Sunday Scribbling-Phenomenon

I've never really been one to get obsessed with any cultural phenomenon, not even those pecuilar to my era...The Beatles, for instance. Oh, I liked them well enough, but nothing on par with my cousins, whose turntables spun their lp's endlessly and whose walls were plastered with pictures cut from every fanzine published about them. Since I've lived for half a century now, I've seen quite a few phenomena come and go. I'm always amazed at the lengths people will go to indulge their obsessions, and of course, the Harry Potter craze is certainly no exception. Like everything in the 21st century, it's bigger and more fantasmagorical than anything in my memory. I feel as if I'm admitting to heresy when I say that I'm not a huge Potter fan...ok, truthfully, I haven't read any of the books. (I started to read the very first one, and I got so upset at the way Harry's mean Aunt and Uncle treated him that I had to put it aside!) People told me I should have finished it, to see that they got their comeuppance...but I don't know, I think I had a huge stack of other books calling more loudly to me at time.

Maybe my life would be more exciting if I could throw myself wholeheartedly into these types of phenomenal trends. I'm certainly not arguing that J.K. Rowling's huge success is a phenomenon, as was the Beatles. But I guess I'm just more comfortable observing these phenomenal success stories from afar, while I putter around in my totally non-phenomenal life.

more phenomenal scribbling here

Write on Wednesday-Revision Redux

The revision process continues to be on my mind this summer - notice I said "on my mind," meaning I haven't done much more than think about it. The whole process of novel revision seems terribly daunting. I've been collecting other writer's thoughts on their process of revision, hoping to get inspired, and it worked to some degree. I've started revising a short story I wrote last winter, hoping that by "practicing" on something smaller, I'll be less intimidated by the work involved in revising the novel. Here's some food for thought regarding the revision process...as you will see, every author approaches it completely differently!

"I start on the first page. Then, I rewrite that page twenty or forty times until it's right, and then it's finished. Then, I go to page two and I do the same thing twenty or forty times." Stephen Dixon

"I go over what I've written, but I'm not making major changes. I'm just fixing it by making minor changes that might have a big effect. I hardly throw anything out." Jayne Ann Phillips

"I do twenty or thirty drafts. I'm a big reviser. I go back...and polish the beginning, then I force myself to go through page by page from beginning to end, over and over again." Amy Bloom

"I go through with a very cold eye to cut out everything that can be cut without loss." Thomas E. Kennedy

"I polish as I go along. My habit is to perfect individual sentences, individual paragraphs, and individual pages, and when I think they're as good as I can make them, I feel free to go on to the next part. So when I write the last sentence of the last paragraph, I'm done with the book." Kent Haruf

"I do a great many drafts, no matter what it is. This means letting it sit for a few days before looking at it again, then doing it again, then letting it sit and doing it again. I let my friends read drafts after the first ten or twelve. My early drafts are sketchy in the most important ways - everything vital is left out - and they're wordy in other ways - there's all this extraneous material that doesn't matter. So the revisions are in both directions." Andrea Barrett "I do a lot of revisions in fits and starts. When I write, I barrel through from beginning to end, and then back up, and if the beginning isn't working, start over. Once it works, I write through to the end, and start revising, and, if necessary, trash the whole thing, and start over." Myla Goldberg

Writer Bug posted some great revision advice which she picked up at her last residency. She talks about picking 15 areas you want to work on in your manuscript, and then going through it 15 times, focusing on one area each time. Some things to work with include: verbs, redundancy, verbosity, vagueness. She also advises reading the story aloud, which is a great idea.

As I've begun revising my own short story, I've been taking one paragraph at a time, revising each sentence, looking for better words, paring down wordiness, then going on to the next paragraph until I've finished the page. Then I re-read the page and see how it flows. Once I've done each page, I'll go back and re-read the whole thing to see if I need to make structural changes.

So, how about you? Anyone else out there in the process of revisions? If so, how's it going?

Decisions, Decisions

"Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark." ~Agnes de Mille

In case any of you are wondering whether I've made the momentous decision, the one I regularly dither about here at the Byline and in morning pages, the one I keep waffling back and forth about, knowing full well the desire of my heart, but troubled nonetheless by the demands of my schedule...just in case you're wondering...yeah, I guess I've pretty much decided. How's that for a definitive answer?

How do you make decisions? I'm horrible at it, really. Please tell me you have some fail safe process I can follow, or a formula that will give me the best possible answer to everything from which library book to read next to where to build my retirement home. I try to be logical about decisions, looking at the pro's and con's of all the variables, tallying up the strengths and weaknesses I've listed in neat little columns. But in the end, I often just follow my gut instinct, or my heart, or the path of least resistance!

