Writing Thru It

Use the algorithm. Use the what?

2012-01-08T08:38:00.000-05:00

In Marion Roach Smith's fourth new years writing resolution she tells us to use the algorithm - a step, by step procedure for solving a problem. The problem is this. What is your memoir about? The answer could be "This is about personal success as illustrated by my return to my home town told in a series of vignettes comparing what I was to what I became. Or "This is about being a care receiver instead of a care giver as illustrated by our family's experience with our daughter's cancer told by chronicling her diagnosis, treatment, and recovery."

The answer is never "This is about me." That could be quite boring, lacking universal appeal. Here is Marion's fourth resolution:

Eschew writing prompts. Be hospitable. Ask Amy.Those are the three previous new year resolutions I’ve asked you to make. Andtoday? What could it possibly be today?

Use analgorithm.

Here’show this works. Merely plug in your coordinates to the algorithm I’ve devisedfor writing memoir. Here it is: This is about x, as illustrated by y, to betold in a z.

Usethis, and watch how you are no longer the center of your own tale, but ratherthe illustration of some larger, universal theme. Understanding the need forthis change of emphasis is the difference between writing good memoir andboring our socks off. And the key to making this shift? Simply accepting that you are not the story. Repeatthat to yourself: I am not the story. Exactly. You are the illustration. Youare the picture in the frame, the lozenge in the wrapper. Get that, and whenyou do, you will see how your story—the illustration of the theme—gets shiftedto the y, or second phrase, of this sentence, and by extension, to its properplace.

Use thealgorithm.

Go Ask Amy, Marion's Resolution Number 3

2012-01-03T08:50:00.002-05:00

In my day, it was "Go Ask Alice. I think she'll know." Marion Roach Smith tells us in her third writing resolution for the new year to go ask Amy.

Marion Roach's resolution #3

2011-12-29T09:43:00.000-05:00

There are many reasons to be nice. Here is one more opportunity from Marion Roach Smith in her writing resolutions for memoir writing.
Memoir Writing Resolution #2

Writer's Forum - Upcoming

2011-12-27T10:50:00.001-05:00

I had a great visit with Carol Glover, memoirist, and Beatrix Gates, poet, on December 8. My first time hosting alone went well, was enormously fun, and even received a compliment or two. I remain grateful for the opportunity.

On January 12, 2012 we will start off the New Year with political novelist Martha Sterling-Golden and Joshua Bodwell, Executive Director of Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance.

Writer's Forum is broadcast live every second Thursday at 10 a.m. at 89.9 Blue Hill and 99.9 Bangor (Maine). It streams live and is archived at www.WERU.Org

Getting Ready for the New Year

2011-12-27T10:49:00.002-05:00

My friend Marion Roach Smith, author of The Memoir Project, is getting ready for the new year and helping us do the same with a serious of five posts on Memoir Writing Resolutions. I have taken workshops from Marion at Pyramid Life Center and I'll be using her book when I teach at Senior College in Belfast Maine in January. Here is the first of five:
Memoir Writing Resolutions. Number One: No More Writing Exercises.

Writer's Forum on WERU-FM

2011-11-20T19:23:00.001-05:00

I am delighted to be hosting the Writer's Forum on WERU-FM airing every 2nd Tuesday at 10 a.m. at 89.9 out of East Orland, Maine and 99.9 in the Bangor area, also streaming live. Please have a listen every month!! On November 8, along with co-host Joan Clemons, we were entertained by Valerie Lawson and Michael Brown, the editors of Off the Coast, Maine's International Poetry Journal.

On December 8th, my guests will be poet Beatrix Gates and memoirist Carol Glover.

The Hunt for Pink October

2011-10-24T09:06:00.000-04:00

It’sOctober. Even though we may mean well with all that pink, are we doing any realgood? I try to understand wanting toraise awareness of breast cancer, but do you know anyone who is not aware ofit? I, like many, am painfully aware. I’ve had the disease twice. The firsttime, in 1996 I also faced divorce, bankruptcy, and selling the family home.When I mentioned to a friend that I was going to see a therapist, she pointedout there is a lot more to me than my breast cancer. She was right and I wasgrateful she said that. My second time around, three years later, my friendsCathy and Carol sold raffle tickets for cash prizes. One winner said to justkeep the money for me. I’m aware, so October for me is breast cancer in-your-face-month.

When you festoon yourself with pinkand fill your Facebook status line with talk of breast cancer, I get it. Iunderstand wanting to celebrate your survival or someone else’s, wanting tohonor the memory of a loved one. But are you doing the good you could?

I’ve seen those Facebookcall-to-action lines: “I’m posting this to raise awareness of breast cancer. Ifyou know anyone who has had this disease or if you know anyone who knowssomeone who has had this disease, please post this as your status for at leastone hour to help end the suffering.”

Really? Even if the hour turns intoa whole month, where did that get us?

A former co-worker unfriended me onFacebook last October after I commented on seeing enough pink and hearing morethan enough about breast cancer. She said she was talking about it to honor thememory of her neighbor Jennifer.

There’s more she, and any of us can dothough. Check in with your local hospital. Maybe you can drive patients tochemo appointments. Don’t have time for that? Donate to the Breast CancerPrevention Fund that helpsto pay for uninsured woman to have mammograms.

Wear pink if you like, why not? It’s astart, but don’t make it all you do.

Isn’t That Your Cat?

2011-09-04T09:04:00.000-04:00

   (Another one from Stories of Freedom)

   “Your cat! Isn’t that your cat?”

   The school bus dropped us off in the center of the village. I didn’t have far to walk and wasn’t in any hurry. Most of the boys had run ahead as if getting off the bus was like being shot from a cannon. There wasn’t much in our village. On the right hand side the store, then some empty space overgrown with grass and tall weeds. It used to be the lumber yard for Banton Brothers Mill, now a long gray wooden building in the process of returning to the earth. On the left there was an old store front known as the Boy Scout building, the little white post office and a few houses including mine, directly across from the old mill. Two of the boys, Everett Larrabee and Kippy Cunningham, had turned around and were running back to me.

   “Your cat got hit!”

