Snowy Day

The icicles are dripping now
     Slowly disappearing in the light from the sky
The snowman has lost his mind
     And his nose is just a root on my grassy ground
In the shade, a lingering reminder of the clean quiet of the morning
But in the front yard, no trace, just the holly bush, basking in the winter sun.

Turkey and Cranberry Sauce and Dressing, Oh My!

I hope that you had the most joyous of Thanksgivings, and I'm wishing you a magical Christmas season!

I was fortunate to go "home" for Thanksgiving, back to the family farm in Georgia.  It's the place where I derive the most inspiration for my work, and I had a lovely marathon writing session curled under a blanket on the back porch, laptop in hand, gazing across the backyard with its ponds and on to the river beyond.  The sound of the river is invigorating, and the sounds of the birds reminds me that there are lives going on all around me, lives I tend to dismiss.

I also read a little Annie Dillard while I was home, "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek".  It was as if she'd written it there on that farm, and her awe at nature was mirrored in my own.

Perhaps the highlight of my holiday was taking my three year old son on a walk around the farm.  We made our first stop at the garage so he could climb on every tractor, and then he picked up a broom, took it outside, and tried to sweep the leaves.  He's a tidy little guy.  Afterwards we walked to the river, and the look on his face was priceless: eyes wide, mouth agape; he couldn't believe the sights and sounds of the rapids. We walked along the river looking at deer prints in the dirt and collecting feathers.  He found a hawk feather which was definitely the discovery of treasure for him.
Come to think of it, we were both like treasure hunters in search of fortune, and I think we both found it.

It's easy to get caught up in the day to day hustle and bustle of life, of work, of the holidays.  My trip home reminded me that creation and inspiration fully arrive when we take ourselves out of society for a bit so we can breathe deeply, move slowly, and simply be amongst the rest of creation.  This holiday season, I hope you're able to make time to step outside of necessity for a spell.  I know that it is in those moments that you will find the treasure of inspiration, a treasure you may not have even known you were seeking.

Sometimes it's Too Much

What I wrote today was difficult to relive.
Oftentimes I write from my life experience, and life is not always fulfilling.
I think that's why so many broken people are writers.

But then again, aren't we all broken in some way?

Five years ago, I lost my grandfather.  It was a difficult four months as he was dying, a difficult four months filled with hurtful revelations, broken promises, unrealistic expectations, unbearable pressure, and unanswered questions.  It was a time when everything I thought I knew about a man who had been such a central part of my life was proven to be a lie.  Everything.

I've been waiting for the right time to write about it, and early on I realized that there would never be a "right time".  There would be a "right project".

There's something Faulknerian about my experience losing this man who had been my hero and my father, something about seeing clearly for the first time that he was someone I never really knew.  And when I stood in that booth at the country fair, holding the photographs that sparked this project, I knew that this was the time. 

Reliance is the project.

I've been so excited to begin this manuscript; the words have been saturating my mind for weeks.  But if I'm being honest, I've also been wary, because I knew that this day of writing would come.

We didn't have a funeral for my grandfather.  Truth be told, if we had, the funeral should have been held weeks before he died in body, for that was long after he died to me.

But perhaps it's more fitting that in memorial I bury him in these pages, in these words I've put to paper today.  His life was fiction, and so there he shall remain.

Sometimes writing is too difficult.
Sometimes it's too much.

NaNoWriMo is Underway!

Greetings from my kitchen, where I am finally putting the finishing touches on getting the kids to bed, preparing lunches for tomorrow, baking my granola for this week's breakfast, and medicating my sore throat.  And now there is finally time to write!

NaNoWriMo began this week on November 1, and no, you're not too late to give it a shot!  I am at 15% of my goal, which isn't too shabby, and frankly I'm amazed at the time I found (*made) this week to write.  On Wednesday I went to the public library and banged out a couple of thousand words...this novel has been building up inside of me for a couple of weeks now...on Thursday I wrote at home at the kitchen table, and on Friday I treated myself to a yummy crepe and wrote at my favorite local coffee shop.  Whether you like coffee or not, I must recommend your local coffee shop as a haven for inspiration.  There's something about being in a space where something else is being created, where conversations surround you and people are gently sipping their comfort.  And it smells pretty great too!

