Words

Today's Mood: Reflective. Today's Music: Sarah McLachlan. Today's Writing: Perspectives (a new piece-personal essay) Today's Quote:

As we look deeply within, we understand our perfect balance. There is no fear of the cycle of birth, life and death. For when you stand in the present moment, you are timeless. -Rodney Yee

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I'm a writer. I'm supposed to have all these words at my disposal. I'm supposed to know how to communicate with finesse, subtlety, elegance. But I don't. I don't know what to say to make loss and hurting go away. I don't know what to say to bring healing, joy, and fullness. Sometimes the most expressive words I can come up with (and meager words they are) are "It sucks." Missing someone sucks. Hurting sucks. The hole torn in the fabric of life really sucks.

Maybe I hang around middle school students too much. Maybe some things just suck.

The visitation for Eric Neitzel is tomorrow. I want to let Shirley know how valuable it was for me to see the relationship between her and Eric. Loving, teasing in a gentle and tolerant way, supportive, nurturing, patient of each other's quirks, each able to laugh at him/herself. But there is a part of me that doesn't want to go. A part of me that doesn't want to SEE the rent in the cloth, the severed ties, the frayed ends of such a wonderful relationship. Because I don't know what to say. Because I'm afraid of seeing the loose ends of my own relationships with those who have died, moved, disappeared with time and busyness. Because in some small way I will have to face my own death, and I don't have the words to express all that.

Know when to walk away

Today's Mood: a fragile sense of calm. Today's Music: Loreena McKennitt--The Visit (just got it for my birthday!) Today's Writing: blog (and looking over what I've got so far in IFFY) Today's Quote:

In the book of life, the answers aren't in the back. -Charlie Brown

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How do you know when something isn't working? When something isn't worth pursuing more because it will never be publishable material?

I'm at a bit of a crossroads--in terms of my writing anyway. I spent a good amount of the fall revising Free Lunch. Then I stopped that to work on revising Black Dragon to meet contest requirements. After I sent off that manuscript, I worked on a Mary Monologue for a few weeks. Until my life became a whole lot busier because we started play practice. All of a sudden I was playing costume designer, set painter, and something like mom/director/teacher/big sister to about 30 middle school students. Not a whole lot of time left for writing, so it was mostly poetry and stuff for my writing class. Somewhere in there I spent a week working on a grant, and managed to squeak that in just under the wire. And last night we managed to pull the play off--with scarcely a hitch. The students did a marvelous job remembering lines and we even managed to have everyone dressed fairly appropriately for the late 1800's.

SOoooo, now I'm looking at how I want to spend my writing time in the next few months (or hopefully, until I hear an editor wants me to get Black Dragon ready for publication!). I could go back to Free Lunch, but I wonder if it is worth it. Don't get me wrong, I think it is an okay story--a YA love/growing up story--but I'm not sure if it has enough to distinguish it in an already swollen field. How do you know? My readers liked the plot well enough, although I did/do need to make some revisions. I guess a big part of my... dilemma is that I have IFFY sitting there patiently waiting to get written, and it seems I always need to put it off because I have revisions to do on the other two novels. Now if I was a full time writer.... but realistically, with only an hour a day, I can't be revising and writing a new novel at the same time. It just isn't feasible.

[time lapse of a few hours] Okay, so I've been thinking and decided to use March to pound out a shitty first draft of IFFY. Then I can put it away for some breathing room and finish revising Free Lunch. Hopefully I can finish those revisions and get back to IFFY in June at Glen Lake. I always like to give myself a deadline just to get myself motivated.

Hope your writing is inspired.

Endings

Today's Mood: An overlay of determination (to get through this long day) covering a wistful melancholy. Today's Music: Men Without Hats--Pop goes the world. Today's Writing: blog and email. Today's Quote:

"A good story never ends; it lives on in the hearts of those who heard it."
--I'm pretty sure someone, somewhere said this. I just don't remember who or where.

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I've been thinking about endings. So many books I've read lately end by wrapping things up--but not so tightly that there is no room for a sequel. Now, I have to admit that I'm not a leave it to the reader type. I want to know how the story ends: did the killer die or not? Did they fall in love or not? Did they ever make it back to earth?.... You get the picture.

