Inspiring writers . . .

I'm just finishing up reading Mary Doria Russell's A Thread of Grace and like so many things about her writing style: underlying themes that challenge the reader, depth of character development and relationships between the characters, and vivid country settings in Italy. So I went to her website to find she's just published a new book, Dreamers of the Day (an excuse to go back to the library before my books are truly overdue), and she has also posted advice to writers.

OK, so writing is supposed to be a lonely occupation. I know if the writing doesn't go as well as I wish, I doubt and delay and pretty much feel inadequate for a day or two.

I read somewhere that even with severe writer's block (which I don't quite believe in), that the best strategy is to simply write. Even if you don't like what you're writing. Just write. Then check back the next day. A writer's guru from Writer's Digest Forum says you'll be surprised to find yesterday's writing is fine. You can always return for revision later. But the key is you don't require inspiration.

Mary Doria Russell gives a helpful list of tips in her Note to Writers. Among these, two for me stand out (not the least being her generous and open tone):

--Fall in love with your characters. Make them laugh and cry. They'll tell you what they want to do.
--Don't rely on writer's groups. Russell says that it's enough to read her own "crappy drafts." (This in itself is reassuring for every rough draft seems crappy at some point.) She continues: Search out test readers. Tell them to look for what's broken. They will help you diagnose editing areas, but only you will know exactly how to "fix" the story.

Allen told me last night that writing a novel was a long and solitary occupation. Writing is very hard work. I don't want to settle for "The novel is finished. Hooray!" I see about another year and maybe two years of editing before Standing Stones will be the best story I can write.

But every day remains a challenge. So I'm going off to my first creative writing conference and will hope for useful information, knowing that whatever I learn, I still will remain committed to this process. And it doesn't matter if others like my stuff or don't like my stuff. I write.

Solace

Each evening, I fix hot tea
and sit at this window.
I see pine trees in shadow against a pink sky,
a line of young aspen tremble in evening wind,
and there, a line of blue mountains fades
into gray clouds low on the horizon.

Somehow I lost you between Wednesday and Friday;
only bare lines on photographs remain.
What solace does memory bring?
I cannot remember the names
of the flowers that bloom.
I only remember you.


Note: Click on this link for more readings on this week's prompt from Sunday Scribblings writers. I was surprised by this prompt, somehow connecting it in my other blog to quilting and Obama and then, after a long walk, to loss.

Solace . .

Hop over to my other blog for some comments on this week's prompt on SOLACE from Sunday Scribblings. I may yet post a poem but . . . not yet!

In the Black Hills . . .

In the Black Hills near Devil’s Tower,
I climb down a mountain trail,
ignoring a raven
who brushes across my path
three times.

A prayer bundle bag hangs from a pine tree.
I circle it reverentially and leave quietly.
A cloud of yellow butterflies
swirls ahead of me
on the trail.


This week's prompt from Sunday Scribblings is one word: ghost. I started by writing "I have never seen a ghost." Then this poem found me, and I remembered this day's hike in the heat of a summer pine forest.

Historical Inverness

Today I'm visiting Inverness, virtually that is, and found this incredible picture of the seacoast along northern Scotland. These are the famous Duncansby Stacks, so reminiscent of the standing stones left throughout the islands by neolithic peoples. Fishermen and passing ships would have seen these sandstone stacks; the whole coast is rugged, storm swept with treacherous tides. Mac, one of the characters in my book, is traveling down from Kirkwall in Orkney to Inverness and would have passed these stacks, just south of the Pentland Firth.

Dunscansby Stacks (source: Wikipedia)

I also read about the Mercat Cross in Inverness. Right in the heart of town, the Mercat Cross marks the gathering place of the market, where merchants and traders gathered, announcements were read, and sometimes public hangings or other punishments were carried out. Today, a modern sculpture topped by a unicorn and falcons honors this tradition, but then, the Mercat Cross was at the center of town, to help the stranger find his or her way.

Near the base of the Mercat Cross in Inverness, so the story goes, washerwomen hiking up from the River Ness would rest their tubs of laundry on a large stone which came to be called the clach-na-cuddaiin, or Stone of Tubs. Storytellers say as long as that stone remains in Inverness, that city will prosper.

I can imagine Frida Khalo . . .

I can imagine Frida Khalo
at the 7-11, at 8:30 pm,
before the stars are fully out,
just standing there, checking out
cold rows of Dos Equis in the cooler or the
blistered pizza barely warm on a summer night,
clicking her red fingernails on a torn LOTTO ticket.

She would come into that space,
trailing incense,
earrings touching her shoulders,
jasmine flowers in her hair,
her swirling long skirts covering a limp,
her fingers marked with red
and green and yellow oil paint,
her wide red lips
and dark eyebrows marking her dangerous,
seditious, revolutionary. Her sorrows
fall away in jolting lines of color.

I know this:

I would stand silent behind her.
I would not give away her phone number.
I would hide her canvases.

