The Writing Life: Cat and Mouse, plus Novel Destinations

When I’m working on this blog, my website, or some writing project in which access to the printer in our office isn’t necessary, I sometimes take my laptop downstairs and sit in an oversized recliner in the family room of our home. Having never become comfortable using the little laptop pad for moving the cursor around the screen with my finger, I use a mouse, shifting it around the surface of the extra wide seat cushion beside me.  Many times our cat Midnight also takes a place beside me as I work. She sometimes poses there like the Great Sphinx of Giza, her head up and her front legs parallel and pointing forward as she purrs and squints her eyes closed in what I think of as fake sleep. I enjoy her warmth and calm demeanor beside me. But a problem erupts when she sprawls on her side across the cushion and her black, furry legs and paws stretch out and hinder the movement of my arm and hand whenever I need to move the mouse. This then becomes a true-to-life game of cat and mouse, yet still one of those many simple pleasures of the writing life.

What moments do you enjoy about the writing life?

While you’re thinking, here are a few great writing-related events happening in the North Idaho area.

The Coeur d’Alene Public Library has sent out the following information about a summer reading program  called Novel Destinations.

‘Novel Destinations’ is Summer Reading for grownups

COEUR d’ALENE – The Coeur d’Alene Public Library is participating with other area libraries to provide Summer Reading for adults.

Coeur d’Alene at the libraries of the Community Library Network are offering “Novel Destinations” for their adult patrons. Each time you visit a participating library and check out a book or other item you can enter two win a Sunday brunch for two at the Dockside at The Coeur d’Alene Resort.

The Coeur d’Alene library has also scheduled travelogue and history programs during the summer months. These free programs begin at 7 p.m. on these days:

Wednesday, June 8: “Travel With Bob: Savannah to the Everglades” – Regional historian Robert Singletary will discuss the historic sites along the Gulf Coast from Georgia to the Everglades dating back the to Colonial Period. He will share his photos from trips to the region.

Thursday, June 23: Author John C. Jackson will discuss his book, “By Honor and Right,” the story of Capt. John McClallen, the first U.S. Army officer to lead an expedition to the West after the return of Lewis and Clark.

Wednesday, July 6: “The Mullan Road, 150th Anniversary” Singletary will discuss Capt. John Mullan and the impact of the road he built from Fort Benton, Mont., to Walla Walla, Wash., in the mid-19th Century. The route he surveyed still serves the region as its main transportation core. Participants will have the opportunity to sign up for a field trip to the Mullan Tree and a portion of the Mullan Road (the field trip is not part of the library program).

Wednesday, Aug. 6: “Leonardo D’Vinci and the Italian Renaissance” – Singletary will lecture on this incredible figure and times in which he lived. Participants will have the opportunity to sign up for a field trip to be led by Singletary to the exhibit at the Museum of Art and Culture in Spokane (the field trip is not part of the library program).

Singletary’s lectures are made possible by a grant from the Friends of the Coeur d’Alene Public Library.

The library is scheduling programs by area residents who have photos and information on trips they have taken. If you have a travelogue to share, contact David Townsend, Communications Coordinator, 208-769-2315 Ext. 426 or e-mail dtownsend@cdalibrary.org.


There are also several other events happening in the North Idaho area in the coming days and weeks.

Tomorrow, June 4, make plans to visit the Rathdrum Farmers’ Market in Rathdrum’s City Park where North Idaho author B. J. Campbell will sign copies of her book, Close Calls: The True Tales of Cougar Bob. Campbell will also read from the book in the Gazebo at 12:45 between sets of Bluegrass music by the North Idaho Hat Band.

For details on this and other upcoming events, check out the Events page on this blog.

Have a great weekend!

Self-Defeating Behaviors: Advice for Writers

Today we are happy to have a guest post by our friend and Coeur d’Alene resident, Ana Parker Goodwin, former psychotherapist and lecturer turned writer. Ana is the co-author of a renowned textbook titled Sandplay Therapy: A Step-by-Step Manual for Psychotherapists of Diverse Orientations, published by W. W. Norton in January 2000. The book received excellent reviews in several psychological journals, has been translated into Chinese, and remains an international best seller in its topic area.

