Last week I dug through some boxes of my grandmothers belongings that had been packed away for years in my parents’ basement.  I brought several beautiful dishes to light, including a set of delicate stemware each in a different vibrant color, a tea set of beautifully painted china, and two cups and saucers in floral patterns.

The crumpled newspapers that protected them from breaking date from the fall of 1977. The newsprint is yellowed, the dishes dusty and a bit grimy from the acidic paper.  As I washed them in preparation for display, I couldn’t help but think that these dishes are like the best aspects of many people—delicate and beautiful but wrapped and packed away.  At first they are hidden for safekeeping, but later because they are forgotten—out of sight and (mostly) out of mind.

The hardest lesson I’ve learned from dreamwork is to attempt to own my brighter gifts and talents.  My teacher calls this “Bright Shadow projection,” and the idea is that we often fail to recognize or acknowledge our greatest gifts, and are able to see them and admire them only in others.  Owning our gifts can be harder than owning our prejudices, because we have a cultural bias against being “too full of yourself” or boasting.  So we learn, usually very young, to tuck away our brightest lights into carefully packed boxes in our souls, and then sigh with unnamed yearning when we see our heroes shining with that same light.

In order to grapple with this process, I’ve made lists of qualities I admire in others, and then searched within to see where those qualities in me have been hidden.  It isn’t easy, but my dreams, and the dreams of my fellow dreamworkers, point us relentlessly in that direction.  For example, one of my friends recently dreamed of a man whose work he greatly admires.  In the dream the man sits at a table, teaching his followers, and there is an empty chair across from him.  The dreamer realizes that the chair has been empty for a while, and even though others are also standing, this chair is for the dreamer.

Of course, reclaiming and using our gifts can be a frightening process.  After all, we first packed them away in order to protect ourselves, maybe from others’ teasing, or jealousy, or anger.  But the effort it takes to ignore our truest selves can lead to exhaustion and depression.  Recognizing and reclaiming the talents I have has unlocked rooms of joy in my life.  When I’m truer to myself, I attract the people who truly resonate with me.  And I’m stronger now than I was when I first wrapped up those parts of me that seemed too big for the people around me to handle.  I have more knowledge of how to channel my gifts in ways that don’t overwhelm those near me.  And I have the enormous pleasure of seeing my friends embrace their own gifts.

Another dreamer recently reported the “billboard” message from one of her dreams as:  “To the extent that I choose suffering, I increase the suffering in the world.  To the extent that I choose joy, I increase the joy in the world.”  Unwrapping our hidden talents, while it may feel terrifying, leads to greater joy.  It makes us more whole as individuals.  And to the extent we make ourselves whole, we bring greater wholeness to the world.

There is a place at the table for  each of us.  The world needs our talents and gifts and art and creativity and problem-solving.  To keep our gifts wrapped in ancient newspaper is to deprive ourselves and the world of what is most needed.

Today’s post is by my friend Tim Shea.  His friendship and his words have helped me through many dark hours, and I’m honored to share his essay here.

As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.  (Prov. 23:7)

For thousands of years and in cultures around the world it has been universally understood that the inside, drives the outside.  That a person’s perception of who they are, what they are capable of, and their relative worth to the world will in large part determine the levels of success and happiness that they will know in their lives.  I have never met a successful man who was not also a confident man.  I have never met a resolved, determined woman, who did not eventually realize her goals.  Conversely, a person with low or poor self-esteem, has very little chance of realizing great success in this life.  The two states are mutually exclusive.  Countless books have been written on the subject of the causal relationship between self-perception and success, and with good reason.  Virtually no one would argue this point.  And yet many are the people who at one time knew success and happiness, and now find themselves in a state of confusion, at best, and despair at worst, wondering what happened, and wondering whether, or even if they can climb back out and return to their former, happier state.

