by susan | Jul 1, 2013 | Uncategorized
last friday I mailed off my first grant application. ever.
I’ve long known about the concepts of grants, and have read author’s words of appreciation in their acknowledgements for this or that organization’s gift of this fellowship or that grant. my publishers have even discussed the possibility of digging up some grant money to help cover expenses on my current project. and the idea of a grant from a well-funded, well-meaning organization sounds like a fabulous idea.
so I did some research and found two grant opportunities for which my writing and my current project seem to meet the criteria. I read–at least thirteen times–the list of required forms, documents, and samples, and proceeded to create, fill-in, and piece together everything necessary for grant number one. I edited and proof-read and re-wrote and paused and pondered . . . and finally called it good and pressed the “print” button. 64 pages of paper later, I collated and clipped and gently tucked it all into a priority-mail envelope, attached appropriate postage, and mailed it away.
whew.
and whee!
whether I am awarded one of their grants or not, I hurdled a new step in my path. I did something for the first time, and I dared to put myself out there as deserving of attention and support. they may laugh at my submission, they may think it incredible, they may decline to fund my project, or they may be thrilled to do so. I can’t know, I can’t predict, and that’s fine. I am proud of my application, and look forward to a big fat yes. I like the word yes.
this whole process, though, has led me to dream about the day when I might be in a position to grant grants. how terrific will that be? to be able to support others in their journeys, to be a small piece of new creations, to be someone who says yes to others . . . to foster dreams, to champion someone whose soul aches to create, to encourage people with vision. what a beautiful place to place your energy.
grant application number two is in my to-do pile, with a deadline of sometime in september. these grants are nothing I can count on, but the process of applying helps define my project and helps me take myself seriously. it’s a step in the direction of someday earning a grant that would allow me to focus entirely on a project (say, in a little cabin somewhere!), and to someday be one who is a grantor of grants.
by susan | Jun 18, 2013 | Uncategorized, what I'm reading
I have read very few books written in the year 1900. having just finished reading sister carrie, by theodore dreiser, though, I am astounded by how very little we’ve changed in these past 112 years. we have more tools and toys and engines, but remain plagued by many of the same insecurities, social challenges, and inequities. emotionally and philosophically I don’t think we, as a society, are much better off.
I came to select this book after reading a ny times book review by rachel shteir, from which I quote:
Her [rachel’s] favorite novel about Chicago is “Sister Carrie,” by Theodore Dreiser, in which a small-town girl moves to the big city in search of her fortune. “Dreiser captures everything that is important in modern life,” Shteir explained: “struggles between classes, between men and women; the struggle to exceed what you’ve come from and to become something else, and the price you pay for that, especially if you’re a woman.”
mr. dreiser took well over 400 pages to tell the story of about 6 years of carrie’s life, and from the beginning I was intrigued and never disappointed. he does wax philosophical more than a time or two, but as much in that arena remains today as it did when he put pen to paper, I found it interesting and often thought-provoking. amazing–disheartening, shocking–what little difference 110 years can make.
now I’ve moved on to another turn-of-that-century book, the awakening by kate chopin. writing styles have changed, but internal and interpersonal experiences are little different from those of the late 1900s. perhaps they are similar to those of the late 1800s. and further back, and further beyond that.
perhaps human nature is truly human nature.
by susan | May 23, 2013 | what I'm reading
a key component of the first big writing conference I attended was a message about place. a few of the conference presenters were contributors to a newly-released book called When We Say We’re Home: A Quartet of Place and Memory, and “place” was a theme in more than a few workshops and seminars presented. having never before attended a significant conference like this (Writers@Work, held at Westminster College in salt lake city), I paid attention to everything and took it all in, assuming that everyone there knew more than me so I should listen up.
place is powerful. the good writer can take us there with him/her, and if the writer does the job well, we can experience settings we’ve never known, never heard of or seen, or even envisioned. I learned to visualize Oz long before seeing the movie, and to this day there are many places authors have taken me that I don’t want to ruin by seeing a filmed version of someone else’s concept of said place.
it’s said that our sense of smell–better than any other sense–triggers memories, especially those with some emotional content. and it was while reading of someone else’s smell-driven memories of place that I remembered that I had my own, triggered by the exact same scent: sagebrush.
charles wilkinson is an attorney and professor, but more importantly, an advocate for conservation and for the rights of native americans and our environment, especially those of the colorado plateau. in Fire on the Plateau, published in 1999, he shares his love of the fragrance of sagebrush and how it connects him to this land, the colorado plateau. in this passage he describes setting off, the morning after a rainy night, on a backpacking adventure with his son:
I tear a bushy sprig, then another, off a tall sagebrush, stuff them in my left shirt pocket with the leaves just inches from my nose, and suggest to Philip that he do the same. He does. We pull on our packs and we’re fully ready to hike, fortified by these pale, blue-green leaves. Like Kokopelli, they play out some of the Plateau’s best music, a symphony for the nostrils. (p.261)
it’s been raining here, off and on, the past week or so, and the sagebrush on the canyon hillsides is wildly sprouting, sending its fragrance out on the morning breezes. there is a particular spot where the smell encompasses me, and I am immediately back in junior high, back to the rural landscape I’d recently become acquainted with when my parents moved us to utah. we had an acre or so of land, and what wasn’t covered by house and a small back lawn was covered with rock, wildflowers, scrubby brush and oak, and sagebrush. as the summer air heated up, the scent of sage intensified, and I will always and forever connect sagebrush with the land of my adolescence.
wilkinson took me to my morning rides in the canyon, and to my former home, simply by describing the sage smell that he loves. I knew it, I felt it, it connected me with places within that knew of places without. had he not delved into his own connection with sagebrush, I might not have dredged up my own. but by his doing so, I was enabled to access a wonderful place, a place of memory, and a place in reality.
