Z is for Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah

Z is for Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah

Yes it is! It is for the ineffable feeling that comes over one when one has finished the Eh to Zed challenge!  Oh what a wonderful day. Plenty of sunshine coming my way -Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah day!

There's a blue bird on my shoulder...

Well you know the rest. I sing that song all the time.

If we can have Acceptance to our true situation we will be inclined to Balance, as long as we have Courage, Discipline and of course Elegance. We must be Ferocious with true Grit in developing our Habit but embrace Idle moments, Juggle our duties and accept help form our Karass. At all times we shall Live, Love, Laugh and be happy a Merry heart is good, and Nothing is so good as an Open, Peculiar and Questioning mind! It may be Radical to go Slow, but if you can enjoy Tripping Up you will be embraced by the Xenodochial among us. So say Yes or Ya No and you will have a Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah day!   

this is a photo of the sunrising on the solstice...that was a zipadeedoodah day!

Y is for Yes (and Ya No)

Y is for Yes and Ya No

Yes to life, yes to trouble, yes to trying, yes to the whole shebang. Except when Y is for Ya No. That is when you've taken the idea into your heart, using all your awakeness, knowing your energy level, and most importantly - your own purpose and finding that the request just doesn't merit a yes.

Let's look at what some of us just did (or nearly - I could trip up tomorrow!). We did the A to Z challenge. We said yes. I'm pleased. I didn't do it to increase readership as I don't get around enough now. I did it so I could exercise my essay writing muscle with something that is congenial. It fits into my life and doesn't go against my purpose - since by writing about something that is an issue for me I was giving myself pep talks as well as anyone who wandered by. Last fall I said NO to NaNoWriMo - why? It is heaps of fun, a great crowd, I will do it if I say I will - all good, eh? Ya No, I don't need yet another half-done manuscript - I just don't. I've tried it for revising but it doesn't work for me. I will do it again sometime but it was a definite Ya No for me.

So, if you are a yes person and it meets your requirements then keep on keepin' on but if you say yes for the wrong reasons (over adaptation, being kind, currying favour) then become a Ya No person!

I said Yes to a trip out to Robin's cabin (see that wooden box attached to the ski-do - my throne). It was worth it.

X is for xenodochial

Hey! We are getting to the end of the A to Z challenge or as we Canucks like to call it
the Eh to Zed! Boy that X is pesky wha!? But I found a great word that actually works for my theme of ways to keep balanced while having a life and being an artist. Here it is:

X is for Xenodochial 
And what does that word mean? Why it means friendly to strangers. The opposite of a xenophobe. And how does this fit into the theme. Well, let me tell you. Let me make it up first and then tell you. Sit down, have a cup of tea - sure I don't know you but I do want you to feel at home here.

I am totally friendly to strangers. It embarrasses my kids - or it used to. I will talk to anyone wherever I may be. I want them to feel good. I love lost people in a place I live in. I'll walk with them for miles. And how does this aid me? As an artist, a writer, it is great to be friendly. People tell you stories. They open up in surprise - you wouldn't believe what they say. As a photographer they will tell me the best spots to go to take good shots or they'll let me take photos of them. As a fibre artist they will let me know where to get the best wool, cloth, etc...they'll share resources. Plus - that quality of being friendly to strangers be-spokes confidence, lack of fear, adventurousness. And don't get me wrong - I am not shy but I am an introvert. I get my energy being alone for big chunks of time. Being friendly doesn't mean being excessively chatty or fawning or crazy - it just means what it says - I will be open to new experiences including people I don't know. I'm writing poems and novels, not electrical engineering books - people's emotions, perceptions, experiences are of extreme interest to me.

