September 25, 2011

I love hanging out with other writers. With few exceptions, we are a group who likes to help one another, pointing the way or uncovering short cuts or alerting each other to the pitfalls.

Sure, there was the workshop presenter who spent most of the two hours talking about how once she figured out the 3 part plot, she began selling her novels, but when asked each time what the 3 part plot was, muttered, “It took me ten years to learn it.” Really, so you want the rest of us to wait 10 years?

Mostly though, we help each other. Like the time I shared a “rejection” letter with a complete stranger I happen to sit next to at a conference and she exclaimed, “That was an invitation to submit a rewrite!” Which I did, five months later after the editor who sent the letter had left that publishing house.

Or the time a writer friend told me she would pass my name on to the organizer of a local author festival to which I got invited, sat next to a local newspaper columinist and felt like Cinderella way before my fairy godmother turned the pumpkin into a carriage and the ball. More like I was cleaning out the fireplace, but still, I was there – thanks to my friend!

And I have been happy to pass along all that I know and to support my writer friends who have found success. I remember clearly learning in my first writing class with Barbara Wood, romance novelist, that there is room on the book shelves for all of us.

So I am happy to announce some recent and past successes of my writing friends.

My best buddy writing pal won The Tiny Lights Essay contest for 2010 with her essay, “Just Fifteen Minutes.” You can find the announcement here http://www.tiny-lights.com/contest.php?year=2010&id=16. This is Sandy’s second publication and the road to more success.

My “spiritual mom” and writing group buddy, Joyce Lacey, recently had one of her stories accepted into Guideposts Magazine, “Angels on Earth.” Be looking for it soon.

Finally, my favorite part-time California resident, Kai Mayerfeld, just published her book, India Bites You Somehow – True-Life Tales of 40 Westerners Discovering the Sacred Within the Chaos of One Magnificient Country. You can get it here http://www.amazon.com/INDIA-BITES-YOU-SOMEHOW-ebook/dp/B005KSTEX6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1316993336&sr=8-1. If you love home, but also love to READ about other places, or perhaps want to travel and find the your sacredness, this is a wonderful glimpse into the traveling and evolution of others that you can enjoy from the comforts of home.

I believe that we are all lifted through the success of those around us, and I am so happy to be able to celebrate with my writing buddies when they find success. After all, there is plenty of room on the shelf for all of us!

September 11, 2011

As I sat in Norman Mailer’s livingroom a few weeks ago, I was blinded by the light reflecting off the harbor onto the big picture window splattered and smeared by watermarks left by Hurricane Irene. I knew it would be rude to wear my sunglasses during class, so I squinted and averted my gaze, focusing more on the people in the room.

Having been invited to attend a week long training in writing with a master teacher and five other writers in Provincetown, Massachusetts, at the Norman Mailer Writing Center at his residence, I sized up the others in the room. 

At the head of the table sat our fearless leader, tasked with guiding us through the craft of writing creative nonfiction. Across from me sat a distinguished professor of criminology and next to him a writer who had just signed on with a big New York agent. Beside him, a poet who spent time with Allen Ginsberg. Next to him, a MFA fiction professor who teaches here in the states and also in Hong Kong. Then, to my right, a professor of literature.  And I rounded out the table, squinting into the what I thought was sunlight and water and dirty windows reflecting it all.

As the week progressed and we shared our “rough drafts” and motivations for writing, the glare seemed to intensify. Those who had rejected the well-worn path to success in order to study and perfect craft made me reflect that I tended to be more of a weekend warrior. Those who had studied and studied and studied some more and still refused to send things out into the world made me wonder if rather than the whisper of genius, my writing wasn’t more like the banners pulled behind single-engine airplanes at the beach… Taco Tuesday at Joe’s Tonite!

I believe that my most important job here on earth is to continue to work toward being a better person and in pursuit of this I read lots of self-help books. Meditation, nah. Volunteering, too time-consuming. But, reading books and reflecting, I can do that.

Most self-help books I’ve read suggest surrounding yourself with people who have obtained what you want, who are smarter than you, who are more successful than you, who are whatever-you-want-in-your-life-and-have-success-in-it than you. And I work hard to do that. I have friends who are wittier than I. I have colleagues who are smarter than I. I have mentors who are more successful than I. And this week, I was surrounded by writers who were wittier, smarter and more successful than I.

By the end of the week, when clouds had rolled into Provincetown, I realized that the brilliance I was blinded by all week had nothing to do with the sunlight reflected off the water in the harbor then filter through dirty plate glass windows. The brilliance I was squinting against was actually generated by the people I was surrounding myself with.

For a writer, it doesn’t get much better than that. How lucky was I to be there!

This week I will relish the memories of my week with brilliance and hold myself to higher standards.

September 3, 2011

On Friday, I invested the best ten dollars of my life. I had my palm read.

