Writing Salon Mistress Muses

Alan Alda Quote

The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself.

via www.wisdomquotes.com

The Truth Brings Home Memories...

Here's an excerpt from an essay by one of my favorite writers. I chose to post it today because I thought I had lost the book but then found it in a box in the garage, recently. I opened it up today and turned to one of the pages I earmarked a few years ago. I liked it then and I still like it now:

"The truth brings home memories that make her suffer. Yes, she's used to writing while weighed down by a heap of rubble, but she is afraid that touching so many memories may scorch her hands and eyes. She's also afraid her memories may hurt others in her life, whom she loves. Compared to telling the truth, inventing was like playing with a litter of kittens. Telling the truth is like moving through a pack of tigers. She reminds herself that to a writer everything is permitted so long as she writes—even freeing tigers and taking them out for a stroll. But in fact she doesn't believe writers have any special rights, any more than others do. So she faces a problem she cannot resolve. She doesn't want to be a shepherd of tigers.

A Creative Life

"To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong." —Joseph Chilton Pearce

Re: Self-Doubt

"There is in you what is beyond you." — Paul Valery

Music

"Writing more and more to the sound of music, writing more and more like music. Sitting in my studio tonight, playing record after record, writing, music is a stimulant of the highest order, far more potent than wine." —Anais Nin

This week's favorite CD (not just the melodies but also the lyrics): The soundtrack from the movie Magnolia (the one with Tom Cruise, not to be confused with Steel Magnolias). I've had it for years and still love it.

Writing Down the Good Stuff

Preparing to teach my "Show, Don't Tell" workshop, I came across an essay I copied long ago from Poets & Writers magazine. Written by novelist David Long, it's called Stuff - The Power of the Tangible. A good piece on how important it is for writers not to become "bogged down in abstraction." I especially liked this excerpt (from the section "Kinds of Stuff"):

2. Special Things: I think of the monolith in Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," its looming physical presence profoundly black, other. Think of Yorick's skull in Hamlet's naked hand. The Bobby Thomson home run ball that reappears throughout Don DeLillo's Underworld. It's Excalibur. It's splinters of the true Cross, the bones of the saints. It's talisman, totem, amulet. It's the lost map, the ribbon-tied sheaf of letters, the dead father's suit hanging mutely in the closet. It's the button accordion passing from hand to hand in Annie Proulx's Accordion Crimes; the blue-green suburban pools John Cheever's swimmer traverses in his quest for home, the pinewood casket the Bundrens try with heroic ineptitude to haul across a flood-swollen river in As I Lay Dying. It's the birthday cake of a young boy struck by a car in Raymond Carver's "A Small, Good Thing."

Remember a work of fiction and certain objects seem embedded in it. . . .

Wooing the World of Creation

Poking around in my bookshelves the other day, I came across one of my books about writing that I hadn't opened in a while: The Writer's Mentor - A Guide to Putting Passion on Paper, by Cathleen Rountree. I opened it up to a page toward the end, and instantly saw a Henry James quote:

"To live in the world of creation – to get into it and stay in it – to frequent it and haunt it – to think intensely and fruitfully – to woo combinations and inspirations into being by a depth and continuity of attention and meditation – this is the only thing."

Good old Henry J.

Foolish Like a Trout

". . . Depend on rhythm, tonality, and the music of language to hold things together. It is impossible to write meaningless sequences. In a sense the next thing always belongs. In the world of imagination, all things belong. If you take that on faith, you may be foolish, but foolish like a trout.

"Never worry about the reader, what the reader can understand. When you are writing, glance over your shoulder, and you'll find there is no reader. Just you and the page. Feel lonely? Good. Assuming you can write clear English sentences, give up all worry about communications. If you want to communicate, use the telephone.

"To write a poem you must have a streak of arrogance—not in real life I hope. In real life try to be nice. It will save you a hell of a lot of trouble and give you more time to write. By arrogance I mean that when you are writing you must assume that the next thing you put down belongs not for reasons of logic, good sense, or narrative development, but because you put it there. You, the same person who said that, also said this. The adhesive force is your way of writing, not sensible connection."

        —Richard Hugo (The Triggering Town, Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing)

And the Point Is. . . ?

I just took my afternoon vitamin B pill, and it gave me enough extra energy to scrounge around for a decent quote for writers. I found this one:

"Each of us is like a desert, and a literary work is like a cry from the desert, or like a pigeon let loose with a message in its claws, or like a bottle thrown into the sea. The point is: to be heard— even if by one single person." —Francois Mauriac

I wonder what Francois would have thought about blogging. . . .