Do you know who our friends are?  Do you know who the people are in our lives that we must cherish?  Who we must hang onto for dear life?  They are those people who can look into our eyes and remind us of who we once were.  Of whom we once, long ago, or perhaps, not so long ago, might have become had we stayed on the path that we were following back when they knew us.   Those who can make us recall that spark of divinity that lies within each of us, which in some way set us apart from everyone else once upon a time.  That spark that in some way made us special, even if it was only for a while, and even if it was only in some obscure and insignificant way.  Everyone at one time or another has had a brush with greatness.  Everyone at some time surprised themselves and came close to realizing their potential.  Came close to knowing how good or even great they could actually be.  Our friends remember it, and they help us remember it.

Life can be very hard on dreams.  Life can take people who at one time were full of hope, curiosity, determination, confidence and perseverance, and wear them down to the point where they find themselves living in that wasteland where dreams go to die and disappointment and regret flourish like weeds in an abandoned lot.  People can become worn down to the point where they actually have come to believe that the divinity they once manifested was no more than a fluke or a happy accident.  That in fact, the true spark of the divine wasn’t really ever there.   This almost never happens overnight.  That would be too easy to explain away.  Too easy to bounce back from.  No, the kinds of things that cause people to lose their way happen very slowly.  They are insidious.  They start lightly.  Faintly.  Almost imperceptibly.  Then, a bad break here, a bad decision there, inactivity at a time that there should be massive activity, and things begin to change.  With each passing wave of failure, however slight, a little piece of the shore of confidence is washed away.  From the undertow of doubt, the foundations of competency and success slip away into the seas of mediocrity and a once sturdy and secure beachhead slowly begins to crumble.  This can take years to happen.  In fact, it usually does.  And there is a proportional relationship between the amount of time it takes to happen, and the amount of time that it takes to return to our starting place, if, in fact, we can return at all.

However, some of us have been richly blessed.  Some of us have people in our lives who are not content to allow us to continue to live in that dark place that we have carved out for ourselves.  That place, that on the surface seems rather innocuous.  Rather unremarkable.  In fact, quite like the place that the majority of the world lives in.  The place that many of our parents called home.  That so many of our friends call home.  The place from which the cynics, the doubters, the jaded, the disappointed and the heartbroken, tell those of us who dare to hope for something better, that there is, in fact, nothing better.  That this is as good as it gets, and that we would do well to make our peace with it as soon as possible.   Our friends are those brave souls who venture into that place, and take us by the hand, and remind us of who we are.  They remind us of what we once were, and what we could be again.   They appeal to our true selves.   They call us back into the battle with exhortations of reliving past glory, of recommitting to a hope and a destiny reserved especially for us.  They beckon to the best that is in us, and they call it forth, believing that it is still there almost as though they can see it.  They look into our eyes and they remember who we once were.  They act as a lighthouse for us.  A beacon on which we can fix our gaze, and then follow into a safe and familiar harbor.

These people are our friends.  These people are the heroes of our lives.  These are the people to cherish.  They rarely give us something we didn’t  already have.  They just reach in and help us find what we misplaced.  They help us dust it off, and set it aright.  And you know what the best part is?  They actually want us to believe that we did it ourselves.  They won’t take credit for their part in breathing life back into our souls.  For restoring hope.  They won’t even share it.  But we, who have been on that journey, know better.  We who have been to that dark place, and are leaving it behind, know better.  Some of us are still making our way out.   Some of us are well on our way.  Wherever we are on the journey back, and in whatever way we were touched, we know.  We all know.  And we are forever grateful.

“Squid wrestling: all tentacles and no substance.” Sleep Talkin Man

As a dream worker, I find it fascinating to try to understand what dreams mean. Images that arise in sleep talk are little jewels of dreams, which can be explored in the same way as longer, more involved dreams. I discovered Sleep Talkin Man because all of a sudden, several people brought the blog to my attention…friends on Facebook, and other dream workers. When I saw the post quoted above, at first I just had a good laugh, which is a sure sign that there’s a nugget of truth in it. But then I began to wonder what that nugget of truth would be. After all, I have no plans to literally wrestle squid.

