WriteSpa – An Oasis for Writers

A long time ago, during a low point in my life, someone tried to advise me: “When you come to the end of a rope, tie a knot and hang on.” I remember snapping back: “When you come to the end of a rope, you should let it go and find another one!”

My particularly rope that I’ve been hanging on to is Writing to Get Published By A Major Publishing House. Letting go felt impossible, until now.

What changed? There were a lot of factors, but the main one has to do with author John P. Locke. Last fall I did some editing on one of his novels, and over the course of the next few months, we became friends. From him, I re-learned a key element to my own writing process that I had forgotten: Writing is fun.

John didn’t say this out loud: I got it because of who he is and how he communicates and writes. When we talk, everything seems easier and more lighthearted. There’s definitely a ‘flow’ there that inspires me, simply because of his attitude towards his own writing. When I first read John’s novels, I recognized in them the quality of a really fine writer. His style is fast and furious, hilarious, descriptive, violent. From the first few pages of Lethal People, I knew that, if he wanted to, he could be published by a Major Publishing House.

To my fascination, John had no interest in mainstream publishing. The idea of months of querying agents, then more months (in my case, years) of an agent trolling novels, and the odd desire to receive hundreds of rejection letters, meant nothing to him. He wanted his books out and available, with a cover he liked, blurbs and ads and press releases that he approved, interviews and reviews by people who were appreciative, and a writing-and-publishing process that he enjoyed. He’s already working on his fifth novel – and he only started writing novels a year and a half ago.

John writes because it’s FUN.

I had forgotten that feeling. How books used to pour from me, with cheerful abundance, like a fountain. How words were playful, interesting things – not heavy stones to build a tome. Sentences could come and go, like a breeze. Chapters were filled with laughter and (usually) lots of kisses. A story was light as sunshine, and sprang forth like flowers.

Thanks mostly to John Locke, but also thanks to all the other pioneers of this exciting Independent Publishing Movement, I was finally able to let go of a rope I’d clung to for far too long. Since then, I’ve found that I can sit back and watch in wonder as one sentence leads mysteriously to the next, and stories grow of their own accord – because it’s ‘flow’ – because it’s fun.

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Writing Practice

Think of a ‘rope’ in your life that you’re hanging on to. It can be a big rope – like a job you’re not happy with but feel you have to stay with, or a relationship that perhaps is nearing its end. Or it can be tiny – like a sock you’ll never finish knitting or a haiku that isn’t working. Imagine how tired your arms are, how exhausted you feel, how you long for someone to come and help you back up the rope to where you were. Feel your loneliness: there’s only you there, hanging on to that rope, legs dangling over the abyss. Maybe even cry a bit.

Now, instead of trying to climb back up the rope, imagine letting go. You realize that to hang on to a rope when your arms are aching is just plain silly. There’s no danger – everything around is soft and slow and warm and lovely. You’re tumbling gently through a safe, interesting world that is totally unexpected, but still your very own, because it’s your own creation. Think Alice’s rabbit hole adventure, for example.

Close your eyes and allow the best experience imaginable to come to you – don’t try to force it. You might find yourself with a whole new way of looking at something that you were previously stuck on.

Now write it down. First, describe the rope you’ve been holding onto and the misery and ache you feel. Then describe the wonder of what occurs when you let go of the rope. Think outside the box – in fact, maybe nothing happens at all. Maybe everything that you were afraid would happen when you let go disappears. Maybe you simply feel relief.

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Daily Happinesses

• a fresh cord of wood delivered
• intrigue
• a wide-brimmed turquoise sun hat
• castles in Bavaria
• the eye of love

WriteSpa – An Oasis for Writers

From the time I was eight till around sixteen years old, my father and I used to play chess practically every night. I used to become absorbed not just in the strategy, but in the characteristics of the pieces. Pawns were brave but not very skilled. Bishops were clever. Knights were maverick and tricky – rather like guerilla fighters. Rooks were strong and powerful, but they needed a lot of room to maneuver. And don’t get me started on the talented, adept, versatile queen who gracefully defended the kingdom for her dull, quiet, fuddy-duddy old king.

Stories can be written about anything in the world – and character given to just about anything as well. A plump teapot, a sheer, terrifying cliff, a roiling sky… Even typefaces have distinct personalities. But chess pieces are the best things in the world to characterize. When I played chess, wondering what each piece was thinking and feeling was far more vivid to me than the action.

Still, one of the most important qualities I learned from those evenings was the importance of learning to finish. Even when it was obvious I was going to lose, my father would turn the chess board around and say: “Practice your end game.” We both knew I was strongest in the opening – where I could be impulsive, brave, and safely move quickly. But when it came time to actually close in on that poor old king, I tended to tune out. Not any longer. After so many years of finishing a game, it makes me slightly ill to have to interrupt one – or leave any story unfinished.

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Fun writing practice

Select a chess pieces and write a short story using that piece as the protagonist.

Narrate your story from a first-person point of view, building on the idiosyncrasies of the personality of the chess piece. Write it in a dreamy, fairy-tale style. Describe the town and the fields and the woods around, as well as the battle itself. Remember to stay in character: a rook is not going to sneak up on a pawn early in the game, although it might come up behind you near the end.

Intersperse lots of melodrama and emotion into your story. You might even want to write something like “Ah, me!” when the queen is dragged off in chains to the enemy dungeon. Perhaps you are a pawn, and your only goal is to reach the opponent’s side to rescue her. Will you make it?

Write at least three paragraphs: beginning, middle, and end.

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Daily happinesses

• lots and lots of silk and satin pillows
• taking a nap
• feeling beloved
• reindeer in Lapland
• sparkles on the snow

The tallest falls east of Niagara, hidden in the wilderness of soaring mountains, impossible to get to except by foot, Heaven Falls plunges down a massive rock face, strikes a thick stone ledge and sprays out in powerful rainbow arcs into the seemingly bottomless lake far below.