More Dear Natalie

"You have to earn the right to make an abstract statement. You earn this right by using the concrete bricks of detail. After much original detail, you can take a little leap, step away, and make a statement: "Ah, yes, life is good," or "Life sucks." But you can't say "Life sucks" until you have given us a picture of it: a man lying in a gutter, mosquitoes feeding at this open sores, the tongue of his right shoe hanging out, his pockets turned inside out, his eyes stunned closes, and his skin a pale yellow." — Natalie Goldberg

Push Yourself

"Push yourself beyond when you think you are done with what you have to say. Go a little further. Sometimes when you think you are done, it is just the edge of beginning. Probably that's why we decide we're done. It's getting too scary. We are touching down onto something real. It is beyond the point when you think you are done that often something strong comes out." — Natalie Goldberg

A Good Day of Writing

A woman was having tea with Mrs. (Thomas) Hardy, and inquired, "Did Mr. Hardy have a good day of writing?" Mrs. Hardy replied, "Oh, I'm sure of it. I could hear him sobbing all afternoon."

The Poet and the Physician

Re: Yesterdays's question about money. I take it back. It was a worthwhile question, I suppose,  in that it reminded me that I don't really care if I ever make "real" money from writing or not. It'd be great, but I'm not going to stop writing if I don't. I can't, actually. It's how I express myself, and not doing it makes me feel incomplete.

One more quote:

A poet went to see a doctor. He said to him, "I have all kinds of terrible symptoms. I am unhappy and uncomfortable, my hair and my arms and legs are as if tortured. "The doctor replied, "Is it not true that you have not yet given out your latest poetic composition?" "That is true," said the poet. "Very well," said the physician, "be good enough to recite. "He did so, and, at the doctor's orders, said his lines again and again.Then the doctor said, "Stand up, for you are now cured. What you had inside had affected your outside. Now that it is released, you are well again."

                                                                                                        —A Sufi Fable

According to Moliere

"Writing is a little bit like prostitution. First you do it for love. Then you do it for a few friends. Then you do it for money."—Moliere

Hmmmm. Will I ever make money from writing? I have no idea. Was that a worthwhile or useful question?

Nope.

Live with Intention

I am stealing the following quote straight from a greeting card, because I MUST get myself out the door and to Potrero Hill. I'm going to kill two birds with one stone: get my walking in, and post Writing Salon flyers at Farley's and elsewhere. That is my intention, so that I can get home and clean up my messy living room and kitchen before my writing group arrives this evening. I don't know if I'll have any writing to share with them, but I'm hoping the walking will invigorate and inspire me at the last minute. (Writers take note: Walking can get the creative juices flowing. If you're sitting at your desk frustrated because the words won't come, go for a walk, then go back to your desk and start writing. You might be surprised at what comes out after you've fed your body a big extra dose oxygen.)

Live with intention.
Walk to the edge.
Listen hard.
Practice wellness.
Play with abandon.
Laugh.
Choose with no regret.
Continue to learn.
Appreciate your friends.
Do what you love.
Live as if this is all there is.
       
            —Mary Anne Radmacher

Taking a Break from Writing?

"You may be able to take a break from writing, but you won't be able to take a break from being a writer." —Stephen Leigh

Personal Truths

After a time, some of us learn (and some more slowly than others) that life comes down to some simple things. How we love, how alert we are, how curious we are. Love, attention, curiosity. . . . One way we learn this lesson is by listening to others tell us true stories of their own struggles to come to a way of understanding. It is sometimes comforting to know that others seem to fail as often and as oddly as we do. . . . And it is even more comforting to have such stories told to us with style, the way a writer has found to an individual expression of truth. — Scott Walker

No more time for posting today. Jack and I are soon on our way to see tonight's Word for Word preview of Daniel Handler's 4 Adverbs at Theater Artaud. All about different perspectives on love.

Hah! (Better Late than Never)

"I think that the next time someone asks me what advice I'd give to aspiring writers, I'll say, 'Get enough exercise.'" --Caitlin R. Kiern

A Small Sunday Meditation

"There may be a plan, but we will never be able to stand back far enough
to appreciate it (fully). Somewhere life may make sense to a great
cosmic someone, but not to us here; not to us, splintered in a struggle
to do what is right in a world that presents us with complex, competing
options. We may never see the larger picture, creation's perfected
whole; we may be forever flickering fragments, fractured by the raw
reality of immediacy from which there is no escape while we are alive…
Well then, let us dance in the flame that we see. Let the arc of our
creativity embrace our moments of time, and let us add our light to the
kaleidoscope. . ." — Rev. Elizabeth Tarbox

Favorite Quote for Today

"The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off." --Gloria Steinem

Heart, Heat, and Edit

"Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language that will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style." — Kurt Vonnegut

"Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience." — Henry David Thoreau

"It is perfectly okay to write garbage – as long as you edit brilliantly." —C. J. Cherryh


 

Genius, Power and Magic

Time for a little inspirational Goethe:

"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!'"

I'm sure this quote has been turned into a greeting card message by now, but I don't care. I still love it.

You Shall Know the Truth

Sat on my butt all day updating the Writing Salon website. Then got on the elliptical strider for twenty minutes and worked off one of the four pieces of pumpkin pie (devoid of any whey protein) that I consumed in less than 24 hours. Then I read some more unsettling Internet stuff about chemo side effects which, I learned, can include things like raging herpes flare-ups and/or vaginal yeast infections. Or yeast infections in your mouth (thrush).

