Coming into Bloom

I love working with writers, obviously. And right now I'm excited; as the season shifts and the ruminating deep underground work has taken root, buds are bursting into bloom. Everybody has been working really hard and beginning to reap the rewards. Three writers I've been working with have books coming out, five writers are appearing in newspapers, and one poet just heard that three of her poems have been accepted for publication. She's waiting to hear from several poetry collection contests. I'm looking forward to reading, this week, the final draft of another writer's memoir about which I have high hopes. And the collection of essays by women living in Qatar that I co-edited will also be published later this spring, in English and Arabic.

Those blissful six weeks in Qatar spoiled me. Being surrounded by only my own clutter was a rare gift. I could write at all hours of the day and night, my papers and research strewn everywhere--no one but me ever disturbing them. I worried about how I would write on my return, having to again share space, and my life, with others.

On the way home from the airport, my husband said, "The place looks pretty good right now."
When I walked into the kitchen, this is what I saw:


And our communal dining room table:




My spirits, and my resolve to write regularly, dropped several notches. No matter. There are no excuses for not writing--other people's clutter, not having a proper "room of one's own," commitments. In a client's cluttered house, I stumbled on a slim little wise volume that will bust your every excuse. Dip around in How To Write a Lot and I'll be surprised if you don't come up with a writing schedule you'll stick to.

And here's a rather lengthy closing quote about getting to the desk, from Vivian Gornick's essay collection: Approaching Eye Level

Work, I said to myself. Work hard.

But I can't work hard, I answered myself. I've barely learned how to work steadily. I can't work hard at all.

Try, I replied. And try again. It's all you've got.

The first flash of feminist insight returned to me. Years before, feminism had made me see the value of work. . . I saw what visionary feminists had seen for two hundred years: that power over one's own life comes only through the steady command of one's own thought.

A sentiment easy enough to declare, the task of a lifetime to achieve.

I sat down at the desk, as though for the first time, to teach myself to stay with my thoughts: to order them, extend them, make them serve me. I failed.

Next day I sat down again. Again, I failed.

Three days later I crawled back to the desk and again I came away defeated. But the day after that the fog cleared out of my head: I solved a simple writing problem, one that had seemed intractable, and a stone rolled off my chest. I breathed easier. The air smelled sweet, the coffee strong, the day inviting.

The rhetoric of religious fervor began to evaporate in me, replaced by the reassuring pain of daily effort. I could not keep repeating 'work is everything' like a mantra when clearly it wasn't everything. But sitting down to it every day became an act of enlightenment. Chekhov's words stared back at me: "Others made me a slave but I must squeeze the slave out of myself, drop by drop." I had tacked them up over the desk sometime in the early seventies, and my eyes had been glazing across them for more than ten years. Now I read them again: really read them. It wasn't "work" that would save me, it was the miserable daily effort.

So, yes it's in the (sometimes) miserable daily effort that the writing gets done. To all of you who are heading to the desk, congratulations. I'll see you there.

Word Into Art: Artists of the Modern Middle East

This is an artist's book by an artist now living in Paris. Many Iraqi artists started working with artist books when it was no longer safe to go to their studios. They also wanted to be able to transport their work easily. We all remember the pillaging of the museums and libraries after the US invasion in 2003. The pages of this book are intentionally charred.

This artist's son is wrapped in Arabic poetry.

A refugee's suitcase, on paper. What would you grab if everything you took had to fit in a small suitcase? Text surrounds the silhouettes and appears in the suitcase.

This is a dictionary by a Palestinian artist, opened to the definition of "Philistine," surrounded by actual nails.

Phil·is·tine n. (fĭl'ĭ-stēn', fĭ-lĭs'tĭn, -tēn')

1. A member of an Aegean people who settled ancient Philistia around the 12th century B.C.
2. 1. A smug, ignorant, especially middle-class person who is regarded as being indifferent or antagonistic to artistic and cultural values.
   2. One who lacks knowledge in a specific area.

Another artist's book. You can see its accordian shape in the lower right hand corner--above the big head of that person sitting in front of me.


This is graffiti the artist saw and copied onto paper. It says 'the envious shall not prevail."


I went to a slide presentation--at the Virginia Commonwealth University campus in Qatar--of this show; it's opening in Dubai and comprises art from the British Museum--better known for its mummies than controversial collections of Middle Eastern art, said the museum's Middle East curator, Venetia Porter. She's British but spend a good part of her childhood in Lebanon and is fluent in Arabic. After the presentation I told her this show should go to New York. The consensus seems to be that it's too controversial for the U.S.

All of the artists in this show work with transforming text into art--Linda Passman and I are fascinated by the interpaly of text and visuals. We play with a lot of ideas in the visual journal workshop we teach.

A full reception followed this free, open-to-the-public event--with falafel, hummus, chicken and vegetable pastries, grilled meats, dessert pastries, fresh fruit, fresh-squeezed strawberry juice. Quite a spread. "They always have these," my friend told me. Can you imagine such lavish spreads at a free slide presentation in America?

Not served--alcohol. This is a strict Muslim country.

The Secret Garden

Most spaces between the apartment buildings look like this.

The secret garden.


Palm fronds and grape vines shade the arugula growing underneath.



I have fallen in love with my compound. At first I was disappointed. Some of the people I know here in Doha live in more established walled-in worlds, with palm tress and lush plantings and attractive street lights. Here there are still unoccupied, forlorn units and when the wind blows, it carries not only dust and sand but also stray plastic bags and candy wrappers. I found the place, well, kind of desolate and at night, dark--not threatening, just unwelcoming.

When I first lived in Los Angeles, and walked up in the hills above our neighborhood, I was disappointed. Where were the bright leaves of fall, the bursts of bloom in the spring, the ice and snow of winter? Over time, I began to notice the seasons--they are subtle and, in their own way, stunning.

I'm now noticing more about my hood. Every afternoon, children from all over the world gather out on the streets to kick a soccer ball, ride bikes, and just hang out. They remind me of how American children used to be--unsupervised, bored, creating games out of . . . whatever. I hear so many languages coming from these straggly groups of kids. The other day two young brothers were running across a speed bump. The older in-charge one gave his squat brother a subtle shouldering, just as they crested the mound. The little guy went down hard--his tummy hitting the bump, his hands and arms badly scraped. An accident, the bigger boy told his mother, who came out to investigate the shrieking. He fell on the bump, the older boy pointed, gesturing. I couldn't understand the conversation but knew the story.

As I take my daily walks (several) around the rectangle and up and down the little side streets, I now notice potted plants in stoops and little postage stamp bits of greenery. I have a nodding acquaintance with some of my neighbors. Even if we wanted to chat, we'd be hard-pressed to find a shared language we were both comfortable with.

A desert cabbage!

