What's That Smell?

Objects in the picture are closer than they appear.

For better or worse, I have a very strong sense of smell. As you may know, smell is the sense that is most strongly linked to memory. I can be walking down the street in Seattle and all of a sudden be transported to Hong Kong with a whiff of bus fuel and a very distinct frying fat smell. When I worked with Alzheimer's patients, it was amazing to see the memories come flooding back to otherwise confused people with a simple sniff of vanilla or cinnamon or apple cider.

My sense of smell has been temporarily disabled by massive amounts of phlegm and I feel as though I'm a little bit blind. The Chief Lou and I sometimes play a game called "What's that smell?" in which we try to precisely describe someone or something with two scents. I'm sure everybody does this for fun, right? For example, an acquaintance of ours can be succinctly described as "Ben Gay and anger." Does that paint a picture? Can you see him? Funny how that works.

Now it's your turn. What's that smell? Can you paint a picture in two scents? Of whom does it speak? Does it give you an instant mental image? It can be someone you know, it can be a particular place, it can be a character in your mind. The rules are few. Only that it must be two smells (as with the example above, it can be figurative if need be - what does anger smell like? I think you know) and that there can be no other description. Leave it in the comments here or on your blog if you are looking for a very short post today. Then the fun begins, read through the comments and be sure to let people know what pictures they have evoked with their smells. Are you game? It's a simple audience participation this week.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your noses!

Here are a few to get those olfactory juices flowing:

Baby powder and ennui.
Latex and gin.
Bubble gum and desperation.

Have fun and keep sniffing!

Coming Soon

Listen up, ducklings.
I have to go put on my secret agent hat today and stand tall and represent for the housewife contingent at a focus group about protein bars, so there may not be a whole lot of writing going on. I hope there are free samples. They will definitely reward my troubles with some cash, though, so it's all good. It's like giving plasma, only without the giant needles - boring, mindless, requiring no skill except to sit still, and you get paid for it. Sometimes they even have free coffee and doughnuts. I digress.

So, listen up, ducklings. I have an announcement to make. A week from today, Thursday, November 1 is the first ever Mindful Writing Day. Why does this matter? Well because I said so, mostly, but because it's really going to be a fun celebration and you can get in on it!

Remember the Small Stones? Take a look at something in your day and really see it, savor it, write it down. Everyone can do this because it's short and it's sweet and there is no right or wrong way to see things. Why are Small Stones a good idea? Well, because they're short and they're sweet, for one thing. But mostly because they exercise your Noticing Muscle. And with a strong Noticing Muscle, you can learn to slow down for a moment and transcend whatever awful day you might be having or whatever writer's block you have or whatever you happen to be knee-deep in and take a breath. You can notice a thing of beauty anywhere, even if only for a moment. These Small Stones pile up and they make little towers and walls and sculptures of things and they change the landscape of your brain. This is all very scientific. It is.

So give it a try, won't you? You can join the Facebook page and post your Small Stone there next week with all the other little goodies and it will be a feast. You can subscribe to the blog and get one every day, or you can even subscribe to the Writing Our Way Home blog and get all kinds of goodness from Robyn and Kaspalita who have worked hard on this whole thing. You can also collect A Blackbird Sings - a whole anthology of small stones that they hand selected and put together. You may or may not recognize a name or two in there, too. (Wink, nudge, nod. Uh-huh.)

So, darlings, I am going to go and examine the intricacies of protein bars and pretend to have a very strong opinion about such things so I can make a little scratch. And you have a good day. Find the beauty in something, even if it is tiny - especially if it is tiny. And do please consider taking part in Mindful Writing Day. Think of it this way: November 1st is also the beginning of NaNoWriMo, so you could either start your novel or write a Small Stone. You choose. I may do both, but I'm certifiably insane.

Even if you don't choose to participate publicly, I still hope you give the whole Noticing Muscle a workout.

Also, this: Go check out what else people have been up to over at Larissa's place.

