Poetry

It was late Saturday night, I’m in bed next to my sleeping husband watching TV, ( I know, to get the best sleep, no TV in the bedroom, but I spent so many nights alone while he was on the road (the railroad) that I depended on the TV those nights after getting him off to work where I was either scared or too wide awake.) and in my surfing I found the movie ‘Dangerous Minds.'

The movie is from a memoir ‘My Posse Don’t Do Homework’ by Lou Anne Johnson and I read the condensed version in Reader’s Digest a few months before the movie came out. I remember taking one of my sons to see this and loving the story. This time around I was surprised to find great writing wisdom.

Lou Anne Johnson tells her class: “If you can learn to read poetry, you can read anything.” It stands to reason then, that if you can learn to write poetry, you can probably write anything. I’ve heard many versions of this, too. One was a great article a few months ago in The Writer by Lisa Dale titled ‘What Poetry Can Do for Your Fiction Writing.’
I mention all this because I’m taking an online workshop: World into Word Poetry-Editing Course, Melanie Faith, instructor that’s just been great. A ton of work, a lot of reading, a lot of improvement to some poems, but the best, in my view has been the improvement in the way I look at editing my other writing, in particular, my novels. It has given me another layer of questions and decisions that will do nothing but improve my writing.

I think poetry hones my writing. When I write poetry I’m trying to write big meanings with few words—brush strokes weighted by meaning. Whether my poetry is publish-worthy or not has no bearing on whether the practice improves my writing. That’s kind of a nice thing in a practice that oftentimes has so little reward.

What I find poetry does for my writing:

.Tightens
.Learning word choice (oh, for the double-duty word)
.Brings serendipity to your writing
.Letting go of control
.Live in the meaning
.Writing for writing’s sake

Abundance

I just have to mention my garden. In this time of tight money, where it seems to me everything and everyone is curling into little balls of fear, like armadillo’s, where instead of opening our hands so abundance can be poured, we are, with knee-jerk reactions, closing our fists around what we have. It’s natural given the news we are bombarded with. Am I the only one who wonders if we’d be better off not listen to so much bad news? For every little tidbit of good news, it seems there is a but.

Well, there is no but in my garden. There is just abundance. We can’t eat the food fast enough and we’re giving it away as fast as we can. There’s been lettuce, best with homemade dressing. A great simple salad: lettuce onions, sliced hard-boiled eggs, dressed with mayonnaise thinned with a little cream and seasoned with salt, pepper and sugar.

Spinach or Chard, sautéed in a little olive oil and butter, add onions, garlic or lemon. Broccoli steamed, drained and served with brown butter; cabbage, sautéed in just a touch of water, served with butter, garnished with bacon or parsley. And then, the zucchini and summer squash—one of my favorites—is stir fried with corn and garlic. Green beans, I love these just steamed, but good with a cheese sauce too. I haven’t even mentioned the 46 bulbs of garlic, the carrots, green onions and all the herbs.

Oh, and the tomatoes. Buckets of tomatoes. The fruit is warm as we pick it and we feast on bacon and tomato sandwiches, tomatoes on burgers, fresh tomato sauce, (I hoped to do up some of Aunt Dot’s Chili Sauce, but time has been against me), tomato salad—One I love: tomatoes, usually our Juliet cut about an inch thick, string cheese, cut the same size, green onions, salt, pepper, basil, Italian dressing.

Such abundance in a little plot of ground and some hard work. Yet this feeling of abundance and wealth was so worth it, this year. We had a rough go in the spring. The weather was decidedly against us, we persevered and we are reaping the spoils. It makes me smile and send up all kinds of gratitude.

Tonight there will be grilled burgers with tomato and lettuce, beer-batter onion rings (onions courtesy of my son. This is what real sharing can be. Between the two families we have fed six families with extra for neighbors) Talk about abundance. Life is good.

Fixed

Yipee! I figured it out. I worked on my poem for the workshop and my blog. Not once did I bang my head on my desk. Though, I did think about it.

Instead, I did some thinking on the last little tweak I still need to do on my novel. The novel has given me another challenge. I found a little problem with the last chapter. A minor problem, but one I had to take care of before I sent out the submission again. So I reread the chapter and made notes.

I have a feeling this won’t be the last problem, but I’ve come to not care about that. I’m just going to push on ahead, not matter what’s there. And I’m going to learn something and damn it, I’m going to act like this is the only life I get. I’m going to be happy, damn it. And that is up to me.

Finally, and once I had that better outlook, I looked at my printer again. I stopped calling it names and apologized. After all, it’s helped me for some time and it was with me when I placed in a poetry contest, with me through umpteen versions of my novel, with me right after I started back to writing after that stupid MPGN tripped me up.

I took out the ink cartridges, held my breath and pulled out the printer heads. I’ve done this once before and had the instructions printed and placed—somewhere, but I couldn’t find them. I remembered, though. I figured—it’s not working now, if I make it worse—at least, I tried. This printer has actually lasted longer than my previous two, so I’ve actually been holding my breath, but really felt this was a printer head or ink problem. Besides, I’m just like everyone else, this economy has me being very careful with my money and I sure didn’t want to buy a new printer if I didn’t need to. (I’ve been holding my breath with my keyboard and mouse, too, for the same reason) I think, sometimes, I should get these repair when they break, but that costs so much, too, so I end up buying new. I think that’s where so many people end up.

