tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71534142495607514052024-03-05T13:39:42.170-08:00Laraine Herring: author's blogThe writer, fully awake, is dedicated to knowing and not knowing.Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.comBlogger145125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7153414249560751405.post-77709967470013199742012-07-31T11:26:00.000-07:002012-07-31T11:26:00.197-07:00Final Blog Post on blogger.com<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Dear Friends,<br />
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This is the final post you'll find from me on blogger.com and the final one you'll find in your e-mail box or RSS feeder from this host site.<br />
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If you've already migrated with me over to the <a href="http://www.laraineherring.com/" target="_blank">new site</a>, thank you very much. You'll stop receiving any duplicate e-mails of blog posts you may have gotten starting August 1, 2012. <br />
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All new posts will be only at the <a href="http://www.laraineherring.com/" target="_blank">new site</a>. The new site feeds both to my Facebook page and my Twitter account @laraineherring.<br />
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If you'd like to continue receiving the blog posts in your e-mail box, please do the following:<br />
<br />
Go to the <a href="http://www.laraineherring.com/" target="_blank">site</a>.<br />
<br />
Click on the gray + follow button on the lower right corner.<br />
<br />
Enter your e-mail address.<br />
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You'll receive a confirmation e-mail that you'll have to activate to start your new subscription.<br />
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If you'd like to subscribe through an RSS feeder, you'll see the RSS feed link in the upper right part of the website. <br />
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Whether you choose to continue to keep up with my writing and teaching or if we're parting ways, thank you for the time you've spent with me. I appreciate each of you.<br />
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Namaste,<br />
Laraine<br />
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Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7153414249560751405.post-7836535990768399392012-07-27T14:45:00.000-07:002012-07-27T14:45:00.894-07:00Something Better Happen: Or, Plotting is Your Friend<a href="http://laraineherring.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/plottwistcat.jpg"><img alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-648 aligncenter" height="300" src="http://laraineherring.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/plottwistcat-298x300.jpg" title="plottwistcat" width="298" /></a>
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<a href="http://www.arvinloudermilk.com/">Arvin Loudermilk</a> taught me more about how to tell a story than anyone or anyplace else on the planet. He didn't do it all by himself. He did it through books he recommended, TV shows and movies we watched together, and by letting me watch a Manic Plotter at work over the almost twenty-five years I've known him. This Plot-World is not necessarily a safe environment to venture into, especially for someone like me who lives in the Land of Pretty Sentences surrounded by a lot of intuition and hope that those pretty sentences make a story. Arvin lives in the land of Something Is Happening.
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How is that possible? Because he makes sure it is. He holds entire universes in his head, backstories for hundreds of characters, thousands of pages of a series of novels.
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He makes <i>worlds</i>. I follow <i>words</i>. For a long time, there was a cavernous moat between us on this issue, filled with alligators and damsels in distress, and flying dragons, and ... or, as Arvin would say, cut the babble and find the story.
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I guess it's normal to stick with what's familiar and with what you're good at. Because I loved language first, I focused my studies on that and figured the rest would take care of itself. Sure, I loved a good story, but not nearly as much as I loved a great sentence. And, as often happens to those of us who love the sentence, we poo-poo the genres that focus on story more than sentence. <i>That's not writing. That's storytelling!</i> we might say in a dark corner after a poetry reading when we notice someone is carrying a copy of the latest mega-bestseller.
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Over the years, at least for me, I've had to step back from Language Land and really investigate what makes a story. I want people to read my stories, and let's face it, most people want a good story more than they want a fabulous sentence.
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Why can't there be both? I think there can be, but not if a person doesn't understand what makes a story compelling. Very few people will just read strings of sentences. They want the suspense. The tension. The experience of being in another world. Sentences are the tools for creating that world, but I've learned they must be more than beautiful. They have to carry the weight of the story's movement. They have to construct, deconstruct, and seduce. A sentence isn't a fluffy socialite. It's a warrior.
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I wanted to spend some time while on sabbatical learning to write differently. I wanted to learn more about what I am weakest at, and I wanted to push myself out of what was comfortable. I asked Arvin for book recommendations from authors who were strong plotters.He recommended books by <a href="http://www.dennislehanebooks.com/">Dennis Lehane</a>, <a href="http://www.jamesleeburke.com/">James Lee Burke</a>, <a href="http://www.johnconnollybooks.com/">John Connolly</a>, and <a href="http://www.neilgaiman.com/">Neil Gaiman</a>. He recommended rewatching the HBO series <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.hbo.com/the-wire/index.html">The Wire</a>. I studied shows like <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.amctv.com/shows/breaking-bad">Breaking Bad</a> and <a href="http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/content/damages">Damages</a> and <a href="http://www.amctv.com/shows/the-killing">The Killing</a>, asking myself: <i>What are the writers doing to make me respond like X? What are they doing to make me respond like Y?</i>
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I studied these authors like I once studied highbrow literature in college, and surprisingly, I found myself enjoying reading again. I was reading stories that moved on the page, that surprised me, that made me cry. I hadn't cried reading a book in twenty years. Then I read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Boys-Life-Robert-McCammon/dp/1416577785/ref=la_B000AP7UZS_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1342994581&sr=1-2">Robert McCammon's A Boy's Life</a>.
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Teaching so long had turned me into a reader who read for intellectual reasons. I had forgotten somewhere that I used to read because reading took me places. It made me feel things. It opened my heart (and my mind), but it opened my heart first. I wanted to get back to that place, and I've had a bit of success with that this year. I have fallen in love again with stories. Now, I've got to keep working on putting into practice the things I'm learning.
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Arvin helps me with this. Check out his book <a href="http://arvinloudermilk.com/in-a-flash/">In a Flash. </a>I have listened to him talk about the characters and the worlds in this book (and the subsequent ones in the series), for years. He simply gets Story.
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Remember, if you want to keep following the blog and you haven't signed up at the new site, please make sure to do so. The blogger site will be taken down in August. To move to the new site, do the following:
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<br />
Visit the <a href="http://www.laraineherring.com/">new site</a>.
<br />
<br />
Click on the RSS feeder icon on the right side of the screen and add the new URL to your feed reader.
<br />
<br />
If you prefer to receive blog posts via e-mail, click on the gray + Follow button on the lower right side of the screen. Add your e-mail address to the form. You'll receive a confirmation e-mail at that address that you'll have to click to activate.
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See you there!Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7153414249560751405.post-5274256731474046702012-07-24T16:39:00.000-07:002012-07-24T16:39:00.421-07:00Girl, Ya Gotta Work It, Work It<br />
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<a href="http://laraineherring.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/productive-cat.jpg"><img alt="" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-628" height="224" src="http://laraineherring.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/productive-cat-300x224.jpg" title="productive cat" width="300" /></a><br />
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My twenties mostly sucked. I had graduated from college and couldn't find work in Tucson, so I returned to Phoenix, a place I swore I'd never go back to. Besides my family, the two people who kept me sane, focused, and fired up, were <a href="http://www.arvinloudermilk.com/">Arvin Loudermilk</a> and <a href="http://www.blindsquirrelprops.blogspot.com/">Mike Iverson</a>. I met Arvin just after high school, and I met Mike shortly after that. Arvin and Mike became creative and business partners, and they were both smart as hell and wickedly talented and they were amused by me. I missed the get-married-out-of-college-boat, which was fine since I really didn't want to be married or on a boat, but it was more difficult to find and keep friends once school ended than I thought it would be.<br />
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To say that I spent most every weekend for a dozen years with Mike and Arvin is not my usual hyperbole. They formed a creative partnership that has survived and flourished into today. Now, they work together as <a href="http://www.theconcentrium.com/">The Concentrium</a>. They are responsible for the design of this site (and all my previous websites), for the layout and design of my first book, Monsoons, and the layout and design of both the print and e-book versions of Ghost Swamp Blues. But they are responsible for much more than that in my life. They taught me how to work and how to both tell and show a story -- not an idea, not a conversation, but a story.<br />
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The three of us went to see movies I'd have never seen on my own. I watched television shows I'd have never seen, and they still send me television shows to watch that I'd have never picked or heard of. They talked non-stop about characters and stories and the imagination. And pretty much every minute they weren't at their day jobs, they were making art. We were all in our twenties. We were all good at our art, not great, (and not nearly as great as we thought), but good enough to be dangerous, and more importantly, good enough to believe we could be better.<br />
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We'd get back from seeing a (fill in superhero action movie here) and have pizza and then go to work. Mike would draw well into the early morning hours. Arvin wrote. I wrote too, but I also fell asleep on the couch a lot. They worked around me. There was no room not to be working. So that's what I learned how to do. I had a raw talent, but I'd made it through school with nominal effort, except in math and science. My "good enough" writing in school was just that. Good enough. No one took the time to help me get better, and now that I teach one hundred students a semester, I understand, after I've just spent an hour trying to decipher a paragraph with no punctuation or topic, how the ones who are good enough get very few comments. There's only so much time. So I didn't know what I didn't know during the nineties, but none of us did. We persevered. We sent out work. They got their first comic book series, <a href="http://arvinloudermilk.com/vigil/">Vigil</a>, published through Innovation in 1992. I got my first short story published in the anthology <i>Walking the Twilight</i> in that same year. We all moved on from there.<br />
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The 10,000 hours it takes to become anything, to do anything, I experienced with them. And I know now that the 10,000 hours is just the first part. There's another 10,000 and another and another after that. I watched them never give up. They were early embracers of the internet and web publishing and have always put the story first. If they couldn't find one avenue to release it, they'd find another, and if they couldn't find another, they'd make their own. There was no possibility of quitting. I watched them hold, shift, and commit to a vision of a story arc. I watched them embody their stories. And since they wouldn't accept anything less from me, I learned to do the same. "Nothing" could never be the answer to: "What are you working on now?" And so it never is.<br />
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And so I am a writer.<br />
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I'll be sharing more about Arvin in the next blog and how his approach to storytelling has influenced mine, and then I'll share some insights about writing that I learned from Mike and his visual art and prop-making projects in a separate post.<br />
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In the meantime, Arvin's first novel is out: <a href="http://arvinloudermilk.com/in-a-flash/">In a Flash</a>. You can read an excerpt on his website or on any of the on-line retailers. It's well worth it.<br />
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Remember, if you want to keep following the blog and you haven't signed up at the new site, please make sure to do so. The blogger site will be taken down in August. To move to the new site, do the following:<br />
<br />
Visit the <a href="http://www.laraineherring.com/">new site</a>.<br />
<br />
Click on the RSS feeder icon on the right side of the screen and add the new URL to your feed reader.<br />
<br />
If you prefer to receive blog posts via e-mail, click on the gray + Follow button on the lower right side of the screen. Add your e-mail address to the form. You'll receive a confirmation e-mail at that address that you'll have to click to activate. See you there!Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7153414249560751405.post-75369831285627530332012-07-20T13:23:00.000-07:002012-07-22T14:40:36.654-07:00Ghost Swamp Blues Available as an E-book<br />
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There was a time when I thought I'd never read on an e-reader.