The other day I discovered a luscious secret garden between two apartment buildings. I now walk up and down that path several times a day. One time I saw a woman staring at me from the villa across the way. I hope she didn't think I was stealing a cabbage or arugula (known to be an aphrodisiac here). I just like to look--have you ever really seen a growing cabbage? The broad-veined, big leaves wrap around the center and open out in an almost surreal pattern. I stare at the curlicued grape vines, inhale the summer-smell of the tomato plants and marvel that someone has cultivated this verdant garden plot, here in the desert.

A Space All My Own

The living/dining room. It's huge though you can't really tell here. I sit in that black chair and work at a small computer table behind it. The dining room table offers plenty of space for research materials.
I call this my yoga hall. When I lie on the rug and stretch my arms all the way out, they don't touch the walls. The kitchen is the first space to the right, my bedroom and bath the second right. If you come visit, you'll stay in one of the rooms to the left. Your bathroom is at the end of the hall.
My bedroom has vast closet space, shelves, and drawers. One reason I'm delighted by the 12 foot ceilings and huge rooms is that in the States, I live--with my husband and pets--in a shoe box. Overflowing with books, stacks of papers, magazines, and the other quirky stuff of life, our house doubles as office and workshop space--and a crash pad for our two daughters and friends, when they're around.

Virginia Woolf wrote A Room of One's Own. I've had a room but never a whole apartment of my own--with nothing in it except my writing and reading materials. And comfy couches, beds, and good table space. Nobody else's books, magazines, photos, trinkets, or clutter lives here.

Earlier tonight I was g-chatting with my daughter, Colette, telling her I heard people moving in upstairs. So far the quiet--I adore silence-- has been stunning, except during the call to prayer, which isn't getting me up every morning anymore. I still wake up but I go back to sleep, jet lag having faded away.

I wrote Colette what I was hearing upstairs--luggage rolling, loud voices speaking Spanish, and heavy feet on the tile floors. I have been so spoiled here, the only other occupant of this six-apartment building being a guy I never hear and have only seen when, as he opens his car door out front every morning at 7 AM, I sometimes peek at him out my window.

Colette said, "I wish I could see what your place looks like."

I decided to post a few interiors.

In Dubai

Jumeirah Park.
Indoor skiing at the mall
The tallest hotel in the world
Old fashioned dhows (boats) used to transport goods.
Men going to work.
This place is growing soooo fast. They're creating islands in the sand to house 300 skyscrapers. Here are a few of the creek that divides Dubai. The boats are still used for export--out to the Persian Gulf and beyond. Dubai will soon boast the tallest building in the world. Already it claims the tallest hotel, pictured above--it hovers out over the water. There are no rooms, only suites, and they START at 3 grand a night. The place is booked solid. More than 80 percent of the world's cranes are here, and in use. At the soon-to-be-tallest building, a floor gets finished in between 1 and 5 days. There will be 158 floors--and the building is constructed so that if another country gets competitive and tries to go taller, Dubai can add more floors, easily.

More photos

Mural.
Indoor mall
Indoor mall

Photos From the Car

This is half a billboard; the other side shows the Lincoln Memorial with Abe lying back, his head resting on a pillow. It's an ad for Qatar Airways, which I enjoy flying. Give me a plane over a car--any day. In Doha, plan to spend a lot of time in cars.
I don't know what this is about, but I really like the billboards in Doha--only wish I weren't always zooming by them in a car with a driver I can't ask to stop so I can get a better shot; we'd get rear-ended.
At a traffic light, two school-uniformed girls romp in the back seat. This one blows something like cotton candy out the window with a little tube. Her friend blows out the other window.
On a mini-break.
Pipes and cranes and rubble . . . everywhere.
Doha from a distance.
Most buildings are beige, not green.

Villagio Mall

I'm sitting in a red-walled wifi cafe (yes) in a Doha mall, called Villagio, known for its indoor canal and high-end shops. Cross up and over a bridge to get to the other side. Feel like a canal boat ride? Gondoliers are at the ready. Skating anyone? There's also an indoor rink, surrounded by shops. The mall ceiling--painted blue sky and wispy clouds.
Desert. What desert? SEE PHOTOS IN LATER POST.

Photos from Doha

This area will be full of residential compounds within 2 months. Work happens 24/7 and
the construction crews come from Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Egypt, and other countries.
It's the call to prayer from this minaret on the left that awakens me every morning at 5 AM. I like the sound of the live voice--it's plaintive and haunting. There are three in hearing range.
This is the view out the front of my apartment building. Come visit me in my lavish quarters--three bedrooms, three baths, huge plush couches, 2,000 tv channels and, uh,
lots of them, well, not for children or prudes. I'm watching Al Jazeera's coverage of the primaries. Fascinating.
The view out one of my bedroom's windows.
This is the entrance to my gated compound, taken from a fast-moving car. Almost everyone living here works at Qatar University--we're a mix of Arabs from other countries and Ex-pats.

Hi Again:
Everything here is fab except for my computer access.
The Chinese would call it a broken day, at least in terms
of cyberactivity. Otherwise, a super day. Had the first
student meeting and they are wonderful young women.

An ex-pat American and an Egyptian boyfriend took me
to an Arab fair late this afternoon (we're 8 hours ahead here).
We drove over with a fully-covered woman (nikab) and her four-year-
old son. He took one look at me and burst into tears. I terrified
him.

I learned a bit about some deeper aspects of life in Doha.
Fascinating and just the tip. I'm in love with the relief patterns
on the stucco walls and with everything here. Maybe I was a
bedouin in a former life. 9:30 PM and I'm off to meet some of my
compound mates who have wireless! Yes. It's the first night
of the weekend here.


Keep in touch.

In the desert

I'm at Qatar University and only have one minute to post.
No Internet in my palatial apartment--but three bedrooms,
three baths, huge kitchen, dining, and living rooms.
Photos--of my apartment, views from the window
and a few other things--coming soon.

Snowed In With The Manuscript

I was supposed to fly out this morning but the airline cancelled the flight. I'll leave tomorrow
late afternoon--and it's a good thing. We've been working eight hours a day on the manuscript but definitely can use today and tomorrow to finish up.

Thank you blizzard.

In my last post I said stuff comes up while editing. Indeed. A cousin of the author's snailed some rich material that arrived since I've been here--a series of letters we hadn't seen, a diary from 1907 written by one of the characters in the book we knew almost nothing about, except that she died young, leaving five children behind. We also learned of another store employee who is still alive: Winnie Risk is 93. I finally reached her by phone and got a great interview. This needs to go in. The new material triggers changes in what's there. Oh, it's so much fun, editing. Really.

And as we read over the book--we sit facing each other (we both have hard copies) at a card table taking turns reading chapters--I see areas that need help. So does he. Yippee for the extra time.

