Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
I always read these lines from Tennyson aloud on New Year's Eve, as I say farewell to the year that was. And I always do a review of the year that was in my trusty little notebook. My reviews are always positive. All I list are my "nice things and accomplishments," not my heartbreaks and failures. Every month as the year progresses, I keep a running list of "nice things and accomplishments," and then I compile my master list for the year in its entirety, in the categories of creative writing, scholarly work and teaching, and personal successes for me and my family.
This year, three things stand out.
First, I wrote my longest and most ambitious novel, still untitled, though right now the working title (for me at least) is No Exceptions: the story of a seventh-grade honor student who brings her mother's lunch to school by mistake, a lunch that has in it a knife for cutting up her mother's apple; she turns it in immediately, but is now facing mandatory expulsion under her school's zero tolerance policies. Writing this book was a great joy for me. It was so long, and all-encompassing, that I wrote on it everywhere. I wrote while lying in bed in my hotel room at the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics conference in Cincinnati - I wrote while sitting in cafes in Santa Fe - I wrote while visiting a wonderful librarian who is also an amazing composer in the charming guestroom of her home in Missouri. Wherever I was, I wrote. This reminded me how much I love writing, especially when I am in the middle of a long, compelling project.
Second, I dealt with the painful and difficult task of readying not one, but two, ruined properties for sale. It took me YEARS to face the fact that I had to do this, and that in order to do it I was going to have to borrow tens of thousands of dollars on top of massive debt I already had - and I was going to have to toil without ceasing for weeks and months - and I was going to have to dwell in the land of heart-rending memories. But face it I did, and do it I did, and both properties sold and are now out of my life. Oh, my darlings: whatever you have to face, just go ahead and face it! Whatever you have to do, just go ahead and do it! You will be so glad and grateful and relieved that you did.
Finally, I had the adventure of moving (temporarily) to Indiana and starting a new life there in a whole new part of the country. I had never before even seen a field of soy beans! I discovered what it is like to teach at a small liberal arts college in a town of 10,000 people where I can walk everywhere (and where "walking everywhere" means walking three or four blocks to get everywhere). I learned how happy I am in a small, compact, manageable little world. Maybe some year hence I'll learn how happy I am in a huge, bustling, overwhelming city. But right now happiness for me is French toast and hot chocolate at the Blue Door Cafe in Greencastle, Indiana - where I'll return tomorrow evening on a 6:59 p.m. flight from Denver to Indianapolis.
So those were the three highlights of my year. I wonder what the three highlights of 2012 will be.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Friday, December 30, 2011
Remembering
The holiday season is overlaid with special memories for my family. My mother's birthday was Christmas Day. Grandpa's birthday was December 30: today is the day he would have been celebrating his 101st. Both of them left this earth last year: 2010. So the season is filled with sweet memories of these two beloved ones.
The boys and I - with their girlfriends this year - baked my mother's butter cookies earlier in the month. On Christmas Day I served her yeast cinnamon rolls, made from her recipe. I even said to Gregory what she always said: "See, no raisins!" She altered the recipe years ago because Gregory dislikes raisins. So I pointed out to him their continuing absence, in a voice that wobbled a bit with remembered love.
Every year for the past many years we had a wonderful birthday party for Grandpa at his favorite restaurant, Dino's on Colfax in Lakewood. So today four women who loved Grandpa, and who through him came to love each other, are gathering there to have lunch and share stories, as well as updates on our current lives. It used to be that Grandpa was "news central" for all of us: he would tell me about Bonnie's stay at the Trappist monastery, about Billie's knitting class, about Kay's fishing expedition. Now we have to tell each other directly. And so that's what we'll do at 11:30 today, with hearts full of memories of this inimitable man who took such a vivid interest in all of us up until the last days of his long long life.
It is definitely the season for remembering.
The boys and I - with their girlfriends this year - baked my mother's butter cookies earlier in the month. On Christmas Day I served her yeast cinnamon rolls, made from her recipe. I even said to Gregory what she always said: "See, no raisins!" She altered the recipe years ago because Gregory dislikes raisins. So I pointed out to him their continuing absence, in a voice that wobbled a bit with remembered love.
Every year for the past many years we had a wonderful birthday party for Grandpa at his favorite restaurant, Dino's on Colfax in Lakewood. So today four women who loved Grandpa, and who through him came to love each other, are gathering there to have lunch and share stories, as well as updates on our current lives. It used to be that Grandpa was "news central" for all of us: he would tell me about Bonnie's stay at the Trappist monastery, about Billie's knitting class, about Kay's fishing expedition. Now we have to tell each other directly. And so that's what we'll do at 11:30 today, with hearts full of memories of this inimitable man who took such a vivid interest in all of us up until the last days of his long long life.
