Getting Up Off the Sofa

Went out kayaking today before hitting the computer, and now I feel wonderful. Those disciplined souls who get themselves to run in the mornings are on to something; they do get their reward for popping/dragging out of bed early.

This was my first "serious" paddle of the season. I did go out once in boots and raingear before it was warm enough to plant, but then when gardening weather started, I decided to specialize and have spent my spare time in the dirt. But as of June 1, tomorrow, there's no point in planting anything in North Carolina; too hot.

Perfect time to break out my little inflatable Bold Boat and hit bright, sunny Jordan Lake under a gorgeous sky. A lot of sailboats were out. The whole scene looked happy. And now I have the triple endorphin rush of having exercised, been outdoors, and been on the water.

I need to remember such moments in a visceral way in order to get myself into motion again next weekend. Because even fun things can take some effort, some wrestling with equipment, etc.

Lake/boat pictures to come, BTW

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Get a View from the Trees

Bold idea: Live up in the trees. Perhaps because it's the leafy season, this idea is very appealing to me...and to others, because I keep seeing it show up on-line and off. I live in the woods (in a house) surrounded by trees. And we have a tree platform, which can help to give a person perspective. I still like the idea of Swiss Family Robinson, remember the movie images of the house as well. I climbed trees occasionally as late as my undergraduate years. Maybe it's not too late.

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"Like Streams in the Desert"

Here's a boldness break of a rather different sort than the laughing Buddha on the train earlier this week. (A boldness break is a brief time-out that re-juices imagination and creative courage.)

"Like Streams in the Desert" is an orchestral piece composed in honor of the 50th anniversary of Israel by my friend-from-first-grade Meira Warshauer. She and I got to be buddies out at the swings at recess. In second grade when she won the drawing to take home the room-size Santa Claus mural the class had pasted together, she gave it to me; her family did Hannukah and not Christmas.

When I saw in my email the note about her work on video on Youtube, it was holidays all over again, 9:54 seconds worth of her music while the camera soars over water-in-the-desert images from artist Shoshanna Brombacher, who in this work reminds me simultaneously of Chagall, Van Gogh, and Georgia O'Keefe. (Wow, that sentence covers a lot of territory. Oh, the pleasures of editorless blogging!)

Meira's music is performed here by Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra on a video developed by Michael Bregman. The CD of her Torah-inspired music is available from Albany Records, this piece commissioned and premiered by Neal Gittleman and the Dayton Philharmonic.

For the musically literate, here's a review: "spiritually ecstatic, beautifully felt... representation of [the] mystical creative process." If you're in the mood for a stream in a desert, go listen and watch for a few minutes. It's profoundly refreshing.

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The Masks Fear Wears

In answer to: "how do we hide our fears?" a question posed in the comments by Debbie, I did a bit of research. I suspect there are many more items that could be added.

*Misplaced anger is a method that gives the illusion of control and safety. More on this from psychology professor Jennifer Freyd of the University of Oregon

*Pretense or pretentiousness. See Sarah Stewart comment on Intuitive Roots.

*Addictions and reflexive habits.

*Emotional numbness.

*"One of the worst ways we hide fear is by hiding behind our Bibles and theology. This happens when knowing all the right answers and being able to correct others becomes more important then knowing and loving God and knowing and loving people." From The Firehouse Church in Bremerton, Washington.

*Tension, muscular hyperreadiness.

*Stereotyping, rigid thinking about "the enemy" From The Center for Media Literacy

*General controlling behavior

*Phobias, replacing one fear with another. The Acadia Hospital

*Compulsive behaviors that give the illusion of order

*Anonymity

*"Going along"



"The best way to deal with fear is to stop pretending to be fearless. Paradoxically, the more you deny fear, the more likely it is to dominate you. Tune into your fear, give it a voice, enter into a dialogue with it, do what you can to reduce the risk, and you will find yourself more able to take risks....Behind fear lies excitement." From David Cornfield atThe Creative Edge

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Boddhisatva in Metro

Watch how this guy transforms the dour crowd in a subway car. You'd think, at the start of the film, that these people were on their way to their execution. Not so. The film is 6 minutes and 47 seconds that will embolden your day.

Made by Belgian director Christine Rabette in 2003. The actual title is Merci! The Boddhisatva title was added (in Russian) by whoever put it on Youtube.

Note: a boddhisatva is someone who has attained release from the cycle of rebirths but chooses to live human lives in order to help others.





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Post-Memorial Day Post

I'm not good military material: don't care for violence, hierarchies, dressing alike, guns, or having a boss.

But hearing the stories of war yesterday on NPR stirred me, as it was supposed to. I thought about soldiers much of the day.

One of the things that struck me is how many of them think back to their wartimes as both the best and worst parts of their lives. The good part, it seems, was the intensity--the life-or-death seriousness--and the bonds with comrades, the willingness to risk literally taking a bullet for another.

Being whole-heartedly a part of something huge feels good to people. Acting with courage feels good, even on the home front, when it may seem that the stakes are smaller.






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Having To Wait

The dreadful condition of waiting, not-acting, and not-being-able-to-find-out is a hard one for me and for a lot of folks. I just ran across a list of stupid, energy-wasting things we tend to do to cope with this situation on "Tolerating Uncertainty."

1 Seeking excessive reassurance from others
2 List-making
3 Double checking
4 Refusing to delegate
5 Procrastination/avoidance
6 Distraction

These certainly are familiar to me. I saw this list and thought: Busted! I'm particularly fond of numbers 2 through 5. I think there's some value for me in seeing this list. It identifies a pattern I can be more careful to avoid.