It comes down to the fact that I don't trust myself. Most of the time, I know what I really want, but I'm always second guessing myself in favor of the "greater good" or some other amorphous "what if." Perhaps I simply think too much, worrying my thoughts as if they were beads on an Indian necklace, rubbing them nervously between the fingers of my mind.

I began the summer fretting over making a decision, but somewhere along the way I stopped fretting about it and let the question lay dormant in my heart for a while. It burrowed down in my mind, where it's been quietly simmering on its own as I've gone about my quiet, peaceful days. Along about 4:00 in the afternoon, that period when I start to get restless and dissatisfied with what I've tried to accomplish for the day, I feel it stirring, poking me gently, reminding me "I'm still here...you haven't forgotten about me, have you?"

Truthfully, I think this particular decision was decided for me long ago. The moment I walked into my living room 45 years ago and saw a brand new piano waiting for me. From that moment, playing music became such an important part of my life that relinquishing any opportunity to do that is unthinkable. Might as well ask me to voluntarily stop breathing.

So, come September, I'll be going back to my job at the high school, at least for the time being.

If I come to some other decision, I'll let you know.

Write on Wednesday-In the Moment

In the past year, I've become addicted to morning pages. There is something so freeing about sitting down to write three pages every morning and knowing it doesn't matter what I write about, whether the words that end up on the page are sensible, beautiful, logical, or even legible. Knowing that spiral notebook and ballpoint pen are sitting on the table where I left them yesterday morning, waiting patiently to hear all my sleepy headed, good morning thoughts, is like knowing a patient and trusted friend has been sitting up all night just to hear what I have to say. Admittedly, sometimes the words don't come so easily. Those are the times when I'm the slightest bit fearful of the page, because the reluctance sometimes means there are disturbing thoughts or issues I don't want to face, and they're liable to come rushing to the forefront if I start writing, opening the floodgates in my mind and my heart. I've worked some things out on the page~feelings about relationships, hopes for the future. I've allowed myself to dream "out loud," and also to release my anger in those words I spill onto paper first thing in the morning.

And, because morning pages are all "in the moment," meaning they're not thought out or planned, sometimes all that appears is drivel - what I made for dinner, what movie I plan to see, the new dress I'm shopping for. Whatever flows from my brain through the pen and onto the page is what goes into the mix for the day.

"Daily writing, writing simply for the sake of writing, is like keeping a pot of soup on the back of the stove," writes Julia Cameron. "It is always there, always ready to be tasted, always ready to be added to, always nourishing, savory, life-sustaining. Like soup, your daily writing doesn't have to be fancy. A few simple ingredients are enough."

Cameron's basic recipe for the "stock" of our writer's soup consists of these three "ingredients":

• Honesty~look at "where you are" in your life, both physically and emotionally;
• Observation~what's going on in your world, immediately, and in the larger sphere;
• Imagination~what can you imagine doing, or being that would bring you the greatest happiness?

As I put my morning thoughts on paper, I try to be mindful of these ingredients. Even when the pages seem to be nothing more than a litany of complaints, or a string of worries knotted together like beads, they are reflective of my honest observations about life at the moment. As I write, I feel the soup begin to stir in my brain, simmering slowly as the flavors mix and mingle together. Where am I and what is going on around me? How can I change things? What shall I do next?

Each morning, my writer's soup nourishes me for the day ahead and forms a record of my life "in this moment." The broth only grows richer with each entry.

How about you? Do you keep a writer's soup simmering on the back burner of you mind? What are your basic ingredients?

And the Rain Came Down

It's been so long since we had a rainy day here, but finally the sky relinquished some of that miracle water it's been holding on to for the past six weeks. It's a niggling amount, really, skinny little streams tracing down in thin lines from those bloated grey clouds, but even this skimpy portion has lent a greenish glow to the parched grass on my front lawn, grass that looked and felt like straw last night as we scuffed across it on our evening walk. There's something calming about a drizzly day like this, especially after many days of endless sunshine. Don't get me wrong, I love sunshine. Sunny days urge you outdoors into movment and activity, but a cool rainy day invites you to slow down, settle in where its warm and dry. There is definitely something to be said for being tucked up cozy inside with tea and a book at the ready, while the outside world performs its ablutions in peace.

I came home early from work today ~the house is eerily empty and quiet with my kids gone back to their own home in the land of eternal sunshine. Molly is curled up on the bed here in the guest room, her head tucked into Nantana's pillow. Molly seems to feel that she and Nantana are "soul sisters," and she cleves to the girl with an obsessive devotion. So she's sad, and pouting a little bit I think, hoping I'll take pity and give her an extra cookie.

My plan was to do some errands on the way home, clean up the house, do some laundry, make something for dinner...yet here I am, curled up in the armchair with dogs at my side, writing, reading, listening to the rain coming down, sort of reveling in this peacefulness. I think I'll give myself this gift of refreshment today, a day to enjoy some simple pleasures. Let the rain come down.