But... maybe there is something to be said for leaving some strings left untied. Maybe it is okay for the wrapping to have a few rips and tears where the story could come falling out again. And maybe it is okay to even leave the box open.

I mean, look at real life, I never want the good things to end--completely. I have a terrible time with goodbyes. In fact, if I look back through my life (which is going to be a good 40 years as of this coming Monday!), I can see that I have tried to avoid goodbyes entirely if possible. I've even been know to say see you later to people I've just met, instead of the more likely goodbye. When it isn't possible, I have to write: letters, poems, stories--even novels in some cases!

The better I knew the person, house, pet.... or the longer I was around or in a particular place (college dorms...) the bigger the piece of me that got left behind when we separated and went our own ways. Although I suppose it works the other way as well, and the bigger the piece of that person, experience, or whateve I take with me when I go.

Maybe it is really more like knitting or weaving. The more we are knit together, the harder it is to rip out--and the more likely I am to have totally incorporated part of his/her/its pattern into my own.

Maybe there are no real endings, only new beginnings.

Limited Perspective

Today's Mood: Contemplative. Today's Music: The Muse -Black Holes and Revelations. Today's Writing: a poem about perspective. Today's Quote:

There can never be too many stories. -Gail Carson Levine in Writing Magic.

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Conference week is almost over. I think I am the only one in the building this morning. I was definitely the only one in the parking lot anyway. What a week! Snow, snow, snow. But oh so lovely! I've been shoveling every day, and it is so beautiful--quiet, white, full of mystery and otherworldliness.

I've also been spending a lot of time painting sets for the upcoming school play. It is a bit ironic because I had just started working on another graphic illustration for Black Dragon and was having a bitch of a time getting the perspective right. So then my co-director asked if I'd help on the sets. And what's the big problem? Perspective. My husband finally suggested that I order a few books (yes, HE suggested it! I must have seemed in a bad way because our house is overflowing with my books!) on drawing and perspective. They haven't come yet, but I've been pushing forward anyway with a book called Mastering Perspective for Beginners (from the library--what great places libraries are!).

It is exciting and eye-opening to me to learn all this stuff. Not that I'd take drawing or painting over writing, but it has changed the way I look at things. Yesterday (driving home very slowly in all this snow) I was musing on my life. I know, I think too much. But this was good--or at least, not bad. I was thinking about how, given my viewpoint, things like politics and the economy and the war in Iraq can seem so... overwhelming, huge, scary, horrible.... But if one were to change the viewpoint and stretch the vanishing lines (parallel lines that intersect at some point--sometimes outside the picture) to infinite, then the whole picture changes. My life, the majority of the picture according to my viewpoint, becomes nothing but a dab of paint in the whole of an incredible masterpiece. Only someone with a viewpoint of eternity could see what part it plays in the whole.

Okay, so I don't know if any of that made any sense, but maybe, just maybe it changed my perspective just a little. I'm crazy busy with this play and new writing class I'm co-teaching, but sometimes it's good to be stretched. (hurts a little though--although, come to think of it, that might be all the shoveling!)

Looking forward to Khardomah and a few large chunks of writing time!

Short Story Contest

Today's Mood: Calm with just a tinge of melancholy. Today's Music: Mad Season- Matchbox Twenty. Today's Writing: Mary Monologue II. Today's Quote:

"The longest journey is the journey inward." -Dag Hammarskjold

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One of my colleagues passed this Short Story Contest on to me, and I'm passing it on to you. Shore Magazine is accepting short story entries between Dec. 1, 2007 and March 1, 2008. The stories must be between 3,000 and 7,000 words with no set subject matter or style. Stories must be submitted online with credit card or by mail with check attached. The entry/reading fee is $35. Each story should have a header on every page with name/story title/page number. You can enter as many stories as you want--as long as you pay the fee for each one.

The first-prize winning story will be published in the June 2008 issue of Shore and will be posted on the website http://www.visitshoremagazine.com/. First prize is $1,000, second prize is $500, and third prize is $250.

Not sure if I'm going to submit or not. I'll think on it. It is $35, so I have to believe in what I send in. Of course, as I always tell my children, I can't win if I don't play!

