Category: writing

How to Observe with Awareness

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There’s an elementary school crossing guard here in Santa Fe who always waves as you pass. He’s tall, thin, with dark hair and a mustache, and always seems to have a big smile on his face. In my mind, his name is Jack.

The drive past the school can be frustrating. The street’s narrow. Vehicles in wait for youngsters choke the passage. But as I slow down, right after I think darn, should’ve gone the other way, I look ahead for Jack. And this is the magical part. Each and every time I wait for his wave and smile. And feel happy when I wave back as I creep by. Even knowing by now he will wave whether it’s after his stop sign drops or if the crosswalk is clear. As if he knows how important he truly is. As if that wave with a smile is part of the job. Part of making the world a safer, calmer, friendlier place. Like the young daughter of a Facebook friend observed, “That guy holds the whole school together.” Her reasoning – if he doesn’t help people cross, no one gets to school. If he doesn’t stop cars, it’d be backed up with cars everywhere. Makes sense to me.

What this has to do with writing is in those moments I traverse that block, I’m completely present, observing with awareness. Not just the road or how close I am to the vehicles I pass, but the cues ahead, the man, what’s happening inside me. He makes me smile when he waves. I always feel better when I wave back, and carry my smile another mile.

A friend shared a goat ate her To-Do list. She was walking on a residential street a block or two off one of the main thoroughfares in Santa Fe. Her mind full of everything that needed doing. When she paused, a goat stuck its nose thru a fence, pulled the paper right from her fingers. Completely surprised her. With total calm, the goat watched her as it chewed her list. That got me thinking to let go of that list and get writing, she said. Her awareness went beyond the goat. It went to observing her bigger picture, and her intentions for writing.

Observing with awareness is one of the key things writers do besides pen to paper & fingers to keyboard. It informs what we know. Our knowledge of people, environments, and the world expands. What we observe informs our work. The details we choose from what we observe affect how we engage readers.

There’s a quote by author Nancy Peacock in The Writer’s Block Myth that perfectly illustrates this. She’s at the beach. With a few details, we know the unfriendly weather and landscape. But it doesn’t matter she’s sequestered indoors, she says. She’s wondering what it would be like for her character to see the ocean for the first time.

Another example in the book is by poet Rachel Ballentine. She describes what could be an ordinary morning walk, but the details she chooses give the reader anything but an ordinary experience. Such as a dead tiny yellow bird, and metal lanyards against flagpoles sounding like windchimes. And with four words of observation, she let’s us know the time of morning and that she’s alone, “. . .everyone was still asleep.”

Observe with awareness.

  • Sit outdoors and choose one aspect of what’s around you – buildings, people, trees, sidewalk, cars. Collect all the details of what you observe in that one aspect. Do the same indoors.
  • Look at the sky. Observe how you feel when you see it, and what it reminds you of. What words would you choose to describe it visually so someone can see and feel it, too. I once saw a sheet of dark clouds move over the ceiling of the sky that reminded me of a moonroof on a car closing. Another time, observing hundreds of shore birds of all kinds at dawn, ‘I stand at the altar of birds’ came to me. It was the catalyst for my Pushcart Prize nominated poem.
  • Look for the ordinary, consider how it’s not ordinary. Perhaps it’s the juxtaposition of details about the thing, such as the beauty of a tiny yellow bird + it being dead. Perhaps it’s something that can feel like a deprivation, but can also hold wonder, such as someone seeing a roiling sea for the first time.
  • Fiction writers often eavesdrop. Listen. What do you hear? Write it all down. Even snippets and sentences.
  • Look at details in images, such as the one above. What do you notice about the rosaries? Or about the tree and surroundings? What can you deduce from each detail you notice.

If you’ve started your Evidence Journal, your tangible notes of when you write and do what writers do, record this time when you’re observing in it.  The details are what life and stories are made of. Any one can be a prompt.

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A New Story, Part 2

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“Their language sounded like stars would sound, but also like
chunks of lard, and the wind in the trees, and arrows zinging through the air.
I could make no sense of it.”
~ Nancy Peacock (from “The Life & Times of Persimmon Wilson”)
*

I paused sending this to you twice, because there’s been something on the tip of my thoughts that hadn’t flown in, yet. Writing life in the flow, or not flow, can be that way.

The ‘not flow’ seems to be the story. One I’m changing this minute, because shifting my stories about myself, my relationships, and my life is what’s up. And I’m ready.

