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I didn't win NaNoWriMo this year, and guess what? I'm not one bit sorry. In fact, I'm actually celebrating that I took care of myself and my sanity this November. Instead of stressing over word counts, I simply made sure I wrote a little every day, kept sketching every day, and just stayed on track with being creative every day. It was more than good enough--it was fantastic!

There were a number of reasons why this year's 30-day, 50K challenge didn't work for me, but the number one thing going on was a serious case of "monkey mind." Every time I sat down to work on my NaNoWriMo manuscript, I wanted to collage and paint it rather than write it. Or I wanted to find new writing prompts from old magazines. Or . . . or . . .  I just couldn't settle on one way of working on it. At the same time, I still wanted to express what was running through my head: images, colors, even musical themes, but I just needed to play with my subject matter rather than write it. So I followed my heart and:

• Made 7 new pieces of pottery inspired by my story.
• Finished the art journal I started earlier this summer with my writer's group by adding collages based on my story.
• Finished an art journal I started three years ago by writing poetry connected to my story. (Yes, three years is a long time for one journal, I know, I know.)
• Practiced drawing the horses that were part of my story.
• Went through a stack of magazines for new pictures and ideas for writing prompts that I can keep using next year for my story.
• And yes . . . I wrote 19,252 words of my NaNoWriMo story! Not so bad, after all.

Why I'm glad I chose this route:

• I now have enough greenware to fill my kiln for a bisque firing.
• Finishing my art journals got rid of my guilt at neglecting them and boosted my energy. And I love having collages to go with my plot, characters, and settings.
• I've won plenty of NaNoWriMos over the years to know I can do it, but now I also know when to say "no." A very good lesson.
• And it was still fun to participate, even on a minor scale. I enjoyed following the progress of other writers and encouraging them to continue. I was part of a writing community and it was a good place to be.

It's difficult to balance our real world obligations with our creative desires--sometimes near impossible. If you're anything like me, from the minute I get up in the morning I feel besieged by an entire litany of unrelated tasks: Buy milk; go to Staples; return library books; write Chapter Four. When I threw NaNoWriMo into the mix (write 2900 words today or die), all I wanted to do was go back to bed. That's when I decided to a) go slow, keep writing, but stop chasing the 50K. And, b) make sure that I sat down for at least an hour every day at my art table and just played. It was a good plan. Now I just have another 30K to go, but entirely at my leisure.

Tip of the Day: The key to accomplishing any goal is one step at a time. It doesn't matter how big or small that step is, just give yourself the space to do it. And if you did win NaNoWriMo this year: CONGRATULATIONS!! My hat's off to you. Enjoy your victory!

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Sunday at the Albuquerque Rail Yards Market. Kuretake Watercolor, Sakura Micron Pen

How has your summer been? For me it went a little too fast. Thankfully here in Albuquerque it's still sunny and warm, but there is definitely a tinge of autumn in the air. Which means it's time to buckle down with a "back-to-school" attitude and get back to my main WIP, Ghazal. I also want to get back into a dedicated sketching schedule that fits in with all my other projects.

Two things that are currently helping me get there are my writer's group summer art journal project and my outings with Urban Sketchers. Starting with my writer's group, because we've been meeting at the Albuquerque Museum we've been able to stay inspired by all the amazing art exhibited throughout the halls and galleries. Several weeks ago we had the idea to set out individually to find a painting or installation that could be the basis of some of our art journal pages. 

For me it was coming across an entire room devoted to the travel sketches of New Mexico-based architect, Antoine Predock. The extensive collection ended with an intricate proposal for a southern branch of the Palace Museum in Taiwan (unfortunately never realized), but I was so taken with the loose and easy style that led up to this final, intricate fantasy that I had to go visit the exhibition three more times over the next month. Predock's example and implied advice to scribble, go for color blocks and bold lines, and to follow what you feel about a place and its landmarks, rather than what you're "supposed to see" was exactly what I've been trying to achieve on my own for the last couple of years.

I kept all of that in mind last Sunday when I went with Urban Sketchers to the Albuquerque Rail Yards Market for two hours of morning sketching:

Albuquerque Rail Yards--abandoned but not forgotten! Kuretake Watercolor and Sakura Micron Pen

The more I go out with the group the better I'm becoming at relaxing and losing my self-consciousness. I care more about the experience than the results, and consequently I'm drawing more than I ever have before. I love it!

Kuretake Watercolor, Fine-line Sharpie, Akashiya Sai Watercolor Brush Pens

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The last few weeks have seen me getting back into writing full-time again, hence my long blog hiatus. And with writing comes, of course, editing and revising, and then revising again, and well, you know how it goes. An endless cycle of chop, change, doubt, re-organization, and finally having to say, "That's it! This book is FINISHED. No more edits until a copy editor tells me what to do." 

It wasn't easy to settle back into a writing routine. Most days I just wanted to go through my photos from Taiwan and play with watercolors. Fun ways to make the hours fly, but nothing that was going to get my WIP ready for a potential agent or publisher.

In order to instill some discipline into my writing life, I desperately needed to remind myself of all the things I've ever taught and encouraged my own writing students to do. (Sometimes you have to be your own teacher!) 

