Words for the Writer's Heart

 

December Reflections

"Don't think the garden loses its ecstasy in winter.

It's quiet, but the roots are down there riotous..."

--Rumi

As the year draws to a close, I reflect that it's been, as Mark Twain put it, "One damned thing after another." Some good, some not-so-good, some most excellent, some terror-inducing. Whatever is happening, however, I remember the mantra, “This too shall pass!”

Life sometimes sideswipes us with occasions for rejoicing or unspeakable tragedy, but hard times run in cycles. It’s important to find ways of reminding ourselves of this rhythmic nature. Outward-facing periods of great vigor and challenge are followed by periods of apparent stagnation. These fallow times can feel like the pits of despair when nothing seems to be changing (except for the worse) and no matter how hard we engage with the problems in our lives, we seem to make no discernible progress. Winter is never going to end; all our senses convince us of it. We are never going to find “the one,” or sell that first story. And we’ve heard enough tales of folks who actually never do find a partner or make a sale that we are sure we belong in that group. As the days shorten and snow or rain turns into mud, we become even more certain the sun will never return.

That’s when I need black belt survival tools. My mantra (above) is one of them. Here are some others that work for me.

• Every day, I speak with someone who loves me.
• I try to do a daily act of kindness in a way that I will not be found out.
• I try to begin each day with trust and end it with gratitude. These can take whatever form seems good to me on that day.

What helps get you through winter blues?

Painting by David Cox (1783-1859)

GUEST POST: Amy Sterling Casil on "We Can Write Our Lives; We Can Write The World"

Toni Morrison did. She healed vast trauma through her books and is the embodiment of a different way of living. She is her own miracle and that of all of ours, the entire world.

She told The Guardian. “So much contemporary fiction, even when it’s well written is sort of … self-referential. I used to teach creative writing at Princeton and I would say ‘Don’t do that. Don’t write about your little life.”

Toni’s life, Toni’s job has been to be this and she has done it so brilliantly, so perfectly, so magnificently. She wrote others and in doing so she created her incredible self. An impossible person. People who do not see, who are not aware, don’t realize the extraordinary thing she is; more extraordinary than our black President. A Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning black woman writer who was a major editor at a major publishing house, an Ivy League professor and mother of two, with more than a dozen bestselling novels of her own. All about black women. Yes, how they were traumatized and brutalized, but also how they transcended. And look at how magnificently she lives, how magnificent she IS.

I hear things. I feel things. I see things. The more aware I am, the more I see and feel and hear. I’ve been tentatively telling people the concept that came into my mind a few weeks ago. What if, I thought — what if when people thought the world was flat, it really was? The time when that was, was in reality — much longer ago than we, today, likely think.

No one saw the globe from space until 1945 when the first hazy image showing a curved horizon appeared. No one had a clear picture of Earth’s true appearance from space until the 1972 “Blue Marble” photo taken from Apollo 17.

Greek people knew that the Earth was round and even accurately calculated its circumference. A thousand years later, this had been largely forgotten. It’s part of our general theoretical concept that we somehow have “progressed” since ancient Greek days.

What Was Your Favorite Experience Meeting An Author?

Nathan Bransford asked this question. It made me smile, because I have a bunch of answers and they

are all wonderful, inspiring moments. Here are a couple.

Very early in my writing career, Poul Anderson was Guest of Honor at a convention I attended. At the "meet the guests" reception, I spied him standing alone. I guess everyone else was too awed by him to say hello. I went up and said hello and how much I admired his work. We began chatting, and when he learned I was a writer -- I think I'd sold maybe 2 or 3 short stories then -- he looked at me and with absolute sincerity asked what I was working on now. I was a fellow writer, a colleague, or at least he thought I was. That moment of encouragement carried me through many rejections and discouraging times. I do my best to pass it on.

Meeting Octavia Butler for the second or third time and the two of us laughing that she remembered me but not my name. I came away with the understanding that I don't have to "be known by name" or to toot my own horn in order to have meaningful conversations. Just being present and listening carefully is a gift to the other person. I remind myself that my writing stands on its own

At World Fantasy a few years ago, standing out in the garden area for an evening reception and realizing, "I'm talking shop with Peter S. Beagle..." At that same convention, I had a lovely exchange with Charlaine Harris, in which I told her how I loved her Aurora Teagarden mysteries.A librarian detective plus layers of depth woven into a rocking good story. She replied, "That means a lot to me, coming from another writer."

I can go a long way on that.

What are your favorite memories?

A Very Special Dedication

One of the true pleasures of this writing life is encouraging younger writers. Sometimes they are

younger in the sense of career development, not years. Sometimes it's both, but the difference is more of life experience and craft technique -- high school and college students, for example. Yes, they're young enough to be my children (as you can see from the gray hairs in my pic), but they have all or most of their formal education behind them. Someone else taught them how to read and write a reasonably coherent sentence, as well as the foundations Western history and civilization, hopefully a second or third language, and basic math and science, not to mention the arts.

Every once in a while, life hands me a treasure in the form a child brimming with curiosity and dreams. I don't want to take the place of parent or teacher, but one thing I can do is let that child know they can become a writer (or an artist, or a musician, or a dancer). I can show them a book with my name on the cover and say, "You can do this, too."

Sometimes, kidlet rolls eyes in disbelief, but sometimes...sometimes I see the "penny drop." The spark ignite.

I've had the privilege of encouraging two children of a dear friend, also a writer. I can't in any way claim credit for how great these kids are turning out -- that's all their parents' doing. But I did just get this note that brought tears to my eyes:

Dear Deborah, 
I am writing poems for Young Authors, and I am dedicating my book to you, because I think you are very special to me.

There is indeed hope. The future is in good hands. 

The painting is by Swiss artist Albert Anker (1831-1910)