Embrace the Hotness

I started this whole funny post about femininity based in part on the really smart responses I received to my invitation to Stick Your Arm in My Washing Machine. I had an idea for a how-to manual entitled "How To Be Feminine Without Being A Douche" - the title was inspired by Tara's comment: "I can't think the word 'femininity' without ending up in a Summer's Eve commercial." It wasn't very funny and the discussion quickly devolved into odd specifics and personal preferences. The only thing very interesting about it was the title.

I have  my own long-winded definitions of femininity. I could write a dissertation with all of the research I've done over the years. But really, what it all boils down to is this:

My new cowboy boots. A birthday present to myself.
Embrace the hotness.

Yup. Take a long look. Not convinced? Perhaps you need another view.

Hey Mom! What did you do today?
I stood on a chair and took a picture of my new boots, of course.

Let us discuss my boots, shall we? They speak for themselves, really. They say I am tough and I am beautiful. I am sexy and a little bit threatening. I am practical and I go with everything - dresses and jeans and everything in between. They say I am bold and I am interesting. They say I got a wicked deal on the most awesome boots ever and I am going to wear them everywhere. They also say Be careful with me because I can just as easily kick you in the shins and step on your nuts as I can strut around being awesome and beautiful. And then there are the awesome socks, because everyone knows it's what's inside that counts. My socks are a mismatched, zig-zaggedy mess of imperfections and dirty spots and fun. My socks are crazy and I keep them close to me and they make me smile. Your socks look different, but that's all right too. That about sums it up, no?

Here's the deal: it's about embracing the hotness. We are all male and female, yin and yang, anima and animus, dark and light, good and evil, practical and stone cold crazy, ketchup and mustard. It's all in there inside those socks. We slide up and down the keys on this scale as circumstance dictates. Embracing the hotness is about owning it all. It's about honesty and authenticity. It's about rejecting the definitions that don't apply to you. It's about taking responsibility for who you are. It's about not being all drippy and vinegary.

Mostly, it's about my new boots. 

Embrace the hotness. The most confident girl in the room is the sexiest girl in the room.

Think Outside the Dead Horse

Several years ago someone sent us a movie about talking ponies with falsetto voices who rollicked around baking cakes and rollerblading and pouting and misunderstanding each other and then making it all up in song at the end. I generally don't allow such falsetto nonsense in my house, but the jBird was intrigued and I didn't want to come across an evil dictator, so we watched it. There was a sort of musical interlude where the ponies sang directly to the camera something to the effect of: "Your dreams can come truuuuuuuee!" and so on with all of the self-esteem building that pastel animated ponies could muster. My jBird looked at me and her little chin crumpled up and wobbled.

"Yes, honey. I know. It's so bad it makes me want to cry, too."
"Mama! They are saying that my dreams will come true!"
"Uh, yes..."
"I don't want my dreams to come true! They're strange and a lot of times they're scary!"

Looking into that frightened little face was a moment of pure maternal adoration. I shut off the movie and hugged her and reassured her and explained to her about clichés.  She snuffled around a little bit, verifying several more times that the giant spider who walked on her bed the night before in her dreams would not actually materialize because the talking ponies said it would and then she got angry.

"Why would they tell kids that? That's just mean!"

Why, indeed?

I tell you this because it's hilarious. Also because it perfectly illustrates one of my pet peeves about language. I'm not a fan of the cliché. (Even though I just used one in that sentence. Ooh! Quick digression: when jBird was tiny, we would say "I'm not a fan of ..." instead of "I don't like..." or "I hate..." because we'd rather she not learn those particular phrases when she was two. One time we were in an elevator and a man got in with us and stood rather too close to jBird for her taste and she ducked over behind my legs and looked out at him and said: "I'm a fan of my mom." It was cute and he laughed and she and I were the only ones who knew that she was really saying "I don't like you" to the man. See what I mean? Language matters.)

So, pet peeve. It would seem that we indoctrinate kids from a very young age to think and speak in catchphrases and clichés and then they grow up and think that's honest communication. We tell them things like "your dreams will come true" and expect them to know that we're pumping them full of delusions of grandeur, not threatening them with their nightmares made corporeal. Not only do clichés oversimplify things (which is why, I suppose, they turn up so much in children's literature and on Facebook), they are boring, and to a certain extent, dishonest.

