Tag: writing

I’ve Been Outed

My deepest, darkest shortcomings have been outed yet again by someone sharper and more insightful than me.

To be fair, I did submit one short story to a competition in the past year.

It did bupkis in the contest but the editor/readers did say good things about my submission. It did encourage me to submit to other contests.

That’s something, I guess.

“I have a young friend who dreams of becoming a novelist, but he never seems to be able to complete his work.

According to him, his job keeps him too busy, and he can never find enough time to write novels, and that’s why he can’t complete work and enter it for writing awards.

But is that the real reason? No! It’s actually that he wants to leave the possibility of “I can do it if I try” open, by not committing to anything.

He doesn’t want to expose his work to criticism, and he certainly doesn’t want to face the reality that he might produce an inferior piece of writing and face rejection.

He wants to live inside that realm of possibilities, where he can say that he could do it if he only had the time, or that he could write if he just had the proper environment, and that he really does have the talent for it.

In another five or ten years, he will probably start using another excuse like “I’m not young anymore” or “I’ve got a family to think about now.”

He should just enter his writing for an award, and if he gets rejected, so be it.

If he did, he might grow, or discover that he should pursue something different.

Either way, he would be able to move on.

That is what changing your current lifestyle is about.

He won’t get anywhere by not submitting anything.”

Ichiro Kishimi

(Book: The Courage to Be Disliked [ad] https://amzn.to/4aAyXmO)

Good ‘Ol Chuck Bukowski

This was too good not to share.

(I lasted exactly two whole weeks on my blog publishing break. More, maybe, on that later. I did promise not to overwhelm you…. )

Looks like poet Charles Bukowski said a few years back what I finally came to believe.

The message certainly bears repeating.

So much truth in this poem: death before death, dead-in-spirit.

Or as I once heard it put: “When you grow old and die, dear, how will you know you’re dead?”

Don’t do that. Don’t be that. Save yourself! Save yourself!

In perpetuity if needs be ….

Nobody can save you but

yourself.

you will be put again and again

into nearly impossible

situations.

they will attempt again and again

through subterfuge, guise and

force

to make you submit, quit and /or die quietly

inside.

nobody can save you but

yourself

and it will be easy enough to fail

so very easily

but don’t, don’t, don’t.

just watch them.

listen to them.

do you want to be like that?

a faceless, mindless, heartless

being?

do you want to experience

death before death?

nobody can save you but

yourself

and you’re worth saving.

it’s a war not easily won

but if anything is worth winning then

this is it.

think about it.

think about saving your self.

your spiritual self.

your gut self.

your singing magical self and

your beautiful self.

save it.

don’t join the dead-in-spirit.

maintain your self

with humor and grace

and finally

if necessary

wager your self as you struggle,

damn the odds, damn

the price.

only you can save your

self.

do it! do it!

then you’ll know exactly what

I am talking about.

Charles Bukowski, “Nobody But You” from Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way, 2002

Reading Right

I didn’t write this piece on reading. But I could have.

Why do I read?

I just can’t help myself.

I read to learn and to grow, to laugh

and to be motivated.

I read to understand things I’ve never

been exposed to.

I read when I’m crabby, when I’ve just

said monumentally dumb things to the

people I love.

I read for strength to help me when I

feel broken, discouraged, and afraid.

I read when I’m angry at the whole

world.

I read when everything is going right.

I read to find hope.

I read because I’m made up not just of

skin and bones, of sights, feelings,

and a deep need for chocolate, but I’m

also made up of words.

Words describe my thoughts and what’s

hidden in my heart.

Words are alive–when I’ve found a

story that I love, I read it again and

again, like playing a favorite song

over and over.

Reading isn’t passive–I enter the

story with the characters, breathe

their air, feel their frustrations,

scream at them to stop when they’re

about to do something stupid, cry with

them, laugh with them.

Reading for me, is spending time with a

friend.

A book is a friend.

You can never have too many.

Gary Paulsen

(Book: Shelf Life: Stories by the Book [ad] https://amzn.to/3uLtUAC)

The Home Stretch

Two months from today, I will not publish a blog post for the first time in 365 days.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about that.

I set a goal on March 14, 2023 to write and publish a blog post every single day for a full year. god willing, on March 14, 2024, I will have reached that goal.

I am getting close. It is still sixty days away but I figure it’s time to start thinking about what’s next.

A book was supposed to come out of, or at least be supported by, this blog writing exercise.

No manuscript yet and that goal may have changed. I am not 100% sure.

Here is what I have learned since I started publishing this blog ten months ago.

Words saturate the world like wedding confetti. Depth and valuable content, however, seem scarcer these days, generally speaking.

There has always been an inherent promiscuity in the writing game. It was the French writer Moliere who aptly said: Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.

