Write On Wednesday-Rewards

About 25 years ago, when I was a young mother at home with a toddler, I felt the urge to sharpen my pencils and start writing -essays about parenthood, articles about childcare, stories and poems for children, writing that emerged from the core of my life at that time. Inevitably, I found myself entertaining the idea of publishing, and I started devouring magazines like Writer's Digest, and studying Writer's Market. I stocked up on manila enevelopes and stamps, bought good quality typing paper (this was back in the olden days before computers, remember?) and created little charts to track the progress of my submissions. I actually published quite a few little pieces, here and there, and I proudly filed my complimentary copies in a special file box, where they're growing yellowed and moldy somewhere in the bowels of my basement. I don't remember why I stopped, but stop I did. Perhaps I became exhausted with the whole merry-go-round of trying to tailor your pieces to fit the market. My son grew older and was no longer interested in being the guinea pig audience for my efforts. Parenthood and childcare became less the center of my life, and I began branching out into other creative efforts that didn't lend themselves to writing.

Last year the urge to write came back to me, a small, insistent voice whispering in my ear, nudging me toward the page, putting words into my head that were begging to be used somewhere, words like redolent, serendiptious, undulating, mesmerizing. The world started to appear differently, as if someone had drawn bold accenting lines around it, calling attention to even the most homely of objects and events. There were things I felt the need to say about my perception of life and my place in the world.

So I started writing here, and in morning pages, and it's been an amazing process of discovery. "Writing, the creative effort, the use of the imagination, should come first - at least for some part of every day of your life," writes Brenda Ueland in If You Want to Write. "It is a wonderful blessing if you will use it. You will become happier, more enlightened, alive, impassioned, light-hearted and generous to everybody else." I have reaped all these benefits, and more, as I've become highly attuned to the ever changing beauty of nature, finely observant of the precious uniqueness of the people I know and those I simply observe, surprised and delighted at my own inner life and the ability to expand my creative horizons at this stage in my journey.

But this time, I've felt no impulse toward "publishing," at least not in the conventional sense. Maybe this little corner of cyberspace is enough, a place to lay my small offerings about life in general for the gentle perusal of anyone who cares to accept them. The reward is in the process, in searching my heart for feelings I need to share, in probing my mind for the oh-so-perfect way to express them, in offering this truth within me as a gift to myself and to you.

So, how about you? How does writing reward you?

Write On Wednesday-Love Letters

In my Keepsake Box is a ragged piece of notebook paper, folded into quarters, that came in the mail on Valentine's Day 1966. Here's what it said:

Dear Becky,

Someday when we grow up, I want us to get married. We will live in Canada and raise dogs, cats, horses, chickens and cows. We will have five children. I love you and want to make you happy forever.

Love,

Gordon

This little missive captured my 10 year old heart (in spite of the writer's notion that offering five children and a menagerie of animals was romantic!) I immediately hid it away in the bottom of my desk drawer, and obsessively re-read it until I wore the paper thin with folding and unfolding. Even now, 40 years later, those carefully penned words of love have the power to bring a little lump to my throat. Just a few years after receiving that letter, I would be the recipient of dozens more love letters, the letters that Jim and I wrote to each other on a daily basis during his first semester away at college. The 35 mile distance between us seemed endless, and envelopes stuffed with 8 and 10 page letters passed back and forth between our mailboxes every day. All those letters now reside in two shoe boxes, sitting side by side on a shelf in the bedroom closet, a record of that time in our lives when we poured our hearts out on paper, exploring emotions, and dreaming of our future. My most precious love letters of all, of course, are the hand scribbled, crayon drawings proffered in my son's grubby little hands. Like the one written on a half sheet of paper torn from a spiral notebook that reads "Mama, I love you sooooo much! I want to kiss and hug you! From your best boy in the whole wide world!" (followed by his full name, address, city, state, and zip code!)

Not long ago, I happened across a box of letters my mother-in-law had written to my father-in-law in 1944, during the first summer after their wedding. She had apparently returned to Colorado for the summer, leaving him in Michigan. Her letters were full of the same tone she continued to take with him during the years I knew them -reminding him of the chores he should be doing, providing detailed accounts of her daily activities, along with complaints about the weather. These were certainly not conventional love letters, yet he had kept them together in a box for over 40 years, this record of their time apart which her voice clearly communicated in the words she chose to put on paper.