As I considered the symbol as a metaphor, the first thing that came to mind is that this is exactly what it’s like for me to wrestle with my grief. All tentacles and no substance. Since my last blog post, my mother-in-law decided she’d had enough of her multi-year fight against cancer, and died peacefully in her sleep. After losing my mother seven months earlier, the grief was familiar, yet different. I didn’t have the prolonged fog or sense of unreality, but I did find that I could sleep as long as I was allowed, including multi-hour naps during the day. At first, sadness mixed with relief that her suffering was over, but as the days wore on, the relief faded and the sadness took over.

Every little reminder, mostly unexpected, raises tears. Today, it was the bulky white envelope in the mailbox. Seen from the end, in the stack of other mail, it resembled the sort of envelope my mother-in-law would send, stuffed with photos and clippings and a cheerful note. Each of these reminders grips me in its tentacles and I have no choice but to live through the rise of emotion.

Yet there’s nothing of substance to grab onto. There’s no physical being to wrestle to the ground, no actual tentacle to peel off my skin. Instead, there’s just the acknowledgement that loving someone creates deep and lasting ties, and even when the other person is gone from this earth, the habits of those ties remain in our hearts and minds. People say that time will heal my grief, and they may be right. But I know, from watching my mom get teary when she spoke of her dad, decades after his death, that the tentacles never really let go.

I didn’t expect the undertow to be this strong when the first wave of grief receded.

Six weeks ago, the first tsunami of my grief for Mom overtook me. I developed bronchitis, a back ache, fatigue. I took to bed as much as possible, and I dragged around at half energy, or less, for more than a month. Around me, the undone tasks accumulated—housework and paperwork, correspondence and processing photos. I walked along the bottom of the ocean, in company with my grief.

The profound depths of it astonished me. Mom’s death was not unexpected; I’d had years of grieving for her declining health. I’d gotten through the initial sense of dislocation and fog and pain, planned her memorial and even overcome my anxiety about singing in public to sing with my sister at the service.

And then it all hit, and I sank. I struggled with physical ill health and the enormity of the loss. My family remained an anchor, though my loss of spirit affected them all.

After more than a month, and two weeks of antibiotics, I felt like I’d come up for air. Much better, inspired by a new story, energized by a professional critique, I wrote like mad for several days and felt like I’d bounced back.

Bounced was right—now I’m plunging down again. At least I caught my breath.

Sixteen days after my mom’s death, I wrote this pantoum:

Generations

My first daughter is learning to drive.
But, my mother has died.
I’m practicing to sing in her service,
Honoring the loved one with a lullaby.

But, my mother has died.
How can I sing without a cry?
Honoring the loved one with a lullaby
I am blessed with a glimpse of her.

How can I sing without a cry?
The woman I knew returns to earth and sky.
I am blessed with a glimpse of her
In a memory, implanted in my heart.

The woman I knew returns to earth and sky.
I imagine her spirit dancing in ease.
In a memory, implanted in my heart,
I breathe the scent of her.

I imagine her spirit dancing in ease
And bless her journey.
I breathe the scent of her;
I consider how I am me because of her,

And bless her journey.
Her place is now with the ancestors.
I consider how I am me because of her,
And I’m dreaming of who my daughters will be.

Her place is now with the ancestors.
I’m practicing to sing in her service,
And I’m dreaming of who my daughters will be.
My first daughter is learning to drive.

A friend asked me for advice on getting started with a gluten-free, casein-free diet.  I’ve been following a gluten-free diet for over a year now, and while I’m not strictly casein-free, I don’t eat much dairy.  I decided that some of the links and resources I’ve found might be helpful to other people as well, so here they are.

For lots of information, you can start at http://www.celiac.com/ or http://www.glutenfree.com/home.aspx though it might be an overwhelming amount of information if you’re just getting started.

