Reflection in poetry

December 27, 2013

Harder to Live

A karate kick

to my heart

delivered

the day Glen died 

taught me 

I do not want to be 

the last one standing. 

Watching  

mom’s health decline 

illuminates  

what it is like to be 

ninety-three

I do not want to be

the last one standing.

I do not want to live 

without 

my sisters 

my children

my family 

I do not want to be 

the last one standing. 

Jean Louise Blanchard

remembering Glen’s words: “it’ll be harder for you than for me...”

Holiday Reminiscing

The end of the year is for me a time of reflection. Lately I've been reminiscing about the holiday time when I was a kid in the 1950's. A lot has changed yet much remains the same. Lots of material for a short holiday story. When did we get a christmas tree? I remember Dad brought a tree home the weekend following Thanksgiving. He'd trim branches then cut several inches from the trunk and put it in a bucket of water out on the porch. He said the tree needed at least a week to soak up the water and replenish itself after its long journey from the forest to our house before we decorated it. Do folks still immerse their trees in water today? We kids spent a lot of time hunting for signs of christmas packages. Mom hid them in a closet, high up on a shelf in her sewing room. Today I see parents shopping for gifts, with their children in tow. Some kids even tell their parents what to buy as they shop! Mom put electric candles, with blue bulbs, in our windows. (Where the bulbs blue or am I misremembering?) Last year when I visited my Mom before the holidays we looked through the various decorations she still kept; the small items she would display around the holiday. My most vivid memory is standing in the darkened living room, looking at the christmas tree all decorated and lit with multi-colored lights and hearing a voice tell me, "you have alway been and will alway be." I was five at the time. These collective memories could make a fine story.

See new post on Dubious Grief page.

Let it snow!

Holiday time from Thanksgiving through the end of the year is typically a time when my attention shifts away from writing and onto daily life. I spent Thanksgiving week visiting my son and his family in CA. When I returned I began my frantic holiday beading - necklaces for the women in my family. It's a tradition I keep up year to year. Not so different this year until the end of last week brought snow to Eugene OR. This is a city where everything stops when snow falls. We are totally unprepared for it. Since the storm hit on Thursday night the temperatures have not gotten above freezing so the snow remains on the roadways, packed down and slippery. This year in particular we are stopped in our tracks - last night the temperature fell to a record shattering minus 9 degrees. Just keeping the pipes from freezing and staying warm is a challenge. No holiday shopping here. Instead several days to write, write, write. This may be my most productive writing time during the holidays ever!

New post on Dubious Grief page.

Time for reflection

After several weeks dealing with health issues - I'm back in the grove writing again. While I suffered through a head cold, coughing and sneezing through my days, I reflected on a new structure and wrote notes to remind me of my insights once I had enough energy to write. With direct questions such as 'what is the purpose of this chapter' and 'how can I draw the reader in' I have a solid framework to use in revising materials. Now that my head has cleared and coughing subsided, I am able to integrate these notes. Amazingly my notes still make sense (mostly) and I write, write, write these ideas into restructured chapters.

A multi writing approach

I've discovered that writing three different books at the same time has helped me avoid getting bogged down due to my resistance in performing some writing tasks. I can't seem to edit pieces for very long before I get bored. One project, my memoir about my grief journey, at times overwhelms me and I can't seem to write. Research for my historical novel can become tedious. So having three writing projects keeps me moving along.

See new post on Novel Ideas page.

Opening scene draft

Just returned from a visit with my sisters. We talked about our experiences during the 1960's & 1970's. Thinking about where to begin I decided to write a working draft for scene one of the novel.

"It's strange, even bizarre when I ponder it all now." Rosemary grinned stiffly, her round eyes opened wide. In her peripheral vision she caught a glimpse of Molly frantically scribbling on a yellow notepad. She had refused Molly's repeated requests to record their meetings.
Everything had begun a lifetime ago yet sweat sprang from Rosemary's pours. Her rigid body shuddered. Voice low, barely a throaty whisper she said, "You never forget the sound of a bullet passing inches above your head..."

New post on Dubious Grief page.

A road map approach

This piece (story about social movements and change) is the first time I will use a 'road map' (historical events) to develop a novel. Most of the research about events from the 1960-70's is completed. The question I now address is: Where is my protagonist and what situations during this timeframe provide the greatest opportunity for her to change? Thinking about these critical moments I am sketching out possible scenes, encounters where the protagonist moves from one perspective and into a different way of viewing her world. What is she looking for and how does she get or not get what she wants. I will write, write, write these scenes and see what happens.

50 years later...

Now that my research about events in the 1960-70's is nearly complete I've started writing short pieces about these times from the POV of my protagonist. This is the fun, exciting part - remembering these events and placing my fictional character in the middle of things. The scenes include snippets from the counter culture (music, concerts, books), the antiwar protests against the US involvement in Vietnam (student riots, demonstrations, speak-outs), the civil rights movement (bus riders, voter registration, marches), women's health (abortion rights, MS magazine), and the environment (anti-nuclear power, Earth Day). These were empowering times/events. Fifty years later it is time to tell these stories. So I write, write, write...

Memories from long ago

From mid January through May 2013, I wrote sporadically. I believed during the early months of this year my grief and sorrow prevented me from writing for this was the time 4 years earlier when cancer ravaged my husband's body. I did not want to believe I had tumbled into depression. It is only looking back on those months that I can acknowledge my depression (which disappeared when I visited my sisters and mom) and its debilitating effect.
I could not write. I had nothing to say. I'd just finished rereading 'The Women's Room' (Marilyn French) that I'd read over thirty years ago when I was a graduate student. I looked around my world and deduced that all the promise of that long ago time had come to nothing. It was like my whole life, all my activism, had come to nothing.
Over the past several weeks, researching the events from the 1960-70s has rekindled my passion from that time. I realize I have something to say. I write my stories, filled with such hope for a different future  but with the knowledge that little of that promised future remains today.

