Preservation through Prose: Spiritual Memoir for Yourself or for Valued Elders

Instead of doing a big post looking back at the Create in Me retreat, I am much more likely this week to write a series of smaller posts.  This morning, we are hoping that our bathroom remodel gets underway, and I still have to go to campus this week.  In short, it's not going to be a week of lots of downtime.  I'm hoping for some downtime in May.

But before we get too far away from the retreat, let me remember my writing workshop on Saturday, a workshop called Preservation in Prose, a spiritual autobiography/memoir workshop.  It was a delightful group, even though there were only two people in addition to me and a person who came late.  And even more delightful--I got some writing done too.

What we did is adaptable for individual writers and for larger groups.  It's good to capture our own stories, and it's also a way to capture the stories of other people who aren't as interested in writing.

I began with a collection of objects on the table:  quilt squares (one old and tattered, one a take-away from Quilt Camp), a nail, a game piece, an Easter bunny sticker, a Scrabble tile--in short, anything I could find on various tables at the Create in Me retreat, plus some goodies from an Easter Egg hunt bag of treats prepared for kids.  We each chose one and wrote about why we chose it.  Then we discussed.

We moved to a different kind of imaginative writing.  First we imagined ourselves twenty to thirty years from now.  It's a variation of asking my students to imagine themselves as 80 year olds.  I had them write a letter from their older selves to the people they are now.  Then we did the same thing in reverse.  Have your late adolescent self write to the person you are now.

Then we made some lists like this one:

6 natural objects

6 humanmade objects

6 ordinary actions

6 art materials

We talked about metaphor, simile, and imagery--how can our concept of God change if we compare God to something on the list?  

From there, we filled in this list on one side of the handout that I created:

Detail of shift from one season to another ________________________________

Type of noise ________________________________________

Element of nature _____________________________________________

Type of emotion _________________________________________________

Favorite flower __________________________________________________

Something very tiny ________________________________________________

Floor or wall covering ______________________________________________

Something nourishing ________________________________________________

Favorite fruit __________________________________________________________

Element of self-care ______________________________________________

Something only found in a park _________________________________________

Something that oozes _____________________________________________

Favorite treat ________________________________________________________

Something that turns _______________________________________________

Favorite musical instrument ________________________________________________

Something that grinds ___________________________________________________

Something huge_____________________________________________________

Something only found in a big city ____________________________________

Favorite food made for you by an older generation ___________________________

Then we filled out this list with the items from the first list:

--A commitment to God helps us offer __________________________________.

--We yearn for the day when justice covers the earth like ______________________________.

--We are crushed into bits smaller than _____________________ by Powers and Principalities, by the forces of the world, by Satan.

--Truth rolls down through the valley like ________________________________________.

--When I work with God, it’s as if _______________________________________.

--When I think of redemption, I think of __________________________________.

--I first heard God’s call as __________________________________ .

--Evildoers cover their rotten foundations with _____________________________.

--We burn with __________________________________for the vision of new life that Jesus offers.

--I have seen the Holy Spirit moving through world like ________________________________.

--My spiritual history is like ___________________________________________.

--Injustice grinds us like a giant ____________________________________________.

--The____________________________ of justice turns slowly, but the turning does occur.

--The community of God is like _____________________________________________.

--The ___________________________of justice has found fertile soil in my heart.

--A partnership with God is like _________________________________________.

--_________________________grows in the garden of redemption.

My brain created some poem fragments that had nothing to do with the two lists--that was a delight too.

Writing: No Time to Spare

Yesterday was a good writing day.  Did it have anything to do with the death of Ursula K. Le Guin?  I did feel somewhat galvanized, but I was feeling that way before I learned of her death.

Yesterday morning, before I did any online surfing, I wrote a poem. In the hour before I found out that Ursula K. Le Guin had died, I was writing a poem about getting in touch with my inner, little, old church lady, who has cookbooks for anarchists and vegetarians alike, who knows how to quilt the patterns used by the underground railroad, who wears white gloves but not for the reasons you think. She will not pontificate on the president and the porn star and the hush money because she's been taught that it's rude to talk about politics and sex in polite company.

I didn't realize it, but I was writing a fitting tribute, in many ways, to Le Guin--and more importantly, to the older woman that I will become.

I looked up Le Guin's last book and it was available at 4 of our public libraries, so I stopped by and got it on my way to work.  The title:  No Time to Spare.  It looks fabulous.  The book was on my desk all day, reminding me that there may not be much time to spare.

I sent out a few poems.  I went to the Graywolf site to discover that they are having a nonfiction competition. 

As far as I can tell, there's not an entry fee.  The deadline is Jan. 31--hurrah, I haven't missed it.

 

I'm planning on sending my manuscript of memoir-esque/theologicalish essays.  I don't think it's the kind of literary innovation for which they yearn, but it doesn't sound so very different from some of the past years' winners.  Yesterday I reread the first 100 pages of my manuscript for the first time in over a year, and I'm still pleased with my writing.  So I will send it out and see what happens.

 

Inspired by Laura Kaminski's laundry poems on the Via Negativa site, I wrote another poem.  It's been a long time since I completed two poems in the same day.

 

In short, it was a great writing day, where I got a variety of writing tasks done--in addition to a pleasant work day, where I got much done and had great conversations.  Our new librarian also went to the University of South Carolina, so we have great conversations about Columbia.  Yesterday we talked about the variety of paperwork that we have and how to store and catalog it.  We agree that paper is still the most secure storage space, but it takes up so much physical space.  She talked about calling someone to get a photocopy of the journal where his article appeared, and he wasn't sure he could locate it.  She asked about my filing system.

 

I know where all the copies of my poems and articles are, but to find a specific one might take me an hour or two.  I'm not a good alphabetizer, and I don't like filing.  Sigh.  But I do know what's in each pile and each box.

 

I also got a Facebook friend request from a woman who sent it because she liked the prayers I wrote for this year's Bread for the Day.  How cool is that?!!!  I took it as a larger sign, a reminder that my writing matters to the world beyond me.

 

Here's the prayer that I wrote for yesterday; it seems a good way to end this post:

 

January 24, 2018

 

God of every intelligence, let us listen for voices of wisdom and understanding.  Give us the courage to stay with those who make necessary stands in lonelier places.  Let us not be found lacking.

