The Big Thaw

I started this blog several days ago.

It’s 10pm and finally quiet. The rest of the house is sleeping, and I’m sitting here, looking for inspiration. Our calico walks across my page, sits on my arm, and kneads my stomach. No amount of good natured shooing works, only the obvious push onto the floor. I could use a good push myself. I haven’t written my pages in weeks – forgive me Julia.* I’ve dropped my pen and I can’t pick it up.

At the computer surfing the self-help blogs that encourage January goal setting and perseverance, I languish in fear. The ink has dried up, dedication shrivels. My mind has wandered off the page into the dessert dunes. Big Bang reruns flicker across the flat screen. The bright colors and loud noise make my head nod with the laugh track. What happened to that book I was reading? Seduced by Sudoku. Replaced by the lure of electronic solitaire and mindless word finds.

Where is that Muse? Did I pack her in the attic with the Christmas decorations? Wait! I see a Leisure Learning writing class in my future. Okay, and there’s that contest I want to enter. Oh, yeah, I’m up next for critique this week.

CRAC…  http://youtu.be/kD88ksW5srk

If you’re suffering from a creative ache that eats at your soul, I recommend reading the spiritual leadings offered by * Julia Cameron, author of Right to Write and The Artist’s Way, and writing three pages every morning whether you want to or not!

My Name is Chris and I'm A Writer

Ahhh, Blogspot, I have not forsaken thee. Forgive my transgression. Life has attempted to choke my creativity. My priorities were askew, but fear not, I have not forgotten thee. I have come to make amends. My soul has been revived by the Bayou Writers' Group 9th Annual Bridge to Publication. www.bayouwritersgroup.blogspot.com

This past weekend, BWG hosted six excellent presenters for a full day of fun and networking.

• We were inspired by the poetry of author Stella Nesonovich stellanesanovich.com who warmed our hearts and walked us through the streets of N.O. 
• Poet and story teller Mona Lisa Saloy monalisasaloy.com  gifted us with her stories and singing, as we pulled up a chair and sat with her family.
• Novelist and BWG past president, Jess Ferguson jessyferguson.blogspot.com  is still educating, encouraging and inspiring us with "the power of a made up mind."
• Humorous editor and author Linda Yezak lindayezak.com explained the need for a professional editor.
• Agent Brooks Sherman fineprintlit.com/agents/brooks-sherman , listened to our pitches when he wasn't answering questions concerning what New York wants. 
• Saturday's finale and my favorite, mystery writer C. Hope Clark chopeclark.com  encouraged us to join contests and be proud to say "I'm a writer." 

I walked away from this conference with a renewed commitment to myself and my writing. In the next week I will set long and short term goals and revisit them regularly. I plan to enter multiple contests, being persistent and methodical. I will continue to write what I know and research what I don't. Educating myself about technology, I plan to increase my electronic presence. I've made up my mind. How about you?

Windbag

Wed. Oct. 17, 2012. I always start my morning writing with the date. It keeps me grounded. My mind tends to move like a breeze from one updraft to the next. Wouldn’t that be fun, Wispy Chris floating on the wind, moving not by a clock that pushes me from one have-to to the next?

Time: a manufactured force of human design. Like wind you can’t see it, but it moves. The minutes do roll by; you can count them if you’re anal, but it’s a man-made device, a tool of control. I live in fear of losing track, being late. What would life be without that little torture device?

I sit in the mornings (if I’m fortunate) and read my daily devotional, write my prayers, listen to the birdsong, and write some pages of thoughts. It’s a natural ordering of my mind not governed by a mechanical device that is mathematically correct. Math and I struggle. Numbers are transposed, formulas disseminate in a mind unable to memorize.

Memory: the mental ability to retain strings of information. Wispy Chris floats over this definition. She sees the words, hears the sound, then a bright light and her mind moves to an alternate universe, one that doesn’t think in linear fashion. The phone rings – crap, what time is it? The world calls. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.  