Plus - cool word, eh? And how do pelicans feature? Not at all only I love them and this is

W is for Walking

W is for Walking

Oh, I had no problem with this word! Walking saves my life. Walking keeps me in the world and in my art at the same time. And I am not alone! For years, in my work as a therapist, I have counseled clients to walk - walk for at least half an hour a day by yourself, in trees. Walk when you are fu#$%&!! up, when you are sad, angry, lonely, bereft. Walk in nature (everywhere has some trees except for some folks I worked with from an Arabian country!). Be quiet, even in your mind. Leave your walk-person at home. Listen to what is out there, feel the earth beneath your feet, the wind on your face. Smell the smells of the season you are in. Hear birds and kids and the ocean or traffic. Just be - walking.

“There comes . . . a longing never to travel again except on foot.” 
― Wendell Berry, Remembering

“Walking is a virtue, tourism is a deadly sin.” 
― Bruce Chatwin, What Am I Doing Here?

“If I could not walk far and fast, I think I should just explode and perish.”
― Charles Dickens

“I would walk along the quais when I had finished work or when I was trying to think something out. It was easier to think if I was walking and doing something or seeing people doing something that they understood.” 
― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

“Today is one of those excellent January partly cloudies in which light chooses an unexpected part of the landscape to trick out in gilt, and then the shadow sweeps it away. You know you’re alive. You take huge steps, trying to feel the planet’s roundness arc between your feet.” 
― Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

“I have walked myself into my best thoughts and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.” 
― Søren Kierkegaard

Here is my dear guy walking out the spit.

V is for viriya

Well, we are really getting to the end of this month in a rushing vortex of violins and violence. I have to admit, I've had a deep problem with V words. Not sure why. Nothing else has given me the despair that the letter V has. So, I decided to take a variance, to provide some variety to vilely cheat by claiming victory from my Buddhist dictionary!

V is for Viriya

What is viriya? It is energy married to persistence and giving birth to joy! I suppose it is like the way I described discipline earlier in the month. It is one of the Paramitas or ways of perfection and sometimes called effort. When viriya arises in us we feel joy, it is like what athletes might call being in the zone. Sometimes when I'm walking out the bay and it is cold, and my boots are heavy, I feel the opposite of viriya but maybe not, because I persist through my resistance and joy arises if I persist long enough!

We need energy to balance a life and art. We need to be persistent as most will tell us to give up, to go back to sleep, that it is hopeless. If we work - sit and write, paint, create sculptures, take photos, dance our feet bloody, clown through bankruptcy - we will achieve that rising joy. You know it and I know it. Here is me, back in the fall, a few days into my Labrador adventure, feeling it!

u is for up

It's the A to Zed Challenge! 

Theme? Writing and Life is what comes to me... how to balance the writing life with the other tugs you may have...
The ABCDEaria of the Writing Life -

U is for UP!

Up. After we trip (yesterday's topic) we must get up again. And we must get up after every trip, every fall, every bit of bad news, rejection, letter from the bank, loss of a friend, a job, a dream. We must get up and keep moving. We are not meant to be stagnant. We ain't moss! We is humans - humans being. Humans walking. Humans dancing. And so we have to get up.

Sometimes, just between you and me, I don't feel like getting up. I feel like just staying where I got flung. Grabbing the nearest bit of carpet or old quilt and wrapping it round me and staying down. I think -well, this is where I clearly deserve to be and it is too painful to get smacked down so much. I whimper a little and practice my opera on my loved ones. Then I laugh or they laugh and I get up and get on with it. I pitter patter fly atter.

Up up up and away!  This is a photo I took of a small airplane that a man I know sent off into the up. Alas it never came back. Ah well. The man has recovered and plans for more...

T is for tripping

It's the A to Zed Challenge! I'll be posting the first half of the month from Ottawa where I'm staying with my youngest and his partner and their newest - a little guy who was born the end of March. Yay!

Theme? Writing and Life is what comes to me... how to balance the writing life with the other tugs you may have...

The ABCDEaria of the Writing Life -


T is for Tripping

Yep, tripping I say! Tripping up, falling down, failing, struggling. When I trip I know it is because I'm moving too fast, not paying attention. When I fall, or struggle with something that I know I can do it is because I need to pay attention. Quit having my head in the clouds. So when I trip it is like the earth reached out and gave me a little shove - a little reminder that I live on the planet and need to be awake.

