#12: A Pair of Earrings . . .

San Miguel de Allende at Sunset (Adam Ive at Goista.com)

I remember the first time
I wore earrings: small pearls 
given by a grandmother
I never knew.
I used to change my earrings 
to match the moment.
Today, I wear earrings that are
forgettable, that I can sleep in
without thinking,
But I keep my jewelry 
in an old Japanese box of carved mahogany
filled with mementos,
these keepsakes of travels here and there,
friendships, and gifts from my love: 
tiny frogs or silver medallions, 
dangling with turquoise and amythyst,
found in a small jeweler's shop
on a sidestreet in San Miguel de Allende.
Just for today, I shall wear these vintage
earrings from Mexico. They remind me
of a time long ago, 
when we sat out on the roof,
before us, the lights of a small town, 
overhead the stars, 
and you beside me.

Vintage earrings,
San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
about 1980

Missed writing a poem yesterday so here is today's poem, inspired by Antiques Roadshow. A young woman brought her 'junk jewelry' she'd found to discover the earrings were French fillagree with cameos, dated 1775 and worth several thousands of dollars. I know women (and men) have worn jewelry for millenia. I do treasure mine, even if these possessions are so temporary, but they carry memories. 

Find out what those other writers for Octpowrimo are up to HERE.

#11: Halloween Fancy . . .

Jack O'Lanterns

Mary Beth Griffo Rigby (Flickr)

At the end of October,
little boys dress up as ghosts
or caped marauders,
and little girls as bumblebees 

or princesses with fairy wings 

and magic wands,
sweet innocence
on the search for plunder.
Ring around the rosey . . .
The Great Pumpkin rises
under a full harvest moon,
as door to door we skip,
down the darkened streets

from house to house.
Pockets full of posies . . .
Barren trees line the sidewalk
by the witch’s house,
her cornucopia hangs above us
on the sloping porch,
full of sweet meats.
She beckons us in:
Ashes, ashes . . .
We all fall down.

Don’t we all have memories of Halloween, that frisson of fear that underlay our quest for candy, the darkened houses just a little strange on the one night no one counted how many chocolates we ate? 

My sweet granddaughters are getting ready with costumes and yet this night carries darkness all by itself. My little play poem links to that time not so long ago when witches were feared (and burned), when people had no easy answers for death or plague, and when children were not children at all.

Read what others have written for OctPoWriMo.

#10: Hesitation

Johnston Canyon, Banff (Summer 2015)

Sometimes we go ahead,

feeling hesitant about the risk, and yet

the bridge holds firm.

Far below, the river cuts deep through limestone

and the green water roils white.

I'm glad to have come this way

where few travel. The quiet spreads out

around us, broken only by the hiss

of the water below.

Today the sun is warm on my back.

I cannot imagine winter in this place,

the river landlocked with ice,

the jays and green-backed swallows long gone.

This may well be our last trip,

hiking along Johnston Canyon,

before that long journey home.

We did hike in Banff and Jasper this summer, doing research for my current book. I can't resist sharing some of the photos I took along that narrow trail up Johnston Canyon. Click on any photo to see it a little larger.

And check out what others have written for OctPoWriMo HERE.

#9: Chimayó

I wander in the desert of my imagination, 

down along the banks of the Rio Arriba,

near a small gathering of placitas, little plazas,

some twenty-five miles north of Santa Fe,
to find you, Chimayó,
a place of weavers, the warp and woof
of Tewa tradition, those ancestral Puebloans 
who survived here
by making life in this dry place. 

Your hand woven blankets and rugs 
have scattered far beyond this valley,
treasures of comfort to place over the back of a sofa,
the design of feathers, gifts from the sky,
worked in berry-dyes of red
and gray, the colors of the desert,
and turquoise, 
the color of soul healing. 

I found my Chimayó weaving at a garage sale for six dollars, wrapped in a plastic bag. I picked it up and held it in my arms. I only knew I had to take it home, though its story and weaver remain unknown. 

