Dawn is bringing in a smoke grey sky and I’m working on my monthly column which is about keeping hope alive while you’re waiting for your next book deal. I’m heading up to Olympia by train later this morning to teach a workshop at Evergreen College and snow is in the forecast for tomorrow in the Valley and has been falling in the mountains and Columbia River Gorge.

We’ve all heard the old joke about parents telling their children “When I was a boy (girl) I had to walk five miles to school…..” or fill in the blank on some other hardship of life back in the day. When I was a girl we usually walked to school in northern Wisconsin, although we’d sometimes took the bus which stopped about three blocks away. Our school was about three miles away and as I imagine winter mornings back then and the piercing cold, every day was a battle or engagement with winter. Weather has changed in my hometown, but back then school was not closed until it was 40 below. Throughout the long months of winter it was almost always below zero, but we were out in the cold anyway.

The winter of my childhood was a white, white place with snow piled over my shoulders often. Snow was a constant, arriving early, often in late October or early November and staying late—sometimes still falling in April. As an adult I can still remember some memorable snow falls such as one New Year’s eve in the mid 1980swhen I catered a party and a blizzard dropped about five feet and we piled out of our van at regular intervals to dig out as we struggled to reach home.

For most of my life the sound of winter was snow plows lumbering past and shovels scraping away at the drifts and the songs that were played at the skating rink where I visited every night after dinner. Those songs still play in the recorder embedded in memory and at the oddest times one will replay, the melody traveling across the years. I lived in Milwaukee in the 1970s and 80s and the city operated an Armada of snow removal vehicles and would also attach plows to their garbage trucks. When a blizzard came into town, it was met with a kind of Normandy invasion tactical removal plan.

So imagine my surprise when I moved to the Northwest and snow happened. Few people here know how to drive in snow, and when the roads become white, people panic and the town looks like a giant bumper car game. The city doesn’t have the equipment they need to deal with it. And then they spread sand and gravel to combat snow and ice—which mostly makes a huge mess and doesn’t do much to combat the conditions.

So when it snows here I stay home, out of the fray. I cook soup and brew pots of tea and turn up the heat and go out walking in it, savoring the magic of a white world. Because it never lasts long when it lands here, in fact, is usually washed away by rain a day or two later. But I think all writers need to spend time in the places or weather or activities that made them feel alive as a kid. For me, it’s about snow and creeks, lakes, forests.

These days the sound of winter is rain and it’s soothing and sometimes when I awake in the night I just lie there and listen until it lulls me back to sleep. I have been trying to study some aspect of Buddhism every night before I fall asleep. In a book I’m currently reading the first lines are: The purpose of life is to be alive. I sort of hate to repeat such an obvious statement but it seems to me that many people think it’s to collect stuff or wield power. Writers get to live twice by writing about all they see and know and feel and imagining worlds they’ve created on the page.

So here’s what I think: look at the times and places you feel most alive and return there again and again. Show up at the page engaged and aware and crazy about living. Stay with the page tolerating the frustration, the uneasiness, the challenge. And feed your writing with the adventure of life in all its parts, including snow.

“A villain must be a thing of power, handled with delicacy and grace. He must be wicked enough to excite our aversion, strong enough to arouse our fear, human enough to awaken some transient gleam of sympathy. We must triumph in his downfall, yet not barbarously nor with contempt, and the close of his career must be in harmony with all its previous development.” Agnes Repplier

It’s been a day of working on my revision and short projects, then during a respite in the weather I tackled plants in the backyard, hacking and trimming, hauling out piles of dead and soggy branches. Then I whipped together batch of vegetable soup and visited the grocery store for more supplies for the Thanksgiving feast. I returned home and went out walking at dusk and the sky was a fright show of clouds dipped in gloom, all hanging low; the moon playing peek-a-boo amid the clouds; and damp seeping past my skin as my breath clouded the air. The recent rains have washed through here and the creek has spread wide and puddles are everywhere. I was walking past the creek when I happened to look into the water and spotted a great blue heron in the water just below me.

Now, it seems that every time that I’m thinking deep, worried thoughts that I spot the heron. Tonight he wasn’t moving much, merely gazing around, seeming unbothered by me as I played statue nearby. Part of me wanted to scream or make a sudden movement so that he’d soar aloft with all the grace that this world contains. But I kept still until he slipped downstream and I crept around in the park trying to spot him, but he became invisible in the gloom. And after chatting with a neighbor I continued on, touched by hope and something unnamable.

I returned home and flipped on NPR and heard that the National Endowment of the Arts has released a new study about the decline of reading in the country. The deciding factor in who reads and who doesn’t is not socio-economic factors, but rather how many books are found in a family’s home. Then Alice Brock who is now a painter of “Alice’s Restaurant” fame came on and talked about her philosophy of cooking and life and talked about how culinary mistakes lead to discovery and how she had no regrets walking away from her restaurant because now she paints and lives in a place she loves. Then a story about record numbers of deserters in our much-troubled military.

But I want to talk about villains because when I was out walking and all through this day, my mind has been percolating on the topic. I’m still in the thick of revising my Bad Guy book for my Writer’s Digest editor and I’m trying to restructure four chapters that cover villains so that the logic has a different progression. When a villain is in a story as with a monster, his presence capitalizes on our fear of death and being vulnerable prey. If you study ancient myths you’ll find a pantheon of them, in varied and hair-raising forms. They will showcase humankind’s basest desires and passions. You’ll find monsters that cause us to shiver and demons that haunt our nightmares, but you’ll also find ordinary folks who took a wrong turn somewhere and landed on the wrong side of morality.

The ancient Greeks were famous for their bad guys. There were the three Gorgons, three monstrous sisters whose glance could turn men into stone. The most famous of the Gorgons is Medusa who was once beautiful but Athena transformed into a hideous visage complete with a head of snakes instead of hair. In fact, she was so odious, that she was often depicted on Greek armor to frighten their enemies. The Greek culture also brought us sea nymphs like Calypso who imprisoned Odysseus, sea monsters and sirens who lured sailors to their deaths with song and wiles, Hydra, the many-headed snake killed by Hercules, fire-breathing oxen, the Enchantress Circe who changes Odysseus’ men into pigs.

From the Greeks we can learn to create imaginative foes that torment our heroes and simple people trying to get by in life. From the stories found in all cultures we can learn that fate dishes out harsh lessons and trials, that we humans sometimes need superhuman strength to navigate the perils of living and that as often as things can right, they can more often go wrong.

When you use a villain in a story it’s because the story needs evil deeds and intentions and no one else will do. As a storyteller you have many choices about your villain—do you make him or her sympathetic, or cold as an iceberg; sane or at least normal-seeming, or a raving lunatic. Is your villain young or old, attractive or ugly, benign to those who don’t know better, or beastly.

There are several traits that villains all share—they enjoy their villainy and are often motivated by power, revenge, or profit. They are anti-life or anti-social, and have some special form of intelligence. Stupid people make lousy villains just like in real life because they’ll get caught. A villain is not someone you can reason with or dismiss. They make conflict visible. And of course you want your villain rampaging, pillaging and swashbuckling through your pages. Or perhaps he’s the quiet, spooky type. With a cold blue stare that chills your blood. Wait a minute, that cold blue stare has been done before.

Since most of have been raised on Disney movies, Marvel comics, Grimm’s Brother fairytales and the like, it seems to me that most writers need to unlearn what a villain is. And travel toward a character that is much more nuanced, complex, vital, and exciting. I’m writing these chapters because it seems also that many writers need to think hard about the motivation and the why of villains. To think as the villain thinks, feel as the villain feels instead of imagining him or her as some monstrous Other. Or as Elmore Leonard once said, “All villains have mothers."