The earth doesn't need to be gentle all the time, like some airy-fairy new-age goddess. Sometimes we need to feel the pain to pay attention.  The antidote to tripping is to slow down, to take time to do one thing well at a time. I am not a multi-tasker. I don't believe anyone is but some people can do a lot of things successively and make it seem like they are doing it at once. When I try to do that I do nothing well. 

Now I'm going to go sink into a deep deep bath of very hot water because I spent a few hours banging around in the back of a komatik and need to recover! When I lie in the tub I will ALSO read, I can do both of those things at once.


here is a photo of beautiful Mokami Mountain...

s is for slow

It's the A to Zed Challenge!I posted the first half of the month from Ottawa where I stayed with my youngest and his partner and their newest - a little guy who was born the end of March. Yay!Now I'm back home in Labrador...

Theme? Writing and Life is what comes to me... how to balance the writing life with the other tugs you may have...

The ABCDEaria of the Writing Life -

S is for slow.  . . 

I need to remember to slow down. How can I be patient enough to achieve balance if I'm always straining against the harness? I can't, that's clear. My impatience is my biggest bugbear. For instance, right now I keep getting a notice saying that an error occurred when trying to save or publish this post. But I haven't been trying to save or publish this post so I keep hitting Dismiss. It comes back and I feel like driving my fist through my monitor screen. Nice huh? Why should I get so aggravated? It doesn't hurt, it just causes me to slow down. I want to write this quickly so I can read or lounge around but why? I have heaps of time to do what ever I want. And I chose to do this so why not just slow down and enjoy it. 

Ah, there...

When I made the quilt for my newest grandchild I sewed it all by hand. Every bit of it. Not because I belong to some religious sect that forbids the use of electricity (obviously) but because I liked thinking about it and being with it all as I made it. I know quilts sewn on machines are just as good and can be better, but I wanted to slow craft it. I like hand-writing letters, baths not showers, and I was all into the slow food movement before it began. I like making risotto and enchiladas with hand-made tortillas and I like embroidering great involved flower gardens on a friend's shirt. I like walking, not running.

But for all that.

I'm impatient so I think I'll put big slow down signs all over the house. Yep. How about you?

Yesterday I visited a friend's cabin in the woods...so quiet and slow there, I wish we would've stayed for days.

R is for Radical

R is for Radical

And what might radical mean? The American Heritage says -

Radical 

 adjective 

1.of or going to the root or origin; fundamental: a radical difference.
2. thoroughgoing or extreme, especially as regards change from accepted or traditional forms:a radical change in the policy of a company.

3.favoring drastic political, economic, or social reforms: radical ideas; radical and anarchistic ideologues.
4.forming a basis or foundation.
5.existing inherently in a thing or person: radical defects of character.

noun

6. a person who holds or follows strong convictions or extreme principles; extremist.
7.a person who advocates fundamental political, economic, and social reforms by direct and often uncompromising methods.

I like the connection between radical and root. To be truly radical one must go to the root. Surface radical changes are not truly radical - they are just optics. 

How does this pertain to my quest for balance? Being a radical or making radical changes doesn't seem so balanced you might think. I believe differently. I must go to the root of the question here - my life is more than my art or from a radical point of view - it is all art. Everything I do whether it is rock a baby, make a meal, or write a poem. All art.  I don't believe I am #6 above but I do believe I am #7. My art and my life must support this. If I am not advocating for social reforms I am not existing. This world is in the dark ages - we are living in a sea of materialistic muck - we have forgotten the wild, the wonderful world of nature, the rhythms of the seasons and the fundamental, radical roots of existence - of understanding the interdependence of it all. 

So wear your radical flag proudly. Form a basis or foundation of difference - it is part of your inherent nature.