Grabbing a new dry erase board and pen, I made myself a flow chart listing the top 12 ways to get me and my manuscript back into the writing zone. Here's what I came up with:

1. Focus. Boy, did I need this one. After Taiwan, my mind was a mess: I wanted to work on my novel, only to then want to write poetry, or work on a screenplay, or hey, what about that Young Adult thing in my filing cabinet, or no, a picture book might be even better. . . .  After several false starts, I knew this had to stop. I had to narrow my vision, forget about the other projects (they're all lined up in boxes ready to be tackled one at a time), and concentrate solely on the most important manuscript, the one I was working on before I went on my trip. That's it. Just one manuscript at a time.
2. Mindfulness. Because I so desperately wanted that manuscript finished, I started to slash words, sentences, and paragraphs without thinking about how much work had gone into creating them. It seemed easier to toss phrases and pages that were bothering me rather than try to improve or rewrite them. After several hours of draconian "ruthless revising" I went back and retrieved all those toss-outs, learning that it was far better to savor each unwanted word, sentence, and paragraph until I knew how I could either fix or use them elsewhere in the story to their advantage.
3. Brevity. That said, sometimes my choices were right. Less is better in a manuscript. Focusing with mindfulness, I looked for all the ways I could say what I wanted to say without having to say it twice or with too much description.
4. Let go. It was imperative that I let go of everything that was blocking my way forward or eating my time: unrealistic expectations that I could be finished in a few days (leading to speed-editing); unnecessary shopping trips; housework that was simply routine and not because the house was dirty; and especially social media sites, including, unfortunately, my blog. It was hard, but I got so much done. And I'm back now!
5. Ritual. For some people it's lighting a candle before they start work, or choosing a favorite pen. My writing ritual, at least for this current book, was to make myself a cup of jasmine green tea, go out of my office and upstairs to my breakfast nook, and read a Chinese poem (translated into English!) from The White Pony before I began freewriting or editing. It was a great system, and one I intend to continue with my next project.
6. Music. I've always loved the idea of writing to music, and have enjoyed doing so when I've been in workshops or seminars, but it's often something I forget to do on my own. Recently I bought a small portable radio that I can use in both my office and the breakfast nook (or anywhere else for that matter). I've found it very helpful to put on what I used to call "elevator" or "waiting for the dentist" music to calm me down and set the tone of my writing session. 
7. Magazine or artwork prompts. Using cut-out images from magazines, old books, and catalogs has always been my go-to story starter. Whether the pictures are of fashion models or reproductions of famous artworks, I couldn't live without my image library. For my current WIP I thought I had more than enough pictures to keep the story flowing, but I also realized many of the images had become somewhat stale--I had looked at them so often I had stopped seeing them. Starting a new collection solely for the last stage of the book seemed to revive all my interest in the story again, and gave me a fresh perspective on the older pictures when I paired them up with the new ones.
8. Meditation. I've never been a "good meditator" (whatever that means), having hopeless monkey mind and a tendency to squirm when I have to sit still without a book or a pen in my hand. That said, I have always appreciated the need to be quiet for a bit before I start my day or any creative work. The secret I've learned is to not set a time: "I will meditate for twenty minutes straight or else!" but just to give myself permission to stop and not be so busy-busy from the minute I get up or the second I sit down to write. Take a breath, take a minute, relax. Let go.
9. Choose a path/theme/genre/medium. My usual working style when starting anything new is to just let it happen. More times than not, genre or theme is something I choose for my work after my first draft. This time, though, and following through with #1: Focus, I decided to study and develop my genre/theme before I did anything else. It was a good decision--I found myself taking less side trips and getting right to the heart of my story a whole lot faster than in the past.
10. "How can I help?" It's nice to help other people, wonderful, in fact, but how often do we stop to help ourselves? I once read a quote that has always stayed with me about how the writer would never work for a boss as mean as she was to herself. Me neither--nothing but constant criticism, impossible deadlines, food and drink deprivation, and definitely no bathroom breaks allowed! When I'm writing, I can be horrible to myself. To break this tyranny, I wrote a "Letter to Me" asking what kind of help I needed to change the pattern. Some of my reply includes writing in 25-minute increments, followed by 15 minutes of anything non-writing related; rewarding myself with something special at the end of each day (can be as simple and inexpensive as a new library book); and making sure I put my writing, rather than the laundry, first.
11. Find a problem, brainstorm a solution. Halfway through my manuscript I realized I was being far too darn nice to my characters. I hated it when anything bad happened to them, so I'd hurriedly make it all better so they wouldn't suffer. Bad idea. Characters crave suffering--it's what makes them whole in the end! My solution was to make lists of terrible things that could go wrong for each of them, and then brainstorm several dozen ways to prolong the trouble. The lists also gave me ways to solve the problems without relying on coincidence or magic wands.
12. Write a gratitude or daily achievement list (especially after a rejection or a bad writing day). Not every writing day is a good day. In fact, a lot of them can be downright horrible, or at least they can seem to be until you really examine how the day went. Writing a gratitude list at the end of every day is an amazing practice. I like to go for a list of twelve. Even if the best I can do is write, "I have enough ink in my printer to send my manuscript out again." Or, "I got rid of four typos in Chapter 3," it's a win. (It's also positive proof that you're making progress, a good thing to remember and remind yourself when you don't even have ink in the printer.)

Tip of the Day: My absolute all-time favorite writing tip ever: Take a nap. Yes! Seriously! Napping can be a real creativity-saver, and it doesn't have to take up a lot of time. Whether it's in the middle of a hot Saturday afternoon, or as soon as you come home from work, don't fight the need to snooze--use it. To turn naps into real productivity, always have pen and paper right by your side so that as soon as you wake up, you can start writing. The results can be miraculous--new insights, new characters, new energy. I love it.

So what works for you? Drop a line in the comments section and let me know some of your favorite tips, too. Thanks for visiting!