The soft wool of this small weaving (34” x 60”) and the feather design inspired research where I learned more about Chimayó blankets, their history, and this particular style called Moki. The stylized feathers greet me in the morning and end the day. 

http://www.chimayoweavers.com/category/M.html
http://ortegasweaving.com/history.php

Read what others have written for OctPoWriMo HERE.

#8: Simple Things

Simply Green (Jeff Stemshorn 2015)

Each morning begins
simply, just that moment
of being thankful for this day
even as summer ends,
and the Canada geese wend south,
plaintive calls marking their direction.
If I remember not to shudder
to a stop, surrounded by far too many
commitments,
I can stay centered,
well aware of the beauty
of this moment,
the interconnectedness of all things,
your hand in mine,
a comfort and a promise.

Perhaps writing a poem a day will be enough. But computer problems have prevented me from reading what others have written. Will you go see what my writing colleagues are up to at OctPoWriMo?

#7: Volunteer

Chocolate Lily (Camp 2015)

My grandmother called them volunteers,
those bright, sturdy plants that simply appear
in unexpected places, leftovers
from previous seasons,
the seeds forgotten, now
a yellow flowering vine
or a meandering pumpkin
taking over a corner.
Gardeners don’t always like
this unexpected bounty,
for we’re not talking tidy rows
deliberately planted.
Instead the seeds arrive,
perhaps floating on the wind
or dropped by birds. These self-set plants
grow on their own, tenacious,
sometimes invasive, bringing change,
surviving, despite another round of seasons,
roots digging deep,
something like me.


Today's prompt from OctPoWriMo is the road less traveled. I could write a book about that . . . but I didn't see the prompt until after I had written today's poem, a melange of memories from growing up and feeling I didn't quite fit in. I've even experienced a volunteer or two in my own short-lived gardening. You might find this article on what to do with volunteer plants amusing, now that the season for growing things is nearly past.  

Read what other poems have been written for OctPoWriMo HERE. 

#6: Fall

Manito Park (Camp 2014)

Set the teapot aside.
Settle now by the window to admire
the change of colors: green to gold and red.
My gnarled fingers yet ache to write
words that seize this moment

of beauty and peace.
Generations of women, mothers to daughters,
sisters, and friends, all pass along this truth:
Every day, every age requires
tenacity and courage to choose
acts of love and hope that honor
this gift of life,
that nurture creativity in ourselves and others,
no matter how tiny these actions appear,
no matter how few the days.
Soar, leaves, and swirl,
as free and timeless as any bird,
as loved as any child.

Autumn Leaf Child by Philippe Put (Flickr)

Today's prompt from OctPoWriMo was to explore the links between freedom, courage, and happiness. Whew! I certainly wandered around awhile before finding this poem. I think it takes much courage to be a creative person AND to be a good person, goals we strive for and may not always achieve. But there is always beauty and hope.

Read what others have written for OctPoWriMo HERE.

#5: Big Sister, Little Sister

Big sister on momma's lap
welcomes little sister just born.
Who is this little baby girl? 
Can I touch her? Gently?

You can love her 
without really knowing
you are not the only child anymore,
that you will always have
a little sister somewhere,
toddling after you and
challenging you. 
Sometimes you won't want to share.
Later, you will be grateful for every memory.
Big sister, little sister.

Today's prompt for OctPoWriMo is simply love. I think of love in so many different and sometimes complicated (maybe always complicated) ways. Here, My granddaughter greets her new baby sister. What a world awaits them!

Read what others have written for OctPoWriMo HERE.

#4: Magic

Between the Lines by Joel Robison

Whatever brings
the song alive, your breath
or mine, the clicking of the keyboard,
memories, imaginings, 
that space between
hope and despair,
to look within and know
with a kind of certainty
that today I will write.

OctoPoWriMo's prompt for October 4th is Magic. 

Joel Robison, a creative photographer I follow on Flickr, inspires me continually with his ability to say much with his images caught between what the camera sees and what he invents, whimsical, sweet, and filled with light. Click on the arrows on the picture (middle right) or check his works out HERE. Why not visit other writers who are writing a poem a day for October HERE.