The ‘not flow’ is because I didn’t achieve what I wanted these last 10 days. I felt anxious. I was falling behind in important intentions! (sound familiar?) I clearly needed breath to see the truth –  big stuff happened amongst the mundane of taxes and whittling piles of admin to-dos. Gifts I did not expect (!) at all.

An author I’ve worked with before asked me to edit part of a manuscript after another professional editor’s been through it. Every editor has their lens, I told her. But she knows I read between the lines. That I intuitively feel & hear the work as well as think my way thru. She needed my kind of help. Nothing out of the ordinary except for one thing. I lost 5 hrs. of notes when I hit the wrong button to save, and I had to redo it.

In the midst of the reprise, I sunk into the presence immersion in process requires. Gave up the story of what that day would be. After I sent the files, I considered what happened, realized long written reports aren’t the way my best work gets done, no matter what others do. Reports leave too much out of what I offer. And drain me. I want to give my best. That slap on the side of an exhausted head gave me   confidence. Decidedly a step forward, and a new story. Mercury retrograde at it’s best.

The other biggie was my sister and 9-yr-old great-niece Finley visiting for a day. They were in Albuquerque for a regional gymnastics meet. Fin is a champion slated for the Olympics. My sister is a mother to her. This was no ordinary visit. I wrote (here) how my sister and I have history, distance, oodles of difference between us. And tho we talk on occasion, I’ve only briefly seen her once since 1993. I knew where I’d take them because my sister shared what Finley liked. And I was excited.

The morning they were due, I glanced at the rain stick in the corner of my office. Immediately I knew I’d give it to Finley. It was a gift from a shopkeeper in the then minute town of Bisbee, AZ. I was driving across country with my son. His girlfriend was in eastern AZ. The short version is our next stop was a hospital in Houston where I’d just learned my mother lay. He wanted time with his girlfriend. The nurses said my mother was strong. I went to Bisbee for the day.

What a magical day. Gifts at every stop. Expensive precious gemstones placed in the cracks between my fingers. Music in doorways. And the rainstick handed me when I mentioned my mother after a long conversation with the gal in the shop. My son and I drove out the next day. We were 3 hrs. from my mother when she died. I never saw her.

I presented the rain stick to Finley at the door. This is special, I said. Holds the energy of your great-grandma. It felt so fitting, like continuing my family line. + Finley’s the light of my sister’s heart. And my sister was the light of my mother’s heart. I guess I held it these 23 yrs. just for her. She loves it.

From the minute we stepped out, Finley showed who she is. She leaned in when I told her how to walk in the desert. Step where there’s no vegetation, don’t crush the plants. Flowers and plants we don’t see can sprout with the slightest rain.

She’s smitten with Indian pottery, sought it out. Without hesitation, declared the pottery room at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture her fav. I offered her the first pot I bought in NM. A smoke-fired porcelain beauty of a vessel. A sculptured turtle atop the lid. We discussed how it laid in the ashes. Discerned by the smoke the lid was not on at the time. Only after this did she decide she’d take it.

I realized how much Finley reminds me of myself after they left. Her curiosity, interest in the way the world works, her affinity for pottery. The way she ‘knows’ what she likes despite anyone else. Things she showed again and again during the day.

I asked her if she ever thought about falling straight on her face as she learned the gymnastic flips & moves. She looked me straight in the eyes, said, Doesn’t everything important and hard to do have a little danger and risk? My God, I thought. She’s nine. That desire to do her best no matter the cost, her acceptance of costs, also remind me of myself.

The big gift Finley gave me was a chance to share my wonder and fascination with the world. To express my excitement and appreciations. To share the things I’ve gathered over the years that give me pleasure, and see her pleasure in them, too. Her unself-conscious expressions of love for my sister touched me.  I use the word Love, a lot.


They left nearly 3 hrs. later than intended. Gave up dinner & watching the sunset high on Sandia mountain. Gave up the last meet-up with colleagues. Stayed because my sister had one of the best days ever. I know because I heard her say those exact words to her son. Heart-full is what I say.

Sidebar. . .my sister and I didn’t talk family, politics, or the past. It was easy. I asked only one question. I have a memory: me as a young child sitting midway down the steep stairs in my grandparents’ house. The house is quiet, dark. There’s a big window at the foot of the stairs. The bright light blazes at the window, but I see nothing beyond. Does she remember anything like that? I learned her memories are much more joyful. And that’s a story I can hold just fine.

