Alpine Meadow

 

On the Fourth of July, I trekked through an alpine meadow with a gurgling stream straight off ice melt, with plants and little flowers hugging tight to the earth.  I saw what the wild wolves see. I was at the base of Mt. Shasta.

Thinking about it, I can’t think.

Ray Bradbury had a sign by his desk. “Don’t think.” People call that nebulous something various words—intuition, the internal knowing, the muse, the Holy Spirit, God.

I sat beside the lake, dangling my feet in ice water until they turned numb.   

It will take a while to integrate what I learned on the mountain, and even longer to articulate it. Maybe nothing will come, perhaps everything. Maybe seeing that all creatures and non-creatures are imbued with spirit—the trees, the water, the flowers, the rocks, the little raccoon that wanted to look at me, but didn’t want me to look at him, that giant old Grandmother tree that fell to the earth. It is crumbling, providing shelter for the little ones, providing mulch for the ground—soon, it will be soil.

I got it that human beings are not warring, sniping, sniveling, petty entities by nature. That has been drummed, conditioned, and taught to them. Human beings are love, expansiveness, beauty, and children of a divine creative force.

“Miracles don’t happen overnight. Sometimes they take an entire weekend”

P.S.I didn't have my camera with me. This picture was taken from the highway.

Break Out

 

Most everyone writes like most everyone walks. But we don't all strut like Carole Channing in Thoroughly Modern Millie (Movie 1967).

 Don't you sometimes want to break free and feel that free abandon with work and life? 

They say that every kid is an artist. But we're adults, and we have built up some self-consciousness. Or we're in the gap between where we are and where we want to be. 

We have good taste. We can tell when a story doesn't ring true. We have a good idea, but we ask ourselves, why do I sound like a freshman when I want to have graduated with a Ph.D.?

It's the skill we need before applying what's in our hearts.

Skills can be learned.

But before we study grammar, story structure, plot, The Journey of the Hero, or the mechanics of the Screenplay, we must still the voice that screams in our ears that we can't have the thing we want. 

We hesitate to play full-out in most endeavors. We want to dance while scrubbing the floor but scowl instead. A slight change of attitude would have made our time joyful instead of burning sunshine.

(I used to work in an office where the receptionist, when totally frustrated, would clean the office. It worked for all of us.)

We hear about doing what we love and getting paid to do it, and we try. We hear that life is supposed to be fun but feel we have little of it.

It's break-out time.

It might not happen all at once. It might come in spurts, but it will come. We are writers. We have declared ourselves to be, and so we are. 

Now, we want to be good writers.

That's called learning our craft.

Once, at a writer's workshop, an author/presenter asked: "Who wants to be a writer?"

Everyone in the room raised their hands.

"Then what in the hell are you doing here?' he boomed. "Go home and write."

Here's where I have a problem: if you keep putting out the same old, you won't advance. Some input is necessary.

Let's investigate…

Art is Expressed in Many Ways

 

"It is the inner commitment to be true to ourselves and follow our dreams that triggers the support of the universe."—Julia Cameron.

I have written this blog for years, and I have another blog, https://wishonwhitehorses, that I have written for even longer. For a time, I was using the same material on both blogs for I thought I had two different audiences.  I am keeping this one for writing, blogging, and supporting artists.

We need a place for happy thoughts, at least uplifting thoughts. I spent the weekend with a lady, an old friend with whom I have been out of touch for years. She was the daughter of my mother's best friend—since they were in Junior High school. She has her own business and works out of her house. Now she is single, and with her kids gone, she says she will go for days, maybe weeks, without talking to someone except over the phone or via email.

Come on folks, we need some human contact. Although here we will stick with our internet connection.

I once took a workshop where an editor would critique one page of the participant's work. She called it a "No blood on the floor critique." It takes someone with the confidence of Johan Travolta to counter a "Blood on the floor critique." When an agent told him he would never be an actor, he walked away saying, "They're nuts."

Many never recover from such a put-down.

Yet artists grow. They mature, they learn their craft, and if a person keeps on, they will improve. (Unless, of course, they keep repeating the same old tired ways of doing things.) Artists need some fresh blood in there from time to time to push them to the next level.

Many writers use Beta readers (or sensitivity readers) to review their manuscripts. For many, such readers are a friend or spouse. We can offer such a service, but only one page please. We can be fresh eyes on your page, and offer non-professional opinions, Hey, we’re readers. We know what we like.

Or tell us about your desire to express yourself creatively. Even if it is throwing ingredients into a pot to make a superb spaghetti sauce. It’s fun to cook with no recipes, that’s creative.

If you would like to submit a page of your writing, I will offer an opinion, but I am not an editor, nor do I claim to be a writing expert. And we will offer it to our readers for comment—that can be private if you prefer.

If you have been reading my memoir Your Story Matters, we are up to Chapter 46 and 47.  It is available to read at https://www.wishonwhitehorses.com

 P.S. None of my material is A.I. I heard over the weekend that someone (who is that person?) is writing small books selling like half-priced hamburgers at McDonalds, which are AI-generated. That drives me crazy!

P.S.P.S.  In honor of an artist:

Two moments ago, I looked up James Earl Jones and was saddened to learn he passed away on Sept 9, 2024. 

James Earl Jones—that baritone velvet-voiced guy did not speak for eight years because of a severe stutter.

This story is from Michael Moore recapturing the voice of James Earl Jones:

“Somehow Professor Crouch, to his surprise and pleasure, discovered that I wrote poetry. The boy who had written the poems was the same mute boy who had fought with uncontrolled fury. Both fury and poetry poured out of my silence.

