Portrait of a Woman, Alone

How he looked my way and I felt it
And yet he did not know me
And I could not find him
Try as I might
Behind the bricks he laid
In a mortar of busy jokes
And his lovely hands
And his shattered heart
But oh, he looked at me so well
And how across the room
I wanted to hold his hand
How I heard him speak to another
And wished it were to me he spoke
How he became a poem in my head
How he kissed me in the place above my dying heart
In the dark corner where no one else was looking
How his mouth slide warmth along my emptiness
And my soul whispered my god I might have loved him
If I hadn’t broken love to pieces
How painful it was to hold my soul captive
To pluck her song unsung from my mouth
When she only wished to set us free
But I knew the price my soul demanded
And tried to turn away
How I surrendered
And yet I could not find him
Try as I might
Behind the bricks he laid
In a mortar of busy jokes
And his lovely hands
And his shattered heart
But oh, he looked at me so well

May 29, 2013 6

Enemy Gift

Happy Memorial Day! From the Archives…

Find Your Story

On November 1, 1945, my Grandpa Steve’s A 20 Bombardment Group prepared for a flight over a piece of ocean loosely held by the crumbling Japanese Empire. His orders were to attack the city of Kyushu on the Japanese mainland. If he managed to survive the first wave of his assignment (to fly within radar and give chase to Japanese pilots while simultaneously skip bombing every railroad tunnel), it would have to be done with precision…or there wouldn’t be enough gas to make it back across the ocean. The mission was so close to impossible, the Army Intelligence officer recommended that Grandpa write his last letter home.

Grandpa Steve never attacked the city of Kyushu, Japan. The planned invasion of the Japanese mainland never took place. America dropped atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima instead. As with every war, one government’s collateral damage became someone else’s son…or daughter…or grandmother…or cousin…

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May 27, 2013 0

Happy Birthday, Bob Dylan….

Bob Dylan will turn 72 on Friday

My first exposure to the potential for beauty in words and stories came from Bob Dylan. When I was a girl, my mom was brave enough to let me listen to her record collection. I’d spread the albums out and sit cross legged on the floor in front of the record player. Dylan’s voice wailed through the tinny speakers, imploring his lady to lay across his big brass bed. While the five year old me had no idea why anyone would want to get in bed with someone with clean hands and dirty clothes, I felt the rare beauty of the invitation in each poetic phrase.

John Wesley Harding and Oh, Mercy were the soundtracks to my first “grown up” college romance (free of the constraints of curfews and porch lights that flashed when I lingered in a boy’s car too long). Discovering someone who wasn’t as old as my parents who loved Dylan too seemed fateful at the time. Oh, how young we were. A few years later, I walked in the door with my first broken heart, turned on the radio and Just Like a Woman was playing. That seemed like fate too (and oh, what a jerk he was).

Dylan constantly reinvents himself and his music, but I have also reinvented and rediscovered his music as I’ve grown up. From records to tapes to cds to Pandora, Bob Dylan has woven tales about heroes and saints and lovers and heaven and hell. I’ve held my breath, waiting for a well turned phrase or suddenly discovered some new question to ponder. What does it mean to be a hero or a criminal or a lover or a loser? Mysteries quiet or bold left to linger unseen in a nearby world, like the flowers in my neighbor’s garden.

In his autobiography, Dylan says he had a second artistic renaissance at 40 years old, and the same has happened for me. He talks about those secret moments of wondering if he was too old, of wishing he could have been twenty years younger, but doing it anyway. I know my own artistic impact is a thousand times smaller, but I can relate.

I haven’t got a clue who Dylan really is as a person, but an artist with over 60 years of creative passion is worth celebrating. Wake up every day and make it happen. Happy Birthday, Bob Dylan.