I will fully admit to being a bit of a language freak, here. I didn't speak baby talk to my children, even when they were babies. We taught them the correct words for things when they asked. (Well, except doughnuts. The Chief Lou gave the jBird a doughnut hole when she was about 18 months old and I said, under my breath to him, "She doesn't need to eat that crap." The next time we got doughnuts, jBird piped up and said "I want crap! I want to eat crap!") There were no binkies or ba-bas or tee-tees or ta-tas in our house because I am a curmudgeon about such things. Having these two little language sponges around really made me stop and think about the language I used with them and in general and how I communicated not only with them, but with everyone. We get used to speaking in shorthand, we accept the strange clichés of our particular demographics, and we take the words we use for granted.

As writers, this cannot be so. As writers, we can't take the words we use for granted. We can't resort to shorthand and clichés.  I suppose we can, but we wouldn't be very good writers, then. (One last digression: that is not to say that we wouldn't become published writers, though. This is an odd conundrum.) So, for the writing. Audience participation time! I have it on good authority that people enjoy this. And so do I. Immensely.

Let us think about cliché.  Pick one out.* Write about it. Explore what it actually means. Make a defense of it, or disprove it. Think about the language that you use and blast that cliché wide open. (And, for funsies, you can do what I do, go through all of your old writing with a Sharpie and eradicate anything trite or at least admit that it is and try to find a new way to say it.) Send me a link or an email or leave it in the comments. Share with your friends. There's no particular deadline, just let me know what you come up with and when I get a bunch of them I'll share in a link-up post. Fun, no?

Remember: Think outside the box on this one.

(All right, it physically pained me to type that.)

*This is based loosely on a prompt in The Writer's Idea Book. I highly recommend the whole book.

Stick Your Arm In My Washing Machine

My washing machine locks up when it is in the wash cycle. Does yours do this? Being slightly less organized than I should be, sometimes I find a stray sock I need to throw in after the wash has started, but the door locks itself. I'm pretty sure this is so no one sticks their arm in the machine while it's agitating and breaks it. As if I would do that. I certainly wouldn't be overcome by the unnatural urge to grab one of those paddle thingies and let it wash my arm with the jeans just to see what it felt like. Who would do that?! Anyway, it locks. So if I need to put something in after it has started, I have to turn the whole thing off, wait a few minutes and then open and add. This takes a little bit more attention that I have the patience for, so it just means that sometimes that stray sock doesn't get washed or it gets washed with the next load, regardless of color. This bothers me inordinately, by the way, that sock out of place.

So it goes with the old noodle today. I've got an idea that is agitating around and the stupid door is locked. It has hung up its "Do Not Disturb" sign and is up to all kinds of nasty behind that closed door. I have a stray sock to throw in, but I'm not of a mind to shut down the whole production just to add it. I'm generally all right with this. I know from experience that eventually the cycle will end and the door will unlock and there will be wadded, soaking wet piles of stuff in there for me to work with. I have this stray sock, however, and it bothers me. I think I'm just going to hang onto it for a while and see what grows out of it. That's vile when you think about it. It's a metaphor, though, so you know... no real fungus.

This is where you can help, though. Think about femininity and give me some descriptors. What does femininity mean to you, personally? How about in a more universal sense? Is it only a function of gender or sexuality? Let us discuss. Shall we? Are there any metaphors, images of femaleness that have not been overused? I have recently come to the conclusion that our language and its usage is a wee bit sexist in this regard. Are you feminine? Are you comfortable with your femininity? Do you have trouble typing femininity like I do? Seriously. Are you casting about for a post? Is your washing machine locked right now agitating something else and you need another thing to focus on? Am I the only one who has appliances in her brain? Leave me a comment, write me a post, send me an email, draw me a picture. Tell me about femininity from whatever angle you choose. There needn't be any ghastly housewifely references.

Meanwhile, I'll try not to mangle my arm in the washing machine.

