Creative Fallout

A New Year, A New Blog

2007-12-31T10:00:00.000-05:00

I have moved. I needed more flexibility over the design and I really really wanted those tabs and extra pages. Please visit my new blog at www.kimhaasdesign.wordpress.com and when you have a chance please update your blogroll if needed.

Thanks so much and happy new year!

2008 TBR Book Challenge

2007-12-30T19:35:00.000-05:00

I am signing up for this book challenge. Below are some of the books that have been on my bookshelf for at least six months (some six years!) and this is the year I will read at least twelve of them.

Here we go:

1. "Paint It Black" by Janet Fitch ( I have no idea why this is still sitting unread. I love her writing and I heard her give an amazing reading from the book. This will be numero uno.)
2. "Rabbit Punches" stories by Jason Ockert
3. "Wintering a novel of Sylvia Plath" by Kate Moses
4. "Embers" by Sandor Marai which I received during my writing group book exchange two years ago and we only give books we love so there must be a reason I have it.
5. "The Untelling" by Tayari Jones
6. "What You have Left" by Will Allison
7. "All This Heavenly Glory" by Elizabeth Crane
8. "Bear and His Daughters" stories by Robert Stone
9. "The Name of the World" by Denis Johnson
10. "Red Ant House" stories by Ann Cummins
11. "Mariette in Ecstasy" by Ron Hansen
12. "Palm Latitudes" by Kate Braverman

Alternates:
1. "Strange But True" by John Searles
2. "The Language of Elk" by Benjamin Percy
3. "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh my Darling" by Maura Stanton
4. "In my Sister's Country" by Lisa Haines
5. "The Center of Winter" by Marya Hornbacher
6. "Pastoralia" by George Saunders
7. "Girls in the Grass" by Melanie Rae Thon
8. "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" by Michael Chabon
9. "Everything is Illuminated" by Jonathon Safran Foer
10. "How the Universe Got Its Spots" by Janna Levin and the only non-fiction in the bunch
11. "The Secret Goldfish" by David Means
12. "The Speed of Dark" by Elizabeth Moon

I also plan on doing much much more writing this year so we'll see how this goes since the more I write my own stories, the less I read other's.

Yesterday

2007-12-29T08:47:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I:

- meditated for five minutes (start small)
- wrote morning pages
- worked out for 50 minutes
- went to Barnes & Noble. Had a green tea soy latte and wrote about six pages including a new scene for chapter two of my novel.
- bought:
• 2 magazines (one writing a done yoga- I am a magazine junkie)
• 3 books
- "Triangle" a novel by Katherine Weber about the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in 1911
- "You're Not You" a novel by Michelle Wildgen, senior editor at Tin House
- "Rabbit, Run" and "Rabbit Redux" by, of course, John Updike. I have never read any of these books. I find that amazing. How have they never crossed my reading path? "Rabbit , Run" is the next in "Master Class in Fiction Writing" by Adam Sexton. It studies description.
- "to-do list- From buying milk to Finding a soul Mate, What Our Lists Reveal About Us" by Sasha Cagen. I already finished this at about 12:18 last night. I love lists. I love reading other people's lists. It's so voyeuristic. An entire life can be revealed in lists. It gave me many ideas for lists of my own such as "Why I love Lists" but I guess I'll save that for another post.
- went to Target to use a gift card. Ended up buying a heart rate monitor that calculates calories burned
- got groceries
- got a loaf of good whole grain bread from Panera (our third since Christmas Eve- the stuff is addicting.) Tonight I am roasting garlic in the oven and mixing it with some olive oil and cheese, spreading it on the yummy bread and toasting it to complement spaghetti and turkey meatballs.
- made a big pot of homemade vegetable soup which is perfect for lunch today and dinner tomorrow

All in all a lovely, productive, soothing kind of day.

The Day After...

2007-12-26T08:56:00.000-05:00

The tree looks scrawny this morning. It's fake so it didn't lose its needles overnight or anything. Just all the anticipation. All the preparation. All the company. It's over and there is some relief in that but also this sense of being let down and now what? I'm used to this feeling though. It happens every year. I will spend the day cleaning and clearing. Making room for the new "stuff". Getting back into a semi-normal routine. Not hitting the stores today. I am so shopped out. Every year I think there must be another way to do this holiday.

Here's what's been happening this last month:

Good news- I lost nine pounds using www.sparkpeople.com since November and kept it off during the holidays. I worked out almost everyday which was the key I think.

Saw two great movies with my mom while she was here. "Juno" and "P.S. I love You". "Juno" was the better of the two. I will be buying that one when it comes out. It is just so well written.

I read "The Other Boleyn Girl" which is not my usual cup of tea but I got totally sucked into it. I'd been having trouble finding a good book to lose myself in. I started The End of the World as We Know It: Scenes from a Life by Robert Goolrick and was happily zipping along, fascinated by this quirky southern family and then it got dark. And darker. And I just didn't want to be in a dark place. So I put it down and picked up "The Other Boleyn Girl" and couldn't put it down. I became totally absorbed in this other world and time. It was a good lesson in plotting and throwing obstacles in the way over and over again and in what a character wants an how far she'll go to get it. And now I see it will be a movie soon. Excellent...

Just finished "A Student of Living Things." Another good lesson in plotting. Just a good story set in post 9-11 Washington DC where pockets of violence erupt sporadically and how a family, specifically a sister deals with an unexpected tragedy.

Now I am reading "The Principles of Uncertainty" which is a journal illustrating and writing one year in a life. It's giving me some great ideas for my own visual journals. Quite captivating.

I am also reading the Winter Fiction issue of "The New Yorker." I'm in the middle of the correspondence between Raymond Carver and Gordon Lish. Fascinating...

Coming up:
- creative revolutions instead of resolutions
- books to be read for a book challenge I found in the blog world

Five...uh, I Mean, Six Reasons I'm a Strong writer

2007-11-30T15:56:00.000-05:00

I forgot I got tagged for this meme, so here goes:

5 Reasons I'm a Strong Writer:
1. I've taught myself without the benefit of a MFA or even a Bachelors. I discovered I wanted to write after I went to art school so I'm doing it the old fashioned way- lots of writing and lots of reading. I go to conferences, classes, and am in a writing group. I feel like I have to really want it and really work for it at this stage in my life without the luxury of three years of uninterrupted time to focus on the craft. Instead I've always had to fit it into my real life which is what all writers need to do eventually.

2. I work on my stories. It's not uncommon for me to revise a story ten times before submitting the "first" draft to my writing group. I've revised stories twenty to twenty-five times before submitting them to journals. I'll play with structure. Try new beginnings. Different POV. I'm not afraid to completely tear a story apart and put it back together.

3. I keep my options open with regards to projects. I have several going at any given time at various stages. When I need a break from one I can hop onto another.

4. I'm willing, even eager, to be surprised by my writing. I use writing practice to let my mind wander into the depths of the story or character. I'm willing to fill pages and pages with scenes that spill from me during a session but don't feel compelled to shoe horn them into the story just because I wrote it.

5. I love stories. I love reading stories and always have. I read for pleasure, I read to learn. I read in amazement and am thrilled when I come across a book or sentence that I feel is brilliant. I am not intimidated, instead I am inspired. I read with a pen in my head to mark sentences that move me. I read with a pen in hand to dissect a story to learn the craft of writing. I read to lose myself and on my ideal days I lose myself in my own writing.

6. And one more... I almost wrote I am not afraid of what I may discover about myself when I write. That's not true. I am afraid at times, but I do it anyway. I show up anyway and that's what courage is, showing up in spite of the fear.

And there you have thirty straight days of posts from me. I'm impressed...

A Few of My Favorite things

2007-11-29T20:54:00.000-05:00

It seems like I hear this song a dozen times a day so I may as well use it to inspire a post here.

These are a few of my favorite things:
- reading in bed after I wake up in the morning
- clean, crisp sheets
- bare trees etched against a blue sky
- the smell of coffee (but I don't like the taste)
- A soy chai and pumpkin scone from Starbucks
- watching my cats play
- decorating the house for Christmas
- taking the decorations down
- unexpectedly finding new books that I want to read at the library
- sunflowers
- finding the perfect word, verb, phrase, metaphor in my writing
- a good glass of red wine
- discovering a new writer
- the smell of brownies or chocolate chip cookies
- staring at a campfire
- browsing an independent bookstore. this is still my favorite.

Amused by the Muses

2007-11-28T21:26:00.000-05:00

Our icicle Christmas lights are lit and dangling from the eaves outside my window. They've been up for over a week but we didn't turn them on until tonight. I really need one holiday to be over before I start with the next one.

Here is a website I enjoy. Her book "The Nine Modern Day Muses" never fails to inspire me. Actually I love anything to do with the Muses whether it's a "Charmed" episode or the movie with Sharon Stone or fables, stories and collages. I bought nine small canvases at one point and started collecting Muse ephemera to create a series of collages devoted to them. I can put that on my project list for next year. Instead of resolutions that always sound so, well, resolute, maybe I'll make a list of creative endeavors for the coming year. That sounds fun. In fact, if it isn't fun it can't go on my list. Look for this list in an upcoming post.

My Own Personal Bookstore

2007-11-27T20:46:00.000-05:00

I had a coupon for 40% off a book today so, of course, I had to use it. But as I browsed the shelves, for once I didn't feel an urgent need to buy a book. Not one for me anyway. I thought of all the books I have at home and it is seriously like browsing through a bookstore around here. Any book mood I may be in is more than likely covered: novel, short story, memoir, classic, essays, science/physics. All right here within the walls of my own home.

I ended up using the coupon to buy a Christmas present for my godson. I mean 40% off- you gotta use it one way or another.

Reading with Pen in Hand

2007-11-26T12:58:00.000-05:00

Outside my window fat flakes of snow are falling. It looks like a snow globe out there.

I finished "The Best Place to Be" by Lesley Dormen. It is a novel-in-stories. I didn't realize it but I had read several of the stories already. I guess in literary journals or on-line perhaps. Anyway, the stories are strong, honest, funny, bitter. There were some lines that just made me gasp at the raw honesty exposed. It gave me some ideas about my own novel-in-stories. Mine spans a wider range of years and I've been writing it chronologically. But hers is not set up that way which is interesting and yet you still get the full arc of Grace's life. Each story kind of bleeds into the next. And each one echoes a previous story although not necessarily the one right before it. This is one I'll be reading again with a pen in hand this time.

A Gentle Meandering

2007-11-25T20:14:00.000-05:00

I'm finding myself browsing through books I've read before on creativity. On writing. On inspiration. Motivation. Between the short days and early darkness and the holidays I find myself sinking into a kind of creative lethargy. It's okay for now. All cycles need waxing and waning. Ups and downs. Usually the ups and downs feel like a rollercoaster and I am just holding on for dear life. But it feels different now. Less frantic. More a gentle meandering through my creative process. I had planned on working on the collage for our Christmas cards this year but the day kind of slipped away from me with long phone calls with family and friends. Then some shopping. Then groceries. Then the girls and I settled in and watched a couple of sappy Christmas movies on ABC Family and that's okay. It's been a lovely day. For once I am not beating myself up over not doing what I had planned on doing. There's time. As much as these short days like us to think otherwise, there is time.

A Bit of Inspiration

2007-11-24T22:10:00.000-05:00

Here are some of my favorite, inspiring quotes on writing and the creative process:

"The universe is made up of stories, not atoms." - Muriel Rukeyser

"Artistic growth is more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness. The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is." - Willa Cather

"I suppose I have written novels to find out what I thought about something, and poems to find out what I felt about something." - May Sarton

"To express the emotions of life is to live. To express the life of emotions is to make art." - Jane Heap

"You don not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet." - Franz Kafka

Observe Instead of Retreat

2007-11-23T16:29:00.000-05:00

I am sitting in my office and it is 4:54. The light is quickly fading. Long inky clouds stretch across the horizon, halos of peach feathering at the edges. It feels like I can see the sun setting before me eyes. Why am I always surprised when the days get shorter and shorter and darker and darker? It's not like it's a new phenomenon. It happens every winter and yet I am still amazed when I am sitting in complete darkness at 5:30. The trick now is to use these dark, short days to fuel my creativity in a new direction instead of letting it hibernate for the winter.

I find myself restless in the evenings. I feel like I should be in bed when it is only 7:30 at night. Instead of retreating this seems like a great opportunity to just observe my process and how it relates to nature and the seasons and the light and the dark.

Nina Bagley reflects on how the seasons effect her creative process here.

And the Next Book Is...

2007-11-22T17:28:00.000-05:00

So I settled on "The Best Place To Be" by Lesley Dormen. I think I first read her in "The Atlantic Monthly" and now she has this collection of linked stories out. It's about a woman at all the different stages of her life which is similar to the project I am working on that I recently put on hold. It will be good to read it while I am not actively working on my own novel-in-stories.

The Thanksgiving feast has been eaten, the dishes done, dessert still to come, the sun has set and there is a dusting of snow, just enough to make it all pretty but blades of grass still poke through. What's not to be thankful for?

Book After Book

2007-11-21T22:16:00.000-05:00

I finished "The Kite Runner" today. It really was hard to put down. I loved getting a glimpse into a totally different culture, especially one that we are so at odds with. The story reveals the beauty and flaws that are inherent in being human, regardless of where we live, whom we pray to or don't. A couple of parts seemed a little convenient to the plot but mostly I got lost in the story, in the characters, the settings and in the sentences.

Now it's time to pick a new book to (hopefully) get lost in. I have a few in mind. I need to browse the first few pages and see which one grabs me.

Today I...

2007-11-20T22:51:00.000-05:00

Read:
1. "The Kite Runner" - more than half way through. It's hard to put down.
2. The second chapter of my novel.

Wrote:
1. morning pages
2. a freewrite which may end up in my novel
3. in my writing process journal
4. a writing practice that will more than likely end up being a scene in my novel

Back in the Submitting Game

2007-11-19T20:06:00.000-05:00

Now I remember why I stopped sending stories out. You know, besides staggering under the barrage of constant rejection. It is so time consuming. There are five 9" x 12" envelopes sitting on my desk, addressed to the editors of some very prestigious journals (may as well aim high). I've easily put in seven hours to get to this point and they aren't even mailed yet. But really, seven hours. Between researching which journals are accepting stories at this time and making sure I am within their word count and writing the cover letters and addressing envelopes and getting the stories copied. Well, yes, seven hours sounds about right. And I even had my daughter re-type my cover letters after they sat on my desk and their dates were almost a month earlier than the post date would be and we can't have these editors thinking that I am a procrastinator or anything and then I couldn't find the letters on the computer. I didn't save them? Seriously? So my daughter typed them in and I can imagine a time when I will happily surrender to the services of an assistant of some kind who will handle all this business side of the craft.

Where I Create

2007-11-18T17:27:00.000-05:00

Where I write...

Where I design...

Where I collage...

A Change of Scenery

2007-11-17T23:15:00.000-05:00

I've changed projects. The story I meant to have ready for workshop this Sunday just didn't come together. At all. In fact, I'm not even sure there is a story in there. At all. So I began digging through all the binders and folders in my closet and came across the novel I wrote in thirty days last September. I read the first chapter and I fell in love with the characters all over again. I felt that if I browsed that chapter on-line or in a bookstore I would want to buy the book. And isn't that the kind of book I should write? The kind I want to read?

I'm feeling some guilt over letting my other project go for a while. Especially since my writing goals for the year revolved around this novel-in-stories, revising each one month by month until I had a finished draft ready to submit to an agent by the end of the year. Well. It is almost the end of the year. I've made a lot of progress but it is not done. And I felt totally stuck. So I am giving myself some space. That's always a hard call. Is this the time I should dig in and just write it through no matter what? Am I just being lazy? Afraid? Or am I intuiting the need for some distance from this project? Distance that will hopefully provide some much needed perspective. I'm going to give myself the benefit of the doubt- for once- and go with the latter.

It's kind of like a clean break-up. We can still be friends. We still are friends. I just need to widen my circle a bit. For now.

Writing Sparks

2007-11-16T19:06:00.000-05:00

If you're ever looking for something to spark your writing day or character or story you might want to check out these two websites:

www.postsecret.blogspot.com

www.foundmagazine.com

They are also available as books.

No Flinching Zone

2007-11-15T18:49:00.001-05:00

The "no flinching zone"- that is where Miranda July creates. I finished her book of short stories last night and will need to read them again in the future. She has this way of looking at her characters in all their beautiful flaws and not judging them. She lets them run around her stories emotionally naked, these complex mixtures of memories and thoughts, flesh and bones. Some moments are disturbing and you read it like you're watching a train wreck, not quite able to look away. But she stays in that moment, and writes her way through it, without flinching.

Then this morning I watched the movie that she starred in, directed and wrote. Yes. She's amazing. The movie was just like her stories. These complex characters bumping into each other emotionally and physically. Some of the lines are laugh out loud funny. A guy just gave his neighbor the family discount on shoes. He says he's working on his karma. "You know what karma is don't you? It means she owes me now." Just as in the book, some moments were just so uncomfortable so I did the movie equivalent of skimming- I fast-forwarded through a couple of scenes.

Besides being a writer (of books and movies), director and actor she is also a performance artist. I am in awe of her creativity. It seems to spill out of her. And she just lets it spill, without ever flinching.