The only bummer. The Patriots have to play today in this. But they're 9 - 0 in snow. Go Pats!
We might even have time to watch some of the game.

Shoveling Break from Editing

The snow is falling at a rate of about 3 inches an hour up here in Boston where I'm on an editing job. On my breaks I go out to shovel.

Editing and snow-shoveling have something in common, I begin to think, as I'm hurling the white powder off, exposing the grateful red bricks underneath.

The first time it's hard to tell where the sidewalk ends and the earth begins. I make a few swipes off the path, unearthing big slabs of green grass. The second shoveling, I can see where I have cleared, even though tons more snow has fallen. The job is easier. This last shovel shift I can see even more clearly because the snow is deeper still on the sides of the path.

So, something about this is similar to editing. Each time you come back and do it again the path is better defined.

Maybe I'm stretching a simile: editing is like shoveling snow.
Maybe, actually, it is a metaphor: editing is shoveling snow.

Here's what I do know: my back hurts and we're supposed to get several more inches.

And I just heard the city snow plow--it rammed a huge mound onto my paths.

That's like editing too. Something big happens. Suddenly there's much more
work.

Zig Zag Writing

I've seen two movies lately, Michael Clayton and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, that play with the narrative--move forward, then go back and move forward again, covering only a few days.

Narrative interruptus is how Roger Ebert, describes Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. "The . . .screenplay. . .takes us up to a certain point, then flashes back to before that point, then catches us up again, then doubles back, so that it meticulously reconstructs how spectacularly and inevitably this perfect crime went wrong."

We hold our breath, knowing what's coming but, still--the suspense. Phew. With each replay we understand more, see more deeply into the characters, learn more about relationships, notice new details, cringe--again--at what's coming.

We want to shout: STOP. DON'T DO THAT!

La Vie en Rose, the movie about Edith Piaf', begins at the end of her tragic life then jumps back to the beginning before filling in the middle--in a helter skelter way. The chaotic time sequences seem to mirror Piaf's crazed, druggy life.

In a novel or a memoir, the reader can get cranky, jerking back and forth. Although everybody I know seems to have loved it, I gave up on The Time Traveler's Wife. Reading at night before dropping into sleep, I couldn't keep straight which time period we were in, and I got lazy about checking back to figure it out. My enduring memory is of a man being catapulted through the decades and landing in a garden or a museum, always naked.

I was a moody teenager, with long stretches of blank time, when I read Lawrence Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet. Three of the four books examine the same sequence of events from different characters' points of view. You understand everything one way and then, oops! Wow. Here's another take. The fourth book moves everybody forward in time. I drooled over every page.

In real life, we relive the past in our memories--and by writing.

When I was revising the memoir I wrote about my son's life and death, Losing Malcolm, I would get stuck in spots, not want to turn the page. "No," I would say, "I don't want that to happen. I want a different ending."

But just like in the narrative interruptus books and movies, no matter how many times I revisited the scene, I couldn't change the outcome; I could only learn more about what was going on.

And keep writing.

Writer Playing Dead

Writers often ask me: how can I write about my life and not hurt the people close to me? Nadine Gordimer, in today's Writer's Almanac (scroll down page to see her bio), has the answer: Write as if oneself and one's readers were already dead.
I love this idea and will use it. What do you think?

Time Out

Rushing back to my car from the gym (finally worked out, after several whirlwind weeks of traveling--sittting for long hours on planes, with clients, and in workshops,) I looked up as I headed down the purple-railed stairs in the parking area and saw a cluster of birds high in a bush.

I stopped and watched them hop to the top of the bush, call out, then drop down to lower branches. They reminded me of the group of women I'd just seen inside the gym, sitting in a circle chatting. I think they were stretching before taking off on a run.

What were these birds doing? What made them cluster there? Are they always there and I've never noticed them before? Are they en route to South America? from New England? What kind of birds are they? Is there a lead bird? A bully? Lots of questions. No answers.

Stopping to observe was answer enough.

Rain Rain Rain

In Boston yesterday the rain poured down--3 inches of it.
I checked the weather in Chapel Hill . . . sunny, sunny, sunny.
Forever ahead in the forecast--sunny.
As my friends and I waded through puddles and tried to keep
our umbrellas from turning inside out in the blustery wind,
I thought, well, rain, anywhere, must be good for the planet.
I've had this image of the planet drying up, from the inside out,
like a prune--and eventually caving in on itself.
What images come to mind when you think of rain and the
future of the planet? Write about them.

From on High

Analyze This . . and this . . . and this

OK. I survived the checkup.

List in my journal:

-- Muzak makes me feel like I'm late to something big--and it isn't happening in this waiting area.

--Note to self: Need an IPod.

--Cute teenage boy in cargo shorts with a bloody syringe taped to his jugular, tubes running under his polo shirt.

--Grey-ponytailed hippy dude exuding unfiltered Camels (I adore the smell--still stunned I was able to stop. I don't quit bad things easily). He's battling with reception for information and a smile, his prosthetic peg-leg skinny as Ahab's--grounded by a huge Adidas sneaker.

--Never mind.

--Siberia, anyone?

--White paper gown. Fluorescent everything.

--Diabolical signage.

--Concrete. Steel.

--Insight: compared to this, the Woman's prison in Raleigh feels like Grandma's kithchen.

--My diagnosis:
--Low pulse and blood pressure. OK, the pipes and pump work.
--Question: So where do I hold the stress: In my fat? DEEPER?
--Doc made appointments with:

PT: injured rotator cuff, 4 years ago
ObGyn: "Just to rule out . . ."
Gastro: "You might have a bit of . . ."
Radiology: mammogram, routine

--My hypocondriac mother would bliss out.
--I'll cancel.
--I'm good at that.

The Upshot:

--I'm not worried. I mean it. This is a first.

--Refrigerator quote reads:
'Life is too short to live it scared.'

--I wrote it.

--P.S. After spending the first 50 years in terror.







--

To The Doctor

What, you might ask, does a calming photo of a Rhode Island glacial pond with a canoe have to do with the title of this blog: to the doctor?

In a few minutes, I'm heading out for a physical--the first I've had in several years. I used to be an extreme hypocondriac, until my own son died and then I suffered some very real (life-threatening) health problems. It's a good cure--reality--but I hate to recommend it. Now I just want to, you know, live every day to the fullest and all that.

Ok, so I'm no longer a hypocondriac but, still, the thought of sitting in that chilly, sterile exam room in a paper gown is making my fingers shake right now. So I carry in my mind a comforting image--the canoe on the pond.

In workshops where we're writing about difficult material, I tell folks to find a calming place. I have people write about the place--the smells, sights, sounds. I'll write about this canoe scene
. . . in the doctor's waiting room.