It is definitely the season for remembering.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
With MORE Love to My Writing Group
Many years ago, a fellow Boulder Montessori preschool mom told me that she was interested in writing children's books. Did I have any advice to give her on how to get published? Yes, I told her. Step one is to find yourself a writing group to critique your manuscripts before you start sending them out. She drew herself up, affronted. "I KNOW how to WRITE," she said icily.
Well, I know how to write, too, and I've been in a writing group for almost my entire career, learning how to write better. Another writer friend of mine, a Newbery medalist and mega-best-selling author, has been in a writing group for all of her career, learning how to write better. Perhaps needless to say, this mom who didn't need a writing group has never been published. And I still continue to meet with my beloved Boulder writing group, grateful for every suggestion that falls from their often-critical lips.
Right now I'm wrestling with what at first seemed two opposing sets of criticisms on my new book/series in progress. One friend loved the particular book manuscript but thought the series concept was "forced" and "weak." Another loved the series concept but thought the particular manuscript I had completed featured an unlikeable main character and was pitched at too high a reading level for the intended audience, with not enough lively action and too much quiet introspection.
At first I felt like shrieking and falling into a helpless faint on the floor.
But then I had tea with Phyllis, and together we figured out how to fix the series concept completely with two small, easy, but wonderful changes. This morning I'm having tea with Leslie to brainstorm how to deal with her worries about the story.
This project is going to be a thousand times better just from these two sets of comments, and I'm still awaiting comments from the rest of the brilliant insightful group.
I DO know how to write. And it's my writing group who taught me how to write. And who continue to teach me.
Well, I know how to write, too, and I've been in a writing group for almost my entire career, learning how to write better. Another writer friend of mine, a Newbery medalist and mega-best-selling author, has been in a writing group for all of her career, learning how to write better. Perhaps needless to say, this mom who didn't need a writing group has never been published. And I still continue to meet with my beloved Boulder writing group, grateful for every suggestion that falls from their often-critical lips.
Right now I'm wrestling with what at first seemed two opposing sets of criticisms on my new book/series in progress. One friend loved the particular book manuscript but thought the series concept was "forced" and "weak." Another loved the series concept but thought the particular manuscript I had completed featured an unlikeable main character and was pitched at too high a reading level for the intended audience, with not enough lively action and too much quiet introspection.
At first I felt like shrieking and falling into a helpless faint on the floor.
But then I had tea with Phyllis, and together we figured out how to fix the series concept completely with two small, easy, but wonderful changes. This morning I'm having tea with Leslie to brainstorm how to deal with her worries about the story.
This project is going to be a thousand times better just from these two sets of comments, and I'm still awaiting comments from the rest of the brilliant insightful group.
I DO know how to write. And it's my writing group who taught me how to write. And who continue to teach me.
Monday, December 26, 2011
"A Book that Surprises Me"
In the wake of my ruminations about what to write next, I gave myself the Christmas present of ten sessions with amazing poet, essayist, and creativity coach Molly Fisk. I met Molly several years ago when she was the teacher/leader for the annual poetry-writing retreat I attend every January (coming up soon!). Her radiant creative presence turned me into however much of a poet I am. So I figured a few sessions with Molly couldn't hurt as I fumble toward a new book.
I had my first Molly coaching session over the phone on Christmas Eve morning. I told Molly my dilemma. I told her that I want to write something new, different, and wonderful, but if I write on the top of my note-gathering page, "Wonderful New Book," I find that heading a tad intimidating, in a counter-productive way. She asked me how I'd feel about writing instead, "A book that surprises me." Ooh!
I think that's exactly what I want in my next writing project: to write something that surprises me. Molly is going to work with me on leaving room for surprise in my writing, to open myself to the possibility of surprises in a welcoming, but non-desperate way.
Along these lines, I've just read an essay of Molly's on doing something backwards on purpose: "Whatever it is you always do, don't do it." Wear your watch on the other wrist. Move your desk to face a different wall. Habitual behavior dulls our senses and limits our possibilities. Molly writes, "When you get attached to the way you always do things, you are in big trouble. The universe arranges disasters for people like you." She suggests that we can avert disaster "just by wearing unmatched socks once in a while, mowing the lawn in figure eights, eating lemon meringue pie for breakfast, and taking an occasional overnight flight to Mallorca."
It sounds like a plan!
I had my first Molly coaching session over the phone on Christmas Eve morning. I told Molly my dilemma. I told her that I want to write something new, different, and wonderful, but if I write on the top of my note-gathering page, "Wonderful New Book," I find that heading a tad intimidating, in a counter-productive way. She asked me how I'd feel about writing instead, "A book that surprises me." Ooh!
