Eleanor Roosevelt

Rarely has anyone so bold emerged from such a timid beginning.

Last night a 2.5 hour documentary on Eleanor Roosevelt aired on my local PBS station. I hadn't planned on watching, though I knew it was scheduled. I told myself I already knew that story.

I happened onto it by accident, though, turning on the TV just as the program was starting. I was fascinated through the very end. And not so much by any new facts I learned, instead by watching this woman transform.

She moved from dreadful shyness to become the most powerful woman in the world. And it didn't happen in a smooth easy sweep. Nor did she transform herself into a different sort of person. Instead, she took herself, as she was, out into the world and kept doing the best she could: for human rights and equality and the easing of poverty. The effects of her work continue. So does her example, made more powerful by the fact that it was never easy.




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Healing Quotes

Advice from our wise commenters on healing boldly:

From Mojo:
"Take your time..."

From Billie:
"...When we get sick like this it's a direct message to take time for our 'selves'; and slow down our pace."

Debra W:
"Part of living boldly is knowing when to just say no to everything else, so that we can give ourselves the time that we need in order to heal. It is very important to learn when that time comes. We must become bold enough to become our own advocates."

Thanks to all.







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Pneumonia Lungs

The bug I was thinking of as sniffles turned out to be pneumonia. As the germ turns!! It was certainly a surprise to me. I tend to downplay any health problem, because I've never had one to amount to anything.

But other people kept telling me that this situation was not looking good and I finally went to a doc. One person had actually refused to do business with me, said we'll talk another day.

I'm a great believer in optimism. But there's also some value in not jauntily walking off a cliff I'd refused to recognize.

So, with a few days of sleep behind me, now I start creeping back, a little at the time. Then picking up speed, if history is any indicator.

More later on combining sickness and boldness in a useful and nondestructive way.


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Expecting to Recover Soon

Got a bug. Can't talk now. Back soon.



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The Last Lecture

If you haven't seen this already, go to Youtube and listen to Professor Randy Pausch's last lecture--on how to live--which he gives knowing he has pancreatic cancer and has been given a life expectancy of two to four months.

I had a sore throat the day I saw it, and was moving kinda slowly. The video of this gutsy, charmingly immodest, athletic, gorgeous, smart, and nice 47 year-old facing death didn't take away the slight under-the-weather feeling I had.

But it did remind me that, with the right spirit, it's possible to face anything with courage, joy, boldness, generosity, gratitude, and style.

One delightful piece of news: he has already outlived by months the prognosis. At least as inspiring as the video is his online update of his progress.





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Another Technology Success

Yesterday I carried on here about my bold move in managing to send a photo from my camera to my blog.

Riding the swell of confidence and accomplishment from that, I took on a biggie: I learned to make my own letterhead envelopes on my own printer. Not without difficulty, as you can see from this off-the-mark attempt at a return address. (By the time I'd gotten to this point, I was almost home free.)

But having persisted and struggled and whined, I now have some very artful and personal envelopes. And the immense satisfaction of having again ventured successfully into the storm-tossed surf of electronics. Little victories do add gas to one's tank.

Do remember to give yourself credit, even if it feels a little silly.




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Daily Courage

This strange structure--a water tower, I think--is about 12 stories high. And there's someone walking around on its sloping upper surface, adjusting those wires that hang down.

That guy has a job that takes daily courage. Maybe he's used to it. But I can't believe he doesn't get a stomach wobble now and then.

I pulled my car in beneath this tower yesterday, while in the process of correcting a wrong turn I'd made on the way to a printer's. My own small act of courage was to to, for the first time, shoot and send by phone a picture to my computer for this blog. There are people who are used to phoning in photos too, millions of them. But new tech tasks still give me a stomach wobble in the form of dread and irritation.

The daily courage requirement is different for each of us. An undertaking that feels like nothing for one person takes guts and boldness for another.

It's important to give ourselves credit for our own bold moves, and not compare them to walking on water towers.





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Orchestrating a Major Bold Move

My friend and office partner Carrie Knowles decided recently to create in her spare time an annual international music festival in the Raleigh area. Not that she was lacking for things to do: she's a writer and visual artist and mother of teenager.

It began thusly: Her oldest son Neil Leiter, 26, plays viola in the Brussels Chamber Orchestra which was already scheduled to come to the U.S. and play in the Bard Music Festival of the Hamptons. Since they were going to be only 500 or so miles away, it seemed a no-brainer to arrange a few concerts in North Carolina and turn it into an annual event.

Whoo-boy!

Well, a few weeks into the project it looks large and it's definitely happening.

There's plenty still to arrange, but the orchestra from Belgium will play two concerts in the Raleigh area and the Star-Spangled Banner at a Durham Bulls baseball game.

I'm wowed. And here's my point that we can all keep in mind: set the wheels of something big in motion and it's highly likely that it's going to happen. Because once you've got hosts for the musicians, restaurant meals set up, a new nonprofit in the works, a couple of concert venues and a fundraising art auction scheduled, then there's no turning back. Even if the details start to seem overwhelming.

Ten years from now Raleigh will probably be a major international classical music venue. And it will be because one woman had the idea and then got busy on the phone.

NC concerts are July 5 in Raleigh, July 6 in Cary, and July 2 for the national anthem at the Durham Athletic Park. For more info about the North Carolina appearances, contact Carrie Knowles at cjknowles@earthlink.net.

(Neil is the tall blonde guy in the back.)




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Garden Wisdom

My eccentric garden benefits from some of my husband's bold and imaginative ideas. This owl and another totem pole he used for years as posts for a badminton court. When joint troubles ended badminton, he got them moved into the plot that I devotedly cultivate. They're ever a mysterious surprise when I notice them again . I'm glad I didn't marry the kind of guy who would use a couple of aluminum poles to hold up a badminton net.


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A Month of Daily Writing

Brava to Yvonne of NYC who has initiated a 30 day writing plan.

"...My fear of not ever writing anything is finally starting to outweigh my fear of writing and failing at it. And second, while I am pretty content with everything in my life right now--I often go to bed with this emptiness inside of me, this void that something is missing. And I think it's about creating something that makes my life more meaningful than just going to work and paying the bills and lifting dumbbells at the gym."

