Every once in awhile we must pose this question to ourselves and answer it. Occasionally someone else, usually a good friend or a concerned parent, will ask it for you--”Why do you write?” I find that, as many times as I’ve answered this question, which is at least every other year, the answer continues to change. At least it looks different on paper. After my inner cry baby finishes with me, “Why the heck do I keep writing anyway because basically the whole world either despises or is indifferent to my subject matter and it’s never going to take off and nobody is ever going to pay me for it either."
But then, that’s not why I write, is it? No, it isn’t.
I write because I want to give some form and substance to my life experience. I want to express what begins as wordless: the spirit, the soul, the heart of the matter. I want to play with language until I get it “right.” I want to barter with others--my words for yours. My poem for your poem. My story for yours. Let’s share what we do, see, hear, taste, touch, smell, feel. Let’s expose a little of what we have hidden, locked away inside a closet until the bones of that skeleton have mildewed, gone moldy. Let’s pick each other’s ribs. I want to add to the Grand Mysteries of Life--Love, Beauty, Tragedy, Truth all the old capital-letter words. Let’s do save the whales, the Earth, resurrect peace and justice from the dead. We’ll dog the establishment and praise the accomplishments of those who work for good--penniless poets, independent documentary makers, teachers, nurses, storytellers, peacemongers, the Mother Theresa’s who never make it to sainthood or even to India.
Let’s use a big vocabulary and be inclusive, diverse and not show prejudice against the words that don’t seem socially acceptable when really we just don’t understand them yet--until we have a chance to mouth them ourselves, roll them around on our tongues, try ‘em out on somebody new and watch the shock as they think, “I can’t believe you said that.” This is what starts conversations..or ends them.. depending on what you’re up to. We’ll trade poems and songs and stories like baseball cards, school lunch items, Halloween candy. I might want what you find tasteless or have grown tired of. Go ahead and show me. We’re writers. We’re all about show and tell:
See this crab claw? It still stinks but I found it on an isolated beach at noon and nothing else was there, the beach was bare--no conchs, no abalone or oyster shell, not even a clam--just this one claw and it made me write about how we go around grasping for things, clawing our way through a tide of plenty, wanting more, more until nothing is left but a disembodied claw that clutches and grabs at nothing--it’s involuntary. There’s not even a greedy mouth left to feed. We simply don’t know how to stop.
And if it ain’t show ‘n’ tell, it’s “What I Did on my Summer Vacation.” How as a teen I discovered who I was completely by accident when another campfire girl lost her marshmallow in the fire and I put a perfectly toasted one from my stick in her mouth with my fingers sticking to her lips and she licked the white stuff off and laughed a big gooey marshmallow laugh which stuck to my soul and somehow my sex and I couldn’t get it off no matter how I scrubbed later in the shower and of course that’s when she came in and stood in the stall right next to me and slid the slippery soap into my wet hand, then offered to help me wash my back and that’s how it all began--what about you?
Oh, yeah, this is why I write and I want to remember this for the next rejection letter, the next offhand remark when a friend “forgets” this is what I do for a living, for my life; when somebody new says, “Yeah, but where do you work?” I want to remember and not ever forget but I still need these words to remind me.
So, tell me, why do you write?
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Saturday, January 28, 2006
ACTION!!
Some of the most basic tools for good writing are the ones we take for granted. Breaking it down to the essentials, we come down to words, like nouns and verbs. One names a person, place or thing. The other describes an action. What is the person, place or thing actually doing?
In order to make sentences interesting then, a lot hangs on what names or nouns we choose, but even more depends on how we show their action. Consider the power of a simple, active past tense verb: “We had been swimming” isn’t nearly as strong as “We swam.” Every qualifier we put into a sentence removes it once more from the 'now' world of the reader. Sometimes the hads, weres, and would bees are necessary, but I try to avoid them whenever possible.
