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.

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.

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.
(more…)

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!

It’s been over a week now, and I’m starting to emerge from the Nanowrimo headspace. The goal was 50,000 words in a month, which I reached on November 26th. I kept writing, though, because the story had me in its clutches by then. On the 28th, I thought I was done. But two more scenes rattled around in my head all night, and I wrote one each on the following two days. On the 30th, there it was, a completed first draft of Birdie’s Journal.

This week I’ll read it over, because I’ve already had ideas on things I want to fix and straighten and deepen. And because I’m not really ready to leave the characters behind. Usually I take much longer to write my first drafts, and so get more time with the story floating along in my head as my alternate reality of choice. Nanowrimo was a faster and more intense acquaintance, too soon over.

Writing a first draft is always more than a little magic: how the unconscious mind places little hints and moments early on that become crucial later, how the story threads intertwine, and, in the case of Nanowrimo, how the story exactly filled up the allotted writing time. Most of the time it feels like I’m not really the creative agent, but rather that I just show up and open the tap and make myself available to take dictation.

Week two of Nanowrimo is drawing to a close. I’m at 23,045 words on Birdie’s Journal, which is slightly ahead of the strict schedule of 1667 words a day. It’s been an exhilarating process so far, though I can imagine that if I hadn’t done my page-a-day for so long already it would be more intense. The idea is to let that first draft out without any editing at all, but I can’t resist tweaks here and there. It doesn’t slow me down much.

Never having done this before, I didn’t really know what to expect. There have been several pleasant surprises along the way. One is the mood boost I’ve gotten from writing so much. Rather than exhausting me, the process seems to rev me up. The second surprise was the collection of fun pep talks. So far, in addition to those from Nanowrimo’s founding father, Chris Baty, I’ve received messages from Phillip Pullman, Jonathan Stroud, and Katherine Paterson. Where else can you get free writing advice from the bigwigs? The third surprise has been the forums. Now, I’ve begun to appreciate that the forums could be the biggest procrastination tool of the whole process. Thousands upon thousands of messages await. But I posted a question and have received several thoughtful and insightful responses. I’m grateful to my fellow Wrimos for taking the time to share their experiences with me.

I doubt that the novel will be done at 50,000 words, but I see its shape more clearly than I usually do at this point in a story. So, a big tip of the hat to Chris Baty and his dedicated team.

This week may top all others in immensity of psychic energy experienced, used, and drained away. Election day I volunteered as a monitor at the local school where two precincts were voting, and then did a shift as a runner, taking food out to poll watchers and bringing back the lists of folks who still might need reminding to go vote. That night provided a huge catharsis for the tension, hope, anxiety, yearning, and work of the campaign season. Barack Obama’s speech, the footage of Jesse Jackson in tears, the crowds of joyous Americans…I’m so very grateful that I lived to see the day. I appreciated the seriousness of Obama’s speech, the lack of cheap promises for easy fixes. His eloquence, as always, touched my heart. The next day, I thought more about what having Michelle Obama as a first lady will mean to this country. During the campaign, I received a recorded call from her, and was impressed by the measured cadence of her voice, the calm that she evoked. Thank you, America, for making this possible.

The Saturday before the election, I started Nanowrimo. I’d never signed up in previous years, because it seemed silly to churn out yet another first draft to sit among the other first drafts that have piled up over the years, awaiting their turns at thorough editing. But this year, I had a dream that, when I worked it with some friends, pointed me clearly toward writing the novel I’d been toying with starting. (The dream also had layers about the election, all entwined together as dream symbols so often are.) So I figured I’d give it a try. After all, it wouldn’t be so different from what I’ve been doing for nine years, right? The pages would just pile up faster.