May 22, 2013 3

Part One: The Story of the Birth of the King of Pirates

The midwife hurried through a cold, foggy night. She came with an empty stomach, because a family who lived in the sailors’ district could hardly be expected to offer more than dinner as payment. She would roll her eyes, say she could think better with food in her belly, and food she would get. It was always better when there were already children in the house with older girls who could tend to a good meal, but it would have to do.
It will have to do, she mumbled to herself as she knocked at the door. A woman’s shrill cry cut the thick air. The midwife pushed the door open. It looked like dinner would have to wait.
An old sailor, sea-battered and red faced, held his young wife around the shoulders. He wore a red coat and she was in a white nightgown. It seemed to the midwife more like a murder scene than a birth.
“What are you doing to that poor girl,” the midwife cried.
“She will not stay in the bed. She says she wants to have the baby in the waves.”
The midwife looked out the tiny cottage window. Beyond were the cliffs, and the sea below. None of that could be seen through the fog. The midwife shook her head. “She will catch her death down there. And people would talk.”
The young woman moaned.
“Don’t worry love,” said the midwife. She stepped forward into the firelight. The mother to be was hardly more than a child. “We will not take you to the sea,” she whispered to the girl, “but there cannot be anything wrong with bringing a bit of the sea to you.” She turned to the husband. “Take a bucket down to the beach and fill it with water.”
“She will flee if I let her go.”
“She will die if she tries to fight you and birth at the same time.” The midwife looked the girl in the eye. “Will you stay if we bring you a bit of the sea?” The girl’s shoulders sagged. She nodded once, very slowly.
It was not the way things were done, the midwife thought, but if it settled the mother and gave the husband something to do…what could it hurt?
What could it hurt?
It was a quick and easy birth after that. The mother delivered a beautiful baby boy with jet black hair.
“He looks just like you,” the midwife cooed as she laid the babe on his mother’s chest.
“That is what I was afraid of.” The mother sighed.
“You are young, with a good birth and a healthy baby. There is nothing in the world to be afraid of.”
The mother sighed again.
The midwife sent the husband out to register the new child at the church while she tidied the room and waited for the afterbirth. She waited and waited, but nothing came.
“Maybe he is human after all,” the new mother murmured as she stroked the baby’s cheek.
“Of course he is a human baby,” the midwife tisked. A tired new mother might say strange things now and then, the midwife assured herself.
The mother jerked forward. The baby cried. The midwife took up the mess.
Except it was not a mess at all. It was a skin, soft and sleek and as silver as the moon. This was not right. Not right at all. The midwife took it to the fire. It was an unnatural thing, and it would be better to destroy it. She threw it on top of the flames.
“It cannot be destroyed,” the mother groaned from the bed. “Take it out with the tongs and drop it in the bucket of sea water. When you leave here, take it with you. Throw it over the cliffs, out into the waves.”
The midwife stood her ground. She crossed her arms and left the thing in the flames, but the mother was right, it did not catch fire.
“You should do as I say.” The mother’s voice was stronger this time, and carried an authority that belied her years. “There will be bad luck if you do not, for you and for your men. There are unseen things out beyond the waves that can take the fish from the nets. They can empty the cages. You do not want to be responsible.”
Oh, how the midwife wished she had never come to that house. She did not want their dinner. She did not want anything to do with these otherworldly things. Things one heard about in whispers. Things that lurked in fog and foam. She pulled the mass of silver from the flames, dropped it in the bucket and ran to the cliffs as fast as she could. She flung it far into the water. She made the sign of the cross. She made the pagan sign against the evil eye, the one her grandmother used to make. She tried to remove the notion from her mind of that beautiful baby boy with the jet black hair.
The next morning the fog lifted. It was unusually bright and sunny. The midwife looked out her window. She saw the husband in his bright, red coat walk down to the docks. He stepped onto a ship. He wore something strapped to his back. That something was topped with a tuft of jet black hair. The mother was nowhere to be seen.
Again, the midwife could not stop thinking of that boy. He would need praying for, if anyone ever did. The midwife went to the church and asked the priest to open the large dusty ledger that recorded all births and deaths. She told him to point to the name he had added the day before, and then to read that name. The priest lifted his thick finger from the spot. He read the name.
“Samuel.”

April 17, 2013 6

What Matisse Taught Me About Writing

During my last visit to New York, I had the chance to wander through the exhibit Matisse: In Search of True Painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I have always been inspired by the sensual, abundant work of Matisse.

As I walked through the exhibit, I began to wonder what his process as a painter could teach me about writing. If I am drawn to the way Matisse paints, what can his method and craft teach me about my own?

Matisse was often praised for the ease and fluidity of his art. In truth, painting was far from an easy process for him. He often reworked entire paintings many times over and used older works to generate new ideas. In later years, he hired a professional photographer to document his process so that he could analyze if he had gone off track or made progress with his work. He played with details, such as the curve of a woman’s back or her placement beside a stream.

