This photo of my latest book, Thanks, But This Isn't For Us  was sent to me by writer Ken Matthews......

And this one: 

Makes all that hard work writing it worthwhile! 

Nancy Farmer
Nancy Farmer writes illuminating, powerful, and gripping YA fiction. She wins prizes, she has many devoted readers,  she takes risks with her stories and characters and themes. In fact, she's freaking amazing. I zipped over to her website this morning because I wanted to introduce her to one of my students. And I got sucked into reading her bio. You need to read this. She was destined to be a writer.

Pale blue skies again today and yesterday was our warmest day of the year. I went out walking yesterday afternoon in the sun then came home so restless from the influx of rays into my brain that I practically needed to tie myself into a chair. Then on the way to meet with my critique group, I was just sort of gaping at everything and arrived at my destination dazed and practically drunk on sun. Then learned that my claims of yesterday were wrong  since plum trees, not cherry trees are now blooming. So I'm not sure what will happen today when I step outdoors....but I'm willing to risk it.

Why I Write

"To satisfy a basic, fundamental need. I think all people have this need. It's why children like to draw pictures of houses, animals, and Mom; it's an affirmation of their presence in the corporeal world.
You come into life, and life gives you everything your senses can bear: broad currents of animal feeling running alongside the particularity of thought. Sunlight, stars, colors, smells, sounds. Tender things, sweet, temperate things, harsh, freezing, hot, salty things. All the different expressions on people's faces and in their voices.
For years, everything just pours into you, and all you can do is gurgle or scream until finally one day you can sit up and hold your crayon and draw your picture and thus shout back, Yes! I hear! I see! I feel! This is what it's like! It's dynamic creation and pure, delighted receptivity happening on the same field, a great call and response." ~ Mary Gaitskill

Sweet-looking blue skies this morning. You know, here on the West coast we cannot deny that spring has already arrived. I was watching the Olympics a few days ago and the network was splicing a camera shot of snow fluttering down at Whistler with another camera angle of cherry trees blooming in Vancouver. And I was thinking how odd it was that the cherry trees had started so early. But we've had a mild winter and the crocuses are popping up everywhere, the dafodils are opening, the willows down by the creek are turning green, and then yesterday I saw that some of the cherry trees were blooming here too. They used to bloom in April. In the past few years they've been blooming in March. So you tell me what this means about climate trends.

Meanwhile, I'm happy to report that I'm working with two different critique groups of fiction writers and it's been fun. Not draining, or exasperating, or get-this-delusional-or-crazy-person-out-of-my-sight-agony, but fun. They're talented, hard working, and realistic. They lob out great insights about each others' stories and are supportive and kind, yet tough when needed. So I'm in a I love writers mood which is lovely...maybe spring is affecting me and I can end my rein as the Queen of Bad News. In fact, I'm pretty sure I need a new title.....

And I've been thinking about teachers in general lately--how you can uplift and guide and nurture as a teacher. In a bizarre twist, Senator Buttar of Utah has suggested that the state eliminate the 12th grade to deal with their financial crisis. Now, we all know that education systems most everywhere in the country are struggling to teach kids without enough resources. But this is probably the worst solution I've ever heard in years. As if 17 year old kids are ready to go out into the world. Yeesh. As if the subjects taught in high school weren't of great value.

Almost everyone I know who has made something of his or her life had at least one teacher who shone a light, who cared, who understood, who modeled curiosity, compassion, and well, just plain adulthood. So I'm going to keep teaching in many ways in my life--it's what I always wanted to do since I was about eight and I realized how much teachers could bring to a child's life. And I'm going to join the voices that speak out for learning and teachers and helping kids in this country. I've been thinking lately about volunteering at a local school and have been trying to figure out what kind of program I want to be involved in, or how I'd go about it. What if everyone who has a few extra hours in their week (I don't, but think I'm going to do this anyway) would call the closest school and volunteer? What if millions of people did this everywhere?

"Don't disregard your life. It is too precious. This moment, right now, is the only life you will ever have. You can't store it up for the ideal time. When you walk, walk with your whole body and mind joining the floor. Place your eyes in the soles of your feet, walking as if the floor were a dear friend. This is intimacy with all things, where the whole world is self, where there is no "outside" or other."
- Pat Phelan

So many blogs, so little time
I often teach students or work with clients who write historical fiction. And I'm always trying to point out when the facts seem to slip, when the technology and language seem inaccurate, wresting me from the story. Currently I'm exchanging emails with a writer who is writing a pre-industrial fantasy (and by the way, it's a good story) and in his latest chapter he's commenting about how his character's pants are slipping. And this was raising my editor's ire a bit, because in my mind, pants are a rather modern invention and the term doesn't belong in a story from another time and place. I'm always looking for the etymology of words to back up my hunches (luckily, I'm right more than I'm wrong) and then I stumbled onto this marvelous and witty blog that you all need to know about: Poddictionary: The podcast of word lovers.A word root every day.  It's gorgeous witty, insightful. Bookmark it right now. You'll thank me.

Clouds are moving in and blue skies are taking over. I was driving home from a chiropractor appointment earlier and realized that I have rarely worn a winter jacket these past months. Perhaps 4 or 5 times. So add that to your proofs about global weather changes....we need to stop calling it global warming because that's confusing too many people, especially those in the East who are worn from shoveling.

Humans have always made sense of the world by telling stories. Stories help us sort and process the events and traumas of living, and help us connect to others. Everyone is a storyteller; everyone reflects on his or her past and filters those experiences into stories. We also use our stories to inspire ourselves, to quell our fears, to keep alive hope. Which leads me to ask you what you really what to write about. What is the story that is pushing into your consciousness, demanding to be written, demanding a place in the world? We all have burning questions, pressing concerns, issues that make us angry, or joys that we long to share. We go through life noticing, worrying, caring, especially because we’re writers. Because a writer is a forager constantly gathering materials from life and gleaning memory, because a writer holds an ear to wind and is constantly noticing, he or she needs a format to transform all that listening and gathering.

Storytelling endures and will continue to do so, no matter how technology changes its form. So if you haven’t found it found the courage, as winter wanes and spring arrives with it's promises and softness, this is the perfect time to begin the story you need to tell. This blog is your nudge to stop stalling, to take the proverbial leap.

Live big, always noticing, eavesdropping as a way of life. Writing is always about something, about the world, about themes, issues, timeless dilemmas, so pay attention to all parts of life.  This keeps your imagination in tune, lively; this noticing helps add sensory details to your work, and sparks new story ideas and themes.

Great Idea!
Nonoedmo National Novel Editing Month is coming in March. For more info, go to their website.  Sometimes doesn't it just seem that the world is teeming with creativity and ideas and solutions?

Selling Books
A lot of writers that I meet (most who haven't been published) complain about the someday possibility that they'll need to be involved in selling their books. Yep, folks, I'm going to be the Demon of Harsh Reality once again and warn you that if you write a book, you'll need to sell it too. So if you're a garret-dwelling type who doesn't want to get his or her hands dirty and meet readers, write blogs, or any of the other nitty-gritty work of promotion, you probably are not going to make it in this publishing environment. That said, here's a helpful and upbeat post by  Marie Mocket on publicizing a book even when the odds seem stacked against you. Read it and find hope!

Author Magazine
Sky is pale cornflower blue this morning and I've just shipped off the rewrite of my book proposal. Phew. If you don't think I know the pain of endless rewrites you'd be so, so wrong.

Anyway, if you're new to reading this blog I want to remind you of a terrific resource for writers on-line, Author Magazine. It's published weekly by the Pacific Northwest Writers Association and features blogs, podcasts, interviews and articles about the writing life. For example this week, there is a piece on Sir Ken Robinson author of The Element, Daniel Pink author of Drive, Jasper Fforde,  and Peter Brown. In fact, it's chock full of writerly advice and wisdom.

It is edited by Bill Kenower who blogs daily and this week wrote: "Writers live in the world, and that world feeds and influences us. The scientific paradigm of thought that has so dominated the history of the world for the last few centuries must be kept in perspective. We are not organic machines busily going about the business of not-dying for as long as possible. If we are to believe the work of Daniel Pink and Sir Ken Robinson, survival, that most mechanistic of all instincts, is but a base platform upon which our true purpose is built.

