6710 Grand

 The sun has set, but it's not quite evening.  I'm still in my workday and I still have work to do.  Today, my task is to write a heart wrenching letter, seeking support from the thousands of humans who support the work of Indraloka.  To inspire them to help continue this work of hope, healing, compassion, and joy.  Nick is away.  The children are home but (presumably) occupied with their own tasks.   I sit down to write. Blank Blank Blank My desk is too messy.  I need a clear, distraction free work zone.  I tidy the desk and sit back down. The white page stares back at me, a blinking curser it's only movement. It's too quiet.  I put on the playlist I created that keeps me in a "fall" mood.  Carefully selected tracks of Bruce Hornsby, George Winston, Amber Run, Yanni, Hozier, and Shaboozy (ok, it's not fall--just a really FUN song!) fill my audible space.  I take a deep breath and dive into inspiration. But it doesn't come...

 I'm so disappointed.  Someone famous literally said "here's what I want my headstone to read" and no one did it. I'm not a science fiction fan.  Not specifically.  I am, however, a fan of great writing.  So, I've been reading this book On Being a Writer  that's full of interviews of mostly old white (and now dead) men on what their life is like (er... was).  It's not exciting.  I'm not getting tons out of it.   One of the interviews was of Ray Bradbury.  There was a lot of blah blah blah about how he's great and his books are great.  Yeah yeah.  I get it.  But what I found really cool was what he said he wanted on his headstone when he died: "Here lies a teller of tales.  If he had lived ten centuries ago, you would have walked down a street in old Baghdad or in some Middle Eastern city and there among the menders of copper and the shapers of clay turned into a Street of the Story Tellers and found him seated th...

I'm reading a book about the wife of Alexander Hamilton.  It's written like a novel, told in the first person.  It's amazing to me how stories of historical figures are pieced together from letters and diaries.  It makes me wonder how the tales of today's figures will be told.  Will it be like the books of our current president, told from those who hate him or like other recent presidents, told from their own perspective, knowing that others will read it, trying to make themselves understood?  Will things from both sides be omitted or embellished to ensure a certain spin?  Can we assume that Eliza Hamilton did not expect her letters or diaries to be ready by others and that, therefore, she could be honest?  Will today's heros and villians have their stories pieced together from social media?  Will we be limited to tweets and emojies to try to understand history?  Oh, I hope not!  I used to write letters--daily.  I wrote to Nick ev...

Church was my one our of peace each week.  It was the go go go of our lives that caused so much stress and on Sunday morning, I left the babies in the nursery and felt my arms lighten.  I could swing them, let them hang loose, raise them in the air--anything I wanted. It was the one place I could blend into the walls and no one really knew me.  That's what I really wanted.  To blend in.  To be one of the masses.  The "mega church" we attended was really huge--3,000 people came on Sunday mornings.  I sat in the same seat every week but never sat with the same people.  I never got to know anyone.  No one cared what I was wearing or whether or not I stood for the singing (I never did--I hate the singing.  I just like to listen.) or if I brought my coffee mug in with me. I looked forward to church in a way I hadn't in years.  It was an hour of peace, yes but also the only place I could go to ask for help from the One best able to pr...

I'm always optimistic about camping.  I love the idea of disconnecting for the weekend.  I love the thought of slowing down, enjoying nature, exploring the outdoors.  Mostly I love the fire.  The satisfaction of building it, of stoking it, bringing it to life and watching it consume log after log.  Cooking over it is fun too.  It makes me nostalgic for my days in the Girl Scouts.  We camped a lot and I always loved the romance of it.  Sleeping outside (sort of), foraging for wood (in addition to what we brought with us), being one with nature (ok, not really, but you get the idea). The girls love it too and for all of the same reasons (maybe not so much the fire or the being disconnected).  We camped a few times in Phoenix and had many disasters, including Iris's first camping trip which ended maybe six hours after it started but that's for another post.  It was harder there because you couldn't reserve a space and the drive to where t...

Years ago, when I was living in Kansas, I fell in love with the library.  Every week I went and checked out as many books as I could carry.  Sometimes I finished them, sometimes not.  I found the cooking section, the writing section, the Christian living section and of course worked my way through the fiction.  Among the many treasures I found a book called A Writer's Book of Days.   It's a book of writing prompts--one for each day.  I loved it so much I found the book at a bookstore and bought it.  I've had it ever since and have gone through periods of time where I faithfully write a page per day.  Today's prompt was to write about a scent.  The idea is to grab the first image that comes to you and just write without thinking too much.  Eventually, what you want to say will turn up on the page. The first image I had was very distinct. About a year after I had move to California, I'd been laid off of my horrible job and was working as...

Every weekday morning I get up early to spend some always appreciated "me time" with myself and a little time with God.  I kick myself out of bed and into my gym clothes.  Come downstairs where my coffee is waiting, pour a cup and pull out my bag of projects.  I read a bit of my Bible, a short devotion, spend a little time praying and then get down to writing.  My writing practice sessions come from a book I'd found in the library in Kansas City when I lived there.  It has prompts for every day writing practice.  The idea is that you find the date, write the prompt at the top of a page and then just start writing for however long you planned to write.  For me, I try to get in a page every day.  The prompts are sometimes simple ("Write about the moon") and sometimes are things I just don't get ("Write of something done in a small moment" huh?).  But I give it my best 4am effort.  Sometimes it's great.  Sometimes it's awful.  Wha...

