Seven grapes and a headache

It was one of those days.

The morning started out promising enough. The sun was beginning to lighten the sky, hot coffee waited for me in the kitchen, and I had two hours to myself before the kids would be getting out of bed. Charis, my muse, had just shown up at the door, so I decided I would write. I had a new idea that I couldn't seem to get out of my mind, and I needed her inspiration.

Image courtesy of Vorfay,
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Well, as I'm sure you can guess, things didn't go exactly as planned.

The moment I settled into my chair at the computer, all my dreams of a pleasant, peaceful, and productive morning evaporated.

Chatter from upstairs: the kids were awake.

Hands already poised on the keyboard, I decided to do what mothers all over the world do when they're in the middle of something and are certain that their kids aren't in imminent danger: I pretended I didn't hear them.

"Aren't you going to check on them?" Charis, who's not a mother, asked as she clipped her toenails with the clippers she had stolen borrowed from my medicine cabinet. Gross.

"Shh! Let's just wait a few minutes and see if they go back to sleep. I need to work on this idea." I nodded toward the pile of pink half-moons littering the floor around her feet. "And make sure you sweep that up," I said.

Charis glanced at the floor and shrugged. "You know, they'd better quiet down because I don't work in these kinds of conditions. It's in my contract: no quiet, no inspiration. Got any polish?" She stared at my chewed-off fingernails. "Sorry. Stupid question."

I sighed. "Let's just get started, okay? Last time you said something about the main character and a letter..."

A loud cry from upstairs, followed by a scream.

"That's my cue," Charis said, tossing my nail clippers on the desk and grabbing her purse from the back of my chair. "See ya another day."

"Wait! What about my story? The letter... What does it say? Charis..."

But she was gone.

I sighed. So much for the story--and my quiet morning.

I trudged upstairs to find the reason for the crying: the littlest one had peed the bed. Wonderful. I love more laundry, especially now that the dryer has become a piranha that tears holes through random items of clothing. In the interest of keeping everyone clothed, I've been forced to abandon the modern-day convenience and instead use every available doorknob, towel rack, and curtain rod in the house as a clothesline. It's either that or we join a nudist colony, which I have to admit I've considered because honestly, it seems like a lot less work.*

Always a silver lining.
Photo by David Wagner, Courtesy of Public Domain Pictures

Now you'd think that after that, the day could only get better, right? Yeah, not so much. After the pee-pee fiasco:

• The kids had a lunchtime food fight. It's such a joy to step on grapes and peas with my bare feet.

• My other, never-seen child, It Wasn't Me, colored on the leather love seat and hardwood floor.

• Our insurance man called while I was cooking dinner and rambled on for a half-hour, during which time I forgot I had been heating some oil in a skillet. Result? Burned pan and a not-so-nice smell in the kitchen. I'm so changing insurance companies.

• Then the shark (piranha, whatever) nibbled a hole in my daughter's brand-new, never-been-worn leggings after I had tempted fate by deciding to toss clothes in the dryer rather than search the house for another spare doorknob. You know--the leggings she needs to wear tomorrow because they go with her already-clean-and-dry tunic that nothing else matches. Yeah, those.

By the time my husband came home and found me lying in the fetal position on the love seat (I was using my behind to cover up the crayon that I hadn't yet had a chance to remove), I was dazed, confused, and exhausted, especially when it occurred to me that I'd eaten only seven grapes all day and had a headache the size of...well, something really big.

I probably should have gone to sleep right then, but Hubs had put the kids to bed (bless him!), and it was writing time. So there's that.

You know, clouds and silver linings.


*[Note: the Home Depot guys are delivering a new dryer tomorrow. Yay!]


How is your day going?

A conversation with my muse

Charis, still protecting her identity.
Photo by Jiri Hodan
Courtesy of Public Domain Pictures

Happy Memorial Day, everyone!

So last night Charis and I were talking. (Well, I was talking. She was filing her nails and watching a rerun of I Love Lucy. She thinks she has something in common with Lucille Ball, but other than the red hair, I just don't see it.)

Me (fists clenched and pacing in front of the computer): Charis, you've got to help me! I don't know what to write for tomorrow's blog post. It's "May I tell you something about writing?" day, and I'm out of ideas. Give me something. Quick!

Charis (smiling at something Lucy did): Hmm?