Oh, and if you search in their archives there is an interview with me....when I was interviewed it was one of those mornings when my brain wasn't quite wrapped around the day yet, so if I mostly made sense I'm grateful.  Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart.

2 Exciting (really!) contest opportunities

Sky is dingy again this morning and I'm planning a menu to serve to my book group who are coming over later to talk about Olive Kitteridge. If you haven't read this marvelous book, I cannot recommend it enough. Oh, and risotto as the main course, appetizer goat cheese broiled in marinara sauce, ....but I need side dishes and a dessert.

NPR is featuring Round Three of  their 3-minute short story contest again.
Round Three asks writers to use a photograph as a jumping-off point for the story. (Round Two asked writers to begin with the sentence, "The nurse left work at five o'clock; Round One had no restrictions.)
The judge for the Round Three entries will be NPR book critic Alan Cheuse. And if should you miss Round Three?  Round Four will be following soon, with novelist Ann Patchett serving as judge.

 AND--for all those writers who want to pitch a manuscript or take a trip to New York,  Backspace is offering a contest for their upcoming conference in New York, May 27-29. Enter--what do you have to lose? 

Writing is a job
I'm at my desk as the clock ticks toward midnight. I taught two workshops today and it was one of those days where the process was exhausting. I drove home, picked up carryout food, ate it while reading and then plopped on my couch. I'd been invited to hear music at a nearby pub, and the music sounded like so much fun, but I fell asleep and woke up at 10:30 with no desire to leave home. So I watched Apollo win his silver metal and wondered at the astonishing balance of speed skaters bent and leaning precariously over the  unforgiving ice. (Imagine if we all walked bent over and sideways like that--what an odd sight). In fact, in the race I was watching, just before the finish line the second and third place skaters toppled over, losing their chance at glory.

Now I'm back at work at my desk  for awhile, but wanted to post a link that I'd forgotten to include in January when we were all needing energy for the coming year of writing and productivity. But the year is still young so check out this essay written by the fabulous Ann Patchett in The Washington Post called Resolved: Writing is a job.  In it she writes: Frankly, writing a novel can be uncomfortable at its best and a little torturous otherwise, and if I have failed in the past to always make the time for it, the encroaching world is only partly to blame. The process of writing books is somewhat akin to a very long police interrogation in which the detective leans over the table littered with the butt ends of cigarettes and cold coffee in Styrofoam cups and says for the 87th time, "Now let's go over this again." It is a study in repetition, the ability to read the same page, paragraph, sentence until it could be recited backward and in French in hopes of figuring out which detail is missing, which idea is false. What my days lack in being touched by the muse they make up for in the steady picking of the miner's ax, chipping out a tunnel that may well lead to nowhere.

Update
I'm finally going to start working on updating my website. I've simply not had the time or resources lately, so I'm excited that this is going to happen and I'll be posting information about upcoming workshops on it.
However, until this happens here are a few dates to keep in mind.
Power Writing Workshop, Portland, OR March 6
Deep Fiction Workshop, Manzanita, Oregon, April 10
Summer in Words Writing Conference, June 25-27, Manzanita, Oregon
I'm also going to offer critique groups in the spring in Portland--they will be starting in early April and run for 8 weeks.

Capture Your Inspirations
The drizzle that was the backdrop of the morning has stopped and the sky is turning a lighter shade of pale. A few days ago a friend on Facebook  and I were bantering back and forth and I mentioned that the invention that I always longed for was a time travel machine. He then posed the question of what moment I'd like to travel back in time to visit. I came up with several, including hanging out with Leonardo da Vinci as he was painting, inventing, observing the world. But as I thought back to different times, I realized how fond I was of flushing toilets and running water and how living without these daily luxuries didn't appeal to me. Call me a wimp--you won't be the first.

I woke up early this morning and was wrestling with a rewrite of the first chapter of my book proposal. I had cut the previously written chapter to be introduced later and was sort of flummoxing around, trying different ideas, not feeling happy with the results. At the same time, I've been fretting, sweating and agonizing over an editing project that is going to require that the client do a great deal of rewriting. So I stopped working and  hopped in the shower and started lathering up, my mind not on my work problems, and then I saw the extended metaphor and anecdote I needed for the chapter and I also saw how I needed to handle the editing project. And if I didn't have hot water and a shower, I don't know if these solutions would have occurred to me. Well, come to think of it, they also occur when I'm out walking but the aforementioned drizzle has kept me indoors today.

I've been talking about techniques for capturing your ideas for years with my students. And one that is infallible--you gotta trust me on this---is to notice where you are and what you're doing when your lightning- bolt solutions, ideas, and inspirations arrive. It happens most often when we're puttering, moving, walking, driving, bathing, waking up or falling asleep. So pay attention, write them down. And I don't want to sound like the voice of doom (like when you receive emails that command you to pass along the message or doom will befall you) But....if you don't keep capturing these ideas over time you'll receive fewer of them. Your imagination and intuition withers because you're not responding to them.

Meanwhile, keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart.  

Writing Prompt:
The difference between men and women is that__________________

Scholarship Available
Folks, I'm offering a scholarship to a needy writer in the Portland, OR area for my upcoming workshop on Saturday. Here are the details:
Content: Fine-tuning Fiction
Time: 1-5
Location: PNCA 1241 N.W. Johnson
Contact me

After the workshop

And after last Saturday's Narrative Nonfiction workshop I received an email from a writer, Mary Lou McAuley who is working on a memoir and commented on how the workshop made her feel a new kind of grounding and that she'd like to encourage more writers to pursue writing memoirs: I got up this morning at 4 to do my writing - my best time and finally got to the root of my writing. This is the 'dramatic question' at the heart of my writing and I credit my time in your workshops with finally getting this in front of me. This is what I wrote this morning: I want my readers to know less of me and more of themselves, to haunt their longing and choices, to take them to the brick or wood or trailer houses where they began their way and to whip them forward with me, to fall exhausted with me to stagger up with me until they remember their own song and voice and feel the life and potential of every word.

Writing is a great life folks.

As you know I teach writing workshops, write books for writers and lead critique groups. Most of the time I love all this work, all this contact with writers. Here is a post from Athena who writes the Bliss Quest blog. She's one of my students who has now become a friend. It's way too flattering, but I'm going to link to it anyway. Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart.

No one else has access to the world you carry around within yourself; you are its custodian and entrance. No one else can see the world the way you see it. No one else can feel your life the way you feel it. Thus it is impossible to ever compare two people because each stands on such different ground. ~ John O'Donohue

Narrative Nonfiction
Heavy fog obscuring the landscape and the giant firs across the street are shrouded in mystery. For those of you interested in more information or on-line classes in memoir writing you might want to check out the National Association of Memoir Writers.

Back to the topic of narrative nonfiction:

Along with dialogue, readers want to hear the writer musing and struggling to make sense of things. Thus inner monologue, when the reader is allowed inside the writer’s head provides intimacy, authenticity, and emotional impact. It’s particularly powerful when the writer is conflicted, riding an emotional roller coaster, when he’s afraid, trying to make a decision, or reacting to events. Now, while some writers like Tom Wolfe had the audacity to slip into other people heads and report what they were thinking as when he recorded the astronaut’s thoughts in The Right Stuff, most of us will be sticking with our own thoughts. And if for some reason you are reporting on another person’s thoughts, it will be after you have interviewed him or her and learned exactly what they were thinking, not what you imagined he or she was thinking.

Against a background of truth, when possible write essays and memoirs that are based on some aspect of conflict, preferably both inner and outer conflict. In Don’t Let’s go to the Dogs Tonight the conflict stems from a white, English family living amid a revolution in the Congo; in This Boy’s Life, Wolff’s stepfather is a heartless and strange brute; in The Liar’s Club, the author’s family personifies dysfunction and her parent’s lacks, addictions, and just plain craziness, place their daughters at risk.

More on Narrative Nonfiction
Overcast skies this morning. On Friday we had such a soft, sweet day with blues skies, but grey hues ever since. My daffodils are coming up and plants are budding everywhere. I'm finally over the stomach flu and want to make a few comments on writing narrative nonfiction.

