Holiday Innovation

We're all aflutter at my office building today because this house, built in 1910, is on Raleigh's 35th annual Historic Oakwood Candlelight Tour.

The queen and owner of the building, Carrie Knowles, shares my views about creativity and self-expression. Her studio and writing office are called Free Range Gallery. Here's what she just had painted so that you see it as soon as you come in the front door.


And here's the Christmas/holiday/winter solstice tree: it's made of cans of food that will be given to a soup kitchen when the tree comes down. This construction, a piece of art in itself, was made by Carrie's 16 year old son Cole Leiter and his friend Wilson Sayre.

Happy holiday preparation!--whatever you celebrate. I hope you'll take pleasure in doing it your way.

The tree of cans is a good demonstration that self-expression isn't necessarily selfish at all, can be quite altruistic in fact. For more on this, see The Healing Power of Doing Good.

The Luminous Egg: Visual Suggestion

Remember that floating orb I wrote about? It's the piece of art I bought by/from my artist-buddy Carrie Knowles. I had to have it because it looks like the image of a floating ball of light that inspired both the biography I'm working on, and the new novel (tentatively "Pascal's Fire") that I have also (barely) begun.

Here you see the ball of light, in the center of the mantel in my office. I'm delighted to have it there. And it's not just to make the place look more interesting.

I find if I put a visual image of a goal before me, I'm more likely to reach that goal. CONSTANT SUBLIMINAL SUGGESTION works wonders on my typing fingers. I've found it almost magical.

Anybody else had any experience with this sort of thing?

Please Note

Good conversation going on in the comment section of the post titled: "An Extremely Bold Question."

The subject has evolved to WRITING FOR THE MARKET: is it damaging to art? and if not, how do we psyche out the current market requirements.

Do join in with your own view--here, or in the comment section to the earlier post.

Do you tailor your writing to what you perceive market requirements to be?

Authentic Speech

Check out a feisty blog, Inventing the Rest of My Life, on the More magazine website.

More is an excellent magazine aimed at women over forty. I think the More articles would be of interest to a much larger group, but then I also read a number of men's magazines, and, more shocking, some aimed at 20-something fashionistas: "Drew, Ashlee, Kelis... share their secret shopping lists...," etc.

"Inventing the Rest of My Life" is written by 65 year-old Suzanne Braun Levine. "Recently," she writes, "an invitation to speak to a large national women's organization was withdrawn when the planners visited my Web site and saw the phrase 'the fuck-you fifties.'" That's the lead-in to her discussion of "appropriate" language and behavior.

I love her conclusion: "What I hope to see is not that the coarse language becomes commonplace, but that we get to the point that we Second Adulthood women don't have to call attention to ourselves in order to be noticed. Then each of us can find the words to speak out in her own voice and on her own terms." That's my wish for everybody.

The Courageous Miss Chant's Cottage on Cottage Lane

The exceptionally bold Miss Elisabeth Chant, the subject of my biography-in-progress,lived in this house about 70 years ago in my gorgeous and charming hometown of Wilmington, NC. I was there for Thanksgiving with my family and took a few pictures.

I especially want to show the house, because one of her descendants turned up in the comment section of my previous post, the one where I asked: why don't more of you comment? I'm so glad I asked that question.

Chant, a painter, was exceptionally BOLD in that she was a full-time artist, and single woman, who traveled the world alone in the first half of the 20th century--and she had the nerve to go around in my small Southern town in medieval clothes with hair like Princess Leia--and to confide, when it wasn't fashionable, that she was being led in her choices by Athena and several dozen other spirit guides. Any one or two of those situations is enough risk for most folks.

An Extremely Bold Question

How come most of y'all come and visit and let me blather on and yet don't comment?

Has this blog attracted all of the world's shy people?

I'd love to know. And I'd be grateful to anybody who answers here about the reason he or she keeps silent. You can even be Anonymous. Or Startlingly Revealing. Or Controversial. Or...you tell me....

The Fundamental Trick of a Writing Career

Underlying most of the decisions I make about my work is this: to what degree will I alter the work I feel called, even created, to do, in order to meet the requirements of the marketplace?