"I'm impressed with your poem, James Earl," Professor Crouch told me after he read my ode to grapefruit. "I know how hard it is for you to talk, and I don't require you to do that… [But I think it’s best] for you to say it aloud to the class," he told me.

"It would be a trauma to open my mouth in front of my classmates, who would probably laugh at my poem and my stuttering….

"I was shaking as I stood up, cursing myself. I strained to get the words out, pushing from the bottom of my soul. I opened my mouth — and to my astonishment, the words flowed out smoothly, every one of them. There was no stutter. All of us were amazed, not so much by the poem as by the performance….

"Aha!" my professor exclaimed as I sat down, vindicated. "We will now use this as a way to recapture your ability to speak."

 

The voice of Darth Vader did good.

"Art? Just Do It."

 

One moment ago, I leaned back in my chair brain fatigued and opened a random page of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way.

A small quote on the right hand of page 141 gave me an oracle for the day: 

"Art? You just do it."--Martin Ritt

There is more to be said about art if you want to go into the content of the page, which is "Filling Out the Form." Cameron explained that if you are writing a screenplay—which I'm not—you must do the steps: Think of an idea, commit it to paper, and then write page by page for 120 pages. That's your daily work. And when obsession strikes—and it will—how the damn thing is not any good, you put that question aside and go back and write the next page.

 

I had completed a synopsis of a book I have written when I turned to Cameron’s book. I take that back; I had brain fatigue, but I can't say the synopsis is complete. I need to go over it again.

I was telling the story that agent’s and publisher’s request. They want the skeleton of the plot and the ending—no hiding that from them.

That took more work than writing the book. Although I shouldn't say that either, for I've spent more years than I can to mention on that book.

So, the years passed, but I haven't been hitting the keys continually to write it. After I read that a protagonist needs to be young and beautiful, I rebelled and wrote a story about a 65-year-old woman, single, a schoolteacher, who retired on the first page. (She is lovely, I couldn't resist.)

A friend said, "A spinster schoolteacher, that won't fly."

We'll see.

The first page changed. Instead, it begins with Miss Sara Rose’s granddaughter, fifteen-year-old Patrice. You know how kids are, they write their own story. To go back a bit, Sara Rose had a dream.

That dream was to ride a river in Africa.

I changed things, I rewrote it. I added a second twist that involves a mystery.

I was learning. I didn't think I could write, but I liked the idea. I thought I could only write in the first person until, halfway through, I found that I could write in third. I thought I couldn't write dialogue, but I did it anyway, poorly, but I did it.

I’ve written many things since then. I’ve blogged, written books, and it hasn’t taken me as many years as this one, but that book was my basic learning experience.

You artists know why you do it.

You are dreaming through your fingers—no matter the art form. It could be the dough that grows beneath your fingers. The fragrance of yeast wafts up into your face until your cheeks are pink from the joy of it. Your hands mold that pliant pile of flour, yeast, salt, and water until it is “spankable.” When it’s formed into a loaf and placed in the oven, the house smells so delectable it makes the angels sing. (I’ve been reading about making a sourdough starter.)

"Art? You just do it."

Taming the Dragon

Dear fellow writers,

Steven Pressfield* says an artist’s resistance is like a dragon we must tame every morning.

A reader commented that Steven King writes joyfully every day, perhaps because he puts his dragons into his stories.

Is that the answer?

 

Since this is called a Writer’s Blog, perhaps I have been remiss for not talking about writing.

I have written almost daily for years and joyfully. Only recently have I experienced any resistance. I have felt that writing is my expression, my art, a way to be creative. (I believe everyone is creative—just find it and do it.) In creativity we find that No-Time-Zone where angels sing, birds chirp, and you are driven away from the computer (or canvas, or keyboard) only when starved or needing a water closet break. (Isn’t that a fantastic term?)

There at my desk, I happily put words on a page, thought up stories, read for fun and research, and all the while tried to get better.

(Pressfield wrote a book titled, Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t.)  We will write it occasionally, forgive ourselves, and move on. Hey Pressfield, that was not our intention.)

Maybe that’s my dilemma—I’m reading too much good stuff—stuff better than mine, or I feel I “should” be doing something that helps pay the bills. I feel guilty that I’m not calling Real Estate Leads. (I have a real estate license) One rejection after another gets tedious after a while.

(I did get hold of a fellow horse lover, a cowboy, and we had a good time, but he was not buying or selling, just fishing for information.)

Why don’t we do the thing that will make us feel better? I’m guilty of it—maybe that’s the dragon. That’s the resistance. I know that writing “Morning pages,”(Julia Cameron’s term) works like magic. So why don’t we do it? I know that meditation helps the mood and the blood pressure, so why don’t I do more of it? Time? Right, like we’d rather wallow in misery and let the cycling mind run amuck rather than spend 15 minutes writing out the junk we’ve accumulated.

We, you, me, I’m throwing us all in the soup. Morning pages are for your eyes only. It’s a mind dump. It is clearing out the debris so the real stuff can come through. It’s putting a period at the end of a sentence, something the mind tends to forget. Pressfield says we need to clean our house so the Muse doesn’t soil her gown on the way in.

Morning pages are for your eyes only, it’s writing out the sh*t, it’s taming the dragon, it’s cleaning the house.

*https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#search/Steven+Pressfield/FMfcgzQXJGnzBbKjnHxWPjHpRFxGlhhR