Yesterday I taught a workshop on the subject and have been thinking about a few things ever since. Memoir and nonfiction are still selling well, and many, many people are writing or attempting to write memoirs. If you are one of those people read about 50 books in this genre including the latest entrees. In fact, Melissa Hart's Gringa Girl was one of the new titles in 2009 that make this genre so compelling and readable. But if you want to write about your own life, it requires honesty, restraint, and what I call the So What? factor. I've seen again and again in my work that people believe that suffering equals drama. It doesn't. Or they think they're the only one whose mother didn't love them enough, whose father left the family, or whose brother is a screw up. So what?

Suffering is part of the human condition. And I've seen again and again that people who want to write memoirs are really attached to their suffering. Cannot stop talking about events and trauma that happened thirty, forty, sixty years ago because they want pity and they want to be heard. Too often in life we are not heard, are not noticed and cherished.

And not being heard and cherished is a sad, sad state of affairs, but that is not what writing a memoir is for. It's for telling an artful tale that sheds light on the human condition. Telling and listening to stories makes us feel more alive. Listening or reading stories from people who hang on to their suffering does just the opposite. I know this so well from my teaching experiences.

On to more information about writing nonfiction:
When you write nonfiction you slip into various writing modes, using the exactness of poet, the technique of a novelist, the research methods of a reporter, and the questioning mindset of an essayist. So here are a few things to remember—first this definition by Stephen Minot in Literary Nonfiction: The Fourth Genre: “Literary nonfiction is distinguished by three basic characteristics: It is based on actual events, characters, and places; it is written with a special concern for language; and it tends to be more informal and personal that other types of nonfiction writing.”

The next thing to remember is that narrative nonfiction will always be woven around themes and the techniques of writing fiction. These techniques include: building a narrative arc which often includes a climatic scene, character development, information delivered in scenes with action and dialogue, setting details and introspection or interior dialogue. Thus these true stories will deliver the drama of fiction, the force of fact, and the truth of life.

Keeping this framework in mind, here are methods that add the narrative to nonfiction. No matter if you’re writing an essay or memoir or a behind-the-scenes look at working in an upscale restaurant, the opening moments must always grab the reader’s attention and possibly raise a question that needs answering. Often this means you won’t start the tale at the beginning, but rather at a point where a question can be raised or intrigue created via a provocative scene. Sometimes you’ll start in the middle or in the case of This Boy’s Life, just before Wolff and his mother witness a run-away car heading off a mountain cliff, an ominous foreshadowing of the new life they’re about to enter.

Because you’ll be sometimes writing in scenes or recounting anecdotes, you’ll also be embedding these moments with dialogue. Dialogue causes a sense of immediacy and makes the reader feel like an eavesdropper in the moment. But therein lies the trick since most of us have not traipsed through life hauling around a tape recorder. So you’ll be trying to reconstruct a conversation as best you can, striving hard for accuracy. Now, in fiction, dialogue is conversation’s greatest hits—it leaves out the dull parts of life, it is condensed, and most of all, it’s dramatic.

Thus you’ll likely be working more as a journalist when it comes to quoting dialogue—searching for the essence and meaning of what people say, rather than a word by word recounting. These brief nuggets bring people to life, express conflict and facts. Like all parts of nonfiction, you’ll be presenting the truth as best you know it, so never put words into a person’s mouth that he or she didn’t articulate.

Narrative Nonfiction
Sky like a collage this morning and I'm more bogged down than usual because I've had the stomach flu and am reading a client's manuscript between long bouts of sleeping and feeling sorry for myself. However, I'm feeling a bit better this morning and tomorrow am going teach a workshop on narrative nonfiction. Here's some information on the subject:

Narrative nonfiction is not journalism, poetry or fiction. While sometimes it is a biography, it is never a report, academic or technical writing. Sometimes existing in essay form, sometimes a fully drawn memoir, sometimes in book form that’s difficult to classify such as Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, narrative nonfiction is a hybrid or meld of genres. The story might be deeply personal as in Mary Karr’s The Liar’s Club and sometimes it analyzes others’ lives as in Truman Capotes In Cold Blood. Capote’s story of the grisly murders of a Kansas family did more to push nonfiction into fictional ground than any book. The story is nonfiction because it’s based on extensive research and interviews and the people written about actually existed, the place is real, the crimes are real, but the way the story unfolds is dramatic and breathes with life.

Narrative nonfiction can tell the small stories of everyday life—the moments and joys and troubles that make up our days, or the larger stories of sweeping events, loss, or mayhem. Subjects for narrative nonfiction range widely from the workplace to politics, sports to the arts, family matters to affairs of the heart.

The approach in narrative nonfiction can be unflinching as in Michael Herr’s Dispatches about his experiences during the Vietnam War or lighthearted as in Sarah Vowell’s Take the Cannoli where in a series of essays, among other topics, she disses the Chelsea and explains that Frank Sinatra was the first punk rocker. Narrative nonfiction might be tightly centered on a theme as in food writer Ruth’s Reichl’s Tender at the Bone and Comfort Me with Apples which follows her adventures in the restaurant industry. It can include recipes for apricot pie and pasta with scallops as Reichl does in her books, or a recipe for disaster as Tobias Wolff’s memoir This Boy’s Life chronicles his downhill slide after his mother marries his stepfather.

No matter the subject, human lives under scrutiny are the basis for narrative nonfiction. And here is where the value in narrative nonfiction comes from: these stories help readers discover and validate the meaning of their own experiences. These jolts of recognition can be painful or funny, but there is always the connecting thread of humanity between reader and writer.

When you write nonfiction you slip into various writing modes, using the exactness of poet, the technique of a novelist, the research methods of a reporter, and the questioning mindset of an essayist. So here are a few things to remember—first this definition by Stephen Minot in Literary Nonfiction: The Fourth Genre: “Literary nonfiction is distinguished by three basic characteristics: It is based on actual events, characters, and places; it is written with a special concern for language; and it tends to be more informal and personal that other types of nonfiction writing.”

More to come. Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart.

Calling all writers: There is still time to sign up for two amazing, enlightening, crammed-with helpful techniques and know-how workshops on February 6^th and 13^th.  

Writing Your Life: Narrative Nonfiction

February 6, Parts 1 &2, 9:30-4:30
Narrative nonfiction reads like fiction but is loyal to facts and truth. But it has something more--a bit of magic, the poetry of beautifully written sentences, and thoughtful explorations of themes. This workshop will explain how a memoir or essay uses novelistic techniques to shape reality on the page. Part 1 will combine lecture, discussion, and a writing exercise. Part 2, which happens in the afternoon, will be focused on voice that leaves a trace of the writer and is harmony with his or her roots. We’ll complete another writing exercise, then participants will give feedback on the writing samples each has brought to demonstrate his or her writing voice.

February 13 Part 3, Writing Your Life: Narrative Nonfiction
Part 3 will take place on the February 13 and will begin with a lecture on truth and themes in nonfiction, as well as how to write compelling beginnings. We’ll then provide feedback on the participants’ opening pages and brainstorm strategies for getting published. Times: 9:30-12:30 Cost: $95.00, February 6 only $75

Fine-tuning Fiction

February 13, 1-5
I wrote my book Between the Lines which is about how to employ the subtler aspects of fiction writing because over the years I’ve noticed that a lot of writers have great plot ideas, but that their stories don’t pass muster because their lack of  understanding and craft of some of smaller aspects of fiction. In this workshop we’ll discuss and illustrate this concept via reading several short stories, and talking about the places in your fiction where you want to become more refined. Topics include: subtlety, flashbacks, theme, subplots, secondary characters, dialogue, and imagery.
Note: participants will read one short story before the session (available on- line).

Cost: $40 Location: PNCA 1241 N.W. Johnson

(Note Fine-tuning Fiction will also an all-day workshop in Manzanita, OR on April 10.)
Generous handouts are included in all the workshops.
To register: send a check to Jessica Morrell, P.O. Box 820141, Portland, OR 97282-1141 Phone 503 287-2150 or write at jessicapage@spiritone.com for more information.

The well-made sentence transcends time and genre. A beautiful sentence is a beautiful sentence, regardless of when it was written or whether it appears in a play or a magazine article. Which is just one of the many reasons why its pleasurable and useful to read outside one's own genre. The writer of lyrical fiction or of the quirkiest, most free-form stream-of-consciousness novel can learn by paying close attention to the sentences of the most logical author of the exactingly reasoned personal essay. Francine Prose

"This is what I believe: That I am I. That my soul is a dark forest. That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest. That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back. That I must have the courage to let them come and go. That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to recognize and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men and women.
There is my creed." ~ D. H. Lawrence

A Vivid Vision
Bleak-looking skies today and I was just checking my emails and have received a bunch of happy birthdays on Facebook. While we can all scoff at the silly world of Facebook, it’s still so sweet to receive a lot of birthday wishes from around the world.

