A Writer’s Life

Re-blogging from Curtiss Ann Matlock’s words of today. I, too, am finding it hard in recent days to find the time to write as Napkinwriter. But I shall return. Right now, I am up to my eyes in pie making in my new venture of Pie In The Sky.

Gleanings– When it Comes to the Writer’s Life…
by Curtiss Ann Matlock on November 24, 2014
What is it about being pressed and denied alone time for writing that makes me absolutely furious to write? Some perverse bent within me. I have 10 minutes before a small boy hits my door, demanding my attention. No sooner did I sit here at this blank page, than the new puppy barked to go out. I’ve left her in the backyard and hope she does not get out while where she can squeeze through the fence while I just had to run up here to get out what I’ve been thinking about. The perverseness is that whenever I do have the time to write, I sit and stare at the page or putter and think. Such is myself, a writer.

“When it comes to the writer’s life, there are no formulas, no easy answers, no ‘quick fixes.’ Each of us must still find our own path. But we can acknowledge the ‘bigness’ in ourselves and hold a mirror to others when they lose sight of the bigness in themselves. We walk in solitude as we work in solitude, but we can hold each other’s hands along the way.” ~ Maire Farrington, as quoted in The Writer’s Life, by Eric Maisel.

I had a dear friend long ago suggest to me that many of my essays should be gathered into a book entitled: When You Need A Hand to Hold. Maybe I will do that, someday, when the small boy has grown up, the elderly mother has passed on, and the dog is willing to lay at my feet. For now I hold my own hand, and I write in the crushed spaces. I do what I can with what I have. That’s a place to start, and to keep going.

“When I decided to become a writer, things moved along well for the first few years, then I began hitting some walls. I hit a dry spell. No words came out. The results weren’t as I had planned. It was time to decide if I wanted to stand behind my decision or fold.” ~Melody Beattie, More Language of Letting Go
Once we decide.

The decision is everything. Make a decision, commit, and you are sprung forward. I decided to write at this time, and here I am, with the small boy now beside me watching me write, and I’m writing. He told me that my typing was like my fingers were dancing. I never would have heard that, had I not followed through with my decision to write this. I would never have known that I can write amidst distraction. Now I know. I write on.
Get writing, dear hearts.
CurtissAnn

Napkinwriter has a good reading tip for you.  Buy a copy of CurtissAnn’s  MIRACLE ON I-40, a great read during the holiday season AND some precious alone ME time with hot spiced tea and a treat in your comfy chair.  Both CurtissAnn and I like our reading chair time as well as our writing time.

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Hard Boiled Eggs and Writing Your Novel

I’ve learned the secret to making perfect hard boiled eggs that peel easily and finishing the novel one may have been working on for years.

First, the hard boiled egg. I’ve tried different combinations of making hard boiled eggs over the years. Sometimes, I’m lucky, sometimes not. It seemed more often then not, when it really mattered, as in Easter eggs and deviled eggs when you really want the egg to peel neatly, it didn’t for me.

Another problem was that if I was lucky enough to have the egg peel, the yolk was greenish and unappetizing looking around the edge. The method I am about to share vanishes that problem too.

Recently, I combined two methods. One I found on http://www.cooks.com and the other was in a magazine.  You don’t have to add either salt or baking soda to the water, as other texts call for.

1.  Bring eggs to room temp before using.

2. Place sufficient water to cover the eggs in a saucepan and bring to a gentle boil BEFORE placing the eggs in it.

3. Lower the eggs carefully into the water, using a tablespoon. When the water reboils, start timing  and reduce the heat so that the water simmers gently.

(Fast boiling makes the egg white tough and causes the eggs to bang against each other and crack.

4. You should start timing the eggs from the moment the water first boils.

5.  Hard boiled eggs, large size take 10 minutes.

6. Turn off the heat and place the eggs in an ice-water bath and time them to cool for 5 minutes.  The ice water bath will “shock” the membrane in between the egg white and the egg shell, loosening the shell and allowing you to peel it off easily.

7.  Store peeled eggs in the refrigerator.

Now about that unfinished novel.

The humble kitchen timer is the most important creative tool in your arsenal.  Notice the importance placed on timing in order to get the perfect hard boiled egg.

The same is true in the successful completion of your novel,  Melda Maguire , working on her seventh book,  insists. Here is what she says to do:

“At some point you sit down and set that timer for 30 minutes. Work on your craft or your project without interruption or distraction. It does not have to be major work — just focused work. Don’t get up from your seat until the timer dings. ”

“Then do the same thing tomorrow. And the next day. And the next day…”
Are you catching onto this?

To look at the financial side of this, she points out you don’t need to quit your job to be an artist or writer. You don’t have to take out a heart-stopping loan in order to get an advanced degree in creativity. You don’t need to move to Paris (but that might be fun).

You don’t need to change anything about your life. You just need to bow down before the humble kitchen timer, every single day.

A little universal truth that applies here is the the world will not clear out a time and a space for your dreams, art and writing. If you wait for things to be perfect before beginning (or continuing) your work (and play), you will die waiting.

Get yourself a kitchen timer and turn it into a creativity timer. What happens next can only be thrilling.

 

Plus, you can always have a perfect deviled egg waiting for you in the refrigerator when your 30 minute timer goes off. Walah!

 

 

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Art is Life. WWAM!

Art is life. And Dorothy Randall Gray is WWAM. And so…..

Dorothy Randall Gray AND Amejo Amyot  together are WWAM  WWAM!!

In my joyful and fun 70th year on this planet Earth, I have been intimately united with my own parallel universe! It was great from the start. My extended family joined around me for a surprise breakfast/brunch buffet with brothers and sisters and cousins awaiting me after I’d celebrated the Sunday liturgy and Mass with my daughters, sons-in-law and wondrous three grandchildren. We had brought the gifts to the altar and I prayed in thanksgiving for the sixty-nine years granted me and opened my heart and arms to the possibilities that lay within each day of this new year.