Company Retreat

One time at a company retreat, we did personality tests and then separated into groups according to our personalities to accomplish a task. I was the only person in my group. That sounds sad, but that is exactly how I would prefer it most times (which is, of course, a function of my personality). When we were presenting our finished tasks to the group, the company accountant yelled at me and told me I did it all wrong. She vented her entire spleen (and I suspect part of her liver) about how creative people just thought they didn't have to follow any rules and they could do things however they wanted to and they made it hard for everyone else. It was fascinating.

You know how when someone is hollering at you and there's that point, that certain shift in perspective, where you realize they aren't really hollering at you. If you cross your eyes, you can maybe even see their own demons floating somewhere in the middle distance. Don't cross your eyes for real, though. They might think you are making faces at them. I thought the "life coach" who was leading the retreat was going to faint. I felt bad for her. I don't think she expected the accountant to flip out. I waited until the tirade was done and asked the accountant if I was turning in my billing late or wrong, was I making her life harder? It turns out I wasn't, so I was in the clear. She just didn't like me. Fair enough. We had to have a five minute break for the group facilitator to get herself together.

I just thought of this all of a sudden. It would explain my distaste for company retreats. Stuck in the woods with fellow employees and touching each other - trust games and whatnot - and having to watch them wear jeans and eat. Too intimate and strange. It also serves as a reminder that I annoy people with my methods from time to time. I'm not a Point A to Point B kind of person. I take detours and trip and fall into pits and check on Points W and ! and 6 while I'm at it. I get to Point B eventually, and usually on time. It requires a good bit of discipline and note-taking, list-making, heart-breaking along the way. Not really heart-breaking. I just liked the rhythm of that and three is stronger than two. I'm a good note-taker.

Somewhere in the bowels of a box are a couple of giant binders with all of my notes from college. Perhaps in the box that is labeled "Excess Chewbacca fur, fondue pot, & some things I forgot what they were". My literal little jBird is bothered excessively by that label. "Open it and look!" she tells me. "Maybe I will, but won't it be a nice surprise?" It drives her nuts. "But what if you need something in there?" she demands. She wonders how I ever did anything until eight and a half years ago. "Well, then I suppose I'll find it." This is a digression of sorts. Somewhere in one of those binders is a photocopy of a study that really stuck with me. I can't remember the specifics of the experiment, but I remember the outcome. It would seem that people who suffer from depression are actually more apt to see things as they really are.

I can hear all of the accountants and the Virgos yelling at me again. Apparently, though, depression sufferers can look at a situation and make a relatively objective assessment of what's happening. This is startling news. Because we all know depressed people and sometimes we want to strangle them because they seem so bleak about things: I am unattractive, I am useless, what's the point of all of this? and so on. What it would seem, though, is that non-depression sufferers have more mechanisms for window dressing the truth to make themselves feel better. This is not a bad thing, within reason. I'm thinking about this today because perspective is a persnickety thing.

I am currently working on a piece about the distant past. It's about a time that was powerful in my life. Do you have those times in your personal history? The ones where you look back and see the watershed? Where you maybe even felt it at the time? Those times may be brief and intense and mortifying, but they are like giant chisel-blows to your psyche and help shape who you are? I don't think I'm in a group by myself on this one. But then when you look back, you cannot help but have the layers of years and changing perspectives to see through. Those layers can cloud and obfuscate some things, they magnify others. And then you get to sit and sort out all the images like a dream and put them on paper. Maybe you don't. I do. I can't help it.

It's this kind of perspective shift that fascinates me today. No matter what kind of writer you are, you eventually have to dig into that box that's labeled "Some things I forgot what they were" and find something you desperately need. For fiction, it may be to get the dialogue just right, to understand how your character feels and would react to something. For non-fiction, it would seem more straightforward, but it's not really. Because really you're writing a character anyway. It's the character that your present self sees as your former self. Maybe you're not making it up, but you are not just reporting facts, either. So you do things like spend the morning listening to nostalgic music that brings your lizard brain right back into a certain time and then you walk around in there and listen to the conversations. Does that sound insane? Well, probably it is. Sometimes there's an accountant in there who is yelling at you and telling you're doing it all wrong. Maybe there's a depressed accountant in there who is tearing down the pretty displays of memories that you've constructed and screaming at you to get to the point. Certifiably insane.

