Shear Boldness

Yesterday afternoon my writing group was called off, and instead of rushing back to my laptop, I went home and hit the garden.

Hit is the operative word. I did some serious pruning. For me, this is a bold move.

My general gardening philosophy is: if a thing wants to grow, I let it grow. This concept, put into practice, lends the place a certain straggly aura.

Yesterday, however, I got out the good clippers and restored all the edges, crisped up the paths. It looks great. The shrubs are looking perky and robust. And I'm very empowered.



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Yet Another Great Quote Sent in by Mamie

Live your life in such a way that when your feet hit the floor Satan
shudders and says, "Oh no, she's awake."
- unknown

(Mamie can be found at Can I Do It?)

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Older and Bolder

I find growing older, I'm increasingly bolder
And increasingly hard to subdue!
- author unknown

Contributed by quote maven Mamie of Can I Do It?

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My Writerly News!

Got me a new agent and I'm really happy with her. This is always a great moment in a writer's life. So I'm celebrating. And Husband Bob brought home hydrangeas.

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Take a Step Toward Your Dream

"Talk does not cook rice."

-Chinese Proverb, quoted from productivity guru David Allen's latest newsletter. (His mantra is Getting Things Done or GTD.)

I'm a great fan of talk myself. However, in most situations, the conversation (or the monologue) has to be followed by action for any "rice" to result.

Rice, I now realize, is a symbol of fertility and prosperity.

What have you been talking about lately that you haven't put on the burner? Set some rice to simmering now.

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"Brave Voices for the Ill"

My sister-in-law Ruth Sheehan, a truly bold writer, is a columnist for the local News & Observer. She has often used that space to champion better treatment for the mentally ill.

Recently she started a column saying: "It took a lot of guts to write this book." Which would have gotten my attention even if she weren't related to me.

The book Our Voices: First Person Accounts of Schizophrenia is written by five people who are in treatment. The idea is to get rid of some of the stigma of the illness by busting myths and showing what the experience is and the competence of some who have it. The five decided to use their real names. That was the second gutsy move after writing it.

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Bold in the Morning

Made a recent personal discovery: I have more courage in the morning. I don't mean the arduous moments of struggling to wake up, but instead after I get rolling. Then the world feels new, or newish, and I'm out in it.

Fatigue, on the other hand, does not make me bold. And that's probably just as well.

Have you observed any such patterns in yourself? This could be useful info for scheduling.

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Bold Basketball

Last night's national college men's (NCAA) championship was a contest in which neither side backed down or got rattled or gave less than a terrific performance.

An underdog team went up against a school that has won the title several times, but not in quite a few years.

An aging super-star coach competed against a young rising star coach.

Duke versus Butler reached mythic proportions.

Duke won, (my alma mater, as it happens) but only by a two-point basket and the game was still undecided in the last 13 seconds. And all involved played their parts with gumption (which is to say, a combo of dignity and fire.)

It was exciting and lovely to see, if you like basketball, as most people in my home state of North Carolina do.

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The New Year

It's Passover. It's Easter. It's spring.

I wish you refreshing newness of life and the strength of your roots and traditions.

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Bloom Where You Land

This little rock garden plant emerged between the front steps of my office building and has been blooming cheerily for about a week. Everyone is careful to step over it.

This is a good demonstration of the crack/flaw in an object being part of its charm. Remember the story of the cracked pot and "do your thing" whether you're perfect or not.

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Do What You Love

Dropping by my local library a week ago, I looked around toward the desk to say "hi" to my favorite librarian. I didn't see her and figured it wasn't her Sunday to work.

A few more steps and I came upon a picture of her, surrounded by fresh camellias from someone's yard. Joyce. That's the only name I knew her by. She'd died two days earlier, suddenly of a stroke at the age of 58.

Since then I've learned that she -- Joyce Bingham -- was a lot of people's favorite librarian. Many people looked around to say hello when they came in the door. Now there are notes around her picture acknowledging that: "...I never even knew your name..."

The obit in the News & Observer said she had lived a "vagabond life" settling finally here in Apex, North Carolina. Her philosophy: "Do what you love, Love what you do! Bloom where you are planted!" She certainly bloomed at the Eva Perry library.

Notice of the memorial service requested: "To reflect Joyce's spreading of sunshine to all who knew her, the family requests no black attire."

