The Courage to Flourish

At a bonfire last night, standing close as I could get for the warmth, I took part in a small wonderful celebration of the solstice, the longest and darkest night of the year.

Kelley Harrell, author of Gift of the Dreamtime, led this ceremony. The heart of it was her reminder that: OUT OF THE LONG DARKNESS CAN COME CREATIVITY. (I certainly have felt a burst of creativity after a difficult time, and then the same pattern again: almost like stitches in a fabric, the thread sinking, then reappearing.)

In last's night's cold, we each tossed into the fire some symbol of whatever we wished to be finished with from the past year. Because OUT OF DESTRUCTION, SOMETHING NEW must inevitably come.

I threw in a handful of dead leaves; I'd forgotten to bring a home-made symbol. Those leaves stood in for the dead, dry images of the "starving artist" stereotype, whatever limited ambitions I have had that allowed me to run a business that "gets by." This choice had emerged weeks ago from the Creative Capital seminar I've been writing about these recent days.

Now those no-longer-useful ideas are smoke that has dispersed out of existence. I replace them with practices that will allow me and my work to flourish.

For once, I do not fear that this is a New Year's Resolution that will go away. I know it's here to stay.

After solemnizing this vow, I warmed myself with a new taste sensation: hot chocolate made of white chocolate and laced with Triple Sec. Mon Dieu! it was good. A toast to all the births and re-births of the season!

An Uplifting Thought about Artistic Productivity

Here's a piece I (significantly) forgot to mention when I posted the writer work-day recommendation from the Creative Capital seminar.

Part of the 60% of our time we're advised to spend on productive work should be UNCONVENTIONALLY PRODUCTIVE.

That means that taking a walk to clear my head counts.

In a comment to my previous post, "Billie" described ending her work day with a bath in which a MISSING PIECE for the revision of her book popped up in her mind. Obviously, that counted. But this time need not be immediately productive to be crucial.

The RULE OF THUMB advised for unconventional productiveness (whether it produces immediately or not) is 20% of total productive time. For an 8-hour day, that works out to be roughly AN HOUR. I think that's right; feel free to check my math.

I didn't always know about the value of this kind of time. Years ago, I did a lot of work for ad agencies. I remember times I worked in agencys' offices and saw a copywriter sitting at her desk flipping through magazines, and another making paper airplanes and sailing them out a window.

Pretty brassy, I thought, to be loafing like that with the door open. Then I saw how much faster and easier it is to come up with an ad concept and headline with a variety of visual stimulation coming from a lot of different unrelated directions.

So take a walk or a bath for an hour, or more precisely for 57.6 minutes, if I've figured correctly.

And another thing--thanks for visiting here. I feel your presence and I'm glad you're here. Please won't you leave a comment about your own experience. It would help a lot of other people (not to mention keeping the wonderfully-wise-and-frequent-commenter Billie and me company)

Writer Work-Day Report

Today, as promised, I tracked my work-time to see how closely I came to the Creative Capital guideline for a good writer's workday.

What was recommended was 60% of the time spent in production, and 20% each on administration and promotion.

MY OUTCOME: Today I spent half my time on production, about 20% on administration, about 6 percent on promotion, and nearly a quarter on personal errands.

MY REACTION: Well, could be worse since it's almost Christmas.

The awareness of time was very interesting. I did those personal phone calls, last Christmas cards, etc. a lot faster than I might have. I was terribly efficient.

BOTTOM LINE: This practice is going to be useful to me. I do think I got more done, with less lying to myself. And I felt LESS STRESS. Paradoxical, but true.

More later on the lessons from the Creative Capital seminar on Strategic Planning for all kinds of artists.

The Writer's Work Day

Here's a rule of thumb I learned at the Creative Capital seminar for effective organization of a work day for a writer or artist of any other sort.

It's very simple. APPORTION THE HOURS in this way:

Production------ 60%

Administration-- 20%

Promotion------- 20%

This looks like a reasonable plan to me, designed to keep me from spending the whole morning on e-mail. The numbers probably aren't magic, but they seem about right.

So, here's MY PLAN. Tomorrow, Friday, I will track my time all day and see how I actually spend my day.

MY EXPECTATION: I'll be much more productive, spend much more time on my novel and my manuscript consulting than I otherwise would, BECAUSE: I'll know I'm watching. And I don't want to face being unhappy with myself.

I will also report back to you what the day produces. That's A SECOND STRONG INCENTIVE to do right. So, thanks for being in on this with me.

More Arts Marketing Strategy

I just talked by phone with my partner from the Strategic Planning for artists seminar--a conversation that re-inspired me about my work, as if that were currently needed.

During the Creative Capital/NC Arts Council workshop, we paired off into buddies to continue to stay in touch and encourage each other. Of course those conversations work as deadlines too: I want to have some progress to report.

My partner Bridgette Lacy works a few blocks away from me in downtown Raleigh; she's writes features about authors and others for the News & Observer, and is finishing revisions on a novel.

We found that we'd taken similar steps since returning to Raleigh from the conference a week ago. We both began to ORGANIZE RUTHLESSLY.

I'm whittling down my desk pile of stray things-to-do. This usually feels like procrastination; now that issue is not worrying me. Getting my mind and desk organized feels NECESSARY.

I also made a decision about an offer to teach at a university. I'd been agonizing over it, because the school is a Christian evangelical one and I knew in my heart that I wasn't really a fit. I'm a Christian among other things; I and my upcoming novel COBALT BLUE take a serious interest in voodoo. END OF AGONIZING: I said no and didn't look back.

Bridgette--well, her story is hers to tell and she promises me she's going to tell it here pretty soon. But you can rest assured that she is on a roll.

And she left me a bit of wisdom from the weekend that I had forgotten. Here it is:

BIG DREAMS, SMALL STEPS, WRITE IT DOWN

That probably doesn't need a lot of explanation, but here's a bit anyway. Set your goals as large as you can imagine. Break them into the smallest possible steps. Write the steps down and then tackle them, tidbit by tidbit. The power of those little steps begins to accrue, thus beginning a CAREER GROWTH SPURT.


A personal BOLDNESS ADDENDUM: This weekend, as a graduate of a class called Singing for Non-Singers, I sang a solo at the talent show at my husband's office party. I had had nothing to drink but a lemon-lime soda. And I was fairly at ease.

My husband Bob Dick is a psychologist in a practice with 31 other psychotherapists. I had learned a song in the class called "Be Gone, Dull Care" that I thought was appropriate for this group. I told them it was an ancient psychotherapy song from the British Isles. People were very kind and encouraging to me, even though I had to follow a terrific rendition of "Bobby McGee."

An Artist's Life Plan

Last night while I was waiting for the AAA guy to come get my keys out of my locked car, I sat in a Whole Foods grocery store and started writing my obituary.

This obit-writing was an ASSIGNMENT from the Creative Capital how-artists-can-make-more-money workshop I attended last weekend.

THE IDEA: focus on what I want my life to be and amount to, so I can be sure I'm doing what I can to make that happen.

RESULTS SO FAR: I learned that: it stirs me up to think long about this stuff. That I'm pretty much (except for my procrastinating time) spending my time in the right pursuits. That I can be much more effective with less effort by a little more focusing and with a lot more THINKING BIG.

And that I mean to spend my 100th birthday on a round-the-world cruise on the QE2.

I'm still working on this obit. My plan is to post it here when I'm done, in hopes that going public will strengthen its impact on me and help me measure my progress.

The Elevator Pitch for Selling Your Art

Pretend you're in an elevator and suddenly realize that you're standing next to the person you want to publish your book or stage your play, to carry your project forward. What do you do?

This is what we each practiced at the Creative Capital arts careers seminar on Saturday. We took turns pitching our hottest projects at seminar leader, Daniel Jones, a writer/performer/director recently named by American Theatre Magazine to their list of the top 15 upcoming movers-and-shakers. In this case, Daniel was playing the part of whatever mover-shaker we each most wanted to meet.

First we each assembled what we'd say.

THE HOW-TO:

*LIST three nouns and three verbs that describe the piece of work. Very precise and concrete. One of my nouns to describe Cobalt Blue was "novel." The other two were "painter" and "sex." My verbs were "arouse, offend, seduce."

*WRITE a sentence or two using those words, or most of them, to tell the person what the project is about. No arts jargon, nothing flowery or scholarly. Tell it straight and get across your own excitement about it.

*PRACTICE the roughly 30-second elevator moment with a friend.

