PAD Challenge and My Efforts

Today is the last day of the PAD Challenge with Robert Lee Brewer on his Writer's Digest blog.
There is a tool to search for specific poems or poets. If you want to check my poetry out here is the tool. http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/ct.ashx?id=7c56593c-5dd0-46e5-9121-f0b758055e88&url=http%3a%2f%2fdintur.net%2fcgi-bin%2fpc2009.pl Then look up Toni Gilbert.

Honoring the Apprenticeship

I just finished reading Writing Life Stories by Bill Roorbach. Of course, I’ll have more in What I Read in April blog later, but I was struck several things in Roorbach’s essay, On Apprenticeship in Writing Life Stories’ Appendix C.

Roorbach explains in a few paragraphs before the essay that since writing the essay the central anecdote has become a writer’s urban myth. (The anecdote has Roorbach at a party talking to a doctor. When Roorbach mentions he’s a writer, the doctor tells him she’s going to take six months off and write her story. Roorbach tells her he’s thinking of doing the same—taking six months off and becoming a doctor.) In truth, I’ve heard it many times and read the essay in 1994 when it was first published. I think the reason the anecdote sounds so familiar is writers hear something similar all the time.

As I read the essay this time it really touched a chord. Maybe because of the struggles I’ve had this last year or maybe, I just read it with less bitterness and more gratitude. Gratitude? Yes, see, I’m just happy to be writing. Funny, too, but I think because of that, the things I’m writing are better. Maybe, it just seems so.

Regardless I’m happier with what I’ve written lately and even better, I don’t have near as much angst biting at the nap of my neck. Writers have enough of that.

On Apprenticeship explains how little our culture values artistic apprenticeship, how little we appreciate the time, work and effort an artist puts into becoming skilled. (Even ourselves.) We get comments from well-meaning friends, relatives and acquaintances about how they should or would write a book, a poem, an essay if they had the time. I try not to be sensitive to this but can’t help but hear a little voice beneath the comments.

“Gosh-all-lightning, it’s can’t be that hard. Just sit down and write. Anyone can do it. If they have the time.” (The writer hears-Ok, I hear-the time you’ve spent and what do have you to show for it anyway?)

The worst part is they’re right. We all write lists, memos, notes, been writing since kindergarten, for Blue’s sake. And it’s true, as far as that goes. What is never mentioned, never valued is the work, the study, the practice, the rewrites and rewrites and yet another rewrite it takes to get to the point our writing might be publishable.

Most people see the difference between a fence painter and a portrait painter, but it’s hard to see the difference between writing that turns up as novels, poems and magazine articles and writing that Christmas letter.

I try never to respond other than to encourage when someone says they’re going to write a book, poem, essay when they have the time or next summer or whatever. How can you without sounding like you’re trying to rationalizing the time you spend writing. (Time, I might add, you probably had to steal, sneak or bargain for.) (If you boo hoo too much you get asked why do you write if it's that hard. For Blue's sake, if I could actually not write...well, there are times I wouldn't if I could help it. But you say you love it, that same someone says. Yes, I love it, but do you realize I can't ever get away from those voices, those stories and sometimes, often times, it can be exhausting.) In truth, any explanation is fruitless until and unless that person tries his own hand at writing a piece he wants to market.

Hey, often, we’re no kinder to ourselves. We have no patience with the time it takes to learn our craft. We sit down, write the piece, rewrite, edit, polish and send out our babies. When they come back rejected what do we do? Kick ourselves. Tell ourselves we’re never going to make it. We don’t have what it takes. We’re just wasting time.

Yeah, that’s one thing I’ve found. We writers are good enough at hurting ourselves. We don’t really need anyone else looking askance at us. We do it to ourselves well enough. We question our sanity, too, enough.

Well, that’s one thing I’m going to try to stop doing. I’m going to spend as much time and energy honoring my apprenticeship— the years, the workshops, the rejects as kicking myself. I’m going to be more patient with my learning curve and look at how far I’ve come, not how much farther I have to go.