I think that in writing terms, this is the beauty and sacred promise of editing. If I start to edit the first time I enter the blank page, I lose my flow. When I remind myself that it can always change and grow, that first inspiration is only one step on a very tall adventure, I believe that is the gem of Matisse and his process. After the initial impulse has been fully laid out, I can come back to rediscover and play with the structure and message it is meant to convey.

Craft is the act of honing an image, a word, a sentence, a movement until we have found something that shares an experience with others. To interrupt that first impulse with our own judgments is as negative and shortsighted as sending our work into the world completely unedited. Right in the middle of the two, there is the stuff creation is made of. Every time we touch and move a new piece, we are coming back in contact with something that is, in the very least, the wondrous collection of our own rich inner lives.

What Matisse taught me about writing is that I must allow myself time to be wrong. To be wrong as I first put words on the page. To make mistakes as I go through the editing process. To discover what happens when I change the pace or repeat a word or take something out. Matisse was so confident in this process of exploration he even paid to document his successes and failures with a professional photographer!

For all artists, the search for truth can be as inspiring as the first impulse and the finished work that bookend the making of a story.

Thanks to Matisse. He already said it so much better.

April 3, 2013 19

The Story of the Queen and the Selchie

Long ago, the greatness of a warrior was measured by the strength of his adversaries. In all the known lands, the children of the Lochlann king were by far the best fighters. There were eight of them, four boys and four girls, all of them beautiful to behold with their fair skin, dark hair and wide, brown eyes.

At that time, and in that place, the mothers were responsible for training their children in combat, and the Lochlann queen was an unrivaled teacher. Each of her children held a special gift in endurance, strength, speed, grace and many other qualities beside, so that a band of eight of them might defeat a whole army. As they grew, they became the target of many who wished to be remembered in the songs for their bravery.

But the children were still quite young when their mother was laid to rest on a great flaming ship sent out to sea, as was befitting such a queen. She had been as beautiful and strong as the children she bore, and when she died the King had no eye for a woman for many years. In the end, it was his own children who persuaded him to search for someone to fill his loneliness. He left half-heartedly, but returned with a renewed glow in his eyes and a beautiful wife. Although still very young, she was already a widow left frail from the disease that had killed her first husband.

It was not hard for the new wife to take the children into her heart as if they were her own. She loved the king dearly and his children were an extension of that love. But there was always a distance between them, because the children saw no strength or bravery in the new queen.

Even with their differences, the family might have found contentment if a great force had not gathered to attack Lochlann. The Lochlannach, each and every one, prepared for the upcoming fight. The fragile queen was the only one unfit for battle, and the king was uncertain how best to protect her. At last he decided to send her to a remote cave in the cliffs high above the sea. He trusted only his own children to act as her guards. The children did know all the love and happiness the new queen had given to their father, and for this they cared for her, but they cried out and rebelled against being left out of the clash. Surely the Lachlannach could defeat anyone before they came so far as such a remote cave.

The queen also fought the plan. If the invaders were able to cross to her, it would mean her husband must be dead. How could he let her live a second time as a widow? She called attention to the fact that her life in the hands of the enemy might be far worse than death. But her husband would not be swayed from his plans. He did not have the heart to lose another wife.

When she saw her persuasions had failed, the queen contrived a plan of her own. The Lochlannach did not understand that courage is not only found in battle. One day, as she walked among a group of rocks exposed at low tide, she spotted one of the Finnfolk who are powerful magicians and shape shifters. This Finn looked young, which might have deceived her. Even a young Finn has been around a long time by human standards. They are not immortals, but because they make their homes in the Otherworld, they do not age at an Earthly speed. This Finn had assumed the shape of a man, with his head and torso in human form, but his lower half he had shaped into a thin pointed boat.

Not many humans would call out to a Finn, especially a woman alone, for the Finn men are known as powerful seducers. The queen called out to him because she also knew they were gifted in sorcery. If the queen could learn his secrets, she might contribute to her new family even if she was physically weak. And so she called out to him until he turned to her. Once he saw her, he was beside her before she could blink an eye. The Finn are powerful oarsmen.

The queen pulled three silver pieces from a purse she carried at her hip and held them out for the Finn to see. Finn folk have a great weakness for silver and can’t resist it.

“Three silver coins for three magical secrets,” she said.

The Finn had a dilemma. What did he wish for more, the beautiful human or her silver?

“Lie down with me here on the rocks, he offered, “and that will be all the magic a human would need for her lifetime.”

The queen kept her hand out and made her bid again. Three silver coins for three magical secrets. The Finn stroked at his chin.

