A Writer's Platform

I've just discovered a book I'm wildly excited about: Get Known Before the Book Deal: Use Your Personal Strengths to Grow an Author Platform.

This addresses what seems to be a Catch-22 for a lot of writers at various career stages: the current need to be semi-famous in your field to help an agent sell the book. The author has to bring ever more to the table in the way of a waiting audience.

This book is the best thinking I've seen on the subject of how to do it. And it's aimed at both fiction and nonfiction, extrovert and introvert. You don't have to be techie to understand it. And it doesn't make me feel bad, as some experts do, that I haven't done all the suggested things already.

Author Christina Katz, also known as Writer Mama, has been "Empowering Writers Since 1998."

You'll likely be hearing more about this book from me. Or maybe you'll just see the dazzling results.

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"...There Are Always Difficulties..."

"Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them."
Ralph Waldo Emerson discovered at Wisdom for the Soul

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She Writes

For women writers: a brand-new info, networking, and promotion resource, SheWrites.com has gathered 5 short of 2,000 members in its first two weeks. I joined. I think you might find it inspiring, useful, and one more place to "show your stuff."

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Frost's Freedom

Today's inspiration:

Freedom lies in being bold. ~ Robert Frost

from: Senia.com Positive Psychology Coaching

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Climb Every Mountain?

"When a door opens, walk through it. Trust that the door has opened for a reason and you have been guided to it....Every time we walk through an open door, we create a sense memory that encourages us to move into the new fearlessly. When we enter the new space, we almost always feel a thrill and a new feeling of confidence, in ourselves and in the universe."

From Friday's Daily Om

I'm not so sure about this one. I made a vow years ago to refrain from taking dares; they tend to lead me in the wrong direction.

On the other hand, when a door opens and I feel I might not go through it because of fear, then I force myself. I had some hesitation about taking on co-authorship of The Healing Power of Doing Good. A buddy of mine said to me as we stood in the line at the K&W Cafeteria: "Don't weird out on this." I'm glad I didn't.

What do you think about this walk-through-every-door idea? Am I just taking this too literally? If I pay attention, I can see that doors are opening every day and it's impossible to go through all of them.

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Hot Pink

Hanging over my office building's door this morning.


Even the gentlest pastel can go bold.

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The Courage To Hand Out Hamburgers

I've long thought that the people who work the fast-food drive-through windows are superheroes. They have to take an order at the same time they're delivering another order and making change. If I hadn't seen it a thousand times, I'd swear it was humanly impossible. I think it takes a lot of gumption to take up that kind of juggling at all.

There are a examples everywhere of such everyday courage. Flipping through an old Sun magazine last night, I ran across an essay about the kind of emotional fuel such work requires.

From "They Always Call You 'Miss'" by Alison Clement:

"There's more to waiting tables than you might think. It takes courage, for one thing. You walk up to a table, and everyone turns to look at you, as if you're about to deliver the opening line of a play....You have to act as if you know what you're doing and everything is going according to a plan....You have to remember: Gin and tonic to table 8; man at 12 is late for a meeting; nut allergy on 5. You have to remember it all and not get overwhelmed."

If I start to feel down on human nature, I think about the ordinary things that people muster the courage to do every day.

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Courage Quote

Offered by Mamie, the Quote Queen:

The highest courage is to dare to appear to be what one is.
- John Lancaster Spalding, First Bishop of Peoria, 1840-1916.

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The Many Brands of Courage

What's bold for one person is routine for another. We all know that, but I find it so easy to forget--until once again I see someone confidently run a multi-team project that would make me want to retire to a quiet room like a rock singer with exhaustion. Or until I see someone quaking over something I don't blink at--like flying or public speaking.

I find it very hard to wrap my mind around being worried about flying. No effort is necessary, no getting-it-right. One need only sit there and flip through a magazine. To understand that kind of fear, I need the sharp memory of some of my own kinds of nervousness: about entertaining, or being a house guest, or steering someone wrong somehow. Those are stupid fears, the first two anyway.

We all manage to do and finally enjoy things we're scared of. It's a triumph we ought to give ourselves credit for. And it's a marvel and a delight how differently we're each put together.

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Gavriel Lipkind, Carrie Knowles, and the B.C.O.

I don't know how to say this properly, because I know so little about classical music. I'm a fan of hip-hop and old rock and roll. I play the serious stuff mainly as background while I'm reading, and go to classical concerts mainly to get dressed up and go out on the town with friends and sit under nice chandeliers and listen to pretty music that I don't usually recognize.

