My long legs

I know comparisons are odious but what happened to me? Look at my slender body and glorious long legs. Now, I make Tina look small. Sigh. The vet said I needed to lose 15 percent of my body weight. Thanks, pal. I thought you said you loved cats.
Write about something mean somebody said to you--about your body.

Don't Leave Home Without Us

Every day this month I'm going to post about cats--which means I'll be tackling some pretty deep subjects.


My cats (that's Lucy in front, Tina behind) always sniff around and settle into my suitcase when I get it out to pack. Do they want to go with me? Are they trying to say: "Don't go?"

What, if anything, do you know about how your cats feel? Your dogs? Your pet hermit crabs?

How do you feel about packing a suitcase? About leaving?

Three Things About Yesterday

At yoga, my smart teacher Christina said, "Tension masks sensation."

She was talking about tension within the body, of course. I thought about writing too. If we're tense we can't relax into writing from our senses--from those places deep within us, the well, from where we experience the world. We're shut off if we're uptight. I believe that trust and a sense of safety are essential for a good writing workshop--and a good yoga class and a good life.

Last night, Natalie Goldberg read at the Regulator Bookshop in Durham, North Carolina. She opened by saying something like, Wow this is my first time in the South and THERE ARE PEOPLE HERE--as if she were stunned that people in the South not only 1) know how to read but 2) know how to come out to a reading. She was kidding, sort of. But all night she kept up this provincialism, which was annoying and distracting especially because she had so much great stuff to say, like: Memoir is a study of the movement of the mind. We don't remember chronologically. We smell a lilac and remember sitting over a bowl of cabbage soup 20 years ago.

She said: "Sit down, pick up a pen, and kick ass." Amen, sister.

Here are two photos from the Mining for Gold Writing Workshop I taught over the weekend, through the Resource Center for Women and Ministry in the South. These people sat down, picked up their pens and, well, did it.

They kicked ass.

Dialogues with the truth

At a workshop tonight we wrote dialogues with an aspect of self--or I said before starting--"you might want to have a conversation with a book project or something you're working on or with a body part that's bothering you."

I told them about a dialogue I'd had with my tongue.

Me, to my tongue: Why do you get swollen and sore and make me talk as though I'm drunk, slurring my words because I can't fit you in my mouth.

Tongue: You stay up too late, don't get enough rest. That plus eating too much salt makes me swell. Knock it off and I'll behave.

Me: Well OK.

Two women, sitting beside each other on a couch and banging on laptops, both wanted to read their dialogues. Both were with writing projects. One of them went something like this: "Why do you NOT put me on your schedule, give me any attention? "

Writer: Because other things come up and I'm not on a deadline with you.

Project: Yeah but you don't have forever. You might die before finishing me, like Peter did. What makes you think you have all this time?

Writer: Yikes. True. What do you want from me?

Project: Your time and attention.

Somebody else read about a real life character who was begging for a voice--to have her story told in a memoir.

If we give these inner voices the chance, they come out loud and clear for what they need.

All we have to do is take the time to ask, and listen.

Scout's Pace

Nothing like travel to break up routines. I so admire those people who write and exercise no matter where they are--or how disoriented or bad the hangover. I try, in hotels, to use the gym. But I forget my headphones and can't bear the boredom or I go, but only for one day of a five-day trip. I brought my running shoes with me this time and after a full day's work yesterday, I went out for a scout's pace. (I'm not in a hotel.)

I learned about the Scout's pace from my husband. And then, cleaning out one of my parents' bookcases, I found my father's Boy Scout Handbook. In the index, sure enough: Scout's Pace. It's a way to cover a lot of ground fast without getting exhausted--you walk then run then walk again, and so on. Always counting. I did about a mile yesterday. It's a better workout than walking and not as crushing as running.

But as for the daily hour of writing on MY book? I've missed two days. I don't report to my edit job until 9 AM and only have to walk downstairs to the office. There's hot coffee for me by 7AM. I may be immersed in somebody else's book right now, and sleeping in a strange bed in a distant state, but, really, there are no excuses.

Tomorrow morning: 7:30 AM. I'll be at it.

The Daily Grind

At a meeting with a friend this morning, I mentioned the book I've been working on.

"Which book?" she asked.

"You know," I said, "the one about the mothers and writing."

"Oh, that," she said, "I thought you finished it last summer."

"No, I finished a draft that week in August when I went away to write."

"You were so excited about finishing. I thought it was, like, done."

My friend is not a writer.

"Well, you see, I put the book away when I came home," I said, "and got all caught up in my work schedule and I didn't look at it until I made this new commitment to work on it every day for an hour."

