NAMES AND PLACES

It is important to say the names of who we are, the names of the places we have lived, and to write the details of our lives.

"I now live in sunny (usually) San Diego County, California and, since I can not live in my beloved South, I am happy here. For five years, I lived in an Alpine-type village in the California mountains. I walked the streets of that small place in all the lovely seasons--which I miss each year. I have lived in the desert and in the Central Valley, the bread basket of the West. There are some of these places, like the South, that I still long for in an almost hidden part of my heart.

We all have lived; our moments are important. This is what it is to be a writer. A writer must say yes! to life, to all of life. So what if we're middle-aged, slightly overweight, and color our hair to cover the gray? We are also individualists, women with a lot to offer the ones around us, and the world.

There are so many "no's" surrounding us. We, as female writers, must find how to assert the positive realities of our lives, but also accept things as they are--for example, the fact I can't reside where I most desire. If we can do this, we will have the capability to create writing most satisfactorially, out of these loose threads of our existance.

Remember to name the places you call special.

ORIGINAL DETAILS

One of the best pieces of advice I was ever given was to use original details in my writing.

Life is so rich. I can write down those real details into my scenes and hardly need to create any others. Really? Not true in all cases. If I only use those details I know first hand from my own experiences, my writing may sound rigid. I need to make up or create some to give my writing more believability.

I love the South I was born in. I have been told I write with a Southern voice which thrills me. If I asked myself why I choose this setting again and again, part of the reason is probably because I feel I know the details--or can make them up with some authority. I know the people there, how they talk, react, and the emotions they show--or don't. I can write about them and the places they live because they are me. And I don't think I would do too well writing about other places. For example,if I have just been to New Orleans for a visit of nostalgia on a heat-filled, dripping August afternoon, stopped to have boiled crayfish and a Jax beer at the Magnolia Bar on St. Charles Street, I'm not going home and write about some off-beat bar in Chicago.

Where are the details?

Be aware of the details around you, but don't be self-conscious. You will naturally take in your environment; later you will be able to sit at your desk and bring these recollections to the screen in a positive way.

OBSESSIONS

Have you ever made a list of your obsessions? You think you have none? There are many? We all have them and they change and grow, or fall off and others take their place. Some are, thankfully, forgotten but there are some we should embrace.

Writers always wind up writing about these obsessions whether in nonfiction articles or essays, or giving these characteristics to one of our characters. Things that haunt us; incidents we can't forget; dreams or hopes or pain we carry--our minds going over them again and again, unwilling to release them.

What are my obsessions? Writing. Reading. Traveling. Politics in an election year. Christmas. Attempting to get everything right. Once I obsessed with hiding the fact I was an abused wife, wanting to protect the illusion that we were an okay family, needing to keep my job, not wanting to admit that I needed to get out of the marriage and get a life. This is an extreme example of obsession but, if you look at this, there is nothing in existence that we can not be obsessed about.

Obsessions do have power in our lives--and the lives we create in our stories. We can harness this power in both instances. Are our characters obsessed with each other, or a crime that happened years ago? Do we have people, instances, or something in our lives that could be considered an obsession? For example, I don't consider myself whole unless I write something each day, and am obsessed with keeping the freedom to do that writing. Don't get between me and my computer, anyone!

Now that's obsession.

FREE YOUR MIND

Don't "make" your mind do anything. We are told to sit in our chair and wait for the muse to arrive, but what we usually do, if we will admit it, is sit there, hands on the keyboard, willing or making ourselves write--something, anything. We have this fear of not putting something on that darned screen so we "strain our brain" to make writing happen.

Maybe this has its place in our scheme of writing, but it is not always the best avenue for our creative minds to drive down. More often than not, we should simply get out of the way and let creativity happen. Listen to what is going on in our head. Record our thoughts, even though they make seem wildly rambling, and let our mind roll along at its own pace. If we do what Julia Cameron says, get up each morning and do our "morning papers" or writing practice, most of us will find our groove.