To Buy Books or Not to Buy Books

2007-11-14T21:25:00.000-05:00

I really am making a conscious effort not to buy books. Well, not many books. Not as many as I usually do. Mostly I am not buying fiction. But I did buy some design and creativity books tonight:

1. "Design Basics" by Jim Krause
2. "Creative Sparks" by Jim Krause (whoa- I just realized they are both by the same guy.)
3. "Thinking Creatively- New Ways to Unlock your Visual Imagination" by Robin Landa

Upcoming Projects

2007-11-13T20:14:00.000-05:00

Things to Create
1. First draft of story for Sunday
2. Collage for Christmas cards
3. A low stress, fun holiday
4. A mixed media piece on the old screen door I bought in Arizona
5. A series of mini collages of the nine Muses
6. More visual journaling in my journal
7. A deck of cards with visual and written prompts for creative writing
8. A box for the family to put in what we're thankful for, what we wish for and what our goals are for the coming year
9. A book of collage and stories I wrote that are like modern fairy tales for my daughters
10. A website

Learning the Craft

2007-11-12T19:59:00.000-05:00

Here's a writing practice I did last year but it feels relevant even now.

Writing classes are a way to learn craft. At first I agreed with this. It seems obvious. You take a fiction class and learn the craft. But really it isn't the class that teaches you craft or even the teacher. It is through writing story after story that you learn craft. A class may set up the right parameters for you to produce these stories but you teach yourself craft through each finished story.

Ron Carlson says that your first twenty stories are your apprenticeship. I think he even added your first twenty stories that aren't written for a class. Stories that you write on your own because you need to, not because a teacher is expecting it from you. That is one of the hardest things to learn. Nobody really cares if I write another word ever again. Oh, maybe my best friend who dreams of going on a book tour with me as my manager. But really, nobody really cares. So I have to care. I have to care enough to write a story for myself. not for a teacher. Not for a class. Not for a grade but because I can't not write this story. Then I need to do it again. And again.

Classes are good for company. For companionship on this lonely road we've chosen. But you don't need them to teach you craft. I've often toyed with the idea of entering a low residency MFA program. But I need to use that money for my daughters' college, not for me. And I don't need a degree to write. I don't need a group of twenty somethings picking apart my work until it becomes a bland piece of tofu mfa workshopped story. That's harsh. Not all mfa programs do that. But that is the downside. That is the risk.

All I need to learn the craft of writing is to write and all of the teachers I need are on my bookshelves and the shelves of libraries and bookstores. Writing and reading. Reading and writing. That's the master class we all need. Even an mfa program ends eventually and then you are out there, all alone, once again nobody caring if you write another word and it's all up to you. You do it because you have to. I do it because I have to. I try to do it everyday. It's easier to keep a rocket up in space than it is to relaunch it over and over again. Too much wasted energy. And not only do I have to write but I have to finish what I write. Finish what I start. A bunch of half-assed, half- finished stories won't teach me much of anything. I need to see the completed arc of the story. Or see that there is no arc to my story. I need to write it through to the end to see what I have. To learn what I don't have. To learn what I need. To learn the craft.

Cleansing the (Book) Palate

2007-11-11T11:14:00.001-05:00

I just finished reading "Love in the Time of Cholera", not because it is an Oprah pick since I have had the book on my shelf for many years, but because I want to read the book before I see the movie that comes out this week. I woke up at 9:30 this morning and did one of my favorite things- rolled over and grabbed my glasses, snuggled back under the covers and read for an hour.

Now the last book I read was "The Big Girls" by Susanna Moore. These two books could not be more opposite. THB is set in modern time at a woman's prison in Mew Jersey close to Manahattan and in Hollywood. It covers perhaps the span of a year or so. It is written without chapters, just space breaks. Each space break marks the beginning of new voice narrating his or her story. The prose is bare bones. Brittle but full of life.

LITTOC is set in the Caribbean in the nineteenth century. The book is broken into extremely long chapters and covers over fifty years. The language is lush and told from an omniscient narrator. It was interesting to see how he moved between characters and how he manipulated time. You had to read closely for fear of losing the thread of character and/or time. Even the covers couldn't be more different. TBG is black and white, mirror images of a photo of a key, sans serif type. LITTOC, on the copy I have, is a painting of a nude woman reclined on purple divan, flowers covering her in strategic places, lush foliage surrounding her, warm, bright colors, serif type.

"The Kite Runner" is next on my list but I find I can't rush into another novel. So I am reading "No One Belongs Here More than You" by Miranda July and will watch her movie this weekend. Again, the voice and tone is so opposite of LITTOC, it is like cleansing my palate between books.

Tuned In

2007-11-10T12:13:00.000-05:00

So I woke up this morning after five hours of sleep (I'm a eight-nine hours a night gal) with the first sentence of this story in my head. This story that I have been stuck on. So I lay there thinking I've only had five hours of sleep. I need to go back to sleep. But once I got the first sentence then came the first paragraph. Well. I can't just ignore this little gift, can I? So I hauled myself out of bed, down to my computer and wrote for an hour. Yay me!

I'm not the kind of person who needs the ultimate perfect first sentence before I can proceed with a piece. But I do need a first sentence that propels me into the voice, character and story. I now have that. Before she was in a grocery store and had to get to the airport. Most of the current story takes place at the airport bar so I just plopped her right at the airport bar, right off the bat.

This creativity buzz I have going on must be a direct result of blogging everyday this month. Whatever you turn your attention to, increases. I have tuned into my creative process and it is rewarding me with this renewed energy and focus.

Oh, and I did crawl back into bed and sleep for another two hours this morning. Now I get to go watch my daughter shop with all her birthday money and gift cards.

Creative Homework

2007-11-09T21:40:00.001-05:00

First things First
Happy Birthday to my daughter. She is fourteen today. As I type this ten girls are down in the basement singing "Breakaway" on the Play Station version of American Idol. She made a nine layer, three tier cake- all by herself, covered in fondant. It's a work of art. One of her friends commented that it looks like it belongs in a Dr. Seuss book- it's fun and whimsical, just like Katie.

And here's the card I made her...

Something in the Air
There's this creative energy pulsing all around me today. Everywhere I turn there's something I see or read that sparks something in me. I read the latest issue of "Somerset Studio." I love getting a peek into the creative process of all artists, not just writers. Sometimes especially not writers since it gives me a glimpse into a way of seeing that I don't normally get. The featured artist taught herself to draw the human figure by taking life drawing classes. She now draws on her own everyday from a pile of magazines, giving herself 6o seconds each to draw all the figures in each issue. I loved doing those kinds of gesture drawings in art school. I loved the looseness. How you weren't expected to create a photo image likeness- just the gesture of the pose. I think of writing practice like that. I choose a topic and write on it for three pages. No wrong way to do it. Just a way to see how my mind works. See the gesture of my mind in a particular moment.

I'm so impressed by her dedication. She is anxious to get to her studio. She tries to carve out two 12 hour days a week. She is in love with the process. I think I have lost that feeling lately. I've been so focused on showing up to my story and writing something, anything, just to keep the thread of it going but is merely showing up enough? I thought it was. Maybe it was enough at some point but not any longer. Now I am longing for something more intimate than just putting in my time. I need to find some practices that make me yearn to get to my studio or desk. I need to make it fun again.

I am reading to the latest issue of "O" and found this website by Miranda July (I also rented her movie tonight before I found this website- it must be a Miranda July weekend- I can read her book of stories that I bought earlier in the summer too). It's filled with creative assignments like draw Raymond Carver's cathedral or photograph a scar and write about it or spend time with a dying person. I love the idea of creative assignments. I once created a calendar that was filled with them based on different themes for each month. I need to make a list of creative homework again- not just for writing. That will be a post for this month. Stay tuned...

When I heard Janet Fitch read in Ann Arbor a couple of weeks ago she told us of a rejection she received that said something like "good enough story but what's unique about your sentences?" This sent her into a fierce study of poetry and of loving language. I went through a period of reading a poem a day out loud and I think that is something I need to get back to. Here is one by Mary Oliver:

A Dream of Trees

There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees,
A quiet house, some green and modest acres
A little way from every troubling town,
A little way from factories, schools, laments.
I would have time, I thought, and time to spare,
With only streams and birds for company.
To build out of my life a few wild stanzas.
And then it came to me, that so was death,
A little way away from everywhere.

There is a thing in me still dreams of trees,
But let it go. Homesick for moderation,
Half the world’s artists shrink or fall away.
If any find solution, let him tell it.
Meanwhile I bend my heart toward lamentation
Where, as the times implore our true involvement,
The blades of every crisis point the way.

I would it were not so, but so it is.
Who ever made music of a mild day?

Mary Oliver

A Day

2007-11-08T20:47:00.001-05:00

My Day
1. Car sputtered backing out of driveway. Check engine light came on.
2. It never went off.
3. Took husband in for a medical procedure.
4. Sat in waiting room, well, waiting for it to be over.
5. Incredibly grateful that it was just a routine procedure and he is fine.
6. Shopped for daughter's fourteenth birthday.
7. Preparing for sleepover tomorrow night hosting ten teenagers and two tweens.
8. Bought the latest issue of "Somerset Studio." Can't wait to get in my jammies and let all that creativity wash over me...while I watch Grey's Anatomy. (Unless it's pre-empted by the writer's strike. Go writers!!)
9. Remembered I had to blog today since I signed up to post everyday this month.
10. So here's my post.

Wa-a-a-ay too Tired to Blog

2007-11-07T18:18:00.000-05:00

Who: Me as as overnight chaperon
Where: 5th grade camp
What: 3 hours of sleep at the most

Need I say more?

I will.

Tomorrow.

A Creative Jolt

2007-11-06T13:14:00.000-05:00

I'm off to chaperon fifth grade camp overnight in a few hours so here's a quick post.

A few books that never fail to inspire me:

- Anything by Sark
- The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp
- Spilling Open and anything else by Sabrina Ward Harrison
- If you Want to Write by Brenda Ueland
- The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women: A Portable Mentor by Gail McMeekin
- Artist's Journals and Sketchbooks by Lynn Perella

No Wrong Way to Do It

2007-11-05T19:43:00.000-05:00

Graphic Design
I didn't realize how much I missed doing graphic design until I got some freelance work again. I am having so much fun. I even splurged on a bunch of new software so that I can finally learn web design. I've been wanting to create a website for my writing, collage/mixed media and graphic design for a couple of years now. This blog was going to serve as a temporary base for all of that. Right now I'm visiting lots of websites to get an idea of what I like and what really annoys me as I navigate my way through all of them. It's all quite exciting.

Writing
I procrastinated with the best of them this morning but I finally managed to sit down and get 551 words written on the next story that I promised to have ready for workshop in two weeks.It will be the proverbial shitty first draft as Anne Lamott says but at least it's something. I can revise something. I can't revise a blank sheet of paper. This stage should be freeing. There's no wrong way to do it. I have half a notebook filled with bits and pieces of scenes and dialogue and description. Now it's time to pour it into some kind of structure. Just do it already.

Books and Movies, Movies and Books

2007-11-04T20:07:00.001-05:00

I love books. Seriously. It might even bypass love and venture into stalker territory. I've always loved to read. All of my report cards state something to that effect- that I am always reading, always have my nose in a book.And now that I am a writer too, I read in an almost cannibal like way- digesting everything about a story that I like, everything that I am trying to learn.

I also love movies. I go to the movies during the day by myself. The first movie I went to alone was "Pretty in Pink" at a theater on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia that is now in ruins. I had been out late with friends and was walking to the train station to head back home but the thought of getting jostled on a smelly train made me nauseous so I ducked into the theater. It's such an easy escape. It's dark. No need to interact with anyone. When the kids were little and I had one of those stressful mommy days my husband would walk in the door, take one look at me and send me to the movies.

So it wouldn't seem that great a stretch for me to love movies that come from books. Well. That depends. I always read the book first. It's just one of those random rules that I hold myself to. Movies can often be much worse than the book but rarely better so I don't want my experience tainted by an adaptation. While I enjoy the movies adapted from books or stories the usual praise I dole out is that they didn't totally ruin it. The written word allows the reader to experience so many layers of a story, of a character. Movies are pretty one dimensional and too many voice overs gets annoying.

Recently viewed movies adapted from books:

"Feast of Love" by Charles Baxter- loved the book, hated the movie which I kind anticipated going into it.

"Away from Her" based on the Alice Munro short story "The Bear came over the Mountain"- Loved both. It was interesting to see what changes they made to make it work as a movie- and they did work. They didn't suck the life and layers out of the story.

"The Jane Austen Book Club"- I think I enjoyed the movie a bit more. I know I read the book but it doesn't stand out for me in any way.

There is a feast of movies-made-from-books coming out soon and I am on a reading rampage to finish them all:

"The Kite Runner"
"Love in the Time of Cholera"
"Reservation Road"- I read the entire book picturing Mark Ruffalo as Ethan and Joaquin Phoenix as Dwight and now I find out that it is the exact opposite. That will be a little disconcerting when I finally see the movie.
"Atonement"

So many books, so many movies, so little time...

Creative Cooking

2007-11-03T18:00:00.000-04:00

I don't remember learning how to cook. Sure, I took home-ec- with the meanest teacher ever. I dissolved into tears during the entire sewing lesson. I don't know what it was but I became completely dyslexic when it came to threading that machine. It just never made sense. I like the idea of sewing. The idea of creating my own clothes is quite appealing. In fact I signed up for a sewing class as an adult. My goal was to make some curtains to replace the duck themed ones in the camper we had just bought. Simple enough, yes? Well. I found some excuse and ended up dropping it after one, maybe two classes. Me and sewing are just not meant to be. My dad ended up sewing most of my home ec project in seventh grade- a pillow. A rectangular pillow. Four perfectly straight edges. Even now my husband or daughter sew any buttons that have fallen off. I have many talents but apparently sewing is not one of them.

But cooking is. I love to cook. My secret is adding copped nuts or seeds to many dishes- it makes them seem more exotic than they are. My mom is amazed when she comes to visit at how I can whip things together the way I do. I sometimes try recipes from cookbooks but that doesn't last long. I prefer to make up my own. My new thing is letting the cupboards and freezer get down to the bare bones and still creating something appetizing for my family. I didn't make it to the grocery store today and I really needed to. Desperately. But, we are still eating well. It's a vegetarian appetizer night: vegetable gyoza, vegetarian chicken tenders, spinach florentine bites and carrot and celery sticks. All served with a glass of red wine and that is a perfectly acceptable dinner, considering it looks as though we have nothing. The fruit bin is empty. Ditto the veggie bin except for one carrot and three stalks of celery. There is just something so satisfying in creating something from apparently nothing. Not to mention the hundred bucks we saved by not going out to eat.

A Day Spent De-cluttering

2007-11-02T20:43:00.000-04:00

Spent much of the day de-cluttering the house.I love that feeling. It's like making way for something new. Went through all the old coats, boots and other winter-wear. Went through my youngest daughter's closet and two dressers and all the little nooks and crannies where she had stashed bags inside of inside of bags filled with her treasures. Lots and lots of treasures.She even has a drawer that she forbade me from discarding any of the contents. And she means it. She wants her children to go through that drawer someday and be able to see the kind of things she was interested in when she was a kid herself. Her daddy has the same kind of drawer back at his mom's house.

Two days ago I went on this organizing-my-books rampage and if you know me at all that is not an easy or simple undertaking. Especially since I started it after dinner on a weeknight. I was done by 11:00-ish. I had stacks of books all over the house as I categorized them by books read and unread, fiction vs. non, and I even alphabetized them. That ended up being quite interesting as I noticed which writers I had many books by: Antonya Nelson, Ron Carlson, Carol Shields to name a few. There's a bookshelf in my office that is filled with writing books that I divided into categories such as: writers on writing, women writers, prompts and exercises, the craft of fiction, motivation, inspiration, creativity and fiction that I read over and over to learn to write like they do.

Now I gaze at my bookshelves all so neat and organized and I feel this immense satisfaction and this warmth of being surrounded by old friends. And also this: this creeping sense of guilt that I really, really (and I mean seriously) have no business buying anymore books until I read the over four hundred that now line my tidy little bookshelves unread.

NaBloPoMo

2007-11-01T11:08:00.000-04:00

I've always done well with assignments.I remember asking for homework in third grade. Doing book reports for extra credit. Last year I did the NaNoWriMo challenge on my own in September. That's what started this blog. It became a place to hold myself accountable. I place where I announced that I intended to write 50,000 words in thirty days and therefore had to do it so as not to look foolish to myself or friends and family and whoever else might stumble across my blog. Which actually doesn't help with the whole trying not to care what everyone thinks of me thing but that's a whole other post on a whole other kind of blog. This blog is about the creative process. The ups and downs, ins and outs. The ways it eludes us, the ways we woo it. It's about what happens when we show up and what's happening when we don't. I imagine that I have a good ten days worth of topics to cover on creativity and my process but after that... who knows. That's when it will get fun. That's when I'll start looking for creativity in unusual places. When I'll look past my own writing, collage and graphic design processes. I will start posting more photos of...whatever... my artwork, moments from my days as I start mining them for material, the debris and ephemera that cross my path that suddenly become something worth documenting just because I am paying attention in a new way.

Here's an artist who finds art everywhere! www.kerismith.com

On Keeping Notebooks

2007-10-10T08:58:00.000-04:00

Let's talk about notebooks. I love notebooks. I love back-to-school time because I can buy ten for a dollar. One of my favorite books as a kid was "Harriet the Spy." And now, as a writer, I keep many many notebooks.