The health resort named after it is the most elite in the world. Billionaires, politicians, and celebrities flock to recuperate and pamper themselves at the beautiful facilities.

But they also flock for another reason.

“You CAN buy love,” states the glossy Heaven Falls brochure. “Don’t let anyone say that you can’t.”

Heaven Falls offers something no other resort does: the thrill of a romantic interlude. Romance with a complete stranger – romance that feeds the hungry heart and nurtures the soul. The ecstasy of falling in love comes with no strings attached, no headache, no misunderstandings… Just a hefty price tag.

Sounds pretty good?

Single mother, unemployed Tess thinks so. Especially when the owners of the resort invite her and her ten-year-old daughter to move there. Not only that, but, once there, she is guaranteed a job, a home, and a lifetime of financial security.

And before long, she herself is falling in love.

But the heaven Tess thought she had found begins to crumble around her. And she has no one to turn to for help except for the man who betrayed her.

Heaven Falls is now available in e-book format for a limited time for only $0.99 !! Purchase it on Smashwords for several e-book options or on Amazon if you’d like the Kindle version. Softcover and hardcover will be available later in March 2010.

For more information visit Heaven Falls Spa.

WriteSpa – An Oasis for Writers

People who know me well have had to listen to my emphatic discourse on the value of ‘doing nothing’ for a long time now. I’ve claimed – without much support – that doing nothing is a vital activity in our busy lives, not only for children but for all of us.

Most of my friends just don’t get it.

‘Nothing time’ does not mean leisure – like zoning out with a movie or even reading a book. It means daydreaming. It means looking out the window – it even means allowing yourself to be bored. It means letting go of all those heady shoulds and musts and have-tos, and instead letting thoughts and ideas come to you. It’s a time to open yourself, to find a place that is so quiet you become one with the world, without trying. There’s no effort involved, just as there’s no effort in the central activity of breathing.

Remember this from Winnie the Pooh?

“What I like doing best is Nothing,” said Christopher Robin.
“How do you do Nothing?” asked Pooh, after he had wondered for a long time.
“Well, it’s when people call out at you just as you’re going off to do it, ‘What are you going to do, Christopher Robin?’ and you say, ‘Oh, nothing,’ and then you go and do it.”
“Oh, I see,” said Pooh.
“This is a nothing sort of thing that we’re doing now.”
“Oh, I see,” said Pooh again.
“It means just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.”
“Oh!” said Pooh.

I had little or no validation for caring so deeply about ‘doing nothing’ (except from A.A.Milne), and I know that many people thought I was simply trying to justify being lazy. Well, for those of you who doubted me, pick up the March issue of Scientific American!  Neuroscientists have determined that when the mind is at rest, it is actually more active (in a good way!) than when it is engaged in a task.

Here’s an excerpt:

“Many neuroscientists have long assumed that much of the neural activity inside your head when at rest matches your subdued, somnolent mood. In this view, the activity in the resting brain represents nothing more than random noise, akin to the snowy pattern on the television screen when a station is not broadcasting. But recent analysis produced by neuroimaging technologies has revealed something quite remarkable: a great deal of meaningful activity is occurring in the brain when a person is sitting back and doing nothing at all.

“It turns out that when your mind is at rest – when you are daydreaming quietly in a chair, say, [or] asleep in a bed or anesthetized for surgery – dispersed brain areas are chattering away to one another. And the energy consumed by this ever active messaging, known as the brain’s default mode, is about 20 times that used by the brain when it responds consciously to an outside stimulus. Indeed, most things we do consciously, be it sitting down to eat dinner or making a speech, mark a departure from the baseline activity of the brain default mode.”. … Marcus E. Raichle, “The Brain’s Dark Energy,” Scientific American, March 2010, pp. 44-47.

So, parents of young children, put away all those crazy toys that are supposed to stimulate your baby’s mind – gazing out the window or into your loving eyes is much more productive! And parents of teens: make sure your kids’ downtime is validated. And teachers – lighten up on all that homework. And, sure, chores have to be done, but shift your priorities. Doing nothing is equally important as washing the dishes.

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Fun Writing Practice – Do Nothing

That’s it. That’s the practice. Do nothing.

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Daily Happinesses

• colorful ribbons and trim for sewing

• Buddha

• finishing a novel

• electric cars

• bluebells creating a blue haze in the forest

Last fall I wrote a post that has had more hits than anything else I wrote: “Waiting for the Call You Think Will Change Your Life.” I saw that it struck a chord with a lot of people. In it, I described my career as an author, and how for many years I eagerly jumped when the phone rang – hoping that this was The Call.

You know: the call where the voice on the other end says: “An Editor at a Mainstream Publishing Company has Made an Offer for Your Novel.”

Before you get too excited for me – wait.

No one has called me.

What’s happened is that I decided I was not going to wait any more for The Call. Instead of waiting to be published I’m going to go independent! “Heaven Falls” is going to be published by Telemachus Press in March 2010. From now on I am going to rely on those who I believe are the future of publishing: Readers and Reviewers. They are the ones who can further my life as a writer – not a corporation.

“Heaven Falls” is a romantic novel that had been trolled by my agent a few years back, and that I’d revised more times than I cared to remember. I’ve always loved this book, and it made me sad to have it wither away in a drawer. People have urged me to go the indie-publishing route for a while, including some good friends who read the novel and who have already forged a path in the world of independent publishing: Claude Bouchard, Robert Crull, and John P. Locke. Thanks to them, and many others, I decided I’d join this enormous, important movement.

“Heaven Falls” is going to be available SOON!!