Descriptive verbs also lessen the need for adverbs: “He walked away angrily.” “He stormed off.” Which of these gives a more vivid picture of the action and the person? Natalie Goldberg, in Writing Down the Bones ( a book I highly recommend) includes a very effective yet short chapter on verb use. She immediately moves into an exercise rather than spending a lot of time describing what she means. I paraphrase her exercise here:
Fold a sheet of paper in half. On the left side of the page list ten nouns, any ten. Most of these nouns I observed from the center of my bed:
woodpecker
maple
dachshund
post oak
bedspread
pen
paper
pasture
barbed wire
window
Then Natalie directs us to turn the paper over and think of an occupation; for example, lawyer, pilot, baker, coach, etc. Anthing that interests you. I chose rancher because in my heart of hearts, I always wanted to be a cowboy. “Rancher” seemed a little more distinguished (and possible) for a 51-year-old. Then make a list of 15 verbs that go with that job. Here are mine for rancher:
lasso
mend
graze
range
ride
rope
buck
bridle
hitch
gallop
herd
hogtie
brand
hammer
pasture
Now open the page and you have the nouns and the verbs alongside each other. Hook them up in sentences and see what emerges on the page. Try some nonsense attachments as well as ones you may actually use. Keep rearranging and playing with this exercise until you experience the power of action words for yourself. Try writing a poem or paragraph using at least some of your sentences. Here is the simple extended metaphor I wrote after “hitching” up my nouns and verbs:
At the Longview Writer’s Ranch
Today they roll from their bunk unexpectedly
wakened by a woodpecker thumping a thorny old Maple
who bucks her rider in a winter wind.
She is a poet and wiener dog whisperer,
sings nonsense songs to her dachshund
to make him love her...
and maybe mind, this time.
She was dreaming of lassoing metaphors and hitching them to phrases
without their bridling, without her having to hogtie herself to a table first.
He was dreaming of rolling in cow patties and squeaky orange men
falling like ripe fruit from the post oaks and pines.
She writes, bedspread branded across one cheek,
herds words onto a page then mends sentences.
The hammering of the sapsucker gallops through her study window.
Cowbirds graze next door then decorate the barbed wire, wings folded.
She grips a pen, presses it to paper,
promises cornfeed and a warm barn
later--as long as she begins.
But still her mind wanders, ranges
far and wide across fenceless fields and pastures
astride the golden pony of her dreams.
MGK Jan. 2006
Do this exercise regularly and see how many interesting combinations you can come up with. The possibilities are endless. And buy Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg--she’s one of the best!
In order to make sentences interesting then, a lot hangs on what names or nouns we choose, but even more depends on how we show their action. Consider the power of a simple, active past tense verb: “We had been swimming” isn’t nearly as strong as “We swam.” Every qualifier we put into a sentence removes it once more from the 'now' world of the reader. Sometimes the hads, weres, and would bees are necessary, but I try to avoid them whenever possible.
Descriptive verbs also lessen the need for adverbs: “He walked away angrily.” “He stormed off.” Which of these gives a more vivid picture of the action and the person? Natalie Goldberg, in Writing Down the Bones ( a book I highly recommend) includes a very effective yet short chapter on verb use. She immediately moves into an exercise rather than spending a lot of time describing what she means. I paraphrase her exercise here:
Fold a sheet of paper in half. On the left side of the page list ten nouns, any ten. Most of these nouns I observed from the center of my bed:
woodpecker
maple
dachshund
post oak
bedspread
pen
paper
pasture
barbed wire
window
Then Natalie directs us to turn the paper over and think of an occupation; for example, lawyer, pilot, baker, coach, etc. Anthing that interests you. I chose rancher because in my heart of hearts, I always wanted to be a cowboy. “Rancher” seemed a little more distinguished (and possible) for a 51-year-old. Then make a list of 15 verbs that go with that job. Here are mine for rancher:
lasso
mend
graze
range
ride
rope
buck
bridle
hitch
gallop
herd
hogtie
brand
hammer
pasture
Now open the page and you have the nouns and the verbs alongside each other. Hook them up in sentences and see what emerges on the page. Try some nonsense attachments as well as ones you may actually use. Keep rearranging and playing with this exercise until you experience the power of action words for yourself. Try writing a poem or paragraph using at least some of your sentences. Here is the simple extended metaphor I wrote after “hitching” up my nouns and verbs:
At the Longview Writer’s Ranch
Today they roll from their bunk unexpectedly
wakened by a woodpecker thumping a thorny old Maple
who bucks her rider in a winter wind.
She is a poet and wiener dog whisperer,
sings nonsense songs to her dachshund
to make him love her...
and maybe mind, this time.
She was dreaming of lassoing metaphors and hitching them to phrases
without their bridling, without her having to hogtie herself to a table first.
He was dreaming of rolling in cow patties and squeaky orange men
falling like ripe fruit from the post oaks and pines.
She writes, bedspread branded across one cheek,
herds words onto a page then mends sentences.
The hammering of the sapsucker gallops through her study window.
Cowbirds graze next door then decorate the barbed wire, wings folded.