I recently read Joan Didion's essay "On Keeping a Notebook." She says, "Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss." I've kept diaries and journals since I was eight years old. Pages are filled with hearts with my name and some boy linked together as if I had access to secret powers to make those liaisons a reality. I still have pages scrawled from high school and art school and I cringe at the what I read sometimes, at who I used to be. But as Didion says, "I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends." I will never not have a record of who I used to be- for better or worse.

Currently I keep close to a dozen on-going notebooks:

1. Writng Process: I've been keeping this since 1998. I track the process of my writing in general. Writing goals. What I accomplished on a particular day. What I hope to accomplish the next. Entries explaining months long gaps in the notebook. I see patterns in the ebb and flwo of the process so when I am ebbing I can look back and see that this to will pass. That it's all part of the process.

2. Writing Practice: I have close to 40 of these filled. They are based on the Natalie Goldberg method of freewriting on a topic for a set amount of time and just filling pages. Seeing how your mind works. This is what started me on the writing path so many years ago.

3. Story Notebooks: Now I keep a notebook for each story. I do writing practice aimed at the story or from a certain character's POV. I keep notes from workshop in there. Ideas for upcoming scenes. Questions I have about the story. What if questions that may take it in a new direction. I'll play with POV and monologues trying to get a handle on the characters. I'd like to start adding visual elements.

4. Morning pages: After Julia Cameron. These notebooks are the big blank artist sketchbooks from Borders. Blank pages. Some months I write in them religiously, three pages every morning then I wake up and am tired of my own voice. Tired of the whining. Now I'm looking for ways to add more visuals to the pages. Make it more messy. More layered. I am convinced that if I can let go in one art form it will inform the other.

5. Visual Journal: This is strictly art. I play with collage, try new techniques. It's for fun. I'd like to try a collage on one page and a free-write or found poem on the other then tie them together visually somehow.

6. Books to Read: A list of books to be read divided into categories: short stories, novels, memoir, writing craft, science, classics. It's never-ending.

7. New Words: A notebook of words new to me and their definitions. Words I just like the sounds of like tabernacle, obsidian, confetti, zigzag, throttle.

8. MFA Notebook: Currently I am working with 3 texts as part of my self-guided MFA program: "The Making of a Story" by Alice LaPlante, "Master Class in Fiction Writing" by Adam Sexton and "Deepening Fiction" by Sarah Stone & Ron Nyren. I write out answers to the questions posed in each book, trying to deepen my understanding of the craft.

9. Observations: This is new. As a writing group we decided to write 2-3 observations a day in hopes of becoming "one of those people on whom nothing is lost" as Henry James said. I actually got the idea from a reading at the Kenyon conference this summer. A poet read some of her observations and they were beautiful little jewels. Small moments of being awake. It's a great habit to get into. I can already feel a difference. I am noticing and on the look out for small momets and then I am required to paint that moment in words.

There are several others that I have started and stopped such as one that was going to document my reading for a year. That would've been a full time project in itself. But the nine decribed above are notebooks that I work in on a fairly regular basis. They each help me to ""write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear," to once again quote Joan Didion.

Occupy a Writing Life

2007-09-25T14:25:00.000-04:00

PROCESS
Sunday marked the two month anniversary of me writing on a story every single day. Even on weekends. Even on vacation. Even if I go to bed and have to drag myself back downstairs and open my notebook to write at least the next sentence in the story. This should be something to be celebrated. Something to be commended. Do I do either? Uh, no. Instead I hear this mean hateful little tyrant voice observing that some days it's only for five minutes or that I haven't actually written today yet. Somebody recently asked me if I have perfectionist tendancies. On the surface it doesn't seem true. But below the surface, where that mean little tyrant resides, well, yes, apparently she is a perfectionist since nothing I do is ever ever ever good enough. It's craziness. How do I get her to shut up? I write. It sounds counterintuitive to write and give her more ammuniton to use against me such as the characters are flat, the writing is filled with cliches, that I should be accomplishing so much more in terms of word count than I do since I do stay at home and it goes on and on and on. So I write and I observe. Just acknowledging that part of me is sometimes enough to shut her up. Afterall everyone wants to feel heard.

Last Thursday I finished the draft of my story and sent it out to my writing group then immediately opened up a brand new document and typed in the first paragraph of the next story. That's what I'm working on now. I'm in that stage of getting to know her voice. Lots of freewriting to see what is churned up. Pieces of scenes, dialogues, flashbacks. This is actually kind of fun, this part of my process. I don't quite know where it's all headed yet. Each sentence I write helps me to discover a bit more about the story and the characters. It's like I'm on this expedition. So this is what it feels like to occupy a writing life.

PRODUCT
Still haven't got back on the submission band wagon yet. It's been a while since I've submitted anything to any journal out there. Not sure why. I really hate the whole logistics of it: finding the appropriate venue, on-line or post? did I already submit there? which story? when? typing up the cover letter, including a line that might jog their memory of me if they have responded favorably to my work in the past. It's all a little tedious. But it's part of a writing life so I just need to do it. Just like the exercise thing which I now do daily and have done almost daily for two years now. So I can make myself do those things I despise.

READING
"Ron Carlson Writes a Story" is seriously the best book on writing that I have read. You are practically inside his head as he writes "The Governor's Ball" privy to every decision he makes and every choice he comes up against. You see the moments when he has no idea what comes next but he stays in the scene anyway to find out. It's amazing. A must-have for any writer or any reader curious about the whole writing process.

Currently reading:
1. "Lolita" as part of my writing group. We were all amazed to discover that none of us has read this yet.

2. "The Time it Takes to Fall" by Margaret Lazarus Dean- a coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the Challenger explosion. It intrigues me since I set my first novel (my under-the-bed novel) in the same time period and wrote a scene centered on that day.

3. "Feast of Love" by Charles Baxter which I have to read before I see the soon-to-be-released movie. Several books fall into this category: "Everything is Iluminated", "The Kite Runner". Luckily I already read "The Jane Austen Book Club".

QUOTE
"Solve all your problems through the physical world. That is, if you have a scene that's stalled or muddled, go back into it carefully and write the next thing that happens in real time. Don't think, but watch instead: occupy."
– "Ron Carlson Writes a Story" by Ron Carlson

Dreaming, Walking and Writing

2007-09-13T09:33:00.000-04:00

I don't usually dream about writing, never about my characters which I think would be completely cool, sometimes about me actually writing and I try to read along and hope that I remember it when I wake up because I am convinced that it is brilliant. I never do and I am sure it never is. But last night I dreamt that someone showed me a photo of me sitting at this stone table writing and I look blissful. Behind me is this amazing vista of mesas and plateaus and tiny paths and streets leading everywhere and nowhere. Then I remember being there on vacation and as I look at the photo it rotates so that I can see beyond the edges of the photo. I ask for a copy and want to post it near my desk to remember how blissful writing can be.

It must be a reflection of my writing day yesterday. I put it off all morning. Ate three handfuls of chocolate chips before I finally dragged myself to my desk where I ended up staying and writing for three hours. The time flew by. I'd look up and another hour had gone by. I think part of me was riding the energy of finishing "Ron Carlson Writes a Story", which will have to a whole other post. Let me just say it is the best book on writing that I have read- and I've read alot!

During my walk this morning all sorts of pieces started falling into place for my story. I've noticed that my walks need to be at least 40 minutes long. The first twenty are taken up with all sorts of garbage but after that I seem to settle into a rhythm and the story kind of drifts across the screen in my mind and I see that Kevin is actually Sarah's older brother which I will need to say in an earlier story- easy fix. And that Marty peeks out of the window of Reed's room at the end of the story and sees her father with Abby and that makes sense and echoes back to something earlier in the story. I know that all my writing days will not be like this but I want to remember this feeling so that it will get me through the decidedly unblissful writing moments.

So I'm Not Actually Not Writing Into a Void

2007-09-08T15:25:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I forget that I am not writing into a void here. That people beyond my small circle of friends and family can find me. Somebody found me once and asked to quote me on their website selling Ann Hood's new novel, "The Knitting Circle." Then today, I received a comment on an older post from one of my favorite writers, Renee Manfredi. This is almost as exciting as getting published! To save you the scrolling time here it is:

Hi there,
Came across your blog. For what's it worth, having written 2 novels and a collection of stories, and having worked all sorts of jobs and hour combination during the process, I can tell you this: whether you work banker's hours, or are at home all day, your writing demands the same effort from you. Think of it this way: a child goes through the same developmental stages, rate of growth, whether her mother stays at home with her or works all day at Microsoft. Personally, I simply don't believe someone who claims to write for 5-6 straight hours. You can certainly be in a revisional mode that long, but not a compositional one. The white heat of creativity is about 90 minutes-2 hrs. 3, maybe. MAYBE longer if you have 2 sessions per day. I don't know anyone whe stays in the chair the whole time they're writing. For heaven's sake! Everybody procrastinates. Everybody dilly-dallys. How ELSE would the house get clean, the dogs get walked, and the risotto get stirred? Or blog entries be posted? (I've already walked my dogs).
Hope this is helpful. And thanks for your kind words about my story "Bocci."

Renee Manfredi

Her words are reassuring. I'm not sure why I expect so much from myself. Maybe to justify the fact that I have the luxury of not having to work outside the home? But of course, there is a lot of work that goes on inside the home. Anway... Renee Manfredi took time to respond on my blog. How cool is that? I read her novel, "Above the Thunder" a few years ago and just fell in love with the story, the characters, everything. So, of course I went on-line to see what else she had written and bought her collection of stories "Where Love Leaves Us". It is now on my permanent bookshelf of books I turn to again and again to teach myself how to write stories that have so much depth to them. Her latest is a novel "Running Away with Franny" which I also devoured. Her characters are so rich and layered and memorable. She says of her characters in "Above the Thunder" "I never think about plot. I don't think about theme. I think about characters. And these characters became very real to me. I dreamed about them." Well, they seem very real to me too.

One of my best compliments ever came when I recommended "Above the Thunder" to a friend (to everyone really, even a lady standing in front of the new releases at the library). My friend then gave to it to another saying how much I had loved it and after reading it this friend said she could see why I loved it so much. That it reminded her of my writing. Sigh...

My, this has been a big day. Earlier I took my girls to a reading/signing with Judy Blume. The mothers were as excited to be there as the daughters. It's amazing what a significant impact she's made on at least two generations of girls and women. I just bought the collection of essays, "Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume". I'm sure we could all write such an essay.

It's a Messy, Messy Thing

2007-09-05T16:23:00.000-04:00

PROCESS/PROGRESS
Are these the same? Not really but they are absolutely tied together. If I am not engaged in the process there will be no progress. I am still writing on my story everyday. Every single day since, what... July 23. This, my friends, is an accomplishment. Now that the girls are back in school, I expect to be more engaged in both the process and progress of my novel-in-stories.

Today was the first full day they were back in school. I kept a rough time line of my day, kind of the way dieters need to account for every morsel they put into their mouth. I won't bore you with the minute-by-minute dissection of my day. Let's just say that I managed to write/revise/mull over my story for a total of almost three hours. Plus I wrote morning pages and read "Sense & Sensibilty" as part of my self-designed MFA.

My process... well, it's messy. It's confusing. Frustrating. But it's my process and at least I have one. The story I am working on now is a huge revision of a story that my writing group has already workshopped. So I have a master copy with five sets of comments throughout. Then I have a notebook with all the scribbling I've done everyday in a barely legible handwriting, in scenes that shift from first person to third and between past and present tense. The notebook is essential. It's the most frustrating part. I often don't know what's happening next. It's hard to find a scene once I write it. I have magenta post-it notes flagging scenes that I think will be in the story. Once I read over all that I have gathered in my notebook I start to piece it together somehow with the original draft. This involves lots of "insert A here", "insert B there". But then I have A's and B's from other drafts and I forget what I meant to do. Then I can't find the scene that needs to go next so I have to "read" through al my scribbles again trying to find it. Once I have some semblance of another draft pieced together I type it all up. That's what I finished today then took to the bookstore, got my iced green soy latte and sat down with a pink pen and started all over again. More A's and B's and now notes of what I think needs to happen next.

It's messy but so satisfying when the pieces start to fall into place. I feel this quickening in my blood as I write, as I play out scenes behind my eyes as if they were a movie and know it's finally coming together. Out of this chaos emerges this little world. It's kind of amazing.

READING
So many new books coming out by some of my favorite authors. Ron Carlson's book on writing is headed my way from amazon. Came home today with Ann Packer's new novel "Songs Without Words." Ann Patchett and Alice Sebold both have new novels coming out.

I finished Antonya Nelson's collection of stories, "Some Fun". I literally read the last sentence of the novella and turned back to the beginning to start it again. Her narrators are like"having a great friend whose company you love, whose mind you love to pick, whose running commentary totally holds your attention, who makes you laugh out loud, whose lines you always want to steal." (from page 49-50 of "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott) "Some Fun" goes on my permanent book shelf of books to re-read and learn from over and over again.

ART
I made two birthday cards for my sisters. Will post pix soon. I really want to figure out how to create an album in flicker then link that to my blog. I have three more books coming from amazon, all on collage and mixed media. One covers the use of collage in writing which is something I've been meaning to explore. Another is about artist's journals- always inspiring.

QUOTE
"No matter how badly we may want it to, revision just doesn't go in a straight line. It's not a process of improvement; it's a process of learning." - Heather Sellers, "Chapter After Chapter"

Reading and Writing, Writing and Reading

2007-08-21T19:52:00.000-04:00

WRITING PROCESS
Still showing up daily to my story. Some days it is a sentence or two but still, it is me showing up and that's something in this crazy busy summer. A big something actually.

READING
"Beach Music" by Pat Conroy.
It came highly recommended by a member of my writing group which can always be awkward. What if I hate it? I once recommended one of my fave books at the time to a friend ("Anywhere But Here" by Mona Simpson- it still is one of my favorites of all time and shouldn't she have a new book coming out soon?) and she hated it. Anyway, not the case with "Beach Music". I can't imagine rereading it but it was an amazing story. A sweeping saga of a book which is perfect for summer. The dialogue is just perfect. And I must say that I fell in love with a paranoid schizophrenic- John Hardin. One thing I really admire is the way Conroy eventually has you feeling empathy for every single character even General Elliot, even Jack's father. The one thing that seemed a little forced was the first person POV when he had to relay all the characters' histories. It didn't feel natural the way it had to come through Jack. And the content of those stories involving wife and child abuse, poverty, the Holocaust- well... it just all became a little too much to bear at times. I found myself skimming certain sections trying to bypass the true horrors. But still, such a great summer book to sink into and lose yourself.

"Practically Perfect in Every Way- My Misadventures Through the World of Self-Help and Back" by Jennifer Niesslein
I so enjoyed this book and not just because she once wrote me a very encouraging rejection for her magazine "Brain, Child". Once I got past the fact that once again someone came up with yet another great format for a memoir (see list below for others) I flew through the book. The gist of it is that she embarks on a two year selp-help escapade in order to become a better, happier, thinner, richer, organized version of herself. She's funny, honest, vulnerable. I laughed out loud in spots and groaned with recognition in others since I was familiar with just about every self-help tome/guru she experimented with. My latest addition is an audio program that promises unconditional acceptance with the premise that if selp-improvement programs really worked there wouldn't be this proliferation of them clogging shelves in bookstores. I'll keep you posted.

More memoirs with unique structures that I love and wish I had thought of first:
"Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life" by Amy Krouse Rosenthal (Laugh out loud funny.)

"Things to Bring, S#!T to Do- My Life in Lists" by Karen Rizzo (Who knew lists could be so revealing?)

"Give it Up! My Year of Learning to Live Better with Less" by Mary Carlomagno (Each month for a year she gives up something from chocolate and alcohol to televison, taxis, and dining out. Such an interesting premise and I wish I had the willpower to attempt it myself without the carrot of a book contract dangling in front of me.)

"So Many books, So Little Time- A Year of Passionate Reading" by Sara Neslon (Need I say more- the title alone is the bumper sticker of my life.)

Ebb and flow

2007-08-16T20:09:00.000-04:00

I'm back. Kind of. Sort of. It's been a weird long summer. I feel like I lived out of a suitcase more than not. And if you know me, well, I'm quite a homebody. My intention in starting this blog was to make myself accountable when I wrote my novel-in-a-month last September. I also thought that it would be a place to document and observe my creative process. Well. The first part went smoothly enough. I finished a draft of my novel. But the second part, the whole observing the process aspect- not so smoothly. It's been a little one-sided. I've noticed that I really only document the good parts. The light parts. The productive parts. I don't really delve into the darker aspects of my creativity. Mainly I just drop off the radar. Thus, the big black holes in my blog. But reading Nova's blog (distraction no. 99) has encouraged me to not shy away from the dark spots. It's all part of the same process. So I'm not sure if I'm in a funk because I haven't been writing as much as usual or if I'm not writing as much because I'm in a funk. Funk is my word for it. I know there are others but since the "D" word runs in my family I like to keep it at bay by not using it with me. It's easy for me to spin way way out there so I try to catch myself. I know I have to eat healthy, exercise and write. I've known this for years. It's my little triangle that keeps my energy moving. Keep me from getting and staying stuck. From getting mired in phsical, mental and psychic muck.