 

 

 

Micromanaging Miracles

Yesterday as we were getting ready to leave for church, my spouse commented on my blog piece about Martha, whose feast day was Saturday.  He said, "I really like the way you talked about micromanaging the miracles.  Is that idea original to you?"

I said, "I wouldn't be surprised if someone else has also come up with it, but I didn't get it from anywhere else."

He said, "You should write a book with that title."

"I should figure out if I've already written a book where that title could apply."

I've since been thinking of my long-neglected collection of essays that is part memoir and part devotional meditation.  One of the things that long stymied me was finding a good title.  Perhaps now I have found one!

I went back this morning to make sure that I used the essay about Saint Martha that used that idea, and I did.  I'm trying not to beat myself up for how many years I've been working on this project.

I have so many book-length works, and so little progress towards publication.  I remind myself that it's not for lack of trying--although I do get to a certain point, often after 15-20 unsuccessful submissions, where I am too discouraged to keep going.  And yes, I know all about the works of literature that were submitted so many more times, only to be published to eventual success.  I also know of many more equally worthy works who have never found publication.
 
I don't feel as discouraged about submitting smaller pieces, like the individual poem or short story.  Is it because I am less invested?  No one ever expects to be able to leave their day job after a poem is published.  But most people I know who write have dreams of being able to leave their other work so that they can devote themselves to creative work.

Maybe it's time to start thinking about an alternate approach to submissions.  I tend to make a submission here or there during down times during the day--maybe I should also submit larger works.  I know I don't want to self-publish--I'd like a mainstream publisher who already has some resources, especially in terms of distribution, in place.

As we head into autumn, let me think about my goals, just to make sure that I'm still on trajectories that can serve me well.

Reading the Manuscript Over Four Days

My big project over the past few years (more than I thought it would take!) has been to take blog posts and writings and turn them into a unified book of essays.  I have this vision that each essay could stand alone and be enjoyed in a single, short reading period, but that taken together, they will be more than the sum of their parts, a collection of essays that also has a narrative arc of a modern working woman who seeks balance.

One of the agents to whom I wrote last week wanted the first 3-5 pages of the manuscript.  I revised them a bit and sent them off.  And then I thought, hmm, maybe I should just keep going.  I wanted to try to do a read-through and revision over just a few days.  I wanted to read it the way I thought a regular reader might.  I wasn't expecting that I might have major revisions to do, and so I thought I could accomplish my goal.

So, from Friday to Monday, I did just that:  I read and made minor edits.  What did I learn?

--I'm pleased to say that it reads well.  I worried that each chapter might say the same thing or that I'd have basically 5 essays, repeated over and over again.  That was not the case.  I circled back around to major themes, but I think it worked.

--I liked the seasonal organization, both the liturgical season, the cycle of feast days, and the seasons of nature and secular holidays.

--I was surprised by how many minor errors I found:  spelling errors, extra words, verb tense errors.  It's nothing major, but I thought I had already caught most of those.

--I knew that some of my essays are montages of blog posts and writing for the Living Lutheran site.  I wanted to make sure that I had sewed them together seamlessly.  I am pleased to report that I saw no loose stitches.

--Was I successful with the narrative arc part?  I think so.  Will it appeal to people who like a unified memoir that reads like a novel?  Less so.

--In my busy times, I need a book that I can dip in and out of.  I need to be able to be away from the book for a month or more, but not need to start over when I return.  In that, I was successful.

--I worried that my essays would be too short.  I don't feel like they are.  Some of them are more developed.  Some of them are perfect for the few minutes of reading time I have at the end of the day.

--The book begins with the end of Christmas, and at the end of the book we're back to Christmas.  I like that.

So, my overall impression:  I like this book.  I'm so relieved.  As I've been working on it, I've been assailed by doubts, just like everyone.  I've had those mean voices in my head that hissed, "This is stupid.  Why would anyone care about any of this?  Why are you wasting your time this way?"

But those voices were wrong.  My book has appeal.  This project has been worth my time.

Weekly Writing Report

It's been a great writing week.  I have about 7 weeks where my online teaching load is lighter.  It's interesting how that knowledge has shaped my writing priorities.  I'm reminded of writers who say, "I make the most of naptime."  Or the time when children march off to school.  There aren't that many hours, so when they come, one makes the most of them.

I've typed more poems into the computer and sent more poems out into the world.  But here's what's making me really proud of myself this week:  I sent a query letter about my memoir/book of essays off to three possible agents.

Some readers may shrug and wonder why that's a big deal. 

I wrote the draft of the letter back in February.  But that agent required a Table of Contents, which meant I had to go back and insert page numbers.  And then there was vacation time.  But those reasons aren't what really held me back.

It was fear.  I had sent a version of the letter to a different agent who seemed like a perfect match and heard nothing.  I have put a lot into this writing project.  I am so hopeful.  I am so afraid that like so many of my longer projects, I will never bring this one to publishing fruition.

So what made the difference this week?  Part of it is my vow that I made in this blog post.  Part of it is having time.  Part of my determination stems from my wonderful writer friend who has so much faith in this project--plus, over Memorial week-end, she put a query letter and proposal together for her book of short stories and sent it off to 15 potential agents.  Her fearlessness inspired me.  I'm lucky to have this kind of friend.

I decided on where to send the letters by an old-fashioned way:  I looked at books on my shelf that I loved, books that are like my own writing in some way.  I researched these authors to find out their agents--often it was as simple as flipping to the acknowledgments page.

Since I want this blog to be a record of my process, I'll go ahead and tell which agents are getting queries from me:

My writing style and organization in this project is modeled after Kathleen Norris' The Cloister Walk.  Her agent is Lynn Nesbit.

Likewise, Lillian Daniel seems to be doing something similar to me with her blog posts transformed into essays in When "Spiritual but Not Religious" Is Not Enough: Seeing God in Surprising Places, Even the Church.  Her agent works for Daniel Literary Group (are they related?  unsure, but the agency has brought other books that I recognize to publishers).

I've been enjoying Rachel Held Evans' Searching for Sunday.  Her agent is Rochelle Gardner.