Q is for Questioning

It's the A to Zed Challenge! I'll be posting the first half of the month from Ottawa where I'm staying with my youngest and his partner and their newest - a little guy who was born the end of March. Yay!

Theme? Writing and Life is what comes to me... how to balance the writing life with the other tugs you may have...

The ABCDEaria of the Writing Life -


Q is for Questioning

Questioning what you question? Everything. Ask and then listen. Actually listen, then ask,then  listen again. Yes - make your question the filling of a listening sandwich. Lots and lots of listening. Asking questions bugs the average person but that is because often the question is just a way for the questioner to insert their own ego into the mix. But questions that arise from deep listening are questions that might scare the recipient a bit, but will be rewarding for both parties.

Not so long ago when I was an undergraduate (yep, that wasn't that long ago - late bloomer) I had an English prof who taught our small Honours 16th century Literature class very well. Each of us was expected in turn to come with THE question for the class. It was a brilliant way to work (thank you Dr. Huebert!) and we all learned so much from that exercise.

We should question everything after scrutiny. Of course we aren't questioning ANY THING - we are questioning the people who appear to be in charge of those things. So we might need to remember to be respectful.

How does this help me in balancing out my life? Well, a person who reflects and then questions needs to extend that to themselves no? I need to question why I think I have to do certain things and avoid other ones. I need to question my commitments, my choices, my schedule - everything!

Here's the wee fella I am missing so much. His father, my youngest, asked so many questions that I paid him quarters to be quiet for stretches of time when we moved across the country on the train!

P is for Peculiar

It's the A to Zed Challenge! I'll be posting the first half of the month from Ottawa where I'm staying with my youngest and his partner and their newest - a little guy who was born the end of March. Yay!

Theme? Writing and Life is what comes to me... how to balance the writing life with the other tugs you may have...

The ABCDEaria of the Writing Life -


P is for Peculiar

Peculiar? Yes, you know - downright odd. Gawd I love being older. Not that I'm old but I have white hair and people know that I'm not young. I'll give you that much. And it has its rewards, yes it does. For one thing, you can be peculiar when you are older. Yep! You can be downright barmy if you like. People expect it. Sometimes I mutter but only when I'm in a large city. In Prospect or North West River I try not to act too odd because, especially in NWR it would reflect badly on the fella whose family hales from here so...

Peculiar, of course, can also mean something that belongs to someone or something - there was a smell in the air peculiar to kindergartens. 

Now why would they both mean the same - something unusual and something that belongs to something or some set of someones? I can't figure it but anyway I'm not talking about that meaning - though I will if I want to as I'm peculiar that way.

Why is peculiar a good way for someone who is trying to balance their creative pursuits? Because people will think you are peculiar if you tell them not to visit you when you are writing because they simply don't get that as a 'normal' way to behave - then they'll talk about you to others who will then not ask you to make cookies for the church bake sale because you are a bit 'you know, funny'. Excellent good I say!

Here's a photo of me working on Rorric's quilt. So fun to do, so grandmothery and yet creative too. An excellent way to marry the creative drive with the other stuff! And just so you know - I made it out of old men's shirts or uh...old shirts that belonged to men at some point - it is impossible to say that right! These nice stripey materials are peculiar to the sort of 100% cotton shirts one might find in a church basement jumble sale!

O is for open

It's the A to Zed Challenge! I'll be posting the first half of the month from Ottawa where I'm staying with my youngest and his partner and their newest - a little guy who was born the end of March. Yay!

Theme? Writing and Life is what comes to me... how to balance the writing life with the other tugs you may have...

The ABCDEaria of the Writing Life
O is for Open 

What's that you say? Open means willing and able to contain more, to say yes, to be bold...

oh shag it - here are just a few of the many meanings that apply to this wildly huge word -
from, of course, The American Heritage Dictionary.

a. Affording unobstructed entrance and exit; not shut or closed.