Now, it has become my preference. It could be connected to the belief that I
would never need reading glasses, but now I can't even read the back of a
frozen pizza box. Fortunately, eight minutes at 425 seems to cook most things.
I'm not tearing down the joy of paper books at all. I'm just noticing the
frequency and ease of my reading life has improved tremendously since I started
reading on an e-reader. I started with a Kindle, and because I drank every last
syrupy drop of the Steve Jobs Kool-Aid, I now have an iPad which is my new best
friend, until I got the new iPhone, which is now my new best friend, which
tells you I might need actual living friends, but on my iProducts, it's always
sunny and 73 degrees, and who can actually say that about real people?</div>
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Seriously, I'm very excited to be working with <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/ghost-swamp-blues/id531183024?mt=11">The
Concentrium</a> (who are real people and real friends, not just
iFriends) on the e-book of my novel, Ghost Swamp Blues, which was released in
print by White River Press in 2010. </div>
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It's been re-designed for the e-world and
released from <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/ghost-swamp-blues/id531183024?mt=11">The
Concentrium</a> as an e-book for $2.99 at the usual suspects: <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/ghost-swamp-blues/id531183024?mt=11">iBooks</a>,
<a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ghost-swamp-blues-laraine-herring/1021021859?ean=2940014929011">Barnes
& Noble (Nook)</a>, and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Swamp-Blues-ebook/dp/B008M2IBZY/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1342739048&sr=1-1&keywords=ghost+swamp+blues">Amazon</a>.
I hope you'll check it out (and yes, you can download the first pages for
free!)</div>
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Remember, if you want to keep following the blog and you
haven't signed up at the new site, please make sure to do so. The blogger site
will be taken down in August. </div>
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To move to the new site, do the following: </div>
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Visit
the <a href="http://www.laraineherring.com/">new site</a>. </div>
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Click on the RSS feeder icon on the right side of the screen and add the new
URL to your feed reader. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you prefer to receive blog posts via e-mail, click
on the gray + Follow button on the lower right side of the screen. Add your
e-mail address to the form. You'll receive a confirmation e-mail at that
address that you'll have to click to activate. See you there!</div>Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7153414249560751405.post-23935361480159930292012-07-16T17:50:00.000-07:002012-07-22T14:41:07.019-07:00Blog MigrationAre any of you still there? I hope so. And I hope you'll follow me over to my new home. <br />
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My sabbatical is almost over and I am planning on returning to blogging twice monthly when the semester begins. I've also got some special announcements to share with you over the next few weeks.<br />
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During this time away, we've made some significant changes to the blog and to my website. This blog (laraineherring.blogspot.com) is going to be deleted shortly. Unfortunately, though I've migrated the blog posts to the new site, I cannot migrate the followers and subscribers. I'm really sorry about that. I'm converting to Wordpress, which is much easier to use and is going to allow me to make many more frequent updates to the website in addition to the blog.<br />
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If you'd still like to follow the blog (and I promise I'll be posting again soon), please do the following:<br />
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Go to the new <a href="http://laraineherring.com/" target="_blank">Wordpress site</a> site. (http://www.laraineherring.com) If you currently like to read the blog through an RSS feeder, then please look on the right side under the book covers. You'll see "Feeds" and the icon for the RSS feeder. If you prefer to get the blog on your e-mail, you'll see a gray rectangular box on the lower right side of the screen with a + symbol and "follow". Click on that box and fill in your e-mail address. I can't complete this part for you, unfortunately. That's it! Your blog subscription process will be completed.<br />
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If you poke around on the new site, you'll see there's a contact link on the upper right. If you'd like to be added to the e-mail list for my every-other-month newsletter (a new feature!), please fill out that form and check the box. <br />
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I have also, theoretically, figured out how to feed the new site into Facebook just like we did before.<br />
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You may notice the new site is laraineherring.net instead of laraineherring.com. I'm in the process of transferring the domain ownership of laraineherring.com from my current registrar to the same hosting service we're using with the new site, so both domain names will reflect each other soon. We will eventually just redirect the .net site to the .com one. (I know, too much information) That transition should be much simpler and not require you to re-sign up for the blog.<br />
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I'd like to offer a huge thank you to my amazing friends at <a href="http://www.theconcentrium.com/">The Concentrium</a> for helping so much with the design and transitioning of my domain and data. <br />
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I'll be posting both on this blog and the new site for a few weeks before shutting down the Blogspot blog.<br />
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I hope you'll continue to join me. Enjoy the final weeks of summer!Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7153414249560751405.post-50889503981529779272012-01-02T08:31:00.000-08:002012-01-02T08:31:50.146-08:00Wounded Writing Warrior<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/b33dfbc5-84d8-4342-9838-a8ebbf5943b3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="331" src="http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/b33dfbc5-84d8-4342-9838-a8ebbf5943b3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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You'd think with my life of stunning athleticism, grace, Xtreme sports (you should see me on a skateboard) and just plain passion for intense physical activity, (sarcasm alert) that I'd be used to getting hurt. Not so. <br />
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I'm in Massachusetts today getting ready to teach The Writing Warrior workshop at Kripalu. I fell a couple of days ago on an easy walk around the neighborhood. It was almost 70 degrees, breezy -- all conditions perfect for me going outside (I have a four-degree comfort range....) We were 2/3 of the way done with our couple mile walk when I tripped on uneven pavement.<br />
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I sprained this ankle twice before. The first time was in Italy. I fell down a marble staircase with a suitcase, but I did end up with a dapper cane from an Italian pharmacia. I also spent the rest of the trip shouting "Basta!" and swatting at gypsy children who circled me right away once I was the wounded-walking-weak. The second time was two years ago after a yoga class. I tripped in a pothole in the parking lot behind the studio. That was before I was going to New York (a particularly fun city to be in with a busted foot) to teach at Omega.<br />
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So, as luck would have it, right before I'm scheduled to go teach in Massachusetts, I do it again. This one's the worst so far. I even had to get the sky cab in the airport to cart me around. I have a medical cane this time, some rank-smelling natural sprain relief cream from my acupuncturist, and about 600 ibuprofen. <br />
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One wonderful thing about being injured is the room upgrade Kripalu provided so that I could have a safety bar in the shower. It was almost worth getting hurt. Usually I'm put up in one of the monk-cells with a shared hall bath. That's fine (though I do prefer a Hilton), but I could just see myself tripping and slipping in the dark once again in a hall bathroom at 3 am where no one can hear you scream. (I know -you're thinking, but Laraine, you're so graceful. So fluid in your movements. Your very footsteps are a ballet...a waltz with the earth.)<br />
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This room has <i>its own bathroom</i> (I'd do the happy dance if I could) and it looks out at this view of the lake and the Berkshires:<br />
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<a href="http://blog.timesunion.com/holistichealth/files/2011/10/kripalu-lake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="http://blog.timesunion.com/holistichealth/files/2011/10/kripalu-lake.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Of course, it's winter now, but there's no snow on the ground, believe it or not, and its sunny and warm (relatively speaking).<br />
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So I'm now in my room with its very own bathroom with my foot elevated staring at the bruises. I will spare you pictures, but I am finding them fascinating. I hardly get hurt so I don't really know what bruises do. The color scheme is quite amazing. I'm trying to figure out ways to apply this to the workshop, since now I won't be demonstrating many of the yoga poses. I'll do the shaking practice from a chair or leaning against a wall on one foot, but it'll be a different class than I'd originally planned, which will be OK.<br />
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Right now, I'm thinking about the Wounded Writer idea. Where does our writing come from, after all, if not from those wounded, haunted places? When your body is injured, it's impossible not to pay attention to the wounded part. You keep, with every step, remembering you have a foot which touches the ground which propels you forward which does its job without your constant direction. When you can only walk at the pace of a walking meditation, you're forced into the moment. If you forget, your foot pain brings you back. Often in writing, I'll see people (and myself) write a story up to the moment where the real issue occurs. We'll write up to the moment of the first stab of pain. Oh my god - I'm writing that. Oh my god - I didn't know I still felt that. And we'll turn away. We'll spin on our healthy feet and run as fast as possible the other way and start a new book or a new story. When the pain is in the body, it's much more difficult to spin away from it. You've just got to look.<br />
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I think perhaps it might be easier, rather than running from what scares us in our work, to learn not to be scared of it. More often than not, the writing of the book helps shift that relationship. Maybe we'll talk about that this week.<br />