I'm also feeling psyched this morning because I've started reading the manuscript from start to finish.  More on that tomorrow or Monday.

Spinning a Title

--I've been working on getting my proposal for my memoir/book of essays ready to send to agents.  It occurs to me that I should settle on a title.

--My memoir looks at trying to balance my life as a creative person, my life as an administrator at a for-profit school, and my life as a church going Lutheran.  For a long time, I was loving the title "Monk or Marxist."

--Last summer, when I brainstormed book titles with a group of creative friends, however, they didn't like that title. I wrote about the experience in a blog post.  My friends came up with a different title:  "It's Hard to Be a Goddess in the Corporate World.  One of us thought that was too long and voted for Goddess in the Corporate World."

--But I'm not really a goddess.  And to me, that's a different book.  I would pick it  up expecting a book about pagan spirituality.  Or maybe something fluffier, like make-up, hair, and fashion tips for women with corporate jobs.

--Gods of Corporate Academe?

--Let me take a classic approach to titling a book; let me look at chapter titles.  Here are some which seem possible:
       --Incubating the Improbable (probably too many big words for a catchy title?)
      --Ministries of Interruptions
      --Mac and Cheese Eucharist (would people expect a motherhood memoir?)
     --Setting Sail in Tiny Boats

--Of those title possibilities, I'm pulled to Ministries of Interruptions.  It's clear and it gives a sense of the book.  The words are familiar.  I would pick up that book and read it.

--Would others be pulled to that title?

--Over the week-end, I'll flip through the manuscript and see if anything leaps out at me.  And soon I'm off to spin class.  I often get solutions when I'm spinning away in the dark.

--Spinning in the Dark.  Now there's a title!  A title for a different book, alas.

Why Is April the Cruellest Month?

My answer would be different than T.S. Eliot's answer.  For one thing, I would not write a modernist epic to explain.  Or would I?  I'm not dead yet.  Maybe in retirement, I'll start writing longer poems. Maybe I'll take out a lot of my lines that do too much to explain.  Maybe I'll trust the reader more, or maybe I'll have a Pound type friend who will convince me not to care whether or not people get all the meanings. But that's a topic for another day.

Why is it almost always that I have the most trouble getting writing tasks done during April?  It should be easy with National Poetry Month, right?  Ha!

I usually have travel of some kind in April, and it's the month for the dentist, and this month, the dermatologist.  In my full-time administrative job, we have beginning of the quarter duties, which often take more time than the ones at the end.  In my part-time online teaching job, I have end of semester tasks.

And let me not forget that most years, April includes a lot of extra spiritual tasks, at least for me.  There's Easter and Holy Week.  Even for those of us who aren't church professionals, a lot of extra tasks come our way.  It enriches, but it takes up more time that isn't exactly plentiful to begin with.

But I write all this not to whine.  No, I write to remind myself that I will soon have a bit of free time.  Not free time.  Time is never free for me.  No, it will be time that isn't assigned elsewhere.  If I am not careful, the time gobblers will set their sets on it.

So let me assemble a list.  I do better with a list.  What do I want to accomplish in May and June?

My chief priority:

--the memoir/book of essays.  I need to get the "final" revisions done.  I have a whole pile of easy edits, so it's time to actually go ahead and type them in.

--I will send the query letter to the agent who represented Kathleen Norris' The Cloister Walk.  I will select 3 more agents too.

--I will send out 15 packets of poems.  It's been too long since I submitted.

--I will get back on track writing poems--I want to write two poems a week.

--I will write one short story.

Let me stop here.  Let me not want to do so much that I get overwhelmed and do nothing.

I will report back in the early days of July to let us know how I did.

Manuscript Progress, Teaching Progress

It is the week that I knew would come, and today is the day in the week that I knew would come.  All of my online classes have items waiting to be graded and/or other gradebook tasks today.  But just up ahead:  a hole in the calendar, a hole of several months, when I won't be teaching as many online classes.  I'll still be teaching some, but I should have more free time.

My plan is to do the last revisions to my memoir/book of essays during that time.  I have a letter waiting to go to my next choice for an agent for the book.  Even if my work isn't chosen, I'm taking the opportunity to thank her for her part in bringing Kathleen Norris' The Cloister Walk into the world.

If you had to make a list of 3-10 books that changed your life, what books would be on that list?  The Cloister Walk changed me in so many ways:  it made me want to know more about monasticism, it made me want to go to a monastery, it made my friends want to go to a monastery with me, it showed me a different way of being a Christian, on and on I could go.  And then there are the ways it changed me as a writer.  I was interested in her book as memoir and as a book of essays, and so many of them in such different forms. 

It is the book that led to my current manuscript.

The agent I'm interested in wants to see a Table of Contents, and so I've been creating one.  I wanted a paper copy of the manuscript to put the pages in the TOC, and so, yesterday, I printed one.  As I picked the sheaf of paper, over 300 pages, out of the printer, I thought, take a minute, Kristin, and appreciate what you have done here.  You have combed through hundreds of blog posts to compile this manuscript.  You have revised those blog posts to make them more like essays.  You have figured out where to put the essays that could go at any spot.  You have taken out some material.  You have revised again.

It has all taken longer than I anticipated, which could make me get lost in self-recriminations.   But I've already lost too much time--onwards toward the goal!

Well, in a week or two, I'll move onward.  Today it's back to grading.

But I leave you with a poem--actually a link to the current issue of Southern Women's Review, where my poem "Cassandra Considers the Dust" appears on page 43.  Tomorrow I'll write more about the composition process for that poem.

Memoir Update

This morning, I finished the last tasks for the memoir/essay project that I want to have done before I go to Mepkin Abbey in 2 weeks.  I have a complete draft, complete but with a series of dream job essays to insert.  While at Mepkin Abbey, I will read the whole draft and decide where to put the essays.

While I'm reading I will look for repetition:  is it repetition that's annoying, or evidence of unifying themes?

And then I'll try to figure out what to do next.  My hope is that I'll discover that I'm holding a mostly finished draft in my hands.

I haven't heard from the first agent yet, the one who was Gretchen Rubin's agent, who brought us The Happiness Project.  On to the next one.  My writer Hindu friend tells me that it's time to move on.  She sees the book as incredibly marketable and is shocked that no one has snatched it up.