All right? Got it? Open - for we creatives it means willing. I'm open for ideas, for the imagination...

or

c. Carried on in full view of others; not hidden or private: open warfare; open family strife.

or

8. a. Available; obtainable:

and perhaps my favorite -

12.

a. Characterized by lack of secrecy or reserve; candid: Please be open with me. 

b. Free of prejudice; receptive to new ideas and arguments: She listened to the proposal with an open mind.

c. Generous: He is very open with his time.

You do get it don't you? Why this is so important for a creative householder to be open? We simply must be - open to wide ideas and long views, open for complaint and praise, open for possibility and open for business. 

I feel it deep inside of me, this desire for openness, for a landscape so wide and wild and free that one cannot hide in it. And here I am willing to go out into the vastness....

N is for Nothing and plenty of it!

t's the A to Zed Challenge! I'll be posting the first half of the month from Ottawa where I'm staying with my youngest and his partner and their newest - a little guy who was born the end of March. Yay!

Theme? Writing and Life is what comes to me... how to balance the writing life with the other tugs you may have...

The ABCDEaria of the Writing Life -


N is for Nothing

"I've got plenty of nothing and nothing's plenty for me."

It goes on but I won't. Cuz it will lead to me singing all of Barbra Streisand's hits and I ain't got the time for that. Plus, as I write this (though not as you read it) I'm still in a home with a baby! Though I think the little gaffer might like Streisand.

Ahem... to today's topic. Why does the artist in need of balance need nothing? Well the answer is self-evident in the question but I will elaborate. We don't HAVE anything. We just don't. We might have moments where we rub up against stuff, money, success, love, a garden and a big blue dragon, but HAVE it? Nope. When we think we can actually have something, like hold it in one mode forever, like a baby's expression, like last month's rent, like the jeans I wore in grade nine - well, that my friend is delusion and delusion doesn't help us keep in balance. It helps us be good corporate citizens, buying and longing, and striving and all that, but it keeps us unbalanced as we strive for something that doesn't remotely exist. We must want nothing to create because that is what creation comes out of - a big nothing - and it goes to that all the way along - EXCEPT while we are in process. Sure, I'm a house-holder not a yogi so I know we have to pay the bills and it is nice to have family and friends who have our back but don't rest on it - don't make it the reason for creating - create for the good harmonious feeling of it - or the hellish impossibility of it (same coin really). Sell it so you can make the next making but that's the only reason.

Okay. That's it. Can't help it. I put in the letter and the rants flow out.

M is for Merry

It's the A to Zed Challenge! I'll be posting the first half of the month from Ottawa where I'm staying with my youngest and his partner and their newest - a little guy who was born the end of March. Yay!

Theme? Writing and Life is what comes to me... how to balance the writing life with the other tugs you may have...

The ABCDEaria of the Writing Life -




M is for Merry


To be merry is a gift and it bestows on the person who is merry as well as those she is around. Having a talent for joy is no little feat. It is like most talents one hears about - it takes work. It may come naturally to some more than others, I don't doubt that, but it needs tending all the same.  My brother has a talent for merriness and I have watched how he takes care of it over the years. Life has handed him, on average, the same sorts of lemons and diamond mix we all get. Which would you rather be handed on the desert? Not diamonds, you can be sure. My brother gets that and seems to have made a conscious decision to like what he has, whether up or down, gold or dross, he enjoys the hell out of it. To be merry isn't to be confused with giddy or silly.

In the King James Version of the bible you may find this verse:

And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.  Luke 12:19

Solomon said " A merry heart doeth good like medicine."



John Lyly said " A merry companion is as good as a wagon."

Being on the look out for opportunities to be merry makes me sure to balance out my life of art and ...well...life. I cannot take myself too seriously and that my pals, is a damn good thing.

So take your medicine, develop your merry muscle.

L is for live, love, laugh and be happy, oh and lamé

It's the A to Zed Challenge! I'll be posting the first half of the month from Ottawa where I'm staying with my youngest and his partner and their newest - a little guy who was born the end of March. Yay!

Theme? Writing and Life is what comes to me... how to balance the writing life with the other tugs you may have...