After trying a number of bread recipes (with all the various flours that are needed to replace wheat flour) to make home-made bread, we’ve found the best gluten-free sandwich bread is made by Udi’s. http://www.udisfood.com/glutenfree.php It’s expensive compared to wheat bread, but if you’re needing a sandwich or a piece of toast, it’s very tasty.

We make our own breakfast cereal using oats from http://www.glutenfreeoats.com/ and their recipe for “Meusli.” http://www.glutenfreeoats.com/recipes.aspx#Muesli We make a double batch and store it in airtight containers.  EnviroKidz makes some kid-friendly gluten-free cereals, too.  http://www.envirokidz.com/food

We also like Glutino products—their “vegetable” flavor crackers make an emergency pizza substitute—my daughter dollops a little tomato sauce on each cracker, sprinkles it with cheese, and cooks it in the microwave for 15 seconds or so.  http://www.glutino.com/content/view/27/45/

Kinnikinnick also makes some tasty gluten-free treats, like their “Oreo” style cookie.  http://consumer.kinnikinnick.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/consumer.home.html

For birthday cakes, we usually make brownies.  By far the best mix we’ve found is by Namaste Foods.  http://www.namastefoods.com

For a lot of recipes, check out http://glutenfreeonashoestring.com/ though if you’re casein-free as well, you’ll have to pick and choose.

A couple of books we’ve found helpful are Gluten Free Cooking for Dummies and The Kid-Friendly Food Allergy Cookbook by Leslie Hammond and Lynne Marie Rominger.

Half of our family is gluten-free, and the other half isn’t.  We cook two pots of pasta and prepare the sauce separately, and then combine them individually according to taste.  We eat a lot of meals that have no wheat in them at all, like beans & rice, meat and potatoes, or baked tofu.  We make our own soup stock, since almost all canned soups have gluten in them, but we make big batches of stock and keep it in the freezer, so it’s not a problem to put together a soup at the last minute.  For pancakes and waffles, we usually use a prepared gluten-free mix and use rice milk or soy milk rather than dairy.  It’s a different taste, but once you put syrup on it, it doesn’t matter much.  We like Bob’s Red Mill mixes. http://www.bobsredmill.com/gluten-free/

It is often more expensive to buy gluten-free products, but we’ve found it totally worthwhile in terms of improved health.  I’d rather spend that money at the grocery store than at the doctor’s office (which doesn’t even solve the problem).  And our local King Soopers and our Sunflower Market carry a wide variety of products, so we don’t have to shop at Whole Paycheck.

I’m always interested in recipes and resources that people find helpful, so please feel free to comment!

Tilki

On Monday, my feline companion of twenty years died. She came to me as a grown cat in May of 1989, the day after my grandmother died. She was injured, with a back leg at an angle and a big open wound on the joint. Obviously underfed, she was still magnificent, with her long fox-red fur and fluffy tail. I already had a cat, the overfed, overly fearful, middle-aged Tasha, so I kept the newcomer outside, but offered her some food. Then I called my vet to ask if there was anything I might do for the wound. She said I could clean it with some hydrogen peroxide, but warned me to be very careful, because it might sting and the stray might bite me. I gathered the supplies and very gently began cleaning. The new cat purred and purred and held very still as I tended her. How could I turn her away after that?

Her introduction to Tasha went well for a few minutes, then the new cat hissed and scratched and Tasha hid. They were never friends, but they established a truce. I began hunting for a name, and found Tilki, which is Turkish for fox. Perfect. I discovered that she liked melon, and preferred to drink from dripping faucets, and when I took her to the vet, found out that she’d probably been hit by a car and her fractured leg bone had already mended, though a bit crooked. She always had a bit of an odd gait, though she didn’t let it slow her down. The vet estimated her age as one year, based on her teeth.