*INCLUDE THESE ELEMENTS:
Introduce yourself.
If you can, say something about the luminary's work and how it's relevant to what you're doing.
Say what your project is, using a relaxed, conversational version of your sentence.
Give them a business card or some other way to contact you.
Close with a way to keep the connection going, such as an invitation to a signing or an art show.
Say thanks and withdraw.
Be prepared to say something else useful if the person wants to extend the conversation.

MY SCRIPT: I said approximately this to Daniel who was playing the part of an unsuspecting publisher:

Peggy: Hi. I know who you are. I just read in The Times about your new imprint. Congratulations.

Daniel: Thank you.

Peggy: I'm dazzled to get to meet you. I'm just finishing my third novel Cobalt Blue about a painter who has a religious experience while she's working that causes her to go hog-wild with sex. It's about tantra. It's pretty serious literary stuff. Sort of like some of the books you've done: a bit disturbing. It'll either offend or seduce you. May I have my agent call?

Daniel: Oh, yes!

Peggy: Let me give you my card. (awkward sympathy-inducing moment of trying to get one of my cards out of the plastic sleeve of my nametag where I'd stashed them) Here. Thanks. Good-bye. (getting off "elevator" dizzy with the rush of adrenaline)


Well, by the time that experience was over I was more excited than ever about working on my book, and ready for any elevator.

What was also cool was to see the others in the group do their pitches. People were very good at it, it was just a matter of loosening up and getting into the spirit of it.

For anyone who didn't see the previous post, this one-day seminar is offered at locations across the country by Creative Capital in cooperation with other agencies. This particular class was co-hosted by the the N.C. Arts Council and held at McColl Center for Visual Art.

HIGHLY Effective Marketing for Writers and Artists

Saturday I showed up, brimming with eagerness and high expectations, at the long-awaited arts marketing seminar.

BOTTOM LINE: What I learned there met all my hopes.

I am as excited about my work and my career as I have ever been in all these 33 years of freelance writing. This excitement is based not, as usual, on a piece of good news like a book contract. Instead it is based on having some new tools to better take charge of my own career and the fate of all my books.

For anyone who didn't see the previous post, this one-day seminar is offered at locations across the country by Creative Capital in cooperation with other agencies. This $30 class--I couldn't believe the price--was co-hosted by the indefatigable crew at the N.C. Arts Council and held at McColl Center for Visual Art.

I'm going report here about what I learned. Because there is so much material--even just hitting the high points--I'm going to spread it out over many days.

Some of what I learned amounted to A CHANGE OF PERSPECTIVE. And some was NUTS AND BOLTS. These two are equally important.

Here are TWO EXAMPLES OF WHAT I TOOK HOME, one from each category:

*The most important change of perspective: Shift from thinking "what do I need to get by?" to "what do I and my art need financially in order to flourish?"

*Nuts and bolts item: Create a financial team.

HOW TO DO THIS: Get a free consultation at your bank. Choose a bank that's a patron of the arts. Talk with friends who are passionate and successful with the workings of money about who to consult and what to do.

Study what you spend and find out what you need, then ask a consultant: how can I get x amount of passive (no work-involved) income, by x year. Find out what it will require, what step you need to take next. Do it even if you're currently insolvent. Especially if you are. It's possible to buy your freedom; it takes some time-and-money figuring, and developing new and expanded and alternative markets and possibilities (more on this later). Create financial stability rather than a constant hand-to-mouth crisis.

Realize that artists are good financial managers. Nobody squeezes more out of a buck. So don't "diss" yourself.

Find an accountant who is proficient in arts tax laws.

When you talk to bankers, etc. don't bad-mouth money and say you don't like financial stuff. However you word it, ask these folks to be your partners. Get the person's interest in what you're doing and make them part of it. In addition to using their advice, as appropriate, invite your financial team to your book-signings, art openings, or your movie premiere.



In addition to these notes I jotted, I (and the others) received written materials on types of funding sources and how to approach them.

In summary: attendees typically increase their income by at least 20% in the first year, with significantly less time spent at earning. And that came with added visibility of the art work and wider opportunities for more work.

MY RECOMMENDATION: If one of these day or weekend workshops shows up near you, GO! Or fly to wherever it is. Everyone I spoke with was wowed.

I'll keep reporting in this space about what I learned, how I'm putting it into practice and how it's working out. I INVITE YOU to add your thoughts, experiences and questions about each of these topics. And if you've attended one of these classes, please share any stories about how this approach is working for you. It'll help the rest of us.

Thanks!

Marketing for Artists

This Saturday I'm planning to have all my business and professional problems solved and my future assured.

You may think I'm exaggerating, but I have extraordinary high hopes and excitement about a seminar I'm participating in. The title is Strategic Planning Workshop for artists, run by a New York-based organization, Creative Capital Foundation. These workshops are given periodically at locations scattered around the country.

THE MOTIVATION: I saw one of my friends come back transformed from one of these classes last spring. Carrie Knowles, a visual artist as well as author of THE LAST CHILDHOOD, attended a weekend class.

When she got back, she bought a historic house, moved her office out of her house and into this new arts center, established an art gallery/studio in the building and a writing office, and rented space to me and others.

Moreover, six months later, she's still steaming ahead with her writing and art a lot faster than she used to.

THE RESULT: I'm going to go to this thing day after tomorrow and see what happens to me.

One of the exercises, I'm told, is doing an "elevator pitch." That's putting together--and practicing--a sentence that will sell your book to the publishing luminary you find yourself squeezed in next to on an elevator.

I will report here what happens.

Courage Advice From Another Site

Another creative courage strategy that works, reprinted from the Confidence & Courage Tips link on my link list to the left side of this site. Do give this one a shot; it's good for the just-back-from-the-holiday Monday.


Rise, Knight...
Slay The Dragons In Your Path...
Then Claim The Golden Crown

By Gabriel Daniels


The following is a powerful technique you can use to conquer your fears...and attain your dreams.

Imagine yourself being a brave knight, complete with armor, shield, helmet, and sword (or any weapon of your choice...ex. spear, bow and arrow, etc.). In other words, “act as if” you are a brave knight (one who has fought and won countless battles). You can do this with eyes open or closed...whichever you find more comfortable.

Stand the way a brave or fearless knight would stand. Breathe the way a brave knight would breathe. Gaze the way a brave knight would gaze. Feel yourself having the same kind of resolve and determination a brave knight would have.

And in your mind’s eye, focus on your target (your dream...visualize it vividly) in the distance (for the purpose of this article, let’s just use a “golden crown” as the target to symbolize your dream...when you’re applying this technique on your own, visualize exactly what it is you want instead of the golden crown), with such intensity, that you’re absolutely sure that nothing can stop you from attaining it. Better yet, believe that it’s already yours.

Imagine the golden crown with a bright light around it...as if it were drawing you towards it like a magnet...as if it were saying to you, “Come claim me. I’m yours.”

Then, in your mind’s eye, walk confidently and courageously towards the glowing crown. (If you wish to ride a horse instead, then go right ahead. You can even fly and do all kinds of acrobatics...just like what they do in The Matrix. Use your imagination to the fullest.)

And on your way to the crown, imagine one fire-breathing dragon after another flying towards you...trying to stop you from reaching the crown. (Include as many senses in your visualizations as possible. Hear the dragons’ wings flap. Hear the noise they make...including the sound of their breathing. See their huge, red eyes staring at you. Feel the heat of their breath. And so on.)

As each dragon comes towards you, strike it with your sword. And as your sword hits each one, imagine it getting blown to smithereens—just like the vampires in Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Blade. (If you wish, you can make it even more graphic. It’s up to you how you want to see the dragons defeated...how you want to see “your fears” defeated.) Use your imagination to the fullest. Don’t worry, no one will know you’re doing this. Remember, you’re merely visualizing all of this. So just go all out.

Let the glowing crown (your dream) in the distance inspire you to persist with courage and determination.

And when each dragon tries to breathe fire on you, simply use your shield to protect yourself. Imagine yourself being invincible as you continue to walk towards the brightly shining crown. Even though you feel intense heat all around you because of the fire coming from the dragons, it doesn’t bother you or make you retreat. You simply keep moving forward...with the confidence and conviction that nothing can get in your way.

Remember, you are a knight with absolute courage and unshakeable resolve. You are determined to get what you want...and absolutely nothing can stop you! In fact, nothing will stop you! The golden crown is as good as yours.