Our minds leap around. If we allow it to leap, our writing will probably do the same. Try it. If your mind is like mine, it will jump, hop, skip from one thought to the other. Each thought will lead to the other. Write down as much of these thought experiences as you can; notes of our thoughts will lead us to writing that we never thought possible.

Let your mind run wild. And enjoy the adventure.

DISCIPLINE WHEN YOU WRITE

There are times when you have to beat your lazy self into submission. There is always a part of the makeup of we writers that hits those times when we don't want to put seat to the chair and pen to paper. We'd rather play.

I haven't been playing but have found my injury and pain has curtailed the drive to write. I think my muse has been hijacked. I realize we can't always control this urge to be nonproductive but I am putting myself on a guilt trip. So I have tried to do something I teach writers to follow: take up my notebook and write this resistance out of my system. As I always preach, I plan to allow five or ten minutes to these voices who have nothing to do with what I should be writing--maybe work on my next book, write a short story for an online site, a new poem for my critique group, or sketch out another children's story. (If I worked on all of these, even bits and pieces, my notebook would certainly not be empty.)

Two friends and I have started a new snail-mail writer's group. We keep in touch in between submissions to each other (a newsletter from each of us to each other)by email and in a short while have already created a good bond for helping each other with our writing and our lives. I don't like groups where they expect you to be perfect or to always be striving for an agent or a market for your bestseller. I also don't enjoy groups that tear the offered writings into little pieces word by word but, on the other hand, I don't want someone to always hold back with critiques or pat me on the back with a "wonderful everything" proclamation either.

But I need to write, as do you. I need to find my way back to the demand on my mind and heart to create. And that takes descipline--and maybe more than one trick. I can tell myself I only have a certain time each day to write so I can't fool around and waste one minute of it. In other words, I should set a writing/working routine.

I read once that every writer should try to fill one of the 80-word spiral notebooks each month. That's a mountain for me--not because I can't do it but because I writein so many notebooks--writing, morning glories, quotes, etc. I need to stick to a open-ended notebook for writing anything and everything that comes to mind.

Whatever it takes, you and I should descipline ourselves to write something--dare I say somewhat useful--on a reasonable schedule. Only then can we continue to call ourselves writers.

LIFE CAN BE A SURPRISING OUTING

Two weeks ago, I tripped on a sidewalk pushed up by tree roots, and "smushed" my knee. I am such an active person this has been a pain in more ways than the one in my leg that nothing seems to aleviate. Taking Tylonal, Motrin, Advil and combinations of each is like eating candy, but the pain doesn't go away. When I was in Urgent Care on the day of the accident, the doctor urged me to head back if I saw any signs of swelling in my ankle.

I have been doing everything as ordered: the ice backs four or five times a day, elevatated foot while sitting or when sleeping, and walking around with a cane in the house, a few ventures out with a cane, and had spent the first three days after the accident flat on my back with foot elevated above my heart. I saw my physician a week later because the swelling of the knot filled with blood wasn't going down and I wanted assurance I was doing all I could do to heal. She did some tests, checked for torn muscles or tissue, and told me to walk more as inactivity could cause blood clots also.

That's when the ankle and foot began to turn purple/black. Then, almost two weeks after my fall, two days ago, the ankle began to swell.I headed for the doctor this morning; my physician couldn't see me but one I knew from a prior appointment did. He immediately sent me to the lab for a special blood test. I waited 30 minutes for the result and cringed when it came back positive. For what? Could be a blood clot, or constriction of the veins. I would have to drive 30 miles to the hospital and have a vascular scan.

No blood clots. No blood poisoning. Just very severe, deep trauma to the entire leg. The swelling is caused because the blood from my "knot" is slowly draining out and downward. The doctor showed me where the discoloring is getting lighter in most other places and that was a good sign of the blood seeping into my system. I am to continue the ice packs, do 60% leg elevation and 40% walking. I am to definitely continue sleeping with my leg elevated. And it may be weeks (yipes!) before my leg/pain/swelling is gone.

So hope you will understand that my writing time has been somewhat curtailed. But I hope to drag this laptop across my knees and keep up this blog.

I'll be back tomorrow.