Yvonne, we're cheering you on.



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Eccentric Gardens

I love funky gardens and think they're such a fine form of art and self-expression.

My own garden is a bit peculiar. And the current issue of Domino Magazine ("The Guide To Living With Style") reminded me of the pleasures of other people's odd plots.

Have a look at Tony Duquette's and Madame Ganna Walska's Lotusland and Robert Kourik's.

Or simply Google "eccentric gardens." There are photo books on the subject, and visitable gardens, and then there's the DIY combo of plants and objects that only you can create.

You can create a living green fantasyland in a container if that's all the dirt that's handy.


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Four Minutes to Write This

I forgot to bring my laptop from home to my office today, and my husband has my car. So I walked to the library some distance away to do this, and my time is running out after checking my email.

But here's my point: I worked on two projects today, WRITING IN HANDWRITING. Got to some good stuff. I think the change did me good. Sort of like that fellow who took his laptop to the produce dept.



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Pretend You're Blogging

"In the words of renowned writing instructor William Zinsser: 'Any invention that eliminates the fear of writing is up there with air conditioning and the light bulb.'"

From an article in the Ottawa Citizen on e-mail and texting.

One way to deal with hitting a wobbly moment writing is to pretend I'm simply writing an e-mail. Or a blog post, which almost always seems to fly straight from unformed thought to screen, without hesitation at all.



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"Hello, My Name Is Scott"

I'd intended to focus here on a cool post I ran across called "4 Ways to Motivate Your Melon". The guy who wrote it, Scott Ginsberg, had hit a wall trying to write it, so he implemented one of his own techniques for getting the juices flowing. He moved his writing location to the produce department of a local grocery store. The change did the trick. The resulting piece is entertaining and useful.

Then I googled Scott and found an even better story. This man wears a nametag full-time. The first of his several books is Hello, My Name Is Scott: Wearing Nametags for a Friendlier Society.

This man is bold.

I've said to friends so many times after leaving parties or other crowd scenes: I wish we all wore nametags all the time.

But did I start wearing a nametag myself in order to set the trend in motion? I didn't even think of it.

Scott Ginsberg did. He'd left a nametag on after an event and discovered that lots of people spoke to him and started conversations with him. So he kept on wearing it. Now he even has a nametag tattooed onto his chest.

A nametag? It takes guts to seem that dorky. I'm still not quite up to it. But I'm going to get his books, including The Power of Approachability, Make a Name for Yourself, etc.

Hello, My Name Is Peggy. Just trying out the idea.

Maybe I'll get a rhinestone cursive Peggy.

I dare you to put on your own nametag for a day and let us know what happens.


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In Lazy Memory of Bold Soldiers

So I boldly took the long weekend of Memorial Day off. And didn't even blog. That's a serious matter, like not checking e-mail, which I didn't do either.

It was startlingly easy, for one who is prone to overwork a bit and delay vacation time. I've often found that to be true with making leaps, both small and large. Once I get started, I'm puzzled why I ever hesitated.

Anyway, I did a bit of gardening for three days in a row, the last weekend that in my area that can be relied upon not to swelter.

And I took my little inflatable kayak over to nearby Jordan Lake and paddled for an hour, saw a couple of herons at water's edge. Circled a small island that during last summer's drought was attached to the shore by a long ribbon of sand.

And read. And did laundry. And hung out with my husband and a friend. And saw a movie. And ate at the admirable Watts Grocery in Durham.

When I showed up at my office building this morning, one of the upstairs tenants said, "You look rested." And I got a whole lot of work done today.

So, no downsides to this particular wee variation in the usual. When such small changes can take a booster rocket of energy to bring about, it's hard to imagine the kind of steady boldness required of the soldiers we memorialized this holiday weekend.


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The Daffodil Principle in Action

Remember the Daffodil Principle? One woman kept planting and planting, day after day, a few more daffodil bulbs. Time passed and she didn't quit. Small bits of effort multiplied and then: 50,000 bulbs burst into bloom each spring on the land surrounding her home.

With dibs and dabs of time, she'd made an art work with the impact of a mountain view. This one woman had become a force of nature.

I'm thinking of this again because I was just asked to e-mail my NC legislators asking for funding for the NC Arts Council. On the occasions when I take a moment to do such things, I'm half-thinking that I'm just wasting ten minutes.

However, a dab of my time, a dab of yours, and extraordinary things happen. People and places bloom.

Though it may not always seem so, everybody's dab is crucial. Don't forget to add yours, maybe even daily, to the world changes you want.

And, if you live in NC or have any interest in the arts here, click here to take action. It probably won't even take you ten minutes.




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Letting Your Freak Flag Fly

"Dare to Be Yourself", says the cover of the current issue of Psychology Today.

"A sense of authenticity is one of our deepest psychological needs, and people are more hungry for it than ever. Even so, being true to oneself is not for the faint of heart."

Aristotle suggested that authenticity is going after the highest good, not simply "letting your freak flag fly." (The flag phrase is from Karen Wright, author of the article, not Aristotle.)

By this definition, authenticity can have its costs, Wright points out, especially in the short term. For example, writing for the market can produce money and recognition; writing according to your own highest standards is likely to be more satisfying, and (perhaps arguably) more toward the highest good.

Showing one's quirky colors--the freak flag--is for me, not only fun, but helps in the larger effort for highest good and most profound satisfaction.

In my early twenties, just out of school, I seemed to be a bit like a color you could wear with anything. And in fact both Democrats and Republicans asked me out. Within a few years, as I became more myself, only Democrats called. Which created a smaller pool in the short-term, but led to a happy marriage.

So I think there's no either/or decision on these two approaches. I favor flying one's flag, whatever it looks like, as we each sail, with zigs and zags, toward our best selves.

(If you go looking for the article, check out the hard copy. It has a useful how-to sidebar.)




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Sweet and Sassy

A picture of a coiled rattlesnake lying in straw is on the back cover of the May issue of Wildlife in North Carolina magazine.

