SK Waller.com

Be Big About It

2012-05-25T20:45:00.000-05:00

If I perceive a slight by someone I know and love, my first reaction is to give them the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps I misunderstood or, in the case of email, perhaps I'm reading something they didn't intend to imply. It's difficult to read expressions and tones of voice on the internet after all. After that, I wonder if I said (or wrote) something that they misunderstood.

In friendship, it has to be someone's place to be big about these things; too many people fly off the handle far too easily and feelings get hurt in our wake as we plow through these situations, functioning from fear and ego.

If, after all this has failed and I see that the slight was intended, either consciously or unconsciously, I ask myself, "Is this so bad that I need to rattle our friendship over it, or is this one of the many times I need to shrug and allow them their bad day, physical pain, illness, stress, etc.?" I don't feel that bending like this for the people I love threatens me in any way. I'm not that fragile.

If I didn't forgive my friends, I wouldn't have friendships that go back 50 years, I'd be a lonely, bitter person clutching petty slights instead of embracing people who have enriched my life in so many ways. I must afford them some off days.

Friendship is so precious--to cheat it so thoughtlessly is a punishment in and of itself and we rob ourselves of an opportunity to grow and evolve one step higher. But then, I am a Libra, and we're always weighing everything in our scales.

I have been blessed by friends who forgive me and give me the benefit of the doubt in return. This note is just to thank you for being my friend.

Busy, but not with Writing

2012-05-21T19:31:00.000-05:00

It started when we went to Allen's house for the first cookout of the season on Saturday evening. His garden is always beautiful, and he has become my gardening guru, but I've never seen such beautiful Hollyhocks in my life. Nine feet tall, with perfect blooms and lush foliage. I came home obsessed with improving our exterior here at Bookends Cottage.

Yesterday, I cleared the bed beneath the bay window of the dining room, only to find three half-strangled Burning Bush plants. I'm not a big fan of this plant--in fact, I don't like shrubs in general--but I gave them some breathing and sunning room. In a few weeks I intend to move them someplace else in the garden and replace them with three rose bushes, which will brighten up the window, considerably. Shrubs are so boring. I'm also going to separate the bed from the lawn with used brick edging.

While trimming the holly that had taken over the water faucet area, I discovered a brick path and plenty of room for the hoses and a terracotta pot I use to hold sprinkler heads and sprayer nozzles. That was a welcome revelation because garden hoses and I don't get on very well with each other. During my cleaning of that little area, I found an expensive sprayer nozzle that I bought last year, used once, and then promptly lost. I'm glad I didn't succumb and buy a new one a few weeks ago when I was tempted to do so.

None the worse for wear, this morning I woke up with an itch to paint the front porch. It was in dire need as the paint was peeling and looked ratty. As much as I like the Shabby Chic look, it's meant to be employed with small pieces of furniture and accents, not the entire woodwork of the a porch's structure. Putting the speakers in the porch window and pouring myself a large iced tea, I got to work, and I must say it looks great! I even painted and decoupaged the ugly black mailbox.

I repainted a small potting table, hosed everything down, and then Joel and I sat back with a beer, enjoying the approach of evening.

My next project is to pull up all of the Monkey Grass in the bed that lines the drive, prepare the soil, and then in autumn, plants bulbs. We already have Daffodils, but I want to add Tulips and Crocuses.

Maybe I can get back to writing in June...

Too Many Projects?

2012-05-16T14:26:00.002-05:00

I've found myself in the perplexing condition of having too many projects waiting on my ever-growing "to write" list. And others keep coming to me, too. So many books to write, so little time!

The trick is to figure out my priorities; timing is everything in such a rapidly changing and evolving market. The thing is, I can't write something simply because it would be expedient or tactical, I have to feel the project. I have to have to write it because not doing so would cause me some sort of insufferable, catastrophic inner pain. This is probably why I'll never be on the New York Times Best Seller List.

But every once in a while--no, rarely or never would be more accurate--a really good idea comes and I know that I have to drop everything to follow it up. This has happened to me in the last week. This new book could even sell. Imagine that! But first, I must finish my trilogy, and that just isn't lighting my fire right now. A bit of burn-out, I suspect, is the culprit, but I'll be buckling down to it just as soon as I'm finished revamping a client's website and I'm done editing the legendary 'War and Peace' manuscript.

So I've set myself some easy multi-tasked deadlines:

Website completion and manuscript edits - I can easily work on these two simultaneously; website by day, edits by night. Deadline: June 15th.
Book Three and research/preliminary work on new book (these too can be worked on at the same time) Deadlines differ. Book Three should be published by the end of the year, which will leave my time free and clear for the new book beginning January 1st.

All of my other projects are just going to have to wait, but only one of them is what I would consider important anyway. I could probably work on that as I have been, that is to say piecemeal, whenever the inspiration hits me and I'm not in the mood to work on other books.

This is going to be a busy summer where my writing is concerned.

Yes, I'm Bragging

2012-05-09T11:27:00.001-05:00

It's that time of year. It's that long-awaited season when one can make it through a busy intersection without having to sit out two traffic light changes. A time when there are fewer sirens and when cars driving by outside aren't accompanied by wall-rattling ba boom-boom, ba boom-booms. A time when one doesn't have to wait 35 minutes to get a table nor plow through the supermarket aisles with the deftness of Captain Cook wending Endeavor through the Great Barrier Reef. The students have left town.

Our street is remarkably quieter as most of the houses are now empty, including the one next door, the one house that should never, ever encourage music appreciation. At least that's what Frank used to say. "The only house in which music should never be played is the one next door."