My standard for myself is that, in revising for the market, I figure out how to, at the same time, make the work better overall. I find a way to do what an editor wants (or that I'm guessing an editor wants) that better serves my own purposes as well. And what a wrestle with the work that can be!

On the other hand, if I'd gone farther in the direction of the market in my career so far, more people might well be reading my work. It's very hard to see the line between too much compromise and not enough. By the time we find out, it may be too late. The work is diluted and published, or the work is rejected.

I'm not one who is opposed to revising, to working with an editor. Not at all. I believe in selling, in publishing. Part of the job I feel I've somehow been assigned in life is getting the stories, not only written, but published. So the question rolls on, I've had to resolve it anew with every new project.

I never quit until the work both meets my standards and is published. But damn, it's right wearing sometimes.

At the same time, I'm grateful for my strong clear sense of mission. If I didn't have it, I expect I'd be wrestling with whether I was doing the right work.

"Take each day with no backward look."

That advice -- "Take each day with no backward look." -- just jumped out at me when I went to visit Scott Burkhead's site, Daily Spiritual Guide.

It's from Hazelden's Touchstone Meditation Series. What a VIVID and LIGHT-AS AIR life I'd live if I thoroughly managed to do that!

If one is prone to a bit of scrupulousity--did I say the wrong thing? Did I say the wrong thing that day 18 years ago?--this could be a LIFESAVER. With the aid of meditation, medication, and exercise, I'm about 98% better at that than I used to be.

Taking Charge of My Workday

I'm feeling unusually CLEAR-EYED today, because of an exercise in time-monitoring.

For the next couple of weeks at least, I'm tracking HOW I SPEND MY WORK TIME AS A WRITER and where I spend my money.

It's a trifle irritating to be watching myself so closely. One the other hand, the effort is giving me a POWER RUSH. I feel as if I'm in charge of what I'm doing.

Of course, being self-employed I should feel that way. But often instead, I feel that time has slipped by and I'm not quite sure where. Same with money.

Now I'm watching where they go, with special interest in time, whether any given moment is spent on art, administration, consulting, or promotion of my work.

It makes me feel uncommonly brave simply to be willing to do this. Because I suspect that some days I HIDE OUT by busying myself with administration--tearing the edges off sheets of stamps, etc.

I tried this monitoring once before, very briefly, and it made me much more effective and CONFIDENT. I'm curious to see what fuller information will do.

Visionaries Wanted

Here's a powerful resource for social entrepreneurs. That's you, if you're somebody with an idea or plan to CHANGE THE WORLD.

ECHOING GREEN offers big fellowships to help set world-changing ideas in motion.

I learned of the site through Naomi Wolf's Woodhull Institute newsletter, and found it an inspiring place even to visit.

Visit soon. The next deadline is the end of this month.

Floating Orbs, Synchronicity

I just bought a small piece of grown-up art. It's the one in the lower right hand corner with the red dot on it that means Sold. I was astonished when I saw these pieces because the image of floating orbs of light, central to all of these, is also central to the biography I'm working on, and the novel which will follow.

These prints were made by my friend and office partner Carrie Knowles. I watched her putting up this series for an open-to-the-public show on Sunday, November 19, 1-5 p.m.
A couple of years ago, sitting at lunch chatting with a reiki teacher, I saw a small ball of light rise from the top of her head, zigzag upward, and vanish a few inches from the ceiling. Nothing like that had ever happened to me. And at the same time it felt perfectly ordinary.

But this "ordinary" event was a big deal. (I think I've written about it before on this blog.) It became the seed for a novel I began.

Weeks into the novel, I felt seized by the need to find out more about a painter I'd heard of in my hometown in my youth.

I tend to FOLLOW THESE URGES WHEN THEY COME. So I did a bit of research.

I struck pay dirt on my second or third dig into archives. In an art library at UNC, I found a bit of her journal, in which she'd written a note that people sometimes see a light over her head.

That was my eureka moment. It was clear to me that I had to write both books, and the biography was what I wanted to do first.