Actually, so far, that’s turned out to be true. My writing sessions take longer, of course, since I’m writing about five or six times as much per day as my previous minimum. But it’s not the first time I’ve had work pour through me this steadily, and this novel is truly begging to be written. Today, I worked the dream again with Jeremy Taylor, and found more affirmation that writing the novel is the right thing to be doing now, in part because its themes tie in deeply with the question of race in America. I’m so very grateful that two intelligent, well-spoken, responsible individuals will be our next president and first lady. And I’m grateful, in the way I was grateful when the Berlin Wall fell, that a historic barrier has finally crumbled. I am hopeful that Barack and Michelle can, by being themselves, erode the negative projections that we’ve historically visited on people with African ancestry in this country. Though, as I write that, I’m reminded that if we go back far enough in our human ancestry, we all have our roots in that rich continent.

I hope I can grasp hold of my own squirmy projections long enough to dissect them in the writing of this novel. I hope that this process shines light on my own shadows and brings to conscious awareness any unconscious prejudices I still lug around. Jeremy Taylor suggested that I consider the following: How have I been changed by this prodigious effort to conjure non-material truth and put it on the page?

Making myself available to the story comes easily now, after all the years of practice. Understanding how the story changes me is a new, unfamiliar idea. It’s an effort that I would be wise to make in regards to the election of our new president, as well. How does this new story for America change me, and how does it change our collective understanding of who we are as a nation?

I just heard from my dear friend, Janet Fogg, that her novel, Soliloquy, had received a contract offer. I’ll wait to divulge details until the deal is done, but I’m too excited to just sit on it. For seventeen and a half years, Janet and I have been part of a critique group together. Once a month, we’ve brought our chapters and our comments, shared our hopes and provided support. And laughs, lots of laughs.

Robert A. Johnson, the Jungian analyst, offers the idea of the”slender threads” that shape our lives. The moments, meetings, and little shifts that may not seem to have much portent at the time, but as we look back in our lives, we see how crucial they’ve been. Meeting Janet, in a Lifelong Learning class on How to Get Published, was one of those pivotal moments. Carol Cail, the instructor, told the class we might want to find or form a critique group in order to help each other along the way. Janet and I agreed to start one, and a couple other students joined in as well. But the group shrunk, and Janet and I added new members, my sister Karen, my best friend’s mom, Shirley, my niece Zhenille, and finally our token male, Paul. And the group coalesced.

Over these seventeen years, I’ve watched Janet’s writing grow, have witnessed the droughts when her “real” job took over all her time, and have leaned heavily on her and the rest of the group when my own disappointments seemed enough to make me want to stop writing altogether. When I was at my lowest ebb, and announced one night at dinner that I intended to quit writing, my husband asked if that meant I was going to stop going to critique group. It was unimaginable to me that I would give it up. That slender thread had become a sturdy safety line.

So Janet’s great news is great news for me, too. Three cheers to success! It’s definitely time to stop and have a party!

Watching Barack Obama’s speech at the DNC, I couldn’t help but slip into awe at the power of words, especially when delivered by a gifted orator. Thoughts carefully expressed, even complex thoughts, can persuade and inspire. My ten-year-old was as engrossed as I was in the speech, and discussed it with me afterward. Oh, to have a president who can use language so eloquently that he can communicate to children and adults. What a gift that would be for the United States and the world, to resort to words instead of guns when conflicts arise.

Rather than the President of Malapropism, we could have the President of Eloquence.

I was also struck by the power of words at an entirely different event in Denver earlier in August–the World Science Fiction Convention. I’d never been to this particular Con before, and was mildly disappointed not to see Klingons. There were plenty of folks in costume, but mostly it was just normally dressed people there to hear and meet their favorite authors and filmmakers. My favorite panel was the one with Lois McMaster Bujold, Patricia Wrede, and Lillian Stewart Carl, who discussed their long friendship and enduring writer’s circle. It never ceases to amaze me how writers love to support other writers with their enthusiasm and feedback. Here’s a tip of the hat to the Uff das, CLC, and The Wild Folk of the West, who have all kept me going even when words are hard to come by.