This weekend our Lauren is graduating from OU, which is in Norman, about an hour and a half south of us. We, of course, will be there. We've booked a hotel room for Heather and the two of us and will be leaving on Friday for her Phi Beta Kappa hooding and all of the commencement ceremonies, and will return on Saturday evening. We're so proud of her! She's graduating summa cum laude and she won the Phi Beta Kappa scholarship.

After a quiet summer rooming with Heather here in Stillwater, she'll be off again to France, where she'll teach English for a year, and when she returns she'll buckle down to getting her Ph.D. at New York University. How can this be? How can our little girl be accomplishing all this? Oh, yes. She's now a young woman out to set the world on fire. And you know, I believe she'll do it.

Congratulations, Lauren. Your hunger for learning, your curiosity for all of life, and your diligent work ethic have set you on an exciting, rewarding path, one that I hope will take you many wondrous places, introduce you to many exciting people, and fill your life with satisfaction and meaning. You are an example of all that is right with your generation, one that I can't help but feel will set this world to rights. I'm so very proud of you.

In Praise of Luxuriant Language

2012-05-01T09:10:00.000-05:00

"I like words -- strike that. I love words -- and while I am fond of the condensed and economical use of them in poetry, in song lyrics, in Twitter, in good journalism and smart advertising, I love the luxuriant profession and mad scatter of them too. After all, as you will already have noticed, I am the kind of person who writes things like 'I shall append a superscribed obelus, thus'. If my manner of writing is a self-indulgence that has you grinding your teeth then I am sorry, but I am too old a dog be taught to bark new tunes." Stephen Fry in The Fry Chronicles, an Autobiography.

If you're an Anglophile like I am, you will love this book. I just got it yesterday afternoon, and I'm halfway through it already. Fry has such a warm and engrossing command of the English language, reading him or listening to him is like cuddling oneself down into a plump feather bed of words. It's about time someone cared enough about English to use it unabashedly and with so much ease.

"...in every particular I fail Strunk's Elements of Style or any other manual of 'good writing'. If a thing can be said in ten words, I may be relied upon to take a hundred to say it. I ought to apologize for that. I ought to go back and ruthlessly prune, pare and extirpate excess growth, but I will not."

Stephen Fry is my hero. I've been advocating this for years, but I never professed it so honestly nor so unapologetically.

I really can't say anything bad about this book. I suppose, if you're not a Stephen Fry fan, or you have absolutely no interest in Cambridge life or British theatre, you might find it a honk-shoo, but I doubt it because Fry is so eloquent that even his day-to-day memories are recalled in a fascinating way. This is because he lets the reader in. While reading, I get the feeling that I am sitting in a room with him while he talks about his life. And he has the gift of being able to do this without coming off like a boor, or a pretentious windbag. He's too self-effacing for that and all too aware of his human foibles. What I enjoy is how he plays with the language. Unafraid of adverbs, adjectives, metaphor, large words, and even the verboten "very", he comes out with little gems like,

"That Lent term passed in a blizzard of acting. By the end of it I was an insider in the small world of Cambridge drama. The little microcosm reflected the esoteric coteries, cliques and factions (I only put the word 'esoteric' in front of 'coteries' because it is an anagram of it and that pleases me) of the wider world without."

and

"If someone asks me how to do something, I cannot answer in the abstract, I can only answer according to my own history. I have absolutely no idea how to become an actor, I can only tell you how I became one. Or at least, how I became a sort of actor who is also a sort of writer who is also a sort of comedian who is also a sort of broadcaster who is also a sort of all sorts of all sorts sort. Sort of. That is the best I can do."

I have a feeling my bookshelves are soon going to have to make way for a Stephen Fry section.

(Click the book cover image to be taken to the book's Amazon page.)

Get Your Arse Out of Walmart!

2012-04-24T09:28:00.001-05:00

It's funny how we think we know so much about the town we live in, only to discover we knew nothing at all.

We had a lovely, full weekend. On Saturday morning, I got up early--6:30!--so that Nettl and I could hit our local farmers market. I've never been to one of these here in Stillwater. In fact, I've only been to two in my entire lifetime and those were in California. Why do they have to open so darned early? Anyway, we bought some beautiful salad greens, two batches of asparagus, and some locally grown, free-range, grass-fed beef. I cook so little meat anymore (maybe once or twice a week), I'm going to continue to get it from this rancher. Yes, it costs a little more, but at least I'm not feeding my family "pink slime", growth hormones, and plastic pellets.

At 10:00, Allen and Ville came by and off we went to the downtown thrift and antique stores. We all found some great little things we couldn't live without--you know the stuff I mean, two etched crystal sherry glasses for 10¢ apiece, for example--and I got heavily flirted with by a boy who couldn't have been older than twenty-five. I don't mean he looked or smiled at me, I mean he talked to me, followed me around, and led me apart from the others to talk to me some more. I admit that I'm looking better these days, but come on! As Katy Clarke in With A Bullet (book two) says, "I'm not eighteen. I'm, well--I'm not eighteen!"

After that, we headed for the annual Stillwater Arts & Heritage Festival that was being held on Main street. We ducked into a new 50s-style dinner called Boom-a-Rang's for lunch first, then ambled up and down the street looking at the booths full of arts and crafts, all of it really very beautiful. Allen bought a couple pieces of pottery and I bought Nettl a bracelet made from the handles of two sterling silver spoons that just happened to be the pattern of our own silver, which was handed down to me by my mother. Its name, fittingly, is "Eternally Yours". It looks exactly like this, except that the stone is a pearl.