As she would say, "From her lips, to the gods' ears!"

Saturday Snippets from a Writing Morning

--More than once, I've been revising an essay for my memoir/book of essays, and I've remembered a different version--only to find I've been revising an earlier version of an essay.  It happened again this morning.

--In a way, it's an interesting exercise, since I still also have the earliest rough draft.  Did I make consistent decisions?  Yes, I did.

--So, this morning, I said, "Kristin, this is just ridiculous.  Organize these files."  I obeyed that voice of reason.

--I also thought about this episode of the Diane Rehm show which talked about ransomware and the importance of backing up files.  So, I did that too.

--I also wrote another page of my short story prompted by a monthly word--my challenge for 2015.  This month's word:  spell.

--I thought of writing a poem based on something I found out about a friend:  she has just one knife, which she uses for everything:  cutting meat/cheeses/vegetables, spreading butter, and all the other things you'd use a knife for.  Seems it should be a metaphor for something.  But I don't know what.  I'll let that idea percolate.

--I wrote this blog post for my theology blog.  It's a photoessay (more photo than essay) that talks about how we perceive life's calling.  It's got theological language, since it's for my theology blog, but it could just as easily be talking about the call to be creative.

--All in all, it's been a good writing morning:  a nice way to start the week-end!

A Look Back at 2014 Creativity and Intentions for 2015

New Year's Day 2015 in South Florida:  it's very still, no breeze, the smell of gunpowder still heavy in the air from all the fireworks.  It's 71 degrees and very humid:  the weather sites tell us that rain bands will be here soon.

What will the new year bring?  First, let's look back.  What did I write and create during 2014?

Poems:  52 poems, along with some false starts, poems I couldn't conclude, some scraps of ideas that didn't take flight.

Short Stories:  Only 2 or 3.

Memoir:  I am almost finished with a complete draft.  I've made significant improvements, in terms of organizing into sections, making the writing more like an essay and less like a blog post, taking out material that wasn't ever going to work.

Book Length Volume of Poems:  In February, I did a major revision.

Book Length Collection of Linked Short Stories:  I put this together in March, but have yet to go back to read and revise.

Poems Published:  5, plus one reprinted in an anthology--6 poem publications total.

Blog Posts Appearing at the Living Lutheran site:  13

I also wrote a month's worth of prayers for Bread for the Day, and I wrote several liturgies for our local church use.

In terms of sending materials out for publication, I'm calling it an acceptable year.  Not nearly as much as some years, but considering that in my day job, I had not one, but two office moves plus a visit from the accreditors (and 2 mock visits before their arrival), I'm surprised I managed to get any materials out into the world at all.

Other creative activities:  I finished a quilt for a friend with a broken leg, plus I crocheted several prayer shawls.  I helped put together a quilt for Lutheran World Relief.  We made lots of candles during 3 different sessions of candle creation.  We had great meals.  I created seasonal displays for the porch, which I like to think of as a kind of installation art.  I created 10 playing cards, collaging on a smaller scale.  I made 2 thrown pots, and I helped people learn to quilt at the Create in Me retreat.

As is often the case, in a year where I thought I really wasn't accomplishing much, this year-end tally shows otherwise.

But there is still more to do.  Here are my creative goals and intentions for 2015:

--Write a poem on both Tuesday and Thursday with a week-end day as my back-up day.  Today is Thursday.  I will need to get started on that.

--Write one short story each month.

--Finish the memoir/essay manuscript.  A more specific definition:  have a draft that if published instantly, I'd be proud of it.

--Send the poetry manuscript to 10 possible publishers.

--I want to make 100 submissions of individual poems and short stories--get those packets out into the world!

--Other creativity:  I want to get back to fabric art that's less practical while continuing to make baby quilts and prayer shawls.  I want to sketch more.  That one should be easy--if I sketch once, I've sketched more than I did in 2014.

I could list other goals too, the ones which never change much:  let me please eat more veggies this year, let me remember to drink glasses of water throughout the day, let me keep my wine consumption to the moderate/abstemious side most days of 2015, let me exercise a bit more vigorously (I'd like to add 2 runs of 30 minutes or more to my week).  Let me be kind, let me be present, let me remember to unplug.  Give me time to read and good books.  Let my income streams continue to cover my bills, and let me be better at putting money aside for the rainy days that will surely come.  Let me pray more frequently throughout the day. 

Give me more compassion, and less reasons to call upon my reserves of compassion.

Happy 2015!

Of Time and the Creative Process

The first time I ever wrote a research paper was in the eleventh grade, back in 1982.  Let us take a moment to think about how different it was then.  I typed the paper on a typewriter.  I had to leave space for the footnotes, which means I typed the same page multiple times.

When I was done with that laborious process and turned the paper in, I felt such a lightness and freedom.

I haven't ever felt that feeling in the same way again, but that doesn't keep me from expecting it.  With this past week, which meant that I turned in grades for 3 online classes and finished up my administrator duties for Fall quarter, I expected that feeling too.  But the finishing of each task just seems to bring more tasks--no time for euphoria. 

Still I want to capture some of the highlights from this week while I still remember them:

--First, a funny moment.  On Thursday morning, my spouse told me that he dreamed that I was pregnant.  I said, "That would be a Christmas miracle indeed."  I'm 49.5 years old, after all. 

My spouse did an imitation of Abraham/Zachariah, those men in the Bible with wives who conceive long after the time it's possible:  "What do you mean?  My wife is old . . ."  (imagine this said in a Yiddish accent).

I had spent the morning writing about Joseph and the Virgin Mary, so I was startled when he channeled Zachariah, not Joseph.  A bit sobered, I said, "So, we're different characters in the Advent story now?  Are we that old?"  Yes.  Yes we are.

--The graduation speeches Thursday night seemed more meaningful to me.  The speakers focused on failure and on trying again.  In some ways, not traditional speeches, but I appreciated the message.  I feel like I'm surrounded by people with positive publication news, while I barely find time to write a bit here and there, much less send proposals out.  I needed that message that just because I'm not successful now, it doesn't mean I'll never be successful.

--But I did untangle and reweave a part of my memoir/essay project that I had been dreading.  It's the end of the book, where I talk about dead dictators and King Herod and inspirational leaders like Vaclav Havel and Nelson Mandela.  The reweaving was not as hard as I thought it would be.