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Somewhere around mid-December a word will pop into my head that symbolizes the year ahead for me. December 2013 brought me the word "Completion." It was a good word for 2014, encouraging me to finish, polish, and prepare my novel The Abyssal Plain for 2015 submission. The year before that, the word was "Focus," another good direction that brought me to where I am today. 

This year, for some mysterious reason, my word is "Tao" as in Taoism. At first I thought it had something to do with my upcoming trip to Taiwan, but then I thought it might be connected to my current art project of sketching and painting doors, i.e., Tao being related to "the way," or "the door." Whatever the reason for it coming into my life, I like it. 

To me, the Tao means "go with the flow," a much-needed quality as I begin submitting my manuscript. It's a scary process and I need all the help I can get, from chanting "nerves of steel" as I seal up my envelopes, to occupying my waiting time with revising and polishing yet another WIP.

This morning as part of my daily morning pages routine I brainstormed some of the ways using a Taoist approach could help me get through my submission angst. My biggest fear is getting to the post office and then tearing open the envelopes because I'm certain I've "done it wrong" and have to check everything one more time. After all, submission holds so much baggage: fear of rejection, bending one's will to another, even the idea of "breaking your spirit" altogether. Except, according to my brainstorming, it doesn't have to be any of those things. Rather than believing that submission is about being meek, mild, and a total  doormat, it's about saying "Yes!" with total confidence. It's about believing that:

1. Yes, my work is finished to the best of my current ability.
2. Yes, my work is sale-worthy. If I were a publisher, I would pay to have it published.
3. And, yes, I can let this piece go because I have many, many more books and stories to write and prepare for publication. So, let it go!

It's a whole new publishing world out there, with new editors, agents, and publishing houses. As modern writers and authors, we really do have a myriad of fresh opportunities at our fingertips, e.g., e-books, serialized novels, on-demand printing, audio-books. The idea of allowing the Tao to support and maintain our submission efforts is an attractive one, helping me to remain (relatively) calm and centered, the very best way, I would think to approach any task, starting with writing those manuscripts in the first place!

Tip of the Day: Okay, so what if a manuscript submission really does "go wrong"? It happens: a typo in the cover letter, addressing an editor who left the house long ago, sending the manuscript to the wrong department, a confusing pitch. Believe me, I've been there, and more than once. But none of these things are worth agonizing over. A mistake is a chance to learn and get it right next time. Do your best to move on and . . .  let it go . . .

P.S. Over the next few months I'll be examining and reporting on my experiences of working with the Tao as a writer and artist. Stay tuned--and be sure to drop me a line if you have any questions or thoughts to share on the subject. Thanks!

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Dear Lucas,

One full year has passed since I wrote you. You fantastic little shit.

My best friend’s son is growing up before my very eyes. Six years old now. I think of you every time I spend time with him, and I spend time with him often. I wonder what it will feel like to love a child more than I love Finn. I wonder if love can expand that wide.

This week I took Finn to see the prenatal exhibit at the museum of science and industry. Positioned behind looking glass, there were so many tiny embryos and fetuses, each prevented from surviving by natural causes or accidents.

I thought of Seamus, another friend’s son who was born to the world but died just before turning two. And the twin babies that came later from Seamus’ mother, the two who just turned two. So many tiny children, awake, asleep, alive, dead.

My capacious ability to love children—to love humans—bewilders me.

Today is my mother’s birthday. Her alive self would be 66 years old. Her dead self is almost two years old. My time without her in the world has been so difficult, and it has also been sublime. When every cell of your body is entwined with another from the moment you are conceived, it is complicated love.

I did not write to you this past year because there were no easy words to convey. People look to me for answers about parent loss, caregiving, early onset Alzheimer’s disease, and holding on to your partner during the years when you are caring and losing and grieving. I say there are no answers. I say you should feel everything. I say you should feel nothing. I say I am better, and they will be too, and then I dream nightmares, and I am not better. None of us can ever be better when there is so much loss.

I did not write to you this past year because everything did get better. I stopped numbing myself with alcohol. I stopped terrorizing myself with memories of moments that were terrifying. I drove around the western states for three months until I remembered I could be alone with my own mind again—and not be frightened.

I did not write to you this year because I was watching for myself to come home again. I pressed my eyelids closed with the palms of my hands, and I remembered that it was all true and it is all over. I remembered that I cannot go back and alter one single moment. I cannot make my mom alive when she is dead. I cannot be someone other than me. There is only now and forward. This is nothing and everything.

And, I did not write to you this past year because I was watching for your other mother—she who occupies the most tender eyelets of my heart—to come home again. I stopped locking my elbows, and I let the damp space evaporate. I stopped worrying about drowning in the grief, because I knew I would not. I was, in fact, simply moving through the current, finding my way back to the person—to the love—by which I remain utterly transfixed.

She waited, Lucas. She waited for me.

Now we are waiting for you.

Happy birthday, Mum.

Tagged: Alzheimer's, death and dying, letting go, maddening grief, mother loss, prenatal entanglement

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We would stand on the beach at Montauk, a boy and his father, looking out past the easternmost point on Long Island, and I'd strain to hear my father’s words as the ocean waves broke in front of us, crashing and thundering to reveal their power. “Never turn your back on the ocean,” my father would warn me. “The riptides are treacherous.” Some of the waves were five and six feet tall, and my

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Out with the Old...

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Here we are, the last week of NaNoWriMo! And yes, I know you'd rather go to Paris for the weekend, me too. But we need to get these manuscripts finished, so Paris will have to wait for a little while.

I don't know about you, but my word count isn't looking so great right now, something I want to change by Monday at the latest. To achieve that goal, I'm going to try something brand new: 10,000 words in one day! Yes, 10K, really. I'm all signed up to participate tomorrow 11-23-13 in a fun website writing party hosted by my Twitter friend Milli Thornton at @fearofwriting: 10kdayforwriters.com.