In written communication, we are often able to express things that are difficult to verablize. Writing letters gives you a chance to consider your words carefully before putting them to paper, and offers the advantage of being physically distance from the recipient while they're reading. Sometimes it's easier to share feelings we might otherwise be reticent about -both positive and negative.

And love letters certainly provide history for the life of a relationship. In a recent essay in Newsweek magazine, journalist and novelist Anna Quindlen wrote about the power of writing in the lives of ordinary people. "Words on paper confer a kind of immortality," she writes. "Wouldn't all of us love to have a journal, a memoir, a letter, from those we have loved and lost? Shouldn't we all of us leave a bit of that behind?" That's certainly why I've safeguarded all my love letters. Like miniature time machines, they transport me back to moments in my history, providing me with a tangible artifact that lets me connect with the writer as they were at the moment of writing. How about you? Have you written and/or kept love letters? Perhaps Valentine's Day is a good day to write one to someone you love :)

Write on Wednesday-Girl With A Pen

The first book I ever read about writing was a children's book called "Girl With A Pen." It was actually a biography of Charlotte Bronte, written for children aged 10-13. I got it from my school library, and I can still remember the pale lavendar color of the binding, the gilded letters of the title. My favorite part of the book was the beginning, when the author described Charlotte and her siblings as children creating a fictional world and writing stories to while away the long days and nights on the Yorkshire moors. Charlotte had a small rosewood lap desk she used to write on, and the children made miniature books from whatever scraps of paper they could find, and then stitched them together. They taught themselves to write in the most minute of scripts, since their paper supply was very limited. This minisclule script would completely fill the tiny pages of their handmade books, books they would then squirrel away within the rosewood writing desk.

I used to read this part over and over, simply enchanted by the thought of Charlotte and her miniature notebooks. Of course, I made little notebooks for myself, and wrote lots of "gothic" type stories in imitation of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, stories about "black rooms" and "wandering winds." My grandmother had given me a small cedar keepsake box that I kept them in - my version of the rosewood writing desk.

I think most of us who love to create with words also love the tools we use to create with. As a child, buying notebooks and pens was much more delightful to me than buying candy or toys (really!) In those days, the single aisle of school supplies at the local Woolworth's was enough to keep me occupied for quite some time. Now, when I walks into a Staples, I'm in heaven! Of course I love to browse the "fancier" stores like Papyrus and The Paper Merchant, where they have shelves of beautiful leather bound journals and Mont Blanc pens locked in display cases like fine jewelry. Alas, most of my "hand writing" is done with cheap Papermate stick pens ( I like them because they're skinny, and fat pens hurt my small fingers after a while.) And though I love to look at those beautiful journals, I prefer to write in plain old spiral notebooks or white legal pads - there's less pressure to write something befitting the elegance of your notebook!

Although I do most of my writing on the computer, because it's simply so practical, I think there's much to be said for the tactile sense of holding a pen in your hand and physically forming the words in your own unique handwriting. They are truly yours that way, formed in an way that only you can form them. My son's elementary school art teacher used to describe the way Brian drew as if a "direct line was flowing from his brain right through his pencil and onto the page." I've had that feeling with writing sometimes, and it's especially exciting when your hand is connected to a pen, feeding the letters directly onto the paper as if by magic.

One of the most memorable stops on my trip to England a few years ago was touring Haworth parsonage, home of the Bronte family, where I was able to actually see those little notebooks and the rosewood writing desk. It's amazing how those simple "writing utensils" were so inspiring to me, another girl with a pen.

So, how about you? What are your favorite writing tools? Are there any writer's tools that have inspired you?

Write On Wednesday-Writing All Over the Place

"I write all over the place. I mean, I take my book along in a suitcase and write in very temporary places, in Mexico, Guatemala, India, up in my mother's house in Cold Spring, and in this funny apartment in Brooklyn. It is the opposite of fancy, a tiny room in an apartment full of grumpy roomates. I usually start in my bed with coffee and end up at my desk with rum, looking the opposite of gorgeous in every way."~Kiran Desai~

Last week, on one of several trips to the local Barnes and Noble, I picked up a datebook (on clearance for $2!!!) called "The Writer's Desk." It's filled with photographs taken by Jill Krementz, of contemporary authors and their writing "spaces" - for certainly not all of them use a conventional desks!