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Getting Rid of the Fear of Success

"It is often when our futures look brightest that our resolve crumbles and we veer off course." From the Daily Om, "Boldly Growing Into Your Own Fear of the Future"

So what do we do about this? The Daily Om advises: Replaces negative thoughts with encouraging facts. "Tell yourself that the inevitability of your success is based not on luck or a universal mistake but on your already established talents, drive, imagination, and inner strength. Each time you overcome your fear of the future, you chip away at its very foundations. Eventually, you will clear a gap through which you can gaze upon the future with unhindered optimism."

I've never felt I had any fear of success. But I know that I can get agitated when more than one suitor, personal or professional, is competing for my attention. I also think that this kind of fear hides in the basement and sends obstacles up to the first floor. So I do think it's important to pay attention to whether such a fear might be getting in the way.




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Gutsy Honeysuckle

Yes, I know that honeysuckle is considered an environmental threat because it overwhelms native plants and a lot of gardeners rip it out.

However, I love it. It's beautiful and it smells good and it brings back lovely memories from my childhood.

I'm blogging about it because, though I see the problems, I admire its tenacity and ability to gracefully flourish.







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Elizabeth Edwards Sets a Good Example

Here's to Elizabeth Edwards for speaking up and writing her book!

Her whole life has been made public and has been discussed all over the country by others, including John Edwards. I'm astonished at the critics who think that she should not weigh in on the subject herself.

She has done so in a manner that seems to me honest and dignified. I think it sets a better example for her kids than would hiding out from the whole world.







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Cayce on Intuition

From Edgar Cayce, "the 'sleeping prophet,' the 'father of holistic medicine,' and the most documented psychic of the 20th century":

"The more and more each is impelled by that which is intuitive, or the relying upon the soul force within, the greater, the farther, the deeper, the broader, the more constructive may be the result."
Edgar Cayce Reading 792-2 (This quote from the site of Melissa Alvarez, metaphysical writer.)

Cayce left not only thousands of readings and the health advice therein, but a center for continuing study at Virginia Beach (good choice of locations): Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.)

I've been to A.R.E. a couple of times, which has a spa run on Caycean teaching, with excellent massages, and a terrific metaphysical library, speakers and classes, etc.




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Intuition

In the last 24 hours, I've had a strong sense that I've lately neglected the intuition part of my operation: both for information gathering and decision making. I'd say that's been going on for 2 to 3 years.

I've been meditating again this year, after a long lapse. I once went seven years when I missed only a couple of days of meditating. Then I stopped. What I decided at that time was to do it when I felt like it. That turned out to be never.

So in January I started requiring 20 minutes a day of myself. Now, as during those earlier years, it's good for my writing. I also feel that that 20 minutes has led me the recognition that I've been ignoring a major resource. And that can make a person start feeling a bit parched.

So now I'm reminding myself to make sure I've consulted God and my unconscious and any other unseen forces when I'm wrestling with specific questions.

I've also been reading Judith Orloff's Second Sight. In fact, I brought it to my office to read with lunch. That's always a sign that a book really has hold of me.



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Do Your Own Thing

The fellow who runs this new Project Mojave undertaking seems to have a passion for helping people get loose from cubicles and pursue their own interests on their own time. Having been a freelancer since I was 22 (I'm now 60), I very much favor this.

Click to the site and learn how to set up an internet business using expertise you already have. Even if you don't want to do precisely that, it's worth a look, if you like the idea of doing your own thing.



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Find the Right Risk

A discovery by Mamie, who is definitely the Quote Queen:

"If you have no anxiety, the risk you face is probably not worthy of you. Only risks you have outgrown don't frighten you." - David Viscott

I've also noticed that sometimes I go straight from scared to bored. Scared is better. But it would be nice to linger at comfortably interested. I'm always imagining other people are having that experience.

Another good quote from this Viscott fellow: "There is some place where your specialties can shine. Somewhere that difference can be expressed. It's up to you to find it, and you can."






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Boy Wonder Does Dorm Room Decor With Flair

What inspired the cleanup I posted about yesterday was a story in the design issue of New York magazine about a college senior and the way he has decorated his dorm room.

Just imagine having your old dorm room's decor featured in New York. Not mine, though I had a very nice paper goldfish hanging from the curtain rod, a Jackson Pollock poster on the wall and blue and green curtains I was proud of.

Maximilian Sinsteden has definitely outdone that decor. Moreover, he already has clients for a design business.

"By the time Sinsteden was 12 years old, he’d redecorated most of the rooms in his parents’ house a few times, and had started in on the guest bedrooms of family friends. He had a precocious understanding of the perfect detail." At 15 he was working for a designer, but has never had any formal design training. His first solo job--as a junior in college--was to do the interior of a 78 foot yacht.

Go look at what he has done to his room (click on New York above). This is one bold young man. It takes taste, imagination, and courage. Some money too, but money alone can't do this. And he knows his way around a thrift, as well as how to borrow well from friends and relatives. And how to ignore any social pressures on a guy to play football instead.

The word is getting around about his skills. The article about him ran last week and a Google search of his name plus the word "dorm" produced over 9,000 sites. Being-red has additional photos.






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Cleaning Out My Closet

The exceptionally bold act of cleaning out the bedroom closet can be so liberating.

This past Sunday I set to it, and sent 18 articles of clothing away to new lives elsewhere. (including the rag bag.) Note the "going out" pile.

One item had to be commemorated with a portrait: the jaunty sunglasses skirt, which has traveled with me to many a memorable occasion. Unfortunately the black background has started getting that rusty green cast that aging black fabric gets.

