What I Should Be Writing

We rounded a set of stacks, looking for books on the Victorian Age. "You should write fiction," said my older daughter. "You'd be good at it."

I'm not sure what I have done over time to give her this impression. I explained that fiction is something I don't feel I can do right now, maybe ever.

This week, when I sat down to do Julia's writing Initiation Tool, I felt equally unsure about what it said to me. If I put all the pieces together (my favorite movies, books, fairy tale, top things I think about), it appears I should be writing something along the lines of romantic business management books or dramatic treatises on education. It is possible I should also be writing these in broken French.

We'll see. For today I am writing this, about what I should be writing. And I am saying goodbye to Julia's book The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life. Which leaves me back at the beginning. What should I be writing?

Once upon a time, there was a romantic writer who spoke very little French...


Peony photo, by L.L. Barkat.

RELATED POSTS:
HighCallingBlogs Follow Your Bliss
Erin's A Contract for a Life of Writing Bliss
Cassandra's High Stakes
Nancy's Choices and Voices
Glynn's Looking for that Toy Radio
Lyla's Inside Out

Charity's Writing in Vein

On the Table Where I Write

"Why do you always say what Julia says? I am tired of hearing from Julia."

He was being honest, and it made me chuckle.

Well, I am saying what Julia says, because I am writing these posts for the HighCallingBlogs book club. But if I tell the truth it is more than that. For better or worse, I like Julia. I don't agree with everything she says, but I like her. And it may even be possible that she has changed my life.

That feels like a big statement. And I suppose it is. For today I am not going to try to defend it. It is part of the table where I am writing my life.

This week, in her chapter "Roots," Julia opens with talk about her actual table. Funny, she is also writing in what she calls "high summer," on the Fourth of July. Gracing her table is evidence of the season... roses, rambling and red.

I look at my own table. It doesn't seem graced so much as cluttered, with seasons present and past...

Faded yellow table cloth, French style. A painted mug, Picasso colorful—given to me by a student once—and a sculpture of mother-and-child made by my older daughter. Stubs from bills, summer camp papers, a travel alarm clock, a recently recovered-from-being-lost voice recorder. The impressive looking heft of Julian Bell's book Mirror of the World nicely diminished by a dried up grape stem that looks like an old woman's hand.

My table says a lot about me. Things that Julia can't say. That is how it goes. Someone can change your life, but she can't live it for you. Your life is yours to write.



Mother and Child balance sculpture by Sara, age 12. Photo by L.L. Barkat.

Driving to Words

Go driving, said Julia. It will give you miles to unwind.

I don't really like to drive. All week I drove my daughter back and forth to camp. I used it as a time to listen to music. But I was relieved when Friday came. Driving doesn't do for me what it does for Julia.

I prefer to unwind across pages or back porch mornings. Dew on begonias, sage, the lemon-thyme I just transplanted—these things give me rest, open me to write. While driving through Julia's words, I found a sentence that made me pause...

This is the molten light filmmakers call "golden hour," she said.

I liked that. I let it take hold of me. It tickled out an Independence Day poem of sorts...

Sunset

This is the golden hour,
when I can play out my life
in hot pink,
purple,
cherry red,
and instead of giving me
that look, you will
love me for it, ache
for tomorrow, ask me
to do it all over
again.









Fireworks and Girl photos, by L.L. Barkat.

Julia Found Words for Me

Where do writing ideas come from?

If we are open to the world, we find they are around every corner, inside every ice cream cone (or Popsicle, as the case may be). Writing ideas are often in the words that other people say. Like these from Julia Cameron...

Wherever I am, wherever I can, I write.... Am I balanced? Overreacting? Happy? Sad? My hand moving across the page teaches me my emotional weather. (p.173)

I loved those words. The minute I read them I knew they contained a poem. If I only I would write it. Part of me wanted to move forward and finish her chapter, but I ignored that dutiful self. There had been the slightest beginning of a discovery, the tip of something, and I decided I'd rather spend my time uncovering what Julia had found for me...

Weather Report

My hand across the page
tells me this is a hot
June day— unbearably
hot— and I am not anymore
the kind of woman who
will sit back and take it
without finding a lime green
Popsicle or a lone shaded stone
on which to eat frozen sweetness
down to its round-edged stick.

What words are waiting for you today, maybe next to the lawn mower? You'd better bring a notebook along to catch and keep them.


Sunset photo by Sara. Used with permission.

RELATED:
HighCallingBlogs Wanted: Friendly Reader
Glynn's Practice of Writing
Marilyn's Sweeping
Nancy's Savoring Life
Cassandra's Like Water on a Stone
Lyla's On Coffee and Caves

Finding Your Writing Voice on Twitter

"Are you ready for that?"

Kathleen and I were reading Neruda beneath the redwoods. We talked about his exile. I was startled when Kathleen lowered her voice, looked steadily into my eyes and asked the question.

"Are you ready for that?"

It seemed unreal. Should I, as a writer and poet, ever expect actual exile? Was that was she meant?

continue reading at HighCallingBlogs...


Veil in the Tree photo, by L.L. Barkat.


