Writing Superstitions and My Big, Fat Give-Back Contest

I realized two things this morning. I like dancing to techno, and I am superstitious when it comes to writing.

Why do I like techno, you ask? I don't really, it all sounds the same to me, but it is easy to see why so many people dance to it. No complicated moves are required. My kids and I had another one of our legendary early morning dance parties today, and all I needed to do was throw my arms around and jump up and down like a human pogo stick. Fun, but exhausting! Daniel Craig said I could take a day off my walking regimen since I'd already been aerobic for twenty minutes at the party. He can be such a nice muse.

Are you a superstitious writer? I am. I like to sit down to a clean desk with a cup of Celestial Seasonings (lemon or red zinger) tea in my Williams-Sonoma Ten Days of Christmas mug. (It has to be either day 5 with the golden rings or day 1 with the partridge) I also need to have my hair out of the way in a ponytail. When my favorite Pavorotti playlist begins and my dog is dozing near my feet, I'm ready to write. Only then are the stars aligned. Without these things, I feel a little off my game, so to speak.

If I'm mailing a manuscript to an agent, I need my lucky fine-point, black Sharpie. Woe to the child who has ill-advisedly used my pen, left the cap off, and let the tip dry out! I usually address two manila envelopes, pretend I'm an agent receiving both, and choose the one that looks better.

I know, I'm weird. I can admit it publicly. I would also say that the conditions I described above are the ideal. There are many days when I am merely scribbling ideas in notebooks scattered throughout the house or I'm mumbling dialogue or story lines to myself as I'm driving my kids around. You get the picture. I'm sure it sounds familiar to you.

Tell me, do you have any idiosyncrasies or superstitions? I'd love to hear what they are.

Pass the word . . . Tomorrow, I'm going to post the specifics about My Big, Fat Give-Back April Contest. It will run from the 1st-15th. The prizes will include a $50.00 Nordstrom Gift Card and two $25.00 Barnes and Noble gift cards. I've reached the 200 blogging buddies land mark, and I'd like to show my appreciation for your comments, advice, writing tips, and support. Thanks to all of you.

Now back to revising.

Dan Is Back!

There he is in his chair by the window. Just soak him in for a moment. After spending a couple of weeks in The Outer Hebrides, Mr. Craig is back. (Only temporarily though, he leaves to shoot a film in a week.)

Apparently, the pure air and pristine scenery in Scotland inspired Dan. He is now concerned about my health and has begun kicking my butt out of my office to walk briskly through the hills near my home. I don't think this should be allowed because he is my writing muse not my personal trainer or life coach. The man is killing me. Dan turns a deaf ear to my complaints however and mutters something about me needing to lose two stone and eat more fish and vegetables. It's a good thing I love him . . .(He's leaving in a week, right? I can survive anything for a week.)

Here's a question for you, blogging buddies. Does your health affect your writing? Do the endorphins from exercise help you focus your mind or do they distract you from your goals? Do you schedule time to work-out?

Sorry for the interruption. The muse wants to look over my revisions and can't be bothered to leave his comfortable leather seat. While Dan does some critiquing, I want you to imagine that you have signed with an agent and achieved a remarkable three-book deal with an old, monied publishing house. Your story is as good as on the New York Times Best-Seller List! Tell me, who would you mention in your Acknowledgments section? Who would you dedicate your masterpiece to?

I can hardly wait to read your comments! Good, Mr. Craig is laughing aloud at something he just read. I hope it was the funny bit at the beginning. See you later, blogging buddies. I'm putting on my sneakers. It's a bright, sunny Spring morning and the walking trail is calling my name. (Err, or maybe that was my muse saying, "Off you go, love."

Zen In The Art Of Writing

The title of this post comes from a book by Ray Bradbury. (He wrote Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine, The Illustrated Man, Something Wicked This Way Comes, etc.) This work shows such a love and exuberance for writing. Mr. Bradbury could light a fire under anyone whose enthusiasm has waned. To hear him tell it, you must write to live. You need zest, gusto, and self-knowledge. Like a benevolent mentor, he instills confidence into our often-shaky, artistic souls by telling us we are not crazy for assuming we can tell a good story, that we are right, and the rest of the world is wrong.

You gotta love Ray Bradbury. He loves you. Without ever meeting you. All because you're a writer. If you haven't read Zen In The Art Of Writing, put it on your to-read list. It is short and effusive and unabashedly sentimental. It's a Chicken Soup For The Soul for writers.

This is one of my favorite sections. To set the scene, in 1925 Illinois, a young Ray Bradbury is on the cusp of adolescence. It's the 4th of July, and he is setting off fire balloons. (They are tiny, colorful paper replicas of hot air balloons.) These sparkly, floating incendiaries sound beautiful but dangerous, and Ray is entranced by them. Surrounded by aunts, uncles, cousins and parents, he releases them reluctantly into the air. He looks at the dear faces around him as the balloons lift toward the sky and the moment is poignantly imprinted on his memory.