Anyway, I cleaned the heads, replaced them, then had the printer go through a printer head cleaning again. After that, I had the printer do a printer head alignment. I think that’s what did it, but I really don’t know. I just know it works now. Yeh!

Still, I learned something—I’ll do each of these procedures, next time, before I panic. I guess it’s a little like Ella and the Tie-down Man. Sometimes, you just have to do some thinking and little tweaks.

Today’s going to be better. I’ll make it so.

Trust Your Journey II

I’ve written before about trusting your journey. Each writer’s journey is her own, and quite different. Yep, challenges are individual and unique. Today, mine seems to be my printer. I spent precious time trying to get it working after replacing a print cartridge. The print cartridge alone is so dang expensive and while I love my printer and I’ve used this brand forever, the cartridges are too dang expensive. I’ve tried every which way to limit my printing, but the fact remains I see my own booboos better on the page, not on the screen.

Now, I have a page of notes under the heading of Trust Your Journey and not one item on the list mentions printer or what to do about a willful printer. It mentions knowing happiness, strength, says to remember what you think you become. You don’t want to know what I’m thinking, right now, about the printer and trouble shooting and the little bumps in the road to be published. You just don’t.

I usually approach a problem with the idea that with patience and a little research I can figure things out. Today, I’ve come to the end. I’ve done everything I can think of and what the help function has suggested. The printer is working, just not printing in black.
Notes in Trust Your Journey:

• Trust your journey, despite challenges. I’m not sure this meant printer problems, but I am not going to cry over this.

• Use peace, strength, courage, love and gratitude-How? I like that last word. Apparently, I was just as frustrated when I wrote those notes as I am today. Lousy way to start a Monday.

• What you think you become. As I said, I really need to censor my thinking right now and yet, is there a life limit to a printer? Or should I just make it so?

• Know happiness. I was so excited to get to work today. I had a blog to write, a small portion of the last chapter of my novel that has to have a rewrite. I found a problem with one tiny scene, but it is a crucial scene, but I figured it out with my husband’s assistance and I’m feeling good about the way it fits in now.

• Know strength. This one was a challenge. I know strength. I have it, sometimes. I know how I’d like to use it, too, but I really don’t think it would help the situation and a grown woman on the far side of middle age jumping up and down on a printer in the middle of the road just doesn’t sound smart. Someone might think I’ve rounded the bend, or take video and put it on You-Tube, or...I didn’t do it. I thought about it once as I was having the dang thing clean it print heads—if it’s so smart, why can’t it heal itself? I thought about it again when I read this item in my Trust Your Journey notes, but I reaching for that peace and love thing, too. The conflicting struggle messed with the whole anger and decided I’d try to turn it off, unplug it and you know, sort of reset it…and me. I got myself a stick of gum. That’s when you know I’m at the end of my rope.

• Cherish the journey. My indulgence—Extra Dessert Delight sugar free gum-mint chocolate chip. I sat back and decided I’d just move forward—step over the bump in the road, grab a stick of gum and write this blog.

• Free your spirit. Now, that’s the challenge, isn’t it? Writing demands a certain degree of free spirit. I’ve been called that more than once and sometimes, not in a complimentary way. And yet, I’m a worrier and obsessive compulsive. Can those all live in the same body/mind? Yes, but it gets crowded. You know, it really is the little things that can trip you up, if you let it. I’m just not going to…let it, I mean. I think I’m just going to take five, sit on the patio, watch the Swallowtail butterflies, humming birds and say a prayer of gratitude about the Monarch butterfly, I saw this morning. (It’s been some time since I’ve seen one and we wondered and worried where they’d gone.)

• Inhale hope. I’ll figure this out, eventually.

• Exhale determination. I won't cry. Crying won't fix it. Might feel good, but it wastes time. I will figure this out.

Delay

I'm sorry about the delay of my blog post, but I've been having trouble getting it to load. I'm not computer savvy and busy getting things ready for submission. Also, I'm doing a workshop, having fun with the poetry I'm working on in it, getting my juicies flowing, getting excited about what's next in my novel writing. You know, on a roll.

I fiddled with the blog as much as I had knowledge about and that's about it.

I figured I'd work on what I could do something about. You know the move forward mentality. I got a lot done, and finally, I got the blog up.

It's been a real time of cleaning up, too. All good, but disrupting. And there's more to be done-a few more carpets to be cleaned, wood to be polished, things to be sorted and of course, dealing with this office. That means a computer tune-up. I've found I have a ton less problems with my computer if I do regular maintenience and have a tech guy tune my computer up once a year. It's a tool and it needs to be in working order, working at it's best, just like me.

I've been working in one small area of my office every week. It's a good thing to do. I've found so many forgotten things: writings, research material, misplaced files and I'm obsessive compulsive as far as filing and putting things back where I found them. I think it's just the way of things. Stuff happens, things get forgotten and misplaced.