Persistance

We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us. —Marcel Proust

Last summer, in the space between cement wall and driveway the heart-shaped leaves gained hold and clung to the sun-warmed wall. By the end of July, the deep purple blooms opened to dawn, unfurling a color that never failed to pierce my heart. I watched all summer the morning glory’s struggle against the odds-sun, heat-trampling feet, my husband’s weed patrol, my own.
I never could bring myself to pull the plant or use weed killer. It seemed we had so much in common. That morning glory and I.

Trouble, interruptions, and life changes come to all of us. When it does it can bring your writing to a screeching halt. Adversity is going to happen. It’s just plain inevitable. Some something comes along and takes the wind from your sail. Something as simple as a flat tire, stopped up toilet or as bad as a sick child or a family tragedy. Things come along that throw your writing schedule to the four winds.

Those troubles, interruptions, that stress or life change is the stuff our lives are made up of. In a way, they are our blessings. What can you do about it?

The only thing to do is expect trouble, interruptions—life, in other words. Expect life. Make plans to deal with the problems you can control and realize, really know that sometimes life is going to take precedence over your writing. Be prepared for the stress. Embrace it. Take tablet and pen with you, note things during the handling of each problem. Don’t be embarrassed to do this. For all anyone knows you’re taking notes for dealing. And you are, plus you are writing. Don’t feel guilty about that either, because that is the nature of a writer is.

And remember, too, misfortune, adversity, they help us grow, give us experience, and a writer needs all of that.

So turn adversity, interruptions, misfortune into positives as best you can. Think about how you can use each for you instead of against you. Take the experience; note the feel, the color, the setting, the emotions—anything. You will use it someday in your writing. Guaranteed.
Attack challenges head on. This will prepare you to meet the next challenge better and your writing better. Writing is a challenge and it is easy to slump down and say to yourself, “This article, this poem, this story is hard to write. I’ll do something easier.”

Writing is hard. It’s supposed to be.

Published authors, every one, have met these same challenges, dealt with them and gone on writing. Despite everything. They’ve had stopped up toilets, jobs, aging parents, young children and writer’s block.

Bill Phillips said, those of us who go on, who have the courage to continue and to succeed in spite of adversity, become an inspiration.

Become an inspiration.

Poetry

Carl Sandberg said, “Poetry is the opening and closing of a door leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during a moment.”

A poem is only a glimpse into what the poet sees, feels, hears, touches, thinks. It is the condensed experience, cooked down, strained. Every word exact. Often a chosen word doing duel jobs, maybe, even more. A high degree of sensitivity is in every word, no matter how simple the poem.

I find myself revisiting poetry at the times I’m struggling most with my writing. Writing poetry revitalizes my other writing. The search for the perfect, right word, gathering words, playing with words suits me better than anything else I do in writing. For me, it is like searching for the flea market treasure among the jumble of other’s trash. It is something I’ve always enjoyed—gathering, collecting, finding words.

One of my first memories—I had to have been younger than six and I was playing outside in my backyard (This was in the first house I remember—a three bedroom unit back to back with a one bedroom unit—one of the bedrooms was actually in the half of the other people’s house. Inside the closet of the one bedroom a small door opened into the other house. This was in the 50’s and the homes were built and owned by the U.S. Government.) The neighbor man who lived in the other half of our unit was working in his yard. I was one of those children that were always asking questions (still am) and I asked, “What’s your name?”

“Doug.” he answered.

“What ya doing?” nosy me, asked.

“Digging.”

I still remember laughing, thinking how funny that was. Dug (that was how my mind pictured his name), digging.

I know, I know. Not that funny. Not funny at all, but—that twist in my mind of Doug’s name still makes me smile.

Word play, different ways of looking at words, twisted the meanings, looking up all the meanings of a word—that’s what I do. I love to say words, roll them over in my mind, on my tongue, use them, gather them.