(Tip: As each dragon comes before you, you can label/name each one as a particular fear you may have. For example, as you look at the dragon before you, you can say, “Come on, rejection, let’s see what you’ve got.” Then without hesitation, strike the dragon with a quick swing of your sword...“POOF”...smithereens...like it was nothing. Or if a voice keeps playing in your head, telling you that you won’t succeed because you’re simply not good enough, bravely meet the dragon flying towards you and say, “You think you can stop me, negative critic? Well, you’re wrong! Take this!” Then drive your sword into the dragon’s body...“POOF”...smithereens. And continue to do this with each of your fears.)

Then after you’ve slain all the dragons, walk up to the golden crown and reach for it. Claim it. Hold it proudly with both hands and place it firmly on your head...knowing you deserve it. And as you do that, smile and experience the great feeling of victory.

Do this regularly or whenever you find all kinds of doubts, fears, worries, etc., creeping in. Then you will notice a difference in your attitude towards them...in the real world. You will feel like nothing can get in your way as you pursue your dreams.

So, now, I say to you, “Rise, knight. Slay the dragons in your path. Then claim the golden crown.”

About the Author:

Gabriel Daniels publishes Confidence & Courage Tips...To Help You Realize Your Dreams. For tips, strategies, stories, quotes, and more...to inspire and empower you to take action...so you can get what you want out of life, visit his website at: http://confidencetips.blogspot.com
You are free to reprint this article in your ezine or newsletter, or on your website, as long as you include this resource box—and as long as the article’s contents are not changed in any way.

Comfortable Creativity

A life-changing piece of news just in. The Compuserve What's New window today cites a study showing that creative thinking is best done lying down. People were tested on their skill in solving Word Jumbles in various positions. The clear winner: horizontal! Good news indeed.

Happy Thanksgiving to you.

Let Intention Take You the Rest of the Way

Some years ago, I attended the publication party at Carnegie Hall of a novel about a musician, BODY & SOUL, written by Frank Conroy, who was head of the famed creative writing program at Iowa.

Turns out that Conroy was also a terrific jazz piano player; he stayed at the piano much of the night.

When I got home with his novel, I came to a passage about being a musician that offered a bit of wisdom that works as well for writers.

The talented young man in the story was trying to play an exceptionally demanding piece. He told his teacher that he couldn't quite get all the way to the sound he was aiming for. He could come close but then he would come to a sort of wall; his fingers were too stupid to make the leap over that invisible barrier,.

THE BIT OF WISDOM: His teacher told him to let his fingers carry him as far as they would. Then while playing he should focus on the result he was aiming for, and imagine the sound lifted over the wall. Eventually, the force of that imagined music, that aural "visualization" would take his playing where he wanted it to go.

MY WRITERLY APPLICATION: Keep writing, letting knowledge of craft do all it can. Keep in mind, while working, the emotional heart of the story. Then let imagination send its shooting currents--unpredictable but ultimately trustworthy--and ride them to see where they go.

Writing Goal for the Day

I seem to be having a hard time managing myself lately. I tell myself I'm going to work on this or that and then I don't.

Since I'm self-employed I find this particularly unnerving. I have the feeling, right or wrong, that everything depends on my doing what I decide to do.

So I'm resorting to a SOLUTION that has worked before: I'm STAKING MYSELF OUT, making an irreversible public commitment: today I will spend a minimum of one hour on my novel revisions and a minimum of one hour on the project I've been putting off for a week. I know that once I get going, I'll go on longer than that on at least one of these items.

THEN: I will report at the end of the day in the comments on this post that I've done what I decided to do. And I will feel very good. In fact, I'm feeling less irascible already.

I invite you to join me and make a commitment of your own here, today or at any time. Remember that it doesn't have to be large to work. Some days I've gotten myself started by committing to a mere 5 minutes.

My Writing Breakthrough

So I made my roughly annual visit to my psychotherapist, bringing what seemed to me an intractable writing problem.

THE PROBLEM: I didn't have a reliable sense of how many times I have to say things in a story to make them clear to most people. I'd write something that I felt hammered the reader over the head with the point. Yet not everybody got it. And I'm talking about people with good sense.

In no time, Nick Stratas (my doc) offered a plain and simple and effective solution. So simple it seemed like a no-brainer. And yet I, and later my writing group, were stunned by the power of it, and the fact that none of us had thought of it after 23 years of meeting, a stack of published books, several movie deals, a couple of stage adaptations, and decades of writing struggles.

EVOLUTION OF THE SOLUTION:

Nick: How long does it take you to figure out the point of one of your novels?

Peggy: One full draft.

Nick: And then you write that down and keep it in front of you while you write?

Peggy: No.

Nick: Why not?

Peggy: Because I know the point by then.

Nick: It takes you a full draft to discover it!!! This is preconscious material. It can slip away. That's why people keep a notebook beside their bed. I wake up with some wonderful idea and by the time I go to the bathroom, it's gone.

Peggy: (flooded with memories of times of re-remembering the point of a story, after not thinking of it for months) Oh. (pause) Yeah. (pause) You're right. (in wonderment) Jeez.

THE PUNCHLINE: Write down the embarrassingly simple idea that underlies the story. Keep it visible during writing times.

Turns out the problem hadn't been that I didn't know how to be clear; it was that I periodically forgot what I was talking about.

THE CHEEKINESS OF IT ALL: It takes confidence on the part of an advisor to make such a simple suggestion. A few years back I visited a notably astute psychic on my January birthday, a tradition I maintained for while. My annual question was: how do I make the most of what's going on for me in the next year? On one visit her answer was: eat more vegetables.

What a letdown. And how true. It would be easy to think that it's necessary to look good by saying something more complicated. It takes boldness to say the simple effective thing.

MY WRITING BREAKTHROUGH: Putting the idea in front of me is working. That's what it took to get fully clear.

Stay Loyal to Your Writing Passions

On a blog called Daytips for Writers I just ran across a reference to a Ray Bradbury book which jogged my memory of a chat with him on the QE2. Which led me to tell his story on that blog, and now to bring it back here. I'd like to make sure I NEVER FORGET it again.

I interviewed Bradbury when I was writing an article on writers at work on the ship's transatlantic crossing (Francis Ford Coppola was finishing a script on that same voyage.)

Bradbury told a story about staying true to our callings. He was saying that we need to stick with our passions, however odd they may seem to others. He told about being into some cartoon spaceman for years after he was considered too old for that kind of interest. Kids made fun of him and he went home and threw out his collection of Captain Whoever.

Then as an adult he tried to succeed as a writer of mainstream nonscifi fiction. Didn't work.

On a lark, he went back to his old interest, wrote a story about a dragon. Years later he picked up the phone. It was the director John Huston. He had run across the old story about the dragon, wanted Bradbury to write a script for him that had the same feel to it. The story was about a white whale. The movie Moby Dick turned out to be Bradbury's breakthrough. And all because he came back to the fantastical that was his love.

A Courage Tip: Nerve in the Curve

I don't remember where I came across the idea. I have a vague sense it was in the book LEARNED OPTIMISM by Martin Seligman (worth reading in any event.) But wherever it was, this idea I now think of as NERVE IN THE CURVE.

It seems some study showed that the race drivers who won races were most often the ones who didn't slow down on the curves.

The way I translate that for myself as a writer is: don't back off from my strategy at times when things have gotten difficult. Just ride through those tough periods full steam, focused on what's up ahead, doing what I planned and giving that plan a full chance.

EXAMPLE: going ahead full-tilt finishing my novel SISTER INDIA though it took three months longer than I'd planned and put me into my line-of-credit (in debt) for a while. I did sell the novel, and I did come out okay with the bank.

There's always a point in a project when I start getting nervous about whether I should be putting as much time or money into it as I first planned. My knee-jerk impulse is to slow down. Sometimes it might be the right thing to do. Or it might be like slowing down the boat when you're pulling a water skier. The skier sinks. Withdrawing fuel from a project at a crucial moment can make that project sink.

So when things get a little scary, I remind myself: nerve in the curve, Peggy. It might make sense to back off, but it doesn't make sense to get wobbly just because I'm running into the predictable delays and risks and difficulties. It doesn't make sense to slow out of a reflexive fear.

I hope these mixed sports metaphors make sense. Tell me if I didn't quite get it across.

Short Bursts of Writing

It's late on a Friday--been working on revising my novel COBALT BLUE. I found that I could work for only about 15 minutes before getting antsy and nervous. (The changes I'm making are small but BOLD) Some of the time it was abougt 3 minutes.

My jumpiness felt rather discouraging; it gave me the feeling that I wasn't going to get anything done today. Wrong--I got a lot done.