Do what you love, Love what you do. And don't delay getting around to it.

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Gutsy Obama

However you feel about the healthcare reform bill passed this week(and I'm heartily in favor), it's surely clear that Obama is a president who has stuck his neck out. Who bet the farm. Who put his eggs in one basket. And any of the other cliches that stand for high-risk persistence over a long haul in the face of stubborn obstacles.

And he succeeded.

Obama was my candidate. And, though I don't agree with everything he has done (the war business), I'm immensely proud of him. Especially for the courageous and pragmatic way he has pursued this legislation.

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Plastic Highways

Just ran across this item about repairing roads with garbage in Saathee, which is a magazine for Indians living in the Carolinas.

It doesn't sound as if the idea is entirely worked out. However, this is the kind of thinking we all need to be doing: using one problem as the solution to another problem, thus solving both. That's bold.

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Attention: Raleigh Writers and Other Creative Types

One of the five offices in the charming 1910 Raleigh house where I work has been transformed. The room or half the room can be rented by the week or the month, by a writer or anyone else needing a place to work quietly within a small creative community. Above you see Desk One in the room now referred to as A Room of One's Own, with a nod toward Virginia Woolf. Below are Desk Two and the central conference area, all beautifully appointed and awaiting the grace of your presence.





Currently the downstairs of the house is occupied by owner Carrie Knowles, writer and visual artist and US director of the Cross Currents Chamber Music Arts Festival. She has an office, a studio, and, in the large foyer, a gallery. Then there's me, my office for writing, reading manuscripts, and meeting with writer clients.

Upstairs, Lisa Finaldi, national campaigns director for Greenpeace, has her headquarters. Greenpeace is the environmental outfit best known for defending whales against whaling ships on the high seas.

Right now, a memoirist and novelist is at work in A Room of One's Own, but space will be coming available again.

In addition to the inspiring and interesting company in this edge-of-downtown Raleigh building, there's a kitchen with a microwave and fridge, a small lovely garden and deck in the back, a big front porch, a bathroom with a clawfoot tub, a security system, and safe street parking.

You can rent a desk for $50 a week, and keep quiet so the renter of the other desk stays happy. Or you can rent the whole room for $100 a week and talk on your cell to your heart's content. Or you and a friend or colleague can share the office. Utilities are included in the price.

It's a good place to get a lot done: finish your novel, meet a tough deadline, get your dissertation wrapped up, start a consulting business.

Here are a few more visuals of life here. And if you're interested in more info or taking a look, contact Carrie Knowles at: cjknowles@earthlink.net.

The July crepe myrtles at the curb out front:

Carrie setting up a show in the gallery:


Our creed, posted in the foyer. And that's my office at the end of the hall:

Again, for more info, contact Carrie Knowles at: cjknowles@earthlink.net.

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Making Good on Old Promises

A couple of times, in answer to requests, I've promised pictures that I didn't immediately deliver.

I guess I should say I'm making semi-good on the promises, since I've come up with only picture in each category.

This first one is a piece of the road from where I live toward the first stretch of pavement. It's the downhill-and-around-a-pond route I said I didn't care to drive when the ruts had turned to ice: see, "The Driving Decision."


This second is from Rancho La Puerta spa in Tecate, Mexico, where I taught a writing class over Thanksgiving week (that's how long I've dragged in getting to this.) This is a walkway through the grape arbor toward one of the gyms. Rancho often shows that things don't have to look the way they usually do. The gym has stained glass doors and a fireplace with a piece of mosaic art inlaid in the stone wall above it. See: "Spa Teaching."




To me there's always something bold and adventurous about a path or a road.

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A Blogging Drought?

I seem to have fallen off quite a lot in my frequency of posting. Partly because I'm so busy. And also I haven't had sufficient impulse. It's easy to get out of the habit.

Not sure whether to let the rate sag until I feel like boldly opining more. Or to keep myself cranked up and pontificating daily as has so long been my custom.

I could flip a coin daily, and then whichever came up, I'd (characteristically) do the opposite.

Maybe, boldly, I won't ponder too hard about this. Over-pondering seems to be a favorite sport of the non-bold.

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A Short Week with a Long To-Do List

Almost finished cramming five days of work into four. Such are the perils of taking time off. Seems that I don't plan and schedule in a very self-protective way.

