O Slater! My Slater! - Julie

I spent last weekend at the beach with some friends I've known for almost 15 years. One of these friends began writing during the time that we started hanging out (coincidence, or Julie the Muse-Friend?). Thus far he has published about ten children's books, numerous short stories, has two young adult novels and one grown-up collection of short stories coming out within the next few months and a screenplay in the works.

He's very good. I mean, I read his stuff, and I have very little intelligent feedback. "Wow, it's good," I say to him (at least that's what I said when he used to ask me).

But his success has more to do with two qualities that he possesses and I covet. He is dogged. He writes everyday, just churns it out. At school when he should be teaching, at home when he should be doing the dishes, on the beach when the rest of his friends are inside drinking. Just writes and writes and revises. And then does a few dishes. And then sends it everywhere he can think of until someone takes it.

Which leads me to his second quality. I have never heard him interpret lack of response to his work by editors and publishers as an obvious indication of his lack of talent, quality, or worthiness. The most emotion I've seen him display at the capriciousness of the publishing business is a shoulder shrug. I have never heard him compare his writing to others for better or worse. I have never heard him say, as he hands a draft to someone, "now this is really stupid..."

He might be the exact opposite of me.

Maybe the next time we all meet at the beach it will be a Friday the 13th, and he and I will switch bodies for a while, like Freaky Friday, and my body could see what it feels like to be dogged and self-assured. Or maybe we'll all be chased down and slaughtered by a guy in a hockey mask. You never know.

Old Favorites (You Tell Me) -Christy

I’m curious about the books that really formed you as a young reader.

The two that stick out in my mind are Judy Bloom’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (no explanation necessary, I assume; I think every young girl devoured this book with the same enthusiasm) and a more obscure book, The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel) by Ellen Raskin.

I recently bought The Mysterious Disappearance for my daughter, and in skimming through it I could clearly see why I loved it so much as a child: it is really weird. Zany might be the right word. It’s the first book I ever read that played with language and story structure—and fostered my life-long love of footnotes in fiction.

The third book I have been dying to read again is a story about a girl, an only child, growing up in New York City where she lives with her parents who have perfected the art of making a classic Caesar salad tableside, using real coddled egg. Sounds bizarre, but I remember repeatedly checking this book out to vicariously live this girl’s quiet, cultured life. Anyone remember the title to this book?

Please post your favorite childhood books in the comments section so I can add them to my list of summer reads.

Finger in the Dam-Marcia

This is just to say I'm holding my spot and will post later in the day. I had a fantastic Memorial Day Weekend, complete with overnight bag, pool tables, and dancing. Yow. I also packed my little black and white composition book, but never once cracked it.

I asked Beth if she could bring me a book (she's my neighbor with the corgi, who also is my doubles partner)and she refused. "No reading. There will be no time for reading! We have far too much talking to do."

"But, but, but, "

A book. A clean room. No kids. No TV. A boooooooook.

Not to be. That's okay. I like what happened better. And when I get back from work, I'll sit down and tell you.

So check in later. I'll be here, full of stories to tell.

The Screen of Nature - Kerry

My children gawked at the glistening mineral walls inside the Oregon Caves yesterday. They were entertained walking through the dark passages and climbing narrow rock staircases.

My husband and I were happy that they were enthralled by natural wonders as opposed to the internet, television or movies.

After the cave expedition, we walked across the street to the Oregon Caves Chateau to spend the night. The six-story lodge was built in 1934. It's a national historic landmark, therefore it's lighting conforms with the strict provisions of the act, which basically means it's dimly lit for historic authenticity in the main floor. There's one pay phone in a non-functional phone booth, no cell phone service or televisions. There isn't even a clock radio in the rooms. (Although I found out later that wi-fi service was available, but only in the lobby).

For crackberry addicts, this lack of instant access 24/7 to the great information highway must be excruciating. Although I don't watch television, I do admit to having my laptop on all day in the kitchen, where I check it often for news, emails and countless other items. The electronic timewarp forced us to actually look to our environment for entertainment.

Suddenly the wildlife slide show presentation that evening looked pretty interesting. At first our three children were skeptical about sitting in front of a screen where slides were projected one at a time.

"Why isn't the picture on the screen moving mama?" asked Jillian as she sat on my lap.

They suddenly sat with rapt attention as the U.S. Forest Service narrator stood up and started describing the death of wildlife from pesticides and the animal's consequent resurgence thanks to the endangered species act. Anything involving animals and death is interesting to them.