--Before graduation, I was talking to one of the artists at school.  I had brought in some of my canvases to fill up the broad expanse of wall in my new office.  I painted them in 1998, and part of me wondered if they're too old, if I should be hanging more recent work.  Then I felt the despair of realizing that I'm not doing much in the way of visual arts these days--despair and a bit of self-castigation.  So easy to slip into evil guidance counselor mode:  "You're not living up to your full potential."

Anyway, later in the day, when the artist was in my office, she asked about the canvases.  She said, "That one is quite striking.  You've really got something there."  Here's a bit of what it looks like:

She didn't have to say something positive.  Now I didn't expect her to tell me how awful a painter I am; she's not that kind of person. But the fact that she gave me some praise--well, that gave me hope that maybe all is not lost for me.

--I also had a colleague who told me that she assumed that I would be a dean some day, and then a higher position.  That, too, cheered me.  She looked in the direction of my bookcases and said, "I'm assuming that's what you want."  I thought about talking about how I yearn for my poems to be showcased in a book with a spine.  I thought about talking about my memoir/essay project and how I want to be my generation's Kathleen Norris--but then I'd have to explain who Kathleen Norris is.  Instead I simply smiled and nodded.

--Most weeks I am very good at saying the time that it takes is the time that it takes in terms of my creative work.  Will my work ever be known far and wide?  Will I be seen as an important voice?  I also think of doors that have opened that I couldn't have anticipated, like my blogging for Living Lutheran.  So, I will keep my focus on the work and hope for the best.

--I am also aware that there are many people out there who would be envious of my other jobs:  an administrator, an online teacher.  I also take time to feel gratitude for those aspects of my life.  After all, if I didn't have those, I'd likely be running myself ragged to pay the bills and have no time to write or paint or have much of a creative life at all.

Seeds of Past Writing Projects that Blossom

Yesterday, I had a strange, writer's moment.  I got an e-mail to tell me that the book was ready and that contributors would get a discount.

Book?  I contributed to a book?

The title seemed somewhat familiar, so I did a search of my e-mails.  Sure enough, I came across a series of e-mails where a reader wanted to use my blog post (about coracles and traveling with trust of God in lieu of oars) on her blog.  I said sure.

At a later point, I got this e-mail:

"You are receiving this Email because either you were a guest blogger or were
interviewed by us and we used your comments and/or ideas for our summer project
Boats Without Oars.  Once again, thank you for your participation in our
research and adventure.  I have been discerning, upon request by many, what, if
any, work to do to honor our travels, findings and new relationships within and
without the Episcopal Church.  One idea is to have the work included in some
sort of publication.  To that end, I am writing to ensure that if such
opportunity is forth-coming, you would be comfortable with your contribution to
Boats Without Oars being included.  So, would you please take a brief moment to
reply "yes" or "no" to this Email?  I appreciate your consideration as well as
prayers about the direction of our work."

Again, I responded with a "Sure.  Use my work."

That was 2 years ago.  And now, there's going to be a book.  I'll post more details as I get them.

This morning, I continue to be amazed at how my various writing projects travel.  I think of all those parables of seeds and yeast and how the smallest things can blossom, even without our attention.

I also got a Facebook message yesterday from the Living Lutheran editor who first published my work on the site:  "I was thinking of you yesterday when I used your blog as an example of how to blog for a webinar that I led."

How cool is that?

Last night I came home from work and worked for a few hours on my memoir project.  The moon rose outside my east-facing window, and I'd write and then ponder the moon and write some more.

I sank into a deep sleep, but then at 1 a.m., I awoke with a start.  I think the house just emitted a deep creak, but when I woke up, I wasn't sure.

I couldn't fall back asleep, so I decided to get up and keep writing.  I have this strange vision, that maybe I can have a complete draft of my memoir by the end of the week-end.  It will still need one more polishing, but it will be easier to grasp the scope of it.  I've been working with bits and pieces, working for one brief spurt here and then another brief spurt a few months later.

I need to plug in a series of gratitude lists throughout the manuscript; I'm going to do the same thing with a series of dream job chapters (one is based on this post, still one of my favorites in the series).  But I can't plug them in until I have the complete manuscript.

Although I wouldn't want to awaken at 1 a.m. every day, I feel strangely energized for someone who only got 4 hours of sleep.  It's wonderful to have had this time to write!

Memoir Revision Update

Those of you who follow this blog religiously may want to know how my memoir project is coming.

Some of you may be saying, "Memoir?  Why are you writing a memoir?  What have you done that warrants a memoir?"

To the answer of why another work on topics that seem overdone, I would say that there are plenty of books and memoirs that study spirituality as a sort of journey, written by women like Kathleen Norris, Nora Gallagher, Lauren F. Winner and Anne Lamott.  But often, those people aren't working  or they're not working in soul-deadening jobs in institutions that have value systems very different from those that spiritual traditions hold dear.  I haven't found many memoirs that speak to me as a woman who is trying to balance all my relationships with my work life with my spiritual yearnings and with my creative projects.

Here's my process:  I'm taking different blog posts that explore the intersections of creativity, spirituality and the secular work that we do to pay the bills, and I'm revising them into a book of essays that follow a calendar year.  My goal is that each essay could stand alone and be enjoyed in a single, short reading period, but that taken together, they will be more than the sum of their  parts.

I started doing this 2 (gulp!) years ago.  I wouldn't have thought it could take so long.  I used to write a 300 page novel in 6 months or less.  Of course, back when I did that, I wasn't also juggling a 40-60 hour a week job that requires my presence in an office.  I wasn't doing other creative projects.  I was younger, in short.

Plus I bought a house, moved, and sold a house.  That process meant at least 6 months of lost writing productivity.  I knew it would which is why I resisted it for so long.  There was a lay off and a job restructuring--it had a happy ending, in that I got the new version of my old job, but that, too, was disruptive.  And my spouse's back injury and surgery--again, a happy ending, but time consuming.

I mention these things because I'm prone to beat myself up for projects that don't get done in what I would consider to be a timely manner.