I’ve learned lots about myself in this writing discipline/exercise. I am more old school than I first believed. I have actually come to cherish that about myself. Conservative and cautious at core though sometimes my decisions are impulsive and ill-thought through. It seems to balance out.

Certain life facts are immutable. Where you are born and who you are born to are among them. Choices have consequences. The world will move along, with or without you.

The most significant moments in anyone’s life are the moment of our birth and the moment of our death. Everything in the middle is… well … in the middle. Each person’s stories and paths are different. But the beginning and end are the same for all of us.

I believe only some things in life are tried and true. It is our individual job to discover them. We must meet the twists and turns life hands us and overcome challenges while learning from them. This is the process of maturing, I believe, or adulting or whatever you call it.

If you still hold the same life views at sixty that you did when you were twenty, I’d venture to guess you haven’t moved very far along life’s continuum. I have met elderly women who sport the same haircuts they had in their university graduation pictures.

They speak with the same breathless adoration of their college alma mater or sorority and use the same jargon of their youth. Perhaps I am typecasting, but those are not the type of women I usually have much in common with or want to know very well.

If you have one or two good friends in later life that you share much in common with, you are lucky. If you have a handful of friends in that category, you are wealthy beyond measure.

In our society, we have a tendency to equate happiness and success with quantity over quality. As I get older, quality is becoming more desirable and precious.

Quality time with loved ones. Quality consumables shared with those loved ones. Fine books (There are many if you but look.) Fine music. Paintings. The sound of wind moving through a stand of trees. Birdsong. Conversation.

We tend to ignore or give short shrift to simple joys and pleasures in our youth. Not enough action in them to satisfy our ambitions. Fact is, we are much too busy in young adulthood trying to build some semblance of a life based on the scripts we inherited.

We all have to keep body and soul together as best we can. And, one day, if we have a family, we have to keep their bodies and souls together, too. It is all very distracting and energy intense.

I have learned that universal truths remain universal. And for all of us, one day, everything will come to a screeching halt. I have tried to wrap my head around that certain eventuality.

It is either life’s kindness or built-in denial that serves as a survival mechanism. We generally find it hard to imagine ourselves not being here any more, in this body, and on this planet.

Who knows what happens when we depart this mortal coil? Certainly not I. I have some theories but they are only that: theories. So the seeker in me will no doubt continue the hunt for answers to life’s “big” questions when this blog posting goal has been accomplished.

I may do something different with my writing. Or I may focus the writing on something similar. Who knows? I may actually bear down and write that novel/memoir/novella. It all depends.

The question I have yet to answer is, on what exactly that new path going forward will depend?

Here’s to having hope and keeping faith that I will eventually find out.

Write This Way

Writer Anne Lamott is my kind of people. Given her legion of fans, I guess a lot of other people feel the same way. 

She’s wry and witty and insightful and very funny and irreverent but also with a keen felt sense of the sacred and miracles. That seems to be a pretty cool way to go through life.

I found this Anne Lamott excerpt [naturally] at a time when I need it most. We word worshippers are becoming an endangered species. The other night my adult daughter said to me, in passing: “Words don’t mean anything any more.”

It felt like a gut punch. It felt similar to the growing disrespect and lack of civility I feel in business and social discourse these days. [My galling experience flying home to my husband from Canada was a particularly loathsome example of incivility gone wild.]

So when I get the chance to lift up and, indeed, proselytize the words of someone whose worldview I share, I am so on it.

That said, savor this perspective and these book recommendations from Anne Lamott. I actively seek wisdom and insight these days like I used to seek public recognition and booze [cross addictions].

She’s one of the good guys.

Anne Lamott’s 5 Favorite Books for Finding Hope

“I try to write the books I would love to come upon, that are honest, concerned with real lives, human hearts, spiritual transformation, families, secrets, wonder, craziness—and that can make me laugh. When I am reading a book like this, I feel rich and profoundly relieved to be in the presence of someone who will share the truth with me, and throw the lights on a little, and I try to write these kinds of books. Books, for me, are medicine.”—Anne Lamott

“Strangers in Their Own Land” by Arlie Russell Hochschild

“I have been foisting this on everyone since the election. A famed sociologist from Berkeley spends months visiting the Louisiana Bayou and getting to know the people who live there—their values, problems, minds, hearts, lives, and dreams. What they tell us in their conversations and how Hochschild changes by listening to them give me hope for our country.”

“Happy All the Time” by Laurie Colwin

“This is a beautiful, hilarious, big-hearted novel about four really good, slightly odd mixed-up people (like us) as they form couples: shy, worried, and brave. I have given away THOUSANDS of copies.”

“Praying for Sheetrock” by Melissa Fay Greene

“This is one of my favorite nonfiction books ever. It’s about a small backwoods county in Georgia in the 1970s struggling to be included in the progress for civil rights and about the idealists who lead the cause against entrenched racism. It’s a story that reads like a novel, filled with eccentrics and ordinary folks. Lovely in every way. If you read it, you will owe me forever.”

