Tell Me About the Sky, What Matters

Posted on April 19, 2016 by Heloise Jones

“A man told me there was nothing he would rather keep noticing — and he pointed to the spaces between palm fronds, chinks of turquoise and a few clouds. Just now, into this recollection, wanders an egg on a green dish.”
~ Karen Brennan (from Five Stories)
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Bird Island.1 *

I love Facebook. I get so much from it. Good stuff far beyond the constant yammer of politics and war flying every day from the radio. Shores me up, helps me remember the Chesapeake Bay was once dead and now thrives. Exciting stuff like this fabulous archive of 2500 pigments collected in the first decades of this century by billionaire Forbes, sparked by a damaged old-world painting he wanted restored. COLOR gathered from around the world. That came from things like beetles off a certain cactus, resin from mummies, dried urine from cow’s fed only mango leaves. I love that bright red dragon’s blood really exists. Is found in rattan leaves. Medicine to my artist’s soul that elicits yearning for the list of names and origins.

I love that I’ve stayed in the homes of peeps in New Zealand who I first met on fb. That an entire church in far-off Chicago prayed for us when my husband was run down by a car, because a woman saw it in a comment. (I never made a post) Asked if she could add us to their prayer list. I love I connect with those holding opposite political views, or come from diff cultures, meet in the spaces we share as humans – heart, family, fun, pain, desires, passions, works.

From fb I learn about other writers and works, add to my knowledge of craft and industry. I love I have a forum to encourage & promote brilliant artists and writers, too. Can see my encouragement blossom into works in the world. That fb gave me conversations for a book I’m writing to help carry creatives through the snarlies and frustrations of life, navigate through stuckness so we stay on our feet, live, work and create at our highest level.

Conversations personal and heartfelt about the difficulty creating & expressing stories, thoughts, words in a world that doesn’t understand what it means to have that sort of thing inside you. How you’re challenged with why’s and labels. You’re not a writer, you’re…’. How this solitary pursuit can look selfish when other people want/need your time. That you’re not real because you haven’t hit that magic validation button, publication. Even knowing as we do that stories and words nourish the world. That writers are executed in some places for the power they wield.

So, I asked on fb, ‘What would you like to hear me talk about in my blog?’ Two replied (good in a writer’s world with a staggering level of rejection). One, whatever works for me. The other, I like it when you talk about what matters to you. I like it when you describe the colors of the sky, which was perfect.

Because when I first joined fb (after 2 yrs.! prompting by a writing partner) I decided how I’d show up authentically me, intentional. I cared about so much, I chose how I’d stand, not add to the noise. In time, it evolved into a writing practice creating poetic pictures of what I see and feel, saying my Truth the best I can. Editing as I would any poetic stanza. It got down to this:

I care we see our common humanity. The trolls and nasties are out there, and so are beauty and compassion. I love what Doris Lessing says about existence and forgetting. Deep down love it –  ”No one knows what has existed and has vanished beyond recovery, evidence for the number of times Man has understood and has forgotten again that his mind and flesh and life and movements are made of star stuff, sun stuff, planet stuff; …” – because I see life-lines as spirals. We spiral up (or down, whichever ‘toward wisdom’ means to you). Revisit our stuff. Get a chance to see things differently. Do *it* differently. And it spirals out. Each of us a microcosm of culture and humanity.

I care we see ourselves empowered. That we’re inspired to show up, put our drop in the bucket to create a kinder, gentler world for all of us. Like my friend Sweetie Berry says, “….To see small droplets of water <rain> repeatedly fall to make differences in all it touches…no single drop doing the work but incrementally changing the landscape and the garden. Small things matter…” Because I know our drops matter. That it’s the We together that causes incremental change in landscapes, just like the rain.

