those worlds of terror on paper. Language is too beautiful, too powerful, too all-pervasive to be used for such base means. Each of the novels and movies I referenced could have been told without the gratuitous and nauseating scenes, and the impact of the story would not have been lessened.

Lest I be accused of condoning censorship, that is not my case at all. My concern, as a writer, is at the creative level. I love language, the sound of words, the rhythm of a well-crafted phrase, the subtle twist of meaning in a skillfully constructed paragraph. I work very hard at my craft, striving to created stories that are intelligent, meaningful and entertaining. Where is the answer to this disconnect I face in relating to those who produce work that dehumanizes individuals, debases life, and glorifies violence?

Buddha said, “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” I would extend that to the words we write and share as well. Why would I want to share anything less than beautiful?

Read On...An Excerpt from The Case for Contests by Jacob M. Appel at Gotham Writers' Workshops and WritingClasses.com

2010-02-25T15:19:00.001-05:00

Read On...An Excerpt from The Case for Contests by Jacob M. Appel at Gotham Writers' Workshops and WritingClasses.com

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2010-02-25T13:00:00.001-05:00

I attended a new writers group Tuesday (thanks again for inviting me!) and it was an interesting evening. It’s always nice to reconnect with former writing friends, hear what they’ve been up to since we last met. But the new acquaintances were most intriguing. Warning: the names have been changed to protect the innocent! As noted in a previous blog, I struggle with relating a story that is not mine alone to tell.

Samuel started the session with a wonderfully descriptive excerpt from a larger piece. The other members had the advantage of knowing the story from earlier readings, but we all agreed his writing is well done. I was impressed with his ability to provide physical, background description so vividly that the scenes come to life in my mind. That’s something I have never mastered.

Although to some in the group, such effort is overdone. Interesting that is was a gender divide. The women loved the language; the men felt it was unnecessary and detracted from the flow of action. As I’ve considered his work in the days since, and discussed it with other writer friends, I think I lean toward a division of personal preference, not sex. Some of us love visuals; others prefer action. No right or wrong here!

The most difficult reading of the evening was the final one, given by Fred. Again, the others in the group had heard pieces of the story before, so they had more of a context for what I found to be disturbingly graphic. We ran out of time for the extended discussion the piece provoked – and warranted – and some of the talk spilled over to our walk to the parking lot after we broke up. Fred seemed focused on, “But did it hold your interest?” He asked me that several times as my answers evaded a direct response. I’ve thought about this encounter quite a bit since Tuesday and think I am finally ready to offer a more nuanced answer.

Yes, Fred, it held my interest – much like a train wreck would. I was horrified, but compelled to listen, praying for some sort of redemption. Was it really necessary to tell that story in such painful detail? If so, if it truly serves the piece as a whole, if your intent was to shock the reader into paying attention to what will be a larger message of overriding importance, then I’m okay with that. I would not read it, but there are lots of literary works I will not read. I nearly stopped halfway through Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for that very reason; I plowed through, looking for that redemption, and found it – barely. I will not read the sequel. Again, personal preference, and certainly no right or wrong.

But if you wrote such cruel descriptions of disembowelment and violation simply for the ‘eeww’ factor, I would be heartily disappointed. Your obvious appreciation for the craft of writing is not well-served by such base motivations. Granted, we only met once, for two short hours, but I hold out hope that the larger message is there, yet to be discovered. I will make every effort to stay with you long enough to find it.

2010-02-18T22:06:00.003-05:00

Mechanical priorities

What a roller coaster week! It started out with two rejections, one explicit, one by default (no news, in the case of a writing contest, is definitely not good news) which left me feeling pretty low. I spent the next few days struggling to prioritize my work and to find the motivation to tackle the necessary rewrites.

Rejection number one was a short story written several years ago and I thought it was pretty good. I revised it while in the midst of the adrenaline-rush after finishing last summer’s Antioch Writers Workshop and sent it out, with three other pieces, to various markets. Every one has now been returned. I’m left with confusion over how and where to resubmit, or if I even should. Toss these old things a file and move on to something new or keep trying? A couple of them are iffy, granted, but I see much worse items published every day. For now, I’m setting them aside.

Priorities.

A personal essay I had been so pleased with when I first wrote it last fall (rejection number two) benefitted from some trimming, some additions, and a general tightening of focus. It’s better now, I hope, but I’ve forced myself to set it aside for a few days before a final reading and resubmission. My AWW writers group has been very complimentary of this piece, so I have high hopes for it. The difficult part at this point will be deciding where to send it. Entry in a contest with a monetary prize and publication in a little-known journal, or a try for acceptance in a more prestigious outlet with a greater chance of rejection?

Priorities.

Then there’s my thesis novel. Yuck. I’m at the point where I don’t even want to look at it anymore. I’ve been ignoring it for several weeks now, waiting for a couple of new readers to comment on the completed draft, but it’s time to stop procrastinating. I went back through the chapter outline and realized what a mess it is. Scene flow, chapter breaks…the longer I look at it, the more confused I become. After a bit of shuffling, consolidation and deletion, it was better, or so I thought. I sent it to my mentor for review and she came back with a list of pointed – and difficult – questions about my characters that I’m having trouble answering.

