New Year, New Resovle

Everywhere there is a reminder that with the New Year there are certain expectations of self-improvements. Television and newspaper ads, internet popups and your own mind all nip at you. And we all expect that of ourselves, for now, but it’s hard to stick with any of it—the weight loss, exercise, saving money, time management, organization and purging clutter. The year begins with the hope and thoughts, with those goals.

And maybe, it is all doomed for failure, but even a little, tiny, smidgen of a change for the better is good. And so I begin and with the first thing, the fun thing, the hopeful thing: My yearly planner—A new one—pretty, smart, well suited to me. This year it’s purple—for no other reason than it caught my eye and it’s different from the hundreds of others I’ve had over the years. There are big splashy tulips across the front and randomly through the pages. It makes me smile.

First order of business: My quote from Josey Wales (The Outlaw Josey Wales) taped to the inside: Now remember, when things look bad and it looks like you’re not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean, plumb, mad-dog mean. “Cause if you lose your head and you give up, then you neither live nor win. That’s just the way it is. A good quote for any circumstance, don’t you think?

Then, a quote from me, just below that: Be a different writer, just for a moment and surprise even yourself. And finally a quote by Bernie S. Siegel, M.D.: In the face of uncertainty, there is nothing wrong with hope.

On the title page, up in the left-hand corner: You can be bitter or better, and on the right-hand upper corner: Writing begets writing.

Next, I read last year’s goals and give myself credit for all that I did accomplish—No, I celebrate. Never do I let myself dwell too long on those things I didn’t get done. Last year is over and done. I wait to write down my goals for this year. Time enough for that tomorrow or next week. If I do it too soon, I’ll put too much on the list, things that might not be best for me, but in the heat of the moment and to fit into the rest of the world, I’ll listen to the hype and ads.

 Instead, I read my planner and write down those things that still have a meaning for me. Like the message on the last page. I know it’s from three planners ago and yet the bullet points apply to every difficult situation, even, especially, writing:

(MPGN) For Chronic Illness:

•             Get support

•             Don’t forget to breathe          

•             Get an advocate

•             Get a second opinion 

•             Become an expert

I enter anything the needs to be done regularly during the year: computer cleaning and tune-up, file purge, yearly contests. And I figure out a loose weekly plan.

Once my book is exactly how I want it I sit back and smile because I’ve begun and that’s the hardest part.

Mourning Loss

No damage to the house, no one got hurt, but my heart is so heavy and achy. More than once I thought how loved it was this summer, how grateful I was. I’m trying to remember how nice it was, not that it’s gone.

The early winter storm had us worried, but even when I saw the few broken branches I thought we’d weathered the storm well. I trudged out to the little Japanese maples and shook the icey snow from their branches, but could do nothing for the locust. It wasn’t until we started cleaning up and cutting the broken branches from the roof we saw the real damage. Fractures ran through most of the main limbs and ultimately we had to cut the branches off. Even at the last, we hoped to save it, but the wood was too brittle and the main limbs fractured deep into the trunk.

Years ago, we had a large sycamore tree in that spot. Our backyard was shady and cool all summer, but the leaves and balls were a nightmare to clean up and eventually, the tree grew too big for our tiny yard. After we removed the tree and bored out the stump, we planted a linden tree.

Two trees and three years later we still didn’t have a living tree in that spot and no shade in the future. So we changed our choice of tree and bought a locust. From the start, I loved that tree. It had such a Zen way of growing, not symmetrical, but graceful and pleasing. I talked to it as I gardened beneath it, planting hostas and daylilies, spring bulbs and Japanese Irises.

Then when I got sick, we took the garden out. I talked to the tree of my trouble and plans as we planted grass and the tree took command of the back yard. We put in a small piece of cement and a glider to while away a summer afternoon on. We sat there many an evening, relaxing and talking.

As we cleaned up and loaded the truck, I felt physically sick and sad. We are of the age we will likely never see the benefit of a new tree. We wondered if we should even replant. Anything we plant could just as easily be taken out after we no longer own the house. Was it worth the cost, the trouble, the time? We know our time in this house is short. Too many stairs for us to think we can stay here as we get older.