#3: Showing Up

Sea shells on the seashore by Gideon Chilton
 https://flic.kr/p/iJZ8AK

Today’s 7:30 a.m. appointment,

a screening MRI.

I wait on the platform

in classic dead man’s pose.

“Breathe and hold still,”

a disembodied voice directs.

The machine whumps its own language,

the platform slides into the tube,

my closed eyelids trace flashing lights.

I imagine the round, narrow tube

encircling me now

with sea shells and green waves, 

unlimited horizons,

and the test is over.

“Have you had cancer before?” the attendant asks

as she helps me to the waiting room.

I look at my gnarled hands and shake my head.

We all travel this way, diagnosed or not,

sometimes cured,

but not immortal.

Note: This morning I sat in the waiting room, wondering how I could write a poem for OctPoWriMo today. Allen's MRI went fine, but I remember other friends and other times. Today's prompt: Showing up.

#2: Asssemblage

"House Sparrows" by Martha deJong-Lantik (Flickr)

Let the day begin

with carefully cut carrots,

celery, tomato, garbanzo beans,

black olives for contrast,

and sweet corn. I add garden

cucumber, summer tomato diced,

tossed over greens, your favorite,

a sprinkling of feta cheese, 

a snitch of basalmic.

Would that the rest of our days

could be so ordered.

And so I will remember these

preparations, mornings, noon, and night

as clearly as the words between us no one knows,

as fleeting as the five house sparrows 

that followed me on my early morning walk.

What would I say or do

if I had two years and eight months left

to live with you?

I’d rather not know.

I’d rather take each day as a gift:

Irreplaceable.

Day 2 of OctPoWriMo. Are you writing a poem a day for the month of October? Please share!

#1: Starry Night

Not sure why
I was afraid of the dark,
until I fell in love 
with Vincent van Gogh's painting,
"The Starry Night." 
His cypress touch a sky filled
with swirling clouds of stars.

Once I saw his paintings,
once I heard that poignant song,
"Starry, Starry Night,"
I will always hold close 
the ache between dreaming and doing,
that shiver between safe
and screaming terror.
Each breath brings choice;
each act can lead to beauty.

October begins with OctPoWriMo. This month continues a tradition when writers commit to writing a poem a day with OctPoWriMo. And so I will try. Today's prompt is clouds. You can begin with a free-write to see what words or images develop into a poem, as I did. Check out the linky to see what others have written.

You can hear Don McLean's moving tribute to Vincent Van Gogh, "Starry, Starry Night," released in 2001, on Youtube.  And there is only one Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch painter 1853-1890. Source of his "Starry Night" Wikipedia.

IWSG Weds: Facing down inner doubts

A few years back, I attended a writing conference and was enthralled by the creativity of a speaker who somehow inspired an audience of about 70 folks to write poetry. Right there in the auditorium.

I don't remember her name, but I do remember after the presentation. She was surrounded by attendees. I courageously joined the group and told her how wonderful I thought she was. She stopped, held up her hand, and said, "Don't do that."

Her message was simply this: Don't put other writers on a pedestal. No matter how polished the writer or the presentation, never forget the hours of commitment and hard work that goes into that final result you so admire.

Sometimes when we look at other writers from the outside, we do not see their struggles and doubts that we may know too well for our own work. 

Writing from the gut requires that we have courage, stamina, and something indefinable -- perhaps a willingness to look past those doubts or outright fears, and ask what our inner editor is trying to tell us.

On the first Wednesday of the month, the Insecure Writer's Support Group asks us to post an update on where we are as writers.  

First view of the Rockies
 (Camp 2015)

Here's my update: We're just back from a three-week research trip to Canada, gathering some wonderful research on the lives of 19th Century fur traders for my current wip, Rivers of Stone. 

We visited museums for hours in Edmonton and Calgary, and I wrecked my feet tramping around in provincial parks (Jasper, Banff).

My greatest challenge? How to integrate this new research into my draft now at 90K. And to fill the holes in plot line and character arcs in ways that satisfy my overall goal -- to fairly reflect that era and somehow to windup with 'happily ever after' even if my characters don't seem headed that way just now. 