It is a given that my perspective will be different from yours; that it will be different from the accountant's, that it will be different from my jBird's. It is a strange thing to examine how my perspective differs from my own. Noodle that around a bit. It might even start to make sense. I am wandering toward Point B. Bear with me, please. Sometimes you need those layers of intervening perspective to sort things out. Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, everything is too raw and chaotic and new and unresolved to think clearly about it. Sometimes you need the safety of years to wrap around yourself like a HazMat suit to wade into particular moments in time and return unscathed. Sometimes by writing from a distance, you can really get up close to things that were too hot to touch before.

Point B was a mirage, it turns out. I've been re-writing this paragraph for an hour and I can't get to the point of it. One of my brilliant readers should do it for me. Show me how this works. I need to get my billing done on time and correctly. I don't want to unduly annoy people. I am interested in your perspectives. Just pretend we are at some kind of awful company retreat together, all up in each other's lunch and in our play clothes in the woods with the uncomfortable proximity to each other. How does your group accomplish the task? How do you label and unpack those boxes? 

Gratitude

The sky that twinkles. The bite of fall in the air. The people who read, encourage, comment. The way my transplanted hydrangea has shot out new leaves all over the place. The smell of little sweaty feet. The smell of yeast bread rising. The Phillies shirt from a friend that wears like a hug. The wonders of the internet, text-messaging, telephones and easy communication. The kind of difficult communication that makes us stop and think and wonder how we can do better. The kind of silent communication that comes in hugs and glances and a casual patting of my arm or playing with my hair. The health of my family. The answering of prayers. The spaces of light and openness. The consolation of friends. The common experience. The history of a love. The funny things you did when you were younger that make you giggle today when you need to remember that things are fun. The people who will call you and remind you of those things. The buoyancy of life. The hope. The faith. The possibilities. The small excitements that add up to general joy. The pain. The defeat. The opportunity to get up again. The love. Definitely the love. In all of this, love.

Please add more of your own. It will be a river. It has nothing to do with page views, number of comments, good writing, right or wrong, personal or universal. This is a tribute. To life, to gratitude, to connection. Deepest gratitude to Tara who reminded me today of why I really keep blogging.

My Twofold Plea

It's amazing how much one can accomplish when avoiding doing something else.

I have a notebook with a running to-do list that sits on my desk. Whenever I think of something else I want to do sometime, I write it down on this list. I go back later and transfer things to my calendar that are time sensitive and oh, isn't this all very fascinating.

My current list is about three pages long. I got up this morning and got the Hooligan off to Lego camp and came home to write. The jBird has been craving some quiet solitude and it seemed a perfect opportunity for me to get down to business. The coffee was just so, the sun was twinkling in through the skylights, the temperature was neither too warm nor too cold, the dishes were done, all was well in the world. A perfect morning for writing.

So, I checked off an entire page of my to-do list. An entire page. I selected fabric and sewed curtains for the Hooligan's room, I got a garbage can and towel bar for the upstairs bathroom, I completed the next stage of the desk we're building for the jBird's room, I changed and washed sheets, I scrubbed both bathrooms, washed the shower curtains and re-hung them, got us ready for camping tomorrow, I organized two utensil drawers, cleaned out my cake decorating supplies and organized them, I even organized the junk drawer. All of this with time to spare to take the monkeys out for lunch and ice cream and do a little shopping. I am a human dynamo, I am. Because I am so full of crap.

I committed to write an essay for an essay contest. The deadline is September 30, so I have time, but I decided to borrow Deb's deadline of August 25 so I would have time for editing and polishing and agonizing and all that. Also as moral support, you see. I am completely immoral support. It is a maximum 1500 word essay. Guess how many words I have written toward that maximum? None. Not a single word. Nothing at all. Now ask me how many words I've written in emails complaining about it? How many words have I spoken to my husband whining that I can't think of anything? I've exceeded the maximum. And now this dreadful excuse for a blog post. Because I am so full of crap.