   I went with them into the web of weeds next to the decaying mill. The cat was trembling, shaking really. Rapidly and non-stop. We figured it got hit by a car and managed to get just that far.

   “That’s your cat, isn’t it?”

   I started crying. By then a few more kids had gathered. We all seemed to agree it would be best to put the cat out of its misery. Everett ran to his house so his father could come with a gun to shoot it. He and his father, a tall, tall man with shining black eyes, came back quickly but his father carried a hammer. He said he wasn’t going to fire a hunting rifle right in the village – not to kill a half dead cat anyway. He hit the animal squarely on the head and its troubles were over.

   I went into my house and told my father. He hadn’t noticed or hadn’t paid any attention to the commotion outside.

   My cat was Tareyton, named for the white ring around its neck like the popular cigarettes with the same feature. He would jump up on one certain window sill whenever he wanted to come in. I was sad, but reminded myself it was just my cat. My mother had died a few years before and I hadn’t gotten over that yet.

   The next morning I missed Tareyton more than I thought I would. I was sad all day at school, but didn’t want to tell anybody why. At our regional school, I didn’t have any classes with the boys from the village. I didn’t have to talk about it if I didn’t want to. Nobody asked what, if anything, was wrong and I didn’t offer any information. I understood the cat got hit; the cat died.

   When I got home, I figured my father would tell me to get over it. I expected him to tell me to put the potatoes on for supper, to do something useful for a change. He was usually pretty quiet, but when I got home that day he seemed almost excited. He might even have seemed happy to see me.

   “I almost called the school,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it. The damn thing scared the hell out of me.”

   Then, with a great big grin, he told me he'd been in the living room reading the paper and heard a noise at the window.

   “There was your cat scratching on the glass to come in.”

   I looked in the kitchen and saw Tareyton eating from his bowl on the floor next to the black cast iron stove. Sometimes I think I know and understand everything. Sometimes I don’t.

2011-08-17T13:17:00.001-04:00

Here is one from my collection Stories of Freedom, about growing up in Freedom, Maine. I read this in an earlier draft at the Women's Writing Retreat at the Pyramid Life Center in 1996 and then in this version this past July.

Marigolds

One Sunday a few yearsafter my family moved to Freedom, Maine, I was up at the church. Freedom wasthe kind of town where tracks in the snow left ruts in the lawn and that wouldbe your driveway right there. I was up at the only church in town for theMother’s Day morning service because that’s what my father said to do. My family used to live in the city and beCatholic but, the way Daddy explained it to me, my mother had a falling outwith the Pope so we were raised High Episcopal. She apparently didn’t believe in infallibility and I didn’t even knowwhat it was.

Thingsseemed all right when we lived near Boston until Daddy became really sick withmalaria he originally picked up in World War II. He did get better, and the family might havemade out better than we did, but Mommy got sick next. There was something wrongwith her heart. They decided we’d be better off moving far away into a small,small town. We didn’t know anybody in Freedom; we just moved there on our own. Theysaid it was good because we paid cash for the house. I thought that meant wehad lots of cash, but now I think it meant the house didn’t cost much. Wedidn’t have a car to get to either the Episcopal or the Catholic church inBelfast, about fifteen miles away, so we went to the FreedomCongregational.

I went to the morningservice wearing a light green cotton Sunday dress, the nicest one I had,because it was Mother’s Day. Daddydidn’t go. He said he was stillCatholic, so he just didn’t go anywhere. I guess he was Catholic, because he had a picture of Kennedy hanging inour living room. Kennedy had beenelected the first Irish Catholic president, the first president like us. Except that I thought that if John Kennedymet us, he wouldn’t think that we were like him.

Idon’t remember where my brother went that day, but he didn’t go to church. I just remember sitting there alonesurrounded by the other children. Special for Mother’s Day, all the dozen or so kids sat down near thefront, so I did, too. The Mothers inchurch told me to sit there. I was theflowering city weed among sturdy country wildflowers.

Welistened to the minister talk about the joys of motherhood, and we were told tobe grateful for what we had. I guess wesang hymns about motherhood, and I guess I sang right along. I would have at least held an open hymnbookand mouthed the words. Wishing that Ihadn’t come that morning, I kept looking at the front of the church, wanting toleave quietly. During the final hymn,each pew of children got a turn to file past open boxes of potted marigoldsthat seemed way down in front, even though they were only a few feet away. Each child picked one up to take home totheir mother. I just walked past.

AsI got to the back of the church, the Mothers questioned me. “Why didn’t you take a marigold?”

Iwould never say I didn’t have a mother, because I really did get one. I just didn’t get to keep her. I would never want to say that she was dead,because I just didn’t like to say that and wished that it wasn’t true. So I said, “I don’t have a mother at homethat I could give it to, so I didn’t think I should take one.” Marigolds surrounded me as the Mothersremembered in horror why I was there alone.

“Here,take this to your father.”

“No,thank you. That’s all right. He doesn’t really care about flowers.”

Theydidn’t understand. I just didn’t thinkthat it would be right for me to take a marigold meant for a mother. When I think of it now, there might have beenpart of it that I didn’t understand. Iguess they weren’t leaving the church with their marigolds until I left withmine. Maybe that’s why the Mothers won. Just to be polite, I walked home with two marigold plants - one for myfather and one for me.

2011-07-03T13:45:00.000-04:00

Part III - Still a lot of work to do.

Sunday Night on the Salt Marsh

There’seither a cat or a ghost in this bed with me. I have two cats. I don’t, to myknowledge, have two ghosts. Not here anyway. Not here where I have no history.Not here where I have no mystery.

Iwant to be asleep, but I’m thinking too much. I have a perfectly comfortablebed, in a perfectly comfortable place where I live except when I amhome at a friend’s house, and that’s the problem. Where do I live? Is homewhere my pets are? Where a cat can jump on my bed? Is home where my driver’slicense says I live? Or is home where my ghosts are? My cats and I are inSalisbury, Massachusetts; my legal residence is in Monroe, Maine at my friendMartha’s house. My ghosts are in Freedom Village, only a few miles from Monroe.

