Language Is so Punny!

These are thanks to my son's English teacher, who thought they were a necessary introduction to understanding Romeo and Juliet. Don't ask.

Happy Friday. :)



A bicycle can't stand on its own because it is two-tired.

A backward poet writes inverse.

If you don't pay your exorcist, you get repossessed.

Reading while sunbathing makes you well red.

Does the name Pavolov ring a bell?

When two egotists meet, it's an I for an I.

Show me a piano falling down a mineshaft, and I'll show you A flat minor.

He had a photographic memory, but it was never developed.

Every calendar's days are numbered.

A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. "But why?" they asked. "Because," he siad, "I can't stand chess-nuts standing in an open foyer."

Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, "I've lost my electron." The other says, "Are you sure?" The first replies, "Yes, I'm positive."

And... my favorite:

Mhatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and, with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath.
This made him a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

About Doubts

Pam Houston posted this on facebook today and I wanted to pass it on:

About the heavy doubt: it's normal; it's the territory, the province, the wallpaper in what Jim Dickey called the cave of making. It is your talent itself that produces it. So write through it. Do the work. If you let it stop you, if you let it make you hesitate, you're making the first and most elemental mistake, and you're acting like a dabbler, an amateur. This day's work. Each day. ~ Richard Bausch

Richard Bausch was one of the authors my advisor turned me on to last year - a master at writing short stories. One might be able to teach a class called, "Everything I learned about writing I learned from Richard Bausch."

This hit home so close today because I've been struggling with two things lately. Firstly, of course is doubt about my writing.  Is it good enough? Especially through my first drafts, this doubt plagues me to the point of paralysis if I don't put blinders on, stop reading what I'm writing, and just plow through.

But the other thing is doubt about writing as a career. I made an off-hand remark to my husband the other day that every job I want to do doesn't pay much. And his off-hand remark back, which I'm sure he meant no harm by, was that if it doesn't pay, it's not a job, it's a hobby.

And that made me wonder if I'm really a writer, or if writing isn't really just a hobby. Something I spend an inordinate amount of time doing, but really no different than say golfing or scrapbooking.  

Maybe in the end it doesn't matter if I am a hobbiest or a professional. Maybe it only matters that I don't let those labels stop me from doing the work, every day.

What do you think? Does it matter how you view yourself?

A Matter of Trust

Why is it so hard to trust our instincts in writing? Is it because we secretly believe there is some trick, some fool-proof method to writing that, if only we were privy to it would lead to our certain success, but without it we are doomed?

I question everything. My words, my sentences, my plots, my characters. I find myself wanting to thrust my chapters in others' hands and ask, "Is this okay? Does this work?"

It's been nearly six years since my critique group formed. For a long time we exchanged work every time we finished a chapter. Chapter by chapter, page by page, I worked off feedback. I think really I just needed to hear every few pages someone say, "This is going great!" so I had the confidence to keep moving forward. Because, inevitably, even with all the critiques and comments and correction, that was what my group almost always ends an email with.

Then I went to school and worked with Pete as an advisor and everything was always NOT working. I'd think I'd have something down, I'd send him the 20 pages or so, and he'd email back his extensive comments which I'd always interpret as something along the lines of, "See all that stuff you thought you were doing? It isn't working."

And he was always right.

If I'd left that way, I guess I'd have reason to question my ability to write, but I didn't. By the end, Pete told me I was ready to strike out on my own. That I had the tools and ability I needed to write well. He tried to say I could trust myself on my own.

I didn't believe him.

I've been leaning on people so long, depending on others to tell me what works in my writing and what doesn't, that I've paralyzed myself.

I realized that this weekend when I was re-working the opening chapters of my old novel. After two years of working on that thing, and a year in a drawer, it felt stale and old and tired. I love the idea of it. I love the characters. But the writing just wasn't me anymore, so I began with a blank document. And what ended up on the page was first person present tense.

Ugh.

I'd written this in third person past before, kept it that way, for a very specific reason. This book was too personal - too close. There are some nasty things that happen to the character, awful things she sees, and I, as the author, needed distance. I needed to not be in those dark places with her.

But now - I can see the piece is better for being in her words rather than mine. Seeing it through her eyes makes it more powerful.

But as the words spilled out, all I could think was how first person present is the kiss of death for writing. How many contests I've seen that complain about the over-use of it. How some agents have said flat out they hate it, won't look at queries for stories written that way. And the flood of doubts came back.

I thought about emailing my critique group. But I knew what they'd say: "Go for it!" They are adventurous and supportive that way. And they implicitly trust that I can pull off anything.

I thought about emailing Pete, but that felt weak. Like returning to an old crutch. I googled the topic, found out there are a huge amount of great books out there, including Hunger Games, are written that way. I'd totally not noticed that was in first person present.