The image is eye-catching enough in itself. Then I was startled by the caption: "What the pigmy rattlesnake lacks in size, it makes up for in looks, rarity and bold yet endearing attitude."

Bold yet endearing? A rattler?

I studied the picture carefully and still didn't understand.

What I do like, though, is the idea of bold and endearing describing the same personality. The words bold, outspoken, etc. often get a bad rap, being considered euphemisms for obnoxious.

But they're not the same thing at all. In fact, it sometimes takes more boldness to say something nice, to say something so authentic and tender that it feels dangerous.

That willingness to be vulnerable is bold and endearing.

But I'm just not seeing it in that rattlesnake. I'll have to check out the full article on the "petite viper" in next month's issue of the magazine.



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Playing a Fear Game

Kim, a student in Perth, Australia, is having a having a bit of banter with her physics teacher in class.

From her blog Scotchkey:

"kim: Well, Mr. L. You see, I have this deficiency complex too. When I'm writing up my labs, I have a fear of writing too much because if I use up all my ink, what's going to happen then? *MrL has previously made comments about the brief-ness of my answers*"

MrL says that this would be to the detriment of her marks.


My point in posting this item: some of our hesitations are just as silly as avoiding writing because we might run out of ink.

I have even had the occasional twinge of actual guilt that I was using up so much pencil lead by doodling that produced no timeless art. This is sick! At least it's no excuse in the wealthy world of bloggers: in Varanasi researching Sister India, I knew an engineer who'd done his math homework as a kid on the margins of old newspapers. That was all the paper he had. That's not the kind of trouble that anyone who reads this is wrestling with.

I have plenty of pencil lead. And Kim can most likely get hold of all the ink she wants.

All we need is to stop making silly excuses and leap into our lab reports, our novels, our Sistine ceilings...



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One Man's Bold Decision

"I've decided to take a more personal interest in the news," said the e-mail from my friend, media expert Hank Scott, "and particularly in the things that piss me off and embarrass me as an American. It is so easy for these issues to be seen as institutional, and they are. But they also are the consequences of actions by people..."

He was referring to reading in The New York Times, where he worked for many years, about an Italian tourist arriving in Washington at Dulles Airport and being held in custody for ten days. The man is a 35 year-old lawyer who was coming to this country to visit his girlfriend and her family in Alexandria, Virginia.

The reason given for his being jailed was that he had asked for asylum in the U.S., and therefore needed to be held for a hearing. He said he wanted no such thing. Officials finally agreed this had been a mistake. Still, he was not released, in spite of the efforts of his American friends, and U.S Senator John Warner of Virginia. Instead, he spent ten days in a rural Virginia jail, where he had been taken in shackles. "He ended up in a barracks with 75 other men, including asylum-seekers who told him they had been waiting a year."

He was released when a Times reporter began investigating. Yay, New York Times!! Yay, free and vigorous press!!

And yay, Hank, for calling immigration authorities to complain and encouraging others to do the same.



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Keep Balance

A writer told me today that novelist Walker Percy kept on his desk a sign that said: Wait.

Another similar piece of wisdom received second-hand this afternoon: Be Cool. A much-published novelist offered this as advice to a younger writer startled to find himself suddenly in demand and needing to make choices.

I have a bias toward hastiness. I find it hard to refrain from a quick decision, quick action. Especially if I think I have a fish on the line who might be tempted to get away.

It's hard to wait and hard to be cool. Especially when the fate of one's novel is involved.

Still it's good advice: to let a decision rest overnight, to wait a bit and reread before sending out work that has just been revised.

In any event, it's valuable to remember: boldness does not mean rushing into action too soon.

I know a boy who, when thanking his family members during his bar mitzvah, told the congregation he had learned "chillness" from his older brother.

I'm almost sixty and in the last few years, I've learned some chillness, though not a whole lot. I do have a few strategies for moments when rashness beckons:

*leave the location
*get away from computer and phone
*get physical exercise
*talk to somebody calm
*meditate
*do a routine brainless chore like weeding
*tell whoever is pushing me that I'll get back tomorrow , even when I'm the one who is pushing me.





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Do It Right Now

"TODAY I will tackle at least two things I dread doing. I will not waste my time and energy by wallowing in boredom, worry, criticism, or fear. I will do what needs to be done even if it requires effort, risk and change."

A thought for the day from Hazelden, passed on by writer-photographer-businesswoman and regular participant here, Mamie Potter.


When I received this from Mamie this morning, I first thought: I'll post it. A second thought: I'll do it. So I added two items to my plan for today, both more important than anything already on my list.

Of course, it's still necessary to do them. But once they're on my list, it's highly likely.

If I followed through on this every day, I could really go places!



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Boldness and Good Boundaries

Yesterday on the phone with my friend, teacher, and fellow novelist Laurel Goldman I had one of those ping-moments of realization.

Rattling on about my work consulting with writers, I realized all in an instant why I prefer working with people one-to-one rather than leading a long-term close-knit weekly group. I'd always thought that my reluctance to run such a group had to do with the extreme regularity of it.

Now I know that that's the smaller part of my objection. I prefer the one-to-one irregular contacts better because I don't have to witness the immediate unhappiness that critical feedback can bring. I typically hear from the person again only after she or he has decided what to do or not do with my feedback, and has gotten past any anger or disappointment.

That period of disconnection allows me to be as fully forthcoming with my thoughts as I need to be in order to be useful.

This is true of me because my boundaries (my sense of separateness from other people)haven't been strong enough long enough for me to tell every critical thought I've had without a significant possibility of holding back, consciously or unconsciously, in a mistaken effort to protect both of us.

For a person who is paid to give feedback on writing to withhold a response to the work is malpractice. It's cheating the other person.

For me, this little distance lets me keep my balance better, allows me to be bolder and freer, more objective and better at doing this kind of work.

After all, doctors don't usually treat their own family members. Lawyers don't go home with clients to whom they've had to deliver some hard-to-take information; if they did, and witnessed any resulting unhappiness, they might be tempted to soft-pedal in a way that ultimately hurts the client.