RELATED:

Cassandra's Dailiness
Nancy's Stuck
Glynn's Voice, Get Over It
Charity's The Sound My Heart Makes: Finding My Voice

An Accidental Post While Watering the Garden

I gave myself permission not to write again for a while. Then I went and watered the garden. The eggplants were particularly wilted. I thought about the eggplants. I considered writing. I decided to just think about the eggplants.

Then I came inside and had a glass of water and started reading Julia Cameron, and I decided maybe I will give myself permission to write a post on Monday— one that I start here and structure with a click-over to HighCallingBlogs. The noon spot. Or maybe the 4 o'clock. I am trying not to scare myself back to the eggplants.

Anyway, if I do the post, it will be called something like "Finding Your Voice on Twitter." Or maybe I will just water the garden again.


Framing the Eggplant, a "Mr. Bill" style photo for PhotoPlay.

AN ON-PURPOSE POST:
Erica's Win a Photo, a CD, or Gift Card & Help Bring Them Home

Happiness Beyond Writing

I was supposed to take a bath, then run, not walk, to make a list of things that make me happy.

That was Julia Cameron's advice.

I took the bath. It seemed like a perfect Sabbath thing to do.

Should I rush to the page like Julia advised? It seemed counter-Sabbath. I did not rush. In fact, I did not go to the page at all.

Why list the things that make me happy? Why not give the day to acts of joy instead? I thought about God's idea for the Sabbath. Rest. Rest and rejoice.

Downstairs, I made a cup of green tea. I poked through the fridge and found herb-butter my children had made the night before. I slathered it on crusty brown bread and cut a few slices of fresh mozzarella. Simple Sabbath morning.

I took my time. One of my girls sat quietly on the couch, writing. The other was off with Daddy to church. I did not go to church, but instead slept in after a late Saturday night. And woke to Julia's advice. And took my bath. And took my time.

The rest of the day I gave over to friends. A picnic. It rained before we were finished. We moved on to someone's home. I had more tea. This time mint, fresh picked, fresh brewed and iced. We played cards, talked, laughed.

Several times throughout the day I felt drawn to the computer, but I listened to a deeper sense that said, "Not today. Today I do not want to see news, or answer questions, or feel responsible." I played the piano, played guitar, started reading a new chapter book to my kids.

Sabbath. Rest.


Lamb's Ear photo, by L.L. Barkat.

RELATED:
HighCallingBlogs' At Least the Potential for Happiness
Cassandra's A Page At a Time
Glynn's Writing in Place, Writing to Place
Marilyn's What Were We Waiting For?
Nancy's Makin' a List
Melo's Day 31: Missed the Boat
Erin's How I Dodged the Writing Police

Excuse Me, I'm WRITE-ing

I have sometimes been a cranky writer.

"I'm writing," I say when my daughter interrupts. I put special emphasis on the word writing, and extra-special emphasis on the first syllable.

I think I do this because when I draw out the wr sound, it's an act of verbal wringing. I want to wring the interruption right out of my day.

Okay, the truth is I was a cranky writer as lately as Saturday, when working on my Barbie poem. My Littlest became very insistent when I was smack in the middle of what felt like my best thoughts. I had to stop in the "boys" section and attend to her. I felt irritated, and I even gave her a mini talk on how it's unkind to interrupt people's creative processes. It can take away their thoughts.

There is a place for drawing boundaries around our moments. Still, I think Julia Cameron is right. Interruptions will not ruin us. They will not wring our thoughts out of us, ruin our poem or chapter. Do we really think our ideas are so superficial as to disappear that easily?

If I'm honest with myself, I know my daughter cannot steal my thoughts; they rise from deep places. So why did I give her the mini-talk? It's because my pleasure had been interrupted, and that felt uncomfortable. That is the more precise reason, and it moves away from blame.

Somehow it seems important to try to be more precise and, instead of blaming, say, "I felt sad to stop writing my poem, because I was having so much fun." It is the real reason for my irritation. After all, as a seasoned writer I've been interrupted over and again, and it never stopped me from finally getting my words on the page.

As it turned out, my Barbie poem went where it needed to go. Even with a 45-minute detour between lines three and four. Maybe even because of the 45-minute detour (special emphasis on the word because :)


Pea Flower photo by L.L. Barkat.

Finding Your Words

The poet walks. That's what Julia says. I did not know this is what she says until I got home, from walking. Julia is right. When we walk, we find our words, we find memories we take home in our bodies. These are a few of the memories I now hold...



Giant leaves make me feel I am in the rain forest, but this is just a quiet walk in a Northeast wood.




"There's a circle!" She runs over and sits, telling me it reminds her of Stonehenge. What is it about a circle?




My Littlest has gone off and found a secret garden. It feels enchanted.












A white moth surprises me when I look again at the photo. I did not know he was there.




The green of an open field. It heals without words.




My girls know all about what a field can do. See how it animates?




The day is like seed upon seed. Who knows where it will drift in memory, and maybe someday in words?


Ward Pound Ridge Reservation photos, by L.L. Barkat.

Writing for the Lint Pickers

I am going to tell you about my friend Liza.