Today, after making the adjustments I noted on the outline, I took out all the chapter numbers. I want to see where story wants to break, not where I think it should. My characters have shown me the way before; I trust they will do so again, if I will let them. As for the mentor questions, I’m going to sleep on it.

Priorities.

....Addendum:

So after I posted the above, I realized my overly-active pessimism had taken hold and wiped out the memory of two very exciting opportunities which came my way today. I hesitate to say more at this point (see pessimism note!) but once everything is settled, I'll be happy share. In the meantime, just trust me and share my joy. Thanks!

2010-02-11T11:41:00.001-05:00

Between a rock and a scary place

A writer friend and I agreed to enter the Cup of Comfort for Couples contest, writing a brief story about our marriages and critiquing each other before submission. We figured it would be a good exercise if nothing else.

What I found when I tried it was surprising. I started with a gentle humor, celebrating my husband, and ended up reliving emotional baggage that he has tried desperately to help me jettison for the past thirty-five years. Where did all that come from?

I also ran head-on into another issue that I’ve been avoiding. How do I write about myself, my life, without harming those I love, or at least those with whom I’ve come into contact? My story is not just my own; it is often theirs as well. There are parts of my life I will never write about, never share, because the other people involved in those incidents deserve their privacy. It is not mine to invade or to air publicly.

Ralph Keyes addressed this issue at length in his wonderful The Courage to Write. I disagree with many of the writers he references, including William Faulkner, who said, “A writer’s only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one.” Faulkner’s pointed comments, and others like them, weigh heavily. Is my writing dull and lifeless because I allow what he calls my “censor-in-chief” to edit my words for fear of offending? Am I being less than true to myself, and to reality, by shielding those stories from the light of day? Keyes admits he sticks mostly to non-fiction because of the fear that “fiction might lead me into dark caves I’m hesitant to explore.” So I’m stuck? Which is worse…avoiding sensitive topics out of respect for others or bad writing that ignores truth?

Fellow writers, what say ye?

2010-01-29T15:26:00.002-05:00

Hard as it is for me to believe, I have made it all the way through my novel – rewriting, editing, slashing and adding – in just under a month. I’m not yet convinced that is a good thing. I am fortunate to have a dedicated core of writer companions who are prepared to read those 163 pages and give me an honest evaluation before I even look at the draft again. I’m still considering an additional scene with Gordon and Evelyn, and maybe another ‘Ah-ha!’ moment for Toni on the true definition of family, but for now, I need to step back.

The universe also very kindly provided me with a desperately needed Hungarian translator. I have a smattering of Hungarian dialogue in my book, mostly for effect, but the final revelation for Toni also depends on the language, and I want it to be portrayed accurately. Turns out a gentleman who purchased my Historic Warren County, and who has become a sort of email pen pal (is that possible?), is fluent in the language, has the proper equipment to type the foreign digraphs, and has been kind enough to offer to review my efforts. Synchronicity in action!

So for the next week or so (if I can force myself not to give in and return to the draft), I will work on other projects. Most urgently, I have a lengthy program evaluation paper due tomorrow (1/30) for my grad school program. I’ve taken on a publicity campaign for a new community park in Lebanon, Ohio, working with a delightful 90-plus year old woman whose family originally owned the land. I have several things outstanding for the Museum that I really need to spend some time on, and as much as I hate to think about it, it’s tax time. All those things, plus an extended break to read a few things from my waiting stack of books, should keep me occupied. Of course, I can always be interrupted if someone needs a lunch date…

2010-01-20T16:02:00.001-05:00

Why I Write

In the course of an in-depth discussion on revision techniques, how many readers to have during editing stages, etc., one of my writers’ group friends asked a general question of all of us: Why do you write?

I write to tell a story, to entertain (fiction in general). I write to present and then solve a puzzle, to cause that “Ah-ha!” moment (mysteries). I write to evoke a mood, to share an experience, to vent, to argue a point, to persuade (essays). I write to share things I have learned, to offer fresh insight to age-old problems, to reframe old arguments into new ways of finding common ground (academia). I write to clarify my thoughts, to find my way through the maze of life, to find answers, or at least to better understand the questions (blog, journal, ramblings like this one). I write to celebrate language, the rhythm of words, the nuance of meaning, the exactness of a well-chosen phrase. And, yes, I write in hope of someday finding a publisher who feels my words are worth wider distribution and – ta dah! – payment.

I write because I have no better way to express the churning thoughts which fill my mind. The blank page is my friend when I need to communicate. I don’t speak well; my mind too often goes blank when I’m in conversation, whether it be with one person or a dozen, and I can’t seem to follow my ideas to a logical conclusion. There is no ‘delete’ button when I talk, no find-and-replace for the mischosen word.