I am married to a man who is my greatest cheerleader, and coach. So while he’s cheering me on, he is also giving pointers about how I could up my game. Just recently I had to interrupt him, ” I was telling you a situation in my life, not asking about how to handle it.” To which he responded, “Yeah, but if you -” I did the most rational thing I could do after 26 years of marital bliss, stuck my fingers in my ears and began humming. He responded in kind by trying to pull my fingers from my ears and yelling, “I’m just saying…”

I seek out friends who refuse to let me off the hook. Recently when I bragged about giving a colleague a taste of her own medicine to one of my friends, she failed to see how justified I was in my actions and high five me. Instead, she shook her head and said, “You are such a brat.” Sort of takes the sparkle out of my revenge fireworks. But, encourages me to behave better next time.

And, I have a teenage son. Enough said.

So, as I was walking the streets of Provincetown and I saw a sign that read, “Special $10 palm reading,” I jumped at the chance.

I’ve never had my palm read, though those bright read neon signs of flashing palms have tempted me for years. The only thing holding me back was wondering how much it would cost. Now I knew and scampered down the stairs to a room filled with flute music, incense, and bubbling fountains, not to mention comfortable furniture, screens and beads hanging from a door frame.

A chubby teenager came from between the beads eating a yogurt using a plastic spoon and told me with a mouth full, “We’ll be right with you.”

I waited. Her father, I assume this because they had the same body type, emerged and invited me back to the room beyond the beads.

I don’t remember much of that room because I was so focused on the directions. “Hold your hand in a fist and make two wishes. One you will tell me, and one you will keep to yourself.” I made my wishes and wondered which I should reveal.

It didn’t matter. Immediately, my palm reader spoke in a sing song tone and spoke of great things to come, a good 2012, lavendar and turquiose being my colors for the new karma I was stepping into and I would find much success, and to stay away from people who are jealous (Duh!) and turn toward good.

Visions of the good witch Glenda danced in my head. The world was alright, or would be soon, if I could just hang on a few more hours, weeks, months.

I thanked him and handed over the ten dollars.

Climbing back up the stairs into the light of the morning, hubby leaned over and said, “That guy was so high. The whole place smelled of pot.”

I protested, “Incense, it was incense.”

“Yeah, marijuana incense.”

And I would do it all over again, just to have someone tell me that the world is going to be a better place in the future. There are few people selling that message today. And just ten dollars – what a deal!

This week I will hold tight to my palm’s message of hope for the future.

August 28, 2011

My need to be the center of attention is so great – wait, wait, I’m dizzy from the world revolving around me – that I literally left California to be in the center of Hurricane Irene.

Actually, we have had these plans for several months and refused to let a little rain and wind stop us.

We left Saturday morning before 7am. Our first layover was Las Vegas. The trip’s mantra up to that point was – worse case scenario, we are stuck in Vegas. Hubby, being a Vegas-lover, had his fingers crossed that we would get stuck. But, alas, we boarded our second plane, headed for Chicago.

We love Chicago, so now the trip’s mantra was – worse case scenario, we are stuck in Chicago. We immediately befriended the nearest flight attendant who told us her favorite Vegas story – 5 year old son asked to attend a titty show, to which Hubby high fived her, seriously, though she seemed quite confused about the high five. Hubby then asked if the next leg of the flight would be about forty minutes, to which she responded, “It will feel like forty minutes, but actually be three and a half hours.”  As the B and C seats boarded the plane, I kept encouraging Hubby to recruit a neighbor since he was sitting in the middle. He ignored me and the incredible hulk in angry mode sat next to him. He should have listened, but after 26 years of marriage, why start now????

We landed in Chicago with no fanfare, only a bit of trepidation. Our favorite flight attendant left the plane, being rerouted to Houston, which led us to believe we would not be continuing, Then our new flight attendant informed us we would be going to Boston where they would basically push us off the plane so they could get out like a bat out of hell.

Fine with us, as long as we got to Boston. Then the new passengers boarded and in between the A seaters and the B seaters came hoardes of families with children who all congregated around us. Did they all know each other, I wondered. This was quickly answered when holier than thou father who directed his wife to sit between their two toddlers while he took a seat by himself gave the evil eye to another mother when her child had the audacity to want to crawl over him to stand up in the aisle.

Again, Hubby refused to recruit but got lucky, a god-fearing skinny man sat next to him. Hubby shared his bounty of extra peanuts he sweet-talked the flight attendant out of with his neighbor who kept talking about Dumbo, in between praising the Lord.

As we were flying over the great lakes, I pointed out Cleveland, to which Hubby exclaimed from his seat 1,500 feet in the air above Cleveland, “Everyone hates Cleveland. It looks fine to me.”

We finally touched down in Boston, and the airport was so vacant I was sure we were in the plot of 28 days later and would be overrun by zombies at any second. Instead, our taxi driver explained that he was a civil engineer, degree earned in his home country of Guinea, and for only two hundred thousand dollars, he could practice his profession here. You got to love America, the land of opportunity for those with money.

We made it to our hotel, were upgraded to a top floor suite – again because, besides the zombies speaking a variety of languages we couldn’t understand, we were the only ones here.

Finally, we watched the news, and Irene, being more of a spotlight hog than myself, avoided me. All we had to contend with were rain and wind.

Depsite my best intentions, I was not the center of the storm, but I’m here for a week and I have not given up.

This week I will be thankful that Irene passed by quietly.