I don't understand why cleaning out a closet, pruning a bit, is so invigorating. But it is. And I was so energized afterwards, I went outside and cut a few branches off of big shrubs, opened the place up to a little more light.









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Ambitious and Feminine

See, it's possible to be both ambitious and feminine. These graceful rambling roses are already to the second-floor of our house. And they're not strident or driven.





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Get Your Message Across

See this yellow-backed vehicle? The owner of this car was seizing an opportunity. Written on the back is a message that says, in essence: okay, while you're sitting in traffic behind me, why not write this phone number down so you'll have it when you need it. The number is for a towing company. I thought it was a fine piece of advertising. I felt as if I was being addressed personally.


(Sorry about the worse-even-than-usual quality of the photography: it was one shot with a cell phone on a rainy day while driving a car with a dirty windshield with hand-painted morning glories on the hood and my arm in the way.)

My own car has a license plate that says SISINDIA for my novel Sister India. But that's really more for fun, for vanity, than anything else.

I'm wondering what other surprising inventive everyday ways there are for a writer/artist/entrepreneur to get his/her message across. Some artists cringe at advertising and self-promotion. Though we vigorously want publishers and galleries to invest heavily in promoting our work. And some madly promote and then pretend to be shy.

To me, to create the work and then decline to help it out into the world is like not taking care of the dog. It's falling down on the job.

So this past week I started running a wee ad for my critique services for writers. Never did this before. It's one of those little boxes on the right side of a Google page, the copy below, but with lines around it.

Get Book Feedback
Intensive Report: Novel/ Nonfiction
From NYT Notable Writer
www.peggypayne.com/service.html

The "NYT Notable" means that Sister India was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Google Advertising wouldn't allow me to use the whole name in the ad because of trademark worries or some such.

So far it has appeared 65,937 times (when someone enters a phrase like "feedback on my novel"), been clicked on 11 times, and cost me $9.59. Haven't heard yet, that I know of, from anyone who clicked it, but we'll see. It's kind-a fun, like having a fishing line in the water.



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Term Paper? Essay? Help Is at Hand

The bad kind of bold: a website called Free Essays that offers 32,000 "Free Essays for All Students."

The student who is eager for knowledge can find a paper on any of a huge and sometimes hilarious selection of subjects. For example: "Plagerism" (sic). And a search for papers that deal with personal courage turned up 317 choices, one labelled Values.

Click on PeerPapers on this site and you'll find an archive of 190,000. "Less Work, More Weekend" is the slogan. Browsers are informed that using one of these papers as a guide is not plagiarism, copying it is.

Type in the keyword "honor," and a list of an even 1,000 essays and term papers comes up. One of them begins: "Why do students cheat? This is an age-old question...."

It's even possible to find a paper on "Why I Want to Become a Nurse." Surely, if one wants to be a nurse, one is the authority on why.

...Though I once knew a man whose first writing success was a grade school personal essay on the assignment "Why I Love the Detroit Symphony." He was having trouble writing it. His much-older sister helped him with it a lot. He won a highly-publicized award for the work. His sister asked him if he had any doubts about accepting full credit. He absolutely did not. He went on to become a respected novelist.

I doubt if his story is typical.

A few other ironic topics in the essay libraries:
Apathy
Critical Thinkin (sic)
The Time I Made a Fool of Myself
Are We More Creative Today
How People Learn

And some charmingly specialized ones:
Slime Molds
Raving Is A Lifestyle
Biotreatment Of Wastewater Using Aquatic Invertebrates, Daphnia Magna And Paramecium Caudatum
Pear Culturing in India
Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc.

Visitors are invited to donate papers and to alert headquarters if any papers on the sites are discovered to be of questionable quality.

Custom essays are available starting at $19.95 a page.

Approximately 368,000 google searches were done in April for the phrase "term paper" and over 9 million for "essay."

This rant is making me feel like a back-in-my-day old blowhard. So I'm doing a search for a paper on the hackneyed "old-fart" question: what's the world coming to? All I get was a paper on Mad Cow Disease.

So I look up "hookups" and get an essay: "Is The Traditional Date Dying" It's worth a visit.




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Thinking (and Acting) Outside the Therapy Session

I'm a huge fan of psychotherapy. One stretch of 11 sessions over a few months when I was 32 years old led me to start writing fiction and to get (happily) married. We celebrated our 25th anniversary in December. And, BTW, I married a therapist.

At the same time, I think it's important not to act like the whole world is a therapy group. Both self-questioning (to which I'm prone) and processing every human interaction can get really annoying--and counterproductive!-- if they turn into a full-time thing.

So I was delighted to find a wise blogger who agrees with me: a singer who writes about vivid living. Christine Kane's blog has lots of good lists of tips. Here's item number 7 from "10 Ways to Set a Powerful Intent."



"Move out of therapy thinking and into forward thinking.

Therapy is and has been a great help to many of us, AND it can be easy to get stuck in seeing yourself as flawed. It’s a habit. Therapy thinking says, “I have to get it all fixed before I can move on to better things.” Forward thinking says, “What would happen if I acted in spite of how I’m feeling about my life, or my capabilities?”

When it comes right down to it, we’re all complete train wrecks. Have a little celebration about your own train-wreck-ed-ness (invite the rest of us too), and then move forward, take actions, and learn that it is possible to function well without having figured it all out."


My fellow train wrecks, she's right. My own wise Mom tends to say: "Life is not about getting ready." And: "Do something, if it's wrong." This shorthand does not mean to go rob a bank, it means take some action that would appear to be toward the good and if that doesn't work, modify it or try something else. In other words: rock on!