I awoke too early with rain spattering the roof and have spent a guilty hour reading articles on-line. Sky as gloomy as a graveyard at midnight. Last night I attended a brief workshop by Ken Kenyon who is a science fiction author. Her latest book is Bright of the Sky. The workshop was about dialogue and Kay made some great points about the emotional shadings of dialogue.

It seems to me that there are several aspects of storytelling that signal to readers that they’re in the hands of a competent author. One of the loudest signals [think-car-alarm-shrieking, geese-honking-in-a-huge, frantic-V-overhead, leaf-blower-loud] comes from how you handle dialogue. And too many beginning writers are too ham fisted. You know, I’ve never used ham fisted in a sentence before….but I think I’ll leave it in there anyway.

There are a few things to keep in mind about dialogue: it is conversation’s greatest hits, meaning it’s not the same as everyday speech—it is compressed, distilled and at the same time amped up and leaves out the boring or mundane parts of life. The other thing is that people rarely say what they mean in fiction. (You might argue in real life either) When they do it’s called “on the nose” dialogue and it’s generally to be avoided, although at times it can be appropriate. On the nose dialogue reveals a writer at work, trying to force information on the reader. It’s often obvious, clumsy and lacking in nuance. It’s a character laying out an obvious objective, emotion, or agenda. When my students read their on the nose dialogue out loud is always sounds flat and forced. Sometimes children will speak on the nose, or an arresting officer might use it, or a drill sergeant might use it. But most of the time dialogue is a tricky, slippery device. Repeat after me: fiction isn’t life, it is artifice.

For example, if a couple meets for a date and the male character wants to seduce the female character he might tell her she looks beautiful or lean in and stroke her arm. He might ask her about her hobbies and if she’s patched up things with her best friend. He’ll want to show interesting, caring. Unless he’s an idiot, he wouldn’t say, “Let’s have sex later.” No, he’d dance around this intention with seductive comments and flattery and banter. Anything but “let’s do it baby.”

Instead, when talking on the page or in a film, people should have agendas, especially hidden agendas, hidden emotions and vulnerabilities. They avoid, change the subject, struggle for words, struggle to control emotions. Dialogue is also often about a power exchange or power struggle. These machinations are all cloaked via dialogue and also expressed in subtext, the river of emotions that lies beneath ordinary speech and actions.

The results should be tension and possibly conflict. In fact, nearly every dialogue exchange should contain tension, which, of course, includes sexual tension. Good dialogue crackles and sparkles and lunges at the reader. It contains the breath of life, it conveys characters’ emotions and personalities; it pushes the story forward. It’s revealing, but often not too revealing. Good dialogue happens up close so that it’s immediate, intimate and sometimes awkward. So here are a few tips about writing dialogue:

In a scene ask yourself what the character is afraid to express or is hiding.

Collect witty comebacks and one-liners. You never know when they might fit into a story.

Avoid having characters state emotions—such as “I’m angry.” Or, “I’m sad.” Wiggle, slither around these obvious emotions. Or show characters acting out the emotion or struggling to hide the emotion in body language.

Avoid asking characters questions that they can answer with a yes or no.

If your characters are chit-chatting and the conversation doesn’t move the story forward, cut it.

Avoid characters talking to themselves out loud unless they’re mentally ill.

Avoid speeches, sermons, soliloquies, and other windbaggery. If for some reason a character must talk for more than a few sentences, try to break it up. Generally dialogue is used to speed up the pace.

Avoid having characters repeat what another character has just said.

Avoid having characters discuss things they both know or is too obvious—“As you know Bob, ever since Mattie dumped you, you’ve been a mess and your life has been going downhill.”

Remember that much of dialogue is unfinished—it gets interrupted, someone refuses to answer, someone blusters instead of giving a direct answer, someone trails off.

Be careful in revealing backstory through dialogue—it works best when the characters are strangers or new acquaintances. When old friends chat about the past it can sound false.

Read your work out loud so you can determine if your characters all sound alike.

Avoid attributions with adverbs tacked on—she said enthusiastically, Tom said crossly.

The more time you spend knowing and developing your character, the more the character’s dialogue will come forth instead of you forcing it onto the page.

Ask yourself what emotions you’re trying to generate in readers in specific scenes.

Don’t try to convey too much information in one dialogue exchange.

Break up dialogue with small action, mannerisms, gestures.

Use dialect with extreme caution.

Less is more.

The Sunday morning sky is brushed with clouds but mostly blue. The promised rain has never arrived and Veteran’s Day has come around again. There are now three men still alive who served in World War I. One will place a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier today while Bush hides from reality at his Texas "ranch." Does everyone know there are no cattle at Bush's ranch? But I digress...Veterans Day first began as Armistice Day on Nov. 11, 1919, to celebrate the first anniversary of the end of World War I. Congress passed a resolution in 1926 for an annual observance, and Nov. 11 became a national holiday beginning in 1938. Eisenhower signed legislation in 1954 to change the name to Veterans Day to honor all those who served in all American wars. Remembrances with parades and speeches and ceremonies will take place across the across the country today

But it seems that many will ignore this day besides noting that their mail will not be delivered tomorrow. I’m in the category that feels the constant sadness and unease of knowing that more people in uniform will die this week as did the six men who were ambushed in Afghanistan on Friday. They were returning from a meeting with village elders and eight U.S. soldiers were wounded in the ambush and three Afghan soldiers were killed also. In case you’re deluded and believe that things in Afghanistan or Iraq are getting better, their deaths made 2007 the deadliest for the U.S. military serving there since the 2001 invasion, mirroring the record U.S. toll in Iraq.

In 2006 we had 23.7 million veterans in the U.S. I wonder what would happen if they all would rise up to demand the end of the occupation in Iraq? Would anyone listen?

Meanwhile, last night I attended a LiveWire show with a friend. It’s a monthly radio show along the lines of Prairie Home Companion. The show had a literary theme last night and guests included Alexandra Fuller of Don’t Let’s go to the Dogs Tonight, Peter Segal of NPR’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me and Harry Shearer of Spinal Tap, Le Show, and The Simpsons. Shearer has a new song, Waterboardin U.S.A. that you might want to hear, a new novel Not Enough Indians about a town on the skids that forms a fake Indian tribe and builds a casino, and he’s on-line at www.mydamnchannel.com. You might want to check out their content because their business model sounds innovative ….. I bet after this writer’s strike more videos, shows will end up on-line.

Oh yes, and in yesterday's blog I forgot to mention that Mailer was always unapologetically progressive and anti-war.

Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing. Norman Mailer

Dawn is breaking revealing a sullen sky and what promises to be a weekend of rain. I woke up too early since I’m teaching today and heard the news that Norman Mailer is dead at 84 of renal failure. In recent years despite serious health problems and walking with two canes, he kept on writing.

His first novel The Naked and the Dead written when he was 25 after he was drafted into the army and served in the Philippines established him as a literary voice. He went on to write 40 novels and literary nonfiction, to cover politics and boxing, produce five films and win two Pulitzer prizes for The Armies of the Night in 1968 and The Executioner's Song in 1979.

Some of his work was great, some of it fairly dreadful, and at times his messy personal life including six marriages, drunken antics and brawling overshadowed his literary prowess. He had a public feud with Gore Vidal and other writers, hated the notion of women being liberated, smoked pot, made a bid to be the mayor of New York, was the co-founder of The Village Voice, and seemed to love his outspoken bad boy image.