I'm recognizing my revisions may not be complete by the end of the year. Maybe that's OK. One writing day at a time. Weekly goals for reading and writing through A Round of Words in 80 Days will keep me on track. And I will seek to learn from my doubts. All will be well.

And now an opportunity. The Insecure Writer's Support Group just opened up its first contest, deadline November 2 to celebrate its anniversary. They want fiction entries (5,000-6,000) for an anthology. Why not consider entering?

Check out what other writers are talking about this month at the Insecure Writers Support Group. Members of IWSG post the first Wednesday of the month (did you notice I was one day late?). Here you'll find confessions, encouragement, and strategies for success! Thank you, Alex J. Cavanaugh, for inspiring us all. 

Writing Tips from The Gunfighter: Point of View

If you've ever struggled with point of view, here's a lovely little video recommended by Anne R. Allen that will make you smile as you dive for your red pen. This short video takes us immediately past 'he said/she said' to focus on the dreaded intrusive narrator.




Have you ever peeked inside a book online and virtually set it down? Anne's post also gives us helpful editing tips for those important first pages that readers dip into when thinking about buying a book on Amazon. Her bottom line: 

Writers: Take action on that first 10% of your book. Readers will appreciate your editing efforts if you persevere for the full 100%.

Read more of Anne's tips at "Your 'LOOK INSIDE!' Preview: Will it Turn Readers Away or Close the Sale?"

Editing tip? Lessons from Tess Gerritsen

This month's presentation at Spokane Authors featured  local writers Tina Bratcher and Sue Eller talking about character.

Sue suggested we build depth into our characters by thinking about four basic personality tests -- and recognizing the diversity of each individual. Tina followed by discussing four levels of character reaction -- physiological, physical, emotional, and mental. 

Both ideas sent me back to an exercise I've been playing with for my suspense/thriller (a summer editing project), Mothers Don't Die.

EXERCISE: What can I learn about editing my opening from reading the first few pages of a highly rated suspense thriller? What really grabs me as a reader?

I chose Tess Gerritsen's Die Again because the cover was compelling, and I've enjoyed her stories in the past. Imagine that once-in-a-lifetime safari to Africa. What could possibly go wrong? 

Gerritsen had my attention with the first page! Her narrator, on safari in Botswana, finds a leopard print just outside her tent. Gerritsen skillfully introduces her theme (predators), setting (deep in the wilds of Botswana), and 9 characters by page 7. I'm hooked, and I don't really know yet which character is primary.

Gerritsen easily sneaks in her narrator's discontent with her lover and her situation. Characters are deftly described so you know their physicality AND their emotional life, revealed through summary, action, and dialogue. 

Conflict spills out everywhere, sorting out which characters are alpha male/female, and all the characters are bundles of emotion as they feel their way into this new, potentially very dangerous situation: Doubt, irritation, fear, anger, frustration, and contempt. 

Perhaps one among this group of untried tourists is a predator.

According to Julie Beck, in her article "New Research Says There Are Only Four Emotions" (The Atlantic): "Conventional scientific wisdom recognizes six "classic" emotions: happy, surprised, afraid, disgusted, angry, and sad." But studies conflate four of these emotions to two: surprise/fear (eyes wide open to gather information), and anger/disgust (nose primary to avoid breathing in pathogens). These older emotional/physical reactions are driven by our survival instinct, what Beck calls "early biologic" rather than social. Interesting.

NOW to return to editing that first chapter in Mothers Don't Die:

1. How many emotions do my characters reveal through dialogue and inner thought? 
2. How is conflict shown? By character actions? Reactions?
3. What unforgettable images set the scene? Do descriptions of people and places draw on the five senses? on emotion?

After doing a little more online reading about emotion (and how do readers connect to our stories except as our stories appeal to their emotions?), I'm realizing that writers do reveal their own emotional experiences through their writing, regardless of setting. Yes, we do tend to write what we know. And we may face curious blocks in expressing a full range of emotion.

So how do we develop fuller characters? Perhaps by investigating models of emotions and thinking about our characters, their inner emotional life, their needs, their motivation, and their behavior. Psychology again! And we can read writers we admire to peek behind the curtain, perhaps to discern how others create a compelling story. Die Again is not an easy read, but I think Gerritsen has the reader by the throat! Now, back to my own editing . . .

