Sept 11, 2011

Today marks an infamous day in history. The tenth anniversary of 9/11.
After watching hours of footage all morning, I had to get away from the media that had made it all real again.
I spent the afternoon with the HWG discussing writing and getting away from the "real world" for a while.
It was my turn to lead today and one of the prompts I had given the others was "We have an aversion to loss of control, as much as we love it." Below is what I wrote, raw and untouched:

We have an aversion to loss of control, as much as we love it. In writing, our goal is to form images with the written word and allow the flow of those words to stream from our pens like water from a tap. But taps still control.

We edit, we doubt, we scratch out our thoughts mercilessly and do rewrite after rewrite.
We seek perfection.
We seek control.
We are afraid of writing, even those of us who love it.
Live it.
Yet we seek to let go and let the words, the universe, the stream of unconscious mind say its piece. And when we do finally give up, we find great things appear. Thoughts we never would have thought.
Associations that had never occured to us.
Intuitions that have sought out an eager fountain to flow from.
Thoughts that have travelled the universe seeking to be released and not controlled.
And we become better for giving them voice.
While the words we write may never become famous or find their way to the rest of the world, they have been given voice and were heard by us.
Even if only by us alone.

Keep on writing!

Unsettling Morning

I'm a little bit rattled today. Just found out a friend of my husband's had a major seizure yesterday while hiking with a friend. He nearly fell down a cliff into a river. Thankfully, an off-duty firefighter heard his friend's calls for help and he was taken - nearly two hours later - to hospital where he's been heavily sedated since.

For me, this brings up lots of memories of dealing with my dad's epilepsy and some of the seizures he had. Once he dumped a drink on our cat. Another time, he ate a feather. Yet another time, he tried to skin our dog alive. Then there were the times he tried to jump out of a moving car and when he nearly shot my brother. Not things a kid wants to remember so vividly.

I've tried to get him to write his memoirs about these incidents and how he finally came to have brain surgery. Trust me, what he ended up writing would have caused more law suits than they would have helped anyone with epilepsy. I think this will end up being a team endeavor in the end.

For now, however, I am sending prayers and hugs to our friend suffering in hospital and feeling just a little bit hollow today.

Interesting Interview

About a week ago, David Chesterton, a dear friend who is a fabulous artist and writer, asked if I'd be adverse to talking to a writer from In the Hills Magazine. Anthony Carnovale was writing an article about local writers and had asked who David knew. I got an email from Anthony a couple days ago and met with him this morning.

Anthony Carnovale is a high school teacher who "teaches to eat and lives to write." He has a great blog at http://anthonycarnovale.wordpress.com/  We talked about the article he is writing as well as how to promote writing in our small town and get more kids involved and giving them an option aside from grafitti and vandalizing our streets. His first book focused on bullying and has gained attention from local high schools.

Meeting Anthony made me excited to get back to writing. Summer, with vacations and keeping the kids busy, hasn't been conducive to getting a lot of writing done. Fall, which is usually my New Year, looks brighter and more flexible. I am able to schedule writing time and push aside some of the usual obligations that creep in and clog up my calendar. For this fall, my priority will be polishing and submitting my novel The Bookstore Lady to my agent. Priority number two is editing on the next novel Date with a Dead Guy.

What will I do between editing, working and raising the kids? What I always do.

I write.

The Unveiling

Okay, folks, here it is! My new website is up and running for the whole world to see. All that is left to add is some artwork! My artwork!

Not a lot to write about this week. I've been busy helping a friend paint and getting in some walks with the kids. I've had very little opportunity to write - aside from a few lines here and there. Today being Sunday, I think I may have to sit down and work on a work-in-progress. My real editing will begin once the kids go back to school and I have the house to myself. Peace. Quiet. In the meantime, I'll putter with other things.

I'm planning to take a course or two this fall, depending on what I can get into, and taking my Reiki Level II at the end of September. I also plan to return to Headwaters Writers' Guild meetings as of Aug 28. I am looking forward to getting back to prompt writing, which is how I wrote a few of my books. One prompt at a time.

In case you've been looking for us, I understand the HWG website is temporarily down. We are rebuilding to become better than ever!

Enjoy the rest of your summer!

A Break from Reality

I haven't updated my blog lately since I've been away on vacation and away from wi-fi and all chances to access the internet. I missed it for the first few days. After a week, it was kind of a blessing. No writing, no emails, no phone calls...

What I did do was take my mind off everything but the important things - my family. We spent the past two and a half weeks hiking, visiting literally hundreds of family members at three different reunions, and taking pictures until my batteries all died. Great times, great sights, great memories.

This is one of my favourite photos. My husband took it of me sitting on the top of Bear's Hump in Waterton National Park. After all the problems with my leg and back over the past few months, my goal was to climb the trail - 1km straight up the side of a mountain. I won't lie, it was bloody hard. It took a lot of focus and pushing, but I made it! I went and bought a cozy sweatshirt to celebrate.

We arrived home Saturday night and ordered pizza then I lay in bed, snuggled with the cats who'd missed us horribly, and planned out what I need to do the next two months to get my book ready for my agent Dawn. It's not a short list. I have a lot of things to prepare for my writing career, but, like climbing Bear's Hump, all I need to do is focus and push myself to get it all done.

Then maybe I'll get myself another sweatshirt...

Moving Forward while Looking Back

I'm one of those people who can't normally walk and chew gum at the same time. Easy remedy, I don't chew gum. Seriously. But I'm also one of those people who tend to look backward while trying to move ahead. More than once, I've walked into a wall. Literally.

I had my birthday this week, 43 years of walking into walls and being unable to chew gum.
But I can write. Lots of times, I am guilty of looking back at old manuscripts and thinking "But I liked it then, why should I change it?" Growth, for one. Every year of our lives we grow. Not just physically--vertically or horizontally--but in more subtle ways. Maturing, becoming more discerning and we find that as we age, we may outgrow things we once took for granted. Friendships change, careers change even our outlook on life changes.

The one thing I have noticed about my past is that I have very few photos of myself, which was made very clear when my agent asked for one. I really had to search. I'm the one who takes pictures, not the one mugging for the camera. In my quest for publication and "getting my book out there" this will have to change and I'll have to do some mugging.

Another thing I have to change: I need to build a website.
That will come in the fall once I have "more time" so stay tuned!

Becoming Real

As a break from kids, editing and such, I went out tonight in search of two of my least favorite things: a new bathingsuit and shoes. That's right. I hate shoes. Shocking, me being a woman and all. I'm not sure what the hang up is. I keep the shoes that I like right up until they fall off my feet. Literally. The flipflops I'm currently wearing have been chewed by my cat, squished from many miles of walking and have lost what little bling they had. Frankly, they're disgusting. But I love them.

Novels, for better or worse, I have a tendency to keep around as long as my shoes. I try them on, like them and play with them until they either fall apart or . . . or they go off to an agent to be published. Today, I'm playing. Creating character lists and picking up on little things--quirks or omissions--that I hadn't noticed before. I'm also working on a more coherent synopsis and, last but not least, the novel itself.

The Bookstore Lady began as a silly dream about a cat four years ago. Slowly, writing meeting by writing meeting, I have created a novel that I have reincarnated so many times I've lost track. I still love it, for better or worse, and believe in both the story and the characters I created. I have enjoyed working with my characters so much that they already appear in three more novels. Possibly a fourth. Stay tuned for more on that!

Tomorrow, I'll be back at the grind. Editing, working on the things I need to send my agent and trying to find the elusive bathingsuit that doesn't make me look like a wanna-be teenager or a woman twice my age.

Have a great summer!