She grips a pen, presses it to paper,
promises cornfeed and a warm barn
later--as long as she begins.
But still her mind wanders, ranges
far and wide across fenceless fields and pastures
astride the golden pony of her dreams.
MGK Jan. 2006
Do this exercise regularly and see how many interesting combinations you can come up with. The possibilities are endless. And buy Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg--she’s one of the best!
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Try This at Home
Claytime
I don’t know clay besides the red stuff
that stood for soil where I grew up.
I have to ask the clerk
what kind, color, resiliency
the temp at which it can be baked
like the ovenset for my poppyseed cake.
I only know I want to feel it in my hands
SQUEEZE it between my fingers
push and pull
shape and mold some form or figure, godlike
into animals, mountains, trees, human
beings in all their various shapes and sizes.
I buy a DK book on animals of the world
and begin, sitting at a card table
with my friend.
She is an artist, a real artist
who still knows how to play, judgement-free with me
together, yet independently.
She shapes roly-poly pigs, a bear and sheep
who appear to me to be perfectly created.
I tackle grizzlies, alligators, bats, giraffes.
I don’t know how hard these are to make
with all their lines and angles, curves and indentations.
I don’t care about my finished products’ imperfections.
I just pull the clay and round it
fingertip balls until they resemble heads,
poke eyes, pinch ears.
My animals are creations by a god who loves a taffy pull;
elongated Salvador Dalis; people reminiscient of “The Scream,”
only calm and happy in their misconfigurations.
Each time I pick a brand new critter
Jane’s eyebrows raise
because she can’t believe I would even try
to replicate the thing:
a blackbird spreading wing,
a hawk diving for its prey.
Her proportions turn out wonderfully
she practices until she gets it right.
Meanwhile mine continue to emerge like laundry
squished between the rollers
of an old-time wringer washer.
But I’m contented as a clam
as long as I can make them stand
thumb their sinewed muscles into shape
stroke a face or mend a hand
into something that resembles grace.
Mendy Knott Jan. 2005
Try This at Home
Never underestimate the power of a well-known Buddhist concept called “beginner’s mind.” In America we sometimes call this “beginner’s luck.” Basically the same principle applies. When no one has told you that you CAN’T do something--perform onstage, write a poem, paint a watercolor, make a clay pot--quite often you find that you CAN. Since nobody has told you how hard it’s going to be or that it’s downright impossible, you approach the process with openess and ingenuity. There is no rigid set of rules to follow. Instead, you wander rather blindly, albeit happily, into an act of creation and make something wonderfully authentic simply because your pleasure , your joy is in the play of it.
Beginner’s mind is a beautiful part of Creation’s plan which allows us to try something totally intimidating because we’re ignorant of all that can go wrong. Like having children, if we really knew how much pain and agony would be involved, we might never have any--and there goes the species! Sometimes we forget how hard it is and little Charlie gets a baby Polly to play with.
This is the way it needs to be each time we set out to create--it is new! It has never been done before by you and therefore it won’t, can’t be the same as anyone else’s. Disregard what others tell you about how hard it will be. Ignore all nay-sayers. Here at the beginning, having fun will keep you working long after determination and stubborness have worn down to grit. Not even the promise of fame and fortune can do what real pleasure in the process can do for you. It’s the only way to complete a project and still be enjoying yourself. And why shouldn’t we enjoy our work, our art? All suffering should be short-lived or non-existent.
The first creative writing I did after 15 years away from writing of any kind, was to write a novel. That’s right. I wrote a 350-page novel before I had written a short story, a poem, or even a class paper. I could do this because nobody told me I couldn’t. I was well-read. I knew the genre. I figured I could tell a long story just as good as the next fella. I simply didn’t know any better and I had a great time. I learned a lot, but the most important thing I learned was that I loved what I was doing and I wrote a book--all by myself. It was an incredible feeling.
Do this: Pick an art form that you always thought you might enjoy but have never tried. Make it something that doesn’t require a lot of money--use Sculpy, inexpensive water-colors and brushes, pencil and paper to draw or write. Try out for a part in a community theater play. Join a choir or chorus. Buy a harmonica. Decide to prepare a gourmet meal for your date or your boss...or maybe just your mom first. Don’t think about it long. Dive right in! Work hard at playing. Don’t forsee the future. It’s all about staying in the moment and getting messy with your materials. Experiment. Believe you can do anything you want with what you’ve got, then do it. Just do it.
I don’t know clay besides the red stuff
that stood for soil where I grew up.