Okay, her name isn't really Liza. But if I told you her name, then I wouldn't get to write about her. And I want to write about her, because Liza used to do something deadly to her creative self, and maybe you are still doing what Liza used to do.

She would make these beautiful poems. Truly beautiful.

Then Liza would go to another poet friend who would read her poems quietly and seriously, as if she really cared about these beautiful poems.

It would start small.

You should take out the last three lines.

Liza would feel a little sad. She especially liked the last three lines.

The language here is too wide open.

Liza liked wide open language.

I just don't get the point of this poem.

Liza liked a little mystery.

By the time their "sharing session" was done, Liza felt like the dumbest poet on earth— which, if we listen to Julia Cameron this week, we will understand was exactly what Liza's friend was hoping. Maybe not consciously; she spent the time reading the poems, she took the time to share her critiques.

But, in the end, Liza's friend was like the playwright's friends that Cameron discusses...

The feedback from the playwright's jealous peers? Mainly lint picking. How is the playwright to understand the size of what's been done when the comments all address the creative lint?

I'm not saying that it's bad to have friends who can tell us where we need to cut three lines (or maybe even ten), but if that's the only kind of feedback they ever give, we need to do what Liza finally did. Find a new place to share.


Making the Boat, photo by L.L. Barkat.

Writing Theft

I stole, at the dining room table while waiting to go off to opera (the fourth and final of my kids' performances in Suor Angelica). Outside, the day was grey. It put me in a poetic mood.



I stole the moment, as Cameron suggested a writer should, and I let myself dream a monster's life.

But first I remembered an odd theory, developed after a murder case was solved by a heart-transplant patient's "memories." She remembered because, they suspect, the brain is not the only seat of memory in the body. She remembered what happened in the life of someone else— her donor.

This led me to Frankenstein, Shelley's monster man, made from the parts of various people. What memories might lie in his heart, or toe, his tongue? What life— not his — did these memories come from? And what desires might they urge?

I daydreamed my answers into a form-poem called a pantoum, which I will share. But that is not all I stole.



I stole in the kitchen.



I stole at the opera dressing-room counter.



I took my words, stolen by degrees, and folded memories, love, hope, into five notes to friends (also Cameron's suggestion).



Who knew that writing-theft could be so heartening? It was.


Frankenstein

He stitched me limb by limb,
from pieces he gathered at graves
fresh dug. By candlelight dim
he sorted my heart, hips that once craved.

From pieces he gathered at graves,
I grew by night—calloused toes, amber eyes.
He sorted my heart, hips that once craved,
imprisoned the voice of a man who lied.

I grew by night—calloused toes, amber eyes,
searching for child I'd lost in the Rhine.
He imprisoned the voice of a man who lied
to keep his love from shearing the line.

Searching for child I'd lost in the Rhine,
I welcomed his breath to revive my tongue,
to keep my love from shearing the line,
and speak again of lilies undone.

I welcomed his breath to revive my tongue,
taste her love on a moonless night
and speak again of lilies undone—
their fragrance mocks my soulless plight,

as I wander a world whose fear near looms,
fresh dug by candlelight dim,
while lilies fade in empty rooms,
he stitched me limb by limb.


Suor Angelica photos and photos of cards by one of my favorite card makers, Elizabeth O. Weller, by L.L. Barkat.

RELATED:
HighCallingBlogs Quiltwork
nAncY's hcb book club
Nancy's Just a Minute
Glynn's The Right to Write: Laying Track
Marilyn's If
ELK's flight
Ann's Imperfect Conditions
Lyla's Bad Writing and Croissants
Monica's Week 2
Erin's Dismantling the Writing Life Fairy Tale
Cassandra's Living with My Writer
Melissa's When Everything Flows
Jezamama's Out of Hiding

Let Yourself Write

When I first read Bird by Bird, I wanted to be Anne Lamott. And when I read One Hundred Years of Solitude, I wanted to be Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I have wanted to be Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard, and a lot of other hilarious, lyrical, or thoughtful writers too.

Ah well. I'm just me.

In Julia Cameron's view of writing, that may be an advantage. "Let yourself write," she encourages. "Begin where you are." "Listen to what's around you."

Last I knew, Wendell Berry has never been to my neighborhood. Annie Dillard has not seen the crescent moon over this 1930's Tudor. Marquez has not walked these red oak floors, bare footed. Not a single one of these famous writers has ever taken a brush to my daughter's thick, dark hair and said, "Tomorrow, if we do nothing else, we must trim your ends. They're splitting."

So it is. If my little corner of the world is going to be shared, I have to let my self write.

And Wendell? We'll let him handle Kentucky.


Join our HCB book club discussion on The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life.

Glynn's The Right to Write, Beginnings
Louise's Automatic Response
Nancy's Let's Write
Lyla's The Art of Taking Dictation
Monica's Book Club: The Right to Write
Marilyn's Book Club
Cassandra's In the Quiet
nAncY's Ready, Set, Go
Erin's Just Writing
Eric's To Begin, and to Begin Again


Crescent Moon painting, by Sara. Used with permission.