I'm not wild about the topic for the essay. A very supportive writer friend of mine told me to "come at it sideways and give it a shank in the side. Whisper poetry in its ear as it dies." I very much would like to do exactly that. But for now, I have bound my head and my writing fingers all up in knots thinking about the topic and distancing myself from it. Usually when I write, I have an idea and think "I shall write about this," and then I let it knock around the dryer a bit, trying this way and that way to express and then usually some other way pops out of nowhere and I sit down to write. It's always different on the paper than it is in my head. I'm usually OK with that. This one, though, whenever I think about it all I hear is "LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

My plea is twofold. I am not writing this post just to whine. I am now more determined than ever to write this stupid essay and write it well. Here's my twofold plea, writer friends:

Fold 1: Please tell me if this ever happens to you and what are some things you do to alleviate it. It's more than "Oh, I can't think of anything to post on my blog today." This might require a plumber. Please advise any home remedies.

Fold 2: Hold me to this. I will not back down from it. I really want to. I really want to say "Oh, it just wasn't for me." I don't honestly believe that's the case and I don't want to cop out. So, ask me how it's coming, remind me it's almost due. Don't let me make excuses and remind me if I do.

Deal? Deal. I promise not to torture you patient, sweet people with ranting and whining and blow by blow progress reports. I just need to make my commitment public-er so that I will follow through with it. You all indulge me so much. I'm asking for a teensy bit more.

I have very much enjoyed ticking off my to-do list, but the more I tick off, the more ticked off I become because it is all the more glaringly obvious that there is this one large item that I have not even touched.

Thoughts On Cooking

Thoughts on cooking?
There's a point to this, I promise.
What do you think about cooking?
Do you cook as often as you'd like? Too often?
What are your favorite things to make? Why?
How about eating?
We all like that, right? Do we?
Food in general?
Favorite foods? Why?
Do you have any strong associations to a particular food or foods?
Am I making you hungry?
What did I forget to ask about?
Discuss.
In the comments are fine.
Take all the space you need.

I'm Always Up To Something

For a few weeks when I was three or four, I drove my mom insane trying to pee standing up. I still remember the contortions that took. I would straddle the toilet bowl as best I could with my pudgy little legs and let fly, swiveling my bottom to adjust the stream. It was a messy and frustrating endeavor. I was trying to be like my dad. Thankfully, I discovered pretty quickly that my biology prevented me from emulating him in this aspect. I'm sure my mother was relieved. I moved on to other pressing things, like lodging a button in my nasal cavity and encasing my right leg in purple bubble gum.

When we were first married, the Chief Lou and I were on our way to my parents' house for dinner one summer evening when I decided that I needed to apply some of the Carmex that had been sitting in the hot glove compartment of the car all day. That went pretty much like you'd expect it would. I opened the little jar and liquid, hot, camphor scented magma poured out all over me and the seat. Since it was a time before babies, we didn't have a stash of napkins anywhere in the car for random acts of nonsense. I rode the rest of the way trying not to touch anything while my new husband shook his head in disbelief that I didn't know that was going to happen. When we arrived at my folks' house, I scuttled into the bathroom to try and clean up the greasy mess and I heard my mom in the other room: "I should tell you, she's always doing something."

She's not wrong, either. It's another way I have emulated my dad all these years. He was a preacher and a missionary by vocation, but he wrote, sculpted, painted, gardened, made stained glass, did basic carpentry, baked homemade bread, trained bonsai trees, did graphic design, desktop publishing, plumbing, wiring, and really anything else that struck his fancy. His response to art galleries, craft fairs, home improvement shows, and life in general was "I can do that." And then he would set about with intensity and passion to see if he could. Most of the time he could and he would until everyone he knew had a loaf of artisan bread or a bust of themselves or their own crooked little tree. I have inherited this trait along with his smile and his excessively hairy legs. It is one way my biology hasn't prevented me from being like him, but it can still be a messy and frustrating endeavor.

