Write On Wednesday: Let's Start at the Very Beginning

I'm on the cusp of a new writing project, one I've been pondering for a long time, and so I've been thinking about how different and difficult it is for a writer to start at the very beginning. Unlike other artists, the writer  begins with nothing other than an idea, a thought, a fleeting glimpse of character or concept. A musician has notes on the page, the potter molds a lump of clay, the photographer a subject in her lens. Yet the writer - all we have are words in our heads. Nothing to hold onto, nothing to look at or listen to and think, oh a bit more contour is required, a softer dynamic is needed.

Sitting before my screen this morning, in the two hour window of writing time I have allotted for myself today, I think about looking for a dictionary and leafing through it, just to gaze for a moment at the tools of my trade laid out before me in black and white, maybe leaf through it and find a few that catch my eye, a few that I could pluck off that page and place somewhere onto my own.

I've decided the real building blocks of a writer's trade aren't words, but thoughts. The words are vital, of course, but they are the material, the conduit to convey those thoughts to the world. I'm pretty good with words. I'm not so good at thinking, or at least the kind of quiet and thoughtful thinking that leads to good writing. I have to work at mindfulness, at focusing on the subject at hand. Like most people, my head is filled with a million thoughts, trampling monkey like through my brain. Should I check my e-mail one last time? Who has posted on Facebook? What an interesting article someone linked on Twitter. Oh, the dogs need to go out and I really should brush them when they come in. Oops, forgot to make the grocery list. And where is that recipe for lentil soup I wanted to copy?

Plunked down in the middle of real, everyday life, it's difficult to still the mind long enough to contemplate anything, much less an all-important beginning.

Still, I enjoy the beginnings of things, and it is, as the song says, a very good place to start. There were times when I had to start at the middle of things - musical things, work things - and it's never quite as satisfying as beginning right at the inception, being there from the get-go and seeing it through to the conclusion.

A New Year is a good place for a new beginning. I have determined to make this year a writing year, to get really serious about this book I want to write. I'm setting definitive goals - a first draft (shitty though it might be) of one chapter per month. I've enrolled in a writing class* to help me get started and keep me on track.

And this morning I began, pulling over 2000 words out of nothing but my head, heart, and experience.

The very beginning.

I've started.

How about you? Are you at the very beginning of something?

*If you're interested in beginning a new writing project, there are still a couple of spots in the writing class I'm taking. A referral from me gets you a 20% discount too :)

Into the Light

We are only just past the winter solstice and already I sense the presence of more light at the end of the day. I am always seeking light, wandering the house in the early morning opening  blinds, lighting candles and turning on lamps as soon as dusk settles in. It isn't just that my old eyes need light to read (although they do, they really do) but that my spirit needs it to breathe. Although I love real light, love pulling open all the window shades and letting in pour in, I often I keep draperies pulled tight across the window to my soul. Curtains of guilt, self doubt, fear, and regret not only prevent light from entering my heart, but also prevent me from allowing my own inner light to shine. They have hung there for years, strewn with cobwebs and laden with dust.

As we move into a new year, I want so much to pull aside those musty coverings, expose the things that hold me back and plummet my spirit into darkness. I want to let light shine on my hopes and dreams  - the ones that tell me my life is worthwhile, that I have something to offer the world, that my love can make a difference.

This morning I will put away the wreaths and ornaments and Christmas candles, tuck them safely into boxes and bags where they will wait patiently until next December as I live out the year in front of me. As lovely as they are, their time has passed and the house will feel cleaner and brighter without them.

This afternoon I will spend some time with these pages. I will give myself the gift of seeking clarity for my spirit, purpose for my mind, and a focus for my work. And I will ponder the message in this short film by Katrina Kenison, whose new book I am so very eager to read.

Mostly I will look for light.

Inside and out.

May your year be illuminated by love and peace. And may all your dreams come true.