Tilki escaped outside whenever possible, but always came back when she got hungry. She doled out affection so that we began to call the cuddle times “Tilki moments.” She’d sit on a lap for a minute or less, and then move away to be on her own. She loved to have me pick her up, and would purr loudly for a few moments, and then lean out, ready to get down again.

She gathered, like all beloved cats, many names. She soon became Tilki-toes, and my Native American roommate called her Blackfoot, because one of her back legs was black from the ankle down, while the others were tawny. Later, my husband called her Trickster. And Tilkster.

After I married, my husband and I decided to adopt a kitten, so Tilki would have someone nearer her own age to play with, and with any luck would leave off harassing Tasha. We soon learned of a kitten that had been found by a friend, who was headed the next day for the Humane Society. We took him in. Though his black and white markings could have easily earned him the name Tuxedo, his too-big ears and tiny head made him look more like Yoda. Though he started small and starving, his enormous appetite and disinterest in the outside world helped Yoda grow into a strapping 16 3/4 pound adult, much bigger than Tilki.

Yoda

Yet she always ruled him. She was the cleverer one, the fiercer one, the Great Hunter. Yoda, by contrast, preferred a lap and a snooze. We lived at the time next door to a man who rarely mowed the grass on his large lot. One day Tilki appeared at our screen door wild-eyed. The bottom third of the door had a metal kick plate, and she stood on her hind legs to look into the room. Her alarm got my attention, and when I went to open the door, discovered a mole beside her. In the spirit of sharing, or pride, she’d brought it home for me to see.

She used a few more of her lives during her adventures. Once someone kicked her abdomen and she had to spend several days in the dark and quiet while her diaphragm healed. She forever after had a mortal terror of big trucks and workmen. She developed an abscess from a cat fight that went undetected by our house-sitter while we were out of town, and by the time we got home and I raced her to the vet, she was very, very ill. She had, especially in her younger years when I lived on the frugal budget of a grad student, the curious knack of needing urgent vet care right after I’d received my tax refund.

She must have been a yogi in a previous life, for she loved to get on the floor with anyone doing yoga. We could be on the floor for any other reason—a nap or a card game or playing with the kids—and she’d ignore us. But yoga drew her and she’d weave around us purring. Sometimes she’d wash my hair as it hung down from a pose like Downward Facing Dog.

She outlived both Tasha and Yoda, and at eighteen had surgery to remove a basal cell carcinoma from her chin. The vet tech couldn’t believe she was so old. The surgery slowed her down quite a bit—perhaps another life spent. But she still found energy to run across the yard to me, and to travel to whichever neighbor’s yard had the sprinklers going. She would sit in a sprinkler for ten or twenty minutes, washing her fur every so often, and then washing for a long time afterward. I suspect she liked the source of running water. Even a few weeks ago, I caught her returning from a morning venture two houses away where the sprinklers were on, her fur wet.

She often walked into our shower and waited for someone to come turn it on. She’d let me spray her down completely, and then purred when I wrapped her in a towel and dried her off. She also understood English. When I’d waited long enough holding the door open, I would ask, “Are you waiting for the engraved invitation?” and then she would walk into the house. Once, at a party, she tried drinking from a guest’s water glass. I told Tilki that I’d get her some water in the kitchen, and before I could move she jumped down from her perch and started toward the kitchen.

As she grew older, her “moments” grew longer, and she would drape herself over my shoulder when I held her, or would reach up with her front paw to touch my cheek. She slept more and more in her spot on the purple couch, ignoring the squirrels in the tree outside the window.

At the end, she wanted me to hold her constantly. For three days she would seek me out when I went to sleep in my own bed rather than beside her. During her last night, she wouldn’t settle unless she lay against me or on me, our hearts only centimeters apart. Farewells are never easy, but she made it clear to me, as I’d asked her to, that her time had come. Over the last couple of years she’d dropped from her top weight of 13 pounds to her final weight of 4 1/2. I could feel every spur of every bone beneath her fur and skin. She couldn’t keep her balance, and she ate very little. Fresh water, though, she’d still lap down. As her eyes grew more unfocused I doubted that she really saw me, but I trust that she knew I was there.