But last night I went to a concert that was extraordinary. Even for a clunk like me.

Israeli cellist Gavriel Lipkind played with the Brussels Chamber Orchestra (of Belgium) in Raleigh in the official opening night of the Cross Currents Chamber Music Arts Festival, an international chamber music festival created and put on single-handedly by my friend and office partner Carrie Knowles whose son Neil Leiter plays viola in the Brussels group.

For most of the last year, Carrie has sat in the office next to mine and raised money and gotten visas and such and made this ten-day festival happen. What she has done is an amazing demonstration of what one person can accomplish (in spite of my telling her repeatedly and unhelpfully that she was mad to attempt such a thing. Just watching the process from next door was like having an office next to a heliport)

Well, the Brussels Chamber Orchestra, a conductor-free group of a dozen or so young musicians from half a dozen countries, played beautifully and were intriguing to watch. Then they brought out their soloist, Lipkind, whom I'd had no special interest in because I was mainly listening for Neil whom I've known since he was a wee fellow. The Belgium-based musicians had met the Israeli cellist in Norway.

Lipkind and the BCO together were an astonishing treat. And at intermission, I caught sight of Mamie, a regular here, who called out: I'm looking forward to reading about how bold he is.

I hadn't even thought about writing of the experience. Sitting on the second row, I was too overwhelmed. Lipkind, in a black "bat" shirt and long gold curls, is the most physically expressive, playful, and joyous musician I've ever seen. It's not reaching for a metaphor to say that he was making love to the music.

I can't tell you a thing about his or anyone's pizzicati (and I'm not sure if that's a word or if it's a word meaning little pasta), but it was thrilling music to watch and to listen to. And the interaction between him and the other musicians was like watching a celestial drama.

Seriously bold. Nobody holding back.

And this group of musicians and Carrie did their job well, at least in my case, since it's part of their mission to bring chamber music to new audiences.

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An Annual Celebration of Courage

The Fourth of July is a celebration of boldness. From one year to the next, I forget that it’s more than a day that the mail doesn’t come, more than a day of vacation. (Though I’m self-employed, I generally loaf on the same days the rest of my world does.)

But yesterday both Prairie Home Companion and the celebration on the Mall in D.C. stirred once again my pride in the best of the U.S., and that includes having shaken loose to become an independent nation. It took some serious and costly shaking to make that happen. Some of my scrappy old relatives were in on it—all but one on the side of Independence (and that one Royalist had to have had a bold streak as well).

This legacy isn’t all good; one of the same relatives led a company of soldiers that destroyed several Native American villages.

I’ll probably never pick up a musket myself—or a handgun. I’m lucky never to have been faced with the decision. A big piece of that “luck” is that others have insured my independence. My responsibility is merely to have the courage to fully—and wisely—use it. Once again, the fireworks and the music remind me.

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Ropes Courses and Such

I have a friend who, with her husband, has raised three exceptional children. One of her philosophies is, instead of giving children toys, to give them "real things." They didn't do skateboards or TV (except for the World Series). But if a kid wanted a banjo, he got a real one, not a baby version. And instead of playing board games of risk, he competed by volunteering in a real political campaign.

I thought of this again when I saw last week in my local paper a story on mountain climbing as a way to develop the goal orientation and other qualities needed to start a business. My philosophy is: skip the mountain challenge (unless you're in it for the fun) and go straight to starting the business.

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"The Man on The Radio in the Red Shoes"

A stirring way to celebrate the bold occasion of Independence Day: Prairie Home Companion's live show tomorrow at 5:00 Central Time in the Wobegon-like town of Avon, Minnesota. The program also celebrates the 35th anniversary of Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home creation, as well as "the birth of freedom," as GK says on the promo on the website. For those who can make their way to Avon, the show is free, as it also is on its regular NPR stations.

And if you're a GK fan, as I am, make sure to see the new documentary on his life: The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes. It aired two night ago on PBS' American Masters series, and you can order the DVD. This portrait shows a bold imagination at work and will at the same time make you feel happy to be American and human.

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Call Your Congressman Monday

An invitation arrived here that's open to anyone who has things to say about improved health insurance coverage:


"Event: National Strike for Health Care Reform

"Put an end to murder by spreadsheet. Demand an alternative to private, for-profit health insurance. Demand public, universal health care coverage."