I read a lot of books on writing, hoping it will help me not only to be a better writer, but to convince myself that I'm not doing it wrong. We writers all have our reasons for not writing, whether they're valid or not is up to each of us to decide. The book I fished today (and by finished, I don't mean I read the whole thing--I'm just DONE with it) is called Write: 10 Days to End Writer's Block or something like that. I remember buying it thinking "wow--10 days and I'll have something worth writing". Well, I've learned a lesson all right. Nothing happened after 10 days and nothing will. The whole premise of this book was that in order to free yourself and get over the blank page--for whatever reason--was to...get ready. This is gonna be good. Write with your other hand. WHAT? Yep--put the pen in my LEFT hand and give it a try! Um, that's stupid. It was full of these questions, written exactly the same way twice, where you answer it once with ...

Holy bad writing Batman! I can not say enough bad things about Twilight. The least of which is that I'm so very glad to have finally finished it. I will not be reading the other books in the series. I can't say it's the worst book I've ever read--that prize goes to any number of Stephen King books. I took the dreadful book to the hospital and EVRY nurse that came into my room practically swooned--"Are you reading Twilight? Don't you just LOVE IT!" Um, no. As a matter of fact, I HATE IT. They all seemed to understand my reasons, and one nurse did share my general "What's the big deal about this book" attitude. I can see why the movie will do well--they'll skip the first 300 pages and get right to the action, and hopfully they won't fade to black when anything remotely interesting happens. Sigh! Oh well. I've moved on to a classic--I need something to remind me that good writing is out there, even if I have to go back to the 19th ce...

This book is killing me. I'm finally about half way through it and it gets more annoying as I go along. Really, I think the plot itself would be ok if not for the horrid writing. So, Bella's off to an unknown destination with Edward. We got to hear a completely useless exchange between the two of them as to why she had to drive her car. Charlie would know. Can't tell Charlie who she's going with. If he saw her car still home, he'd wonder. They had this elaborate back and forth about how Edward would get to her house without his car. Who cares? Not relevant! Why can't they just get going already? If her car would have been some necessary addition to their little outing in the meadows of Washington, fine. But IT DOESN'T! Oh, and if I hear one more thing about the fabulous Phoenix weather, I'm flushing this book down the toilet. She mentions this blouse that she wears in Phoenix "in the dead of winter". Um, there's no such thing. Phoenix has...

Almost 150 pages in and I STILL hate this book. Every week or so, I walk past Laura's (she's the one who lent me the book) cube and ask her when am I going to get to the good part? It just keeps getting stupider and stupider (Is stupider a word?). I remember in my earlier writing days (as if I were a seasoned veteran with NYT bestsellers in my portfolio) how I would think things like "Ok, I just described a work day and now I need to tell readers what happens at home. How do I get my character home?" The simple answer is--just skip that part. No one cares how the traffic was or whether or not it was raining. It's not relevant to the story, so skip it. That's the big problem with Twilight , at least for me. She goes on an on about stuff that doesn't matter. I don't care what Bella's English paper is on (Shakespeare and misogyny). I don't care about the weather (It's Seattle and always raining. Plus, how can you plan a trip to the beach two w...

I'm scraping my way through this dreadful book. I'm only in chapter two--I know, not enough time to judge by. Ok, ok, I'll keep reading. But it's REALLY awful. It's a high school book, no doubt. That's fine. I can understand that. The problem is, it reads like it was written by a high school student and not just from the perspective of one. I keep trying to remind myself that all of the ridiculous sentiments that Bella has and the feeling that the world and everyone in it revolves around her are really in tune with the way I remember high school girls thinking (I would know, I used to be one). I certainly felt this way. If a boy looked at me and said hi, he must like me. I mean, people don't just say "hi". Heck, if he tripped over me, he must like me. Why else would he walk that close? Ridiculous. Completely stupid. But realistic, nonetheless. I can't wait to get to the part where I'm in love with this book. The problem is, if I make it th...

This book has been recommended to me by more than one person so I figured I’d give it a shot. Everyone said how much they just couldn’t put it down. Nick and I went to the movie theater this week and I saw a poster advertising it’s debut on the big screen. It was all over the bookstore when the fourth book came out—quite the buzz, so I thought I’d better dive in. I tried reserving it at the library—I was 104 on the list. I tried another library—207. Blessedly, a co-worker leant me her copy (in exchange for my copy of Skinny Bitch). I’m on page 7. I hate this book. I want to throw it. The writing style alone is enough to annoy me. I’m trying to give it the benefit of the doubt and realize that the main character is in high school (why then, is she moving from Arizona to Washington? Don’t get me wrong—I’d love to make that move, but not as a high school student.) The detail to which she describes her cars is completely useless…so far. I mean, maybe this 1960-something truck will be a maj...

I've been reading The Writer's Desk by Jill Krementz--it's a thin book full of black and white photos of famous writers in their elements, presumably, as they write. They all have a short blurb of encouragement or a brief description of their methods--it's all very motivating. In fact, I've done more writing this week than in the past month, probably. Amidst all of the chaos, I wonder why I don't have more time to write. I truly believe it's mostly that I don't have a good place to go. Excuses excuses! I know, but it is most definitly part of my problem. So, I start to day dream. What would my picture look like if I were in this book? I'd have a large bay window with thick heavy curtains that would let in or keep out the light. My back would be to the window as I write at my mahogany desk that has a computer but plenty of room for free writing by hand as well. Shelves line the walls and they're completely full of books. In one corner is an overs...