Despite my cheerful little-red-hen work ethic, I have now discovered that some jobs cannot be done alone.
I actually discovered this previously, when (if memory serves me rightly), I was editor-in-chief for one issue of our high school newspaper. Bad at delegating, I wrote every article, edited every article, did all the layout, all the production work, and then quit exhausted. That probably isn't literally true - how could it be? - but I do remember biting off far more than I could chew, because I didn't know how to get anybody else to chew it for me (a fairly disgusting analogy, but you get the point).
I realized yesterday that I cannot do this house-cleaning-out project alone. I do not have the strength to clean the Augean stables all by myself. So this afternoon I sent out an email inviting philosophy grad students who would like to earn some extra money this summer to come join me. Within two hours, eight had replied. More may yet respond. I have my crew!
Eight philosophy graduate students plus one valiant and desperate professor may be equal to Hercules. Here's hoping!
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Saturday, May 28, 2011
More than an Hour a Day
I named this blog "An Hour a Day" because almost everything that I have accomplished in my life professionally, I have accomplished by focusing my attention on it for just an hour a day. I wrote my dissertation in an hour a day. I published enough articles to earn tenure in an hour a day. And I wrote and published over forty books for children by writing for an hour a day.
But some jobs take more than an hour a day. When I was writing the Mason Dixon series last year under serious time constraints, trying to produce three 125-page manuscripts in less than six months, I had to write for two hours a day.
Now I am faced with the task of cleaning out a 3500-square-foot house filled with 20 years of accumulated clutter by an epic hoarder (not my house, fortunately!). I was trying to tackle it an hour a day: fill ten trash bags, haul them to the dumpster. But it isn't working. On that plan, the task will not get done in a decade, let alone by the time I leave for Indiana in August. Yesterday I worked on it for five hours, and no visible progress is discernible whatsoever. I am a wee bit discouraged.
But I still need to remember my time-tested life strategy principles. First of all, I DID make progress yesterday, however hideous the house still looks today. I filled an entire "six yard" dumpster to overflowing. That is a lot! It's true that many many more dumpsters will need to be filled, but I need to recognize and celebrate this first one. Whole (well, small) areas of garage floor are visible. That is something.
Today I am going to work at my desk at home for my needed hours of writing/working time until ten. And then I'll go face the Augean stables again. And if the five-hour-a-day plan becomes too onerous, well, I'll go out and hire a Hercules to divert Boulder Creek to pour through the house and wash all its contents away.
But for now, I'll go get my little notebook and make a page where I can record my daily progress. Entry number one: one dumpster filled and ready to haul away!
But some jobs take more than an hour a day. When I was writing the Mason Dixon series last year under serious time constraints, trying to produce three 125-page manuscripts in less than six months, I had to write for two hours a day.
Now I am faced with the task of cleaning out a 3500-square-foot house filled with 20 years of accumulated clutter by an epic hoarder (not my house, fortunately!). I was trying to tackle it an hour a day: fill ten trash bags, haul them to the dumpster. But it isn't working. On that plan, the task will not get done in a decade, let alone by the time I leave for Indiana in August. Yesterday I worked on it for five hours, and no visible progress is discernible whatsoever. I am a wee bit discouraged.
But I still need to remember my time-tested life strategy principles. First of all, I DID make progress yesterday, however hideous the house still looks today. I filled an entire "six yard" dumpster to overflowing. That is a lot! It's true that many many more dumpsters will need to be filled, but I need to recognize and celebrate this first one. Whole (well, small) areas of garage floor are visible. That is something.
Today I am going to work at my desk at home for my needed hours of writing/working time until ten. And then I'll go face the Augean stables again. And if the five-hour-a-day plan becomes too onerous, well, I'll go out and hire a Hercules to divert Boulder Creek to pour through the house and wash all its contents away.
But for now, I'll go get my little notebook and make a page where I can record my daily progress. Entry number one: one dumpster filled and ready to haul away!
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Walk the Walk
A few years ago there was a great outcry at the proposed closing of one of Boulder's branch libraries. I was all set to join with the others in writing an indignant letter to send to the newspaper, when the thought occurred to me: I had never actually BEEN to that branch; I had never used it even once in my then-fifteen years in Boulder.