So for the time being I structure this little distance. Maybe one day my sense of separateness will let me do it differently, or maybe not.

In any event, I'm glad to have figured out this connection between boundaries and being as fully outspoken as I need to be.










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Your Inner Guidance System

"Never leave until tomorrow the thing that you are guided to do today."

From Touchstones (Hazelden Meditation Series)quoted on Daily Spiritual Guide



The trick, of course, is discerning what is guidance and what is an escapist impulse in no one's best interests. Often that's pretty obvious. When it's harder (for a lot of folks, I think) is when the impulse is to set aside responsibilities and go play. Most anyone who is conscientious enough to think about such matters is likely to err in the direction of ignoring the voice that says take it easy.

Whatever the decision about a particular impulse on a particular day, it's so important to pay attention to the inner urgings that show up again and again. At the very least, they're important information. And may lead somewhere wonderful.




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Come Right Out and Say It

Yesterday's post cited St. Paul. Today's item on this far-reaching discussion of boldness has its origins in Edgar Cayce and aura photography.
I've just come from my monthly lunch gathering, Mystic Pizza: half a dozen folks who like to talk about metaphysics. I told a story there, then realized: I never before said that out loud to anybody.

The story in brief: I was at Heritage Store in Virginia Beach, which began in order to sell the health products that Cayce, through his psychically derived info, was recommending. The place is now a huge New Age department store, with cafe, massage rooms, etc.

That day an aura photographer had set up in a front corner. When I sat down to have my picture taken, I inwardly said: okay, God, you show up in this picture too.

When the picture emerged, the photographer said, first thing, exact quote: "What did you do, summon God?" She pointed to a vertical wisp of pink in the photo: "That's divine."

I have not arrived at my final stance about whether that pink wisp was God. But I was startled by the neat parallel of my thought and her next comment. And then I never mentioned that moment to anyone until this week.

Here's the irony. All my books are about speaking out/taking action/self-actualization. My first novel Revelation is about a minister who hears the voice of God and then hesitates to tell anyone, because after all, it sounds a little weird; and he's a minister, it's his job to tell. Finally he is emboldened. He emboldens himself. He speaks. And takes action. That's the underlying story line of most of what I write.

Hard to believe it was just a coincidence that for perhaps ten years I never got around to speaking of that little incident to anyone. And didn't even notice that I was keeping silent about it. It's certainly not as if I forgot.

It's surely no coincidence that I write (and blog) about what I do: telling others to speak up, etc. Clearly I'm preaching first to myself, which I think is true of a lot of preachers and various kinds of exhorters.

Also, I always wonder who else has pink wisps show up in their photos or floating orbs over the breakfast table, and just doesn't get around to saying it out loud.




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Anti-procrastination Strategies

Ever had a no-big-deal phone call you needed to make and you put it off a couple of days and then it became near-impossible?

I do it. I see my husband do it. Are we the only ones?

I've read that procrastination is the art of making a big deal out of a trifle. I'm not sure I know the mechanism, but I know I do see items lodge in my to-do lists: again and again on the daily lists, then sometimes for weeks on the weekly list. (Today's daily list on magenta Post-it, week to the right on orange, both stuck to the desk feature called a writing slide, which can thus be pushed out of sight.)

The sure cure is, of course, to do everything immediately. And I'm pretty good about that most of the time. But let anything slip and it's soon in a free fall. Also, trying to do everything immediately obviously can create an unnecessary and tense sense of urgency about everything.

Once I finally mark one of these stuck items off my list, I feel terrific, all-powerful, silly for having delayed. (Maybe that's why I do it?)

Rewards have often worked for me: as soon as I do x, I get to do y.

Also, doing the hard item first is a no-brainer. It's so liberating that I always ask myself why I don't always do it. (Then I think of Paul of Damascus who had the same issue: wondering about why "the good he would do he (did) not." If Saint Paul had to deal with this, I shouldn't wonder that I do.)

So as anti-procrastination strategies, here are some possibilities:

*do it immediately
*do it now and get a marvelous self-awarded reward
*do the hard item first
*get someone else to do it
*discover an underlying reason for avoidance thus making it possible to act or decide not to
*realize that the task was really a bad idea and good sense is saying no
*pair up with someone else who has a long-delayed stupid little task and do them together, then celebrate
*do it in a half-distracted state so that it's done before you know it
*plunge in boldly, like a surfer going out through the breakers, relishing the experience

Other ideas?






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Getting Published

An update on an earlier report: two weeks ago I wrote here about The Writer Daughter. The daughter is that of my dear friend Connie who shared with me, back in the 60s, many long intense teenage literary discussions (we were both so artsy and special.) Connie's daughter Alexa in April received news that her first novel had won over a major-house editor who was enthusiastically presenting the book to her acquisitions committee.

Held breath ever since.

Well, the news was terrific! Several houses were interested in the book. And now ALEXA MARTIN has a deal for her debut novel at Hyperion for good money with an editor that she "really really really" likes. And the sales force is excited and comparing her to the excellent Sarah Dessen, of whom Alexa has long been a huge fan.

It's always nice to post good news about getting published. Plus, this good news has a long history for me.

Also, Alexa didn't start writing just yesterday either. She's one fine example of talent combined with the focus and persistence it takes to publish a book.

As she put it so ably in her email: Hurray!!!

An added thought: Mustn't give all the foundation-laying credit to those teenage book talks. Her father Dr. Larry Martin is a writer who decided to be a psychiatrist instead.



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A Model of Creative Courage

From citykitty, who describes herself as an actor and an introvert:

"Screw the fear of writing, I started my book."

Kudos to citykitty!



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Gag Reflex, Lizard Brain

My courage fails me often at the dentist's; I don't like gauze or metal or cement at the back of my mouth. My throat tries heroically to get rid of the stuff: thus an unseemly fit of gagging.

This morning, I was having "impressions" made for a nightguard, to help me stop grinding my teeth. This involved holding what felt like a half-pound of wet cement in my mouth for two full minutes, one minute each for upper and lower. My gag reflex (which I learned I should code as a mere gag response)kicked in with astonishing ferocity.

