On, In, and Around Mondays: The Un-Writing Morning

I want to write a note, but I have no words.

So I begin without them.

It is the only way.

The no-words somehow become halting lines, of something. Apology perhaps. Or questions. Explanations maybe, or invitations. The lines stack up, broken thing by broken thing.

Before I know it, I have a poem. This surprises me.

When I come near to the end of my note-poem, I have no words again. Outside, a bird whistles in just the way I used to hear a certain bird in childhood. I don't know what kind she was, but sometimes in the lilacs, or perhaps it was the tall white firs, I heard her calling. This takes me back, and I am reminded of the power of return.

This is not the first time.

Earlier in the week, I was trying to finish a review of a challenging but intoxicating book— A Broken Thing: Poets on the Line. I had no words.

So I returned to these fragments from just a week ago...

Do the shells still hear the sea, though they are in pieces? How deep does the hearing of the sea enter into bone?

The fragments led me into words, sentences, even paragraphs, until I had a whole review made up of broken things. This was good; I met my deadline.

I had no deadline this morning, just a wish to end the poem I could not begin and later could not end. My tea was waiting, and the poem too. So I returned to the sea, the shells in pieces, the bones.

And I wondered, is that all it ever is, really. A willingness to write in fragments, to struggle towards the whole.

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On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.

If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

<a href="http://seedlingsinstone.blogspot.com"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5083/5217906589_c7120874ca.jpg" width="308" height="69" alt="On In Around button" />

This post is also shared with Laura Boggess, for...

Criticism: Don't Let it Keep You Up at Night

Criticism can kill. Or it might just make you stronger...

Read more at The High Calling.


Princess & the Pea illustration by Sara B. Used with permission.

On, In, and Around Mondays: Feel Your Way Through Words

Write the details, I say.

And it's not just a passing writer's tip. It is advice for me. So I stand here and begin, with no sense of where I might go...

Blue notebook with thin-penciled Algebra; red doors near the sidewalk, with wild paint scrawls; sun coming through rippled-glass window... and the maple barely moving today, its leaves like hands probing a tenuous sky.

Test tubes on the table, experiments in cobalt glass, eye droppers and staining solutions, blue gloves and distilled water. A clear plastic funnel on its side.

How long will I have to write before I reach the subtext and the feelings?

Someone left the lights on in the dining room. Brass chandelier with faux candles burning through bare glass. A blue napkin, and a red one, tossed on the dark wood chair.

Anna Akhmatova in a mauve book, speaks of lilies and light through the window. Sugar maples don't grow in Russia; she could not make the same list I am making today. And her children, did they leave the lights on? And was there a study of osmosis near the piano? (Test tubes are everywhere, did I say that? And thin, impossibly thin, dialysis tubing.)

Now I take a cup of tea in the white Princeton set with the dark blue band, and the gold, near the rim. The tea is Japanese. Ban-cha. I am going around the world. Russia, Japan. Soon I will join my husband somewhere in Italy. Is he drinking tea? It seems more like a place for coffee, black and strong.

Out the back window, I see white shells broken in the little garden. Begonias, fragile pink, lean away. Do the shells still hear the sea, though they are in pieces? How deep does the hearing of the sea enter into bone?

The sea is between me and Italy. Between me and Russia. Japan.

Red oak beneath my feet separates me by a continent—from Anna's earth and where she wrote her poetry, from misty mountains that grow tea high above the sea, from Italy.

And I wonder, is this my subtext?

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On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.

If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

<a href="http://seedlingsinstone.blogspot.com"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5083/5217906589_c7120874ca.jpg" width="308" height="69" alt="On In Around button" />

This post is also shared with Laura Boggess, for...

The Vindaloo Guide to Great Writing

A sparrow nesting in the air conditioner, vindaloo curry, and other tricks of the writing trade that might just get you published (or cultivate your wild side)...

Check out this High Calling interview about Rumors of Water.


Tea Photo by Claire Burge, used with permission.

6 Things Your Writing Must Have to Wow Readers

Is your writing missing something vital? It might be.