It's not that I'm nervous, really, it's just that I comfort myself, always, by jotting in my trusty journal.

When I'm with the doctor, I will record what she's saying to me--just in case I find myself leaving my body or something.

Yes, I am nervous, day of appointment, but I'm not a hpyocondriac. My mother, on the other hand, goes to the doctor twice a day and takes her temperature six times a day. She is perfectly healthy. To create balance in the universe, I go to the doctor about twice a decade.

Anyway, here'a a book I highly recommend: How Doctors Think
I adore medical writing--stuff about other people's diseases and struggles. Here Groopman gets inside doctors' heads (he's one himself as well as a patient in his own book) and lets readers know the assumptions doctors are making as they look at patients, and much more. I'm a little edgy right now so can't think straight and write more about all of this-- except to quote advice one of Groopman's mentors says to him, about a doctor's urgency to diagnose, prescribe, solve--maybe too quickly:

DON'T JUST DO SOMETHING, STAND THERE.

I'm going to tell my doctor this . . . but I'll write it in my journal before I leave. If I don't I'll forget--I'm not a hypocondriac, honestly, but I do still get white lab-coat amnesia.

I'll post again soon . . . if I'm still alive.

Visiting the Parents

It's a blessing, having old parents. Yes, they're creaky and crumbly and leaky and shuffly, and shrinking in size and stature. But I adore them. And every time I see them I come away with a new slant on my own life--and on theirs.

I notice how my mother, who also adores me, still needs to make comments about my appearance . . .and other people's. I see more clearly the provenance of my own judgmental streak.

When I first arrived in Philadelphia, after not seeing them for three months:

"You've gained weight!"
"Mother, is that the first thing you want to say to me?"
"Oh, it suits you, only I think your life is better when you're, you know, lighter. Things go better for you."
Note to self:
Never never never comment on my own daughters' sizes.

"Don't you think those ends should be trimmed?" she asks, touching my hair.
"Yes, Mother. I just haven't had time yet."
"That's right. I remember. You got a cut just before you came last time."
Subtext: Please get a hair cut before you visit next time. I want to show you off.

"I didn't know women wore their shirt tails out. That must be a new style."
OK. She hates my new Gap shirts, even though I painstakingly ironed them and they're
fresh and bright and without stains.

"Mother. That woman over there told me she liked my outfit."
"Oh. Her."

"Don't you want to shower before going?"
Note: I'm going to the dining room to get a to-go styrofoam cup of coffee since my parents don't drink it anymore. It is 7 AM. I am fully dressed, hair brushed, and I showered yesterday and nobody, in the dining room, is going to even notice me.

But really my mother and I are incredibly close; we always have been. I'm not being ironic.
Some of the best times in my life involve lying on my mother's perfectly made bed, a cross breeze wafting through the open windows, and chatting with her--watching her as she bustles around her room getting ready to go out. I remember watching her get ready for work--slip, girdle, stockings, bra, linen dress, heels. And watching her get ready for parties--perfume, matching hand bag, pearls. Always always: lipstick and a compact.

Eureka! Maybe that's why I love lying down so much, and always want to stretch out on a couch or a bed--wherever I am. Lying down reminds me of being with my mom. I lie in bed to talk on the phone; I lie on couches at parties to drink wine and talk; I lie on my living room couch and stare out the window. I've never made this connection before.

See. Having parents who last a long time is a blessing.

Tears: They happen

I always say at the beginning of a workshop: if tears come, don't worry. Let the waters flow. Don't even try to hold them back. Writing and reading our work aloud can unleash emotion like nothing else.

In one workshop, a young woman who was reading aloud for the first time choked up and couldn't go on. I read her piece for her; it was about being scolded for trying to use dialogue in a third grade writing assignment. The teacher told her: "We haven't studied that unit yet. What do you think you're doing, young lady?"

The young woman couldn't read her own work aloud for several weeks. She learned that, even though she had written a dissertation and was earning a PhD, she didn't feel she had written anything true since that experience in the third grade.

"I can't believe this," another teary woman said, in another workshop. "I don't remember having any feelings like these when I wrote the piece."

Writing brings stuff up. It just does. So does reading our work aloud. That's one reason I encourage people to read in workshops. We find out how close to the artery we're digging.

Last week, I surprised myself and suddenly couldn't go on with a piece I had just, blythely, scratched out--in response to one of my own prompts.

Flannery O'Conner said that when you share your writing you might save somebody else's life. Even if you don't, the life you save might be your own.

What's Living in Your House?

Song for Sampson, a poem about a cat, makes a fun prompt. I sent it out to one of my workshops, knowing that there are folks in the group who don't like animals. So, I ask: what else is living in your house. Ants on the kitchen counter, mold on the shower curtain, a plant here and there?
I have a 13-year-old dog and two cats living in my house as well as a husband and (at the moment) a 20-year old daughter. Our screen porch is home to dozens of spider sacs and our bird feeder hosts squirrels, chipmunks, moles, voles, and--when they can find a free spot at the trough--birds.

Writing at the Chateau

Warm sun, fresh baguettes, strong cheese, the smell of roses and herbs--Provence is the lavender capital of the world--this is an idyllic setting for writing.


We had a glorious week.

Lots of images on the pages, powerful narratives and essays, aha moments. Camaraderie, connections, creativity. Projects launched.

Next summer join me in France's Loire Valley. Or in February come write with me in Thailand.

What. . . besides your luggage . . . do you carry with you when you travel? What do you leave home that you wish you had? What do you take home? Leave behind in the country you've visited?

I look forward to writing with you.

Writing and teaching in Provence--just barely

Friends, I have to pinch myself. Here I am in France--beautiful Provence--teaching what I love to a group of wonderful people, writers, whom I've come to know and appreciate quickly; it doesn't get much better.

But were it not for my Congressman, and a fast car, I would be at home right now, cooling my heels in total frustration. Let me explain: it was my passport...I had applied to have it renewed months ago and--okay, you know what I'm going to say next, don't you. I put the whole scary story in this column. Enjoy.

If you think you'll want to travel any time in the near future, even if you have nothing planned--please, please start the process NOW.

About Our Mothers

I use a list in my column today in the Chapel Hill News to capture some of my mother's endearing and absurd ideas about how to maintain health and live well.

I love lists.

They're a great way to:
cover a lot of material fast and briefly, almost like shorthand.

Sometimes we feel we must write long, with
flowing narrative
smooth transitions
deeply developed ideas
clean seques

Lists let you break out. I often suggest writing a list to
record memories
jot descriptions
note feelings
explore images
record dialogue

You can create a week's worth of ideas in two mintues list writing.

Post a comment with some of your mother's sayings.
Try using a list.