And poems are the perfect way for me to use those words, just as I do flea market finds—repurposed. For the writer it is condensing an experience or sight, feeling or thought into a few well-chosen, well-collected, well-used words. For the reader, the poet hopes it is a shiver up the spine, a cracked heart, a whispered-I feel that way too, and now, I know I am not alone.

To see what I mean go here and read the comments to read entries to the PAD Challenge. Great poems. Great poets. Great glimpses.

First 15 Days of PAD Challenge

I’ve made it over half way through the PAD (Poem a Day) Challenge (Poetic Asides with Robert Lee Brewer on the Writer’s Digest website) and challenge, it is. Great way to celebrate National Poetry Month, though.

Sounded simple enough when I saw it, too late, last year. (Last year would have been a wash anyway)

The challenge was to write a poem a day using the prompts Brewer provided, post it in the comments for each given day. Simple enough. The rewards-your poetry might get read by others in the challenge, might get published in the eBook, if you submit for every prompt (30)you get a completion certificate and a badge to place on your blog or website.

All good enough rewards, but the real reward is just doing. I’ve done several NanoWriMo challenges over the years and loved the way it pushed, stretched my writing and put a fire under my feet. This challenge did the same. Of course, I approached the whole thing the same, too. The goal in my mind was quantity as much as quality, maybe, more so. I let the challenge push me to just write the poem, worry about editing and working and polishing later.

Oh, I worried over the poem, rewrote and studied, researched, made it the best I could for one day, then I moved on. I felt I had to, to keep up with the real challenge. Write a poem a day.

These first fifteen days have surprised and exhilarated me. Those pressures—to get a poem down, polish it the best I can, then move on, got my head in the right place, first of all. Then, the challenge stretched my thinking, my writing, my output. I couldn’t believe what has been set free.

Some of the prompts have made me smile, some have made me groaning. I write anyway. (My motto) Nothing better than that. I write anyway because to meet this challenge that is all that is required—Get a poem down.

Another great benefit is reading all the other poems, seeing the talent out there, feeling a part of a community.

I am so glad I took this challenge. I hope I hold on to the feelings it’s stirred up, too. I plan to take the challenge every year I can, too.

There are a few things I’d do different next year. Simple things to prepare. I’d take better notes during the year and I’d stockpile words. I do this often with my writing any way, but more so with my poetry. I make word lists-finding words in catalogs, magazines, and newspapers and putting them in a file to be ‘used’ later.

I recommend the PAD challenge to any writer. There is still time to do it this year. Check it out at- http://www.writersdigest.com/article/poem-a-day/

April's Godsends:

• daffodils
• birds in the backyard birdhouse
• poetry month
• garden shop visits
• Cadburycreme eggs
• sitting in the sun
• digging in the soil
• planting broccoli, cabbage, sweet peas and new perennials
• picking up rocks in the vegetable garden
• a clean patio

From my Office Window

A few weeks ago from my office window, I watched windy gusts battered my green and yellow windmill. The snow was gone and my garden reflected the direction my life had taken months ago more than I liked. Torn up, replanted, edited, made smaller. Hope, possibilities, fear, losses and founds were all there in a sorrowful tumble.

Flower beds had been razed and turned back to lawn. Transplanted perennials clipped short and tucked into mulch-amended soil too far apart for my taste. Gone were my over-filled beds, the riot of flowers, the color, the scent.

Saved? Only the plants I couldn’t live without. My father-in-law’s early peony, my mother’s white lilac tree, the dependable Betty Boob rose. Of course, the blue delphiniums, the white daisy, ‘Autumn Joy’ sedum, tall, purple veronica and winter chrysanthemum, all saved when I eliminated garden beds.

Who would have ever thought it would come to this? Not me. Just over a year ago my garden was my passion, my salvation. But part of the gift of being sick, getting a life changing diagnosis is learning what is truly important, what you’re truly passionate about.