Writing Conferences?

This post originally listed possible writing conferences to attend. I've taken the plunge and am going to the Willamette Writers Conference in Portland at the beginning of August. Looks like three days of intensive workshops and speakers, and an opportunity to make a pitch (more of that later).

Here are some other writing conferences/workshops in Washington and Oregon to check out (thanks to suggestions from friends in Oregon):

Oregon. Try writer talks in Portland's Sellwood district through the Oregon Writer's Colony. Update June 24, I registered for the Others to check out:
--Tin House Summer Writer's Workshop, (Portland, OR)
--Silverton Poetry Festival, (Silverton, OR)

Washington. What about the Pacific Northwest Writers' Conference, this year in Seattle, July 17-20. Their website shows an emphasis on biographies this year. Others to check out:
--The Whidby Island Writers' Conference is held in the spring.
--Port Townsend Writer's Conference, (already full).
--Skagit River Poetry Festival, (La Conner, WA) -- great intimate festival and workshops
--Get Lit!,(Spokane, WA) -- more a reading series than a workshop/conference, but lots of fun

Writing update.

I haven't been writing poetry lately as we've been switching from the east coast to the west coast, the last three days of driving averaging 500-600 miles per day. We skirted part of one major thunderstorm, though. I don't understand how people can live in a region that brings that level of uncertainty. Give me the Pacific Northwest. I have missed these mountains! But the writing has gone fairly well. I'm now at nearly 70,000 on the novel and although that was my original goal (seemingly unattainable), I'm guessing the project (just telling the story) is about 80% finished. But progress in spite of all is still unfolding.

Now we move today into our new apartment, one place, no moving around for two months. My office is to dream of. The apartment is second floor, and my office, a small alcove off the living room, has windows facing downtown Spokane. The view makes me feel I'm floating in trees, great pines surround the house, and we're on the second floor. I'm optimistic and can't wait to continue . . .

The longest night

Through the longest night,
time stood still,
measured by my own body.
Then you came
with infant dimples, no hair,
and knowing hazel eyes.
Every morning into night has since
been shaped by you,
girl-child to girl-woman to woman,
connecting joy to joy.

The most memorable night of my life lasted 63 hours and brought my daughter. I remember every detail of her birth. Time seemed to stand still, outside of my experience. In some ways, it seems unfair to connect birth to the concept of night, for the whole experience began at night but whether it was night or day, I could not tell. The birth itself was so memorable. No watch would be useful, for how night passed into day was measured by my own body.

#10 Ultrasound

These curves of mine I see
now as ocean waves of sound, whorls
of waves circling, layered, geometric,
as much a part of me as wrist or foot,
my breasts reduced to photographs, impaled
black on white wall. We view tissue
where curves once tilted and seduced.
Once, just once, I swam free
through salty ocean waters, the waves
a memory across sheet after sheet
of diagrams, a strange continuous reality
that has nothing to do with my body.
I stare in hope and dismay
at what technology reveals.

#9 Quitting

It’s not so much about quitting
as letting go. I’m remembering
a photograph of Helen Keller,
taken a few days before her death,
her eyes turned inward, as if she were
seeing something we only wonder at,
that photograph glimpsed once and never
forgotten, a hint at journeys not yet taken,
where all that is familiar falls away;
even the closest loved one cannot come with you,
and the night holds no terror.

#8 Heartsore

Be still, heart.
I know you beat for others yet
this heart is mine also, redness tinking through
my veins. Don’t stop just now, or press in
tighter and tighter, but keep pumping
for yesterday we saw an eastern blue jay,
its crested head
still for a moment,
matched only by two cardinals chattering
and circling around each other, soaring
from porch to porch
on this street of row homes.


This week's prompt from Sunday Scribblings on the words "soar/sore" led me to write a poem about living with family again. We're visiting for a month here in Philadelphia, and this tiny house will have eight relatives over the next two weeks. I'm noticing how many meals need to be cooked, how many dishes need to be washed, and how many dearly loved relatives revert to those days when older parents did all. We'll leave June 3 but this poem (late, late, late) helped me create a little distance, even as I dive in.

#7 Who are you?

I see you, stranger with the
cell phone, eyes somewhere else,
perhaps talking with a lover and driving,
the car in front of you moving too slowly, or
in the supermarket, pushing your cart
and talking, talking in that loud intimate tone
that excludes and informs, as you crash
into my grocery cart, eyes blank with surprise:
Who are you?

I see you, dear friend, talking to
anyone at all when they call,
while I wait and pretend I’m floating far away
from this cell phone zone as we barrel along,
a fixed 80 miles an hour on the freeway.

How quickly the cell phone,
like my laptop, becomes an excuse
for not talking at all.