(And have a Happy Mother's Day today.)






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Bold Roses

Came home from work last night to find that my rambling roses had exploded into bloom. They're very pale pink and they looked spectacular (by the standards of my garden) even in the dark as I drove up.

Last year (first season) they bloomed a little, and then grew like crazy everywhere, up to the second floor, pushing up against a window, etc.

I like their doing this all at once, instead of tiptoeing out, a few and then a few more. It seems both bold and generous.






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Itchy for a Call

Since Monday I've been on the alert for a phone call. Monday is when the itching started. First my head, then an arm...and so on. It took me four days of scratching to think what is usually my first thought about any physical complaint: could this all be IN my head rather than on it?

That thought, as well as a chat at dinner with psychologist/hypnotist husband Bob put a sudden and total end to Itchy-and-Scratchy. The problem was gone. It should always be so easy.

And: I should refrain from using my creativity and magic in this way. There's no end to the trouble I can make for myself. Better to make up novels.

Bob reminded me of a New Yorker article on itching and the mind, aptly titled "The Itch." that talks about how the mind may be filling in info from tiny bits of data: connect-the-dots. Called the "brain's best guess."

My research also turned up someone who itched during yoga, another whose feet itched when she washed dishes, and one who itched whenever her hands were full with two bags.

With me and the business of a phone call, I think it may come down to the fact that I'd rather be active than passive, rather do something than wait. Surely I can find something better to do.

I'm starting to feel a faint tickle as I write this. Must stop now.





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New Flavor, New Law

Four times a day forever, a friend of mine has to drink a tall glass of water with a vile pink powder stirred into it. It's medication.

Yesterday she called the manufacturer, their Customer Service Department, and asked if they would please develop a new flavor. The customer rep fumbled about and then sent her call to the Regulatory Department. They're probably not going to be the ones to add mango or licorice or bubble gum to their stock. But someone may. I wouldn't be surprised.

What I like is her taking the initiative to go to the source and ask for a change. It costs nothing to dial an 800 number and sometimes it works.

By contrast, another friend said to me once, "But it's the law. You can't change the law."

Yes, you can. I covered the NC state legislature for years for the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot newspaper and on NC public TV. This gave me the opportunity to see that laws are made up, just like fiction except that lawmaking is done by committees. In this country, we elect the committees, and we can go talk to them. See: "How to Lobby a Bill into Law." It's a lot of work, but it can be done. Realizing that is a reminder of how many other things are also possible.




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Creating for a New Generation

Since posting about star designer Philippe Starck, I learned that he gave one of those famous TED speeches, where you give the talk of your lifetime in 18 minutes: a great concept and a great series.

So I went to listen to Starck's TED talk. A little frustrating, a lot inspiring. This man looks at the truly big picture in order to design the humblest objects (he has also designed some pretty grand ones.)

To design a toothbrush, he says, you have to think of the mouth and the species the mouth belongs to. And that subject took him back to the origins of life about 4 billion years ago. The bacteria back then had no idea what we would be like today. "Today we have no idea what we'll be in 4 billion years....Every generation thinks he's the final one."

But we're not the final one, and we're still evolving. So, the job of each of us is "to be a good mutant," and help to create the tools that the next generation will need to do their best for those who succeed them. That's what keeps him working, he says, even when he's designing something as lowly as a toilet brush.

It seems to me that that kind of thinking can take the pressure off. If what I'm doing is just taking the next step, then I'm simply playing my part in a group effort. Starck says that we don't have to be geniuses, we just have to participate.






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One Brave Flower

This year's crop of irises at my house turned out to be a total of one. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, whether it's the increasing shade, the fact that the rhizomes are buried in periwinkles or the wrong fertilizer, but my once lush iris patch has pretty much given up. (And I have divided them!)

Still, this year there is the one bold yellow iris that has the spunk to stand alone.

I just googled this iris and the website I read said it's a pest and told how to get rid of it. I don't need help with making things not grow. I say: celebrate this hardy individual.







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Your Formula for Creativity

The astonishing designer Philippe Starck told Fast Company magazine his formula for creativity: "Every morning, take royal jelly and omega-3 oil, eat oysters, and have a good sexual life. Don't care about anything, and never listen to anybody. Be free."

Do you have a formula for creativity? Mine is show up and write. But I've yet to reach the Starck level of success. Maybe I should rethink.

(Royal jelly is produced by the salivary glands of worker bees and fed to up-and-coming queen bees.)






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The Puppy Portrait

The puppy-in-the-garden-with-Bob portrait is a tradition at my house. I've taken a picture of Bob holding each subsequent pup, but we waited too late to shoot this one.

Aura at 5-ish months weighs about 75 pounds. She may look uncomfortable, but she was fine. Bob, on the other hand, says he's not hoisting any more dogs this size.

Aura will weigh in at about 140 when she's grown. It takes a bold dog person to take on a dog this size. And he already has another mastiff type dog who outweighs me. It's a team of canine Clydesdales.







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Sunlight Shining Through Cobalt blue

Simply because my new novel is called "Cobalt Blue" and I'm in a novel-aggrandizing mood...



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Launch Your Own Adventure

It's Friday, day of the planet Venus, the Roman goddess of love. It's spring. The weather is gorgeous, at least here in Raleigh. So think of a good adventure to launch, large or small, to celebrate the day and the season. (The beauty bush at the edge of my woodland garden is celebrating.)



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Godwinks

I never heard the term before yesterday, but now I'm completely charmed by the idea. "Godwinks" (on Beliefnet.com) encourage courage. How could they not?



