Cross-Training

If you've been practicing and teaching your art for a while, it's helpful to occasionally become a beginner at something else. This experience refreshes the practitioner's imagination and renews the teacher's empathy.

Years ago, I heard novelist Lee Smith say to a writing workshop group: if you're new at this, I have some sense of how you feel; I just started taking a tap dance class.

Yesterday, I was a construction assistant to my brother Franc Payne, who is renovating a house in Atlantic, NC, on one of the huge sounds behind the Outer Banks.

I'd never done this kind of work before. (The only thing I ever built before was, tellingly, a lectern when I was about nine, and it was wobbly.)

I found I was pretty fair at carrying lumber in and hauling old bricks out, a bit tentative on subtracting fractions fast in my head, and quite wary of the nail gun and the electric saw.

In addition to having had a wonderful day-long visit with my brother, I return to my desk today well-exercised and with a wider view of the world...and probably more patience with the fact that in the arts we're always beginners.



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A Cure from the Creative Unconscious

Yesterday I very reluctantly took a small action toward where I need to be and made a paradoxical leap forward.

Translating that into more concrete terms: A week or so ago, I posted here that I was going to have to relax, at least in my sleep, because I've been damaging my teeth because of jaw tension at night.

My first goal was to convince myself that tension is bad. "To do this I first have to recode my tense muscles as unhealthy. Right now, I view a state of tension as sleek and alert and leopard-like. That's got to change, all the way down in the basement of my mind. I think that once that's done, the rest may come along naturally."

So yesterday I attended a four-hour hypnosis workshop led by my psychologist-hypnotherapist husband Bob (Dick), with the stated aim of learning to see my unconscious tension as bad. (I'd never even felt this clenching, since it only happened in my sleep.)

Here's what happened: I fogged out in trance as Bob led an induction for the group of about a dozen, each of whom had described some desired change. When I "woke up" maybe twenty minutes later, I was in pain from my forehead down to my collarbone. All the bones in my face hurt. At first, I was disappointed, thinking: well, I've only made my trouble worse.

Then I realized: I'd just created the motivation I needed, had just changed my whole view of this tension. There was no question that it was bad; it felt like a killer sinus headache all over my face. That continued until I went to sleep last night.

I am now entirely sure that this kind of tension is bad. It is not strength in any form. It has been grinding me down. And I'm pretty sure that, with this new awareness, my basement mind is convinced and that I'm on the way to being through with it, if not already there.

Putting one's whole mind to work on a problem, of art or anything else, can create some pretty amazing results.



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And He Thinks Writing Is Scary?

We all know how to muster courage in a scary situation. That knowledge is transferable.

I knew a fellow once who was a Marine fighter pilot, but the prospect of finishing his novel made him nervous. He finally marshalled his airplane driver gumption, wrapped up the book and sold it to a major house.

A lot of the time the things that stump us are really the easier ones. I find that if I shift myself into the easeful state of mind of earlier successful ventures then I can ride on that courage to take on the sticky challenge at hand.

From the Charleston Post and Courier, here's another writer with a paradoxical courage story, James Lynah Palmer,author of a collection of stories, "Going Coastal."

"When friend and publisher Donna Huffman asked him to publish stories in the magazine in 2003, he was wary.

'I've always had a fear of writing,' he said. Huffmann suggested he use a pseudonym to write his stories. He took her up on the offer and Stumblin' Jimmy Watermelon was born. "Going Coastal" encompasses three years of these stories. Palmer continues to write stories for the Bluffton Breeze. This is his first book...

When not writing stories, Palmer has made a business of fashioning underwater sculptures, scuba diving to find underwater materials to turn into art. He's turned sunken logs and rocks into fish carvings and carved an angry fictitious "Hugo" character into a rock underwater near Mepkin Abbey. He also finds businesses and corporations to sponsor the projects."

Added note: for some of us, finding corporate sponsors can be a project requiring monumental courage. Often we don't give ourselves credit for large accomplishments simply because they're familiar and routine. Everybody has a few heroic acts in their pockets; it's simply a matter of recognizing them.


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Blunder On!

Here's some encouragement from a blogging minister that can be useful whatever your beliefs:

"...It scares me to think how easy it would be to let fear keep me from doing something God called me to do! And how many others are not doing things God gave them the talent to do because they focus too much on their weaknesses and shortcomings? What are you not doing because you fear ridicule, failure, or revealing your foibles? Maybe by risking being the village idiot occasionally you might help someone else learn a powerful lesson that could change their life."



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More Odd Things

See previous post for explanation. Once you start gathering items, it's hard to stop.