TEACHERS CAN DO THAT TO YOU

So you have always wanted to be a writer. You knew that when you were how old? Did others encourage you--your family, your classmates, your teacher? If they didn't, ignore their voices in your head. If you have the desire to write, you can nurture that desire, and your talent will grow with practice. Tap that ability just beneath the surface and the flow will come through for you.

No matter what you want to write, give it a try. Contrary to what teachers have always told you, you don't have to write about what you know. That path destroys curiosity, the urge to learn, and the need to grow. Hosw dull our writing would become if we never searched for something new.

Writers and school students rush into classes. That's not a bad thing; it helps us to learn more about the craft. But sometimes teachers are not really good for us. They long to, and often do, control the muses.

Public schools can take a natural poet and story writer, have them read "real" literature, discuss the virtues of famous writers,and embrace it. We don't have to step away from the warmth of our work, or not so famous others, in order to understand.

Stay close to the heart of your writing. Know what you want to say to the world of readers--and write it.

HEARTS OPEN, IDEAS WELCOME

The trick to writing is to keep your heart open; eyes are good too, but your emotions are what makes your writing sing. We who write often, know when we sit down each time, no matter how much we have written in the past, this day on something new is the first time all over again. And our heart has to be in the process.

If you're looking for ideas, all of the topics, scenes, characters, and stories are all around you. Look around the room you are sitting in, for example. I'm sure you will see something that will trigger an idea, or lead you to get on the Internet and research something you've seen until the essay or story begins to form.

Go out onto the street. Who lives in the area? What do they do for a living? How many children do they have, and can you recall something you've seen or heard them do that might give you an idea? Or go on a trip and keep notes. To a park--watch the children on the slide, or the homeless person digging through trash cans for cans to recycle.

Write about anything and everything you know. If you are curious about a subject, or hold a nostalgic memory in your heart, seek more information on the subject matter and share the story with the reading world.

In matters of the heart, or ideas your cherish, you are the expert, even if you've only been in this idea mode for a few minutes. Write!

TOPICS FROM THE MIND

Sometimes we sit down to write at our appropriated time (if we are so lucky to be able to schedule such time)and cannot think of a thing to write. I know many so-called experts say we should just start typing, even if it is to say "I can't think of anything to write." I try to do something different.

Remember those notebooks I tell you to always have handy--a large one around the house and a small one in your purse, briefcase or backpack? You should have snippets in them: there should be notes on books, quotes, lines of dialolgue, beginnings of stories, anything that might be used one day to write about. Take one of those ideas and type it onto the screen, or write it at the top of a page. Write.

Maybe this snippet will elude to a flash of memory. You might write poetry, a short story, the beginnings of a novel, maybe even a personal essay. Anything can help you activate your writing, such as my memory of the scene out my kitchen window in a home in Bakersfield, California:

My favorite light comes in through my kitchen window during the spring mornings. The Chinaberry trees I planted as bare twigs have grown so tall they throw morning shade over the window, leaving no glare anymore.

The trees branches are long, the tiny leaves are lacy, and the shape of the tree is that of an umbrella. My husband thought I was a bit mad to pick these "sticks" out at the local Home Depot and plant three of them in a row on the east side of the house. I chose them for several reasons, one of which was the fact that they grew quickly and our new home was starving for anything to block out the hot San Joaquin Valley sun. Another reason was that these Chinaberry trees brought back childhood memories of shade made in that Texas yard where I had first found my love for capturing my life with words. And, in Texas, another name for the tree is an umbrella tree, which is what these trees in my yard looked like.

Beyond the tree I could see colorful beds of Sweet William, red and yellow cannas, pink and burgandy oleanders, yellow Carolina jasmine, sweet honeysuckle, and the white cups of the calla lilies. The soft morning light seemed to draw the color and scents into the room.

When the sun shifts to strike the stained glass and crystal suncatchers hanging in the kitchen window, and casts prisms of primary colors over the walls, countertops, and floors, I am so pleased that a season ago I chose to plant those twigs that became a shelter for birds, soft breezes, and childhood memories.