Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Writing in Bed


 Writing in Bed

The bedroom door is closed.  People are asleep in other rooms.  I reach for the light and open the drawer of the nightstand, fumble for a pen and my journal, a spiral-bound sketchpad.  I accomplish this without exposing much of myself to a cold November morning.  Now I can lie on my left side, making room for the notebook and pulling the down comforter around my shoulders.

It is the writing pose of a teenager hiding the feelings she needs to express.  "I hate them.  They don't understand me.  Guess what they did yesterday.  I am so sad and lonely.  When I'm dead and they find my writing, then they will know and it will serve them right."

It is the writing pose of a fugitive hiding behind the closed door, beneath the covers, writing in the quiet night.  "I am in enemy territory, but there's news from the front.  I have integrated into their world, watched closely, acted like I belonged.  I don't know how long I will be here.  Maybe forever.  I need to keep a record, let someone know I was always a spy.  I couldn't help it."

It is my writing stance when that's all I can do; when I want to capture the thoughts and images that float between my unconscious and conscious mind; when I don't have the discipline or the courage to sit at my desk, door open and during the best part of the day, and say to myself and those around me, "Don't bother me.  I'm writing."

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Close, But No Career


The best part of the story is this sentence:  I remember doing lines of coke with a hooker in the smoking section of an airplane flying from Elko, Nevada to Salt Lake City, Utah to go to a Readers' Digest workshop put on by my Uncle Dick.  The point of this sorry little tale is that, once again, I made an attempt to enter a world of writing and publishing, but didn't come close.

I vaguely remember the woman.  She looked more like a card dealer than a hooker.  Having grown up in Elko, I thought I knew how to distinguish the two.  On the flight, she named the cathouse where she worked.  I knew exactly where it was.

As an adult, living on the California North Coast in the 1980's, I knew something about the recreational use of cocaine.  I wasn't a pot smoker, but I liked the energizing rush of coke, and the fad among my husband's carpenter friends lasted a couple of years.  However, I was in my late thirties.  We had two young children who needed me to pack nutritious lunches and pick them up after school.  I had a part time job teaching remedial English at a small branch campus of a community college.   I couldn't be too wild and crazy.

The kids were staying with their grandparents in Elko while I went to the weekend workshop.  To celebrate this freedom from parenting responsibilities, I chose the smoking section of the plane because I thought it would be more interesting to sit in the back with the smokers than up front with the Mormons.  

For two days I listened to writers and editors talk about writing for trade publications, travel writing, writing query letters, the art of interviewing, pitching stories.  It was a tremendous opportunity to launch a freelance career.  I went home enthusiastic about the articles I could write and my bright future as a freelancer.  I said, "sorry little tale," didn't I?  Of course, nothing came of it.

Three decades later, I am at a time in my life and in a place as conducive to writing as I could imagine.  My drive to write is as strong as ever, but I'm having to face the fact that I'm weak when it comes to the desire to be published and a sense of a readership.  My publishing consists of three blogs.  I like the way they look in print and that it is a public space. 

 I wish I could remember more about that woman, about her story.   I do know that the brazen me who sat in the back of the plane--she's still here.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Lower Your Standards

I recently finished an essay and posted it on WritingFromSpace.  I was relieved to have finished something.  I understand that a blog post is about as likely to be read as a crumpled  hard copy  tossed  in my driveway.  I’m working on that—how to develop followers.  At present,  I’m concentrating on completion, which means I’m paying attention to my writing process.

After posting the piece, “Bambi, Anna Karenina, and Dramatic Irony,” I threw away all the drafts: hand-written pages on lined yellow tablets; typed drafts going back at least three months; notes on an e-mail from my neighbor, a Russian scholar, who parsed a Russian word for me; some freewriitng that led away from the task at hand to concerns for my adult kids and drifted to the memory of an unpleasant incident in my past, which may lead to the start of another piece.

At an earlier time in my writing life, I would have set my standards way too high, wanting my essay to be a brilliant meditation on dramatic irony, Greek tragedy, and why re-reading a great novel is gratifying, but watching a re-run of the Super Bowl isn’t.

It was a paralyzing stance.  How did I get past it?  I’m not sure, but I did.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Interview with a Non-Writer

“So, you never did become a writer.  Why not?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I have time.  Tell me about your failed attempts and missed opportunities.”

“Would you like to browse through my journals?  I’ve been keeping them, off and on, for fifty years.  Think of Samuel Pepys or Anais Nin.  Maybe I’m not approaching this in the right way.”

“Hmm…Looks like fifty years of mindless drivel.”