It’sSunday night here in my loft apartment overlooking The Great Marsh that bordersthe Merrimac River just before it greets the Atlantic Ocean. I want to beasleep, but first I try to settle with myself just where I am, where I live.

It’snot that bad. I should be able to wrap this up in time to get some sleep. It’snot as bad as the nights when I have to determine where I am now on my journeyas an abject failure in life or the nights I try to feel more organized byreminding myself of the various mistakes I made in raising my children. It’snot as bad as the nights I have to go over my finances, just one more time, tomake sure I’ll be ok in the morning. It’s definitely not as bad as when the ghoststake over. They are not here tonight. It’s Buddha, my fifteen pound tom cat with the colors of a Creamsicle, whois walking across me to settle in for our night’srest.

Myghosts are probably at home and, since I don’t know where that is, maybe they don’t either. Withthat thought, I settle in, settle down, and fade off next to Buddha. Tonight’squestion can remain unsettled without being so unsettling. I live in twoplaces, keeping me at least two steps from being homeless.

Part II

2011-03-06T19:37:00.001-05:00

Here is the intro to part two of my memoir, which is now in the editing stage and will be shopped again among agents.

II.
My mother couldn’t have children, or so I was told. According to my Aunt Catherine, my two older sisters came from the Church. That put an odd picture in my mind of babies available in the back, on the way out, after Mass. My mother told me she once thought she had a tumor, but the doctor told her she was pregnant. That was my brother Danny. She had a Cesarean – one for him and then, less than two years later, one for me.

When I was pregnant in 1977, I went to natural childbirth classes where I learned to breathe as I had never breathed before. I didn’t finish the series, not pregnant anyway, but I did attend the last class in a wheelchair – my son Matthew upstairs in the hospital nursery.

I had an emergency Cesarean to treat preeclampsia and bring down my extraordinarily high blood pressure. My doctor told me “We are going to terminate your pregnancy.” I thought it was cruel they let me see a bassinet in the operating room. They were terminating the pregnancy; there would be no baby for me.

“Helen, Helen. Wake up! Matthew’s here.”

Someone was yelling at me. I was being shaken violently and pulled away from being with my mother. (My husband would later tell me no one touched me. The nurse was talking to me, but not yelling.) I wanted to stay with my own mother, but I also felt a new responsibility.

“Matthew? He’s here?”

I held my baby, looked at my husband, and just lay there totally confused. The Little Girl Who Went Without had become a Mother.

Within five years I had two more Cesareans and two more children. Matthew, Luke, and Brigid – my trifecta.

My three reasons for being, for staying on Earth.

Intro

2011-02-12T12:25:00.000-05:00

I have written a new intro or prelude or beginning or whatever to my memoir called Up Home Again or I'm Still Here or Going Without, Going Within or maybe none of those. I was told in a workshop that no one would care that I couldn't find my fabrics, the storyline of the first chapter. Here's the backgound I'll be using to show why I cared, even if no one else might.

I.

“Honey, Mommy’s gone. God wanted her.”

With those words from my sister to me, everything was changed. What I knew was no more. Not as I had known it.

“He wanted her?” I thought. “With all the dead people he already has, he gets my mother? I’m not done with her yet.”

On February 7, 1959, she was gone. She was fifty-six. I was ten. I became The Little Girl Who Didn’t Need a Mother Anyway.

I could sew my own clothes, bake my own bread, tie my own shoes. Well, I could actually tie my own shoes. Anything I couldn’t do for myself, I didn’t really need.

We’d been living in Freedom, Maine for only a few months when my mother died. My sisters stayed in Massachusetts, but I lived in Freedom Village with my father and brother.

Some girls were like a little princesss, others more like a tomboy. I was kind of a . . . well, I don’t know if there was a name for it. I was just plain lonely.

I grew up wanting to travel, to get an education and a family. At different times I fancied myself becoming a lead singer in a rock group, a powerhouse of a business woman, or a war correspondent. I didn’t want a war, so I changed that last one to travel journalist.

I would look at things, a rock, a car, a tree and wonder why they were still here and my mother was gone. My father let me get a cat and I would just look at it and wonder why it was alive. I didn’t like losing things, didn’t take disappointments well, and cried when criticized. I tried to train myself to think normal things, to see things as they really were, not as I feared.

I saw that other people’s parents went into the hospital and came home alive. It could happen if my father got sick. The first semester of my freshman year in college, my father was admitted to Togus Veteran’s Hospital. He died. He was sixty-three. I was eighteen.

Despite doing everything my own way, I did manage to graduate from college, travel, get married, and was raising a family when what I knew and how I knew it changed again.

Breast cancer came, then bankruptcy, then divorce, then breast cancer again. All I had left was gratitude for three healthy children who loved me and each other, for friends to help me, and for my own freelance style that was just going to have to get me through this episode of starting over.

How many deer?

2011-02-06T19:55:00.000-05:00

When I take a break from working online, or just checking out Facebook, I look out over the saltmarsh. First I think there are two dogs on the other side the tree line, the other side of the rail trail. Then there are two more, and again two more, and by the time I see them all, there are about ten deer walking in full view. I am having a Mary Oliver moment or would be if I made good on it.

This causes me to think how many deer would it take for me to get going again with my writing. Mary Oliver only needs one. One deer, one grasshopper. This one, right here, in her hand. One deer, by the house in the woods.

How many deer would it take for me to get back to my writing? Looks like about ten, and I'm back at it.

Teaching Poetry

2010-10-03T16:10:00.000-04:00

Starting one fine Thursday in January, I will be teaching a course on letters, that is letter writing and reading. The course is called Finding Your Voice Through Letters and getting ready for it reminded me of a letter (ok, an email)I wrote to someone who has taught me a lot about poetry.

I think this shows how much fun I have teaching about writing:

“I have been thinking about you a lot lately. I hope you will make it to Pyramid this summer. It will be my 15th year in a row.

