NaPoWriMo : No Fooling! - Tuesday 4/1/2009

I am pretty sure that I take a photo of the gazanias in the midst of the ice plant every year. Just such a lovely beginning to spring. Both of these plants were in the yard when we bought the house.


The apricot tree was also here. See the little apricots? They're about the size of green olives right now.


Dodger and I went out to the table on the deck to write. We spent a lot of time listening to all the birds visiting in the yard, and even spotted a (fairly unusual) bright orange Oriole in the willow!

I'm participating in NaPoWriMo with some of my online friends. What, you ask?

It's National Poetry Writing Month! If you want to join in and would like some inspiration, go to Read Write Poem, where the bloggers offer daily poetry exercises for the month of April. There's still time to catch up! (Post a poem here, if you like!)

Believe me, writing a poem a day for 30 days is way saner than writing a novel in the same amount of time. For long-form writers like me, it's a nice way to focus on brevity and have a little fun. No pressure for me to write good ones, either. I'm not a poet.

I'm not going to put up all my poems, but since you're here, here's the first one.

April 1:

Bird Song

Within the unbudded honeysuckle,
sparrow peeps pleas to his best girl.
Finch thrums passion
beak to beak in the apricot tree.
Fragrant rosemary dark
harbors dove’s croon and coddle.
Oriole dances saucily on the willow branch
tail left, tail right, step step.
Quail whistles wittily from the juniper.
Raven glides close upon his love’s glossy crown,
folds wing over wing as they rise over the greening hill.
Me? I hum Beatles tunes
beneath your berry pie kitchen window.

How to Improve Your Esteem for Your Own Writing In One Lesson - Thursday 2/5/2009

Accidentally leave your notebook on the seat of a chair in a coffee house.

All those pages you thought were drivel will instantly be transformed into some of the best writing you've ever done in. your. life.

For Extra Credit : If it's still there when you get back, take the time to transcribe those pages into your computer.

Labor Day - Monday 9/1/2008

My fabulous writing group came up to Acton for the day!

No, I didn't kill and inter them.

But when you ask "What's there to do in Acton?" the first two things that come to mind (okay other than happy hour at Don Cuco's or hiking at Vasquez Rocks or touring the Agua Dulce Vineyards) are looking through the fence at Shambala Preserve and a stroll around Acton Cemetery.

Since my last visit, Shambala has put up tarps to keep people from viewing and probably pestering the lions, but the writers were very nice about seeing some way off in the distance.


Tomasina and Braveheart got tired of the cemetery before MH and I did. Braveheart was talking to the horses in the barn across the road as we approached.

It was a verrry good day. We wrote, we potlucked, we saw a little of what there is to see in Acton other than special events like organization-sponsored spaghetti dinners and monthly gymkhana competitions.

Oh, and Tomasina... to answer your question: the oldest legible grave marker in Acton Cemetery is in memory of Nellie Robbins Stanfield, who arrived there on October 18, 1898.

Finally Diner - Wednesday 8/27/2008

I'm soooo tired I didn't even notice how blurry this photo was.

Focus is on the reflection of the (silenced) TV screen on the surface of my coffee.

Finally got back to Andrew's to write. I can focus on the page okay, thank goodness.

Giftwrapping and Nostalgia - Sunday 8/3/2008

Wrapped Braveheart's birthday gifts. Used some of the Viennese art paper that resurfaced as I cleaned and reorganized my studio for hours and hours and hours over the weekend.

I have boxes full of writing dating back to when I was about 10. Stories and poems mostly. Too funny, some of it. The adventures of Marco Mondoux are so clearly influenced by my reading of The Count of Monte Cristo between 8th and 9th grades. There were all these references to actual places in France, and I seem to have picked real French names... guess we are who we are from a very early age. Research is kind of in my bones.

One day I'll dive back in and organize it more. Now, just having it vaguely divided by big eras is good.

I found an expenses ledger from around 1998 when it cost $12.51 to fill up our Taurus and $5.32 to fill up our Escort.

Sigh.

Writing Group - Monday 7/7/2008

Writing group meeting last night was as perfect as this vase of flowers on Braveheart's dining room table. It was so good to be in Tomasina and Braveheart's company again after a three-week hiatus.

We each read for about 20 minutes. We like each other's work, and we agree that we all have good taste. Their respect helps me take myself more seriously.