I thought about emailing Pete again. Pete is brutally honest, and I knew if he thought it was a bad idea, he'd say, "Stay away from that," the way he's told me to stay away from writing about dead babies for a while. And if he said, "Go ahead, be bold and try the scary way," I'd trust him that it was okay.

I am pathetic.

The only thing that saves me from being the most insecure writer in the world is that I didn't actually email anyone. I finally said to myself, "Heidi, you are pathetic. You've been writing your whole life. You went to graduate school for two years. You have a pack of people behind you that you KNOW would say you can do this. You know that many, many books get published and are wildly successful in first person present. You are not doing it because it's a trend or because it's easy; you are doing it because it's what the story needs, despite all your insistence otherwise. You need to stop asking everyone's opinions and just trust yourself. Just write."

This isn't to say I won't have other eyes look at it when I'm done. I'd be a fool not to have my critique group read it. But I realized this weekend I need to stop expecting someone to hold my hand through the process, encourage me along the way. I need to just do it. Trust that I've gained enough experience and wise advice along the way to just write.

Am I the only one? Do you have others read what you write as you write, or do you save it all up until you're done?
  -->

Something is Better than Nothing

This saying has been floating around Pinterest a lot lately, and every time I see it, I stop and think how true it is. And how I am often the one on the couch I need to lap.

Since the surgery, I've been necessarily couch-bound, and I'm so out of shape and tired of being that way. Honestly, with the last two-year-pressure-cooker of school, I've been out of a consistent work-out routine for a while. And I can feel it.

So the doctor okayed me to start walking. Nothing strenuous, but just walking.

I had no idea it would be so exhausting to just walk. And I am a walker. I am a fast walker - all the time. I probably walk faster than most people I know. And when I went to the mall last week to pick something up, people were passing me. PASSING ME!! I don't remember that ever happening!!

So now I am bound and determined to get back in shape, even if it is just a little at a time. Which it has to be.

There's no Biggest Loser 10-hour workout marathon for me. I can walk. A little. First up and down stairs, and then the mall. Now I'm walking outside. Each day a little farther than the last, with no expectations other than to make it. One step at a time.

Today I walked 2.6 miles up and down our very hilly neighborhood. I am equally thrilled with this progress as I am frustrated with how hard I breathe and how slowly I go. But I am doing it, and I keep reminding myself this. I am lapping the person I was on the couch last week.

It's true about writing, too. My writing muscles got weak over the last two months, and while I'd love to jump back into writing 1500 words or more a day, diving into a novel full force, I'm finding myself a bit winded with the process. But I'm letting that be okay.

I'm writing some flash fiction, which I've never done and which I'm finding fun, and satisfying. I've started a novel I'm pecking at slowly, trying to get it right rather than charging ahead into a messy vomiting of words.

Some days I get hardly anything written. But I write something. Every day. Because something, I remind myself, is better than nothing.

Some people will say this is setting my standards too low, but I'm not one of them. I know I will get back to that place - both in exercise and in writing - when I'll be charging ahead full steam. But if I expect that now, I'm just setting myself to fail.

And I want to tell you, whatever you are challenged with in life - you don't have to do it all right now. Do something. Anything. Even if it's just a little bit. Because a little is more than something, and life isn't a race against that guy running down the beach in the picture at the top of this post. You aren't racing him, or anyone else. You are besting yourself, the person who isn't doing what you think you should be, or doing enough. Doing something, anything more than what you are doing, is better than nothing.

Just a step. And then another. You're really your own competition.

Stealing Words

(Edna St. Vincent Millay)

The more I write, the more I'm convinced novels are the easiest form to master. Sure, they take a lot of time, but all that space! All those pages to wander and figure things out! There's a lot of forgiveness in 300 plus pages. You can get some of it wrong or sloppy or ugly and readers will forgive it if the majority is still pretty good.

Short stories - those are harder. It requires a lot more focus and precision. Flash even more so.

But poetry?  Every single word counts. Counts twice, I'd say. We all probably have written poetry since elementary school. "Roses are red, violets are blue..." Something like that. And every angsty teen thinks they can write poetry. But I'm not sure writing as therapy counts as great poetry. Great poetry... is hard. It is a sock to the gut.

In school we joke that us prose writers have to steal lines from poetry for our titles, because poets can say something in just a few words in a way that evokes emotion and interest. Our titles, on the other hand, are prosaic and flat and feel like a brick on your head.

I've been reading more poetry lately, in an effort to write better prose. I like it all - the old stuff, the new stuff, the traditional metered rhyme and the modern avant garde. I love lyrics. If you're a writer, it's good to slow a minute and really sink into some evocative imagery and emotion, some powerful use of rhythms and repetition. If you're not a writer, it's still good.

Today is Edna St. Vincent Millay's birthday, one of my favorite poets. I can never stumble on her writing without feeling like her words trip something in me. A great writer - both poet and prose - can make you see yourself in their words, can sometimes take your breath away with how close they hit to your heart, and Millay does that for me.

