by susan | Sep 28, 2012 | Uncategorized
five years ago I attended my first yoga class, after which I swallowed my pride, shrugged off my embarrassment, and went to another one.
since that time yoga has been part of my life . . . not a large part, but a consistent, significant part. my belief about yoga is that if we all learned to move our bodies and minds in this way, and practiced yoga at even a small level on a consistent basis, our world would gradually move into greater harmony.
laugh, smirk, roll your eyes: I know this to be true.
yoga teaches you to respect yourself, your body, your fellow classmates. it teaches you to find balance, to discover the place between enough and too much. it teaches you to breathe deeply, to remove extraneous thought, to focus on doing simple things well. it hones your muscles, it leads to improved posture, it allows your joints freedom and opportunity to expand their flexibility. it teaches you acceptance, awareness, and the fulfilling task of honoring small things.
karan, a yoga instructor whose classes are fabulous and worth rearranging one’s schedule for, is on vacation (kayaking the grand canyon) for a few weeks. yesterday’s substitute for her class was a pilates teacher, and instead of yoga–to my complete surprise–we did floor pilates. hmm. I walked in craving a yoga class, and had to–repeatedly–remind myself that I would receive from this class the fullest benefit only if I opened my mind and let go of what I thought I wanted. so I did pilates, trusting that I would benefit in ways I couldn’t imagine. ruts are to be avoided as they are known to grab your tires and, often, cause you to fall . . .
where am I going with this? why, on to editing, of course.
it’s the rare human who asks someone to take their creation and adjust it, tweak it, fix it, then return it, covered with red marks, suggestions, big bold black lines through parts of it. yet we writers are encouraged to do this again and again, from our first grade school stories through high school and college essays to whatever our next creations might be. not only must we learn the art of writing, we must learn the art of receiving, weeding through, and accepting critiques. and just as open-mindedness helps one take a pilates class when one came for yoga, open-mindedness helps one listen to feedback regarding one’s written creations.
breathing deeply helps, as does a quiet room, as does a bit of time.
and just as I can’t always know how those “hundreds” and “oblique lifts” will impact my strength and flexibility, I can’t always know how someone else’s critiques and edits will impact my work. what I can know is that my job is to trust the universe. to trust that in allowing it to sometimes shake things up for me I am opening myself up to opportunities I wouldn’t otherwise have. my body–my heart–my work–my life will be better for letting others add whatever it is they’re meant to add.
by susan | Sep 17, 2012 | what I'm reading
a few weeks back I decided to start reading more utah authors. in my neighborhood library I asked for assistance in finding such creatures, and was given a print-out with 5 books on it.
now I know that we have more than 5 authors who have collectively written a great deal more than 5 books. but apparently the library catalog hasn’t tagged the authors by state of residence, and it was only a small bit of luck that allowed me a list with even 5. one of them is not a utahn, and I have no idea how he got on the list. two others did not interest me at all and I couldn’t bring myself to give them a try. a third was a mystery that I gave a try. nuff said on that one. the last one, however, got a full read.
escalante, the best kind of nothing, by brooke williams/photography by chris noble, was book number 5. it is a collection of essays about the escalante/grand staircase area that not so very long ago was granted national park status, much to the delight of many and the chagrin of more than a few. and although brooke’s writing is in moments brilliant and in general quite lovely, it is his reference to another book that I consider a great gift of his book.
in his text brooke mentions on the loose, by terry and renny russell, a book published in 1967 by the sierra club, and republished in 2001 by gibbs smith, publisher extraordinaire. I had never heard of this book which is apparently a classic, and immediately searched it out: what a beautiful book. a book of promise, of faith, of trust in the earth. of sand and water, rock and hill. of wind-blown rock and fir-covered sloping mountains.
of man’s need to connect with natural space.
on the loose is brief–quotations, photos, jotted thoughts, lyrics, easily read in thirty minutes–but also the kind of book you can keep beside you, revisit, find newness in. I picture the young writers, I want to visit the vestiges of their campsites and feel the ghosts of what once was. I want to see with their eyes. I want to hear the crackle of their campfires and the grunting engine of the truck they drove. ah, I can. I can sit in the quiet, in the dark, and be with them, exploring the last lonely western wildernesses, barren spots of rich earth, the best kinds of nothing.
by susan | Sep 2, 2012 | what I'm reading
victor ladato’s mathilda savitch is atop my current stack of books.
if you’d like a professional, or at least well-thought-out critical review, you could search online. I’m just going to tell you what my experience of reading it was: not a lot of fancy words or phrases, no references to other authors or works. just my reactions.
mathilda savitch is the 13-ish narrator of this book who starts off with this opening line: I want to be awful. not only did she hook me right there, she kept me with her through the entire 292 pages of the book. I might have slipped away for a paragraph or two here and there, and I at times wanted to shake her, but I cared enough–and was intrigued enough–to stay with her through the end.
mathilda’s sixteen-year-old sister died the year before, and their parents are in the throes of grief, the father seeming to handle it better than the mother. there is some small mystery–to mathilda–about her sister’s activities before her death, and mathilda’s pain-driven mischievous behavior results from some combination of denial, bewilderment, and a sense of abandonment. in the not-too-subtle background is a message of fear resulting from terrorist-related activities, both the 2001 events and a “current” bombing somewhere in the states.
