Lunch Tomorrow with Elizabeth Berg

I am so excited about my day tomorrow I can hardly sit still. Elizabeth Berg is one of my all-time favorite authors and my friend Pam invited me to a luncheon with her tomorrow afternoon at the High Point Literary League where Ms. Berg will be speaking.

Ms. Berg's writing is one of the reasons I wanted to become a writer. Her book Joy School was my inspiration for trying my hand at writing my first novel. I dissected Joy School, trying in my ever analytical way to find out what made it work. I have pages and pages of notes about the characters, their dialogue, and I even outlined the chapters, noting how many lines of dialogue there are, when each character is introduced, when the different plots wrap up, etc.

I plan to take my pile of notes and ask Berg to sign them tomorrow. (Possibly also slipping her a note that I'm just a fan, not a stalker).  

On a different note, I have GOT to learn to start turning on my cell phone. Yesterday was to be my speed-dating book signing event. I spent the day writing in my p.j's. and showered about 4 PM. Got all "cuted up" for the event and only then did it occur to me I hadn't turned my cell phone on in days.  Turns out I had a message from Sunday night that the event had been cancelled--not enough men signed up (cowards).  I also had 3 other messages waiting for me. Luckily, none of them were urgent.  I am just not a cell phone carrying kind of gal. I'd rather hide.

All was not lost. Since I had gone to the extra effort of applying makeup, I drove to Winston and met Blair for dinner. (I am not one to let an application of eye liner and lip gloss go to waste). And there's another speed-dating event on April 23rd that I'll attend and hopefully that one will have enough people to be a go.

Lots of writing work to do today. Must get to it. 

Individual as Creator

"In the West we view the individual as the creator. Works of art represent the mind of the artist, who takes credit or blame for them. Artists are put on a pedestal. It is little wonder that most of us don't see ourselves as gifted in this way and avoid expressing anything.  However, Eastern notions of art characterize this relationship between the artists and the work quite differently. The artist is considered the servant of the muses, not their master. The artist shows up , practices carefully the strokes or steps, and then humbly takes his place as channel, as shepherd for the images to be brought forth. Ideas, songs, poems, paintings come through the individual but are not though to be of him. On Bali, everyone is considered an artist. Art is simply what one does, not who one is."

     -  From Improv Wisdom by Patricia Ryan Madson

Found this passage last night in a book I'm reading and liked it enough to copy it here today. In working on my novel, I too often let fear get in the way of my writing anything. Fear what I write won't be good, or not good enough, or just not right for publication. The passage above soothes me. I like the image of my not creating the words, but rather just being a channel for them to flow through. This is a common theme in many books on creativity and writing. That the words are already out there--we don't have to struggle to create them. We just need to stand aside and allow them to flow down through us.  So writing becomes less a forced activity and more a meditative practice of "getting out of the way."

I've seen it work but it's still hard to do.  If I ever sit down to (ahem!) WRITE, I get very little work done.  It's too imposing, this job of creating. But if I tell myself, "Okay, just fiddle around with a scene and maybe you'll get a line or two of description from it," the words flow much freerer. Why? Because I'm "not really writing."  I'm just goofing around.  Or in other words, I'm not standing in my own way and the words come quickly. My goofing around time yields far more productive writing than any formal writing session ever will.

I use this process with magazine articles as well.  "You don't have to write the article," I tell myself.  "Just outline some paragraphs or phrases and I won't make you do the real work until much later."  So I get out of my way and find the article almost written by the time I leave the page.

The problem for me is that panic sets in. "I have a deadline--quit goofing around and write for God's sake!"  Ha--might as well stick me with a novicane dart. This writing is a funny business. You have to sneak up on it, and do the actual work when your real self isn't looking. And if your real self peeks in, you have to quickly look away, and pretend to be studying the birds or the sky--anything except writing. Because if your true self sees you writing, ego jumps in and says, "It better be good!"  And then there are no more words.

A Rough 48 Hours

The sun is shining, we have the windows open, and I'm feeling much better. It was a rough couple of days. I've still got a touch of nausea but the worst is over. Unfortunately, I didn't quite make it through all my planned events this weekend.