The ABCDEaria of the Writing Life



L is for live, love, laugh and be happy - 0h and

lamé

It is freaking phenomenal to be around a little new being. Sometimes I hold him for hours and hours til my arm is numb and sweaty and what I'm doing is living, loving, laughing and being happy. That red red robin knew what he was on about. And I've seen him and several of his relatives around this suburb and it is grand to see a splash of colour and know that spring is coming...

When April with his showers sweet with fruit
The drought of March has pierced unto the root
And bathed each vein with liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower;
When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath,
Quickened again, in every holt and heath,
The tender shoots and buds, and the young sun
Into the Ram one half his course has run,
And many little birds make melody
That sleep through all the night with open eye

That's from the prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales...so I'm dandling a babe and spouting poetry and I'm just a buzz with happiness. Oh...it is fleeting and muddy and so on...but just as I embraced winter this last year, I'm going to truly embrace spring! The day after you read this post (several days hence for me) I fly home to my sweet love's arms, full of love from my two sons and my new grandchild. I'll be sad to leave but ecstatic to get back to him, to my wee dog, to the glorious land of Labrador - this is that old diastole systole thing again which is the entire theme really of my eh to zed posts. Go out into the wild wild spring and take it, take it like a mad woman, then saunter back inside and let it cook and cook and cook. Then we'll see what we have eh? And Laugh...oh my goodness... I forgot it is L and this is April so I will add on my annual posting of

lamé

. Let me go find it!

Thursday, April 14, 2011

lamé - the abcedaria of a writer

lamé  - oh, and you thought knitting was a stretch - well I'm pulling from my ancient files for this one. Long time readers of this blog will know immediately of what I speak but I won't keep the rest of you in suspence for long.

Here are ten things I know for sure about writing:


1. If you are the kind of person who doesn't like to be told what to do - your protagonists will resist your efforts to make them behave. It's weird - almost like they came from you and weren't born free of your influence. Wait a minute...

2. Life in all its wild chaotic nowness will rise up and lay a beating on you if you try to ignore it for your manuscript. And knowing it won't be half the problem solved.

3. A woman will come to you in your dreams wearing a fantastic outfit of that weird sparkling fabric from the sixties. Silver or gold lamé. That's it. She will insist on you feeling the fabric. She wants to be in your novel. Don't let her in. She'll drive you crazy and so will that itchy stuff.

4. You might not like Neil Young - I really don't think I'd like to spend a whole bunch of time with him - but he is a narrative genius. I want to know what happens to him when he's wandering lonely on the highway. I do. And he understands pace and mood and style.

5. In the middle of the night when the woman in the fabulous lamé comes calling you will wake up and lie there wondering if anyone truly truly knows what plot, story and structure are. And you'll be sure, because it is the middle of the night, that anyone does but you do not.

6. After you finish fretting about plot, story and structure you'll move on to wondering if you haven't been lying to yourself about everything to do with your writing. You'll also wonder what the slinky shiny material is called. You won't remember that it is lamé until the next day and even then you might need to spend an inordinate amount of time on google trying to find it. Time you could be spending on your plot, story and structure for instance.

7. Even though you know all experiences are treasure for your work-in-progress you will be perplexed as to how you can use your new understanding of various strange and out-of-date fibres in a plot where clothing of any sort has barely been mentioned and then it was describing First Nation's dance regalia. Perhaps you need to bring in another character, you'll think! It might solve all your plot, story and structure issues. Well it might! Just like having a baby with your philandering gambling alcoholic husband might help your marriage. Well it might!

8. When your head hits your pillow after a good day in those long dug out ditches that guys fought in WWII - what are they called? Oh, yes, trenches, after a long day in the revisioning trenches you will fall asleep like a baby and the answer to your plot, story, structure problem will come to you intact in a dream. The woman in the lamé outfit (her fifth one!) will explain it to you perfectly. You will feel so relieved. Until you wake up and you realize that she told you the key was that god backwards spells dog. Oh yes. It will happen.