I have to ask the clerk
what kind, color, resiliency
the temp at which it can be baked
like the ovenset for my poppyseed cake.
I only know I want to feel it in my hands
SQUEEZE it between my fingers
push and pull
shape and mold some form or figure, godlike
into animals, mountains, trees, human
beings in all their various shapes and sizes.
I buy a DK book on animals of the world
and begin, sitting at a card table
with my friend.
She is an artist, a real artist
who still knows how to play, judgement-free with me
together, yet independently.
She shapes roly-poly pigs, a bear and sheep
who appear to me to be perfectly created.
I tackle grizzlies, alligators, bats, giraffes.
I don’t know how hard these are to make
with all their lines and angles, curves and indentations.
I don’t care about my finished products’ imperfections.
I just pull the clay and round it
fingertip balls until they resemble heads,
poke eyes, pinch ears.
My animals are creations by a god who loves a taffy pull;
elongated Salvador Dalis; people reminiscient of “The Scream,”
only calm and happy in their misconfigurations.
Each time I pick a brand new critter
Jane’s eyebrows raise
because she can’t believe I would even try
to replicate the thing:
a blackbird spreading wing,
a hawk diving for its prey.
Her proportions turn out wonderfully
she practices until she gets it right.
Meanwhile mine continue to emerge like laundry
squished between the rollers
of an old-time wringer washer.
But I’m contented as a clam
as long as I can make them stand
thumb their sinewed muscles into shape
stroke a face or mend a hand
into something that resembles grace.
Mendy Knott Jan. 2005
Try This at Home
Never underestimate the power of a well-known Buddhist concept called “beginner’s mind.” In America we sometimes call this “beginner’s luck.” Basically the same principle applies. When no one has told you that you CAN’T do something--perform onstage, write a poem, paint a watercolor, make a clay pot--quite often you find that you CAN. Since nobody has told you how hard it’s going to be or that it’s downright impossible, you approach the process with openess and ingenuity. There is no rigid set of rules to follow. Instead, you wander rather blindly, albeit happily, into an act of creation and make something wonderfully authentic simply because your pleasure , your joy is in the play of it.
Beginner’s mind is a beautiful part of Creation’s plan which allows us to try something totally intimidating because we’re ignorant of all that can go wrong. Like having children, if we really knew how much pain and agony would be involved, we might never have any--and there goes the species! Sometimes we forget how hard it is and little Charlie gets a baby Polly to play with.
This is the way it needs to be each time we set out to create--it is new! It has never been done before by you and therefore it won’t, can’t be the same as anyone else’s. Disregard what others tell you about how hard it will be. Ignore all nay-sayers. Here at the beginning, having fun will keep you working long after determination and stubborness have worn down to grit. Not even the promise of fame and fortune can do what real pleasure in the process can do for you. It’s the only way to complete a project and still be enjoying yourself. And why shouldn’t we enjoy our work, our art? All suffering should be short-lived or non-existent.
The first creative writing I did after 15 years away from writing of any kind, was to write a novel. That’s right. I wrote a 350-page novel before I had written a short story, a poem, or even a class paper. I could do this because nobody told me I couldn’t. I was well-read. I knew the genre. I figured I could tell a long story just as good as the next fella. I simply didn’t know any better and I had a great time. I learned a lot, but the most important thing I learned was that I loved what I was doing and I wrote a book--all by myself. It was an incredible feeling.
Do this: Pick an art form that you always thought you might enjoy but have never tried. Make it something that doesn’t require a lot of money--use Sculpy, inexpensive water-colors and brushes, pencil and paper to draw or write. Try out for a part in a community theater play. Join a choir or chorus. Buy a harmonica. Decide to prepare a gourmet meal for your date or your boss...or maybe just your mom first. Don’t think about it long. Dive right in! Work hard at playing. Don’t forsee the future. It’s all about staying in the moment and getting messy with your materials. Experiment. Believe you can do anything you want with what you’ve got, then do it. Just do it.
Monday, January 23, 2006
Seeing Is Believing
Seeing is Believing
As long as we’re on the subject of creativity and kids, I’m going to include this review of I Am a Pencil. Read this book and let it take you back to the ingenuity of kids and the vision that “beginner’s mind” can bring to the page. Since the creative writers in the book truly are beginners, in life as well as art, they are still having their first look at a lot of stuff. This is a special way of “seeing” that all too often gets lost as we enter adulthood, the business worId, college, parenthood, whatever. I believe we can recover our sight. After childhood it just takes practice. It becomes an art which leads us to create or re-create what we are now seeing with fresh eyes. This is the way an artist wants and needs to see life. Let the children in I Am a Pencil help you remember how. “And a little child shall lead them....”