During my current graduate school program, where I am pursuing a master of arts degree in creative writing, my faculty advisor, my mentor, and at least one professor have asked me variations of that question: Why do you write? One of them asked, “If you were stranded on a desert island with a stack of blank paper and a pen, knowing full well no one would ever see the results, would you still write?” That brought me up short for sometime; my rote answer to the other unanswerable question in my life, “What will you do with your degree?” has been to make a living with my writing. But as I continue my studies, and my writing, I realize that while earning an income with my words would be wonderful, it is no longer the driving force behind my efforts.

I write because I must. It is the fulfillment of my nature, my potential. I am a writer.

2010-01-16T10:23:00.000-05:00

Rough week - started really well, fizzled into nothingness.

I was feeling pretty good about my progress Monday and updated my Facebook status to read: “Well, 86 rewritten/edited pages, just under 25,000 words - not too bad for a week's work, assuming the words themselves aren't too bad! Onward...”

After dreaming about Toni and company all night, I went back to the manuscript Tuesday morning and ran a Find & Replace search on some problem words that came to mind. I found 23 occurrences of ‘finally,’ 38 of ‘then,’ and lots of things getting ‘dark,’ ‘darkening,’ and ‘darker’ while people keep shaking their heads. Far too many exclamation points, too – thank you, email/texting/chat/Facebook.

Wonder what other pet phrases I’m missing?

I’m gathering tonight with some dear gal pals for reconnection and inspiration. Here’s hoping for a better start and finish next week.

2010-01-09T20:07:00.001-05:00

“As far as how much you are putting into this story, you already wrote the manuscript...to my limited knowledge that is the hard part.....editing is the last road of the journey.”

Thought-provoking words from one of my strongest cheerleaders, my father, in response to my musings yesterday about the relative ease thus far of the long-anticipated rewriting. How does one explain the writing process to someone who has never experienced its highs and lows, its joys and frustrations? I’m going to make the effort, as much for my benefit as his. The unexamined life and all…

Contrary to his contention, telling (writing) a story is the easy part, relatively speaking. We all have stories in us that we love to share. Putting them down on paper requires the commitment to see them through from start to finish. The manuscript currently under construction was written in a month-long marathon. Not recommended as a practice, at least in my estimation, but the exercise had a purpose. The daily word count required to meet the deadline required me to turn off the internal editor that often impedes that initial process. Instead of fretting over the exact word choice or the most finely-tuned phrase, I was able to push through and construct a story arc, adding characters and settings, and ending up with a complete story with a start and an end. My apologies to the post-modernists who don’t believe such constructions are necessary. I don’t care for their creations any more than they would care for mine.

So, after the bare bones of the story are down on paper, the much more difficult process of rewriting and editing begins…if an author wants the story to be worth reading. That is the stage at which I find myself with this current novel. The characters are there; the plot begins, develops, climaxes, and ends (sort of). But it is rough, very rough, and inconsistent and jagged and deadly dull in parts. I need to smooth out those rough edges, tie up loose ends, bring dates and timelines and descriptions into a semblance of order and, with any luck, along the way add enough interest and tension and description and maybe a bit of humor to keep a reader sufficiently involved to stick with me until the end.

Is rewriting the easy part, as Dad suggests? Not really. But neither is the initial story line, if I am completely honest with myself and with my readers. It is dreadfully easy to get lost in a maze of minutiae that is incoherent and bland, with no plot to speak of and nothing to compel a reader to turn the page. Unfortunately, books like that get published – I’ve read them! My goal is to create something that Dad, and maybe someone with no sentimental attachment, will actually enjoy reading and, as any good author hopes, make them want to open the book and start reading again after savoring the last page.

2010-01-08T16:42:00.001-05:00

And we’re off!

Seventeen pages of rewrites Wednesday, which sounds like an awful lot, until I realize those pages were all workshopped and edited and fussed over repeatedly in the past several months. They shouldn’t need much more.

But I have found a new story line that needs to be inserted, a couple of new scenes to write, and deleted two characters entirely, so I guess that’s progress.

Thursday: Only two pages so far, but it’s an entirely new storyline (sort of) in an added scene. Plus LOTS of distractions made for a short work day…I know, no excuse!

Friday: Twelve pages today, thirty-one pages for the week (ok, three days…) and nine chapters total. Two new scenes, a growing complication that also – I hope – explains Toni’s motivations. Not bad for the first week out, I suppose.

For some reason I feel strangely uneasy with my progress. Isn’t this supposed to be more difficult? Am I fooling myself, and coasting? Where’s the labored, “This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back in again,” variously attributed to Oscar Wilde and others? Not that it’s been a breeze. I still agonize over my word choices, second-guess my sentence structure and obsess over all the little critique comments I’ve received (…she sighed regretfully). But this rewriting/editing thing is actually moving along pretty well. Knock window, cross my fingers, jump over the crack in my desk – we’ll see what next week brings!