A while ago I posted a link about focusing on a single thought for the coming year and so this year I’m focusing on prosperity. If you follow this blog you might know I spent a lot of the past year and a half recovering from a car accident, and that there were many moments of suck for a long time. So yesterday I had a brunch and some of my friends came over and we made collages and drank champagne and talked about our focus for the coming year. As women do when gathered and replete with good food and bubbly, we laughed and chatted about our lives, our children, our lovers, our bodies. I felt so much gratitude for friends and for being on the bumpy road to recovery and for the sun that came swooshing in at intervals and an amazing, changing sky that was sometimes purplish and bruised looking in the backdrop of it all.

I have been teaching a workshop called A Vivid Vision for several years now because a vivid vision helps us define our priorities, which in turn helps us to focus on what is most important in our lives. Especially when life knocks us on our butts. As part of this workshop we create collages filled with images and messages for our vision of our lives. I've been making these collages since about 1995 and can attest to their effectiveness.

I don’t have all the problems in my life solved and I’m not a millionaire but I have a deeply meaningful life in which I’m working at something I love, I have a lot of freedom,  I meet many fascinating people, and touch the lives and hearts of thousands. I was raised to be afraid and to not believe in myself. I was taught that my dreams of being a writer were not realistic or important or achievable.  I have learned to take my next steps despite my fears and proved all the people who didn’t believe in me wrong.

I work hard a being courageous. I work hard at inspiring others and being a person who keeps her promises to herself. In my heart I can feel like a screw-up, an outsider, a person who has struggled mightily to gain respect, to live a good life.

But despite this, I succeed most of the time. I believe in generosity and gratitude and accountability. I believe in human potential to create beauty, to connect with others, to solve problems.  But mostly I believe in holding onto a vivid vision of the life I want to lead and am leading because I’ve learned again and again that by holding onto a vivid vision that I bring the future into the now.

So now my place is filled with spring flowers and I’m feeling sort of content and slowed down and ready to take on challenges. Yesterday I kept repeating to my friends “I’m getting another book deal this year.” And had no doubts that this was to be. So I’m going to keep focusing on the possible, keep improving my craft, keep reaching out to people wherever I find them. Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart.

Huckleberry
Dismal-looking skies and I'm at my desk again working on my WW column. I'm writing about style and language--one of my favorite subjects since language is my homeland and was searching for examples of great writing. And came up with the opening of chapter 19 in Huckleberry Finn--which according to Harald Bloom is "The most beautiful prose paragraph yet written by any American." I swear the writing is so gorgeous and evocative you'll feel like you're drifting along.

TWO or three days and nights went by; I reckon I might say they swum by, they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely. Here is the way we put in the time. It was a monstrous big river down there—sometimes a mile and a half wide; we run nights, and laid up and hid daytimes; soon as night was most gone we stopped navigating and tied up—nearly always in the dead water under a towhead; and then cut young cottonwoods and willows, and hid the raft with them. Then we set out the lines. Next we slid into the river and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool off; then we set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee deep, and watched the come. Not a sound anywheres—perfectly still—just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs a-cluttering, maybe. The first thing to see, looking away over the water, was a kind of dull line—that was the woods on t'other side; you couldn't make nothing else out; then a pale place in the sky; then more paleness spreading around; then the river softened up away off, and warn't black any more, but gray; you could see little dark spots drifting along ever so far away—trading scows, and such things; and long black streaks—rafts; sometimes you could hear a sweep screaking; or jumbled up voices, it was so still, and sounds come so far; and by and by you could see a streak on the water which you know by the look of the streak that there's a snag there in a swift current which breaks on it and makes that streak look that way; and you see the mist curl up off of the water, and the east reddens up, and the river, and you make out a log-cabin in the edge of the woods, away on the bank on t'other side of the river, being a woodyard, likely, and piled by them cheats so you can throw a dog through it anywheres; then the nice breeze springs up, and comes fanning you from over there, so cool and fresh and sweet to smell on account of the woods and the flowers; but sometimes not that way, because they've left dead fish laying around, gars and such, and they do get pretty rank; and next you've got the full day, and smiling in the sun, and the song-birds just going it!

Mist-colored skies and the tall firs across the street are swaying like crazy in the wind. I'm bushwhacking through the first draft of my column that I write every month for Willamette Writers. It's about using precise language, so wanted to dump in the quote I'm opening with and wished I'd have said this:

The road to hell is paved with adverbs. Stephen King

"Man is a mystery. It needs to be unraveled, and if you spend your whole life unraveling it, don't say that you've wasted time. I am studying that mystery because I want to be a human being." ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Writing as Practice
Blue skies this morning and spring-like weather continues here and yesterday I was out walking in a park perched on a ridge overlooking the Willamette River. I walked through a grove of tall Douglas first and they were still as sentries, while faraway sounds of traffic drifted toward me. The park was dotted with parents and pink-cheeked toddlers and babies, and a group of young men who arrived on bicycles, then sat around a picnic table. One of the boys had a penetrating, jackhammer laugh that kept erupting.  As I walked farther to the west I could see that the current was still running fast—the Willamette flows north as does the Deschutes in the southern part of the state. So I was thinking too about rivers that run north, as if they’re defying some ancient law and I walked past a blooming daphne bush that was spreading its perfume, past a Dalmation and a Black Lab and an old man with osteoporosis wearing new shoes that practically sparkled.

Last week a woman who reads this blog asked me comment here about how I keep writing and how I bounce back from setbacks. I bounce back by walking and seeing the world through the eyes of a writer. I bounce back by learning from my mistakes and trying out another idea. I bounce back because I cannot not write.

Not all my books or articles have sold, or all my plans borne fruit.As I was walking along I was thinking about this and some of the mistakes I’ve made in my writing career, the disappointments and heartbreaks—and I’ve had my share. But what sustains me and gets me through the dark times and keeps me glued to my desk chair is a writing practice. I devote myself to writing more than I do anything else in my life. I write when I’m ill, I write when I’m sad, I write when I’m lonely, happy, frustrated, and through all the moods that sift through my days. Writing is my Zen, my solace, my compass.

Because I believe that writing is our prayer to humanity. It’s about finding the human truth in all experiences and sorrows so that we can translate them to the page. It’s about adopting a mindset that everything is about writing, everything brings inspiration, everything can be channeled or become fuel for writing projects. It’s about navigating our days with focus and gratitude. It’s about immersion and belief and surrender and devotion. It’s about constancy—that beautiful, old-fashioned word that has such power for writers.

I moved to Portland in 1991 and when I arrived could not find a job, or at least job I could tolerate. I’d begun a second career as a freelance writer and worked in public relations previously and never had problems finding work before. But jobs and freelance gigs were scarce and the 300 or so applicants I was usually up against had more experience than I did. So I started cobbling together a bunch of part-time jobs and scraping together a living. I worked in a hotel dining room and for caterers, I made sandwiches in a delicatessen, cleaned houses, taught cooking classes, and started teaching writing classes at a community college. None of these gigs were especially-well paid and I often worried about money. However, I discovered I loved teaching and this led to the books I’ve written and a life among writers.

Before I moved to Portland I was married, a mother, and a homeowner. But I found myself with a whole new identity and was single, struggling, and living in an attic apartment, my daughter living back in the Midwest and starting college. The apartment was atop a large, old charming house, but the problem was I didn’t have a private entrance to my apartment. So I was forced to tramp through the first two floors of the owner’s house—nice people, but I didn’t really know them well and skulking through their house always made me feel like a burglar—before I reached my garret. And it was a garret—in the arty, Parisian sense of the word perched in the treetops and loaded with charm and slanting ceilings, and a fabulous alcove for my old desk and bookcases.

I was tired all the time, stressed much of the time, but there came a day when I realized that I needed to buckle into a writing routine even though I was working three jobs to scrape by. So I started getting up every morning at about 5 and began tapping out a novel before I went off to my various jobs.