"Oh," she said, looking distinctly blank, unimpressed.

"Right," I said. And thought: go ahead, rub it in.

She had just been talking about how productive she's been lately--refinancing, applying for a new job, doing her taxes.

We sat in silence for a few moments.

"So, what else is going on?" she asked.

"Nothing much." I shrugged.

I didn't say that I spend so much of my time working with other people on their writing that I don't get to my own. I'm done with that excuse.

And I wasn't about to confess to her that I am a binge writer, a sprinter, a deadline-driven writer, that to write every day is, for me, a monumental achievement. She wouldn't understand. I mean she finished her taxes already and it's not even the middle of March.

Ash Wednesday Musing

I am not religious but I met yesterday with a woman who decided that for Lent this year--instead of giving up something like chocolate or trashy novels--she was going to write every day. Rather than give up something, deprivation, she was going to add something, enhance her life. Forget the hair shirt, go for the comfy cotton.

Things I've Been Silent About

Things I’ve Been Silent About: this is a prompt I’ve given in three recent workshops and it's also the title of a new memoir by Azar Nafisi

One thing I’ve been silent about is that I’m not doing my own writing. I have been silent about this. I am so busy advising others: “Get to the desk, don’t wait for the muse. Put writing on your calendar and show up, like Woody Allen says: eighty percent of living or working or doing anything is showing up.”

But not showing up? I’m good at that. Ways to avoid writing: edit other people’s writing, plan workshops, think about other people’s ideas and email them—“hey you might want to consider . . .” This is a good unselfish use of creative energy.

Right?

Right, definitely. But wrong too, well, sort of.

Here’s part of the list of things I’ve been silent about that I wrote during a workshop I gave last Saturday:

--the truth about the weight issue.
--screen porch musings, too private to say more than that about (for now).
--D.’s death
--my own writing, lack of it.

So I made that list on Saturday. By Monday morning I had a writing schedule. 7:30 – 8:30 AM, Monday – Friday. To revise that book. And bingo. I’m doing it. Not a big deal.

Bill and I meet here in the living room, set the timer for an hour and go. It doesn’t matter if I’ve been up since 5 or just gotten back to sleep at 6:30. The alarm, if I’m not up already, sounds at 7. Make a pot of coffee, wash my face, take my daily pill, print out the next two chapters, and sit down to revise them.

Breaking the silence can make things happen.

I mean what kind of writing coach won’t get to her own writing? Sure I freewrite tons and love it; then there are columns and the Toyota writing and other assignments but where is the work on those three books?

Other times when I’ve tried to get regular about my writing—I’ll say something like, write two hours on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, 9:30 – 11:30 AM. Those times never work. It’s too late in the morning. Not regular enough. I’m already into emails and edits for others by then.
I have to write first thing but not at 6 when I’ve gone to bed at 1 AM. 7:30 works.

This morning I had a client call set for 8:30 AM. Fine. Bill and I started a few minutes early so that at 8:25 I was through with my writing—at 8:30 I was ready for my client’s call. Not only ready but ecstatic because I had already done a hunk my own work. (To see what Bill has written on this writing schedule, check out his blog post.

Walter Mosley said in an article that he wrote three hours every morning seven days a week 52 weeks a year. That is just depressing. Of course he writes in a genre and, he says, needs to write a book a year. It’s his livelihood—the books and the film sales, etc. that go along with it. Genre writing is easier, more predictable. You don’t have to create a whole universe with each book, a brand. Still he shows up, every morning.

My livelihood comes from my work as a teacher and a coach. I couldn’t live comfortably on what I make as a writer. And I’m fine with that. Been there, done that--with corporate and magazine writing.

I don’t want to write full time now. I love working with other people’s creative writing. I just want to finish those three books. And I can do it, for now, at an hour a day, five days a week (maybe seven—we’ll see). And maybe some extra time on weekend afternoons, unscheduled.

Note to self: I never would have gotten here if I hadn’t WRITTEN THIS DOWN AS ONE OF MY “THINGS I’VE BEEN SILENT ABOUT” ITEMS.

Writing, even a list, is mysterious and magical.

Writing in Real Time, February 2, 2009

Some of my clients arrive with writing they want to read aloud and discuss; with others we work on edited print-outs.

Some show up sheepish. "I didn't get that rewrite done," or "I told myself I'd get to the desk but somehow couldn't this week."

Some show up wanting to write here. I give them a prompt and say, "Go." They write, then read aloud. We pick a gem or a gnarly section or an "I'm not sure about that . . ." and I say, "Go again."

Writers practice their craft, right here in the swivel chair across from mine. I love the energy in the room when they're writing. They work on dialogue, character portraits, point of view, scene, narrative arc and structure--and other stuff. There are "ah ha" moments and "Yikes, really?" moments.

