Just when you think no one's looking...

Happy Tuesday! Since it's Blog Me MAYbe's "May I tell you something about myself?" day, I have a revelation I'd like to share with you:

I'm becoming someone I never thought I would be.

No, not my mother. She's great, and I'd actually love to be her. The person I'm becoming is actually someone who can be much more disturbing. I'll make a new paragraph here so you have a chance to brace yourself. Ready? Here goes:

Sh, I'm in disguise! Don't blow my cover.
Image courtesy of Scott Liddell,
rgbstock.com

I'm becoming the nosy neighbor.

I know you're shocked. I was shocked at first, too. But before you start closing your curtains and locking your doors, please hear me out. I haven't reached the Gladys Kravitz level of nosiness--yet: I don't peer through my neighbors' windows or snoop through their mail or hide in their hedges so I can spy on them when they're barbecuing hamburgers. However, I have been known to stand at my window one--or thirty--times a day in order to see what everyone else is up to.

Fortunately for the people who live around me, my observations have thus far been pretty benign:

Hey, Alice is mowing her lawn! Can you believe it? She's trying to make us look bad!

Oh, would you look at that! Old Mr. Brady has invited that twenty-something Marilyn Monroe-wannabe over again. Hmm, wonder what's going on there?

When will Gordie Smith learn that walking around with his pants hanging off just isn't a good look?

Okay, in the interest of protecting the guilty, I fictionalized those examples, but I think you get my point. I like to know what's going on, so if you ever happen to be in my neighborhood and see me staring out my window or walking around with a notebook and a pen, just know that I'm doing it because I like to be aware of the things around me.

Why? I'm a writer, and we writers know that the key to writing realistic characters and situations is to pay attention to our surroundings: What are people doing? What are they saying? Why does Mrs. X garden only at night? Why does Mr. Z lock up his house when he's only walking out to the end of his driveway to get his mail?  And sometimes we get lucky and we see or hear something that we know--with a touch of our own imaginations--we can turn into a good story.

So I'm the nosy neighbor--and I'm embracing that fact.



What about you? Are you a nosy neighbor? Have you ever had a neighbor who was just a little too interested in what you were doing?

Darn you, Carrie Bradshaw!

So today is Blog Me MAYbe's "May I tell you something about writing?" day, and you know what?

I blame Sex and the City.

Not Carrie's brownstone, but aren't they amazing?
Image courtesy of Robert Linder, rgbstock.com

For many years, mostly because of the show's ever-so-talented (yet fictional) Carrie Bradshaw, I had the romantic notion that being a writer would mean I'd sit in my cute brownstone apartment in New York City every day, typing away on my laptop while gazing out the window at the lovely and inspiring views.

The reality? Yeah, it's not so much like that.

Every morning, I stumble across a floor littered with toys, making my way to a tiny table wedged into the corner of my only slightly bigger office/guest room. There I type away at an oldish eMachine that takes forever to warm up, and if I turn my head to the left, I'm treated not to a lovely and inspiring view of the City but am instead privileged to gaze upon my neighbor's junk pile, and beyond that, the picturesque side of her house.

Carrie, I have a feeling we're not in the City anymore.

Writers can write anywhere, of course, but I've always craved my own writing space, a place that belongs only to me. And who knows? I may well get one someday, but in the meantime, I enjoy learning about where other writers work. What are their writing spaces like? Do they like to sit at desks cluttered with knickknacks and family pictures, or do they work best with clear desks and minimal distractions? Maybe they enjoy writing in libraries or cafés--or perhaps they prefer to write while sitting in bed, their notes spread out around them on the bedspread and a cup of tea waiting on a nearby table.

Last summer I read a book that described just these things: The Writer's Desk by Jill Krementz. In her book, Krementz, the wife of the late Kurt Vonnegut, showcases photographs of fifty-six authors in their writing spaces, among them Stephen King, John Irving, and Joyce Carol Oates. And I learned that while some of them do indeed write in spaces comparable to Carrie Bradshaw's, others, like Toni Morrison, who prefers to write while sitting on her living room sofa, don't have dedicated writing spaces at all. (I posted a brief review of this book here.)

If you're interested in seeing where writers do their work, check out this site. A Twitter friend directed me to it about a year ago, and I spent half the day marveling at the pictures. (Fair warning if you decide to click the link: you may not get anything else done!)


So tell me, what's your writing space like?

P is for Passionate About Paper

I love paper. Take me to a stationery store, and I'll wander the aisles all day checking out the journals and notepads and trying out all the pens. (Did I mention I also love pens?)