I care about the realities of the human world. Because I am not neutral. They push me to speak up unequivocally strong sometimes. As with the recent NC bill, because I love my friends. Wept with joy when equal marriage became law of the land. Love is love, the way I see it. And I vehemently oppose everything in that bill, including the silencing of any voice who wishes to protest (yep, you/us, LGBT or not). And the only way I see to fight it is to support the peeps fighting it. Hate and discrimination are myopic, are not hurt by us stepping away.

The over-arching thing I care about is inspiring people to see more than the hard stuff, even when we’re over-run. Pull myself up in the process. Last week I heard a famous comedian on Fresh Air say as a black man he’s hyper-aware the min. he steps out the door that he’s a target of suspicion and possible violence. I heard how desperate refugees pressed against the new thick-thick wall between Turkey and Syria are shot at, forced away, back into devastation, starvation, and horrific violence. Heard, yet again, commentators analyze Donald Trump. And as I drove down the road the next morning, I thought ‘I am so safe and lucky. So many of us here, so safe and lucky.’

And I care, care, care we see our beautiful planet for the gift she is. How she shows us, gives us, COLOR we can hold in our hands. Every medicine for body and soul. That though it’s not May, yet, so I can’t declare Spring here to stay, daffodils & tulips crowd each other in Asheville and points up the east coast. Trees drip with flowers, the streets sport puddles of petals. The squirrels and ducks are making babies. In fact, so incredibly gorgeous, I can see nature simply doesn’t care. She’s sprung. While the snow falls in Colorado.

And finally, for you Mary Anne Radmacher. Last night as I closed the blinds, the moon, not yet full, reflected twice, like twins in my window so brightly I couldn’t shut her out. I left the blinds open. Went outside to gaze up. Feel the breeze. I heard her say it’s okay I only caught a glimpse of the giant hawk flying low with something large in its talons, a murder of crows chasing it. Because it caused me to ask a man if he saw it so close over his head. Learn he lost his vision, is just now seeing again after multiple surgeries. After complete blackness. (imagine!) And that he’s from the Brazilian Amazon, where they live close to nature and animals, so it was natural his son rescued a baby crow on the edge of death, loved it to adulthood. The hawk brought me to a fellow human I would never have spoken to, otherwise.

I have not been down to the bay in days. Have not sat in silence with nature, noticed things like the chinks of turquoise and a few clouds in the spaces between palm fronds. I must do that now.

Tell me. What matters to you?

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

A favorite: Palm trees. Absolutely fascinating when you really see their differences and how they flower.
A secret: I’ve glimpsed the sky through oak and maple leaves. Now looking thru the spaces amongst palms.

Vision to Launch

Posted on April 5, 2016 by Heloise Jones

“More than a dozen Pulitzer Prize-winning writers and master teachers will share the most reliable secrets of their craft. . .in a free-flowing sequence of lessons. Participants will experience an inspirational and instructive writing workshop.”
Description from a workshop, Voices of Social Justice & Equality
Poynter Institute
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Launching Prayers – Chinese Lantern Festival
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We sat on the front row, where I like to sit. My curiosity only slightly peaked. I’m not a journalist. Each lesson only ten minutes. I clearly forgot TED. I got tons. Insights and tips for writing. Tears from stories, like from from a lesson on observation, the description of the trembling blood splattered shoulders of a man who murdered the mother of his child with a machete. Or schools turned into failure factories from a lesson on the power of simplicity, even in stories born from thousands of hours and documentation. Stuff I can use to write novels and essays, like who we are, really. And where we connect. How this lies in the defining moments of decision and action, the external context that influences our thoughts, emotions, choices – forgotten in our introductions so full of what happened & when. Halfway thru I thought, I want to do this. Can I become a journalist. It was the same feeling I had at Stony Brook Southampton Writers Conference learning from the best, watching performances by the best, when I thought I need to move to New York. And watching an ancillary short for the movie ‘Across the Universe,’ the one where they talk about gathering a team stellar in their field to CREATE, feeling a longing and recognition for that experience of co-creation in collaboration with genius. And like when I saw the images of the retreat center on Maui where author Cheryl Strayed led a writing retreat, uttered the words this is how I want to do my work. Like rarified air I want to breathe. Two days later I was shown more.