I Am a Pencil by Sam Swopes
I Am a Pencil is a memoir by children’s book author, Sam Swopes, about the three years he taught creative writing to a class of elementary school kids in Queens, N.Y. There are two important facts to remember as you read along. English is a second language to most of these kids, who altogether represent 11 different countries. And the teacher follows the same students ( or as many as return each year) through the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades. This core group provides a unifying thread from year to year as Swopes engages us in his classroom adventures. We know these kids by the end of the book and feel invested in their futures.
Now I myself am a fiction reader. What I want when I turn on the bedside lamp and crack the pages open is a story--a well-written, exciting, imaginative story that’s at least novel length. But my sister, who is becoming a teacher this year at 40-something, recommended this book to me because I love to write. She may have had other reasons, but that’s how she hooked me.
From the opening pages of I Am a Pencil, I was indeed hooked, line and sinker. I felt like a student again in Swopes’ classroom. These were my peers, these 8 and 9-year-old students. I had a lift-top wooden desk, a Big Chief wide lines writing tablet, and two #2 pencils with hard new erasers and sharp points. Everytime I picked up this book, I sat down at my desk and joined the other kids in an intensely creative and soulful learning experience. The writings of these diverse children are incredible, lovely, heartbreaking, hilarious.
I fell in love with them, with their too-hard lives, with their instinctive, intuitive genius and with their teacher, Mr. Swopes. We go on field trips to the Met to study boxes, to Central Park to visit trees. We make boxes of all shapes and sizes with all kinds of uses. We create islands from our bodies and write letters to our adopted trees. Always, always we are exploring through language our own inner landscapes and diving deep into the undersea world of imagination. Everytime we submerge we’re surprised by what we find there.
Colored by their inheritance of different cultures, each child has a unique perspective which clearly emerges in their poems, stories, letters. Each student struggles with growing up and the lives they must go home to at the end of the day. At school, though, there’s Mr.Swopes--encouraging, editing, inspiring, correcting, caring, and teaching...truly teaching me, you, the children how to heal into wholeness through the joy of our own creations.
As you journey with Mr. Swopes from the 3rd through the 5th grades, perhaps you’ll recall a teacher, or even two or three, who changed you in some way. A teacher who managed to reach through the walls that even at that age we were already erecting in order to protect ourselves from pain. Dotty Strain, my English teacher instilled confidence in me by letting me know that I was a comprehensive reader and a good writer. Karen Overstreet, drama teacher, who involved me in plays and taught me to love the theater, effectively keeping me off the streets my last two years of high school. Mrs. Dickson, who everyone feared but who liked me and taught me discipline as well as history. The math teacher who was also a creative writing instructor (go figure) and nominated me for creative writer of the year. These were teachers who loved, who lead me through that lost land of childhood. These kinds of teachers save lives, even if they never know it. Unrecognized for the most part, and certainly underpaid, there are teachers like these still out there. As Mr.Swopes says, “It only takes one.” So in 2006 I’m electing Mr.Swopes as my teacher of the year. Next year it will be my sister. I already know what kind of teacher she’s going to be.
If you read only one nonfiction book a year, make it I Am a Pencil. It will make you remember that there is always something left to learn.
As long as we’re on the subject of creativity and kids, I’m going to include this review of I Am a Pencil. Read this book and let it take you back to the ingenuity of kids and the vision that “beginner’s mind” can bring to the page. Since the creative writers in the book truly are beginners, in life as well as art, they are still having their first look at a lot of stuff. This is a special way of “seeing” that all too often gets lost as we enter adulthood, the business worId, college, parenthood, whatever. I believe we can recover our sight. After childhood it just takes practice. It becomes an art which leads us to create or re-create what we are now seeing with fresh eyes. This is the way an artist wants and needs to see life. Let the children in I Am a Pencil help you remember how. “And a little child shall lead them....”
I Am a Pencil by Sam Swopes
I Am a Pencil is a memoir by children’s book author, Sam Swopes, about the three years he taught creative writing to a class of elementary school kids in Queens, N.Y. There are two important facts to remember as you read along. English is a second language to most of these kids, who altogether represent 11 different countries. And the teacher follows the same students ( or as many as return each year) through the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades. This core group provides a unifying thread from year to year as Swopes engages us in his classroom adventures. We know these kids by the end of the book and feel invested in their futures.
