by susan | Jan 1, 2013 | what I'm reading
I love research, whether it be the origin of a phrase, the date of a birth, or the history of a person or event. I’m a dedicated fact-checker, a punctilious speller, meticulous in my efforts to state things correctly. I love learning causes and explanations and silly little facts, and I find digging into the why’s and where’s to be an intriguing challenge. while my greatest joy in writing is to be in that place of “flow” where the words come flying through my fingers with very little conscious participation, I find the researching aspect of writing to be a challenge that when answered brings me incredible satisfaction.
another form of writing research is possibly even better, though . . . and that would be the times I research the writing styles of other authors.
stephen king has been credited with the following words of wisdom: If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others:read a lot and write a lot.
darn, I have to read. a lot. what drudgery.
I pretend it’s work, while I’m singing inside.
these past few days I’ve been rereading a book I read nine years ago, a book I love, the time traveler’s wife (if you haven’t already, please read this book. skip the movie: read this fabulous book). it’s research, you see, as my latest project has a vague connection to issues written about by ms. niffenegger. I snuggle into my corner of the couch, a chenille throw draped around my knees and toes, and dig into my research. serious countenance aside, I am inwardly grinning and happy as a clam.
to be honest, though, I often end up reading works I don’t care quite so much for in attempts to be “aware” and on top of the literary scene. (no, haven’t tried fifty shades of anything, yet.) I have forced myself through pulitzer prize winning books, and books on top of “everyone’s” must-read lists, classics, and even those suggested by friends, all in efforts to broaden my experiences and taste. to increase my exposure, to stay current. I am too kind to make a list of Books I Couldn’t Finish, or even Books I Wanted To Stop Reading But Didn’t Because They Won Prizes. but I will share those titles in close company, and shake my head in amazement that I am so uneducated? dense? narrow? as to think little of them.
but fortunately, most of my reading-research involves books I actually enjoy reading. from each book, story, or essay I read I pick up ideas. phrasing, methods, new words, craft . . . there is always something for a writer to learn from another written work.
so please excuse the brevity, but I must return to ms. niffenegger’s book because it seems that I still have work to do.
by susan | Oct 22, 2012 | Uncategorized
I’ve always wanted a mentor.
someone who’d take me under their wing, provide guidance and wisdom and support, help me connect with those people I’m supposed to connect with. someone wiser, more established, someone who’s been there and done that. instead, my experience has been that most everyone I meet is in the same boat as I am in, using similar oars, being frustrated by the same currents and storms and periods of flat water and drifting. this isn’t to say that I’ve never had hands reach out for mine and offer assistance; it’s just to say that it’s my dream to have someone who knows more than me, who knows better than me, to be in my corner.
(I’ve recently had someone come into my life who is, in a way, playing this role . . . it is early, there is much still unknown, but it’s possible we may move more into the mentor-mentee relationship. I am grateful for what he and his wife have shared with me so far, and want to acknowledge this . . . thanks mark and kirsten.)
thus, in the spirit of mahatma gandhi who encourages us to be the change we wish to see in the world, I am working to share what I know, what I possess, who I am, with those who are trying to paddle through waters similar to those I choose to travel.
I have a friend who has written a manuscript–with her daughter as co-author–that is languishing in a cobwebbed computer file. it needs attention: reviewing, tweaking, possibly editing . . . it needs to be read by someone else, someone who has some experience with writing and editing. thus I offered to read it, to give my opinion of what might need to happen next, where it might go. it happens to be a YA (young adult) book . . . I happen to know someone with multiple connections in that area. I will do everything I can to help this friend and her daughter move forward with this manuscript, hopefully all the way to publication.
I have another friend who’s written a manuscript which I reviewed, offering suggestions and fixing errors and typos. she’s leaning toward self-publication, and I offered to do anything I can to help her in that process, including formatting it.
I do these things because I’m able, because I receive some internal fulfillment from doing them, and, ultimately, because these are the things I myself wish to receive. some say that the universe will respond, which would be fantastic. but even if it doesn’t, I am deeply gratified by being even a small part of the creation of a book, whether it’s my own or someone else’s. I’m quite certain mahatma would have felt the same.
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 | 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.
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