Photo by Elisa Xyz
Courtesy of Public Domain Pictures

My obsession with paper comes from my mom--or at least I like to blame it on her! Whenever she and Dad took me to the orthodontist for my checkups, she'd insist on stopping at the stationery store afterward to find out what was new in office supplies. Mind you, she didn't need office supplies; she just wanted them.

As I wandered around the store with her, I began my own love affair with stenographer's notebooks, handmade paper, moleskin journals, day planners, diaries--anything and everything paper. I was charmed by the rainbow of colors and diversity of textures, and I had a special weakness for stickers and novelty items featuring some of the popular trends of the day (think mid-80s). My many trips to the store also started my brief obsession with erasers and four-color pens. (Okay, I admit I still love those pens!) In my mind, the stationery store was the perfect place, not only for me but for my friends as well. I bought many a birthday gift at that store--although I'm not sure all of my friends found the gifts as amazing as I did!

Photo by Shari Weinsheimer
Courtesy of Public Domain Pictures

My passion for all things paper still rages today. Since I started taking my writing more seriously several years ago, I've gone through notebook after notebook. One of my favorite things to do now is to troll the back-to-school sales and buy stacks of college-ruled notebooks for ten or fifteen cents apiece. I find these notebooks are the best to use for my writing, as I'm not afraid I'll deface them with my scrawl. I buy notebooks in smaller sizes, too, so I can tuck them into my purse or hide them away in the stroller for ideas that come to me when I'm out with the kids.

Photo by Joy Shrader
Courtesy of Public Domain Pictures

Although I buy far more plain notebooks, I do love the fancier stationery and journals. In fact, I love them so much that when I buy them, I just look at them; I'm reluctant to destroy them by writing in them. A couple of years ago, I bought two beautiful journals filled with acid-free paper. I intended to begin mother's journals for each of my kids, where I'd write down the funny, cute, and interesting things they've done and said. Well, to this day, those journals are blank. I tell myself I haven't used them yet because I can't find a good archival pen, but really, it's the same old story: I'm afraid I'll mess them up. Meanwhile, I have drawers and boxes and purses full of little slips of paper on which I've written all sorts of memories. I just hope I can find them all if--I mean when--I do decide to start filling those journals.

And speaking of my kids, I'm happy to say that they are following in my paper-loving footsteps. Among other things, this year the Easter Bunny brought them some tiny notebooks, and both kids--but especially my five-year-old son--have been scribbling like mad. Will there be another writer or two in the family? I hope so!

How about you? Do you have a passion for paper?

Creative people

Today's 100 words:

Two of my favorite television shows are Sex and the City and Friends. I'm most drawn to the creative characters, the writers, actors, and kooky, artsy types, as that's how I picture myself. I love being around others who share my creative side, but I don't know many in "real" life, which is why I enjoy these shows so much. They allow me to share the life of a writer with Carrie, to be someone else from time to time like Joey, and to allow my kooky, free-spirited side to shine, as Phoebe always does.

Free

Today's 100 words:

 

I've written before about my admiration for creative people like writers, artists, and musicians, those who aren't afraid to push boundaries with their work. I found such an artist online last night, a painter whose work is so inspiring to me--or maybe it's her endless creativity and passion I find most inspiring, the way she "does her thing" her way and for her reasons. With my own craft, my writing, I unwillingly hold myself back. I don't know where to find the freedom that others seem to come to so easily.

 

I want to be free.

My child, my teacher

"A child's attitude toward everything is an artist's attitude." ~Willa Cather, American author

Children see things in such original ways. Each day I listen to my four-year-old as he explains the world he knows using the terms he understands (or devises) and the explanations he imagines. His is such an interesting and refreshing perspective! We can learn so much from children and the way they view the things around them. Listening to my son reminds me that I need to be original and free in my approach to my writing, using my words to describe the world as I see it and not as how I think others want or expect me to see it.

Too often, I think we as writers worry so much about what's correct and acceptable in writing that we start to lose our own voices. We sometimes force ourselves to follow certain rules or formulas when all we should be doing is getting the story on the page in whatever form it's supposed to take--without worrying about that critic (real or internal) who stands behind our left shoulder and tells us that what we're doing is wrong and unacceptable and will never sell. My kids don't worry that the things they say are stupid or too simplistic or wrong; if they feel it or see it, they say it--without inhibition, without fear, without worry.

And that's exactly how we writers need to write.