You might have loved to be a fly on the wall when I recently taught a course entitled "Confronting Your Poetry Phobia". It was four sessions, once a week. I learned a lot and fortunately got rave reviews. For a text I used Mary Oliver's A Poetry Handbook, thinking what the hell, it's Mary Oliver. How far astray can she lead me? One day right after the class started, I was on the Capital Arts Center site, wandered over there from the Sister Project. I saw that you were teaching a beginning poetry class, so I ordered the books you were using in case I needed them. For my own reference guide I was using Lewis Turco's book which is frankly a little over my head sometimes.

I think you might have doubled over and wet your pants to hear me teach the red wheelbarrow poem. (It's a painting, people, it's a painting.) Surprisingly enough the conversation went from- this is a poem? to - just how much does depend on a red wheelbarrow. Then there was the time I taught meter. Please.

When we discussed sonnets, one woman wanted to know if Shakespeare had known all these rules, as she said, even way back then. I assured her he had, but the kicker is, she is British. She went through the British school system and is asking me about Shakespeare.

I also taught haiku, tanka, pantoum, sestina, and the villanelle - a selection I think of as the Julie forms because you taught them all at Pyramid. I encouraged them to write a shortened form of the villanelle, using three triplets and one quatrain. I call this the villanellie.
Here is a sestina I wrote based on my six word memoir: One list after another, to do. I read it last Thursday when I was interviewed on WERU community radio (archived at www.WERU.org).

One List After Another, To Do

Yes, there is that one
I’ll put it on the list.
Yes, I’ll do it after
All, but there is another
That begs for me to
Make that the next I do.

What else can I do?
I understand why that one
Is what I have to look to.
This is not my only list.
I have this and another;
I’ll do them all after.

Not now but on a day after
I have less to do
Then I’ll be onto another
Set of things, not this one
But a long line, a real list
Of places to go to.

I have more goals to work to
Until at some time after
This I go onto the next list
Of places to go and things to do
I’ll always have at least one
Thing jumping before another.

Soon enough I’ll be onto another
Among all the tasks to
Face me before this one.
Even that should come after
What I plan to do
Once I’ve done this list.

I’ll put it on my list
But first, I have another
Set of things to do
Before I get to
The plans I made after
Deciding to finish this one.

I have the list all settled to
Move on to another shortly after
I plan to do just this one.

I hope all is well with you. See you in July?”

A Student's Poem

2010-09-09T19:45:00.000-04:00

Because this can't be all about me, with her permission, I am sharing a poem that Deb Huff (friend, neighbor and now student) wrote. It does not strictly follow the rules of the sestina, but that is the instructors fault for not being strict enough. I didn't completely explain the order of the repeated words. Still, this truly expresses the emotions that were within Deb when she wrote it.

Rose – a sestina
By Deborah Huff

There was a time
As a child in my house
When life itself was very different
The stars were there to accept my wish
And I would wave my hand to a passing neighbor
With slim chance of any change

Then came a time
When Rose became my neighbor
Her New Jersey accent sounded different.
I was always welcome at her house
She said, “Visit whenever you wish”
Her friendship brought goodness and change

With more passage of time
I was no longer the neighbor
The pursuit of a marriage wish
Took me on a journey to a place which was different
I was the one who made the change
Far from her familiar home

Years later brought another time
Of anticipated birth and diapers to change
My son and I honored by my neighbor
With a baby shower at her house
My life would become very different
As a mother, my greatest wish

The passing of years, flying of time
Two sons later, and in a new house
Once again near Rose, my neighbor.
Raising children made life busy and different
Wanting to fulfill their every wish
Walking through all the seasons of change

A final visit to my neighbor
I sensed the frailness of her house
For her to see me again was a final wish.
Suddenly, it was the end of her time
Her passing would leave an ache, so different
Such sorrow, brings this kind of change.

Goodbye, Rose, my friend and neighbor
Eternal rest for you I wish
I’ll see you again someday, when it is my time.

Adventure

2010-07-31T12:34:00.001-04:00

My new six word memoir:

Went kayaking, got wet and rescued.

What happens when four women writers of a certain age have a kayak adventure? First they start writing about it even before it is over. They name it The Elliad after the one who fell out of an untippable (or so she thought) kayak and they call them selves the Elder Scouts.

Details to follow.

Bayonet

2010-07-03T16:48:00.002-04:00

People sometimes ask me to post some of my own writing so here is one of the first of these. This was published a few years ago in Wolf Moon Journal. It was started at Pyramid Life Center a few years before that.

Bayonet

One night, in the early 1960’s, the volunteer fire truck of our village in Maine went past the house in the middle of the night. I woke up when I heard the firehouse bell ringing. Daddy was already in the living room when I got there, and we both reached the window in time to see the truck crank by. I had been woken from a deep sleep and asked him, “What time is it?”

“Why?” he asked. “Are you writing a book?”

So I thought, what if I were. What would I write about? The volunteer fire truck? The snow in the woods? How easy eighth grade is, except for the social stuff? Maybe. Maybe I’d just decide to write about Daddy. Maybe I’d talk about how he once put my report card on the floor to read it, saying that he was farsighted. Maybe I’d tell about the time he asked me my middle name. Maybe I’d tell about the time he showed me that long, deep groove that ran along his calf.

I don’t remember what I asked, but I do remember what Daddy, who was from Cork, Ireland, said back.

“Do you want to talk about the British? I’ll tell you about the British.”

Daddy grew up Catholic in occupied Ireland. He had been baptized in Saints Peter and Paul in Cork City Centre and had attended the Christian Brothers School. As he started to tell me about the British, to my astonishment, he reached down to the bottom of his pant leg. Up over the all white one hundred per cent cotton socks that he always wore, he started to roll his cuff. His skin was white; the leg was thin. I don’t think that I had ever seen his leg before. He didn’t swim; he never wore shorts. And now he’s showing me something about the British. There was a furrow of hairless skin that started just below the mid-calf. As he traced it with a long spindly finger from the bottom and then abruptly out at the knee, he said, “See this? I got this when I was a boy. It came from a bayonet on a British soldier’s gun. They came after us - me and a few of my friends.”

I stood still as I pictured the scene. “They attacked boys?” I asked, realizing my father had said bayonet. What an exciting word. “They attacked boys?”