I've never thought of planning as a bold activity. Quite the reverse. But I'm starting to see that it could be. It would involve my taking a much more clear-eyed look at what I do and when and for how much. And how much time I spend taking a break and cruising Gawker.com and similar venues. Clear-eyed can lead to all kinds of worrisome questions.

(This is so short it could be a Facebook update. Apparently my style has been affected by the social media.)

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"You Rock"

Here's a most inspiring post from uber-blogger Seth Godin. It's similar to the change-by-making-a-series-of-tiny-changes approach of kaizen posted about here earlier.

Godin's idea is to be amazingly bold and excellent for a mere five minutes a day. To do that much can rock the world.

I agree with him on all except his last line. See what you think and let us know.

Note: I've been absent from posting for a couple of weeks. Now getting back in the saddle. I took a week of stay-cation: time off at home reading and puttering. Also took a wonderful drawing class. And of course I worked like a maniac in advance and immediately after in order to have time to do this. Thus the alarming absence of my posts... Thanks for noticing.


Note 2: I just noticed that I posted about kaizen this past January and three years ago and thought the concept was new to me both times. Well, I suppose that gives me double the pleasure of discovery.

Finally, welcome to Calin as a regular subscriber here.

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Public Speaking!

Y'all, I have always loved giving talks.

What I mean by a talk is standing up and telling 30 minutes of war stories, plus reading a few pages from one of my novels and then taking questions.

What's not to love about doing that?

This morning, however, I went to a session at a Duke alum seminar weekend ("Money, Sex, and Power") on giving more powerful presentations. I was one of the four who volunteered to give a talk and then get a critique in front of the sixty others in the group.

Oh, shit, I was terrible!

(I'm going to recover from this. I really, really am. I've just left that auditorium and come straight here to the library to blog about this experience.)

It was bold! I'll give myself that much credit. The three who went before me performed quite creditably.

The assignment was not to offer amiable personal anecdotes, but instead to make a three-minute presentation with a beginning, middle, and an end. I've done that only once since high school and I had a teleprompter then.

I won't bore you with details of how my effort this morning was a mess. Except to say that temperamentally, I'm a novelist. I communicate in units of 100,000 words, with lengthy flashbacks. Just believe me... (And it got worse as I realized how badly it was going. Perhaps from people's expressions of faint puzzlement and alarm.)

Now, here's the good news. I learned a lot. The teacher -- Joy Javits -- was terrific. She managed to say some nice things that I actually believed. I wound up feeling comfortable and redoing some parts in front of the group, using Joy's suggestions.

And I left with one tip that I know will stick with me: don't just skim my eyes across the whole audience, instead make lingering eye contact with one person after another.

Now, here's the clinker. I have a mid-day talk scheduled for Monday, at Edenton Street Methodist Church in Raleigh. My plan has been my usual rather informal chat. That's likely what I'll do, as usual. It goes over well. (In 39 years of giving little chats, it has gone over horribly only once --at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan--and semi-badly only twice, both in my hometown at UNCW where my father was a trustee. Thirty-nine years! Hear that, Joy? )

However, I may well pursue with Joy this business of learning to give a short pitch that's to the point. I need this skill so that I'll be prepared should I ever get an Oscar.

And now that I've told you all this, I feel much better. Really rather good, in fact. I couldn't immediately get my soothing and encouraging psychologist husband Bob on the phone to debrief, and turned next to you.

I'll let you know how the Monday talk goes.

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Hacked! And Inspired!

Someone sent 2,096 of my friends and colleagues an email Friday trying to sell electronics devices. If the message made it past your spam filter, sorry for the intrusion.

I discovered this state of affairs tonight--didn't pay much attention to my email over the weekend.

But I stayed unusually cool...all on account of an inspiring manuscript I'm reading. A young writer to whom I provided only the slightest bit of help sent me her completed novel asking if I'd consider writing a blurb for her brand-new agent to send out with the manuscript.

First, it was exciting to see what she'd done. Then I spent most of the day reading it: and the book so inspired me. The story, a whimsical delightful romantic fable, put me in the mood to relish the minor difficulties of life as part of the big game.

I'm not always inclined to take that attitude. The last time I played a driveway game of pickup basketball, some decades ago, I got irritated because people kept waving their hands in my face.

Today's delightful reading reminded me that the waving hands and other obstructions are part of what makes the game.

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