MY METHOD: I quit about every time I felt like it. Then went back to work 5 or 10 minutes later. It took me about 5 hours to do about 3 and a half hours worth of writing. And toward the end of the afternoon, I was starting to be able to stay with it longer.

I consider this approach a variation of the LOWERED EXPECTATIONS approach, essentially it's to do what I can. I'm happy with the way it turned out this time.

I don't think I was evading any subject matter by quitting so often. But next round I think I'm going to experiment and explore that possibility.

Why I Write Spooky, Literary, Metaphysical Fiction

I used to be a newspaper and TV reporter, covered politics and school boards, one motorcycle gang shootout, a few fish kills, a lot of other odd occurrences. Then as a travel writer for magazines and newspapers, I tended to accidentally turn up wherever events were about to explode: in Israel for a war with Lebanon, in India in a city where riots broke out, in Poland in time for the second round of Solidarity strikes.

As a novelist, I still fancy myself a reporter of sorts. I'm interested in "things unseen," the shapes and stirrings in our deepest recesses, in mystical experiences of the divine, in the paranormal and the barely conceivable.

MY METHODS: I meditate, though not very much
I write a fast see-what's-there chunk of story
I revise to develop-what's-there
I get feedback from the writing group/class I've been a member of for
22 years
I do more exploratory drafts and more polishing drafts
Maybe get more feedback
And all the while I count on what floats up into my consciousness, the
unexpected connections and images

GETTING THE DEEP IMAGES:
The surprise thoughts rise to my mind usually after two things have
happened: I've prepared the ground by writing about whatever it
is I'm currently most drawn to, and then I've taken a break and done
something physical like exercise, taking a shower, sleeping, raking.

EXAMPLE: In the case of the the novel I'm working on now, COBALT BLUE, the deep connection came to me while I was doing something rather quietly
physical: sitting out on my porch with Bob on a summer night,
thinking about nothing but the slight stirring of the damp air.

What came to my mind on that porch was the phrase: "it's kundalini." I
knew that the "it's" referred to the major event in my novel. In COBALT BLUE, the main character Andie has a sudden mysterious inner rush, followed by a blast of creativity as well as some rather extreme sexual episodes.

There were psychological reasons for this of course. But then this word
that I didn't know the meaning of showed up. I had overheard it
once but didn't know what it meant.

Kundalini, I learned, is a concept of unused life
force stored in every person. When the kundalini
spontaneously "rises wrong" a person can get more than they can
handle. The word is Sanskrit, but the idea exists in the history of
many religions.

I felt the idea slide into the story as if the story had been built
for it in every detail.

So I think of myself as a reporter, doing a sort of reconnaissance. I'm watching for what shows up and,in my way, reporting it. I want to know what's there.

Revising

Today I'm starting back into a novel I thought I'd finished writing. The last third of the book is set in New Orleans and I need to update for the effect of Katrina, and I want to clarify a couple of other things while I have it "opened up."

It's not as hard as it might sound; I know (pretty much) the changes I want to make. On the other hand, every change in a story seems to necessitate others. So this is not a small undertaking either.

THE OBSTACLES I DEAL WITH IN STARTING A REVISION:
the fear that I can't do it
the fear that I'll mess up what's already there
the weary feeling that I've already spent enough time in this story
the question: is it possible that "deep down" some part of me doesn't want to
be immediately clear and finish stories quickly, that I really want to be
"hard to get"

THE GREAT THING ABOUT STARTING A REVISION:
once I've begun I'm involved and excited again
I discover new things to explore
I know I'll get where I'm going eventually

And so the thing now is simply to take a deep breath and begin.

Strategy for Today

It's morning and I came into the office tired. I have four appointments (including a haircut) and so, perhaps fortunately, I can't flop onto the carpet. My plan for today is low expectations: do the stuff I've committed myself to and give myself lavish credit for getting anything at all done otherwise.

What I usually find when I do this is that I get perked up by the first person I see, and then find that the combination of that energy with the pleasurably lowered expectations frees up my thinking, allows me in the time available to get a bit more done than usual.

An Oddly Satisfying Day

Bought some gizmos this morning to be able to tape a big-deal interview this afternoon on my cell phone.

Went with one of my brothers to the funeral of my mother's 94 year-old first cousin and had a thoroughly good time visiting with relatives.

Did the big-deal phone interview--with the great-grandniece of the woman whose biography I'm writing. Important because there are almost no relatives alive who know anything about her. Got a lot of good information and leads. I feel like such a sleuth, even more than during my many years writing for newspapers.

Opened the box from UPS containing my new laptop wireless computer. My current elephant of a machine is tottering. Still this is bold: buying new cutting-edge equipment that'll actually do what I need.

Pretty soon: off to my meditation group for the first time in a while.

And all of this without a twinge of hesitation, second-guessing of myself, or procrastination. That's what I mean by satisfying. Not a bad way to live. I'd like to figure out how to make a habit of it.

Why Life is Like French Toast?

I just ran across a charming site/blog by a visual artist: Frenchtoastgirl.com. It was featured in the April issue of Artist's Sketchbook Magazine, very appropriately, in the Inspiration section. It's whimsical in a way that's catching.

This Trick Worked

...or maybe it was simply the passage of time. In any event, my work jitters have eased off. I tried yet another of my collection of gambits: cleaning out closets while listening to motivational tapes. This is one of my things-to-do when I get in a sticky place about writing. One of them always works for me eventually.

So today I am so free of inner clutter that the tasks of the day are mere trifles. I have fuel and sparkle to spare. It's a more-than-nice feeling. Pretty day here too.

Free Weekly Courage Counseling

Yesterday I discovered "Purple Fridays," and found that afterwards I worked better and felt perkier the rest of the day.

What this is: the website called Courage Lender (click on the title in my link list) is by a coach, Amanda Murphy, who offers a free group session by phone most Fridays at 1 p.m. Eastern time. It's aimed at helping participants keep up the courage to do bold things, and Murphy's specialty, or one of them, is self-employed professionals. You can join in the hour-long phone session as many Fridays as you want at no charge.

I dialed in for the first time yesterday. There were four or five of us on the call, all of us concerned with issues in our idiosyncratic one-person businesses.

What was helpful was the way the hour helped me to stop fighting my fears, at least for a few hours, and thus have that much extra energy available. It was just a matter of agreeing to coexist with fear, and that took a lot of the power out of it.

I highly recommend giving this one hour thing a try. All it cost me was my cell minutes. And an hour that, in the mood I was in, I'd likely have wasted a lot of anyway.

Stamina

Just as important as boldness in creativity is the ability to be bold again the next day and the next. I've been a freelance writer since 1972. It's the only way I can imagine living. Yet periodically--for instance, now-- I feel a wavering in the ability to "do it again today." I suppose I could say "the hell with it for right now" and go out and play. But that's a little scary when the work is your day job. So I stay in the saddle.

I know why the wavering happens: it's when I've gone too long since the last burst of out-in-the-world feedback. Right now I'm waiting for two long-overdue phone calls. And that waiting is getting in my way.

Gandhi says we should do the work "and then step back." Don't look around for rewards. Let the focus be on the work alone. I can only do that for so long and then I start to fray.

What helps is refocusing on work. And the ability to do that once again is stamina. By now I have a million psychological tricks I play to keep that happening every day. Sometimes I have to try several. (Today I'm using this blog to get my frustrations off my chest.)

Finally, the process of living a boldly creative life is the ability to start again and start again. The same thing is true of meditation. When my mind wanders, I must kindly guide it back to the moment. The kindness is key. So I'm trying to speak nicely to myself about being so frustrated and give myself credit for getting to work again.

Why I (Sometimes) Indulge in "Negative Thinking"

Natasha--of the Daring Female blog--offers bold advice to counter the dismal "publish and perish" view of the publication experience described this week in the NY Times Book Review.

In a comment posted here yesterday she urges us to remember we need to get better results by doing our own publicity, on-line and otherwise. I agree. I paddle my particular canoe as hard as I can.

Both the optimism and the writer's publicity campaign are necessary, crucial. Publicity is what most published writers spend a great deal of time doing these days.

And I'm convinced that my setting my own course and persisting are the route to the largest success. I believe that most of the time. I build my life around the idea.

Yet I also find that it helps in low moments (I'm feeling pretty frustrated just lately) to remember that what I'm trying to do is difficult, that a lot of the world will tell you it's impossible. When I factor the huge challenge into the equation, then I have more stamina and more pleasure, greater ability to stay bold through the long roller coaster ride of writing and selling novels.

Publish and Perish?