Ana’s most recent publication, Justice Forbidden (Living Oracles Publishing 2011), is the first in a series of psychological suspense novels using her extensive knowledge of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In Justice Forbidden, Dr. Faythe Bradington, Clinical Psychologist, is shocked to discover that an ex-client is suing her for implanting false memories of childhood sexual abuse. How could she prove her client's memories were real? Faythe rushes to her office to read her files, but when she arrives she discovers a body in the waiting room. Check out the book at www.amazon.com, the author’s website at www.anaparkergoodwin.com, or the publisher’s website at www.livingoracles.com.

____________________________

My psychological suspense/mystery book Justice Forbidden was finally published a little over two months ago and guess what? Even though I have half-finished a book called How to Cope with Post Trauma Stress before it becomes a Disorder, plus the first chapters to the sequel of Justice Forbidden, I stopped writing!

At first I kept telling myself that I was just too busy marketing my book, such as book parties, a website, facebook, and e-mails. That was true to some degree, but then I found myself using that as an excuse even when I could have taken the time to write. So I asked myself, “Why would I and other writers stop writing when we loved to write?”

This is what I came up with, four of which I have used myself.

7 REASONS FOR SELF-DEFEATING BEHAVIORS IN WRITERS

1.  Your conscious and unconscious thoughts and beliefs, self-criticisms, and fears can result in writer’s block, procrastination, and excuses. 

Most writers fall prey to at least one of these or all of them at times. Don’t be hard on yourself. These behaviors can be overcome. Take time to examine the feelings and the automatic negative thoughts running through your mind before, during, and after the behavior. Write about them. Continuously work on recognizing and changing your thoughts. But don’t forget, positive thoughts alone don’t write your book or articles. Actions must follow.

2.  You don’t have enough time. 

This is a common cry of the modern writer. Check your priorities. Is writing really important to you? Are you giving “time” as an excuse not to look at your fears of writing (e.g., success or failure)? If not, can you find as little as 15 minutes in your hectic day to write? Hopefully it’ll be the same time each day so it becomes routine like brushing your teeth and taking a shower. Be honest with yourself. You have time to see that one-hour television show you enjoy, or sleep fifteen minutes longer. If writing does not come into your top ten list of priorities at this point, you may have to wait until it does.

3.  Your expectations are too high for your situation. 

You are pushing yourself too hard. You feel overwhelmed. Maybe you have important responsibilities. Reduce your expectations to what you can reasonably accomplish at this time. Decide on one or two realistic goals (not ten), and then write down small concrete steps to attain it. Work on one step each day.

4.  You have chosen to write about something that you “should” write about but doesn’t excite you. 

Unless you have been assigned a topic by a magazine or newspaper, give it up and follow your passion. If you don’t know what that is, listen to yourself. When you talk to others or watch television, what do you choose to watch or talk about? For me it is mostly psychology and mystery/crime. What are you drawn to? What makes you excited? What makes you want to speak out? Is it parenting? Or social issues, education, or humor? Whatever it is, write from the heart.

5.  You are “beating a piece to death.” 

Many writers are perfectionists and don’t want to publish something they consider less than their very best. Take some time away from your project to calm down the obsession, or begin to write on something else. Then when you come back to it, limit the time you spend on it. Limit your number of rewrites. As soon as you find yourself going in circles, stop. I remember one of my professors saying that his colleague had published one A+ book in his life because he had rewritten it until it was perfect. But in the meantime my professor had published three B+ books and was on his way to writing another. A+ is great, but it can stop creativity and production.

6.   Stress in your daily life (e.g., a divorce, work situation, or a family problem) invades your thinking constantly. 

There is no space in your mind for creative thoughts.  It is counterproductive to sit in front of the computer obsessed with your problems, unable to write. Take the time to write in your journal or talk to a friend or therapist so that you can clear your mind enough to concentrate on your writing and live a productive happy life.

7.  The well is dry.  

Give yourself permission to take time off, rest, and play. Enjoy yourself and allow the natural rhythm of life to reestablish. You will find the joy and creativity will return.


Anyone else? Comment and let us know if you have ideas that might help the rest of us.

________________________________

Ana Parker Goodwin graduated from the University of Maryland with a Master of Science degree, majoring in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy. She has been in the field for over twenty-five years, starting in Maryland. Ana developed a large private practice in Montana and worked as an assistant professor at two universities. In her private practice about half of her clients (e.g., veterans of foreign wars, physically and sexually abused children and adults, individuals caught in the effects of major trauma) dealt with post-traumatic stress disorder. In the last fifteen years Ana has also conducted many national and state workshops, been a keynote speaker, spoken on radio and lectured at psychological conferences.  Recently she has presented talks for writers.