Me (standing in front of the TV and flailing my arms): Are you listening to me? You're supposed to be my muse. Inspire me!

Charis: (looking at me and flipping her perfect red hair over her shoulder): Listen: don't yell at me. I don't have to be here, you know. Your cable is crap, and you never have anything decent to eat. Maybe I should go back to Bermuda. (She starts to stand up.)

Me (sighing and sitting down in front of the computer): No, no. Stay here, okay? I just need a blog post topic. Can you give me one? Please?

Charis (uncapping her fuchsia nail polish and filling the air with noxious fumes): You do this all the time, you know. Write about it. Simple.

Me (voice rising in frustration): Do what all the time? Write what?

Charis (suddenly beside me with her face two inches from mine; I notice she's been drinking my Pinot Grigio and make a mental note to apologize to my husband for blaming him): Write. About. What. You. Need. To. Do. In. Order. To. Write.

Me (thinking out loud): You mean like the post I did about my quirks, except this time focusing on my writing quirks? Hmm, that's not bad.

Charis (standing in the doorway): Of course it isn't. It's a great idea. Now if you'll excuse me, there's somewhere I have to be.

Me: Charis, wait! When will you be back?

But she was already gone.

* * *

Fast-forward to this morning:

I haven't seen Charis since last night. I hope she's not taking another three-month leave of absence. I've been mulling over a new story idea and could definitely use her help. Oh, well. She's fickle, but I like her anyway.

Anyway, as Charis suggested, today I'm going to write about some of my writing habits. I'm sure I share a lot of them with other writers, but some may seem a little quirky.



Photo by Petr Kratochvil
Courtesy of Public Domain Pictures

1. As you might have noticed in my conversation with Charis, I'm a pacer. Whenever I get stuck on a scene or can't think of the right word or am having trouble with ideas, I get up and walk around. Something about the act of moving seems to help my mind break free of its clog so I can think again. I'm very specific about my pacing, though: it has to be done in a straight line, back and forth, and woe to the person (or animal) who gets in my way. Just ask our cat.

2. I write best in the morning, before everyone else is awake. I do write late at night as well, but the words usually come more slowly and I find myself taking nap breaks. Sometimes those breaks last all night.

Image courtesy of John De Boer
rgbstock.com

3. I can't begin writing in the morning unless I have a cup of coffee beside me. I don't have to drink it; it just has to be there.

4. I need silence when I write. Otherwise, I can't hear the voices in my head.

5. If my writing is going really slowly, I make myself work in 100-word bursts. I'll write 100 words, then get up, walk around, get a snack, read a few pages of some book... Seeing my word count increase this way makes me feel productive, even if most of the words will need to be tossed out later.

Image courtesy of  Billy Frank Alexander
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6. When I write longhand, which I often do when I'm   brainstorming a new idea, I cover about half of each page with doodles of flowers and faces. I don't know why.

7. Like most writers do, I usually keep a pen and a small notebook with me so that I can capture the ideas that come to me when I'm away from my computer. If I don't have a notebook, I'll write on whatever I can find--the backs of receipts, notes from my son's school, my hand, the arm of the guy standing next to me... (Okay, I only did that once. He wasn't as thrilled about my idea as I was.)

8.  I always write the first draft of poems in longhand. I feel more connected to the words that way.

9. I have a bad habit of wanting the first page of a new story to be absolutely perfect before I move on to the next page. Even if I end up changing the beginning after the whole piece is written, I still need to polish it as much as possible before I can go on with the rest of the story.

10. I act out dialogue as I write it, facial expressions and all. (This is yet another reason I rarely write in public.)

11. When the words are flowing, I go into a writing trance, and when I come out of it, I sometimes find myself chewing on the neck of my shirt. I have no idea why I do this, but it's probably a good thing that my writing uniform consists mainly of old T-shirts.



So tell me, what are your writing quirks?

On headbands and writing

I was never without my notebook and pen.
Image courtesy of Stefan van Bremen
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Happy Tuesday! Today is Blog Me MAYbe's "May I tell you something about myself?" day, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to share a little about how I began writing.