I think that's exactly what I want in my next writing project: to write something that surprises me. Molly is going to work with me on leaving room for surprise in my writing, to open myself to the possibility of surprises in a welcoming, but non-desperate way.
Along these lines, I've just read an essay of Molly's on doing something backwards on purpose: "Whatever it is you always do, don't do it." Wear your watch on the other wrist. Move your desk to face a different wall. Habitual behavior dulls our senses and limits our possibilities. Molly writes, "When you get attached to the way you always do things, you are in big trouble. The universe arranges disasters for people like you." She suggests that we can avert disaster "just by wearing unmatched socks once in a while, mowing the lawn in figure eights, eating lemon meringue pie for breakfast, and taking an occasional overnight flight to Mallorca."
It sounds like a plan!
Friday, December 23, 2011
If You Do What You've Always Done
I spent much of my blissful snow day yesterday thinking about what I want to write next.
I have a dilemma.
On the one hand, I keep hearing in my head the disturbing thought: "If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten." I sort of like what I've always gotten - I've had a charmed and very happy writer's life - but of course I would like to have a LEETLE bit more fame and fortune. Actually, what I'd really like is literary immortality, to write a book that children would be reading for generations. Maybe that's too much to ask of the writing gods. But why not dream big on this day-before-the-day-before Christmas?
On the other hand, I keep hearing voices, both disturbing and not disturbing, that incline me in the opposite direction. The disturbing voices of this sort these days talk about "branding": readers want to know what they're getting when they pick up, say, a Claudia Mills book. These voices say: remember "the new Coke" and why it was such an epic flop? The less-disturbing voices here say that we all have our own creative DNA: Jane Austen just isn't going to write War and Peace; Vermeer just isn't going to paint huge canvases of Napoleon's coronation.
And then there's a third group of voices, probably the wisest of all. These voices say that writers aren't supposed to be even thinking about the reception of their work; they're supposed to be thinking of writing the most beautiful, true, and powerful sentences that they can, one after another, and let the world make of those sentences what they will.
But still. I can write (well, try to write) beautiful, true, and powerful sentences about lots of different kinds of things. Right now I'm trying to decide whether to write them about the kind of things I've always written about - realistic school/family stories about middle-class kids struggling with relatively small problems like having to master the times tables - or about something else - something dark and dangerous? or haunting and strange? or - ??
Or - ????
I have a dilemma.
On the one hand, I keep hearing in my head the disturbing thought: "If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten." I sort of like what I've always gotten - I've had a charmed and very happy writer's life - but of course I would like to have a LEETLE bit more fame and fortune. Actually, what I'd really like is literary immortality, to write a book that children would be reading for generations. Maybe that's too much to ask of the writing gods. But why not dream big on this day-before-the-day-before Christmas?
On the other hand, I keep hearing voices, both disturbing and not disturbing, that incline me in the opposite direction. The disturbing voices of this sort these days talk about "branding": readers want to know what they're getting when they pick up, say, a Claudia Mills book. These voices say: remember "the new Coke" and why it was such an epic flop? The less-disturbing voices here say that we all have our own creative DNA: Jane Austen just isn't going to write War and Peace; Vermeer just isn't going to paint huge canvases of Napoleon's coronation.
And then there's a third group of voices, probably the wisest of all. These voices say that writers aren't supposed to be even thinking about the reception of their work; they're supposed to be thinking of writing the most beautiful, true, and powerful sentences that they can, one after another, and let the world make of those sentences what they will.
But still. I can write (well, try to write) beautiful, true, and powerful sentences about lots of different kinds of things. Right now I'm trying to decide whether to write them about the kind of things I've always written about - realistic school/family stories about middle-class kids struggling with relatively small problems like having to master the times tables - or about something else - something dark and dangerous? or haunting and strange? or - ??
Or - ????
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Let It Snow
Yesterday, on the Winter Solstice, I discovered what my son Gregory assures me that "everybody knows": if you go to Google and type in "let it snow," some pretty delightful things begin to happen on your computer screen. (And then I discovered something else that "everybody knows": fun things also happen if you go to Google and type in "do a barrel roll.")
In any case, no sooner had I Googled "let it snow" than it did indeed begin to snow: such thick heavy flakes that I had to put the car in the garage all covered with snow because it was snowing faster than I could brush it off. This morning there is at least a foot out there, and it's still snowing. The university is closed. My friend Carol and I decided to cancel our breakfast date at Lucile's, rescheduling it for next week.