What: Protest
Host: You -- and as many fellow citizens as you can assemble
Start Time: Monday, July 6 at 8:00am
End Time: Monday, July 6 at 6:00pm
Where: Everywhere in the United States of America

To see more details and RSVP, follow the link below:
http://www.facebook.com/n/?event.php&eid=93893269141&mid=a8e182G4b0e108aG8f29dbG7"

I don't have a detailed plan in mind myself for health care insurance reform. But I know for sure that we need it.

This invitation, as you'll see if you follow the link, suggests staying home from work and buying nothing and calling Congressmen all day.

I disagree, especially in this economy, with the idea of skipping out on a job and boycotting already-endangered retailers.

I do heartily endorse the idea of a nation-wide call-in insisting on reform that makes sure everybody has good affordable health insurance, with coverage that is pro-health rather than a Catch-22 system where, for example, it's impossible to know whether a procedure is covered until it's done.

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Making Waves

Out in my kayak on Jordan Lake on Sunday, I made several dozen efforts to shoot a picture of a wave.

This is not an ocean wave. It's a lake wave on a fairly calm day; mostly it's wake from a motorboat. But up close from a little rubber boat, such waves can look and feel pretty impressive.

Which is how it is with making waves in daily life. Moments of unaccustomed speaking up can seem huge, disruptive. But the water does calm down again.

Water movement in a pond can make life better there; keeps it from getting stagnant.

(Speaking of appearances, the water in this lake is more blue-brown than cerulean most of the time. I didn't see it as this blue when I was taking this picture. And I didn't enhance the color of the photo with my computer. Just a bit of kayaking magic, I guess.)

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Busy Reading Manuscripts

Today's the last day of my Big Bold Sale, after having cut my prices for manuscript critiques by 40% for these past four weeks of June.

Now I'm reading and reading. I'm glad to be doing the work, and it's nice to make a Bold Gesture and get big response. I've met some new writers from both halves of the globe (all English-speaking) and heard from a lot of people I've worked with before.

So now there's the matter of finishing the work itself, which feels not so much bold as step by step by step. That's what often happens, I think, when a Bold Move turns out well.

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Bloom Whereever You're Rolling

I'm fond of cars that are highly personalized, having done shocking things to my own '92 Camry, my "shabby chic" artcar.

Last week, teaching at Meredith, I had the pleasure of parking next to an especially jaunty and charming one. Its owner, writer Beth Browne, bought it with its decorations already attached; however, it seemed to have been designed specifically for her. Imagine every car in a parking lot being a personal work of art. There'd be an ever-changing party in every lot.

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Boldly Catching Up

Just slept 11 hours. The last week, with the five-day, nine-to-three workshop plus a few other things happening and coming due, was intense. When I woke up midday today, I thought: is there anything better than this? the luxury of lying here?

A friend once said that she enjoyed being tired once she gave in to it. I don't at first, because at first it feels like illness. But being well into recovery feels great. And I'll be back to full steam probably late this afternoon when I get out in my little paddle boat. All emails to be returned tomorrow.

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Parting

Saying good-bye makes me nervous. Maybe it's because it's the last chance to have everything said, at least for a while.

Today was the last of my 5-day workshop at Meredith on writing fiction. I've spent 35 hours with this group of writers in the last week, and, inevitably, we talk about some fairly intimate stuff. Writing brings that sort of thing out.

So it feels strange to finish the last lunch and maybe not see some of them again at all. My impulse is to dodge good-bye, grab up my picnic-basket-briefcase and run.

Maybe somewhere there are workshops in saying goodbye. Perfectly reasonable that such a thing would exist. If we can take lessons in leadership and assertiveness and stopping smoking, surely it's possible.

Probably lesson number one is: pause and at least say something before running out the door. I'm happy to say I did boldly manage to do that much.

It's so hard to know what to do with emotion, at least for chatty introverts like me.

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Refreshing Without Relaxing

This week of teaching regular hours is both a break in my usual routines and a much more regimented new routine. The class day runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., with a nice lunch buffet at noon.

Unlike my usual daily arrival at my office, I have to get to the classroom on time, stop for lunch at the assigned time, and then wrap it up at the expected moment. I'm not used to thinking: mustn't be late, or having the pleasure of the sudden school's-out feelig when the class ends. Usually I leave my office between 7 and 8 at night and usually I'm in the middle of something; it's not with a sense of completion that I go.

Also a change, I'm driving to a different location this week, a different set of flowers and stoplights and vistas and traffic bumps.