Ponderings

Today's Mood: Anticipation. Today's Music: Loreena McKinnet. Today's Writing: Mary Monologue II. Today's Quote:

"In fact, I feel--maybe I'm crazy--that the solution to all my problems is to write my way, if not out of them, then through them." -David Bradley in Letters to a Fiction Writer.

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This morning I'm pondering writing and art and the artist's way of viewing the world. This line of thought is really the braiding of several other strands of wonder. I re-reading The King of Attolia (possibly one of the best books I have ever read! It is by Megan Whalen Turner, and it is a young adult book, but the complexity of plot and character make it worth any one's time) and wondered how she came up with the idea and how she managed to keep the plot clear and yet hidden until it is slowly brought to light through the course of the story.

Another thread of thought comes from making lesson plans for a creative writing class at school. The first lesson is about journals and how the best way to become a better writer is to write--as much as possible, whenever you get a chance, every day. I was looking through my journals to find something I can make into an overhead transparency and share with a bunch of 6th grade boys and girls. It's harder than I thought it would be, but also more interesting than I thought. My journals (the many that I have) start to show a glimpse of a work in progress--me. Write about what you know; or is it, write so that you will know? All in all it convinced me to keep writing in my journal every day, no matter what, even if I have nothing profound to say. Because the mundane just might be more profound anyway.

The final piece of the braid comes from spending most of the day Saturday trying to draw a picture of my daughter. I've drawn pictures of my characters, and thought maybe I should take the time to draw someone real and dear. Well, I picked a pose that was much more difficult than I realized. Her head is cocked sideways and down and is a b-- to draw. I see the shape of the head--but I don't. I see the line and the way it angles and curves--but I don't. Or at least, I don't in the sense of being able to reproduce it.

So, braid all these thoughts together and what do I get? Art is more than just a way of seeing; it is a way of re-producing what you see. And in the re-producing, you make something new. Does this make sense? I'm not sure. I'm pondering as I write, as I draw, as I view the world around me. Maybe it all has to do with another thread from the weekend--a conversation with my oldest sister, who is the proud (and harried) mother of a 5 year old and 2 1/2 year old twins. She was lamenting the lack of time to create. After I got off the phone, I talked with my husband about that drive to create something, whether it be a fabulous pie, or a fishing lure, or a picture, or a quilt, or a snowman... He thought that is has to do with the desire to leave behind some evidence of your existence. That may be. I tend to think it goes even deeper than that; I think the desire to create something is an innate part of who we are as human beings--or, if you will, how we were created to be. Art (in the very broad sense of the word) is a way of becoming who we are meant to be.

Then again, it could be that I haven't had enough coffee and the day is young and I am full of bullshit--like most writers are. What do you think?

Snowstorm Observations

Today's Mood: Content. Today's Music: right now it is just the wind howling outside my bedroom window. Today's Writing: bit of poetry, bit of description. Today's Quote:

Why worry now? (bit of a song by Dire Straits. Great stuff)

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I had the day off today. School cancelled–and thankfully this time it was BEFORE I got out of bed. I went out to shovel and it was just like I remember from when I was a kid. (I was going to call it the old days–but that would mean I'm old.) The snow was burying the steps it was so deep. It was that beautiful fluffy kind of snow, each snowflake a separate crystal, not of that wet, mush. Of course, by the time I was done shoveling the drive, even light crystals seemed like lot of work to scoop up and throw. But I enjoyed it.

I need to remember that sometimes even things that seem like work can be enjoyable. My Mary Monologue piece has seemed like work, but if I just sit down and have at it, I will enjoy the process of writing. I always do. I just don't always seem to remember that when I am trying to get myself to sit down and write.

Having a large chunk of time helps. I'm looking forward to Khardomah. But in the meantime, I'll make the most of what I have. Something is better than nothing (except for maybe when it comes to snow.)

I watched the birds at the feeder today. It gave me some great images for a poem I was working on. (Talk about playing with the little time you have! I wrote it on Sunday when I was paying attention to the church sermon of course.)

Okay. I titled this snowstorm observations and I don't have a great deal of observations so here goes: there is never a perfect time for anything. Enjoy the moment. (evidently the birds do.) Um, get enough sleep. (that's always big for me--course it helps when I get a snow day!) And quit whining. (Again, after a day off with kids, that sentence comes natural.)

And last of all, when the wine runs out–so does the post.