The Goal

I have a new goal. A simple goal. A tiny, little, bitsy goal. Attainable. Something I know I can do. Something I can do every day. One I think anyone can do. I'm reading a book right now: Rewriting Monday by Jodi Thomas and the hero-Mike McCulloch has secrets and tamped down dreams. He writes one sentence in his journal every day. Just one. That’s all he can manage, but he does that.

I can do that. Anyone can. One sentence. It reminds me of the six-word memoir. If you can condense your life into six words, you ought to be able to find one sentence for a journal entry. No subject requirement. Doesn't have to be profound. Doesn’t have to be about your own life. Just a sentence. One.

February 24, 2010 entry: From my window, I watch snow falling through a curtain of purple violet blooms, and I just can’t be sad.

See. One sentence. And a challenge.

Today's Lesson

Shower over. Taxes next. There is always something trying to edge out my writing. I’m not going to let it. Not today. Oh, there were sneaky invaders I had to deal with—something funky with the computer. Dealt with and…here I am. Writing.

Better than that…the sun is shining, promising a wonderful walk. The snow is melting off my front yard, leaving a dirty mess of walnut husks and shells…but birds foraging for walnut crumbs. I’m feeling a bit of cabin fever. Restless for spring.

I’ve accomplished much in the time I spent waiting for the computer fix.

And I suppose that is my lesson for today. There is always something you can accomplish toward your writing goals. Computer problems—read articles in the latest Writer’s Digest or the Writer. Power outage—do some hard copy edits or do needed research. Cabin fever—do that field research you’ve been putting off. Doctor’s appointment—observe people and take notes.

Make better friend with your writer’s journal. Make if messy, do it up real fine with tear-outs, notes, drawings, whatever helps you. Better yet, go back and read some of your old writer’s journals. I have found treasures there. Forgotten places.

Post-it™ Notes and Beading

I’m giving a baby shower. I’m cleaning, cooking, planning as you do when giving a party. And it seems that the thing that is worrying me most is the forgetting something. My solution is Post-it™ notes. Right now, there is an explosion of Post-it™ notes throughout my house. And, that’s OK.

I use the Post-it™ notes in my writing. I use them to remember details, flag problems, add details, remind myself of something.

Another thought…years ago, at a writer’s conference, one of the speakers, Rebecca Winters, explained her method of getting detail in her stories. She said to bead the details in after you have the skeleton of the story down. I have held that image in my head, for all these years, which have been many.

It makes me sad how many years. That was only the second conference I’d ever been to-1994-I think. I won the Golden Pen contest that year and really thought I would have a novel published by now. That didn’t happen, but I’m still trying. And that’s what counts.

Of course, between then and now, so much has happened—many a stumbling block and a few derails, but I’m still writing. More importantly, I’m still beading.

Between Winter’s description and something I read in this month’s Writer’s Digest (also in a book, Page After Page, by the same author. I read the book in 2004 and love, love, loved it. Every writer needs to read it. It is on my list of favorite writing books) Stretch Your Creativity by Heather Sellers, I have found a description of the way I write. And...it’s ok I write the way I do. It is just my particular way. Not the most efficient, I’d say, but maybe, the way my mind has to work.

What it is, is beadwork. I like that. Beading a story.

Finding Story

Outside the office window, a gray and dreary day unfolds. It snowed a skiff in the night, but that has quickly turned to rain. I could be blue for the lack of sunlight. I love sunshine streaming into my office while I work, but…today, rain is perfect. With each drop of rain, a little more dirt-marred snow melts away. I can see grass and last fall’s pansies. It won’t be long before the crocuses show up. Won’t be long before I have bouquets of daffodils or lilies of the valleys scattered throughout the house in my moshy odds and ends of makeshift vases.

In my house, any vessel will do for an impromptu vase. My favorites, though, are pitchers. I’ve collected all shapes and sizes of pitchers. Aluminum, from the fifties, heavy pottery even older, glass, Fiesta ware, old yellow McCoy, a favorite and new Target. I love fistfuls of yellow daffodils in my cobalt blue Fiesta ware pitcher. Use that for a beverage? Never. And pink and white peonies in my precious McCoy…a smile maker.

Stories….

Where do writers find stories? Today I was reading this month’s Reader’s Digest. Reader’s Digest and I go way back to when I first started reading. I always found the Reader’s Digest tucked next to the toilet at my grandmother’s house and I never could resist reading anything and everything, as I explained, last blog. I love Reader’s Digest. I love the diverse subjects, the jokes, the quotes. I love quotes. I don’t know for sure where I heard it, but somewhere I heard if you read the Reader’s Digest every month, you are well read.

I’ve been collecting quotes forever. For me, a quote starts me thinking and me thinking is me writing. I use quotes to start essays, stories, and poems.

The article that got me thinking this month, How to Find Anything by Joe Kita, is filled with tons of good suggestions most of which made me smile because the answer was usually simple. But one solution made me stop, made me think, was shattering in its simplicity.