I'm working on my novel, tentatively titled Reliance, and I'm realizing that this is the second manuscript where I've worked with a very different process than usual.  I've been on a hunt for narrative voices.  My friend and fellow writer, Jennie, always says to "steal what you like" from other writers.  So I'm stealing a little Faulkner on this one.  In the vein of  As I Lay Dying (a masterpiece of narrative voice), I'm using multiple narrators to tell the story.  The trick here is to get the story out and, in the process, to find their voices.  Last week I was drumming along with my main character's daughter's voice as she described the situation surrounding her father's death.  Suddenly she received a letter...and the next thing I knew, Daisy Prater had entered my life, and the story, and she was rambling on and on about quite shocking things!  I love these moments when a voice forces its way in and hijacks the story. 

And so I'm letting the story flow.  It's all out of order right now, but the pieces are coming to me that way.  Time will tell if they get resorted in the manuscript or if a little time-jumping (not unlike the works of my muse, Faulkner) is the best way to convey the meaning.

What I know for sure is that this story is coming organically.  And that's a good thing.  Nay, it is a great thing!

Happy writing! 

Fall Sestina

I rarely write poetry. Yet today I thought I'd try my hand at the sestina form.  I'm sitting in my living room, my hands so cold with the chill of the house in fall.  Outside, I see the leaves with the suggestion of color on their edges.  Perhaps I too have the suggestion of color on my fingertips.

Fall Sestina

As I watch the leaves
Falling, falling
Upon the mossy earth.
I consider the chill
And wonder if it's life
Sharper and hard.

I touch the ground, so hard
Under the layer of leaves
Now resting from life
And the thrill of falling.
My body seizes with chill
As I stare at the earth.

My fingers dig into earth,
Thrusting through the hard
Surface, the chill
Now forgotten, blown with the leaves
No longer falling
But surging with life.

I consider this, my life,
As my fingers force aside the earth.
My soul is falling, falling,
And the task is growing too hard.
I'm surrounded now by the leaves,
Overcome as I fight the chill.

My soul grows cold with chill,
But I fight for signs of life
Even as the autumn leaves
Continuously crowd the earth,
My frozen fingers now hard,
And I feel myself frozen, falling.

The rain now falling,
Compounding the chill,
My face cold, on the ground hard,
Too hard, to allow new life.
I consider my breath, the earth,
the peaceful corruption of leaves

No longer falling. I lie on the earth
And the leaves stifle the chill
As my hard heart now thaws for life.

Chest Pains

Last weekend I traveled with a friend home to the country fair in Georgia.  I come from one of the most beautiful regions of the country, the Georgia mountains and foothills, and the land did not disappoint.  Not only was the drive beautiful, but Jennie and I took a walk around the family farm on Sunday morning, on trail and off, and I marvelled as I always do at the beauty of untouched nature.

We visited the Chickamauga Battlefield and discovered there is actually a tunnel in a hill in Tunnel Hill, Georgia.

I got to visit with my grandmother, and she treated us to a breakfast of biscuits and pecan praline butter.

It was a weekend full of inspiration.

There's something about going back there that helps me remember my passion for writing and that aids me in conceiving a new project.

Perhaps it's the quiet, slow pace of life.

Perhaps it's being in creation.

Perhaps it's being away from the push and pull of my life in South Carolina.

At the country fair there is much food, clogging, music, and crafts, and it's requisite that one stroll with ease amongst the tents and booths.  Toward the end of the day a photograph outside a local photographer's tent caught my eye.  At first, all I saw were beautiful purple rings that faded from dark to light, from deep purple to lavender.  I wandered over to find that it was in fact a photograph of onions.  Beautiful onions.  They looked like jellyfish. They called me within.

Just inside the tent my eye was struck by a black and white photograph of a gnarled tree silhouetted against the sky.  And the feeling began.

The feeling of a new project is a little bit like a punch in the chest, but it begins deeper within me.  It's a voice that starts to whisper deep in my belly; I can feel it swirling around before the idea reaches my mind.