I'm so lucky!

I stepped barefoot onto the wide steps leading from the dining room to the patio. Cool air moved across the the yard to me, but the stone beneath my feet retained the sun's heat. It was the perfect Mediterranean moment.



Jimmy agreed, wriggling seductively in front of me till I stooped and scratched his belly. Braveheart only suspects the depths of our affection for one another...

Tomasina Tempts Again - Monday 6/16/2008

The pix of the three other desserts didn't come out very well. The cashew honey thing was delish. There was also a brownie and a fruit tart-ish dessert. Organic, I think.

We decided that as cool as they look, we can't really get on board with the designer marshmallow thing.



Asparagus and hollandaise by Braveheart.

I brought ceviche from Lucy's again. So refreshing.

Oh, yeah. And we read to each other and wrote. That's what it's really all about!

Chef Detail - Friday 6/13/2008

The Chef outside Andrew's. Once again, I'm getting pulled into the life of the diner I hang out in.

Kooky patrons are interesting. One of the servers' daughters graduated from high school. I'm writing and writing at my table in the corner.

I moved tables so the guy who mops the floor every morning could clean where my feet usually are.

One he said (he's not a native English speaker), "Every day you write too much!" and flashed a bright smile.

I'll take that as a compliment.



My Friday the 13th was just peachy... How about yours?

The only downsides were finding out that a report I thought was due Monday was due on Friday, and the traffic was a mess on the way home. Nothing too unusual.

Monday, Monday - 5/20/2008

On my way to the gym before going to Braveheart's for our writing group meeting. I just liked the look of this construction in Hollywood.

This is heading south on Vine.



Who knew it would be so easy to find?

Especially in Hollywood.


After going to the gym, I wandered around a little. You can't really see it, but there is water falling like rain from the facade to the right.

It smells very fresh and clean.



One of the really lovely aspects of our writing group meetings is that we have dinner together. For birthdays, we often order in Thai or Indian food. But usually it's made up of food we all contribute.

I haven't been contributing much for the past couple of weeks. Tonight we had macaroni & cheese made by Braveheart, salad brought by Tomasina and my lowfat ground turkey & vegetable soup and fresh cherries.

We had a great meeting. Anyway, it helped me a lot. I mean a lot. We talked, they read, they gave me good advice.

Wow. Lucky, lucky me.

Teaching - Week 8, Finale - Thursday 4/24/2008

The view from inside the classroom.


Everyone's working on their final project.



It's pretty great when they're concentrating!

The last class went well. We had a good project to work on. The teacher who works with them during the day had them take photographs of each of these concepts before I arrived, and then we wrote about them.

How do you see yourself?
How do your parents see you?
How do others see you?
How do you look when no one can see you?
How do you see yourself in ten years?

I also wanted pix for “How do you want people to see you?” but she’d run out of time.

We did extra writing about how they see their parents, and what they find most interesting about their parents (M came up with that question and “Do you trust your parents?") and more questions about how they see themselves in 10 years.

I’d taken a group photo on the first day and then again last week, and they had copies of both of those to finish up writing with what Taking the Reins had meant to them, their favorite and least favorite parts of it (no one said the writing class for either, which was a good break even, as far as I’m concerned). The last question was “What would you tell someone who is considering coming to Taking the Reins.”

Most of them said things like “you will love it” or that you have to watch your feet so you don’t get stepped on!

One of them said, as we were leaving, “We won’t ever see you again!” She says she wants to be a teacher when she grows up.

It was a good experience. I will probably teach again in some context. I did offer to help them with fund raising events and to substitute if they need someone down the road here and there.

Thanks so much to Mags for getting me involved with this wonderful organization!

Krazy Kat _ Tuesday 4/15/2008

No, not the early 20th Century comic strip by the same name... The guy in the photo facing to the right.

He was talking to himself and laughing. Riffing off of the music on the speakers at Sitton's. Kept it up the whole time I was there, about an hour and a half.

Don't know whether it was drugs he was on or meds he was off, but he was freewheeling.

Here are a few quotes I wrote down in my journal:

"Hey, Joe, why's that mushroom on your head? That mushroom on your face? Some people can't handle that. Some people can't handle Miller High Life." Laughs. "It's like a lemon on a concrete walk, man." Laughs. "It's like Paul Simon. It's so funny. And then--" something unitelligable. "My great uncle wrote that book on--something." Laughs. "Not too many people do. Don't worry."