I buckled into the routine because I didn’t have good writing habits, but mostly because I was afraid to write and needed to face down the fear. I spent about a year working on the book and I learned a lot about myself and fiction and perseverance. It was a suspense story and it was about a writer who had recently moved to Portland (surprise!) and about how a woman who had ripped her off (based on a woman who had ripped me off) was found murdered and the protagonist was a suspect. And because I also disliked this woman’s sister in real life, I murdered her too later in the story. (Trust me, murder on the page is cathartic).

I finished it and since have always strongly believed that “the end” are the best words in a writer’s repertoire. Then I started sending it out to agents and editors I didn’t know since I had no contacts at the time. They all rejected me but some of them kindly wrote one or two-page letters telling me that I had a lot of promise and if I kept at it, they’d be able to publish my work.

This might not sound like a happy ending, but it was. Since I spent those hours in my garret typing away, I’ve stopped being afraid of writing. Now that’s not to say I don’t feel anxiety, or find myself rewriting a lot or making mistakes. But something huge shifted inside of me back then, and it all started in those early morning hours, under that slanting roof with rain pattering against the window, a cup of tea nearby, and me finding my way through a story.

More to come.

Just got in from a short walk and returning a video (Notes on a Scandal--if you haven't seen it, it's a gem) and the skies are turning a dusky, indescribable shade that makes me wonder what the sky looks like south of the equator. But despite yesterday's torrential rains and the fact that lately I've adopted a weird schedule of writing after midnight, and despite hanging out with friends yesterday and watching two movies, most of a playoff game, and eating a lot of amazing food, I managed to finally turn my proposal into my agent. I'll keep you posted about it and will now start crafting more substantial posts here....Or at least that's the plan.

Meanwhile, I was talking to some writers last Wednesday and someone asked me about the state of the publishing industry. I'm no expert, but managed to throw out a few points about returns and downturns and downsizing and mega conglomerates.....and no one looked glassy-eyed. But then it was really warm in the room and maybe they were too busy sweating. So with a much better view from the front lines of the publishing world, here's a guest post written by Moonrat an editor writing at whatwomenwrite. 

And isn't it interesting that all the woman in the photo at the top of this blog are essentially wearing the same outfit? Keep writing, just keep at it. Even when your head hurts.

We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn. Mary Catherine Bateson

Drizzly day here in Portland and I just spent the morning working on my proposal as well as the middle-of -the night hours. I'm emailing it to my agent tomorrow morning and am happy to report that it only needs a few more flourishes. If you're having one of those days when it seems like rewriting is endless, I hear your bark.

Here's a bit of inspiration:

"If you had never been to the world and never known what dawn was, you couldn't possibly imagine how the darkness breaks, how the mystery and color of a new day arrive." ~ John O'Donohue

Most things in life are funny....according to Ms Brewster
Sky sort of steel colored this morning and I've got way too much to accomplish than the hours in the day. Christina, a reader of this blog, has asked me to write about facing setbacks and all the doubts, noise, and big emotions that accompany writing. I'm going to write about this in the next day or two because it's the topic of the book that I've been working on.

Meanwhile, I gave a talk in Portland a few weeks ago and since have been corresponding with a local writer Murr Brewster. I just wanted to post a link to her blog post about building a writing platform because it's hilarious. Keep at it writers, the hours and toil are worth it. Besides it keeps you off the streets.....

Still dark this morning and I'm putting the finishing touches on my book proposal. 
"Phrases like oddly enough, not surprisingly, or ironically, hinder readers from discovering the oddity, lack of surprise, or irony on their own." Abraham Piper

And did I ever tell you about my journalism teacher in college, Paul Hayes? He'd won a Pulitzer while working at the Washington Post and if anyone in his class wrote a story that contained very or quite we received an F.
Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart.

"If we don't offer ourselves to the unknown, our senses dull. Our world becomes small and we lose our sense of wonder. Our eyes don't lift to the horizon; our ears don't hear the sounds around us. The edge is off our experience, and we pass our days in a routine that is both comfortable and limiting. We wake up one day and find that we have lost our dreams in order to protect our days." ~Kent Nerburn, Letters to my Son
 

Robert Parker, 77, Dies
When I work on manuscripts I scribble all sorts of notes to the writer in the margins. Sometimes I'm commenting on language, urging the writer to use more vivid verbs or to omit qualifiers or intensifiers such as very or quite. And sometimes I remind the writer that we don't need to use 'suddenly' when something unexpected happens as in 'suddenly the doorbell rang.'

But Robert Parker died suddenly while working at his desk on Monday. He was fine at breakfast and when his wife returned from a run, he was dead. He wrote more than 60 books, most of them mysteries or crime novels and was responsible for re-invigorating this genre. His characters were complex, his style spare, his settings (mostly the Boston area) realistic,  and his influence on other writers enormous.

"I first got into him when I was a student and me and my friends heard about this writer who had these really cool books about a detective in Boston. You really had to seek them out at first," author and fellow Bostonian Dennis Lehane told the Associated Press. "He taught me how to be funny on the page. He taught me how to be succinct. He taught me how to give voice to that wonderfully jaded Boston sarcasm that came out in his books. I remember telling Bob that the first chapter of my first book (A Drink Before the War) was so faux Parker he should have been suing me."

Novelist Robert Crais told AP that Parker "opened the doors for everyone who came after". "For a long time, the American detective genre was defined by the big three: Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald. I would say Robert Parker is the fourth," he told the newswire.

"I read Parker's Spenser series in college," crime writer Harlan Coben said in 2007 in an interview with the Atlantic Monthly. "When it comes to detective novels, 90% of us admit he's an influence, and the rest of us lie about it."

Gray skies here. Portland, OR writers I'm giving a talk tonight at 7 p.m. for Women who Write 4115 N. Mississippi Talk will be a great boost of motivation and inspiration. 

Write No Matter What:

A lot of people want to write but don’t actually do it. Join us to learn practical and doable habits that put words on the page and keep ideas flowing. We'll also cover the essential pillars of a writing practice, how to recover from set backs, and how to tap into passions and concerns to fuel our stories.

Join us! 

Message from Dan Newland 

Yesterday there was surprising sun here, the temperatures were soft and springlike, and the coast was buffeted with thunder, lightning, and high winds. Now this storm should be hitting Portland soon. 

I joined Facebook a few months ago with one of my main objectives to connect with writers around the world. During series of postings begun by author, I 'met' Dan Newland, a Midwesterner now living in Patagonia. He is now following this blog and sent this missive. I've been wanting to incorporate postings from followers, so if you have anything to say, or have suggestions for the blog, please send me a line. Meanwhile, keep writing and keep faith in your writing.  

 Hi Jessica. 
      Just dropped in to tell you that I've been reading your blog and became a follower. Found it lively and helpful. Additionally, and not very objectively, I'm afraid, I like it because it reconfirms my own philosophy about the writing life. Mainly that I can't help being a writer and wouldn't even if I could. 
         I've made my living "by the word" in one way or another for the past 36 years, as both an international journalist and translator, and still the question burns: Have I gone far enough in becoming the writer I've always promised myself I'd be? The response is always "no" and that response is precisely what keeps me writing, keeps me reinventing myself and keeps me, well, alive. 
          I turned 60 in December, spent a week being depressed, then, tough ol' bird that I I am, decided it wasn't the end of anything but a new beginning. I'm now rearranging all of what I call "work for hire" (making a living), have resigned my post as chairman of the ethics committee for an international translators association, reassessed and reordered my work schedule and have set to the joyful task of finishing two non-fiction books I have been working on in fits and starts over the past five years. And when they are done, I have promised myself that I'll go back and once again take up a fiction trilogy I began 15 years ago and eventually abandoned after failing to find a publisher (or agent) for the first book. (I'm now convinced that my remote location and lack of contacts in the world of American fiction - despite knowing my way around other segments of publishing - were more responsible for this than anything else).
        In short, I just wanted to say that, the stimulating exchanges that you and I have had after our meeting through Paul Toth have played no little role in reminding me of why I write and why I should.
        I look forward to continuing this kind of intelligent and stimulating dialog with you in the future.
Best always
Dan

From author Hallie Ephron add to the list (of bestsellers that were rejected) THE GINGER MAN. MAUS. SONS AND LOVERS. And one of my favorites, THE KON TIKI EXPEDITION by a young reader, working at the publishing house, Wallace Stegner.

