Of a River in Ireland, and Why I go to Standing Rock

Ten years ago, I spent most of a summer in Ireland. I had gone to hike the Wicklow Way, from Dublin to southern Ireland, but thanks to a grate on a sidewalk in Dublin, I sprained my ankle the first day there, and my plans had to change. This turned out to be a fortunate accident, as I ended up spending a lot of time with locals. I spent a couple of weeks in Dublin, a few weeks in Glendalough valley, and a few more in a tiny town in southern Ireland where my grandfather was born - Carriag na Suir, or Carrick-on-Suir. The town straddles the Suir River, part of the town in Waterford County, and part in Tipperary County.

In that town I met many lovely people - a printer who introduced me to a local historian who had a THICK file on my family heritage, a lovely woman who worked at the local mill who I almost daily shared a pint with at the local pub, my hosts at the B & B where I stayed, who sent me off each day loaded down with food and plenty of local wisdom. Everyone I met - everyone - kept telling me that I needed to meet Michael Cody - a local teacher, writer, poet who had won many international awards for his poetry, and who could tell me a great deal about the town.

I finally got up the nerve to call him, and he invited me over immediately, and he and his wife were lovely. When a birthday call came from a friend while I was in their home, Michael - exclaiming that it was my birthday and a gift was called for - got down several of his poetry volumes from a shelf, signed them, and presented them to me. As we talked that day about the town, it came out that both his grandfather and my grandfather had worked on the Suir river as boatmen. In the county at that time, the “port” for ships coming in was upriver from Carrick at the town of Clonmel, but the boats couldn’t make it that far upriver without help. The Carrick boatmen would stand on shore and grasp ropes tied to the boats, and haul the boats upstream to Clonmel - seven miles. I walked the seven miles along their “tow-path” while I was there, and, just hauling my back-pack, it was not an easy walk.

We talked about our ancestors, about the town, and, at one point, with a wistful look on his face, Michael said to me, “I can’t imagine life anywhere but on the river - it *is* life.” I think often of that day, of his face, and of how I felt as I later stood on the banks of the Suir, watching the blue water rush by, as I prepare to leave for Standing Rock. My grandfather, though he left Carrick when he was very young, loved that river, just as he later grew to love the Kootenai River in northwest Montana, on which he lived many of his later years. In his notes, I found a quick scrawl about the Kootenai, where he wrote “There is nothing like the exhilaration of life on this river.” Yes. The exhilaration of life. The profoundly true notion that water IS life.

This is why I go to Standing Rock. Not only are the Standing Rock Sioux honoring their ancestors by protecting the water, but they are honoring ALL of our ancestors, and I must honor mine.

It is HERE! FREE PDF

There are times when every writer needs something beyond feedback   - not editing but guidance, not suggestions but clarity.  They need discovery.  These are the times for a RiverWords session. RiverWords is a new method for writing groups focusing on growth for the writer. The FREE PDF that gives a quick guide to RiverWords sessions is available for download on my website here:

RiverWords PDF

The full-length workbook to guide groups through the entire process, and explain the origins and ideas behind these techniques is available to purchase on Amazon here:

A River Of Words: A New Method for Writing Groups

On Making a Mess

NOTE:  the launch of the FREE PDF for writer’s groups in two days,

On saturday, October 29th - watch here for a link to the free download!

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Recently, a friend of mine was shopping for new furniture for her home office and brought a catalog with her to our coffee date.  As she thumbed through it while I perused the menu, she gasped and slid the catalog across the table to me, pointing to a picture in the catalog of an ‘ideal’ office with the banner “Make this YOURS!”  She tapped the picture, and I looked down.  

“Wow, that’s beautiful!” Gleaming surfaces, curved edges, handy nooks for papers and

supplies, beautiful hangings on the wall.

She grinned.  “Wouldn’t you just love to have that as your office?”

“No.”  I said, without thought, without hesitation.

She sat up, pulling the catalog back to her as though I’d offended.  “Why?’

“I couldn’t work there.  Too sterile.  I like funky.”  And went back to my menu.