Now I myself am a fiction reader. What I want when I turn on the bedside lamp and crack the pages open is a story--a well-written, exciting, imaginative story that’s at least novel length. But my sister, who is becoming a teacher this year at 40-something, recommended this book to me because I love to write. She may have had other reasons, but that’s how she hooked me.
From the opening pages of I Am a Pencil, I was indeed hooked, line and sinker. I felt like a student again in Swopes’ classroom. These were my peers, these 8 and 9-year-old students. I had a lift-top wooden desk, a Big Chief wide lines writing tablet, and two #2 pencils with hard new erasers and sharp points. Everytime I picked up this book, I sat down at my desk and joined the other kids in an intensely creative and soulful learning experience. The writings of these diverse children are incredible, lovely, heartbreaking, hilarious.
I fell in love with them, with their too-hard lives, with their instinctive, intuitive genius and with their teacher, Mr. Swopes. We go on field trips to the Met to study boxes, to Central Park to visit trees. We make boxes of all shapes and sizes with all kinds of uses. We create islands from our bodies and write letters to our adopted trees. Always, always we are exploring through language our own inner landscapes and diving deep into the undersea world of imagination. Everytime we submerge we’re surprised by what we find there.
Colored by their inheritance of different cultures, each child has a unique perspective which clearly emerges in their poems, stories, letters. Each student struggles with growing up and the lives they must go home to at the end of the day. At school, though, there’s Mr.Swopes--encouraging, editing, inspiring, correcting, caring, and teaching...truly teaching me, you, the children how to heal into wholeness through the joy of our own creations.
As you journey with Mr. Swopes from the 3rd through the 5th grades, perhaps you’ll recall a teacher, or even two or three, who changed you in some way. A teacher who managed to reach through the walls that even at that age we were already erecting in order to protect ourselves from pain. Dotty Strain, my English teacher instilled confidence in me by letting me know that I was a comprehensive reader and a good writer. Karen Overstreet, drama teacher, who involved me in plays and taught me to love the theater, effectively keeping me off the streets my last two years of high school. Mrs. Dickson, who everyone feared but who liked me and taught me discipline as well as history. The math teacher who was also a creative writing instructor (go figure) and nominated me for creative writer of the year. These were teachers who loved, who lead me through that lost land of childhood. These kinds of teachers save lives, even if they never know it. Unrecognized for the most part, and certainly underpaid, there are teachers like these still out there. As Mr.Swopes says, “It only takes one.” So in 2006 I’m electing Mr.Swopes as my teacher of the year. Next year it will be my sister. I already know what kind of teacher she’s going to be.
If you read only one nonfiction book a year, make it I Am a Pencil. It will make you remember that there is always something left to learn.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Start Where You Are
Start Where You Are
Fourteen years ago I stood in a cold March wind on the outskirts of Atlanta, GA dressed in a blue polyester uniform shivering and waiting for back-up to arrive. I could still hear the four boys I saw leaving a MARTA park ‘n’ ride in two freshly stolen SUV’s crashing through the woods on foot. I stood beside one of the cars, its nose crumpled into a leaning pine. My hand dripped blood from a nasty cut I got when I fell while hopelessly giving chase through a wooded area, glass and trash serving as the forest floor instead of leaves and pine needles. The perpetrators were less than half my age and wore nothing more than jeans, sneakers, and t-shirts while I lugged 12 extra pounds in police equipment around my waist. Add the 20 or so extra years--no contest.
Standing there alone, I faced the self I had been running from as well, and wondered what I should do. As I waited 3 minutes, then 5, then 10 for somebody to arrive and give me a hand with the situation, I began to question the validity of risking life and limb for a car,even two cars which were, no doubt, well insured. Was I really willing to die over a $60 crack deal gone bad? I took a look at who I was becoming as a cop and had to admit I didn’t like what I saw. Violence was permeating my life; not just what I did for a living, but who I was as a person.
A helluva lot can go through your mind in a little bit of time when you’re hurt and waiting for help to arrive. But the question persisted--what else could I do?
I never finished college--life kept getting in the way. Policing was the best job I’d ever had. My identity was completely wrapped up in the uniform, the badge, the gun I wore on my hip that effectively said, “Don’t mess with me because I can take care of myself and you, too.”