When we finally got home, I had to start dinner because we'd invited friends, Mika and Jen, over. I made two pans of meatless lasagna (one with regular pasta and one with brown rice pasta), asparagus sauteed with zucchini and parmesan, a salad made from the greens we'd gotten earlier, garlic bread, and a dessert of pound cake topped with fresh fruit, and the crème fraîche I'd made the day before. Oh, and did I mention all the wine?

After dinner, we retired to the front porch, where I lit the mason jar lanterns I made a few weeks ago, put on some mellow music, and we talked and laughed and sipped while breathing in the lovely weather and the fragrance of the overloaded honeysuckle vines that cover the fence outside our bedroom window.

It was a great weekend, and I learned that Stillwater, especially downtown, is a great place. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that while we were out, I discovered we now have an Irish pub on Main Street, called Finnegan's Public House. Hey, that's only five blocks from my house, so it looks like I have a local at last!

My opinion of Stillwater has changed. If the only place you ever go is Walmart (no matter where you live), then that's how you're going to think of where you live, but if you get out into the actual community, you might get a pleasant surprise. I know I did. I'm so happy to be living downtown instead of out in the surrounding area now. It's vital in a small city way and I can walk anywhere I want to go: Finnegan's Pub, the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, Aspen Coffeehouse, Crepe Myrtle Market, Zanotti's Wine Bar... Downtown Stillwater has a lot to offer. Too bad it has taken me this long to figure that out.

P.S. The images I used from the Arts Festival were not taken by me. I harvested them from the festival's website and they are of last year's event.

Brain is Fryed

2012-04-20T09:57:00.004-05:00

I've been watching an awful lot of Stephen Fry lately. This is what I do when I don't feel well. I watch TV shows on Netflix. Not the usual kind of shows, though. I prefer what Netflix calls, "Understated" TV series" that are more often than not British. And if it's a really good one, I'll watch every episode of every series in two or three sittings.

First, I watched Mistresses, which is about 30 and 40-something London women (not featuring Stephen Fry). I have a feeling it was the BBC's stab at Desperate Housewives, but I can't be sure because I never watched that.

Friends Katie, Trudi, Siobhan, and Jessica find themselves entangled in love's wide-cast web as they live within their relationships and indulge in secret affairs. From failed marriages, balancing careers and romance, fertility anguish and the bonds of true friendship, the ladies bring the laughter and the tears.

I would have enjoyed this show more, had the women not been so stupid, which I account to shortsighted, trite writing. Yeah, a reputable doctor is going to have an affair with a patient and help him do himself in only to start an affair with his much younger son who is clearly a borderline personality out to ax murder whoever his father was sleeping with at the end of his life. No. Didn't buy it.

After that was over, I still had a craving for British telly, so I thought I'd give Kingdom a try. This is where Fry comes in. I fell in love with this show and the eccentric characters in it, especially Sidney Snell, played by Tony Slattery (far right), who, with the right hair and more beard could easily play Noel Saunders, if my books ever become a movie (the wannabe casting director in me is always on the alert).

Stephen Fry stars as Peter Kingdom, a Norfolk solicitor whose quirky clientele supplies him with a bounty of unusual cases, which he juggles with tending to his unbalanced half-sister, Beatrice, and searching for their long-lost brother.

That show could have gone on forever. Better yet, just take me to Market Shipborough and drop me off at The Greyhound pub.

Finally, I watched Stephen Fry in America, which was excellent. Having lived in England for a time, I could understand Fry's mixture of fascination, repugnance, confusion, and infatuation with us Americans as he drove through every state in a black London cab. The series didn't have the in-depth quality that Michael Palin's travel series have, but I imagine his budget was smaller, so he couldn't spend much time in each state. Still, I enjoyed it a great deal.

Next up? I don't know. Maybe I'll give Fry & Laurie another chance. I tried it last year, but it didn't hold my interest. Now that I'm a Fryed-in-the-wool fan, I may like it. What I admire about Stephen Fry is that, while he is an articulate, sophisticated, educated man of letters and possesses considerable talent in a number of areas, he's not above showing his viewers that he really is just a little silly. He's self-effacing, but he's not embarrassed or ashamed about his colorful past, his life as an out gay man, or his unconventional (by Hollywood standards) appearance. I'll be getting some of his books to read--I can't wait to get to know him as an author.

Throw the Sob Story on the Slush Pile

2012-04-12T02:28:00.002-05:00

There are all kinds of things that detract us from accomplishing the things we want to do, gaining the success we desire, and even attempting the things we want to try. The worst and most insidious of these, I think, is our own sob story.We develop it and nurture it, then we bring it out as if to show people it's not our fault if we can't get off our butts and go for something that's important to us.

You know what I'm talking about. Those slights and injuries that others have inflicted on us. Parents, siblings, classmates, friends, spouses, life itself, and on and on. But the very worst are the bloody stigmata we carry around concerning our childhood. The need to cast blame holds us back more than anything else, yet we display these wounds to prove to ourselves and everyone just why we've failed, why we will continue to fail, and why we shouldn't even try.

It's always amazing to me how many successful and accomplished people rise up from nothing. Poverty, starvation, abuse, illness, and criticism only seem to fire their ambition and their self-esteem while the rest of us go on and on about how our mommy did this, or our daddy didn't do that... Sure, bad things happen to us, but it's what we do with those things that makes us winners or losers. But some people just seem to have an instinct for turning bad circumstances into fuel for success. Their secret is the ability to truly let go of their injuries.