This morning, I realized that I have lost sight of where I am in the macro sense.  On my writing days, I weave blog posts together and create essays for the memoir.  But I have no sense of how much more is left to do.

So, this morning I scrolled through the chronological part of manuscript.  The first chunk of the manuscript contains all my blog posts--some revised into essays, some not--in chronological order.  The second chunk contains blog posts that tie into the theme but don't have a clear chronological place. 

Here's the interesting news.  I have 311 pages in the chronological chunk.  I am closer to having that part done than I thought.

Here's what I mean by done:  revised into essay form, which can be quite different from blog form, ready to be read as part of the whole.  I imagine when I sit down to read the whole thing, I will find more that needs to be done.

In the coming weeks, I'll keep revising the first chunk, the chronological chunk.  I'll look through the last chunk to see if that material is as useful as I once thought it was and I'll start thinking about where to put it, if it is.

One of my writing friends tells me it's time to start writing to agents.  I've got one picked out.  I'll write the letter by Labor Day.  And hopefully, I'll be big and brave and mail it out!

Creativity: July Progress Report

Good news and less good news on the writing front:  I've been successful with my goal of working on my memoir 3-4 days a week.  I've rediscovered the joy of crafting blog posts into essays, especially blog posts that approach the same topic from different angles.

The bad news?  I haven't been writing poems much during July.  My goal is to write a poem a week, which should be doable.

Of course, it's also been an intense July at work.  Since I've gotten so much of the work of the quarter done in a single week (gasp!), maybe I'll have more time in August.

And of course, July isn't over yet, is it?

And let me give myself credit for other creativity.  I've done a quick quilting project.  I've written numerous blog posts, some of them for pay.  I've sent out some poetry packets and gotten 4 poems accepted.  I've continued to network with other artists.

We were in a group that was coming up with great book titles.  Here's one:  It's Hard to Be a Goddess in the Corporate World.  One of us thought that was too long and voted for Goddess in the Corporate World.

I've been wondering about this as an alternate title for my memoir.  I had been circling around Monk or Marxist.  But the artist friend I was chatting with vetoed that title.  She much preferred Goddess in the Corporate World.  Let me continue to think.

Today I'm going to Michaels.  I have a variety of items to buy.  I'd like a small sketchbook.  I'd like to keep more of a daily log, as Austin Kleon recommends in Steal Like an Artist (see this post for more on that with pictures of his logbook).  The log would track what I actually did in a day, more in terms of creative projects than anything else.  I'd also like to sketch more and do a gratitude list.  And I'd like to get back to keeping track of what books I'm reading.  And my exercise.

What else?  Maybe the weather?  Why not?

I like what he says about the value of keeping a list:  "But more importantly, keeping a simple list of who/what/where means I write down events that seem mundane at the time, but later on help paint a better portrait of the day, or even become more significant over time. By “sticking to the facts” I don’t pre-judge what was important or what wasn’t, I just write it down."

And it's all in one place, unlike the various other places where I'm recording my life.  I worry about what I'm not writing down in my blog, in the My Fitness Pal site.

Let me see what happens.

Can a Smart Phone Sin?

Today is the birthday of Saint Augustine, born in 354.  You may be saying, "Save it for your theology blog."   But he's important to remember, even if we're not religious people.  I could make the argument that Augustine wrote the first memoir in our Western tradition.  So many of us are working in genres shaped by the kind of memoir he pioneered.  Would we have had bloggers without Augustine?

Augustine was my favorite when I took a class that covered medieval Philosophy.  I loved his The Confessions.  I admired his honesty.  What a catalog of sins!  He believed that we couldn't escape our sinful nature.  He spent part of his life indulging in all sorts of sinful behavior and part of his life trying not to do that. 

Later theologians turned these ideas into the oppressive philosophy about sin and worthiness that some of us grew up desperate to escape.  But Augustine's ideas were not oppressive in that same way.

If you wanted, you could make a case for Augustine as one of the most important thinkers in the history of the Church. We can trace our ideas about original sin and grace back to him. His thinking about God and God's existence outside of time has been enormously influential. His views of just war continue to be debated. His confessional style continues in writing to this day.

But if you don't feel like remembering medieval philosophers, you could celebrate the birth of the World Wide Web.  It's fascinating to read how it happened; The Writer's Almanac gives us a summary in this post.

It is true that there was an Internet before there was a World Wide Web.  But it was the World Wide Web that made the Internet accessible to so many of us.  What would life be without hyperlinks?  The first incarnations of the WWW didn't have much video--who could afford such computing power?  But now we carry that kind of computing power in our phones.  We live in amazing times.

Some of us early adopters of the Web might feel sad at how much it's been commercialized.  But I'm happy to be able to do so much of my shopping and bill paying without leaving the house.  I remember the days of going to the library to do research.  And when I didn't have access to a university or college library, I had to hope that the local public library would have what I need.  Now I have more information than I can possibly use--and because of the World Wide Web, I can access it.

Will we some day celebrate the birthdays of electronic systems the way that we do earlier writers and artists?  It's an intriguing possibility.  As we create machines that are ever more intelligent and capable of making connections that we wouldn't have come up with on our own, it's not inconceivable to me.

What would the feast day of the World Wide Web look like?  Would we have special foods?  Would we have the blessing of the computers?  We bless our pets in some churches, to commemorate the feast day of St. Francis.  Why not bless our smart phones?  They are every bit as much our companions as our pets.  You could argue that the consciousness of a smart phone is far vaster than the consciousness of a pet.

If Augustine lived today, he'd likely wrestle with these issues.  Are smart phones born with a sinful nature?  Will they have a place in Heaven?  Can a smart phone commit a sin?

Perhaps you have your own ideas--go ahead and write them down.  Maybe in two thousand years we'll celebrate you as the theologian most important to the electronic age.

How Does Your Light Get In?

I recently read Pat Schneider’s How the Light Gets In: Writing as Spiritual Practice (Oxford University Press, 2013). It’s a wonderful book, full of hope and inspiration that comes from Schneider’s long life of writing and teaching.


She talks about the different ways that writing helps us get to the truths of our lives, with chapters titled to let us know what she’ll be exploring, with labels like “Forgiving,” “The Body,” “Doing Good,” and “Death. Each chapter is full of experiences from Schneider’s own life and those of her family, friends, and students; each chapter ends with a poem by a famous poet. The astute reader will get some ideas for teaching, but the book isn’t primarily about teaching.