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No matter. I've got no access to wine, meat or felines. I have all-I-can-eat access to quinoa, barley, oats, millet, (basically pick your grain choice) kale, broccoli, spinach, carrots, cauliflower, tofu, nuts, bread, fruit, teas, milk, juice, and, of course, an injured foot. Who knows what stories we'll write from this place?<br />
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Happy New Year!Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7153414249560751405.post-52715263432792553332011-12-08T16:22:00.000-08:002011-12-08T16:22:00.533-08:00Sabbatical Days Ahead<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The most amazing thing is about to happen. I have graded my last paper, responded to my last discussion board, created my last Excel spreadsheet for eight entire months. Two hundred forty days.<br />
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Please pause for a minute and twenty-seven seconds of really happy (OK, projecting!) dancing animals:<br />
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This semester has been better than spring semester, where I think part of my problem came from teaching summer school and not getting any break at all from teaching for five semesters. Not this year. Fall semester, aside from the new math, pie chart graphs, and strange Edu-Speak I found myself uttering in meetings with high-level administration, has been much better. I have been busier, but the students have been better, kinder, and more interested in learning. <br />
<br />
I have some plans - lots of travel - Vegas, San Francisco, Chicago, Taos, New York, Massachusetts and North Carolina. I have writing goals. Reading goals. (I'm shooting to read fifty novels. We'll see!) I finished a draft of a novel I've been working on for five years in November, and I plan to finish two more on sabbatical which are currently languishing at the magic 30,000 word stopping place. I am working on a teaching and writing project with my friend <a href="http://www.caincarroll.com/">Cain Carroll</a>. I am feeling very full - like I've been gathering and gathering and gathering for many years and now can harvest some of that bounty.<br />
<br />
OK, pause for one more dance. Monkeys! Irish jigs! Computer-generated animation ...<br />
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But here's the real thing: I am at a place in my life where I understand what this means. I understand that this time off, with pay and good health may never come again. I understand that it doesn't ever come for many people, and that I am, frankly, profoundly lucky. I'm not a better person than others. I'm not smarter, more talented, more deserving. I've been dealt a good set of cards and the older I get the more I see the randomness of that deck and the more gratitude I feel for not only the most basic of things (food, shelter, health), but for a life which provides the opportunities for me to do the best I can with the deck I have.<br />
<br />
I understand what is important to me and I understand how to best use this time to sow the seeds for the next decade of my writing career. I wouldn't have known this ten years ago. I wouldn't have been far enough along in my study of the craft of writing. I wouldn't have done so much work with my body - with yoga, with food choices, with meditation. There's more - always more to learn, to let go of, to move deeper into. But I know how to use this time so that I don't find myself on August 15 saying, "Oh my, I haven't done anything." This is a winning lottery ticket, and I'm going to spend it on the things that help me do the work I do in this life (write, teach) better. <br />
<br />
I'll also probably get a new refrigerator. I expect the hot water heater to go at any minute. But I'm going to dream deeper than I've ever dreamed. I'm going to unpack the metaphoric basement and see what I've gathered and where it's supposed to go. I'm going to learn more about writing than I know now, and I'm going to stretch. I'm also going to have unexpected things happen. I'm going to leave space for wonder, space for surprises, and space for magic.<br />
<br />
Thank you, Yavapai College, for this time, for this gift. I'll be back.<br />
<br />
But not until August 15.<br />
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<br />Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7153414249560751405.post-11625926306067378382011-12-05T19:08:00.001-08:002011-12-05T19:55:12.353-08:00Basement Cat Writes a Novel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The things that people want to know about writing are things that writers can't tell them. Not because we don't want to or because we're stingy or mean, but because we can't. Not won't. Can't. The things we can tell you about writing, we do. Here's how to write decent dialogue. Here's why a bundle of adverbs are not your best bet. Here's how story works. This is a driving question. This is how to build tension. These are tools that can make a character come to life. Those things are craft concepts and we teach them all the time. We write books about them. We use their vocabulary in classes and critique groups and we improve people's writing by practicing them. But all the craft practice in the world will not make art. Craft practice enhances art, but it doesn't create it.<br />
<br />
I thought I would describe the novel writing process as it seems to work for me. This still isn't going to tell you how to make art, and it is not The Way To Write A Novel, but maybe it'll tell you something.<br />
<br />
1 - 18 months:<br />
<br />
A novel is coming. I feel it first, like an after taste. Then I hear it -- the sounds of its winds, its waters, the crackle of its fire. I start to see pieces. A leaf, a shutter, a piece of sidewalk. I don't know what any of this means, but I pay attention. A character starts to talk -- usually only one, and I don't know what to do with him or her. But I listen.<br />
<br />
I go about my life. I work. I go to yoga. I drink red wine. I buy shoes. While all this is happening, Basement Cat is busy gathering souls for my very own basement in my belly. Basement Cat gathers books, sounds, CDs, plants, ideas, grief, questions, resentments, anger, tenderness, people (living and dead ones), television shows, and knick knacks. I don't know why he's gathering what he's gathering, but I have learned to trust him (and loan him the money to buy what he needs). These things, some literal and some metaphoric, get stored under black Basement Cat sheets. I feel the basement filling up. I literally feel this in my shoulders. I feel my dreams changing. My choice of reading material changes. My handwriting changes. I start researching things I never thought about before. My throat gets more full and more full and more full until finally it can't hold the door to the basement closed. I have to go down there and move things up the stairs.<br />
<br />
18 - 24 months: <br />
<br />
I don't know what to bring up, so I usually start with the lightest things, the things easiest to identify. Those get me started. I write about them. I listen to them, but they're not real. They're the early drafts. They run out of steam and I have to go back down in the basement and bring up heavier things, dustier things, louder things. Rarely are those the right things either, but I'm getting closer. Sometimes I arrange them in the wrong order in the upstairs. Sometimes I'm closer to right. Usually by this point, which is about draft number four or five, I see the thing that the book is about and it is too dang heavy and too dang old to pull up those stairs. I might get hurt. I might break my ankle. I might not be able to get rid of it once I haul it up the stairs. So I'll mess around with the things I've already pulled up the stairs but I know they're not the right things yet. They're the almost-right thing, and almost-right can be quite seductive. <br />
<br />
24 - 36 months:<br />
<br />
"Bah! Fine, Basement Cat!" I'll say, after rearranging the wrong things too long. "I will bring it up." Basement Cat is not paying attention to me. He is out gathering for the next book, which explains why more than once characters from a current book turn out to be making an early appearance for a different book. Basement cat is a trickster like that. Sometimes Basement Cat is just gone, and I have no idea where he went or if he'll be back or if I just wrote the last story I'll ever write. I forget that Basement Cat is a member of the Teamsters and has to take mandatory breaks. One day I'll remember this.<br />
<br />
By this time, I know what it is. I know what's under the black Basement Cat sheet in the corner of the basement. Sometimes I argue with it. "No, not about that. I'm not writing about that (again, or still, or for the first time)." But it wins. It always wins because my body simply cannot hold it. And when I finally drag that crazy thing up the stairs and pull the sheet off of it, it sings. And I have a book.<br />
<br />
I have this book not because I'm special, but because I listen to what Basement Cat is doing, and then I tell his stories. That's what I do. I write things down that I hear, that I notice, and that have been living in my basement-belly. I show up for this frequently, or else Basement Cat will get angry and start giving me stomach aches and back aches. He's vengeful like that, which I can understand because he did do all that work out gathering things for the basement while I was off having a pizza or seeing Phantom of the Opera. <br />
<br />
In the LOLcat world, Basement Cat steals souls. Basement Cat never stole my soul. He always had it. From the very first story I wrote in kindergarten, Basement Cat was watching. My novels seem to take me about three years. They swim around in my basement-belly, knocking into things, clearing out the spiders and the rust, until they burst out like a geyser. I've learned this over the last twenty-five years of treating writing seriously. I've learned about the furniture, and the gathering, and Basement Cat's relentless search for things to bring back from the hunt. My job is to cull through those things. Keep. Store. Release. Keep. Store. Release. That's how I write books. I sift through what seems to be garbage until I find the life still beating underneath too many sock monkeys and the books on the Louisiana Bayou, and then I breathe the life I find into sentences. I can't say any more than that. I just don't know.<br />
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<b>Long Live Basement Cat!</b></div>
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<br />Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7153414249560751405.post-78007071361669260152011-09-29T18:45:00.000-07:002011-09-29T18:45:23.388-07:00Warning: Math Ahead<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When I was in tenth grade, I wrote of a feud between the Scalene Triangle Family and the Equilateral Triangle Family. They were arguing over who had the biggest angle. I wrote this not in an English class, but in a Geometry class. I was undone by math. I was never great at it, but once math moved from two apples plus two bananas equals four pieces of fruit, I felt betrayed because I could no longer see what math was doing. This is ironic because I can read a story or a poem and I almost never take things literally, yet in math, I wanted the literal. Once I could no longer touch math with my hands, it disappeared (and don't even get me started on the insanity that are imaginary numbers). Yet I can out-metaphor anyone in writing. It's interesting to be overskilled in the same general idea in one application and woefully underskilled in a different application.<br />