Hanging onto these things doesn't make us victims, it make us martyrs, and martyrdom is a powerfully passive-aggressive, manipulative control weapon. It holds other people hostage, making them accountable for what we are afraid to do ourselves. But worse, it keeps us believing that things that happened in the past have the power to hold us back in the present. It's an excuse and a cop-out, and it's lazy. Let's let people off the hook and do what we want to do with our lives. Let's not continue to die for their sins.

Simplify

2012-04-09T15:20:00.003-05:00

I'm feeling rather minimalist lately. Seized with a craving for less clutter and more space, I began by bagging all of my cold weather clothing and taking it to the garage. I don't have much of a wardrobe, actually. Besides not being a clothes horse and not giving a rat's ass about fashion, I haven't been able to buy clothes in about 13 years. The odd new pair of jeans creep in when they're needed, but even at that I only ever have two pairs at any given time.

This need to simplify has taken other avenues to express itself, however. I've begun to write poetry again (my usual free verse) and this morning I spent over two hours "unfriending" 150+ people in Facebook. They weren't really friends though, just people who fell into one of two categories:

Those who sent me a request, then posted nothing but marketing for their new CD, book, or concerts. I like helping people in the arts, but if you're going to send me a friend request and then canvas me with your campaign, at least take the time to actually "speak" to me once in a while. I'm sure they're good people, but I don't know them and, after all, I don't particularly like door-to-door selling.
Those who think I'm entitled to their opinion and never address me unless it's to preach about religion, veganism, politics, philosophy, or whatever their spout du jour happens to be. If I need a personal guru / pastor / professor / advice consultant / analyst / mommy, etc., I'll phone you.

I have undoubtedly stepped on a few toes and have probably hurt someone's itty bitty feewings, but it's Facebook and they probably shouldn't take these things so seriously. I don't like hurting or angering people, but I figure most of these had me hidden anyway; they've never left comments (if they're of the first category), nor have they ever posted anything on my timeline (unless they're of the second).

If you were cut and you really do read my posts and like keeping up with my little life, send me another request. I'll be happy to re-add you.

I doubt this will happen though.

I Just Love This

2012-04-06T23:51:00.003-05:00

People Do This? Really?

2012-03-30T11:07:00.000-05:00

I didn't know writers could afford to go on vacation. They must have husbands at home, who work regular jobs. I haven't had anything that might count as a vacation in, what, 23 years, and even that was used for surgery. We went to Vienna and Salzburg in 2005, but I'd never count that as a vacation--we worked 15-18 hour days. Nope. I don't know any writers, personally, who can take vacations unless they have a spouse who has a day job. Anaïs Nin certainly had that luxury; her husband was a banker. That would do it.

Thanks to Excuse Editor for the laugh.

Return to Wordfest

2012-03-29T01:33:00.001-05:00

Now that spring is here and I've survived the worst respiratory virus known to man, I think I'm ready to get back to writing. One more book and this trilogy is complete. The past few months worked diligently to keeping me from writing, but that's all been rectified, so what excuses do I have not to get on with this? None. It's just so much procrastination now.

I keep telling myself I've completed and published Books One and Two. What's the big deal about completing Book Three? Well, saying goodbye to people with whom I've spent every night and day with for the past four years, for a start. But I'm ready to move on now. To sleep on someone else's couch, so to speak. To meet new people and gain new insights. All that. It's not easy though. I've come to rely on these characters in a funny way. They helped me through some rough times, and I learned a lot from them. Plus, they're a lot of fun.

I can see why some authors get "stuck" writing series books. I suppose, if people asked for more stories about these characters, I'd be happy to write them, but for now, I have to return to my late night wordfests and get the current story concluded.

I'm going in.

I'm Not Triskaidekaphobic, but...

2012-03-26T21:59:00.000-05:00

So end 13 years of fear, despair, struggle, grief, and want. It's over. The nightmare is over. There was a light at the end of the tunnel just as I believed, and it wasn't a train! They were also 13 years of dedication, cooperation, hope, humor, and love, and that was what gave me the strength to get through.

Now to give myself up to Book Three, clear-minded and stress-free. I can at last write, edit, and design because I like to, not because I need to. Thanks for hanging in there with me through the years. It means more than I can express.

My History of Fashion Model Poses

2012-03-22T18:31:00.000-05:00

Please don't think I pay attention to fashion all that much, because I don't. You should know me better than that by now. But for the past two weeks I've been in bed with the worst bronchial flu in my personal history and I've spent some time in Pinterest. Oh, okay, I've spent a lot of time in there and believe me, if you spend any amount of time there, you quickly become knowledgeable about "repurposed" mason jars (why can't people just say used, second-hand, or recycled?), knitted anythings, 105 ways to use Nutella, "cute" resurrection terrariums for Easter (look Mommy, it's a tomb!), and fashion. Being a bit obsessive-compulsive, I notice things that repeat themselves. In fact, I notice them so much they start to really drive me a bit over the edge. Then I have to blog about them to get rid of the obsession. This is how it works, you see, and you're on the losing end, I'm afraid.

Anyway, fashion. Just take a look around Pinterest and you'll notice a lot of women's clothing. I don't see it all that much--what I see are the poses these models and others strike. But first, let's go back. Back, all the way back...

Here are the 1920s, '30s, '40s, and '50s, respectively. I've grouped these decades together because the most obvious pose is what I'll call the Best Foot Forward. It's attractive, relaxed, lengthens the leg and gives the garment a bit of movement. There's a different one, however, in the '40s picture. The woman on the far left has introduced a pose that is known by some people as the I Have to Wee pose. In the '50s picture the woman on the far left has stretched her leg out as if to do the Hokey Pokey, adding an air of command that is rivaled only by the edifice behind the models. Still, the poses are pretty much alike; each of the women simply faces a different direction to add whatever interest they can. It's not working.