The book concerns itself with how to live a good life, and with how various writing practices might help us live better lives. There’s a spiritual component here, but I didn’t find it offensive. I can imagine that Christians of all variations would enjoy it, as would Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and all the adherents of the world’s religions.

Would the spiritual language get in the way of atheist writers? Perhaps.

I found myself scanning some of the autobiographical material. Much of it plumbs painful depths, painful to Schneider, and I just didn’t want to dwell there. In my younger years, I’d have devoured it. But I was able to scan those parts and not lose the thread of the book.

I enjoyed seeing Schneider’s writing process and writing life. We get poems-in-progress, journal entries, all sorts of writing. I enjoyed reading about her publication progress. I also enjoyed reading about her spiritual journeys, especially about the retreats she’s led.

It’s the kind of book that you could read straight through, or just dip in and out as the chapters call out to you. It’s the kind of book that gives comfort and succor. It does what too few books on writing do: it shows writing as part of an integrated life, a life that isn’t afraid of spiritual elements or family duties and joys. It’s worth your time.

Here are some quotes to inspire you:

“The word ‘prayer; evokes strong feelings for many people, depending on past experience—positive for some of us, negative for others. Any other word that I might choose—‘contemplation,’ ‘meditation’—would come with its own set of varying reactions, and so I choose the word that I have used since childhood: prayer. Prayer is, for me, an intentional openness to the presence of mystery in my life. Sometimes it is labor, sometimes ecstatic surprise. Sometimes both.” (p. 10)

“For both the writer and the spiritual pilgrim, an ‘answer’ is not always the greatest gift. Rather, coming to deeper and deeper understanding of the question itself can give us a place to stand in the presence of mystery, in the cloud of unknowing. Answers build walls that sometimes seem protective, bu they may shut out the light.” (p. 64)
“Each of us has a private inner life, and in that life there are secrets that drive us to be who we are. Writing is not the only way for a pilgrim to identify, name, and find his or her way through the dark night of the soul. But writing, I suggest, is where we humans most make our own minds visible to ourselves and to others. There, on the faint lines of our pages, we can take down our masks. Ironically, even when we think we are building masks, creating entirely fictional characters, our very mask-making reveals us. In writing, we see, sometimes with fear and trembling, who we have been, who we really are, and we glimpse now and then who we might become.” (p. 99)

“Sometimes tradition holds us when we cannot hold ourselves.” (p. 101)

“Writing as a spiritual practice sometimes necessitates going where the door is locked and the key has been misplaced. A lot of things may need to be turned over, looked under, opened up, to find the key that will open the door. It is clear to me that I can’t write about forgiving only from the perspective of the one who needs to forgive.” (p. 150)

“If you write the truth, you will change the world. If you write privately, you change your own inner world, and that changes the outer world. If you write publicly, you give voice to what is, and that assists what is becoming. If you help someone else to write the truth, you may not live long enough to know it, but you will have changed the world.” (p. 178-179)

“Elizabeth O’Connor has written that we are not called to our own soul work by ‘ought’ or should.’ Rather, we are called by joy. She says that if we are working out of ought or should, we are not only in the wrong place ourselves; we are blocking someone else whose joy it might be to be where we are.” (p. 264)

Autumn Treats

--The Nobel Prize for Literature will be announced this morning, maybe while I'm writing this blog post.  Every year, I hold out hope for Margaret Atwood, whose breadth, depth, and incredible range amaze me.  Almost every year, a writer I've never heard of is announced.  Some of them, like Wislawa Szymborska, become my favorites.  But honestly, life is short, and many Nobel Laureates will not be read by me.  And from what I can tell, most of them don't have the talent of Atwood; certainly they do not have the range, the skill across multiple genres.  But I am biased.

--I am back to working on my memoir. That feels really good. 

--Yesterday, I spent part of the morning weaving together several Valentine's blog posts into a cohesive, coherent essay for the memoir.  And then, my spouse was quite grumpy because of home repairs.  I was tempted to go to work early and leave him to stew in his unpleasant juices.  But I remembered my very own words that I'd been weaving, and I forgave him and helped with the home repair project.  I wrote more extensively about this encounter in today's post on my theology blog, a blog post which ends with a love note for the ages preserved in concrete.

--I was talking to my artist/librarian friend about my memoir, and she asked if I was also coming at the subject matter from a woman's perspective.  I felt a brief stab of accusation from my younger self.  While I am coming at it from a female perspective, in that I am a female, I feel that I have less of those issues than other women.

--I feel that way because I have no children.  At the women's retreat I attended recently, I was the only woman with no children except for the few 18-20 year olds who were there.  While we have all wrestled with issues of having enough time and division of chores both on the job and at home, I have less of those struggles because I don't have demands that children bring.

--Still, it was a good reminder to be on the lookout for ways to bring the feminist issues to the fore.

--I need to get more poetry writing back into my days.  I found a scrap of paper in the car.  I had jotted poetry lines on it several weeks ago, but I'd done nothing more.  I'd like to get back to writing a poem a week.

--Breaking news:  the Nobel goes to Alice Munro.  Not the Canadian female writer for whom I was rooting.  But I do love Alice Munro too.  I'm happy at any time a female writer wins these prizes.

--My admittedly biased self feels that Margaret Atwood has a wider range of skills than Alice Munro.  But my happy writer self feels that no one has more skill with the short story than Munro.  And she has done so much to depict the lives of girls and women, to use a title of one of her books.

--I love that a short story writer has won the Nobel.  I can read a story of hers today for a treat without a huge time commitment.  She writes in my language; I don't have to wait for a translation.  She is part of a pantheon of writers who have been very important to me as a writer, especially as a female writer.  Hurrah!

--Other treats:  I have gingerbread baking in the oven.  It's perfuming the house with the scent of autumn.  I bought a bag of apples yesterday.  And this week-end I will help with the pumpkin offload at my church, and then I'll buy some pumpkins.  We'll see how long they last in this heat.

Handling the Truth in Our Writing, Our Reading, and Our Teaching

I recently read Beth Kephart's Handling the Truth:  On the Writing of Memoir.  What a great book!  It's a perfect book for writers of all sorts and for teachers and for readers.