Writing doesn't happen without writing, somebody said--I think William Carols Williams, a doctor who practiced medicine all day and wrote poetry in his spare time.

Ah, that hush: a writer writing, sitting in the morning sun in the swivel chair.

Nerd in High School, January 31, 2009

from Long Quiet Highway: Waking Up in America, by Natalie Goldberg

"You know, I was a nerd in high school," I said. I paused. "Do they use the word 'nerd' now?"

They nodded.

"I didn't know I'd be a writer. I was just bored."

Then I told them about Mr. Clemente, my high school English teacher. One day he switched off the lights above our heads and told us to listen to the rain. My high school had big windows, I told them, and I felt what a blessing it was as I stood in front of this windowless modern classroom. "That's all we had to do--listen to the rain. There wasn't a test or a quiz on rain, on listening, or on cloudy afternoons."

I told the kids in Taos High School that day to trust in what they loved, that you don't know where it will lead you. "The important thing is to love something, even if it's skateboarding or car mechanics or whistling. Let yourself love it completely."

Prompts: Write about loving something completely, or about a day in high school. Or both!

A Headline Prompt, January 30, 2009

I clip headlines from newspapers, fold them into little squares, and deposit them in my "prompts" bowl. Looking for a prompt? Pick a headline.

Here's one from today's New York Times, "Weekend Arts"

Prompt: Gaze East and Dream

Verbs, glorious verbs, January 29, 2009

Prompt: Read this opening paragraph (it's one of my favorites) and write a paragraph in which you employ lively verbs. Notice how Pollan's verbs and prose anthropomorphizes the lawn?


No lawn is an island, at least in America. Starting at my front stoop this scruffy green carpet tumbles down a hill and leaps across a one-lane road into my neighbor’s yard. From there it skips over some wooded patches and stone walls before finding its way across a dozen other unfenced properties that lead down into the Housatonic Valley, there to begin its march south toward the metropolitan area. Once below Danbury, the lawn—now purged of weeds and meticulously coiffed—races up and down the suburban lanes, heedless of property lines. It then heads west, crossing the New York border; moving now at a more stately pace, it strolls beneath the maples of Larchmont, unfurls across a dozen golf courses, and wraps itself around the pale blue pools of Scarsdale before pressing on toward the Hudson. New Jersey next is covered, an emerald postage stamp laid down front and back of ten thousand split-levels, before the broadening green river divides in two. One tributary pushes south, striding across the receptive hills of Virginia and Kentucky but refusing to pause until it has colonized the thin, sandy soils of Florida. The other branch dilates and spreads west, easily overtaking the Midwest’s vast grid before running up against the inhospitable western states. But neither obdurate soil nor climate will impeded the lawn’s march to the Pacific: it vaults the Rockies and, abetted by a monumental irrigation network, proceeds to green great stretches of western desert.

The opening paragraph of the essay “Why Mow,” from Second Nature: a gardener’s education, by Michael Pollan (1991)

How They Flow, January 28, 2009

Prompt:

Mozart said, "When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer — say traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep — it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best, and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not, nor can I force them."

Write about how and when your ideas come to you.

Mirror, January 27, 2009

Prompt: Mirror, mirror on the wall . . .

A Dog's Life, January 26, 2009

Prompt: Write from his point of view.
(His name is Ringo.)

What's Inside? January 25, 2009

Prompt: Write about the uses of a big box.

That Day, January 24, 2009

Prompt: Write about a Saturday morning.

The Power of Hands, January 23, 2009

Prompt: Write about work your hands do and check out this poem, On the Assembly Line.

Write A What? January 22, 2009

Prompt: Write a letter, a real letter, to somebody and mail it. How do you feel, knowing who your audience is? Start up a letter-writing correspondence as a form of writing practice.

(I'm going to write to my mother, who's in the nursing facility at her retirement community at the moment, suffering from a hairline hip fracture. I call her often but never, anymore, write. A letter a week; that's my plan.)

Lost Consolation, January 21, 2009

Prompt:
I have lost the consolation of faith
though not the ambition to worship.
Forrest Gander, poet

A Big Day, January 20, 2009

Prompt: Write about how you're spending Inauguration Day and any thoughts you have about past inaugurations.

Everyone is . . . January 19, 2009

Prompt: Everyone is Afraid of Something.
What scares you?

Mothers and Daughters and, January 18, 2009

Prompt: Write about mothers and daughters or fathers and sons. We're all at least one of these.