Another Small Journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

Tell me. . .what surprises have you found in your stories lately?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .my sparkly grandson’s like Finley. Gives me the same freedom.

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Creativity Means Be Curious. Let Go.

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When you’re in motion, 
the form will emerge.
~ Michael Hyatt
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When I started writing, meaning as a person who showed up regularly & wrote, later called herself a writer, I had no intentions for either discipline or identity. I met the person who led a writing group at a time I realized I’d lost my Voice. A voice I used as an activist on a large university campus, securing a Women’s Center. A voice of a woman who turned in scholarly papers tweaked to personal relevance that professors called platonic ideals. Who was the central liaison between levels of managers & artists & clients in a large corporation. Who, tho shy, expressed herself easily in forums and groups.

The exchange of a defective art print changed my life. I’d bought two small reproductions of strong archetypal, mythical images infused with a connection to the divine mystery painted by a local artist. One arrived as a poorly reproduced color copy, not rich like its giclee companion.

The woman who exchanged the print and I chatted ten minutes in the foyer of her home. I didn’t notice her biz cards on a table until leaving. She led writing circles. No experience necessary.

Each week for 2 hours we wrote to prompts, read our rough work aloud. Responded to the work. And for a year, I left the group mute. Every six weeks deciding I’d quit rather than renew. Each time stayed at the the leader’s encouragement. Until I finally asked the right question that put me on solid ground writing: What do I need to do to engage them?

Here’s the thing. Tho getting no response from the group bothered me, I had no expectations when I wrote. I went to the page curious. I loved the process. I did think when I first started it’d be thoughtful essays. (fifteen years would pass before that happened) But I followed the pen. Eventually through my complex muck of ideas and personal experience, a story with a ‘she’ showed up. A fictional ‘she’  with no name, and a story I didn’t know.

And they continued in a stream after that. Scenes with fictional she’s and he’s that didn’t stop with The End, but with a clear ‘to be continued.’ Each pregnant with possibilities. Curiosity the only thing needed to know.

Curiosity with no expectations led to my novel, too. My first writing retreat was a week long. I wondered (worried) what I’d do each afternoon the others wrote. And every day a short story emerged. Not paragraphs, but pages. I didn’t realize the others thought me brilliant. I thought this is how all writers worked. Once home, I was curious about the little boy in the first story at that first retreat. What would happen if I followed him. Could I write a long story? When I passed 30,000 words, I thought ‘I’m writing a novella, can I do it?!’ At 50,000 words, I knew it was a novel. A novel! And at that moment I thought the book complete, I heard a message it was not and followed more. That book attracted an experienced lit agent within 3 weeks.

Fiction was my joy. I started a second book. When life threw huge fire balls at me – difficult, complicated transitions, house on fire, husband run down by a car – I wrote. And the periods life consumed me for months and I didn’t write, I knew I would one day. Because I knew I was a writer.

But something changed when I could finally settle into writing consistently once more. Fiction was not on the table. Poetic Facebook stanzas and a blog became my practice. Personal stories within essays. What didn’t change is it’s still a process following curiosity without expectation.

Just to show how true this is. . .I’d considered a blog for years. Had the page professionally designed three times. The morning I sat down to do it, I didn’t have a clue what my blog would be. I was driven my intentions beyond the page, but my only intention for the page was to start.

I decided a quote a good beginning. I chose the one above. Thinking it appropriate for both me and the blog. I chose a picture that represented what sustained my soul – Dawn. Shore birds. I edited & expanded a Facebook stanza about a question someone asked. The blog was short, and true. Since the site was redesigned you can’t see the numbers, anymore, but that post got 42 Facebook shares.

I believe the quote – when you’re in motion, the form will emerge – is another way of saying follow with curiosity, without expectations.

Try this yourself. I promise you’ll drop deeper, and may feel freer:

  • Put away the computer, if that’s how you typically write. Must be pen (or pencil) to paper.
  • Put away your intentions and expectations.
  • Pull out a prompt.
  • Set a timer.  3 min. is good to start.
  • Keep the pen moving, even if what you write are the words ‘blah blah blah, I don’t know. . .’
  • Do not edit, or try to figure it out as you write.

Surprised?

Is that sunrise or sunset in the picture above? Are you sure?

Postscript: I’m at it once more. This time journeying back to fiction. Because I miss it, and it’s fun, and it steps me into new places. I’m traveling the way I  started. Writing to prompts in a group. It’s not easy. I’m out of practice. I’m forced to let go, not compare my writing to others’, not berate myself when what I write is not fiction. It’s hard not to want this to be something more, better, different,  faster, because I’m a writer!