I only learned about Milli's site a couple of days ago, and just in the nick of time. In fact, the discovery was so fortuitous that I'm still reeling from one of those "how did that happen?" moments.

But despite my best intentions to write those 10K words, I also know that if I'm going to stay motivated I'll need some trusty writing prompts. Last night I brainstormed a list of 25; please feel free to borrow, steal, or add to the list by leaving a comment or two. All suggestions will be most welcome!

My 10K Prompt List:

1. Write about my characters' goals: why are they so important?
2. Write back story--lots of back story!
3. Write a character's first memory and make it essential to a present scene.
4. Describe my main character's place of work and how that influences the plot.
5. Various characters' neighbors: what do they really think?
6. Have one of the characters stuck in an elevator--with the villain.
7. A mysterious package arrives: why and what's in it? How does this change everything?
8. A death in the family.
9. An invitation my main character can't refuse.
10. Write about a recurring dream.
11. Phobias--assign one to a secondary character and use it to keep them from helping my main character.
12. Car trouble. At the very worst time possible.
13. Illness. Ditto as above.
14. Somebody witnesses a crime.
15. And then is framed for it!
16. A big lie and the unexpected consequences.
17. Hobbies--pick one and make it important to the plot.
18. An overheard conversation--and what happens because of it.
19. A stolen identity.
20. One of the characters finds (fill in the blank) and is devastated.
21. Something observed in a window.
22. A favorite item is broken. What, why, what happens because of it?
23. A sudden storm.
24. A creepy prophecy--that comes true.
25. The three very worst outcomes that can happen if my characters don't reach their goals, and then have them happen.

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• First, nobody is making me do this. Nobody. There is no contract or deadline awaiting me with dire consequences if I don't write. I've won enough previous NaNoWriMo certificates to know I can write 50,000 words in a month. I have nothing to prove here.
• If I don't reach the 50K mark, so what? I'll have 10 or 20K extra manuscript words to work with that I didn't have before November 1. And that's a good thing.
• Lastly, I was taking my manuscript way too seriously. Demanding that it make perfect sense--right now. That all my characters be fully developed and action-oriented, intent on weaving their way through a brilliant plot line that was simply amazing, full of shocking twists and turns with a stunning conclusion. Except NaNoWriMo doesn't work like that, at least not most of the time. (Note to self: neither does any first draft. Sigh.) Asking that it do so was setting myself up for instant failure.

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This past week I’ve had lessons in letting go.

I said goodbye to our beloved sheltie.

I said goodbye to one of our cats.

I let my YA novel leave my hands to allow it to become what the world needs it to be.

I let go.

I let go out of love.

Stories whisper to us when to step away, that we have done our job to the best of our ability.

Pets trust us to do what is humane when the time comes, to keep them from entering the place where suffering defines their existence.

It doesn’t make loss any easier.

And when you’ve spent hours revising and revising your work while being a pet caregiver, the related behaviors remain. Long after the heart accepts the loss.

I still automatically rise at 5 to check on the dog. I dismantle the alarm, then unlock the door to let him out.

Except he’s not here.

It’s all gone: His bowls, chew toys, squeaking squirrel. His dog beds, food, medicines. Shampoo, leashes. Pill organizers. His bark, the pitter-patter of his feet. The sound of him plopping beside me. His sigh.

His beautiful, beautiful face.

But not his collar, and his green alien boy, he loved so much.

Our one cat that remains hides beneath the kitchen table, curled in a chair pushed flush to the table. What must be going through her head?

Then I remember. We would not know loss if we never loved. And to love and be loved is a gift.

And so I feed the cat, and then settle on our porch to wait for the sun.

I notice my grandson’s blue hippo in our yard, which he sits on when there is nothing better to do than sit on one’s hippo and wonder at the world.

The cement step is cold against my thighs. A hummingbird whizzes over my head.

A hint of pink peers through our trees.

Another day begins.

I hear her spring to the floor, her red tag clink against her collar, and I know she is ready.

I am, too.

She meows through the screen, and I come inside. Walk down the hallway to my writing room.

I open the door.

I sit.

I open the YA document out of habit. I close it, and pat the place next to me.

Terrapin jumps up, nudges my hand.

I write.

I write out of love.

I write about a dog.

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Two minutes into her first day at Big School and my daughter gets a big graze on her knee. Off we go to the medical room for some tender care from a helpful teaching assistant. Of course, only water is … Continue reading →

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Today's art journal theme continues my series of posts based on Art Journal Class, My Favorite Tips, and today we have Mandalas.

The word "mandala" is from the Sanskrit for "circle." Think of it as a labyrinth on paper, a vehicle for meditation and discovery, and an entrance into a world beyond the ordinary and mundane. In other words, it's the perfect tool for enhancing and getting the most out of your art journal.

Although mandalas originated in Eastern religion and culture and have been used for thousands of years, it was Carl Jung who introduced them to the West. For me, creating a mandala in my art journal is about taking a break from a hectic day, calming down, becoming centered, and making some beautiful art that provides me with meaning and authenticity.

To learn more about the history and use of mandalas, there are many good books, far too many to list here, but there is one in particular that I feel fits in well with the concept of art journaling: The Zen of Creative Painting by Jeanne Carbonetti. One of my favorite quotes from the book is: "In the creative realm, mandalas present images of wholeness, for they bring forth our other side, the side usually hidden from view."