Space - the space in which you write - is important to writer’s process.  While not the most important element, (perhaps), it is essential to mindset, to concentration, to the spirit of the writer herself. I’m not saying that a space such as that in the catalog photo is bad for writers - I’m saying it’s bad for me as a writer, and that each writer should be very careful about how they choose, structure, and respect their writing space. We’ve known about this for a long time.  Virginia Woolf wrote about the necessity for a woman writer having ‘a room of her own,’ (though I actually disagree with part of her argument), and the majority of the writers I know are jealous of and protective of their space for writing.

Students in my writing classes have often told me that having a good place to write is a major obstacle for them - noisy roommates, crowded housing, etc.   I’ve gone through with them an activity

which has them think about the last time they wrote something they liked …. Where were they?  What did they like about the place?  What did work?  What didn’t? ….until we narrow down the elements that work for them and find a way to recreate it.  Perhaps a dark booth in the corner of a coffee shop, or a bench in the park, or, remarkably, for one student, a table at McDonalds.

The point is, as with so many other elements in the creative act, to PAY ATTENTION.  For me, the moment came in watching a scene in the movie White Palace.  The main character ( a very young James Spader) pulls a dust-buster off the wall of his host’s house, and opens it, exclaiming “there’s no dust in the dust-buster!” -- a moment, which, in the film, is transformational for the character.  That moment stayed with me a long time.  I had spent a long time trying to be “neat” in my writing space, organizing and stacking, filing and sorting.  “Writing,” a teacher named Peter Elbow once said, “is a process of making a mess and cleaning it up.” Looking at my own process, I realized I was cleaning it up before I’d allowed myself to make the kind of mess that real lives and real humans create. Ever after, I did not worry about the organization or cleanliness of my writing space.  There were much more important things.

My space is filled with large old well-distressed oak table that once belonged to my late sister.   In the middle of a story, it will be stacked with books and pages, notes and pencils, computers and reference works, scraps with snatches of dialogue, sketches I’ve made of characters or their world,

and likely my soup-bowl stacked on top of my breakfast plate.  I recognized some time ago that funky old furniture fits my character, soothes my working-class spirit (which comes from my upbringing), and gives me a sense of history I find essential to developing my characters.

I like funky places.  I like funky people.  I like working-class people (in spite of objectionable images of them promoted in the media, tv shows, and by certain directors - one of my main objections to Scorsese).  I like the sense of history, of struggle, of the human spirit, embodied in the old, scrappy furniture that I surround myself with.

That works for me.  It may not work for everyone, but the point is to figure out what that environment is for YOU, and do everything in your power to create it.  Maybe you need clean clear open spaces to create that sense in your mind and open the door to creativity.  Maybe you need McDonalds, to surround yourself with the comings and goings of people and families to remind you of the wide variety of the human heart.  Maybe you need dark corners to help you peer into the other worlds you want to create.  Whatever it is, make it YOURS.

2 Must-Do Strategies to Beat Writers Block

NOTE:  The FREE PDF for writer’s groups (and the accompanying book-length handbook) are in final editing, just days from being posted - all permissions received.  Look for posting within 10 days.

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“The writer seeks, and then must deal, with empty time.”

I don’t recall the first time I saw the above quote, nor do I remember it’s source.  I do remember that, when I first saw it, I knew exactly what it meant.  We writers will bemoan endlessly the lack of time to do the writing we need to do, and then, when we have it, find any number of other things to do instead - laundry, errands, dusting, organizing files, alphabetizing books or CDs or recipes - anything to avoid the challenges, the discomfort, of facing that blank page and the endlessly-blinking cursor.  We are world-champion procrastinators and apologists.

And we know it. In those alone moments, when there is no one to whom we need to justify our

inaction, we look at that cursor, or the blank page, and we know we could put down a word, two words, a thousand of them - if only we could get over the fear.  

And here I am to say:  GET OVER IT.

As a popular meme says, there are two steps to writing a novel (or a story or an article):  Step One:  start writing.  Step Two:  There IS no step two

I’m not saying the fear isn’t real.  I’m not saying it is not paralyzing and debilitating. It is.  So is the fear of a woman going into labor, or a soldier going into battle, or of any of us going into a job interview, or a first date, or a dentist appointment, for Christ sake.  The empty page is as frightening to the writer as any of these, and yet….. And yet, it is the only way to become the writer you want to be.  So you must find a way to do as I said:  get over it.