Later that night, I stared at the bandage on my right hand while memories popped up like short takes on a movie screen. I saw myself in grammar school confronted with the same old question teachers always ask their young students, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” My answer was always the same. “I want to be a writer.” I loved books and everything writerly--paper, pens, pencils,erasers. Reading was my escape from a world in which I could never quite place myself. The piece of the puzzle that was me never fit in the jigsaw of my world. Books made everything possible and I wanted to live in a world with endless possibilities. I wanted to create those worlds myself and I knew I had the imagination to do it.
The other dream that returned unbidden was how I had always longed to live in the mountains. Not just any mountains,either. The Blue Ridge Mountains. The Appalachian chain that wound through east Tennessee, western North Carolina and on up into Virginia. Those big bluegreen giants that cooled a deep south child and her family running from the stifling Louisiana heat to ministerial conferences in Montreat. How hard could it be? I had no real ties to Atlanta except the Job and if I quit, what would keep me from moving to Asheville,say? My friends would understand--eventually. Besides, it was barely four hours away.
My wounded gun hand kept me out of work for nearly a week and when I recovered I returned to Fulton County with my resignation in hand. I dedicated myself to the writing life just as surely as the members of my daddy’s congregation gave themselves to Christ after a sweat-slinging, tear-wringing revival. I swore that even if all I could afford was a broom closet for shelter, I would write. It was a risk I was willing to take. In fact, the risks were many. They continue to this day. They aren’t the same kind I took as a cop, but they are taken consciously, intentionally and somehow that makes them just as frightening.
I took the first year of my new creative life and wrote a novel. I used every penny of my police pension to spend that year writing. I didn’t work a day job. I wrote a 350 page novel, a children’s story, a play, and several poems in that one year. I wrote almost daily. I worked long hours for weeks at a time. The dam burst and it seemed I had endless subjects begging my attention and my Bic. I lived with a friend and exchanged other creative abilities for room and board. I was a good cook, kept an immaculate house, served as personal trainer and confidante to my friend who was a nurse practitioner. We lived in a small town just east of Asheville that first year. Later, she bought a house and we moved to the “big city.”
Fourteen years later I’ve moved to NW Arkansas and I’m still writing. I lead creativity workshops, host poetry events, participate in writing conferences, perform my work for audiences. I’ve been published in literary magazines, newspapers, and have edited an anthology of women writers. I’ve sold out my chapbooks repeatedly and have 3 spoken word CD’s to my credit. I do not now and never have made much money. Poetry, in particular, is not a moneymaking proposition. But I am a wealthy person. The things I value most--time, inspiration, friendships, students, love, commitment, art, writing, music--I have in abundance. In fact, I’m one of the wealthiest people I know. And I am never bored. Not ever. For what more could I ask? Money would be nice, but it’s far from essential. Besides I haven’t completely given up on its acquisition. Anything can happen if you practice letting anything happen. All you really need is a fresh perspective, a lively imagination, and a willingness to take some personal risks. Creative living isn’t for everyone. There’s a certain amount of courage, flexibility and faith involved. Often security, as illusive a concept as it is, proves a stronger pull than the rewards of a creative life.
If you feel like something is seriously missing in your life, it probably is. Creativity, if not an end in itself, is a means by which you can achieve most anything. I challenge you to at least consider the possibility that you, me, all of us are called to create our lives; that we aren’t here simply to experience a “safe and secure” existence. Begin by taking a few moments to quiet yourself, body and mind. Relax and let your mind wander back to childhood. See yourself seated behind a wooden desk sharing a classroom with twenty other kids. The teacher asks that age-old question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” The answers click along like a chain of falling dominoes, “Doctor.” “Soldier.” “Nurse.” “Photographer.” “Rock and roll star.” “Cowboy.” Now it’s your turn...
Fourteen years ago I stood in a cold March wind on the outskirts of Atlanta, GA dressed in a blue polyester uniform shivering and waiting for back-up to arrive. I could still hear the four boys I saw leaving a MARTA park ‘n’ ride in two freshly stolen SUV’s crashing through the woods on foot. I stood beside one of the cars, its nose crumpled into a leaning pine. My hand dripped blood from a nasty cut I got when I fell while hopelessly giving chase through a wooded area, glass and trash serving as the forest floor instead of leaves and pine needles. The perpetrators were less than half my age and wore nothing more than jeans, sneakers, and t-shirts while I lugged 12 extra pounds in police equipment around my waist. Add the 20 or so extra years--no contest.