So I attended this amazing workshop at Kenyon, came home, wrote for the first four days then went on vacation and it all kind of slipped away from me. I was embarassed. And a little ashamed. I mean, there I had spent a good chunk of money and had very little carry over into my real life after the conference had ended. So. Now what? Thus began my descent into the funk. Instead of reaching for my steady traingle of tools I did the exact opposite: ice cream, wine, lots of really bad TV and no writing. There I went, slipping further away. Then I picked up two books by Heather Sellers- "Page after Page" and "Chapter After Chapter" - and I highly recommend both. The one thing that finally pierced through was that I had to write everyday- even on vacation. I kind of chuckled at that. Yeah, right. Like that's gonna happen. I had two more trips coming up. One at my sister's on the other side of the state and one at Disney World. And guess, what? I wrote. Every day. And not just stream of consciousness morning pages. No. I worked on my story. Every day since July 24. I told myself even if it's just one line, it's something. I don't think I ever wrote just one line. Some days were light and I managed three or four sentneces but for the most part it was a half to two pages. The key moment came last night. I was in bed. Lights off and had just drifted to sleep when I remembered that I had not written that day at all. I lay there. In the dark. Snug in bed. So easy to just stay there. It was my Ron Carlson moment. He did the exact same thing at some point in his career. He hauled himself out of bed and went downstairs, turned on his computer and wrote at least one sentence. He said that was a turning point. That in that choice, he became a writer. So I hauled myself out of bed, downstairs, turned on a light, opened my notebook and wrote a one page scene.

In that moment I was a writer. Hopefully I'll have many more of those moments. But I know I'll also have darker moments when picking up a pen feels like lifting an anvil over my head- and letting it drop there. It's that whole ebb and flow, baby. Ebb and flow. It's just that when I'm ebbing there's very little of me to draw upon. I feel thin. Fragile. So I may not write while in the middle of ebbing but I won't ignore it either. That would be shortchanging the whole process.

MIA No Longer

2007-07-13T12:03:00.000-04:00

Sorry sorry sorry. I've been MIA ever since I left for Kenyon. I can't believe it's been almost a month since I left. I ended up not coming straight home from the conference and instead went to my sister's house for four days since our kitchen wasn't done being remodeled yet. Came home for oh, about 36 hours to do laundry before packing up again and heading to Canada to visit my mom for a week. So I've been back for eight days in my own home, suitcases unpacked, new refigerator stocked with food again and trying to sort through all that I experienced at Kenyon. I'm sure I will be writing about it many more times in the coming months but let me start here.

First of all I worked my ass off. Five, six, seven hours a day of writing outside of the classroom in addition to attending readings, eating, sleeping and socializing. It was both exhilerating and draining. I slept for twelve solid hours my first night back. So much got churned up for me regarding my own writing process and it still has yet to settle. It feels like I have layers upon layers that I need to sift through and will continue to do for a long time. It's hard to pinpoint the one big thing I learned. It feels so intangible. It was just the experience of being immersed in my writing and having Ron Carlson be so incredibly generous in sharing his own process.

Below is an inventory of the work I did in a week:

Kenyon Review Fiction Workshop with Ron Carlson
Inventory of New Work

100 Word Chapter Novel
“Love is a Ripe Green Pepper” • 1200 words

ABC Story
“Barely There” • 495 words

6 Space Breaks
“Dead Deer Bingo” • 3697 words

Person, Place, Song
“What Sixteen Looks like” • 744 word

The Pet Store story
“Off Season” • 1191 words

The Ticking Clock
“Big Glove” • 1191 words

Fairy Tale Monologue
“The Giant’s Wife” • 994 words

Scenes
“Wrong number” • 450 words

“Dialogue on Park Bench in Rittenhouse Square” • 140 words

Five of these pieces I plan on revising. So one concrete thing I learned is that I will never run out of ideas. Each day new characters appeared in new settings with new stories. I didn't think I was afraid of that but maybe I was. I remember that Annie Dillard quote about shooting it all, spending it all every time you write and not hoarding it for another story and I think I did hoard tiny things but not anymore. Every piece I wrote at Kenyon was brand new.

I learned I can write at night. I've gotten into such a routine at home. I write in the morning and afternoon while the girls are in school. Night time is family time but often it's just spent watching TV. I think a different energy emerges at night too so it might be worth exploring.

I learned where I quit in a story. I get to that part where I don't know and I lose steam. Ron says the whole point is to write yourself out to that point in the ocean of your story where you can no longer touch bottom, the sky and water seem to merge and you don't know which way is up. You're out of breath and there's that slight panic building and all you want to do is grab a life preserver in the form of a cigarette, cup of coffee, donut or even cleaning the crud from the sides of the fridge but the writer is the person who stays out there a little longer, 20 minutes should do it and the story itself becomes the life preserver. In that 20 minutes you find that one small piece of inventory, that one detail you can grab onto and keep yourself afloat.

That's about all I can process for the moment.

QUOTE
"The writer is the person who stays in the room when she doesn't know what's going to happen." - Ron Calson

It's a Love/Hate Thing

2007-06-16T08:40:00.000-04:00

I love summer vacation now as much as I did when I was a kid. I love having no schedule to follow, no homework to review, projects to oversee, papers to sign, no special time to get up. Then again part of me hates summer, mostly because there is no schedule to follow and with no schedule my writing gets sidelined quite a bit. Although I did manage to get a draft together for my group before I leave this morning. Yes, after months of writing and talking about it I finally leave for the Kenyon Review fiction worksop with Ron Carlson today. I spent last night printing out stories I want to work on and getting notebooks together and copying work onto a CD and selecting reading material ( always the most crucial aspect for a writer going on vacation). Here's what I'm taking:

2 library books that will be due a couple days after I return: "Be Mine" by Laura Kasischke and "The God of Animals: A Novel" by Aryn Kyle both of which are on my never-ending list of books to read

"Five Skies" by Ron Carlson

"The New Yorker" summer fiction issue

"Sense and Sensibility" by Jane Austen

"Glimmer Train" summer issue

"Now You Love Me" stories by Liesel Litenburger (which has aslo been on my list for quite a while)

I'm hoping that there will be much more writing going on that reading but I'm covered either way.

Not sure how much I will be generating new work versus revising existing drafts but I brought the current projects that are hot for me right now:

- "Learning Curve" a novel-in-stories

- 2 of my best stories so far that are part of a collection

- a draft of the novel I wrote in thirty days last November. Might be a good chance to sit down and just read it through and see what I've got.

The latest issue of "The Writer" has an interview with Ron Carlson in it and reading it just reaffirmed my decision to do this. I love everything he has to say about the writing process plus I love his own writing. His stories are in my permanent collection that I turn to again and again to show me how to write.

If I have time, I'll blog while I'm there, but if not you'll hear all about when I return.

A Conversation with my Story

2007-05-27T21:13:00.000-04:00

WRITING PROCESS
Story: I’ve got it.

Me: Got what?

Story: Martha’s mother. Her name isn’t Helen. It’s Delia.

Me: Um… excuse me?

Story: Yeah yeah yeah… it’s Delia. Helen is her mother. Her and Toby’s.

Me: But the story is almost done and it’s Helen throughout two whole stories. It’s not just a matter of replacing the name, you know. Helen and Delia are two completely different kinds of people.

Story: I know. Isn’t it great?

Me: Great? No, it isn’t great. I’ve worked so hard on this.

Story: Yes and all that hard work is paying off.

Me: For you maybe.

Story: Well. Yeah. That’s all that matters, isn’t it? It’s all about the story that wants to be told not the story you want to tell.

Me: I suppose. But this is huge. You’re suddenly not what I thought what you were about.

Story: Exactly. And that’s when it gets exciting, for both of us.

Me: (Sigh) Where do I start?

Story: Well, start with the find and replace option. That’s a place to start. Just see her real name implanted there in the text in black and white and see what happens. Then do some freewriting in Delia’s voice, maybe on events that you’ve already written about as Helen. Play with it. This is fun.

Me: Yeah, fun. Whooppee…

Story: Trust me.

Me: Do I have a choice?

Story: Sure, you can ignore me, not write, get crabby, not write some more, get crankier, until you finally try it my way and wonder what you were waiting for all that time.

Me: (sigh again) Fine. You win.

Story: It’s not a contest. It’s win win.

Me: Whatever...

Think of Trees

2007-05-18T15:38:00.000-04:00

WRITING PROCESS & PROGRESS
I may not be writing on this blog but I have been writing elsewhere: morning pages, writing practice and short stories. I just finished the second on efrom my novel-in-stories and sent it out to my writing group for Sunday. It's still not quite right. I'm not sure about the title which means I'm not quite sure what the story is about yet. I've found that the perfect titles emerges when the story has found its focus. Maybe listening to my group discuss the characters and plot might trigger something for me to work on in revision. I just pulled out the next story and re-read it, to refresh my memory. The good thing is that I was intrigued by it- wanted to keep reading to see what happens. The bad thing is that it needs some major rewriting.

One thing I've been hyper aware of lately in my writing is the "viewpoint intruder." I read an article about it in a magazine and now I notice it in my own stories. Martha notices, sees, watches, etc.... Once the POV character is established it's okay to just let the scene unfold without constant viewpoint intrusion.

As part of my writing process lately I've been reading a poem out loud every morning before I start my own writing. Currently I am reading "The Woman I Kept to Myself" by Julia Alvarez. I love getting that language in the air. Sometimes the poem sparks a prompt for me to use in my writing practice. Usually I just listen to the words, so lyrical, so lovely, almost breathing in the writer's own breath.

READING
I've been reading "Special Topics in Calamity Physics" and was hooked by it at first but now am kind of, I don' tknow, annoyed with it. The structure and style feel so self-conscious, always calling attention to the writer's cleverness. And there's this other annoying habit of using so many unusual verb to describe, say, the setting. I know strong verbs can be an amazing strength but in this case, once again, it just seems to call attention to itself. So I have put the book down for now. I am only a few chapters into "Sense and Sensiblity." Not far enough to have an opinion yet. I've been so focused on my own writing that I don't have the concentration needed to read that much. This happened when I took the class at OU and while I was and am currently incredibly productive I do miss my reading or the ability to get lost in another writer's world, perhap because I am so immersed in creating my own fictional world.

QUOTE
"When I think of my death, I think of trees
in the full of summer, a row of them
marking a border, still too far away
for me to name them, posted with rotted boards
everyone but the faint of heart ignores."
- from "Last Trees' by Julia Alvarez

Word by Word

2007-05-10T15:21:00.000-04:00

WRITING PROCESS/PROGRESS
So I slogged my way through my story today, showing up although everything else clamored for my attention from the chocolate brownie fudge ice cream in the freezer to the blue skies and the 77º day outside. But I kept my butt in this chair and managed to make some headway. Some days it's just word by word. One trick I learned from Ron Carlson is the 20 minute rule. When you feel the need to get up and indulge in whatever has been clamoring for your attention, stay in your chair for just 20 more minutes. Stay in the room, he says, meaning the room where you write and the room or scene of the story. He promises that almost always it is worth the time. Today it was. A scene that had no focal point at all finally came into focus during that 20 minutes.

I know I sound like a broken record, but really, it's all about showing up. Really. It's the same lesson over and over.

READING
So I am now reading "Sense and Sensbility" as part of my self-designed MFA. It is the second story in "The Master Class in Fiction Writing" and focuses on characterization. I've read chapter 1 so far.

For enjoyment I pulled "Special Topics in Calamity Physics" from my bookshelf and I am hooked.

QUOTE
"In the arts, your weakness becomes your signature. The fact that your work is imperfect makes it interesting. A perfect face isn't interesting. A book's flaws make it less predictable."
- Janet Fitch

Short Story Immersion

2007-05-09T09:42:00.000-04:00

READING
I have been immersed in short stories lately. I just finished "The Dead Fish Museum" by Charles d'Ambrosio last night. The stories are rough around the edges, in a good way. I remember enjoying almost every story as I read them but honestly not one paricular story stands out against the rest. To be fair that could be because of all the other stories I've read lately. Like the entire spring issue of "The Missouri Review." I rarely ever finish an entire issue of any literary journal much less read it cover to cover in two days. But that's what happened this time. I read every story, essay and poem word by word. And there's a great interview with David Sedaris. The theme for the issue is Love and Lonliness. Maybe that appeals to me. For whatever reason, I was immediateley drawn into each and every piece from the couples at the "lifestyle" resort to the father and son who both fall in love to the philosophy student who tries to put his relationship in some kind of context against the back drop of a marathon. I especially enjoyed the two essays so much that they make me want to try my hand at one myself.

I received the new Narrative on-line and read a great new story by Ron Carlson as well as an in-depth profile on Ann Beattie. While meandering blogs in between my own writing I found myself linked to 2 other short stories, both involving hands. One is by Benjamin Percy. You can find it at http://www.storyglossia.com/thirteen/bp_hand.html. Then there is this one by Elizabeth Graver at http://www.pshares.org/issues/article.cfm?prmArticleID=4916. These also inspire me. Now I want to write a story that uses a hand in a surprising way. The there's this new story by Kate Walbert that all moms can relate to: http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2007/03/26/070326fi_fiction_walbert.

I'm thinking I need a break from short stories now. Not sure what is next but I love this feeling of not knowing. I love being in this space in between books and browsing through my shelves at leisure until the next book I am meant to read falls into my lap.

WRITING
With all this reading you'd think writing has taken a backseat but that is so not the case. I finished yet another draft of "Japanese for Butterfly' and am letting it sit for a while as I work on the next story. I hauled out this five inch thick binder yesterday that has all the stories for this book so far. I grabbed the next 2 to get an idea of where I am and saw that much can and should be cut from both and that they are actually one story in different seasons- winter and summer. At one point I had over forty pages strewn across my living room floor as I made a list of all relevant scenes. I worked on it yesterday and the story and characters percolated all day no matter if I was cooking, doing the dishes or watching TV. I had to come back to my office and scribble down notes as new things came to me.

I wrote these stories a couple of yeas ago. The copies I have contain notes from people no longer in my writing group. It's been a humbling and interesting process. So much time has elapsed making it is easy to read with an objective eye. I noticed this embarassing habit I had of writing what I can only call purple prose. I read and crossed out passages with this vague sense anxiety. I knew there was a word for what I was reading but it wouldn't come to me. At some point the term "purple prose" came up in my reading and I googled it and found this: "Purple prose is sensuously evocative beyond the requirements of its context. It also refers to writing that employs certain rhetorical effects such as exaggerated sentiment or pathos in an attempt to manipulate a reader's response." Yep. That's what I did. God, it was excruciating to read. The good news is that I've obviously (uh, hopefully?) grown out of that particular writing pitfall. Oh, I'm sure I'll stumble across many more as I continue.

As part of my writing process, I am filling up pages with writing practice. Yesterday the topic was "Write about a cold snap." I started by writing that this topic does not inspire me at all, blah, blah, blah. But I stuck with it for three pages and the beignnings of a brand new short story with brand new characters emerged. I keep telling myself it's all about just showing up. Apparently that's true.

ART
Made a birthday card for a friend. Took a picture of it. And, yes, I still need to learn how to post photos. But first I need to learn how to get them off my camera.

QUOTE
"With good writing, I think, the most profound response is finally a sigh, or a gasp, or holy silence."
- Tim O'Brien

Editing My Dreams?

2007-05-05T09:28:00.000-04:00

RANDOM MUSINGS
I must be a "real" writer if I'm editing my word choice in my dreams. Last night I dreamt that I interviewed Jack Nicholson. I notice how blue his eyes are and scribble that in my notes and try to come up with a word less cliché than piercing or penetrating. I mean Jack deserves better than a tired ciché, doesn't he?

I read two books from the library and they are due back today but I had to note this weird similarity between them. They both have characters with the same name. "Skylight Confessions" has a female protagonist named Arlyn. "The Ghost at the Table has a minor male character named Arlen. Do character names go through popularity cycles like baby names?

WRITING
I'm thrilled to say that I am back in some sort of writing groove. I worked steadily on a story everyday this week, even last night at the ice cream social at school. I am trying to cut it down to 7500 words from 8100 since that seems to be a pretty basic maximum for many journals and I am already trying to place a 10,000-word story.

Not only did I write on my story for several hours each day but I also did morning pages everyday and three pages of writing practice several times throughout the week. When I took a fiction class at OU one of the requirements was at least three 20-minute writing sessions each week in addition to having a new story or revision ready. I even did one now and it's Saturday.

READING
Finished "Reading Like a Writer" by Francine Prose and I don't think I am exaggerating when I say that she has changed the way I read. As I revise my story "Japanese for Butterfly" I am reading the entire piece out loud for the third time and each time I find a word that isn't right or words I can cut. It's fun. Reading out loud illuminates where the prose is clunky but it also slows me down which is one of the main lessons I learned from F.P.

Still reading the "Dead Fish Museum" by Charles D'Ambrosio and just read the line that explains where the title comes from... perfect.

QUOTE
"Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.
- Kurt Vonnegut

My 10 Favorite Short Stories

2007-05-03T20:09:00.000-04:00

So I saw this out in the blogosphere and thought that it would be fun. Not sure if there are any parameters to follow but I decided to only list the short stories that I remember. No leafing through books to jog my memory. I can only check for titles and or spelling. So here goes... my favorite top ten stories in no particular order.