<br />
Today, I observed a colleague as part of our Peer Review mentoring program. She was teaching her first developmental English class. This is the class where students end up who are at lower than 8th grade reading level. This is the class where the students have many more problems than just low reading skills. This is the class where the students are terrified of school. They've been called stupid. They've long ago given up on school as a place for growth. Watching my colleague teach this group today, I realized part of why I love teaching at the developmental level. I love language so much, and even though I don't always convince all of them to feel the same way, I want the students to leave the class not hating sentences and books. I want them to feel like freedom is in those paragraphs, not prison. I wish there had been a math class for me with a teacher like that -- someone who loved math so much that she or he couldn't stand the fact that there were people with math anxiety out there, people who didn't see the beauty in the language of integers. And that teacher had the patience and huge heart to sit with all of us who didn't understand until we at least no longer cried. I watched these developmental students stare at the blank computer screen, frozen. Most of them were trying to do what was assigned. I could empathize with this.<br />
<br />
I have many new responsibilities this year at work, and one of them seems to involve statistics and spreadsheets and some strange thing called a Pearson coefficient. There are people on campus here who live in the buildings of the Highly Paid who generate this data and distribute it and then require us to analyze it, make predictions, and make action plans based on numbers that I don't know how to read. I've had trouble sleeping this week, waking up in the middle of the night worrying that I'm going to make an arithmetic error (which I always do) that will somehow negate my program. I worry that my inability to make sense of numbers will adversely affect my program. If people believe so much in the data and I make an incorrect data calculation (which I always do) then what? I feel my chest contract, my stomach shut down. I printed out fifteen pages of Excel spreadsheet data on my program -- coefficients, (what really IS that?) graphs, pie charts, areas in red ink that tell me this is BAD data. Areas in green ink that tell me this is GOOD data. It has been sending me back to middle school. I look at it and I freeze. I do not know how to move.<br />
<br />
I want to shout, "Look at all these letters from students! Look at how many have gotten into MFA programs! Look at how many have softened their hearts!" But I can't measure that last one, and it's the most important.<br />
<br />
I walked across the quad yesterday to the math and science building. It's a scary place, filled with skulls, cadavers, labs full of chemicals, poison symbols on doors, and way way too many graphing calculators. It smells like formaldehyde. Math faculty live on the lower level and science faculty live on the upper level. Alright, I said to myself. I am 43 years old. There are at least seven faculty members who are my friends and who happen to teach math. Alright. I will slay this math demon. So I went to talk to one of them and felt the tears. Good lord, did I mention I'm 43 years old? I am terrified of math. I didn't know how deep the fear ran. I went to the faculty member who teaches developmental math. He and his wife are friends of mine. She owns one of my favorite coffee shops and she also is afraid of math, so I thought he would be safe. He can obviously talk to non-math people.<br />
<br />
"Just call me and I'll come to your office and I'll help you build a spreadsheet," he said, as if I just asked him to do the easiest thing on the planet.<br />
<br />
"Doesn't that terrify you?"<br />
<br />
He laughed. "Piece of cake."<br />
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"OK, but is this a big deal? I don't even know how to ask the questions. I don't know what I'm supposed to do."<br />
<br />
"Piece of cake."<br />
<br />
"What the hell is a Pearson coefficient?"<br />
<br />
"What was yours?"<br />
<br />
".73."<br />
<br />
"That's good."<br />
<br />
"But what is it?"<br />
<br />
"It doesn't matter."<br />
<br />
"But they talk about it a lot."<br />
<br />
"They do. Don't worry."<br />
<br />
"Really?"<br />
<br />
"Call me."<br />
<br />
Another student was waiting outside his office, book clutched to her chest. She went into his office, next to the Dr. Spock cardboard cut out and the poster "Math is Power." I have a similar poster about stories, and my cardboard cut out is of Johnny Depp. I slept better last night, though I still haven't figured out how to turn in my report with my synthesized data. I tried to fill in my average class size, which is below the college's required program average class size of 15, yet all my program's classes are capped at 15 because we have to read 50 pages of student writing and, gosh, we just can't use a scantron like some fields which Shall Not Be Named. It's bad that my class size is below 15 (yes, even though the caps are 15, so to get an average class size of 15, we'd have to have no drops, no withdrawals, and no failing grades. Even I can do that math.)<br />
<br />
I tried to type in the number of my average class size that the Highly Paid Numbers People gave me of 13.2. The form turned red. NOT A VALID INTEGER, it said. Fine then. You gave me the number. If that's not valid, I'll round up because UP is positive and DOWN is negative. 14 is better than 13. An academic year average of 14, with class capacities of only 15, tell me that we ROCK. Maybe I should finish this on Monday when I'm not yelling at a form.<br />
<br />
What does this have to do with teaching writing? I have absolutely no idea. How does this strengthen my program? I have no idea. How does this help me cultivate greater empathy in my students and a deeper respect for their own narratives and those of others? I have no idea. I'll fill out my form. It doesn't matter.<br />
<br />
But maybe math could be an ally. One person's change affects all those around her. One person's deepening compassion affects his community. I think that's called geometric progression. I'm probably wrong about that. But I'm not wrong in believing that it matters.Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7153414249560751405.post-47270016176504171222011-09-02T21:16:00.000-07:002011-09-02T21:16:04.249-07:00I Remember When<object height="345" width="420"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/wj10EzNKA2M?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/wj10EzNKA2M?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="345" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object><br />
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Please watch the video above before reading any farther. :-) Mr. Neil Diamond and the unbelievable Barbra Streisand. Take a breath. Remember the 70s fondly. If it made you cry, that's OK. It makes me cry every time I hear it. This time, it made me cry to watch it because of the relationship I saw on stage between the performers. (I know they were performing, but that's fine.)<br />
<br />
Writers. Pay attention. This song is a novel. Each character reveals something about the other character through his and her own lines. Each part in this duet enhances the other, and together, we get the whole story of the relationship. There's more sexual and emotional tension between those two on that stage than in many contemporary novels. Yes, the lyrics are melodramatic and probably wouldn't work in a novel verbatim, but look again at the video. The backstory is standing behind each of them. It's the backstory that is not directly revealed that is propelling the narrative of the song. It's the backstory that makes them three, not two, dimensional characters. And it's the multilayered conflict in each character that draws the emotion out of the reader. The specific details of the relationship ground the listener in that song. We don't hear "It makes me so sad that we're breaking up." We get the list of what we'll miss when the relationship is over, the list of what the relationship taught us, and then we get the image that's the title of the song -- "you don't bring me flowers anymore." This image touches each listener who's been in a relationship that slowly begins to transition apart. The action is a negative (not bringing as opposed to bringing). The line speaks of the absence of everything. This is why the song still holds power.<br />
<br />
In my classes' writing I see lots of actual sex. Lots of violence. Lots of intrigue and espionage and snarky banter. Lots of convoluted plots. Medieval settings. Torture chambers. Alternate realities and crazy space robots. My intellect might be excited by it for a minute, but I'll forget it soon enough.<br />
<br />
What I don't see enough of, and students, if you're reading, I'm begging you, make me feel something ... let me see actual people (or space robots) actually losing something that matters to both of them. No one wins. No one loses. They both are scarred and changed. You don't have to crush a skull with an anvil to make a reader care. Sneak in underneath the reader's armor with actual emotion and they won't know what hit them.<br />
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When I read a book where the characters actually make me feel something, I will remember them forever. The most recent book to do this for me was <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Boys-Life-Robert-McCammon/dp/1416577785/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315022486&sr=1-1">Boy's Life</a> by Robert R McCammon. It had been a long time since a book got me like they used to when I was the age when Barbra and Neil were singing to one another. And it felt. So. Good. <i>Felt.</i> I didn't<i> think</i> -- wow, what a genius plot. Wow, what a complicated world. What fascinating aerospace details. I felt like a human, not a downloader of information when I finished Boy's Life. I felt real. And after I finished crying when that book was over, I was so grateful to Mr. McCammon for giving it all to the story so that readers could feel something authentic. It's harder to do than to create a sterile world or a space robot. It means you have to risk feeling something to write something that evokes emotion. You have to risk vulnerability and ridicule for standing without your masks. But when you read an author who risks it all, you take that story into your cells. You hold it and make it yours. It lives and lives and lives. If you want to write about space robots, make them feel something. And then take something away from them and watch them struggle. Break their little robot hearts again and again and again.<br />
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Writers. Give me that. Readers. Demand that. All the information in the world will never evoke a tear, never open a single heart. When information makes you sad it's because of the story you attach to the data, not the data. Writers. Go under the facts. Under the conventions. Under the structure and find the quivering chrysalis of possibility.<br />