Memorial Day: Remembering the Fallen

Today is Memorial Day, a day to honor soldiers who died in war.

I had two brothers in the U. S. Military. One served during a time of peace, and the other served in Vietnam. I remember the family worry while my brother was overseas, how my mother couldn’t bear hearing the reported body counts on the nightly news, how she was so fearful of seeing a Marine Chaplin pull into our driveway. Luckily her son, my brother, returned safely home. Many, many sons and brothers did not.

Memorial Day was established in 1868 as the national day to decorate the graves of the Civil War soldiers with flowers. Arlington National Cemetery, which housed graves of over 20,000 soldiers, held the first observance of the day on a grand scale. Gen. and Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant presided over the event near the mourning-draped veranda of the Arlington mansion. Speeches were followed by a march of soldiers' children and orphans and members of the army through the cemetery strewing flowers on both Union and Confederate graves. They recited prayers and sang hymns for the dead. In 1971, Memorial Day was declared a national holiday by Congress, who designated the last Monday in May as the day for its observance.

Many writers and poets have been voices for war, some who experienced war first hand. Often referred to as the war poet, Wilfred Owen was a British soldier and poet who wrote shockingly honest poetry about war in the trenches during World War I. But John McCrae and his poem In Flanders Fields is likely one of the most recognized. McCrae was a Canadian poet, surgeon, artist, and Lieutenant Colonel during World War I. McCrae wrote the poem in 1915 after witnessing the death of his friend on the battlefield. The poppies referred to in the poem grew profusely in the disturbed soil of battlefields and cemeteries of Flanders where casualties of war were buried.

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow.
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch, be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

The poem In Flanders Fields inspired the poppy movement promoted by the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) of the United States. Selling replicas of the original Flanders' poppy originated in some of the allied countries immediately after the Armistice. The VFW was the first veteran organization to promote a nationally organized campaign for the annual distribution of poppies assembled by disabled and needy veterans.

Have a peaceful Memorial Day.

Links:
Memorial Day
In Flanders Fields
Wilfred Owen
Veterans of Foreign Wars

Idioms

From the dawn of time our speech has been peppered with idioms. Sage advice, on any given topic, seemed to spring unbidden to those who had the raising of us. Words of wisdom were such a fixture in our daily lives. A stitch in time saves nine.

Where did they come from? What was their history and purpose?

To narrow the field on this vast topic, I decided to give myself a head start by taking a gander at idioms having their origins in the sport of Kings, namely, horse racing.

Not wanting to jump the gun on all other sports, I chose the races because they seemed a safe bet. I got the inside track on how these phrases found their way into the language.

In my family of origin, the baton was passed on to us from our paternal grandfather whose entire life could be described as a race against time; it was his stated mission to become a breeder of some renown. Not hoisted on his own petard, he paid his dues, put in his time and had to make many a difficult decision. Scratching the odds on favorite from the race, if the trainer declared the horse to be unsound, often put him between a rock and a hard place. He put us all through our paces, teaching us, not only the sport, but the sayings associated with it. My sisters both really hit their stride; they had the whip hand over me when it came to placing bets. I was always the dark horse in the field, given to day dreaming and hands down, never slated to either win, place or show. While I may have gotten off to less than a running start, we are not down to the wire yet. I would never consider myself to be a neck and neck competitor with either of my sisters, in any endeavor. However, now that I am a bit long in the tooth, I may be heading into the home stretch in terms of gaining confidence in my own abilities. Either I am riding for a fall, or may surprise everyone and win by a nose. Time will have to tell the tale.

As you may have ascertained from this exercise, one does not set out deliberately to use idioms in common speech. They will spring, unbidden to our minds, and we would be the poorer, as a culture if they were to fall by the wayside altogether. I tend to see them as a rich part of our heritage: in for a penny, in for a pound, but do not, by any means, set out to gild the lily. That would be a crying shame which I would rather avoid like the plague.

Fiction / Figure Skating

As writers, we are all too familiar with the wall. The work may be flying along at a healthy clip and then suddenly, one tends to hit a wall. This depressing, all too frequent occurrence has a nasty little friend that comes along side it: fear.

Many articles are written about the wall. How to kick through it and keep going, may be a matter of individual preference, but I can only attest to what seems to work for me, and I have tried everything.