There’s lots of advice out there on how to do that - strategies, tricks, mental training, meditation, finger exercises --- strategies ad nauseum.   They are all fine, but won’t get you to the page until you do two things:

BE BRAVE..

Yes, easier said than done.   There is, in my experience, one fool-proof way to help anyone find their courage.  Joseph Campbell, the mythologist and philosopher, once offered it as advice to his students:  consult your death.   We are all, at some point, leaving this earth.  When it is over for you, what kind of person do you want to be remembered as? (Yes, I know I ended a sentence with a preposition - get over that, too.) A friend of my sister (also a writer) once said to her:  “Do you want to leave this earth without having said what you need to say?” They are the same sentiment.  Some writing students have told me that

they have nothing to say worthy of readers attention, and I always tell them the same thing:   I don’t believe that.  Every person - every person - on this earth has a perspective that is entirely unique.  No one - not a single other soul - can think about things, see things, react to things in exactly the same way you can.  And, further, you have no way of knowing who that perspective or thought might be useful to.  Stop hiding your gifts out of fear.  

And, second:   DO IT.

Sit down every day and write words - word after word after word - on your paper.  You will fail.  You will fail mightily.  You will get rejections, editors remarks will pierce your soul.  But if you truly wish to write, that is the rite of passage.  As Hemingway once said - the world breaks everyone, and afterwards, some are strong at the broken places.  If you want to be a strong writer, you must face those broken places, open to them, and put their story on the page - every day.  

What the truly great writers tell us, if we really listen to their words, is that the world doesn’t need a writer who is market-savvy - the world needs the hard, brutal, soul-wrenching, beautiful truth.  This means finding what you have to say, the one thing that is yours to say, and then bucking up your courage and saying it.  Be brave.  Do it.

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Launch date for the FREE PDF and “RiverWords” book:  October 29th.  Look for the link here and on my website.

Notes on Being Nowhere

(See notes about the upcoming FREE download at the end of this post)

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For several days, every time I think about writing, I’m haunted by an image from many years ago:  my father, who died when I was a young child, picking through a pile of discarded parts at the city dump outside my home town. It’s only the flash of an image, like a still photograph - his smile, his hand reaching for a curved piece of metal - a bicycle bumper - the collar of his jacket, the twinkle in his eye.  My parents couldn’t afford bicycles for all six of us kids, so he found parts others didn’t want,

scoured the dump, found more, and built three bicycles - three that served all six of us through our childhood years.  He painted them, and the one I inherited when my older sisters were done with it was the blue one.  It was, during the late years of my childhood, my favorite thing on earth.  I felt like I could go anywhere, do anything when I was riding.

When I see that image of my father, the bent bumper frame in his hand, it is not those feelings of freedom I feel.  It is, more than anything, a sense of understanding - a vision of another human being motivated in ways I know.  I am, in that flash of a moment, in the presence of a peer - a parent, doing what it takes to find a way to give his child something good, something that opens up childhood in the right ways.

What makes that image so essential is connection.  A connection, a deep understanding of a person who, for most of my young life, I had believed was wholly beyond my capacity to understand.

“There are days,” a fictional character once said*, “when we are simply nowhere.”

Every writer knows that feeling.  In point of fact, in the writing of this blog, I have said it to myself (well, said, “I am nowhere”) half a dozen times.  In recent months, I think most of the country knows this feeling - events spiraling out of control, beyond our ability to affect them, leaving us feeling impotent, frustrated -- nowhere. It is the national disease of our time, and one that writers are intimately familiar with.  

What strikes me as I think of this is that, in order to truly leave that feeling, that emotional/psychological trap behind, you must actively choose to be somewhere.  You cannot just wait for events to unfold and hope for the best, you cannot be passive, just as writers (the real ones) know they cannot just wait for “inspiration.”  To be passive is to surrender.  Writers know this - they know they must power through that fiction known as “writer’s block” to find the words hiding behind their fear.  Athletes know it -- they know they must power through that very real phenomenon known as “the wall” to get to their best performance.  You must be somewhere.  You must take a stand, write the words, run the miles, and stand up.  