The book is full of wonderful examples from all sorts of memoirs.  These are the kinds of examples that remind me of why I write, even as they make me despair of my inadequacies and inabilities to be so similarly eloquent.  They inspire me to try harder.

Kephart includes a useful appendix with a list of great memoirs and brief descriptions.  The list is organized by types of memoir.  Want a book about a medical experience?  She's got some suggestions.  Want to get back to nature?  She'll tell you why certain memoirs are her favorites.  Throughout the book, she stresses the importance of being a careful reader as well as a careful writer.

For those of us who have been writing for many years, much of what she says will feel familiar--but it's good to be reminded of the essentials.  And she reminds us so lyrically.

Several times she returns to one of her most important points, one that it's easy to forget in this age when we're all pasting details of our lives online.  Again and again she reminds us that when we're writing memoir, even when we're being positive, we're going to have an impact on the other lives contained in our writing:

"You can't foresee the many ways a book--even a small book, even a self-published one distributed to a mere dozen friends--will carry forward through your life and through the lives of others--leaving indentations here, scars there, a trail of tears, a infiltrated reputation. . . .I speak as one who has systematically sought permission for every line in a book that relates to another, and who has failed nonetheless.  Reviewers will say what they will about your book.  Readers will draw their own conclusions.  You can think you've locked it all up tight, but unforeseen winds will blow through.  The only thing you can control when writing memoir is what you actually say and how you prepare the ones you love for the book's journey into the world" (p. 182).

As you might expect, this book contains great exercises, those you could do alone and those that you should take to your classrooms.  I love the idea of sending students out with cameras; her idea has a twist.  Her students are sure they'll be writing about the pictures in one way; they're thinking they'll be writing about the central focus of the pictures they've taken.  Kephart has them look at the material that's in the background:  the reflections in the windows, the activities happening at the edge of the frame, the table that's underneath the pie that is the focus of the picture. 

It seems like an exercise that would work in a variety of classrooms, both writing classrooms and other types; Psychology and Sociology classes come to mind.

It's interesting to think how many classes in how many disciplines now seem to have much in common with the teaching of memoir.  Some days I think we do students no good service by making every class about their individual lives and experiences.  Some days, I think it's the most effective way into a subject; I just wish that students would as eagerly explore the larger connections too. 

I wonder what this book would say to teachers in other disciplines; I suspect it would say quite a lot for teachers with open minds.

But let me stress, this book has much to say to readers, whether they be teachers, writers, or readers.  It's the best kind of book, the book that reminds me of why I write.  It's the kind of book that makes me want to read more, the kind of book that reminds me of how lucky I am to be in this time period when I'm surrounded by good writing which is available via so many avenues.

Of Time and the Facebook Feed

--Early yesterday evening, we walked to the beach.  It was oddly deserted, in the ways of that old Don Henley song, "The Boys of Summer."  Nobody on the beach, very few people in the bars and restaurants.  Was it because of the rainy days we've been having?  Just a simple fact of late September?

--We're in an interseason, done with summer tourists, not yet seeing the refugees from cold climates.  It's wonderful to feel like we have the beach to ourselves.

--I've also noticed the light shifting.  I drove home on Monday after boot camp class and thought about how dark it was.  At first I thought it was about to storm again.  But it was the night, closing in earlier.

--In terms of temperature, it doesn't feel very different:  it's still summer down here in terms of heat and humidity.

--I've had time on the brain because of what I've been reading.  Three weeks ago, I read Elliott Holt's You Are One of Them, a novel that feels very current, although it's set in 1996 Moscow and the Cold War years of the late 70's and early 80's.  Holtt does a great job of capturing those time periods.  I decided to read it because of this review in The Washington Post.

--From that book, I moved on to Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being.  What an amazing book!  I picked it up because I was after Lionel Shriver's latest book, and Ozeki's was on the shelf too.  I knew that my father-in-law was coming for a visit, which meant limited access to computers in the wee, small hours of the morning, so I wanted to make sure I had enough books.

--Ozeki does an amazing job in all sorts of ways.  I'll write a longer review tomorrow (update:  that review is in this post).  But this novel has something for everyone, and it's especially intriguing for fiction writers.  It addresses the question of what is fiction, how we construct characters, how we construct ourselves, how we construct the idea of audience.

--As I was reading that book, I was finishing a short story.  That short story is part of my linked story project.  It includes characters I first created 15 years ago.  Those characters are going in a different narrative direction today than they would have in 1997.  Yet they still feel true to me. 

--If I somehow managed to continue writing about them for another hundred years, how many changes would they endure?  Or would I stop evolving, and thus, they, too, would stagnate?

--A week ago, I got a hot-off-the-presses book, Beth Kephart's Handling the Truth:  On the Writing of Memoir.  It's one of those books that looks so essential that I'm considering buying it.

--I must get back to my memoir writing/creating/revising/shaping.

--I've also been thinking about time and Facebook.  I love staying in touch with people by reading bits and snippets about their lives.  When I have busy weeks, the way the last 2 weeks have been, I worry about what I'm missing.

--My friend, who is also my most constant writing partner in South Florida, told me about an acceptance of her short story, which I didn't know about.  She said, "I posted it on Facebook."  I apologized for not tuning in that day.

--She told me that I could control my Facebook feed so that I was sure to not miss anything.  I've often wondered how Facebook decides what to send me.  I know it's not completely random, yet I know I'm not seeing the posts of everyone who is a Facebook friend.

--But to control it in the way that she suggests?  Do I want to lose the element of serendipity?

--And more important, do I want to take control of the technology this way?  Will I continue needing to control it, to go back and add and delete and tinker?  The thought of it exhausts me.

--I'll let Ruth Ozeki have the last word here.  Her narrator is contemplating time, ocean currents, and tsunamis:  "Does the half-life of information correlate with the decay of our attention?  Is the Internet a kind of temporal gyre, sucking up stories like geodrift, into its orbit? . . . Like plastic confetti, they're drawn into the gyre's becalmed center, the garbage patch of history and time.  The gyre's memory is all the stuff that we've forgotten." (A Tale for the Time Being, p. 114)