Windy Moment

It's hurricane season and for Southwest Louisiana it officially started with Issac. It's been seven years since Rita, our Nemesis, and her better known sister Katrina swung into town on Poseidon's shoulders. Those of us who cleaned up after the whores' party in 2005 remember, so it's no wonder poor little Issac is making the news. Unlike the spontaneity of a tornado or the manic energy of an earthquake, the media has days with an approaching hurricane to whip the fear factor. Like a good book everyone loves a good disaster it seems. The slow dis-ease of uncertainty creates a suspense novel while the fear of the known, what could be, creates a thriller.
The appliance repairman came by yesterday and asked what was happening with the hurricane. He was surprised I didn't have the television tuned to the weather. Still officially a tropical storm, I figured Issac would mature without my mothering. A teaspoon of fear for leavening, mixed with a cup of truth, add gallons of media attention and a frenzy has baked, albeit lopsided and raw in the middle.
It's a good thing for writers that people love drama. I wonder if it's our spoiled fat culture that doesn't have enough to do, so we create exercise equipment because we sit too much, and we create excitement because we lack joy and worthwhile human interaction in our lives. I don't know, but It's a beautiful day in Southwest Louisiana. A strong wind is blowing the humidity to Mexico, and I think I'll take the dog for a walk before the excitement rains. Who knows maybe I'll meet some dark mysterious evacuee from the east who loves dogs and wants to know my take on the weather situation. Maybe I'll come home with a plot for a new story. Maybe.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

I love a good movie. It's maddening for me to spend two perfectly good hours of escapism and walk away feeling I could have been mopping the floor. You know that pile of burning brown bag on the Blue-ray player with the stupid dialogue or predictable plot. My husband and I make sport of each other, depending who chose the last stinker.
Recently, I was reading pitches and watching trailers to find the perfect evening entertainment and decided to rent a DVD called Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. Since it didn't boast bloody neck biting or mutant muscled super heroes, I thought we'd give it a try. Billed an inspirational comedy, it definitely passed the popcorn test. Not a sappy romance, but superb acting, this film's subtle message that faith in God is not unique to any one religion, nor is violence and fear, was a significant lesson in the wake of the recent shooting deaths at the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin.

Ultimately, when the popcorn's gone, we are all alike, struggling with our humanness. Keep the faith and try Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. www.fishingintheyemen.com

Squirrelly

I've given up coffee, or more accurately, my body has given up on me. I had the flu about a month ago and ever since coffee hasn't held much appeal.

To many people that might not seem like a big deal, but I haven't missed my morning java since 1972. That is forty years of black ecstasy. I live in the land of Community Dark Roast where your spoon wilts if  not removed after stirring. Multiply that fact by several large mugs per day and you have a caffeine addict -- but not any more. If I make the mistake to override my taste buds to share coffee and camaraderie, my stomach rolls and flips tanking with gas. It’s just not worth the discomfort.

For years, magazines, special reports, my dentist all told me to give it a rest, but I wouldn’t listen. Now, I wonder if it was the flu or just a directive from the Big Guy to “give it up." What's next - sugar?

Since the forth grade, I’ve struggled with diets and eating correctly, but several years ago I realized my desires hedge (or slither) into the idolatrous realm. I want what I want, and damn those consequences.

The great 1^st century writer, Paul of Damascus fame, once penned, “I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.” I'm not sure what Paul was struggling with (chances are not a chocolate brownie topped with Blue Bell ice cream), but if a man, said to be a saint, admits he can’t shuck all his bad habits, maybe there’s hope for me, nuts and all. Ooh, pass the pistachios.

The Orchid House

My book club, the Pulpwood Queens of Southwest Louisiana, just finished reading The Orchid House by the British author, Lucinda Riley. A few too many "darlings" in the dialogue for me, but everyone else who came to our monthly meeting raved. So, it wasn't my style, but that's the great thing about book clubs, you read stuff you might not pick up normally. A plot set around the British class system and the changes brought by WWII, it's steeped in romance and history. Well written, the story moves from war-torn England to exotic post-war Thiland and back.

The "Queens" Skyped the author on our meeting day. where we caught up with Lucinda at her home in Southern France. A querky, well traveled, outspoken woman with four school-age children and a passion for writing, I can't wait to read her newest release in the States, The Girl on the Cliff. Coming out in the U.S. in October, this book is set on the Irish coast where the author was born, and promises to reveal much of herself in its character.