Over at AdAge, in a discussion of consumer behavior, Kevin Hartman discusses six emotions that advertisers track. It might make you a little uncomfortable to know that marketers are Stealing Your Diary to probe if and where you get emotionally attached.

But don't be too mad (or surprised).

The best writing actually revolves around the same six emotions, often experienced in readers as a physical reaction (tears, sighs, gasps, clenched teeth)...

Anger, Love, Sorrow, Joy, Fear, and Surprise

Interestingly, Hartman notes that "the most unfortunate news for brands over that last year was the lack of the emotion 'Surprise' in the consumer conversation. Logging in as a distant sixth place, the dearth of 'Surprise' clearly indicates that few brands have mastered the art of building anticipation into their consumer relationships."

Surprise isn't easy to come by for a writer. Hasn't it all been done before?

It's not necessarily about presenting a surprising idea (though it can be). In In Pursuit of Elegance, Matthew May notes that humans have an attachment to symmetry.

So if, as a writer, we use solid details to create a very clear picture but we leave something in that picture ambiguous or uncertain, this will create intrigue. Or, put another way, our readers will begin to desperately seek symmetry.

When writing a short article, one of the easiest ways to introduce uncertainty is to begin with a question, stated or unstated. In a longer work, we can include a thread that hides the "punchline" until the end.

It stands to reason that if you can create this kind of surprise in conjunction with at least one or more of the other 5 emotions, you'll create an even bigger "wow" for readers.

So why not begin thinking about how to write for emotional impact? You could steal some of the best writer's diaries as a place to begin.

On, In, and Around Mondays: Embrace the Shape

I was all alone for lunch. I didn't want to be alone.

The waitress sat me facing the wall. She set the maroon menu down on the brushed stainless steel table, and placed a white cloth napkin and large utensils before me.

Is this how a restaurant seats those who are alone? Maybe the wall is supposed to make the lonely diner feel closer to something. Maybe it gives a sense of safety and connection to something, if only a decorative picture of Eleanor Roosevelt.



Let me see the room I am alone in, I thought. Let me embrace the shape of this time. I picked up the leather menu and switched sides. The room was large. I saw groups of people laughing together, a set of businessmen pushing pencils, waiters moving from table to table.

Maybe I'll write, I thought, and went reaching for my purple notebook. But no, I thought. Embrace the shape of this time.

So I watched. I watched the candle burning in foggy rose-colored glass. I watched a man outside in the courtyard, talking, talking, talking on his phone, head bobbing, hand in jeans pocket. He talked through my focaccia with olive oil. He talked until I noticed the watermelon shape of my goblet and its sweat dripping down and the cubes melting inside. In his red and white striped Brooks Brothers styled shirt, he finally walked away when the burrata on bread with prune jam and basil arrived.



I cut small pieces of the burrata and moved it slowly up to my mouth. I let the fragrance of the jam and basil meet me before I put the bite on my tongue. It is like a spiritual experience, I thought.



I did the same with the tiny sweet potatoes covered with brown sugar and pecans. Slow movement, fragrance, take it in. I watched how the waiter who served me smiled. What's your name? I asked when he came to me again. It was Christian.



Finally, I took my phone out to check the time. How much longer would it be until I had my next meeting? I might need to go somewhere else and wait, pull out that paper and pen I'd been after.

But the time was gone. Somewhere in that hour and a half, I'd melted into the embrace.




________

On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.

If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

<a href="http://seedlingsinstone.blogspot.com"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5083/5217906589_c7120874ca.jpg" width="308" height="69" alt="On In Around button" />

This post is also shared with Laura Boggess, for...

On, In, and Around Mondays: What's Your Happiest Moment?

We are sitting on a tapestried couch in a castle-like hotel. The side of the couch is high and velvety. I didn't think I liked high-sided couches.

But here we are, my Littlest and I, lounging together. Her head is on my chest and I am feeling the absolute smallness of her hand, and how soft are her fingers.

"What is your happiest moment?" I remember the question I'd seen somewhere just the other day. This must be it, I think. Then I recall my Littlest child's birth, how she came when no-one was in the room but me, and the nurse had rushed in just in time to catch her and toss her onto my chest, and my new baby's bareness was against me, warm and silent and motionless. And she blinked and I looked into her eyes for the first time, and I whispered, "You are *so* beautiful."