Take Heart: Best-Selling Books Repeatedly  Rejected by Publishers (Many Twenty or More Times)

1. Dubliners by James Joyce
2. M*A*S*H by Richard Hooker
3. Carrie by Stephen King
4. Dune by Frank Herbert
5. The Peter Principle by Laurence Peter
6. The Postman Always Rings Twice by James Cain
7. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
8. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling
9. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig
10. A Time to Kill by John Grisham
11. Lust for Life, Irving Stone
12. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
13.  Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
14. The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot
15. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
    
16. Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen 
17. Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach 
18. Lorna Doone by Richard Doddridge Blackmore 
19. The Good Earth by Pearl Buck
20. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
    

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream. Vincent van Gogh

Professionalism
It's the sort of day in Portland where you might consider building an ark. I want to write about something that I've been noticing and thinking about for years. It's about how at every stage of your writing career, but especially if you're unpublished and especially if you're lacking in credentials and contacts, that you need act with professionalism, grace, and common sense. So this is going to be a bit of a rant. And this rant has been stirred by a few events in my  life, some decisions I'm made lately, and also paying attention to Holly Lisle's enewsletter.

Lisle is the author of 32 novels and also teaches online writing courses. Lately she's been publishing the most bizarre, incomprehensible, and rude emails she receives from readers. Then she explains her thinking/reactions to those emails. It's been funny, sad, and elucidating.

Then last week I gave a talk at the local Willamette Writers meeting. The talk went well, I sold some of my books, we all laughed with me and at me, and it was a pretty good evening. Except for a writer who sort of glommed onto me and was filled with complaints and problems of the writing life. I tried to toss out some quick suggestions for her and answered her questions in the question and answer session, and I was patient and kind, but ignored the red flags of all her complaints and sighs.

In my talks I often admit that I'm a scruffy, sometimes cranky, sometimes impatient mentor. I sometimes want to strangle writers I work with, I sometimes want to weep because I grow so weary of reading bad writing and putting up with delusional thinking. But mostly I like many parts of my life and I meet wonderful, warm, witty, talented people. So during my last week's talk, I mentioned some of the crazed or nasty emails I received lately in response to my latest book and warned the writers not to do this.

In fact don't send nasty emails to anyone in your life, but especially to people related to this industry such as myself or Holly Lisle.Even though we don't work as agents or for publishing companies.  If you disagree with me, that's fine, but keep it to yourself, or start a civil dialogue. But allow room for the slight thought that we might know a bit more about the business of writing than you do.

So back to my talk--at the end of the evening I sold this needy-seeming writer a copy of my first book Writing Out the Storm and went home and drank 2 large glasses of wine. All was well, another task accomplished. Then the next morning I received a bizarre, crazed, and bitchy email from this person about how I hadn't treated her like the genius she was and she could have bought my book cheaper on amazon.com. I wrote back (big mistake) and she sent an even nastier email. Folks, just don't do this. This is a business of connections and relationships and poisoning things at any time  is just foolish.

Then yesterday I sent a client a preliminary email about a partial manuscript I'd read. I informed the writer that it wasn't ready for publication, pointed out some of the major problems and explained I'd be sending more information next week. And he went ballistic and sent me a long and I mean long--6-8 single-spaced rant about how I said his writing sucked (which of course I didn't) etc. etc. It would have taken be about three hours to respond to every point in the email, something I'm not willing to to.

Don't do this either. If someone points out your writing isn't working you need to suck it up and take it like a man. You have the right to ask questions, but no one is this whole spinning planet wants to receive a looonnnnng rant.  It makes you sound paranoid, delusional, petty, crazy, and unprofessional. I've screwed up several times in my career by losing my temper. I have always regretted it and I'm working on avoiding these sort of screw ups. Vent to your friends, your dog, your writer's group--not the publishing professional who just might be a good connection.

Writing Prompt

Thoreau once said that the eye is the jewel of the body. With that in mind, write about a character or person with arresting, unusual eyes.Green?  Pale? Catlike? Hooded? Sparkling?
What do these windows to the soul express about the person's personality, emotion, or mood? Sad? Flirty? Brooding? Lonely?  Guilty?
The point of this exercise is to find fresh language to describe a person. For example, how would you describe sparkling eyes without using 'sparkling'?

The eyes have one language everywhere. George Herbert

Dangerous Women
Blue is showing through the clouds this morning and radio in the background is explaining the history of Haiti. I just learned that they were the second free republic in the Western Hemisphere after the U.S. and their slave rebellion lasted twelve long years. And Jefferson would not have been able to acquire the Louisiana Purchase if it hadn't been for the Haitians. France was so busy with the revolution in Haiti that they saw this land mass in North America as a drain, so were eager to sell it. Meanwhile,  I was up in the middle of the night working on my new book so have been trying not to rattle around in a daze this morning.

A few days ago I recommended Gillian Flynn's latest book Dark Places. Today I want to direct you to a thought-provoking essay she wrote at Powells.com. About four years ago I wrote a book called Bullies, Bastards, & Bitches, How to Write the Bad Guys in Fiction. I wrote the book because I wanted to urge writers to take more chances with their characters and because there simply wasn't enough information out there about villains and anti-heroes. But I especially wanted to encourage writers to create females that operated from a more realistic and potent sensibility and to create female villains. Make that scary female villains. There has always been a huge vein of untapped anger and power in women and many women are dangerous. Plain and simple. At least they have been in my life.

So Flynn's essay, I Was Not a Nice Little Girl caught my attention, especially when she begins: I was not a nice little girl. My favorite summertime hobby was stunning ants and feeding them to spiders. My preferred indoor diversion was a game called Mean Aunt Rosie, in which I pretended to be a witchy caregiver and my cousins tried to escape me. Our most basic prop was one of those pink, plastic toy phones most little girls owned in the '80s. (Pretty girls love to talk on the phone!) Alas, it was always snatched from their fingers before they could call for help. (Mwahaha) In down time, I also enjoyed watching soft-core porn on scrambled cable channels. (Boob, bottom, static, static, boob!) And if one of my dolls started getting an attitude, I'd cut off her hair.

Announcing the 2010 Breakthrough Novel Award

Amazon.com and Penguin Group (USA) Announce the Third Annual Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Competition

Amazon.com, Inc. and Penguin Group (USA) are pleased to announce the third annual Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, the international competition seeking the next popular novel. For the first time, the competition will award two grand prizes: one for General Fiction and one for best Young Adult Fiction. The 2010 competition will also now be open to novels that have been self-published. Writers around the world are encouraged to begin preparing their manuscripts for entry into the competition, which is scheduled to launch on January 25, 2010.
The contest consists of five judging phases by Amazon editors and expert reviewers, publishing professionals and Amazon.com customers. The grand prize winner chosen in each category will each receive a $15,000 publishing contract with Penguin Group (USA).

---

How the contest works
Between January 25 and February 7, 2009, writers with an English-language novel manuscript can submit their work at www.amazon.com/abna. Up to 10,000 total initial entries will be accepted, with up to 5,000 each in the general fiction and young adult categories.
Initial Round: Amazon editors will select 1,000 entries from each category to advance to the next round.
Quarter-Finals: Expert reviewers from Amazon will read excerpts of the 2,000 entries and narrow the pool to 500 quarter-finalists (250 in each category).
Semi-Finals: Reviewers from Publishers Weekly will then read, rate and review the full manuscripts, and 50 semi-finalists for each category will be selected. Two panels of esteemed publishing professionals will read and post their critiques of the top three manuscripts on www.amazon.com.
Finals: Penguin editors will evaluate the manuscripts of the 50 general fiction and 50 Young Adult semi-finalists, and choose three finalists for each award.
Grand Prize Winners: Amazon customers will have seven days to vote for a Grand Prize Winner in each category. The two Grand Prize Winners will be announced in Seattle on June 14, 2010. Each winner will receive a publishing contract with Penguin, which includes a $15,000 advance.
For complete terms and conditions for the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award and more information about the contest, please visit www.amazon.com/abna.