As we discussed all this, I thought of those similar thoughts I’ve had about this writing journey I’ve been on. Why still struggle and try? Am I wasting time better spent elsewhere? By the time I finally get a book published, if ever, I’ll be ?? years old. I’ll never have time to get all I want to write done. Any older writer out there likely thinks this, I imagine. Likely those thoughts are not so different for that new mom, or busy lawyer or whoever. Is there time? How can I write as long each day as a published writer needs to with all my other responsibilities?

But this rebellious, audacious voice comes to me, then and now. Why not? Who knows how it will turn out? Maybe, you will have only one book published, maybe you’ll never get everything you want to write written, maybe that tree will never be big enough for you to enjoy its shade. But maybe, you will. If you do what you can now.

In any case, you’ll be there as it grows, you’ll have some small little part in what it gives to the world through its life time. You might write something that touches just one person’s heart. You’ll write through your journey and maybe, that’s all. But that’s more than if you never tried.

I think…I know I’d rather my life end with me trying, looking and stepping forward. It’s enough.

Halloween Rainbow

Thoughts

The morning began with a milky sky, warmer than it’s been for months. Temporary spring. Snow is predicted for tomorrow. I’m at my desk, despite the pull from outside. I’m writing. I’ve sifted through notes written on odd sized scratch paper I keep in my essay file, looking for something to write for my blog. It’s been an eye-opening activity given the previous few days. I have found what I needed for not only my writing but for advice I’ve been asked for.

Thoughts: Be prepared to make bad mistakes. In order to learn, you must make the mistakes.

I’ve been helping my daughter-in-law. A lot of frustrations, advice, opinions later and I’ve come to the conclusion that there is a hundred ways of doing things. No real right or wrong way. There is only the way we find that works for us best. I think this applies very much to writing advice also. I’ve seen this with gardening advice, too.

It is the process of weeding through all the advice to find to our own best way that is painful, frustrating, discouraging. Discouragement is the thing that can derail you. Fight it at all cost. (A TiGi saying: Discouragement is a sneak snake.)

We learn more from mistakes than we ever do from successes. Mistakes are painful, set things back. That’s all right. Embrace them anyway. Mistakes are rarely life-threatening and always there are things to learn from them. Begin again. Correct mistakes. The end result is worth it.

Thoughts: Each road to success takes its own direction.

I’ve come to think life’s derails happen to slap us to the side of the face and redirect us, so we can figure out exactly what’s important to us. Success, reaching for our dreams is not a straight line. That’s a good thing. And sometimes we find a different dream, a better dream.

The road for my writing has been bumpy. I’ve been stuck, veered wildly off course, hit potholes, but I keep writing. That’s what really matters. I keep writing. I keep trying. Baby steps and perseverance is the thing I can count on. The only thing I have control of.

Crocuses bloom every spring, too, despite the winter.

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.

Slow Down

Snow is falling lazily and I’m enveloped in a warm, scrap-yarn afghan, my feet encased in a fleece-lined foot warmer. Holidays are over, my tax file organized and just waiting for documents to arrive, the baby shower, for the most part, planned and ready and I’m eager to write. I’ve decided to slow down. Just slow down.

Slow down. Enjoy the process. Stop and savor the now of life. I, we tend to forget the joy of the process. We all forget that the joy of the journey is the journey.

I need to relish writing time, especially that time I’m not under deadline, the time when one of my novels is still unpublished.

Because when I do have a deadline I won’t have as much time to write poetry just because I feel it, or be able to try my hand at other kinds of writing because I want to. I can just bet most published writers would tell me to relish this time. This now.

I crochet afghans at night while I watch TV. It relaxes me, gives my hands a counter exercise to the typing. I crochet about an hour or so each night. I’ve finished over a hundred afghans, but sometimes I find myself hurrying through one so I can get started on the next one.

I have to remind myself why I crochet. I’m not crocheting to finish anything, I am simply crocheting to relax. It is not the end product that I am working toward, but the process. I really have all the afghans I’ll ever need, as do all my family and friends.