I snuck this photo from under my table.

Out and About - Saturday 4/12/2008

Snapped this along Vasquez Canyon Road on our way back from an errand in Valencia. Amazing amounts of flowers. There are two or three different types of yellows in play here. (This is about 20 minutes from my house.)



It was such a lovely day, I trundled all my writing stuff out to the deck to work for a couple of hours. Took Dodger with me, in his travel cage. Hydra put up the umbrella for me!

Writer's eye view. After a while I even set up my laptop out here. We have an outlet out there and the WiFi even works.

Big Day! - Thursday 3/6/2008

Started out the day with a little excitement. One of the other patrons of Sitton's Diner was outside having a smoke when he saw a trash truck come around the corner, smoking. The driver (wisely) dumped the whole smoldering load onto Tujunga Boulevard where it quickly achieved true flamedom!

A little passel of us left our coffee to ooh and ah. One of the servers called 911 on her cell phone. There seems to have been a lot of fire in my life in the past year. I'm more of an earth-type.



Some of you are aware that I started at Taking the Reins today with my own class, once a week for the next eight weeks. Another challenging experience.

Of course it's challenging, I don't know anything about 13 year old girls and I don't know anything about teaching!

The first half of the class went very well. We talked about them and their experiences of the day, etc. The best part was when one of the girls said she'd written a haiku, and we made one up on the spur of the moment. First line was about horses, second was about the weather, and the third was about horses and the weather...we actually wrote about 4 good last lines because they were all calling out ideas and counting syllables.

I sort of crashed in the last half of the class, having run out of stuff for them to do. The main skill I need to work on is getting them to talk more about the questions I bring up. Also need to figure out how to build from simple to something more complex that feels like a satisfying little project for the class period. I have great notes from Mags, but I need to relax a little, too, I think.

An unexpected challenge is that 3 of the 8 girls have done the program before. So their answers to questions like "What did you expect today?" and "How was the experience different than you expected?" were "I expected what happened and it happened."

I think they have a dampening effect on the other girls talking about their fears about dealing with these huge horses, because they're very comfortable. Also very energetic. Did have to separate two of them at one point.

The class was bored toward the end and could probably sense I didn't know what to do with them. I had them draw pictures of what they did. Didn't realize till I was telling about this later, but many of them drew the river, the ducks and the mountains. But they all left out the 20 feet of concrete on either side of the L.A. River (the bed is at least natural at this point with rocks and algae clumps and reeds) and the busy 5 freeway between the river and the mountains.

As my sister pointed out, they've already begun using their imaginations to change the way they represent the world and this is part of what we do in writing. I'll be sure and bring this up next week.

They were all disappointed that they only led horses and didn't get to ride. Hmm, see, there's an opportunity missed. I could have asked them to write about that and about something else they were disappointed about in their lives.

Skills I need to build:

-listening and being more spontaneous within the general framework

-creating my own class plan (even if it riffs heavily off of Mags's plan) so that I don't feel I have to refer to notes etc.

My mom, sister, Mags and other friends have been so helpful in listening and providing ideas for future exercises!!

In all honesty, I did go home and have myself a little cry because it was stressful and I want to do this well, and I am SO uncomfortable not knowing what I'm doing. But I'm glad I had myself a cathartic little private boo-hoo because I woke up feeling more clear-headed this morning for it. (Big Baby!!)

FPA - Wednesday 3/5/2008

That's Future Peaches of America. (Snapped on our way out for an evening hike.)

I don't know about you, but those futuristic organizations were big where and when I grew up. Future Farmers of America and Future Homemakers of America come to mind.

I just went to my high school's website, which has been newly revamped. Yay, it's about time!

I would just like to say that the newspaper went from the Courier to Cat Tracks when I was there, and I helped design the cat footprint logo that trailed across the original banner. I was editor in chief during the time when we switched from hand-mimeographing to being printed inside the (now, sadly defunct) Noble County American.

Boy, was Mr. Gagen, the editor of that paper a hero to me. He'd come down from working as a reporter in Chicago to run his own local paper, and I thought he did a great job of it.

I just went looking for a link to any archives. All I found were obituaries, including that of my father and my grandmother. I can't believe my dad was only 62. I mean, I can. But he's missed out on so much since 1990.