Yesterday a ‘she’ showed up. The scenes appear linked to a novel I edited to essential nubs, but haven’t gone back into. I feel a new story with these characters I love. That they’re changed, like me. When names appear, I know I’m in.

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Surprises in the Details

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I’m in a spin, and it strikes me there’s some magic in the disorder I feel. That perhaps it’s not as bad as it seems. That I’ve gotten caught up in unmet expectations, my daily to-do’s and intentions that don’t get addressed, and the oh-no’s that come with that. And this morning, realizing I’ll be recreating 4 hrs. of work I lost late last night, work due an editing client I’m getting paid for, and the redo will put me behind on other things, it dawned on me what this spin is about. Being present! Letting go of my stories, including what’s next. Including what’s down the road, even steps away. And my real work is what’s the next right thing in front of me. Trust the process. Shock. duh

I write about this in my book – trust the process, observe with awareness, let go of expectations. I know the present is all there is. That life is both/and, good/bad. I’m an empath. I’m present in experience. Don’t put a camera lens between me and an encounter (animal, bird, sky, person, whatever). I know to listen, that my superpower lies in hearing between the lines. And dang. Caught.

Looking at how I got this, kinda mind boggling how extraordinary the ordinary when we’re present.

On the morning Mercury turned retrograde on a full moon, the string on the blinds covering the huge picture window in my living room snapped. My shelter from the world sagged open on one side. The hot sun streamed in, instantly toasted the room and everything in it. The landlady took the blinds for restringing. But we couldn’t get them to snap off, so she unscrewed the brackets. Left me with nothing to hang a sheet or blanket on. And told me it’d be a week or two because she’s having a medical procedure, is unavailable. I offered to pick them up when ready, but she didn’t respond.

It’s a really big window. My soul depends on the sky I see thru it. It’s a challenge I could spend time on to meet everything I think matters to me. But I didn’t. I taped ugly black plastic yard bags to the window in my beautiful room. Anyone who knows me knows this is not my style. But, they were what I had on hand, offer privacy, block the hot sun, leave me the sky. And I can manage them with tape. Only a week, maybe two, I thought as I gazed across the street at the neighbors. ugh.

But the next day, pulling into the driveway, I noticed they don’t look as bad from the outside as they do inside. The reflection on the glass softens them. My spirits lifted. Not as bad as I thought. It’s not forever. Another layer I didn’t know I held let go.

Friday my sister arrives with her 9-yr. old granddaughter I’ve never met. Here’s the thing. We’re extremely different – politics, language, worldview, lifestyle. We have history. I’ve only seen her once since 1993, when our father died. It was a short visit in a lobby at the Houston airport, on a short-but-long layover I had. I remember her toes most from that visit (another story). We do talk on occasion, tho. And I held space for her grief the morning her best friend of a husband died. We chatted up plans for her visit Friday, too.

But it feels like a time warp, this visit of hers. Like I’ve jumped to a loop on Life’s spiral that’s been spinning upward without me. I don’t know her. And it’s only one day. I’ll simply be present with open heart and mind. What we can do with everyone we meet. And yet, it’s not random. Not her. Not this visit.

Last week someone I haven’t talked to in 30 yrs. called, too. Our leaving was complicated, and hurtful. I lost one of my longtime best friends, her then husband, in the event. Our conversation was a wonderful catch-up filled with remembrances of how much we liked each other. She’s coming to visit, too. Boom. Two at once. I’m paying attention.

What I know, it’s time to allow myself to be bigger. And tho every thing that’s happened to me makes me who I am – every single thing I didn’t want to share, every relationship I let go, every gift given and received – each moment holds a choice. Like ugly black plastic bags to solve the problem for now or darn, I don’t have blinds or a pretty room. Where do I put my energy and how do I value my time. Like darn, I lost because I didn’t get done what I planned, or yea, own the moment because this here in front of me is what’s up and it moves me forward. Or like what details do I pay attention to.