After the presentation, we went to sleep in our rooms, lulled by the stillness. Maybe there is something to the whole EMF, or "electro magnetic frequency" platform (a premise held by a group of people who believe that electronic waves emitted from cell phones, portable phones, computer screens and cell phone towers are potentially harmful to our natural vibrational balance).

The next morning, we watched Josephine and Napoleon, the resident raven couple, out the window of the lobby. No one even asked to watch cartoons. After breakfast, Christian and Max played chess, Claire read and Jillian played dominoes. Then we went on a hike through the old-growth forest.

After the hike, we packed and jumped in the car. As I sat down in the car seat, the ipod beckoned enticingly on the dashboard. I unplugged it and continued talking to my children about the forest outside the window.

The $3,000 Book - Jennie

Last week, I blogged about the $62 my family dropped in Powell’s Books in Portland.

Really, that was nothing.

We’ve spent more on books than on any other form of entertainment. There are stacks of books in every room of our tiny house. When it starts feeling cluttered here, my husband suggests that we get rid of some books.

There’s no way.

The kids and I couldn’t part with a single, vital tome. Every one is special in a certain way: we cherished the character, the setting was magical, we think the great-grandkids might like the plot.

It’s an investment, all those pages.

One book in particular cost over $3,000!

Are you ready for its bank-breaking title?

It was Mary Pope Osborne’s Blizzard of the Blue Moon, #36 in the Magic Tree House series.

You can get the same one for twelve bucks off Amazon.

Here’s how we ended up paying a fortune for it: Reesie, our youngest, loves the Magic Tree House books. He’s read them a billion times, and listened to them on tape. If you give him a sentence out of any one of them, he can give you the next three. When we read #36 – about the depression in New York City – he became obsessed with seeing the unicorn, Dianthus.

Since Dianthus lives in a tapestry in the Cloisters of New York, we flew across the nation last year, taking a cab through Harlem to find him. Watching Reesie’s eyes pop before the majestic weaving was worth every penny.

This was our most expensive book trip – to date. There’s one planned to La Paz in October to see the setting of Steinbeck’s The Pearl. We rode his red pony in Salinas two years ago.

Before that, we sat under Barbara Kingsolver’s Bean Trees in Arizona and marveled at Lawrence Yep’s Chinatown in San Francisco.

On the kids’ Someday List is the Tomten’s Sweden, Hogwart’s Academy of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and the land where the Wild Things are.

We’ll get to some of them eventually.

Emily Dickinson said, “There is no frigate like a book.”

Where have your frigates taken you?

Spectator - Julie

I like a view, but I like to sit with my back turned to it.
Gertrude Stein

Tuesday night I was at a Pokemon League Tournament, a surreal weekly event with sweaty little 7-10-year-old boys running around holding shiny colorful cards in their hands playing some mind-numbingly complicated game. My son Sam was in the tournament, and I was watching from the back table in a little room in the Student Union. Miles called my cell phone to say he was done teaching his class and did I want him to come relieve me so I could go home? I said, “No I’m okay here.” And I was. I had my book, my notebook, my coffee and my chair in the shadows at the back, and I was observing.

It made me think of all the other places where I’m okay. Swimming lessons in the summer, where I bring a book and maybe some iced coffee and watch Sam backstroke across the pool. Teacher conferences where I sit and listen to how I could become a better teacher, or not; Sam’s basketball and soccer games; a film festival where Miles is showing his animation…all places where something good and lively is going on, but I’m not directly involved. I sit, watching, understanding the action, but relaxing in the knowledge that I won’t be called to do anything, to perform and be judged, no chance of messing up. I’m just sitting here minding my own beeswax thank you very much.

My writing life is in danger of being involved in a crappy metaphor for this. The members of my writing group in Room 303 of the Stevenson Union, Pokemon cards gripped in their hands, battling fervently with Jane Austen, JD Salinger, maybe even Gertrude Stein shows up with a killer deck and me sitting in the back with my book and notebook, nodding, settling in with my coffee.

Qwerty -Christy

When I was in high school, back in the early 80s when we wore tight jeans with names like San Francisco Riding Gear and worked the kinks out of what would later become known as the Camel Toe, the future of computers seemed dubious. We had a couple machines in a computer lab somewhere, touched mostly by the boys who took AP Math, so we thought of them as giant, non-portable calculators. “Those things will never catch on,” we’d say, rolling our blue-shadowed eyes.

I had to take Mrs. McCracken’s Typing Basics junior year (yes, on a real live typewriter a la Mark “I was the first person in the world to apply the typemachine to literature" Twain). I couldn’t see the point. I distinctly remember remarking, “I don’t need to know how to type, I’m going to have a secretary…” I can’t recall what I thought I was going to grow up to be, but whatever it was it involved having a secretary to touch those loathsome keys.