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Odd Things

Innovation is little more than old things put to new uses, or elements combined in new ways.

Recently my office partner Carrie Knowles picked up a piece of curved transparent plastic from the floor near my desk. It turned out to be the handle I'd cut off of the floor protector under my desk chair, no longer needed once the plastic square was in place.

I said: hand it to me, I'll throw it away.

She said: No, I can make something out of this.

Thus began my collection of "odd things." In recent weeks, for Carrie's art, I've been saving the weird bits of stuff that I'd always looked twice and hated to dump but didn't have a use for.

Lots of these items have been unidentifiable; no one would have guessed that that plastic curve was a cut-off handle from a floor protector. This latest batch is mostly items that are recognizable. I'm particularly proud of that big-eyed fishing lure, which I found in the woods near neighboring Jordan Lake. I would have also had trouble throwing away the wonderfully deep divider from a box of jelly beans.

Now these items are on their way to becoming art supplies. I already saw what Carrie did with a sack of corks I sent her way. She cut them lengthwise into thin layers and used them as stamps for printmaking. These cork-stamps produce very interesting patterns.

Thinking of junk as art resources has done at least as much for my way of seeing as it has done for Carrie's store of useful odd things.

Altered Intersection is a site you might like to visit, "...where thrift store scores, found objects, and natural materials come together."

Looking at this kind of art helps loosen up my brain.



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The Daily Courage to Write

Whosoever can drive a car can manage any of the risks that art and self-expression involve.

Just think about what's involved in driving, the constant risk, and cars in the opposing lane passing at high speeds only a few feet away. And yet we're unworried enough to talk on the phone, adjust the heat and the radio, and admire the scenery, while we're hurtling along.

I wouldn't think of handling a chain saw--a machine like that? with a sharp blade?--I'm not good at machinery, much too dangerous. But piloting my own speed craft--that I can do in the dark.

What all this signifies to me is that it's a matter of growing accustomed to the practice and the risk. What we do every day --writing, for example--ceases to feel so monumental. The resulting relaxation is good for the imagination, the productivity, and the pleasure in the process.



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Teeth Clenching

This morning my dentist told me I've developed some problems from clenching my teeth in my sleep and from bone loss from osteoporosis.

Now it's mid-afternoon and, in a true fit of self-absorption, I've thought of very little but my mouth since. This pondering has focused on: blaming myself for being tense and wondering what else I've done wrong to cause this. And on how much it will cost to get it fixed. And how bad it could get.

(The form for my worrying was writing a one-page summary of a book that would help me deal with this, that I wish I had today.)

I do know that my immediate focus on money is in large part to ward off awareness of aging and eventual death, and the question of whether I've played my cards right so far in this life. (Quite enough to make a person clench her teeth.)

Just now I talked with my clinical psychologist-hypnotist husband Bob on the phone; and he had some good ideas.

What my strategy comes down to (aside from dental work) is boldly relaxing, which seems to me an oxymoron. To do this I first have to recode my tense muscles as unhealthy. Right now, I view a state of tension as sleek and alert and leopard-like. That's got to change, all the way down in the basement of my mind. I think that once that's done, the rest may come along naturally.



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Adaptive or Innovative

Just ran across an idea on a three-year-old issue of a creativity ezine about styles of creativity. Citing work by Charles Prather and Lisa Gundry in Blueprints for Innovation, the article describes two innate approaches: adaptive innovation, which is working to fine-tune or patch up existing systems; and innovative, which is creating an entirely new system.

For a writer that comes down to: do you prefer doing your first drafts or revisions? I'd rather think that I'm innovative, but in fact I prefer revising.

And of course we all have to do some of both. Helpful to know one's preference, though. For me a first draft is best approached as getting something down as fast as possible, then settle into the warm bath of playing in the story, once I know its outlines.



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On Writer's Block

"It’s not the fear of writing that blocks people, it’s fear of not writing well..." This comes from L.S. Russell: Trying to Stay On Top of Things.

I agree.

The tyranny of our unreasonable standards can get in the way of doing our best work. So can the outrageous idea that a new piece, a first draft, is supposed to immediately rise to the level of earlier finished work.

That's sort of like handing a baby a briefcase and sending her off to take the bar exam. There are a lot of steps between start and finish that can't be skipped.


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The Daffodil Principle

This is excerpted from one of those e-mails that's going around. Often they're soppy-sentimental, or funny, or trying-hard-to-be-funny. I found this one pretty inspiring. So thank you to whoever wrote it>



"...Then, as we turned a corner, I looked up and gasped. Before me lay the most glorious sight.