When I saw these floating lights go up in the room next door, it was just as obvious that I needed one of them for my room, for a book cover, for a talisman. It felt like a good celebration of the ongoing projects, and of the good results from following mysterious urges.

If you're in Raleigh and loose on November 19, stop by and see this collection. My personal floating orb will be there, with its red dot, through the end of that afternoon.

Yes, You Can!

Around the corner from my office, a church sits up on wood blocks. A bold-thinking downtown developer, Greg Hatem, had it scooped up from its old site and moved to what was a parking lot.

A lot of people might think that a church building stays where it's planted for as long as it exists. And the same with parking lots.

This guy wasn't stopped by that kind of silly assumption. Now he's spiffing the place up to rent, and it's a lovely addition to my leafy old-fashioned neighborhood.

I so admire this move: TO SIMPLY DISCARD THE IDEA THAT SOMETHING CAN'T HAPPEN. The world gets much richer if we step right through the conventional wisdom. In fact, a lot of improbable and amazing things can happen with perseverance, imagination, and looking past the frozen ideas of what's possible.

In it most radical definition, a church embodies a sky's-the-limit view.

Quaker Wisdom from a Catalog

In one of the million catalogs that arrive at my house, often in duplicate, I found a nice bit of wisdom.

Signals sells "gifts that inform, enlighten, and entertain." Among these is a framed print with the Quaker saying:

LET YOUR LIFE SPEAK

The selling copy contains some possible interpretations: "Live authentically. Let others know what matters to you. Embody your truths and values. Follow your vocation." (boldfacing mine)

Nice work, copywriter. It's a rare thing when ad copy enlightens, or re-enlightens.

For many years of my freelance career, I wrote ads and catalogs and brochures, etc. in maybe half of my time. I still take on such jobs occasionally.

But I never have gotten such an inspirational message across. Not even in the sappy inch of copy I wrote for an ad in inflight magazines advertising a teddy bear to take home to the kids. Though writing it managed to bring tears to my eyes.

So now I ask myself: what does "Let Your Life Speak" mean for me today? (Long break for thought.) It means: step lightly, listen to small whispers of impulse and consider following.

What I hear first as I listen: my stomach gurgling. I'm going to run out and get some lunch.

Medical Test Reveals Current Mission in Life

This morning a doctor gave me an all-clear you-are-not-malignant diagnosis.

I didn't really think I would hear anything else. But last week's routine test didn't look right and had to be further investigated. Even though that's very common and usually isn't a problem, still...

The interim of five days allowed me to think things over.

If I had only a short time to live, what I'd say to God is: make it long enough for me to finish this biography of Elisabeth Chant. Because I think it's part of what I'm here for.

So now once again I have "all the time in the world." And it's very clear which item I ought to put at the top of my to-do list every day.

Even a hint of mortality can be very clarifying.

Resting the Brain

This week I had once-every-few-years crash into sleep. This happens when I pass a number of deadlines and I've been working too hard for too long. Then as soon as the last thing in the pile is done, leaving a couple of days with nothing do-- suddenly I'm too tired to remain sitting.

So I slept most of a day and a half. In the brief intervals of being awake I read O Magazine, which I always find encouraging at wobbly times.

Then I got up this morning and came to the office as usual, feeling almost normal, but a bit like I just got a cast taken off of my brain.

Used to be that this happened once a year. Now it's more like once every four or five years. Maybe I'm learning a bit more about balance.

But I'd been overworking since last December. And so...

I'm glad it doesn't happen while I'm still on deadline.

I think it gives my imagination a fresh start.

More on Glastonbury and the Isle of Avalon

More and more, I allow my book research to take me geographically, as well as imaginatively, where I'm yearning to go.

Here are a few more shots from last week's trip to Glastonbury in Somerset, England, in search of my biography subject's story.


The white pigeon (i.e, dove) that landed in the Abbey ruin near the alleged grave of King Arthur (one of my subject's obsessions) is an important mystery visitor in the story that is starting to unfold.

The white specks in the landscape photo below are a flock of doves. The picture is taken from the side of the strange steep hill called Glastonbury Tor, an ancient site for both Christian and Druid pilgrims. If anyone knows which species of white pigeon this is, I'd love to know.