1. "Bullet in the Brain" by Tobias Wolff
2. "Milk" by Ron Carlson
3. "The Potato Gun" by Ron Carlson
4. "Bocci" by Renée Manfredi
5. "Who Do You Love" by Jean Thompson
6. "In the Event" by Christopher Coake
7. "Howard Johnson's House" by Mary Clyde
8. "People Like That Are the Only People Here" by Lorrie Moore
9. "A Small, Good Thing" by Raymond Carver
10. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" by Joyce Oates

These are all stories that have stuck with me, haunted me even. I am looking at the list to see if there is a particular theme or pattern that emerges. Several involve parents confronting the relative powerlessness we can feel in the face of our children's lives. Several star adolescents on the verge of discovery and danger. I don't know, but for these characters and their stories to stand out in spite of my voracious reading habit says something. And instead of being daunted, I actually am inspired to keep writing in hopes that I write a story so true and raw that it stands out for somebody, somewhere, sometime, someday.

Baby Steps

2007-05-01T15:02:00.000-04:00

READING
I am about halfway through "Reading Like a Writer" by Francine Prose. She is really helping me to slow down and savor the sentences and word choices in my reading and my writing. And she is adding to my ever growing list of books to read, some by writers I've never heard of. Henry Green, anyone?

I just finished "The Knitting Circle" by Ann Hood. I felt rather voyeuristic as I read this novel, knowing how closely it mirrors her own experience. Her five-year-old daugher, Grace, died unexpectedly from complications from strep a few years ago. In the book a young daughter also dies and it is told from the perspective of the mother who finds herself learning to knit. The author also learned to knit when the usual comfort she found in writing and reading and language in general had left her after the loss of her daughter. I am not the sort of person who cries easily while reading but this one did it. It's every mom's worst nightmare. I've attempted to write stories that deal with the loss of a child in hopes of some kind of writerly magic preventing it from happening in reality as Kate Braverman once said but it is just too huge to grapple with. It gives such a raw incite into the grieving process that I read it almost with one eye closed, unable to watch it full on.

"Moral Disorder" by Margaret Atwood is another stunning book by this author. It is a series of interconnected stories that reveal the life of Nell as a child and adolescent into young adulthood through a complex relationship with Tig. The stories are structured in this sweeping arc of time that envelopes their lives. Carefully rendered, closely observed- trademarks of this writer.

Currently reading "The Dead Fish Museum," a story collection by Charles D'Ambrosia.

POETRY
On the last day of National Poetry Month I took my youngest to a poetry reading at our library by Keith Taylor. One line that struck me was "dancing under the temporary stars." In the car my daughter asked me what my favorite poem had been. I was embarassed to realize that they had all kind of run together for me but she had a list of her favorites which once she began numerating then jogged my own memory.

ART
I went to make a card for a friend's 30th birthday the other day. Once I got into my art space I started finding objects that all went together and ended up creating a wall hanging as a present. I do have a photo and I really must learn to transfer it off my camera, onto my computer and onto my blog. Really, it's on my list of things to do. It was so much fun to create. I had no real expectations, or very low ones- just gonna make a little card. No big deal. I'm thinking that low or no expectations might serve me in many other areas of my life too.

WRITING
I'm in the middle of another huge rewrite of this story, "Japanese for Butterfly." I thought I was at the point of reading it out loud and fine tuning the prose but earlier today it came to me that I need another scene which happens to be one I wrote in the first story. So I am merging the old story and new story into an even better story I hope. My goal is to finish it this week so I can start on the next story so I can have it ready for my writing group by May 20. I also want to make a list of journals to submit 3 different stories to, one that is 10,000 words. I thought I'd make a list one day, write cover letters the next, print out stories the next, label, stuff and mail the next. Baby steps since I really hate this part of the process.

QUOTE
"You can't write seriously without reading the greats in that particular way that writers read, attentive to the particularities of the language, to the technical turns and twists of scenemaking and plot, soaking up narrative strategies and studying various approaches to that cave in the deep woods where the human heart hibernates."
- Alan Cheuse

...that cave in the deep woods where the human heart hibernates... I love this!

My Own Self-Guided MFA

2007-04-26T20:14:00.000-04:00

WRITING
Well, it's a good thing I gave myself permission to not write one word while on vacation since that's basically what I did. Or what I didn't do. I admire the concept of writing everyday even at the beach or the ski slopes or wherever your vacation happens to take you. But in reality, sometimes I just need a break from it and am willing to suffer the consequences of that which is that I have to slog my way back into a piece of writing. Although sometimes I come back completely refreshed. Usually it's a combination of the two.

I find myself in this vicious cycle of having a really productive writing day then completely slacking off the next day. Not sure what that is about at all. I even leave myself a note on where to pick up the next day but still I avoid my desk for hours until I get so disgusted with myself that I finally pick up a pen or the mouse just to scribble something even if it's about how disgusted I am that I haven't written all day and lo and behold I am suddenly writing and back in the groove. It's a crazy crazy way to live which makes me believe in having to write and not just wanting to.

I did manage to finish a draft of a story for my group last weekend. It was supposed to be the second story in my collection but it is now the first and it just fits so perfectly there. This is easily the 14th or 15th revision of this particular story and I can tell that although it is very close to being done I probably have another 2 or 3 to go. But these are the fun revisions. It's the polishing of each paragraph and each sentence and validating each word choice. I am currently reading "Reading Like a Writer" by Francine Prose and she has me totally enraptured with language again- both my own and in the writing of others. She opens reading up into this whole new dimension. Which brings me to my current project. This is something I've been meaning to do for a while. It's my own self-guided MFA.

This is the plan. But first a little background...

I came to writing long after I already had a degree in art and began working as a graphic designer. Just when I decided to go back to school to pursue an English degree I found out that I was finally pregnant after trying for two years. So, of course, school gets put on hold. I kept a very tenuous thread connected to writing while my children were little through various workshops and classes. My life line ended up being a workshop through the Writers Voice called "MothersWrite." We gathered each week for two hours to write, talk about writing and how to combine that with motherhood. And they provided childcare. It was a dream come true. Once my youngest had entered precshool I took myself to the Starbucks around the corner and wrote for those 2-3 hours, filling notebooks with tons of what Natalie Goldberg calls writing practice. Characters began to emerge along with possible stories but I wasn't concerned with that, just with showing up to the page.

My real commtitment came once the girls entered school full time. Suddenly there were these seven hours a day that I had to myself. Much of the stories I have finished happened since then. Ron Carlson says that the first 20 stories you write are your apprenticeship. I have 29 that I can recall. Periodically I consider going back to school but that just isn't feasible now that we have two daughters, one only five years away from graduating high school and going off to college herself. So I ask myself what would an MFA give me besides the degree and the connections. 1. Time to write. I've already established that I have that. It's just a matter of using it much more productively than I currently am. 2. Feedback on my work. Well, I have that too. I am part of a committed writing group who provide not only encouragment but incredibly insightful and thoughtful comments that make me want to make my work even better. 3. Reading lists that lead to provocative discussions of classic and contemporary writers. Now I have that too. At least the reading list part. I went online and printed out a couple of MFA Reading Lists then cross checked it against my own extensive collection and came up with a reading plan that should keep me busy for quite awhile.

The plan is to finish the Francine Prose book. (Oh, how I wish I had her leaning over my shoulder as I read, pointing out every nuance of every sentence and word choice.) My hope is that by reading her book it will help make me a more careful reader. The next book will be "Master Class in Fiction Writing" by Adam Sexton. It's broken into elements of fiction accompanied by the story that helps illustrate that particular element of craft.

Story Structure: "Araby"
Characterization: "Sense and Sensibility"
Plot: "The Secret Sharer"
Description: "Rabbit, Run"
Dialogue: "A Severed Head"
POV I- Participant Narrators: "As I Lay Dying"
POV II- Exclusively Observant Narrators: "Beloved"
Style, Voice: "A Farewell to Arms"
The World of Story: "Lolita"

That should keep me busy for the next couple of years since I also plan on continuing with my own reading for pleasure. The main thing I am learning so far is to read much more slowly. To savor the sentences. When I was in art school I was great at the gesture drawings- sketches of live models that we did in one minute increments to warm up. I sturggled when it came time to develop those drawings, layer them with texture and details- very similar to writing. I've filled close to forty notebooks with writing practice which is a bunch of timed writings done- you guessed it- really fast. Now it's time to slow down in both my reading and my writing.

Apparently Walter Mosley Knows his Stuff

2007-04-04T08:45:00.000-04:00

WRITING
Okay,okay, so Walter Mosley is on to something with this writing everyday thing so that the "continent of thought below your conscious mind" can work on the story. The book was available earlier than the date I saw on amazon. I ended up buying it a week and half ago and pretty much finished it in one sitting. It is a slim volume but full of sage advice from a writer who works at his craft. I found the third person narrative section especially helpful since that is an element I am curently struggling with. He states that "...we are viewing the world through the prism of the intelligent eye perched on Brent's shoulder, an intelligence without emotional response." That pretty much echoes what my writing group came up with when I read a passage from a short story that swings from a ten-year old girl's thoughts to an objective narrative voice within the same paragraph. They suggested that for it to work in my particular story that when the narrative voice is on, it can't include any of my usual metaphorical language. It's hard for me to do but it makes complete sense. I've been working on my story, even when I don't feel like it and finally it has fallen into some shape that feels right. And once that happened things from the first story fell into place. I'd wake up and think,"Oh, it's Barbie dolls in that scene, not baby dolls. And this scene needs to be moved from the second story to the first." And so on. So I am waking up like he said, further along in my story than when I left it the day before.

He also suggests that there is no vacation from writing. Literally. That you should write on the beach or wherever you happen to be. If you get a tooth pulled then put your character in a dentist's chair. Well... I leave for vacation tomorrow and I can pretty much guarantee you that I will not be writing everyday. Or maybe any day. I'll bring my notebooks and if I write anything that's something since I am giving myself permission to just not write for the next week. Does that make sense? With the pressue off, I am certain I will probably write at some point. Whereas if I demanded that I write everyday, well, that just wouldn't happen and I'd have the guilt on top of it.

READING
I am stunned that Oprah chose "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. Thrilled but stunned. It is not her usual woman truimphs in the end sort of novel. Not by a long shot. I read this the day it came out practically and pretty much in one sitting. Could not put it down. I even underlined sentences as I read... they are that breathtkaing. Anyway, now that it's out in paperback, everyone should read it. Really, go buy. Read it. It's amazing.

Another book I couldn't put down was "Awake in the Dark" by Shira Nayman. These are short stories and a novella that explore the deeply held secret life of holocaust survivors, what they endured, what they had to do to survive and the toll it took on them and their children as the secrets eventually surface. Highly recommended.

I am currently reading "Moral Disorder" by Margaret Atwood. Will write on it when I finish. So so good...as usual.

NEWS
My piece is now on http://estellabooks.blogspot.com/2007/04/three-hundred-and-ninety-three-and.html. There are also interviews with a some great writers- Billy Collins, Sara Gruen.

The Altercations conference in Ann Arbor is open for registration today. I went last year and ended up creating two beautiful collages that are now hanging in my house. This year I am interested in two classes. One in image transfer and the other in painting and mixing colors to get vibrant lush backgrounds.

Just finished a logo and sign for a church out in Arizona. And my sister and I also designed some logo ideas for our other sister in Florida. That was fun.

We are off to Connecticut and Philadelphia tomorrow for spring break. It's not a warm beach but it is family and our daughters seem to prefer that. So, no more posts until the week of April 15. Now I get to go pick my books for the trip. I love that part of packing.

QUOTE
"The reader is always looking for two things in the novel: themsleves and transcendence."
- Walter Mosley

An All Around Excellent Day

2007-03-29T15:14:00.000-04:00

It's been an excellent writing day. Finally, finally, finally this second story in my collection fell into place. All the scenes fell into a new order that makes so much more sense and it feels inevitable. That has to be good, right? I just need to smooth out a few scenes, fill in a few gaps and send it off to my writing group for our next meeting. I'm sure they'll be grateful to see a new story. Same character but new story.

It's been an excellent library day. I checked out "Awake in the Dark" by Shira Nayman. It's a story collection that I've been eyeing at the bookstore for a while. And "Blind Submission" by Debra Ginsberg which is a novel set in the bookstore/publishing business.

And it's been an excellent bookstore day. I got the new CD by Amy Winehouse. It's playing now. She has this great phrase in the third song "What kind of f**kery is this?" I think it could catch on... Plus a book called "Writer Mama" by Christina Katz which I think is probably aimed at moms with kids younger than mine but it looks like she has some great tips for breaking into magazine writing which is something I want to do. I also bought the latest issue of a magazine out of the UK called "Psychologies." It's one of the few magazines where I read practically every aricle.

And I cleaned up our art studio in the basement. Now that it's a bit more organized maybe that will entice to go make some art.

So, yes, all in all an excellent day so far... Bring on the evening of homework, dinner and negotiating the inevitable sibling rivalry...

Update

2007-03-22T14:54:00.000-04:00

Not only was it a productive morning but I already heard back from the editor of the blog where I submitted my piece and they loved it. It will appear at http://www.estellasrevenge.com in April. Very cool... I am becoming more of a believer in just showing up and writing regardless of my current frame of mind- or lack thereof.

Well, that was productive

2007-03-22T09:08:00.000-04:00

It is now 9:08. I wrote my morning pages which actually helped shed some light on why I haven't been writing like I want to. I finished the mysteries piece and submitted it to the blog editor. And I've been working on the second story in my novel-in-stories. I just scratched out a rough outline of a new sequence of scenes and it looks like I might end up combining the first two stories into one. I tried doing that before but something always prevented it. It still might but it feels good to be working on it. And the voice seems to be coming through this time. We'll see... it's way to soon to tell at this point.

Anyway... all in all quite a productive morning so far.

Something New Today

2007-03-22T07:22:00.000-04:00

I read on a blog, which is now on hiatus, about this writing accountability group. They all signed on at say 7 pm after posting their goal for that writing period earlier in the day. They all then proceeded to write for the allotted time, maybe 2 hours then checked back in with their results. It looked quite successful. So I am trying that this morning. It is 7:24 and I am committing to writing for at least the next hour. Longer if my daughter sleeps in. The only reason I can do this now is because she is home sick again. She's missed the whole week of school. My goal is to write my 3 morning pages and revise my "It's a Mystery" piece. I'll post again when I am done.

This Thing They Call Process

2007-03-21T09:22:00.000-04:00

I've been a bit obsessed about this thing referred to as the creative process.( Just ask my writing group.) It probably stems from the fact that I haven't been truly engaged in it in a while. I came to that conclusion because the days seem to slip though my fingers without me ever picking up a pen or tapping these keys. But I mull it over, this whole process thing. A lot. So my look on the bright side, the glass is half full new conclusion is that these black holes of non-productivity are actually part of my process. Not a part I necessarily enjoy but a part nonetheless. And this blog which is here to reflect on the creative process- well the black holes between entries tell a story in themselves, don't they? You could assume that I am furiously writing my way through my novel-in-stories when, in fact, I am totally stumped by the first story. And I do mean stumped. (Again, just ask my writing group.) I am trying to write in a third person voice of an eight-year-old girl but also have this objective narrator available for those things that she just isn't able to tell in her own voice. If anyone has any reading suggestions for that I am totally open. The only story I've come across so far is "Bocci" by Renee Manfredi and I am dissecting it line by line.

Another thing that leads to this not writing business is that I do not have to work outside the home. I have been beyond blessed in that regard. I do some freelance graphic design work but for the most part my days are wide open, except for days like this week when my daughter is home sick. I have put this pressure on myself that a real writer with a day wide open like mine will slide effortlessly toward her computer and sit there for a good 5-6 hours writing her novel. I don't know where I got this idea. I have met one writer who claims to do that. I won't mention her by name because I do enjoy her books but still, I think we are allowed to hate her just a bit. But all the other writers I know and have read interviews with, well, that's just not reality. All the blogs I find, they discuss this dark side of writing and I realize that if I am to keep an honest account of my creative life, then I need to disclose this side too. And accept that it is just part of living a creative life.

NEWS
Received form email rejection from "The Missouri Review" for "Being Franny's Sister"- Kind of disappointing since I have gotten some very encouraging handwritten notes from them in the past and this is my best story to date.

Walter Mosley has a new book coming out on April 3 called "This Year you Write Your Novel"- It looks amazing. There's an excerpt in the current issue of "Poets & Writers." I plan on reading it on our 12 hour road trip to CT over Easter.

Anne Lamott has a new book that came out yesterday. More spiritual essays. Can't wait to read it.

GOALS
• Send out "Being Franny's Sister" and "Small Gestures of Violence" to five journals each before my writing group meets again on April 22.

• Revise the second story in my collection "Japanese for Butterfly" for April 22.

• Revise and submit piece on mystery for http://www.estellabooks.blogspot.com/ by March 25.

QUOTE
"The first and most important thing you have to know about writing is that it is something you must do everyday...Some days you may be rewriting, rereading, or just sitting there scrolling back and forth through the text. This is enough to bring you back into the dream of your story. What, you ask, is the dream of a story? This is a mood and a continent of thought below your conscious mind; a place that you get closer to with each foray into the words and worlds of your novel. You may have only spent an hour and a half working on the book, but the rest of the day will be rife with motive moments in your unconsciousness; moments in your mind, which is mulling over the places your words have touched. While you sleep, mountains are moving deep within your psyche. When you wake up and return to the book, you are amazed by the realization that you are farther along than when you left off yesterday. If you skip a day or more between your writing sessions, your mind will drift away from these deep moments of your story. You will find that you'll have to slog back to a place that would have been easily attained if only you wrote everyday."

From Walter Mosely's new book. I printed it out and taped it over my desk.