The brief change even toward stricter routine is refreshing. I'm not one who thinks all change is good, but temporary change can certainly help to clear the haze off the vision. It's worth getting up the energy to make such changes for ourselves.

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Free to Pontificate

Useful talk today in the writing workshop I'm leading this week at Meredith College--useful for me, as it happens. We were talking about writing dialogue, and the vocabulary and sentence construction that makes a person sound authoritative or timid.

I said I use "I think..." too much before making my pronouncements while giving feedback on people's work. What I'm trying to do is not be bossy, which my younger brothers have observed I'm capable of. But I overdo the soft-pedaling. One of the writers in the group said she doesn't need all that I-think kind of preamble.

What a relief to hear someone say that. Now I feel free to be as bossy and commanding/assertive as I want to, since others do know without my telling them that they are free write any way they want.

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Too Revealing? Oh, Well

Second class day at the Meredith Writers Workshop. This afternoon we held the faculty readings. The three of us--poet Betty Adcock, novelist and memoirist Nancy Peacock, and I--all chatted and read for about 15 minutes each to an audience of the combined classes.

I read the opening few pages of my novels Sister India and Revelation and told the group where the idea had come from for each. Well, that's fairly personal. They now know a lot more about me than they did. I often wonder whether I've gone too far, offered Too Much Information. That's probably true for at least a few people in any audience.

But I'm pretty much past actually worrying about it, which is a relief. Because once you start second-guessing what people in an audience think, you're in for a lot of wasted time and energy.

I think a part of why I like public speaking is that trying to do it just right for everybody is so obviously impossible that I don't worry about it and say what I want. It's paradoxically freeing.

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First Day of School

Sylvan setting; bold students.
I'm teaching a one-week fiction-writing class for adults on the summer-lovely campus of Meredith College in Raleigh this week. Today was the first day.

Sometimes people in a newly formed group hang back a little at being among the first to read from their work, or the first to comment on someone else's work.

Not these ten women. They launched in from the first instant, and didn't seem to think anything of it. Promises to be a good week.

Today we talked about plot, what makes a story a story. (Answer: a main character with an urgent problem that has to be resolved in spite of dreadful obstacles, internal and external, by the end of the story. And the problem needs to be one that threatens the character's identity, her sense of who she is.)

I've taught at this annual writing week before, but hadn't planned to do it this summer. And then my friend who was scheduled to teach had to drop out. I dropped in. (Bold of me, yes?)

Tomorrow: developing characters from the inside out. These ten bold women already know a lot about that.

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Getting High School Dropouts to Save the World

Van Jones, described as "a genius from the hood," is founder of an environmental group called Green For All. He is aiming to "'green the ghetto.'" A New Yorker article shows him giving a talk to a group of high school dropouts gathered in a public library.

"'I love Barack Obama,' he said. 'I'd pay money just to shine the brother's shoes. But I'll tell you this. Do you hear me? One man is not going to save us. I don't care who that man is. He's not going to save us.And, in fact, if you want to be real about this--can y'all take it?I'm going to be real with y'all. Not only is Barack Obama not going to be able to save you--you are going to have to save Barack Obama.'"

What he's saying is: help "the brother" save the economy and the planet. He needs you. Everybody needs you. And you can prosper and flourish in the process.

Jones goes on to say: "'The challenge is making this an everybody movement,...that kid on the street corner putting down his handgun, picking up a caulk gun."

I have to say, I'd be happy to shine this brother's shoes, especially if he pulls it off. He's using the energy of support for Obama in people who've rarely cared who the president is to take on global warming, poverty, delinquency, apathy, and crime, all in one swoop. Bold and brilliant!


Addenda: The photo's from my sunset paddle out on NC's Jordan Lake yesterday.

Obama has appointed Jones special advisor for green jobs, enterprise and innovation.

Jones's book is The Green Collar Economy.

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Some Background on Being Bold

I've always hated speeches that start off: "According to Webster's, the word (honor, graduation, success, character, etc.) means..."