Here come the fun times and a lot of new poses, each of them a bit quirky: Pigeon-Toed & Knock-Kneed, the Stork, the Lean, and again, the I Have to Wee. Well, the 1960s were quirky times. It was the beginning of the Youth Culture and the Sexual Revolution, and fashion represented everything that was young, energetic, and individualist, even if that individualism became conformist. Gone were the rigid shoulder pads of the 1940s and the dowdy grey flannel of the '50s. In their place stepped baby doll dresses, geometric angularity, and high-stepping knee boots. I suppose the poses had to reflect these qualities.

The 1970s arrived then, and with the advent of the Women's Movement, fashion poses took on a more in charge look. Mostly. We still saw the Pigeon-Toed & Knock-Kneed and the Stork poses. Oh, and look! We still had the I Have to Wee pose! We'd come a long way, baby. Well, maybe not. Let's moved on and see...

I can't speak with any real authority about the '80s and '90s because I wasn't there. I mean, I was there, but I was so busy working on my career in classical music that most of my wardrobe was your basic Concert Black. In 1983 I turned my back on the modern world and slipped into a worm hole that kept me pretty much in the 18th century until 2009. But I had friends who were younger then me, and they pulled me out from time-to-time to slip a nice little pill in my hand that kept me tethered to the present until it wore off. While here, I noticed that the '80s still had the Pigeon-Toed & Knock-Kneed pose, but in the '90s it seemed that everyone had taken Robert Palmer's 1986 "Addicted to Love" video seriously, resulting in a generic woman look. Still, in that photo I see the I Have to Wee, the Pigeon-Toed & Knock-Kneed, and an almost-Stork.

This brings us to today:

the Pigeon-Toed & Knock-Kneed pose

the Stork

the I Have to Wee, now being posed by everyone from models

and celebrities to everyday people.

and a new one I call the Bow-legged Huh? pose.

And coming full-circle, we have a variation of

the Best Foot Foward pose.

Maybe I spend too much time in Pinterest...

Six Writing Tips from John Steinbeck

2012-03-17T18:56:00.002-05:00

From an interview in the Fall 1975 issue of The Paris Review.

1. Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.

2. Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.

3. Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn't exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.

4. If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it—bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn't belong there.

5. Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dearer than the rest. It will usually be found that it is out of drawing.

6. If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.

Twelve years earlier—in 1963, immediately after receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature—Steinbeck issued the following disclaimer to all such advice:

"If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another. The formula seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey something he feels important to the reader. If the writer has that urge, he may sometimes, but by no means always, find the way to do it. You must perceive the excellence that makes a good story good or the errors that makes a bad story. For a bad story is only an ineffective story."

Source: The Atlantic.

"My God, it's full of stars!"

2012-03-13T20:52:00.001-05:00

See those two huge stars in the western sky? They're actually planets -- Jupiter (left) and Venus (right) -- forming part of the Grand Trine in Earth, which peaks today as Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Pluto are all at 9 degrees. Extraordinary!

Here's a visual.

The Write Space - Jayne Martin

2012-03-11T18:35:00.000-05:00

When I sounded the clarion call for writers to share their writing spaces with me, humorist Jayne Martin stepped right up. I was especially excited to hear from her because she is my favorite new writing discovery. I've been following her blog, In Jayne's World, for some time now and I've read her latest book, Suitable for Giving, which I loved and will read over and over.

Added to a sense of familiarity I have with her is the fact that Jayne and I have a couple of things in common. Besides being the same age, and from the same generation, she lives in the valley in which I grew up. We both love horses and we both love wine. I sometimes wish I still lived in California, because I'd definitely invite myself to visit her; I like to imagine us walking the hills surrounding her house, talking about life in the Valley, and then going indoors to share wine, laughs, and a great conversation about writing and coming of age in the Sixties (like me, she has also lived in San Francisco). This interview is about as close as we're going to get to that, however, but I'm not whinging!

First of all, thanks for volunteering to be part of The Write Space. Would you mind telling us what you’ve written and what is your current project, if you have one?
Most of my professional writing has been in the form of TV movies. My favorite is “Big Spender,” which I wrote for Animal Planet. It’s about horses, which are a huge part of my life. I’ve also written several Lifetime movies: “A Child Too Many,” “Cradle of Conspiracy,” and “Deceived By Trust” among them, which may still be running in Guam. My latest project is a book of humor essays titled, “Suitable for Giving: A Collection of Wit with a Side of Wry.” Please buy it. I need the money.

How did your writing space come about? Did you plan and design it, or did it evolve over a period of time?
Last year, I downsized from a three-bedroom home where I had a designated office to a one-room, six-sided cottage high on a hill. I knew I needed this change in my life, but the transition took place over a year and involved a lot of decluttering and visualizing. I don’t miss the big house at all.

How did you go about creating your space? Did you look to other writers for inspiration, did you hire a designer, did you look through magazines, etc.?
Configuring one room into living room, bedroom, dining and office spaces was challenging and there were plenty of times when I doubted my sanity in making this move, but it turned out to be a cozy and pretty well-organized space. I couldn’t be happier.

How has it changed over time? Is it still changing? Will it continue to change?
I’ve only been here six months. It’s gathered dust over that time, but I’m planning to clean it at some point.

What do you like most about your space? What will you never change about it?
The panoramic view of the beautiful little valley where I live. It’s actually possible to forget there’s another world out there beyond the mountains. The peace here is amazing.