When I saw that I had Typing right after morning break, I hatched a brilliant plan. Mrs. McCracken always wrote the day’s lesson on the board, so I’d go in during break and pretend to practice while I’d really be carefully typing the day’s lesson slowly, without mistakes. Then in class when we’d have our time test, I’d just type crazily like a 4 year old, throw away that gobbledygook, and then turn in the previously constructed work. I aced the class and came out completely unable to type. My foresight could not have been cloudier.

So now, as a freelance writer who is paid to type, I still hunt and peck. I’m fast, sure, really fast actually, but in a jerky, nonsensical, start-and-stop way. A lot like I drive. Most disappointing, though, is the pain my cheating has brought on; I have carpel tunnel in both wrists because of the weird way that I hold my hands as I pounce on letters. A constant, chronic reminder that The Adults were right—cheating only hurts the cheater.

A Good Tormato--Marcia

Kindergarten is winding down. The wheat has been separated from the chaff, and the chaff is whining, crying, and saying, “I won’t play with you” worse than ever. It doesn’t help that we got crazy Timmy Farmer six weeks ago. Those that might have been capable of sucking in their spit, sitting on their name tag (not spinning on their back like a cockroach), or standing in a line without pretending to be Megatron are backsliding so fast it looks like the hills of Malibu in a rainstorm around here. Timmy adds a very spicy peanut to the Chex Mix. And he reminds me a lot of what the main character of my novel would have been like as a little boy. I feel like I am getting a chance to remember why I wanted to write this particular novel in the first place.

Timmy’s first day, the Special Helper is choosing a state. As we are saying good morning to South Dakota, Timmy’s right hand shoots up and his left hand shoots back to dig around in his pants. He shouts, “Teacher! Teacher! I’m moving to Candace. I’m moving to Candace!” The teacher and I look at each other. “You know,” he insists, pulling his pants out of his rear, “you know the place where they have Tormatoes.” Ahh Tormatoes. Apt.

“Do you have to go to the bathroom, Timmy?”

“No, my butt itches.”

“Oh, okay.”

“My dad says if I don’t do that simple homework, he’ll spank me. Can we sing that song about Texas again?” His voice sounds like it’s been rolling around in the bottom of a whiskey barrel and poured out over broken glass.

“I farted,” he announces one day at my table. Madison is sitting next to Timmy in her taffeta dress and white gloves. The rest of us are trying to spell cat, he’s waving his hands around in the stench and trying to pull his t-shirt up over his mouth. Madison looks at me with her velvet brown eyes. “We’re all on the Timmy-coaster, Madison. We just have to ride it out.” He thinks that is just a Hi-larious knee-slapper. Working it into little songs throughout the morning.

His mother lies. We know because he told us right during the middle of the pledge of allegiance. He tips over his chair about five times a day. He can’t stand still, he’s always wiggling, spinning, trying to scooch up to someone, or half-kneeling, half standing on his chair, kaboom.

I made progress with Timmy the very first week. I found out quickly that verbal cautions and corrections made him scowl, growl, and pout. Physical contact on the other, settled him. It was easy. Sit next to him, touch his shoulder, take his hand. Words don’t reach when they're flung across the room at him. Emotions with Timmy are big, it's better to get in close.

During a fire drill, however, he started hurtling toward the swing set, I had to reign him in.

"Why are you holding my hand!!!! I don’t want to hold hands!!!!!!! He starts pulling away like a caged animal.

Thinking quickly . . . “Because I like to hold hands. Holding hands is my favorite thing. I feel less lonely.”

“Oh, why din’t ya say so!” Happy Skippy Hand-hold-e-rama.

During picture day, I am tackled from behind then wrapped up in The Timmy Farmer Anaconda Love Squeeze. I can hear his muffled voice coming from somewhere around my sweatered belly button.

“What?” I say.

“mmphcmppht,brthmpt.”

“Timmy, I can’t hear you.”

“I can’t breathe” he shouts into my stomach.

“LET.GO.”

“Oh.” He says, and motors off.

I stayed home once to take care of a sick kid. The next day, Timmy takes his seat at my table. The rest of his group is settling in like a bunch of fussy hens. He looks me dead in the eyes, his blue bulbs beaming with light-saber force, and says, “I missed you.” Then he gets up walks around my horseshoe table, and puts his arms around me. “I love you.” He states.

Five seconds later he’s curled up on the floor screaming and kicking his feet because he wants to use the blue pencil not the red one, and what about the one we did yesterday, are we going to do the sheet we did yesterday. AHHHHHH!!!! His face turns red he pounds his fists into the floor, his eyes blur with tears. But he has me, hook line and sinker.