But what I like to think about is how he loved the novel and how he possessed a distinct voice and style that was all his own and how Mailer kept on writing all these years. Even though he never used a computer—wrote everything longhand. In these days when so many writers are trying to crank out a 100-page screenplay or writing ad copy, he decried the current withering interest in the novel. When he was young, Mailer said, "fiction was everything. The novel, the big novel, the driving force. We all wanted to be Hemingway ... I don't think the same thing can be said anymore. I don't think my work has inspired any writer, not the way Hemingway inspired me."

He also said, “I don't think life is absurd. I think we are all here for a huge purpose. I think we shrink from the immensity of the purpose we are here for.”

The morning has brought fog to the region and the scene outside my window looks like the set of a horror movie. However, the sun will be back later and the fine weather continues. Despite the incredible weather, I’ve had politics on my mind lately and have been feeling particularly pessimistic and concerned about everything I see and hear. Mukasey’s confirmation seems a done deal and Musharraf’s antics in Pakistan are freaky.

Last night between a walk at dusk and getting ready to drive to my Qi Gong class I flipped on ABC Nightly News—something I probably do about twice a year. And the vision that was on the screen came from Pakistan and all the lawyers, dressed in their proper suits, being hauled away and arrested. Let’s think about this a minute. They’re not arresting thugs or terrorists. They’re arresting the people that understand the laws governing the country, who understand the fine points of their constitution.

So feeling grumpy I drove away listening to NPR on my car radio. They were relating a story about Johnny Cash being pardoned for a long-ago night in jail and then came a segment from their Vocal Impressions feature. And within moments my mood changed and I was pulled into the poetry of language and the beauty of the human imagination.

Vocal Impressions challenges NPR listeners to respond to a group of well-known voices and the emotions and sounds these evoke. Since January host Brian McConnachie has been asking listeners to describe in poetic language these impressions. The idea came to him after he asked his teen aged daughter what Ella Fitzgerald’s voice sounds like and she replied, “like diamonds dipped in caramel.”

When I talk to writers about editing and revising I remind them in their final drafts to add music—comparisons and metaphors and language that make the whole resonate. With that in mind, here is music from NPR listeners weighing in with these comparisons: On Morgan Freeman’s voice: "What rich river-bottom soil feels like" — Elizabeth Libby "A voice too tired to hurry and too powerful to slow down" — Andy Mullins

Marilyn Monroe’s voice: “A taffeta petticoat under a ball gown" — Nancy Julian

Truman Capote’s voice: "An exasperated raven with a tension headache" — Scott Lien

Patsy Cline’s voice: "The voice of the moon courting a shy earth" — Justin Balsley

Sean Connery’s voice: "The voice of God's more athletic brother who is home from college for the weekend." —- Kevin McGuire

Mick Jagger’s voice: "A box of chocolate with a spider in it" — Julianne Hurst Williams "Your annoying younger brother's annoying best friend the day after you had a surprisingly sexual dream about him" — Leslie Gurowitz

Eleanor Roosevelt’s voice: ""Julia Childs before she got into the cooking sherry" — Stephanie Miller "A swimming pool in late October" — Jessica Carlson
Barrty White’s voice:

Barry White's voice: "A waterfall of melted butter" — Brent Lamb, "Sun-warmed cat fur" — Victoria Lecuyer, "Deep need on a Saturday night" — Schubert Moore, "What you'd expect to hear when you put your ear up to an empty bottle of Viagra" — John Crotty

Pavarotti’s voice: "All the magnificent architecture that has yet to be built" — Olivia Linda, "The voice of every castrati crying out for heirs" — Charlene Rauch, "A newborn baby's first taste of air" — Jessica Carlson, "The upwelling of joy for no particular reason except that you're 17, it's spring and the universe is beautiful beyond bearing" — Judith Anderson

Pale skies and more good weather promised. I’ve been thinking about the concept of tribe his morning. I know there are probably lots of anthropological definitions of tribe having to do with kinship and pre-industrial societies. For many people the meaning of tribe has to do with the families they were raised in. In an essay about her mother-in-law that she wrote for More magazine Roxana Robinson wrote: …Your tribe is composed of the people who taught you everything: customs, ritual, language and behavior.” Robinson also muses about the idea of tribe in her lovely novel Sweet Water when her protagonist remarries and spends time with her new in-laws.

So while I recognize that my large family has shaped me, I’ve also been on a long search for my tribe. For years I’ve been talking about belonging to the tribe of writers. I’m proud of this membership, sure that the world needs our courage and insights and humor and musings and stories. That stories make the world go round especially these days when fewer and fewer cultures have an oral storytelling tradition.

I first had a strong sense of belonging to this tribe about ten years ago when I attended a reading by David Sedaris and Bailey White. The audience was gathered at a local college and as Sedaris and White read we all laughed and sighed and clapped and as I looked around at the crowd of engaged strangers, I thought, this is my tribe. I can still remember that thrill of recognition.

Last night I went to the Mississippi Studios for a gathering of local writers reading true stories. Well, actually one, of the stories was a lie, but that was another tale. The writers, Courtenay Hameister, Marc Acito, Chelsea Cain, Scott Poole, Stacy Bolt, Ryan White, Jim Brunberg were a varied group, although all shared a sharp and generous wit.

During the intermission I stood in line for the bathroom, then a glass of wine and chatted with people. And noticed how lively and interesting the crowd was. I rarely have heard so much laughter during an intermission, so much casual chatter among strangers. And when the last laugh died away, I left warmed as if I’d sat around a campfire, listening to the stories of my tribe, leaning in, close and safe.

Sky is turning a pale blue this morning and another day of Indian Summer glory is on its way. Last night I went out with a friend and when I came home I crawled into bed with the latest issue of The Sun. And I read the most amazing essay, Raven by Craig Childs. Childs writes about the wilderness and this piece is excerpted from The Animal Dialogues: Uncommon Encounters in the Wild. It “chronicles the desert ecologist’s intimate encounters with a variety of animal species in the American and Canadian West.” The book will be published in December and I’m planning on buying a copy and perhaps will also buy it for Christmas gifts.

Childs writes beautifully and in Raven, he follows a raven into a canyon. Here are the first few paragraphs, that I’m sure will whet your appetite for more:

“When the first raven came, it was alone, a piece of blackness laboring across a cold dawn sky. I, too, was alone, walking on a winter morning in southeast Utah, crossing a hard desert basin studded with towers of eroded rock. With nothing else but Jurassic sandstone to look at, the raven and I took an immediate interest in one another. The coal-colored bird turned its head midair, its power beak pointing at me like a librarian’s finger. I stopped and watched it go by.

It was a big bird, a sorcerer wearing sleek black robes, its two talons tucked against its body as if each grasped a pearl. It altered its path slightly, making a jog around me, its wings laid out as it banked twenty feet off the ground. When it swept in close, I said good morning to it. Startled by my voice, the raven veered away from me. Its wings beat loudly as it let a cough a sound, a surprised quork, and then flew back to wherever it was going.”

We then follow Childs and the raven into a canyon. Along the way we learn that ravens, or Corvus Corax, have the highest bird IQs along with others in the corvid family, crows, magpies, and jays. They can use tools such as sticks, can unzip backpacks and open ice chests. They hunk in packlike fashion and can follow a person’s gaze.

When Childs enters the canyon, he discovers that the raven is one of a crowd and that they don’t want him there. In fact, the birds swooped down at them and threw stones at him. He’s forced to back out of the canyon, but returns later with friends, one who is a raven talker. The group discovers why the canyon is being so fiercely guarded and readers learn that ravens also murder their own to maintain social order.