The sudden joy I felt upon canceling the long-awaited, extremely fun breakfast date made me remember something I realized once years ago: there is nothing in my life that I'm looking forward to so much that I wouldn't prefer having it be canceled.
I wonder why this is, and what it means. Partly it's just that it's such a gift to be delivered an unexpected, unscheduled block of time: Here is this extra hour, here is this extra morning, make of it something magical. Part of it is that I might just be an over-scheduled person, and this is a signal to myself that I should restructure my life so that it has more down time in it, time for what Brenda Ueland (If You Want to Write) calls "moodling."
I still want to go to all the Christmas activities coming up at church, and one more Hanukkah party of the three I'm attending this season, plus the rescheduled Lucile's breakfast (yum!). But right now I'm loving sitting here puttering at my computer (though I am NOT going to spend this gift of a morning doing email!), and listening to laundry thumping around in the dryer - thinking about baking the yeast-rising cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning - thinking about maybe even making some notes for a new book - and just looking out my window watching the snow as it keeps falling.
In any case, no sooner had I Googled "let it snow" than it did indeed begin to snow: such thick heavy flakes that I had to put the car in the garage all covered with snow because it was snowing faster than I could brush it off. This morning there is at least a foot out there, and it's still snowing. The university is closed. My friend Carol and I decided to cancel our breakfast date at Lucile's, rescheduling it for next week.
The sudden joy I felt upon canceling the long-awaited, extremely fun breakfast date made me remember something I realized once years ago: there is nothing in my life that I'm looking forward to so much that I wouldn't prefer having it be canceled.
I wonder why this is, and what it means. Partly it's just that it's such a gift to be delivered an unexpected, unscheduled block of time: Here is this extra hour, here is this extra morning, make of it something magical. Part of it is that I might just be an over-scheduled person, and this is a signal to myself that I should restructure my life so that it has more down time in it, time for what Brenda Ueland (If You Want to Write) calls "moodling."
I still want to go to all the Christmas activities coming up at church, and one more Hanukkah party of the three I'm attending this season, plus the rescheduled Lucile's breakfast (yum!). But right now I'm loving sitting here puttering at my computer (though I am NOT going to spend this gift of a morning doing email!), and listening to laundry thumping around in the dryer - thinking about baking the yeast-rising cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning - thinking about maybe even making some notes for a new book - and just looking out my window watching the snow as it keeps falling.
Monday, December 19, 2011
With Love to My Writing Group
My writing group has its annual holiday dinner tonight. We have been in existence as a group, depending on how you measure its existence, for some nineteen years. The group had been in the process of formation when I attended my first meeting in the fall of 1992, the year I arrived in Colorado to assume my faculty position in the philosophy department at CU. And when I showed up, then we were fully formed: done!
There were eight of us then, including me. Over the years, two left the group (but didn't leave our hearts); another left only to come back again; and a new member, our first new member in eighteen years, joined us a year ago. I have no idea how many books we have collectively published in our almost two decades together. I would guess that it is close to a hundred.
It just occurred to me that my being a thousand miles away from my writing group this past semester might be one explanation for why I've been writing so little, and why what I have written hasn't yet been ready to be published. Duh! Without the expectation of having a chapter to share every two weeks at our every-other-Monday-night meeting, without the encouragement through fallow times, and the brisk, bracing critique of work-in-progress, I haven't been writing at the same level. I just haven't.
But now I've finished a first draft of a new possible chapter book, and I have it to hand out to the group tonight, for them to read at home over the next couple of weeks. Just knowing I had the deadline of the dinner tonight, at six o'clock sharp, with all of seated around the table holding hands, was enough to get me to move heaven and earth to finish it.
Oh, writing group, I love you, and I need you. Merry Christmas, darling writing group.
There were eight of us then, including me. Over the years, two left the group (but didn't leave our hearts); another left only to come back again; and a new member, our first new member in eighteen years, joined us a year ago. I have no idea how many books we have collectively published in our almost two decades together. I would guess that it is close to a hundred.
It just occurred to me that my being a thousand miles away from my writing group this past semester might be one explanation for why I've been writing so little, and why what I have written hasn't yet been ready to be published. Duh! Without the expectation of having a chapter to share every two weeks at our every-other-Monday-night meeting, without the encouragement through fallow times, and the brisk, bracing critique of work-in-progress, I haven't been writing at the same level. I just haven't.
But now I've finished a first draft of a new possible chapter book, and I have it to hand out to the group tonight, for them to read at home over the next couple of weeks. Just knowing I had the deadline of the dinner tonight, at six o'clock sharp, with all of seated around the table holding hands, was enough to get me to move heaven and earth to finish it.
Oh, writing group, I love you, and I need you. Merry Christmas, darling writing group.
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