Hyperbola: the set of points in a plane whose distances to two fixed points in the plane have a constant difference; a curve consisting of two distinct and similar branches.... yada, yada, yada. Have you ever seen one of those wind whirligigs that twists in a circle with a breeze? The equation for a hyperbola: x² /a^{2 –} y² /a²  = my mind

C'est la Vie

I go to my journal, my mentor, asking my spiritual muse to direct my hand, not just for commercial success, but for courage to share insights that speak to the greater good. I hope my words can touch the heart and spark a flame for change or contemplation. This sounds somewhat like a lofty ‘vision statement’ popular in today’s business world. I see this goal in my novel writing. Not so my blog. I have suffered over this blog, trying to write “something” each week, something worthy of printing.

Every conference I’ve attended in the past ten years has stressed the need for an electronic presence. In January I committed to blogging weekly. The whole thing seemed ego centric. Why would anyone want to read my words? Yet, I have learned to honor a deadline – not always successfully. I have written poorly and poetically, through personal good weather and bad. The words have tossed me or swung me gently into admission. I realize my best blogs are personal. Those honest glimpses of fatty humanity I tend to hide under blousy adjectives. When I’m willing to share, exposing those hidden rolls where we all live, that’s when I’m worth reading. I’m finding it’s not about the product, but the process. This is true with my writing as in life.  

Keep your feet on the path.

Love Hurts, and Technology Bites

January I made the commitment to further my writing career. Attempting to blog once a week, I failed yesterday (Valentines Day) due to writing pains. My unrequited pen had lost its creative ink. Looking for inspiration, I turned to my friends Jess Ferguson, Jan Newman and Angie Dilmore. (Check out their blogs below.) Jess' manuscript has won a contest, Jan has recently created a website, and Angie is jumping into professional editing.

Not there yet, I'm trying to create the proverbial electronic presence that all agents and publishers herald. The all important following of readers, friends and relatives who will potentially purchase my long awaited novel. I am trying to open my mind to the vault of information that houses technology, but it's scary in here; I can't seem to find the damn light switch, let alone get my picture attached to my posts. Time seems to run out before I can leave a comment. I have updated this blog with a 'new look' and can't figure out how to get to my post. I left this page to check some information and returned unable to open the draft. I was forced to print my first version and retype. Google wants my impute, but I don't understand the terminology in their questions. I'm not complaining--they don't answer my email anyway.

I wrote something a few weeks ago referring to a shock collar, but possibly a leash would suffice.

Adventure in the Desert

I read a short meditation today by Mary Lou Redding. She is the Editorial Director of the daily devotional I enjoy called The Upper Room. www.upperroom.org She equates a huge change in her life with the Bible character Abraham, who at 75 moved away from his home to a new land because he heard God say, "Go." Mary Lou reminds us, if we want something different in our lives, we must act and do things differently. "As we step into the unknown this new year brings, God asks each of us to risk and trust."

Our journey, like Abraham's, may lead across a desert, but I realize along with the desert's heat, it is a beautiful and exotic place. Adventure begins with a step away from our arm chair. For me, writing is not all creativity and indulging the muses. It's work to sit, research, and revise. It's also a gift. But a gift is only a possession unless it's given away.

This January I set goals, cleaned my compluter, renewed my professional memberships, enrolled in writing classes, seminars, and conferences -- these are all good, but safe. Redding speaks directly to me when she says, "We can slip into the paralysis of preparation--planning and re-planning, organizing and reorganizing, discerning and trying again and again to discern. Preparing can be a way to avoid acting. Finally we must take the first step."

This blog is my first step across the desert of uncertainty to sharing my gift.

My Muse

As a writer having not exactly writers block, but writer's procrastination, I decided to take a Leisure Learning course at our local McNeese State University. The class, Muse in Your Box: A Unique Approach to Creative Writing, was offered by Janice Repka, a professor and author that I had studied under before. Last week was the first of three two hour sessions, and I am already at my computer writing poetry! Our first class assignment was to envision what our muse would look like. It was a fun exercise that lead to this:



Dah Muse

My muse, she is chocolate clad in combat boots,
melting into thoughts,
a pound of whoop-ass for my insecurities.
A liquid nymph with multiple eyes
sees my blind spots – crystallizes ideas
that moment before dawn awakens into reality.
Filmy, billowing, smoke floats between my ears
curls through the gray matter,
sliding out my fingers, quickening my breath,
a flash on the monitor.


For more about Janice Repka go to her website at janicerepka.com