I did go to Page High School with Ed to talk to two creative writing classes. That was fun and I was extremely impressed that the kids not only completed a 10-minute creative writing exercise we gave them, but that several of them volunteered to read their work aloud. And some of what was read was quite good. I'd go back again anytime.

I had planned to stay in GSO for the day until the Green Bean reading at 7:30 on Friday night, but I was so tired I decided to go home and nap for 2 hours before the event. And nap I did. I barely remember laying down before I was asleep. The cats woke me up because they wanted dinner, which is probably the only reason I didn't sleep straight through the event.

The Green Bean event was a lot of fun.  Very small turnout, but the writers who read were funny and heartfelt. The organizer of the event, Jill Yesko, read a piece about accompanying her elderly father to a doctor's appointment where "tests" such as asking him to repeat "Ruby, tulip, dollar" back in sequence to the doctor were performed to get a reading on his mental acuity. Jill talked about first feeling anxious for her father and then feeling shitty as she watched this man who had a brilliant career  struggle to please a condescending doctor over some stupid memory test. 

I barely made it through my time at the Bean. I was feeling pretty sick by the time we left (Blair came to hear me read).  I was up most of Friday night and decided around 3:30 AM there was no way I could teach my Saturday class.  I feel guilty for cancelling at the last minute, but comfort myself that the class would have been a dud if I had tried to teach it--I had zero energy and was focusing most of my energy Saturday morning on not throwing up.

Feeling much better today.  Got lots of sleep last night and am going to take it easy today. Do a little writing, go through some folders and papers that I've been ignoring for the past two weeks.

It's absolutely gorgeous here - mid 7o's today, lots of sun. The bathroom guy is supposed to come at noon to install hardware in our bathroom cabinets. Still no news on the replacement sink. Whatever...

Wishing all of you a sunny and productive and healthy Sunday.

Pummeled By A Cold

Hack, cough, gasp, sneeze. 

Yup, that's me, at least for the last 24 hours. I had a slight headache Tuesday night which I attributed to the excitement of the competition. But I woke up Wednesday morning (yesterday) with a cold that had grown to full-fledged strength in the night. Wednesday is my busy day in town, so I hauled a box of tissues around with me in the morning and cancelled my afternoon appointments to come home and go to bed.

Last night was unpleasant. I woke up every hour with nausea. This morning is better. I slept in (still in bed, as a matter of fact, as I type this) and am probably going to nap again in a few minutes. The nausea seems to have passed but now my ears are completely clogged up. I have an interview in High Point I'm conducting this afternoon at 2:30 so I'm hoping if I take it easy until then, I'll get through it without too much difficulty.

I'm a wimpy sick person. I head to bed at the first sign of a sniffle. But my body just craves sleep when I'm sick. Allow me 48 hours in bed and I'll be back as good as new.

Only I don't really have 48 hours. The only outing I have today is my 2:30 meeting, which is good. But starting tomorrow, the race is on. My friend Ed Schubert and I are teaching two 45-minute classes at a local high school. They're creative writing courses and the teacher wanted to bring in "real" writers to talk about their work, how they stay motivated, the writing process, the publishing process, etc. It should be a lot of fun although I find myself reverting to high school attitudes and calling Ed to ask, "So what are you going to wear?"

Then tomorrow night, Ed, myself, and another friend Pam are among some writers reading our work at The Green Bean, the same downtown cafe where I held my book launch. It will be short - each writer is reading two 3-minute non-fiction pieces. But I have no idea what I'll be reading and so need to spend today combing my files for something appropriate.

Then Saturday I'm teaching a creative writing course through UNCG and I need to prep for that.  Assuming I make it through all this, I believe I will collapse on Sunday. But not for long, as the speed-dating book signing event is Monday. That's quite a lot for someone who is off the charts on the Myers-Brigg test as an introvert.

But for now....I must nap. (Just threw that in there to make all you working stiffs jealous). <grin>.