However, it does say a lot about a concept to look at where it came from. And after all, a lot of us here do some writing. So here's BOLD from Merriam-Webster:

"Pronunciation:
\ˈbōld\
Function:
adjective
Etymology:
Middle English, from Old English beald; akin to Old High German bald bold
Date:
before 12th century

1 a: fearless before danger : intrepid b: showing or requiring a fearless daring spirit 2: impudent, presumptuous 3obsolete : assured, confident4: sheer, steep 5: adventurous, free (a bold thinker) 6: standing out prominently7: being or set in boldface"

Just reading that definition/history makes me feel like being intrepid and impudent and dressing in medieval clothes. And now that I think about it: the artist Elisabeth Chant whose biography I've been researching for some time spent the last decades of her life wearing medieval-style clothes--and in my then-conservative hometown of Wilmington, NC. That woman was truly bold.

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A Hidden Cost of Chickening Out

"The fascinating thing about self-sabotaging behavior is that it actually takes an enormous amount of energy and mental stress, much more than if you just took the action you wanted or needed to do in the first place. The mental stress of feeling behind or beating yourself up for how a situation in your life could have been better is a lot more work than moving forward with your original plan of action."

From Maureen Keyte of the Spirited Woman.

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How to Stand Waiting for News

A curious thing about waiting: some research I read recently said that people who've recently learned they have cancer are in better shape emotionally and show less physiological sign of stress than those who are waiting to hear their biopsy results.

So when waiting is wearing us down, here's a bold thought: there's no reason to fear, because we're already going through the worst of it. Getting the news, whatever it is, will provide some relief.

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Hair Grows Back: Help with Decision-Making

Just got my every-six-weeks-or-so trim and it made me think of the hesitation many of us have about making radical recreational hair changes.

For decades, I had long straight hair. It was a sort of signature. After a couple of years thinking about it, I got it cut to chin-length; and this was before advancing age might have inspired me to make this move.

One of my buddies kept saying to me back then: "It's just hair. It'll grow back."

This morning I started wondering how many decisions I ponder lengthily actually fall into the no-big-deal-it's-only-hair category, which is to say: have fairly brief consequences even if the choice goes bad.

I remember torment over deciding whether to take another year of French in ninth grade. Definitely a haircut decision. I've seen people go into stall mode over which book to write next. One of the books would have been well underway in the time spent deciding.

On the other hand, my choice of colleges ultimately affected where I would live and who I would marry, among other things.

It's almost never possible to have all the data for a decision.

One small test is to ask: is it just hair? will it grow back?

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Marketing Art

Bold self-expression can be even more satisfying when you're able to make a living at it: that way you can do it full-time, and get it out into the world.

Jackie Battenfield is an expert on how visual artists can do that. Writers and other artists can learn from her as well; I've attended a couple of her classes and found her thinking inspiring and her suggestions specific and useful--and applicable to what I'm doing as a writer.

Now she has a book out: The Artist's Guide: How to Make a Living Doing What You Love. She knows what she's writing about. She has been a self-supporting painter for over 20 years, and launched her career visiting Washington galleries with newborn in tow.

You might also have a look at Jackie Battenfield's art. I particularly like her Water Series.

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Bold Proposition

I just made a daring offer to an eminent institution of higher learning. I won't burden you with the details just now. But I'm feeling very pleased with my ingenuity, resourcefulness, and daring. There's satisfaction in coming up with and presenting a bold idea, whether it works out or not.

I remember when I was an undergrad at Duke, I wrote a letter to the local Durham Herald, offering to write editorials for them for $10 apiece. I pointed out that during my summer as an intern at Star-News in my hometown of Wilmington, I'd written editorials and received a $5 bonus for each one that was published; and they'd published a stack of them, including my wisdom on the Kennedy-Kopechne-Chappaquiddick situation. (I was against it.)

The Durham editor didn't take me up on my offer, but wrote me a most charming letter. Now the head of that paper is a guy who graduated in my class and started work at the same time I did at The Raleigh Times. A lot of newspapers have rolled out between then and now. I still cherish the memory of that offer I made back then, as much as I do other little adventures that did work out.

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Dare to Unwind: It's a Summery Thing to Do

From the Daily Om, "Tied in Knots":

"We don’t have to tie ourselves in knots. Instead, we can let the ribbons of our energy unfurl to gracefully direct us...."

I think that probably means: go swimming. Which I did in the ocean at Wrightsville Beach, NC, on Saturday. Bright sun, low tide with big waves breaking close to shore and a current running parallel with the beach. Briefly chilly, then blissful, with wonderful ocean sand underfoot. I could feel my ribbons of energy unfurling....

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A Morning Sabbatical

Self-employment is supposed to offer the advantage of setting one's own hours. In practice, most of us work a lot more hours than we would on a job.