What do you like least about it? What would you like to change?
There’s a pepper tree that could use some pruning.

Do you have any artifacts—any object(s)—that you feel help you when you’re writing? What do these do for you?
I have a Chihuahua named Dixie who likes to snuggle inside my robe or sweater when I write. She makes me happy, which is always helpful when writing humor.

Do you have any writing rituals, such as music, food, clothing, or anything else that help you?
I must have a huge cup of coffee first thing in the morning when I sit down to work, but then I have to pee every five minutes so I’m not sure how much that helps.

What is it you look for in your space? Does it provide that?
Quiet and solitude and yes, this home provides that in abundance.

When you write, do you require solitude, isolation, or quiet, or are you able to write anywhere?
I’m envious of writers who I see with their laptops in coffee shops. They look so cool and “writerly.” I, on the other hand, would do well in solitary confinement. I’m distracted if a bird farts.

What was the most memorable (for good or ill), place you have ever written?
“Memorable” is iffy… What was the question?

If you suddenly came into a lot of money, what is the first thing you would buy for your space? How would that be conducive to writing?
I’d buy time. I still need to work for a living until my book makes me rich and famous. Well, rich anyway. I think fame would be bothersome.

Describe your dream or fantasy writing space.
This is it. When I was contemplating the change, I put it out to the Universe that I wanted a place that fulfilled all my needs and desires, and even better. The Universe came through in spades. I couldn’t have possibly imagined this particular place.

If you could spend a week in a famous author’s writing space, who would that be, and what would you hope to cull from the experience?
Nora Ephron, and I would go through all her files and drawers hoping to absorb some of her genius.

What writing tools do you use (software, pens, journals, etc.)?
A Dell laptop and a crapload of Post-Its.

Please tell us where we can find your work.
“Suitable for Giving” is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords. “Big Spender” is also available on Amazon and can be rented on Netflix and pay-per-view. Or you can pretty much always find me at my blog, but please bring your own booze.

-----

To take part in The Write Space, send me an email via the form on the Contact page. You do not have to be a published writer to take part, all I require is that you take writing seriously and that you are at least working on a manuscript, a screenplay, or some other piece.

The Bed Gene

2012-03-09T00:26:00.002-06:00

A few months back I tried to get a new thing going here called, The Write Space. What I wanted was for writers to send me a photo of where they write--if they wanted to include themselves in the photo, that would be fine, if not, fine, too. Well, only one person bit so I didn't pursue it any further. Later, I posted a lengthy post with pictures of famous authors' writing spaces. But the point of this post isn't to make a final ~~plea~~ call for photos, it's to share mine with you.

I wish I had a writing room, or an area to call my own. I wouldn't even mind setting up the dining table as my desk. I'd love that, in fact. I love that room. The truth is, I prefer to write on my bed. From here, I can look out the large bay window at the world going by and because the windows in both the master bedroom and the master bath have privacy glass, no one can see me. Except at night, but by then I've usually closed the blinds. This is a picture I just took of my Write Space. For obvious reasons I have cropped Nettl out of it; don't think she'd appreciate me posting a picture of her sleeping. The cat didn't seem to mind.

I like to think that this predilection is genetic, handed down from Cousin Sam, who also wrote in bed. What was odd about him (well, there were many odd things about him, but I'm going to mention only one), was that he wrote and slept in his bed with his back against the footboard. I'm not sure why he did that, but he did explain why he liked to write in bed:

"Just try it in bed sometime. I sit up with a pipe in my mouth and a board on my knees, and I scribble away. Thinking is easy work, and there isn’t much labor in moving your fingers sufficiently to get the words down." Mark Twain (Sam Clemens)

I'm very fortunate in that having my lamp on all night doesn't bother Nettl. She can sleep through anything, even my fingers pounding the keys of my laptop. I don't know how Cousin Sam's wife, Olivia, fared in that regard.

In my journeys around the web, I've found an interesting, 8-page gallery of famous author's writing spaces. You can check it out here: Writers' Rooms. And, if you feel inspired to send me a photo of your own, please do. Some of you may have more than one Write Space--some people can write anywhere. Send me a picture of any, either, or all.

I'm planning to draw up a short interview for each writer, asking them about their space. That means you will get a post dedicated to you, which could otherwise be called free publicity. Use the email form on the Contact page to let me know. I'll send you my private email address.

Signs of Spring

2012-03-05T02:06:00.000-06:00

There are certain irrefutable signs appearing that tell me spring is on its way. We had no real winter to speak of, which makes me sort of dread the upcoming tornado and mosquito seasons. Still, seeing the first daffodil in the bed that lines our drive is always exciting. Yesterday, the gardener came out for the first time this year to mow and pick up dead branches that the wind knocked from our old trees. Every morning this weekend there was a huge robin that splashed away in the bird bath outside the bedroom window. I was able to put the lighter blanket on the bed. The cat is spending more time outdoors. And poor Nettl is suffering with her yearly bout of allergies now that the Bradford Pears are beginning to bloom.

All signs of Spring.

Despite my health, Spring Fever has smacked me upside the head. I'm organizing cupboards, cleaning corners, filling mason jars with herbs and onions for the kitchen window ledge, and over the weekend I removed the upper cabinet doors, painted the inside back walls, and set the shelves neatly with our white pottery bowls, hand painted plates, and all sorts of things. It makes the kitchen look twice as wide. This picture does it absolutely no justice. It looks so much homier and sweet in 'real life'.

