If You Are a Dreamer, Come In...

Dreams. 

They're feisty, elusive little things, aren't they? Anne Shirley once said, "It wouldn't do to have all our dreams fulfilled. We would be as good as dead if we had nothing left to dream about." And yet, it can also be detrimental to our poor little souls to have our dreams constantly denied. The book of Proverbs says, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when dreams come true, there is life and joy."

I don't know how you feel about the subject, but I tend to keep my dreams pretty close to the chest. For one thing, I know how vulnerable they are: some of the more fragile ones can be slayed by a single skeptical glance. For another thing, I tend to feel (erroneously, perhaps) that revealing them makes me seem weak, or even more seriously, that admitting I want them shows what a selfish prat I really am.

But I begin to wonder if I shouldn't hold them so close. I wonder if perhaps I ought to let them try their little wings from time to time. Because when it comes to other people, I find that I consider dreams to be among the most precious, sacred things the heart contains. Nothing connects me to another person faster than learning about their most cherished desire, even if that desire seems outwardly ridiculous. Almost always, I find myself saying, "Oh, you should!" Why? Because I believe it is important to dream. I believe it is imperative that we frail, ephemeral humans run headlong after the things tugging at our souls. How could we live full lives if we didn't?

So. Here are some of my dreams:

 

A wee cottage in the country...

 

with one of these,

 

and one of these,

 

and some of these,

 

where I could spend every morning doing this

 

and every afternoon doing this.

But of course, the dream that haunts me most looks like this:

Others I have cannot be captured so easily in images, but they linger just the same, whispering in my ear when I catch a glimpse of a sunrise, settling over my shoulders when I sit around a table with my family, brushing past my ear with the sudden strain of a violin.

Why do I bring all this up? Because I have begun to be convicted in the belief that it is of the utmost importance to encourage one another in our dreams. It's awful to see your dreams "deferred" (see this poem by Langston Hughes), but it is infinitely worse to have them scorned, discouraged, or even simply doubted. (Anyone who has ever had to explain their writing "habit" to a dubious acquaintance or extended family member understands the torment of that experience.) Conversely, the experience of being wholly and unflaggingly believed in is almost as wonderful as achieving the dream itself. When someone you love is willing to stand at your side in the face of grueling hard work and opposition, and say, "I know you can do this," you find, miraculously, that you can.

So I say to you now, do not be a doubter of dreams. Do not look into the soul of another human creature and say, "You can't." Because while it may only cause that dreamer to toughen her skin and overcome another battle against doubt, it might also break her. And this world is broken enough to be getting on with.

What say you? If you feel so inspired, share your own dreams on your blog and post a link here. I would love to come by and say, "You can."

Raise a Glass to Turnings of the Season

[ATTENTION: This post has almost nothing at all to do with writing. I know. It's weird. I sometimes forget I have ordinary human things in my life, too. But hang in there, and don't judge me too fiercely. I'll go back to being strictly writerly in my next post.]

Oklahoma doesn't get blizzards. Ever.

Except lately.

The last week and a half have felt remarkably like living in the Arctic tundra, or in Narnia, or maybe on a wintry frontier. We had eighteen inches of snow with the first bout last Monday, then an additional four or five inches a few days later, and then today, about four more. This would not be a big deal if we were (like so many other places who had blizzards) a city who knew what to do with snow, but as it happens, Oklahoma is decidedly unprepared for any accumulation beyond two inches. The consequence? Most everyone I know has spent the last eight days caved up in their houses like bears, or hiking cross-country in full Eskimo gear, desperate for some social contact--or just bread and milk.

I've spent the larger part of those eight days working on my WIP (50,000 words! There's an allusion to writing, guys!) or exploring the frontier with my canine friend Ophelia, who turns into an arctic wolf in the snow. Here's proof:

Even if you hate cold weather with all the molecules of your being (like me), it's hard to resist a dog who has this much fun outside. But I'll be one glad little sparrow when Spring arrives.

And speaking of Spring...