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Write from there. And remember to breathe.Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7153414249560751405.post-37987373986747455702011-08-03T11:18:00.000-07:002011-08-03T11:18:29.664-07:00Home Improvement Part 3: In Which Laraine Marvels at How Much Fur Cats MakeIt all started with knobs. We were wandering through Cost Plus one afternoon and they had drawers of funky knobs for drawers. I thought - hey! A home improvement project I (read: Keith) can do all by myself (himself). I bought funky knobs and Keith put them on the two bedroom closets that had vintage 1970s handles. Then, the upstairs bedroom screen had to get fixed. The cats had, over the seven years I've been here, been diligently trying to make their way out of the well-furnished and well-stocked Plato's Cave that has been their home. True Value Hardware rescreened it and suddenly the floodgates opened. <i>This is not my house anymore.</i> Since I do live here, the next right thing to do was to make it my house again.<br />
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Everyone is gone now. The men with tools that make lots of noise. Their coolers of water and sandwiches. Their paint-stained radio tuned to classic rock. It's just me and the cats and we're trying hard to figure out who we are in this space.<br />
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Did you know that when these amazing men with tools come and lay down flooring, they actually vacuum and clean the cement floor underneath? They even shop-vacced in the walls between the baseboards. Even the walls!! Now, the cats make fur tumbleweeds every day. Sometimes they even play with them like balls of yarn. I can pick them up and put them in the garbage (the fur, not the cats) and the floor is clean. The fur to make a thousand cats must have been in that old carpet. When they pulled out the refrigerator to lay the floor, the cardboard it rolled over collected enough fur for six coats. How do they make that much fur? Maybe the purring is actually a machine generating fur. <br />
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I've always moved like this. I seem to not be doing much of anything (sometimes for years) and then all of a sudden the earth opens up and I completely step out of everything I used to be and move into something new in a matter of weeks. A big explosion of fire like a volcano eruption after years of simmering under the surface. I've always worked this way. Quiet, quiet, quiet ... Ka-BOW! <br />
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I'm turning 43 on Friday. Last night I went for a walk in the dark. The Milky Way painted the sky a haze. Bats darted against the street lights and bullfrogs sang by the Hassayampa Golf Course. I remembered how my dad taught me to ride a bike in the parking lot of Idlewild Elementary School in Charlotte. I had training wheels on the bike and then I had his hands on the frame and then he let go, but I didn't know it because he kept moving beside the bike. I was riding on my own, but I thought I was supported. When he stopped and I rode on my own there was a moment of terror when I thought I'd fall, but I didn't. My father is long dead. My mother lives in Phoenix. But they always run beside me, whether I'm reflooring the house, walking through Vancouver, or writing alone in the library. They gave me a foundation. Real wood. Solid structure. A safe place to sleep. And because of that, I know how to make places like that for myself.<br />
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This year I am writing a different sort of fiction. I'm moving into a different place with my art and with my teaching. My house has space. The wind blows from front to back through the new security doors. It will not blow me over. It will not chase me out. I know how to stand solid. I know how to ride, and I know how to breathe.<br />
<br />
Creating a life is like creating a novel. At first, the Polaroid image is just an impression. Then, we add details. People. Things. Experiences. And over time, the concrete images emerge. The story of a life. Sometimes it seems like there's nothing in the picture and then when we blink, the entire photo has emerged. <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFTZTgU4AQ-eOmFKP12NFuY-6ptXtsTTxjzDYYro1gbsj_gvftw0XQbhg4iV_c3MSBrcOcprPPnHWZkhY2pctI1LMZcdfstdE93ZCqYI5HtE1aeU0OxbBVt1tzjd45yE7-ADsyRndECPo/s1600/front+garden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFTZTgU4AQ-eOmFKP12NFuY-6ptXtsTTxjzDYYro1gbsj_gvftw0XQbhg4iV_c3MSBrcOcprPPnHWZkhY2pctI1LMZcdfstdE93ZCqYI5HtE1aeU0OxbBVt1tzjd45yE7-ADsyRndECPo/s320/front+garden.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Front garden (we're trying sunflowers!)</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHVQkwFdz9MhBk1gS_r2Frii6sssV0skCKFjlCcjIocC5Qq9379XEimGjCz-m77IxtETFU50wx2EDxsjQKprs1iE4X-OqA56HXcfd-wrdeXAV64yib5AA37lqQ7A5Fn_NGfv8P2HUJ9aM/s1600/front+security+door.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHVQkwFdz9MhBk1gS_r2Frii6sssV0skCKFjlCcjIocC5Qq9379XEimGjCz-m77IxtETFU50wx2EDxsjQKprs1iE4X-OqA56HXcfd-wrdeXAV64yib5AA37lqQ7A5Fn_NGfv8P2HUJ9aM/s320/front+security+door.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New security door on front</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAC45aNs10REnYuudFEewf2kigspiOnpP1td6yOsFHtUVa1DilCYU0HZS1KMiYQFMTBInrjej2F9rbmahmA9G1a0OZZ-AXyhha0EwAfnWYTKzAyW0haUF3_ESGEA8D3hT6tG9VfE04N1g/s1600/backyard+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAC45aNs10REnYuudFEewf2kigspiOnpP1td6yOsFHtUVa1DilCYU0HZS1KMiYQFMTBInrjej2F9rbmahmA9G1a0OZZ-AXyhha0EwAfnWYTKzAyW0haUF3_ESGEA8D3hT6tG9VfE04N1g/s320/backyard+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Backyard garden</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcSRPZ7Tqkdrx7KntNLjUIhUcmrL70XMcz3eydWGmjhv8Op9X-e9zyTXljcyWjwFXvFlASgumdoXJExDaCxgqXcxWXWo4piAUs4zQ2UbH51Ln4wONpknxlfqimN9Sbfu49ScuaBdn9Wtc/s1600/backyard+door.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcSRPZ7Tqkdrx7KntNLjUIhUcmrL70XMcz3eydWGmjhv8Op9X-e9zyTXljcyWjwFXvFlASgumdoXJExDaCxgqXcxWXWo4piAUs4zQ2UbH51Ln4wONpknxlfqimN9Sbfu49ScuaBdn9Wtc/s320/backyard+door.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New security door - backyard</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLwcjU4IHS6T_iVQh5a-PJuLkZhmrR35iRykKHA60bWQrvZZ-x3RDXti84ADghwX77N8JMGj_oyBE6HIUpELxFUT_FYcs96emCr54_BH__wBYSMuQ69yVHL6brmJAl3iaA1ZkIxeMSJng/s1600/living+room+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLwcjU4IHS6T_iVQh5a-PJuLkZhmrR35iRykKHA60bWQrvZZ-x3RDXti84ADghwX77N8JMGj_oyBE6HIUpELxFUT_FYcs96emCr54_BH__wBYSMuQ69yVHL6brmJAl3iaA1ZkIxeMSJng/s320/living+room+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">front door/living room - oak lamin</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbze5JyOQREf1Msa_uOfQ0UBLLFRqmIgxZ-kRnNiGWePwUixEM3iaI9ZhT9F2fxlcEURz4hETEXIH4P8KqyvscMcdeDBmVGZFPAHvA-sRJWCEAmvtnBdRqiZoZdh9n1Ej9Bih5MVA2yzM/s1600/living+room+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbze5JyOQREf1Msa_uOfQ0UBLLFRqmIgxZ-kRnNiGWePwUixEM3iaI9ZhT9F2fxlcEURz4hETEXIH4P8KqyvscMcdeDBmVGZFPAHvA-sRJWCEAmvtnBdRqiZoZdh9n1Ej9Bih5MVA2yzM/s320/living+room+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">living room</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYFLjeUK7zU3LFafpdtIRrjBNj8L3QycQ66fYsggD7VGoaCmwMBR9rgAnzPO06nmYxRyDo-wQzjLVkYoVdvdAaVPpzjxl-3YuZ62q_wzi7mnm9ldChzLNA5qU_9VoosYAEI0hnTh5-_Xc/s1600/living+room+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYFLjeUK7zU3LFafpdtIRrjBNj8L3QycQ66fYsggD7VGoaCmwMBR9rgAnzPO06nmYxRyDo-wQzjLVkYoVdvdAaVPpzjxl-3YuZ62q_wzi7mnm9ldChzLNA5qU_9VoosYAEI0hnTh5-_Xc/s320/living+room+3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">living room & giant cat tree</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6QX37s7XAODAlEpLQ9ErUemXQoLEpQneUisXVkhapmO4FQ5-ztX9_1VtqdUKUT7VuPnfLsxM2zs6bCifrPlpM7ju60B93JtdCvc10_SzUTH2jtmrlKB-3lJkMJcV57qX5aptd7mNosqU/s1600/dining+area.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6QX37s7XAODAlEpLQ9ErUemXQoLEpQneUisXVkhapmO4FQ5-ztX9_1VtqdUKUT7VuPnfLsxM2zs6bCifrPlpM7ju60B93JtdCvc10_SzUTH2jtmrlKB-3lJkMJcV57qX5aptd7mNosqU/s320/dining+area.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dining Room (such that it is)</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJWKytgpGvUqeDzjmvcmYNapfgmvj8R-VCshc0o2kfZfqfhAzB4swahy8VdtthuWwV45-dRJbBr54TAQo7Zo63OqvlaqnVwFTa_O7TkRUetVxjZtuPTpLofvtquOA-drFwYrw-G1z3_uU/s1600/entry+to+hallway.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJWKytgpGvUqeDzjmvcmYNapfgmvj8R-VCshc0o2kfZfqfhAzB4swahy8VdtthuWwV45-dRJbBr54TAQo7Zo63OqvlaqnVwFTa_O7TkRUetVxjZtuPTpLofvtquOA-drFwYrw-G1z3_uU/s320/entry+to+hallway.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Entry way to hall</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7qKCflSiLFSS0-59Wrf2_-r3i3Ayt6CCB-VqSTiGWPBHat5xp22IFihm55mP-4jSg0gJspmbPa43B5eZMik95iJIiOzV7Witsy27SL21PUGcVqNsASemULPwDShpvUrvII5ZC8TqENcg/s1600/kitchen+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7qKCflSiLFSS0-59Wrf2_-r3i3Ayt6CCB-VqSTiGWPBHat5xp22IFihm55mP-4jSg0gJspmbPa43B5eZMik95iJIiOzV7Witsy27SL21PUGcVqNsASemULPwDShpvUrvII5ZC8TqENcg/s320/kitchen+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kitchen </td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsjNqjybnXPR7tDf-SO2DxuWjbOVBF7fPEJM5EJn_nU1aQVwV1pcjyz2oDhszsXslSdPioryawcdnoPRRZib6b2s9FxzOl0FAu4VW9uMYoTlGEjk6KsCqcOTaadUA5DE_kg_x1rzC7BL8/s1600/kitchen+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsjNqjybnXPR7tDf-SO2DxuWjbOVBF7fPEJM5EJn_nU1aQVwV1pcjyz2oDhszsXslSdPioryawcdnoPRRZib6b2s9FxzOl0FAu4VW9uMYoTlGEjk6KsCqcOTaadUA5DE_kg_x1rzC7BL8/s320/kitchen+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">kitchen floor</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT6mFS8_8qC0xfvig5ePGiO12P_XogDXzemPwoY5I4J8HoVbjlq_my6tLvh9yLGzoUolnVulbXiNq3RazY8sKPy6vAuvgVSqr64vc0b9csRxQdNz4MvzZ0ZvqyAyeV2LSoRxcSafP8t7E/s1600/upstairs+bathroom+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT6mFS8_8qC0xfvig5ePGiO12P_XogDXzemPwoY5I4J8HoVbjlq_my6tLvh9yLGzoUolnVulbXiNq3RazY8sKPy6vAuvgVSqr64vc0b9csRxQdNz4MvzZ0ZvqyAyeV2LSoRxcSafP8t7E/s320/upstairs+bathroom+3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">upstairs bathroom (towel is wet, not stained!)</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH_YyUEcgNlqFPmLdiLcn1tMuJ6ez-tQdJbLSBfh5HYJVmDzRLBWkKAS5z-IHMIR05WewXP0keuGf4s3Yhta0Ro6Mwg3moxOQjgEESYlZrb_Tk1AzQFUD8W8QqRtA0oQbWz0UtHNg-YsY/s1600/upstairs+bathroom+vinyl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH_YyUEcgNlqFPmLdiLcn1tMuJ6ez-tQdJbLSBfh5HYJVmDzRLBWkKAS5z-IHMIR05WewXP0keuGf4s3Yhta0Ro6Mwg3moxOQjgEESYlZrb_Tk1AzQFUD8W8QqRtA0oQbWz0UtHNg-YsY/s320/upstairs+bathroom+vinyl.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">new vinyl for upstairs bathroom</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7153414249560751405.post-88048725076478083372011-07-22T10:46:00.000-07:002011-07-22T10:46:40.883-07:00Home Remodeling Part 2: In which Laraine lauds the work of professionals<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU0jfR7whAvdvKheuj-xRqkpnhLdoj0H4uJ_3esf1wCM_d9L11xu5srZIhkOtosIAwf65Nktk5r_kF-UmSoYe3p_dGmd4BpseTv0-Ik18gAMG2n-r5CEb2NMAFV4j_XYbUzViIfkSlvzY/s1600/home+improvement+cat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU0jfR7whAvdvKheuj-xRqkpnhLdoj0H4uJ_3esf1wCM_d9L11xu5srZIhkOtosIAwf65Nktk5r_kF-UmSoYe3p_dGmd4BpseTv0-Ik18gAMG2n-r5CEb2NMAFV4j_XYbUzViIfkSlvzY/s400/home+improvement+cat.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br />
More than a few times, when I tell people I'm a writer or a writing teacher, I'll hear "I always wanted to write a book," or "I'm going to take a few weeks off work and write my story," or some semblance of that comment. I usually smile, but I'm gritting my teeth inside. Not because they want to write or tell their stories, but because they don't understand that there's a serious amount of work, craft, skill, and talent involved in writing. Yes, you might can sit down and write 10,000 words in a weekend, but that's not where it ends. That's not even close to the end. I say it every semester: You've got to respect the art. Respect the writing.<br />