“Are you aware that my magic will be considered dark arts in your world?”

The queen nodded her head.

“Don’t you believe your soul will be tarnished? And to what purpose? For children who hardly notice you?”

The Finn folk are mind readers. They understand thoughts better than emotions. He searched for the queen’s weakness in the hope that he might attain both her and the coins. But the queen was not swayed.

“Three silver coins for three magical secrets.”

Too fast for human eyes, the Finn snatched the silver from the queen’s hand and took hold of her face. He blew a magic breath into her as they plunged into the sea. They dove deep into the black water far from the sun and the air. The queen thought she was stolen for sure and would never see the surface again.

But the Finn kept to the queen’s bargain. He took her to a place where she might learn from him for more than a year, while in her own world only minutes had passed. When the queen reappeared on the shore, she was, by mere human standards, a powerful sorceress in her own right.

She returned with eyes that radiated bright understanding of our true world. The king, too smitten with her, was blind to the change. His children noticed, and they shivered whenever they were near her. They tried to warn their father that their stepmother was different, but he would not listen.

The day came for the queen to hide in the remote cave with her stepchildren as her defenders. Before she left, she put a spell over the king that would make him untouchable in battle. She told him it was just a small prayer she had brought with her from her own land, but it was really something much more powerful. She left with confidence that she would see her husband again. From the far-away cave, children and stepmother waited out the uncomfortable silence. For three days they watched their army as it camped unmolested below them.

It was daybreak on the fourth day when the attackers swarmed, but it was not the camp they sought. The enemy had arrived on the other side of the rock, hidden from the view of the Lochlann army. They had not come to do battle with the people of Lochlann; they had come for the king’s children.

The Lochlannoch children formed a circle around the queen. Soon she was surrounded by the cries of battle, the crash of metal, the smell of blood and sweat and fear. She formed her own circle of enchantment around her family and held it as long as her mind would allow.

The children fought well. The floor of the cave could not be seen beneath the bodies of fallen warriors, yet more lined up to meet the children in combat. The queen felt the strength of her magic begin to fade, and though they were not injured, the children were spent from the fight. She raised her arms and, in front of all who were present, she began to chant a powerful spell. The winds swirled and the waves smashed against the rock. The warriors dropped their swords to their sides, and the fighting stopped as they watched her. After a time, the seas became calm and stretched smooth as the best woven fabric. The queen opened her eyes and looked to her stepchildren.

“Make haste for the sea,” she commanded them. “I have cast a great spell that will allow you to hide deep in the ocean, as strong and swift and courageous in the water as you have been on the land. If your captors wish to follow you, they will drown in the attempt.”

The children knew they could fight no longer. They clambered down the rocks with their approaching captors at their heels. As soon as the feet of the children hit the sea, they cried out in pain, but they did not stop. By the time they were neck deep in the waves, their human forms were gone and in their place the heads of seals bobbed up and down in the waves. Some of the enemy did attempt to catch them, but each one who tried was pulled under by the powerful current. Many were more prudent. They did not give chase as the children ran to the sea. Instead, they turned their swords on the queen. In her haste she had protected everyone in her family but herself.

She knew she could not defend herself and return the children to their human form at the same time. Even if she did turn them human again, who would protect them until their father’s army arrived? She turned with uncertainty out toward the sea.

An enemy near the queen saw the indecision cross her face. He made his move, plunging a knife deep into her chest while her guard was down.

The air grew hot and still. No birds called from the sky. No waves crashed against the rocks. Every human breath suspended.

Something…or rather someone…emerged above the taut surface of the ocean. He appeared without causing so much as one ripple on the water around him, and his presence seemed tied to the stagnant suppression of life that had settled upon the world. The face that stared up at the group on the cliff was inhumanly emotionless, but when his sharp eyes fell on the limp body of the queen, the sea began to churn and froth around him, clouds gathered in the sky and great gray waves rose toward the opening high above in the cave.

The terrified warriors ran as fast as they could from their destruction, for they knew that it was unlucky to cross the sea folk. They hoisted their sails and sped away, only to face storms the likes of which have not been seen before or since. The abandoned body of the poor queen dangled over a rock high above the wild sea.

A drop of blood rolled from her chest down the smooth curve of her arm, over her hand, along her finger until it hovered for a moment like a teardrop from the tip of her nail. It fell reluctantly into the water. One spot of red suspended in a wild gray sea. One spot of red, a combination of the queen’s own life force and the force of the magic she had created, merged with the rage of a Finn. The unspoken spell to bring the children back to human form was forever altered by the sea.