This morning, however, I went hog-wild; stayed home and picked up around the house and did a summer's worth of ironing, etc. You might not view that as the boldest move; but boldness is relative. For me, it was an adventure. And I'm now feeling quite satisfied and accomplished.

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A Technique for Freeing the Imagination

This is a rerun of a guest post I did a while back for Mystic-Lit:


Writing or practice of any art form—or, for that matter, any kind of problem-solving—relies heavily on one intermediate skill: Greasing the Elements.

I realized this while doing the Word Jumbles in my local News & Observer. As you probably know, these puzzles are scrambled letters that must be unscrambled to make a word.

The hardest way to do a Word Jumble is to sit and think hard in a methodical way. That is finally effective and so it’s my fallback strategy, but it’s the slow laborious route: the number 3 way.

The quickest method (number 1) is when the word magically leaps out of the jumble at first glance. That works with both art and word puzzles. The answer simply appears. With fiction, these pop-up ideas usually pop out of prepared ground: I’ve worked on the scene, then put it aside and done something physical like driving or gardening, organizing objects or taking a shower. Then the ideas burst forth.

But of course that doesn’t always happen. So there’s number 2, the middle way, the Greasy Elements method, halfway between magic and hard labor. Using this technique with a Word Jumble, I view the five or six letters as big detached forms, each about six feet high. Pale green and translucent, as it happens, but that’s not so important. What’s important is that they’re slippery and wobbly. They slip and slide all over each other until they come to rest in the right order. Takes a minute longer than magic but is faster and more effective than say trying out each letter as Letter One and so on….

So in writing fiction, it works the same way. Let the elements of a scene—the people and place and circumstances slip and slide all over each other until they click into place on the page.

Remember the movie Apollo 13? Tom Hanks and crew were up in the spacecraft and something went wrong, and he radioed in an unforgettable tone of totally-controlled emotion: “Houston, we have a problem.”

What happened then on the ground was that the head guy threw together in a pile all the physical elements that the astronauts had available to them in their cabin. Engineers gathered around that pile of stuff and started fitting pieces together in different combos. They pulled together the gizmo that was needed and just in the nick of time, and were able to tell the characters in the air what to do.

That’s how it works with objects. With words and ideas, it’s the same: you throw the elements in a heap and see how things act on each other and combine and recombine. It's amazing what energy they carry.

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Just Do It?

"Just Do It" is a popular piece of advice (as well as a great advertising catch phrase.) And it has value. It can cut through a lot of inner garbage and unnecessary preliminary hurdles.

It's also true that saying "just" does not make a difficult thing into "a snap" that takes no time or effort at all.

I've been counseled to "just get up and ski," as if "just" alone would keep me upright and instantly able to advance beyond snowplow technique, never mind the icy conditions and stinging sleet.

I've been told that all I have to do is "just sit down and write it," when what the guy wanted was for me to turn a talk I'd given into a paper for his journal for free.

I've been advised to just get a fellowship to finish a book. Well, I've managed to get a number of fellowships, and each one has taken quite a few days of work and then months or years of waiting. Sometimes it has taken being rejected a number of times before getting the award. Some plums I've gone after continue to resist me. I've been told in advance that I don't have the proper academic credentials and that my project doesn't match their parameters. Once, after massive effort and long wait, I was put on an a waiting list, but no one dropped out, and so I reapplied and won on my second try the following year. I did finally get there, but it wasn't a matter of "just" filling out a few forms.

Probably you too have been told to just relax, just tell so-and-so what's-what, just stop thinking so much, just get a master's degree, have another baby, and get a grip.

"Just" can cut through the procrastination and rationalizing. After that, it helps to apply strategy, effort, patience, hope, and the courage it sometimes takes to keep going. It helps to know in advance that it's not always "just" a "piece of cake" and easy as pie. It's also important to give ourselves proper credit for our work along the way.

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Bold Contrast

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Hydrangea with Pumpkin Leaves

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Point of View

As any writer of fiction knows, a moment can look radically different from each different point of view.

Here's my little-rubber-kayak level point of view of a "flat" lake.

Big paddle.

Tiny sailboat.

Significant-sized waves.

I like this particular viewpoint very much. But any time the view's not good, we likely have some option to stand at a slightly different place.

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Boldness Is Also in the Details

A great deal of what we do every day can have more meaning and pleasure if we do it in an imaginative, thoughtful, bold way.