9. You will rise none the less and you will work in your optimum time of day for success. You will eat good healthy brain food and you will stop only to do your pilates or your yoga (where are those tapes - damn it) or take your dog for a much needed walk because hey, he didn't ask you to be a writer now did he?You will find your groove because you've read King and Koch and Lamott and you know it is showing up that counts and the heck with the muse. It's work for heaven's sake not a calling. And you will churn out the work, the shitty first draft or the clarity revision or the final draft or whatever mixture of those three plus the diversions you've taken allow you to call it. Because you are a writer. And you will sleep the sleep of the just.

10. You will awake after sleeping the sleep of the just and look at your previous day's work even though Elizabeth S-C told you NOT TO and it will be brilliant! No it won't. But there will be threads of brilliance in amongst the dog puke and it will simply have to do.

And that is what I know for sure.

K is for Karass

It's the A to Zed Challenge! I'll be posting the first half of the month from Ottawa where I'm staying with my youngest and his partner and their newest - a little guy who was born the end of March. Yay!

Theme? Writing and Life is what comes to me... how to balance the writing life with the other tugs you may have...

The ABCDEaria of the Writing Life -


K is for Karass

For those of you who don't know what a karass is the Urban Dictionary defines it thusly - "A group of people linked in a cosmically significant manner, even when superficial linkages are not evident. Created by Kurt Vonnegut."

 Why do you need one to keep balance in your creative life? We need community and sometimes we need cosmically significant community - that is those who get without too much explaining, what you are up to, because they are up to the same thing - or some version of it. I know who my karass is. They are who I get a hold of when I get rejected and need a good ear, or when I receive some kind of kudo and need someone who knows what it means to me. Some of them are online pals, some are not, some are writers, some are not. Some of them have extensive family or political groups they belong to, some don't. It is none of these things that makes them part of my karass but something else. Some are Buddhists, some are atheists, some Wiccan, some Catholic - that doesn't matter either. Some are men, some women, and some haven't entirely joined a gender yet. Some are supportive and some bracing. Some are nurturing and some demanding. Peasants and princes, dreamers and doers. If you think about it you'll know who your karass is. You just will.

Be there for your karass, they will be there for you whether you are or not, but it is better karma to be there for them too. I think this new little bean might be part of my karass. I hope so.

J is for Juggle

It's the A to Zed Challenge! I'll be posting the first half of the month from Ottawa where I'm staying with my youngest and his partner and their newest - a little guy who was born the end of March. Yay!

Theme? Writing and Life is what comes to me... how to balance the writing life with the other tugs you may have...

The ABCDEaria of the Writing Life -


J is for Juggle

Juggle? Really? You think? I can hear every writer laughing their head off at this one. Yep, if you are going to write and have a fairly normal life (normal in that you have friends, family, at least a dog or you know - garbage to put out on Wednesdays) then you are going to have to juggle. 

Have you ever juggled? I tried for awhile (I am a part-time clown) and I got as far as juggling two oranges with one hand. The thing I think I know about juggling, and I'm sure Lee can help me out here, is that you have to believe each object is truly the most important one. If you think that only the crystal ball is important maybe cuz it cost more and really the orange is replaceable, well then you are going to drop them all. If I start thinking that my family isn't as

important as my writing, then I'm going to drop my family and my writing. So once you decide on what it is that is important and pay attention to all of them then you should be able to do it. I completely made this up but I believe it is true. We'll see won't we.
 Today's photo is one I took of an errant balloon.  

I is for Idle

It's the A to Zed Challenge! I'll be posting the first half of the month from Ottawa where I'm staying with my youngest and his partner and their newest - a little guy who was born the end of March. Yay!

Theme? Writing and Life is what comes to me... how to balance the writing life with the other tugs you may have...