I turned inside the tent and saw a black and white photograph of a window with the words, "God never closes a door without opening a..." painted above.  The window was distorted as was the dark, featureless reflection of a man within it. He looked as if he were wearing a preacher hat, and below the reflection, the shadow of his open hand was reaching up from the bottom of the wooden house.

There was a tightness in my chest.

As I searched for a smaller print of this photograph, I flipped to a color photograph of a dilapidated house with a rotting portico and a dead tree in front of it.  Two bright blue flowerpots stood outside the front gate as if they'd been banished.

The tightness almost took my breath away.

And just like that, it was there in my mind.

The story, the characters, the setting, the meaning, the feeling.

I felt the tug of my new manuscript.

Once again I became the vessel.  I didn't create this story or its characters.  They were born within me.

I'm ready to help them manifest.  I'm ready, at last, to write.

A Second Chance

It has been a crazy month.  With the new school year kicking off, I have been drowning in summer reading assignments and letters of recommendation for my seniors.  My soul has been thirsting for writing, but time has not yielded the space for it.  It is with a grateful heart that I sit down today with my computer, a bowl of granola, and (a little) quiet while the kids are upstairs getting ready for the day.

I've already learned a few lessons myself this school year.  That's one of the perks of teaching: if you're someone who loves learning, you continue to learn.  I think of my classroom as a cooperative.  After all, a mind is never so saturated that it doesn't have room for more knowledge and creative thought.

A couple of weeks ago I was waxing poetic about Wuthering Heights when Jane Eyre came up and, of course, Wide Sargasso Sea.  My relationship with the latter goes back about fifteen years, back to my undergraduate days.  I was a hesitant student, often shy in class, and I received lower overall grades than I earned on written assignments due to my "lack of participation".  However, I was participating silently.  For example, if a professor or student used a word with which I was unfamiliar, I would write it phonetically in my notebook and then seek it out when I returned to my dorm room.  This is how "recalcitrant" became one of my favorite words.  Thank you, Jessica-with-the-amazing-vocabulary!  I would also note the titles of books professors mentioned or loudly and repetitively claimed their love for.  One title that I wrote down repeatedly was Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys.

I finally read the novel fresh out of graduate school (where once again everyone seemed enamoured with the text).  I remember checking it out from the library and being astounded that such an impactful book could come in such a slim volume of one hundred-twelve pages.  So I dove in, barely moving from my bed as I immersed myself in the backstory of Bertha Rochester.

And I hated it.

I despised the book.  I found it underdeveloped, scattered, untrue to the original characters, and overall, a bore.  I felt bamboozled by every professor who ever sang its praises.  But worst of all, I felt as if perhaps something was wrong with me.  After all, these men and women I so admired and held in such high esteems adored the book.  Maybe I wasn't the intellectual I thought myself to be.  The only other book I'd ever felt this way about was Revolutionary Road, and I'd thrown it across the room upon completion, yelling, "I want this book out of my house!"

For years I would cringe whenever anyone mentioned Wide Sargasso Sea, though secretly I wondered if the problem were actually me.

And so a couple of weeks ago, my students gave me an assignment (well, actually they gave me two, but you don't want to be subjected to the lemur-inspired villanelle they asked me to compose!).  My assignment was to give Wide Sargasso Sea another chance.  They held me accountable, and I did it.

I loved the read.  The prose was, in fact, beautiful.  The complexity of Bertha (Antoinette) hurt my heart and elicited my sympathy.  The criticism of colonialism was realistic and scathing. And Rochester...well, I don't like him very much right now.

This experience was a lesson for me.  And interestingly, it's a lesson I teach my students all the time.  Books affect us differently at different times in our lives.  While I identified with the young tomboy, Scout, when I read To Kill a Mockingbird as a middle schooler, I now find myself in Atticus, both in his work for justice and especially in his longings for his children's happiness and goodness.

While I will probably not be picking up Revolutionary Road again anytime soon, I'm grateful my students persuaded me to give Wide Sargasso Sea another chance.  I'll be purchasing ti for my personal library soon. And so I leave you with this question: what book should you give a second chance to move you?