Every Tuesday and Thursday night for eight weeks my husband Art went to the Church of Christ fellowship hall. Attended a professional and personal development program called Jobs for Life. His teachers all volunteer members of the congregation. Sunday was Graduation. He asked me to go. They talk a lot about the bible, are pretty regular sorts of folks, he said. They indeed quoted scripture. Had three prayers. Sang three hymns, every stanza. Most dressed like we used to expect one dresses for church. A nice change to my thought. Each person on the team – teachers, coordinators, counselors, volunteers and champions – welcomed me, told me how much they appreciated my husband. We sat with the woman who coordinated the outreach program. Who took the course at another church, learned how to do it. Bought it home. We looked at programs for homeless, battered families, she said. In the end decided the jobs program. Because it’s something that can be built upon, carried forward. That gives participants tools for continued growth on their own. That can enrich whole communities. What I heard. . .they wanted to help people be their better and best selves. And they know we’re not islands.

Out of 30 who registered, eight showed up and finished. I teared up as participants shared what they got from the experience. The painfully shy young gal who’s now considering toastmasters. Her mother, dressed in a white lace dress, a brilliant turban of aquas and ocean, black slippers and socks, walking with crutches, who took the class to support her daughter, found something for herself in the process. The young man with professional athletes for parents who broke his back, was forced down a different path and found mentors. The former drug addict who’ll teach her kids principles she learned. My husband speaking up as a leader. I felt my heart vibrate with the chords of a dozen harmonized a cappella Amens from one of our earlier songs.

Someone recently said I ask a lot of the Universe. Her words shocked me so much I didn’t ask what she meant. When I sat with it, I saw the message as either step up, be bigger, earn what I ask for. Or I expect too much, step down, be smaller. The latter is not an option. Earning is not in anything I’ve read or studied about prayer, spirit, the Universe, or asking. Action is.

We start where we’re at. Hold the vision we’re able.

Those people I met Sunday are as genius to me as the Greats I aspire to. They put in the hours. gather the pages, define themselves toward their vision of their best selves in action. It’s the same path I’m walking.

What vision are you walking toward?

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

A secret: Look for those defining moments and outside influences on my About Heloise page in the coming weeks.
A favorite: A capella voices

photo: unknown

8 More. What Being an Author Taught Me About Life

Posted on March 15, 2016 by Heloise Jones

I am destined to move
at night on the secondary roads
of the American dream.
I took my first off ramp
after years of traveling
under someone else’s direction. . .

Stopping at magical places –
Singing the one Clearest note –

Cracking open an awareness
of things more beautiful
than was once thought possible –
A poetic life.

~ Author Unknown (Goose Creek Road)

Waterfall rainbow *

Blog #52 – One Year anniversary of Getting to Wise. A Writer’s Life. A wonder, as I’d put it off for eight years. Re-designed by professionals, twice, then sitting. Design #3 I launched.

I’m a novelist. I love listening to the story, following the characters. I’m a poet. I love the beats of syllables, commas, and periods. Love the lyrical in language. I’m an editor. I love fitting the pieces together, finding the path to essence and necessity.

And every week for the past year my constant has been to show up here, tell the truth, publish by 10am Tuesday, no matter what. Usually as clueless about what I’ll say as that first morning I sat down to start.

One year. Today I could write about the crossroads I’m at. How I’m visited by an image of a lone person walking across a broad western plain. Not a sad or beaten soul, but one moving steady, with purpose. A person who didn’t choose to buy a horse. And she needs one now. And she knows the kind of horse she needs to get her where she’s headed. An educated decision. Instead, I’m sharing 8 more things being an author underscores for me. The ones that continue to carry me, no matter what.

1) We’re WIP.

Our lives are glorious Works in Progress. Change is the only constant. We grow, evolve, learn, experience. Arrive at the end when we give up, shut down, or die. Like in any book or story.

