Tag: writing

Revising, reviewing, improving

annebower

You know how sometimes you practice and practice your tai chi? At a certain point you become so wrapped up trying to improve, that you begin making judgments about what’s working and what isn’t, until you really can’t continue. You get all caught up inside your brain and your body doesn’t know what to do anymore!

Writing can be like that too. You create a piece of fiction, an essay, a poem. Nah, you say to yourself, it needs revision. And so you tinker with it: Move parts around, change words, add a sentence, delete another. At a certain point you throw up your hands–is it getting better or not????

In either tai chi or writing we have to walk away. Let the brain settle, let the body relax, stop being overly critical. Getting input from a trusted friend or teacher can help immensely. With tai chi, attending class brings new insights. With writing it’s a bit different. What I’ve found is that reading someone else’s work often brings new insights and helps me find new ways to write my own stuff.

Perhaps it’s the same with composing a song, painting a picture? We need input, one way or another. And yet, finally, we have to satisfy ourselves. It takes a while to trust oneself, to say–this will do–this is good–I like it just the way it is.

Immersion experiences

annebower

There’s something to be said for dabbling–putting your toes in the water, so to speak. We all benefit from trying things out or giving our energy to a practice for a while without major commitment. We learn, we grow, and then go on to something else.

But diving into a practice deeply provides a very different kind of experience. Last week I spent five packed days with writers and writing instructors at a retreat in Maine. Each morning our major workshop, where eight of us considered 5,000 words of each other’s writing, met from 10-1 under the leadership of an accomplished teacher. After a break we had our choice of “craft workshops” where the focus might be on creating dramatic tension in poetry, best practices for paragraphs, basic rules for publishing in the USA, and other choices too. Evenings were given over to readings–some from the faculty, some in which we students could share our efforts. The full effect was stimulating, inspiring, and supportive. Now that I’m home again my hope is to keep the writing mojo going and not lose the benefits gained from this time away.

If you have an opportunity to immerse yourself in an experience like that–grab it. Maybe it will be in the arts or a business interest or tai chi?

Snow and more snow

annebower

So cold, so sleety, so windy………

and yet we can find pleasure in the adversity!

Quite a task to shovel out of our house and clear a path past the car and onto the (fortunately) plowed) driveway. I know more snow will fall, but at least this headstart didn’t wear me down and will make it easier to clean off car and exit when I need to do that.

Hope everyone out there is safe, warm, and finding good things to do–good for body and mind. Maybe some tai chi? Some qigong? A good book? Writing?

How to quit worrying

annebower

In an episode of “Now Hear This,” a PBS series, the host, Scott Yoo, is with music students and asks them if they are worried about their future. Hesitantly, as if worried the question harbors a trick, a few students raise their hands, then more, and more join. Yoo nods, clearly sympathetic, but then tells them what they can do to stop that worry. “Practice!” He goes on to say that when you are practicing and doing your best to practice well you are not worried. You’re not thinking about the future and what it may hold, you’re not looking back to the past and mistakes you’ve made then, you’re simply concentrating on your instrument, the music score, your technique, listening, working hard.

Is it any different with tai chi or writing? These are my main occupations. With tai chi, the instrument is your body and your practice concerns moving that instrument as well as you can, following the “score” of a particular tai chi form. But your mind is part of that body, isn’t it? Visualizing the movements, talking yourself through the sequence, remembering what you’ve been taught. The mind and body make neurological connections and when you’re in that practice, really in it, there’s no room for worry.

With writing your instrument is thought/imagination/visualization/words/research sometimes, but also the whole nervous system that allows the mental activity to generate through the hands as they type or write. Whether it’s a letter, a poem, an essay, a grant, an article, a story, a journal entry–you’re IN it, and you are not worrying about the bills, an illness, an upcoming obligation.

Okay, folks. Practice your art, whatever it is and banish those worries!!

It’s too darn cold

annebower

There was a pop song ages ago about it being “too darn hot,” and of course, the double entendre was clear. I guess we could apply different meanings to cold, but mostly, at least as I intend it, my reference is to the outdoor temperature exclusively. We laugh and say, it’s Vermont, what do you expect? And for those of you sporty types, skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing, the cold is welcome, preserving the snow.

When I’ve been outside–shoveling paths, bringing in wood from our double stack, I come inside, get something hot to drink, kick back and dream of warm places, imagining myself transported to southern California, Puerto Rico, Key West. That imaginary respite works wonders. Do I want to live in any of those places? Noooooo. Even traveling to one of them for a vacation holds but slight appeal–airports, airplanes, the nonluxury hotel that would “make sense.”

Isn’t the imagination a wonderful thing? It allows travel, it allows fantasies of writing the Great American Novel, of magically becoming a ballerina or an accomplished watercolorist. And once an imaginative excursion has been enjoyed, we return to our normal pursuits, indoors or out, and can feel a bit renewed.

Mud, mud, mud, words, words, words

annebower

Some years mud season is worse than others. This is a doozy and early too. The warm February weather has been melting snow up here in the Pomfret Hills, frost is oozing out of the ground, and our dirt roads are quite the challenge. The shifting ruts and puddles, the lumpy ridges and divots conspire to throw your vehicle this way and that. I guess this is what it feels like to ride a wild horse?

The unsettled and unsettling road echoes my writing mood these days. I’m riding the ridge of confidence one day and down in the rut of no-can-do the next. Lines of poetry slip and slide and can’t seem to find a rhythm. Paragraphs of fiction slither along and don’t really get anywhere. Now, this is not unusual. I’m sure all of you creative folks out there–whether your passion is paint or clay, dance or a musical instrument, acting or some form of writing, pen, pencil, puppetry–all of you go through this too.

I’m hoping that just as mud season will turn into spring, my writing mojo will return. Cheers to you and your energies as well.

Sometimes a book . . .

annebower

Once in a while you fall into a book that puts its spell on you–so well written, the story so compelling, that even when you get to the last page, close the covers, put it down, it stays with you. This morning I finished Stephen Kiernan’s The Glass Chateau, and oh my–it is that kind of book. Kiernan lives in Vermont which makes it even more wonderful to love his work. Earlier I’ve read his A Universe of Two and The Baker’s Secret, both of which are excellent, but this latest novel is the best yet. Every aspect of it works–the setting, characters, historical background, the technical descriptions of making stained glass, the shattered and then healing emotions of the characters, the way the story moves along with great force. Get this book! You’re in for a great reading experience.

As someone who is trying to write fiction, I will return to Kiernan’s novel and try to learn from it. But of course it’s rather daunting to read work that is so expert.

Pickling season begins

annebower
In an earlier post I noted cucumbers were growing. Well–now they are HERE and abundant. I love making fermented pickles because it’s so easy. With just salt, water, dill, and garlic magic happens! As you can see in this snapshot, there’s a little white ramekin shoved in the jartop; that keeps the cucumbers pressed below the top 2″ of brine and is essential for successful pickling.

By comparison, writing a novel takes constant work (more like making some intricate cake). I’m on the 5th draft of “Beyond Measure: A Cookbook Novel,” and almost ready to start querying agents. Wish me luck!!