I cannot recommend this piece enough and am looking forward to buying Child’s book. The Sun Contributors page also notes that Childs lives in Colorado, and recently completed a descent in an uncharted river in Tibet, “180 miles of deep gorges, white water, and villagers aghast at his and his companion’s presence. He also enjoys long walks, the longest of which so far was 120 days in the Grand Canyon.” His books include House of Rain: Tracking a Vanished Civilization across the American Southwest and The Way Out: A True Story of Rain and Survival, Soul of Nowhere: Traversing Grace in a Rugged Land, Grand Canyon: Time Below the Rim with Gary Ladd.

At his website, www.houseofrain.com he writes: “My writing continues at a frenetic pace, the cab of my truck littered with receipts and envelopes scratched upon with illegible words. But this a mere byproduct, verbiage left over from experiences had on the land, raw encounters among mountain lions, boulders, water holes, and drifting thunderstorms.”

Foggy morning and rain is on the way today. We’ve had two glorious days of weather here, quintessential Indian Summer and it’s supposed to return tomorrow. The fourth day of the raging fires in southern California, a place normally known for its breezy, moneyed lifestyle. Now the place looks like the end of the world.

Novelist Raymond Chandler described the Santa Ana winds of southern California this way: “There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen.” Red Wind

It’s been awhile since I experienced the Santa Anas but yesterday I talked with a friend who lives in Brentwood and he described the nighttime winds blowing through as spooky. Because they are associated with high fire danger, particularly in the chaparral brush growing on the Southern California mountain slopes they’re called devil winds or devil's breath. They blow in from the Great Basin that lies between the Sierras and the Rockies from September through March and are thus dry and hot and troublesome. The weather prognosticators say that the winds are supposed to ease today, although they can whip up with the frenzy of a hurricane and yesterday at times the helicopters were grounded because of high winds. Normally they pummel through the canyons at 80 m.p.h. but during the recent firestorms that have decimated the region they’ve been clocked at up to 112 miles an hour.

It’s almost impossible to keep up with the stats, but San Diego County has been hit the hardest, the inferno has also hit the La Jolla Indian Reservation, Camp Pendelton, and about a dozen fires are raging. I-5 been closed, the fires have killed three, displaced about a 824,000 people, thousands who are holed up at Qualcomm Stadium, and destroyed or damaged at least 1,700 homes and businesses, and thousands of acres. Since the Civil War this is the largest forced displacement of Americans and the smoke from the fires are now reaching hundreds of miles into the Pacific.

We have heard over and over that the firestorms were simply too many, too hot and too mighty for the beleaguered fire crews. But here are two things to think about: why isn’t the mainstream media focusing on how most of these fires have been started by arsonists and how no one is talking about the California National Guard. In May a representative from the Guard noted that it was missing $1 billion in equipment such as trucks and radios because they were being used in Iraq or had never been replaced by the government.

You see when a Guard troop goes to Iraq or other countries the equipment doesn’t come home with them and the equipment for the Guard is funded by the Federal government. In March, the head of the National Guard told a congressional committee that units had on hand an average of about 40 percent of their required equipment and that rebuilding supplies to a proper level would require an extra $40 billion in funding. There are about 20,000 California National Guard troops and about 1500 fighting the fires. Does this mean the rest are in Iraq guarding Haliburton?

“When you’re doing you’re meant to do, you benefit the world in a unique and irreplaceable way. This brings money, friendship, true love, inner peace, and everything else worth having; it sounds facile, but it’s really true. Richard Nelson Bolles, he author of the perennial bests-seller What Color is Your Parachute? puts it this way: ‘Your mission is where your deep joy and the world’s deep hunger meet.” Martha Beck

The sky a pale blue and the small maple across the street has now slipped into its full autumn finery of scarlet. On Friday I arrived at the Oregon coast and as soon as I stepped out of the car into driving winds, I was aware that I was in the midst of a big storm system and that a whole new season had taken hold of the place.

On Thursday tropical storm Ling Ling swept into the region with high winds, knocking out power and toppling trees all the way up to Canada. When I walked out onto the beach on Friday evening I scarcely recognized the place. A small stream had completely changed course, the beach had shrunk to about half its normal size, and the deep sand banks leading up to the road were flattened out. But probably most surprising were the huge piles of bull kelp that were scattered everywhere. Bull kelp look like a long whip with a bulb at the end. On Friday night a family walked past me, four kids each trailing one leaving tracks in the sand. One pile of kelp was about ten feet long and four feet tall.

It was like a mad sculptor had stopped by dropping piles of abstract designs, Dada-like, against the wet sand and meanwhile, the outer the waves thundered at about 10 feet high.

Friday night I was awakened in the night three times by rain pelting the windows sounding like hail or pebbles. Most of my students drove in from Portland on Saturday morning and all had stories to tell about driving through the storm. One woman said she’d been through Hurricane Andrew and the storm was only a few notches lower in ferocity. Then all day the weather changed hour by hour with several periods of sunshine. By Sunday morning things had calmed down, the waves and most of the kelp piles swept back to sea.

I taught a workshop called A Vivid Vision. It’s about if you know/have a strong vision for your life you can move toward it with more ease and purpose. So a lot of the workshop was about excavating and exploring, dreaming dreams and imagining the future. There was a delightful young man in the workshop with his mother—I believe he was 17 and a senior in high school. I had the students write a list of things they love and first on his list was “women” and I couldn’t help but laugh harder than I have in weeks. The idea for this exercise is that you start incorporating more of what you love into your daily life. As Amy Tan once said, “Everyone must dream. We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming—well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate.”

I have been listening to Garrison Keillor’s storytelling for most of my adult life. Each morning his Writer’s Almanac delivers a poem in my email box. Each weekend that I’m home I tune in to some part of his weekend show, Prairie Home Companion. Sometimes the jokes are weak or the musicians don’t do much for me. But I keep coming back for Garrison’s dulcet voice weaving stories about a mythical place. I keep coming back for his gentle humor and because he gives me hope.

Lately I have also enjoyed his essays that appear in salon.com. Today’s piece is about a Sunday morning in a Baltimore church, his father, and how his father never knew him, H.L. Mencken and grace. And in the middle comes this passage:

“Now I'm an old, tired Democrat, sick of this infernal war that may go on for the rest of my life and in which more of our brethren will die miserably, both American and Iraqi. I'm sick of politics today, the cleverness and soullessness of it. I am still angry at Al Gore for wearing those stupid sweaters in 2000 and pretending he didn't know Bill Clinton, and I am angry at everyone who voted for Ralph Nader. I hope the next time they turn the key in the ignition their air bags blow up.”

Last night I was playing mahjongg with friends and our conversation led to this supposition: your spiritual beliefs and political opinions are meaningless without the ability to think critically. You might want to read the whole piece and the responses to it at www.salon.com/opinion/keillor/10/17/baltimore

The fog is still blanketing everything, making the neighborhood look like a horror movie set. I’ve been up since 5 revising a chapter on antagonists. Some days I wish I could tell wanna-be writers that on weekends I stay in bed with a book, but that just wouldn’t be true. I almost never sleep in, and I rarely take days off from writing. Now, I’m not always sure this is a virtue. But the more I work on a piece, no matter what it is, the closer I stay to it, then the easier it is to write. If I write a lot my brain is always working on it and new ideas will arrive when I’m in the shower or out walking or running errands. The trick is to get them down right away. So I like to keep my brain primed, my thoughts centered on a book or article.