So another list on my to do list: Spend time in your office going through things. That includes your computer and have it cleaned. It just makes sense.

FRONTLINE

People will try to tell you that all the great opportunities have been snapped up. In reality, the world changes every second, blowing new opportunities in all directions, including yours. —Ken Hakuta

News from the publishing front is staggering. The war is lost before I begin. I know that going in. I go in anyway. Some days, I don’t care what the situation is. After all, all I ever wanted to do was write.

There are those other days. Those days with little hope, less encouragement. The news, RWA, writer’s magazines is full of rotten news about mergers, buy-outs, publishing houses folding or bookstores going under. And there certainly isn’t anything positive coming out of the financial news or Washington. Casualties litter the path. Just keeping track of where to send a manuscript is a daunting full time job.

I’ve trudged through the battlefield for many years, more years than I care to reflect on. The landscape, oftentimes, looks barren, scarred, even abandoned, but not but me.

There will be more wars, more scrimmages and all out battles. I’ll watch and listen to the news. Some writers will be wounded; some will be lost. A great many writers will give up—surrender.

I’ve felt like surrendering often, but— I won’t. I’ll struggle on. I’ll gather my weapons, sharpen my skills, firm my resolve. I’ll be a holdout. I’ll keep writing the books I was born to write.

It doesn’t seem fair. Celebrities get book deals; flavor of the month books top the New York Times bestseller list. Published seem unwilling or unable to take risk. The bottom line rules.

But—as much bad new I hear—there are war heroes—the author who keeps winning battles or new recruits who take the hill. They’re just like me, struggling through with hopes and dreams tucked close in their heart. They didn’t give up, not even when the struggle seemed hopeless. The cream does rise to the top. No amount of homogenizing will change that.

When the VCR’s first showed up, there were warnings and worries that they would bring the demise of movie theaters. Instead, there are more and bigger theaters than before. In my mother’s time, there were predictions that once movies became popular, reading would decrease sharply. That didn’t happen. The same prediction was bandied around with the advent of the TV. Yet, more people read than ever before.

We all hear what will happen as the e-reader becomes more popular—the end of hard-cop books. Change is simple that—change. Or what I like to think of as opportunities. I think it will be thus with the e-reader. I think content will become valuable. I write content. Writers write content.

The future is uncertain, simple that. It always has been. I think it means good things, opportunities. Do we lose things?—yes, but we gain far more. Would you really like to go back to outhouses? Not me. I think embracing the changes, figuring out how to work them to my advantage is what’s called for.

The future holds new inventions, things we can’t even imagine. There will be new directions, new fads. E-books today; who knows what tomorrow. I intend to keep reading, writing and growing. I intend to be ready.

Names and Summer

The copies of the 6th annual Writer’s Digest Poetry Collection arrived, plain box, anticlimactic, really, but first thing I did, of course, was scan the contents page for my poems and my name. And what I noticed was my name, first and last, looked simple, ordinary, everyday.

Even my son said, “Mom, you should have used a middle initial or name or something.”

He was right; my plain, ordinary name looked out of place. Mine wasn’t the only name without a middle—something, name or initial, but, somehow, in print, my name looked sadly common. And I considered, strangely, for the first time, my name in print. How would I want my name to appear as author of a book, whether poetry or novel? Did I want to use my middle name, my maiden name, a pen name? I use a pseudonym for my blog. Should I use if for my other writing?

While I mulled this over I found my poems and read them—for the first time not hand-written or typed by me. All the words I so carefully chose, by sound and meaning, the exact order, line by line, in a font someone else picked, printed and sent out in the world.

I had several poems printed in my high school Pencraft (a literary book published each year) class, but I had a vote in everything from cover to paper to font and that was more years ago than I’ll say.

This time, with this book, I felt more detached, yet more invested. I, frankly, felt strange. Proud, but as if I relinquished—something. A lot like the minute your child says, I do, and you know your relationship with him has changed forever and maybe, you’re really not ready, but he is and so you open your hand—the one you had clutched in the folds of your dress.


I haven’t posted for two weeks and I would feel guilty, but I was—again—getting Tie-down Man ready to go out in the world. After sending it out to one agent, I got some feedback from a contest. Some of the comments rang true, of course, some didn’t, but I worked through the book to fix the minor problems and am getting it ready to go out again.

But that wasn’t all I was doing, of course. As I’ve said, I’m primary caregiver to an elderly parent and there’s been construction around her house which has given us a bit of a challenge, what with getting the garbage in and out, food in and out and the yard work.

Then, too, we tried to get our three boys together once before summer was over. We had hamburgers, potato salad, green salad and s’mores in the canyon one evening. Only two of our boys were able to get there, but we were grateful for that given all our schedules. My husband and I stayed overnight and had breakfast, too. It was a wonderful break in an, otherwise, frustrating and busy summer.

I needed the break, the cooler day, the sound of the breeze in the cottonwoods, the sound of the lake, the sandy beach, the smell of hamburgers cooking, the fire, the pine trees. And of course the s’mores. It is the absolute definition of summer, all packed full of memories and I don’t think a summer should go by without it.