There are things I want to get done before my surgery because I'm liable to spend most of summer in a brace and won't be able to do much in the way of decorating, painting, and planting. Unfortunately, my project list will most likely have to be edited and shortened. The upside is that I'll probably get a lot of writing done.

Or else I'll get quite proficient at Angry Birds.

Out of Track

2012-03-01T18:53:00.001-06:00

Now I've really seen it all. I received an email notification that a comment needed to be moderated. I do all of that from my Gmail account before I even sign in to Blogger, and this one really made me laugh; it's wrong on so many levels:

Hello, you used to write excellent, but the last several posts have been kinda boring… I miss your tremendous writings. Past several posts are just a little out of track! come on! cheap car insurance

First of all, I receive a lot of spam on this blog and most of it (as well as the usual troll droppings) never get read. Leaving me what you might think is a cleverly-worded comment to make me think you actually read me, or leaving me a nasty comment telling me what a lowlife I am is a pointless exercise in futility because I delete those things without even opening them. For some reason I opened this one. Usually, these spam comments read something like this:

Great blog entry. I'm right with you!

And then there's the link they want you to click. You know what I mean. You get them too. I don't see how those things could fool anyone. Who would read that and take it for an actual comment, especially when it's from good old Anonymous? Well, this one used what I assume the writer thinks is reverse psychology. They probably felt quite brilliant when they came up with that one.

Secondly, "you used to write excellently." Lolly, lolly, lolly, Get your adverbs here...

Thirdly, my last several posts have been boring? Perhaps, but then they go on to say they miss my tremendous writings and that my latest posts are a little "out of track". Ah, I'm so sorry I've let you down! How will I ever live with myself? Besides, what the heck does "out of track" mean?

Finally, the command, "come on!" kind of leaves me cold. I might have just as easily replied with, "Piss off!" which, of course, was my first inclination.

***

On the health front, I saw my doctor today. She gave me a prescription for some pretty heavy pain killers, orders for an MRI, and a jab in the bum (steroids). I'll probably go in for back surgery sometime this month or next month. And now, here I sit completely pain-free for the first time in eight years. Eight years! It's so unusual, this feeling, that it almost feels wrong. I got so used to being in pain 24/7 that the pain became part of me. Now that it's gone, well, I'm kind of pissed off that she didn't give me one of these shots back in October when I asked her for one.

Today's visit was different, however. Nettl went with me, and believe me when I tell you that when the doctor walked into the examination room and saw her, she actually looked frightened. LOL! The problem with my back is that I have two degenerated disks, bone spurs, and my spine has actually slipped apart into two sections, one section is jutting in on my spinal cord while the bone spurs are digging into the bundle of nerves that run up the spine. It's called spondylolisthesis, it's congenital, and this is what it looks like. The good news is that surgery will take care of these things. She said that I'm the perfect candidate for it. The truth of the matter is, if I don't get it, I could be paralyzed, and that just isn't who I am. No, sir.

Guess my posts aren't the only things that are "out of track".

UPDATE: After a few hours the pain has returned. Guess I'll refill that scrip tomorrow.

The Creative Itch

2012-03-01T00:27:00.000-06:00

While waiting on my doctor to decide to treat me so that I can feel up to writing, I've decided it's time for a self-sanctioned pause. Spring is on its way and I've set aside a few projects. Small things, really, but fun and creative.

1. Make homemade laundry detergent
2. Make homemade Rosemary Mint fabric softener
3. Do something creative with our cobalt bottles
4. Make floating candle jars for the front porch
5. Fill suet feeder with bits of yarn for birds' nesting needs
6. Make homemade moisturizer
7. Make "fire fly" jars
8. Make hanging candle/plant jars for the front porch

The largest project, which isn't pictured, is to re-organize the kitchen's upper cabinets, paint the back wall, remove the doors, then display our cool dishes, mugs, bowls, teas, glasses, etc.

Since I joined Pinterest I've developed a creative itch. People are so inventive and resourceful--I'm inspired every day by something in there.

That's it, really. Nothing about writing this time.

the Underside

2012-02-24T12:19:00.002-06:00

My characters, it seems, aren't too keen on me jumping into Book Three just yet. First, Gordon asked me to help him with his memoirs (Enharmonic Intervals) and now Noel decided it was time for "the in-depth interview". You must understand that these people come to me, not the other way around, and I suspect it'll go on like this for some time, despite the fact that I have other books I want to write that have nothing to do with these guys. They're rock stars though, so I should have been prepared.

My mother instructed me years ago that when embroidering something, make sure the underside is as neat as the top, and that has stayed with me in nearly everything I do. It especially hounds me in my writing. It's the underside of a character's story that makes him or her seem real--and these two are about as real as characters can be.

Although I can't let you read Gordon's memoirs because I plan to publish them later this year, Noel's interview is posted here. Feel free to read it if you're interested. It's being written in segments; I'm currently writing part two and hope to post that over the weekend. If you're not familiar with him, Noel Saunders is the surly, Liverpudlian bassist in Gordon's Sixties blues rock band, Tuppence.

The thing with these supplements is that they sort of prime me to work on the book itself. Going into first person helps me connect with the characters. I actually think Gordon's Enharmonic Intervals is going to be a better book than the trilogy, and even if you don't read his story, you'll still get a lot out of his memoirs.

Sometimes I think I'm as mad as a March Hare, but then I go to authors forums and read about even nuttier things that writers do. There must be a personality type that is drawn to this kind of inner life--whatever, I love it.

"There's character and there's plot. For me, a story starts with character.

I have to get under the skin of the character for the story to come to life.

It's the inner life that makes a character jump off the page."