Another trick for me comes when I’m juggling on multiple projects. Right now I have at least six book ideas floating around in various stages. I had dinner with a writer the other night. She had been writing fiction for six years and hasn’t been published yet. Meanwhile, her husband has a serious illness that is severely impacting their lives and happiness and dreams of the future. She wants to write about it but is afraid to stop writing fiction.

I told her that it seems to me that most writers should juggle projects. Now, I know some authors who are working on 1000-page sagas and it doesn’t always make sense for them to put down the novel and draft short stories. But for most of us writing short pieces has a similar effect as going for a brisk walk. You return home feeling enlivened and peppy with your joints loose and your emotions calm.

But there’s another point here—no matter what your major projects you also need to write about what pisses you off or keeps you awake at night. We need to speak back to our demons, our ghosts, our waking nightmares. This is the stuff that already contains so much juice it’s a shame not to dig in. Oh, and a big congrats to Al Gore. Sure you don't want to run?

The sky is still dark with dawn a few minutes away. The days are rapidly growing shorter and I’m not yet accustomed to it. I’ve been thinking about how writers live their lives. Yesterday I interviewed Diana Gabaldon for an upcoming article in The Writer. She is now writing two series, but the books in her main series, the Outlander stories are usually about 300,000 words. So I was curious about how her brain worked; how she tracked all her characters and shaped her complicated plots. I learned she does most of writing between midnight and four a.m. and that she doesn’t outline or write in a straight forward or linear way. She writes bits and pieces and scenes and then starts putting it all together sort of like a puzzle. Because she’s up late in the night she wakes at about nine and starts her day by answering emails and the like to get her synapses fired. She then works on her book for about an hour in the morning and then eats lunch and spends the afternoon away from her desk. This hour in the morning is a fertile breeding ground for what she writes in the night, since her layers of consciousness are working on it during the day.

Last weekend when I was in Edmonds, I heard Timothy Egan speak about his writing and living the writing life. In case you’re not familiar with him, he’s a gorgeous writer and along with Truman Capote has influenced my writing enormously. He mentioned that when he travels he carries A River Runs Through It and that Norman Maclean’s elegant words never fail to inspire him. Egan won the National Book Award for his latest book The Worst Hard Times---I’ve been recommending it to people ever since I read it. It’s beautifully written and is about the people who stayed behind in the Dust Bowl states during the Great Depression and it is so taut and suspenseful and intimate that you can hardly believe that you’re reading history.

When Egan talked I learned that he brings a blue collar work ethic to his writing and the idea for the book came when he was traveling through these states writing about the deaths of towns in the area. While other parts of the country are full of newcomers, these states are emptying out and ghost towns litter the prairie lands. And he started hearing from people who still remembered the terrible dust storms of the 30s, especially Black Sunday, and eventually the book came together, augmented by interviews with survivors, research and artifacts.

During the talk Egan talked about the differences between writing fiction and nonfiction but said that all writing comes down to storytelling. That storytelling is encoded in our DNA. He reminded us that when you’re writing nonfiction you need to step back and make sure it’s still a story and not random information and then when you write fiction you need to inhabit the dream and visit the fiction world every day.

Pale sky this morning with no rain. I’m back from a weekend in the Seattle area. I taught two workshops at the Write on the Sound conference in Edmonds, Washington, then taught a mini-workshop at the Barnes and Noble in downtown Seattle. I arrived in Edmonds by train on Friday night and after checking into my hotel, ate dinner and walked around town. I won’t get into the details of the dinner because it was disappointing, but the town is such a jeweled treasure, set alongside the sparkling waters of Puget Sound. It’s a charming, upscale town and I was mostly glad the shops were closed as I wandered around the downtown area, peering into windows brimming with enticing wares. But it’s also a town firmly connected to the arts and I noticed a sign in a coffee house advertising for a “Zen barista.” I walked down to the water as the sun sunk into the horizon and a group of scuba divers were preparing to enter the water. When I asked one diver why they were diving at night, he replied with a heavy, German accent, “because the fish are sleeping,” so I never did learn why they dive at night, although I know that lots of divers train there.

On Saturday morning I taught a workshop on anti-heroes to a packed room and was gratified to note the interest in the topic. I explained my thesis that in a rapidly-changing world that characters cannot necessarily be assigned as good or bad guys, that many inhabit realms in between and can be colored gray. The rest of the day I sat in on a few workshops including one taught by the unflappable Jennie Shortridge who was teaching the how and why of writing sex scenes. As my stomach was bothering me (the meal of the previous evening a suspect in my discomfort) I didn’t get to hear it all, but it was fun and Jenny has great insights into fictional characters. That evening dinner was Thai food and wonderful.

I taught a workshop on writing nonfiction proposals on Sunday morning and at one point I explained that a book proposal was like a mini-business plan and is typically about 50 pages. One woman, with a distinctly unhappy look etched on her face complained that if a writer is going to write 50 pages of a proposal, that you might as well write the book. Well, the reason is simple, nonfiction editors don’t read manuscripts, they read proposals and base buying decisions on a proposal.

A friend whisked me off to Seattle after the conference for another lovely Thai lunch, then on to the book signing and mini workshop. Now, I taught this workshop last weekend in Eugene also and it’s about how to live the writing life. Or, at least what I’ve discovered about living the writing life. Sometimes I write about these topics in this blog or in my column or newsletter. It’s mostly common sense advice about reading a lot, writing a lot, having a plan and maybe having some fun along the way with a bunch of examples from my life and my students' and clients’ lives.

After the workshop was underway, a woman joined us in the front row. After she sat down I asked her if people told her she looked like Angela Bassett (she was a dead ringer). She replied that they did when she was younger. So I countered that she was looking great now and we continued. Afterward, I signed books and chatted with some of the people and then went with my friend to the checkout because he was buying books. And ran into the Angela-Bassett look-alike again. Sorry, I foolishly didn’t learn her name. And she told me that she was so glad she’d come that day to hear me, that it had been especially hard to be motivated to leave home because she’s been diagnosed with bone cancer. When I asked about her prognosis, she said the doctors had bad news for her, but she was ignoring their gloom because “she had too much writing to do.”

And I’m so humbled by meeting her. Wishing we can meet up again and her health somehow improves, that she beats the cancer. And I’m so grateful for this writing life and for all the writers I meet.

Snow is falling in the mountains and while usually October is a long swath of Indian summer, this year, the rains seem to have arrived to stay. Since it was raining last night, I took a quick walk and went past a yarn store in the neighborhood. I don’t knit but every time I pass it I feel drawn to go inside and look around. Besides the rows and rows of brightly colored, muted, and no doubt organic (after all this is Oregon) yarns, there is a café with tables and chairs. Last night a group of women were gathered together at a table chatting and knitting away. And I’ve rarely seen such a cozy sight of such community and congeniality. I was reminded of sewing and quilting bees of former times.

Lately I’ve been thinking about how to maintain community while still accomplishing the lonely task of writing. In my bio on my Between the Lines book it says that “Jessica Morrell is surrounded by writers.” And so I am and several of my close friends are writers. But while many writers gather together in a critique group, I instead lead them with a firm objective to help writers get published. Yesterday my latest fiction group met and the members are talented and diverse and fun. But I’m going to send out an email to fine-tune the procedure so everyone is heard equally. I’m not entirely fond of acting as the Alpha female, but I can and I will.

A few years ago I was attending a monthly meeting of writers. I was sitting in one of the front rows of the charming old church they meet in. And early in the evening, I happened to turn around and gaze at those gathered. And I swear it looked like an asylum had emptied out. There were so many wild-eyed and odd people that seemed to telegraph some sort of mental illness that I was shaken and stayed away from the meetings for awhile. Usually when you attend writing conferences you notice several people a few sandwiches short of a picnic, and I’ve often wondered about this. I’ve heard that dentists have the highest rate of suicide of any profession. I believe it has something to do with how their patients view them (as in with fear and trepidation) as they stick sharp objects in their months and inflict pain. So what do the people at dentist’s conferences look like? You gotta wonder.

