Subject Matter

Sometimes we sit down to write and can't think of anything to write about. Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg

It's true, isn't it? Sometimes ideas for writing flow fast and furious.  Have you noticed this often happens when you're in the midst of something entirely unrelated to writing - like mopping the floor, walking the dog, taking a shower?  Times when it's hard to get your hands on a pencil and paper to jot those ideas down.  Finally, having stolen those precious few minutes we talked about last week, you sit down before the blank screen and nothing comes to mind.

Nada.

Keep a list of writing ideas and prompts in the back of your notebook or on a separate document in the writing folder on your computer.  These can be ideas you've come up with on your own during those times when the muse is working overtime, or prompts from favorite writing books or websites.  Don't spend too much time reading the list - just pick an idea and start writing for 10 minutes.  You'll be surprised what happens.

Here's a list to get you started, courtesy of one of my favorite writing books, Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg:

1. Begin with "I remember."  Make a list of small memories, or fall into one large memory.  Don't be concerned with whether the memory that first occurs to you happened 10 minutes or 10 years ago.  Delve into it and see what develops;
2. Describe your morning routine in as much detail as possible.  Make the reader feel as if they've been there with you;
3. Visualize a place you really love and write about it so the reader will understand why you love it;
4. Write about learning to do something you thought you'd never master but did;
5. Open a book of poetry, pick a line, write it down, and then continue writing, in prose or poetry;
6. Write about leaving - leaving home, leaving a relationship, leaving the coffee shop yesterday morning.

One and Only

When you're the only pea in the pod, your parents are likely to get you confused with the Hope Diamond.~  Russell Baker, journalist, and author of Growing Up

We were joking around about only children at work the other day.  My boss' husband is an only child, as is her six year old grandson.  "We all know only children have their quirks!" my boss said affectionately.

Indeed.  I certainly know about the quirkiness of only children.  As you probably know, I'm an only, who has the interesting distinction of being the daughter, the wife, and mother of an only.

A bunch of solitary peas in the pod, this little family of mine.

I loved Russell Baker's statement, and I think he hits the nail on the head.  As only children, we are the priceless gem in the setting of our parent's universe.  How can it not be so?  Only children are often born to older parents who have waited a long time to have them, so they naturally become the intense focus of those parent's existence.  Much loved, much anticipated, the expectations of the entire family get laid upon their shoulders.

It can be a burden sometimes.

I've taken Baker's quote a bit out of context.  His family of origin includes two siblings, but also more aunts, uncles, and cousins than he can possible count.   In a family that large, individual children do not garner a great deal of notice.  "When the grown ups in a family as big as our said that children were born to be seen and not heard, they weren't just exercising the grown-up right to engage in picturesque speech and tired old maxims.  For them, holding down the uproar was a question of survival."  So, Baker continues, "you might as well learn to listen, because they're not going to give you much of a chance to talk."

I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, circa 1960, in a neighborhood freshly built for baby boomer families.  On my half of the block lived five Catholic families, who were raising anywhere from five to seven children in the cookie cutter style three bedroom brick ranch houses that lined the street.  As an only child, I was not only an anomaly, but the envy of all those other kids.  I had an entire room to myself, plus I had the undivided attention of my parents.  (It wasn't until adolescence that we all realized what a mixed blessing that focused attention really was.)

But when I talked, my parents listened, with bated breath.  Every word out of my mouth seemed to be pure gold.  Looking back, I wasn't much different with my own son.  I admit, I found him fascinating.  He was so bright, and creative, and unusual, why wouldn't I be smitten with everything he had  to say?

There is definitely a flip side to all this attention.  When you're in that kind of spotlight, you feel constantly on display, you feel a tremendous responsibility  to maintain not only that level of fascination,  but also your good reputation.  God forbid you should mess up in front of this captive audience who hangs so breathlessly on your every word and deed.

But we all mess up.  Fumble a line, forget an entrance, show up late to the party.  When you're all alone on that stage, it's harder to hide those inevitable faux pas.  Nor do you have anyone to foist blame upon.  ( I recall trying to blame our dog Ginger several times, but it didn't work out.)

Luckily, the parents of only children are only too willing to forgive.

After all, we don't have any "spares" in the offspring department, so we have to do whatever we can to keep that one precious diamond firmly ensconced in the ring.

Seeking and Longing

Very early on in my blogging experience, I met some delightful young women through the weekly meme, Sunday Scribblings.  All of them were "thirtysomething," so I fancied myself the venerable old lady of the group, chronologically at least.  But in the past five years, I've discovered these young women have it all over me in the smarts department - at least in terms of being smart about themselves.  In the five years since I "met" them, they've  fashioned dramatic new creative lives.  One of them has developed a successful online photography course, and is putting the finishing touches on her first book.  Another has taken what was once a passing interest in photography and is turning it into an exciting business with a totally awesome concept.  Yet another took her love for painting and animals and combined it to become an award winning pet portrait artist. All of these young women started out as seekers, posting their weekly scribblings about the various longings of their hearts, the hopes and wishes that seemed much too fantastical to ever come true.  And yet, somehow they managed to make them  come true, turn fantasy into reality, and engage their creative process as a means of livelihood.  They aren't alone in their success either - the internet is rife with young creative thinkers, who have been able to take advantage of the opportunities  new technology affords them.

As so often happens in my life, I find myself on the sidelines, admiring coveting their achievement.   Remember when you were in high school and desperately wanted to be part of that "cool" crowd?   That's how I feel about all these wonderful artists and writers and creative entrepeneurs out there who are  doing exciting new things with their lives.

I wonder what it is that holds me back from discovering and fulfilling my own creative dreams?  It's partly insecurity of course.  Everyone is afraid of rejection, of being deemed "not good enough" by the people they  respect.  It's partly about ignorance, not having the knowledge to even know what risks to take, not to mention the courage to take them.