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Live at "Dancing Like the Stars"

On Sunday afternoon, Ruth Sheehan, one of my intrepid sisters-in-law, engaged in a public dance competition at the N.C. State Fairgrounds on behalf of children with special needs and the honor of the newspaper industry. She and her dance partner won!

That's her in the pink sequins, as photographed on my phone by her nine year old son Tucker who was sitting beside me at Dancing Like The Stars. She's dancing with Dick Hensley, a dance instructor who performed in the movie Dirty Dancing.

Ruth is a columnist at Raleigh's News & Observer, and she was competing against TV people (accustomed to performing in person). Each of the media contestants had a professional dance partner who rehearsed with her/him for six weeks. Then they all got dolled up like those on the TV show, "Dancing With the Stars" and each couple danced for the live audience.

People could vote on-line, after watching a video of a rehearsal, or at the performance. Votes cost $10 for the first and $1 for any additional. The money went to the Bubel/Aiken Foundation, for programs that promote inclusion of kids with special needs. The show was emceed by Clay Aiken's mother, Faye Parker. (Clay's from here in Raleigh.)

Ruth and Dick got the most votes. No way could a devout newspaper person let a broadcaster win. Never mind that one of them was a former Washington Redskins cheerleader and Ruth has long been known for bumping into doorjambs and the edges of things. But you can't beat a crusading columnist like her; as one of the judges, a waggish Simon Cowell wannabe, said: Ruth, your dancing, like your column was all over the place and leaning a little to the left.

I don't know how much money the children's foundation took in, but I'm guessing it was a fair amount. Because the competition was seriously bold. One 6'5" sportscaster did "the worm" across the stage and jumped over his partner. The dancers went all out, and what a lot of fun it was.... There's nothing like getting fiercely competitive and bold in pink sequins--and for a good cause.




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Dancing Like The Stars

The dancer in pink took action beyond-bold for a good cause on Sunday. More to come on this story tomorrow.




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Never Shake a Baby

Seems like it's either Pickle Day or Fork Lift Operator Month or some such, every time the calendar page turns over.

This month is one we might take notice of: National Child Abuse Prevention Month. Here's something you can do in observance that is so easy it barely counts as bold. But it's important: Go to the site of the Child Abuse Prevention Center and take the Never-Shake-A-Baby pledge, on the right below the kiddo with enormous eyes and a pacifier. Raising awareness of the danger will help to educate and pacify babysitters and parents who have run out of patience.

Here are a few other actions you can take. Intervening in child abuse is truly bold.



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Raising Children Who Shine

"I want their lives to always feel full and purpose-driven. I want to watch them as they continue to sprout new feathers on their wings and as they share their gifts with the world." From the blog of regular contributor Debbie, who writes about her "four angel daughters."

You have to see the photos of "Little Miss Fierce," Angel Daughter Number Four dancing hip-hop. They're as good as hearing the beat of the music itself. You'll want to dance to your own lively beat.

And don't miss what their momma has to say. On an earlier post, she talks about the kind of encouragement she received:

"My dad is a tough man, but he is also an incredible cheerleader. In so many ways, I am who I am because of him. A realist who chooses to believe that we can all do great things.

Strive to do something great. Not perfect, just fantastic."




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Stand By Someone

Take some inspiration from street musicians around the world who "Play for Change." Listen to "Stand By Me." Click on the big screen-filling picture of Grandpa Elliott in New Orleans.



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Small Changes in Routine

Blogging outdoors in my bathrobe, sitting in my car in our driveway, where reception is better than inside. The air is room-temp, so I've left the car door open; birds are happily chirtling in the trees, nice liquid-y sounds. A horse fly madly buzzs against the inside of windshield, trying to get out.

Even small changes in routine are great for the creativity and sense of adventure: I've gotten a lot of pretty good work done this morning. Now off to the writers' group I've been meeting with for 26 years: some good things to be said for routine as well.



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"Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood..."

Today I'm in the particular swivet known as "Which Should I Work On?". I'm talking about my own writing, not clients' projects which follow a more easily-decided schedule. I have two unfinished projects of my own (more than that actually, but two that are extremely timely) and last night at dinner with another novelist I got great encouragement to focus on the one I hadn't been thinking about lately.

"Do you know how much money you can get for a YA paranormal romance these days?" she said. She described this time as the "golden age" of Young Adult books. I happen to have a draft of such a novel.

So after dinner I went searching round the house for it. Found it in only the second room I tried. It was under the guest room bed. The colleague I had lunch with today responded to this story with, "Talk about hiding money under the mattress."

We'll see.

I started reading my old draft last night, thought it pretty good, though I know it's going to need a stronger ending. This afternoon my ambition is to make good progress on some book or another, and not fritter too much of my time asking myself which one.



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Anger Strategy

How does one boldly handle irritability that arises for no particular reason or at least has nothing to do with the innocents who cross one's path?

I have an idea that total withholding of the snappishness that longs to surface isn't good for the relationships. But neither is the full-strength snapping.

Intellectually I know that the right thing is to say: I'm in an irritable mood. Then the other person can proceed forewarned. But that doesn't feel particularly satisfying. In fact, the prospect annoys me more.

Exercise is always good, gardening in particular. But I need to work just now.

Looking out my office window to the deck of the house door next has possibilities. The 46 year-old woman who lived there died two weeks ago of pancreatic cancer. As I sit here, that approach is starting to work.



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Let Your Mind Rock and Roll

Today I'm fulminating primarily on the Mystic-Lit blog. The title is "The Greasy Elements Approach to Writing." Doesn't that title entice you?