In the Bleak Mid-Winter, January 17, 2009

Prompt: In the bleak mid-winter

In the bleak mid-winter
frosty winds made moan
earth stood hard as iron
water like a stone . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRobryliBLQ

Not Quite, January 16, 2009

Prompt: Almost

An unusual friendship, January 15, 2009

Prompt: Write about an unusual friendship.

Oh, and watch this clip first.

First lines of novels and stories, January 14, 2009

Prompt: I had been sick for a long time.

(This is the first sentence of Oracle Night: A Novel by Paul Auster. First lines often make great prompts. Anybody want to send one? And this is a novel about a writer and writing.

The Company You Keep, January 13, 2009

Prompt: Write about being in the company of women.

A Question, January 12, 2009

Prompt: What's hidden . . . and where?

Too Early, January 11, 2009

Prompt: Write about a time when you had to rise early or arrived early. What does early mean to you?

This prompt is dedicated to Aldo Leopold, author of A Sand County Almanac, who was born on this day in 1887, in Burlington, Iowa. Leopold dropped dead of a heart attack fighting a neighbor's grass fire. This essay collection was published posthumously by his children and is still considered an important book within the conservation movement.

Too Early

Getting up too early is a vice habitual in horned owls, stars, geese, and freight trains. Some hunters acquire it from geese, and some coffee pots from hunters. It is strange that of all the multitude of creatures who must rise in the morning at some time, only these few should have discovered the most pleasant and least useful time for doing it.

from A Sand County Almanac, page 59

To Waiting, January 10, 2009

Prompt: Write about waiting. You might want to use a line or two from the following poem to get you started.

To Waiting

You spend so much of your time
expecting to become
someone else
always someone
who will be different
someone to whom a moment
whatever moment it may be
at last has come
and who has been
met and transformed
into no longer being you
and so has forgotten you

meanwhile in your life
you hardly notice
the world around you
lights changing
sirens dying along the buildings
your eyes intent
on a sight you do not see yet
not yet there
as long as you
are only yourself

with whom as you
recall you were
never happy
to be left alone for long


W. S. Merwin
Present Company
Copper Canyon Press

Point of View Exercise, January 9, 2009

Prompt: Write--from your point of view--about an experience involving you and at least one other person. Now write the same experience from the point of view of someone else in the story.

Pretending to Be, January 8, 2009

Prompt: Write about a time you felt one way and acted another. OR (and this is kind of the same prompt but might offer some additional possibilities) write about a time you pretended to be someone or something you aren't.

And, as a writer, what are your goals for the year? Check out this blog to respond--and to learn how valuable actually writing, not just thinking about, your goals can be. (You don't have to be a fiction writer to do this. We nonfiction writers have goals too!)

By the way, this morning's Writer's Almanac featured this poem about trees. I have loved all the tree pieces--and others--that you've been sending. Don't hesitate to post comments on what you like in each other's work. And those of you who are shy about posting, and are emailing your prompt writings to me, try being brave and sharing them here. Can't hurt, can it?

Unfortunate Location

In the front yard there are three big white pines, older
than anything in the neighborhood except the stones.
Magnificent trees that toss their heads in the wind
like the spirited black horses of a troika. It's hard to
know what to do, tall dark trees on the south side of
the house, an unfortunate location, blocking the
winter sun. Dark and damp. Moss grows on the roof,
the porch timbers rot and surely the roots have
reached the old bluestone foundation. At night, in
the wind, a tree could stumble and fall killing us in
our beds. The needles fall year after year making an
acid soil where no grass grows. We rake the fallen
debris, nothing to be done, we stand around with
sticks in our hands. Wonderful trees.

by Louis Jenkins
All Tangled Up with the Living
Nineties Press, 1991

Going Back to Sleep, January 7, 2009

A Barred Owl

The warping night air having brought the boom
Of an owl’s voice into her darkened room,
We tell the wakened child that all she heard
Was an odd question from a forest bird,
Asking of us, if rightly listened to,
“Who cooks for you?” and then “Who cooks for you?”

Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear,
Can also thus domesticate a fear,
And send a small child back to sleep at night
Not listening for the sound of stealthy flight
Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw
Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw.

--Richard Wilbur

Prompt: Write about going back to sleep.
(I often suggest that people take a line from a poem or
an image and use that as a starting point for writing.)

A Simple, Homely Occurrence, January 6, 2009

Prompt: Today is Epiphany, the 12th day of Christmas. Write about a childhood epiphany.

One definition of epiphany:
a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.

Familiar Trees, January 5, 2009

. . . There's a cypress on that block, two honey locusts and an oak. I love those trees like my own brothers.

From the poem, "Illustrated Guide to Familiar American Trees" by Charlie Smith

Prompt: Write about trees or a particular tree.