The Process of Dead Ends

2007-02-20T09:56:00.000-05:00

WRITING PROCESS
Much more reading than writing lately. Although I have been writing. Working on the same first story of my novel-in-stories. After doing about eleven revisions where I was sure that the first two stories needed to be together I finally realized that, in fact, they did not belong together. At all. not even close. A huge lesson in dead ends and process. It really has to be about enjoying the process of dreaming up these characters and becoming completely fascinated by what they will do next even if they lead me on ten wild goose chses so that I end up almost exactly where I started. At one point I had index cards with scenes from both stories spread out all over the floor of my office trying all different sequences. It was then that I ralized tha everytime I hit a wall it was when I tried merging the stories. So I sent them off to their separate corners and feel like i am back on track. Good thing too since I need to submit something to my group this week.

We had a snow day last week and my new "Poets & Writers" showed up. Perfect timing. There is an article in there by Wlater Mosely on the importance of writing every day. All writers have their opinion on this. Some are on board, others scoff and others are militant in their committment. I believe in the theory but do not necessarily practice it. But I do believe it is a huge help. This is why: it keeps you connected to your story. To your characters. To your voice. I know that when I go days without writing my voice feels rusted, stiff, and oh so tentative. And I spend much of my writing time berating myself for falling off the wagon in the first place. Also, it's a matter of effort. Think of how much energy it takes to launch a rocket versus just letting it do its thing out in space. If I keep writing, every day, I don't have to re-launch my voice or story every single time I sit down to write. The other little perk is that once you work on your story that day, and this means actually writing down words, sentences, even paragraphs, then your mind is open to the story even when you aren't at your desk. I find this happens all the time. Once I am in that writing groove then the characters are with me constantly, as I work out, run errands, do the laundry or dishes and most importantly in those in twilight zones between sleep and wakefulness.

READING
Yes. Lots and lots of reading lately. Not only did we have a snow day but we had a four day weekend for President's Day. "The Long Haul" was amazing. I read it in less than a day. We have the girlfriend telling the story of her realtionship with her boyfriend only referred to as "The Alcoholic." They are both lost and broken and try so hard to be together until it becomes impossible.

My youngest daughter is reading historical fiction for a book report so I read that in a day just so I could help her if needed. It was "Lily's Crossing" set in WWII.

I read all three memoirs by Jennifer Lauck. The first two, "Blackbird" and "Still Waters" tell the story of her childhood and the devestating losses she endured. She tells it in the first person, present tense. The last one, "Show Me the Way" is about motherhood and she weaves together her experiences as a mother with her childhood memories. If you want a book about motherhood that tells the truth, then this it. It reminds me of "Operating Instructions' by Anne Lamott.

"Life As We Knew It" is a young adult book about the end of life as we know it. A meteor has hit the moon and knocked it out of orbit causing cataclysmic weather patterns that result in tsunamis that wipe out both coasts, long dormant volcanoes erupt filling the air with a thick gray ash and it goes on from there. Gas is twelve dollars a gallon. School is closed. The story is told in journal entries by 16-year-old Miranda who yearns for normalcy and struggles with her family in this new world wondering if this is a new kind of normal.

"Happiness" (it is trademarked) is a hilarious and astute satire of publishing and the whole self-help industry. The premise began with the question "What if a self-help book finally worked?" Well, in this book, one does and the results are not what you'd expect which leads me to wonder what is the point of all the self-help and self-actualization. What if we do reach whatever vague promise of our best selves is out there, then what? Isn't life all about the process including all the messiness. Especially the messiness? It's ironic that I read this just after reading the latest self-help phenomenon, "The Secret." It's all about the Law of Attractions and how we are all just energy and energy attracts like energy. If you send out good energy you get good stuff back. Bad energy gets you bad stuff. That's a simplistic version but there it is. it's intriguing and the book is filled with examples of people who have literally changed their lives with a new thought pattern, even curing themsleves of disease. The problem I have with that is what about those who don't cure themselves? Does that mean they are weak minded? That they brought it on themselves through their thoughts? Do they really need to blame themselves on top of everything else they are going through? I don't know.... there is something fascinating in the theory but also slightly disturbing.

CREATIVITY
Katie and I went to Scrap Tales yesterday. I wasn't going to buy anthing but that's like me going into a bookstore and not buying a book. It's happened but not very often. I don't scrapbook but I find lots of supplies for my collages. They had some special paper and gel for doing transfers which I've been trying to do for a year now. Hopefully this technique works. Once I decided to buy that I began looking for more cool stuff and I found it. Lots of beautiful papers and stamps and rub on transfers. So instead of watching TV last night, the girls and I went down to our art studio in the basement and made some art. I pulled out my artist journal and was saddened to see that the last page I did was in October. What I love about it is that I do enjoy the process. Usually, I am not creating these collages for anyone but me. It's interesting to start with nothing and just let my intuition guide me. What I don't like about it is trying to keep track of all my supplies and finding what I need when I need it.

Made a big pot of vegetable soup with Katie. She decided we should add some chicken to it so she sauteed some in olive oil with garlic and seasoned it with smoked paprika, rosemary and just a pinch of cinnamon she said. So cute. And so helpful to have a daughter who likes to cook.

NEWS
I got into the Kenyon Review Workshop in advanced fiction with Ron Carlson. I am so so excited. He is an amazing writer and teacher. It is for seven days in June.

My story, "You Are Here' is now in the archives at literarymama.com.

Received a rejection from MAR for "Small Gestures of Violence." That is the story that got me into the Carlson workshop. Not sure if I will just send it out again or maybe wait for his comments.

I need to check on the status of a submission at "The Missouri Review."

I leave for Phoenix in eight days. Just me, staying at my best friend's house out there in the sunshine and warmth for about six days. Can't wait!!

My sister is selling beautiful hand made jewelry at etsy.com. Look for her at hiptomylu! I'll have to post a photo of the bracelet she made just for me at Christmas. I told her that if I had seen a thousand bracelets that would have been the one I selected myself.

QUOTE
"I find that I have to write in order to discover my ideas. I think you could allow yourself to never get started if you tried to guess in advance what was going to inspire you." - Jay McInerney

Once there was a plan....

2007-01-28T12:32:00.000-05:00

I had a plan. A plan that had me reading from my stacks at quite a steady pace. The momentum came from the fact that I was reading books that although I enjoyed them, they didn't have a place in my permanent library. So my husband was going to take them out to Arizona with him in his truck and trade them in at my most favorite independent bookstore in the country- Changing Hands in Tempe. Since I am going out there at the end of February I could then use my store credit to- yes- buy more books. Which I know kind of defeats the whole purpose of reading from my stacks. Alas, the plan was not to be. Due to the freaky winter weather that has zapped much of the country, my husband did not drive out to Arizona but instead he flew out which did nothing to further my whole book scheme. But I am still reading from my stacks. An update:

"Red Plaid Shirt" by Diane Schoemperlen- I loved the unique structure of these short stories. The title story is written in parts, each starting with an item of clothing and going into memories surrounding it, in a second person voice. Each one ends with a kind of stream of consciousness medition on the color. Every story has its own structure that holds it together. It gave me many ideas to try in my own writing.

"Sugar Cage" by Connie May Fowler- I remember buying this shortly after her other novel had been chosen for the Oprah Book Club but I never got around to reading it. I thought it would be end up being a typical Oprah book but it was not. The story hums with magic and a certain lushness that places you in Florida during turbulent political times when Matin Luther King rises and falls. Each chapter is told through a different voice and through each story you come to see how they are connected. I love the empathy she shows for each character whether it's a reluctant seer of tragedies or a man who cheats and abuses his wife.

"The Novelist" by Angela Hunt- I know some writers who dismiss books about writers out of hand. Not me. I am drawn to them. So obviously a book titled "The Novelist" would catch my attention. I didn't realize at the time that she is a Christian novelist. I know some would also dismiss such a book on that basis alone but I chose to stick with it and read it. I am trying to stretch my reading this year beyond my usual comfort zone. It ended up being a story within a story. Or rather a parable within a story. I can appreciate that structure. The novel led me to think about how we conceive of our characters or stories. I tend to start with characters and I discover what their stories are. This book felt like she had a theme she wanted to explore so she invented characters that could do that for her. Not necessarily my way of writing but hey, she has 17 books under her belt. Gotta respect that. One thing I took away was the idea of using a JC Penny or Sears catlog to get a visual of your character. Sometimes I picture actors as my characters. Having a concrete image of your character can only help the story.

I am also reading "The Best Short Stories of the Century." A few each week.

And I am reading "The Sincerest Form, Writing Fiction by Imitation" by Nicholas Delbanco. I think this could possibly be the best book on writing I've come across- and I've come across hundreds.

A slightly dysfunctional relationship

2007-01-15T15:04:00.000-05:00

I am in a slightly dysfunctional relationship. It's not with my husband, kids, family or friends- well, most of the time it's not. No, it's with publishing my writing. I work so hard at my craft and spend so much time researching journals to submit my work to so I obviously want this, right? And the few acceptances I've gotten- well, my family has come running into my office to see what all the commotion was about.

So I had this story posted on www.iterarymama.com last week. I spent all day checking to see if it was up yet although I knew it wouldn't be until much later in the evening so obviously there's some excitement going on. Then, finally it's there. There's my name with a link to my story. I click on it and there it is on the freakin' world wide web, for the whole freakin' world to see. What was I thinking? I felt like I was caught outside naked or worse, in high school naked. It's this odd other side of writing. As a writer I am a fairly private person. I mean I sit in a room basically daydreaming all day and trying to get those daydreams down onto paper or the screen. But when a piece is published suddenly all those private thoughts are plastered out there for anyone to see and interpret as they see fit. It's a little disconcerting. A tad unsettling. Especially when people read things into it that I hadn't intended or I apparently reveal things I hadn't intended. I'm not whining or complaining, really. I am beyond grateful to those editors who saw something in my stories that made them want to publish them. I guess I am still struggling to navigate this tricky balance between public and private.

An Infinitesimal Dent

2007-01-10T18:47:00.000-05:00

That's what I've made in my stacks and stacks of books. Here's a quick recap of the books I've read lately which I guess means since my last post, which was, yes, almost a month ago:

"Blue Water" by A. Manette Ansay
"Reasons to Live" by Amy Hempel (reminds me of Raymond Carver)
"The Winter Without Milk" by Jane Avrich (lush, dark and magical)
"Grayson" by Lynne Cox
"Grass Roof, Tin Roof" by Dao Strom (beautifully structured)
"The Breakdown Lane" by Jacquelyn Mitchard
"Me & Emma" by Elizabeth Flock
"As Simple as Snow" by Gregory Galloway (good story)
"The Big Book of Bright Ideas" by Sandra Kring (a little too predicatble for me)
"Parasites Like Us" by Adam Johnson (oddly creepy especially in this age of bird flu)
"What to Wear to See the Pope" by Christine Lehner

That's actually a lot of reading when you throw in the holidays and, you know, life and stuff.

My writing group decided to lay out some writing/publishing goals for the year so that we can encourage/support/nag each other into accomplishing them. It ended up being a great exercise for me. I have tons of stories that have been workshopped over the last few years but need that final revision before sending them out into the world. The biggest project is this novel-in-stories. So I mapped out a month-by-month plan to revise, workshop, revise again and send out the stories one by one. It takes me all the way to November at which point I plan on looking for an agent.

The other part of my goals involved daily, weekly and monthly quotas. Three morning pages a day. A new story or draft every two weeks. Filling a notebook a month with writing practice. So far, so good. I was able to cross the first thing off my list which was finally finishing "Being Franny's Sister" and sending it out. I did that on Monday. Now I'm working on the first story in my collection. It's turning out to be a major revision.

My story "You Are Here" should be posted to www.literarymama.com sometime today. Check it out- the story and the whole site.

Ice skating, Piano and Writing

2006-12-14T09:30:00.000-05:00

I watched some kind of ice skating competition a couple of weeks ago. Whenever I watch these amazing athletes, especially when its the Olympics I am just in awe of their dedication. They get up in darkness to go practice before school or work. They practice after school. They practice for hours and hours and hours. When faced with this kind of passion I ask myself a question: Do I have the same passion and dedication for my writing? If I did wouldn't it be easier to sit down and write for hours every day? If I did wouldn't I want to write more than anything like the 12-year old artist who paints after school and all night long instead of hanging out at the mall with her friends because it is what she loves to do. Or pianists who play for hours everyday. Do I not love to write? Do I love it enough? I begin to wonder what if I put in eight hours a day of writing, how would that improve it? But then I remember, that while I have the luxury of staying home for my family and working a very flexible freelance life, I don't have the luxury of eight hours a day. While I don't have the responsibility of needing to contribute to our financial stabilty I do have the responsibilty of creating a life that nurtures my family. But this is off the track of where I want to be. I am talking about dedication and putting in those hours and I am talking about it because I haven't been putting in those hourse. Not lately. I've put in some. I am still rewriting a story and everytime I finish a revision I say, "Finally, it's done." But then it's not. And I dread looking at it again for fear that it still isn't done after at least twenty major revisions. Then I think, that's dedication, isn't it? Of course it is. I have been filling pages and notebooks for the last fifteen years. That's dedication. I have to remember that these lulls are part of the process. Part of the creative cycle.

And while I've not been writing as much as I expect myself to I have been doing other things:
- finished Christmas shopping and wrapped them all- even the stocking stuff
- made a birthday card
- made a gift for a friend
- handmade over 40 Christmas cards and got them all sent out, many with handwritten notes
- did a family photo to put in the cards
- decorated the house for the holidays
- planned a holiday party and hand made the invitations
- cut 150 words off a story and sent it to Mid-American Review

Apparently my writing lulls can be quite prodcutive. And while I'm not writing a lot I am still writing and when I'm not, I'm mulling over stories and characters, trying to find that door back in. I think that is what the lulls are for. Just a gentle meandering in my mind of my stories, getting a little distance, keeping my eyes and ears open for that one thing that I see or overhears that breaks the story wide open for me again.

This is a little embarrassing

2006-11-27T19:55:00.000-05:00

So I finished my inventory of books I own but have not yet read. Let me just say that the results are a little embarrasing not to mention a bit disturbing. But keep in mind that it has taken me a good eighteen years of hard core bookstore browsing to acquire such a collection.

The tally is as follows:

Novels: 174
Short Story collections: 119
Classics: 18 (plus the one I just bought, making it 19...yes, I actually wandered into a bookstore even after completing my inventory. I willingly and totally admit I have a problem. Is there such a thing as Bibliophiles Anonmyous?)
Memoir: 38
Non-fiction: 17

Making a grand total of 367.

That's easily a year's worth of reading and that is at a good clip. After reading a friend's blog I realize that this challenge I have entered into has a name: From the Stacks. Quite appropriate.

The thing is- I love love love to read. People often ask me how I find time to read so much. Some have even said that they don't read. Ever. Period. I look at them with a look of confusion as if they are speaking a foreign language. Not reading is like not breathing to me. I have always loved to read. My favorite in elementary school was a series based on triplets named Flicka, Ricka and Dicka. Lots of Norwegain phrases peppered throughout. My mom says I brought those same books home week after week after week. My cousin turned me onto my first adult books- Agatha Christie. Of course, I read all the Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden. Imagine how thrilled I was when my fourth grader chose to read Trixie Belden for her mystery book report.

I remember the first time I bought mulitple books at once. My husband I were at the mall at a Waldenbooks (this was before I discovered my soft spot for Indie bookstores) and I had five books in my hand and couldn't decide which to get so I bought all of them. Five books at once although I knew I could only read one at a time. It felt so indulgent. Reckless somehow. If I had only known where it would lead.

As much as I enjoy reading, I also realize that I use books the way some people use food. To fill a hole of some kind. Usually it is the hole in my own writing. When I am writing and really in the groove I hardly read at all. When I am not writing, I gorge myself on other people's words and end up feeling just as bloated and empty as if I had inhaled a gallon of ice cream.

Now that my books are listed, I feel ready to tackle my own From the Stacks challenge. I really do love crossing items off a list.

But I Don't Want to be One of Those Bloggers

2006-11-21T13:23:00.000-05:00

Okay, I've become one of those bloggers that totally frustrate me. The ones that let days, weeks go by without a new post. Not that I'm kidding myself that I have a huge audience waiting with bated breath for a glimpse into my cluttered mind. But still. I started this blog as an incentive to keep myself accountable to my writing. I guess it would help if I actually held myself accountable to writing here too. So here I am. With good news. literarymama.com accepted my story. It should be posted on their website the second Wednesday in January. When I saw the email from them my heart kind of sank a little since it was supposed to take three months for a response. I figured an early response meant rejection. But I was happily surprised. And even more taken aback by the praise. Congratulating me on a wonderful story. After racking up close to 100 rejections, throughout this whole process of trying to get a story published I guess it escaped me that they would have to really love the piece to accept it. That they aren't just humoring me by accepting it. So look for my story "You Are Here" in January. It started as a writing prompt at Farfield, a writing conference at Oakland University. It was a black and white photo of a indoor kitchen type chair sitting outside a house.

I've had several good library weeks in a row. For months it seemed nothing worth checking out was on the shelves. But then there was. First I read: "This Book Could Save Your Life" by A.M. Homes. When I returned that one (plus three others which for the life of me I can't remember) I checked out: "Lost and Found" by Carolyn Parkhurst. I loved her first one in spite of the fact that the Today show picked it for their book club. But didn't love her second one so much. It was incredibly predictable just like the reality show she based the novel around called "Lost and Found". I didn't care about the characters. And what I expected to happen, did. No surprises except at how disappointed I was. Next in line is "After This" by Alice McDermott. Only a few pages in but no disappointment so far. Then it's on to a new collection of stories by Dennis Lehane. There's just something so satisfying about a good library day. I walk in expecting nothing and come out with an armful of (hopefully) great books- for free. It makes me feel like my stars are all in alignment and anything is possible.