With her passing, there’s a soft hole in my heart, awakened whenever my gaze travels over her usual haunts—the purple couch, the heat vent where she’d sit in the winter, her food and water station in the kitchen, her favorite sunning spot outside. One day, I expect, a kitten or some adult stray might come along and fill up the space she left behind, but there will never be another Tilki.

I recently led a writing workshop at my daughter’s school, and one of the fifth graders said, “I understand that to be a good writer you have to read a lot. Is there one book that influenced your writing more than any other?”

I answered without hesitation. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. This book has poetry on every page. Any writer interested in overcoming cliché should read this book. Zusak is a master of the unexpected metaphor. The setting—Nazi Germany—made me hesitate to read it at first, since I find that period of history deeply disturbing. But Zusak makes it worth the trip.

Sometimes it takes me a while to come to the books that everyone’s raving about. The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger, was worth the wait. As a writer, I kept imagining the sticky notes and timelines Niffenegger might have used to keep it all straight in her head. How she presented such a complicated narrative so smoothly is part of the magic of writing. The characters come across as authentic human beings, despite the oddness of their lives.

I was also slow on the uptake with The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski. The writing in this book drew me in—it’s evocative and poetic, and the first chapter that is written from Almondine’s point of view is one of the most moving pieces of prose I’ve ever read. However, this book reminded me why I prefer Young Adult literature to that written for adults. Even in tragedies, I hope for some redemption, and I didn’t find it here.

Jeannette Walls’ memoir, The Glass Castle, has one of the most gripping first lines of any memoir I’ve ever read. And from that first sentence, Walls never lets the reader go. Her story drew me in even as I cringed at the poverty and tough times she endured as a kid. The unflinching honesty and the survival of the family’s love make this an incredibly powerful book.

In lighter fare, I devoured The Mortal Instruments trilogy by Cassandra Clare. City of Bones, City of Ashes, and City of Glass all provide a fast-paced read, alternating humor and suspense. My library classified these as horror, but I’d call them dark fantasy. Clare captures the voices of her teen characters and weaves a complicated plot with a satisfying payoff.

Bones of Faerie, by Janni Lee Simmer, starts with an interesting premise and weaves elements of the known world into a near-future that looks very little like the present. Though the back jacket copy bills it as a young adult book, this is really for middle grade readers. The plot is fairly simple, but the world building will draw readers in.

Judy Blundell’s What I Saw and How I Lied evokes post-World War II America with a compelling plot and complex characters. The protagonist deals with situations that teens today will understand—falling in love, getting a new perspective on her parents—but also deals with prejudices and situations particular to her time.

Silver Phoenix, by Cindy Pon, masterfully paints a historical world with the perfect amount of detail and information. The book blends history and fantasy, but the fantasy is tied in so tightly with the world that it works as a seamless whole. Though she struggles with the sexism of her world, Ai Ling is a strong young woman with a lot of ingenuity.

As a family we recently aloud Thirteenth Child, by Patricia C. Wrede, because her books make delightful read-alouds. This one kept everyone’s attention and made us laugh aloud. The alternate American history was perhaps less accessible to the kids than the adults, who had more understanding of the history this was based on and so could see the places of divergence more clearly. Some of the references were confusing for the kids, but those moments didn’t stand in the way of them enjoying the story.

Every year, those dedicated writers in Colorado Springs pull together one of the very best, friendliest conferences in the country. This year, my twelfth as an attendee, was no exception. Where else can you meet a neuroscientist studying math anxiety, fugitives from oppressive regimes around the world, and people who talk with the dead all in the same weekend?