Raising Baby

Our son, daughter-in-law, and baby grandson are visiting us for a few days. It's been awhile since last I bounced a child on my knee, and its pulled some muscles in my memory.
It wasn't chic to have four kids when Gloria Steinem and Sandra Day O'Connor made news. I can recall going from one store to another looking for maternity clothes and having to order from a catalog because selection was nil to nothing. I know other women were pregnant; the schools were full.
Today raising kids is the media and industry favorite. Popular TV and magazine talk about who, why, and how couples  procreate. Women stretch spandex shirts across swollen bellies where my generation hid behind tented dresses. Crying bundles from Storkville were seen as an uneducated "choice" of the love generation. I'm glad today having a child is cause for celebration. It seems okay to choose to have a large family even envied, while talking about the struggles is accepted and encouraged..
As I watch my daughter-in-law pack clothes and food for today's excursion, I'm amazed. (I used to do that!) Besides the massive diaper bag, now the video monitor is a must in this techno-phobe world where constant contact is a must of safety and convenience. I remember my mother's gift of a Commodore 64, "It's the future."
Each generation  seems to evolve. I can see my grandson at three years, looking around the room, checking for surveillance, before he acts out. Go for it, Honey.

How to Write a Great Novel

As a writer I'm always dissecting a good book, trying to figure what makes it compelling. Discussing a book with a friend recently, she told me to STOP--I was ruining it. Probably, but it's what I do.

Just finished Stieg Larsson's last two books in the Dragon Tattoo series, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who  Kicked the Hornets Nest. Too detailed, over-written in places, and in desperate need of editing, I couldn't put the darn things down.

Normally my critical misgivings would have quashed my reading, but in this case, I kept on devouring everything Larsson penned. His characters, of course, are one of the most significant reasons to keep reading. The female protagonist, Salendar, is the ultimate underdog, abused as a child with no legal rights as an adult, she is a survivor to the extreme. Dark and cunning, she is the defining 'woman hear me roar,' in control of her environment against all odds. And Blomkvist is the apex male character, loved (literally) by all women, the average man-next-door, who fights for truth and justice, and he's not conceited. Female readers are intrigued by him and male readers want to be this mythical man adored and sought by women and successful in business and private with no strings attached.

Larson's twists and political plots drag the reader through some of the writer's over attention to detail to cliffhanger endings that make an undeniably good read. This is proof that a persuasive, intriguing story with great characters is impossible to keep unpublished.

I better get back to it.

Scratching the Bones – Writing and Revision

Being brought up with a strong work ethic, my roots sometimes ache when I say I have chosen to be a writer as a vocation. A dull pain nags—I’m not producing an income, therefore I’m not productive. But creative writing is a gift. Art in any form is a product of creating. Cultivating words on the blank page is my expression of love for the gift of my creation, allowing me to share in the excitement of forming something from nothing. Of course nothing includes past knowledge from reading, teaching, training, or the personal baggage a writer is willing to address. The white page transforms into something other than what it was before we colored it with our life experiences.

Prose, for me, must have a purpose, a theme, not necessarily didactic, but it must satisfy my ‘productive’ requisite that causes the reader to think about an issue. Poetry, however, is like the wind that pops my creative sail. Starting not with a theme, but feelings, poetry is more personal, more spiritual. Poems are moments caught like a snapshot in words—each person sees something different in the picture. Ideally a poem should touch the reader, but the feelings generated depend on the reader’s experience, not the emotions conjured by circumstances the writer provides, as in details of a story. For the reader to connect, the poet must become the critic, changing her personal abstract passions into pictures of feelings. In this process the critic/poet releases her work, allowing the reader freedom to absorb it into their experience.

Creative writing, although inspired, is also a process. Just as the reader perceives something fresh from a different vantage point, the writer too must be open to change, new insights in her work. The process of revision after the inspiration demonstrates the craft of a writer. It is in the revision process that the work becomes shareable, the personal inspiration becomes universal. True revision can only come with time. When the ink is dry, and the page is a little foreign the writer can read her work from a different place in life. After the labor pains are forgotten and the baby can sit-up and look at the writer she can see with fresh eyes to be objective and analyze the work without the sentimentality of the moment.

It is impossible to critique one’s own work without good help. We can write and take time to be objective, but only an outside source can fill the subjective blanks. The poet/critic must be strong in her original inspiration to accept criticism and try variations. The original is never lost, but if a work is to be universal the writer must realize how it is perceived by others. Some works of creation will always be mine, poor and needy, a crying, angry child—not meted out for public viewing.

I like to think of my writing like the great Methodist preacher, John Wesley said about faith; it is a process of “becoming.” The revision process is the work part of writing, but it is in this becoming process of revision that my work goes from raw feelings to a universal space to be shared.