Returning Home, January 4, 2009

Prompt: Write about returning home after a rough weekend.

Forward and back, January 3, 2009

The name January comes from the Roman god Janus, the god of doorways and gates, who had a face in front and one behind; he could see forward and backward at the same time.


Prompt: Write a letter to 2008 and one to 2009.

Or imagine that you, or a character you're writing about, is approaching a doorway . . . or a gate.

Prompt: January 2, 2009

Write about something that happens
on this park bench.

A Prompt a Day

Hi All:

I'm posting a writing prompt every day this month. Have fun and send your writing as a comment if you'd like. I'll use poems, photos, video, quotes, and excerpts as prompts. Set a timer for 15 minutes and write! Write whatever comes to mind--first thought, as Allen Ginsberg said. Maybe a word jumps out at you; if nothing strikes you, write about having nothing to say and see where that takes you.

Here's the first one, for January 1, 2009.

In Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, Doris Kearns Goodwin quotes Alexis de Tocqueville, the astute Frenchman who visited the United States in 1831 and wrote extensively about his American visit: Tocqueville wrote (and this is the prompt):

"Every American is eaten up with longing to rise."

Holiday Lists

On the update I just sent out with a holiday greeting plus my workshop and retreat listings for 2009, I also included a few prompts. Here they are:

Below are a couple of ways to get you writing over the holidays. Let's take a minute - yes, a minute will do - to make lists, to engage in some reflective writing.

Prompt 1
Make a list of your family of origin's holiday traditions. (Maybe you'd like to invite others from your family to join you in this exercise.) Now make a list of your traditions today. Hmm, contrast and compare. What have you kept? Pitched?

Prompt 2
Now that you're warmed up, take one item from the list and write about it for ten minutes.

When I first wrote the copy for the update I took myself through the prompts. I did a list of holiday things that were unacceptable in my house growing up. First on the list was tinsel. Then came lights on the house, followed by any outdoor decorations. And the list went on from there, including buying new Advent calendars (we recycled ours every year), and ended with celebrating Christmas on December 25. My family celebrated on January 6, Epiphany. I picked that item to write about in detail--how my friends would ask me what I got for Christmas the first school day after the holidays, and I would have to say, "We haven't celebrated yet." And I would turn as red as Santa's hat, etc.

I asked my older daughter, Olivia, who is home for Christmas to listen to what I wrote before sending it out.

"Mom," she said, when I finished reading, "that is so Debbie Downer. Why don't you just give the prompts without writing your own responses. Nobody wants to hear all that right now."

She's right. I'm going to redo the exercise and find some good stuff to mention--stretch for fresh material, bust out of personal myths and familiar old stories.

Right now, I'm going to go celebrate--add some more tinsel to the tree.

Is this it?

For years my two older sisters and I have stood at Susan's kitchen sink in Georgetown--cleaning up after a big family dinner--and said, "This could be it," meaning this holiday get-together with our aging parents might be our last.

For many years, Nancy accompanied our parents from Philadelphia to Washington for Thanksgiving and Christmas, first in her car, but recently--as getting into the backseat of a two-door VW Golf got harder for Mother--on Amtrak. My family and I drove up from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with our fresh-baked pies. Susan's brownstone easily accommodated all of us, including our dog Daphne--the last surviving canine in the extended family, after decades of dogs.

Our parents started staying in a hotel a few years back. Susan's elegant sweep of staircase became too much for them. Nancy and I would drive over to their hotel early in the morning and pick them up for the day. They were always ready in their big coats and hats--Dad in his trusty fedora--until last Christmas, when we helped them get up, showered, and dressed, and Dad wasn't entirely sure where he was. But he still insisted on wearing a coat and tie, and still refused to use his walker in the house.


Our old dog Daphne loved my dad. She lay down on his feet, rolled over, and squinted in bliss as he rubbed her belly. She too had trouble with the long Georgetown staircase but there was no keeping her on the first floor, not when her people were asleep upstairs.

Last Christmas we said it again, washing dishes and straightening up after a big festive dinner. "This could be it." And I think we all kind of knew--this was it. Everybody was there--grandparents, three daughters, four grandchildren from around the country with their significant others, minus one who was with his family in Michigan.

Yesterday, Nancy, for the first time, drove Thanksgiving dinner over to my parents' retirement community in Philadelphia. Susan is putting her Georgetown brownstone on the market this weekend (her employer enforces early retirement) and couldn't join the others in Philadelphia. In recent years my husband, children and I have been going up only at Christmas. This is our first holiday in twenty-five years, without a dog. Staring at the Thanksgiving giblet and liver simmering on my stove made me miss Daphne, who died over the summer, even more.