On the Road...to Qatar

Just got back from my four-day teaching residency in Doha, Qatar, in the Persian Gulf.

Sometimes I invite students to get inside a place or an experience by doing a stream of consciousness exercise. Begin by writing one or two words that capture anything about the experience. Keep the pen moving or keys clicking.

To give you some of the flavor of the trip – I’m going to do that exercise now...

Sand storm, wind, blinking lights, abiyas (black dress of women), thobes (white dress of men), roundabouts, fast drivers, Arabic and English signage, construction, cranes, barricades, beautiful hotel, palm trees and water out window, doves cooing, vast atrium, colorful pillows, abstract art on walls, men in suits, military men, walled buildings, stucco walls,, compounds, geometric grille work, oriental rug mosaics on highways, fountains, azure and blue green water, geometric university buildings, no sidewalks, verandahs for cars, vast mall,flat open space, buildings shooting out of the desert, sand, growth, industry, wealth, calm people, tea, spices, men smoking in groups, feral cats...

Instead of a thousand more words, click here for a gallery of photos, some taken by me (sorry, my bad). Enjoy.

One Thousand Words a Day

Just do it! Just write 1,000 words a day.

This advice is standard fare--I don't know how many books I've read that recommend, well, demand it. What to be a real writer? Write 1,000 words a day, for starters.

I've tried . . . I can't remember how many times, and failed--every time. I get my writing done,
somehow, the deadline work at least. The book I'm writing? Uh, not.

But browsing through the 800s in the library the other day, I came across Making a Literary Life by Carolyn See. This might help some of my students, I thought, and tossed it onto my checkout pile.

Skimming it at home, I got hooked. See's humor, character portraits, irreverence--even for the creative process--made me laugh out loud. And her matter-of-fact "It's only four pages a day, five days a week. It won't kill you. You can't 'fall behind' and you can't 'get ahead.' Every day is a new one thousand words.

"Saturday is for errands, Sunday for rest, picnics, spiritual renewal. That's the way it's supposed to be. For the rest of your life. Or until you get tired of it. But wouldn't it be wonderful if you didn't get tired of it?"

Something feels different this time. I have a book to write and I'm getting to it--every day, 1,000 words. We'll see.

I think it's See's ebullient levity that stands out. Hey, it's just life. It's just words. It's just 1,000 of them a day, five days a week.

Got to go. Time to write.

Illustrated Dream Journal

Over the past year or so I've started illustrating my dream journal. I record the dream on the right hand side of the page and draw the illustration on the facing page. (I use an unlined journal with fairly heavy paper.)

I am not an artist. Sometimes my drawings look OK. I'm proud of a blue bead necklace I drew--with shading--from a dream in which I was trying to pawn the necklace to make money, lots of money. I needed several thousand dollars and so left my necklace for an appraisal. When I came back to the jewelry store, the sales person told me the necklace was worth $7--not the $3475.00 I needed. A lot happened in the dream but I focused on the necklace. I could see it so well in my mind's eye, when I woke up.

So I drew the necklace with a little tag attached by a string on which I wrote $7.

I also give names to my dreams, like "Seven Dollar Necklace."

As I flip through my dream book, I'm amazed at how many drawings I've made that include water and titles like "Three Lakes," "Drowned Sisters," and "School Pool."

I wouldn't be as aware of the recurring themes if I didn't draw the dream images. I use an extra-fine black pen and then my little watercolor set.

It's fun to try to capture an aspect of a dream--and no one can say, "It doesn't look like that!" Only I know what my dreams look like.

Freewriting and Rewriting

I love to freewrite and am always recommending the activity to the
writers I work with. Freewrite with a place, I'll say, or a character, a mood, a story.
See what you turn up.
We often seem to feel that we should "know" what's
going to happen next or that we should understand a complex character
in one swipe. Freewriting turns up all sorts of nuggets--that the mind
wouldn't have come up with on its own, thinking. You don't think your
way to some of these things--they emerge, kind of like dream images,
from a deep trove.

The Perils of Perfectionism

Author of The Artist's Way and many other books on writing, Julia Cameron, has just published a new memoir, Floor Sample: A Creative Memoir.

She talks about her struggles with alcoholism and drug addiction as well as the pull of madness--electricity becomes dangerously charged, trees vibrate, melodies overwhelm her consciousness. She stops sleeping and eating and ends up hospitalized. It's a compelling portrait. I found one anecdote particularly poignant.

Through a friend, Cameron was able--many years ago--to send a few short stories to a New Yorker editor. The editor thought the work was promising, good in fact, but a bit heavy on sunsets and roses. Clearly the editor was interested and willing to take another look at the stories, if revised.

Cameron was so ashamed that her work had seemed overly romantic and sentimental that she put the stories away--she didn't revise and send them again. Hyper-sensitivity to criticism and hpyer-perfectionism squelched her. This is so sad and so common.

Have you ever had this problem? Write about a time when you gave up due to criticism rather than respond with positive action. How could you have responded differently? How will you respond differently in the future?

The Rapture of Being Alive

People say that what we’re seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.
Joseph Campbell

When the desire to write shrivels and threatens to die, try sitting quietly and waiting for am image to emerge from the
unconscious. Close your eyes and let something bubble up. A room, a memory, a dream. Write about it. If nothing happens, take a walk and pay close attention or find a photo or an object that moves you and begin writing. Start with the concrete--
with are you seeing, feeling, touching, smelling, hearing. Move on from there. Consider the rapture of being alive, alive to the senses.

This post is in answer to Judi's question about what to do when the creative juices aren't flowing.

Writing Sweet

Pat Schneider, author of Writing Alone and With Others, and many other books as well as the founder of the Amherst Writers and Artists method, suggests that the discipline of writing does not arise best out of obligation but will always arise best out of love. p. 51. “Rather,” she says, “than thinking of going to your writing desk as the ‘ought’ and ‘should’ work of your life, think of it as a longed-for pleasure, as a hot fudge sundae, as that which pleases you, delights you, that which you love”

Prompts:

Write about what you did for Halloween. Did you dress up? Eat sweets?
Write about a Halloween costume from childhood, yours or somebody else's.

On the page dreaming

A student gave me a journal that has gold stars on a dark blue cover. It is
unlined--a necessity for me--and small, good for packing and keeping
by the bed. I use it as my dream journal. And now I leave the left side of
the page blank for drawings. I draw and then watercolor a dream image or two
before writing the dream on the right-hand page.
Who can say the pictures are inaccurate?
Not in perspective? It's a dream image.

Insomnia

Write about how it feels to be awake at 3 AM and unable to get back to sleep. Write from your senses, in present tense.

I've just started an "Insomnia Journal." It won't be about dreams because I keep a separate dream journal. For my insomnia journal, I bought watercolors, stamps, ink pads, tape, pens, and vellum. I cut, paste, stamp, paint, and doodle in this journal.