Even though I could get air, for a long moment I had the sensation of drowning, and of my body struggling to stay alive. I'd never seen death from this angle before, or descended so fully into my primitive self in order to fight back. And I was even breathing nitrous oxide at the time.

Eventually, we did get the job done, the able hygienist and I. But only after I'd had an enlightening experience of what it is to be a panicked animal.

I'm going to be able to use this information, though I'm not sure yet how. I'm hoping I'll figure out how to connect with that lizard-brain part of myself, now that I've met her. Maybe we could work together on some projects; there's too much energy there to waste.




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Obama at The Raleigh Times Bar

Yesterday I ran for a glimpse of our next president.

Sitting here at my computer, I'd half-consciously noted that a helicopter was hovering overhead. And that it wasn't going away. But didn't pause to ask myself why.

Then I got a hurried shouting cell phone call from my office partner who had walked down the street with her husband to eat dinner. Traffic was blocked, she said, and Obama was working his way down Hargett Street shaking hands.

Hargett Street is one block from my office. Had I not paused to put on lipstick, I'd have seen more. Nonetheless, I arrived breathless in time to see him, across the intersection, stepping lankily into his car. Even with the door shut, I could still see the trademark white shirt and tie through the glare on the window, which I watched until his entourage was gathered and headed out.

Thrilling! Seriously!

Obama and his wife had dropped into The Raleigh Times bar for 15 minutes and a beer. Owner Greg Hatem had had 30 minutes notice that he was coming. It was enough time for hundreds of people to gather, spilling out onto the sidewalks and filling the street, clapping and cheering and pressing to meet the candidate.

This bar and restaurant is named for the newspaper that was housed in the building, the same paper where I later had my first grownup job, as a reporter covering the desegregation of the Raleigh schools. (I blogged about a Times reunion there just before the restaurant opening.)

After growing up in this state in the Jim Crow era, to be able to see Obama campaigning at The Raleigh Times bar, to see a black man overwhelmingly win in North Carolina, where once blacks had to sit in to get a seat at a counter, gives me such pride and hope. We've come a long way.

And the undeniably bold Obama is already taking us closer to the way a neighborhood ought to be.

I look forward to celebrating his presidency.




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Bold Move: Keeping On

My polling place is at Holland Chapel A.M.E. Zion Church, about a quarter mile from my front door. Today is long-awaited primary day in North Carolina. I was voter number 73 at 8:45 this morning. There was no line; I could walk right in and vote. And it's always thrilling to me to do it.

I voted for Obama because I think he's less hawkish, more a negotiator than an adversary; because he's African-American, and he'd bring in a new set of Democrats. At the same time, I hated not to vote for Hillary Clinton. I like her health care plan. And the fact that she's a woman.

Most of all, I like the fact that she hasn't quit. She has kept going, full tilt. I admire that enormously.

For artists and others who work in nonmainstream ways, that kind of bold gutsy persistence is probably the single most important ability to have (assuming basic work competence.)

I like watching that bold persistence in action. Even if Clinton is defeated this year, I think there's a reasonable chance she may yet in a later election become president. I'm planning to vote for her next time (unless she's running against a bold gutsy persistent pacifist.)








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How to Expand Your Mind: Doodle

I'm a near-constant doodler. Now I discover that there's neurological evidence that doodling helps us think, solve problems, listen better, and keep better perspective. All of which helps out a lot when one is practicing boldness, creativity, and courage.

First, I discovered at White Cafe a review of a book, Keys to Drawing with Imagination by Bert Dodson. "Best of all, though (the book) contains delightful observations and insights, it isn't drowning in advice, but is mainly focused on fun, free-ranging exercises that plunge you straight into a world of creative experimentation."

The amazing doodly drawings resulting from these at White Cafe led me to go looking for any info on what doodling is coming from and leading to. What I learned in a nutshell in the 9 minute video, doodling: langage, gesture, and cognition, is: there's evidence that speech came, at least in part, from gesture rather than primitive vocalizations. And doodling is gesture. It uses motor skills.

The idea, simplistically put, is that doodling contacts and uses more of our own native creativity and communication equipment. In my experience, it just calms me down, allows for focus.

My first memory is of doodling. I was a toddler of late two or early three, out in the backyard squatting on a bare patch of dirt. I was wearing a sunsuit with a ruffly butt and making marks in the dirt with one wobbly little finger, the other arm held out in the air like an outrigger for balance. My mother and a neighbor were standing near.

I've always wondered why I remembered that. Now I have some support for the importance of making marks in dirt.

From the blog, Consider This: "Doodling taught me to say yes to the spontaneous me, no matter how dumb or clumsy the line was on the paper. By allowing one line to lead to another, by letting the drawing inform me instead of the other way around, I came to appreciate a vastly wider horizon of possibility for me and my world."

A few of my recent doodles: the intricate one below was drawn while listening to a novelist read a chapter of her work aloud for critical feedback, the orange gingerbread angel above is my notes of feedback on my own work, and the lines and circles were done in a class I was teaching while the participants are writing for a few minutes. Definitely three different states of mind.

Drawing the crowded one made it so much easier for me to listen to the reader. I felt as if all distracting thoughts were channeled onto the page and did not interrupt me.

Once many years ago, I wrote an article on root doctors for Sepia magazine. One of the healers I interviewed drew circles and spirals and swoops the entire time we were talking. It was entrancing for both of us.

It was pretty bold of the man to do it. I've found that in face-to-face conversations with clients, they sometimes look alarmed if I take up my artwork. Office supplies stores should sell signs that say Doodling Helps Me Think. Or maybe I could simply speak up.




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A Courage Quote

For moments when resolve wavers:



"Show me what I need to know

Take me where I need to go

I give thanks
for help unseen
already on its way"

--Native American Prayer


And thanks to artist and teacher Jane Dalton for passing this on to me.



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Holy Boldness

Googling for blogs on the subject of boldness, I discovered that the huge majority that came up first were religious, Christian in particular. I was surprised, but then I was made to realize that I was falling into a kind of stereotyping.