The conference offered a new opportunity this year, which was the optional Thursday session. I attended Linda Rohrbough’s workshop on Tools the Pros Use. She provided such a wealth of ideas, tools, and websites that I expect it to take weeks to explore all the resources in her handout. I loved the instruction to talk about our work to people we didn’t know. It was great practice for the pitches that came later in the weekend. My friend Janet Fogg attended the marketing track, where certain volunteers agreed to be videotaped discussing their work. You can see a delightfully humorous example on YouTube.

Friday brought the usual Read and Critique sessions. This year, I went to the R&C 123 style session for the first time. A panel consisting of an agent, an editor, and a professional author offer their first takes on the first pages submitted by members of the audience. I like this style better than the old style, because the pages are anonymous and are read by a volunteer other than the author. It takes a lot of the pressure off. So I turned in the first page of a work still in the early stages, and did get valuable feedback from Ginger Clark, Jeffrey Deaver, and Rose Hilliard.

The Flash Fiction workshop was fun, of course. With Bret Wright and Deb Courtney leading it, how could it be anything else? I wrote a couple of pieces in the workshop, but wasn’t inspired by the prompt for the on-site contest this year, so didn’t enter. I did love the winning entry, announced on Sunday, and the fact that the winner usually writes non-fiction! It just goes to show how flexible our minds can be if we don’t box them up.

Friday night’s dinner speech by James N. Frey offered a lot of food for thought about the power of words. It was an excellent reminder for those of us wielding words as a daily practice, which would be anyone who talks or writes. Take good care with those weapons, folks.

The children’s writers gathered again but the fun police didn’t bust us this year, probably because the party ended pretty early. We’re all getting older, maybe, or maybe it was because we didn’t have some of the usual suspects at the conference this year to get us really rollicking. But we still had great fun.

It was probably just as well we ended early, because my pitch started at 9:00 the next morning. I talked with Ginger Clark and even did a bit of impromptu dream work with her. You just never know where you’ll find some connection with a person. Thanks, Ginger, for your graciousness and your time.

Having a pitch right in the middle of the first session meant that I missed the whole thing, though I did enjoy talking with Jodi Anderson, Christian Marcus Lyons, Margaret Yang, Frank Dorchak, and Ceil Boyles just before and after the pitch.

For the second and third sessions I attended Deborah LeBlanc’s paranormal panels. She’s a magnificent speaker, so if you ever get the chance to hear her talk about her work or read from her books, you should certainly do it. Since I’ve had my own experiences with poltergeists and strange phenomena, I enjoyed her stories of ghost encounters in her work. I’m still not persuaded by the demonstration of the Ghost Box, though. One of my friends who also attended the session, called it a Rorschach test of sorts, where the human mind, predisposed to find meaning in randomness, searches for patterns. Still, it was very interesting and led to some fascinating discussions later in the weekend.

I took a break from workshops on Saturday afternoon, when my family arrived. They came to cheer for me at the awards banquet that evening. As one of the contest finalists, I had the fun of gathering before dinner to have photos taken with Jodi Anderson, the emcee for the weekend, as well as a group photo with all the other winners. Then we snuck in the side entrance to reserve seats at the designated tables, so that we’d all be close to the front when called up to receive our awards. I was particularly honored to hold an entire table for the people who wanted to sit there–members of my family and critique groups. Of course, we had friends at other tables too, so had lots of chances to clap and cheer. I offer congratulations to all the winners, but especially those I know–Ceil Boyles, Sherrie Peterson, Christian Marcus Lyons, and Yat-Yee Chong. The dinner speech by Jeffrey Deaver kept us all laughing, even my kids. Brilliant.

By Sunday, I wondered if I could possibly absorb any more fun or information. Still, I sat outside Deborah LeBlanc’s session on creating unforgettable characters because her audience overflowed the tiny room she was in. I love listening to her. I also attended Linda Seger’s session on Expressing the Theme. She’s such a knowledgeable presenter that I bought recordings of the sessions she’d offered that I had missed.