Because sometimes, in the middle of the night, I don't want to reflect and write and I don't want to read. I want to make tiny lines across the page, cut up newspapers, find images, and anchor it all on the page.

Stealing

Write about a time when you stole something--and when someone stole from you.

From As Good As It Gets

Jack Nicholson says he's been "suckered in, set up, and pushed around" by his neighbor Simon's art agent who forces Jack to take care of Simon's little dog--verdell. Simon is in the hospital, having been beaten up by a male model. Nicholson, a rich OCD author named Melvin Udall--who compulsively locks and unlocks his door, can't step on sidewalk cracks, and endlessly washes his hands with fresh bars of soap--can't help but fall for the cute smart dog.
Write about a relatioship with a pet and how it changed you.

Falling

Write about falling: on the school playground, out of favor with the cool crowd, in class rank, from grace.

Summer will grow old

Pick a line from this poem,
published in The New Yorker
September 18, 2006, to use
as a prompt. I like:
Summer will grow old . . .
It is growing old. What
does that mean to you?


A Pasture Poem

This upstart thistle
Is young and touchy; it is
All barb and bristle,

Threatening to wield
Its green, jagged armament
Against the whole field.

Butterflies will dare
Nonetheless to lay their eggs
In that angle where

The leaf meets the stem,
So that ants or browsing cows
Cannot trouble them.

Summer will grow old
As will the thistle, letting
A clenched bloom unfold

To which the small hum
Of bee wings and the flash of
Goldfinch wings will come,

Till its purple crown
Blanches, and the breezes strew
The whole field with down.

--Richard Wilbur

A Prompt A Day

I'm going to try to do it: Post a prompt a day.

Don't know if I'll succeed. I'm not good at maintaining routines,
or sysems. I do finally have a place for the keys. Most days I find
them there. My eyeglasses? No way.

Prompt:
Write about a routine or a ritual.

Hot Cicadas

"At eight of a hot morning, the cicada speaks his first piece. He says of the world: heat. At eleven of the same day, still singing, he has not changed his note but has enlarged his theme. He says of the morning: love. In the sultry middle of the afternoon, when the sadness of love and of heat has shaken him, his symphonic soul goes into the great movement and he says: death. But the thing isn't over. After supper he weaves heat, love, death into a final stanza, subtler and less brassy than the others. He has one last heroic monosyllable at his command. Life, he says, reminiscing. Life."
E.B. White

Prompt: Write about the heat on a summer day.

Rereading Great Books

In "Rereadings: Seventeen writers revisit books they love," Anne Fadiman collects essays she commissioned while editor at The American Scholar. It's a wonderful collection of essays about reading and life and changing perspective.

As a teenager I read all of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and most of Thomas Mann. I'm now rereading "The Magic Mountain" and enjoying it immensely--in part because I'm recognizing passages I loved as a teen and I'm thinking about why this book appealed so much to me when I was younger. Who was I? What did I think about? It's a fascinating adventure.
Try it. Reread a favorite book.

from "The Magic Mountain," page 156
"What a strange game these two tablemates were playing. Both of them knew that their lies had double and triple twists--that Hans Castory teased the teacher just so he could talk about Frau Chauchat, but that at the same time he took unwholesome delight in flirting with the old maid; and that for her part, she welcomed all this: first, becuase it allowed her to play the matchmaker, and second, because she probably had become smitten with Frua Chauchat, if only to please the young man, and finally, becuase she took some kind of wretched pleasure in being teased and made to blush. They both knew this about themselves and one another--and that it was all tangled and squalid. But although Hans Castorp was usually repelled by tangled and squalid affairs and even felt repelled in this instance as well, he continued to splash about in these murky waters, taking oconsolation in the certainty that he was here only on a visit and would soon be leaving."

Naming--and writing about-- the Forbidden

"When we are told that something is not to be spoken about, we understand this to mean that this something should not exist - should not, cannot, must no, does not exist. In that moment our reality and, consequently, our lives, are distorted; they become shameful and diminished. In some ways, we understand this to mean we should not exist. To protect ourselves, we too begin to speak only of the flat world where everything is safe, commonplace and agreeable, the very small world about which we can all have consensus. Soon we don't see the other worlds we once saw. For it is difficult to see what we are forbidden to name". - Deena Metzger


Prompt: Make a list of what is/was not spoken about in your life. What's taboo? Look over your list. Write about what jumps out at you. Give voice to those "other worlds."

Nerves

OK. You may not be a tennis fan but anybody can be inspired by the French player, Amelie Mauresmo, who won Wimbledon today--beating Justine Henin-Hardenne in a three set battle. Mauresmo, 27, has for years been a "head case," undone by nerves, erratic at key moments, defeatist. Today she prevailed and said in her acceptance speech that she doesn't want to hear any more about her nerves!

Write about a time you overcame your nerves.

Spend it all

"One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book, give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water." --Annie Dillard

Sometimes I'm tempted to save a glorious anecdote or an intriguing workshop prompt for another column or another class--for a day when my deadline looms large or I'm short on ideas.

No more! Use it all. There is more where this came from--always.

Share what you have with other writers, teachers, students, friends.
Remember: All boats rise with the tide.

And the day came

And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside
the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
~Anais Nin

All around me people are splitting into bloom--opening the way tight-layered peonies swell into soft pink balls.

One woman I work with has fallen madly in love since we last met--she's still finding time for her writing and feels grounded by her words. And she is learning that writing the truth, bold honesty on the page, liberates her from her past. She didn't arrive at the stoop with her ratty old satchel full of "poor me" letters she needs to read alound immediately so that her new love will have no choice but to get up-close-and-personal with her wounds. "I don't need to drag all that old crap into this relationship," she said, her clear blue eyes looking straight into mine.

Another client has started writing about her addictive realtionship that ended recently. Through her pages and pages of detailed truth-telling and recounting, she's seeing deeper and deeper into addiction and uncovering all sorts of gems, "diamonds in the dust heap," as Virginia Woolf says.

Author Louise DeSalvo believes and has witnessed that writers heal when they make: "detailed accounts of the traumatic events in their lives, linking feelings with happenings. The more writing succeeds as narrative (by being detailed, organized, compelling, vivid and lucid), the more benefits will be derived."

Too bad about the passive voice Louise but the thoughts are right on. I'm always blabbing about the importance of details, vivid verbs, and strong feeling. Write about what matters. DeSalvo continues: "Writing in this way seems to discharge complex pent-up feeings, providing a catharsis. But it also permits refelction upon the event's significance so that insight and wisdom are attained."

Passive voice again but still true. A third client has carved out writing time she didn't know she had. She loves to write--she talks about the process the way folks describe the rushes and highs of intense exercise or yoga.