Here's the quote that set me straight, from Black Fire, White Fire, a blog aimed at African-American women:

"What is holy boldness? And why is it that anyone folks want to portray as goodly has to be small, weak-ish, scrawny, lowly, and lamb-y? Can there be no fierceness in goodness? ... Was Moses being 'scrawny' when he stood before the super power of his time, Egypt, and requested the freedom of his people?"

Note to self: there's nothing namby-pamby about taking a passionate and principled stand.





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Self-Actualization: Write Your Life

One way to acknowledge and fuel what we're about in life is to record and announce it. For example, telling my writer's group that I'll have a draft done by the end of August almost guarantees my getting it done by then.

I'm accustomed to using that technique, and have always found it amazingly effective, for myself and for others announcing their goals. Here's an expanded version of that idea.

This morning I learned that this is Personal History Month, certainly as good a time as any to write things down, both for ourselves and for later readers.

"You may find it a bit presumptuous, perhaps even arrogant or egotistical," writes Larry Lehmer of When Words Matter, "to put your own life down on paper. But ask yourself this: If your great grandparents had left a written record of their lives, would you read it?"

Putting down what you've done and what you're doing and the story of your family "makes it real" by showing the direction you've taken, the paths and patterns you've created. It's a process of taking stock that helps in making decisions about where to put time and energy, how to spend the coming years.

Lehmer is an expert in personal history writing and author of The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens, and he knows the value of archives.

So do I. Working on a biography of painter and mystic Elisabeth Chant, I've found that every line she or any of her friends or relatives put down about their lives is valuable. I'm grateful to those who left these records. It's a gift to me; and I'll bet it was useful to the person writing at the time.

The current issue of Lehmer's free e-newsletter "Passing it On" gives a list of getting-started tips. I like Number 4: Start outlining your life, the major dates and events, in chronological order, with space provided to add new material as it comes to you.

Self-actualization--reaching one's full potential--is of course more than keeping records. But being clear, in writing, helps the process.

And May is also Creative Beginnings Month.










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Updike on Creative Courage

My model when I first began writing fiction was John Updike. I studied those Rabbit novels down to details of tenses and pronouns. More important, I found and find his work unsparingly honest and amazingly observant. His kind of writing requires an unflinching hand.

So I finally this week got around to reading his memoir in essays, Self-Consciousness, which has sat like hoarded chocolate on my to-read shelf for quite some time. Here he turns his famous scrutiny on himself, and does so in a manner that is neither self-aggrandizing nor self-deprecating. He manages balance while navigating the story of himself and his family and marriages, his world-view and his dental work.

Kirkus Reviews said the work is "A neat masterpiece of literary undressing." That reviewer said it well. And what a feat such a book is.

In it Updike deals directly with the subject of telling the tough truth and how he gears up to do it, in fiction and nonfiction. In short: he relies on a higher power.

"What small faith I have has given me what artistic courage I have. My theory was that God already knows everything and cannot be shocked. And only truth is useful and can be built upon. From a higher, inhuman point of view, only truth, however harsh, is holy."

I agree with all of that. And yet, I still flinch...at how my fellow lower humans may respond. Maybe he does too...and then writes it down anyway.

What philosophy (or self-help gimmick) helps you muster courage for your work?


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The Paradox of Creative Courage

The best way to have creative courage as you work is to forget about creativity, courage, fear, or imagination, and simply SAY WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY.

The inner shakiness a lot of artists get is a lot like fear of public speaking: once the focus shifts to getting out what we have to say, with that becoming more important than how we're feeling, then the fear evaporates. Which we may not even realize until later.

Ever looked up and found that the time had passed and the work was done? (Well, a first draft of a piece of it, anyway.) It's a great feeling.


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A Positive View of Problems

Yesterday I paused at my local metaphysical bookstore Dancing Moon to buy a couple of birthday/housewarming presents. While checking out, I pulled one of the cards from the deck on the counter, the idea being that I would be guided to select one that would apply to me and my situation.

What the card said, in short: the problems you run into are chances to develop strengths and grow.

Okay, I'm willing to view dealing with the vast complications of the book business as weight-lifting. I don't know how long that attitude will last, but it did give me a brighter perspective yesterday that has lasted at least until today.

The attitude gibes with that of the admirable Ralph Waldo Emerson. From the Emerson on Man and God which was a gift to me in high school: "Difficulties exist to be surmounted. The great heart will no more complain of the obstructions that make success hard, than of the iron walls of the gun which hinder the shot from scattering. It was walled round with iron tube with that purpose, to give it irresistible force in one direction. A strenuous soul hates cheap successes."

I don't know any artist--or anyone, for that matter--who thinks of his or her successes as too easily won. Still, the obstacle-as-strengthener idea can take away some anger. I've developed an unnatural patience and a certainty of my own purpose through the years of obstacles (huge pain-in-the-ass interferences) that publishing so often presents.


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Courage

"The original notion of the word 'courage' means 'to stand by one's core,'"
says an Omega catalog description of a course taught by Mark Nepo, author of Facing the Lion, Being the Lion: Finding Inner Courage Where It Lives.

Podictionary.com says that the root of the word courage is the French for heart. "Bobby Kennedy ...said that for every ten men brave in battle there was only one with moral courage."

In either case, the word does not necessarily mean being on the front lines of just any battle. It means remaining steadfast to one's most strongly held passions and convictions. Which can refer to simply continuing to do your work, day after day.



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Grace Wang: Standing Her Ground

A Duke freshman from Qingdao, China, has stirred up world news in the last three weeks.

Twenty-year-old Grace Wang did this by trying to start a conversation between the two sides at a demonstration for and against independence for Tibet from China. On the evening of April 9, she was leaving a campus cafeteria and saw the two flag-bearing groups squaring off out on the main quad. She went over to check the situation out.

Then this young reader of Harvard Law School's Negotiation Journal decided to intervene, to get the two sides to talk. She had spent Christmas as the only Chinese student housed over the holiday in an apartment with three Tibetan students; it was too far for any of them to go home. Conversations with those three had been good and made her think that talking would be helpful for the two groups facing each other on the quad.