*Image by photographer Lars Ven De Goor

TLC Tours: an Extraordinary Theory of Objects

What an extraordinary little book this was. Subtitled "A Memoir of an Outsider in Paris," it is a series of illustrated essays that depict author Stephanie Lacava's passage through her rather dark and disturbed adolescence, one marked by anxiety and deep depression. The story  begins when the family moves to Paris during the author's early teens, and her already perilous sense of self seems to fragment even more as she struggles to find her footing in a foreign country. The reader sometimes feels lost right along with her, as she wanders the streets of Paris in her little slip dresses and cardigan sweaters, looking for her own particular set of wonders. Reading the book was something like viewing Lavaca's world through a stereopticon¹. Each essay is a scene in her ongoing saga of isolation and the obsession with objects which seems to ease her anxiety.   It is through her extraordinary collection of objects - from a fascination with Jean Seberg and poison arrow tree frogs to a box of glass eyeballs - that she orders and makes sense of a world in which she feels alienated.

The book becomes as much a field guide² as it does a memoir, because the objects that attract Lacava's attention are described in detailed footnotes, as well as illustrated in exquisite pen and ink drawings by Matthew Nelson.   The book is designed beautifully, measuring only 5 x7 inches, with the kind of cloth cover and beveled pages rarely seen in mass market hardcovers.

An intriguing, brutally honest trek through the world of an outsider, and how this very extraordinary young woman learned to cope.

Thanks to TLC Tours for the opportunity to read this book.

 ¹A stereopticon is something like a slide projector which has two lenses, usually one above the other. These devices date back to the mid 19th century and were a popular form of entertainment and education. Americans William and Frederick Langenheim introduced stereopticon slide technology—slide shows of projected photographs on glass—in 1850. For a fee of ten cents, people could view realistic photographs with nature, history, and science themes. At first, the shows used random images, but over time, lanternists began to place the slides in logical order, creating a narrative. This "visual storytelling" directly preceded the development of the first moving pictures. Before long, nearly every parlor in America had a stereopticon with a series of popular slides often featuring natural wonders of the world.

²A field guide is a book designed to help the reader identify wildlife, plants, animals, or other objects of natural occurrence. It is generally designed to be brought into the 'field' or local area where such objects exist to help distinguish between similar objects.  It will typically include a description of the objects covered, together with paintings or photographs and an index. More serious and scientific field identification books, including those intended for students, will probably include identification keys to assist with identification, but the publicly accessible field guide is more often a browsable picture guide organized by family, color, shape, location or other descriptors. The most popular early field guides in the United States were published in the late 1800's, and were guides to plants and birds.

The Sunday Salon: The Best

I love a good list. To-do lists, idea lists, grocery lists, errand lists, hopes and dreams lists. Love 'em all.

But I'm especially fond of a good "Best Of.." list. And year's end is rife with them. So who can resist adding their own to the bunch?

Here then is my list of the Best Books for 2012. Purely personal opinion, it was developed according to the little asterisks placed by the titles in my reading diary. It is ordered chronologically, beginning with January 2012, and ending with the book I finished last night just as the airplane returning me from Dallas landed on the runway.

11/22/63 - Stephen King

Blue Nights-Joan Didion

A Trick of the Light - Louise Penny

The Orchid House - Lucinda Riley

An Available Man - Hilma Wolitzer

An Uncommon Education - Elizabeth Percer

The Sandcastle Girls - Chris Bohjalian

Lots of Candles Plenty of Cake - Anna Quindlen

The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D. - Nicole Bernier

The Chaperone - Laura Moriarty

The Book Lover - Maryann McFadden

The Shoemaker's Wife - Adriana Trigiani

The Baker's Daughter - Sarah McCoy

Hemingway's Girl - Ericka Robuck

Quiet -Susan Cain

Flight Behavior - Barbara Kingsolver

Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading - Maureen Corrigan

Dear Life - Alice Munro

Winter Solstice - Rosamund Pilcher

This was a good year for the historical novel, and you'll notice a number of them have made the list. That genre is a favorite for me, because it combines two of my long standing interests (history and literature) into one package. I'm looking forward to more of these in 2013, and have several already on the horizon, one of which I started this morning and already love - Jasmine Nights (Julia Gregson).

I also re-read some favorites this year, notably Amateur Marriage, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, and Digging to America (Anne Tyler); Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy); Falling Through Space (Ellen Gilchrist); Crossing to Safety (Wallace Stegner); and Into the Tangle of Friendship (Beth Kephart).

This autumn I embarked upon two new (to me) mystery series, those by Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton. I've really enjoyed meeting their intrepid female detectives, and look forward to catching up on more of their adventures during 2013.