“The Illustrated Rumi” by Jelaluddin Rumi

“I love Rumi so much. I can open this book to any page, read any one of his poems, study any one of the illustrations, and feel spiritually rejuvenated—or at least a little less cranky and self-obsessed.”

“Women Food and God” by Geneen Roth

“This is the most profound and helpful book on healing from the tiny, tiny, tiny issues around eating and body issues that some of us have had for, oh, most of our lives. Charming, wise, funny, and deep.”

Via Radical Reads

Blither Blather

I feel I have failed because I have bailed.

I might have railed because my ship has sailed. [Without me.]

At least I wasn’t jailed.

I thought I’d nailed the timely daily post.

It turns out that was a baseless boast. [Today at any rate.]

I enjoy my work as a wordsmith host.

But today, I feel like nothing more than toast.

Many rhyming words are spelled different than others.

[If we’re lucky, a learning passed down from our mothers.]

The English language is a hotbed of inconsistence. [A new word I just learned!]

Without exploration, we’d never know the difference.

But words are also confusing and I’m burned out.

So with that, for today, I am bowing out.

I’ll be back to writing line after line …

When Spirit moves and I’m feeling fine.

Only As Old

These are not my words.

This is a cribbed Facebook post. Posted by Eden Lynn, a San Diego graphic designer. Who knows where she found it.

It’s a good one, I think, and a great reminder for those who might believe they can’t get there from here:

“At age 23, Tina Fey was working at a YMCA.

At age 23, Oprah was fired from her first reporting job.

At age 24, Stephen King was working as a janitor and living in a trailer.

At age 27, Vincent Van Gogh failed as a missionary and decided to go to art school.

At age 28, J.K. Rowling was a single parent living on welfare who was clinically depressed and at times has contemplated suicide.

At age 28, Wayne Coyne (from The Flaming Lips) was a fry cook.

At age 30, Harrison Ford was a carpenter.

At age 30, Martha Stewart was a stockbroker.

At age 37, Ang Lee was a stay-at-home-dad working odd jobs.

Julia Child released her first cookbook at age 39, and got her own cooking show at age 51.

Vera Wang failed to make the Olympic figure skating team, didn’t get the Editor-in-Chief position at Vogue, and designed her first dress at age 40.

Stan Lee didn’t release his first big comic book until he was 40.

Alan Rickman gave up his graphic design career to pursue acting at age 42.

Samuel L. Jackson didn’t get his first major movie role until he was 40.

Morgan Freeman landed his first MAJOR movie role at age 52.

Kathryn Bigelow only reached international success when she made The Hurt Locker at age 57.

Louise Bourgeois didn’t become a famous artist until she was 78.

Grandma Moses didn’t begin her painting career until age 76.

Whatever your dream is, it is not too late to achieve it. You aren’t a failure because you haven’t found fame and fortune by the age of 21.

Hell, it’s okay if you don’t even know what your dream is yet. Even if you’re flipping burgers, waiting tables or answering phones today, you never know where you’ll end up tomorrow.

Never tell yourself you’re too old to make it.

Never tell yourself you missed your chance.

Never tell yourself that you aren’t good enough.

You can do it. Whatever it is that sets your soul on fire.”

On My Way

Words and I have had the strangest and most intense relationship for as long as I can remember. An ambivalent relatuonship I like to say as I both love words and I hate them. (More about that in posts to come.) Words have been close companions, sparring partners, lanterns in the dark, and sources of comfort when all human comfort eluded me. To say nothing of the vast amounts of knowledge and scads of insight I picked up along the way. Damned handy tools to have in my arsenal it turns out. I have been told all my life by people I admire and respect that I should write a book. So this is me starting out to do just that. I intend to write here every day for one year and see where I am a year from today. I anticipate gaps (giving myself a built-in “out clause”). I anticipate frustration. I anticipate hair-pulling, gnashing, wailing and carefully curated whining. I am extremely good at suffering. Ultimately, I anticipate a sort of soul satisfaction simply by putting out into the world what has milled about in my head and heart for eons. Well, okay, decades. Tomorrow is March 15, the ides of March. Traditionally it marks a turning point. It certainly did for Julius Caesar. Similarly, I hope to kill off the doubt, insecurities, and ennui that have held me back from becoming a “real writer” in this world, on this plane, in this time. Such a broad term “writing.” My life has been infused with all the juicy stuff required for riveting writing: tragedy, love, pathos, violence, comedy, struggle, humiliation, triumph, achievements, births, deaths, family dysfunction and tenderness. Love – as I understand it – has always led the way. You, dear reader, are my accountability tribe. If you are onboard with me on my journey, give me a like or a ribbing, or anything but a virtual poisoned dart. I cannot abide trolls. So let’s see how I do over the next 364 days. One to five minutes at a time.