Read more about Die Again by Tess Gerritsen at Amazon.
Julie Beck's article on emotion is at The Atlantic.

Feeling insecure in July?

The new month begins with temperatures in the 90's for the next ten days. Summer reading? I've just begun Alex J. Cavanaugh's The Insecure Writer's Support Group Guide to Publishing and Beyond, a collection of short, motivational essays on writing, publishing, and marketing, currently free on Amazon.  

Already, I feel welcomed with advice from writers in this anthology of short shorts. The most important advice for me just now is very simple:  
Commit to writing 30 minutes EVERY DAY. 

Theresa Milstein in "Make Room for Writing," points out that we will NEVER have enough time for our writing. She notes: "Critiquing, reading for research, and blogging do NOT count." 

How many times, even in my current short-term editing of Mothers Don't Die, have I clicked away from writing to check out just one more bit of background? Just this morning I stopped writing to find out the difference between shifts that police work in large cities and rural areas. I discovered different hours, job duties, vocabulary, and a very different culture. Useful? Yes. Writing? No.

So Milstein's advice to write for 30 minutes every day is just what I needed to hear.

Now the Insecure Writer's Support Group is an actual blog hop where participants post the first Wednesday of the month. This is my first time jumping into this group. Their website has many resources for writers. 

Can't wait to read what others have posted! And if you are writing this hot summer, join in and write on!

·     

Beginnings and endings . . .

I'm working on Book 3, Rivers of Stone. The story begins as Catriona, disguised as a boy, arrives at York Factory, hired as a clerk for the Hudson's Bay Company. She's married to her sweetheart, Dougal McDonnell, the fiddler. It's 1842, and they've left Scotland behind.

All's well, right? At the beginning of the story, we already know that many challenges await. The wilderness. Bears. The journey west. But the main theme of lovers separated and reunited should inform the story that unfolds. After working on the story for nearly two years, I'm 90,000 words in, but the ending eludes me.

As women know who came of age in the 1960's, nothing is certain. We had no role models. The rebel who burned her bra shocked us. We wanted to be that housewife who happily lived in suburbia in a cottage-like home, with an adoring husband and 2.5 children. Blame Barbie. Going to college meant a pat on the head and an opportunity to find that husband.

I was already different. Tall, gangly. Wore glasses. Add the reality that my family was beyond poor, and I was a bookworm. I worked my way through college, taking in typing as if it were laundry. Two jobs. Three jobs. Didn't matter. The one goal that created a sense of direction was getting that degree.

And so it dawned on me this morning that my last book, Years of Stone, and this one are really about that unique quest for survival as a woman.

In Years of Stone, Deidre, standing in line aboard a sinking ship, says, "I know my place." But she didn't. 

In Rivers of Stone, Catriona, also aboard ship just arriving in Hudson's Bay, is chided by a sailor: "You there, no slouching about. Yer to earn yer keep, boy." Cat replies, "Dinna be pushing me."  But life and circumstance do push us. 

I still want that happy ending for Cat and for all my characters. When do our actions or the actions of our loved ones take us well past that outcome? And then what? Some happy endings are hard won.

Frances Anne Hopkins, "Voyageur Canoe (1869)
Wikipedia

Click on the image to see more detail. Notice the woman in the canoe. Frances Anne Hopkins. Married to a Hudson Bay Company official, she traveled throughout upper Canada with her husband in the 1860s; her paintings document the fur trade. 

Musings on writing a family history . . .

This month, I'm still musing about how to write a family history.  Writing about family -- even a family history that sticks to the facts -- presents some chilling challenges. 

How close do we write the truth? How do we put what happened into a context that either entertains or brings insight?

If I were famous or knew those famous, what to write about would be easier. But, the closest I came to meeting anyone famous was serving coffee at a bank meeting to one of the stars from the well-loved TV series, M*A*S*H. 