Here’s where I stand, here is the ‘somewhere’ that I am:   I stand with Standing Rock, who are protecting their lands and the water that all of us must have from the inevitable (yes, it is inevitable) poisoning that would result if the oil companies win.  I stand with Black Lives Matter, because to stand against them would, in my view, be simply inhuman. I stand with my brothers and sisters of Asian, Latina, Middle Eastern, African, and Native American heritage who are not asking for special treatment, but only that their lives be lived with equal safety and opportunity as their Caucasian fellows.  I stand with the LGBQT community, because having the freedom to choose how we identify ourselves and who we love is essential to the very nature of a democracy.  I stand with my sisters and brothers who practice the peaceful religion of Islam, because we were founded not as a Christian nation, but as a nation of religious freedom. And, I stand, without hesitation, without question, and in the face of my own very real fears, against all those who would oppose equality, who would oppose justice, who would promote fear and hatred.

How to make that stand is a much harder question.  The ‘how’ is the source of the fear, the frustration, the sense of being nowhere felt by so many in this country, on all sides of every debate or action.  We make choices when we do this - which is what brings me back to that image of my father at the dump, eyes twinkling over his find of a bent  bicycle bumper.   He had returned from serving his country during the war, a war during which his country unjustly imprisoned Japanese Americans, while reviling Hitler for imprisoning Jews; a war during which The House UnAmerican Activities Committee** ruined lives of American citizens while ignoring their first Amendment rights; a war during which we became the only country to ever use nuclear power against another country.  He had returned from this service and chose to be in this life the kind of person who stands up; once he simply quit his business when his partners were considering a course of action my father felt would be unfair to customers and he could not convince them otherwise - simply resigning, returning home and taking  his family to the drive-in, until finally his partners relented.  He chose to be a good person in his community and in his family - a good father, a good husband.  In that moment of joy at the dump, with the bumper in his hand, he celebrated not only the find of something that would make his children happy, but the life of connection

to others, lived out while standing up for what you believe.

For him, in that moment, no dis-empowerment existed, no frustration, no fear over the rampant evil in our world.  He lived a life of connection and clear, solid principles, and he practiced that according to his gifts - his gift of an extraordinary skill at fatherhood, of natural and beautiful connection to others in his life, of seeing them all as equals, including the clients of his business that he stood up for that day.   He lived according to his gifts, and never wavered in his belief in what was right.

It is that lesson I put forward for my writer friends, my activist friends, my friends of both Democrat and Republican persuasion (I am, myself, an Independent and a centrist, and have always been, defining what both of those mean on my own terms).  Live according to your gifts. I do not have the power, nor the skills, to impact change in all of those things I stand for.  I have no skill (and want none) at politics or community organizing or revolution.  What I do have gifts for are the written word, persuasion, and teaching.  I am not a particularly brave person, and I have real fears about what these stands could mean for me.  I have been called brave, but I have never felt brave. During the first Gulf War, when I practiced Islamic covering for many months in support of Muslim women in our community, I felt fear regularly, but took it as an opportunity to teach.  When I have stood up to Union practices I opposed, or unfair practices by a Homeowner’s association, or destructive policies at the school where I teach, people called me brave, and I was afraid.  I don’t know - and likely never will - what impact any of those actions had on the long term.  I do know that I was frequently thanked by others in those battles for giving voice to their opinions.  I work with words - it’s what I do.  

It is what all writers do, whether reeling under the weight of writer’s block, or spending hours at the keyboard with words flowing.  The things for which we stand come out in the words, whether through fictional characters dialogue and actions, or nonfiction essays.  Be sure, as you write them, that you honor those people in your lives like my father - standing in the dump, holding what treasures you have, and using them to make life better.

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NOTE: This is not a political blog, and this post does NOT signal a move away from that, but sometimes there are things that just have to be said.