Now I am remembering other times, rooms where I was alone with just one other person. And I think, "Maybe that was my happiest moment." But then my writer-self interjects with grammatical thoughts about the "est" ending making it impossible to have more than one happiest moment.



Still later, I watch my Eldest touching the Fall-dried grasses. The castle-hotel is a memory of two hours ago, and other dark rooms are lost to years. Here in the sunlight, on top of a great mountain, I can see for miles down the Hudson River, and it is breathtaking, but it is my girl touching the grasses and her smiling and whirling while she knows I'm photographing her... it is this that makes me think again, "Maybe this is my happiest moment."

And suddenly I know that all my happiest moments are in a space, enclosed or wide-open, where it feels there is no space at all between me and just one other person. I know that the things I've done, like speaking to a crowd of 1,300 people, is energizing in its way, but will never be one of my happiest moments.

I know this too. I cannot choose just one. I will never have a happiest moment, at least grammatically-speaking. Happiness cannot, for me, be counted.



________

On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.

If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

<a href="http://seedlingsinstone.blogspot.com"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5083/5217906589_c7120874ca.jpg" width="308" height="69" alt="On In Around button" />

This post is also shared with Laura Boggess, for...

Tracing Words & Rumors

Thank you, Kelly Sauer. For tracing my words with your lens. Then finding your own words too...

Why Leave a Hole in Your Marketing?

Everyone’s got something to “sell.” It might be a product, like a book. It might blur the lines between product and service, like a blog. It could be a new process in a workplace setting. Or maybe even a bowl of green beans, to a fussy toddler.

What’s a writer, a manager, a parent to do?

Matthew May, in his book In Pursuit of Elegance, suggests that a good “salesperson” will leave a hole in his marketing—some missing piece, some mystery, a space for others to add their voices and creativity.

About a week ago, I decided to try May’s idea for myself. I was getting ready to “market” this series, and instead of simply announcing it, I engaged people in a missing-pieces game.

It worked.

Between comments at the blog posts where the game was played, and comments on Facebook, about 100 game-related comments were generated altogether. Not only did the game create more response than usual on my blogs, it also increased traffic and, most importantly, it created a space for readers to make their own meaning— resulting in delightful jokes, banter, poems, and philosophical musings (no one did a Cheetos sculpture in response, but Cheetos did eventually enter the conversation, as they are wont to do when Duane is nearby).

The challenging part of leaving a hole in our marketing is that we can’t find one “game” and continue to play it. Mystery resists formulas. Still, there are some principles to help guide the way. What are they? I probably shouldn’t say, ‘til next time.

(Got ideas? I’d love to hear them.)

On, In, and Around Mondays: The Long Way

It is after my poetry session, at the Laity Lodge Writer's Retreat. I skip lunch, take the long way back to my room. I do not feel hungry, just tired and round-about.

The path is crushed red stone. The sun presses down.

Mindless, I walk slowly. Then something catches my eye. A yellow flower in the midst of otherwise dead vegetation. I photograph the flower, turn back to the path, then notice my shadow across the dryness. Or is it a dryness across my shadow?

I stand still and look, suddenly taken with the way something of me is captured in this scene. A slight breeze keeps tugging at my skirt. I watch it and the turn of my hand, in shadow. Then I begin to be more deliberate, embrace the moment. What would it look like if I turned this way, then that? I photograph myself in shadow, or perhaps the shadow in myself, for a long time.

And I feel alive.

***

Only under certain circumstances of constructive stress or in certain states—great love, for example, or religious ardor, or the courage of battle—do we begin to tap the depth and richness of our creative resources, or the tremendous reserves of life energy that lie sleeping within." (Ellen Langer, from Mindfulness)


Care to join us for a bookclub discussion of Mindfulness, by Ellen Langer?

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On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.

If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

<a href="http://seedlingsinstone.blogspot.com"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5083/5217906589_c7120874ca.jpg" width="308" height="69" alt="On In Around button" />

This post is also shared with Laura Boggess, for...