“They did,” he said and then smiled. “Of course, we had thrown stones at them first.”

I had to make room in my mind for this. My father had shown passion. He had it in him. Whether it was misguided or well directed, he, at least as a boy, had shown some spirit. And I, his daughter, got a glimpse of it.

Schedule for July Workshop at Pyramid Life Center

2010-06-15T08:42:00.000-04:00

Writing Thru It

Friday, July 23, 2010
7:00 pm to 9:00 pm Letters: Finding Your Voice Through Correspondence
Saturday, July 24, 2010
9:00 am to 10:30 am Journals/Diaries: Writing Your Experience as an Experience in Itself
10:30 am to noon Personal Essay: The Mini Memoir
Lunch
afternoon Free time for writing or just enjoying Pyramid Life Center
4 pm to 5:30 pm Fiction: Telling It Your Way
Dinner
7:00 pm to 8:00 pm Evening Discussion, Readings
Sunday, July 25, 2010
9 am to 11 am Poetry: Confronting Your Poetry Phobia
11 am to noon Future Plans and Follow Up

A Tale of Three Workshops

2010-03-15T20:25:00.003-04:00

It’s only mid March, but I have already been in three writing related workshops so far this year. I say ‘been in’ because my role was quite different in each. The first was Confronting your Poetry Phobia at Senior College in Belfast, Maine. Upbeat all the way. Went well, ended well and the feedback was invigorating. I care about the feedback because I was the instructor. I told the class at the beginning of the first of four sessions, “You know I don’t know that much about poetry, right?” With that out of the way we were free to roll, and roll we did. I taught about meter, forms and for a good time even introduced a brand new form: the villanellie. It is a shortened form of the villanelle based, of course, on my name. Hearing me explain meter is funny enough, but I surprised myself leading a discussion about the little red wheelbarrow. (It’s a painting people; it’s a painting.) We had a good talk.

There were about 10 of us in the class and we have kept in touch through email. People have even sent me poems they have written. Just got one today and I’m honored to receive it.

I recently joined Grub Street in Boston, so in January I was pleased to go to my first class there. It was a free, one session event taught by Rick Barot, winner of Grub Street's 2009 National Book Prize in Poetry. I really enjoyed the class, checking out my new writing venue, and thought I did alright. I understood the class without making a fool of myself. I really didn’t have to do much more than show up, but I did more than that. I absorbed.

This last workshop was the zinger. It just happened this past weekend, both Saturday and Sunday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The schedule alone might have been almost too much for me, especially because I had just spent Friday in an all day workshop on Managing the Non-Profit Organization in Belfast – a good four hours north of Grub Street’s office in downtown Boston.

This one was interactive and taught by Sorche Fairbank, a Boston, no, a Cambridge-based literary agent. We had all emailed a query letter and the first five pages of our books to her before the class. We met as the group of twelve, we split into groups, we networked, we workshopped and we revised. She gave us general feedback and individual feedback. It was both exhausting and informative. Sorche clearly put a lot of effort into this.

I was surprised to be the only memoirist in the group. I sometimes hear, "Why are you writing memoir anyway? Everybody is writing memoir. The market is flooded." I thought there would be more people like me who, as I have been told, think we are or should be famous. Instead, I was surrounded by a great mix of writers and their writing, mostly fiction. It was good to be hearing about thrillers, science fiction, and romance. I thought the whole thing went well, for the most part. I already have two new Facebook friends and I’m even more sure joining Grub Street was the right next step for me.

Throughout the weekend I was alternatively encouraged and discouraged. Sometimes it seemed I had done nothing right and then I’d get some great feedback. When it was all over, a few of us were still in the room packing up. The instructor told me she hoped I had enjoyed writing my memoir and if it ever got published that would just be extra.

Maybe I needed to hear that, maybe I should have known already. I often speak in my workshop Writing Thru It that sometimes the writing is all about the process. Now I have to hear my own advice. I left the weekend workshop devastated. I may just have to enjoy writing my book. I have so far and I will enjoy polishing it up to send out to agents this spring. If that is all my work amounts to, then, I’ll just have to enjoy that. If I only get rejections, I’ll get over it. I’ve had worse news.

Thinking of Publishing?

2010-01-31T15:40:00.001-05:00

The joy of private writing is real, but what if you do want to publish? Where to start? A very important word, your new best friend word, is query. It’s both a verb and an adjective. It’s something you’ll probably have to do. That and research take on new meaning, new importance for you.

If you have an idea for a magazine article, you could just write it and send it around to see who will publish it; but that won’t do in most cases. You would better off to query, that is to ask, if a particular magazine would be interested. An editor is more likely to read a brief letter than a full article. Do your research by checking out submission guidelines on their website and follow them. When your parents gave you good guidelines, such as what time to be home, those weren’t helpful hints. They were rules. Treat publishing guidelines the same way.

If you are trying to publish a book, you’ll need to send a query letter. How that letter reads is very dependent on what type of book you are trying to pitch. Is it a collection of short stories or a novel? You’ll need to send a letter to tell what your book is about, who it is about, what happens to them and why would anybody read it. Then you tell about yourself and your previous successes. You do this on one page with preferably no more than about 400 words single spaced. If that is not enough space for you, then you are not ready to make the pitch. Practice until you can do it. Helpful hint: Do not say fiction novel. That’s redundant. Showing yourself to be that much of a novice is not good. It is bad.

If your book is nonfiction, such as your opinion or great knowledge of the current economic situation, be prepared to write about your platform. That does not mean you get to pontificate in a query letter. It means you had better have some experience and expertise, your platform, to stand on for anyone to consider taking on your work. In this case you will have to do a query letter to see if you could send them your book proposal. Be ready to explain why anyone should read a book by you on the topic and who those readers may be.

For narrative nonfiction, such as true crime stories or memoir, you’ll query much like you did for fiction. Here the writing has to be better than anyone else writing about the same situation. You have to believe that and get someone else to believe it, without bragging. For memoir you need an intriguing story and insightful experience – at least insight into your own experience that could be interesting or beneficial to a reader. Two stories, I used to do drugs but now I don’t and I had a sad childhood, have been done. You’ll need a really compelling query letter to get far anyway; but if you have either of those stories to tell, you’ve need extra effort.