There's a dreadfully on-target essay in the just-released NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW that captures the typical experience of having a book come out. It's at www. nytimes.com/2005/10/23/books/review/23royte.html. (Sorry I haven't yet figured out how to make a neat little click out of that.) It offers details that made me cringe with recognition: the period called The Big Suck-up, in which the author sends flowers and candy to her publicist, for example.

The piece even included The Honeymoon and the moments of boundless hope and euphoria. And yet...the bottom line was what the author called "self-induced misery."

And yet...how we all crave to do it again--and immediately. This minute!!! And don't try to get in my way!!!

Sister India

Sure, SISTER INDIA is the title of one of my novels. At the same time, for me, the phrase "Sister India," refers to an anxiety-reducing idea: the way that the sensory can stop time.

Here's how I came to have this thought. A few years ago I was asked to write an essay for an anthology about the most-something-or-other book or books I'd ever read. For example, the most stirring, or the most revealing, or the most exciting...book I'd ever read.

I decided to write on the most seductive books I'd ever read: which are novels set in India. The reason was that they're almost all so sensory, so full of the color and sound and smell and feel of moment after moment.

That sensory detail creates a sharp focus on the present moment that is the heart of all concentration and focus and ease in action. These novels, with their physicality, stop time for me, relax me, give a pause to my obsessing.

This is not to romanticize India as a laidback place. From what I've seen, it isn't. And the novels don't present that--not the good ones. India is the most actively business-minded place I've ever been. That was true in the early 90s when I spent a winter in Varanasi. Since then, of course, India has liberalized its laws on foreign investment and started handling work for many American corporations, becoming a major economic force in the world.

Even so, those novels, no matter the subject, have a quality that is like a soothing and spirit-lifting companion.

At a bookstore appearance in the U.S. shortly after this novel of mine came out, a man asked me to inscribe a book to his wife. He said she read novels about India for therapy. That might sound odd. But I understood.

The Courage to Create a Revolution

As you no doubt know, Rosa Parks died last night. When she refused to give up her seat on the bus, life in the United States changed for the better for all the generations to come.

Her radical act was not planned and orchestrated. She didn't strain to work up her courage, or gather an army of support. Instead she performed a simple, quiet act that turned a great wrong on its head.

That's boldness. Makes me wonder what small reflexive routine I could vary today that would set something good in motion.

Underachieving Writer

I considered several alternate titles for this post, including "The Pressure to Produce." In my case, and in the case of most fiction writers, the pressure is largely internal. And fierce.

Last night I was reading Reynolds Price's latest novel THE GOOD PRIEST'S SON. I noted once again that Reynolds has published something on the order of 50 books. I wiped the exact figure from my mind.

I envy such productivity.

I hold no grudge against the success of others. In fact it's a pleasure that inevitably gives me hope. But output--that's a different matter.

Then too, out-in-the-world reception of my books is not directly in my control. Productivity is. Or so I nag at myself.

I try to tell myself that my currently unbudging slower pace is part of some divine natural order. Plants grow at different rates, and all that. The argument works some of the time.

If I felt I was giving writing books my 100% best effort every day, then I think I'd be satisfied. But who does that? Quite a few writers, I imagine. Not me. I procrastinate part of almost every day. I do get to the work. But what of those hours of desk-puttering? I wonder what my life and my work would look like if I focused all day. Maybe better, maybe worse. I don't know that I'll ever know.

The Axles of my Fiction

Well, my computer is running today. But two axles on my car are falling apart and my voice mail isn't answering except when it feels like it. Most tediously , my writing group this afternoon offered a barrage of criticism on the structure of a story I'm working on. Unquestionably helpful, but tiring. I'd kind-a thought I was close to the last draft of this one.

The problems they noted are the large, persistent kind: characterological. They have to do with my very soul and are the same problems I have to solve again on every novel or piece of fiction or story of any sort that I write. The most important one is over-subtlety.

The first one is the hardest. I always think I've made the point, the action, and the characters so rampagingly clear as to be garish. Yet, the most discerning of my readers frequently miss major points on the first umpteen drafts.

So now I've got to go back to these same pages and get more overt, more underlined, more garishly obvious about what's going on between these people in the story. I thought I was already in-your-face. Apparently I need to go into the reader's inner ear with my message.

Well, this matter is fixable, like the axles on my car. And in the case of the story, I can do it myself instead of taking it to a mechanic. But jeez, when do I get to move on? One day I'd like to write something that came out clear in under ten drafts.

Small Familiar Obstacle

Yesterday a supposedly minor problem threw me. My computer wouldn't print or go on line. It was protesting my attempt to go wireless.

So I called a repair person. We set a time for her to come to my office today. And then I couldn't write. For more than an hour, I booted up and shut down over and over, all the while watching for the proper blinking lights. The lights never came on.

There was nothing I knew how to do to make the slightest bit of progress. Yet going back to work on my manuscript felt like throwing off a small rabid animal that was gripping the back of my head.

Here's the good news. I threw it off. Don't know how.

At first, turning back to my pages, I was miserable and certain I wouldn't be able to clear my mind. And it took a while. Maybe half an hour later I was engaged again in my work.

A small triumph. It seems the same ones have to be won over and over again.

The repair lady did fix my computer, by the way.

Mid-Career Writer Burnout

I can talk about this more easily now because, at the moment, it feels safely past. In the last couple of years, I've felt pretty worn down by writing and, at the same time scared of it. I think that's probably in large part due to the novel I've recently finished: it's fully of scary material, and I think the writing is maybe the best I've done. Maybe that's why it drained all my energy. But it felt like I didn't have much in the first place.

Now I'm enjoying a fresh burst of enthusiasm. And I've just run across an item that in retrospect cheers me. Anne Lamott, well known for her book about writing BIRD BY BIRD, has a few paragraphs here and there about her writing career in her book about faith TRAVELING MERCIES. I was reading along in the faith book, not thinking about career issues, when I came to this companionable little item:

"The truth was, though, that I'd hardly written in weeks, and then only pitiful stream-of-consciousness writing exercises, like Job's wife trying to get THE ARTIST'S WAY to work. I couldn't remember the point anymore; a lot of rewards had come my way, but I felt like a veteran greyhound at the racetrack who finally figures out that she's been chasing mechanical bunnies....It was an awful predicament, to be so tired of doing what I do and, at the same time, worried that I wasn't going to be ALLOWED to do it anymore. That the authorities were going to call and say I'd blown my chance to be one of the writers--but they'd found me a new job, at the Laundromat. I was going to be the anxious woman who hands out change: "Here, here's some quarters. Don't use that machine, it overflows! Hey! That man's using your basket!"

I was both thrilled and amused to read this and recognize my own feelings: the sense that I dreaded doing the work but that I might be on the verge of losing the chance. Since that moment of hers, Anne Lamott has continued to publish good writing. And I feel that I've done my own best work while in that dismal state. So the mood is not crippling or terminal and--Hallelujah!--it's not mine alone.

Fresh Breeze

Today was my 2nd full day of work in my brand-new mango-colored office. I'm enjoying this new and uncluttered, bright space and, at the same time, new and total surgery recovery. Truly I feel the energy of a fresh start. I got a ton of work done today--writing...which I was reasonably pleased with. (If I'm extremely pleased, it's a little suspicious.)

The change of venue shakes up my mind in a good way. Having to be away from work for weeks has made me appreciate the chance to do it now. Having my friend Carrie in the office next door is terrific. So many good changes at once. And the amazing thing is that all of this is providing the burst that such changes are supposed to do.

THE LITTLE LOCKSMITH

I just now finished reading a book that I can never forget and will surely read again. THE LITTLE LOCKSMITH, its title misleadingly like that of an antiquated children's book, is as honest and intelligent and transcendent a book as I've ever come across. More than any book I know, it inspires living with courage and creativity.

This memoir by Katharine Butler Hathaway was a bestseller in 1943, reissued in the year 2000. Here's what the NEW YORKER said: "When (she) was five, she fell victim to spinal tuberculosis. For ten years she was strapped to a board...and for the rest of her life, though she could move about, she was hopelessly deformed. Her body never grew any larger than that of a ten-year-old child. Her imagination, her understanding of herself, and her vision of the modes by which her life could be transformed--these, however, grew greater and greater." THE NEW YORK TIMES said, "You must not miss it."

I first learned of this radiant book through an essay by Lee Smith in the anthology REMARKABLE READS (in which I had an essay on novels about India). Lee's essay was called "The Most Luminous Book I Read" and it described, incidentally, how this memoir helped her through a difficult stretch in a novel she was working on. I was moved by that piece and then forgot to go and get the book. Last night, I ran across it in the library.

