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