I went to see the Decemberists play in Kansas City on Monday. It was unequivocally brilliant (of course), and their new album, The King is Dead--rather more subtle than some of their others--comes at an appropriate time, as one of its primary themes is the changing of the seasons. The first song on the album makes me itch for spring so badly I am tempted to march out into the waist-deep snow on my balcony and start planting petunias.

The lyrics are as follows:

Here we come to a turning of the season
Witness to the arc towards the sun
A neighbor's blessed burden within reason
Becomes a burden borne of all and one

And nobody, nobody knows
Let the yolk fall from our shoulders
Don't carry it all, don't carry it all
We are all our hands and holders
Beneath this bold and brilliant sun
And this I swear to all

A monument to build beneath the arbors
Upon a plinth that towers t'wards the trees
Let every vessel pitching hard to starboard
Lay its head on summer's freckled knees*

And nobody, nobody knows
Let the yolk fall from our shoulders
Don't carry it all, don't carry it all
We are all our hands and holders
Beneath this bold and brilliant sun
And this I swear to all

A there a wreath of trillium and ivy
Laid upon the body of a boy
Lazy will the loam come from its hiding
And return this quiet searcher to the soil

So raise a glass to turnings of the season
And watch it as it arcs towards the sun
And you must bear your neighbor's burden within reason
And your labors will be born when all is done

And nobody, nobody knows
Let the yolk fall from our shoulders
Don't carry it all, don't carry it all
We are all our hands and holders
Beneath this bold and brilliant sun
And this I swear to all

(*My favorite couplet)

Here you can listen:

I'm going to go ahead and raise my glass to a turning of the seasons. I don't know about you, but I'm ready to move out into the sun again, and watch the world grow. Here's to spring... and to leaves on the trees and blossoms on the Jane Magnolias.

Bonus feature: Here's a video I snagged at the concert. If you're a Decemberists fan, you'll like it. I promise.

Etsy! Quote Mugs!

We interrupt our regular scheduled programming for a quick and exciting announcement:

I now have an Etsy shop!  Click here to visit it!

I've been painting quotes and designs on coffee mugs to sell at various art and craft shows for the last two years, but only this week did I finally decide to join the Etsy community.  Of course, my timing was terrible, because we're cutting it awfully close to Christmas with shipping, but all the same... I thought I'd let all you wonderful people know anyway.

Here are a few of the mugs I'm selling:

 

 Link

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I'll be posting more throughout December and into the new year, so stay tuned.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all!  And best of luck getting all your last-minute shopping done...

{tell me your favorite word}

The thing about being a Wordsmith (aka, Writer) is that you hang out with words a lot. 

Probably, I would venture to say, more than the average person.  If you're not spitting them onto a blank page, you're swirling them around in your brain, or flipping madly through a Thesaurus (which I've always thought should be the name of a bookish dinosaur) to find one, or possibly even staring at one in someone else's writing, and wondering how That Word came to be there and why.  Maybe sometimes you even take ages and ages to formulate a verbal sentence, because you know a word exists that will flawlessly express what you're trying to say, and you'd rather flounder around in the archives of your vocabulary than choose a word that is less than perfect.

These facts lead me to a specific conclusion, my dear Reader.  And that conclusion is that YOU have a favorite word.  I don't think I'm wrong.  Because I have a favorite word, too.  Shall we swap?

Here's mine:

im·ag·ine

 [ih-maj-in]/ɪˈmædʒɪn/ Show Spelled -ined, -in·ing.

–verb (used with object)

1.to form a mental image of (something not actually present to the senses).

2.to think, believe, or fancy: He imagined the house was haunted.

3.to assume; suppose: I imagine they'll be here soon.

4.to conjecture; guess: I cannot imagine what you mean.

5.Archaic . to plan, scheme, or plot.

–verb (used without object)

6.to form mental images of things not present to the senses; use the imagination.

7.to suppose; think; conjecture. 

I love everything about the word imagine.  I love it in ALL CAPS and I love it in lowercase.  I love it hand-written, and type-written.  I love it bold and italicized, and even in Impact Font, which I hate.  I love the way it sounds and the way it feels on my tongue.  I love what it means.  I love that it contains the word "mage" and the word "image" and almost the word "magic."