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This is true with home improvement projects as well. Yes, Home Depot has the same supplies as the professionals. Yes, I can buy them cheaper there. Yes, I can watch a few do-it-yourself videos on YouTube and think that I am certainly capable of doing that. But the wealth of what I don't know because it's not what I do is stunning. This home improvement project had a variety of problems that aren't apparently uncommon, but would have stopped me from finishing, or at least finishing correctly. I will spend years on a manuscript, but not a hands-on project. We've all got our gifts. Acceptance is part of maturity. Ha.<br />
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Here's just a few of the things I learned during Professional Home Improvement Week.<br />
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1) Holes in the drywall. Professionals can patch walls and have them not look like wadded up tissue paper.<br />
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2) Strange wires that go nowhere. Professionals know how to cut them and not electrocute themselves or burn the house down.<br />
<br />
3) Floors that are not level and would cause the new laminate flooring to crack. I would not have known that would be a problem, would not have known how to even measure it, and certainly would not have known how to fix it. Professionals mix things in big buckets, pour them onto floors and whistle. They have this big metal thing called a level that they place on the floor to check. Hmm.<br />
<br />
4) Water damage to the bathroom ceiling from a roof leak three years ago. See # 1.<br />
<br />
5) Masking and edging when painting. It's one thing to paint a wall a solid color. It's another thing to edge it. I lose patience. Good is good enough. I get tired, frustrated, and usually have the wrong kind of paint. Professionals know how to edge. They know what kind of paint to buy. They are not deterred.<br />
<br />
6) Drywall that has come away from the stairs leaving gaps in the wall that the carpet won't fill. See #1.<br />
<br />
7) Quartz crystals growing in my concrete floor in the kitchen. Did you know that quartz grows? Did you know that if quartz is in cement (it's not supposed to be) it will, over time, grow and crack your floor. Professionals know this, and are not fazed. They dig it out, sand it down, fill it in and finish laying your floor while you watch television. And oh yeah, they whistle.<br />
<br />
8) Ladders. Simple. Professionals have the right ladders. And they're not afraid to step on them. <br />
<br />
9) Fretsaws. Circle saws. Scary power saws on tables that make sparks when they cut through your floors. Yep. Pros have these. They even have the goggles.<br />
<br />
10) Math. OK, I could probably have learned how to do the math at one point, but my math-window has closed. Pros. They can do math. And guess what. When you're calculating gallons of paint and how to cut the laminate so it all gets used and fits in the house, you're using math. And it matters.<br />
<br />
11) Wallpaper from many decades ago that has apparently woven itself into the drywall. This delightfully patterned wallpaper was located behind a bathroom mirror we took down so we can put up new vanities when they're done. There may not be an app for this, but there's a chemical for it, and professionals have it.<br />
<br />
12) "Hey, Laraine!" shouts the painter. "Come look at this." Never. Ever. What. You. Want. To. Hear. "For some reason, you don't actually have a wall here. Just a few pieces of cardboard." We're looking at the 'wall' where the awful paneling used to be. "You want we should make this a wall?"<br />
<br />
Yes, you beautiful beautiful people. I want we should make this a wall.<br />
<br />
Professionals.<br />
Priceless.Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7153414249560751405.post-68982034730774402602011-07-19T13:43:00.000-07:002011-07-21T09:33:59.640-07:00Home Remodeling Part 1: In which Laraine realizes that foundation trumps accessories<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrPkcxL_t4KF8hlOiQDg4nyfbBdbI-9-mmERIYfdJusFfsGTo-wdPO__QgH8kLQkTKP-cPhuhx9A_bCG4PTipEtEhl4s8ssD-aoQby_TDxSOE6wnwsu_990jC2uMfsVouJwFUU1tknTUM/s1600/cathouse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrPkcxL_t4KF8hlOiQDg4nyfbBdbI-9-mmERIYfdJusFfsGTo-wdPO__QgH8kLQkTKP-cPhuhx9A_bCG4PTipEtEhl4s8ssD-aoQby_TDxSOE6wnwsu_990jC2uMfsVouJwFUU1tknTUM/s400/cathouse.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">House-Falling-Apart-Kitteh Dreams of New Colors</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Before I moved from Phoenix, I had new ceramic tile and carpet put in my house. I only got to enjoy them a year before I sold the house and moved to Prescott, and while I haven't missed a single thing about Phoenix, I have missed my floors.<br />
<br />
I've lived in my townhome here for seven years now, on carpet that I am sure was original (1981), with light tan paneling (ugh) in the living room and neon yellow vinyl in the bathrooms that I have kept covered with decorative accessory rugs because I can't bear its neon-ness. I have lived with non-functioning baseboard heaters, a doorbell that is falling off the wall (again circa 1981), and a thermostat for the non-functioning baseboard heaters that, upon removal, was apparently merely decorative. Perhaps I missed the fad of decorative thermostats. Maybe it was from the same time the tan paneling apparently worked. The baseboards for the paneling, by the way, turned out to be styrofoam coated with tan paper. Yep. <br />
<br />
I have spent a lot of time this summer in two of the greatest cities: Vancouver and New York. (San Francisco - I'm coming soon! I promise!) I can't get enough of cities. I love the neon and the trains and the people and the languages and the ability to have octopus at 2 am (not that I've availed myself of that, but I know people who have, and just being somewhere that is possible is enough). I love the dreams of a city. The sky shadowed by buildings. A life as vibrant under the ground as above the ground. It's harder for me to live in a small town, especially in the desert where the sky is so freakin' big and the trees are so freakin' short, but there are good things here too, not the least of which is an international airport only 90 miles away and the very slim chance of hurricanes or volcanic eruptions.<br />
<br />
I will be 43 in a few weeks. There are things I hope to not ever have to do again. I don't want to work a half-dozen jobs to make $20 grand a year. I don't want to commute for hours every day to a job. I don't want to be in a cubicle from 8 - 5. I don't want to have to grant-grab and sell myself at every turn to teach workshops that pay in T-shirts and bottled water and sweet thank-you notes from haggard bookstore owners. Borders is closing and liquidating everything by September. The avenues through which I sell my books are coming apart at the foundation. There are transitions happening everywhere. Things are falling apart so new things can be built. It's exciting. Unsettling. <br />
<br />
I can't pretend that 43 isn't the middle of my life (if it's not already past that). I can't pretend that I have not made choices that have opened some doors while closing others. As I re-examine my life, I keep returning to two things: writing and freedom. I feel good about my writing since moving to Prescott, and I feel even better about my freedom since moving here. My job provides the most freedom I can imagine. Yes, we have to do things. Yes, we have to show up at certain times. But we're not chained to the desk, and, dare I say, summer and winter breaks make up for just about anything the semester can throw at us. The college went through a huge transition last semester and next year will be full of challenges trying to implement the changes. I will be on sabbatical for the second half of the coming year, focusing on deepening my own work. My foundation. What other job lets you do that and keep your health insurance? I have several books I'm working on, and an exciting partnership with my friend <a href="http://www.caincarroll.com/">Cain Carroll</a> to teach together and write a book in the coming year. (More details soon!)<br />
<br />
So I decided I have to invest in my structural roots. Today is Day 2 of the home remodeling project. It's really more of a face lift. No walls are moving around. No plumbing coming out of the walls. But it's a big deal, and as I took apart my house so it can be reassembled, I could see into every corner. Every baseboard. Every hole in the drywall that needs to be patched. I can put my eye up to the gaping hole in the wall where the doorbell was and see inside the walls. How cool is that? I can stand on the actual concrete foundation and watch it being turbo-cleaned and prepped for the flooring. Today, they have to fix the floor. It is not level, so the floor won't float. There's some magic thing they can do to level it out. (Yes, mom, another instance where math matters.) Tomorrow, they'll lay the oak laminate and finish the carpet and the bathroom vinyl. Then, the painters come and replace the baseboards, take down the tan paneling, patch the gaping holes, sand the walls and paint them green (and other colors). The cabinet doors and drawers come out to be sanded and repainted. The hood over the stove will suddenly become the color of nickel. Poof! The screen doors will come off and new security doors go on so I can keep the doors open and let more air run through the house. The fluorescent lighting will come down and track lighting go up. (I may be almost 43, but under full-spectrum lighting, I daresay I don't look a day over 39...) <br />
<br />
They've stripped my house down to its essence. Its foundation boards peek under the drywall like feet. They are stable and thick. The concrete is cool and solid. The edges square. I know these things now. In a few days, I will be able to walk on new floors. By the end of next week, this will be a different townhome. I am not the person I was when I moved to Prescott. I have made a life here, and even though I need to leave it and go play in the cities of the world, it's important to invest in a solid structure. A place to lay my head that is safe, full of love (and a few cats), and full of enough freedom to keep growing, deepening, and creating. I don't write well when my life is in chaos. I don't write well when I'm worried about income. And I don't write well living in someone else's skin. Phoenix, even with good floors, was never my skin. For the first time in my life, I will have a home that, inside and out, reflects who I have become, and has enough space for who I will be.<br />
<br />
I'll post finished pictures when it's done.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDUiOxGig6-uBQFQ5qyJH6PxDy_MuixtzSYrwE2wyg7zmUdS0ik1EiZH2iNtqK28cfSYUzgGX0rRxlh5svc4UJzFvw7uu2QWV_fMsOz52WYfIA_TZALDOAa_n4pTvCikxHEmTXcnVYqZw/s1600/painting+cat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDUiOxGig6-uBQFQ5qyJH6PxDy_MuixtzSYrwE2wyg7zmUdS0ik1EiZH2iNtqK28cfSYUzgGX0rRxlh5svc4UJzFvw7uu2QWV_fMsOz52WYfIA_TZALDOAa_n4pTvCikxHEmTXcnVYqZw/s400/painting+cat.jpg" width="353" /></a></div>Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7153414249560751405.post-65964891844362469562011-05-09T13:41:00.000-07:002011-05-09T13:41:44.599-07:00PTSD: Post-Traumatic Semester Disorder<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDjh6-jgC-4F6aMUrLeNGQCiafQdnnlz32ZYlWByhodYICRZl94q4uOutuvNZTFUOK6s2BeOImzKO2L0MZRTbhVRjpde2LybUi928QEqjyC9-Vf2SOKFwzQKnlKJOD0OqqVICogsvSqwA/s1600/curious+george+kitteh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDjh6-jgC-4F6aMUrLeNGQCiafQdnnlz32ZYlWByhodYICRZl94q4uOutuvNZTFUOK6s2BeOImzKO2L0MZRTbhVRjpde2LybUi928QEqjyC9-Vf2SOKFwzQKnlKJOD0OqqVICogsvSqwA/s400/curious+george+kitteh.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