She wound up leaving the site under police protection. Now her parents in China have been forced into hiding. She and her parents are getting death threats. It's all a whole lot more than she had in mind.

But in an essay published in The Washington Post, she says: "I haven't shriveled up and slunk away. Instead, I've responded by publicizing this shameful incident, both to protect my parents and to get people to reflect on their behavior. I'm no longer afraid, and I'm determined to exercise my right to free speech."

I feel connected to this story. For one thing, when I taught creative writing at Duke last spring, a Tibetan student was in my more advanced class. I thought he had a lot of guts; just imagine taking an advanced fiction writing course in Tibetan.

Then too, forty years ago, I was a student at Duke making the same early evening trip Grace Wang was--between cafeteria and library--when trouble broke out. I wasn't involved in the campus demonstrations, but simply happened to come out onto the quad at the moment the National Guard entered the long drive up to the main quad and gassed anyone who happened to be there.

I remember running within the billows of eye-stinging smoke and seeing the narrowed silhouettes of others at a distance within the same yellowish cloud. I headed for what I hoped would be a building I could get into and breathe. I wound up in a men's dorm, stampeding with others down the halls until we finally came to a stop in a commons room, where the events outside were already on the national evening news.

I'll never forget the events of that dusk. And, for me, there were no death threats, no buckets of feces dumped at the entrance to my family's home.

Grace Wang wasn't angling for that either. And she may not have been thinking too hard about the possible negative fallout when she made her first move.

But her actions since that night--in staying public and making her story and her positions known--have been pretty courageous. She's now truly standing her own ground for freedom of expression.

(Information for this post comes from The Washington Post and The News & Observer in Raleigh.)


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The Writer Daughter

Back in the 60s, my friend Connie and I used to hold long discussions not only about our fellow high school students but also, with at least as much enthusiasm, about books. From about age 14 on until our mid-twenties and the birth of her first child, these discussions were a big deal. Then I had an all-consuming newspaper job and she had a baby and a move with her new family to another state.

That daughter, in her mid-thirties and living in the Pacific Northwest, now has an agent for her first novel and an excited editor who is presenting the book to his house's acquisitions committee this week.

This news is to me gratifying beyond measure. It feels right! I feel as if it proves some sort of immortality for those long-ago conversations while walking from my house on Mimosa Place over to hang out at the shopping center on Oleander.

Somehow this development makes the universe feel less random, reminds me that everything matters. Which is kinda thrilling.


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One Small Step Today

A phrase I heard in a Creative Capital seminar about a year ago has stuck with me: No goal too large, no step too small.

The point is that all the steps toward the goal count, and if we keep taking them, they steadily accumulate and also inspire larger leaps. If we faithfully take one step each day and keep on and on, it's amazing how far we can go.

Last week wandering around the charming downtown of the tiny NC mountain community of Sylva I remembered this saying. All it took was the sight of the county courthouse, which has the most steps I've ever seen on a public building still in use.

(The Acropolis has a sort of winding trail up, and those pyramids in Mexico are a shockingly steep climb but you don't have to go there to buy a marriage license etc. so the trip is optional.)

Had I had a helicopter I could have shot a picture that did these steps justice; there are in fact a couple of more flights beynond the statue that may look like the top. That's also the way with most projects I've undertaken: there are a few extra sets of steps thrown in, not visible from the start. So just when you think you've arrived...there's still more climbing.
All of this is to say: Take a step today toward your big, big goal. Even a tiny one will put you closer.




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Woman Driver

At this point in history, it shouldn't be a surprise to see a woman doing "a man's job" and vice versa.

Still, I had a moment of startlement and delight when I realized that this mowing-person at Western Carolina was a girl. (She appeared to be under 21, thus the use of "girl", rather than "woman".)

And, on the national scene, we're still approaching a gender/minority first: the Democratic nominee will be either a woman or an African-American. So falling barriers aren't exactly old news yet.

Growing up in the South in the 50s, I will probably always experience startlement and delight at seeing these barriers eroded and removed.

I imagine that girl on the mowing machine might still have startled someone when she asked for the job.

I say: Yay! for her and for whoever gave her the job.




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A Religious Basis for Being Yourself

"God speaks to you not only through His supernatural grace, but also through the individual nature which He fashioned into the person you are today. He would have you make an intelligent, reasonable use of the gift that is 'you'."

From, Anthony J. Paone, S.J.
Confraternity Of The Precious Blood
(an order of cloistered contemplatives)

This appeared yesterday on Scott Burkhead 's Daily Spiritual Guide, a wildly eclectic daily mix of genuinely uplifting tidbits.

And now for my commentary on this text:

"Reasonable" worries me a little, because it's easy to view something difficult as impossible, and therefore unreasonable. The use of the male pronoun bothers me too. But with those caveats, I love this idea.

My own religion is a patchwork; and this belief of the authentic self being a gift fits into it nicely. Moreover, I like a moral basis for something I'm working on talking myself into. We all hear a lot about being "selfless." I think we have to be ourselves before we have anything to offer anyone else, and before we have a self to transcend.



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Today's Bold Move

I find that if I'm a tad cheeky about my choice of little things, it fires me up to be gutsier and more imaginative about more important things.

So today getting dressed I discovered that, to avoid the unseemly bare midriff, this sweater needed more than the one button the hip manufacturer provided.

Hidden safety pins didn't work at all.

My cool solution (oh, I'm so pleased) was a couple of pins of the decorative sort. The possibilities are tremendous: we could do this with political buttons. Two Barack Obama buttons, or two Hillary Clinton buttons, as the case may be.

Campaigners, listen up! I hope you jump on this idea. It's yours at no charge.



These "buttons" are acting as booster rockets to my day.

Any little boldness boosters of your own you'd be willing to pass on?





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How To Ward Off Writer's Block

“The second that I think that I have a fear of writing, (I think) ‘No, no, this is just a joyous thing to sit down and tell a story,’” he said.

This is the strategy of writer and fourth grade teacher Ross Modlin, as reported by Cameron Macdonald in The Elk Grove Citizen in Elk Grove, California.

I like simple strategies the best. The complicated ones just seem an additional burden.