Parenthood, too, is often that way. Anxious for our child to take each new step in development. We forget that when they’ve taken all those steps they’ve walked right out of our lives.

Choose to slow down and savor. It takes discipline because our modern world evolves around multi-tasking, being super-efficient. But super-efficient at what? Living? We’re in the habit of doing two things at once so we have more time to do other things two at a time. Have we paid attention to either thing? Have we really paid attention?

As writer’s, we owe it to our writing to slow down. We hurry through life, missing 1000’s of stories, 100’s of incidents we could use in our work, details of life we miss. Life is the meat of writing; I don’t want to lose it, hurrying through it.

My garden teaches me patience, how to slow down, how to savor. You just can’t hurry the seasons. Come March I’d like to, so tired of snow and gray, but seasons take their own sweet time coming into full realization. I’ve planted 100’s of plants, but each spring I must wait until for the daffodils to flower on their own time. I have to wait for the soil to warm enough for planting.

Gardening is much more a process than a goal, for me anyway. It’s true the whole purpose is vegetables for my table and a beautiful garden, with lush flowers, but I would feel cheated if someone else planted, deadheaded, mulched. I went the route a few years ago and my fingers actually felt the withdrawal of the lack of dirt under my nails.

I can’t hurry the gardening and I wouldn’t want to try. There would be so much I’d miss. Rather, I like to savor every aspect. The sound of the hand spade scrapping into the dirt, the scent of the rich loam as I transplant pansies, the first blooms of my bleeding heart dangling from the arched stems, raindrops still glistening on the leaves.

I can do no less for my writing, for I love writing as much as I do gardening. Gardening, crocheting, and writing are part of me, something that helps define me. I owe it to myself to slow down and fully savor each part of the processes. My writing will be richer. I’ll be richer. That is my life I’m talking about, after all.

Listen

The morning has just been frustrating. Oh, I know it must be worse for so many others: mothers and fathers, pregnant women and others with underlying illnesses. I think I fit in there, but I’m not sure. Where I live, to avoid the huge lines that there has been for the H1N1 flu shot, we are to call on today to set up an appointment for the vaccine for the rest of the week. The calling window is from 9 to 10. I spent the hour trying to get through. Never did get through.

If MPGN doesn’t qualify for the vaccine, I’ll wait. I don’t want to take anything away from those who are suppose to get the shot, but if I qualify, I want to make sure I do all I can to stay health. I've worked so hard to regain my health. I did everything the doctors have said to do, plus. I've watched my diet, cutting out almost all salt and pushed myself to keep up with exercise Because...I do want to live and with a good quality,but I have others depending on me.

You see, I’ve lived through this kind of thing before. My father died in 1968 from a flu epidemic that was going around at that time. I was still in high school. It devastated me and I know it affected the rest of my life. At that time there was nothing you could do to prevent the flu, little to do if you got it. My father did have underlying health problems, but...and this is a big but. We didn't know it. How many this time around have no idea they are at particular risk? A neighbor just died-the same age as my father was when he died. 52, a young man, really, and still so much left to offer. His death, as any death, affects all those around them.

As I dialed and redialed, the action became so automatic that several times I almost hung up before I even heard the busy signal. It made me stop. How many times do we do that? Go along on auto-pilot. Don’t consciously know what we’re doing.

How many times are we doing that when we write? Hanging up before we hear the busy signal. Sticking with a project long enough to get to the good stuff, the stuff we really mean to say? I have a feeling, it's too often.

I had to stop and keep myself in the action of dialing, listening, hanging up. The listening was hardest, if my mind wasn’t truly engaged. A little writing lesson while I tried to get my flu shot.(They come in the strangest ways.) All lessons do, if you're really listening.

At least, I got something.

Putting By

I love the light of autumn. The slant of the sun gilds everything. The light coming in my dining room window is most golden. Two walnut trees on my parking strip look lit inside. The magpie’s working them fly away with fat nuts as fast as they can. That’s all right, too, because I’ve already gathered my share.