Hooray!

If I own a cow . . .

the cow owns me.

Anna told us this proverb at out visual journal gathering this morning, at Foster's. I wrote it in my journal. I love it. What does the proverb mean? Write about it.

A bunch of us had met to drink coffee and share our journals--what we hve created in our visual journals since the course Linda and I taught in April.

We talked about "second thoughts," going back over what's there on the page and writing more--details about, say, where I was going when I stopped to draw those horses out in that field.

Linda and Anna had both covered over pages they didn't like--Linda with paper you could lift up and see the original under: the Paul Taylor dancers she had sketched at a concert on a yellow wash she hated. Anna had pasted paper over original pages she didn't want to see again.

At our get-together, I wrote more about the poem we had cut up and responded to: "The Art of Disappearing," by Naomi Shihab Nye.

We discussed adding envelopes, layers, language. We talked about how the journal can be an organic, dynamic book that changes and grows as we do--and how we learn by going back over what we've written and created.

Now, back to the cow--and writing in my journal.

P.S.

--Creating that list took 10 minutes.
--You don't have to write a first draft.
--Or create an outline
--To get the bones of a story down.
--The details will fade fast.
--Use lists.

Prompt: Using a List

--Packing up to go to the beach with my bookclub friends for Mother's Day weekend--a tradition much deserved by all of us mothers.
--Stellar morning. I let my indoor kitty Tina Fey (yes, she's named in honor of SNL's head writer)out to munch grass. She stays out only a few minutes. Usually I watch her out there but I had emails to send and work to finish before leaving town. So, I let her stay out a bit longer.
--She's gone when I call her to come in, nowhere in sight. Never before has this happened. She always hovered and munched within two feet of the door.
--Daphne, our goofy golden-Irish setter mix standing nearby, panting.
--"Where is Tina?" I ask her. She wags her tail, oblivious, and noses one of her beloved rocks in my direction. That's another story.
--"Tina, Tina, Tina," I call. Damn.
--My family has always thought this was a bad idea, my letting the indoor cat out. And now I'm leaving and she's gone. Yikes.
--I see her at end of yard.
--Catch her but she jumps from my arms, terrified--puffed to twice her size.
--I think Daphne has chased Tina and that Tina freaked.
--Dog/cat relationship is entirely different outdoors. Tina suckled D. when she was a kitten--inside.
--Tina dives at fence, hits her head, doesn't even know what a wire fence with ivy growing on it is.
--I grab her. She growls, hisses, scratches, bites me. Daphne thinks it's a game and lunges at her. She scratches D. who gets upset and fights back.
--I do not put Tina down until we get into the house.
--My right hand looks like I put it in blender. Left hand bad too.
--Long soaks in anti-biotic soapy water. This will fix it, right?
--Jump ahead 24 hours. At the beach with my girlfriends. Right hand is huge, red, and more sore than all my abdominal surgery incisions combined.
--Urgent Care Office visit. I don't want to do this on my weekend with girlfriends. But I'm in bad shape. Friends tried to get me to go yesterday. Stubborn. Don't want to be like my mother who takes temp six times a day and visits nurse every day.
--Antibiotic shot in fanny. "Just lean over the exam table and pull your skirt up," Dr. says. At least she's a woman. Friend Jill who drove me gets a great view of my ass.
--Doctor angry I waited so long. I think she's mean and unpleasant. Dr. Farmer.
--Calls to local animal shelter, even though the bites happened 175 miles away. Are they kidding? Calls to my vet. Tina is the sweetest cat and totally vaccinated.
--Horse pill oral antibiotics for me.
--We go to drive through CVS for Rx. A first for me. Jill is practical and sometimes bossy. But she can see that getting out of seatbelt, car, walking are hard for me.
--No ocean swimming allowed--open wounds, polluted waters. What? Ocean no longer healing water?
--Drooling on couch all weekend.
--Friends have to button my pants, fasten my bra, strip my bed, drive my car, open my horse pill bottle. My right hand is completely useless.
--Hideous pain. Worst of all, I can't write or type. How is a writer to live? I have no disability insurance.
--Home again, a visit from animal control officer. Is this for real?
--Tina is put under house arrest for two weeks! I have to sign papers. My hand won't work. "Can I put an 'X'" I ask. No. I force myself to write, seasick with pain as I do.
--Officer is wearing a medical boot--don't ask why, a dog bite?--that scares Tina. She cowers. Shape up cat, I think. Don't act like you're skittish or rabid. She's neither.
--In fact she lets me cut her nails, used to at least. She is SO gentle.
--It's all my fault, mine and Daphne's.
Note: Before leaving for beach, I checked to see if Daphne was hurt. Found entire Tina claw in her upper gum. I pulled it out (with my left hand). She didn't care. Hell, she chews on rose branches.
--Tina is missing a claw nail, or whatever it's called. She is sore too.
--Animal officer sat in his truck, taking photos of birds at my feeders. We both love birds.
--By law he has to visit Tina again next week.
--One week later I can type again. It's been hell though.
--Someday I might want to write an article about this.
--Having this list will help.

---

Dialogue with my Blog:

Me: Blog, what's up with you? Why don't I use you?

Blog: You ignore me. What are you--a luddite, old, retarded? I am the way to go and you refuse to work with me. You were volunteering information about Craig's List to those older ladies at the estate sale earlier today. You told them to get started with Craig's List because the classified sections in the newspapers are disappearing, like cassette players and video tape. But have you ever used Craig's List. No. Never.

Me: I know. I'm full of it. I haven't even become blog-savvy, though my blog is part of my email signature. That's embarrassing.

Blog: Exactly. Now you're talking. Don't be such a slacker.

Me: But when I think of a blog, an image from Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone drifts across my mind--when that huge whale beaches on the New England coast and begins to stink. But that is so not what a blog is, right?

Blog: Excuse me. I am no smelly beached whale. You are for not using me!

Me: OK. I'm going to post a prompt because thinking about writing prompts is something I do all the time. Maybe that's the answer for me: write what what's already formulated in my brain.

Blog: Yeah go for it. A blog entry doesn't have to be a mini-column.

Me: But since I learn what I think and how I feel through writing, I am reluctant to post my first thoughts. Am I supposed to spend time editing my blog post before publishing it? Crap. I have work to do--a writing job due Tuesday, client work to edit and ponder, classes to plan, my journal to keep, my art journal waiting for that new project--not to mention life and a dog who needs a walk.

Blog: So post your prompt and be done with it

Me: OK. Here's the prompt: mother. What comes up when you say this word? Try writing a letter, writing about a photograph, making a cluster, creating an acrostic poem, or having a dialogue with mother. Or just write.Later in the week, I'll post a mother poem--not by me. Anything else you want to say to me, blog?