The ABCDEaria of the Writing Life -


I is for Idle 
Yep, idle! You heard me. If you are an artist - a writer, director, painter, game-creator, cook, etc... then you must learn to be idle. If it doesn't come naturally that is. Er..hem. Those of us who were brought up with folks that are of the Scottish Presbyterian persuasion might still believe that being idle is just giving the devil a free pass to mess with our souls. We will have to work hard to embrace idleness. Hope you got the weirdness in that sentence. That's how we can fool the real demons - those ancestral voices that tell us to put our heads down and be productive. We can make achieving idleness a project! 

And why do we need to be idle? Because that is where our creativity comes from.  We need to be quiet, still, and let those ideas percolate. We need to give the seeds of our creations some dark nurturing loamy earth to sprout from. That is what idleness provides. If you have folks that you live with who don't get this then you will have to improvise when caught idling. If your husband or mother or boss (agh!) enters the room where you are supposed to be 'working' and sees you upside down in the easy chair (what? you don't do this? it is essential) then you must figure out your back story. To husband saying "I was just thinking about when we can fix those storm gutters," will cause him to back out pretty quickly. To mother suggesting "I'm doing this because my doctor said it might help with the migraines," will do the trick. As for your boss - there you are on your own! Perhaps being idle at your day job isn't such a good idea.

When we are trying to balance a life of art with a family life the need for idleness can sometimes be forgotten. You MUST schedule it in that case - otherwise you'll be all hat and no cattle. You'll look busy but you won't have the necessary to create with.

There is a goal and there is a sheet of ice. One must move the puck over the empty ice to get to the goal. Okay terrible metaphor but I don't have my usual stock of photos to play with.

G is for Grit

It's the A to Zed Challenge! I'll be posting the first half of the month from Ottawa where I'm staying with my youngest and his partner and their newest - a little guy who arrived on the planet near the end of March.

Theme? Writing and Life is what comes to me... how to balance the writing life with the other tugs you may have...

The ABCDEaria of the Writing Life -


G is for Grit

n. 1. Minute rough granules, as of sand or stone. 2. The texture or fineness of sand or stone used in grinding. 3. A coarse hard sandstone used for making grindstones and millstones. 4. Informal Indomitable spirit; pluck.

What is grit? Well, my favourite dictionary (the American Heritage) says it has four meanings and I'm going to talk about the fourth one and then I'm going to cleverly show you how it is all of them when it comes to art and life. 

Grit is that little bit of irritation that tells you that you must pluck up your courage and carry on even when everyone and everything else is suggesting otherwise.  The key word is 'indomitable'. Cannot be dominated by anything including common sense.  Spirit is also an important characteristic of grit. What is spirit really? In this sense it means that which moves you - as in high-spirited.  The root of the word spirit is breath - yes it is - look it up - to conspire means to breathe together. So we have this bit of hard and rough feeling that tells us to carry on. Perhaps, let's really push this metaphor - perhaps it is like a bit of stone caught under our saddle, the saddle that is on our horse and our horse is called Spirit and we are tearing down the beach on our horse and trying to get to this place called Artistic Achievement.  We don't want to fall off our horse because we are elegant and we don't want to leave the beach entirely as it is our life - we don't want to fly you understand but steadily and thrillingly move towards our goal and because we are all these things - the horse, the beach, the rider, and the goal - well the bit of grit keeps us moving forward.  We could use a slightly less frantic metaphor. We are a shellfish, an oyster, and we are close to the beach but in the ocean, and a bit of sand gets into our home, our shell. Gah! We don't like how irritating it is next to our soft body so we start exuding something to cover it up. It takes us a lot of irritation over the months, maybe years, but we do cover it up, enclose that grit in a pearly iridescent coating thus creating a wondrous piece of art - a pearl!

In order to create and balance our life we are going to be irritated. We need to keep on keepin' on despite this irritation, and in fact, that irritation will feed our life and our art.  So when I think that I am being kept from my art by my life I need to re-frame that. It is all one. I need to incorporate life into art and art into life - like folding egg-whites into the cake batter, slowly and carefully.