Cormac showing us the dazzle of wordplay: 

"The truth about the world, he said, is that anything is possible. Had you not seen it all from birth and thereby bled it of its strangeness it would appear to you for what it is, a hat trick in a medicine show, a fevered dream, a trance bepopulate with chimeras having neither analogue nor precedent, an itinerant carnival, a migratory tentshow whose ultimate destination after many a pitch in many a mudded field is unspeakable and calamitous beyond reckoning.

The universe is no narrow thing and the order within it is not constrained by any latitude in its conception to repeat what exists in one part in any other part. Even in this world more things exist without our knowledge than with it and the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way. For existence has its own order and that no man's mind can compass, that mind itself being but a fact among others."  
~Cormac McCarthy

Writing Recharge workshop, January 23

Gloomy skies that promise rain. Yesterday I went for a walk above the Willamette River about midday and noticed how everything seemed so wintertime still. Now, we don't have snow here, but there was no wind, and little traffic and the world seemed to be holding its breath, waiting.  And then I stopped at the neighborhood library and on my way in noticed a line of empty strollers parked along the building. The sight was so colorful and surprising somehow. And I realized that it was the design element of the strollers that I liked and how I could imagine the mothers and children claiming them (there was a story hour going on) and then rolling along to their lives. Do you notice design elements as you go about your days? 

For people living in the Northwest I'm teaching a fabulous, whup-your-ass, stir-your-imagination, instill-hope kind of workshop Writing Recharge on January 23 in Portland. It's about finding the time, mining your passions, and living the writing life day after day so the projects get done, the dream is lived, not sighed over. Write me at jessicapage at spiritone.com for details. I've been teaching this workshop in January for years now because its truly an energizing way to begin a year and decade.

Dark Places
Somehow the sky this morning looks like it belongs over the north Atlantic before a blizzard. I read Gillian Flynn's debut novel, Sharp Objects and enjoyed it a lot--she's the sort of novelist who takes lots of risks with her anti-hero characters and writes about difficult truths, creepy behaviors, murder, and crazy families. So what's not to love? This I know: She's a writer to watch.

So I was excited to read her second book Dark Places and I just loved it and could not put it down. It's so gratifying to see a novelist improve her game, writing with such confidence and potency. And fabulous use of language. The story is told in three viewpoints and the anti hero protagonist is Libby Day, who escaped death when she was seven when three members of her family were murdered.

Naturally, she's never been the same.And because Flynn knows her stuff, we come to care deeply about Libby.
The story begins: "I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark, drop on the floor so you could stomp on it.It's the Day blood.Something wrong with it. I was never a good little girl, and I got worse after the murders. Little Orphan Libby grew up sullen and boneless, shuffled around  a group of lesser relatives--second cousins and great-aunts and friends of friends--stuck in a series of mobile homes or rotting ranch houses all across Kanasas. Me going to school in my dead sister' hand-me-downs: Shirts with mustardy armpits. Pants with baggy bottoms, comically loose,held on with a raggedy belt cinched to the farthest hole. In class photos my hair was always crooked--barrettes hanging loosely from stands, as if they were airborne objects caught in the tangles--and I always had bulging pockets under my eyes, drunklandlady eyes. Maybe a grudging curve of the lips where a smile should be. Maybe.


I was not a lovable child, and I'd grown into a deeply unlovable adult. Draw a picture of my soul, and it'd be a scribble with fangs."

As you can see,  the language and story sucks you in like quicksand.

Word List
Making headway with a pile of filing and paperwork today--no wonder I always put off these tasks. In fact I'm having sense of humor failure but I'm going out to hear music later.  If you read my columns or this blog you might know that I maintain an ever-growing Word document that is a Word List. In this list I insert words that I have scavenged from my reading in an effort to expand my writing vocabulary. Now, some of these words I've used before, but this is another practice that forces me to focus on language, especially acquiring precise words for precise places.  So here are the latest entries: aperture, wavering, bobble,dithering, nervy, blustering, lalapalooza, cockamamie, woebegone, flaccid, swank, haggling, rasping, castrati, windswept, mimsy, haggling, folly, fobbed off, gnarled, fiddly, languer...

Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart.

Uninterrupted Dialogue
There is blue showing in the skies...really. Spending the morning cleaning up all the papers in my office, part two. As I was cleaning I ran across this note I made for my students about dialogue. Recently I was reading an article about pacing in a writer's magazine that said that dialogue is slow. Not true. Summary and dialogue are the fastest delivery systems in fiction. Readers look for it, knowing the pace with pick up and they'll be involved in the moment.

Uninterrupted dialogue is most like real life conversation. However, here are a few pointers: For most of these scenes, unless the characters have appeared together often before, make certain there is an adequate set up including a few setting details. Also,  make certain that readers are aware of characters' emotional states when the dialogue launches or soon after.

Always ask yourself if emotional reversal is possible during the exchange.

Uninterrupted dialogue is a good boost for slow scenes with little tension--quick pace of conversation will compensate for low tension.

When you write dialogue with only a few interruptions (characters moving, reacting, description embedded) this works great for scenes with lots of tension. An example is the final scene in Of Mice and Men, Lennie blathering on about the farm they're going to buy....meanwhile the lynch mob is closing in and George has drawn his gun.

"For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments. And all the time your soul is craving and longing for something else. And in vain does the dreamer rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking in these cinders for some spark, however tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled blood by it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins, that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived him!"
- Fyodor Dostoevsky

Isabel Allende's Writing Ritual
Still dark this morning but wanted to pass along this tidbit from The Writer's Almanac because it's fascinating:

Today, writer Isabel Allende is starting a new book, just as she has been doing every single January 8th for the past 29 years. On January 8, 1981, when Chilean-born Allende was living in Venezuela and working as a school administrator and freelance journalist, she got a phone call that her beloved grandfather, at 99 years old, was dying. She started writing him a letter, and that letter turned into her very first novel, The House of the Spirits. She said, "It was such a lucky book from the very beginning, that I kept that lucky date to start."

Today is a sacred day for her, and she treats it in a ceremonial, ritualistic way. She gets up early this morning and goes alone to her office, where she lights candles "for the spirits and the muses." She surrounds herself with fresh flowers and incense, and she meditates.

She sits down at the computer, turns it on, and begins to write. She says: "I try to write the first sentence in a state of trance, as if somebody else was writing it through me. That first sentence usually determines the whole book. It's a door that opens into an unknown territory that I have to explore with my characters. And slowly as I write, the story seems to unfold itself, in spite of me."

She said, "When I start I am in a total limbo. I don't have any idea where the story is going or what is going to happen or why I am writing it." She doesn't use an outline, and she doesn't talk to anybody about what she's writing. She doesn't look back at what she's written until she's completed a whole first draft — which she then prints out, reads for the first time, and goes about the task of revising, where she really focuses on heightening and perfecting tension in the story and the tone and rhythm of the language.

She said that she take notes all the time and carries a notebook in her purse so that she can jot down interesting things she sees or hears. She clips articles out of newspapers, and when people tell her a story, she writes down that story. And then, when she is in the beginning stages of working on a book, she looks through all these things that she's collected and finds inspiration in them.

She writes in a room alone for 10 or 12 hours a day, usually Monday through Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. During this time, she says, "I don't talk to anybody; I don't answer the telephone. I'm just a medium or an instrument of something that is happening beyond me."

One Word for 2010
The morning skies are an unnameable shade of grey and no rain going on. Since it's a new year I've been back at work on my new book and for some reason I'm often working on it in the middle of the night. This is confusing my usual body rhythms and although I love the vast stillness of nighttime (especially last night because high winds made me feel like I was captaining a boat on ocean swells) I wake up with my brain foggy and all I want to do is handle fiddly little projects and check out Facebook posts. This is not good.

But anyway, I wanted to alert you all to a terrific concept for the new year. This year that is still freshly-minted and wide open with promise. I heard this idea from Christina Katz of writermama. Christina is sort of marketing dynamo and a maestro at making ideas a reality. And Christina got the idea from Ali Edwards' blog-see how we're all connected these days?

Here's an excerpt:

I am a fan of welcoming the new year with open arms. I love fresh starts, new opportunities, clean slates, possibilities.
Back in January 2007, as a way to celebrate these beginnings, I started a public tradition of choosing a single word to focus on over the course of the year.
Many of you are familiar with this tradition and have been joining me in selecting a new word each year. If this is your first time reading about the idea of one little word I recommend taking a few minutes to read my original post here.