In the same way love makes the world go round, working within the circular boundaries of a mandala seems to make us feel more open and contained at the same time; it's a safe place to be. But don't let that stop you from exploring other shapes: square, triangular, or totally unique images from your heart are as valid as any other mandala form.

As for "what to draw with," if I had to choose a single medium for mandala-making it would be colored pencil (the Tibetans use colored sand, but I'm sure that takes centuries of practice). A simple Prismacolor set of 12 or 24 pencils works beautifully and won't break the bank. My reason for recommending pencil is I once tried watercolor and it was so difficult it seemed to defeat the entire purpose behind the mandala. Instead of inner peace and relaxation, I quickly fell into stress, confusion, and disappointment. On the other hand--perhaps this was a good lesson in letting go and I should use watercolor more often--or at least watercolor pencil!

Another concern you might have is your paper, especially if you want to work with a dark or black background. Don't worry if your journal pages are white because you can always a) paint them with black gesso and/or color before you begin, or b) tape or paste various colors and textures of paper onto the pages, either before or after you've written or drawn on them. (Note: the mandala I've shared at the top of this post is HUGE. I used a full sheet of Canson Mi Tientes black paper, but thanks to the computer, I've been able to shrink it down to art journal size. So don't feel restricted by having to always work directly into your journal.)

Some other helpful tips include:

• Before you start working, slow down for a few minutes. You might like to try a meditation practice, offer a prayer, or just concentrate on slowing your breathing.
• Listen to music, both before you begin drawing, and while you're creating your mandala.
• Experiment with using just one or two colors in all their various hues and shades. Are you in a blue, purple, or terracotta mood?
• Collage elements can be added to your mandala, or used exclusively as a creative approach.
• Mandalas don't always have to be abstract or ethereal. You might want to express an important event you witnessed during your day, or put a particular feeling or emotion into a series of concrete objects and symbols.
• If you find you really love making mandalas, you might want to devote an entire journal to them, perhaps by choosing a theme such as "nature" or "favorite music."
• Old photographs can sometimes be a way to start working with a mandala theme. Either place the picture in the center and work your way outwards, or use nothing but photos to assemble the entire mandala.
• You can do the same with individual words or phrases that are meaningful to you.
• Drawing the realistic outline of a particular flower can be a good starting point too: roses, daisies, sunflowers, anything that appeals to you.
• Don't forget your fruits and veggies! The cross section of an apple or an orange can create a beautiful pattern.
• As can jewelry and pendants . . .
• Or plates and pottery . . . In fact, why not make a mandala out of clay?  It may not fit into your journal, but you can always take a photo. (Now I totally want to do this.)

Tip of the Day:  Please take a few minutes to watch this video--a picture is definitely worth a thousand words in this lovely instance.

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For today's post I'd like to explore the second suggestion from Art Journal Class, My Favorite Tips: Write about a cherished object.

The first time I tried this prompt, I ended up writing about a seashell that belonged to my grandmother. She told me it was from the Gulf of Mexico--a place as foreign as Mars to me--and I used to spend hours holding it to my ear to "hear the ocean." Although I have no idea what happened to the original shell, I do have one very much like it: dark brown, gray, and cream stripes on a swirly, spiral sort of mini-conch (I don't know how else to describe it, apologies to the marine biologists out there!). Regardless of my inability to scientifically categorize the shell, writing about it, and then drawing an accompanying picture into my journal released a flood of memories that in their turn became further journal entries. It also reconnected me to a time that was very special in my life and one that I'm sure contributed to me being the writer I am today.

It doesn't really matter how you approach this exercise. You might want to choose an object first and then write about it, followed with a drawing or a collage of the object; or you could choose to first write about a specific memory that brings to mind an object you want to illustrate. Have fun with your choice of mediums: colored pencil, watercolor paints, crayons, or even a photograph you then photocopy and alter in some way with pencils or paint--it all works. Don't forget to add playful embellishments to your page(s): fabric swatches, scraps of lace or trim, glitter glue, feathers, buttons, pressed flowers or leaves--use whatever appeals to you and helps re-live the memory. There's no such thing as a right way to do this!

Some ideas for objects to spark written and illustrated memories can include:

• A favorite item of clothing: dress, shirt, shoes, hat, etc.
• Your first car.
• First pet (not exactly an object, but you know what I mean).
• A favorite book, especially one from childhood
• A treasured piece of jewelry--the one you love regardless of monetary value.
• A vacation souvenir.
• A photograph.
• A tree or plant in your garden.
• Childhood toy.
• A family heirloom.
• An item from childhood that you could only play with or hold on special occasions.
• Holiday decorations.
• A religious or sacred item.
• A random item quickly selected from your shelf. It reminds you of -- ?

An interesting switch to this exercise is to write about an object you dislike or that bothers you on some level. For instance:

• A detested item of clothing you were forced to wear, e.g., a school uniform or an unflattering bridesmaid dress.
• A gift you didn't want. But had to accept.
• A piece of clutter you want to get rid of, but can't.
• A broken appliance still hanging around.
• Housework tools: mops, brooms, sponges, buckets, ugh.
• Most disliked food.
• Something owned by a person who gets on your nerves.
• An item owned by that same person that you wish was yours (especially when you think they don't deserve it, LOL! Getting deep here....)
• Weeds or dead plants in your garden.
• Your worst photo--ever.

Working through negative emotions can often turn into your best and most enlightening journaling sessions. And who knows, it may also bring you to an entirely new perspective on both the object and the memories surrounding it.