So in honor of her birthday, here some of her words I love the most. I hope you see something in them that touches you, too.


“Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year's bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide!

There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,--so with his memory they brim!
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, 'There is no memory of him here!'
And so stand stricken, so remembering him!”

*******

“My heart is warm with the friends I make,
And better friends I'll not be knowing,
Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take,
No matter where it's going.”

*******

“There is no shelter in you anywhere.”

*******

“And what are you that, missing you,
I should be kept awake
As many nights as there are days
With weeping for your sake?

And what are you that, missing you,
As many days as crawl
I should be listening to the wind
And looking at the wall?

I know a man that’s a braver man
And twenty men as kind,
And what are you, that you should be
The one man in my mind?"

********

“The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky,
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat—the sky
Will cave in on him by and by."

********

“When you are corn and roses and at rest
I shall endure, a dense and sanguine ghost
To haunt the scene where I was happiest
To bend above the thing I loved the most”

********

“And her voice is a string of colored beads,
Or steps leading into the sea.”

(are not those lines crying to be titles of a book???)

*********

“Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand.
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!”

*********

"What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight..."



(also, it's not all poetry. Here's a few of my favorite gems of hers.)

“Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.”

“You are loved. If so, what else matters?” 

“I love humanity but I hate people.”

“I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes.”

“A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book nothing can help him.”

Recuperating - Book Style

I had surgery two weeks ago. Nothing major and I'm just fine, but my orders were to spend a good amount of time on the couch recuping. I laughed, because, as a writer, that's pretty much what I do all day anyway. Me and my laptop, recuping for the last five years. :)

I had great expectations for these weeks. Mandatory time on my bum, no laundry, no cooking, no running errands or carpooling kids. It was like a prescription for productivity! I was going to come home and write up a storm.

Only it hasn't worked out that way. At first, I blamed it on the anesthesia and pain meds still floating around. Foggy brain. The first few days I slept, and then graduated into reading, and then, as my head cleared, opened the computer.

Nothing.

Still foggy.

So I blogged a little. And read. And when my brain cleared all up and I stopped being tired all the time and my fingers were ready for typing... I still couldn't write. There's stuff in my brain, but it's like a jumbled mess of puzzle pieces. Too much work to put together.

So I read some more.

I've read a lot.

And I've decided I'm not really recuping from surgery. I'm recuping from school.

Some people call it a post-MFA funk. But I don't feel funk-ish. I'm not depressed about school being over (well, not too much). I'm not fearful I'll never write anything again. I'm not totally sapped of inspiration or ideas or motivation. My brain just needs a bit of recuperating... of filling up what was depleted through the intensity of the past two years.

I've been mostly reading books that didn't fit on my reading list - reading whatever strikes my interest. I read A Stolen Life, about the Jaycee Duggard's kidnapping and life in captivity. I followed that with Escape, the also true story about Carolyn Jessop's time in the FDLS and an abusive polygamist marriage and her escape. Cheery stuff, no? 

I kept in my non-fiction trend and read Devil in the White City, which is a book I bought my first residency at the urging of a friend and never found a place to put it on my reading list. So glad I finally got to it! Fascinating story. I've talked so much about it my family feels like they've read it, too.

As a Penn Stater, I've been eager to read the new biography of Paterno that came out right before my thesis was due, and I spent the later part of last week reading that. I don't know what I was expecting about that book, but I was surprised by it. It may be about a football coach, but I took away a lot of lessons about self-motivation and focusing on what is really important in life and career. I actually read this book with a highlighter in my hand. If I were still in college, I would have written these quotes out and hung them above my bed with my other motivational sayings.

I just finished Thirteen Reason's Why, my first fiction since I got home. I'm thinking maybe I'm just too old now for YA books. I want to like them, but I just don't get why people flock to this book and give it such high ratings. I get that it tackles the popular and sensitive topic of suicide, and to an extent bullying (if that's not too general a term for what the main character goes through), but I think there must be much, much better books out there on this. It's a unique and grabby hook, I'll grant you that: suicidal girl leaves behind tapes naming the people who pushed her over the edge, and what they did that caused her to kill herself. But I didn't like the execution of it, and it was painful to finish. I so wanted it to be better.

I'm now reading Gone Girl. I hear it's fantastic. Or totally awful. Depending on who you are. I've been told I have to get to the last chapters to decide for myself. I kinda hate that... that a book can be great until the end, and then have an end totally blow it for you.

I'm also reading Tenth of December, a new book of short stories by George Saunders, in hopes that my brain mush will regenerate into something more akin to a writer's. I'm thinking it's about time to just force myself to write, even badly, just to get in the habit again.

And no, self, blogging doesn't count anymore. :)

What are you reading?