The basic idea is to improve creativity by visually dislodging and breaking up the frozen clusters of words and images so that they interact in new ways. Doing Word Jumbles is my laboratory for this technique.

While you're over at Mystic Lit, do check out some of the other essays on writing. A lot of interesting writers have contributed there, including Greta James who is a regular visitor here.



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An Experiment to Try

One day my husband was at our house when the woman who cleans for us every other Thursday arrived. She does a superb job, and so often adds special personal touches.

Bob inquired about her way of going about her work that led to such results. She said her approach is to "do it with love."

Try that for a bold experiment: try doing today's work or some routine task with love.

Any interesting results?





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Win a Sister India and Turn Up the Music

...by supporting the Brussels Chamber Orchestra's visit to North Carolina this summer.

This is one bold project that is being launched from the office next to mine.

First an intro: The BCO is a group of 12 remarkable twenty-something musicians from 6 countries, based in Brussels, Belgium. Playing without a conductor, they are a marvel to watch as well as to listen to. Their first concert during the upcoming Raleigh visit will be on July 2 at Burning Coal Theatre, when they'll perform Vivaldi's Four Seasons

The group gets around; they have toured in Japan, Mexico, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, etc., and played for royals. Next week they're on in Venice.

Here's the NC connection: my office partner, writer-and-artist Carrie Knowles is the mother of BCO violist Neil Leiter. She raised the money last year for the group's first performance in Raleigh (they were originally coming to this country for the first time to perform in a festival in the Hamptons.) In North Carolina, their concerts were well-attended and well-reviewed.

Carrie is turning the Raleigh event into an international music festival called Cross Currents And she's doing it, slowly but successfully, during this on-the-way-out recession.

To encourage this valuable, large, and bold undertaking, I will send an inscribed (to whomever you wish) copy of my novel Sister India to the first person and the 20th person to send a check of any size to support this project. Make it out to Friends of Brussels Chamber Orchestra. And send it to: Carrie Knowles, Brussels Chamber Orchestra, 410 Morson St., Raleigh, NC 27601. Contributions are tax-deductible

Many thanks!






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Courage Within a Group

How to encourage courage is a field of research that surely has potential for enormous impact on the world, and on individual lives. I just ran across some interesting findings on the Leading With Lift blog on "Where is the Courage in Organizations." As a nearly-lifelong freelancer who comes from a family of DIY-ers, I've often felt that organizations actively discourage courage: policies and systems make speedy action and change of course harder than they are for an individual.

But this study by Ryan Quinn and Monica Worline comes up with a couple of ideas that in the abstract seem like no-brainers, yet as I looked at the applications, I could see tremendous possibilities. For people within a team to be more courageous, it's important to:
*have good relationships with other people inside and outside the organization
*have information that argues for their action being brave rather than foolhardy.

An example: brave people who crashed their own flight on 9/11 first talked with family members by cell phone. They knew from those people on the ground what their situation was, and they had their relationships to help them bear up.

Even working alone, I find that making a call like that helps me. An embarrassingly petty example: when I sat down to write my first assignment for Travel & Leisure magazine, I called my friend novelist and screenwriter Randee Russell, who said: you can do it. Then I put on fresh lipstick, called her back again and reported this progress. She said again: you can do it. Then I did.






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Red Hair, Blue Jello: Are You Hungry or Tired?

Monday afternoon and night, I was very tired. So I ate a lot. Not exactly logical or a solution to the problem, but overeating felt like the right thing to do.

I've long known that a gutsy move would be to learn how to figure out which bell is ringing and answer that one: i.e., sleep when I'm tired, eat when I'm hungry, that sort of thing.

Instead what happens is, if I feel a shortage of any of the basics, the solution seems to be to do anything that feels good. At another moment this week when I was impatient to get an email that hadn't arrived, I bid on a pair of gold driving loafers on Ebay. And years ago, when I'd been waiting for months for a visa to spend a winter in India researching my novel, I dealt with the problem by putting a very red rinse on my hair.

So this morning, I googled "needs confusion." What I mostly found had a punctuation mark in between: "...needs. Confusion..." I did learn some interesting facts: that blue food is a natural hunger suppressant. (I should tell this to the folks who run my regular lunch spot, the K&W cafeteria, who frequently have blue Jello in the salad section at the front of the line.) I also learned that others have failed to find an easy solution. From the blue-Jello blog: "It would have been helpful to receive a user manual with your body. I would have settled for one page, hand written or even just an outline."

The answer seems to be:
*pay attention to the signals.
*And then, the tricky part: do something relevant to the actual problem or lack. That takes discipline, which is one of the often-unrecognized and very important pieces of serious and effective boldness. I like the leaping component better.

There's also a parallel problem to this needs-confusion that I run across fairly regularly: when work has to be finished on deadline, I sometimes vigorously set to work at breakfingers-speed on something else. As if some free-floating sense of urgency were all that was needed. More on this one later.





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Britain's Got Talent and So Do You

Want to see a thrilling eruption of talent, to watch someone boldly and delightedly living and enjoying her big dream?

Go hear Susan Boyle sing. It's a moment of glory on Britain's Got Talent. It even warmed the heart of Simon Cowell. Very moving and inspiring. It'll make you want to cheerfully belt out your song, whatever it is.




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Family Holiday Dinner

Easter was at my house yesterday. Relatives drove three hours each way to eat lunch with us. Since I'm famously not a cook, expectations were low on their side and anticipatory tension notable on mine.

I served heated up take-out from a Whole Foods grocery, and Husband Bob, who is more of a cook than I, supervised the heating up.

It turned out great. People ate like sawmill workers, and asked where to buy the frizzled beans, (no kidding, that's their real name.)

