A New Year, A New Blog

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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...

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

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

Where I write...


Where I design...

Where I collage...

A Change of Scenery

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

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

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.