Fire on the Plateau is a wonderfully personal, factually detailed account of the history of the colorado plateau and its peoples. it brings the landscape to life through description and hand-drawn maps, through stories and moments of wonder. it speaks of our social and political overreaching errors, and what we–thankfully–avoided. as an attorney who worked with native populations, wilkinson has significant insight into why events occurred as they did, and what we can learn from our mistakes, oversights, and aggression. one can read this book for history, for geography, for lessons on conservation, for appreciation of our natural world, and for guidance on how to be a thoughtful human on this earth.
by susan | May 15, 2013 | Uncategorized
op-ed: abbreviated from opposite the editorial page (though often mistaken for opinion-editorial), is a newspaper article that expresses the opinions of a named writer who is usually unaffiliated with the newspaper’s editorial board. These are different from editorials (which are usually unsigned and written by editorial board members) and letters to the editor (which are submitted by readers of the journal or newspaper). [wikipedia. what would we do without them?]
I didn’t go to op-ed writing school. nor did I attend journalism school, nor do I have an MFA. my business undergrad gave me one semester of business writing, and my life path has served up numerous courses and workshops dedicated to the craft of writing . . . and then there are those years and years of just writing and writing and reading and writing and reading.
but I don’t read op-eds. I’ve never studied them; I’ve not practiced writing one.
until now.
the publisher I’m working with has asked me to start getting my name out there, and to write an op-ed piece on our subject matter. (which I’ll go into more in a future post.) so . . . I’m working on crafting an op-ed piece. yikes!!
I thought about attacking it as I would a blog post: a brief essay with (hopefully) some kind of narrative arc or structure that contains and guides and takes the reader from point a to point b. I think this could work.
I also thought about attacking as a journalist might: the who, what, where, why and when of it all. then I remembered why I’m not a journalist and don’t seem to want to write like one.
then I thought about putting it away until I learned what I was doing, possibly researching how one writes an effective op-ed piece. and what I learned is this:
it should be a strong argument about about an issue in the news. it should be spirited, provocative, highly opinionated, and easy to read (courant). they should be timely, brief, written by someone with expertise, and have a call to action (msu). it should be (I like this one) jargon-free (wsj). it should be about twice as long as what I’ve already written here.
so . . . I guess I’m going to practice. I can do the spirited part, and I’m certainly capable of being opinionated. I know my call to action. I’m excellent at using jargon-free language. and I’m working on the expertise thing. all in all, it’s feeling a lot like a truly excellent blog post, like a blog post I actually work on, tweak and nurture and shave, before I press the “publish” button.
it’s good to add new tricks to our bags. who wants to be pigeonholed as someone who can only do one thing? not me. people ask me what I write and I respond, everything. and soon, my “everything” will include excellent op-ed pieces. just watch me go. and why don’t you join me?
by susan | Apr 28, 2013 | what I'm reading
I believe in a higher power, and I typically call it “God.” I am quite amenable to anyone calling him/it/her by whatever name or title he or she chooses, and I am supportive and compassionate to those who have decided to not believe in such an entity, as well. but I write this today from inside my own belief system, in which a higher power has created a (benevolent) universe in which we are subtly guided and supported along our journeys, especially when we’re headed in the “right” way.
clarity, you ask? and, what does this have to do with what I’m reading? simply this: if one pays attention, one is gifted with the recognition of myriad little clues, guides, synchronicities along the way toward achieving one’s goals. paying attention is key, being aware. some of these will jump out at you, but some will rest, casually, along the edge of the road, where you may or may not ever see them. you must learn to be aware of what’s around you, you must learn to look. and allow yourself to listen to and be guided by your impulses.
still didn’t help? okay, here’s the connection. I was in the library last week, looking for a dvd I’d been told of. on the way out I perused the “new in fiction” section, instantly discounting most by title or cover, until a small, hardbound book with an unusual sketch on the cover caught my eye. ways of going home. hmm, interesting title, let’s see what it says on the inside flap. Alejandro Zambra’s Ways of Going Home begins with an earthquake, seen through the eyes of an unnamed nine-year-old boy who lives in an undistinguished middle-class housing development in a suburb of Santiago, Chile . . . okay, good enough, I’ll check it out.
the dvd I’d gone to the library for is about wolves: I’m researching wolves in preparation for a project I’ve committed to working on. I’ve been reading scholarly and scientific and romantic and lightweight articles, books and treatises on wolves, and my head is literally swimming in wolf facts and lore. I need fiction breaks, and this small book set in chile sounded perfect. a few days after bringing it home I opened it, flipping through the first few pages–title page, copyright info, dedication, also by–and then reached a fore-page with two quotes on it, the second of which was this:
instead of howling, I write books. ~r. gary
now, if you don’t make the connection, then you probably won’t need to read any more of my posts or writings, ever. if you do, you might possibly understand the little tickle that ran through my system. of all the books I could have possibly picked up at the library that morning–how many thousands and thousands do they stock–I was somehow guided to choose Zambra’s book with Romain Gary’s quote. which I love. because I believe he exquisitely captures my need to write: because I’m unable to (for societal and cultural and evolutionary reasons) howl to express myself, I must write. and apparently the universe is reinforcing my decision to write about wolves.
one could say the two things have nothing to do with each other; one could throw “random” and “coincidence” at my story. and I will let one. but I know the truth, my truth. which is that the universe is willingly supporting my journey, and will continue to gift me with small synchronicities and occurrences that–if I’m paying attention–will perform like tiny lights along my way, guiding and reinforcing, helping me find my own unique way to howl.
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