Now, I'm not saying that you can or should protest only on behalf of causes that affect you directly. That would be to recommend a very insular and narcissistic view of what matters in the world.
But still: if this library was supposedly so important that I was ready to denounce those who would abandon it, why wasn't it important enough that I should actually GO there sometimes?
So my thought for today is: if we value something in our communities, we need to support them not only by our signatures on petitions to save them when they are threatened. We should support them by, well, supporting them when they still exist.
Yesterday, Kim and I supported two wonderful local treasures. I took Kim to my now-beloved Innisfree Poetry Bookstore and Cafe, and we didn't just browse the shelves and comment on how terrific it is that Boulder has one of three poetry-only bookstores in the entire USA. We bought three books. And then in the evening we went to a most delightful evening of jazz performed by CU faculty and students (including my own Gregory), as well as anyone else who wanted to drop in and jam with them. And we didn't just say how great it was, we had a most tasty light supper there and two most tasty glasses of wine.
And I must say that the poetry cafe was bustling, and the jazz evening was thronged. If all of us support what we love by making time and space to include it in our busy lives, maybe it will save us the sad effort of having to write letters protesting its cancellation.
Now, I'm not saying that you can or should protest only on behalf of causes that affect you directly. That would be to recommend a very insular and narcissistic view of what matters in the world.
But still: if this library was supposedly so important that I was ready to denounce those who would abandon it, why wasn't it important enough that I should actually GO there sometimes?
So my thought for today is: if we value something in our communities, we need to support them not only by our signatures on petitions to save them when they are threatened. We should support them by, well, supporting them when they still exist.
Yesterday, Kim and I supported two wonderful local treasures. I took Kim to my now-beloved Innisfree Poetry Bookstore and Cafe, and we didn't just browse the shelves and comment on how terrific it is that Boulder has one of three poetry-only bookstores in the entire USA. We bought three books. And then in the evening we went to a most delightful evening of jazz performed by CU faculty and students (including my own Gregory), as well as anyone else who wanted to drop in and jam with them. And we didn't just say how great it was, we had a most tasty light supper there and two most tasty glasses of wine.
And I must say that the poetry cafe was bustling, and the jazz evening was thronged. If all of us support what we love by making time and space to include it in our busy lives, maybe it will save us the sad effort of having to write letters protesting its cancellation.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Summer Fun
Despite two weeks - can it be? - of rain, and more predicted - despite its still being some days away from Memorial Day weekend, I'm pronouncing today to be the first day of summer here in Boulder. Because today is the day that my grade-school friend Kim arrives from New Jersey for several days of play. So far we haven't made any plans except for rest, relaxation, and what my sister, Cheryl, always calls "rebuilding our shattered health."
We may go to Caffe Sole tonight to hear their Monday night jazz, where my saxophonist son Gregory will be performing. Tomorrow night we have the meeting of my women's book group at my house, to discuss Jane Juska's hilarious and heart-rending memoir of the late-life search for love and sex, A Round-Heeled Woman. We'll do some hiking on the trails near my house, weather permitting. It is always a treat to take the bus to Denver, browse in the LoDo Tattered Cover bookstore, then take the free 16th shuttle across town and tour the Denver Art Museum, where right now paintings from the Italian Renaissance are on display, followed by lunch at darling Dozen's, tucked away in a charming old house. We'll stroll along Pearl Street, of course. And have a drink, or two, at the St. Julien hotel. And we'll talk, talk, talk, talk, and talk.
I think we may have enough fun to fill three days. Don't you think?
We may go to Caffe Sole tonight to hear their Monday night jazz, where my saxophonist son Gregory will be performing. Tomorrow night we have the meeting of my women's book group at my house, to discuss Jane Juska's hilarious and heart-rending memoir of the late-life search for love and sex, A Round-Heeled Woman. We'll do some hiking on the trails near my house, weather permitting. It is always a treat to take the bus to Denver, browse in the LoDo Tattered Cover bookstore, then take the free 16th shuttle across town and tour the Denver Art Museum, where right now paintings from the Italian Renaissance are on display, followed by lunch at darling Dozen's, tucked away in a charming old house. We'll stroll along Pearl Street, of course. And have a drink, or two, at the St. Julien hotel. And we'll talk, talk, talk, talk, and talk.