I am left to scoop up the Timmy mess. The rest of the comrades have marched off to lunch. He’s hunched in on himself over by the sink. Hands over his face.

“Don’t smile,” I tell him. “Don’t smile, Timmy.” This gets a giggle.

“I told you don’t smile.” I say in my sternest school-marm voice.

Pretty soon he’s having happy spasms, holding my hand, skipping along to the cafeteria, I give him the secret squeeze.

“Why’d you do that?” he looks up.

“Mr. La Fond’s mom used to give him the secret squeeze. I’m sending you a message.” And I give Jimmy the one-two-three squeeze again.

“Do you know what that means?”

“No!” he says in his gravelly voice, his cowlick sticking up

“It means I (squeeze), love (squeeze), you (squeeze).”

“I love you, too!” He says, looking up to make sure I’m looking down and can see all the teeth in his smile. And he squeezes back.

The Art of the Query Letter -Kerry

Former way of writing a query letter:
Sit at desk after kids are at school and stare at computer monitor for thirty minutes. This segment is interspersed with at least two coffee breaks. Finally start to write and hate the first sentence. Repeat this sequence twice, then slog through the document as if I am having teeth pulled. Debate how to sign letter for another thirty minutes. Spend rest of day wondering if it will get me rejection or success.
Current way of writing a query letter:
Knowing that Lithia Writers' Collective will take a good look at it and peruse it for errors, syntax and sound, I calmly compose my recent query letter about Father's Day and gardening this morning. I check my email and notice Jennie has sent me a query letter to peruse, and then I realize, query letters, like child rearing require similar communities:
As Hillary Clinton says, "It takes a village."

What My Kids Are Reading (And What It's Costing Me) - Jennie

This weekend, Powell’s Books in Portland proved that reading is alive and well, not to mention the survival of the independent bookstore itself.

Of course, I had lofty expectations of scanning the various floors for Steinbeck steals, and maybe deals on Coelho or Pollan.

But you know where I ended up. Yep. The children’s section. I never even left the first floor.

Sure, I did a fair amount of research there, trying to solve my usual perplexities: “How did (insert author) begin/end (insert title)?” “How many I’s are acceptable on one page?” And “What are the sellers recommending?”

Mostly, though, as The Husband browsed “Americana” above us, I helped our three kids find, decide on, and buy some entertainment for the 4 ½ hour drive home.

Dominic, 10, had to settle. He’s been waiting forever for the release of Mouse, Number Six in Jeff Stone’s Five Ancestors Series, and for Brisingr, Number Three in Christoper Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle. Since nothing could substitute for either of these, Dominic huffed off with The Complete Guide to Pokemon under his arm. It was $24.99, and he read it in the car in seven seconds flat.

Stephan Dubner and Steven Levitt, co-authors of Freakonomics, would break this down as a disproportionate time-money ratio. But nothing about Dominic comes cheap. Especially entertainment.

On the other hand, Daney, 9, will read anything. The problem is that she’s already blown through every young work of fiction printed in English—twice. In Powell’s, she was deliberate, scrutinizing covers and studying backs, before confidently slapping The Lost Files of Nancy Drew on the counter. Knowing that wouldn’t last her long, I grabbed Patricia MacLachlan’s Baby off the shelf, a bargain at $1.95 that might buy an hour.

And speaking of babies, Rees, 7, staked out a towering heap: a Speed Racer board book, a flimsy Lego paperback that came with trading cards, a SkippyJohn Jones pop-up, and a Star Wars sticker book. I coaxed him into choosing the latter; $12.99 for 30 miles of silence was worth it. If I were the Freakonomics guys, I’d factor a mom’s sanity into that ratio-thing.

We could have spent $40 on a book-on-tape that the kids have probably already borrowed a hundred times from the library. Instead, I plucked a Mad-Libs off the rack. From Salem to Eugene, that $2.48 kept them from asking, “How much longer?”

Trip book total: $62.40. About a tank of gas, had the kids not been crammed in the back of a Prius.

I figure we broke even.

A Low Island or Reef of Sand or Coral

I’m in a meeting with a group of English teachers. There’s the guy with the ponytail, a couple of sharp and kind-hearted graying women, a guy with a sweater vest, a Mark-Twain-obsessed-30-year veteran and me. We are going through a list of books that we might like to use with 7th and 8th graders next year and I offer to read the list aloud. I am a read aloud junkie, just ask any student I’ve had over the last ten years. Got something you need read aloud for a group of people? Call me, I’m there. Students have even complimented me on my engaging Mrs. Bennet voice when I read from Pride and Prejudice, but I digress.