Yes, the remaining flower beds looked ruined a few weeks ago, but what a difference a few weeks can make.

I’ve always named my flower beds, labeled them in my head, at least. Reality is my yard hardly needs names for the postage-size garden beds. But once there was a Rose Garden, Shade Garden, Vegetable Garden. Lilac Garden. Zen Garden. Now, Hope Garden encompasses my whole yard, my whole life.

Last year I felt torn asunder in my garden, my writing, my life.

Before I was diagnosed with MPGN, I was simply frustrated. Every moment of time I grabbed to write was hard won. Wrestled from so many more deserving things. My mother, my family, my husband, the house, the garden. You know, those should-be’s. Battlegrounds so various and long standing. One battle won, another sprang up. Wrangling constantly with what I wanted to do and what was right. Over the years I’ve been angry, desperate, pleading, finally, resigned but determined. Each battle made me doubt all over again what I was doing, what I wanted to do, made me doubt the importance of my dreams.

More than anything I have tried to balance my writing with my ‘real’ life. Writing is not, nor never has been the most important thing in my life. Never more important than my kids, my husband, my mom…and yet—And yet, the need to write is so cutting—a fist around my heart when I can’t, a whip when I don’t, a constant voice in my head no matter what else it is I’m doing. I can’t, don’t ever get away from that voice. That voice, constantly nags me about stories, essays poems. Things that need to be written down.

“I don’t have time for this.” That was my thought, my attitude, so many months ago when the first inkling that something was wrong with me.

Guess what? “Oh, yes, you do,” whispers reality.

That I am writing, right this moment, is a miracle, a blessing. I am grateful, heart high. Yet the struggle goes on, doesn’t it?

And the wonder. Why? Why do I need to write so much? Need writing as much as breath? Is it like that for every writer? What drives me so, and why? And if I was made this way, why don’t I have more success to show for it?

I can’t answer most of those questions but now I know—given desperate choices—if I only have a short time to live I know what I want to spend my time doing. I have my answer. I want family close, love them, spend time with them and I want to write. I can’t put it aside, can’t turn my back. Quite simply, it is me.

What I read in March 2009

A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle: My father introduced me to Psycho-Cybernetics back in the 60s. The power of positive thinking. He believed in it and convinced me, but it’s hard to put into practice. A New Earth is essentially covers the same thing, but better explains why it is so hard to do and gives several benchmarks that alert you to negative thinking.

That is a key for me, because negative thinking sneaks up on me without me even realizing it. It’s just a knee-jerk reaction for most of us. I like the message in this book. A lot. I think I need to read this book several times, but if I just remember some of the key elements, my life will improve.

Another plus was the assurance that if you question your reactions you will improve your outlook. That is the beginning of creating a positive life. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to make positive change.

First Comes Marriage by Mary Balogh: I’ve been reading Balogh for years. I’ve always liked her writing and her stories. She builds wonderful characters and her dialogue is fun to read.
This book is the first of a series involving the Huxtables. This story is about Vanessa, the second daughter, who is widowed. There is intrigue, secrets and discovery, and, of course, love.

The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin: I bought this book years ago because I heard so much about Martin’s Shopgirl, especially from writers. I was curious what kind of writer he would turn out to be. Though I knew he started his career as a comedy writer, I wondered how that might translate to a novella.

I couldn’t find Shopgirl at the book store, but found The Pleasure of My Company instead. It’s been sitting in my TBR (to be read) pile ever since. I haven’t been able to get to the bookstores as regularly as I used to. (How I miss that) so I’ve resorted to my TBR stack. (Probably a blessing in disguise, I’m saving tons of money).

This book took me by surprise. I thoroughly enjoyed everything about it—the writing, the characters, the humor or wit (which I find I sometimes just don’t get what others think is funny). I read the whole book with a big silly smile on my face (reminiscent of Martin’s). I would recommend this to anyone who needs cheering up
.
Daniel Pecan Cambridge is the narrator. Full of neuroses and obsessions (surprisingly a bit like me), he explains his thinking in a reasonable manner. I completely understood his ‘rules’. In fact, he seemed just like me—and a lot of other people I know, but he didn’t function in his world very well. How he copes with the problems and setbacks in his life make those I have seem simple. And, there is a happy ending.