Sometimes I feel guilty for doing the research that leads to finding out these unpleasant bits of information because gee, what if my newly acquired knowledge makes me so anxious and filled with dread that I become less "positive?" And what if my lack of positive-ness makes the dreaded side effects worse than they would have been if I had just handed myself over to the doctors, closed my eyes tight, and said "Wake me up when it's over"?

What if?   Well, that's kinda like saying, "What if I weren't ME?"

So. Forget what if.  I'm going to ask my doctor if I should start taking acyclovir to prevent a herpes outbreak.

And now, what if I talk about something other than chemo? What if I end this blog post with  three writerly quotes that please me?

"Get up very early and get going at once. In fact, work first and wash afterwards." — WH Auden

"Keep going; never stop; sit tight; / Read something luminous at night." — Edmund Wilson

"You shall know the truth, and it will make you odd." — Flannery O'Connor

It's Time Again

"It's time again. Tear up the violets and plant something more difficult to grow." —James Schuyler

Every time I read this quote, I like it more. There they are in the same sentence: destruction, killing, the taking of a life—on one end. Gentleness, nurturing, the creating of a life—on the other end. How does one brave, and then bear, the pain of ripping out the violet?

That's the challenge, the lesson, the prayer.
 

 

Flowers in the Yard

"For most of life, nothing wonderful happens. If you don't enjoy getting up and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family and friends, then the chances are that you're not going to be very happy. If someone bases his happiness or unhappiness on major events like a great new job, huge amounts of money, a flawlessly happy marriage, or a trip to Paris, that person isn't going to be happy much of the time. If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard,  a drink, or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness." —Andy Rooney

I realize that this blog, which is ostensibly about the writing life, has become top heavy with breast cancer posts. So here's a little something that isn't about breasts or cancer.

Our SF Writing Salon poetry teacher Julie Bruck forgot her blue notebook when she left here last Monday night. I told her I would put it on top of the refrigerator for her to retrieve next week. She wrote back and said:

Inside the folder, there's a little book of faded blue-grey handmade paper. It's my quotes on writing, and has the best stuff I've culled over the years. Help youself.

What a lovely gift! I love quotes from and/or for writers. So. . . I do plan to plunder her delicious little blue-grey book. Here are two of the many gems it contains (all handwritten on the handmade paper):

"How do I know what I feel until I see what I say?" —William Forester

"Who said you should be happy? Do your work." — Colette

 

The Opinions of Others

Today a quote:

Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth. — Katherine Mansfield, from The Journal of Katherine Mansfield

. . . and a Billy Collins poem, the first one I went to this morning, that was on a page that had its top corner folded down. There were several other pages with folded-down corners, but this was the first one I opened, so I'll stick with that:

In the Room of a Thousand Miles

I like writing about where I am,
where I happen to be sitting,
the humidity or the clouds,
the scene outside the window—
a pink tree in bloom,
a neighbor walking his small, nervous dog.
And if I am drinking
a cup of tea at the time
or a small glass of whiskey,
I will find a line to put it on.

My wife hands these poems back to me
with a sigh.
She thinks I ought to be opening up
my aperture to let in
the wild rhododendrons of Ireland,
the sun-blanched stadiums of Rome,
that waterclock in Bruges—
the world beyond my inkwell.

I tell her I will try again
and travel back to my desk
where the chair is turned to the window.
I think about the furniture of history.
I consider the globe, the lights of its cities.
I visualize a lion rampant on an iron shield,
a quiet battlefield, a granite monument.

And then—just between you and me—
I take a swallow of cold tea
and in the manner of the ancient Chinese
pick up my thin pen
and write down that bird I hear outside,
the one that sings,
pauses,
then sings again.

Sweet

"Sweet are the uses of adversity." —William Shakespeare

To Be that Thing

What to write what to write about what to write about writing what to write about writing about writing what to write about writing about writing about writing? Sometimes you just don't feel inspired to write about what you know or what you don't know or know you know about writing about writing about writing so you write about writing even though you don't feel inspired to write about it you write about it anyway in a way that reminds you of Gertrude Stein you write a/blog is a blog/ is a blog is/a blog is a/blog."

Then you find a quote by Gertrude Stein, a quote that you like and that you like that you like. 

"The minute you or anybody else knows what you are you are not it, you are what you or anybody else knows you are and as everything in living is made up of finding out what you are it is extraordinarily difficult really not to know what you are and yet to be that thing."—Gertrude Stein

Then you feel so suddenly very sleepy that you no longer have any idea what what you just wrote meant and so you call it a night/you call it/a night you call it.

Particles of Truth

"Maybe I'm a writer because I'm desperately trying to clean up my mess. Other people go into therapy or become psychiatrists just to clean up the mess. Well, I couldn't afford therapy at the time I needed it the most, so I started writing. And now I know that the writing helps me a little because, Why do I write about these things? Why do I choose those characters? Why am I so desperate to tell that story? Because there's something inside of me that is bothering me, that gives me a lot of pain and that I need to solve. And by exploring it through writing about other people's lives, I might reach a particle of truth. Maybe. If I'm lucky." — Isabelle Allende, from the anthology, Writers Dreaming