I am always up to something. Right now I'm up to something, as a matter of fact. I have an idea that is still a bit nebulous, but will take form. It will require some audience participation. Because it's no fun to be up to something if you can't make a mess and involve as many people as possible, right?

I've written here a little bit about my first love - my dad. I will write a little bit more about other loves, too, in the days to come. I want to hear about your first loves. The ones that made your heart go pitter-pat, the ones that got away, the ones you're glad are gone, the ones that never made much sense to begin with. The heart is an unwieldy and willful thing. It baffles and confounds us with its choices. Let's hear about those choices your heart has made. Blog about it, send me an email, forward this to non-bloggers even. This is part one of the plan. Stay tuned for part two. Just be glad that this particular fancy of mine doesn't get pee on the floor.

The Price Is Right

One of my favorite things about staying home sick from school when I was a kid, was watching The Price Is Right. I loved Bob Barker's way with the ladies, I was fascinated by his long skinny microphone, the sets and the prizes mesmerized me. The blinking lights and shining teeth. The "New car!", the dinette set. They were what glamour was made of. I always wanted to do the game with the punch wall. You know the one with the paper circles you could punch through and then Bob would take out a slip of Price Is Right paper and read off the prizes? I could tell you the price of a can of tuna and that it was definitely less than the hand mixer. The box of laundry detergent was the black horse, though. The price could go either way. It always cost more than I thought it did. Lower! Lower! I'd shout with the crowd and watch the contestant sadly kiss Bob on the cheek and head off stage; or else jump up and down and hug him and bump his microphone and go dance on the red spot near the Big Wheel.

What I loved best about the show, though, was when it was time for a new contestant. All these schlubs, sitting in the audience with their great big price tag name stickers waiting for the big, disembodied voice to shout their name: "And the next contestant is... Come on down!" I loved the idea that one minute you could be sitting there, a hapless spectator, and the next you are tripping through the aisles, hyperventilating, high-fiving and shaking hands on your way to your brightly colored spot on Contestants' Row. You start your day an average person and then someone, somewhere decides you're ready for the show. "Come on down!"

Right now I'm reading The Lie That Tells a Truth by John Dufresne. It is his book on writing. Add it to your list, if for no other reason than to read the introduction. I promise you won't be sorry. If you're unfamiliar with John Dufresne, I suggest picking up a copy of his novel, Louisiana Power and Light, first. Then you'll know the man knows a thing or two about writing. He focuses primarily on the writing of fiction, but it's helpful for other kinds of writing too. Most memoir is a form of fiction anyway. It's full of ideas and exercises and admonition and encouragement, all written in his earthy, conversational, and often hilarious prose. Even if you don't write, it's an interesting read.

I was plowing my way through when I discovered this quote from Joyce Carol Oates which resonated with me:

"What one has lost, or never had, feeds the work. There is a chance to make things right, to explain and explore, and aided by memory and its transmutations, find a new place where I have not been and did not wish to go."

I have been intrigued by loss these last few weeks. No particular reason, just an idea my hamster has bedded down in. I wrote a little bit about loss last week. I will probably write some more in the coming weeks. But I want to know what you have to write about loss. Think back to the first time you can remember feeling that sense of loss? What was it about? How did you feel? Did it change you? If so, how? Now here's the dinette set: Can you bid on this in up to 250 words without going over?

I'm no Bob Barker - not by a long shot - but isn't that why we write? That hope of one day hearing your name called and being able to run, giddy and bouncing, to Contestants' Row? Dufresne says this: "... there is a cost. You have to pay for the privilege of writing with your time... You pay with your time, your patience, your passion, your persistence."

Is the price right?
So, you there! Come on down!

How Do You Do That Thing We Do?

How do you do it? This is a question I want to ask. To ask and receive honest, lengthy, magnificent answers. I have been reading about four books at once over the last few weeks, some of them about the process of writing, some of them personal essays, some of them the finished product. There are similarities across the board that I find intriguing. For instance, any successful writer that I have read about says that if you want to write well you have to read a lot, you have to write a lot. Most of them say you have to enjoy it. Most of them say that it's something akin to a necessity in their lives. All of those I understand.