I find that aiming for at least 500-1000 words is a good goal for this exercise; it's enough to really sink into the subject. However, once you've written your piece, you might not want to keep absolutely all of it. You may want to grab your scissors and cut (or tear) out your best or most important lines, and then paste them into your drawing to create a collage. Another technique is to take those lines and turn them into a found poem--rearranging your thoughts and adding more lines as they occur to you. And if you'd prefer total privacy along with some instant artwork, stacked journaling is always an exciting approach to fully express yourself.

Tip of the Day: Wherever you are right now, pick up the object nearest to you. How does it make you feel? Why is it in your life? Where's it from? What does it remind you of? It doesn't matter how small or insignificant the item is--just explore and write down your feelings. Use this as a practice session, although it could very well turn into just the right piece to add to your art journal.

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Yay! Our first question from the first winner of my blog birthday giveaway:
Diana asks: "How do you deal with writer's block?" A great question, especially now that Nanowrimo has finished and some of us may be feeling completely burnt-out.

To answer Diana, I think it's important to define "writer's block." For me, it's whatever makes me want to run away from my writing:

• Perfectionism.
• Fear that my words won't match my vision.
• Fear of not making the right choices.
• Fear that I'm going too slow.
• Fear of submission.
• Fear of my own voice.
• The WIP is just too big and ambitious.

Grrr! So how to burst through those blocks? How about:

 1. Collage. A stack of old magazines, a glue stick, a damp clean-up cloth, and some kind of paper or journal can keep me happy and "writing" for hours. There's something so dreamy and magical about the process, I could almost say it's the answer for every life problem in existence! Whether it's a scene, a character's wardrobe, or the solution to a plot-hole, collage can save the day.

2. Change genres. It's good advice to "write what you love to read," but sometimes you can too easily compare yourself to your favorite writers, and bingo--you're blocked. Try reading and/or writing in a genre you've never met before.

3. Make an appointment to meet yourself somewhere outside the house or usual work place. I particularly like bookstore cafes, but laundromats, hotel lobbies, and waiting rooms make great places to sit down and "just write" without the need to explain myself.

4. Take an old manuscript and tackle it from a different approach . An old,  unsold manuscript can feel like a millstone, one that's sapping your energy for fresh work. So start over: maybe the wrong character is telling the story. Or maybe you need several points of view. Perhaps present tense will add a new tension. Experiment.

5. Write with a friend. Writing with a buddy or a writer's group is a great way to stay productive. Go for at least an hour (no talking!); read your work to each other, then write for another hour.

6. Use a book of prompts such as A Writer's Book of Days by Judith Reeves for a month. Decide how many pages to write per day (5 is a good number), but don't re-read any of your writing until the end of the month.

7. At the end of the month, find the connections between your entries. The mind loves to create order out of chaos. Reading through a month's worth of freewriting is an excellent way to find a theme, a character, or a setting you want to explore more deeply.

8. What's on your mind? Try some letters to the editor, or concentrate on writing blog comments as a daily writing exercise.

9. Start a new blog on a topic you love, but don't usually write about. Save and print out your entries--submit them as articles, or turn them into a complete book!

10. Forget about publication. Get a special journal, pens, whatever makes you happy, and just write--anything. It's your writing, written for yourself and nobody else.

11. Write about your resistance to writing. What's stopping you from writing? Let it all out. Interview your writing and your characters. Ask them what the problem is. The answers may surprise you--and get you writing again.

12. Keep a "still-life" journal or notebook. Instead of worrying about transitions, plots, and character arcs, spend some time just writing descriptions. Take a cue from still-life paintings: what objects are included? What's the setting? Mood? Why? What is the artist trying to say? Keep adding entries even on the days you're writing full steam ahead.

Tip of the Day: As lofty as "write every day" may sound, the truth is you don't always HAVE to write to be a writer. Enjoying and participating in the world around you can be just as important, and necessary, as a daily word count. Read, draw, travel, visit antique or thrift stores, go for a walk, observe and play. Taking regular time-outs goes a long way to preventing creative block. And be sure to pay a visit to LadyDBooks--rest and renewal guaranteed!

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I have a friend who hates pink. I adore it. My friend is, I think, a much better artist than I am, maybe because of her palette choices! But I don’t want to give up pink, and I don’t want to berate myself just because someone else doesn’t like roses and kitten paws. Which leads me to Stay Creative Every Day Tip #8: Never compare yourself to others.

The day I learned to stop competing, stop comparing, and truly enjoy the creative life I’ve chosen was a few years ago when I wanted to try using a high-fire glaze on a small vase in my very small kiln. The kiln is capable of reaching a high setting, but that’s more of a theory than a reality. Anyway, I carefully glazed what I thought was one of my best vases in the required 3 coats, let them dry for the appropriate amount of time, and then proceeded to fire up the kiln. After hours and hours of extreme heat, followed by hours and hours of cooling, I opened the kiln. And the vase was absolutely hideous. Not only had the glaze virtually disappeared (what was meant to be a lovely peacock blue was a dull puce) but the clay surface had a weird, bumpy feel similar to ostrich skin. I was miserable. I was a loser. I couldn’t even fire a 4-inch vase. The potters featured in Ceramics Monthly were so much BETTER than me. I would never even make it to my first show. I set the thing aside on a side shelf and tried to find something else to do. 