So while I have a community of writers, I’m selective of who can enter my inner circle and some of my tribe is a bit more far flung. I have writing friends in the Midwest, Canada, Texas, on the East coast, and my writing newsletter is sent to all parts of the world. Sometimes it seems to me that if you cannot meet regularly with your tribe that you need to carry them inside you anyway. You need to reach out with regular emails and phone calls and letters.

I was in Eugene over the weekend teaching and signing books at a Barnes and Noble. I spent time with a man who was formerly in one of my critique groups. In fact he used to drive from Eugene to Portland weekly. He’s a retired teacher and is one of the most well read, astute, insightful and just plain delightful people I’ve known. Our conversations were a smorgasbord of politics and art and history and personal stories and reminisces. We each had a notebook with us and were writing down book titles the other recommended, the table littered with books. And days later I’m still warmed by this conversation.

Since we live in a time when our political leaders want us to feel afraid and helpless and dependent and isolated, these kind of conversations are especially important. You see, it’s so much easier to rule people who are cowed and uninformed and alone. So I’m reaching out, I’m looking for more people in my tribe.

Sky is pale grey and the morning news reports that Jimmy Carter is spending his 83^rd birthday in Sudan and more rain is on the way. Yesterday I arrived home from the weekend in Eugene in a driving rain. I stopped at the nearby farmer’s market and bought produce and a jar of honey from farmers, who looked huddled and miserable in the cold. But one stand still had raspberries and blackberries for sale, although the teens selling them were wearing gloves, scarves, and winter jackets.

I taught a workshop in narrative nonfiction and later gave a mini workshop at the Barnes and Noble and signed books. There are some parts of my life I don’t have quite figured out but this I know: that I’m privileged to meet amazing people and hear amazing stories as someone who teaches writers. The main theme in my nonfiction workshop was that when you write from life you need to use fictional techniques, thus using scenes, dialogue, conflict, tension. In my workshop I assigned two in-class assignments and the results were amazing. One woman, who wants to write about motherhood, told the tale of bringing her toddler into the emergency room because he was weak and dehydrated from the flu—the tension was amazing. Another writer wrote about betrayal and a crazy roommate. Yet another write wrote about the solace of dusk, the blue hour. Then another writer described her recent visit to a friend of 30 years who has breast cancer.

However, the story that really stayed with me came from a woman who needed to be coaxed by her friend to read out loud. At the lunch break this woman and I had walked around the campus, searching for something hot to drink without success. She’d told me that she wants to write a memoir about her experiences with caring for her son. When he was 19 he went through a windshield at 90 miles an hour. After he was in a coma for three months the hospital staff urged her to move on with her life and gave her a list of nursing homes to care for her comatose son. After visiting some of these homes with his 19 year-old girlfriend, they concluded they needed to bring him home, still in a coma, to care for him. The hospital didn’t agree with this decision.

Which is where the essay began that she read to the quiet room, weeping. It began that she remembered the sweetest words she ever heard from her son. This came after five months of caring for him at home. After waving hamburgers and other scents beneath his nose. After unclenching his crabbed hands and straightening his Achilles tendon. After changing diapers and all sorts of efforts that brought about no response. Then he developed a problem—his brain was exposed.

The family rushed him to the hospital for emergency surgery. The surgeon wanted the family out of the room. The family demanded to stay. The surgeon wasn’t bothering to use anesthesia, the family demanded that he did. So after applying Lydocaine, he began immediately stitching up her son. And his first words in eight months were “What the fuck?” The sweetest words to a mother’s ears.

He didn’t immediately emerge from the coma, it took stops and starts. But he is alive and while brain damaged, she reports that he’s so changed, so sweet and wise and kind. That living with him is like living with the Dali Lama.

You must see that this is why I teach writers.

There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write.

What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance. Steven Pessfield from The War of Art

The sky is still dark obscuring the dawn and I’ve started my day by reading a few articles on salon.com, not my usual morning routine. Usually I begin every morning by waking up and walking across the hall to my office and turning on my computer. Then I walk downstairs and fill the tea kettle with water, turn on the stove, return upstairs and sit down, check my emails in case I need to answer my agent or editor, then settle into work.

Yesterday I met with a nice woman who won an hour of my time in a raffle at the Willamette Writers Conference. She had attended one of my workshops this past winter and at the time had talked about a book she was interested in writing. The topic is intriguing and unusual, she’s done much of the research, and she loves the topic. She’s also been writing a weekly column for her small town paper, has had an essay published and is a decent writer. Trouble is, she’s having a hard time buckling down to write the book. I suggested that she begin by writing a book proposal that included a sample chapter as her first step on this project.

But mostly we ended up talking about developing a morning writing routine and brainstorming ways so that the writing gets done. The problem is, as I explained yesterday, there is no magic elixir that makes a writer turn pro. People who write for a living are like everyone else but we have found a way to buckle ourselves into a writing chair day after day.

I think a lot of it comes down to the power of routine. A few years ago I wrote a column in my newsletter about the power and solace of routine. You see, I think that a lot of grown ups hate the notion of routines, especially when it comes to writing or the arts. Routine sort of equals a straight jacket or selling out or whatever is the opposite of being an artiste.

It seems to me that a writing routine provides two things: when you write at the same time day after day, it sends powerful signals to your deep layers of consciousness. Then somehow these subterranean parts of self start powering the imagination with ideas, images, and connections. At least that’s my theory. All I know is that when I write at the same time day after day that the writing flows out. Now I don’t always have a great writing day and writing doesn’t just pop out of me. It’s never effortless. Sometimes I really struggle with it, particularly the progression of logic in some of the things I write. But my routine still makes it all easier, more natural.

The second aspect of establishing a writing routine is that it provides solace and this too makes the writing easier. When my daughter was a girl she had Raggedy Ann and Andy sheets and a pink quilt on her bed and a row of stuffed animals arranged on the quilt that included three koala bears in various sizes like a small family. Every night she’d slip into her nightgown and brush her teeth and then she’d climb into bed, holding her koala bear named Elizabeth and I’d read her books. Some of her favorites I can still quote to this day, we read them so often. And by the time we’d finish three or four books she was comforted by her bedtime routine and able to slip off into the darkness of sleep and dreams.

Similarly, I think that all routines provide comfort for people of all ages. With my mug of Earl Gray and the radio humming in the background and the dawn breaking, I am at once feeling alive and inspired, and yet calmed by the ballasts of my morning writing routine.

Sky is dusted with layers of grays and blues. Lovely and brooding. I’ve been sick most of this week so am writing and working between naps and a bit of self pity. I wanted to call your attention to a couple of stories that I heard on National Public Radio (www.npr.org).

The first is called Why Women Read More Than Men. It describes how Ian McEwan and his son passed out 30 books free at a London park at lunchtime. The story says, “ Nearly all of the takers were women, who were "eager and grateful" for the freebies while the men "frowned in suspicion, or distaste." The inevitable conclusion, wrote McEwan in The Guardian newspaper: "When women stop reading, the novel will be dead."”

Research has shown that women read more than men although theories of why this is true varies and research is ongoing. However, the story continues that a poll conducted recently found that the typical American read only four books last year, and one in four adults read no books at all. The story goes on with more stats: “A National Endowment for the Arts report found that only 57 percent of Americans had read a book in 2002 a four percentage-point drop in a decade. Book sales have been flat in recent years and are expected to stay that way for the foreseeable future.