The children and their descendants became the seal folk, neither meant for land nor made for sea. Each full moon, the seal folk shed their sealskin to walk once more in human form upon the earth. They live between two worlds, always wishing for land while in the water and for the water while on the land. If they are held to the land, the wild ocean will always call to them. They might close their eyes, but no dreams will come, because with sleep their souls will return to the sea.”

March 27, 2013 12

This City

I took your city to bed
Under a rain soft and bitter
Her streets wet
Her buildings part for me to enter
I know you found her first
But now I walk inside her too
Now I make wishes on her stones

She wrote him a letter
With library pencil and blue lined paper
They parted at the corner
She made wishes on his stones
He threw away her seashells
When he thought she wasn’t looking
Wait, she whispered
Look, she cried
He drown in a street of umbrellas
Like a river dark and cold

I woke before dawn
Watched her colors spread across the sky
Red and gold and violet as the fire inside me
Wake up, I whispered
Look, I cried
But no one answered
I always sleep alone

Meet me on the steps, she whispered
Meet me where you kissed me, she cried
She chased the colors he once wore
Tapped the shoulders of a thousand men
A thousand strangers
None were him
She walked home alone
Under a rain soft and bitter

Stop someday in the place I stood
To watch umbrellas weave from sight
Like a river dark and cold
To pick out the colors I once wore
In the street signs
And brake lights
The smile of a cab driver

The train shudders
Comes to rest beside white tile
The valiant flicker of electric lights
He leaves his umbrella on an empty seat
Wait, she whispers
Come back, she cries
But the doors close
The train weaves from sight
Like a river dark and cold

When I have stolen your city
You will see my colors spread across her sky
Her streets wet
Her buildings part when you enter
You will burn with red and gold and violet
Meet me on the steps, you whisper
Meet me where you kissed me, you cry
But too late
This city has granted your wish
You walk alone
Under a rain soft and bitter

March 13, 2013 9

Perfect Pitch

A few weeks ago, I signed up with WriteOnCon to work on the pitch for my young adult novel. It’s got me musing…what is the perfect pitch?

Perfect pitch. I am not a musician, so maybe I am about to make a statement that is too simplistic. I believe in music, perfect pitch is the ability to hear a note and name it, or sing a note without hearing it first. In other words, perfect pitch is the ability to pull a sound from the cacophony of noise and define it.

As I learn about the process of pitching a novel, I see it no differently in novel writing than in music. The perfect pitch is one that pulls that one kernel of truth and order from all the noise so that an author can say this is what my story is. Go ahead and love it as much as I do.

“One choice can transform you—or it can destroy you.” -Insurgent, by Veronica Roth

One sentence to define the truth of a 525 page book.

To stick with musical themes, as I skimmed through the backs of books in an attempt to understand what sells me as a reader, I discovered it is that moment of dissonance. The promise that careful order is about to fall apart. The characters I am about to meet are going to rub up against their world, sparks will fly, and from the ashes the author will unveil a glorious note.

“Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.” – The Light Between Oceans, by M. L. Stedman

I am sold by pitches where the characters move quickly out of their stereotyped roles, where their world is about to become dangerous, out of order, uncomfortable.

“Stifled by the monotony and restrictions of his boarding school on the coast of England, sixteen-year-old H has a chance encounter on the beach with a beautiful boy named Finn, who lives alone in a fisherman’s hut by the sea.” – What I Was, By Meg Rosoff

Where stereotyped plots, such as forbidden love, not only raise the stakes but are used to guide us to that kernel of truth, that glorious note.

“David Power and Clare O’Brien both grew up dreaming of escape from the battered seaside town of Castlebay, but they might as well have the ocean between them. David is the cherished son of a prosperous doctor, while Clare lives with her large family behind their faltering store, longing for a moment of quiet to study. When they both go to university in Dublin—he as a matter of course, she on a hard-won scholarship—their worlds collide. They find freedom in each other—until families, lovers and secrets they left in Castebay come back to haunt them…” – Echoes, by Maeve Binchy

These are characters I know. I’ve meet their type before. Rich boy with everything in the world going for him. Poor girl from the wrong side of the tracks but with big dreams. What sets them apart isn’t that their families don’t approve, it’s the promise that they will never fully shed the lives they left behind. That is the kernel of truth, the perfect pitch, the solitary note that Maeve Binchy has pulled from the noise of ill-fated love stories. If I hadn’t seen that on the back of the book, I never would have opened it up to read it. I wouldn’t have known where it might take me.