A Writer's Photography

Used to be that I took pictures to illustrate travel stories. For many years, I published in travel sections of newspapers and magazines like Travel & Leisure, some women's magazines, Family Circle, etc. It was never my favorite part of the work. I didn't feel confident that I had what I needed in the can.
Now, working on research for my biography of painter Elisabeth Chant, I'm shooting for documentary purposes, and for descendants of hers who have been helping me track down her story. Plus, of course, these days I can look at the back of the camera and see how the photograph is going to look. I'm still no Brassai, but these will show a bit of where I'm seeking my subject.


The trip was to Somerset in the southwest of England, where Chant spent the first eight years of her life, in the shadow of such sites as Glastonbury and Cadbury Camp, an alleged site of Camelot. She came back to this area in her mid-thirties. Throughout her life, she was much affected -- in fact, formed -- by the history and myth and natural world that surrounded her here.



These are a few of the 298 images I collected. It seemed like a thousand at the time I was shooting. These show:
*The ruin of Glastonbury church. The original rough hut of a Christian church here is alleged to have been the first in Britain and possibly in Christendom, established shortly after the Crucifixion. The ruin in the photo is also held in legend to contain the graves of King Arthur and Guinevere, and has a marked site on the grass within.
*Glastonbury Tor, the steep and weirdly conical hill that is both a Christian and Celtic pilgrimage site. The open arch is the base of the tower at the top of the hill-- what's left of a more than 500 year-old church. Looking through it, as I stood at the top of the Tor was like looking out to sea. There's a semi-straight path up and down the Tor, as in the photo, and a path that winds slowly around the sides, forming a giant labyrinth.

Some have called this spot "the holiest earthe of England."

And then there's the 16th century Mermaid Inn where I stayed for my week of archival research and exploring. Miss Chant continues to lead me to some intriguing places.

Returned from Research Expedition

I got back to NC late last night from the rural southwest peninsula of England, the county of Somerset, where I was chasing the ghost of my biography subject, painter Elisabeth Chant.

I think I did get a glimpse of her.

Very good, and exhausting, trip. I added several pounds of photocopies to my files on Chant's early childhood in the town of Yeovil.

More later when I've unpacked and refocused my brain and eyes.

Research for a Biography

This weekend I head for southwest England to the county of Somerset to do more research on my biography subject, the painter Elisabeth Chant.

"Miss Chant" is how I always think of her; that's what she was always called in my hometown, where she spent the last 25 years of her life.

She was born in a crossroads English village called Holwell, outside the town of Yeovil. I'm spending next week there, looking for descendants and for every physical site and old record or newspaper clip that has to do with her family. I do know that the house her father was born in is still a residence. You can bet I'm going to be knocking on that door.

Though I started life as a newspaper reporter, I'm still fairly new to this kind of research. A few days ago it was terribly daunting. Now it's extremely exciting. I do find, though, that I'm pretty dependent on "the kindness of strangers."

Good-hearted and experienced archivists and genealogists are e-mailing me now with leads and bits of info. Everything that comes in is a fresh treaure.

And soon I will be on the ground in her old town. That's her in the picture, by the way. She died two years before I was born. I'm hoping her spirit is traveling with me on this venture.

Editing Marathon

Just now finished my part of a monster-huge project with a client. Her book is due today. We've passed 31 versions of the manuscript back and forth between us, marked up with red type comments in the last week and a half. We worked all through the weekend. Last night I shut down at a little after 2 a.m. She was on-line to me again at 6-something this morning.

And with all that, it turned out that my computer had suddenly decided not to send the two crucial files back to her on the night before Due Day.

As Harry Belafonte sings, "My Lord! What a Morning."

I got hold of Heidi, my tech advisor, on the phone. She talked me through solving the problem, while -- it sounded like-- she was cooking breakfast. Incredible relief!

Next up: to tend to a couple of other projects and get ready to go to the UK on Sunday to do research on my biography subject, who was born in a 15-house crossroads in the southwestern peninsula of England.