Historical puzzle pieces???

My short stories, set in the mid 60's - mid 70's, fit into the framework of an historical novel. Putting together a timeline of historical events from that era has stirred up more memories to fictionalize. Thinking of these pieces as a historical novel helps me clarify each short piece and uncover themes to tie the pieces together. I don't anticipate these short stories as a novel, but as a series of pieces relevant to the issues of today. It is exciting to see the puzzle pieces come together to form 'the big picture' and to see how issues 45 to 50 years ago are still relevant today. It's also somewhat depressing to realize we have not resolved them.

Creating Fictional Characters

This week I reread a small book - Writing A Woman's Life - written in 1988 by Carolyn Heilburn. In the book Heilburn writes about her alter ego - Amanda Cross who writes mystery stories. She talks about how creating a female lead in her mystery stories she was creating a fantasy version of a life she might have had. That she wanted to "create an individual whose destiny offered more possibility than I could comfortably imagine for myself."
What a wonderful model for creating fictional characters. Give them every possibility and see what happens. This inspired me to let go of trying to control my characters, let them tell me what to write. Recognizing that I have no control over my characters has set me free - however briefly - from the trap of 'writer's block.'

Serialization???

I've been writing a piece for awhile set in the mid sixties and early seventies. The piece began as a short story that just kept expanding. So now it's not really a short story but a series of short stories. How to present this piece has baffled me for some time. Then my sister sent me a link to a web site where the author has serialized her work presenting short segments weekly. Reading her pieces I thought about 'flash fiction' - each serialized piece was approximately 500 words. I love the challenge of writing a complete scene/story contained in 500 word segments. I'm currently revising and restructuring my story adapting it to a serialization structure. I think it will work great.

Celebration of Life

Friday evening I attended a Celebration of Life for my writer friend Tim. I read a brief piece of his writing he'd shared with our memoir writing class. This was the way I knew him - a writer of stories. It was wonderful to listen as others spoke their stories of Tim. He was an amazing, creative, genuine man who is missed by many.
I rewrote/revised three chapters in Dubious Grief over this past month. Every day I contemplate my grief journey - where it began, the ways my grief evolved, and where my journey is today. Thanks Tim for the kick to my heart that continues to keep me writing my grief.

Time again to write...

Last week news came of the death of a friend. Although I knew him only briefly, ten short weeks in a writing class the beginning of this year, his death sent me spiraling down that path of grief once again. Today news about a second friend, another writer, struggling with brain cancer spurred me to take on the task of revising Dubious Grief once again. I take on my mantle of grief again, spill it out, speak my truth. No time to procrastinate - tomorrow is unknown.

Reading for insight

I reread books to find clues to how other authors create tension, connect the dots, keep readers turning the pages. Currently I'm interested in multiple point of view characters and techniques to structure these in a story. In the Time Traveler's Wife Henry and Claire each are primary POV characters. Each tells the story of their love affair from their own perspective. Each scene is identified in terms of time and age of the two characters. The reader always knows where she is in time and whose POV is 'telling' the story. Each scene is written in first person. Everything about the story flows, each character relates his/her viewpoint in their own voice. Excellent structure for handling multiple characters, shifts in time, and creating story tension.
See new post on Dubious Grief page.

Writing first lines

In the short story class I've taken the instructor - Nina Hoffman - encourages students to write first lines for stories. These first lines generate ideas for the story and aim to generate interest in the reader. I took up the challenge and over the past several days I've written opening lines for each of the fifteen chapters I envision for my reorganized Dubious Grief. With each attempt at generating first lines my insight into what each chapter is about emerged more clearly. Some of my chapter titles changed as well as two section titles. This exercise has brought clarity to some hazy concepts. And I now have a better roadmap from which to rewrite my story.

I'm Back!

Let's just say I took a short hiatus from blogging to READ - WRITE - REWRITE but mostly to THINK about my Dubious Grief story. I struggled through the memoir writing class for the third time and was at my wits end trying to find my voice and my story. I pondered the essential question: what is this book about? throughout February - March - April. And then one day in early May a voice somewhere inside my skull screamed "GRIEF you idiot!" Even the title - Dubious Grief - shouted the story; how could I have missed it all this time? Immediately I embarked on devising a new story structure based exclusively on my grieving. Where had my grief begun? What had awakened my grief? Changing the focus from what happened to Glen, his struggle and my reaction to it, I now focus on what was happening with me during that time. This book is about my journey with grief and hence the working title became: Dubious Grief: A Journey because grief is not an event, it's a journey. Yesterday I drafted sixteen pages about my two-day getaway in July 2008 and how taking care of myself landed me on my path of awakening grief. That is when and where my story began.

Upward turn?

It's been a while since I've posted. It has been a difficult few months but now I feel I'm moving out from that stuck place where writing is difficult if not impossible. I struggled through the memoir writing class but last night I read a piece I've been trying to write for a long time. But it was not the right time until now. And this morning I awoke feeling lighter, as if a heavy weight has been lifted from my heart. Tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of my husband Glen's death. The piece I wrote over several weeks and read last needs some rewriting, but I've posted it on the Dubious Grief page. Now I feel I am truly moving forward with my life - not that my journey is over, but that my life has meaning, purpose, and is worth living.
New post on Dubious Grief page.

Back in the writing grove

With the holidays behind me I've settled back into my writing grove; two hours creative writing and an hour of editing. A good balance between right and left brain activity. Two weeks into the memoir writing class, connecting with other writers, and writing with my fellow writer on Friday morning keeps me writing. It's all about motivation, connection, and dedication.
See new post on Dubious Grief page.