I've been writing stories and poems from the moment I learned to print, but it wasn't until I was around twelve that I wrote the first story I can remember with clarity. It was a short about a twelve-year-old girl who caved in to peer pressure and shoplifted some headbands from a department store. She was caught, of course, and the rest of the story was about the Big Life Lesson she learned. Never mind that I had no firsthand knowledge about the topic. I didn't care. I just wanted to tell the story, and so I told it--simple as that. My seventh-grade creative writing teacher (I wrote about her here) encouraged me to do more writing, and I did, using most of my free time to tell tales and pen poems. I was happiest whenever I had a notebook and pencil in my hand.



The words didn't come easily.
Photo by Anna Langova,
courtesy of Public Domain Pictures

Not long afterward, though--right about the time in high school when I decide I wanted to be a Writer with a capital W--writing started to get more difficult. Ideas didn't come as freely, and neither did words. Where I had once found writing freeing, I began to find it somewhat enslaving. It became something I felt I had to do rather than something I really wanted to do, and I started to have doubts about whether I was good enough to make it. Instead of writing, I began worrying. I worried about my ideas, my word choice, my writing process. I even worried about things I really had no business concerning myself with at that early stage, like marketability and appeal. My Inner Critic had come to town and worked me into a writer's block that lasted for nearly a year. I didn't think I had it in me to write again.

Eventually, though, I did, and what brought me back was the realization that writing is supposed to be hard. It's supposed to take time and effort. Once I let those thoughts sink in, I was able to tell my Inner Critic to scram, at least for a time. Writing still isn't easy, of course--and as I said earlier, it isn't meant to be--but I've found my way back to that twelve-year-old girl who wrote freely and without abandon about whatever was on her mind, and every day as I practice my craft I'm learning more and becoming a stronger writer.

And my Inner Critic? He's still around, of course, but Charis, my muse, helps me kick his butt. ;)



We all have a passion. For some, it's writing, and for others, it's something else. So for those of you who are also writers, how did you get started? And if you're not a writer, tell me about what made you decide to follow your passion.

Introducing... my muse

Charis, protecting her identity.
Photo by Jiri Hodan, courtesy of Public Domain Pictures

This is Charis, my muse. As you can see, she wouldn't allow me to show her face. (I don't know--something about a wild night in Vegas, an ex-boyfriend, and a car chase.) Regardless, she is allowing me to say a few words about her in honor of Blog Me MAYbe's "May I tell you something about someone else?" Thursday. Be happy. She's usually quite shy.

So I've known Charis for several years now. She's been with me since my days of adolescent angst and teenage trauma, which means, of course, that she knows a lot about me. (Note to self: weigh your words carefully here.)

Charis and I have a love-hate relationship. We have days when she calls me boring and I accuse her of being annoying. Some days I just wish she'd go away, but others--when deadlines loom and I sit for hours idly staring at the blank computer screen--I wish I had her phone number.

She's unlisted.

Of course she is.

Charis claims to work only for me, but I don't know if I believe her. I once saw her with a suitcase in one hand and a first-class ticket to Bermuda in the other. She claimed they belonged to her sister, but we all know what liars--er...storytellers--muses can be.

Charis is fickle. Sometimes she'll stay away for weeks--even months--at a time. Once she was gone for three months, and when she came back and I asked her why she had left--"abandoned me" were my exact words, I think--she said that she'd had to go because she was offended by my flip-flops. Coincidentally, those shoes disappeared right around the time she did. (Hmm...maybe it's time to apologize to the husband now.) I have no idea where she goes or what she does, and she's not telling. I've noticed, though, that she often returns looking suspiciously tan.

Could this be where Charis has been spending her time?
Photo by Darrell Goode, courtesy of Public Domain Pictures

Once Charis hung around here for two months straight. She took over my bed and rearranged my underwear drawer and proclaimed my kitchen a dairy-free zone. I would have thrown her out, but she was spending all her non-organizing time feeding me awesome story ideas. (And I'll let you in on a secret: I kind of liked my smaller, dairy-free derriere. Just don't tell her I said that.) Still, I refuse to let her control my life. I keep my ice cream at the neighbors' house now.

Most of the time, though, I'm on my own, and--dare I say it?--I miss her. It's not just because she gives me story ideas and organizes my medicine cabinets. No, the real reason is this: she's become--and I can't believe I'm saying this--a friend.

But she'd better stay away from my ice cream.



I've love to hear a little about your muse. If you don't have one, tell me about the people in your life who inspire you.