I've decided to change from viewing myself as a non-cook, to being a great take-out shopper. It puts a whole new light on the process.



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Turkey Town

The pig spa that I wrote about here a couple of weeks ago has been rivaled in real life.

A travel story in my local paper had turned out to be an April Fool’s trick on us readers. I believed it—and then posted here about the bold deception. The story described an inn where the happy guest can pat pigs, eat a pork diet, and have beauty treatments involving bacon fat.

So yesterday I was flipping through an old Guideposts magazine and came upon: Cornwell’s Turkeyville! This time the place is for real.

On a patch of farmland north of Marshall, Michigan, is a destination dedicated to pleasures provided by the turkey. In addition to the restaurant that cooks 20,000 birds a year, there’s a dinner theatre, an ice cream parlor offering Turkey Trax ice cream, a gift shop, a playground, and a turkey pen. Writer Mary Lou Carney noted some of the kinds of turkey sandwiches available, including buttered turkey, turkey salad, sloppy tom, smoked turkey. Or you could dig into turkey stir fry.

The only thing missing here was a turkey skin conditioner. At least it wasn’t noted in the article.

My point (aside from wonderment at the existence of such a place): If turkey’s your thing, don’t hold back. If you want to build a pig spa, do it. No joke. The world may very well beat a path to your door.





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Dealing with Bad Publicity

A fellow I know just got a blast of highly personal, heavily negative national publicity. It's the kind of scrutiny of a person that borders on inhuman, every aspect of his life touched on.

It must take big-time courage to show up at work, at lunch, at the gym, or wherever, after that kind of exposure. I'm not even going to say who or where the article was, so as not to further spread the stories. The fact that the writer said some good things doesn't really help a lot; it gives an air of credibility and balance and makes the watching of the man seem more unrelenting.

Unless you've sponsored a genocide, or at least committed a crime, I don't think this kind of treatment is warranted. Some arguable business decisions don't merit such an attack.

And I am someone who has spent decades as a reporter writing for magazines and newspapers, and who relishes reading the trashiest of gossip publications. So maybe I have a double standard for people I know and like. Or maybe I have a double standard for movie stars and other people. Likely both are true. Even so, this particularly brutal extreme close-up shocks me. I wouldn't want my own life treated this way. There aren't many people, if any, who'd look spotless in that kind of light.

Again: the guy is super-bold to keep showing up and making the effort.



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Singing a Song from the Unconscious

Skiing on a glacier in Austria some years ago on slopes (catwalks) far beyond my ability, I realized that I had been humming the same tune over and over all day. When I finally noticed I was doing it, I immediately recognized it: "Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf?"

It was true that I'd been scared--from mild to wild--all day. This was back in my mostly-travel-writing days when I made a long-running specialty of writing ski stories for beginners and bad skiers. It tickled me that I was unconsciously singing the message from myself that I was trying to ignore.

Since then, I've realized many times that I was mindlessly humming something that was terribly appropriate to the moment: "I've Got a Never-Ending Love For You," and "Release Me" (think Engelbert Humperdinck), for example.

Yesterday, I noted that I'd been humming all day. What was the tune? "This Little Light of Mine, I'm Going to Let It Shine." What could be more appropriate for a writer's theme song?

So what's your theme song today?

Could be it would work better to pick one, instead of letting the song pick me. But even when the song simply arises, it's useful information, always good to know what I'm feeling.




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College Admissions Mistakes

A guy I know is in the midst of his first personal encounter with injustice. He's a superbly accomplished and bright student and he didn't get into the schools he wanted. College admissions problems have happened to quite a number of excellent students this year.

It's not fair. He's right about that.

And he's angry. Which is healthy, of course. As long as that dies down and he replaces it with vigorous action to make the most of the situation he has now.

It's not easy to be heroic when the difficulty is not life-and-death, but instead disappointment and having to plow on anyway. Plowing on doesn't get the kind of credit and appreciation that it's due.

I've often thought that so-called "loss of innocence" has nothing to do with sex or with seeing the seamy side of life. It comes from personal experience of something going wrong that can't be fixed. When that happens, it becomes necessary to take a new road. And after that, one is more watchful, less reflexively sure that things will turn out "right."

I wish the guy had gotten into the schools he wanted. I hope he will gather the courage to design his own new road and make the most of his new knowledge.


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The Solitary Freelance Writer

Have I mentioned? On the morning of April 18, I'll be giving the keynote for the Triangle Area Freelancers conference on "Seven Secrets of Freelancing I Wish I'd Known from the Start." If you're in central North Carolina, I hope you'll come. I also wish there had been a TAF years ago when I was getting started in magazines and newspapers.

I remember when the feeling of solitude started to feel heavy at some point in the second half of my first year. I decided that maybe going out to lunch would help, but couldn't find anybody loose to join me that day. So I went by myself to a semi-hip restaurant where they had booths placed in odd settings within the restaurant. Mine, as it happened, was in a jail cell. So I sat there by myself looking through actual bars.

Nobody needs networking more than writers, for information, contacts, and mental health.



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Garrison Keillor Gets Sexy

The ever-cheeky Garrison Keillor of Prairie Home Companion set a new standard for home-spun boldness Saturday. If you missed it, do go listen to his song "Fatherhood", a bebopping rendition of the heroic journey of a sperm. It's in Segment 3, just after "Bailout Boogie."

(I'd offer a sample of those daring lines, but ever since I paid for the right to quote from "Puff the Magic Dragon" in my first novel Revelation, I've been careful to stay out of song lyrics.)