Lunch provided the chance to discuss everything from paranormal experience to “octo-mom”. Of course, getting pregnant with eight babies at once is kind of paranormal, so maybe that was all the same discussion. I had to leave before the luncheon speaker, though I’ve heard Barbara Samuel before so I’m certain I missed a wonderful talk.

Instead, I left with my family to go up to Who Else! Books in Denver. Nina and Ron Else were charming hosts for my first signing. We had six authors, the cover artist, and the publisher of Space Sirens there. I had the chance to read an excerpt from “The Silver Snake,” and to sign my story for friends and strangers. Thanks to everyone who was there. It capped the weekend perfectly. It’s been a long, long road from the first time I submitted a manuscript to a publisher back in 1985 to my first book-signing yesterday. As Laura Resnick put it at the luncheon on Saturday at Pikes Peak, fiction writers are the “endurance athletes of the imagination.”

It’s April, and a writer’s fancy turns to poetry, and the Pikes Peak Writers Conference. Poetry first, since that started today. If you loved Nanowrimo (which I did), you may also want to take on the Poem a Day challenge at Robert Lee Brewer’s blog at the Writer’s Digest site: http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/CategoryView,category,Poetry%20Challenge%202009.aspx
Robert provides a prompt each day, and poets can post their poems in the comments area. Since one of my friends has recently adopted a poem-a-day practice with wonderful results, I thought this would be a great way to try it for a month. I always love writing to prompts, and the incentives offered through the PAD challenge make it even more fun.

But when I’m not thinking about poems, I’m thinking about Pikes Peak. This will be my twelfth time attending the conference, which makes me one of the old-timers. Every year I get something new out of the conference. Last year, I had the enormous fun of learning about flash fiction from Bret Wright, and then of winning the on-site flash fiction contest with this story, for which the prompt was “They said it couldn’t be done”:

Mona’s First Thanksgiving

Fifteen people invited for Thanksgiving. Mona’s white apron, perfectly pressed. Pies finished yesterday, bread baked. Turkey in the oven.
Mona gloats. They said it couldn’t be done, but Mona is confident in her housewifely skills.
The house is clean, the Wedgwood china sparkling.
Guests arrive, find their seats. Mona brings the food to the table. Father lifts the knife to carve the turkey.
The knife stops on ice.
Mona forgot to defrost.

This year, I’ll get to celebrate making the finals in the YA category of the Pikes Peak Writing Contest, with my story Drift Bones. (It’s the sequel to Bone Temple.) Plus there’s a new Thursday session, so I can enjoy the conference for a whole extra day. And the usual line-up of fantastic writers, editors, and agents coming to share their knowledge. And the parties. We’ll see if we can party quietly enough this year not to get busted by the fun police. Hah.

I hope to see you there.
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I’ve been thinking a lot about voice lately. Writers, editors, and agents talk about voice in a story, but most have a hard time defining exactly what they mean. But they know it when they hear it, they say. Some of voice has to do with mood, and word choice, and the attitude of the characters, but some of it is indefinable.

As it is with human voices. I’ve recently had the opportunity to hear a lot of young people singing. Children from the ages of 10 to 18 have been performing at area schools, and I’m struck by how some can carry a tune and have a pure tone, but don’t really stand out. Others have power and personality in addition to the right pitch. What’s the difference? Confidence, maybe, or training. But clearly there is a difference between human voices, even if they’re singing exactly the same thing.

I’ve heard some writers say that you don’t find your own voice as a writer until you’ve written hundreds of thousands of words. That’s where the training and the confidence come in. Like anything else, it takes practice. Of course, there are writers who find a voice right off the bat. Ingrid Law’s Savvy comes to mind. So maybe there’s also something about natural talent, just like the young singers.

And, I think the writing voice has a lot in common with vocal performance, in that the author steps into the character of the whole story, and then into the different characters within the story. For instance, my story “The Silver Snake,” has a very different voice from “Wolf Dream.” The two stories required different voices because their settings, themes, and moods were so different.

I’d love to hear your favorite examples of voice in writing!