Harry Mazer

Sister in the Shadows

2012-02-21T03:19:00.000-06:00

Now that everything is finished cosmetically around here, it's time to get away from the nuts and bolts of a blog and back to actually writing blog entries. I feel unleashed in a way. The changes were long overdue and I have a fresh outlook. I've always run toward change rather than resisted it, so this comes as no real surprise.

I've been battling a pretty strong bout of depression this past week, something that used to make my life both miserable and beautiful, but since I outgrew all of those hormonal ups and downs years ago, I've remained pretty level. I admit that I relished the angsty introspection because I almost always seem to come out of it with tons of ideas. Happiness and contentment have a way of playing hell with the artistic soul, I guess.

I did an image search on the word, depression. Nearly all of the photos show someone holding their head in their hands, or their knees drawn up. Depression has never affected me like that. For me--if I could picture it--it's more a crossed-arms, retiring posture, silently watching what's going on, scrutinizing every black thought. I found this painting by Ed Newman. This is how depression feels to me.

Over the past week I was able to get back in touch with the deeper part of me that few people ever meet. I keep her for myself, that me whose gut is clutched by a giant velvet fist, demanding I express the psychic and emotional pain that I try so hard to hide. Because I've had to deal with depression my entire life, it doesn't frighten me. I am not suicidal and I detest self-pity. But I do enjoy a little self-indulgence once in a while; I like to discover what comes out of it, what new ground I can cover. It never lasts very long and the worst part of it is those upon-waking anxiety attacks I've written about several times through the years.

"Oh, god, there's no food. What am I going to do? You're such a fuck-up. When are you ever going to grow up? You're letting everyone down, you're a burden," etc., etc., etc. I'm hoping I don't wake up with one of those today. I can handle feeling down, but that crap is hell.

Night before last I worked a number of hours on Book Three. Blowing out the cork that I thought was lodged in my creativity wasn't as difficult as I'd imagined. I think this book is going to be easier than the other two were. Outside of some web work, I've done a great deal of writing over the past two days and nights. I'm trying a new tack, but I'm not sure that it's going to stick. I'm not yet familiar or comfortable with this book--that takes time. I'm sort of dancing around it, waiting for it to show me what it's going to be. Although I've outlined the story, I'm unsure of its tone. We've only just begun to get to know each other. These books are like a trio of sisters, similar in looks, mannerisms, and genetics, but individual at the same time. I liked the two older sisters, but I think I'm going to fall in love with the third.

I hope so, anyway.

Lost in Time

2012-02-19T20:18:00.001-06:00

It has become my practice to spend the first few weeks of creating a book to building a timeline. I have an Excel workbook for the Beyond The Bridge trilogy that contains not only timelines for all three books, but also all of the characters (this in itself is comprehensive), a discography for the recording artists, and one database dedicated to addresses, locations, etc. It is an historical fiction, after all, and I'm a stickler for air-tight research.

I've been working on the timeline for Book Three (With A Song), hoping that as I build it my characters will decided to come out and play with me again so that I can start writing. I got the first chapter written and then hit a wall. Of course, I've had just a few other things going on, so I haven't been able to do the things that help me get in the zone. The workload is starting to slow down a bit though, so maybe this will be the week that my characters come out of hiding.

What hasn't helped is that I've somehow ceased to be an insomniac. I'm never up later than 2am anymore, and my best writing has always happened from midnight to dawn. The day times are too busy with the every day to allow me to write, so I don't quite know what to do now. I'll never be a morning writer, so let's not even go there. I'm kind of hoping that when the words return, with them will come my usual weird hours. As much as I like getting my rest, I like writing more.

UPDATE - 3:51am:
Yay! I've been writing for the past four hours, and I'm just now getting sleepy. There's hope yet!

R.I.P

2012-02-16T00:19:00.000-06:00

Do you remember back in the "old days" when you'd be out and about somewhere and something would happen, and you'd think, "I can't wait to blog about this!" It wasn't that long ago, really. But these days everyone seems to have a phone that connects to every server in the world, and most people just send these moments to Twitter or Facebook.

When blogging made its first real impact on how we travel the internet, it was thrilling. "People are reading again! People are actually writing!" But that was quickly replaced by the one-liner. "At the doctor's office", "Can't believe I'm stuck in traffic!", or "This burrito is awesome!" I'm not saying that's not fun, because it is. It's just that it feels like, after spending time writing long entries, we've returned to grunts and growls.

Of course, I remember when blogging became the thing, people complained that nobody emailed anymore.

"What have you been up to?"
"Don't you read my blog?"

Change is inevitable, but as comments have declined here, I'm really not sure if anyone is reading my entries anymore. I check my Sitemeter, but it seems that most of my visitors these days are strangers performing Google image searches, or spambots. That's one of the reasons I don't post an entry every night like I used to do. Why bother?

That's the saddest thing to me: that the blog community has splintered and there are a lot of people I miss. I still visit other people's blogs every morning, and I leave comments as much as I ever did--which isn't saying much, but I've always been one of those people who don't leave a comment unless I have something to say. Maybe you're the same way and you've just gotten bored with my insomniac rambles.

Despite how many blogs have fallen by the wayside, Kelly of Byzantium's Shores is still going strong. Today is his 10th blogaversary, but he's not complaining like I am. He doesn't seem to need the comments like I do. Still, drop by and wish him 10 more years!

As for me, I'm considering closing up shop here. I'm seriously thinking about merging my author website with a new blog which will be about my life as a writer, my books, and my thoughts about writing. It sounds fresh and new, and after nine and-a-half years here, I think I need the change.