But I think the biggest obstacle in making my creative dreams a reality lies in the actual definition of those dreams.  In this recent post, Bella writes about the moment she found the direction she needed to take in her artistic life.  Once she had that "aha!" moment (for her, a photograph she took at an arts workshop) she immediately felt "there was no time to stop and think about if I was good enough to do this - no - it was a full on hunger to begin the process.."

I can sit and ruminate all day about the things I'd like to do.  I know what it is that makes me excited, and energized, and feeling as if I'm really something.  How do I translate that into life in the real world, not necessarily monetarily (although that would be lovely), but in the sense of doing it everyday with purpose?   How do I turn my love of words and music and communicating with other people through those arts into something that has a permanent place in my life?

Or is it nothing more than a pipe dream, one I should put to rest with the short skirts and fast cars of my youth?

In my travels through the internet, I've read a lot about people who put their intentions "out there" into the universe, rather like sending a message in a bottle onto the open sea. And so I lay bare these thoughts that swirl around inside my head, scribble them onto this metaphoric paper and set it afloat.  Where will it wash ashore, and who will read the secret words written from my heart?

Who knows.  But in this journey of seeking and longing, I'm open to anything.

Stealing Time

One of the biggest myths around writing is that in order to do it we must have great swathes of uninterrupted time.  The myth that we must have "time" - more time - in order to create is a myth that keeps us from using the time we do have.  If we are forever yearning for "more," we are forever discounting what is offered. The Right to Write, Julia Cameron

Like most wanna-be writers, I have this lovely fantasy about the "perfect writing life."  I'd be living in a waterfront home with a writing room open to the sun and sound of the sea.  I'd have long uninterrupted days to drink coffee, read, walk the sandy beach, and ponder whatever work was in progress. I'd dress all in cool, neutral colors, my clothing loose fitting and airy, yet elegant.  (Think Diane Keaton's character in the movie Something's Gotta Give.)

Of course, my life is nothing like that, and I suspect yours isn't either.  Truthfully, that kind of lifestyle probably isn't as conducive to writing as one might think.  As humans, we need the pressure placed on us by the outside world to provide the stimulation which fuels our creative thoughts.

Writing, like anything worth doing, requires time, a commodity which seems in shorter and shorter supply in modern life.  With a little discipline and determination, you can steal time to write no matter how busy your schedule.   If you're like me, you spend 10 or 15 minutes every morning checking in with your "social network" - reading Facebook and Twitter updates, checking e-mail, glancing at the headlines.  The first step in finding daily writing time is to set your computer home page to a blank Word document.  Better yet, don't even turn the computer on - pick up a spiral notebook and write in long hand for 15 minutes instead.

Part of finding daily writing time is changing your perception about what "real writing" is.  You don't have to write 10 pages of perfect prose every day.  You do have to write something every day - a few sentences which build into a few paragraphs, which over time might become an article, a personal essay, a short story, a novel.

Think about your daily schedule ~ where can you steal some writing time for yourself?

So Off They Go...

There's an icy rain falling in southern Michigan.  There were even some rumbles of thunder a while ago.  But I've spent the past couple of hours at the home of some dear friends who are now just 9 days away from their epic move to Nanjing, China, so I've barely had a chance to notice the weather. Whatever possessed them to host an open house party just over a week before their big move is beyond me...but then, that's what I love about them.  They're so much more fearless in all ways than we are.  They know what to cherish and how to honor it.  They have a good grasp of the "big picture" that is life.  In more practical ways, they're organized and energetic and decisive.  (Right now, I hear my friend C. snorting  in self deprecation "Yeah, right!")

But still, I can't muster up the courage to move myself to a different state for three months out of the year, much less move myself to a totally different country/culture for three entire years like they're about to do.  Where does courage like that come from?

The friends who attended tonight's soiree were mostly their friends from the neighborhood, some of whom I've met but others I had not.  It was interesting to listen to their reactions to the move - some were thinly veiled disapproval masked as disbelief.  "So, do people really eat insects on a stick over there?" I heard someone ask.  "What are you going to do with yourself all day?" one friend inquired of C. with great concern. "Wow, your place over there looks really nice! It has an actual bathroom and not a hole in the ground!" was another comment.

Before  you say to yourself "how provincial are these people!" remember where we are.  We're talking a middle class neighborhood in the suburbs of Detroit where most of the people have their roots in the auto industry or it's relations.  Many of these people have never traveled outside the boundaries of the United States, and if they have, it might have been on a tour of duty -  or a tour sponsored by American Express.  We are not a worldly bunch, for the most part.  For a pair of our own to move to the far east and remake their lives is quite a phenomenon.

We're a little bit scared for them.

We're a little bit envious of them.

We're a whole lot sad for ourselves.

"It's going to be a honking big empty crater in MY life," one of C.'s friends confided.  "C is always the one who calls up and says "Are you in the mood for a field trip?"  and I say "of course," and off we go, not knowing where we'll end up.  I don't know anybody else like that."

Neither do I.

But one thing I've learned in the last ten years is that relationships can survive long distance.  Thanks to modern technology, even China is within the realm of reachability.   They may not allow Facebook over there (they don't), but there are VPN (virtual private networks) and  also Skype for chatting real time (audio and type).  I know I'll be "seeing" my friends fairly often over the next three years.  No, it won't be at coffee hour after church, or at Red Robin for a burger after the guys' concert, but we'll keep our ties of friendship close.  They're  worth the extra effort to make sure that happens.

Even though we have to say 再见 (goodbye) for a while, I have a feeling fortune will bring us together as friends once again somewhere down the road.

And I'm already looking forward to that day.