The jumble in the picture above is a section of the dining room table that’s my desk. My past and relationships are in those items. The monkey on the tape dispenser, an Easter gift from my husband. The slab I use as a trivet, from a stop in some obscure rock shop in the desert on some road trip I once made. The little shells, found on a morning my sparkly grandson slept in the spare bedroom of our rented condo in Florida. I love their delicate and seemingly indestructible perfection. The Disney mug, from another time when he was with us. Drinking my morning tea from a “cup of magic’ vs. my current fav beautiful handmade mug what I need some days. The tiny fuzzy bear, from my son’s house after he left for China ten years ago. I don’t know it’s history, but it reminds me of his tender heart, and sometimes breaks my heart. The angel with the book, a gift I gave his first wife long before I wrote a word as a writer. She was a voracious reader. She left the angel when she took off, and when I found it, I realized it’s really mine. The flag with the bird, sent me by someone in my writing community I left in Asheville when I moved to Florida. I never saw her again, because she died.

I love the bird and its message ‘Believe.’ That bird reminds me who I am. Like the bamboo watercolor paint brush from Taiwan in the pen holder. And the purple glittered star with a furry feather collar on a glitter pen that wobbles, catches the gaze often. And what you can’t see, a painted ceramic dish that reminds me of my mother-in-law. Who she was, home & person. She and I were so different from one another, and we loved one another bigtime. Sometimes I think part of her love was that I fascinated her. Inexplicable to her. I know my love for her is inexplicable, and it runs deep.

Every one of these things on my desk hold could hold pain. And in this moment, I realize I subconsciously made choices, that the pain was the part of the stories I’d let go. That I’d embrace the true good heart of each relationship with others and to myself. I could’ve chose differently. And Yes, these things wouldn’t be on my desk if I had. But the point is I got ‘it’ without thinking. And these things and what they represent support me. And I can make conscious choices the same way. That’s the spiral I’m on now.

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

Tell me. . .what parts of your stories do you hold on to?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .the challenges are still there for me, even knowing I got the message.

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You Define Success. Bottom Line.

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You know what I mean when I say success, right?

Because the word success is everywhere. Books are written about it. Attributes of successful people are discussed. We use the word to describe and evaluate businesses, careers, individuals, processes, and products. So, when you consider yourself, your creative pursuits, your circumstance, and your future, how do they stack up?

I’ll tell you a story. I moved to a new town. Left a writing community I’d had for years. One where writers had turned into friends I felt connected with, no matter where we were in our creative process. My first act in my new town was to join a writing group. The leader & teacher sent an intake form to see who I was. In short order after I replied she let me know she didn’t think I was a good fit for her group. You can imagine where I went with that.

But what she wrote was ‘you are much too successful for this group.’ Those exact words. Successful. She viewed my years of classes, workshops & retreats, my publications, the fact I wrote a novel, once had a literary agent as success. In hindsight, a gift. But it hurt. I didn’t feel successful. I hadn’t reached my goals. I’d reached levels. Like a bestselling book & fine tea, successes as part of the process on the road to being a success by my definition.

This is big for creatives, especially in an atmosphere where it seems so few have success by traditional standards. Where myths abound, like the starving artist, the disappearance of print books, and the doom of slow writers. Where lessons, teachers, and gurus tell us the ‘right’ way to create. And the truth is we’re the only ones who can define success for ourselves. How we define it affecting our experience in life and our writing.

Take a moment now, ask yourself:

  • What do I want in my life?
  • What do I choose?
  • What does my writing mean to me?
  • How do I want to feel as I live my best creative life?

These questions are not simple to answer. And your answers will evolve.

For each thing you do, ask again. Notice your expectations shift.

As one author said about her book launch. . .she didn’t sell books, there weren’t as many people as she’d hoped, but it was a success. Because she knows what her writing means to her and she’d defined success as connection with new people, and she connected with each person there.

We’ve got big stuff happening in the country right now, including who and what we are as a nation & people redefined to the world by those in power. The arts and humanities may well be defunded. Supports eliminated for writers and creatives. I believe this is, in part, because there’s a huge divide on the definition of success people hold for themselves. But writers and artists hold the Vision for those who can’t see, the words for those who don’t have them, and the conscience of society. It’s truly up to us to consider how we define success for ourselves. To ask those four important questions above.

Author & artist Mary Anne Radmacher says, “. . .even from a dark night songs of beauty can be born.”

We can create songs of beauty.

“Set an intention for yourself at the beginning of each month, writers. Write it on a Post-it
and stick it to your dashboard, to your corkboard, to the door so you’ll see it on your way out.
Find out what happens when you remind yourself on a daily basis of
something that’s meaningful to you, or to which you aspire.”
~ Brooke Warner, publisher & author
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