No way will my parents be able to travel to D.C. this Christmas. They only leave their community for doctors' appointments. With any luck Susan will have sold her brownstone to an incoming Obama appointee and moved to a one-bedroom in Manhattan. We'll never sit around that long table again as a family, raising our glasses in a toast to being together: Mother, Dad, the three daughters, as many grandchildren as could get there, the dog under foot, waiting for turkey droppings. My sisters and I won't wonder at Susan's kitchen sink, "Is this it?"

Hey, I say to everybody I know. Enjoy your time together. This may be it.

Home Again, Home Again

Somebody commented on my last post--about my love of the billboards in Qatar--did you survive the trip to the Doha airport? We haven't heard from you since.

Having lived and driven in Boston and New York City, I'm not upset by the Doha drivers, though I haven't actually driven in the country. And yes, I did make it to the airport but was appalled by the hideous traffic jams at each roundabout along the way.

I am an erratic blogger. I tend to want to blog when I can show pictures of faraway places. And I tend to write more when I'm away--every day when I'm traveling, always. But I am home now and not writing daily, on my blog obviously, or even on my two books in progress.

I heard an interesting talk last night, given by the keynote, author Ron Rash, at the North Carolina Writers' Network fall conference. He talked about perseverance being one of the most important qualities in a writer--that and writing daily and reading deeply. He wrote for 17 years before publishing his first novel. Somebody in a workshop the other night quoted the author Max Steele, who said that it takes as long to make a writer as it does a doctor.

Having been a writer for the last thirty years, I agree. I persevere and read deeply but writing is something I have always done in spurts. When I'm writing daily, I feel whole. So why don't I? Clearly, I need to travel more.

Billboards

I am leaving in a few minutes. This has been an amazing week--lots of different teaching venues and experiences. I'm still in love with the billboards and the construction, but the driver is arriving any minute so I'll post more later.

Qatar: Around the Compound

So far on this working trip to Qatar, I've had the compound spa to myself for early morning and late night plunges. 

The ocean is my preferred venue, but this pool, mosaic-ed in shades of blue, takes me into a watery, ripply dream. So glad I remembered my goggles.

The coffee scene isn't quite as charming. 

As you can see, I'm brewing in the blender. It's the only container large enough for my funnel. 

And coffee filters? Not available at the compound supermarket (below).

The writing workshops are going great, despite two mid-writing electrical blackouts but, hey, everything can be a prompt--including darkness--once the power is on and we're not scribbling by cellphone light.

I wish I could borrow this supermarket bike. Unlike absolutely everywhere else in Doha, there is little traffic in the compound.

More later.

Why I Love gchatting

I got into an email exchange with a client this morning. We were both hitting "send" every five minute or so.

Finally, I emailed him: You should use your gmail account, I wrote. Then we could have quick little chats and check-ins. And you could have them with . . . too. I keep up with my daughters with gchat and one or two friends.

It's so fast that you write in your talking voice. And, ah, what a voice. Sounds just like you. That talking voice is one we want to hear and readers do too--it's natural, spare, slangy. It's YOU, writing what you would be talking if you weren't gchatting but were, say, on the phone with this person. Talking is writing on the air, says Pat Schneider. OK. So, consider this: Writing is talking on the page.

The chatty voice in your head is going directly onto the screen, while your gremlin nods on your shoulder--unaware there's something happening that he could tear up and spit on.

All chats get saved, automatically. I would suggest you not dwell on this--thinking about "saving" might wake up the gremlin. He'll have a good belch, then smell fresh coffee brewing in his little dark kitchen full of knives.

Prompt: Have a dialogue with your gremlin. And if you don't know what a gremlin is, you're lucky. But you probably do have one and just call it something else--the censor, killjoy, &%$*$#!

In the following quote, replace 'say' with 'gchat':
"If you say what's on your mind in the language that comes to you from your parents and your street and friends," writes Grace Paley, "you'll probably say something beautiful."

And real.

Grief In its Own Time

I wake up with blog post ideas. Yes, that's a good one, I tell myself. And I can use the photo from . . .

Over the past month I've considered lots of entries, but somehow when it's time to open the blogger dashboard, my fingers freeze and I stop.

My last post is a tribute to Daphne, my 14-year-old golden retriever, who died on July 23. I haven't wanted, been able, to consider supplanting her muddy face with another post, until now. I pause, ready to leap into my new idea, but . . .

Many times I've walked down to her grave at the end of the yard, by the compost bin, and chatted with her. "Hey girl," I say, "I miss your impish energy, your wiggling up out of a deep dirt sleep to trot around the yard with me and tease me when I dump the vegetable droppings.