2) Sometimes we chose an experiment.

My husband’s fond of saying this when I’m angsting. Because, as we know, when the experiment or adventure’s going well, it’s great to be in it. When it’s not, everything feels serious. I can delete bad experiments when I write. In life, the best outcomes for bad ones are learning, growing, changing the story.

3) Take a break, let it rest.

Once an author types <the end> on a WIP, we put it away for a while, hopefully at least three weeks, come back to edit with fresh eyes. The separation creates space inside that allows us to experience the work differently. Same with many things in life, including relationships or jobs.

4) There’ll be good reviews, and bad reviews.

None of them true. They may affect outcomes, but only those we can use to better the story we’re writing of who we are and how we show up matter. The rest are with the audience.

5) You don’t need to be an expert.

We don’t have to know everything, be an expert to know enough, move forward. I read 40 pages about guns and hunting rifles for two short descriptive references in my novel. I’m not an expert on guns, but I know those passages are correct. When I saw the same information recycle in the training materials for online business, found several examples of people successful doing what I wanted to do in a way I aligned with, I wasn’t an expert, but I knew enough to move forward intelligently.

6) Find a way past Stuck.

Amazon has 100 pages of books on writer’s block. I don’t know if this includes the games or journals mentioned in the drop down menu. We look for the way past stuck. It’s no different in life.

7) Pay attention to the Evidence Journal

The journal we’re often blind to. The one that notates our accomplishments. Mirrors our gifts, strengths, weaknesses, hot buttons. Shows us the disconnects between intent and expression, and connection. The one that tells us who’s paying attention, sees us. Shows us who others are. Everything we need to know is in the evidence journal. We just gotta look and listen, see and hear with an open heart and mind. And trust ourselves. That’s the tricky part.

8) Trust permeable boundaries.

Creativity is not about control. We want control of our instruments and tools, but openness to unknown possibilities. To what may show up if we soften our gaze, see more than we’re believe we’re looking for. Hear more than we decided to hear, or think we hear. We step into the realm of allowing ourselves to be surprised, and be led to something new. This Life is our greatest creation. We’re all authors writing stories.

Author (from Merrium-Webster dictionary)
1. one that originates or creates
2. the writer of a literary work (as a book)

What story are you writing? Tell me here, in the comments.

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Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

A secret: I believe a WIP is the best we can be.
A favorite: Writing this blog.

Photo: free share by Jared Erondu

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11 Things Being an Author Taught Me About Life

Posted on February 9, 2016 by Heloise Jones

I like stories where women save themselves.
~ Neil Gaimen

Writer

I remember the first time I learned fiction writers research. A surprise though I was writing a book set in mid-century Appalachia, a time and place very different from my experience. 2006. I was at the Taos Writing Salon, far from my home. There from an ad in a local magazine. I’d turned the page, but went back, gazed a long time at the ad before folding the page open to mark it. I’d written to prompts every week with a core group of eight women for four years. Attended three weeklong retreats with the same facilitator-teacher, members of the circle at all of them. New writers came and went, but I always sat safely in familiarity. In New Mexico I was on my own.

Once through the door, the excitement of a test and insecurity of new wings took over. Sharing raw work in response to exercises not my fear, but stepping out of the shadow of affirmation from people who knew me. Into a group that included men (so different!), and published authors. Three things occurred in Taos that changed my life forever.

Allegra Huston critiqued a short story of mine, the seed for my novel. An author from England asked if I wrote professionally, responded ‘why not, you oughta be’ when I said no. And an author I respect, whose style and skill I admire, said yes when I asked if she’d edit my book. I became a writer in my mind.

If you read blogs or articles on writing, listen to interviews, you hear writing is a small part of being an author. What surprised me is how being an author shores me through the rough patches in life. Not in the work-thru-it sense as in journaling, but in the ‘this is true’ guideposts sense. My guess, it’ll surprise you, too.