My mother tells me a story of a time before my sister was born. I would have been around two, and we were at the playground. I was on the slide, when a boy came along and pushed me off, giving me a bruise. I think my mother tells this story because she thought my response was so unusual.<br />
<br />
"You didn't cry. You just asked why someone would do that."<br />
<br />
I called her before writing this blog because I wanted to make sure it wasn't a story about my sister, or a story I made up. "No, it happened to you," she said. "Your sister would have pushed back."<br />
<br />
She would have. My little sister ruled the school bus. I tried to slip in and out of the bus without anyone noticing me at all.<br />
<br />
<br />
I remember the name of every bully in my life. That's not healthy, I know, but it's true. The girl who lived down the street from me, whose house was full of puppies, who tormented me on the walk to the bus stop every day in elementary school. In middle school, a group of girls took me on as a personal mission to be mean to. A boy spit on me, on purpose, from the monkey bars. In the classroom, when the teacher would leave, the girls stole my journals, read out loud from them, tossed them across the room.<br />
<br />
I never said anything. They were bigger. Stronger. And what would I say? I didn't understand why they did what they were doing. I didn't know how to fight anyone, and I just thought if I became invisible enough, they would go away.<br />
<br />
<br />
But I stewed, and as I've grown into my own life, I find that bullying is the one thing I can't seem to tolerate -- something I still haven't found the appropriate response to. Students can say or do just about anything, but when they bully me or someone else, I go back to the 5th grade in my body. Back to those girls who scared me so much I couldn't sleep. Back to my father saying, "You've just got to wait them out." My sister who probably would have just punched back. <br />
<br />
This semester, I had the perfect storm of students in one of my on-line classes. The personal bullying began from the very first day. Before I'd even logged in on the first day of class, there was a slew of personal attacks about the course, the textbooks, the deadlines. I did what I did in middle school. My heart beat too fast. My stomach hurt. My shoulder screwed itself up into my jaw. Why are they doing this? What did I do that caused this to happen? So I hesitated, which is what bullies wait for, and I couldn't regain footing in the class the entire semester. I lost sleep for fifteen weeks over this class, these people. I'm used to frustrated students, but this was different. I couldn't shake them out of me. I couldn't reframe their posts for them and try and ease them out of their attacks into a more receptive place in the class. I tried for almost ten weeks before I went to my dean and told her I cannot keep responding to these people. I feel like I'm being shot at every time I offer feedback, every time I try and point out a craft concept. I'm not a new teacher. I've been at this almost twenty years. I know my subject matter and I know a great deal about how to work with various types of people, but this time, I was only ten years old. I felt like I was going to cry all the time, and I experienced the same feelings as I did in the 5th grade every time I checked my work e-mail or logged into that class. I was afraid to log in. <br />
<br />
What could I do next time? Why isn't there a clear college policy on on-line behavior? Am I just supposed to feel poked and attacked several times a week just because it's my job? I don't think it's my job to be bullied, and I'm not in the 5th grade, and I am actually the one in the pseudo-power position in this circumstance. I started talking to other professors. What would you do with this? How would you have handled it? What can I do differently?<br />
<br />
So I've made a course policy and a video on tone in the academic setting for next semester that probably won't change anything, but made me feel somewhat more empowered. I have some sample responses from other faculty that I can use right away if this happens again. But what I've really learned is that I still feel the shock and the disbelief that I felt in middle school when facing a bully. Did I make the right choice in the 5th grade not to hit back? I don't know. I didn't choose not to hit back out of any noble non-violence ideas. It just seemed stupid. They were bigger. I would lose. They would break my glasses and then I couldn't read.<br />
<br />
Tomorrow is the last day of the semester. One particular student was the worst. Student X did not turn in the largest assignment of the semester. S/He had, in spite of being a bully, been earning an A because s/he was a very good writer. When s/he missed the assignment, at first I was thrilled. "Gotcha. Now you're not going to pass. Ha." But every day I waited for the e-mail. The reason it was my fault that s/he missed the deadline. That I have to take the paper. I still was stomach-aching anxious to log in to work.<br />
<br />
Today there was a note that was not laced with the caustic tone I'd been reading all semester. The note explained what had happened, asked me if s/he could make up the packet. I don't know if the reason is true. This time in the semester we hear every reason under the sun for why things didn't happen on time. I don't want to read the paper. I want to post grades tomorrow. At first, my response was, "Should have been nicer to me, b---h." But that response, even reframed appropriately for office correspondence, didn't feel right. I actually do believe the reason given in the e-mail. I am in the position of power here. I have a no late work policy. I could have said no. It's too late. Too bad so sad, nanner nanner nanner. I win. It would have been backed up all the way to the top of administration. It's in the syllabus. I could win.<br />
<br />
I walked around the building and came back to the computer. I responded that s/he had been earning an A up until that point. I responded that I would not include the points for that paper in the final grade calculation, so the grade will be what had been earned up until that point. I wished him/her a good summer, and I pressed send.<br />
<br />
And then I cried a little, and I felt the shaking up in my body. I felt the hand loosen around my heart, and I felt my shoulder release a little. I don't know if that was the right decision. But as soon as I pressed send and felt the tightening shift, I knew it was the decision that was going to allow me to walk away.Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7153414249560751405.post-36043937673550935412011-05-01T16:14:00.000-07:002011-05-01T16:14:44.433-07:00Please! Stop asking for my opinion!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheaQSor666-tuir-t3WFjFEBh1mV3a67pAtcs_3Y0MKUAAzCbM4BFfmFKMtlVuAUIdDFdojAesmgRQX0HhVKxLJQ_nnwpPsC30QgXFd-PP9OmJOh3QaGBkc-3tsrvsBLXn-04_-0DKeLE/s1600/ad+hominem+kitteh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheaQSor666-tuir-t3WFjFEBh1mV3a67pAtcs_3Y0MKUAAzCbM4BFfmFKMtlVuAUIdDFdojAesmgRQX0HhVKxLJQ_nnwpPsC30QgXFd-PP9OmJOh3QaGBkc-3tsrvsBLXn-04_-0DKeLE/s400/ad+hominem+kitteh.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Warning: Rant Ahead. <br />
<br />
When I was in college, no one asked me for feedback. On anything. On anyone. This was not in the age of dinosaurs. This was in the late 80s. No one asked me if the chairs were comfortable. If the instructor was pleasant and accommodated my unique learning style. If I felt the assignments were fair. If I felt the instructor were qualified. No one asked.<br />
<br />
No one should have.<br />
<br />
When I was employed in my first "real" job, no one asked me for feedback. On anything. On anyone. How did I like the new restructuring? Do I feel secure? Do I want a blankey?<br />
<br />
In the past week, I have been asked for my feedback from the following sources:<br />
<br />
Travelocity: Would I please rate my booking experience?<br />
My Dentist: Would I please rate my teeth cleaning experience?<br />
The IT department at my college: Would I please rate my Help Desk Experience?<br />
Every single commerce situation I've had in the past week: Survey on the receipts from: Bookmans, Fry's, CVS, Texaco.<br />
Amazon.com would love to know how I'm enjoying my Kindle. <i>(Ha, ha, I'm not going to tell them!)</i><br />
YouTube wants to know how I like my channel.<br />
Google Apps wants to know if I'm satisfied with the upgrades.<br />
Yahoo!Mail wants feedback on its Beta Mail program.<br />
My tax accountant: Would I please comment on my experience with my taxes?<br />
My VISA card: How do I like the new allocation of points?<br />
My employer: Would I please provide feedback on my immediate supervisor?<br />
My recent Netflix InstantView: How did I like the movie?<br />
My MFA alma mater: How has my MFA served me?<br />
My MA alma mater: What would I like to see college X doing moving forward?<br />
<br />
I'm convinced SurveyMonkey is a sign of the apocalypse. Except I don't think there is an apocalypse (wait: Why has no one asked me my opinion on how likely I think the world is going to end in my lifetime? hmmm... conspiracy theories abound.) <br />
<br />
I don't fill out these surveys, no matter how much I love monkeys. And I do love monkeys.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmxlXtBc482a1QQA9_It40_zv2RDBDaxV2Q3ue7TyT5FwHkwR4qbp-VgtQqb_ff4Zc5JBYXYjuan2i7RdEnWuuNUISv9jeCS2ehrnI6Mk5hiPIYESp7q9Y567uJhIAtBu8TaTJMBmUTm8/s1600/keezel+omega+2010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmxlXtBc482a1QQA9_It40_zv2RDBDaxV2Q3ue7TyT5FwHkwR4qbp-VgtQqb_ff4Zc5JBYXYjuan2i7RdEnWuuNUISv9jeCS2ehrnI6Mk5hiPIYESp7q9Y567uJhIAtBu8TaTJMBmUTm8/s320/keezel+omega+2010.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>My fabulous Keezel at the Omega Institute in July, 2010</i></span></div><br />
<br />
If I have an opinion on something that I think might be somewhat educated and somewhat helpful, I may share that opinion privately with the institution or individual involved. But I rarely do even this because ... um ... my opinion doesn't really matter.<br />
<br />
Am I satisfied with my teeth cleaning experience? Well, what were my expectations of that teeth cleaning experience? Were they reasonable or were they what I wanted rather than what I might have needed? Why can't it be enough just to have my teeth cleaned? If the dentist stabs me in the gum with a sharp tool, I promise I'll say something. Otherwise, just please clean my teeth. Were the heavens supposed to crack open? Should I have expected a Hallelujah chorus when she put the bite wings in for the X-rays? Did they serve me wine and cheese? Please. It's <i>the dentist.</i><br />
<br />