Oh, and here's my latest project. It's crazy but I'm doing it anyway. I am making lists, according to genre of all the books I own but have not read yet. You writers and bibliophiles out there know what I mean. That urge to scour bookstores, scoring used and new books that end up in piles stacked next to the bed, the couch, end table, coffee tables- it's well, is addictive too strong a word? I do feel a certain thrill when I leave a store, a bagful of new books to read. Unfortunately my input far exceeds my output and we have crammed as many bookshelves as we can into this house of ours so I am on a mission to read the books I already own. Radical, I know. I do have some books on my Christmas list so if I receive them as gifts I have to accept them, right? I had my last binge at a book warehouse that is going out of business so the already low prices were marked down forty percent. I ended up getting 2 bags of books for fifty bucks. That felt good. But there are times when I wander into a bookstore and it doesn't feel good because i know I have no business buying any more books. Then the guilt creeps in when I succumb and they end up in a pile in the corner of the house, unread and who wants guilt with their reading?

So I am making lists of novels, short story collections, classics, memoirs and non-fiction and it will bring immense satisfaction to start crossing off titles one by one as I finish them.

In Praise of Lists

2006-10-29T16:37:00.000-05:00

I like lists. I like making lists of things to do for the day, the week, the month, the year. Lists of stories I have in various stages of progress. Christmas lists. Lists of meals for the week. Grocery lists. I get so much satisfaction out of crossing completed items off my list that I will write something down that I have already done just so I can cross it off. It's an illness, I know.

So, in the spirit of lists, here are some of the creative endeavors I've been involved in since my last post. Photos to follow at a later date since one of the things on my new list of things to learn is how to download and print photos off our new camera. I believe my 12-year old knows how. . .

1. Revised and sent a story off to www.literarymama.com. Great on-line journal so check it out. Should hear back within 3 months.

2. Learned to solder. Created two pendants that I then turned into necklaces. I designed two collages for each and sandwiched them between glass slides, taped them, then soldered the edges, making a frame, soldered jump rings on and ta-da- a necklace. Now I just need to get my own supplies so I can do it at home.

3. Did a major revision on an old story, workshopped it today. Attempted to start the rewrite when I got home earlier but decided I just need a little bit of breathing space on this one for now. Trying to sort out the conflicting comments which were all valid and thoughtful.

4. Spent 7 hours yesterday teaching some friends to collage while creating my own assemblage. It is now hanging up in our living room but after looking at it I decided to "revise" it. I am going to take the wings off and create new ones, bigger and separate from the main piece. Each one will stand on its own but all hang together on the wall creating one piece of art.

5. Morning pages most mornings.

6. Yoga most mornings.

7. Worked out all but 2 days.

8. Did the first draft of a monthly 12-page newsletter.

9. Read 5-10 pages of Proust most weekday mornings. ("Swann's Way")

10. Read every single story in the "The Best American Short Stories 2006."

The Key to Writing

2006-10-08T19:19:00.000-04:00

All I can say is thank God for my writer's group and their objective eyes reading my stories. I spent all week immersed in a major rewrite that I thought I had pretty much nailed. Uh, not so much. It turns out there was too much residue left in from the old version and it marred this draft, resulting in murky motives and shakey dispositions in characters that I didn't intend. So I am mulling new possibilites, churning what-ifs to see what happens. Which leads me to this: I have discovered the key to writing. Let me clue you in.

There are two actually. The first is one you hear over and over but ignore in hopes that they are all wrong and that you really can learn to write through some sort of osmosis. Well, you can't. So the first secret is to write. To show up on a regular basis. Every day if possible which I have since September 1 when my great novel writing challenge began. It's cliché but true: writing begets writing.

Secret number two: walking. There is just something about the rhythm of walking that allows all those characters and scenes you've been pouring onto the page because you've been showing up everyday, to settle and shift into new patterns, unlocking places in the story that were previously stagnant. The movement of walking allows your story to move. Again, this is something that you cannot just take my word on. You need to experience it yourself. This week during one of my walk so many of the scenes that had been flashbacks suddenly became part of the current story. Then today, after my workshop, I went for a 45 minute walk around Kensington lake where blue water shimmered against the backdrop of fiery leaves and white sailboats. I got back to my car, grabbed a notebook and sat at a picnic table and scribbled two pages worth of what-if questions. Now I may not use all of them but they are enough to get my story moving again and to get me back into the story.

Go ahead. Show up to that blank page every day this week, even if you don't know what happens next. Especially if you don't know what happens next. Then walk. Carry the story with you and walk in silence. No tunes. No books on tape. Just you and the story. See what happens.

QUOTE
Every moment is enormous, and it is all we have.
- from "Long Quiet highway"

Still Filling Pages

2006-10-04T17:44:00.000-04:00

WRITING ACCOUNTABILITY
The new structure appears to be working. I went to Starbucks on Sunday with my daughter. She did her homework while I did several timed writes, filling at least ten pages in my notebook which is the only point- to just fill up pages.

A few of my favorite books for pulling writing prompts from:

"The Writer's Book of Days' by Judy Reeves
"The Pocket Muse" by Monica Wood
"Five Minute Fiction" by Roberta Allen
"The Writer's Book of Matches- 1,001 Prompts to Ignite your Fiction"- by the staff of "fresh boiled peanuts"

This week I've been working on a major revision of an old story. I just finished a draft about five minutes ago. It's about 6400 words. I'll take a fresh look at it tomorrow and fix any glaring inconsistencies before sending it out to my writer's group for our meeting on Sunday. Today I put in about four hours. Yesterday two and a half. Monday about one and a half, and much of that time was spent culling through old files, trying to find a story I felt a spark with and could revise in less than five days. Of course I did all this while doing laundry, fixing meals, running to Jump Rope practice, gymnastics, vlounteering at school during lunch recess for mileage club, helping with homework, signing school papers and caring for the new kitty that showed up on our back deck. Will have to post a photo of her. Too too adorable. Named her Tallulah. Lulu for short. And although cat number one, Zoey, hates her living guts, Lulu still tries to play with her.

READING NEWS
Just finished the new one by Cormac McCarthy called"The Road". It's the first time I've read him and I was blown away. It tells a horrifying but oddly beautiful story of a postapocolyptic America. I especially loved how the prose echoed the physical and emotional landscape of the story- bleak, sparse but hopeful. I literally held a pencil as I read so I could underline certain sentences that took my breath away.

"He thought each memory recalled must do some violence to its origins."

"Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world."

The whole novel is filled with jewels like these.

The other book I picked up after "The Road" is "Running with Scissors" by Augusten Burroughs. Talk about two books that mess with your mind! It's been on my bookshelf for a long time but now that the movie is coming out I need to read it. I overheard a woman comment at a bookstore last week that she read the first nineteen pages before throwing it across the room in disgust. Hearing that made me even more curious. I am well past page nineteen and if she was disgusted by those few pages then it's a good thing she put it down. I don't find it disgusting but it is extremely disconcerting especially knowing that it is a memoir. And in spite of the bad rap of that genre lately, I am inclined to give the writer the benefit of the doubt until shown otherwise.

RANDOM NEWS
I believe that registration is now open for anyone wishing to participate in the official Novel Writing Month that starts on November 1. Check out their website at www.nanowrimo.org

QUOTE
A writer's path includes concentration, slowing down, commitment, awareness, lonliness, faith, a breakdown of ordinary perceptions.
- from "Thunder and Lightning"

Needed: a new structure

2006-09-30T18:12:00.000-04:00

I have deemed this draft of the novel done. I need to let it sit now for a week or two before looking at it with fresh eyes and seeing what the hell I have actually written.

Which leaves me without the structure that was so vital for this last month of prolific writing productivity. So I need a new structure. A new plan. And this is it: on the weekends I am going to take a break from writing on any specific piece. Not from writing itself. The weekend is for playing. For freewriting and just filling up pages. I did 2 twenty-minute writes today. The topics were:

1. The Woman I Kept to Myself (from the title of a book of poetry by Julia Alvarez)
2. What was it that I wanted? (from a line in one of her poems)

I have 9 hand-written pages and it was so much fun to just let my mind wander and roam without a specific goal in sight, only to keep my hand moving for 20 full minutes.

My goal this week is to get a story ready for my workshop on Sunday. 2 hours (at least) of revision daily. It won't feel as productive as the 2000 words a day was. That was a straight ahead no matter what goal. Revision is less linear. More of a spiral process so I think the time quota instead of pages or words will work. We'll see.

Now I am going down to our art space in the basment for more creativity with k. She is finally feeling better. The fever broke and she can eat real food again.

Quote:
If you want to see your own face, if you want to drop off the old yellow coat of yourself, pick up the pen.
- from a symposium on writing and zen.

I love the line "the old yellow coat of yourself." That could be a writing topic for tomorrow.

And for more inspiration, check out this link:

http://www.laserrania.com/odysseys/houston_why_i_write.html

It's an essay by Pam Houston.

Day twenty-eight

2006-09-28T19:19:00.000-04:00

Word count: 52,327

Quote:
Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.
- from "Wild Mind"

Not much of a difference in word count between today and yesterday. A little less than 200 words but I'm amazed I got that much in considering I had to go pick up k. at school because she was sick. I squeezed in another Dr. appointment I already had for e. to check out her ankle that has been hurting for a month. After an hour and a half at the dr. they sent us to the urgent care for x-rays of the ankle and to the pharmacy to help soothe the wicked viral infection for k. She just had some broth and a pill and now needs to gargle with benadryl and maalox- yummy... Obviously she will not be going to school tomorrow and the dr. said to plan for a rough weekend. Perfect...

Oh, and I've always loved the above quote from N.G. My writing has all kinds of energy when I remember to do that.

Day twenty-seven

2006-09-27T15:53:00.000-04:00

Word count: 52,138

Quote: Follow what you love and it will take you where you need to go.
- from a symposium on writing an Zen

I think that maybe I have completed this first draft. It's far from done and there is so much to flesh out in the middle but a first line - perhap "the" first line" came to me as I was writing today so I feel it is time to swing back around to the beginning of the story. I thought I might want a break from it before tackling the rewrite but maybe not.

Day Twenty-Six

2006-09-26T18:31:00.000-04:00

Word count: 50,142

Writing is a way to connect with our own minds, to discover what we really think, see, and feel, rather than what we think we should think, see, and feel.
-from "Long Quiet Highway"

Yes- that is not a typo up there- I did pass the 50,00 word mark today. Three days early. But it still isn't quite wrapped up. I don't expect it to be a completely finished, polished story but I do want the dangling threads to begin to come to some kind of closure. Most of my stories do not have neat and tidy endings so that's not what I'm going for but maybe by tomorrow I will reach a point where I feel that this particular draft is done. It reminds me of a class I took where we had to write a complete short story in three to five pages and I always struggled with that. It can take me that many pages to begin to learn what the story is about. So it's like that but on a larger scale, trying to show a complete story arc within 50,000 words. I can see the benefit which is why I am scrambling to get it to a kind of closure. I want to be able to look back at the story with a fresh eye and see a story that then needs to be fleshed out. And who knows- maybe the fleshing out will take the story in a completely different direction which will then lead me to a totally new ending.

Day Twenty-Five

2006-09-25T15:47:00.000-04:00

Word count: 48,438

Quote:
Writing is a great journey. It is a path with the possibility of making us free. And it can do all of this while you sit at a desk.
- from "Wild Mind"

New scenes keep popping into my head and I frantically type them in, adding more and more words to this novel, knowing that it is not in any kind of sequence that makes any kind of sense yet. That will come during the revision process. I just keep telling myself that this is the down draft. I am just getting everything that I know down. The next phase is the up draft, where I fix it up, deepening what I know, adding layers. I have read a few pages here and there and while it is far from perfect I can feel some sparks there on the page. It is the kind of book I would be drawn to read.

Day Twenty-four

2006-09-24T19:56:00.000-04:00

Word count: 45,347

Quote:
The reader wants to come along with you. Take her.
- from Thunder and Lightning

That's it...long day.

Day Twenty-Three

2006-09-23T19:54:00.000-04:00

Word count: 45,347

Quote: Our voice emerges when we're jolted, loosened, connected to ourselves in a way that's bigger than ourselves.
- from "Thunder and Lightning"

I didn't get a chance to sit down here at my computer until 7:00 tonight. Today we cleaned the house and tackled the basement which is also our art area. Then I worked out, made lunch and went grocery shopping. Got home just before 5:00 when the girls' sleepover started. So now the house is filled with five "tweens" but I managed to sneak in here and add another thousand words to my story.

Day Twenty-Two

2006-09-22T21:19:00.000-04:00

Word count: 44,266

Quote:
Your mind has its own paths to travel. Just step out of its way.
- from Long Quiet Highway

Just squeezed in over a thousand words today. I showed up but nothing magical happened. I probably won't even use what I wrote today. It was all cheesey and trite. But at least I wrote it and got it out of the way so maybe something better will appear tomorrow. I think I am letting a certain idea I had influence the story. This particular plot line feels forced. Maybe I just need to let it go. Or as the quote says: step out of my own way.

Not sure where the day even went today. I did talk on the phone to my best friend from high school for an hour and a half, washed and changed all the sheets on the beds, did other laundry and even went Christmas shopping, bought two presents and wrapped them when I got home. So all in all a very productive and satisfying day.

Here's to the first day of the last week of this particular challenge but really, it's not the end. It's like a diet is never the true answer. There is no quick fix. Sure, I am writing this novel in thirty days but what really matters is what I do on the 31st day. And the day after that. And on and on. It's a matter of staying connected to my writing on a daily basis. It's a matter of showing up even when -or especially when- I have no idea what happens next. It means finishing this draft, putting it aside, revising an older story, getting some stories circulating out there again then going back to this novel and reading it with some clarity and distance and starting the process of writing it all over again. Each day I begin again. And again and again...

Day Twenty-One

2006-09-21T16:31:00.000-04:00

Word count: 43, 254

Quote:
The more deeply we can allow ourselves to sink into the darkness of our own selves, the more we can settle into the mind of being a writer.
- from "Long Quiet Highway"

As I close in on the final 10,00 words of this draft I am frantically fitting in scenes of conflict and escalating the trouble in my characters' lives. Much of the revision process will involve the pacing of the conflicts, not revealing too much or too little too late or too soon.

Day Twenty

2006-09-20T15:28:00.000-04:00

Word count: 41,093

Quote:
Writing is the willingness to see.
- from "Long Quiet Highway"

I just printed out the pages I have so far (130), three-hole punched them and put them in a binder along with all the scrap papers with my precious notes. I can see the end in sight and know that I will need to be semi-organized to tackle the revsion process. I didn't really find my structure until I was a good 50 pages into it. After this initial draft is done, I need to map out a timeline to hang in my office here to refer to as I rewrite. Right now I am just getting the scenes down as they come to me, knowing that the sequence can be fixed later. Some scenes I am writing, knowing they are a little too cheesey or melodramatic but I put them in anyway. It's all about just getting it "down" now in order to have something to fix "up" later.

Day Nineteen

2006-09-19T21:07:00.000-04:00

Word count: 38, 773

Quote:
When we actually write and lift that heavy pen to the vast page, beings seen and unseen help us.
- from "Wild Mind"

The pen felt very heavy and the page extremely vast today but I actually sat down and wrote and those beings appeared. Go figure...

Day Eighteen

2006-09-18T15:44:00.000-04:00

I waited until the last possible moment to start writing today- 2:00 and I just finsished as daughter number one got off the bus a few minutes ago. It is a cold, rainy, dreary day. Perfect for curling up with a good book. But I did finally haul myself to the computer, adding some 2000 words to my story. I wasn't sure where I was starting today but it ended up in an interesting place. A couple things changed and I wasn't sure how that would work but I followed it anyway and it feels inevitable. And I only found that out by showing up. I know I sound like a broken record but it's the lesson I keep having pounded into me day after day and it is the lesson I so needed to learn. And will continue to have to learn over and over again.

Total word count: 36, 241

Quote:
When we write we begin to taste the texture of our own mind.
-from "Long Quiet Highway"

Day Seventeen

2006-09-17T15:17:00.000-04:00

I am tired, cranky and not focused today but I still ground out just over a thousand words. I can't emphasize enough how important it has been for me to show up everyday to this story. To my writing. It keeps me connected to it. It is always there, wandering around my subconscious, which is why I have so many scraps of paper with little what-if notes to myself scribbled on them, most of which I am incorporating into the story.

Total word count: 34, 184

Quote:
Each time we sit down to write we have to be willing to let go and enter something bigger than ourselves.
- from "Long Quiet Highway"

New current working title: "A Kind of Shelter"

Off to do the grocery shopping for the week...

Day Sixteen

2006-09-16T14:57:00.000-04:00

I'm finding myself really enjoying the expanse of a novel. I love having all this space to roam freely in and out of my character's heads, lives and pasts. I wrote part of a novel eight or so years ago then freaked myself out and decided I didn't know what I was doing and maybe I should focus on short stories just to learn about the craft of fiction in a smaller form. Since then I've written forty or so stories. So I am used to the tightness and control of the short story form. But now, especially making this mad dash through 50,000 in thrity days, I am feeling free to just let it rip and see where it takes me. It is an amazing ride.