It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it over the mountain and its surrounding slopes. The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns, great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, creamy white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, saffron, and butter yellow. Each different colored variety was planted in large groups so that it swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue. There were five acres of flowers.

'Who did this?' I asked Carolyn. 'Just one woman,' Carolyn answered. 'She lives on the property. That's her home.' Carolyn pointed to a well-kept A-frame house, small and modestly sitting in the midst of all that glory. We walked up to the house.

On the patio, we saw a poster. 'Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking', was the headline. The first answer was a simple one. '50,000 bulbs,' it read. The second answer was, 'One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and one brain.' The third answer was, 'Began in 1958.'

For me, that moment was a life-changing experience. I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than forty years before, had begun, one bulb at a time, to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountaintop. Planting one bulb at a time, year after year, this unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived. One day at a time, she had created something of extraordinary magnificence, beauty, and inspiration. The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of celebration.


That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time--often just one baby-step at time--and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world.

'It makes me sad in a way,' I admitted to Carolyn. 'What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five or forty years ago and had worked away at it 'one bulb at a time' through all those years? Just think what I might have been able to achieve!'

My daughter summed up the message of the day in her usual direct way. 'Start tomorrow,' she said. (NOTE: I'd say, start today, start this minute.)

She was right. It's so pointless to think of the lost hours of yesterdays. The way to make learning a lesson of celebration instead of a cause for regret is to only ask, 'How can I put this to use today?'

Use the Daffodil Principle. Stop waiting.....

Until your car or home is paid off

Until you get a new car or home

Until your kids leave the house

Until you go back to school

Until you finish school

Until you clean the house

Until you organize the garage

Until you clean off your desk

Until you lose 10 lbs.

Until you gain 10 lbs.

Until you get married

Until you get a divorce

Until you have kids

Until the kids go to school

Until you retire

Until summer

Until spring

Until winter

Until fall

Until you die...

There is no better time than right now to be happy.

Don't be afraid that your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin."




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More About Dennis Rodman

Yesterday while I was sitting in my dead car for several hours reading the autobiography of NBA star and outrageous iconoclast Dennis Rodman (see previous post for why), I found myself inspired by his story.

He had decided to be his flamboyant self and a pro basketball player at the same time. When his true colors began to show--bleached blonde African-American hair and tattoos, before they were fashionable--he didn't feel he was getting the support of his team and the NBA.

But then Sports Illustrated ran a cover story about him, the photo showing him dressed in leather with one of his fifteen exotic birds on his shoulder. It was the second best selling issue of the year, second only to the swimsuit edition. "That's the kind of thing the league doesn't understand," he wrote in his life story. "Sometimes different is better." In his book, the sentence was not only boldface, it was in CAPITAL LETTERS.

Different isn't good in itself. But when the differences come out of genuine belief and authentic personality and choices, they make an impression that a false self never can.





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Bad As I Wanna Be

Driving to the coast to help (chat with) my brother Franc while he's renovating a house, I had a small mishap. I fell asleep driving and ran off the road. No harm done, but I decided to take a nap so it wouldn't happen again. I pulled into a church parking lot somewhere on Hwy 70 East.

When I woke up an hour later, I discovered I'd left my lights on and my battery was dead and my car was boxed in and the church service had started. Long story I won't bore you with, but when help arrived 3.5 hours!!! later, I was deep into the autobiography of iconoclastic basketball star Dennis Rodman, Bad As I Wanna Be.

I hadn't planned to read this book; I'd picked it up at a thrift shop for a quarter because a friend of mine used to think the guy was cool. It was the only book I had in the car. I didn't know much about Rodman except for his dating Madonna and dyeing his hair multi-colored.

Well, I found him inspiring. He came to the NBA, not from being an ACC star as so many do. At twenty he was pushing a broom on the night shift at the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport.

When he took up basketball at that age, he soared. When he hit huge success, he felt like a fraud and a puppet. He was on the point of shooting himself one spring night in 1993 when he decided that he would instead stay alive, stay in the NBA, and stop trying to hide who he was.

And he did. And the crowds loved him big time. And even if I don't admire all of his choices, I admire the one he made that April night.

More on this tomorrow...



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So Glad I Did

So-glad-I-did is a category of activities that I don't really want to plan and, when the time comes, I don't really want to stir myself to do, and then I get there and have a wonderful time and I'm so glad...

This morning was one of those: a lakeshore cleanup. I live near Jordan Lake, a large many-armed body of water in central NC. I regularly paddle my little inflatable kayak there in warm weather, and gaze fondly upon these waters from the bridge several times a week.

So, when I saw the notice asking for volunteers to pick up trash along the wooded shore today, it seemed a natural for me to take part. Yesterday I wasn't in the mood. (And had a better offer.)