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NOTES:

* the "fictional character" was Sam Seaborn in an episode of "West Wing"

** a committee which some recent leaders have suggested, horrifically, that we need to re-establish

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FINALLY: A note of apology to those awaiting the promised free download of a GuideSheet for Writing Groups. Due to copyright issues, the free download and the full-length book (which will be available in paperback and e-book on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble sites) must be posted at the same time. The delay is due to being sure all permissions are in place. While verbal permissions have been received, we are awaiting the formal permissions before posting, which should be soon.

Writer's Circle - Asking Open Honest Questions

NOTE:  This is the third and final installation in the series of three posts I’ve put up about a new method for writing groups.  The two others (A New Approach to Writing Groups - posted on June 7th - and Finding the Writer's Heart: Ten Rules for A New Kind of Writing Group - posted on July 30th.)  All three of these will soon be combined into one document available for free for download.  

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Using questions to explore for the truth is a tradition as old as human culture.  The Socratic method, used in ancient Greece, used questions to prove and push students to reasoned

argument and critical thinking.  In courtrooms, lawyers use a series of questions to probe for the truth from witnesses.  In education, a reformer named Paulo Freire used a method called problem-posing - the question of a problem familiar to students - to motivate student learning.  Writing teachers frequently use a list of questions to stimulate discussions in student peer feedback groups. The Quakers use a process called Clearness Committees, asking a series of questions, to help solve problems and conflicts in their communities.

It is this last that I have relied on most heavily in creating these guidelines for the “open, honest questions” to use in the Writing Circles process I propose.  

I strongly recommend that participants practice the process with each other without an author in the center - evaluating each question in the practice session to see how it fits the guidelines for open honest questions before actually trying it with a writer’s actual problem.

Writing Circle Guidelines for Open Honest Questions.

1. The simplest way to define an open, honest question is that the person asking the question could not possibly know the answer to it.  No potential answers are implied by the question, no hidden advice is contained in the question.  The point is to get the author to explore within him/herself for answers.  Examples:  If you read back over your story (or novel or poem) right now, at what point would it start to feel wrong to you?  What feels wrong about it?
2. Open honest questions are not yes/no questions.
3. Try to use some of the words the writer used in expressing her/his problem in order to dig deeper or expand thoughts.  Examples:  Can you say why you think the main character is not acting right?   Can you tell us more about why you said that the story feels wrong for the message you want it to convey?
4. Keep your questions short and clear - when we end up formulating long questions, it generally is us trying to “write the story for the author” - always a negative tendency for those in writing groups.  Remember that your focus here is to help the writer find his own answer within himself.  Example:  how do you want your readers to feel when they read this novel? (or story or poem)
5. If you think that a question you are about to ask has a right answer and wrong answers, don’t ask it - open, honest questions have no right or wrong answers.  They only have the writer’s answer.  Work on changing the essence of the question to something more open.  Example: (Not an open question)  Don’t you think you should re-write the opening scene to make your character stronger?  - to- (Open)  What makes your character strong?  -or-  What is the strength of your opening scene? It’s weakness?
6. Listen very closely to what the writer says about her problem, and try to find questions that seem relevant to that problem.
7. DO NOT tell stories about your own experiences with similar problems - your solutions are your solutions, not this writer’s.  REMEMBER:  in a writer’s circle, you are ONLY allowed to speak to the writer by asking open, honest questions.
8. Think of questions that use metaphors or images.  While often not obviously relevant to the writer’s problem, metaphors and images help the creative mind to work.   Examples:  If this novel were an animal, which animal would it be?  If your main character were running off on an adventure, where would she go?
9. If you feel curious about something the writer has said, think carefully and consider not asking about the source of your curiosity.  Remember, the goal here is NOT to satisfy your curiosity or get your advice - it is to help the writer find his OWN answers.
10. In the creative act, the feelings of the artist, the creator, are central.  Ask questions about feelings.  Examples:  How do you feel about your main character?  What emotions do you want to have in this story?  When you are writing the story, how do you feel?

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Very soon, I’ll be offering a free PDF combining the advice the three blogposts  on this new writing group method, which I am calling RiverWords:  Writer’s Circles.  When that PDF is available, (I am guessing about a week or ten days) I’ll put a notice here on the blog.