Standing there alone, I faced the self I had been running from as well, and wondered what I should do. As I waited 3 minutes, then 5, then 10 for somebody to arrive and give me a hand with the situation, I began to question the validity of risking life and limb for a car,even two cars which were, no doubt, well insured. Was I really willing to die over a $60 crack deal gone bad? I took a look at who I was becoming as a cop and had to admit I didn’t like what I saw. Violence was permeating my life; not just what I did for a living, but who I was as a person.
A helluva lot can go through your mind in a little bit of time when you’re hurt and waiting for help to arrive. But the question persisted--what else could I do?
I never finished college--life kept getting in the way. Policing was the best job I’d ever had. My identity was completely wrapped up in the uniform, the badge, the gun I wore on my hip that effectively said, “Don’t mess with me because I can take care of myself and you, too.”
Later that night, I stared at the bandage on my right hand while memories popped up like short takes on a movie screen. I saw myself in grammar school confronted with the same old question teachers always ask their young students, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” My answer was always the same. “I want to be a writer.” I loved books and everything writerly--paper, pens, pencils,erasers. Reading was my escape from a world in which I could never quite place myself. The piece of the puzzle that was me never fit in the jigsaw of my world. Books made everything possible and I wanted to live in a world with endless possibilities. I wanted to create those worlds myself and I knew I had the imagination to do it.
The other dream that returned unbidden was how I had always longed to live in the mountains. Not just any mountains,either. The Blue Ridge Mountains. The Appalachian chain that wound through east Tennessee, western North Carolina and on up into Virginia. Those big bluegreen giants that cooled a deep south child and her family running from the stifling Louisiana heat to ministerial conferences in Montreat. How hard could it be? I had no real ties to Atlanta except the Job and if I quit, what would keep me from moving to Asheville,say? My friends would understand--eventually. Besides, it was barely four hours away.
My wounded gun hand kept me out of work for nearly a week and when I recovered I returned to Fulton County with my resignation in hand. I dedicated myself to the writing life just as surely as the members of my daddy’s congregation gave themselves to Christ after a sweat-slinging, tear-wringing revival. I swore that even if all I could afford was a broom closet for shelter, I would write. It was a risk I was willing to take. In fact, the risks were many. They continue to this day. They aren’t the same kind I took as a cop, but they are taken consciously, intentionally and somehow that makes them just as frightening.
I took the first year of my new creative life and wrote a novel. I used every penny of my police pension to spend that year writing. I didn’t work a day job. I wrote a 350 page novel, a children’s story, a play, and several poems in that one year. I wrote almost daily. I worked long hours for weeks at a time. The dam burst and it seemed I had endless subjects begging my attention and my Bic. I lived with a friend and exchanged other creative abilities for room and board. I was a good cook, kept an immaculate house, served as personal trainer and confidante to my friend who was a nurse practitioner. We lived in a small town just east of Asheville that first year. Later, she bought a house and we moved to the “big city.”
Fourteen years later I’ve moved to NW Arkansas and I’m still writing. I lead creativity workshops, host poetry events, participate in writing conferences, perform my work for audiences. I’ve been published in literary magazines, newspapers, and have edited an anthology of women writers. I’ve sold out my chapbooks repeatedly and have 3 spoken word CD’s to my credit. I do not now and never have made much money. Poetry, in particular, is not a moneymaking proposition. But I am a wealthy person. The things I value most--time, inspiration, friendships, students, love, commitment, art, writing, music--I have in abundance. In fact, I’m one of the wealthiest people I know. And I am never bored. Not ever. For what more could I ask? Money would be nice, but it’s far from essential. Besides I haven’t completely given up on its acquisition. Anything can happen if you practice letting anything happen. All you really need is a fresh perspective, a lively imagination, and a willingness to take some personal risks. Creative living isn’t for everyone. There’s a certain amount of courage, flexibility and faith involved. Often security, as illusive a concept as it is, proves a stronger pull than the rewards of a creative life.
If you feel like something is seriously missing in your life, it probably is. Creativity, if not an end in itself, is a means by which you can achieve most anything. I challenge you to at least consider the possibility that you, me, all of us are called to create our lives; that we aren’t here simply to experience a “safe and secure” existence. Begin by taking a few moments to quiet yourself, body and mind. Relax and let your mind wander back to childhood. See yourself seated behind a wooden desk sharing a classroom with twenty other kids. The teacher asks that age-old question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” The answers click along like a chain of falling dominoes, “Doctor.” “Soldier.” “Nurse.” “Photographer.” “Rock and roll star.” “Cowboy.” Now it’s your turn...
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