Dear Mother,
I should’ve cleaned your fingernails before you died. I know dirty fingernails never bothered you, but in that last photo I took of you where your hands wrap around the ceramic mug of fresh coffee I brought with real cream, instead of the styrofoam cup of instant with powder packets you’d been getting—-in that picture the gleam is back in your eyes, feisty again, but a dark, dirty rim lines each fingernail. I regret not offering to clean your nails, but at the time it didn’t occur to me. You had lots of life left in you. You could’ve cleaned your own fingernails….
May is a Mother of a Month
17 years ago today, at age 47 1/2, I gave birth to my third daughter, our six child.Somewhere along the line we realized May 1 is my 1/2 birthday (and Nov. 1, is Arielle’s 1/2 birthday). This is a child who loves to celebrate, and a child we love celebrating. at the wedding reception for Marie & Jerome in Burgundy France, 2023 Today, after birthday dinner and opening gifts, including 9 sketchbooks because she loves to draw and ran out of sketchbooks last week, she reviewed her life in pictures on my phone. She commented on our many trips together- Iceland, England, Germany last year, France several times… so many good times together, but all too soon it will be time for her to leave home. 17 begins a countdown to adulthood, graduation and college, and/or possibly marriage. Her sister, our middle daughter, is getting married at the end of…
dented love's slated image
Midwinter Day
I’m inspired to think of a woman writing an entire book in a day, doubly inspired to know she did it with two small children running around.
Would I lie to you? (Hana Oliver/ Unsplash)
The Jesus Chicken
When your kids say funny things, do you write it down? When they leave home you could hand them a book about themselves- a journal you wrote.
Tackling the Missing Scenes List
Having a list of what to do next helps, but there’s still a matter of figuring out what it means to “list all the scenes that need to be cut,”
the many places ideas end up
Revision: Returning to Intentions for DIY Book Finishers
Like the kid who can’t keep the sand toys separated from the indoor toys, I get things all get mixed together. Instead of 4 neat notebooks, I’ve got 12… plus the sandbox.
Book Finish Bootcamp on Sunday: Rest & Retreat
Sunday was and is a day of rest, so even though I show up for Bootcamp today I have a more laid back feeling about it, ready for the rest part of the DIY retreat.
Costume Creation Gone Crazy
She donned the gown like a girl playing dress-up and said, I’d love to dash through the halls of a palace quoting Shakespeare in this.
Mother in the trees
Drawing for the Health of It
It makes sense now that I fell in love with a writing pen. I’m a writer, always trying to tell a story, even with my art. Through the years, drawing has also become a meditative experience that is calming and stabilizing, increasing my mindfulness, creativity, and health.
Celebrating Birth-days
You celebrate your children’s birthdays, your husband’s, and your own birthday, but do you also celebrate you on the day you gave birth? I do. Which means I have 6 extra birth-days a year, and I deserve a bit of celebration myself on every one of them. 15 years ago today I gave birth to child #6 (not in my plans, but then neither was #1, or #5, all girls by the way; the ones we planned turned out to be boys…) I was 47. We went dancing that weekend, because, why not celebrate? And get this party started! Our oldest daughter was pregnant with our first grandchild, who was born five months later. She went dancing with us that night. Today, on the day I gave birth to my third daughter, I celebrated with a spa-bath (triangular tub, lavendar bath salts, time to relax and breathe deep), in the…
How Small Prompts Help You Nano
And how to use them to keep the story flowing If you write with random prompts, or have, you are probably already a believer- this is the way; write in it. But even a believer falls by the wayside, forgets what tips and tricks have helped them in the past, and resorts to staring at the page or writing what turn out to be dull prose lacking the magic. How to get the magic back? Prompts- but what kind? from where?… I take phrases or words from books I’m reading, the stuff that jumps out at me since I read like the writer I am- looking for anything I can use, anything at all that will move my own story down the finish lane. Where to get the best prompts Currently I keep returning to a little known novel I find fascinating: The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre about how…
The Year-End Letter
Dear Friends & Family,We end this year with gratitude and send our heartfelt greetings, especially to those who’ve lost jobs, co-workers, friends, or loved ones. Whatever challenges you’re facing, we hope and pray love wins… During this year of going nowhere, instead of traveling to far off places, we’ve escaped into the local forests around us and sought to bring the outdoors inside… While John was off work for 4 months (Cargo w/ Alaska Air) he learned to epoxy thick slabs of Juniper we brought from Bend to make a desk, coffee table, and bathroom counter (left pic). We also stained, painted, and modernized the staircase with textured carpet & metal accents (on right). And John used his welding skills to build an artistic gate to hide our kayaks on the side of the house. Essentially grounded this year, we completed projects that make home more enticing. And haven’t we…
Look who's looking at you!
How is NaNo Serving You?
At the end of a very interesting first week of NaNo, how are you feeling about your writing? It has been an up-and-down week for me, but it’s ending on a high note. I hope you feel the same. Here are some of the ways I’ve gotten myself back on track when enthusiasm or motivation lagged. First, I looked at my thoughts- what was I telling myself about the writing (and the life going on all around me)? Awareness of my own thoughts, along with knowing that I choose my thoughts has enabled me to 1) accept myself and my thoughts, and 2) choose thoughts that serve me. So, for example, this week when I thought writing was drudgery and the world around me felt like a mess of uncertainty and upheaval, I acknowledged that sometimes life just feels that way. Actually, we have negative thoughts about 50% of the…
Make Nanowrimo Work for You
NaNoWriMo has been part of our family vocabulary since 2009 when two of our sons, ages 12 and 15, each wrote 50K+ novels while schooling from home. I was finishing an M.A. in Lit./Writing at the time, with no spare moments to craft a novel, which made me envious. Since then I’ve done NaNo off and on with limited success (and created a version for memoir- MaMoMeMo- May is Motherhood Memoir Month… http://mamomemo.com/2018/04/welcome/, a place where you set your own goals…). None of the novel messes I’ve generated during NaNo have become what I’d call a finished novel; think of a ball of yarn, 50K yards of it, in need of serious untangling. It’s easier to start fresh with new material. When I’m a slave to word count, I churn out an ugly mess, though I do make some interesting discoveries. And I hone the habit of putting words on…
More Bees, Less Words
Today a friend said she had two swarms of bees at her house and I could come get one if I wanted. But it was about 20 feet up in a tree. I like a challenge. The hub was reluctant, in the middle of a project… but he’s a game guy. This time our 13 year-old daughter came too, all three of us suited up in our bee suits. Bee girl It was a huge swarm. Actually, the two swarms merged into one. We went back and forth with ideas of how best to get it down, if it was even possible. The professionals from our bee club said it was too high; they’d just leave it. Huge swarm up high But we figured out a plan. The hub climbed up a ladder tethered to his truck, lassoed the branch with a rope and shook this huge swarm into a…