by susan | Jul 31, 2013 | Uncategorized
I attended a wedding the other evening, a beautiful celebration on a grassy lawn beside a pond, shaded by trees, with dappled sunlight touching guests here and there. a chuppah was set in front of the chairs, a striking collection of slender logs with smooth gray bark, chiffon, and flower bunches thick with light purple hydrangea and pale yellow roses. the ceremony was heartfelt and personal, while still adhering to tradition and doctrine. other than one of the bridesmaids fainting, it flowed easily and engagingly. a string quartet had played traditional music as we gathered and seated ourselves and for the entrance of the wedding party and bride, but as the newly married couple departed the setting, they played a beatles song, in my life.
I don’t listen to beatles’ songs nearly enough. in my life is a love song that includes people and places and memories, saying I’ll often stop and think about them, and that I’ve loved them all. life is filled with experiences and encounters, and there’s no better way to go through life than by acknowledging how each one–good and bad–has affected you for the better.
reading good literature and poetry, listening to powerful compositions, and hearing musicians do what they do best are all things that touch hearts and souls. and the beatles were extremely talented at writing poetry, lyrics, and music. I am not placing them above anyone else, I am just using them as an example of talented people who created amazing works. I listen to lyrics like these and think, what else do we need to say?
we now live in a world of 7 billion people, a world that has fostered writers for over a thousand years, writers who have produced millions of written works.
I sometimes wonder if there’s anything left to say.
yet I keep plugging away at it, as do tens of thousands of others. after all these years, after reading and listening to thousands of others, we still want to say things in our own words. I think about just spending the rest of my life reading what everyone else thinks, feels, and writes, and it’s certainly tempting. but I find that after a period of time spent reading, or riding my bicycle, talking with friends or just being, my hand begins to search for a pen, and I want to write.
whether it’s all been said or not, I have a desire to say it again, perhaps a little bit differently, hopefully from a perspective that is subtly shifted away from that of others. I accept the reality that my words will bear striking similarity to those of others, and that none of my thoughts are truly unique. that’s okay. I still have to write.
may you continue doing what you need to do, whether someone else is doing the same thing or not, whether it’s already been done a million times, or even if it feels like just one more version of someone else’s idea. you have a passion for a reason: fuel it, feel it, live it.
by susan | Jul 10, 2013 | Uncategorized
two months ago my favorite publishing company–torrey house press–approached me with an idea for a book, and asked me if I would be interested in taking on the project. let me clarify: they approached me with a topic. a one-word topic, a topic that they said I could take on and write about in any way that inspired me. sounds great, doesn’t it? sounds like a dream job, sounds like something any writer with half a brain should say yes to.
so I said yes, (because I appear to have–sometimes if not always–about half a brain). and thus I find myself writing a book about wolves.
yep, wolves.
and it is going to be a damn good book.
I’ve been researching like crazy for the past two months, reading and interviewing and traveling to yellowstone and missoula and bozeman, thinking and feeling and synthesizing it all . . . and I am creating an incredible book about something I never even knew I might care about. at least, I’m creating this incredible book when I can tear myself away from the never-ending research.
about a month into my indoctrination-by-overload into the world of wolves, I had eight books stacked on my table and I needed a bike ride. along the route, my biking buddy bob was listening to my current-and-future wolf reading list, and he said to me, “back in college, a professor once told me–after listening to all of the research I’d done–just start writing.”
so I just started writing. and I’m still writing, and researching, and reading, and continuing to write.
there are numerous books about wolves already out there: you can read about the reintroduction of wolves into yellowstone, you can read the science, you can read books with amazing pictures, you can read about people who camped and lived with a wolf pack for six years. mine will be nothing like these: they’re already out there. mine is a personal story, a personal journey, with universal application. it’s a book about wolves, and it’s also a book about what it means to be human, in a world with wolves.
and it’s getting written. slowly. there’s more research to do, more experiences to be had, more people to talk with. but I’m remembering to write. because it’s an awful lot like bicycling: nothing happens when you don’t pedal. and once you begin pedaling, your destination comes closer and closer, one pedal stroke at a time.
one day you’ll want to be reading my wolf book. because not only am I an excellent researcher, but I’m a darn good writer and I’m going to keep writing, one word at a time, each day bringing my destination just a little bit closer, and closer, until one day, the wolf book will be ready for you and I will begin writing something else.
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.
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