Okay. Anyway. It's spring and things are blooming. It's amazing where a photo of a blossom can take you.

Cool Thing: Yet another new recipe. This one for Chicken Breasts with Mushroom Cream Sauce from Eating Well rocks if you're able to get all the ingredients without too much trouble. I found fresh Shitake mushrooms for a reasonable price at the always amazing Trader Joe's.

Parking and Teaching - Thursday 2/21/2008

The door leading from the parking lot into India Spice's deli. If I had noticed that I was walking through a parking lot, I might have moved my car off the street.

By the time I came out a parking officer was giving me a ticket. $40. Kind of offset the delicious $3.99 lunch, pricewise.

Poor parking officer. I wasn't nasty in the least. I hadn't even thought about putting money in the meter, I was so full of positive fog when I arrived. He couldn't appreciate my being friendly at all.

I will never become a parking officer. How awful to have to shut yourself down like that.



I was on my way to substitute teach another writing class at a nearby equestrian center. It went really well. I hadn't met the girls before. They were amazing.

I actually had fun this time. Karin, who teaches them riding, etc., had them take a bunch of photos last week to illustrate various things regarding how people see them and how they see themselves, and then this week I had them make little books out of the photos and they did little captions for them.

Wow, was it interesting! They’re so clever, these 12 year olds. One of the questions was “How do you look when you no one can see you?” They work in pairs, so they can take photos of each other. One girl said she was sleeping when she was alone, so her photo was of her with her head down on the table on her crossed arms with her hoodie pulled up over her head. Another said no one could see her when she was in the bathroom, and her photo was of the LADIES restroom sign. Made me laugh. One said no one could see her when she was nude, and she had a photo of herself wrapping her zippered sweatshirt tightly around her body and peeking out. :)

I'm looking forward to having my own class for 8 weeks, starting in a couple of weeks.

Flowers! - Saturday 2/16/2007

Still fresh from Valentine's day.

So much is going on right now. I'm launching a new writer's blog called Writer Friendly. Check it out! Contribute info!

Hedgebrook Alumnae Gathering - Thursday 2/14/2008

I wrote this up at the request of an online friend, and thought I'd share it with you. The image is from the Hedgebrook website.

What a fun night. I arrived early and everyone else, including the organizer, arrived late to the home of the alumna who was hosting. Traffic was a mess. I'm guessing because everyone was trying to get home and then out again for Valentine's Day dinner.

Wow, what a house. The room we met in was actually a gallery of pre-Columbian art. Some amazing pieces. Truly. Some human pottery figures with expressions I’ve never seen before. Three of those fat dogs (probably pregnant) that I am always drawn to…and large specimens. Turns out her father-in-law (or grandfather-in-law?) was pretty much responsible for bringing pre-Columbian art to the fore and she’s writing a biography of him right now.

This year is Hedgebrook’s 20th year in existence. We had people there from as early as 1998, before all of the six cabins were built, to as late as last fall. (I was there in 2001) The retreat gives you your own beautiful cabin made mostly of oak, lunch is brought to you in a basket, you join with the other writers for a delicious dinner in the farmhouse, and can spend time in the library together after dinner or during the day, and then you select your breakfast fixings from the kitchen before you go back to the cabin. I suppose the food is always important partly because it’ so good (much of it grown organically on the grounds) and because it’s wonderful especially for women, to have their sustenance taken care of.

Anyway! About 18 people came to the gathering. We sat in a circle and briefly introduced ourselves and our current projects and whatever else seemed important. Then some of us read. I felt really good about my piece which went over well. There was laughter at least once and a little flutter of “ooohs” after a description of a character’s failed attempt to look innocent. Most importantly, I’d timed it so it was under 3 minutes, as the organizer had requested. People who go way over their time do themselves no favors.

There were several people who seemed very familiar to me, and we questioned each other long enough to figure out a mutual acquaintance, but couldn’t think how we might actually have seen each other before. And several I would very much like to get to know better. We are going to try and have bi-monthly gatherings to share knowledge and to get to know each other.

I had talked a little about my blog and how photography is in many ways so much simpler than writing, and my self-surprising success rate with placing photos, and at least three people wrote down my blog address. One does travel writing and asked what sort of photos I take. It would be lovely to work with her on something.