I don't typically participate in the reading challenges that have been popular among the book-blogging community. But I think I will join in the Barbara Pym centenary read-along. We begin with Some Tame Gazelle. A friend introduced me to Pym's work about a dozen years ago, and I promptly read a number of her novels lovely, gently satrical and funny novels about life and friendship in small English villages. This seems like a good time to get re-acquainted.

Other reading plans include some research for a creative non-fiction writing project, and of course, whatever else might take my fancy.

Here's to a wonderful year of reading ahead!

I am always reading, or thinking about reading. Joyce Carol Oates

Photo: Girl in a Red Dress by a Swimming Pool, Sir John Lavery (1856-1941)

Simply Having...

There are things I love about the Christmas season. The sense of hope and excitement, the renewed emphasis on doing things for others, the traditional activities and events. The decorations and lights - I really love Christmas lights.

My first memories of Christmas are of the sharp pine scent from the tree, my father and grandfather muscling it in through the front door while my mother and grandmother scurried behind them sweeping fallen needles off the dark wood floor. I hovered in the doorway on the other side of the room, watching from afar as they wrestled it into place in the red metal stand. Once they finally secured it in place - an operation that usually resulted in much grunting and groaning and half-muttered expletives - the fun part could begin.

Decorating.

Lights, strands and strands of big, bulbous lights in all the primary colors. Plus bubble lights, thin colored cylinders containing effervescent liquid that magically burbled away. Tinsel - skinny, silvalicious strands draped all over the branches. The ornaments came last, blue, gold, red, green, silver balls of thinnest glass.

When it was all done, my mother tucked a red felt skirt around the bottom.

My father switched out all the lights, save for those on the tree.

Oh, the glory of that room bathed in the rainbow colored glow of the Christmas tree. It washed over me like the warmth of baptismal water. It filled my tiny spirit with excitement and wonder and peace.

That's the feeling I keep looking for now, more than 50 years after those first early memories of Christmas times. That feeling of being enveloped in wonder, in love, of being cherished and nurtured.

When I was growing up, Christmas was easy to navigate. My maternal grandparents lived with us. Several of my aunts and uncles on my mother's side were nearby. My paternal grandfather lived five miles away. My father's siblings and all my cousins lived within hailing distance. We saw them all at some point on the Christmas Eve-Christmas Day continuum.

Now, everyone in my family is scattered hither and thither. My father, gravely ill with cancer and Parkinson's disease, is in Florida. My mother, frail but still fighting, is here in Michigan. My only child, with his wife and child, are in Texas. My grandparents are, of course, long dead and buried, and most of my aunts and uncles with them.

No one wrestles a pine tree into the living room. We just pull one out of the box (pre-lit) and plug it in.

There is no juggling of schedules in order to make it to all the relatives houses before the end of  Christmas day.

Tonight, we had my mother here to our new home, and celebrated our tiny Christmas. I made dinner, and she sat at our dining room table which she says is the most beautiful dining room table she has ever seen. She picked at her food, as she is wont to do now. She opened her presents - new warm pajamas, candy and nuts, and the traditional calendar featuring pictures of the two little dogs we all love so dearly. She went home to her big house, where she will be alone for the next week.

Tomorrow, my husband and I will fly to Texas to visit our son, daughter-in-law and grandson for Christmas. We are blessed beyond measure to have this new child in our family, to have his parents together to raise him with love and security. We are in awe of him, and would be perfectly happy spending every day just watching him do what he does.

But tonight when I drove my mother home, I realized that I will never have my family all together at Christmas again. I wonder what it would have been like -  if my parents had not gotten divorced, if my son had not moved away, if we had all stayed in one place like people used to do. I imagine my grandson here in my living room playing with his toys, my son and daughter in law sprawled on the floor beside him and my parents tucked side by side on the sofa. The dogs would sleep quietly on the hearth (except for Molly, who snores something awful) while the fire gently blazed. Jim and I would pour a glass of wine and survey the scene.

I would turn off all the lights save for those on the huge pine tree we had wrestled into that empty corner by the staircase.

And I would be bathed in wonder and love.

Wishing you the peace and beauty of Christmas, the joy of family, and the hope of a bright tomorrow.