You might as well go ahead and buy it. You'll want to keep a copy, I expect.

A Big Move

On Friday, I'll be unpacking my boxes in a new office with walls painted a color you might call mango. This is a fresh new start for me--in my 33rd year as a freelance writer.

My new space is in a Victorian house bought as an office building by my good buddy Carrie, a writer and visual artist. For the last 3 and a half years I've worked in a little office that has many charms but is so isolated I get a little buggy sitting there all day. For some reason, my landlady there decided to rent me an office and then rent none of the other spaces on the little hall.

So now I'm moving back into human contact, with a good friend, and in a central location where people can pop in and say hello for a moment.

And of course I'm cleaning and sorting and throwing stuff away. A key part of a fresh new start.

I have great hopes for this move. I mean for it to be symbolic as well as more fun. More mango in my life. More mango in my writing. Not that they weren't pretty juicy already. Even so, I'm prepared to go over the top.

Released!

This morning I graduated from the Hysterectomy Mystery School of Unsought Wisdom. I had my one-month-after-surgery checkup and my doc said I'm fine to pump iron and move pianos and do anything else I have energy for.

So look out! I re-enter the world with a whole new glint in my eye: ready to seize the day when I feel like it, retire again to the sofa when I don't.

I imagine that this is how it is to come back from a war and start college again: in the time away, my view has changed. It's harder now to see how I could ever be thrown off balance by the small events of an ordinary work day.

Creative Ease

This business of strolling instead of striving is actually working. I'm getting done the things I need to get done. No straining or gearing up or forcing myself. Wow!

I do wonder if the fact that I'm still convalescing and only working part-time is responsible. A screenwriter friend of mine years ago concluded that affirmations were giving her the easy courage to create that she'd always wanted. Then the screenwriters' strike ended and the phone went back to ringing and not-ringing and all her fears cranked up again. The affirmations hadn't been responsible, she concluded; instead it had been the silence and lack of pressure during the period of the strike.

I'm optimistic, though. I think this new ease is going to last. I will see that it does.

Strolling, Not Striving

I have my new strategy for creative freedom--in fact for the kind of weightless freedom from pressure I felt in my first two weeks post-surgery. It's a standard bit of yoga advice: don't strive. Or as my mother used to say when I was a kid: "don't strain your goozle." That can be hard to remember when one is trying to get everything in the world done in a day. Which is usually the case for me.

The only problem with "don't strive" is that it's a negative. Better to focus on doing rather than not doing. So I toyed with the idea of Nike's "just do it" slogan. That says basically the same thing, but sounds a bit grim and dutiful.

I've settled finally on the word "stroll" to describe the no-pressure approach to getting things done.

From now on, I'm strolling through my days. No getting all twist-legged about how much work is ahead to do. One thing at a time, done peacefully. I think this is going to work. In fact, I'm sure it is. It's already working.

Water Gun

A woman I grew up with learned recently that she has brain cancer. Home again after surgery, she decided to think positively and not to let anybody get her down. So she got herself a water gun. Anybody who sits down beside her and says anything negative, she squirts. I think it must be very satisfying to do that and, Lord knows, an effective way to change the subject.

Mainly, I admire her spirit. She says she's going to enjoy the ride.

No Goals, No Standards

In the first two weeks of recovering from surgery, I had a rare (for me) experience. I found, to my shock, that in those days I was completely free of goals or standards. No quota of pages to turn out, or work to turn in, or number of crunches to do in a day. At the same time, I seemed to have no sense of private space or concern for dignity, which was convenient since, for part of that time, I was in a hospital. I'd thought that these aspects of my personality were immutable, irreducible.

I did have a large job to do, which was actively assist in my recovery. That included getting myself from bed to bathroom on my own, dragging the IV pole; taking three or four walks a day up and down the halls in my sweaty hospital gown; taking a shower on my own...and so forth. Just as taxing at that point as a day's work. But I had no sense of what my "productivity" was supposed to be, whether I was "running behind," or what would constitute a really good job of taking a shower. I had no self-consciousness; I just did the things that needed to be done, without hesitation or thought.

Week 3: old patterns of thinking kicked back in. I began to grouse: saying to myself that others have probably recovered much faster, that my friend Dan went back to university teaching only 3 weeks after his open-heart surgery, that I was somehow doing this healing thing wrong or at least not in the most effective way, and many, many other variations on that theme.

That's an aspect of my normal life I do not want to take up residence in again. In this one way, I want to go back.

I want the weightlessness of those first two weeks: simply doing, without the self-berating and the self-monitoring and the fear of falling short. That would be bold indeed, and delightful, and no doubt far more productive. I'm trying to figure out how in ordinary daily life it's done. Let me know if you have suggestions.

Nobody But You

If you have moments of doubting the value of what you're doing, consider this thought from Martha Graham to Agnes DeMille:

"There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it.

It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open."

Proust's Bedroom and Mine

Just finished reading Alain de Botton's charmingly intelligent HOW PROUST CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE. It's a series of essays on what Proust's IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME would boil down to if, improbably, the seven hefty volumes were a self-help book. Chapter titles include such topics as "How to Suffer Successfully" and "How to Take Your Time."

At the end there's a good piece of advice about the wrong way to wring wisdom out of a piece of art. I can tell you it's a path I've tried to take. This hopeless approach is to go to the places where the artist worked, where the story ostensibly unfolded. Example: to try to better know Monet's paintings and experience by going to Giverny (a dream of mine.) Or to go to Combray where Proust's boyhood summers are set and expect to see deeper into the books. Instead, says this guide: "It should not be Illiers-Combray that we visit: a genuine homage to Proust would be to look at our world through his eyes, not to look at his world through our eyes."

Some years ago I made an attempt to visit in a Paris museum the reassembled furniture of Proust's cork-lined bedroom where he wrote. I was about 8 minutes too late. The museum had closed; the guard would not listen to my pleas, though it truly was our last day there. Maybe it was for the best, and now I will have a look at my own bedroom with the kind of rich attention that Proust gave everything. I've certainly had the time to do it, having been sacked out all day. Two days up and one day down seems to be the current state of my convalescence. I am indeed following the Proustian advice of taking my time.

Writing Group in Muscle Shirt

This afternoon I went back to the writing group/class I've participated in on Thursday afternoons for 22 years. I'd only missed two weeks on my "health leave" but felt as if I'd spent a winter in India (as I did for my 2nd novel) and returned with tales to tell.

I found that I wanted to make a splash, a statement, on this return to the group that's a major piece of my normal life.

So, what I did: I wore a shirt that was given to me as a joke a while back by one of the other writers in the group. It's a bare-midriff muscle shirt, black, tight as a cigar band, with the Eiffel Tower and the word Paris written in purple glitter over a pink-glitter sun. Keep in mind now that I'm 56. I'd never before found occasion to wear this garment. Today was the day.

People in the group did remember the shirt, so I didn't have to explain the "joke" (until later when we met other folks for tea.) My get-up did make the statement I wanted, which was, I only now stop to think, that: I'm not dead yet, not down for the count, still a "boomer babe", and what did I need ovaries for anyway. It's a fine T-shirt that can do all that. And it has been a fine and fun day.

Going Wider and Deeper

I just now reread my description of this blog: how I was going to use it in part as a way to spur myself to bolder action on my own current projects, asking others to do the same. By this I meant professional projects.

My, how I have strayed from that topic. And at the same time, not at all. Instead I've just broadened my own definition of current project.

Turns out my current project is recovering from a hysterectomy. (Much easier than writing a novel, in my experience.)

Turns out that creative courage at work is inseparable from the most deeply personal rumblings and shiftings. No great surprise--and yet I wasn't thinking that way only a few weeks when I began. What an innocent!

This blog is still about bold creativity. But not just at the desk or drafting table, not just at work. It's also about the deep workings of the process from its most personal sources, even literally gut level. I hope you also feel free to use this space as expansively as you will.

A Wee Setback

Boldly, only 13 days after surgery, I ventured out to a party, a Labor Day cookout. It seemed both an enormous undertaking and, at the same time, not such a big deal. Bob did the driving. I remained seated on the deck the whole two hours I was there (except for a visit to the buffet.) I enjoyed being a hero: no one had imagined I could make it out to a party so soon. Then I went home at 7:30 and pretty quickly went to bed. Today I've been good for nothing but lying down.