How to find God. Don’t just look up….look around. And that’s another way to find story. And just that simply, I have told you three ways to find story. Read, use quotes and look around.

Where Stories Lie

How do you come up with your stories? Where do your stories come from? Writers are asked these questions all the time. The simple answer is—everywhere.

For most writer’s coming up with ideas is never the problem. Still, the question sometimes haunts me. Now, why would something like that haunt a writer? Well, I’ve always wondered why something catches one person’s imagination and not another. Why are we to write or read about a certain subject?

Years ago, in some magazine I read (which is anyone’s guess because I have very eclectic reading tastes, switching from fiction to nonfiction on a whim, reading anything within reach if there isn’t anything else to do. I read cereal boxes, trucks passing by, menu’s, {I secretly love reading menus, start to finish} cookbooks, {these, too, can hold my interest for days} doctor office magazines, small print on anything) I read about DNA memory.

Research suggested that each of our cells might hold memories of our ancestors. Doesn’t that blow your mind? And could it be the reason I am drawn to the western way of life, the reason I feel so connected to any book I read about the women of the old west? Why PI’s and police procedure, detective work grabs my attention? Why I love anything written about animals? Why I love poems of nature and stories about struggling writers?

So many friends and family I talk to wonder why they’re interested in the subjects they are only to find a connection with an ancestor and the subject. Is it so hard to think that the experiences of our relatives might stamp our DNA?

Think about that…That means the things we are experiencing mean more than just getting through them. It could mean…good or bad…it affects generations to come. Maybe our legacy, what we do, what we feel, those things we love is not just passed down by journals, tradition, or by a will or trust. Maybe, it’s in us, living, breathing, being.

I love that. It means what I do, what I love has the chance to live on, no matter how successful I am. I had better get busy being…me.

Shoulds

I’ve decided I don’t like shoulds. I’m tired of them. I don’t want to listen to them anymore. I want to ban them from my ears. I need to ban them from my mouth. Am I guilty of them? I must try never to use them in that way…you know, as I know better or…well, if you don’t want to listen to me…you really are the only one that can.

Are they suggestions, helpful directives, guides or are they more about the should-ee? Is it for my interest or theirs? And what about what I want to do?

While I’m doing your should, what happens to my shoulds? If I do all the shoulds, is there time for the wants or needs of my own?

I do a lot of should. Every day, every week. For a lot of people. I try very hard to be kind and giving. I try to think of the people in my life that need a helping hand and I try to give it as often as I can. I have children, a parent, a husband, relatives and pets I do a lot of should for.

There’s never any lacking of shoulds or those who should me. I should myself…a lot. All I have to do is look around my house and the shoulds hit me like a playground full of children vying for attention. Shoulds are way more prevalent than wants. Shoulds come from brothers, sisters, moms, dads, husbands, children, pets, the news, magazines, billboards, taxmen, gardens, doctors, teachers, instructors, books, editors, agents, conscience.

Wants, my wants, only come from me. Wants can hardly compete. I sometimes wonder why I try. A should I received, probably with the best of intentions, and maybe, (who knows) lovingly has festered inside me (heart or head, I’m not sure) for almost a week. I’ve tried to ignore it. I’ve rationalize it away only to have it slither up to haunt me a while later. I know I need to ignore it and carry on with my own agenda.

When you should someone, do you really know what his or her life is like?

Maybe, if it wasn’t a writing should, it wouldn’t carry so much weight. And I wouldn’t feel this guilt. Maybe, if I had had a bit more success, I wouldn’t look as if I need a writing project. And maybe, if I hadn’t just read the most perfect book from my genre ( it’s been soooo long since I’ve read a really good Western Historical, since a really good one was published. A gift as sweet as if it were my own. Thank you, Kaki Warner for Pieces of Sky.) The book with everything I want in mine, in every perfect word.

My sister told me that just because I’m not doing that should today, doesn’t mean I might not tomorrow, when it’s something I want to do. That’s what I’m trying to do…the only thing is, I no longer feel I have forever to do all the things I want…or should. I certainly know I’ll never get all the stories written I want. And the shoulds? It’s hard enough for me to deal with the ‘who cares?’

Leave the dishes unwashed and the demands on your time unanswered. Be ruthless and refuse to do what people ask of you. —Lynne Sharon Schwartz

And:

There’s nobody out there waiting for it, and nobody’s going to scold you if you don’t do it.
—Lynne Sharon Schwartz

January 2010 Reads:

Oh, how welcome the sun is. Grass is visible beneath the walnut trees and the birds: House Sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos, Black-capped Chickadees, Northern Flickers, Black-billed Magpies and Blue Jays have found the banquet beneath The House Finch haven’t showed up yet, but I don’t think they’re far behind. It spurred me on to get busy finding another birdhouse for the front of the house. We got so much joy watching the Chickadees and House Finch last year in the houses we provided. Better than anything on TV.

Sadly, another little Junco must have hit our window despite the clingies I place in the big picture window and died. I’ve put up more and hope it will help.