I wasn't a secretary, but I was the only woman at the meeting to discuss our loans/investment portfolio. I got grumpy because it was the 1970s, and I knew I was asked to serve coffee because I was a woman. What added insult was later my boss insinuated I would love to go out with this 'famous actor'. No less than four or five times that day, I was reintroduced to this guy as someone who'd really like to know me, ensuring my disdain.

If there were no trauma or drama, no hidden little secrets, no teen-aged mind-blowing experiments with drugs, no sex before marriage, no child given up for adoption, no affairs, no lies, no bank robberies, not a moment that stepped outside propriety, what is left to write about?

I did think seriously about robbing a bank for maybe a full minute.

Back to the seventies. I was a trusted bank officer, and one of our clients needed some fully negotiable stock certificates (anyone off the street could cash these in) stowed away in a safe place overnight. My boss (different boss, different city) asked me to put them 'somewhere safe and to not tell him where.' 

I knew instantly what to do.

I took these beautiful certificates worth several million dollars in my hands, fantasized briefly about running away to the Bahamas, sealed them in a plain, manila envelop, and took them to Jack, who worked the back room and was responsible for the bank safe. 

"Can you lock these papers up for me overnight and give them back to me tomorrow, no questions asked?" I asked. Jack didn't know what they were, but he didn't hesitate. He trusted me. I trusted him. End of story. But the real story played out on the front pages of The Wall Street Journal for the next several years.

Such an anecdote may be amusing. With more detail, it might be litigious. But, similar to fiction, the story telling of a family history serves a point, a theme, a sense -- even unwitting -- of moral purpose. We want to know why someone acted in a certain way.

But to the point, how do we balance the truth with privacy concerns? Even a family history presented as a gift will be read by a wider circle than we might expect.

Kerry Cohen suggests beginning by knowing your purpose. So IF I were writing about those years with the bank in the early 1970's, I might really be writing about the beginnings of the feminist movement and how it changed our social landscape irrevocably for many.

And IF I were writing about some terrible secret family history, Cohen again suggests we should write with compassion. For we do not know what motivates others to act as they do. Unless, perhaps, they write it all down.

"Time" by Vincent Huang (Flickr)

Just finished reading Kerry Cohen's article, "Writing About Family in Memoir." in Writer's Digest (November/December 2014), 60-61, excerpted from her book, The Truth of Memoir (2014).

Getting started with memoir

They needed a teacher. I said, "Yes." So for the next month, I'm reading and thinking about how to get started writing a memoir for an afternoon workshop.

Judith Barrington's Writing the Memoir makes a very interesting distinction between writing an autobiography or biography (organized around key events in your own or someone else's life) and writing a memoir (developed around selected events in your life to support a theme).

I've wanted to write a bit of family history ever since my son-in-law asked me who the lady was whose picture I have in my bedroom. 

My grandmother, Sigrid Elizabeth Torgny, born in Chicago in 1888. This is her high school graduation picture. Daughter of a doctor, she traveled out west and fell in love with a cowboy, right around the time of World War I.

So I could write a biography around my family history -- adding my autobiography. But if I slide to a theme . . . Aha! I will be writing a memoir.

Bibliography so far:

Barrington, Judith. Writing the Memoir, 2nd. ed. Portland, Oregon: The Eighth Mountain Press, 2002.

Borg, Mary. Writing Your Life, 4th ed. Waco, Texas: Prufrock Press, 2013.

"Z" is a Broken Triangle . . .

The letter "Z" is
a broken triangle,
long ago, a pyramid,
its sides drifted apart,
a zig that zagged,
first right, 
then left, and right again,
now the soft sound of snoring,
zzzzzz. Zounds!
Vat vill zey say?
What was once that first mound
from which all life began 
is now a girl's name,
Zeta, born last,
ze end.

And so ends that Blogging A-to-Z Challenge, a full month of poetry. Some people prepare by planning and pre-writing their entries, but I tried to write each day those thoughts inspired by the letter itself, sometimes the first line arriving, like this one, in a half-dream. And now we are one month closer to summer, the promise of picnics, picking strawberries, more hiking . . .  and more writing on that current work-in-progress. 

Gardens at Giverny (Camp)