Even, for example, a catalog of the most ordinary categories of products can be a delight. Check out the site for the Dutch company Hema. Chill out, breathe, and relax for the few seconds it takes to get rolling.

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Bold One-Woman Business Idea

A photographer I know, Artie Dixon, is offering her beautiful second home in the North Carolina mountains for week-long vacations for girlfriends--with tour guide to the sites of the area. So no maps, planning, or GPS is required.

The art-filled 1939 house in Little Switzerland is called Sky Blue, and its stone patio opens onto wide mountain vistas.

Three upcoming weeks have themes: Mountain Crafts, Greek Cooking (Artie's maiden name was Markatos), and Learning Photography. The area also has much to see and do: Penland School of Crafts, riding, hiking, waterfalls, the very groovy town of Asheville, Blue Ridge Parkway, the nearby mountain village.

The house is available for conventional rentals. But planned themed weeks with guide is a new twist. I like the idea and the enterprise involved.

It reminds me of my businessman father who turned his own outgrown tuxedos into a formal wear rental business that eventually wholesaled throughout the Southeast.

The questions to ask oneself in order to do something similar are:

*what do I have?
*what do I know?
*what can I offer?
*what do I have to offer that others need?

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Thanks!

My first-ever Big Bold Sale on my critiquing services, announced here three days ago, is getting a terrific and very gratifying response: lots of writers I haven't worked with before, some interesting and talented and quick-to-take-action folks from all over the country, have been touch.

Not every bold experiment works out well, as we all know. If they all did, there wouldn't be any risk or boldness involved.

So it's very gratifying when it goes well. And it encourages the next venture. Makes me want to try something truly daring, riding the momentum.

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Feel Fantastic

The new July issue of Success Magazine (the one with "GO FOR BOLD" in orange type on the cover) has a simple, effective idea in its list of action items on the last page.

Essentially it's this: in planning your day, identify the action that would make you feel fantastic to get done today. Do that first.

If you give it a shot, or already have experience with this, please let us know how it works for you.

I've sometimes done first "the thing I feel most nervous about." But that's such a negative way to code it. Even so, doing it makes me feel fantastic. I'm going to hang onto the "fantastic" label for this strategy.

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Red Chair, Blue Language

My office partner Carrie who owns the building is having the place spiffed up and repainted. In this process several issues of boldness have arisen.

Most noticeably, the front porch chair has gone from pale yellow to poppy red.

And then yesterday, a wee incident raised for me some thoughts about differences in style. Carrie and I both tend to overworry about whether we've stepped on someone's toes. I also see myself as a fairly mild-mannered sort.

I had gradually glazed out on the fact that there had been workmen all over the building for days. And then my copier/printer got snarled-up and refused to proceed. I went over to the rebellious thing, which sits just below a window, and tried to fix it, all the while unleashing a staccato of the harsh and obscene language I reserve for malfunctioning machines. Didn't realize that I was speaking within inches of the nose of the man working on the windowsill on the other side of the glass. After all, we'd been professionally ignoring each other quite successfully for days.

My response to this realization, not so bold: I turned around and walked out of the room. A little embarrassing, a lot funny: that was my reaction.

I told Carrie the amusing news. She thought it was funny too. Then she went out and assured the largely Spanish-speaking crew that all was well and they hadn't done anything wrong and that it was just me having an outburst over mechanical difficulties. She explained to me privately that they're a particularly sweet and sensitive bunch of guys.

I'm not accustomed to being on the raunchy side of such moments, especially with construction workers. Not used to being apologized for, or to finding such a small awkward moment increasingly hilarious. I'm not sure where the path of proper boldness lay here, but find it refreshing to be, for a change, the mouthy brash explosive one.

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My Big Bold Sale

In honor of our recession, I'm having my first-ever sale. Here's the deal:


I’m offering a June-only reduced fee for all my manuscript and consulting services for writers.

I've cut my rates by 40% for the next four weeks.

For critiques on manuscripts, fiction and nonfiction, and for consultations on the writing business, I’m charging 40% off the rates listed on my website. Minimums are also lowered 40%.

Writers I've worked with as clients have published with major book houses including Simon & Schuster, Wiley, Workman, and St. Martin's, as well as smaller presses, literary journals, magazines (Gourmet, Newsweek) and newspapers. (Results not typical)

Feel free to tell your students, colleagues, and writer friends about this one-time opportunity for ridiculously low-cost, high-quality literary criticism. A recession is no time to hold back on creativity.

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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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