So I volunteer to read the list, hoping that might excuse me from having any insight into the books themselves, seeing as how I haven’t actually read many of them.

I read, “Bearstone.” (insightful comments about novel ensue)
“Bud Not Buddy.” (insightful comments about novel ensue)
“Call of the Wild.” (insightful comments about novel ensue)
“The Cay.” (Mark-Twain-obsessed-30-year veteran leans over to me and says in a stage whisper, “It’s pronounced ‘kee,’ not ‘kay’”)

I continue to read, but cannot stop thinking about this gaffe and of the stinging censure from my associate. And why on earth would you use such a stupidly pronounced word as the title of a young adult book? I’ve been pronouncing The Cay phonetically for ten years – how many times did I embarrass myself in front of other teachers, or parents who were ready to pull their child from my class, having lost their confidence in my ability to teach if I couldn’t even pronounce a three-letter word correctly? Have people in the community been talking about me behind my back for ten years? Trying to figure out ways to gently suggest a different career path for me? One colleague did compliment me on my secretarial skills after I had typed up the minutes of a meeting early in the year…

Enter the Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, which just happens to be lying open when I get back to my classroom the next day. Two legitimate pronunciations of “cay” throb on the page: phonetic OR stupid.

Now I don’t want to take up valuable blog space to explain the lesson I learned about maintaining my self-esteem even in the face of a blunder I believe I’ve made, or the lesson I learned about not instantly accepting what anyone tells me as fact, or even the lesson I’m being forced to learn about just letting it go, since there’s no way I can now contact everyone who was in that meeting and explain that I was right without seeming crazy.

No, I just wanted to say it somewhere. I was right.

Bait -Christy

A blue jay recently built a platter-sized nest in the holly tree by my front door. Every time I’d walk to the car I’d try to catch a glimpse of the three newly hatched babies inside, but they always hid when they heard the door open. Not yet able to fly, they’d hop out of the nest to the branch below and wait for me to leave before hopping back in.

Today as I sat down to write I noticed the babies had relocated to a quieter tree that grows less than a foot from my office window. There is no nest there but the birds, still unable to fly, are now big enough to hang out without it. Mom Jay flies off to forage for worms and buggy treats and comes back to her children, who fluff themselves up and screech to get her attention so they can be fed first. I can relate.

When Mom Jay is off, the babies sit on their branches and scratch, feek, chirp, and even lay their weary little heads on a neighboring branch to nap. It’s killing me—as everyone knows, any action is more adorable when done by something small and fluffy. It’s cute overload here, my friends.

Sometimes when I sit down to write I set goals and rewards, just to get things rolling. It’s a juvenile system but it works for me. This morning as I watched Mom Jay do nothing but forage/feed/forage/feed, I knew what my reward would be: a trip to the sporting goods store. As soon as I get five pages written I’ll be off to buy a styrofoam container of worms from the creepy bait fridge in the back corner of Bi-Mart so I can make Mom Jay’s life a little easier for awhile.

Whatever it takes to get the pages, right?

So Much Depends On A Box of Cereal--Marcia

Five years ago I pitched a book at the Whidbey Island Writers’ conference and it was like winning the Super Bowl. I was the little darling, the star of the show. I got everything I wanted: an editor at a major house who wanted my work and a killer agent who was edgy, gorgeous, had great jewelry and offices in Palo Alto and Manhattan. Even better—it was confirmed, I was a writer.

Five years later, I’m still sitting on the first draft of my manuscript unable to kick it through the goal post. I can’t begin to tell you how crappy this makes me feel.

But, you know what, today is Kindergarten Round-up. Three months from now, the three-month old I was nursing at Whidbey will be almost six and headed to all-day kindergarten. Yabba-Dabba-Do!

Between both kids its been nine years of crazy, and I’ve been right there for all of it. The only thing I’ve missed is the day my eldest took off around the junior high school track without training wheels. (I’m still mad at my husband for choosing that particular moment.)

I’m already visualizing the summer. I get up at 6:00, drink coffee and write while the kids sleep. I give them a cheery good-morning hug as they pass my office trailing their blankies headed for the couch and TV. There will be a selection of three organic cereals they've picked at Grocery Outlet. I'll give them the freedom to choose one and pour for themselves. They can live without me for the morning, right? So what if they pour themselves three cups full of Fruity Bronto Bites. Bribery is essential in the name of art and limiting bloodshed. I will have to figure out who gets the remote.