Where do you send the query letter for your book? You could start with small regional publishers, particularly if your writing has some local flavor. You could also go right to the big boys, the New York City large publishing houses, but I wouldn’t. The best place to start is with an agent.

You don’t know any literary agents? No problem. Once you start looking they are everywhere. They blog, they teach workshops, and they get thank you’s from their clients in those client’s books. If nothing else has worked, goggle literary agent. That will get you going.

Research is crucial. Don’t start sending out a bunch of loosely woven queries. You can’t take them back. One good resource is the blog, Guide to Literary Agents written by Chuck Sambuchino. From there you can branch out to many recommend sites, like climbing a wonderful, never ending tree. I have subscribed for a few years. You can find it here: http://www.guidetoliteraryagents.com and listed on the right.

Once you’re ready to send a query to a particular agent, check their guidelines and follow them. Do not send mystery or romance to someone looking to represent memoir. Do not send your first three chapters to someone who asks to begin with a query letter. Do not email to someone who wants the first contact to be snail mail. Do not call. If they have any interest, they’ll contact you. Be sure, doubly sure, to put your contact info in your query.

Two more things, one is good news and one is a disclosure. The good news is that if you are trying to sell a book of poetry, you can skip the agent process. Query directly to the appropriate publisher with some sample poetry. It may seem easier, but sadly it is less likely to be profitable.

Now the disclosure, I am entering the "Dear Lucky Agent" contest on the Guide to Literary Agents blog, so I am mentioning that blog in this post as part of that contest. Everything I have said is true, though. I read that blog regularly and have found a wealth of resources there.

Writer's Block?

2009-12-30T12:52:00.000-05:00

Writer's Block? I don't think so. I could not imagine sitting in front of a clean sheet of paper, pen in hand, with nothing to say. Then I also cannot picture myself with nothing to say in much of any circumstance.

I don't have writer's block, but I do have writer's block of focus or lack of focus. This shows up in two ways. First, I want to write about everything. I want to learn about everything and one method to learn is to write. When I hear about something that piques my interest (Passamoquoddy basket making, Trancendentalism, credit scores) I think I could learn by writing. No problem, the research is my idea of a good time. I may not have enough time, but writing works for me.

The other lack of focus is more annoying. Sometimes, I just can't get it together. I've got enough focus to watch one more episode of Law and Order or, if I'm lucky, to read a chapter or two of the three or four books I'm reading. What to do? Get some rest. I'd write more now, but I'm going in for my nap.

Why Do I Write?

2009-10-25T10:50:00.001-04:00

In a fiction workshop, the instructor, Lalita Noronha, asked us to ask ourselves “Why do I write?”

My first thought was I write because I like to write. I believe I do it well, and so I follow the law of attraction and gravitate towards what flows more easily. I don’t sing or paint, because I don’t do either of those things well and don’t want to fill my life with the frustrations of trying. Is that the real reason, though? Do I write because it is easy? Do I write because I’m lazy? Hardly.

When you really get into it, writing is work. It is work I love, but why do I love it enough to keep at it? That was the question I tried to answer.

I was surprised to find myself jotting into my notebook that writing makes me feel more organized. My experiences don’t slip away, my thoughts are saved. Without writing, I’m just living with no record of it. With writing, I know I am here.

I sew. Once I took up sewing, I noticed how clothes are put together. Now that I write, I notice how life is put together. My friend Nelle Stanton pointed out to me that nothing comes from seeds until they crack. For me, it is my writing that breaks the seed.

Writing has helped me through some difficult times, but I don’t just leave it for that. Writing also enhances the good times and gives me a heightened awareness of how great things can be. It shows me the progress I have made toward becoming myself, toward becoming the version of me that I respect the most.

The more I am myself the more I have to offer others. The more I write; the more I am.

Writing Groups

2009-08-10T12:23:00.000-04:00

If you like to write, getting a group together or joining one is a very worthwhile endeavor. Done right, it can be an enormously enriching experience. Done not-so-well, it's just a chore and possibly a boring or frustrating one. For the last week in July I was at my annual writing retreat in the Adirondacks. A big topic, at least in many of my conversations, was being in a writing group.

The easiest thing to do is to join an existing group, but don't take it personally if you are not invited. The existing members of a working group don't just invite their friends. If they are looking for new members (and that may be a big IF), but if they are looking for new members, they will only want people who are a good fit.

We talked a lot at the retreat about what makes that good fit and here are some of our thoughts. First, you have to be in the same genre. If three of you are writing narrative non-fiction, throwing in a poet is not going to help anybody. While a non-fiction writer may try some fiction and bring it before the group, the focus has got to be relatively narrow. Some people belong to separate groups for prose and poetry; some groups say poetry only this month, essays the next.

The level of writing is important also, but this factor actually has two facets. Skill level has got to be matched or at least be similar. A beginning writer can enjoy the whole process of learning how to get published, the process and even the vocabulary surrounding all that. For a more experienced group member going through all that again can be quite tedious. Also, people usually don’t join writing groups to teach grammar. If what you bring to the meetings makes the other members feel like they are being asked to correct papers, you may be asked to get up to speed or find another group. Always proof read before you present; so your group can focus on craft, not basics, unless basics is precisely the purpose of the group. That would be annoying for some and enriching for others.

The other aspect of level is your intensity level. If you want to have a chance to read your poetry among friends once a month, that can make for a great group. It could however be frustrating for someone who is trying to transition to earning a living as a writer or get a chapbook published. When I was discussing intensity recently with a non writing friend, she said it reminded her of those book groups that get together to eat, drink wine, and talk about the neighbors. Yes, like that. Any level of intensity can make for a great group; just make sure it’s fairly consistent among the members.

Speaking of members, how many writers is the perfect number? Trick question, of course. There is no perfect number but again this may go back to intensity. If you are in a group of 10 who discuss their poetry once a month, you’ll either have long meetings or you won’t get your poetry reviewed very often. If having your poetry discussed every third month or so works for you; that could be just right. I would find it frustrating, but I’m not in your group.