Blog: Yes. Use me. I am not a beached whale.

Wah, wah, wah

"Wah, wah, wah I don't want to edit my writing. Wah, wah, wah, I want someone else to do it and make it all pretty. Wah, wah, wah writing is poopy. Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Thanks for this indulgence.

Judi (wah)"

Judi just sent me the above in an email.

Here's what I have to say. Let me edit any time. Having assembled words to work with is so much less traumatizing than staring at a BLANK PAGE. FOTP I call it--Fear of the Page.

My husband says there are two kinds of writers: those who fear getting started and those who fear getting finished. Once something is declared finished then it's ready for public scrutiny, a scary prospect. But not, to me, as scary as the BLANK PAGE.

Some people can't let go; they never stop reworking. Raymond Carver edited and edited--with some help from his friends--certain of his already published stories, "A Small Good Thing," for one. It was Degas, or maybe Matisse, who continued to touch up his paintings, even after they were hanging on the walls of museums.

Not me. Once it's in print, I'm done. Onward! To another blank page. Gulp.

THE instant, not AN instant

The newspaper article I referred to in my last post was titled:
"Life changes in an instant." But to be precise, in "The Year of Magical Thinking,"
Didion's memoir about her husband's death and her exploration of
grief, she writes:

"Life changes in the instant."

What a difference: the use of "the" over "in."

Didion read last night and took questions. Talking about her early
writing days Didion said the editor at Vogue would get furious when
she came in every day with her eight lines of type and there were
"extra words."

Didion's writing is spare, fine-tuned, original. You won't find the cliche, the tired phrase, anything extra. Every sentence receives the same scrutiny. It was a pleasure to hear her read her own rhythmic prose, the refrains suggesting lament.

I wish I had asked her if she produces sloppy first drafts or if it
comes out of her head clean. Damn. My first drafts are blubbering
messes of words.

How about yours?

One more thing: She said she would write pages by day and sit and read them at night and cry.

"Life changes in an instant"

"Life changes in an instant," is the second line of Joan Didion's memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, and the title of an article in my local paper, announcing that Didion is speaking on our campus Tuesday night. The Writing From Personal Experience workshop that normally meets at my house on Tuesdays will get together and go to the talk instead.

I gave this assignment/suggestion: use as a prompt anything that strikes you about the evening--our carpooling, walking to campus from town, the conversation you overhear waiting in line, Joan Didion's body language, the hat the person seated in front of you is wearing, etc.

What a relief: the workshop isn't school, where the assignment might be to go hear a lecture and write critically about what the speaker discusses. Sure, there's a place for that, but we're not covering the Didion event for the newspaper. We can write about what moves us, what we notice, a gesture that triggers memory. And anyway, I'm always attracted to journalism that include a careful intrusion of first-person experience.

The next time you're at an event, try this: write about what ignites your imagination. Watch yourself meander on the page. Have fun. Remember: writing isn't (anymore) homework.

Stick to the Writing

When people write about intensely personal matters, it's tempting sometimes to stray into the psychology surrounding the situation. Let's say the writing's about the demise of a marriage, the demands of an elderly parent, alcoholism, or the loss of a life dream. A listener may feel triggered or may want to offer advice, support, a similar story from his/her life. But the focus always, in a writing group, must stay on the writing itself--the story, the words the writer has committed to paper. What works? What's memorable? What could use tweaking?

Some workshops treat everything written as fiction and refer to the writer as the narrator--it's not YOUR grandmother, it's THE grandomther.

Since I teach writing from personal experience I don't set up my workshops that way. But we all need to remember that this is not group therapy; it's a writing group.

Voicing the Voice

One of my students has been grappling with her writerly voice. She doesn't hear a voice in her head when she writes. What is voice?, she asked in class. We discussed this--some people actually hear a voice in their heads. Some writers have distinct voices, like Hemingway--always--and Kaye Gibbons in Ellen Foster. Voice can be elusive, hard to pinpoint, similar to tone. The best advice I can offer for finding your voice is to write, a lot. Free write for ten minutes a day and just let the words flow. Try not to censor or audition words as you go along. I invite you to respond to this blog with a freewrite. Let the first words that come to mind come out. Ready Set. Go!

Sharing Journal Entries

In journal workshops some people enjoy sharing their entries and read often. Others never do. Either way is OK. Usually once somebody reads something--and we all get to enjoy the meander from the writer's particular perch--others want to read too.

Sometimes it's like watching a scene in a new movie or looking at a bizarre landscape. I particularly enjoy hearing folks read about everyday objects. (I give prompts about them.) What people read can change the way I look at amd feel about stuff: my kitchen sink, a watch, backyards. My world view stretches and I like that. Poetry does this too.

Here's an example.

I abhor coupons and am always annoyed when the person in front of me in line uses them--especially when the check-out clerk has to call a manager because something is WRONG with the coupon--as if being a coupon isn't wrong enough! Having read the following poem earlier this week (check the archive) in poetry daily I have a new relationship to coupons. Phew.

Coupons


The cashier leans forward
to examine the expiration date.
Here's my mother's squinting face

in silent concentration and memory,
adding up my father's paychecks,
subtracting the bills,

scissors and newspaper close by,
my mother's thrifty face
as hard and bright as Formica.


Tim Skeen
The Southern Review
Volume 41, Number 4
Autumn 2005

Eavesdropping's Joys

Sitting in restaurants, waiting on line, passing people on a walk, I often find myself nosing in on other people's business. I can't help it. Sometimes, when we're out to dinner, my husband will say, "OK, what are those people behind us talking about?" I can be talking to him but I'm also listening to other tables--and he can tell.

The other day I was having coffee with a few friends. I became aware of the woman sitting at the next table. She was with a man. They weren't talking but they weren't uncomfortable. I glanced over again. She was drawing--I could see it was an interior. It was her view of the restaurant, from where she was sitting.

She put her drawing away and started to get up. I told her I couldn't help but notice her drawing. She showed it to us, told us what she was doing--interiors this month--and gave me her blog. She posts her drawings almost every day.

I want to borrow some of her ideas, like focusing on different subjects for a month at a time. OK writers. Let's spend the rest of the month writing about interiors.

Jane Kenyon Poem about Writer's Block

Not Writing

A wasp rises to its papery
nest under the eaves
where it daubs

at the gray shape,
but seems unable
to enter its own house.

Jane Kenyon

This poem speaks to me right now as I look around my desk area. I see stacks of manila files in need of file drawers, piles of papers in need of sorting--and filing, bills that need paying, notes to self that need attention, car rental agreements for upcoming trips, forms to fill out. I move one pile, add to another. I am convinced I will be unable to write until I tidy up, unable to enter my house of writing.