A few days later the afternoon sun pierced through the blinds in my studio and hit the vase in such a way that made it suddenly glow, forcing me to pick it up for a second look. Miraculously, it was beautiful, as in seriously fine. Sure, the glaze wasn’t at all what I had planned, but it had personality. The “weird” texture was, dare I say, interesting. I found myself oddly moved; I felt that if there had been any failure on my part it was that I had failed to appreciate this little vase that was just trying to be itself rather than the image I had wanted to impose upon it. Now it’s one of my prized pieces and takes pride of place on my bookcase. Lesson learned: Everyone and everything has an innate timing, integrity, and direction. My job is to just let that emerge naturally, and always do the best I can without worrying, and without the need to compare. The best ways I found to do that are to:

• Find what you love to do. 
• Find what you do well—and raise the bar only when you think you’re ready to go there. 
• Don’t give up because someone else is supposedly “better” at your chosen craft. 
• And be honest. Don’t go in the other direction and disparage the “bad work” of others when you might be a teensy bit, um, envious. (Yes, I’ve done that too.)

Tip of the day: If you find yourself constantly comparing your work to that of others, the best way to stop is to start a daily gratitude and appreciation list. Every evening, list 12 things that you did well that day. They don’t have to be acts of great heroism or award-w

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On Tuesday night my experimental drawing class came to an end.  It was both sad (no more Tuesday night socializing with like-minded new friends) and liberating:  "Okay, you've learned all about mixed media--now go make art!  You can do it!"

Besides acquiring a whole arena of fresh knowledge regarding techniques and materials (I absolutely fell in love with Pan Pastels and Stonehenge paper) I feel I learned several important lessons that can apply not only to drawing and painting, but to the way we approach any creative pursuit--including the art of living!  Here's my top twelve:

1. Be patient.  There is no magic button.  Life—and especially creativity—is not a foot race.  Take your time; trust that the process will work--it will.  Eventually!
2. Work on several pieces at once.  While you’re waiting and deciding about how to continue or enhance a piece, start working on something new.  Ideas will seed each other, bringing inspiration and giving you a strong sense of productivity.
3. Start.  Stop.  Wait.  Start.  Then stop again.  It’s a good idea to break your work into segments.  Once you’ve added a new element to a piece, let it sit for awhile before you rush to the next “improvement.”
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   Crowing Crone Joss said, on 8/6/2011 1:11:00 PM
   

   wise life lessons you shared with us. and if THAT image is the result of you throwing caution to the wind - oh my, do it more often. You and your world will be blessed for it.
   walk in beauty.

   Ania said, on 8/8/2011 11:04:00 AM
   

   Great tips!

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Over on FaceBook I've written a few things, mostly questions about what will happen after the rapture. Last night my friend Vicki Cheatwood blogged about the rapture in such a deep way that I realized my questions were just dancing around on the surface of what I was trying to ask. What I am actually feeling.
I was asking things like will I still be able to garden, and what will happen to all the animals that get left behind, and who is going to deal with all the stuff that is left behind by those who rise up ... Vicki asks a more serious question: if you knew the date and hour of your end time today, what would you be doing? are you anywhere near where you want to be? are you doing what you want to be doing? are you with the people you want and need to be with?
I am. Finally in my life, I am. I am writing every day. I am with my daughter and grandkids. I am in touch with my son and his daughter. I talk with my Mom every week. I am surrounded by great friends whom I see regularly. I have a garden again. So, yes, this is exactly where I want to be.
Am I ready for a whole host of my family and friends to rise up in the rapture and leave me behind? No. I have abandonment issues. The truth is I'm no more ready to lose them one at a time. It's this whole topic of death, letting go, being left behind.
Which is really the issue of attachment -- and time for me to go back to sangha, find a Buddhist sangha group and renew my own spiritual practice.
What has all this talk of the rapture brought up in your life?

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Recently I’ve been re-reading my blog posts, and the one thing that stands out for me is how often I use the phrase “Have fun.” “Just have fun.” Which made me wonder, what exactly do I mean by “fun”?
Obviously fun doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. For some people it’s taking as many rollercoaster rides as possible in one lifetime while raising tarantulas in the living room. For others it’s spending years and years painting, and repainting, one perfect and extraordinarily life-like bouquet of tiger lilies—an activity that would have me tearing out my hair and run screaming for the hills. Just like trash and treasure, fun is all in the eye of the beholder, or in the actions of the doer. Whatever it is for each of us, though, I think it’s a very important part of the creative process. Because if you’re not having fun, you might also be:

• Avoiding the work.
• Agonizing about avoiding the work.
• Resisting any opportunities to show or submit the work.
• Apologizing for the work when you do show it.
• Unfavorably comparing your work to others—others you are convinced are immeasurably more brilliant, talented, and capable of having much more fun than you. Which is just plain silly.

So how do you bring more fun to the table when you sit down to work on your latest creative project? I’m sure there’s a fascinating range of answers, from putting on theme music, to drawing cats in pajamas in your manuscript margins, but to me “having fun” means the following:

• Not taking myself so seriously. Note I didn’t say “not taking the work seriously.” But whenever I think there is some absurd “writerly standard” I must live up to, one that for instance involves never smiling when I talk about my writing because I am a “serious writer,” or one where I have to consider myself as a “person of literature” if I’m allowed to even call myself a writer, I know I’m in trouble.
• Risk taking. Asking the “what if” questions and then following through. “What if I paint black gesso all over this board? What if I rewrite a fairy tale? What if my character goes to prison and my entire plot changes—for the better?” Yes, why not? Fun to me is all about surprise—making each step of the journey the equivalent of opening an unexpected birthday present and finding the perfect gift—or joke—inside.
• Art supplies in all the wrong places. I write with plum fountain pen ink, paste stickers on absolutely everything, and doodle in glamorous journals. So what if manuscript submissions have to be on pristine white bond paper, double-spaced and printed in a sharp black font? That doesn’t mean I can’t write them in mud and lemon juice if that makes me happy during the first draft stage. I can even add cats in pajamas if I want—so there.
• Writing or creating what you love. It seems that in every creative person’s life there comes the golden opportunity to work on something you hate—either for money, a much-needed byline, or a chance to get your foot in the door. And it’s awful! Even with the-very-good-reason to take on the job, it’s something I recommend you only do once, or twice at most. That’s why it’s so important to write what you love to read, or to create the kind of art you’d want to see in your own home or favorite gallery. Anything else isn’t fun—it’s torture.
• Putting the thing to sleep. Not
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The other day I was talking with a friend about revisions, and he mentioned that the hardest thing for him to accept about the revision process is letting go of his words or, as other writers say, “killing off his darlings.”He spends an inordinate amount of time carefully constructing sentences and admitted it’s painful for him to delete a sentence from a paragraph, even when he can see and