Opening lines redux

Happy Sunday!

Since today is a day off from the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, I wanted to share a post I made on June 30, 2011. It's about what I feel is the most difficult part of writing: deciding on the opening line. I gave some examples of my favorites and shared some ideas about how writers can find their first lines. Enjoy!



For me, the most difficult part of any piece of writing, whether it be a novel or a short story or even my master's thesis, is usually the first line. As all writers do, I want my first line to be attention-grabbing and provocative, something that draws the reader in and propels her to the next line and the next and the next. I've spent a lot of time studying what are considered to be some of the best opening lines. I particularly like this list from the American Book Review.

I tend to gravitate toward simple, declarative sentences. I love very short, very succinct opening lines, ones that are powerful and dynamic in their simplicity. These are my favorites from the American Book Review's list:

• "A screaming comes across the sky." —Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow (1973)
• "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." —George Orwell, 1984 (1949)
• "I am an invisible man." —Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)
• "The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new." —Samuel Beckett, Murphy (1938)
• "Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting." —William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (1929)
• "Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself." —Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (1925)
• "They shoot the white girl first." —Toni Morrison, Paradise (1998)
• "Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board." —Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) [This one is a particular favorite of mine.]
• "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." —C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
• "It was the day my grandmother exploded." —Iain M. Banks, The Crow Road (1992)
• "Elmer Gantry was drunk." —Sinclair Lewis, Elmer Gantry (1927)
• "It was a pleasure to burn." —Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
• "In the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street." —David Markson, Wittgenstein's Mistress (1988)
• "Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person." —Anne Tyler, Back When We Were Grownups (2001)
• "When Dick Gibson was a little boy he was not Dick Gibson." —Stanley Elkin, The Dick Gibson Show (1971)
• "Vaughan died yesterday in his last car-crash." —J. G. Ballard, Crash (1973)
• "I write this sitting in the kitchen sink." —Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle (1948)
• "He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad." —Raphael Sabatini, Scaramouche (1921)

I haven't read all of these novels, but their opening lines draw me, making me curious about what happens and eager to read more. All of them are intriguing; all, to me, present a mystery--and a promise--to the reader. Each of them does exactly what a first line should do.

Opening lines can be difficult to write; so, of course, can opening paragraphs, opening pages, and opening scenes. What's your remedy if writing that first line proves difficult? Some writers freewrite, sometimes about anything but their novels, in the hope of inadvertently hitting upon the perfect beginning. Some lucky writers I know (I wish I were one of them) can simply skip the beginning entirely and go on to a different scene, returning to the opening when inspiration strikes. Others just have to keep working doggedly on that first line until they get it right. For better or worse, that's the category I fall into: if I don't have the first line, I can't write the story. Whatever the method of finding that first line, one important thing for all writers to remember is that even if the first line ultimately gets thrown out, it still served its purpose: it got the writing started.

Tell me about your opening lines. Do you have any that you're particularly proud of or perhaps ones that came to you easily or out of the blue? And what do you do when you begin a story and your muse refuses to cooperate?

Muse! Muse!

Today's 100 words:

I wonder if speaking of the muse can bring her back, if merely uttering her name will call creativity to an uninspired mind. I did this yesterday--spoke about her here, talked of how she'd gone silent, killed by the inner critic who does everything in his power to keep my pen from the page and my hands from the keyboard. I called her, and mere hours later she was back, bestowing upon me ideas for a new poem, word pictures appearing out of the air. If speaking of her can bring her near, I'll call her daily: Muse! Muse!

When I'm not writing

Today's 100 words:

When I'm not writing--those days, weeks, and months when words won't grace my page--I feel lost, left out, alone. I have many writer friends, creative people who scribble each day, painting word pictures in their chosen genres, and I love talking with them, hearing about their successes, lending an ear as they (sometimes) grouse about editing or the maddening existence of plot holes. Meanwhile, my own pages are blank, my muse silent, my inner critic on duty full-time now with no vacations planned, and although I try to call creativity into my corner, it has been KO'd.

Waiting for the muse

Today's 100 words:

"The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible." ~Vladimir Nabokov

Last week I felt I had lost all inspiration. Like Nabokov, I had a feeling that words were there, but as hard as I tried, I couldn't pull them from my mind and heart and down to the page. It was a difficult writing week, yet even though I despaired that the words would never come, they eventually did, and I was shown once again that I must be patient with my muse.