Sometimes it is the association of words that set off the trigger. When spell check came along, I think I found my best friend, not for the obvious reason. The list of words with similar sounds does something to my brain. When searching for names, or seeing names come up in spell check, it never ceases to astound me that a list of verbs, so characteristic to that person, pop up on my screen. In the process of writing a memoir, I changed the surname of my family, but the original, namely Smythe, brings up smother, smite and smote. These words have an eerie similarity with the theme of my early life.

Casting about for a topic sent me searching and brought up the word association of fiction/figure skating. Pop goes the weasel. To understand the labyrinth of my thought process, I will part the mists of time and take you back to the early days of the sport. Long before television executives were astounded by the number of viewers tuned in to the skating portion of the winter Olympics, it was a curious, obscure and often weird pursuit, full of excruciating pain and boundless effort. The yield came to almost nothing, but the title of champion for the best, and an annual show involving copious sequins for the rest. The marks consisted of a compilation of school figures at sixty per cent, and the estimable beauty of the free skate at forty. Learning the school figures began early, at the age of six, with the simple figure eight.

Time spent in this endeavor meant the rink had to be divided into patches, with each student designated to their own square. We had to take to the ice in silence and remain quiet for the hour devoted to practicing our figure eights. Like monks, we dutifully obeyed the rule of silence as the penalty for speaking was severe.

You set out from the center skating on the right foot. The art of tracing a perfect circle in the gleaming and pristeen square meant your blade would carve a tracing on the ice. The task seemed impossible, but lessons taught that you had to concentrate with every fiber of your scatterbrained mind in order to get it just right. At the top of the first circle, you slowly moved your left leg forward while reversing the position of your arms. If you did this too quickly, it would throw you off and the tracing would start to wobble. It was the scale, the perfection and the wavering upon which you would be judged. Severe, much older, sour looking people wearing Russian hats would sometimes get down on their knees with magnifying glasses to score the perfection, or lack thereof for the school figures.

What does this have to do with writing? It was there that I began. In the silence, on the cold ice, with my body taught, my skates locked into the task of drawing with my foot, the tracing of a perfect circle, one on top of another, that my creativity was born. I began to make up stories and long conversations with imaginary friends in order to cope with the torture of remaining silent.

Doris Lessing said that when she wrote, she had to make herself still and then search for that underwater feeling. I go for the early training. Patch. Silence. Contemplating, and concentrating on two perfect circles the top drawn with my right foot, the bottom with my left. Get enough speed to get around, but not too much so that you wobble, control the change from right to left, look to the center at all times and then wait for the judges to come in.

Style

How on earth would a writer go about obtaining a style? If you set out to change your style, or to improve upon it, would such a thing be possible?

After reading a few classic essays on the topic, I concluded that it is a decidedly difficult question.

I would say my maternal grandmother, by all accounts, had great style. When out with her in public, she would be given a nod; in restaurants, a drink would be sent to our table, or a bottle of champagne and this went on well into her eighties. If we stayed in hotels, there would be a knock on the door and a gift would arrive from someone she met the day before. It was not that she spent a great deal, or was given to flashy looks. On the contrary, she dressed in black and white prints; she chose her garments simply and with great care. Her costume, inevitably would be topped off with powerful millinery, and as a young child, she often gave me the advice to go out and get a new hat if a frown were to appear on my five year old face. We know it when we see it, but where does it come from?

Translated to the literary world, the same phenomenon is true. It jumps right out at us, is distinctive and recognizable. In some cases, it may be ground breaking. In others, it has the ability to transport the reader to any place, or mood the author envisions. It is what agents and editors spot too, and so we must conclude that it does matter; it matters very much indeed.

This month our book club discussed The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway. Much of the conversation became devoted to his style. Would it be read a hundred years from now? The answer came without hesitation. It was a resounding yes. His style transformed fiction and became part of the American stamp. We discussed his spare prose, his ability to depict a scene that would linger in the memory. Reading it for the fourth time this month, I found there was much more to discover. I was in my salad days, green in judgment, and thought of myself as part of a lost generation during earlier encounters. In high school, I was captivated by the concept of freedom. To be adrift, released from conventional society- oh what a worthy goal that seemed to my teenage self. Then later, after seeing the charm of my attempt at a bohemian existence begin to fade and take on a rather tawdry cast, I too, had to agree that yes, the sun does also rise and concluded that a change was in order. Then to read the book again in the settled, thick of family life, I thought of how silly I had been to dream of whiling away the hours in a coffee house with others all up to no good; has that lifestyle ever produced great art? Now, at this more mature reading, it had a feel of nostalgia as well as allowing me to realize that the strides made in the last century were worth it. The world changes: style remains.