1. First draft is never the final draft.

I trained two years on systems therapy with the Satir Institute of the Southeast. The one thing I knew for sure at the end of that training is life’s not about how often we fall down, it’s about how fast we get up. But I’d also grown up a perfectionist. Writing and rewriting, editing and revising finally taught me to let go. Forgive mistakes. Move on. Practice and do it better next time.

2) Rejection happens. Cheer the triumphs.

The level of rejection authors experience would astonish most people. Sometimes (often) hundreds of rejections, sometimes year after year. Stephen King spiked his rejections on a nail over his desk for years until Carrie launched his career. You read about the big winners. Rarely do you read they are less than 1% of published authors. That the average sales for self-published books are 150-250 copies. That good writers are not immune to rejection. And the reasons for rejection often have nothing to do with the work. Publishing is a subjective business. Perseverance and adopting an attitude of inspiration from the triumphs of others, learning and moving on all key to success as a writer and in life.

3) You define success.

The word ‘success’ is everywhere. Media. Descriptors for individuals. Books are written about it. Blogs discuss the attributes of successful people. A writing teacher once described me as successful. She viewed my publications, my completed novel, my literary agent, my teaching, my long list of professional retreats and workshops attended as setting me apart. Her assessment was a shock, because I didn’t see myself as a successful author. Because my goals and intentions hadn’t been fully realized, yet. And the quality of my life didn’t spell success to me. In that moment I understood only we can define success for ourselves.

4) What you do can be great even if no one sees.

Thousands of fine sentences no one will read. Hundreds of kindnesses and actions no one knows. It all matters. Another’s eyes do not make it more or less than it is.

5) Connection is alchemical.

For a writer, it’s that space between the written words and reader. When words turn into something new in a reader’s mind. Same as between people, when relationship and impact grow from the place they meet. It starts with me, ends with us.

6) Comparison is deadly.

It can stunt a life. You’ll always find someone or something better or worse than where you are now. Use comparisons as benchmarks for where you stand today, and where you aspire to be or go. The present is the only place where you can start to move forward.

7) No new stories, only new ways of telling them.

Pay attention to the people in the stories and the ones telling the tales. They show us what it is to be human. Can teach, open our mind, broaden our perspectives.

8) Every person has a story we don’t know.

Thirty years ago I read a story by Stephen Covey. A man enters the subway with his out-of-control children bouncing off walls, bothering passengers, including Stephen. The man sits next to Stephen, apologizes for his kids. “We just left the hospital. Their mother just died,” he says. I never forgot that story. In moments when I’m irritated or hurt, it helps me gain perspective, not internalize what’s happening as only about me. I may not forgive or forget, but I can be more objective. As an author developing characters and story lines, I’m thrown back into this again and again.

9) Let go of dead-end distractions.

In writing it’s the sidebars, distracting ‘smoking gun’ exposition in a scene. It’s the subplots that don’t tie-in, the rambling. It’s the backstory that slogs down a story, what leaves a reader asking ‘so what?’ In life, it’s the things that take us away from what we believe we want. And the things we ignore that help us feel whole. So, if a neat clean home is important, find a way to have it without costing you time on your goal. If time with friends is important, schedule it. There are threads that guide our lives same as threads that guide a book.

10) Do what answers Yes.

I’ve shared I believe each of us has an abiding question at the heart of everything we do. Mine is Am I Okay? Not ‘safe’ okay, but the okay meaning acceptance as I am. Nothing puts me against my abiding question more than my writing does. It forces me to answer ‘Yes’ for myself so I can continue my craft, reach toward that immaculate creation of work and my best self I’ll never achieve. It’s the Yes that moves me forward.

11) You are the author.

Others can give feedback, state their opinion, give you educated advice. In the end, the author writes the story.

Author (from Merrium-Webster dictionary)
1. a : one that originates or creates
b : capitalized : GOD
2. the writer of a literary work (as a book)

What story are you writing? Tell me in the comments.

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

A favorite: All things writerly, which I didn’t know until I started writing.
A secret: All this dumped into my head in the kitchen the other day.