I’ve always put by. For as long as I’ve been married, I’ve gathered basic supplies for winter. In the early years of my marriage, it was necessary as my husband worked for the railroad and lay-offs were inevitable.

Over the years, I’ve found the principle sound. I gather winter squash, carrots and potatoes to root cellar, put by a supply of paper towels, napkins and such, stock up on canned soup, tomatoes, jams,(or preserve them myself,) canned and dry milk, freeze or can vegetables, (I use to buy canned vegetables, but I’m suppose to avoid salt) stock up on hamburger, chicken, roasts, and medicine. I try to have enough of everything that no winter storm finds me without necessary supplies or sick without needed medicine.

This year this seems an especially smart idea. A minimum of two weeks of basics would take me past any critical problem, a little more would be even better.

I think the same principle applies to writing. Make sure you have a good supply of paper, notebooks, pens and printer ink. Have a book or two you’ve wanted to read on writing (sometimes you’re too sick to write or your tending a sick loved one) as well as a few fiction.
More importantly, gather a list, or better yet, several lists of things you want to write. I keep a running list each for my blog, poetry, essays, short stories and novels. I flag the most interesting (I use a movable flag. My interest might change). I keep those lists in a file next to my desk. I’ve found if I’m not getting anywhere with one thing, I’ll work on another. Soon enough, a solution to the first problem will come to me. I believe if you write, if you keep your fingers moving over that keyboard, you’ll get something solid.

I suffer from seasonal affective disorder, so I make sure I have a few inspirational articles near my desk. I spend a day clearing out the unnecessary from my office. I file and toss. That’s like refreshing a page. Clutter adds to depression and frustration.

Just as I don’t want to be trudging through a snowstorm because there isn’t anything in the house to fix for dinner, I want no excuse for not writing.

I felt so great yesterday. I actually felt 100%. Not 95%. 100%. By 2:00 pm, I wasn’t wanting or needing a nap. I haven’t felt like that since January 2008.

Today, too, I have energy. I’m up beat, happy, with only a few normal twinges of age. Fantastic.

Picked up the walnuts that dropped overnight with the wind and early morning showers. A
favorite fall activity. Nothing like squirreling away a stash of nuts for winter. I have to hurry before the magpies steal the nuts. This morning I beat them.

And a lovely morning. Warm, with a breeze. We’re supposed to have rain later tonight and tomorrow. I’m ready for a bit of weather, I think.

I’m in the second week of my poetry workshop. It’s proving to be a challenge. I think not only am I up to it, I think I need it. My mind is finally stretching past what I’m doing. I’m thinking of future writing more and more. The desire to write articles, short stories and work on my novels again whispers through my mind. It’s been so long since I even hoped I might be able to do those things again.

My writing has improved in many areas. The three workshops I’ve worked on this last year has improved my writing so much and produced some of the best work I’ve ever done.

The illness, finding a diagnosis, treatment, slowly getting better, returning to my writing (I grieved that loss). It feels as if that was a long time coming, but maybe, it just took the time it took. It’s funny; when I look back at my calendar, I can hardly believe it will only be two years come January. It seemed…such a big desert I crossed.

Maybe, this whole journey is the very thing that will push my writing to the level it needs to be. Things that happen in our lives temper us. A writer uses that to make her writing uniquely hers, hers alone. On this day, this bright autumn day I’ll grab that, add it to my stash, too.

William G. Tapply

I just saw on the Writer Magazine online of the death of William G. Tapply. Now, I have never read Tapply. No, not completely true.

Truth was I heard of him first through my mother. She’s a reader of mystery novels. Me, not so much, yet anyway. Mom always warned me that one day I would no longer be as interested in romance and I’d turn to mystery, too.

I’ve been seeing her point more and more lately, but not because I’m not interested in romance but because I am not finding the kind I most love to read. Let’s just say I haven’t been happy with the books I’ve found. So many of my favorite authors are writing romantic suspense and mysteries now. And that’s all right. Not my favorite, but all right, but more I wonder if because I have spent so much time dissecting how to write romance and/of novels it’s harder to really wow me. I know it’s been forever since I’ve found a book that kept me up reading all night.