Mr. Bradbury shares this story to illustrate how writers are like time machines. We can preserve life by recording it. Though age alters us, and the people we love, we are captured forever through the written word. To quote from Zen:

"I see my grandfather there looking up at that strange shifting light, thinking his own thoughts. I see me, my eyes filled with tears, because it was all over, the night was done, I knew there would never be another night like this. No one said anything. We all just looked up at the sky. . .

"My beloved family still sits on the porch in the dark. The fire balloon still drifts and burns in the night sky of an as yet unburied summer."

See? Our experiences remain unburied if we write them down. And I feel like one of Ray's family when I read that account. As though I, too, am sitting on that porch, gazing at a fiery light rising into the inky darkness.

Do you put your memories in your stories, readers? Both good and bad? Do you keep a journal?

Happy Friday! Have a wonderful weekend.

The Stuff Of Life

Have you ever watched Marathon Man? This great 1976 movie stars Dustin Hoffman as Babe, a unwitting graduate student caught up in a mysterious conspiracy involving a fortune in hidden diamonds. Laurence Olivier or Szell, an evil Nazi war criminal, stops at nothing to acquire the gems. One of the most memorable scenes involves Szell torturing Babe by strapping him in a dentist's chair and drilling on his teeth without benefit of anesthesia. It is an intense, painful scene to watch. Especially if you've had deep cavities, root canal, wisdom teeth extraction, etc. . .

Yesterday, I felt like Babe. My dental appointment lasted three hours. That's 180 minutes! Or 10, 800 seconds! I won't go into the grim details of the ordeal, but suffice it to say, I was really glad when my DDS allowed me to go home. Except that my temporary crown fell off as I was driving away, and I had to go back and have it stuck on again. I parked in the lot outside the dental office and muttered to myself, "One of my characters better fear and dread dentistry in a future story. . ."

As I sat in the waiting room, a nice guy who had brought his daughter in for orthodontic work made a comment to me about a teenagers ability to send lightening-fast texts. He said a few more funny things, and I marveled silently because I'm not the sort of girl guys usually chat with. I'm the sort they might associate with a maiden aunt or a favorite cousin. My imagination immediately clicked into gear and I thought, "Alter the circumstances a bit, and this would be a cute introduction for two main characters."

Inside the operatory, the dental assistant dropped the adhesive-filled crown in my mouth. She tried to grab hold of it, only to knock it back toward my throat. Lucky for me, she caught the crown before it became a choking hazard, and then I began the "what if?" game. What if the crown had become lodged in my airway? What if I died and my grief-stricken family sued my dentist and the assistant? What if the dentist was ruined and left destitute and suicidal? How would that dramatic situation play out in a novel? My brain began plotting. Or rather, forming a plot.

Writers are weavers and fishermen. Our lives are filled with stuff, with oceans of experience to draw upon. Casting our nets over those metaphorical waters, we see what truths we can ensnare. The catch is then woven into our writing, bringing authenticity to our voice. We tell what we've learned of loyalty or betrayal, illness or health, friendship or isolation. We disguise and document the boy who got away or the man who didn't. Memories are reference books sitting near our fingertips as they rest on the keyboard.

We do not write what we know, we write what we've lived. Live well, friends, and then write about it.

Happy Thursday!

P.S. I received an email from my muse Daniel Craig this morning. He heard on Twitter that I had cleaned my office/study. His one-word response to this news? "Brava."

Bacon

The beauty of weekend blogging? Very few people actually read your work. They are sleeping in or going out or making blueberry pancakes . . . My standards decline a bit on Saturday and Sunday, and I can write something ridiculous without feeling bad. Okay, prepare yourselves for my foray into mediocrity! (For those of you diligently blogging this weekend, my apologies.)

According to the old axiom from the book of Ecclesiastes, there's nothing new under the sun. I'd agree with Solomon on this, and so our topic today revolves around common experience as it applies to comedy. (There's a jarring non-sequitur if ever I wrote one!)

Let's look at the metaphorical ladder of comedy, why don't we? On the bottom rung there's Low Comedy. You don't need me to explain this. It's when you tell a dirty joke or do a pratfall. A step up from there? Farce. Actually, I kinda like Farce if truth be told. I relate well to farce. Next comes, Comedy of Manners. This is where you find the clever puns and insults, the impersonations, and witty dialogue. By and large, most popular comedians work here.

Think Brian Regan, Jim Gaffigan, Steve Martin, Hoops and Yo-yo cards, etc. (I love me some Hoops and Yo-yo. I will stay in the greeting card section of Walmart until I have looked at every Hoops and Yo-yo card. Twice.)