I could have done without the terrorist piece. it felt artificial and perhaps even overdone to me: I would have enjoyed the story more without what felt like a “sensational” drawing in of the terrorism theme. it may be realistic to have this young girl worried about bombs and airplane attacks, however, it just felt like the message of an overly-beaten drum.
this is victor lodato’s first novel: he’s a playwright and poet with a quite a few awards, fellowships, and recognitions for his work. his creation and portrayal of the internal world of a middle-school-age female is impressive, and beautiful. mathilda may just stick around with me for a while: always an indication of a powerful book.
I will eagerly pick up mr. lodato’s next novel . . . and that should tell you something.
also in the reading stack:
escalante: the best kind of nothing (brooke williams) I’m working my way through this, more later
on the loose, a classic I’d never heard of until I read about it in the afore-mentioned book, also more later
the spectator bird, wallace stegner: I’ve committed to working my way through his books for the pure pleasure of his beautiful writing style
desert solitaire, edward abbey. there’s really no excuse for my not having read this yet.
more later!
by susan | Aug 27, 2012 | Uncategorized
shortly after I earned my bachelor’s degree I received a promotion, moved to california, and met a girl named leslie bell. I really liked leslie bell. short dark hair and lively brown eyes, a tall swimmer’s body, a willingness to laugh at the world and herself, there wasn’t much to dislike. among other things, she introduced me to a little phrase that I occasionally use, leslie’s smiling image popping into my brain each time I do. she used it to describe an activity swarmed with people: it was wild–everyone and their pet alligator was there.
everyone and their pet alligator.
as silly a comment as that is, it makes me smile, thinking of cheery leslie, picturing busloads and busloads of people, dragging their little pet alligators by the leash.
now you may not have the same warm and fuzzy association with that little phrase that I do, but hopefully the point of it is clear: a group that appears to include everyone, including their wildest pet.
on to the point.
I am a writer, who, as I’ve stated before, has to write. I can’t help myself. however, I find it challenging to have the same drive/desire/destiny as so so so many other people, all of us aching to put our words out there in printed form for everyone else (and their pet alligators) to read (or otherwise devour). it seems that everyone and their pet alligator wants to be a writer.
we all want to tell our stories; we all believe we have something worthwhile to say, and the yearning to say it. I’m just one more, like everyone else, believing that I can create something worthwhile from small groupings of the twenty-six letters that form our alphabet.
it might be true that I know a few people who haven’t expressed to me their desire to write a book. but those who have far outweigh those who haven’t. we are a huge and varied crowd, each with a unique vantage point, lexicon, and way of expressing ourselves; there is room for all of us in this world. I can either feel the support of the crowd, or choose to be intimidated by its roar.
at the present time I’m trying to navigate my way through online writing communities and author’s blogs . . . oh what a tangled web we’ve woven. it’s easily overwhelming and an incredibly easy way to lose hours of your day. I’d like to think I’m building little steps and stairways that will eventually lead me somewhere, but it’s not easy to tell. I finally learned what rss feeds are, but I’m not yet ready to leap into the tweeting world: I’m just not that succinct. or pithy.
so, here I sit, surrounded by pet alligators. they seem to be kind, and of all varieties. I’m sure they have much to teach me . . . I guess it’s my job to be open to what they have to share.
by susan | Aug 23, 2012 | Uncategorized
I give my files quirky names.
I could be (should be) better organized, placing everything properly in labeled folders so that I could find things more easily, naming my files descriptively, deleting old versions, all of that. but instead, I name files whimsically, capriciously, and suffer the consequences later.
sometimes I remember what I did, and sometimes I don’t.
what brings this to mind is that I’ve been working on a synopsis for my latest manuscript. I hate working on synopses. verbosity is my friend; concision isn’t. yesterday I had to provide a 500 word synopsis for an agency: I began with my 978-word synopsis (which was labeled synopsis attempt 17) and started whittling. pain. agony. frustration.
I had to leave the table and then return. I printed out the 978-word version (which had been culled from a 3-page, 1200-word version) and took my precise-V fine-tip pen and struck through words and lines, squiggling out half a paragraph. then another sentence. two words. an “and,” the word “unbelievable.” I ate lunch. struck another clause. napped. returned, once again, to the table.
I had it down to 513 words after an hour’s diligent work had passed. sweat gathered on my brow. another chop, and then, who needs that sentence, voila, 497 words. which 3 could I re-add?
I saved that version as “synopsis attempt 18.” I may or may not remember that this is the 500-word version. perhaps I should rename it “synopsis attempt 18: 500 words.” that would be logical, possibly helpful in the future, definitely wise. but wordy. a more organized person would probably label this file “500 word synopsis” and call it good.
editing superfluousness is always a challenge.
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