My goal this weekend is to do 1000 words each day. Just to stay connected to the story but letting myself have a bit of a break.

Total word count: 33, 161

"Trust your own mind."
- from "Long Quiet Highway"

Day Fifteen

2006-09-15T12:00:00.000-04:00

It's amazing how the more I write, the more material is churned up and needs to be written. Even at the movie theater yesterday I had to take out the notebook I carry dedicated to this novel and there in the dark scribbled two pages of ideas that came to me as I was watching the movie. I looked at them this morning and not only can I actually read them, but they all seem to still be good ideas.

I thought I was going to describe the house today but Lucy's scene, that I thought had ended yeseterday, went on for the full 2000 words today. Now, it won't all stay in the order I've written it in this draft, but most of it will find a place- somewhere I think. I hope.

I now realize how writing everyday takes a certain physical readiness. During these last fifteen days I have been eating really healthy food which,for me, means not too much sugar; working out 30-60 every day; plus 20 minutes of yoga and meditation early in the morning; maybe walking again in the late afternoon or early evening where I usually get some good ideas for the story; and I've been in bed by 9:00 most nights. If not for that structure to support me, I doubt I could continue at this pace.

Total word count: 32, 136

Quote:
"Writing brings you back to the natural state of mind, the wilderness of your mind where there are no refined rows of gladiolas."
- from "Wild Mind"

I love the line: there are no refined rows of gladiolas

Off to another mid-afternoon flick. Aaah... the sweet rewards of slowly reaching my goals.

Day Fourteen

2006-09-14T12:18:00.000-04:00

Well, I set a goal of breaking 30,00 words today and I just reached 30, 024. According to the schedule in the book I should reach 30,000 by day 18 so I am 4 days ahead of schedule.

For a reward I am treating myself to a couple of movies. Today I am seeing "The illusionist" and tomorrow it is "The Last Kiss" with Zach Braff. I loved his movie "Garden State". We'll see if this new one is just as good.

Quote:
"Don't wait for 100% acceptance of yourself before you write,or even 80%. Just write. The process of writing will teach you about acceptance."
- from "Wild Mind"

I am just writng everyday. Just showing up and seeing what happens. Accepting that whatever gets written that day, even if it doesn't survive the final cut, it still was necessary to get me to the end. Everything I write tells me more of what I need to know about the story and characters. So accept it all, even if as you write you know the scene is a little sentimental or the dialogue a little cheesy. It can all be fixed later. Now is the time to just write.

Day Thirteen

2006-09-13T15:17:00.000-04:00

Got my latest start yet. Didn't sit down at my computer until 1:00. But it's 3:11 now and I just added another 2000 words to my novel. Not sure if this scene even works. Some of it feels forced and trite but at least I showed up. That's what this little experiment is all about.

Total word count: 27,343

Quote:
Ask yourself, "What do I love deeply? What has brought me to my knees? What has totally broken me?" The combination of these answers can give you a voice.
- from a symposium on writng and Zen

Day Twelve

2006-09-12T15:32:00.000-04:00

Word count: 25, 311

Which puts me officially past the halfway point.

I think that deserves some sort of reward. I'll have to think of something.

It took twelve days but the necessary structure and voices have finally risen to the top of all the pages I've written. So although I don't know exactly everything that's going to happen, I look forward to showing up each day to find out.

Quote:
In writing,stay with first thoughts, that raw energy that comes from the bottom of the mind.
- from "Long quiet Highway"

Day Eleven

2006-09-11T14:34:00.000-04:00

Well I had an amazing writing day today. A new character emerged who I think will be pivotal to the story. Her voice was strong and the words just flew from my fingers.

Word count: 22, 529

That means I did over 2300 today. Yes!

Quote:
The only failure in writing is when you stop doing it.
-from Wild Mind

Ain't that the truth!

This pace of writing a novel in a month has permeated my life but not consumed it. I feel there is the perfect balance right now and I am savoring it. Last night as I read before falling asleep, all these new "what if" questions regarding my story and characters came up so I had to jot them down in a journal I keep by the bed for just such instances. I filled two and half pages and this morning they all still felt relevant.

Now it's time to switch gears and put on my graphic designer hat before the kids get home from school and all the homework/dinner/bedtime fiasco begins.

Day Ten

2006-09-10T17:50:00.000-04:00

Well I did it. I broke 20,000 words today. 20,202 to be exact. That is almost half way there. I haven't hit a wall yet. The characters are moving around a bit more on their own which is always interesting and exciting. My youngest daughter just came in and gave me a high five when she saw my total word count come up on the screen. My dad and step-mom sent me a beautifully encouraging card and my writer's group is full of admiration and enthusiasm for this project. It's wonderful to have all that support and energy behind me.

So far, and I hope I don't jinx it, but it hasn't been excruciating at all to get my word count quota done for each day. The least amount of time I've spent is an hour and a half and the most is four. This is exactly how I pictured my writing life should be. Slow and steady. Just consistently showing up to the page.

Quote:
Be willing to speak from a different place, to discover memories you didn't even know were there.
- from "Thunder and Lightning"

Here's a book you must read. Stephen King called it the best memoir he's ever read and I have to agree. It is "A Three Dog Life" by Abigail Thomas. The thing I admire most is how she writes thoroughly and completely to the raw truth of her experience. I can feel her slow and steady pace. No flying past the uncomfortable parts and no dwelling in melodrama. A must read.

Day Nine

2006-09-09T10:35:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I got my 1300 words in for today and am free to enjoy my neighbor's party this afternoon. Hopefully the rain that just started coming down will stop by then.

I think the biggest lesson I will take away from this experiment is how important just showing up to the story is. Just show up every day even when you have no idea what happens next. You show up to find out. And showing up everyday keeps the story alive. Suddenly everything I come into contact with becomes possible fodder for my story or characters. I am living with them everyday and the more I live with them, the more they come alive for me.

Quote:
Move close to the aching hunger you have inside.
- from "Thunder and Lightning"

Total word count: 18, 756

Day Eight

2006-09-09T09:36:00.000-04:00

No, I didn't flake on my word count for Day 8, just on posting to my blog.

Word count: 17,431

Quote:
Our job is to wake up to everything.
- from "Long Quiet Highway"

It's the weekend and I am into my second week. I would love to make it to 20,000 this weekend. That's less than 1300 a day. But weekends tend to be more difficult for me. The girls aren't in school, giving me that seven hour block of uninterrupted time. And we have a party to go to this afternoon. Plus tomorrow is writer's group. Will post later tonight on Day Nine.

Thanks so much to all of you who are leaving encouraging comments. It really helps.

Day Seven

2006-09-07T15:14:00.000-04:00

Word count: 15, 286

Quote:
Go ahead. Say it: "I am a writer." Practice saying it when people ask you what you do. You might feel like a complete fool. That is okay. Step forward and say it anyway."
from Wild Mind

I've said it before and I don't feel like a complete fool. It's more like a complete fraud. Because inevitably the next question is "What book have you written?" Or "Can I buy your book in a bookstore?" And the answer is: "No books. Not yet anyway." And there is this uncomfortable pause that I sometimes rush to fill by detailing my own criteria for calling myself a writer. That i have had a couple of articles published. But they were in small publications. And not any of my fiction. But then I did get my fiction published and even won a first place monetary award. Yet I still feel compelled to qualify it. Well, it was a very small publication. It wasn't a large contest. Blah, blah, blah. I swear, if I won the Pulitzer I would still find a way to demean the achievement.

I am a writer because I write pretty much everyday. I am a writer because I can't not write. I am may not earn my living writing in the same way that I do as a graphic designer but I earn my life by writing. But people don't really want to hear about that. So when it does come up, I usually just say that "I write." Because I do. No qualifying necessary.

Day Six

2006-09-06T20:37:00.000-04:00

Word count: 13, 279

Quote:
Let the furnace of writing be fueled by what pleases you, so as you write about rage or destruction, you don't get stuck there. The world is bigger than that.
- from "Wild Mind"

Day Five

2006-09-05T15:50:00.000-04:00

It was the first day of school so I've been going since about six o'clock this morning. Only a half day so they were back before I even had my lunch. And tonight we get to go to the open house. So while I did manage to up my total word count to 11, 186 I must confess that I did lift a section from an old story and plopped it in this one. It works perfectly for now. It got Grace from one place to another and I did write close to a thousand new words. I left off with Grace hovering outside her daughter, Lucy's window after coming home early from the night shift at the hospital and finding the boyfriend's bike leaning against the house under her window.

While I like the way I'm doing this and it's working and it's helping me get over the huge hurdle of writing a "novel" I realize that sitting down to write each day isn't my biggest obstacle. I can easily (most days) sit down and let the words fly, racking up pages and stories. What I'm finding more difficult is really honing those stories once they get back from my wonderfully awesome writer's group. I must have twenty stacked up by now. I need to get over the idea that if I'm not typing at a furious pace or scribbling just as furiously in a notebook that it's not a productive writing session. Revision, especially at the stage that many of my stories are at, is a much slower process. It takes time.

Quote:

"Don't hurry to make sense. You might land too quickly and miss out on half your mind."
- from Thunder and Lightning

I like how it echoes my thoughts on not hurrying. Not making sense too quickly is usually when the great stuff happens. Things you weren't expecting. Things that surprise you, your characters and your reader. I know that as these next few weeks sneak up on me that I'll be pulling prompts from different places, not knowing how it will fit into the story or even if it will but if I just keep flying without landing too quickly there might just be some great surpises in store for me and my characters.

Day Four

2006-09-04T16:16:00.000-04:00

It's just after 4:00 and I have my daily quota done. I am up to 8217 words. They really do add up.

The quote for today:
"Forget expectation. Just write."
from Wild Mind

Alway good advice. I think that I got stuck on the expectation part for the last few months. I forgot to let myself play and have fun. I wanted each and every writing session to turn up something raw and powerful and able to survive the revision process. So having this daily quota is all about letting me have fun on the page again. I didn't know at all what was going to happen today. Didn't know what they were doing. So I picked up a book I had sitting here, glanced at a page, saw the words "tuna fish" and ended up writing a scene in the kitchen between Otter and Lucy and a tuna fish sandwich. And even if it doesn't survive the ultimate revision process for this book, with every scene I write I get to know the characters a litttle more and that's always a good thing. And I only get to that point by showing up every day, not expecting anything except to write my minimum number of words.

Day Three

2006-09-03T20:14:00.000-04:00

If I hadn't made this pact with myself and announced it to the world, today would've been a prime day to just let it slide. To just tell myself that I have enough short stories stacked up from my writer's group that I can go back and revise. Why pile on a whole novel on top of it? I am very, very good and talking myself into or out of promises I make to myself. But because I consider this a pact I sat down and typed. It took me four separate sessions to rack up my quota for the day but I am at 6168 words now. Not bad. My goal is 2000 a day, 1700 minimum so I still have a slight cushion as I head into my first full week which includes getting my family back onto a school schedule, never an easy transition.

My quote today:

Writing is a place where we can meet ourselves deeply, encounter the imprint of something immense running through us.
- from "Thunder and Lightning"

Honestly, I forgot to pick one until my third session so although the card is propped up against the edge of the monitor, it hasn't been inspiring the writing today. I can see how it could but really today was just about grinding out my quota. I think I must've checked my word counter a dozen times, just to see where I was at.

Day 2

2006-09-02T19:44:00.000-04:00

So I managed to fit in a little more writing last night, getting my word count up to 2884 before putting my computer and myself to bed.

Today, in between our weekly Saturday house cleaning and shopping for school shoes (something which I put off until the last possible minute because shoe designers don't seem to realize that young kids sometimes wear women's size shoes but don't necessarily want to look like Mom or Grandma) and clothes shopping and going through closets to make room for all the new clothes and shoes and getting a pile of stuff ready for a garage sale and/or donation I did get my word count up to 4111 as of a few minutes ago. I noticed a POV shift in the second chapter but I'm just going with it for for. Lucy's voice seems to ring true in the first person. These are the kind of decisions I am just letting go of for now.

My focus quote today was:

"Don't worry about style. Be who you are, breathe fully, be alive, and write."
from "Wild Mind"

I've never really worried about style. I figure if I tell a story as true as I can it can't help but be in my style. I do like to play with style though by typing in paragraphs or even short short stories by writers I love. Typing them makes me really slow down and savor each word choice and become entranced by the rhythm of their writing. I highly recommend it as an exercise.

I just realized that I am trying something totally new for me. I am typing my first draft directly onto the computer. I figure if I am going to get 50,000 words done in 30 days I really don't have time to write it by hand then type it in. It wasn't a big decision that I struggled with. It's just how I started and it is working. I am scribbling in my notebook as I think of things I want to add. And I did handwrite a paragraph from Grace but that won't be until the next chapter. I like that the whole typing thing seems to be working. It's actually one of the things I like least about writing- the physical typing. But now I think I really just hate doing all the fun writing then having to basically transcribe page after page after page.

Day One

2006-09-01T12:37:00.000-04:00

It is 12:30 on Day 1 and I have 2461 words under my belt. Not bad. My minimum is 1700 a day. So now I have a teeny tiny cushion and it is only just past noon. Maybe I can squeeze in another writing session later today. But I don't have to. It took me about 2 1/2 hours to write that this morning. That was after doing yoga and my morning pages. And that wasn't two and half straight hours of frenzied typing. That included time to get some water, grab a handful of almonds and just gaze out the window, trying to see what happens next in my story.

I found this set of miniature card with quotes by Natalie Goldberg. Since it was her book "Writing Down the Bones" that inspired me those many, many years ago to even attempt to write myself I decided to draw one card a day and use it as my focus. I will share them with you. Today's was:

"Writing is the willingness to see." from "Long Quiet Highway"

While I know that part of the "seeing" she is referring to is seeing the truth or seeing what is really there, I took it literally today and tried to see in my mind the scene as it unfolds. It helped to ground me as I started this adventure. In the beginning in can be too easy for me to get stuck in their heads. Closing my eyes and seeing the story was helpful. I noticed details that I think will be important as the story goes on.

I wrote what feels like a complete chapter today. Who knows if it will end up that way or if everyday will end up like that. I'm not counting on it. This story is told through the eyes of three main characters. Today it was Owen's story. Next is his sister Lucy then his mother, Grace.

Before I close the window on the story later today, I want to make sure I have at least the start of the next sentence typed in so I have a place to start from tomorrow. Isn't that an old Hemingway trick? If not the actual sentence then at least a prompt that I can use to springboard from when I sit down here on Day 2.

It's a good thing I sent out that email and set up this blog yesterday. When I woke up this morning I knew it would be really, really easy to just let this whole wild idea fade away. What I've always considered to be one of my greatest weakensses (caring so much what people think of me) is now being turned into a great motivational tool.

Thanks to everyone who sent me their good writing juju! It's working.
- Kim

One Woman/30 Days/50,000 words

2006-08-31T10:57:00.000-04:00

Setting up a website for my graphic design,writing and collage has been on my to-do list for at least a couple of years. Finishing a novel has been on my list for years. So now, in one stroke of a button- or two- I am committing to both. Sort of.This may not be an actual website but settting up this blog is much easier and I can do it now. Here is an email I sent out to friends and family earlier this morning:

I need to send this out and commit to this new project before I chicken out.

You've heard of the National novel Writing month held in November? Well, I love the idea of it but November is a ridiculous month for me to accomplish anything. So, I bought his book this week and have been prepping and psyching myself up to do it on my own in September- which starts tomorrow. Yep- I'm gonna write a novel in a month. Or at least 50 thousand words that will eventually hang together as a novel. I'm doing this weird and wonderful thing because:

1. I need a total kick in the pants in my writing life. Something to really focus on and sink my teeth into. This seems to fit the bill.

2. I have a novel or at least characters that seem to need the space of a novel and I already find myself feeling some anxiety around it. So instead of working chapter by chapter and revising until I am comfortable enough to submit it piece by piece to the group I am just going to blast through the whole thing in 30 days. (Yeah- I had to go and pick a month that has 30 days instead of 31).

3. With the girls going back to school in five (yes count them- 5 days!!) this project will provide some much needed structure that my writing life has been lacking ever since my class at OU ended.

4. And I think it will be fun. Most of the time. Some of the time. It's just that it's so ridiculous to even think of writing a complete novel in 30 days that it takes the pressure off. It's becoming a game of sorts.

So....I'm asking for all your good writing juju to be sent my way this next month- prayers, chants, voodoo, naked druid dances under a full moon- whatever works. Maybe some email check-ins and pep talks. I hear the second week is when I'll really need them.

Also, I won't be submitting anything to my writing group until at least October but I'll still come to the meetings.

I think I'll CC a couple more people- the more people I have to be completely humiliated in front of for flaking out on this the better. Plus it's more good juju.

So, here I go. Wish me luck.

I'm hitting send.

Really. I am.

Here I go...

• • • • •

So, I did hit send and in case I didn't announce it to enough people to sufficiently scare me into following through with this, I am starting this blog. For now it will document my next 30 days of writing 50,000 words. The good, the bad and the ugly.

After that I hope to record and reflect on the many threads of creativity that run through my days as a wife, mother, writer, graphic designer and collage artist. I will post photos of my artwork, maybe snippets of stories, books I am reading or books that I buy to add to the many, many stacks of books I still have to read. Basically just the stuff of my life.

And part of my stuff is going to pick up my youngest daughter at jump rope camp now...

Tune in...the real fun starts tomorrow.