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In Kyoko Mori’s new memoir, Yarn: Remembering the Way Home, a remarkable meditation on knitting and the themes of love and loss, Mori shares valuable insights into her writing process.In the passage below, for instance, Mori describes her writing as a process of "holding on and letting go..." that provides her with a way of moving forward into new terrain rather than simply repeating herself.Here

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Most writers feel this, I think. I certainly do. I want to feel it. I strive to feel it. I’m talking about when your characters seem to take over and make things happen. Now, I’m not going to argue the authenticity of the feeling. It's happened to me so I believe it. Maybe it is just finding the place, the altered state, which allows you to access that part of the brain that makes intuitive leaps. Or maybe you’re connecting to a higher power, any higher power. I don’t know.

Whatever. Your characters come to life. They take you places you hadn’t thought of or intended to go and these places are the right places for your story. Some of the truest writing comes from these moments because it’s coming from inside the world of the characters and story. You aren’t forcing it.

Of course sometimes you have to force it. Sometimes you have to work things out and plan a scene and re-imagine something that’s happened that seems wrong. You do all the work, you struggle and fight, and sometimes all of that allows you to get to that moment when the characters seem to take over.

Let them. Let go.

Enjoy it.

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We head back down south tonight to go to a dinner for our priest who is leaving our congregation and heading to Santa Barbara. We’ve known Hank for around a dozen years. I love Episcopal priests and Hank in particular. Most people don’t know the very small town where Joe is from. But Hank knew right away, ‘cause he’d sold generators right after the big earthquake in Coalinga in ’83. Which, coincidentally, is coming up on its 25th anniversary tomorrow. Talk about an enterpriser. Bishop Bruno confirmed Candy and signed her prayer book on a surfboard. There’s just a lived-life quality to vicars that melts the barrier that sometimes come between people and their priests.

Then we drive back up north to scatter Ray’s ashes. It’s been about a year and a half since he’s left us. Never been to an ashes-scattering ceremony. Don’t quite know what to expect. Certain Ray’s ready to be roaming the hills with is dog Andrew though. A park is going to be dedicated in his honor this weekend too.

Then it’s back down south for a great meeting with my amazing crit group and a little trip to the dentist.

I’ve mailed and emailed queries and partials. It’s like Tom Petty says, the waiting is the hardest part. I love this story. Now, it’s time to shop it around, let it go. I’m going to miss working on it everyday. Even though I know I’ll still be revising here and there for a time. But soon, I’ll be moving on to my next novel, a YA contemporary that doesn’t have an ending yet. My other novels have beginnings, middles and ends. I really wonder why I stopped writing. Maybe I just wasn’t ready for The End. Maybe sometimes the writing is so fun I just don’t want it all to stop. Maybe I was trying to say too much with one story. Whatever it was, I’m excited to get back into it and see if I find my way to an ending.

Now that I think about it, so much about this weekend is letting go. Letting go of my story hoping it will find a good home. Letting go of Ray and watching him become a part of the desert hills he cherished. Letting go of Hank and keeping his words of wisdom close as he leaves. Even letting go of my kids as Candy is airborne on her way home from Hong Kong and Mx has been exploring parts of NYC that surprised her but left her with some great stories to tell.

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The 30 Second scary story will be broadcast on the 27th of October on Weekend America. If you don't get NPR you should be able to listen to it -- and many other things -- at http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org/.

I finished the first typed draft of Odd and the Frost Giants tonight. It's 14,000 words long, more or less, which makes it (I think) a novelette. I've sent it to a few people to read, and tomorrow I'll read it myself, and scribble on the printouts and change things, and wonder if it works or not, and try and make it work better.

Here's a link to Guillermo Del Tor and the lovely Selma Blair talking about Death: http://www.superherohype.com/news/topnews.php?id=6447

The just-as-lovely-as-Selma-Blair Colleen Doran has re-inked her chapter of A Game of You in Absolute Sandman Volume 2, and you can see what the same page looks like in the two different versions over at http://community.livejournal.com/scans_daily/4192671.html. Also Colleen put up a couple of pages of Sandman #20 pencils at http://community.livejournal.com/scans_daily/4192671.html.

Someone sent me a link to a film that was meant to be H.P. Lovecraft talking in 1933, which just made me want to take everyone involved in creating it aside and show them interview films from that period, and make them really listen to the kind of questions that were asked back then and the way that they were answered. You can date interviews in seconds, in the same way you can date old commercials, or old TV shows. (I watched the first couple of episodes of The Tomorrow People with Maddy recently. We were a couple of minutes in when she said "This is the Seventies, right?") It was a good idea, but the joy of faking period stuff has to be getting the tone of voice and the tiny details right, because they make everything else work.

I clicked on the next YouTube link along, which turned out to be me talking about the Necronomicon, and why I want mine to have been signed by the author...



Right. Bed now.

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