writing

The Exciting World of Online Permissions

July 21, 2009 by admin

Ten years have passed between the printing of my first book and the upcoming printing of Patchwork and Ornament, and a lot has changed! I’ve had to research independent publishing all over again to make sure I’m up with the technologies and possibilities. This week, I think I found my book printer, and they even have a cool program so you can upload your files and make sure they are compatible with their systems.

But the real excitement came today! In the book, Jenny (my late mother-in-law, for those joining these blogs late) quoted the poet Yehuda Amichai. I had two choices: delete the poetic reference, which wasn’t completely necessary, or get permissions. When I published my first book, I had to get a lot of permissions, and it wasn’t always a pleasant experience. I remember having some rather nasty back and forth with one publisher that wanted control over my entire text before I decided just to drop the reference.

Still, the Amichai lines, while not essential to the story she told, did add some lovely flavor to the essay. I flipped to the back of the book for the publisher’s website and went online. Lo and behold, you can do these things instantly now! I filled out a form, paid $14, and presto, my printer spit out a license for my records. Instead of waiting weeks or months for permissions, mine took about ten minutes.

What a cool time we live in.

Juggling Acts

July 20, 2009 by admin

Saturday afternoon we went to see Cirque du Soleil, my first experience of this wonderful treat. For a few hours we were enthralled by acrobats, clowns, mimes, music, and jugglers. At times there was so much going on onstage that I couldn’t keep up. My eyes darted from one character to the next, back and forth, trying to take it all in.

Sounds a lot like life.

Last week we made the sudden decision to try to buy a house, and now we are in the midst of negotiations. On the one hand, I am thrilled to think that we might have a home of our own. While I love our rental–it’s spacious, bright, and roomy–it’s not mine. On the other, I worry about all my projects.

Here I am, about 75% complete on P&O’s book layout but dealing with the most difficult part, the images. Over the weekend I discovered that I will need to do some unexpected additional work to prepare for When a Grandchild Dies reprints. I’m struggling to find nooks and crannies of time to work on Exodus. Now I’m getting ready to clear out clutter and pack up a three-bedroom house?

Sounds a lot like Cirque du Soleil.

So I get through it like I always do. I set up lists. I re-evaluate all of my self-imposed timelines to see if anything can be moved around. I try to nibble at everything at least a little bit every day. I keep up with my yoga practice, which calms me down and gives me fresh ideas for how to make everything work. And I remind myself that even the best juggler drops a ball now and then.

If It Walks Like a Duck…

July 15, 2009 by admin

As I continue with laying out Patchwork and Ornament (my late mother-in-law’s memoirs that I compiled and edited), it occurred to me to print out a copy, put it into a binder, and start showing people what I’ve been working on. Show and Tell has generated a lot of response, all positive. Granted, these are my friends and family, but even so…instead of thumbing through it quickly and saying something like “that’s nice,” they want to read further. A woman in my dentist’s office read 35 pages while I was getting a tooth filled!

Even more interesting, as they read Jenny’s stories, they start telling me their own, and boy, am I hearing some great stuff. I’m thinking that, as part of my approach to get the word out about this book, I could put together a workshop to help people get started with creating their own family legacies, even if they just keep them in the family. I feel like I’m on to something special each time I share P&O with others.

Each piece of writing seems to send me on a new and unique journey, and the one I’m embarking on with this book seems particularly sweet and rewarding. Yet the manuscript alone doesn’t have the same effect…laying it out, and having it walk like a duck, I mean, look like a book, makes a big difference. I think that even if we just set up some margins in our word processing programs to make our manuscripts more book-like (except, of course, when submitting to publishers!), we may get more non-writers to take a look at what we’re doing. It changes their perceptions. It may even change our own.

The Write–Er, Right Time

July 13, 2009 by admin

Every summer in Houston, as the heat rolls in and blankets us with its heaviness, my routine goes through a change. My daily walks shift from early afternoon to mid-morning, to early morning, then disappear altogether. I shut myself in, hiding out from the heat.

Last year, when I reported this to my friend Isabel, she just laughed at me. “Oh, for God’s sakes, get out there!” she said. “It’s not that bad.” Suitably shamed, I resumed my daily treks and discovered that she was right.

This year, I seemed to have made the discovery on my own. Yesterday I said, “Okay, I’m walking. I don’t care how hot it is. I need to move.” I went into the Rice Village, which is a 30-minute walk from my home, had some wine and cheese, and walked home. And I was reminded that “it wasn’t that bad.”

Walks bring me sanity and calm, even more than my regular yoga practice. Walks invite ideas and solutions to problems. I often walk between tasks so I can bring a new perspective to the next item on my to-do list. Yes, the exercise is nice, but that’s not why I walk. I walk because I write, and walking makes me a better writer. I slow down. I look at the trees and the squirrels. I listen to the sounds of the day and smell the newly mowed grass. I reconnect to a more primal rhythm. I return refreshed and invigorated.

As I walked, I also reminded myself that there is never a “right” time to do anything. I walked in the worst heat of the day, my arms and legs fluid, my breath shifting and deepening. I walked because I needed to. I feel the same way about my writing. Sometimes a bright, shiny object pulls my attention away, always something seemingly more important to do, so I step away from time to time–only to return because I need to. Walking, breathing, writing–life.

Oh, Those Baby Steps

July 10, 2009 by admin

Almost exactly twelve years ago, I discovered The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. It would take too long in this blog to say how my life has changed in those years, but B.C. (before Cameron) I was a writer who didn’t write, which is one of the saddest things on the planet. I had no idea how to begin; yet three weeks after beginning the exercises in her book, I was writing short stories. I was pregnant at the time, and a few months later, when my daughter was stillborn, I used the tools to write my way through grief. That’s how When a Grandchild Dies: What to Do, What to Say, How to Cope, was born.

She didn’t just get me writing. She helped me find my curiosity. I went back to school and got a degree, I learned how to quilt, I bought a camera, I began to travel…the list is endless.

There are two main lessons that I learned from her book–though I highly recommend it for any artist who feels stuck, and I often revisit it when I block. First, she reminded me that rough drafts are just that, rough, and that we need to be willing to do things badly in order to learn. Second, she taught me how to write in little snippets of time, which was what I had for years.

I was thinking of her this morning. This week I have dusted off the draft to Exodus: the Freedom Meditations, which is a small book of musings based on how Exodus applies to our modern lives and quest for inner freedom. I’ve been busy doing book layouts, but I needed to feel like I was writing, so I have started working on it again. I don’t spend a lot of time on it each day, but I do enough to feel the satisfaction of creating new work. I have been pretty bloody with the red pen this time around, but I still really, really like the work. Despite what sounds like heavy subject matter, it’s more playful than what I usually produce. I get to feel like a little kid at play again. What a gift–the gift of baby steps.