I think we may have enough fun to fill three days. Don't you think?
Friday, May 20, 2011
I Did It!
I gave - and survived - and enjoyed! - my first-ever poetry reading last night at the wonderful Innisfree Poetry Bookstore and Cafe here in Boulder.
Innisfree is one of only three poetry-only bookstores in the entire U.S. of A., and, amazingly, it has already almost tripled in size since its grand opening in January, expanding into the retail space next to it to extend its cafe and provide a lovely area for scheduled poetry readings and open mic nights. They host anybody who is brave enough to sign up to read, as well as poets of national reputation.
And last night they hosted me!
Five dear friends showed up to swell the audience, but the biggest surprise for me was that people showed up who didn't even know me. I'm so used to author events where nobody comes except my own hand-picked audience, and the kindly bookstore gentleman or lady. But strangers appeared! Poetry-loving strangers! And stayed for the whole reading! Just because they love poetry and want to support it!
I read for about 45 minutes, even sharing some of my juvenalia, my Dick Thistle love poems from junior high and high school, which I have to say aren't all that different in subject, voice, and level of poetic mastery from what I write now. I started out as a poet, took a forty-year break from it, and then returned to poetry four years ago, and it was like coming home to an old friend, or to my old self, or to my true self. The poems I read last night were confessional, filled with some heartbreak but also some humor. And yes, as promised, there were a few little erotic bits, too - that is the biggest difference between my recent poems and my high school efforts.
So I was brave, and I did it, and it was most satisfying. I'd do it again. Thank you, thank you, Innisfree!!
Innisfree is one of only three poetry-only bookstores in the entire U.S. of A., and, amazingly, it has already almost tripled in size since its grand opening in January, expanding into the retail space next to it to extend its cafe and provide a lovely area for scheduled poetry readings and open mic nights. They host anybody who is brave enough to sign up to read, as well as poets of national reputation.
And last night they hosted me!
Five dear friends showed up to swell the audience, but the biggest surprise for me was that people showed up who didn't even know me. I'm so used to author events where nobody comes except my own hand-picked audience, and the kindly bookstore gentleman or lady. But strangers appeared! Poetry-loving strangers! And stayed for the whole reading! Just because they love poetry and want to support it!
I read for about 45 minutes, even sharing some of my juvenalia, my Dick Thistle love poems from junior high and high school, which I have to say aren't all that different in subject, voice, and level of poetic mastery from what I write now. I started out as a poet, took a forty-year break from it, and then returned to poetry four years ago, and it was like coming home to an old friend, or to my old self, or to my true self. The poems I read last night were confessional, filled with some heartbreak but also some humor. And yes, as promised, there were a few little erotic bits, too - that is the biggest difference between my recent poems and my high school efforts.
So I was brave, and I did it, and it was most satisfying. I'd do it again. Thank you, thank you, Innisfree!!
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Drudgery
Back in the 1980s, I worked for a decade as an editor and staff writer for the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the University of Maryland. Our publications included a quarterly newsletter/journal (the same one I guest-edited last year), a book series, and a series of working papers that we published ourselves. To publish the working papers, we reproduced a single-spaced typed version of each one; to send the same papers off to the printer to appear in book or journal form, we needed a double-spaced version of the manuscript to facilitate editing. Our wonderful secretaries, Rachel and Robin, who remain two of my closest friends on this earth, would have to type each paper first in a single-spaced version and then again in a double-spaced version.
Now, of course, with computers, this intensive, wearying labor can be accomplished with the click of a key. And nowadays everyone writes papers directly onto the computer, so nobody ever has to type up someone else's handwritten script.
And yet, I still write my books long hand and love writing long hand, even though it means typing up my handwritten script - and squinting so hard at my tiny, scribbly writing (more of a shorthand than actual cursive) to try to figure out what I actually wrote down on the page. This is the writing process that I've had for the last three decades of being a published children's book author, and I'm not about to change it now. And it's what allows me to write anywhere - say, on a couch outdoors in Cabo, overlooking the sea - while others are chained to electrical outlets.