In my group there have been two of us for two years – me and my writing partner, Carol Glover. We know. That sounds a bit exclusive. We get together every two weeks and work quite seriously. At the retreat in July, where we met and which we both attended again this year, we invited a third person to join us. Welcome, Laura Packer. We have known her as a storyteller, but now she is becoming more interested in the written word, focusing on her blogs. One is on stories and one on food, both are being added to my blog roll. I’m looking forward to another opinion, a third ear.

Sometimes I’ve wondered if Carol and I were writing each others books in a composite voice. We have been good for each other because of our opposite problems. I’m always telling her to get right into the story, to leave out so much boring explanation. She said my writing is not terse, it’s stingy. Again, welcome Laura.

Good luck to you if you have a writing group, are joining one, or forming one. Please share your experiences here.

The Joy of Private Writing

2009-07-11T18:02:00.000-04:00

Do you have that annoying cousin? You know, the perky one? How about the older relative who consoles you with, "Don't worry dear. I think you are a lovely person. Pay no attention to what others say."

Sure you could write about them, or write letters to them that you have no intention of sending; but here is the joy of keeping it private. You can explain yourself to anyone who bugs you, but you don't have to do that. You could write a poem a day this month and at the end of it say to them or yourself, "Guess what? I wrote 30 poems and you're not in any of them. I wrote and I did not write about you."

Writing Thru It does not mean Wallowing in It. You can write yourself a path of liberation by focusing on something else entirely. Write what you know is good advice if you are writing to be published or to demonstrate your knowledge. Go find something new is good advice if you want to write for the pleasure of it.

If you are recording family stories, just try to change the ending of one. That's what fiction is. The writer decided how it would end and had no requirement to get it right. No need to stick to what actually happened. Writing memoir? You don't have too include everybody. That perky cousin probably gets enough attention already and the older relative? They weren't with you on your adventures.

Never written poetry? Take some favorite writing of yours and print it out to look like a poem. That won't necessarily make it one, but it will give you a new appreciation. Rework it by choosing your words very carefully. Try to establish rhythm or rhyme and you may be on to that something new. You may be on the path to liberation. Just don't worry about what others say.

Ellie the Essayist

2009-06-07T15:27:00.000-04:00

When I was in high school there was a question on a test in English class. Ralph Waldo Emerson was _____________________________. The answer was an essayist. Even back then I thought How do you get that job? and Who pays you?

Now all these years later I know the answer to both questions.

How do you get to be an essayist? Write essays. Actually a few hundred years after Emerson's birth his genre is is still going strong, even enjoying a new popularity in blogs and 'last page' essays. Some of the major publications in the U.S. have a personal essay. Newsweek has its MY TURN and Smithsonian Magazine has THE LAST PAGE. To be an essayist, you write essays. You can be a dancer even if you earn a living otherwise. You can be a painter or pianist, if that is what you do. To be an essayist, you write essays. What to do with your essays? That beings us to the second question.

Who pays you? Probably nobody. The point of Writing Thru It is that the process itself has its own value. Working out the order of words, sentences and paragraphs has its own rewards. That's your pay. The recollections that surface, the further practice of your writing skills - those are probably going to be what you get. You can show the work to friends, workshop it in a writing group or class or online site. You'll probably get some nice compliments, maybe some truly snarky remarks. You can submit it for publication or post it on your blog. Who'll pay you? You'll be paying yourself.

Starting Over

2009-05-03T11:52:00.000-04:00

I believe in starting over and that's what I am doing with my blog right now. I finished working a part time job three weeks ago so that I would have more time to write and more time to work on my primary job. I thought I could finish work on Saturday night and Sunday morning I would have time on my hands. I was wrong. It took me a few weeks to unwind and that brings me to today's topic. Deciding to start over is not enough. It's a start, a good start; but only actually doing it counts.

I have started over a few times in my life; who hasn't? I strongly recommend writing thru it, of course I do. Here's how.

It's not likely that we, especially the non-poets among us, will start with something as potentially esoteric as poetry. We may not get going with a personal essay or even a journal entry, but we can make a list. Hear me here, not a to-do list. I use to-do lists all the time, but don't count them among my writing endeavors. I have another type of list that works for me, though. It's the what to keep and what to throw away list.

Works every time. When it is time to start over, there is no need to get rid of everything. Some things are just fine and affirming that is helpful. For instance, right now, I really like where I live. It's not perfect, but I've been here two and a half years and I'm not moving. No need. So on my KEEP list I have 'loft on the salt marsh'. On my THROW AWAY list I had 'weekend job'. The KEEP list often includes certain friendships, classes, long range plans, and writing projects. The THROW AWAY list often includes negative thoughts, relationships, or various maybe I could do this for a living schemes. The lists never include things like declutter, do the dishes or laundry. Those belong on a to-do list.

I'm starting over today, finally getting to implement my new schedule. I know there will be interruptions and I'll have to be flexible, but I'm on my way.

Writing Thru It - in 5 parts

2008-12-04T08:10:00.000-05:00

My project, Writing Thru It,comes in five parts. I have taught it in four sessions and I've taught it in six, but in my mind it is divisible by five. It progresses, if that is the right term, from letters to journals/diaries into essays to fiction and then lands in poetry. What better place to land if you must, than in poetry?

There are two points I would make about the name. Yes, I mean to spell it 'thru'. It is my attempt to lighten up, to not take things, especially myself, too seriously. I originally called it the Transformative Power of Writing. Accurate, but, oh please.

More importantly the name has a lot of meaning for me. I have been thru it, it here being the it referred to in Shit Happens. I'm not the only one, I know that, so I am grateful to be able to work with my own problems by sharing a method that has worked for me. Of course, you don't need stress for Writing Thru It, maybe you just enjoy writing or exploration.

I'm also writing a memoir, Up Home Again, a much longer attempt at writing thru it about my return to Maine after decades of living away.

Whether you write for publication or exploration, keep writing. Writing helps.