We will leave the house at 9:17 for the gym, where they will spend an hour playing video games while I try to whittle down my waist. Then the whole rest of the day can be about the boys. The pool, the library, the lake, concerts in the park, art in the park, sleepovers, sparklers-- all the great stuff of summer. Please dear Jesus, just let me have until 9:00 A.M.

I’m in training for the year to come. I may finally have those blocks of uninterrupted time I need to track down a thought. I can almost feel my brain beginning to snap back into shape. I need to see if I can finally finish what I started. I'm ready to punt, baby. I have so many more stories I want to tell.

The Power of Now - Kerry

"Learning to live in the moment stops repetitive behavior, based on past memories of the physical body, that keeps you imprisoned," Alice Christenson, "Yoga from the Heart"

I resisted the urge to answer my cell phone as it rang in the car. I had careened around one too many corners trying to vainly fumble for it. I had swerved into the wrong lane, almost hit pedestrians, and taken wrong exits all while trying to answer the phone or talk on it. It was time to go back to the 1980’s, when I learned how to drive cell phone free with both hands on the wheel.

How many times did I need to repeat this behavior before I did something about it? I have conditioned my mind to multi-task, hoping I could simultaneously talk on the phone, drive, speak to my children and scroll through ipod selections.

I have driven up and down the I-5 corridor between our two houses in Ashland and Portland approximately twenty-two times this year, mostly because my sister-in-law was dying from breast cancer and to manage our rental. My head is simultaneously in either locale with my parents and childhood friends or with new Ashland friends and a fantastic writing group. I am torn. This is not a natural state of being. The present moment, or simply just focusing on one thing at a time, was completely lost to me. I was running scared.

Until Mother's Day, when I was brought forcefully into the present moment with my son's comment, "Mom, I'm glad you're not dead."

I pondered his remark as I glanced at his cousins, who had lost their mother just over a year ago. Brought up short by the power of now, I put down the phone as I got into the car. I filled the house with fresh lilacs and noticed their intoxicating smell, their vivid hue of purple. I sat down and sent a silent message of light and hope to the victims of disasters in Burma and China. Then I started to write.

The Stories Behind The Stories - Jennie

Every Wednesday evening, the Lithia girls pour out coffee, tea, or just plain hot water (depending on current tastes/needs/cleanses), as we pour over each other’s weekly writing.

Munching chocolate almond bark, chocolate espresso beans, or chocolate peanut butter Girl Scout cookies, we consider character, conclusion, sequence.

Each girl has her “thing.”

Flanked by high schoolers all day, Julie can’t be tricked. You know when you aren’t sure what to write, so you slap down something, and just keep going? Well, Julie finds that thing, and calls you on it. She gently says, “…I don’t know…” And you’re found out. She’s always right.

Kerry brings inspiration. Self-published, she proves that It can happen!

Marcia puts together a list, a paragraph, a chapter on something as common as a bird, that brings the rest of us to our knees. She’ll give you the one word you’re stuck on: not shuffle, not slide, but – ah! – slip!

Christy is the experienced one, with the agent, the vision, the tools. A master of dialogue, she is also a wealth of information regarding… everything. Christy is our Reason.

It’s a well-balanced group. And not just regarding the writing.

What’s really amazing are the stories behind the stories: the quirky things our kids said that week; our jobs; our lack of jobs; our students, parents, and inability to control the laundry; maybe just a little about the men we love (shhh…). Nothing is sacred: not enemas, rectums, or fears.

There’s a lot of laughing, and often, some tears.

Sure, we’re different. Our pieces span genre and audience. Some of us hand write, while others swear by lap tops. We don’t write the same way, the same length, or even in the same places: Julie can write anywhere but at home, and I can’t write anywhere but home.

There’s “How about putting in…” or “How about taking out…”

There are one-word paragraphs, and five-line sentences.

But there’s also a huge amount of like-mindedness. It’s not uncommon for two or more of us to show up with similar themes, including a pock-marked pursuer, bees, Bo-peep, Picasso, Snow White, emaciation, and llamas.

We meet to see what else we can add to that list, or to see what each other’s characters are doing, or to get our writing cleaned up and flushed out.

That’s what we tell everyone. And it’s mostly true.

But we go for the drinks and the chocolate, too… and to hear what Christy’s son, Hank, said this time.

Slow Fiction Brain - Julie

I have a friend, I'll call her 'Jennie,' who wrote a book in four months. I have another friend, I'll call her 'Christy,' who is right on her heels, closing in on the end of a book that she started in January. Both of these writers have ALREADY WRITTEN AN ENTIRE BOOK. And these are tight, high-quality reads, the gripping page-turning kind that are destined to be some kid's all time favorite made-me-love-reading YA books. Both of these writers bring scads of beautiful pages to share on writing group Wednesdays.