This one is flexible because we could take the beginning of the sentence and finish it with anything that needs unsticking.

For example: This is just a joyous thing to design a new course...to begin the revisions that will make this piece so much stronger...to draw a picture....

Also, note that Modlin uses this thought the instant he notices fear coming on.

(The teacher who helped me the most toward becoming a writer was also named Modlin--Mildred Modlin, teaching in Wilmington, NC in the 1960s. So I'm predisposed to thinking this fellow is offering good advice.

One other auspicious sign: Elk Grove was a home base for many gold miners during the Gold Rush. Of course practicing any art is a process of mining for the gold.)

So today's work is just a joyous thing: to go digging for gold, in the company of other miners scattered here and there about the land.



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A Bold Idea: Sabbatical

I can now shut up about the fact that when I was in high school I was not selected to go to Governor's School in the summer. In the last week I got my own mini-Governor's School.

About 25 years ago, North Carolina Teacher of the Year Jean Powell suggested in a speech that there be a sort of Governor's School for teachers. The (few and fortunate) high-performing high school kids chosen each year to attend this advanced and fabulously enriching boarding school session always came back so excited about learning.

So, Powell said, why not do the same thing for teachers? And send them back to the classroom re-excited about teaching and learning.

Then-Governor Jim Hunt jumped on the idea and the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching was born.

This week I've been teaching a class here called "Write from your Roots." I feel I'm the one who is refreshed and re-excited about learning...and about my own teaching and writing and living.

The 22 guests--teachers, counselors, and librarians--and the staff I worked with here (Jane Dalton, author of The Compassionate Classroom and Tara Melton-Miller) could teach anybody anything. I hope the "students" have gotten even a fraction of the good from the experience that I have.

If you happen to work for the NC public schools, take a bold step and apply to come here. There's a magic chemistry happening on this 30-acre mountain campus--and no doubt at the coastal Ocracoke site as well.

If you aren't eligible, TAKE A BOLD STEP AND FIND YOUR OWN SABBATICAL SOMEWHERE. Even a few days can be a small lifetime tucked into the big one.

Thanks to Jean Powell who boldly spoke up about a good idea and to Jim Hunt who said: let's do it. And to the Legislature that helps it continue. And of course to NCCAT.

Woohoo! I'm coming back! Take that, Governor's School selection panel of 1965-66!



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Teachers as Writers

I do some teaching, but am primarily a writer. Not unusual. Many, if not most, career writers also teach. But perhaps unlike those who are drawn to teaching first, lots of the writers-who-teach are pretty introverted.

This week I'm leading a group made up of people who are career public school educators and are spending this week (at the NC Center for the Advancement of Teaching) doing some writing.

After four days, I find myself fascinated by the good things I see in the way teachers conduct themselves as writers.

Almost all of these people are used to "presenting" all day. They are not shy. Or if they are, they're hiding it well. They're also very practiced communicators, with a lot of experience in giving feedback, getting people's attention, laying down the law, and making sure people understand the assignment.

These strengths show in their writing. As writers, they're clear. Bold. They get their message out. Not once have I had the impulse to say: I'm not getting what you mean here.

Whereas, my biggest struggle as a writer is to be sure I'm not too understated. And that's a fairly common piece of feedback in the writing group I've been in for years.

So it's refreshing and inspiring to sit with writers who, with very little hesitation, get their thoughts on the page and their writing out to others. And, for the teacher-writers, it's a great advantage they have as they begin a new kind of writing, for self-expression.




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Courage for the Inner Journey

Here's the scenery outside the classroom window where I'm leading a group this week on Writing from Your Roots. (My seat faces the wall of windows, I'm happy to say.)

The group is a couple of dozen teachers from all over North Carolina, meeting at the NC Center for the Advancement of Teaching in Cullowhee.

Seminars here are designed to refresh and re-inspire the teachers. This particular topic is also one that requires of them a fair amount of courage, because writing from the deepest part of oneself takes some digging. And there's often material that's painful, sometimes material that's a surprise.

Tough prose has been read around our table this week: about dealing with a parent's suicide, an early widowhood, and being a refugee from the war in Bosnia, about facing one's buried angers and fears, as well as more joyful experience.

People have leaped over their in-the-moment fears and hesitation and written strong stories. It has been exciting and gratifying to watch and hear.

I applaud these writers and will keep their courage in mind as an example when I'm back at my own manuscript. Because writing fiction also requires some well-digging, before the fountain rises shining in the air.



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40 Inspiring Writing Blogs

Kathryn Vercillo has posted links to "40 Inspiring Writing Blogs that you Don’t Already Read" on her site Real Words from a Real Writer.

You'll find that there's at least one on the list that you do already read. And thanks to Kathryn for including this site.


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If It Scares You...

The seminar I'm leading this week of 22 NC public school teachers got rolling last night and I discovered that teachers are the ideal folks to have in a discussion group. Wow, what a bunch of thoughtful live wires.

This gathering is at NCCAT in Cullowhee in the NC mountains. That's the NC Center for the Advancement of Teaching. Gorgeous campus. From where I sit in our meeting room I can watch the spire of water in the fountain in the center of the pond next to the dining room.

So yesterday I was going on about my pre-teaching nervousness. It's gone. As always, getting moving makes the difference.

In our discussion last night, one person volunteered some wisdom from her sister: If it scares the shit out of you, do it.

I'd qualify that a tad: if the risk is reasonably low and the gain is significant, do it. I still don't see the point of bungee jumping.

Otherwise, doing what we want to do is worth weathering a bit of initial uneasiness. It's more than worth it.


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A Teaching Week

I just arrived in Cullowhee in the NC mountains where I'm leading a writing group for NCCAT--the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching.

I meet with the group for the first time twenty minutes from now. I always have "green room" nervousness just before starting. Once we get going I'm fine. But still these twenty minutes to go.

It's curious to me that I'm edgy like this before running a group. Public speaking never worries me at all. It feels completely different; it's just talking. Whereas, a class needs to really deliver something.

18 minutes now.

Think I'll go for a walk. Or talk to people, that always distracts me and gets me pumped up.



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