There was a lot of energy in the room, and I really hope we start connecting. These things always make me think of about five ways I could be helpful. A lot of them were screenwriters, or had ended up making screenplays of the fiction they’d worked on. It’s Hollywood, so I guess that’s to be expected. Not a bad thing.

The retreat was first endowed by Nancy Skinner Nordhoff, but now they are seeking grants. They find that alumnae involvement in both contributions (not the amount, but the percentage of alumna contributing) and in later development helps in getting grants, so they’re reaching out to us. Each of us who signed up last night will call 20 alumnae and ask that she donate $20. Very reasonable.

So, any of you women who would like to have the writing retreat experience of your life should apply to Hedgebrook There are a lot of applications for the approximately 40 spots they offer each session, but it’s really worth going for. If you have applied and didn't get in, it could have been a scheduling problem or that they are trying for some diversity in the type of projects people who are there at the same time are working on.

It’s free. You get a cottage on Whidbey Island (near Seattle), great food, and time to write.

If you want to know more, check out the website and/or let me know.

Cookies and Writing Advice - Wednesday 2/13/2008

Preparation for any holiday, large or small, probably should involve some baking.

Los Angelista tagged me for a meme. I'm to give three pieces of writing advice, even though she has already given up the really good stuff over on her blog. Since it wouldn't be right for me to just cut and paste hers over here...


1) Take Los Angelista's advice. Actually write. You can do it in ten minutes a day (I would have said 15 minutes a day, but if ten works, it works. It's good to keep your hand in.) Avoid writing books (advice I really need to take because some of them have helped but some stop me dead in my tracks.)

2) Treat your writer self kindly. Don't badger and cajole. Establish a discipline of showing up (as noted above) and respect that. Try to accept what you get on paper any given day. This advice is actually hard for me to take because no matter how much I do in writing or in life, I seldom feel I have done enough.

3) Lighten up! Surprise yourself every so often. Do a short timed writing that isn't required to be about whatever major project you are currently working on. Play!

Get some one to give you a prompt. Either a word (like "dread") or a phrase (like "what s/she wanted versus what s/he got" or "The last thing s/he saw before the lights went out was...") Set the timer for 10 or 15 minutes, and go.

This is especially fun if you can get a couple of other writers to play along, and then you read what you wrote aloud.


Hmm. Lookie there. That was easy enough!

I'm tagging the Elegant E over at Lexiconscious to do the same!

What Goes Around - Friday 2/1/2008

I wrote first thing this morning, of course.

But one of my other projects today was to make postcards from some of my photographs. The photo of the cards didn't come out as well as the cards themselves.

I'm sending these to a big-time writer who has been kind enough to carry on a correspondence with me for a couple of years. I'm sure she does this for a lot of writers. She uses postcards, so I thought I'd make her some and put postage on them so she can continue her good work.



I would like to say in my defense that this peach/blueberry pie is only the third pie I've ever made. And that I don't think the thermostat on my oven is right, because I had to leave it in there for about 20 minutes longer than the recipe called for to get it browned at all.

But for Pete's sake, will some one help me with this whole sealing the crust issue? I made cute little scallops around the edge of the pie plate, but you can't tell it now. It sort of got pulled taut during baking. Any clues for me? Just leave a lot more when I trim the dough in the first place??

From sampling the filling that oozed out onto the aluminum foil (I have learned a thing or two around the kitchen after all), it's gonna be delish. The peaches are from our crop last summer, frozen lo these many months.

Cool Thing: My essay, "It Ain't Las Vegas" is now available online (without most of the photos, sadly) at Weber: The Contemporary West. Check out the other writers, too. It's a good journal!

Artbucks - Friday 1/11/2008

Today I decided to read the so-called first draft of the novel I am working on. After a few hours I became very antsy and fled to a Starbucks in Palmdale, where I made this attempt at an artsy sunset shot. (What's going on up there lately?)

I spent another hour and a half letting my coffee go cold (dang, should have brought that tea light with me) and my blood cooled right along with it.

If you write, you have had this day. The one when you can't see for the life of you how you could have spent all this time working on this project that suddenly looks absolutely hollow.

I have a plot, I swear I do. It's in there somewhere, and there's more in my outline--what did I do with that? But it's also a lot of scenery and conversations.

Oh my god, it's like I've turned Death Valley (the setting of the novel) into one gigantic coffee house!