Back to Tapply. He was one of my mother’s favorite authors and his new releases were few and far between. I spent many a Saturday afternoon at Barnes and Noble looking for his latest for my mother. Now, the criteria in my mother’s opinion for a good book, is good writing. She likes good dialogue and writing that is pitch-perfect. So after looking for his books for her over the years his name became familiar and when I noticed it I paid attention.

He wrote columns for the Writer magazine and they pulled me in. His writing and instruction was exact, clear and accessible. He never stopped writing, though he had been sick for some time, according to a note on his website— www.williamtapply.com . He has five books of fiction and essays coming out this next year and an article in the October Writer magazine.

Check out his website, there is a wonderful essay called Invisible Writing. I read it before, quite some time ago, but it bears reading again and often. I will miss his instructional articles in the Writer. From reading them I always said, if I could ever do a weeklong workshop, I would want Tapply to be the instructor.

I can’t have that, but he leaves behind over 40 books, mysteries, collected essays on fishing, a book about his father, H.G. “Tap” Tapply, who wrote for Field & Stream. Reading his work ought to be an education, but there is also “The Elements of Mystery Fiction” about the writing process.

In his Boston Globe obituary it mentions how generous he was, how he took time to help young writers. Sounds like a good man, a good writer, a good life.

Swimming Lessons:

From my office window I watch a pair of hummingbirds squabble over “Lady in Red’ and “Coral Nymph” sage, and dart under squash plants searching for nasturtium blossoms.

The vegetable garden is full-blown, flouncy with over-grown plants. Downright messy, is what it is. The tomatoes have taken over the north end completely and the winter squash (supposedly a mini mix with plants and fruit that stayed small) has vined over everything in its path, despite or because of my desperate pruning.

I’ve been thinking about writing workshops and learning. Those thoughts always bring me to the memory of my oldest son and swim lessons. He was one when we started in the moms and tots class, so by the time he was ready to learn rhythmic breathing he was comfortable in the water.

But rhythmic breathing is difficult. It takes coordination, timing, practice, and trust. Trust’s the thing you have to find inside yourself.

With rhythmic breathing, you take a breath at just the right time, hold it and then, blow it out. That’s basically it, except there are all kinds of finesse involved. Your arms and chin and body need to be in the right place at the right time for this skill to work perfectly. When all of those elements are right, then you have to trust yourself enough to take that breath. If your timing is off, you get a mouthful of water.

I watched my son take a breath, push off from the pool wall and swim, but he wouldn’t blow out that breath. He kept taking another breath as he turned his head to the side with his arm right where it should be, but when his face was in the water, he held onto that breath. He wouldn’t blow the air into the water. He held on to it.

He took several sessions of the class and still, he held on to that breath. He held onto that breath until he couldn’t hold on any longer and then he grabbed for the wall gasping for air. He practiced in every way he could. In the water, out of the water, but when he tried to put the technique to work, he couldn’t trust it.

It took two summers before it clicked, before he finally tried the one thing that would work. He had to trust in it and himself.

I think writing and writing classes are a lot like that.

Losses and Founds

As I’ve said before, this last year and a half has been of losses and founds. The founds much more valuable than what’s been lost. I know this. I never want to forget it. Mostly I don’t want to forget it because I have a feeling at my age, the losses will become more and more frequent and valuable. For now the founds-those things that come in to take the places of all that’s lost-are priceless.

What brought these thoughts on is my woeful hair. The medications, probably the prednisone has played havoc with my hair. What was once thick and curly and what we use to call dishwater blonde is thin and straight and graying. My beautician doesn’t recommend a perm or coloring until my hair’s stronger, but—

I just read a flyer from the Chinaberry catalog from 1999. The writer had an epiphany. Why was she investing time and energy into deep conditioning her damaged, thin hair, then pinning it back in a bun because it looked so sad? What was she holding on to? She wasn’t Rapunzel. Neither am I. I once had beautiful hair. It was the most mentioned thing about me in my yearbook autographs, but my hair isn’t me. And I’m no longer her-that person in the yearbook. I never will be again.