So it turns out I'm not ready for such outings yet. Too exhausting--especially since at the party I chowed down on the first whole plate of food in two weeks. I had to try it to know.

I'm reminded how rarely progress is ever smooth. How there are always interruptions, for many kinds of reasons. Wee setbacks and large ones are part of every process of making and remaking. I like the kind of stories that are inevitably titled "comeback kid."

Post-Surge

Day 12, and I'm still lying around. Surgery went fine. I'm still tired in mind and body. Sleeping and watching post-Katrina on TV. Feeling luxurious in my comfortable convalescence as I see again and again the wreckage of lives on the Gulf Coast. I'm sad especially for New Orleans. The novel I've recently finished, COBALT BLUE, is set there for the last third of the story. The spirit of New Orleans is immortal; I can't believe otherwise.

"Your Most Brilliant Innocence"

"Just when you're sure you've gone as far as you can go...you will find the secret to a sweet, fresh gamble that will awaken your most brilliant innocence." That's my delightful horoscope from a local weekly for this week of surgery.

For some time, I'd been wanting that kind of refreshment: a return to the excitement about writing I had for the first 30 or so years.

Then, only in the last few weeks, I've been thrilled to feel that way again when I started researching the mysterious artist Miss Chant for a biography. I still feel this new excitement, had a deliciously fruitful research trip last week, sat and took notes in the lady's very bedroom, read her packing list for a trip (which included "three bottles of wine, corked.")

But maybe this week offers new discoveries, certainly a sort of gamble. In any event, I look forward to this most brilliant innocence. Even the phrase inspires me.

Wild Talk

I just read about a woman who, in the narcotized dream-state after her surgery, felt the nurses were evil aliens trying to harm her. She rallied once for a moment and heard her husband in the process of apologizing to a nurse for all the terrible things she'd said.

I'm wondering what terrible things I'll say in the same situation Wednesday morning. I used to have a fear--from early life to just a few years ago--that on my deathbed I might say or not say something in my ravings that would hurt someone's feelings. Suppose someone were left out, for example, or didn't get enough of my final air-time. Or there was some misunderstanding I wouldn't be alive to get straight. I finally rid myself of this grandiose worry, when Bob, my husband, persuaded me that anything I said at that point would be expected to be a little wacky.

So now I'm merely curious what I might come up with, what my wacky dreams will be.

A Peculiar Crusade

I need your help with a campaign. My recent medical adventures have ignited a small new passion: to get some kind of anesthesia made available for a very painful exam that lots of women have to go through. My informal poll shows that half my pals have been there at least once.

Like being stabbed, an endometrial biopsy is fairly quick but hurts like hell. A friend who has gone through childbirth twice said this test was the worst pain she'd ever felt. And it's routinely done (at least in my town) with no painkiller of any sort.

Here's what I'm asking: suggest to any gynecologist you know that they offer some kind of numbing of mind or body for this procedure. (To men who've read this far: tell any chum of yours who's in this line of work.) A doc who starting doing this would be a sure superhero of mythic proportion. Women would probably fly from all parts of the continent just to have this test.

I've already talked to my doctor though as of Wednesday I won't have the parts for this kind of exam. And let me say, I'm not one who is angry with the medical profession. Quite the reverse. I'm permanently grateful to my doctors and others for the treatment I and several loved ones have had. But I'd feel like a passive sheep if, feeling strongly as I do just now, I didn't speak up about this unnecessary pain.

The Weird Forms that Fear Takes

Though I feel pretty cool now about having this bit of surgery next week, I did notice that I've done a couple of things that I do when I'm scared and don't know it.

Yesterday morning I spent about a half an hour obsessing about what earrings to put on. Finally, I solved the problem by changing tops. If I have trouble getting dressed quickly in the morning, then for sure some uneasiness is stirring.

My other signal is when I see myself calmly do some automatic action in a nonsensical way. Pour orange juice into the jar of peanut butter instead of the glass--I stopped just short of doing that this week. Once years ago, on the morning I was taking a checkout dive to get my scuba certification, I methodically tried to put a pair of pants on over my head.

With tactics like these I've pretty much managed to avoid feeling fear directly. Am I the only one? Do other people do this?

A Highly Personal Question of Boldness

On Monday my doctor set before me an unsettling decision. Some "atypical" cells had showed up in a biopsy. Not cancer, I'm happy to say. But cells that are "wanting to become cancer."

So I was to decide whether to have a hysterectomy and remove any risk forever, or have a lesser procedure, something on the order of sweeping out the cells with a whisk broom, and then be closely monitored for the rest of my life.

It took me 23 hours to decide. I was clear when I woke up Tuesday morning: Have the big operation. As soon as possible.

By that time I could also ask myself: in such a situation, is there a "bolder" course, a "more alive" choice? It would likely take more courage to have the threat of trouble hanging over my head forever; but I don't see what I would gain.

The decision I've come to seems literally the one that's "more alive." It's the one more likely to keep me alive longer. My choice now seems to me a no-brainer. Which it sure didn't two days ago.

At this moment, I'm somewhat interested in what happens next. I'm so healthy--haven't been in a hospital except as a visitor in almost 50 years. In the next few weeks, I will probably find out a few things about myself and life that I don't now know. And I plan to rent movies, read a lot, take excellent painkillers, and require a lot of attention.

"Most Alive Choice"

On a website called Planetsark.com run by the writer SARK who writes about living "juicy," I just now came upon the delightful idea of "most alive choice." I think if I put it into action it might sometimes pull me away from my sofa and Hershey's Kisses and my People, Allure and Vanity Fair magazines (not that there's anything wrong with any of that.)

The idea is to ask oneself at moments of indecision or transition: what is my "most alive choice?" Lots of times, I'm guessing, the most alive thing will be to act in a way that's not habitual. I'm going to try it out, see what happens. Will let you know.

Write a 6-word Story

Yesterday I ran across an article about notable American authors asked to produce a 6-word short story. They produced some little gems. Funny, too.

What it brought to mind was my nephew Tucker at age 4 telling his relatives that he had learned to write. What he wrote as a demonstration was this: Aunt Peggy is a bad girl. Six words. Not a story exactly, there's no conflict or action. Nonetheless a lot is implied. Certainly he demonstrated that he can write fiction.

This morning, I thought of a 6-word sort-of-story that, at about 14,I thumbtacked to my bulletin board over my desk in my teen-age bedroom. It was a Weyerhauser recruiting ad with the headline: Send Me a Man Who Reads. Again, though, the rest of the story is implied.

It's not an easy assignment: to set up a character and a problem and a resolution in 6 words. Give it a shot and send the results. It's a fun problem.

"Loose as Ashes"

At the dentist's office this week, I enjoyed a half hour of nitrous oxide which set my mind loose a bit more than usual.

This loosey-goosey-ness is a state I want to be able to produce and enhance, without aid of a mask and a tank and a dentist. It's at the heart of creativity. I think it's the reason that so many people who are good at one art form are also pretty decent in another. I have a book called "Doubly Gifted," a collection of the paintings of well-known writers. John Updike paints well and so do a lot of others.

My theory: once the mind is freed of the usual rigid connections--how a nose is supposed to look--then it's possible to see how a particular nose looks. And once frozen mental images and standard connections are dismantled, new combinations can occur.

It's a bit like doing the puzzle "Word Jumbles," the one where you unscramble letters to make a word. I visualize the letters greased so that they can slide in every direction, take new positions. Some days I can do all the word jumbles in the paper at a glance; other days the letters stay rigidly in their place. I've never checked to see how my writing correlates with my word jumble facility at a particular moment, but I wouldn't be surprised to find a connection.

Some famous baseball player--can't remember his name--said that the right way to be when you step up to bat is "loose as ashes."

How do you get that way? I find that exercise helps.

By the way, my brand-new, week-old research on my first-ever biography is sailing. This woman was a living mystery.

Cross-Training

A few years ago, I took up the practice of bad art and found it has helped me with my writing.

I started doing peculiar arts-and-craftsy things, as whim dictated, without bothering to learn how to do it "right" or laboring over it to make it good. The results are far from show-pieces. They're typically odd or half-baked, fall into the "interesting-idea-but-poor-execution" category. The homemade, old-hippie kind of thing.

Projects so far have included: painting swamp grass on the gas tank, painting the Buddhist Eyes of God across the width of the woodshed, beading a four-foot leaf as an outdoor flag, a couple of mosaic tables, etc. Currently I'm beading a three-foot long fish which I'm planning to hang over a hall window. If you looked at the number of beads involved in a three-foot fish, you might wonder if I have enough to do.