Hey, I’m writing a book, too! This week I brought one paragraph.

Usually, I am shockingly adept at turning any ordinary circumstance into something that is both bad and my fault, but this time, I just couldn't muster it. I loved writing that paragraph. It was about an empty hard-wood floored Community Center, and I just rambled around in that room, in that paragraph, for an hour, my mind peeking into every corner, exploring every shaft of light, taking my sweet time, with unwritten scenes of my book sometimes appearing right before my eyes.

I felt relaxed, which is different from the way I usually feel when I write, with the previously mentioned thin layer of sweat, and my nimble secretary fingers mocking my slow fiction brain. "Come on come on let's go,” my fingers yell, “something needs to happen here, yah, yah, you described that enough, let's goooooooo!" Well, you know what my brain said to my fingers that afternoon? "You know what Ms. Digits? Slow down. You are going to keep pace with me from now on, NOT the other way around. Now about this Community Center..."

Cheers! -Christy

Yesterday the Lithia Writers Collective had its regular Wednesday meeting, but regular it was not! It was an extraordinary day: Jennie had finished her manuscript.

She’d finished!

Starting a book is easy—really easy—and plugging away at one for years is fairly easy as well, but finishing a book? That is damn hard. And she did it in four months.

So we toasted with a lovely bottle of bubbly and passed around the weighty pages. Of course Jennie demurred, mumbling on about how rough it was and how much revision was left to do. Of course, we told her to shut up.

We forced her to look at the stack of paper she had produced, forced her to soak up the fact that she had finished two manuscripts in as many years, forced her to enjoy the moment. Because Jennie’s success is our success; seeing a fellow writer finish a manuscript is a beautiful thing - it makes you realize it’s possible.

Cheers, Jennie!

Finding the Sacred Spot--Marcia

I wake up this morning and Christy is talking in my dreams, she is saying that parking lots are built over sacred energy spots. There is some parking lot in Ashland where (in this dream) she gets together with a certain group of friends once a year. It is surrounded by tall trees with large dark-green leaves that flutter in the soft breeze. In my sleep state, this, like everything Mme. Raedeke says, makes perfect sense.

Even after slurping down an entire French press of caffeine it makes sense. There are definitely parking lots that get more action than others. You drive into Target and you can barely find a spot, everybody loves Target. (The Target symbol is a vortex in itself, happily sucking my money down its depths.). Yesterday we passed the Molly Murphy’s on Barnett all boarded up and depressing. No matter its name, and it alters almost yearly, it can’t seduce a single car into its parking lot. What’s that about? They change the roofline, they change the sign, but not a single restaurant has made it since the Sandpiper closed thirteen years ago.

I can’t even think of the names ye old Molly Murphy’s has had. The only reason I remember the Sandpiper, is because it was legend while my husband and his housemates lived at the “Bat Cave.” This was back when the new housing development behind the Sandpiper was a meadow my husband and his party friends used to cross after closing time. But like the Keg-a-rator in the Bat Cave’s fridge, the meadow, and the bar . . . our twenties are gone. And the parking lot at Molly Murphy’s is not a sacred spot of energy.

It’s been an action packed week—excursions with mom, my son’s first concert on a big stage, his first solo (a chicken sneeze for “Polly Wolly Doodle”), and his first trip to the emergency room—his baby brother laid him open with a Hot Wheels scooter painted in flames. So, you know, a parking lot in Ashland surrounded by ancient trees, the creek babbling stage left, and perhaps me, in a camp chair plunked down a few spots from a Subaru Outback, tapping away on a lap top doesn’t sound half bad right now. Maybe I’ll call Christy and get directions to that Zen lot where she and her pals meet every year.

Fifteen Minutes - Kerry

Apparently if I wait for the perfect moment to write that moment will never come, so I, like many other writers, compensate.

I have written entire magazine articles on airplane napkins. In desperate searches for something to write on, in short periods of time, I have used the back of my hand and also the back of my unopened mail. I understand graffiti on bathroom walls. Maybe that's all the writing time and space they had.

Tonight I am writing this blog (before I typed it) onto a piece of paper in my journal while I am laying on my stomach on the floor in my children's bedroom, wearing my pajamas. The dusk filters through the drawn blinds. I try to convince Max and Jillian, between sentences, that it really is time for bed. My nose is inches from a smelly wet towel in the laundry hamper. My feet rest on a Sponge Bob game. I long for a stretch of uninterrupted time, but I grudgingly take my fifteen minutes because this is where I can find them.

"The truth is, you can get a lot done in just fifteen minutes a day. We all have a least fifteen minutes somewhere," wrote Barbara DeMarco-Barrett in "Pen on Fire."