But sticking with the original plan, I got out there in my rubber boots and gloves and picked up thousands of tiny bits of styrofoam and slivers of plastic, as well as bottles, a bike tire, fishing lures, lots of cigar filters, and one syringe, which I first took for a thermometer. There were about 50 of us toting Hefty bags and a motorboat taking the filled bags back to a landing.

The amassed trash after 4.5 hours of gathering would have filled a small barge.

And now at midday, after such a productive and invigorating morning, I feel great.

What's always amazing is that that good feeling is such a surprise, because I'm coauthor of a book on this subject: The Healing Power of Doing Good, written with Allan Luks. The whole point of the book is that doing a good turn helps the health and well-being of the doer.

You'd think I'd remember.

Having the mental category of so-glad-I-did helps me override the impulse to stay in my usual routine. And that impulse is unnervingly strong.

The morning did have its humbling aspect, though. When I got back to the central trash-bag location, I discovered that somewhere out there in the woods, I'd lost my sunglasses. Left them for someone on the next trash detail to pick up and high-mindedly think: how could anybody toss litter so cavalierly?

Still, I'm glad I got out there.




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On Risk

From actor, dancer, real estate businesswoman, inventor, and original Catwoman Julie Newmar in Esquire:

"You can't fail. The further you fall, the greater the opportunity for growth and challenge."




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Clutter and Creativity

I heard recently that Clutterers Anonymous is the fastest growing 12-step program in the U.S. Don't know if that's correct, but I can easily believe it.

In recent weeks, I've been on a simplifying and order-bringing binge and it leaves me lighter in spirit, in fact exuberant.

Recent research indicates that people who get rid of their junk also lose weight and have less depression.

On the other hand, there's an image of the creative space as one that's full of odds and ends that the creator can join in surprising ways and combinations to come up with something new.

I'm now convinced that it's possible to have both order and interesting odds and ends. In fact, the interesting ones stand out better when the collection of empty boxes is gone. Or the most interesting box stands out better when the drab ones are gone. And so on.

I'm delighting in this process of dejunking and neatening and that pleasure is one reason for my exuberance. I've always thought of cleaning up as something I should do, because things had gotten so bad--or something I shouldn't do, because I should really be doing something more directly productive.

It finally strikes me that getting ready and cleaning up are part of the process of production. And it feels as if decluttering is something I get to do, not a chore I have to do.




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Overbooking

Freelancers have to operate like airlines, overbooking flights a little, in order to come close to full occupancy. Taking assignments is like that. I've often accepted a little (or a lot) more work than is comfortable because things do get delayed and/or fall through.

This is just one aspect of the writing business that keeps us at the edge of our chairs.

In the last 48 hours I've had one project delayed for a couple of months and one finishing faster than I'd expected. This leaves me with one large-ish job that I'd thought twice about taking. Glad I took it.

More often than not, though, the jobs stick and the workload is heavier than I expected. It has always been do-able. I think there's a sort of internal freelancer's biological clock that knows what would be simply impossible.


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Facing Technology With A Stout Heart

In the last two weeks, my printer and phone died, and I had just started the arduous switch to mainly using a new email address and system.

Now, I'm not a complete tech dolt. But neither am I a techie. And taking on all these new systems and gizmos to click and plug and import, etc. is no small thing. It's a bit like walking a plank between two ships on open ocean. The fact that my identity hasn't plunged into the turbulent sea below is already a small miracle.

My progress so far gives me confidence in the way that Outward Bound is supposed to do: if I can sleep in a hammock in a jungle tree, then I can do anything. If I can venture into a different inbox, I can certainly solve any book problem. This really feels far riskier; we are after all talking about my address book.

So I am resolved: Whenever it's necessary to spend what feels like miserably wasted time on tech details, it helps to keep in mind: the high-wire aspects of it are character-building.

(If you have gadget enthusiasm, this post does not apply to you.)







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Monday Kick Start?

I just ran across a nice list of "creativity kick starts" . If you need something to get you going on a Monday or whenever, have a look.

One interesting thought found there: Adopt a Genius. Essentially choose a tremendously successful role model and study how that person solved the problems you're working on.

Now, that's a little slower than a kick, but could certainly draw me into a new way of thinking.



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When You're Writing and Get Stuck

Write down on another sheet of paper or in a different document what seems to be the problem. This can help in two ways. You’re acknowledging the difficulty and physically putting it aside. And/or, the “problem” can take you to the very heart of what you’re writing.