Indeed I do have enough to do, and slapping together my little projects helps me do my work better. The handwork seems to loosen my brain a bit. I can think without focusing on what I'm thinking about. Ideas float up. The range of possibilities seems wider. Also, beads and paint are physical; and that's a refreshing, delicious change from the mental play of writing.

Maybe one of these days, I'll be so bold as to post a photo of one of these projects. We live in a log house on a dirt road through deep woods, in a county dotted with other artists-in-hiding. So the adornments do sorta fit. In the meantime, I'd be interested in hearing about any cross-training ideas of yours, any activities that are fun and at the same time improve your game.

Pivot

This week I executed a quick turn-about, put aside a book I'd written only two chapters of and started another. For me, this is unusual; ordinarily I'm a compulsive finisher.

I was seized, though, by a thought that has been with me since I was about eight years old. I first heard this mental chime ring at an outdoor fair in my hometown of Wilmington, NC. I know I was young enough that day to be running through the crowd, laughing and yelling, chasing and being chased by my younger brothers and a friend.

That day I heard--or overheard--about a woman who had lived on the street where the fair was held, until her death two years before I was born. This woman was an artist who lived in a "cottage" and was almost unimaginably odd. And these were the 1950s in a small conservative Southern town. The image I conjured of her felt charged with magic. I've never forgotten her.

Recently I decided to do a little research on who she was. Wednesday afternoon, sitting in a library at UNC, I came across a bit of evidence that clinched my decision. It was a line in a xerox of a page of her diary: this woman (I don't know why I feel I shouldn't say her name just now)had the same peculiar experience as the main character in the novel I'd just begun. I'd already written that scene.

My course seemed clear then: write both books, and because of my flood of excitement, write the biography first. Though I was in a library, I made some sort of ecstatic crowing to celebrate the moment, though not at the level of uninhibited sound as that afternoon at the fair. (I don't think anyone even looked up.)

However quiet, it was a big deal, this turning. I don't think I've ever performed such a pivot, professionally anyway. Yet I feel certain of the rightness of this course, whether anyone but me ever wants to read this book. Have you ever made such a sudden about-face in your work? How did it turn out?

JUMP!

Two excellent bits of advice arrived in the comments to "The Diving Board." I was talking about my daily hesitation to begin writing, the habit of lingering on the end of the diving board.

The aptly named JimWing said: "JUMP! No matter how baffled or unsure you are, grab a concept, or even a wisp of a concept and start writing...."

Focus on the process rather than the outcome, said Billie. "Why am I on the diving board? Because I love to dive. So-- feel the board beneath my feet, the sun, the air, the smell of the water. The anticipation of cool, and my favorite part, the swim up from the depth toward light and air. With all that going on, whether the dive is a 10 or not becomes not so important."

My personal adaptions: I could give myself a reward for starting to write within x minutes of getting to my office. And then remember how I felt when I first started writing: the dreamy process of fiddling with words.

After reading Billie's description of the dive, I think I want my reward for starting to write to be going swimming.

The Diving Board

It's Monday morning. I had a quiet, rainy, restful weekend. Now it's time to get back into the swim. And here I stand on the diving board. Hesitating. Please send encouragement. Remind me that the first dive of the week doesn't have to be a ten.

Post-Draft Nervous Breakdown

This week I witnessed a writer going through the shock of sending a manuscript off after years of work. She was hurting bad, and just when she was least expecting it.

The first time it hit me--what I call post-draft nervous breakdown--I was expecting to feel jubilant: I'd finished a novel! I'd gotten it off my desk! at least for a few days. But what happened instead was the rushing-in of all kinds of mental garbage to fill the void. I found myself enraged over things that would normally be mildly irritating. And I was certain, without reason, that I had cancer, which I didn't.

I've since learned that this experience is very common. And it does go away. For me, it has never lasted in most acute form for more than three days.

Though I don't have kids, I think it must be somewhat like a quick hit of Empty Nest experience. The object of years of intense focus is leaving the house. Actually, the book doesn't even have to leave the house; I've had these little bouts merely from taking a break between drafts one and two, or five and six. It's the sudden empty mental space that, for me and lots of other writers, has led to turbulence.

I've found, though, that it's not necessary to keep going through such misery. Perhaps I've grown more accustomed to the process of letting go of a book. For whatever reason, I don't suffer so much at these times now. Part of what has relieved me, I think, is realizing that it's a temporary and normal response.

Biofeedback?

In my rough drafts that are a few days old, I find it fairly easy to see where the "live spots" are and what parts are just filler and can go.

Yet I don't recognize while I'm writing the moments when I'm producing the good stuff. (Usually, it's not the times I might guess.)

So, it occurred to me while I was driving in this morning that the state of "doing-the-good-stuff" might be trackable with a technology like biofeedback. I'd be interested in knowing what the bodily state is at those moments, so that I could learn to reproduce them. Is this possible? Does anyone know?

I have learned a couple of things about the likeliest mental/emotional state. It's intent but relaxed focus (hypnotic trance), and lack of self-awareness. That second part is hard to set out to create.

What happens at such times I imagine as an inner door sliding open onto a place that's dark and mysterious, curiously both empty and teeming. Kalifornia K talks about that in one of her comments to "Writing from the Ditch." It would be nice to know how to open that door at will. I'd like to know when it's open without it getting shy and closing right up.

Swearing Off Irony

Here's a Mid-Year's Resolution. I'm going to cut back on ironic, sardonic comments in my daily-life conversations. I've come to feel that that oblique kind of chat, is hindering my fully feeling and expressing my real reactions. That can't be good for my writing.

So I'm going to try an experiment with full-time sincerity--not total disclosure, of course, but just being direct about what I do say. Maybe, too, it will prevent the misunderstandings that sometimes occur when I cleverly say the opposite of what I mean.

Writing from the Ditch

Last night while getting my fix of televised movie-star gossip, I saw a preview of a movie about Johnny Cash. A snippet of a scene seized my attention. A man was haranguing the young Cash about what kind of songs he should write. I don't like to be harangued myself, most especially about what I "should write."

But this guy had some arresting advice. What he said to Cash was essentially this: imagine yourself lying mortally injured in a ditch at the side of a highway, knowing these are your last moments. What do you want to say to God about how you feel about the time you have had here on earth? Let that pure immediate force into a song. "Those are the songs," the guy said, "that save people."

I got up off the floor--I was doing crunches at the time--to make a note. It's not a message I want in the forefront of my mind while I write; it would make me too halting and self-conscious, would distract me from the characters and the story. But it's not a bad exercise, to play that last-moments game and see what emerges.

Anyone who has come close to death--and I haven't--probably already knows about this. If this has happened to you, did you find that it changed your work afterwards?

Celebrations, kitten heels

Yesterday two personal milestones: this blog opened its doors and I finished a draft of a piece long on the back burner up until a couple of months ago.

Big moments. Yet my little office was so quiet. No confetti, no balloons. Nobody here but me. (Though lots of wonderful e-mails, I thank you. And the everyday thump of the music from the Mexican restaurant downstairs.)

There was no way I could instantly gather a crowd for champagne and sweet iced tea. So, a mini-celebration: lo mein with Bob at the mall food court and the purchase of my first and likely only pair of high-heeled flip-flops, a concept I never imagined would attract me.

My point: every milestone, every bit of progress, even the "good" rejections need celebrating. Sandals with kitten heels may not be your thing. But I'll bet you can come up with something that will do the trick.

Ideas that Gently Shine

Here's a thought I find encouraging when I seem unable to get anything done. (It's like wading through waist-deep mud, that feeling sometimes.)

"Our idea that we must always be energetic and active is all wrong." Too much mad dashing around, writes Brenda Ueland, "and presently your soul gets frightfully sterile and dry because you are so quick, snappy and efficient about doing one thing after another that you have not time for your own ideas to come in and deveop and gently shine."

I love that gentle shining.

Peggy

Guilt, Revolution

Today is an especially auspicious one for leaping into something important. It's Bastille Day, the French holiday that commemorates the revolution that overthrew the monarchy in that country about 20 years after our own American Revolution.

I woke up this morning feeling oddly guilty from staking myself out pretty boldly yesterday. I'd told the people who are contracting with me to write a new edition of my book DONCASTER: A LEGACY OF PERSONAL STYLE that I felt "ordained" to do this work. Sounds pretty lofty, doesn't it? Well-- I do feel that way. So what's to feel bad about?

Have a wonderful, exciting, and bold Bastille Day.

Peggy