I read a lot. I read a lot of different kinds of things. I read a lot of wonderful blogs. But when we read, we're seeing a finished product. If it's well written, we're not really seeing the process that goes into it. The sort of writing (both my own and others') that I get tired of quickly is the sort that seems overly thought out - overwrought - writing that tries too hard. I do this to myself all the time when I'm writing and have an Unpublishable Post Graveyard and journals full of tiresome nonsense. I figure if it bores or irritates me, certainly no one else would want to read it. But there is a process, nonetheless. We don't want to see the bones of that process in the finished work, but it's there. What is your process? Do you have one? What do you do when you sit down to write? How do you do it?

These are things in which I am sincerely interested. So, it's audience participation time again. How do you write? Where do you get your inspiration? Do you wait for inspiration or do you just sit down and write because you have to? Do you compose on the computer or on paper? When do you edit? How much do you edit? How much do you just scrap altogether? Does your brain shut down when you write? Or are your senses alive? Do you know where you're going when you start?

So many of you have such great blogs with such vastly different subject matter, voices and styles. Some are storytellers. Some are observers, synthesizers and reporters. Some are more journalistic. Some read like a frank and open diary. I'm curious. How do you do it? How do you write?

Leave it in a comment, make it a post, explain it in interpretive dance and video tape it, whatever strikes your fancy - I truly am curious. 

My Kind of Exercise

I have an on-again-off-again love affair with yoga. I love the simple contemplative art of it. I like to feel each muscle as it stretches and works with the others. I like to feel like I have a big ball of breathing light in the center of me besides a messy jumble of organs and half-digested food. I like the way my mind reconnects in its simplest form with my body - simply as a driver, not as a commentator. I love the focus of in and out and filling myself with new air and releasing the old. I especially like that it's a solitary form of exercise and that there is no need for bouncy pop music and overly enthusiastic cheerleading: "O-K! One! Two! Up! Two! Clap! Two! Feel the burn!" I like to do yoga by my wood stove in the winter for the whole Bikram experience in the privacy of my own home. It is one of the few occasions on which it is not only acceptable, but encouraged, to sweat like a farm hand. I imagine the tiny demons pouring out through my pores and dissolving in my salty sweat. This is the sort of exercise I love but alas, life gets rearranged with alarming regularity and my exercise ritual disappears for a while.

I have been doing a different sort of exercise lately. Not the kind that burn very many calories or keep my muscles strong and limber, but the kind that keep my brain oiled and focused. I picked up a book at the library, The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises From Poets Who Teach, that has become a useful tool. I dabble in poetry, don't really consider myself a poet in any sort of exclusive way, but the exercises are great for really any kind of writing. Most of them focus on freeing up your thoughts for breaking the bonds of regular association of words and for enabling the play and rhythm of language. That may sound like so much hokum to some, but my writing style lends itself to hokum. Besides, any sort of kick in the rear end in the direction of regular writing practice is a good thing for me. I want to share an exercise I stumbled upon last night that tickled my fancy.

It's called the "Ten Minute Spill" and is suggested by Rita Dove - she was a US Poet Laureate and has assorted hardware to her credit, so I think she might know a thing or two about writing.
Here's the gist of it:
Write ten lines in ten minutes- she suggests poetry, but I think it would work for lyrical prose, too.
These ten lines must include the following:
- A proverb, adage, or familiar phrase that you have changed in some way.
- Five of the following words:

cliff           blackberry

needle           cloud

voice                 mother

whir           lick

How fun is that?! I'm going to give it a go, but because one of the wonderful things about blogging can be the interactivity of it, I found myself thinking about what various other bloggers would do with it. I want to see. If you feel inclined, join me in this exercise and post a link or even just your ten lines in the comments or on my Facebook page. It will be fun. We will get to stretch our writing muscles, distill and focus, maybe sweat - but nobody will actually see us!