But this week I have to type EIGHTY pages of manuscript. Usually I write a chapter, type it up, write another, type it up. I don't have eight whole chapters to type in a row. Although I do some rethinking and editing as I go - the chapters do start to seem unnecessarily long, as I have to type every word of every one - it's basically sheer manual labor.
Once in the philosophy department, the chair asked me to take on some particularly dreary task, and I told him, "It just sounds like such drudgery." He said, "Oh, but you're so good at drudgery!"
I guess I am. I know enough to break it up - type half a chapter, eat an English muffin slathered with butter and orange marmalade - type the second half of the chapter, go for a walk with Rowan. Type a bit more, and then close my eyes and think of how happy I was writing these chapters by hand in Cabo.
And then type some more. And type some more....
Now, of course, with computers, this intensive, wearying labor can be accomplished with the click of a key. And nowadays everyone writes papers directly onto the computer, so nobody ever has to type up someone else's handwritten script.
And yet, I still write my books long hand and love writing long hand, even though it means typing up my handwritten script - and squinting so hard at my tiny, scribbly writing (more of a shorthand than actual cursive) to try to figure out what I actually wrote down on the page. This is the writing process that I've had for the last three decades of being a published children's book author, and I'm not about to change it now. And it's what allows me to write anywhere - say, on a couch outdoors in Cabo, overlooking the sea - while others are chained to electrical outlets.
But this week I have to type EIGHTY pages of manuscript. Usually I write a chapter, type it up, write another, type it up. I don't have eight whole chapters to type in a row. Although I do some rethinking and editing as I go - the chapters do start to seem unnecessarily long, as I have to type every word of every one - it's basically sheer manual labor.
Once in the philosophy department, the chair asked me to take on some particularly dreary task, and I told him, "It just sounds like such drudgery." He said, "Oh, but you're so good at drudgery!"
I guess I am. I know enough to break it up - type half a chapter, eat an English muffin slathered with butter and orange marmalade - type the second half of the chapter, go for a walk with Rowan. Type a bit more, and then close my eyes and think of how happy I was writing these chapters by hand in Cabo.
And then type some more. And type some more....
Monday, May 16, 2011
Poetry Reading By Me
In this year of prioritizing poetry, I got carried away a couple of months ago and blithely signed up to give a poetry reading at the Innisfree Poetry Bookstore and Cafe in Boulder. The date was so comfortably far away - this was back in February, I think, and May seemed an eternity in the future. Well, now the poetry reading is THIS THURSDAY, May 19th, at 7 p.m.
Gulp.
At the time, I didn't feel too daunted. There was just this signup sheet, and anybody could scrawl his or her name upon it. So I scrawled mine. But now that I'm on the email list for events at the store, I see that they have had some major talent on offer there, real professional published poets with all kinds of impressive credits to their name. And now they're getting me.
Gulp.
And the poems themselves - they're so personal, all about doomed love (the result of my now-abandoned project of making this the year to find love). They were lovely to send as little gifts to a few select women friends. But to read aloud? In public? To strangers? I am starting to understand why Emily Dickinson never came out of her house!
Anyway, I'm still doing it, and if you want to come on Thursday night to this wonderful little poetry bookstore, one of only three poetry-only bookstores in the USA, there I will be: 1203 13th Street Suite A - just across the street from the Sink.
Final warning: the poems have some "adult" content . Oh, this is so scary!!
Gulp.
At the time, I didn't feel too daunted. There was just this signup sheet, and anybody could scrawl his or her name upon it. So I scrawled mine. But now that I'm on the email list for events at the store, I see that they have had some major talent on offer there, real professional published poets with all kinds of impressive credits to their name. And now they're getting me.
Gulp.
And the poems themselves - they're so personal, all about doomed love (the result of my now-abandoned project of making this the year to find love). They were lovely to send as little gifts to a few select women friends. But to read aloud? In public? To strangers? I am starting to understand why Emily Dickinson never came out of her house!
Anyway, I'm still doing it, and if you want to come on Thursday night to this wonderful little poetry bookstore, one of only three poetry-only bookstores in the USA, there I will be: 1203 13th Street Suite A - just across the street from the Sink.
Final warning: the poems have some "adult" content . Oh, this is so scary!!
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