Soul Surfer by Bethany Hamilton: I’ve been intrigued with this gal since her story hit the news. A young girl, looking like the very definition of a surfer girl attacked by shark. But this slim, young girl had courage and faith and I wanted to know where she got it.

I’ve thought of her often over the years. If she can go on, then I can certainly keep writing no matter how many rejections, can’t I? If she can go back into the water, so can I, right? And when I got sick, I thought of her even more often. How had she kept her faith? How had she ever thought she could surf again? However she did it, I want some. I wanted the whole story and this book, written by her answered my questions. Written in her voice, a great voice, of a young, girl with her whole life ahead and she wasn’t about to let this get her down.

Early Dawn by Catherine Anderson: I have loved Catherine Anderson since I read Keegan’s Lady. This was a sequel to that book she wrote so many years ago. It was too long a wait. I so miss the Western Historical Romances. And this didn’t disappoint.

Eden Paxton is a lot tougher than she looks. When desperate outlaws kidnap her, she determines to survive. Matthew Coulter is just as determined to find these same outlaws, the Sebastions. They killed his wife and unborn child and he would ride to hell to get them. It was his bad luck to find them with a captive he’d have to rescue. But rescue her; he would, even if it delayed the vengeance he'd waited so long to deliver.

A fun read. Great dialogue.

Pursuit by Karen Robards: I like Robards. Her books are always edge-of-seat reads. This one was even better because it had been so long since I’d read her.

Jessica Ford survives a fiery car crash while she was in the process of trying to get the first lady safely and quietly home without public incident. When she wakes in the hospital, she can’t remember anything, but she feels anxious and suspicious of everyone. Can she trust Secret Service man, Mark Ryan? She’ll soon find out as they end up running for their lives.

Running Hot by Jayne Ann Krentz: I’m a Krentz fan, though I have to admit I like her most when she is writing as Amanda Quick. For some reason, I didn’t like this book as much other Krentz Arcane Society books.

Grace Renquist is sent on a simple in and out mission with Luther Malone as her bodyguard. Both characters have tons of emotional baggage and there were many reasons for the two to be what the other needed, but I never did feel the sparks fly. It just seemed to fall flat. In defense of Krentz though, her writing is still great, dialogue wonderful. I think the failure was with my inability to suspend belief.

Juicy Pens, Thirsty Paper by Sark: Great book to get the writing juices flowing. Great prompt ideas and inspirations, too. Worth the time.

A little Godsend:

Two red fox watching me on the hill today. I waved. One sat and watched until I was well past. Made me smile. A poem, just waiting for me to pass.

Second Wind

Out at the edge of your will and stamina, there is always a place where you come upon despair. Then, comes the rush of your second wind…Tom Brown, Jr. paraphrased from The Tracker.

Stepping outside just as the sun began burning off the muffling fog; I hear the faint chickadeedee, chickadadeedeedee call of a black-capped chickadee. I stop and listen, heartened, somehow.

You see, talent is not enough. You also have to have perseverance. Over and over, writers are told if we persist long enough we will succeed. Often, I don’t know which will hold out longest, my persistence or my heartache. Heartache, discouragement goes with the territory. Ask any writer. But it isn’t unique to writers either.

Dieters, smokers, athletes, musicians and artists push to do better, to succeed. And sometimes…the grind of it, the utter hopelessness wins. And…that’s all right, if it only winds one day.
Think about the ocean waves, the dripping spring run-off, the wind. Think about the Grand Canyon, the Cliffs of Dover, those bowed trees at the mouth of Weber Canyon. That beauty wasn’t made with a quick slash of a knife, a blast of dynamite, or one hard wind. It took steady pressure, perseverance of thousands of years, by patience of each little headway. “The force of the waves is in their perseverance,” said Gila Guri.

Little successes count. Rejoice in every little one. The paragraph you’ve written over and over that finally says exactly what you meant. The contest you didn’t win but received an insightful criticism from. The day you turned on your computer even though you could barely dare to look at the blank screen. Every step, every single step, however small, we take toward our goal, counts.

Getting published is not required to be a writer. Not ever. A musician does not have to give a concert in Carnegie Hall to be considered a musician, he only has to play his instrument with everything he has, body, heart and soul. That is all that is required of a writer, too. Write—body, heart, and soul.

A writer will write even into despair. A writer will write until that rush of second wind blesses us. A writer will write all the days of their lives, regardless of publishing status. Through heartbreak, rejection and the high that comes when the words flow freely onto the paper, rich, full and exact. A writer will write through it all…’cause that’s the deal.

February Godsends:

• Clear, smog-free sunshine
• Longer, warmer days
• An antique fair
• Hearts in the stores—everywhere
• New book by a favorite author
• African violets blooming on the windowsill
• Calico cat purring on your shoulder
• Snow melting off the roof in a slurpy-slap puddle just outside the patio
• Colored pens for journal writing
• A clean desk—finally