“I have some poems.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“Look.  It’s not too late for me.  Think of Grandma Moses…”

“You’re going to take up painting?”

“No.  Late bloomers.  Frank McCourt.  What about Frank McCourt?”

“Are you Irish?”

“No.”

“Do you have vivid recollections of an impoverished childhood?”

“No.”

“Do you have stories?”

“Of course I have stories, and ideas, and metaphors.  Especially metaphors about not writing.  I have pens.  Do you want to see my pens?”

“No.”

“And yellow pads.  Love ‘em.  Of course I switched from manual to Selectric to IMac and IPad…”

“That’s enough.  I have to go.  I have to interview a famous non-singer about all the songs not sung, and then there’s this  guy who has an unexamined life…”

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

A Writing Paradox

Sometimes when I am writing in my journal, I am no particular age, no particular self.  I don't even have a name.  It's like swimming under water.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Thumb Your Nose

I'm looking at two photographs of Brenda Ueland,  author of If You Want to Write, one taken in 1938 and the other in 1983, when she was ninety-one, and the latter photograph is scary-awful.  Note to self:  no photographs after eighty.  I picked up the book last evening and remembered what a charming, supportive spirit she is.  Chapter seven is titled, "Be careless, reckless!  Be a lion, be a pirate when you write" and chapter ten, "Why Women who do too much housework should neglect it for their writing."

I see you can get a used copy for $4.50 at Powell's Books in Portland, the best new and used bookstore on the planet.

Here's what Brenda Ueland says on page nine:

"And so now you will begin to work at your writing.  Remember these things.  Work with all your intelligence and love.  Work freely and rollickingly as though they were talking to a friend who loves you.  Mentally (at least three or four times a day) thumb your nose at all know-it-alls, jeerers, critics, doubters."

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Novels in Hiding

Novels in Hiding

In one of the first English novels, Pamela, by Samuel   Richardson, the heroine is chased from room to room by the lord of the manor, Sir Something or Other.  She locks herself in a closet to write letters to her dear parents about her narrow escapes.  The subtitle of the book is Virtue Rewarded.

 It’s been forty years since I’ve read the book. I remember that it is an “epistolary novel” and that I thought that a closet was a closet, a place where clothes are hung, shoes on a floor that  always needs dusting, maybe a shelf above the clothes pole where sweatshirts are  stored or a stack of jeans.  I didn’t think of  a closet  as merely a small private room, and  in Pamela’s case, one with a desk and a lock on the door.

When the term “coming out of the closet” was first used, my  impression was that the person had been hiding in a metaphorical clothes closet, like a frightened child.

 I notice now that “closet” has moved to a general reference to any kind of secret life:  a closet drinker, or racist, or, ironically, a closet homophobe.  The term implies something about yourself that you have been afraid to acknowledge.

This past week I have encountered three closet novelists; that is, three people who  have written novels, shown them to no one--or very few-- left them on a shelf or in a box for years; in one woman’s case, for twenty-five years.

I am in awe of them.  I applaud them.  They have written  books! Probably there are more closeted novelists out there, but I think there are even more  souls like me, who have kept their desire to write closeted year after year, in the dark, behind the winter coats.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

A Poem about Not Writing Poetry


A  Poem about Not Writing Poems

Coaxing a poem down from a tree,
out of the dog house.
Luring a poem into a car
out from behind its mother’s skirt.
Pushing a poem onto a stage
into the pool.
Hunting a poem nestled beneath the chemise
curled on a rock.
Gunning down a desperate poem trapped in a canyon,
sandstone cliffs rising a thousand feet.
A rock slide blocks the getaway.
The poem cries out, “They’re coming to get me!
I hear the thunder of hooves.
The ground shakes.
They ride closer and closer.
My palms sweat.
My heart pounds."

The leader of the poem posse says,
“Well, Tom, put away your pistol.
that one died of fright.”

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

I will be Finally Writing When...



I will be Finally Writing when I have the externals right.  The pen must be a Precise V5 extra fine and I need a box of them available before I can begin.   The desk must be the correct height and the chair comfortable but not too comfortable.  There has to be a window and the window has to have a view of nature, but it can’t be a view of things I need to do.  I need coffee.  I need to weigh the right amount. I may need a facelift.  I need to have everyone in my life busy and happy, not too close but not too far away.  I need to know what I’m going to write before I begin writing  and to know that it will be not just good but great.  I concede it may take several drafts to get there.  I am realistic, you know.
I need to be free of any anxiety about how to get this great piece published.  I just need to be assured that it will happen without my having to do anything.  I need to know that what I say will be original and  profound.  I won’t need a facelift before I’m Finally Writing.  That’s ridiculous.