So my word for 2010 is prosperity. I spent most of the past 18 months recovering from a car accident, especially head injuries and didn't work much. So welcoming prosperity is a biggie for me right now. What's your word going to be?

And thanks Christina and Ali

Wisdom from Sheldon Kopp
In case you need some food for thought this morning, here is Sheldon Kopp's Escatological Laundry List (learned on life's rocky road) It can be found at this link from the University of Hawaii
 Kopp is the author of If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients

1. This is it!
2. There are no hidden meanings.
3. You can't get there from here, and besides there's no place else to go.
4. We are all already dying, and we will be dead for a long time.
5. Nothing lasts.
6. There is no way of getting all you want.
7. You can't have anything unless you let go of it.
8. You only get to keep what you give away.
9. There is no particular reason why you lost out on some things.
10. The world is not necessarily just. Being good often does not pay off and there is no compensation for misfortune.
11. You have a responsibility to do your best nonetheless.
12. It is a random universe to which we bring meaning.
13. You don't really control anything.
14. You can't make anyone love you.
15. No one is any stronger or any weaker than anyone else.
16. Everyone is, in his own way, vulnerable.
17. There are no great men.
18. If you have a hero, look again: you have diminished yourself in some way.
19. Everyone lies, cheats, pretends (yes, you too, and most certainly I myself).
20. All evil is potential vitality in need of transformation.
21. All of you is worth something, if you will only own it.
22. Progress is an illusion.
23. Evil can be displaced but never eradicated, as all solutions breed new problems.
24. Yet it is necessary to keep on struggling toward solution.
25. Childhood is a nightmare.
26. But it is so very hard to be an on-your-own, take-care-of -yourself -cause-there-is-no-one-else-to-do-it-for-you grown-up.
27. Each of us is ultimately alone.
28. The most important things, each man must do for himself.
29. Love is not enough, but it sure helps.
30. We have only ourselves, and one another. That may not be much, but that's all there is.
31. How strange, that so often, it all seems worth it.
32. We must live within the ambiguity of partial freedom, partial power, and partial knowledge.
33. All important decisions must be made on the basis of insufficient data.
34. Yet we are responsible for everything we do.
35. No excuses will be accepted.
36. You can run, but you can't hide.
37. It is most important to run out of scapegoats.
38. We must learn the power of living with our helplessness.
39. The only victory lies in surrender to oneself.
40. All of the significant battles are waged within the self.
41. You are free to do whatever you like. You need only to face the consequences.
42. What do you know . . . for sure . . . anyway?
43. Learn to forgive yourself, again and again and again and again. . . .

Skies the color of pewter. Thanks a lot to the people who came to the Willamette Writers meeting last night--it was a lot of fun.

I just want to recommend today's Garrison Keillor column at salon.com about his winter cruise.
Here's an excerpt:
It's the village aspect of ships that we love. The food is OK, the entertainment is third-rate Las Vegas. The ship docks in Mexico and you take a bus to look at Mayan ruins for 45 minutes and return to the SS Gringo. Fine. It's the village life that's wonderful, the pleasure of people-watching and eavesdropping, which the automobile has cheated us of, the camaraderie of card games. Remember that? Back in my leisurely 20s, I sat around for hours with my Republican in-laws and played gin rummy and Five and then I fell in among earnest Democrats who preferred to sit and argue. Cards belonged to the Elks lodge and the Ladies Circle and my generation didn't go in for that. Decades passed and nobody shuffled. And suddenly, walking into a salon full of card players, I remember how much fun it was, the gentle teasing and the small talk. "Go ahead, amaze me," an old lady says to her grandson as she slaps down trump. He folds his hand. Everyone laughs.

Dingy skies here in Portland and the rain is dripping down. I'm putting together some notes for my talk with Willamette Writers tonight. Here's a quote I'm going to use by Alan Watts:Advice? I don't have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing. If you're writing, you're a writer. Write like you're a goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there's no chance for a pardon. Write like you're clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you've got just one last thing to say, like you're a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God's sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves. Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we're not alone. Write like you have a message from the king. Or don't. Who knows, maybe you're one of the lucky ones who doesn't have to.

Reminder to Portlanders:
I'm going to be speaking tomorrow night (7 p.m.)at the Old Church, 1422 S.W. 11th (at Jefferson) at the first Willamette Writers meeting of 2010 Topic: Kill Your Muse,Pick Your Fights, Polish Relentlessly, and Keep Going....Towards Publication.
I promise laughs along with practical info.

Torturous Statistics
Still gloomy here--I'm hunkered at my computer today trying to catch up on things. Although, you know I just never feel caught up--perhaps it's the malaise of our times.
I've tried to link to agent Janet Reid's 12/31/09 post about what she accepted and rejected last year and why: Statistics to Torture Yourself With in 2010.Enlightening, encouraging, heart breaking. What do you think?

A Meaningful Life
Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. ~William Wordsworth

Years ago I lived in a small cabin in the middle of a northern forest. The place was heated by a wood-burning stove and I always kept a pile of kindling ready for starting fires. These days, like that kindling at the ready, I always hold on to hope to start my inner fire. Even during hard times I keep hope at hand and am buoyed as every morning I’m pulled from my bed and settle into this chair at my keyboard. And even when it’s been raining for weeks and I cannot make sense of the chapter I wrote six months ago, I still think this is one of the best lives possible.

For most writers, writing chooses us, and we’d be fools not to answer yes to the call to express ideas and stories. I suspect that like me, you’ve noticed that something mysterious happens when you’re writing and the depths you find within, the ideas and images and memories that erupt out of nowhere. This wellspring appears when we stop fretting and worrying and instead surrender to the writing so that these hours spent are filled with everyday miracles.

So here in January we have a blank easel before us, large with promise. What colors will you paint on it? The writing life is built from growth and enduring and commitment. It requires that you invest the most precious part of yourself—your essence. So what are your investment plans? Have you written them down? Bought a new notebook or journal? There are a lot of things that the writing life cannot deliver. It cannot be a refuge from loneliness or a sure path to fame and fortune. But in it you can find the heroic, compassionate, and transcendent part of yourself as you show up for the page again and again.

In 2010 we can all be bold. Be true. Keep going. Be original. We have a new year before us and a chance to write.

Erica Jong's 20 Rules for Writers
The sky is the color of a dull bruise, but it's not raining. I'm finishing up my February column for the Willamette Writers newsletter, then off to meet a fellow writer for brunch. When I was in college I majored in English and Journalism and minored in Women's Studies and Native American Studies. And yes, I know I'm revealing my hippie past since one of my classes was based on the works of Carlos Costaneda since writers like him fascinated me at the time. I had also lived for a time on an Ojibwa reservation in northern Wisconsin, Lac du Flambeau (I had wanted to live in a teepee as fitting the times. Thank God my then-boyfriend was lazy and this hair-brained scheme never came about since I'm sure we'd have turned into human icicles), and have Native American ancestors.

But anyway, I'm mentioning some of my semi-colorful past because if you took Women's Studies courses, Erica Jong's Fear of Flying was always on the curriculum. Here's a list of Erica's 20 Rules for Writers from her website:
Erica's 20 Rules for Writers
1. Have faith--not cynicism
2. Dare to dream
3. Take your mind off publication
4. Write for joy
5. Get the reader to turn the page
6. Forget politics (let your real politics shine through)
7. Forget intellect
8. Forget ego
9. Be a beginner
10. Accept change
11. Don't think your mind needs altering
12. Don't expect approval for telling the truth -
(Parents, politicians, colleagues, friends, etc.)
13. Use everything
14. Remember that writing is Heroism
15. Let Sex (The Body, the physical world) in!
16. Forget critics
17. Tell your truth not the world's
18. Remember to be earth-bound
19. Remember to be wild!
20. Write for the child (in yourself and others)
There are no rules
Erica Jong

“I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose.” - Stephen King

Pursuit of Happiness Blog
Happy New Year to all: This year feels full of promise, don't you agree? In case you've missed the oh-so entertaining blog that has been appearing in The New York Times for the past year by the amazing Maira Kalman here's the link for the final one. Kalman, a childrens book author and illustrator writes and draws with humor, tenderness,and insight. And she's created the illustrated version of The Elements of Style! Details at her site.