"Oh isn't she being a conscientious citizen," you would say--if you could talk, jerking your head back in a challenge, your black lips parting in a smile. "You're such a good girl, unlike me, the wolf dog." You would bark and invite me to chase you or play a game with you. You'd drop a ball or a stone at my feet. "Throw it," you'd say. Whenever Bill came out, you would try to block him when he shot baskets in your yard--try to get into the game with him. He swore you laughed when he missed a hoop.

Yesterday, without you at my side, I strung a clothes line out back, something I could never do when you were alive. For a day or two you would have ignored the damp prey. But then, on a lazy afternoon, a pillow case waving in the breeze would have been too much and you would have ripped it down, shaken it to break its neck, and dug it into one of your mud holes. Next a sheet, a t-shirt, anything you could reach.

Now I have a line up. I have a screen door since you're not here to paw through it at the first threat of thunder--the change in weather you always sensed long before we did. Our TV room no longer smells like a vet's office. There are no clumps of golden hair clinging to our kitchen chair legs. I can take a brisk walk and not feel guilty for leaving your rickety self at home.

I set out to write a post about something else, thinking I was ready. But you have taken over. That's how grief works--it has its own timetable, surprising us.

I choose this picture, looking up the driveway from the Wildacres resident cabin. At the top of the slope, light bursts through but down here we are in a darker place.

Daphne: In Memoriam

Daphne's mud facial after digging in the creek for a rock

With the help of our vet, the sublime Dr. Adriano Betton, Daphne died peacefully last night in her yard. We buried her--along with a collection of her beloved rocks and Rosie's ashes--not far from the shed out back. She's in the company of the many cats, dogs, hermit crabs, and pet mice who have graced our home.

Daphne was 14 and a free spirit right up to the end.

She would have had a good laugh at our final moment together. And the dog did laugh--and smile.

It was dark by the time we wheeled her down to the end of the yard in my trusty barrel. I just couldn't bring myself to dump her into her grave, like a load of compost. So I gathered her now-skinny body in my arms and tried to lower us both in. I couldn't see and didn't realize the depth of the hole. Together, we tumbled into the grave. My husband Bill, who has a bad hip and couldn't lift her but had offered to get a flashlight and I refused, watched in horror as dog and wife disappeared into a cloud of lime dust. (We had lined the hole with lime.) I was lucky, suffering only a few minor scratches and a knee bruise. With Daphne, we always expected the unexpected--and got it.

To Tina, Daphne was Mom.

Dosing on the screened porch with Lucy

Rest in peace, friend. You had a full romp.

Prompt: Write about a pet that is no longer here.

The Poplar Grove

When I took a writing group to France in June, we walked from the chateau to a poplar grove. This was as close as I got to the trees. Others wandered through the swampy grass--you wouldn't know it was there by looking--and tried to get into the grove. At one point the trees had been surrounded by a moat and finding a way in was almost impossible. Only one in the group succeeded.

I was content to lie in the grass and write, from afar. Sandra, who sat with me briefly, said: "I'm having explorer envy." I wasn't. And when the others came back, shoes ruined or as somebody with an artistic bent called them, "distressed," Sandra was just as glad she had stayed put.

So was I. I don't usually care about going the extra distance. I don't have to pitch a tent and camp to get the feel of a mountain. I'm happy to spend an hour or two on the trail and then return to the comfy hotel.

Same with museums. I can spend a morning in one gallery and be perfectly happy. I don't want or need to take in the entire collection.

And when I'm in a foreign city, I'd rather walk the streets and sit at an outdoor cafe, soaking up the ambiance, than tour the famous sites.

Some would--and do--call me lazy. Maybe they're right. But I like to say that I enjoy letting my mind fill in a lot of the details. I don't have to experience everything up close and personal.

And I try to tell writers that too. Give enough details but leave room for the reader's imagination to fill in with its own vast vision.

My Favorite Writing Tool

When I'm stuck and can't budge on a writing project--when free-writing, list making, journaling from the kitchen sink's or my dog's point of view, clustering--when all these tools fail me, I put on my knee high boots and head out to the back shed for this . . .

my blue wheel barrel. I dig into the loamy mulch pile, toss the soil, splat, into the sturdy steel bowl of blue, and haul a load to a needy shrub--enjoying the quiet roll of the wheel barrel--up the drive, across the yard, into the ivy--my fingers holding the wooden handles, shoulders back, body balanced against the wheel barrel's weight.

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

--William Carlos Williams

   

Nebraska

Here is the farm where my client Bill spent summers as a boy. It's up the fields from the original homestead. The barns and many other buildings blew down in a tornado 15 years ago.
Bill is writing a history of the homestead.