Memoirist and poet Mary Karr uses a stand up desk "to keep my aching back in order when my yoga schedule is undermined by literature." Monique Truong writes at her kitchen table, because she "loves to cook, and its a space where I know I've produced something good in the past." And David Henry Hwang likes to write in longhand while lying in a reclining position on his stomach, propped up on his elbows. As does the great Truman Capote, who describes himself as a "completely horizontal author," who "can't think unless I'm lying down, either in bed or stretched out on the couch."

Similar to Kiran Desai, I've lately been "writing all over the place." In my home in Florida, I have a lovely sunny den, where I like to sit and watch the sun come up.

That room also has a big desk, where I can sit in more conventional style to catch up on blogs, and do some writing of my own.

But, I'm back in Michigan now, and my little room here was once my son's bedroom, so it doubles as the guest room, the extra TV room, the place where I put things when I don't have time to put them away, and - my "study."

Another cozy chair awaits me, and I usually end up there with my coffee and morning pages notebook. Oddly enough, I can watch the sun rise through the window here as well. Here too, is my desk, where I sit in the same spot my son used to sit, staying up late into the night writing his own stories.

Sometimes, I dream about the "perfect desk," a huge, antique oak desk, with lots of drawers and a hutch over top filled with niches for some of my favorite photos, objets d'art and keepsakes. I'd have lots of room to pile books, propped open on some of their most inspirational pages. Of course, this desk would be in front of a wide open window, preferably with a view of a crystal clear lake, where the ebb and flow of the water could serve as background music to my musings.

In reality, though, I've found it doesn't much matter where I write. Last night, killing time in the airport when our flight was delayed, I ended up writing my haiku for this week's One Deep Breath. When I'm lucky enough to be "in the zone," that place where words and ideas are flowing faster than I can transfer them to the page, I'm completely unaware of my surroundings, which could easily be "the opposite of fancy" as Desai describes her apartment.

So, how about you? Where are some of the places you've been writing lately?

Write On Wednesday - The Buddy System

I've been thinking a lot about friends this week, probably because one of my closest working friendships has just undergone a huge change. Monday was my friend Pat's last day as a high school teacher. I've written about my relationship with Pat before ~ I was 36 years old when we started working together, and in many ways, she educated me right along with those high school students. She was my musical mentor, the first one I'd had since my high school days. She encouraged me to shed my fears, use my talents, and believe in myself, and in the process we became close friends as well as colleagues. I was also thinking about friendships in the context of writing. I've been re-reading a biography of the poet Anne Sexton which talks about her friendship with Maxine Kumin, whom she met in a poetry workshop in 1957. The "extraordinary bond" which developed between these two women, was to become "the most important relationship in Sexton's life as a poet." Sexton, riddled with emotional problems and depression, was writing poetry as a therapeutic exercise, not a vocation. Kumin, a published poet, read Sexton's poetry and saw something "whole and quivering on the page - it was just wonderful." This validation from a "real poet," gave Sexton the impetus to consider herself a poet as well. In later years, after Sexton began to write (and publish) prolifically, she and Kumin had "special phones installed on their desks," which they used to stay connected with each other as they worked throughout the day, trying out lines and drafts across the wires. "We sometimes connected with a phone call and kept the line linked for hours at a stretch," Kumin recalled. "We whistled into the receiver for each other when we were ready to resume." This extraordinary friendship was to remain one of the few constants in Sexton's life until her death by suicide in 1974.

One of the most valuable keys to success is having someone who believes in you and your ability ~someone you admire and respect ~ to encourage you to keep working, try harder, believe in yourself. Participating in this "brave new world" of online writing gives us an opportunity to find mentors all over the world. I am fortunate to have a special blogger friend who takes the time to encourage me with emails and words of praise, sharing her thoughts about things I have written that have touched or inspired her in some way, nudging me toward future writing goals. In much the same way that my friend Pat encouraged me to overcome my stage fright and approach that big nine foot grand piano with excited anticipation rather than anxious insecurity, she has inspired me to keep writing, to try poetry and haiku, and even to dabble in other creative projects as well.

So, what about you? Do you have some creative buddies who have made a difference in your life?

BTW, I've been thinking about friendships for another reason~ later today, I'm flying to Florida with my friend Millie, another "musical mentor" who has become a close and trusted friend. For the past several years, we've taken a few days each January and gone on a "girls retreat" -lots of reading, walking by the water, movies, a spa day, good food and wine ... you get the idea. So, if you don't see too much of me here at the Byline, don't worry ~ I'm just too busy sunning myself to write!