Photo: Free share by Joanna Kosinska

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The Magic Between Writer & Reader

Posted on January 19, 2016 by Heloise Jones

Morning glories are one of my favorite flowers.
Considered a weed and nuisance for their vining that entwines anything near.
But the flowers! So gloriously rich in color. Such a greeting for a new day.
I like the metaphor, including the vining.
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morning glories *

I’m starting my New Year two weeks late. One might say swirling new energy in a new space is a start, in which case I’m not really late. That late’s in my head, tied with expectations, plans, arbitrary things, because after all, I’m healthy. True. But I feel as if I’ve been away on a far-off journey. And you know how that is. It takes time to regain everyday rhythms, even if you’re glad you’re home. I’m still clearing mental dust on the Heloise Jones 2016 track, which includes you.

Here I am….Piles of orphan stuff tucked away. Pictures on walls are all that’s left to claim home. My ideals are written down. Outline for my first non-fiction book’s printed out. I’m asking who are my readers, who do they think I am, what can I give that anyone wants which also lets me write what I write.

Four days into our new digs, I read a facebook post by author Christine Hale that stuck in my bones: ‘Upside down in yoga class today, looking at my (unlovely) toes and the utterly utilitarian ceiling joists way up above them, I found myself thinking about how much tedious, close-focus work goes into the production of a book. Work that readers never notice, unless you don’t do it well. I’d spent the morning proofing spacing and fonts in the publisher’s galley of my memoir. The book deviates in its typography from prose conventions, and getting the typeface and spacing right is about to kill me and the publisher. Upside down, tiring, sweating, but holding the pose, inhabiting its discomfort fully, nothing before me, temporarily, but those toes and those joists, I thought about how you gotta love it: the tedium, the sweat, the fierce quiet satisfaction of a commitment to GETTING IT RIGHT’. . .

Yes! I thought. The tedium of every edit, decision on every word, comma, space. How it sometimes feels like my brain’s melting, and how much I love it. Especially the moment I get it right, knowing there’s no perfection. And yes, I think about writing all the time.

Virginia Wolf wrote, ‘Style is a very simple matter: it is all rhythm. Once you get that, you can’t use the wrong words. But on the other hand here am I <she> sitting after half the morning, crammed with ideas, and visions, and so on, and can’t dislodge them, for lack of the right rhythm…profound, what rhythm is, goes far deeper than words. A sight, an emotion, creates this wave in the mind, long before it makes words to fit it; and in writing…one has to recapture this, and set this working (which has nothing apparently to do with words) and then, as it breaks and tumbles in the mind, it makes words to fit it’. . .

And again I thought Yes! Rhythm. Exactly. And it transforms into something inside me, and the reader.

After David Bowie died, I read about him. Watched videos. Here he says the work’s not finished or complete until the audience comes to it. And I read this by publishing media specialist Jane Friedman: ‘The real magic of a book happens when an author’s words and a reader’s mind make something new: page as telepathic intermediary. . . ‘

Yes! Yes! I thought, again. I write not because I must, as many seem to express. Or because I have something to say. Or because a story burns inside. I write because I love the journey, the process, the challenge. The beauty of the moments when I can answer Yes to my abiding question (Am I okay?) in my choice of a word, completion of a sentence, a paragraph, a page. Feeling that rhythm, finally imagining that space between me and reader. What happens when we feel something, think something new. The connection. It starts with me, ends with us. Because we’re always tumbling somewhere into something.

I want to make this year intentional tumbling. Intentional requires conscious awareness. I can do that. I’m a writer who believes in magic, including the magic that happens in that middle space between you and me. Join me.

Where and how do you feel the magic of connection?

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.
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A secret: David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Glynn Frye. I remember the moments I ‘met’ each one. Like I remember the moments I heard Kennedy and John Lennon were shot.
A favorite: Sunshine and big skies.

Photo: Jamie K. Reaser

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