The books I put pack on the shelf have a pitch in the flap that never moves beyond basic character constructs and plot points. Here is a made up, chicken soup version of what makes me go “meh…”

“Beautiful Sandra is head cheerleader and self-appointed leader of the “it” crowd. That is, until she fails history. Now she has to be tutored by friendless nerd Bobby. But the more Sandra knows about Bobby, the more she likes him. Can she face her friends with a public relationship?”

To my mind, this pitch has all the plot points without the kernel of truth. I’ve seen my fair share of after school specials that cover that theme, and I’ve already read every Sweet Valley High. What makes Sandra and Bobby’s story different from all the others? What do Sandra and Bobby learn from one another? How do they grow in a way that makes them unique?

It would be no different if I were to walk up to Sandra and ask, “Who are you?” and she answered, “Oh, I’m head cheerleader and front man for the “It” crowd.” I know a million of such Sandras. But if she said, “I’m Sandra. I really want to love deep and hard and real. I’m willing to sacrifice everything I have for love, and if in the end I find myself alone, well, at least I tried, right?” Now I might stop to listen because Sandra has flaws and strengths and room to grow.

Like music, a perfect pitch takes time, training and craft, but when it’s right you can feel it in your bones. As always, I’m so glad I signed up for WriteOnCon to work on my pitch with other authors. To me, the most perfect pitch is one I don’t have to write alone. The ability to find kindred spirits and work on craft with others is an invaluable tool. Writing might be solitary, but writing is meant to be read. It can’t be read tucked away in a file on your desktop. So get out and share.

Good luck to everyone entering the WritOnCon Pitch Fest! If you haven’t thought of it yet, click here to learn more.

All the best in your writing.

March 6, 2013 0

In Defense of the Muse

A few days ago, Freshly Pressed shared a fantastic post by a writer named L.C. Spoering which began “let’s talk about muses…Or not. Because that’s just stupid.”

You can read it here.

I read her post several times, not only for the topic, but the quality of the prose. How I wish I could write so concisely. I can’t. And I’m here today to do the stupid. I am here to defend the muse.

The concept of the muse and what it means to art (and storytelling in particular) is one of the most important conversations we can have about how the craft of creating stories has been passed down to us through the ages. We should be careful not to throw the muse out with the proverbial bathwater just because we believe ourselves more logical than our forefathers. What would we be without the historical significance the muse has had on the act of making stories? We would have no Odyssey, no Divine Comedy, no Annie Hall. Not to be biased against my own sex, Virginia Woolf fought this erotic but safely heterosexual bond between poet and muse. She denounced women who wished to write being told they must have male muses to torment and intimidate them. She called instead for female writers to look back to the women who mothered them both in life and literature.

In my defense of the muse (and therefor inspiration) and the inextricable link to the craft of telling stories, I venture to disagree even with Virginia Woolf. The muse is sexless sex. The muse turns you on by being everything you never knew you wanted. The muse strips you down, forces you to stand naked and makes you write your own shame into a story you started working on because you think you like dogs. The muse knows the best words you will ever string together are the ones you hope your mother and your ex never read. The muse never touches any artist who sits and waits for inspiration to strike. The muse only uses pack animals unafraid to strap all the luggage on their backs and show up to climb the mountain every day. The muse is the path and the guide to the top, where you either find a majestic view or another mountain to climb.

In other words, I would argue that it isn’t inspiration VERSUS sit down and work. It’s sit down and work FOR inspiration. The second will never happen without the first.

Is it divine? No, not the wear your Sunday best kind of divine. It is the zone of an athlete, the Ole of a dancer, the intuition of a mother. It is Lois Lowry transforming her father’s dementia into The Giver, Dante expressing unrequited love in The Inferno, Shakespeare having the audacity to invent words we now take for granted because he saw what others did not…that there was a way to say it better.

I was once at a writing conference and the prolific Jane Yolen was stationed at the table next to me. A young author lamented that she was afraid to think outside the analogy box because she wasn’t sure she was as yet artistically worthy of knowing when she had gone too far.

“That’s the imposter complex,” Jane Yolen responded. “We all have it. If I’d listened to mine, I’d never have likened snow to a bowl of milk in Owl Moon.”