While I was at Chautauqua, Peter Jacobi said this about my word, and I almost fell out of my chair in a violent swoon of love: Imagination is the first of our senses we should take care never to let fall into disuse.  It is what makes us human.

(I'm even swooning now.) 

But that brings us to you, Dear Reader.  Because I know there is a word you love as much.  I hope you'll share it.  Because we could all use a bit more word-love in our lives.

WriteOnCon, Moonflowers, and Tension in Fiction!

The first thing to address this Thursday morning is that you, Dear Reader, should be at WriteOnCon. Not here. Okay, so I'm glad you're here, but as soon as you're done I want you to flit on over to WriteOnCon and join in the mad, writerly festivities. The conference has been fabulously fabulous so far, and I know there are still great things to come.

Beyond that exhortation, I have a few more things to share today. The first is utterly irrelevant to Writerdom, but an enormous triumph to balcony-garden-kind, and of course, a giant step for Me as a flower-grower. And that is: I had my very first ever grown-from-seed Moonflower two days ago. And since then, I've had two more. In case you aren't familiar with this little climber, they look like this:

They are fragrant, they bloom at night and only at night--one night per bloom--and of course, they're lovely. And best of all, they're named after the moon. Now, I have a slight infatuation with the moon, so it should come as no surprise that I like this little flower. But what makes this such a triumph is the fact that this is the second year I've grown Moonflowers, and up until two days ago, I had never had a bloom before. Huzzah!

But enough about the moon. Let's move on to the gold. Today is the first-ever installment in the Chautauqua Gold Nuggets Series, and I'm going to share my notes from Patricia Lee Gauch's workshop on Tension. Dig in, and enjoy, Dear Reader!

• Many good pieces of writing are structured like the pulling of a rubber-band: two forces pulling against each other. In those first pages of your book, you really have to begin pulling the rubber-band, stretching the tension.
  
• You can also look at the book like a war, with two forces or sides. Typically, someone wants something, and something else stands in its way. This is where the war begins. And the other side might not be all bad; they might be closer and more complicated than you think.
  
• Every good book starts in a hole. The character is without something. Always start in a negative position. There needs to be something in your first chapter that makes us wonder, question, wonder what is going to happen.
  
• Your environment is important. Rhythm is so important to building conflict.
  
• There is always a time before an important scene. You have to set the scene… you have to build up to it. And you need the stuff in between (the maybe it will work out stuff) to build the tension inbetween. Is your character going to stand up and become what she can be?
  
• You are accumulating actions like beads on a string; the story picking up speed and conflict as it goes.

Some other good thoughts from Patti:

• You have to have the courage to feel throughout your book.
• Freshness and originality can exist even in the most common, overused places/scenes/ideas.
• Appreciate the power of a single sentence when it’s the right sentence.
• Don’t pussyfoot around with your story. What do you want to do with it? What do you want from it?

(All rights, credits, glories, and attributions of genius go to Patricia Lee Gauch at the 2010 Highlights Foundation Writer's Workshop at Chautaqua.)

Credit Where Credit is Due, or The New House

I don't know where I've been all these months of my blogging existence.  Under a virtual rock, evidently.  Because until last week, I had no idea what Shabby Blogs was.  Had no clue that the entire time I was pulling out my fingernails to get my Blogger template the way I liked it, a site existed just a mouse-click away that offered all the kinds of things I like as blog decoration... FOR FREE.  (Check out their blog, too.  It's as beautiful as everything they offer.)



And, what's more, Shabby Blogs lead me to another site which exists purely for the editing and decorating of photos.  FOR FREE.  Fotoflexer.com.  This was another brilliant revelation for me.  Maybe I'll stop lurking under my rock.  It seems that the virtual world is full of wonders.

After much deliberation over my selections, I have redecorated this place so that it fits my tastes, and feels more like home.  Of course, even moving into a home decorated the way you like it feels strange at first, because nothing is familiar.  So, it will take some getting used to.  But I like the results.  My template is called "French Flea Market".  (Just like when I buy paint, I find it difficult to resist something with a good name.)

So, welcome to my open house!  Have a look around, pour yourself a glass of French wine, and stay awhile.  It's lovely to have you here.