Bill revisits the chicken house, where he fetched eggs every morning. It was easier to look out the chicken door back then.




Clothes still hanging on hooks in an abandoned house on the farm.


The moldings are still intact.


Giving a good profile.


Head on stare.




These cows lead the good life.



A cemetery on top of a hill. The wind never stops blowing up here. I'll send more photos soon.

Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting: What a Scene

Greetings from the Midwest. During the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, the Qwest Convention Center in Omaha, Nebraska morphs into a fabulous display center for Berkshire companies.

I wanted to get on the long-horn steer but they told me I was too old and, well, too big. This little girl came all the way to the meeting in her finery for this picture. I should have worn a dress and petticoats.


I could have sat on this but the line was too long.


The artist Michael Isreal painted a portrait of Warren on the spot--at 6 AM on Saturday. (Note his paint-spattered tux.) The portrait will be sold on eBay later this year--


to benefit a fabulous organization called Girls Inc. that encourages girls to be strong, smart, and bold. Here are a few members:


Fruit of the Loom is another Berkshire company. Some big grapes.


You can always tell when Warren Buffett is approaching--he is surrounded by no-nonsense body guards, with little curly wires in their ears, and photographers with huge cameras and boom mikes. I was able to take many pictures of Mr. Buffett but none with him, except this one, with his cardboard image. Incidentally, no photos or video are allowed within the meeting arena--or even of the video broadcasts throughout the Center.

Warren Buffett has written a chapter in the book I edited, Foods You Will Enjoy: The Story of Buffett's Store.

He and his partner Charlie Munger took questions from the floor for six hours at the Annual Meeting. Jon Stewart's writers couldn't have come up with better material. And these two guys were improvising.

Warren Buffett told about being so afraid of public speaking that he avoided college courses where he'd have to pipe up in class. He'd get physically ill at the thought. While at Columbia in an MBA program, he took the subway downtown to a Dale Carnegie program and wrote a $100 check to enroll. When he got back uptown he immediately stopped payment on the check. Eventually he forced himself to get over his fear and now he speaks brilliantly, with no script.

In response to a question about the current candidates Charlie Munger said something like: Politicians are never so bad that you don't want them back again in your lifetime. Buffett's response: Charlie's a Pollyanna.

Buffett also said: work for an organization or an individual you admire--many people become self-employed.

Your best asset in life is yourself, he said. Too often, our potential exceeds our expectations. So, go for it! And he said that those who can communicate well--speaking and on the page--have a huge advantage. Keep working on the writing everybody and have fun. Put on a CD from the The Quebe Sisters Band . . . and keep in touch.

Time to Think

The May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine carries an article by Frank Bures called, "Way, Way Too Much Information," about the overload we're all processing and about how he was inspired by an essay called "Thinking about Earthworms," by David Quammen. Published in the early 1990s, the essay encouraged readers to dwell with their own minds, to avoid the pull of global-mind, to think about things of interest to them and perhaps them alone. Turn off the television, etc.

Think.

So I think about how much harder that imperative is now, in the 21st century--with cells, texting, blogs, email, TiVo, etc. Bures includes staggering information about the amount of data we're churning out each year and then he goes on to talk about writers who cut themselves off from the world, live in remote areas where they aren't so constantly connected.

I can't live out there, but one of the many things I like about offering writing workshops--especially those where we write to prompts--is that during the precious writing time we allow ourselves to drop into ourselves and think, let bubble up what will on the page. We can follow our thoughts, without distraction. Meander on the page. Meander is my favorite word. The silence that falls over a room when people are writing never fails to thrill me.

I don't give out hand-outs until the end of a session because people will read them during that precious writing time. I tell people that when they're through writing they can just sit there and think. That too is a privilege.

All my life, I've craved, needed, time alone, when I can just sit and stare out a window or take an aimless walk--without cell or headset. It's hard to ruminate if a book on tape pounds your eardrums or even a friend's voice.

I loathed Quaker Meeting as a child. How boooorrrrriiinng,dreadful, to sit there . . . in SILENCE. For a whole hour. I so didn't get it, couldn't bear it. Put me under the front-yard privet and I could stare at the clouds, silent, for ages but at Meeting I felt like I was on steroids--wanting to jump straight out of my skin, through the ripply-glassed window and onto the green lawn beyond . . . where I would roll and tumble away from that place, forever.

Speaking of rolling and tumbling, I've got to go. I'm closing my computer and heading out the door for a walk--with birdcall, traffic, and the crinkling of breezy tree leaves for company.

And my own thoughts.