The muse is not a waifish, half clad woman who whimsically whispers creativity into the ears of worthy men, but if it helps you to see it that way, if it needs to be personified for you to get to work, have at it! The muse is a psychological safety net beneath our sense of self when we step into our imaginations. It is a way to navigate the mental chatter of our own brains. The chatter that hisses, “Imposter, how could you write that? How dare you?”

The act of stringing words together in a way that shifts a world from our own heads into someone else’s is a very, very hard job. It can feel like a sacrifice at the altar of all we consider sane in modern western society. Internationally bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert has pointed out that creating stories has killed some of our most talented minds. We should look at that, and we should not be ok with it. Ms. Gilbert sees the muse as a “psychological construct…a safe distance between me as I am writing and my very natural anxiety about what the reaction to that writing is going to be…”

Is it dangerous to see the process of creating something out of nothing as evolved and elevated? Hell yes! People don’t open books to immerse their minds in someone else’s safely lived life. May it always be dangerous. Destructive to the status quo. A revolution against the easy and complacent. That is the job of writing. But may it not be destructive to you the pack animal who toiled away day in and day out for one glimpse of the view. May the muse wait at the door, and hang onto your wild, gypsy self when it is time to return to the real world where the dishes did not get done and your family will be eating sandwiches for dinner the third day in a row because you lost track of the time.

Inspiration is not a religious experience. It is the grail within the quest. Sit down and write every day is the religious experience. It requires faith that this time spent trying to share something that only exists inside of us…the toil and the doubt and the rejection and the perseverance…somehow it will matter. We are not the guy who sent the flood, but we are the guy who smelled rain and built the boat.

I leave you with one more quote by Elizabeth Gilbert:

“So I just lifted my face up from the manuscript and I directed my comments to an empty corner of the room. And I said aloud, ‘Listen you, thing, you and I both know that if this book isn’t brilliant that is not entirely my fault, right? Because you can see that I am putting everything I have into this, I don’t have any more than this. So if you want it to be better, then you’ve got to show up and do your part of the deal. OK? But if you don’t do that, you know what, the hell with it. I’m going to keep writing anyway because that’s my job. And I would please like the record to reflect today that I showed up for my part of the job.”

All the best to you in your silent toil. All the best to your inspiration. Now sit down and write.

Watch Elizabeth Gilbert: your elusive, creative genius on TED

February 28, 2013 6

The Center for Fiction

On my last day in New York City, I decided to make a pilgrimage to a bookstore I visited last year. I walked until my feet were blistered, but I could not retrace my steps back to that little bit of nostalgia. I wandered off in a different direction instead. It started to rain. The wind pressed against me, but I’m not one to let weather ruin a chance to wander through any city.

I’m glad I didn’t give up.

Nestled amongst a nondescript row of office buildings, a burgundy banner waved in the wind heralding The Center for Fiction, located at 17 East 47 Street. Whether you are a writer or passionate about the written word, here is a warm and welcoming place for all lovers of story.

I was wet and cold and the word fiction makes my heart beat faster. The combination of warmth and a center dedicated to my favorite word was more than I could resist. I was not disappointed. The Center for Fiction is not large, but it manages to be at once a library, a bookstore, a quiet space for authors to work, and a location of great literary events. So good to find a little corner of the world still celebrating, maintaining and supporting the advancement of the art of telling stories.

The staff was very friendly. The girl working behind the desk chatted with me for a long time about their section dedicated to translations of European authors who are still relatively unknown, at least in the States (and most especially to me). I ended up walking away with a lovely gem of a book, The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker. I might never have discovered such a good read on my own. That in itself was worth getting lost in the rain, but I also managed to walk away with a pile of used books that came to a total of $10.

The Center for Fiction is open to the public, but it is also one of the few membership libraries still in operation in the United States. The benefits of membership include attendance at events with free or discount admission, reading discussion groups, access to their lending library of over 85,000 titles as well as discounts at their bookstore. Above all, membership supports an independent, not for profit organization dedicated to keeping the written word alive and well.

If you find yourself in mid-town Manhattan, leave your friends at the souvenir shop and stop by The Center for Fiction for a gift of good books and memories that are just as much a part of the city as another tiny replica of the Empire State Building (and yes, I bought my children tiny replicas of the Empire State Building too).

For more information on The Center for Fiction, visit their website: www.centerforfiction.org

February 20, 2013 2