I get two new years in two days, as my birthday falls on January 2nd, just as the partiers are reviving from their New Year’s Eve excesses.

Rejoice! This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad!

So, in a parallel universe, time is not linear I have found, and it is now heading into the autumn month of September. I have just returned from a precious trip to Charlotte North Carolina where I trained with Catherine Anderson for SoulCollage Facilitator. Totally inspiring and over one hundred fifty photos from that weekend. My year also included an invitation from a best friend forever to join her on an all-paid first class trip through the European Alps and five countries along the way. This all speaks of parallel universe to me.

But the words, memories and images on my mind  tonight are from my mystic, magical, meditative and magnificent experience I had attending the May weekend of Women Writers and Artists Matrix in Saratoga Springs New York.

What happened there? Magnificent, MUSE-i-cal women in community, minute by minute artistic expression and learning. Quiet, honorable time and chant in the early morning quiet. Waves of prayer carried out into the ethers by the sound of the drum beat above and around us and within our heart. Lunch time sisterhood sharing that drew in even the chef who prepared special dishes for us and hung out at our group table because he didn’t particularly want to be anywhere else at the moment.

Painted poems, paper book specialities, movement, dance and exclamation! “Seeds” respected and collected that have given rise to new prose and poetry by this time because they came home in journal pages with us. The campus of Skidmore College, with IWWG (International Women Writers Guild) roots for many of us, welcomed us as we strolled throughout the Quad area and by the old dorms and buildings. I revisited the grounds I put my newly created prayer sticks many years ago from Amejo’s meditation group. Old friendships renewed, new friendships gained. That’s what happened there.

This, indeed, is my parallel universe and I’ve known it for a long time. It keeps inviting me in. I cannot stay back. When I committed to both the WWAM weekend and the SoulCollage training, I did not know where or how the funds would come. It was my calling to say yes. The funds manifested and everything worked out for me to have an abundant experience on the least possible amount of dollars I could spend.

I even got author and WWAM workshop presenter, Suzi Banks Baum, for a room mate at the Inn of Saratoga. Plus, she offered to pick me up at the airport, which saved a $50 fare, while Amejo drove me back to the airport on Monday morning.

Suzi

Suzi taught many techniques for one type of folding book, and had examples of oh so many other types. In her work, she values the mission and honor of motherhood. It is a precious work.

Suzi invited us into our own gardens to see what we would see and hear there. My garden had a beautiful brass gazebo entrance.

And in my garden, I found the very same sunflower girl awaiting me that I had on my 2013 Intention Mandala on my wall back home. Now how could that happen?

Magical? Mysterious? Mystical? Definitely Magnificent.

My Year of Joy and Fun beating on my mandala and in my heart at WWAM.

And just WHO did we think we were, Dorothy asked us and warned us there were to be no timid responses.

And we did our best…..not to disappoint.

 

I told her, “I am God in a pod”, but I don’t have a “selfie” photo of me saying it.

This artist led me into a most lovely movement exercise and a painted poem creation that left me surprised and amazed. She also gave me the wondrous experience of Wabi Sabi that is a treasure in my daily living. Nothing I read on paper could have matched the gem of her inviting it into my life as a spiritual, practical wisdom practice.

She spoke of the importance of space in art and in life. I will remember that. Also she encouraged laughter. Always.

Dear Amejo, she holds a torch of womanhood in her hands, of woman’s connection to the essential, and is the treasure holder of the transference of women’s wisdom held sacred within our hearts and passed on to others. She is a Shaman among us. A Blessing as she walks the Earth.  Namaste.

Sisters, one and all.

Writers, artists, friends….who have withstood much, loved much, lived fruitfully.

Given an assignment by Dorothy,   “How many ways……”

My camera didn’t focus correctly on this. Her life went out of focus with a serious, severe stroke. All weekend, she revealed the hard realities of her soon to be full recovery, starting from well before the “start line.” Her opening sentence in her book is,  “The first time I died……” I am buying the book when it comes out.

My question posed in my Garden book.

I suppose I got like this because once upon a time……..(like fairy tales begin)

I met Dorothy and Amejo

and then……

I just became

like this.

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Butterfly Alphabet

This is my framed butterfly art poster that hangs above my writing desk. It has moved with me to our many abodes and usually found its honored space in my creative room.

I saw this poster in a PBS Signals catalogue long ago and yearned after it in many issues before I plunked down the change and made it my own. These letter formations are actually contained in the real wings of butterflies and the poster is great for up-close brief or lengthy meditations!

I think of the absolute grace and privilege any of us have to create a word that soothes, inspires, warns, captures, embellishes or sends another’s imagination soaring, just by using these shaped letters.

I think of the hours of peace, even during writer’s block, I may count up on my yearly calendars, that still thrill me when I come across a piece I had written long ago. I can hold the paper and bring myself back to the exact moment and feeling I had at the time of its creation.

I think of the power, grace and beauty of the butterfly’s wings and truly our own words need to possess the same.

I think of the courage of the caterpillar in the darkness before it knew (maybe it always knew) what its creation would be, but it kept on doing what it was to do……..the same as a writer often does.

I think of flight and presence….for who can ignore the butterfly, no matter how busy one is. Words have flight and take up presence in the souls and hearts of others. How beautiful, then, are words powered with love and intention.

How fragile, both butterflies and words,…once released, neither can retract into the cocoon, nor the unspoken or unwritten world…so how sacred are both.

How bright and shiny, wondrous and brief is the flight of the butterfly and the reading of a word, yet both possess the power of eternity in our memory.

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