Truth is I really don’t know that I’d want to be, if that was possible. She had her problems, too.


We do hold on to things better let go of. Sometimes it’s hard to know if you should let go or hang on. Stick with your writing until you succeed? Or give up? And is letting go the same as giving up? I think we mixed up the two things. We cling to things that clearly no longer work, but give up on things that get difficult.

So, I’m trying to do that as I look in the mirror and mourn what once was.

Synchroncity

No rhyme or reason why something touches a cord with me. Gets me thinking, wanting to blog my thoughts. Yesterday, it was an e-mail from Writer’s Digest advertizing a new workshop. The introduction mentioned synchronicity. You know, preparation slamming into significant serendipity. A case of ‘when the student is ready the teacher will come.’

According to the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, synchronicity is the coincidental occurrence of events and esp. psychic events. (As similar thoughts in widely separated persons or mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seems related but is not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality.

Over my years of writing I’ve had this happen many times while researching a book, poem, or short story. Someone or something shows up, seemingly out of the blue, related to my research, while I’m doing something completely unrelated. Might simply be a case of—if you look for it you’ll find it, but I suspect it’s more because I am open to the subject.

I think that is part of being prepared as a writer—being open-eyed, childlike, in awe of everything. Question everything and everyone. That’s my policy.

I’m often accused of asking too many questions (my father called me Doubting Thomas because even after I should have outgrown it, I asked, why, about darn near everything. Drove him nuts. As the mother of inquisitive children, I understand.) I admit questions still pop into my mind, first thing. I question everything. When I was younger, I kept those questions to myself. My father’s admonishment and my own natural shyness tempering my curiosity. I felt it was a flaw of character.

No longer.

I think, I know, I was born to be a writer. I was made, meant to write about the world around me in some capacity. A questioning mind is a good thing. Always was. It makes for the student being ready when the teacher arrives.

Prepare for synchronicity. Question everything. Learn all you can. It will make your writing richer, fuller, better.

Take Joy

From my blog I’m sure you know I read a lot of books on writing. It’s an obsession, I’m certain, and maybe, I’m hoping I’ll absorb whatever it is that will help me be a great writer. I do love reading these books, but I’ve always like how-to books in general, anyway.

In 2003, I read Take Joy by Jane Yolen. This was the first book on writing that suggested there was joy to be had in writing, not opening a vein or blood drops forming on my forehead. She suggested it was a personal choice—writing with joy.

Over the years, I’ve come to agree. Why on earth would I want to do this every day unless I find joy in it? There are only a handful of writers who really make a good living at writing. And fame seems overrated. There has to be something else, something more.

Joy is the something else for me. More so now. Now, that I know how miserable I can be when I can’t write. I’ll take the rejections, solitude, frustration. I’ll take the struggles against children, family, friends, obligations before I ever want to face not being able to put words to paper again.

Now, that was misery.

So, I’ll take sideways glances and thinly veiled questions about what I do all day. I’ll take interruptions that drive me insane and guilt that I’m not the grandma, daughter, wife, mother I ought to be. I’ll take nagging doubt that never quite goes away.

When I finally was able to write again, I decided I would enjoy every day I wrote. I would ignore the miserable news about the economy and publication. I would care less whether what I write was the new in thing or not. I would just write. Write what it was that I ached to write. I would let joy flow from me in words.

I would choose. I take joy.

Dreams

I just finished a wonderful article in the June issue of Reader’s Digest. Written by Jacquelyn Mitchard, of The Deep End of the Ocean fame, Why Passion Matters is Mitchard’s take on letting children dream.

Kids dream. They’re much better at it than we are. They dream big and don’t worry over much about details. Over the years I’ve observed many parents advising their kids on future plans, schooling. I’ve given a bit of my own advice, even been the recipient of ‘good’ advice. Advice for practicality, for a fallback plan, for training and pursuing a secure, smart job field. And with every good, sound advice I’ve heard, there has been something in me silently screaming no.