The highest rung: Comedy of Ideas. This is a difficult level to pull off. It's dark, satyrical humor. These comedians turn death, poverty, war, class distinction and government into a joke. If they're successful, we smile at the terrible. We laugh at what they say, even though there's a current of tragedy running just under the smooth surface of the punch line. Think Sam Kinesin, Rodney Dangerfield, Richard Pryor, George Carlin. These guys were brilliant. Not to stereotype them, but Idea comedians are often troubled, angry people. They walk a fine line between entertaining the audience and alienating them with insults. We think about their comments long after the standup is over.

The top two are my favorite rungs. Great comic writing reveals the everyday aspects of life in a new way. Take bacon for example. We've all heard of it, seen it, eaten it, but have we thought of bacon as particularly funny? I certainly didn't. Until I heard Jim Gaffigan's riff on this breakfast meat on youtube. So, so funny. "Thank you, Bacon. Sincerely, Water Chestnut the third." And his camping schtick. Amazing. "He's made hammocks a dirty thing." Brian Regan's inspired account of hospital emergency rooms makes me laugh until I can't breathe right. "Happy eight day! Happy eight day! Guess who's an eight again?" Steve Martin's Flydini is as clear in my mind today as it was the first time I saw him unzip his pants. Hilarious, smart humor. You all know how tech-challenged I am, I can't link to youtube to save my life. Go and see these snippets if you haven't watched them already.

By the way, comedians are dead serious about the art of the joke. It is not a laughing matter to them. It's perfect timing, precise wording, and the right choice of subject matter. (Sound familiar?) Not to mention: practice, practice, practice. Humor is a serious business.

When it's done well, comedy forces us to look at the human experience with a fresh perspective. That's what we do as writers. We reinvent the wheel, so to speak, and put an innovative, original slant on our version of Aristotle's seven basic plot lines.

What are your thoughts? Who are your favorite comedians?

Happy Saturday! (Have some bacon.)

Of Good Character

Ah, here they are. Aragorn and Gandalf. If you have read The Lord Of The Rings you love them. And what about Gollum/Smeagol? And Frodo and Sam? Amazing.

I think J.R.R. Tolkien would have been just another writer if he hadn't possessed the remarkable ability to create strong, living-breathing characters. But he did have that talent. In spades. So much so that decades later people still read, cherish, and lose themselves in his work. I'm proud to say I love hobbits. I want my garden to look like a hobbit tends it. I kind of feel like a hobbit deep down inside. Elevensies, anyone? Could you pass the lambas, please? (Secret Alert: I've had a crush on Legolas since the fifth grade!)

Did you know they are performing a lavish, musical production of LOTR in London? I wonder what Tolkien would say to that.

We want all of the people in our books to be of good character. We want them to connect with the reader and hold them captive until the end of the story and beyond. How do you find inspiration for your characters? Do you base them on historical figures, celebrities, or family members?

I'd love to hear how you create this vital, literary element.

Happy Tuesday!

Those Sweet Archaic Songs

English poet James Flecker died of tuberculosis at just over thirty years of age. I discovered his poem To A Poet A Thousand Years Hence during a time in my life when I felt very alone. (No. It wasn't last Thursday! It was over twenty years ago.) I'd like to share a portion of this work with you.

I who am dead a thousand years,

And wrote this sweet archaic song,

Send you my words for messengers

The way I shall not pass along.

I care not if you bridge the seas,

Or ride secure the cruel sky,

Or build consummate palaces

Of metal or of masonry.

But have you wine and music still,

And statues and a bright-eyed love,

And foolish thoughts of good and ill,

And prayers to them who sit above?

O friend unseen, unborn, unknown,

Student of our English tongue,

Read out my words at night, alone:

I was a poet, I was young.

Since I can never see your face,

And never shake you by the hand,

I send my soul through time and space

To greet you. You will understand.

I found this poem at the exact moment I needed comfort, and I did indeed feel as though Mr. Flecker had reached across time and space to communicate with me. Have you ever considered that your words might carry into the future and help someone after your life is over? Do you have a favorite story or poem that you read aloud to yourself in moments of need?

The Day Is Done by Longfellow is another of my favorite poems. Tell me if you see yourself in the writer he describes.

Read from some humbler poet,

Whose songs gushed from his heart,

As showers from the clouds of summer,

Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who, through long days of labor,

And nights devoid of ease,

Still heard in his soul the music

Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet

The restless pulse of care,

And come like the benediction

That follows after prayer.

Beautiful, isn't it? It's encouraging to know that other writers have had their struggles, too. They worked hard and sometimes doubted themselves. Just like we do at times. My last little snippet comes from Ulysses by Tennyson.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

We all hope for heroic hearts as writers. As we return to our manuscripts and works-in-progress each day, I think we're getting there. Two years ago, I almost died, and a gifted surgeon saved my life. Today, I walked in the foothills of the mountains above my home and watched as the sun broke through the clouds to settle it's fiery light in a circle on the lake below. I could see the nearly blinding rays outline the ripples in the water, making them appear like liquid pleats spreading out into the grayness beyond. I'm so happy to be alive. I'm so happy to read beautiful words and to have the time to write them.

Have a wonderful weekend, dear readers.