Writing, Writing Everywhere

2008-09-03T14:56:00.000-04:00

It looks like I have been writing so much I've neglected my own blog, but I am getting all caught up now. I have worked out another chapter of Up Home Again, not polished, but worked out. I have been writing, writing everywhere but here.

After lots of thought on the topic, I have decided my next Senior College class will be on the personal essay. It has not been approved yet, but I am not seeing that as a problem.

My topics here in the coming weeks will be the epistolary novel, journal or diary - call it what you want, and the joy of the personal essay.

I'm back!!

2008-07-28T19:25:00.000-04:00

I'm home from the Women's Writing Retreat and sure enough I'm making some changes. I have decided to leave a web site where I had been posting my work and reviewing others. I felt that I spent too much time talking about writing rather than writing. I am cutting back to two writing projects now - my memoir "Up Home Again" and my Writing Thru It project that includes my workshops and this blog. It feels good to be more focused.

It also means that, for now anyway, I have to set aside my novel "Red Right Returning" and a workshop on "Transforming Your Personal Myth" that I was planning to do with my friend Cheryl Fuller, a Jungian analyst. When I look at all that I was planning I realize now why I was getting so little done. Too much planning - too little writing.

I taught Writing Thru It again in the Adirondacks this month. What a blessing. I don't usually say stuff like that, but it was a wonderful experience.

For now, I will be blogging more often and writing, writing, writing.

Getting Ready To Go On Retreat

2008-07-08T15:46:00.000-04:00

Ten days and counting - I will be returning to the Pyramid Life Center for the 13th time. Every year I go there for renewal, reflection and writing. I write much more now than when I first started going in 1996.
This year I plan to put some umph in my memoir and maybe even finish it, although I'll only be there for a week. I'll have more notebooks and books with me than I could ever really get to work on, but I'll have lots to read and lots to think about. I will have the company of great women.
I will do the annual quiz that I ask myself. What to keep and what to throw away? What parts of my life do I want to embellish and what parts do I want to diminish? Where will my writing be headed this year?

Pens, pencils, and whatever?

2008-04-12T07:09:00.000-04:00

On Thursday (4/10/2008) I was a guest on The Writer's Forum on WERU radio. One of the topics that we discussed was the actual instruments that we use to write. I tend to write on the computer now, but I didn't always and I still try to have a notebook with me most of the time.

When I write by hand, I like a smooth wet pen point. Real ink, flowing easily. Just in the last year I've started to write a lot in pencil. It makes the writing come easier for me as if to say: I'm just jotting this down. It doesn't have to be perfect or permanent.

One of my favorite ways to write, especially when I am working on a longer piece, is to write in a notebook and then edit it as I write it into the computer.

I have an enormous collection of pens, not collector's items, just a lot of pens. One of my favorite's is the one my son brought back to me from Vienna. It is all glass and came with a bottle of ink. I don't really use it, but it is still a favorite.

What do you like to use for your writing?

Letting It Flow

2008-03-26T15:01:00.000-04:00

How do you get the juices going? In class we discussed this. Some people have to have absolute quiet, uninterrupted time. That's not always easy to come by, though. I like to clear my desk, it's just a metaphor, my desk is never clear. I just like to know that I have taken care of the humdrum things so that I won't have a voice in my head saying "You really should be doing . . ."

As a real estate consultant who works from a home office where I also write, I have to be sure to seperate the two. Fortunately, I come from a culture that includes making the sign of the cross. No, I do not bless myself before writing, but I have the distinct feeling of now I am in prayer and now I am out of prayer. For writing I use Tibetan chimes, the little gongs connected with a leather strap. "Chime" now I am writing and "chime" now I am done writing. I do not check emails, the news or other distractions between chimes.

I have a writer friend who wears one of her husband's old shirts in her writing time. This sounded good to me, but since I don't have a husband I went to the Goodwill to buy an old shirt. I came out of there with a shirt I didn't really like, but did get a table and chairs I still have a few years later. The shirt I eventually donated back to Goodwill.

What rituals do you have?

Writing Letters

2008-03-19T09:14:00.000-04:00

In the first session of Writing Thru It we talk about writing letters. People who say that they don't write actually do at least leave notes for people or send emails. Some people in class say they miss the old fashioned letter that comes on paper in the mailbox.

Letters come in lots of forms and an example that I use in this class is the old song made famous by Fats Waller "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down". I heard this on NPR while I was driving the Sunday before I taught the class for the first time so I was excited. As soon as I got home, I googled the song title to get the lyrics which start like this:

I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter
and make believe it came from you.

Letters can be to (or from) anyone. When I was a kid at summer camp, in the last few days I would mail myself a letter to get it in the mail at home. Shows there is foreshadowing in real life. Now I am suggesting that other people do something similar.

The homework for this section is to write a letter or note to anyone living or dead. It can be someone you love or someone you are not speaking to anymore. It could be to an organization or a whole branch of your family. It can be nice or nasty, just write it out. The twist, and there always is a twist, is that for a follow up letter write a second letter to that entity as if you had received a reply. Do not write the reply, that's too easy. Do not plan - that might stifle you. Write the first letter, pause an hour, a day, or a week, and then write the second letter. Again just let it flow.
If you have trouble letting it flow, don't worry. We'll be discussing that here, too.

Senior College

2008-03-08T09:36:00.000-05:00

I had the honor of teaching my class, Writing Thru It, at Senior College in Belfast Maine this winter. Loved it! Got great reviews! Thank you. If you are unfamiliar with Senior College check out the link on this site.

Next Big News is that I will be teaching again at Senior College for 5 weekday mornings the week of June 16. It will be the same course only expanded.

The class is described here: Whether you want to preserve your memories, come to a better understanding of a period in your life, or work your way thru a difficult time or illness, writing is a tool that can assist you. The focus here is the process of writing, not the finished work. We will explore the possibilities available to us by working with letters, diaries, journals, fiction and poetry. No previous writing experience is required; both men and women are encouraged to attend.

At least once a week in this blog I will be discussing elements of the transformative power of writing. I welcome your comments.

the start of it all

2008-01-30T13:32:00.000-05:00

My writing has been a part of my life for a long time, but this year I have been sharing it more than ever.