Surprised by the Muse

Today's 100 words:

For most of this week, I've struggled with writing. Although I've been sitting at the computer each night, wanting to create, my spirit hasn't been willing. Nearly everything I've done is probably best suited for the recycle bin, but I'll keep it anyway because one just doesn't know.

Last night, however, was different: the muse graced me with an idea, and I took that idea and worked to shape it into something worthwhile. While the result is not the best poem I've ever written, one thing is true: it's a wonderful thing to be surprised by the muse.

Feeling creative!

I hope I don't jinx myself by putting this in black and white, but the last three or four days have been some of my most productive writing days ever. After last month's NaNo marathon, I decided to focus my writing efforts on poetry rather than prose, and that decision really seems to have had a positive effect on my creativity. Aside from an occasional poem or two, it's been years since I've put all of my attention on poetry. Most importantly, I'm having fun--the muse is giving me her undivided attention, and all is well in my writing world.

How has your writing been going lately? What projects are you working on?

Obeying the Muse

Today's 100 words:

I should have gone to bed earlier last night--and I tried to--but just as I was getting ready to say my Twitter and writing chat room good-byes, just as I was beginning to shut down my computer, I was hit by a sudden wave of inspiration for a poem I'd been working on, and so I stayed up later, much later than I had intended, because as all writers know, when the muse calls, she must be answered and tended to and babied and cajoled, for it's never certain when she'll grace us again, and we must seize every opportunity.

Opening lines

For me, the most difficult part of any piece of writing, whether it be a novel or a short story or even my master's thesis, is usually the first line. As all writers do, I want my first line to be attention-grabbing and provocative, something that draws the reader in and propels her to the next line and the next and next. I've spent a lot of time studying what are considered to be some of the best opening lines. I particularly like this list from the American Book Review.

I tend to gravitate toward simple, declarative sentences. I love very short, very succinct opening lines, ones that are powerful and dynamic in their simplicity. These are my favorites from the American Book Review's list:

• "A screaming comes across the sky." —Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow (1973)
• "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." —George Orwell, 1984 (1949)
• "I am an invisible man." —Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)
• "The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new." —Samuel Beckett, Murphy (1938)
• "Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting." —William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (1929)
• "Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself." —Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (1925)
• "They shoot the white girl first." —Toni Morrison, Paradise (1998)
• "Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board." —Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) [This one is a particular favorite of mine.]
• "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." —C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
• "It was the day my grandmother exploded." —Iain M. Banks, The Crow Road (1992)
• "Elmer Gantry was drunk." —Sinclair Lewis, Elmer Gantry (1927)
• "It was a pleasure to burn." —Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
• "In the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street." —David Markson, Wittgenstein's Mistress (1988)
• "Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person." —Anne Tyler, Back When We Were Grownups (2001)
• "When Dick Gibson was a little boy he was not Dick Gibson." —Stanley Elkin, The Dick Gibson Show (1971)
• "Vaughan died yesterday in his last car-crash." —J. G. Ballard, Crash (1973)
• "I write this sitting in the kitchen sink." —Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle (1948)
• "He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad." —Raphael Sabatini, Scaramouche (1921)

I haven't read all of these novels, but their opening lines draw me, making me curious about what happens and eager to read more. All of them are intriguing; all, to me, present a mystery--and a promise--to the reader. Each of them does exactly what a first line should do.

Opening lines can be difficult to write; so, of course, can opening paragraphs, opening pages, and opening scenes. What's your remedy if writing that first line proves difficult? Some writers freewrite, sometimes about anything but their novels, in the hope of inadvertently hitting upon the perfect beginning. Some lucky writers I know (I wish I were one of them) can simply skip the beginning entirely and go on to a different scene, returning to the opening when inspiration strikes. Others just have to keep working doggedly on that first line until they get it right. For better or worse, that's the category I fall into: if I don't have the first line, I can't write the story. Whatever the method of finding that first line, one important thing for all writers to remember is that even if the first line ultimately gets thrown out, it still served its purpose: it got the writing started.

Tell me about your opening lines. Do you have any that you're particularly proud of or perhaps ones that came to you easily or out of the blue? And what do you do when you begin a story and your muse refuses to cooperate?