In my own case, I had two passions in junior high: animals and writing. In my Careers class we were supposed to write a paper about two careers we thought we’d like to pursue. I chose veterinarian or writer. My teacher and parents told me both were impossible careers, informing me women weren’t accepted into Veterinarian school and writing was a wonderful hobby but writers couldn’t make a decent living. While both were true, I can’t tell you how I felt hearing that. It deflated me in this tiny, furtive way.

I never questioned the whole ‘women in Veterinarian school’. (It wouldn’t have mattered in writing the paper on careers, anyway.) By default I decided to do the paper on English teacher as my career, although that sounded like a consolation prize. (Truth be told, I don’t think I could ever stand in front of a class everyday either)

I’ve heard parent’s advise, gently guide, even brainwash their kids into a path they think best, safe, smart. Often it proves a good wise fit, but I wonder what could have been and secretly cringed inside. Now days there is so much pressure for kids to be better and faster that dreams seem hard to come by. It’s true, in order to get by there isn’t much chance to dream, to pursue frivolous occupations, but…kids ought to be allowed to dream.

I think, I know, dreams persist anyway. They will find their way out into the light some time, some way, somehow. And sometimes in the fight for the light, those dreams break your heart. Much better to chase them and fail, then to have them stymied, I think. I wonder if letting kids dream more, be practical less isn’t a wiser thing.

I like Mitchard’s advice: Risk everything. Plans, B, C, D, and E will always be there.
What about giving some time to Plan A? Plan B comes along sure as computer crashes.

I don’t know that I did such a good job teaching my kids to follow dreams, (I hope I wasn’t too totally practical. I hope I left room for them to follow dreams) but I can’t go back and redo it. So, if I only teach my grandkids one thing—I want it to be to dream, (despite what parents or teachers say), to follow those dreams even into failure. If I do that I’ll be pleased.

If you have a chance to read this article, do so.

One of Those Days

It’s been one of those days. A day full of interruptions. In other words—life. A writer’s dread.

I’ve been working on a few poems to enter in Writer’s Digest Writing Competition. This was something I told myself last year I’d do if I got feeling better—suck up my fear and just do.

Disregard the—what if I win? (Grand prize is $3000 cash and a trip to New York City to meet with editors or agents. I’m not sure I can get on a plane, let alone meet with an editor or agent living in New York. After all, I’m a small town coward)

Disregard the—what if I lose? (Does that mean I have absolutely no talent or chance? And if it does mean that what do I do then?)

So, here I am, with five poems I’ve been working on for a while, some since 2002, in fact. I love these poems, but I tend to love anything I’ve lived that long with, tended to, worked on. I have no outside readers, much as I need someone. Can husband or family be trusted to tell the truth or be willing to hurt my feelings if that’s what I need?

I have to make a choice between the five. I’m only going to enter two. How on earth do I pick? While I mull that over, I have people here stripping off the roofing from my house. You know, hammering, scrapping, talking. This, of course, had my dog barking and pacing, trying to ‘protect’ me, one of my cats hiding under the blankets, certain the life as she knows it is gone, the other cat on my lap wanting reassurance.

Oh, wait, I forgot about the car needing to be taken to be repaired, but as luck or love would have it, my husband took care of that. Forgot about the man coming to bid the rain gutters, but luck and love are still with me there, too.

It’s hard enough trying to pick a best poem—like picking a best child. Can’t really do it, but the noise and chaos doesn’t help. And on top of that are worries of my husband on the roof removing the air-conditioner to be replaced.

As I said, life goes on. It must. Writers must learn to live in that, even while the words won’t let them alone.

I’m determined to work at my writing, determined not to let this stress me (I’m not supposed to stress because of my MPGN. I’m supposed to watch my blood pressure. Make sure it doesn’t get too high, but how in Blue’s sake can I avoid days like these. Life must go on. And believe me, when it doesn’t—now that’s stress.)

So, here I am, at my desk Fleetwood Mac blaring from the stereo so I don’t hear what’s going on over my head, trying to write with one frightened cat huddled in my lap, another shivering beneath the blankets and a dog on patrol.

If I get nothing more done today than to pick the two poems to enter in the contest, I’ll have beat the odds. Don’t you think?

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.