At least now Jillian was in the bed and not in a backpack on my back. I contemplated an entry in my journal I wrote three years ago:

The baby sat in a backpack on my back as I wrote on my laptop. I tried not to feel sorry for myself. Jillian, who was teething, started to drool down my neck, and all I wanted to do was sob. But I didn’t, only because that would have been too pathetic, particularly since I had four children downstairs playing with a Barbie house. Mommies shouldn’t cry when they’re using the laptop. Besides, as my mother would say, 'I really don’t have time for a nervous breakdown. They’re a luxury that you just don’t have.'

So I sat there and wrote. And again tonight, I laid there and wrote. It wasn't ideal, but it was enough.

"In fifteen minutes, you can write a page and at the end of the year have a novel," wrote Di-Marco Barrett. Maybe so.

Back to the Ending - Jennie

“What? It just STOPS?”

“It’s too abrupt! We don’t know what happens!”

My kids share their opinions on the conclusion of my YA book. They’re all lined up, open-mouthed at the foot of my bed.

I’m surprised –and disappointed – by their reactions. Per last week’s blog, post-firefighters’ funeral, I thought the ending was well-crafted, well-summed, and, well…, perfect.

The kids disagree. “It’s terrible!” they cry. “You have to fix it!”

I don’t want to fix it. I like the end of the story. It resolves the big conflicts, and still leaves something to the reader’s imagination.

So I run it by my husband for a second, er, fourth, opinion.

“No,” he says, hugging me, “That’s not really what I pictured.”

What did he picture? What do the kids want? And why am I distraught over their 10-,9-and 7-year old judgments?

Thinking it over, I guess it’s because this boy is their character, too – a boy they have come to know during dinner and on car rides. It’s a boy they love and want the best for. It’s a boy they think deserves happiness.

And you know what? Maybe they’re right.

Returning to the computer, I strike a few keys, trying for a more
conclusion-y conclusion.

Natalie Goldberg, Redux - Julie

Here are the things I do everyday: Drink coffee, blow dry my hair, dress myself, go to work, read email, read blogs that have no bearing on my life, eat at least three meals, feed my son and our pets and occasionally my husband, unload and/or load the dishwasher, consider and then dismiss doing yardwork, worry about work, watch TV, brush my teeth, go to sleep.

Here’s what I don’t do everyday: Write.

I see a couple of places where I could make a change.

Every single book about writing tells you to write everyday – the ones I like as well as the ones I don’t like, they all say it very clearly, write everyday. And I get it, that way you can factor in the crap that will surely come on days you really aren’t in the mood. It will take the pressure off, to always come up with something of quality. If you just force yourself to write everyday, something good and real and unexpected will eventually surface. But I’ve been using the one-writing-session-a-week method, the afternoon before writing group meets. And it’s killing me. Hunched over my computer, writing with a thin layer of sweat on my forehead, consistently typing “hte” instead of “the” in my frenzy to have something respectable to bring. My writing group friends would read any schlock I bring, treat it well, give it its due, but, as we have established in a previous blog, I write to get attention, and I’m not like the bad boy in your 2nd grade class, I do care what kind of attention it is. So I bring in pages that are the result of much brow-furrowing and angst and word-smithery, but the writing still never feels right.

So I guess what I’m saying is this. Natalie Goldberg, I’m sorry, you were right. Turns out it if you really are a writer, it is about practicing regularly, filling up notebooks, even if it means saying no to Grey’s Anatomy.

Happiness and Writing

My PEN America journal came in the mail the other day, and this morning I finally got a chance to look through it. PEN is an organization that defends free expression of the written word throughout the world, and reading the journal is depressing for two reasons: 1) the greatness of the writing puts in perspective the meagerness of my own, and 2) the oppression many of the writers have endured makes my life seem frivolous.

I’ll admit I have a bit of talent, but will my work ever foment protests and demonstrations? Not likely. Will my work transcend my death? Probably not. Should I stop writing? After reading the PEN journal, this is always a viable question.

So I close the PEN journal and open another one of my favorite books about being a writer, On Writing by Stephen King. My finger lands on this paragraph:

“Talent renders the whole idea of rehearsal meaningless; when you find something at which you are talented, you do it (whatever it is) until your fingers bleed or your eyes are ready to fall out of your head. Even when no one is listening (or reading, or watching), every outing is a bravura performance, because you as the creator are happy. Perhaps even ecstatic.”

Good old Stephen King makes me realize that I am not writing so that my words can transcend my death or incite riots, I am writing because it makes me happy. And hopefully, that’s enough.