(This suggestion is an excerpt from a guest post I wrote today for Mystic Lit Blog. Do go visit there for the fuller explanation, and to read the other novelists posting at that fine site.)




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Orwell on Fear and Writing

"Good novels are written by people who are not frightened."

That's from George Orwell, author of some fairly daring novels: 1984 and Animal Farm.

And I know he's right. I had a lot of struggle with my previous novel Sister India, until I pretty much gave up on seeing it published in my lifetime and started revising it to be the way I'd want to leave it when I'm gone. (I did make sure that included a pretty fast-paced plot.) When I finished that revision, my agent sold it in 2.5 weeks.

I think that in letting go (mostly) of how the book would be received, I also let go of fear and the concommitant strain on the writing. Not so easy for me to do until it seems that there are no other options. I may need to learn how to switch into that attitude from the beginning.



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Feedback On My Novel

Here's what I just heard from an editor about my novel-in-progress, Cobalt Blue:

"Is Cobalt Blue a) primarily an erotic novel, b) a novel of spiritual awakening (with sex a strong, integral part of spirit), or c) quality women’s fiction that pushes some boundaries, but is essentially mainstream?

From acquisition to point-of-sale, publishing demands that one clear message be sent about a book. This is unfair and maddening to authors, but the reality we’re all stuck with."

To fit into any of those categories, I'd have to shift the weight of elements of this novel. Whatever I decide to do with the feedback, I do like to know what I'm dealing with. Because then I can decide on my strategy: how to meet market requirements without undoing my intentions in the book.

I've been through this before, and have always found that in the process of revision, the solutions are unexpected and the book has become better at accomplishing my original intentions.




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Keeping the Creative Muscles Toned

From the blog of guitarist and composer Dan Cosley:

"It's important to sight-read some music everyday. We can too easily get bogged down in the minutiae of the works we are preparing for performance. But sight-reading opens a window to a different kind of experience, reinforcing basic musicianship skills which can atrophy if left unattended. Most guitarists are terrible readers but can improve greatly with a daily dose of sight-reading. It's also a great way to explore the vast repertoire which is playable on the guitar. Bach's solo violin works are often on my music stand for this purpose."

What's the equivalent of this practice for your art?


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Seeking Applicants...

The job notice I saw is for someone who is a "JavaScript Wizard." Not me. But this part of the position's description is a noble ideal for any of us:

"• Pride in your work and a passion for breaking new ground.

• Deep knowledge of existing solutions in your domain, the willingness to utilize the ones that are appropriate, and the courage to create new solutions where the old ones won’t do.

• Attention to detail, ability to collaborate and communicate clearly, and the willingness to offer alternative opinions.

• Commitment to delivering work as promised, and ability to perform against demanding deadlines.

• Extra credit: Passion...."




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Late-Night Heroics

I emailed off materials for a grant application last night at 1:14 a.m.--then started the 40 minute drive from my office home. I'd started the last bout of working on this project at almost 3 in the afternoon and then just kept going. Tense and tired and delighted by the time I was done.

Very exciting evening. I love the faux heroics of a rush like that.

Some years back, Prince Charles and some folks here in the city of Raleigh started an altruistic project--Operation Raleigh-- involving a sailing ship with a global do-good itinerary. He said that it gave people the chance for peacetime heroism, adventure with a purpose.

A very useful idea (and it's still going). Because we all seem to have some need for our own style of derring-do. Best that it be channeled into a useful purpose, so we're not going around starting wars or jumping out of planes for no good reason.



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Creative Courage Under the Weather

Hard to be bold
When one has a cold.



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A Huge Goal

Working (playing) in my garden this afternoon, I had this thought: what if I decided to get into my best possible condition by the time I turn 60 next January 8?
Physically, mentally, and most important, in appearance. This would involve more vegetables, more exercise, no caffeine, and two or three other tricky things. I don't know. I continue to ponder. Could be it would just be a narcissistic waste of time. On the other hand, I might live longer. And other nice rewards. If I do it, I'll be gathering a group of like-goaled people. Don't want to attempt this one alone.


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Self-Exploration

From environmentalist John Muir:

“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”

This quote is from a post on Courage to Create blog encouraging us to spend more time outdoors.

Out of context, I find another meaning in it as well. Muir's thought about going out or going in reminds me that I learn more about myself by going out among people than I do in solitary contemplation.

I do find meditation tremendously valuable, for calm, for allowing ideas to emerge, and as a religious practice.

However, to learn more about myself, there's nothing like a conversation with a client, clerk, husband or friend, about what I can or can't do for them, and what I want or don't want from them, to show me who I am.

Sometimes this "going out" takes more gumption than it might seem. I think that's true for a lot of us.



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