Friday, June 10, 2011

On Writing: Tough Love from Stephen King

"You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair--the sense that you can never completely put on the page what's in your mind and heart.  You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names.  You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world.  Come to it any way but lightly.  Let me say it again:  you must not come lightly to the blank page.


I'm not asking you to come reverently or unquestioningly; I'm not asking you to be politically correct or cast aside your sense of humor (please God you have one).  This isn't a popularity contest; it's not the moral Olympics, and it's not church.  But it's writing, damn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner.  If you can take it seriously, we can do business.  If you can't or won't, it's time for you to close the book and do something else.

Wash the car, maybe."

      from On Writing, A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

I want a writing group and I want it bad-ly

Thought du jour.  How do I turn this blog into a writing group?  I want support.  I want commiseration.  I'll figure it out.  Quid pro quo.  I'll support you, too.  I'll cheer you on.  I know there are online writing groups, just like there are online AA groups and online Weight Watchers.

So, dear imaginary friends, I have to say that I have been staying at it.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Getting the habit of writing

I recently read that it takes twenty-one days to develop a habit.  Today is my fourteenth day--writing something, working on something.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Writing While Getting a Pedicure

Does jotting  thoughts in a small orange Rhodia notebook while getting a  pedicure count as Finally Writing?  Okay, that is a rhetorical question.  I don’t want to get distracted by equivocation.  For example, you might reply, “ Does writing ‘Wash Me’ with your finger on a the dusty rear window of a dope dealer’s Hummer parked in front of Ukiah Natural Foods count as Finally Writing?”  This is not a conversation.  This is me with a renewed determination to fill those spaces of time when I am sitting, hands free, with a pen and a small notebook, items you can count on finding in my purse.

Right now, the habit of writing is my point.  It’s 6:20 p.m. in this nail salon in a small strip mall in the same part of town as Wall Mart and Staples.  There is only one other customer and she is about to leave.  If I had my camera, I’d take a picture of the rows of life-sized, flesh-colored plastic index fingers, bent like swan’s necks, showing all the design possibilities for acrylic nails.  They are grotesque, but you get used to it.

Here’s what is unusual.  A middle-aged Vietnamese man prepares to give me a pedicure.  In my experience, the guys stick to doing the acrylic nails, and they are usually younger than this man, who, with his wire rimmed glasses, seems scholarly.  I can imagine him working in the public library.  I watch him sitting in the low-backed black chair removing the dead skin from beneath each of my toenails, concentrating on the job with the same diligence as the women do.  He wears  surgical gloves, a white t-shirt beneath a white smock.  He could be a druggist.   Although his head is bent in the direction of my feet, he joins in the desultory conversation with the other employees—another man and three women.

If I had some kind of recording device I would capture the sounds they make.  I don’t have the slightest idea how a writer would put those alien phonemes into English.  I want to say, “It sounds like Navajo,” but what the hell does that mean?  I wonder what they are talking about.  Me?  Are they saying critical things about me?  Is he making some kind of comment about my feet?  Is my reaction  normal paranoia, a normal egotism:  it must be about me.

The other day I listened to an  NPR interview with a man who has written a book about what annoys us and why.  It turns out that other people talking on their cell phones in public is our number one annoyance.  No surprise.  The author had a scientific term for this specific kind of annoyance.  Basically, it’s annoying because we are only getting half of the communication.  For some reason, we are compelled to try to fill in the other side of the conversation.  I would say it’s the urge to make sense.  Literally, “create sense” of our experience.  That’s why I write, want to write, need to write:  Man’s (and Woman’s) search for meaning, and all that.

 Abruptly, the pedicurist stands up, nods at me, and leaves.  A Vietnamese woman in a plaid shirt with a button missing takes over.  She explains in fairly good English, “He’s going to the grocery store.”  Maybe that’s what they have been talking about, collaborating on a grocery list.  I don’t know and really don’t care.   I go back to writing, and then—I  don’t know why—I say to her, “You know something interesting.  When people laugh, it all sounds the same.”

She looks at me, nods in agreement, and says, “people only have three laughs, ‘ha, ha’; ‘ho, ho’; ‘hee, hee.’”  She repeats the three forms of laughter, motions for me to stand up and go sit at the nail-drying station.  That’s pretty much it.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Composing letters in my head: does that count?

I don't compose letters in my head to dead people, my father, for instance, but I am often writing a mental note to my son and it is always a combination of advice and remorse.

Monday, May 9, 2011

One helluva writer's block

Okay, a year and a couple of days have past since I made a half assed attempt at this blog, which would be the noble narrative or ignoble soap of me really writing.

So.  We'll see.