Among avid readers surveyed by the AP, the typical woman read nine books in a year, compared with only five for men. Women read more than men in all categories except for history and biography. “. I wish they would have called me since I read about 100 books a year and most of my friends read far more than four books

The story also remarks that women read 80 percent of fiction, most book groups are comprised of women, and most literary blogs are written by women. Another exception is the Harry Potter books where 41 of the readers are girls. I wish a pollster would call me since I read about 100 books a year and most of my friends read far more than four book. In fact, wouldn’t it be interesting if writers were polled about their reading habits?

Then yesterday NPR correspondent Lynn Neary interviewed Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto and other novels including her newest novel, Run. The story began with Patchett saying she can write anywhere, any time, but that her most necessary ingredient is her first reader, author Elizabeth McCracken. The two writers met in 1990 and since then are invaluable components in their writing practice. At one point the story switched to McCracken and she related how when she began reading the manuscript to Bel Canto in a crowded Cambridge bar and she wanted to grab the bartender or tell someone that the manuscript she was reading was going to be a bestseller.

Patchett went on to say that when she writes, Elizabeth’s knowledge and sensibilities are always in her mind. In the beginning of their relationship their critiques were mostly encouraging, but they’ve gotten tougher over the years. I think all writers need a trusted first reader, someone who can be relied on who is knowledgeable and opinionated.

Cumulus clouds scattered across the sky. I’ve been up since 6 working on a proposal for a new book. I’m hoping to send the proposal to my agent in a few days. As usual, juggling a lot of projects and thinking a lot about writing and how to successfully live the writing life.

I was home on Sunday night working and had the small television in my office on. It was broadcasting the Emmy awards and I was please to see The Sopranos win for Best Drama. When I moved here 3 years ago I cancelled my cable subscription and watch little television. I’ve decided that somehow I’m going to write a breakout book and television doesn’t factor much into my schedule except for a few hours a week, usually none in the summer.

Somehow after the Emmys were over on Sunday, I was still awake and flipped the channel to PBS and watched P.O.V. It is a show that features documentary films and the one featured was Made in L.A. by filmmakers Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar. It’s about garment workers living in L.A., many of them illegal immigrants working under horrible conditions—12 hour workdays, no overtime pay, no breaks for the bathroom or lunch. And there lives could not have been more removed from glittery crowd at the awards show.

This particular group of workers, mostly women, began organizing at the Garment Worker Center in L.A. and started protesting/boycotting Forever 21. This store, which you might pass by in your local mall, sells cheap clothes to teens and twenty-somethings and sells them cheap because the workers are exploited. The film traces the workers three-year struggle to bring Forever 21 into a room for negotiating.

Made in L.A. is powerful because of its intimacy, chiefly focusing on three women, Lupe, Maura, and Maria, showing their journey through these years. I was amazed that after their grueling work weeks and other responsibilities that the women would spend their precious free time protesting. Even after setbacks such as an unfavorable court ruling, they kept fighting.

I talk a lot about themes when I teach memoir and fiction classes and the themes of the documentary are courage and unity. And as I watched, I kept thinking if these frightened and weary women can keep persisting against the odds, surely we all can.

There is more information about the film at www.prs.org/pov. It includes follow up comments by the workers and others. Comments include: “ Lupe Hernandez says she feels very shy about seeing herself in the film. But she adds: "Then I feel proud to be there, I feel happy I participated. My grandchildren, if I have children one day, will know me. I can now say that I didn't just pass through life quietly. I left a mark!" and laughs.

Freddie, now in college and the son of Maria said, “the movie is good, because in the end everything turned out as it should have for them, as women, as workers and as immigrants. But as a son of immigrants, I feel kind of sad because everyone looks down on immigrants and treats them as though they have fewer rights than everyone else. Because our parents were immigrants they couldn't complain about anything because they were always fearful of being deported. But I think we can fight. Like the movie says: 'united we can make it.' "

Pale gray sky with the marine layer in evidence. I want to talk about writing a bit. This year I’ve worked on a lot of manuscripts for clients. Several of them showed promise and will go on to be published, some of them needed a strenuous rewrite, some of them were so muddled I wasn’t sure the writers possess the skills to bring them up to snuff. I am about to start rewriting my bad guys book and hoping to take a break from editing, so wanted to mention a few things I’ve seen in manuscripts lately.

One of the main things I notice in badly written manuscripts is that when an author has a thin story he or she tends to cover it up with excess. When I use the word thin to describe fiction it means that often the dramatic question at the heart of the story is not particularly engaging; often it involves little or no suspense; sometimes it has no subplots; sometimes it simply never comes to life.

Excess can take many shapes---excess figurative language or modifiers, overwrought emotions, every leaf or sidewalk or sigh described, dialogue that rambles and never ignites into conflict. But lately what really worries me is when writers cannot handle language and resort to excess to tart up a story. If your language is imprecise you’ll lose the reader’s trust. If your language veers all over the place it detracts from the story’s unity.

When you write you need to present all your ideas with sentences that are stripped down to their cleanest components. If you want to sprinkle in a few gems here and there that’s fine. But when a tastefully dressed woman attends a party she walks in wearing earrings and a few select pieces of jewelry. Now, if she’s wearing a tiara and sixteen bracelets, covered head to toe with tattoos, and has piercings hanging off every part of her face, she broadcasts a much different message. And elegant isn’t one of them. I believe that good writing is elegant and often understated, even if you’re writing about a risqué or bold topic.

Now, I realize that there are many moods, tones, approaches for crafting a story. But excess will always distract from whatever you’re trying to say, will choke the reader as if he’s in a crowded elevator with a person doused in cheap cologne. Most stories I work on require more suspense, nuance, sophistication and somehow, a lot less surplus language

When I work on manuscripts for my clients, I pen long memos about the problems in their manuscripts. I’m often advising them that they have not left enough to the reader’s imagination, and I often advise that they read books on craft they might refer to for help. For people who use excess language and modifiers I sometimes suggest Noah Lukeman’s The First Five Pages. In this book, Lukeman, who is an agent explains the mistakes that cause a manuscript to be rejected. The number one mistake that he cites is excess modifiers, and I agree with him. Nothing shouts that a writer is an amateur more than this sort of excess.

Lukeman writes: “…the quickest and easiest way to reject a manuscript is to look for this overuse, or misuse, of adjectives and adverbs. Most people who come to writing for the first time think they bring their nouns and verbs to life by piling on adjectives and adverbs, that by describing a day as being “hot, dry, bright, and dusty” they make it more vivid. Almost always the opposite is true.”

Remember that your reader is a participant in the story and especially if you’re writing a book set in a contemporary setting, your job is to remind the reader of what he already knows. Again quoting Lukeman, “Finally, the overall effect of a text encumbered with adjectives, adverbs, and the inevitable commas in between makes for very slow, awkward reading—which these writers would find out for themselves if they only took the time to read their own work aloud.”

Dawn is breaking with an amber glow and record heat is predicted. Last night I met friends at a local wine bar and came home and kind of wandered around here, feeling restless. Then I sat down to write by hand, an activity that’s always calming.

I wanted to say something about this the sixth anniversary of the September 11^th attacks on Washington D.C. and the World Trade Center. And as I wrote, I found warring instincts within me. Part of me wants to rant about how the attacks were preventable. Part of me wants to weep. Part of me wants to pierce this day of remembrance with logic.