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Unhappy Puppy

While I was planting verbena this afternoon, our new puppy Aura had her first encounter with the electric fence of her little corral. I'd never been around when such a thing happened and I was almost as upset as she was.

She yowled, then ran, but wasn't sure where to run. Didn't know what was safe.

I couldn't stand it. I got her out of there and spent the rest of my gardening time trying to stop her from walking on the columbine and eating the daffodil fronds.

I don't know whether I'm too soft-hearted to train a dog or a child, or simply too squeamish: unwilling to suffer myself in seeing them hurt.

I do know that Aura, shocked, dramatically illustrated how all kinds of creatures tend to behave after a broadside. Not sure what to trust, desperate to avoid further hurt. It's hard at such moments -- takes boldness -- to figure out what caused the pain and not blame it on any and every thing in sight.




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The Snake in My Head

A garter snake is on the list of entities I've always thought of as ridiculously harmless. Like dandelions, cotton candy, soap bubbles, toads, puppies, primary colors, large print, milkshakes, and the board game Candyland.

So today I was weeding the periwinkle and startled a two-and-a-half foot striped snake sunning his/herself on the ledge at the back of the bed. I jumped back. The snake fell still, head raised in my direction. I yelled for Bob. He came out and told me it was not a copperhead at all, instead a garter snake. First time I realized I'd never seen one. It didn't look like bubbles or cotton candy at all. More like, say, a pygmy rattler. But I let him/her alone and went back to my gardening -- at a little distance. Next time I looked the snake was gone.

I didn't want to make a pet of the creature, but neither did I have any sense of lingering alarm. Hours later near dusk, I grabbed a handful of weeds and dead leaves that squirmed in my hand. I gasped and tossed it, then discovered that the live thing was a toad that was hopping away from me at top toad speed.

What interests most me about all this is that the mini-burst of adrenaline on grabbing the toad probably would not have happened it not been for the earlier moment of alarm over the snake. Without even realizing it, I was expecting to stumble onto trouble.

This secondary reaction made me wonder what other and larger ways I may have conditioned myself to unnecessary wariness.




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The Courage to Relax

The ability to relax is underrated as an act of courage. I tend to have tense shoulders all the time. And I've just now come from the dentist where I tend to turn into a 5 foot 8 inch steel plank. A snootful of nitrous helps, but still I can be fairly tense.

Somehow tight muscles feel like the proper state of readiness for everything, good or bad. Never mind that I almost never resort to a physical solution to problems. I don't actually engage in fight or flight. Instead, I ponder, revise, negotiate, think, chat. These activities don't require the muscle tone of a shark.

Nevertheless, the habit persists. This morning at my dentist's I made a point of using not just the nitrous but as much muscle-loosening as I could muster. I made my hands feel heavy. It felt good.

And I have an idea I could probably think better with loose muscles. If you happen to have any studies or experiences that demonstrate that, I'd love to know. I fear it's going to take all the king's horses to get my shoulders to move to a different position on a regular basis.





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Pig Spa

I'm ever scanning the world for sterling examples of boldness to report on, and I found some true moxie yesterday in my local News & Observer.

The story by Kathleen Purvis was about Hog Heaven, an inn and spa devoted to an appreciation of pork. "'I figured if California could have the Napa Valley, maybe it was time for the South to celebrate what makes us truly happy,'" owner Sue Trotter says. "'And no place appreciates bacon like the South.'"

This North Carolina mini-resort doesn't stop with a pork-heavy menu and opportunities to spend time with the cute little piglets: "...You can relax under a cooling raw-bacon eye mask while you get a facial with high-quality leaf lard, prized for its antioxidant content."

I was worrying a bit about how comfortable it would be to eat pork while patting a pig; especially since I liked the hogs that wandered the streets near where I lived in India, found them surprisingly personable. And then of course I came to the final punch line: April Fool's Day. I'd been completely suckered up to that very last sentence.

What was bold was that story. And the photograph that went with it.





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The Confident Camel

I picked out this camel pin (for Husband Bob to give me) just because I liked it. Probably also at the back of my mind was the fact that when I was a kid my mother smoked three packs a day of unfiltered Camels and I have good memories of the image.
I also think my camel is an excellent reminder of persistence and steady long haul effort. The camel tends to get where she's going. She also knows her worth; if you've ever been around camels (as I was now and again in India), then you know there's no loftier manner in the animal queendom.

So I've been wearing her image on a pocketbook, the equivalent of heart-on-sleeve for visibility. I like the combo of confident persistence and regal bearing. And as you can see, my camel is smokin'!!!




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My Polka-Dot Woodland Semi-Shade Garden

By popular request (Regular Contributor Debbie Whaley suggested it), I've posted here a few of the bold blossoms around my house. They're bold to peep out because we live in woodland amongst herds of deer and large swathes of shade and voles and other diggers, including something that can only be the Tunneling Yeti. And I tend to plant what I want even if it would like more sun, (these pics are prior to the arrival of the summer leaves.) My strategy yields a few courageous blooms that are much-appreciated. They're all the more admirable for venturing out under such adverse circumstances.










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Blount Wisdom on the Economy

The hilarious and wise Roy Blount, Jr. writes a don't-miss column in the Authors Guild Bulletin (he's president of that group.) His most recent entry is about the economy and writers. It applies to more people than writers.

"Look. It was imprudent of us, in the first place, to become authors....For 33 years I have been a freelance writer, literally never knowing where my next dollar is coming from, even when I knew from whence it was supposed to have come three or four months ago....But I know this: Authors have been scared before, and not deterred."

That's the key strategy idea here: "NOT DETERRED." And that definitely applies to all of us.



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