This week’s Sunday Scribblings prompt is the telephone. I remember the sensuous of dialing a telephone number, just four digits, pulling the heavy circle down and letting it ratchet back, sending its signal down through the line. When they added three numbers and dropped the letters from our phone number, we said no one could possibly remember seven digits, let alone ten digits that included the area code. And then I was a teenager with the phone tight against my ear, laying on the floor while babysitting. I met my first boyfriend in a two hour marathon on a black manual dial phone. I learned of my mother’s death by phone. I then called my sister for a conversation filled with long distance silence. Today I call my aunt who suffers from memory lapses. I don’t think she can remember her phone number at all, but she remembers my voice, though a continent separates us. And I’m a fan of Skype, an internet-based phone that lets me memorize the face of my daughter, she whom I haven’t seen face-to-face in nine months and who comes next week to Philadelphia; I’ll track her arrival by cell phone.

Short story published . . .

Just an announcement to say that the online e-zine Fickle Muses has published one of my short stories, "Rusalka", a mermaid story set in Russia at the turn of the century. I'm beginning to wonder how we ever decide what to write about. Some writers talk about the "muse" grabbing us. I usually begin with a germ of an idea, but where it takes me is often surprising. If you go read this story, please leave a comment or sent me a note. Thank you! I'd love to hear your reactions. Beth

#6 Weather Report

Today the warm air pressed April
and May into rainy Thursday
with a promise of
humidity to come, summer
heat suggested in lilac scent.
Cherry and dogwood trees bloom,
the pink and white petals
dress any passerby
with bridal anticipation.

I learn of Indian jack-in-the-pulpit;
its roots and pale green leaves
ease night terrors.
Fern fronds uncurl into warmth,
underneath, a line of tiny brown seeds.
Out on the grasses come Canada geese;
Yellow-brown goslings follow.
Even a cardinal flashes
red across the clearing. I return,
healed from winter.



A spring visit to Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia led me to this poem in response to today's Poetic Asides prompt to write a poem on weather.

#5 Diagnosis

A round circle
the size of a dime
talks to me,
as if ever I could see
down bloodstreams
into eternity.
And shall I swim then
to heart’s content,
from my deepest dreams
taken, yet to deeper dreams
awaken?

This poem came last night almost in a dream. I've been thinking lately about whether to stop writing poetry and just focus on the novel as some writers believe we can do one but not both. But I really enjoyed being part of an online writing community last month through Sunday Scribblings and Poetic Asides. So I'm hesitating. I'd really like your opinion on poetry vs. fiction and whether writers can pursue both.

#4 Maya, mother mine

Maya, mother mine, beauteous
Hollywood starlet, couldn’t bowl, burned
biscuits every time, loved us kids and loved
to dance. She once crossed a freeway
to grab a beer and flew
80 feet in front of a truck.
A little wobbly thereafter,
this wild woman died far too young from a fall
into the ocean, a sneaker wave
no one expected. In repose, still
innocent, still unforgettable,
still my mother.

#3 I have two sisters . . .

I have two sisters, one dear,
one lost somewhere in Texas.
I’m not sure exactly when
we stopped talking, maybe the day
she tried to steal a television
out the back window. She was so pretty
people stopped to stare.
We couldn’t walk through a grocery store
for the men who followed her.
I went off to college.
She joined a California commune.
She visited the Tate house two weeks
before the Manson murders.
I became a teacher.
Sometimes when the phone rings,
I think I will hear her voice.

#2 Family

All I have is this picture
taken on a porch sometime around 1896,
at Fort Reno, Oklahoma.
My grandmother dressed in white
with tight little girl curls
framing her face;
her father sits in military dress,
almost at attention, his eyes unfocused.
My great-grandmother reclines in a hammock.

I stare at this picture,
frayed around the edges, searching
for family.
His mother sits in a rocking chair
on the far right, separated by a pillar.
My great-grandmother at sixteen
stares at the camera,
perhaps insolent, perhaps indolent, perhaps
pregnant with an unwanted child.
Family stories say
her mother-in-law was strict.
I don’t know.

My grandmother, that little girl in white,
ran away with a traveling salesman
when she was sixteen,
all the way to California
just before World War I,
perhaps carrying this very
tiny blue glass perfume bottle,
its top decorated with a tassle that I pack away.
I fold up a receiving blanket
embroidered with white silk,
and look again at birth dates marked
in an old baby book. Family.



This poem comes from Sunday Scribblings prompt on family. I've long wanted to write about this photo. You can click on the photo to see a larger image.

#1 Philadelphia Spring

Yesterday, cherry tree blossoms graced
streets and sidewalks,
turning these row homes into
something grand. People came out on linked
porches to marvel, somehow lighter.

Today, it rained, the pink
turned to gray. Block after block,
row houses remain. Difficult
to see family here, where wilderness once
prevailed. Difficult today to see past
one woman’s ranting, “You don’t look
American.”



Today's prompt comes from Sunday Scribblings: to write of family. I'll be thinking of this prompt all week; today I started with our family neighborhood here in Philadelphia.