We live in a time of political smokescreens and slick propaganda—as evidenced by General Petraeus appearing today again before Congress with the latest batch of smoke and bogus statistics. He keeps talking about whether “the surge” is working and when we can start withdrawing troops from what has become the hellhole of Middle East. But what is missing from his rhetoric and lies and obfuscations is why we’re there in the first place. And it always comes back to our irrational and intemperate response to the 9/11 attacks.

On salon.com today Gary Kamiya has written The real lessons of 9/11. He writes: “Sept. 11 is a totemic date for the Bush administration. It justifies everything, explains everything, ends all argument. It is the crime that must be eternally punished, the wound that can never heal, the moral high ground that can never be taken. Bush's reaction to 9/11 was to declare a "war on terror," of which the Iraq adventure was said to be the "front line." The American establishment signed off on this war because of 9/11. To oppose Bush's "war on terror" was to risk another terror attack and dishonor our dead. The establishment has now turned against the Iraq front, but it has not questioned the "war on terror" itself, or the assumptions on which it is based.”

Today the flags in Oregon are flying at half mast. I think this should be a day of mourning not only for the orphans and widows of the attacks, but also for our soldiers who have died needlessly, the Iraqi citizens slaughtered by the thousands, for their country which lies in shreds, for our weak Congress, our broken government, our damaged reputation abroad, our fractured infrastructure drained by billions wasted.

Let’s mourn for all that’s been ruined, for all the lives lost and in those families let’s imagine the empty nights of a widow’s bed, the stolen futures of the soldiers blown to ribbons by a roadside bomb. All lost in the name of 9/11 from attacks that could and should have been prevented. And then fear was fanned to an inferno, greed overtook reason, and it seems like the keening for all that’s been destroyed can be heard from the farthest heavens.

And it all started with a bunch of extremists with box cutters?

Here is more of Kamiya’s analysis: “Like a vibration that causes a bridge to collapse, the 9/11 attacks exposed grave weaknesses in our nation's defenses, our national institutions and ultimately our national character. Many more Americans have now died in a needless war in Iraq than were killed in the terror attacks, and tens of thousands more grievously wounded. Billions of dollars have been wasted. America's moral authority, more precious than gold, has been tarnished by torture and lies and the erosion of our liberties. The world despises us to an unprecedented degree. An entire country has been wrecked. The Middle East is ready to explode. And the threat of terrorism, which the war was intended to remove, is much greater than it was.” The article can be found at www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2007/09/11/911

You might also want to check out my friend Tiana’s blog at http://tianatozer.wordpress.com/. She recently moved to Kuwait to work for Mercy Corps to establish a literacy project for Iraqi women and to help establish systems to ease the lives of disabled Iraqis. She’s been briefed by Mercy Corps about the real situation in the Middle East and reports these truths on her blog.

Blue skies and heat is coming for the next few days and NPR is playing excerpts from Pavarotti’s funeral, a Mozart aria swirling about the room. Yesterday I went to the Portland Art Museum to see their Rembrandt show, a collection of about 90 Dutch paintings and objects on loan from Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum.
The collection included portraits, landscapes, classical poses and still lifes, along with examples of Delft glassware and tiles, silver, and other objects. With paintings of this era I’m always amazed at what the artists do with light and shadow. I stand in front of a painting and I just cannot figure out how the artist made light shine on the objects portrayed. For example a woman’s still life of flowers—how did she manage that slant of sunlight?
And as I strolled through the crowded galleries with a friend we could only marvel at the level of detail, the precision, and how the Dutch valued beauty and artistry in their everyday life. There was also humor in some of the paintings as when a man is approaching a woman with a dead fowl, apparently a proposal for sex and there was a scene of a quack selling his potions and another scene where a pregnant woman was being treated for morning sickness.
There were several paintings that depicted biblical scenes. One particularly struck me because it told such a story—it was the moment when Jesus is arrested and Peter denies knowing him. A young girl is Peter’s accuser and she’s holding a lamp up to his face. And every nuance of every person is so precise and Peter’s agony is so intimately portrayed. In fact, many of the paintings told a story
In the 1600s there was a Golden Age of art in the Netherlands and I learned that Rembrandt was responsible for teaching most of the important artists of this era. He painted at least 600 paintings, plus drawings and etchings. And noticing the level of detail in the works of these painters I wondered how their output compared to writers. For example, who today can match Rembrandt’s 600 paintings and his scope and influence—perhaps Stephen King or Joyce Carol Oates with their prodigious output. But somehow I can’t imagine King’s or Oate’s influence to be felt 400 years from now, their work revered as those of a master. Which writers will stand the test of time? I kept thinking of how great art is so lasting, so important to the culture.
When I left the exhibit I felt like I was returning from another century just as when I sometimes close a novel and return to the real world.

The sky is a pale sooty color and I’ve just seen a school bus chug past with its cargo of children. From my upstairs window it seemed to me that the kids wore a look of captivity. Senator Larry Craig is now fighting his charges of soliciting sex in a public restroom with his lawyer chiming in that he was entrapped. Apparently there were multiple complaints about the sexual activity in the Minnesota airport restrooms that led to the sting operation that snared Craig. It seems to me that people should be able to use public restrooms without being solicited for sex, especially by U.S. senators. Then of course there is the whole issue of how he pulled out a business card and tried to use his position to make his guilt go away.
But then of course this isn’t the first time he’s been caught soliciting or involved in gay sex. I didn’t watch the Sunday morning programs but wasn’t the editor of the Idaho Statesmen on one of the shows explaining why he sat on stories about Craig’s sexual activities? Now I don’t care what kind of sex consenting adults engage in. But call me as prudish as Mary Poppins, but I don’t believe that people should be having sex in public restrooms, or parks or anywhere else in public that infringes on the privacy of others.
The larger issue is the hypocrisy of these Republicans who are always pandering to the far right faction of their party, particularly the fundamentalist Christians who vote in droves. They’ll do and say anything to bring these people to the polls and the more anti-gay they appear, the better…..
Yesterday my September issue of The Sun finally arrived and since I’d been at a party or function for five nights in a roll it was delicious to sprawl on the couch with my issue. I want to call your attention to three pieces worth reading. Letters of Light From a Dark Place was written by Saint James Harris Wood and depicts his decent into heroin addiction, but is most specifically about how he was arrested. He’s an amazing writer and I hope his long incarceration both provides the redemption he’s looking for and offers him the chance for more writing like this amazing piece.
Joseph Bathani’s short story Fading Away is stunning, but maybe because I read it first, Theresa Williams’ short story Trash has stayed with me because of the authenticity of the voice. It begins: “My mother’s name was Jesse Mae Parker. Her married name was Futrell, but Bill Futrell wasn’t my father. My father was a beach bum my mother never married, and I never knew him. Bill married my mother when she was only fifteen and pregnant with me. He was pale and slight, a quiet, worried-looking man who loved to hold hands with her. He worked for the Highway Patrol, and when I was nine he was struck and killed along Highway 17 while writing out a speeding ticket. For years my mother cried every time she passed the spot in the northbound lane, just before the New River Bridge.
Bill Futrell’s parents never forgave him for marrying my mother. My mother’s parents never forgave her for getting pregnant in high school. Nobody in either family would talk to us. So my mother and I were on our own, and this was fine with me. It made us closer.”
After this hook, how could I not keep reading? As I sometimes do, when I read The Sun or a book, I jotted down phrases that were especially powerful, ideas for my own work, and words for my word list: edict, scuttle, spastic, labyrinth, vendetta, caprice, notorious, scrim, irascible, quavering, throng, limbo, languor, pittance, thrum, wager. Happy writing.