Wonderfully written, this is a keeper in my mind, but I realize I have a mind just a little like Daniel Pecan Cambridge and that gets me wondering.

Selected Poems by James Applewhite: As I said earlier, my goal was to read more poetry. I try to read poetry every day. This was the first collection I tackled.

I read an article written by Applewhite in one of my writer’s magazines a few months back and became interested in his poetry. He has a wonderful way of looking at things. His rhymes are often unusual and he has a command of words. His poems were descriptive and honest, but I have to say some of his subjects were hard for me to understand and get into.

Blue-Eyed Devil by Lisa Kleypas: Kleypas is another writer I’ve been reading forever. Blue-eyed Devil is a contemporary romance, which is not my favorite genre, but this was good.

It brings Hardy Cates and Haven Travis back together after a brief meeting two years before. Haven has come back home with a guarded heart and enough history to be wary of any man.

Kleypas deals with the issues of abuse in an informative, positive but sensitive way in this story. Good dialogue, wonderful characters.

I Try to Behave Myself by Peg Bracken: Originally written in 1959, the advice in this book is rarely useful in these times and, yet—I loved reading these outdated rules about manners. So many have no place now, but some were surprisingly valid. What I liked most was Bracken’s no-nonsense reasons for doing or not doing what was considered appropriate for the times.

Her gauge was to do what makes sense; don’t hurt anyone and do what expedites the situation. Believe it or not some of Bracken’s solutions to sticky situations still work, even though proper etiquette has changed.

I’ve set out to read all the Peg Bracken’s books I hadn’t read years ago. I enjoy her writing, love her voice but this book was also a great way to view those times.

Soundtrack

A few weeks back I read an article in my local paper about how music helps us cope. You know, you hear a song and you’re back to that heartbreak, that boy you were crazy about or that time when you thought you had the world by the tail.

The reporter of this article poised the question on his blog and his Facebook. He said he got a lot of response. The question does get you thinking, doesn’t it? I remember years ago on Ally McBeal her therapist told Ally to figure out the song of her life. That too, started me thinking.
Music, certain songs are the background of our lives. Hearing them again is one of the quickest ways to take a time trip into remembering. What songs get you thinking? What songs remind you of heartache and joy? What song do you use to get you through a tough time? Do you have new ones that help you or old standbys? What songs tell your story? Why?

As a young girl I would listen to my Disney records for hours or eaves-drop near my brother’s bedroom door, listening to rock n’ roll. Little April Showers, Love me Tender, Runaway takes me back to those simple times

Hey, Jude by The Beatles brings a smile as I remember entering my high school building early mornings singing with my best friend or driving the Boulevard, the windows down blaring California Dreaming by The Mamas and The Papas.

Music sustains us, holds us up. I played Barbara Streisand’s Don’t Rain on my Parade and Neil Diamond’s I am…I Said and Song Sung Blue and …well; I listened to a lot of Diamond’s music as a young mother. Danced around the living room with a baby in arms to Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show praying it was my salvation from baby blues and mostly, it was.

Annie’s Song and Sunshine on my Shoulders by John Denver as my oldest started the teenage years. Fire and Rain by James Taylor, Rainy Days and Mondays by The Carpenters, Said I Loved You, But I Lied by Michael Bolton carried me on.

More recently, If You’re Going Through Hell by Rodney Atkins, Stand by Rascal Flats and Stand Back Up by Sugarland speaks to me. What about you? Use this as today’s prompt. Go back, think about the music that stood by you, lifted you, whispered through your life. List them, listen to them, tangle up your now with them. Find a story, find your story. Remember and let the memories fill you with inspiration.