Once, a guest in my living room said, “What kind of style is this?”

“Its just my house,” I replied.

Never given to going out and trying to have a style, it seems more preferable to look at the directions in which I am drawn. Given to comfort everywhere, home, food, dress and books, my style may be best likened to a favorite, worn armchair, placed by a fire, well lit and furnished with an ottoman. At the end of the day, it has to be mine and it has to possess a certain ease. If it is to change or improve, it would not be conscious, just examined, and sculpted to suit me.

From The Sun Also Rises, p.228.

“ I got up and went to the balcony and looked out at the dancing in the square. The world was not wheeling anymore. It was just very clear and bright, and inclined to blur at the edges. I washed, brushed my hair. I looked strange to myself in the glass, and went down to the dining room.”

Three Authors, Three Plays

Long before Harry Potter, Twilight and The Chronicles of Narnia, L. Frank Baum  ( 1856– 1919) entranced young readers with his stories  of  witches—good and bad,  a yellow brick road ,  lions, tigers and bears, flying monkey’s , munchkins and a little girl named Dorothy ,  and her adventures with a scarecrow, cowardly lion and tin man  in a place called Oz. While Baum made his debut as a novelist with Mother Goose in Prose (1897), a book based on stories he told his own children,  it is  Wizard of Oz, and the Oz series  (titles that include: The Emerald City of Oz, The Marvelous Land of Oz, Ozma of Oz)  Baum is most noted for. 

Mark Twain (1835—1910) lauded as the greatest American humorist of his age , is most recognized today for his novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and its sequel Huckleberry Finn.  Both  novels are about young boys,  and the challenges they face growing up on the Mississippi River, and reflect  stories of Twain’s childhood memory of  growing up in Hannibal, Missouri.  In Chapter Two  Tom  appears on the sidewalk with  a bucket of paint and a long handled brush to paint  a board fence 30 yards long and nine feet high.  Drawn into Tom’s punishment, what kid doesn’t feel sad for him learning  all the gladness left him, and a deep melancholy settled upon his spirit.  As children we   easily identify with Tom as we recall our own  punishment for some misdeed we did, and know what it feels like to have the gladness leave us (at least for a time).

William Faulkner called Twain  the Father of American  literature. 

The Miracle Worker is  a 3 act play by William Gibson  about Helen Keller (1880– 1968) and  her teacher,  Annie Sullivan (1866—1936).   Gibson adapted his play from Keller’s autobiography, The Story of My Life.  The play depicts the relationship  between the child, Helen Keller who was deaf and blind,  and Sullivan who instilled in her a desire for learning and knowledge. 

The  title originates in Mark Twain’s  description of Sullivan as a “miracle worker”.  Twain was a great admirer of both women, and  even helped arrange funding of Keller’s Radcliffe College.

While you might find the above tidbits  about The Wizard of  Oz, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and The Miracle Worker interesting, you  also might be wondering  why I chose these particular three, and what , if anything do they have in common.  It’s this.   In the next few weeks, all three  will be represented on stage   right here in the Coeur d Alene/Spokane area !

The Miracle Worker  at  Interplayers Theater , Spokane, WA  May 5 thru May 29. Directed by Patty Duke. In 1962 Duke won an Academy Award for her performance as Helen Keller in the movie, The Miracle Worker.   For more information visit http://interplayers.com/ 

                                                                       

The Christian  Youth Theater will present The Adventures of Tom Sawyer at the KROC Center May 20— May 29.

Tickets on line at http://boise.broadwayworld.com/mtishows.cfm?id=64493

The Wizard of Oz , part of the Coeur d Alene Summer Theater series , will run  June 9—June 19 at Boswell Hall, North Idaho College.   Ellen Travolta (John's sister), will portray the wicked witch. My  young cousin Mallory  Cooney King will  star as Dorothy. How special is that! Wizard of Oz has always been my favorite movie, now  I can hardly wait to see   Mal skipping down the yellow brick road,  and hear her sing Somewhere OVER THE RAINBOW skies are blue, And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true .  Somehow, I think Mr. L. Frank Baum would be pleased too, knowing his fairy tale continues to bring wonderment and joy to so many. 

  Tickets available at the Box Office or on line at http://www.cdasummertheatre.com/cinderella.html