How did I like my recent car's tune-up experience? Well, actually, I would have preferred if you'd have used Bay 3 for the work as my car really is sensitive to north-facing windows. I also think the tool boxes should have been in red instead of that sad metal color, and I would have really liked it if my mechanic looked like Johnny Depp. What can I tell you about tuning up a car? Nothing. Because I. Don't. Know. How. To. Tune. Up. A. Car. If the mechanic slashed my tires, poured oil in the gas tank, and drained and forgot to refill the radiator, I promise I'll say something.<br />
<br />
It's no wonder our students think their opinion matters above all else. That we are there to serve them slavishly and attend to their every need in the way in which they (at the ripe old age of 17-1/2) believe the class and the material should be delivered. In the past week, I've had to give out surveys to my students for assessment purposes. I hate doing this, but I have to (and then I get to give the school feedback on my assessment plan participation). The school also sends out a general student satisfaction survey this week. This is not training people well for a world that, although it may ask increasingly frequently for their opinion, doesn't really want it. But worse than that, it's training them that their opinion on things about which they are not qualified to have an opinion, matters.<br />
<br />
It doesn't help that our college's advertising campaign (which thankfully was terminated this year in a positive spin on the budget cuts) had billboards that said: Yavapai College. We're there for you. Like your dog.<br />
<br />
I wish I was kidding on that ad campaign. I'm not using even the slightest bit of hyperbole.<br />
<br />
If my professor never comes to class, leers at all the girls, and spends more time on his iPad than talking to us, I promise I'll say something. Other than that -- it's his class. If it doesn't work for me, I can leave. <br />
<br />
Too much idle chatter. Too much idle speech. Too much data collection.<br />
<br />
And here's the other thing: I am not entitled to the exact experience I may hope for. If I am in a classroom of thirty people, I am part of a group. There is a group need that outweighs my personal needs. (Gosh, I hate that instructor because she uses the red dry-erase marker. Gosh, I wish he didn't spend so much time explaining polynomials to the 90% of the class who doesn't understand them and instead focused his energies entirely on me. Me-me-me. I-I-I. This is my experience, therefore it must be as I have predetermined it must be -- otherwise it was (fill in the generalization word: stupid, useless, a waste of time, dumb, boring) Stop. Please.<br />
<br />
I am qualified to have an opinion on two things: writing and teaching. There is nothing else in my life that I have the education or experience in to offer an intelligent, helpful, opinion. Oh sure, I'm human, so I have opinions on all kinds of things. But they're based on nothing but personal preference, personal fears, personal everything -- so they <i>don't need to be made public</i>.<br />
<br />
What does it mean that I "like" a certain item? Not one useful thing. It means I buy chocolate instead of vanilla, but that doesn't mean vanilla is bad or wrong or stupid or misguided. What right have I to keep vanilla from those who love it?<br />
<br />
When you feel like you need to share your opinion something, ask yourself the following:<br />
<br />
<br />
- Is it truthful?<br />
- Is it necessary?<br />
- Is it something that will unify rather than divide?<br />
- Is it kind?<br />
<br />
<br />
Aim for 4 out of 4 before you press "send".<br />
<br />
I am not entitled to enjoy or 'like' or have fun in every experience that makes up my life. Who said that education was supposed to be entertainment? Why am I supposed to enjoy my trip to the OBGYN? I'm just supposed to do it.<br />
<br />
Sometimes in life, we're just supposed to do things. Some of them will be hard. Some unpleasant.<br />
<br />
Dear Ms. Herring,<br />
<br />
We are sorry for your recent loss of (Contact: First Name, Last Name).<br />
<br />
Thank you for using Funeral Service X. We strive to provide you everything you need at this very difficult time. To help us serve you and others better, please take a few minutes to fill out this survey about our service.<br />
<br />
What could we have done to make your experience with us better?<br />
<br />
<i>Bring back Contact: First Name, Last Name.</i><br />
<br />
And stop distilling every experience in my life down to a scale of 1- 5.<br />
<br />
My life is bigger than that.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbn7dgw6m6TLoaLiUqap829FvNRYn2Fonj9jaDSg3EOKaF7by8HXVkbsmAj2r0f3Y7rmz_D6e8XcjQCI7JZv1yzW9rL9gg_2_3Gfh0UCpa1Ci6PU6kZbZDiU5Z1pZsEeIXjUZxzHk7t30/s1600/psychiatrist+kitteh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbn7dgw6m6TLoaLiUqap829FvNRYn2Fonj9jaDSg3EOKaF7by8HXVkbsmAj2r0f3Y7rmz_D6e8XcjQCI7JZv1yzW9rL9gg_2_3Gfh0UCpa1Ci6PU6kZbZDiU5Z1pZsEeIXjUZxzHk7t30/s400/psychiatrist+kitteh.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7153414249560751405.post-22977392397144178312011-04-15T10:37:00.000-07:002011-04-15T10:37:23.500-07:00Elvis and Me<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7d5Rd8aiM5Obpo6sOF_0fPD0HMVfrB-wy9FffeelgcCuUIlKIVHO27IZD3HS_6TAwalhoLTVb2VR6leSNjopgP1musRo2WbjFweb7CtRMxIdhkKK_LQNFZLYxcc-R4nV_xQJu_ju6toI/s1600/elvis+kitty.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7d5Rd8aiM5Obpo6sOF_0fPD0HMVfrB-wy9FffeelgcCuUIlKIVHO27IZD3HS_6TAwalhoLTVb2VR6leSNjopgP1musRo2WbjFweb7CtRMxIdhkKK_LQNFZLYxcc-R4nV_xQJu_ju6toI/s400/elvis+kitty.jpg" width="323" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.artbyanagnos.com/ElvisCat.htm"><span style="font-size: x-small;">painting, "No One Knows I'm Elvis" by Elaine Anagnos</span></a></div><br />
<br />
Last night, we saw <a href="http://www.robertastheking.com/bio.htm">Robert Shaw and the Lonely Street Band's</a> Tribute to Young Elvis at the Elk's Theater. I'm a sucker for Elvis. Any Elvis -- young Elvis, old Elvis, hot Elvis, not-so-hot Elvis, gospel Elvis, rock and roll Elvis, blues Elvis, ballad Elvis, bad actor Elvis, soldier Elvis, Las Vegas Elvis, Elvis in a tortilla...<br />
<br />
Elvis died the year after my dad got sick. Our house had every Elvis LP imaginable. My sister and I would stand on the top of the itchy yellow and black sofa, jump rope microphones in our hands, teddy bears near by, singing "Teddy Bear", tossing the bears to the ceiling at the finale. The first time I heard him sing "Old Shep" I cried. When Elvis died, I was 9. My dad had almost died the year before. Our whole lives had been turned upside down. In the south, Elvis walked hand in hand with Jesus. The King Could Not Die. But he did, and in the way of things, a decade later, my dad did too. Elvis was 42; my dad was 46.<br />
<br />
I'm 42 now, and at the event last night, I was one of the youngest people there. The man sitting next to me wore a silver snap-button shirt, the final three buttons open because his belly had exceeded the width of the fabric. In front of me, women my mother's age joined hands, singing with Robert Shaw. When Robert sang "It's Now or Never", the man next to me, who was there alone, whispered, "I played that a million times."<br />
<br />
The audience screamed for young Mr. Shaw. Screamed. Women using walkers. Women with mastectomies. Women with thinning, beehived hair. Women stood for young Mr. Shaw. Women with grandchildren. Dead husbands. Dead children. They stood and they screamed and they stomped and they danced, leaping for the teddy bear he threw to the audience. Grandmothers. Great grandmothers. Screaming. Stomping. Dancing. <br />
<br />
Mr. Shaw did an Ed Sullivan imitation. The audience laughed. They'd watched the show when it aired. To hell with censorship, said young Mr. Shaw, and commenced the wiggle.<br />
<br />
Grandmothers.<br />
Screamed.<br />
Stomped.<br />
Danced.<br />
<br />
Swollen ankles dissolved into lacy bobby socks. Orthopedic shoes tip-toed into saddle shoes. The women's eyes were sparkling -- with tears, with love, with memory.<br />
<br />
"I know there's some men out there," said young Mr. Shaw. "Just can't hear you."<br />
<br />
The man next to me hooted, exposed belly wiggling.<br />
<br />
I was twenty to thirty years younger than most of the audience. I knew all the songs. I hadn't played the 45s in my bedroom over and over or written letters to him when he was serving in Germany or cried when he married Priscilla, but Elvis was the soundtrack of my childhood as it was the soundtrack to their adolescence and young adulthood. Elvis made it OK. Elvis gave the sense of hope when there wasn't any; the sense of rhythm to a stiffening people; and he offered faith. Whether you believed or not, you believed when Elvis sang that gospel. No matter what else happened in his life, no matter how sick he got, when he slipped into music, he transported himself and everyone with him. He was living art. <br />
<br />
After my dad's first heart attack, he spent some time talking to men at the Salvation Army. He brought Elvis' gospel LPs and played "Peace in the Valley" and tried to convince everyone that it was possible. Over time, it became less possible, and we moved away from the South, from Elvis, from who we were before Elvis died. Elvis may have lived on, grown stronger perhaps, in death, but it didn't work that way for my dad. Each year that passes brings fewer people who ever met my dad, ever knew him, ever loved him.<br />
<br />
Last night, hundreds of us stood for young Mr. Shaw, many of us crying, for the gift of two hours suspended in time. For a spit of a second, we were all who we were when we first heard the sounds. We had not yet had our hearts broken and our bodies injured. We had not yet left friends behind, watched neighborhoods disintegrate, spent days in Hospice saying good-bye. We were girls and we were boys with the fire of all the world in front of us. <br />
<br />
Perhaps now, because we have been marked, wrinkled, divorced, denied, loved, spurned, broken, built back up, perhaps now we could listen to young Mr. Shaw and see the beauty of the fleeting moment of youth. What we thought would never leave, leaves. This is true of everything. And when you really know that in your bones, you see that spark, that hip swivel, that sneer; you hear the seduction of the guitar's strings, and you pay attention to it. You know it's precious and primal and if there is anything divine in the world, it is in that spark. You look around the audience at the men with faraway eyes, the women with open mouths -- this group of people that you know differs as much as people can differ on religion and politics -- but they are standing up together. They are clapping together. We are young. We are young. We may have nothing else in common but we have Elvis and his promise of passion and desire and kindness.<br />
<br />
We are young.<br />
We are old.<br />
We are beautiful and we are screaming together, not at each other.<br />
<br />
The power of art brings that out and lets the rest fall away under our dancing feet.<br />
<br />
Viva, viva, us all.<br />
<br />
The video below is "young" Elvis singing "King Creole".<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/yA_zS6-dO7Q?rel=0" title="YouTube video player" width="480"></iframe><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The video below is the "old" Elvis singing "How Great Thou Art". <br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HwVJSe6WGfw?rel=0" title="YouTube video player" width="480"></iframe>Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7153414249560751405.post-2812805685380766482011-04-11T17:21:00.000-07:002011-04-11T17:21:48.381-07:00When Expectations Collide with Reality ... it ain't pretty<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDGO02xBq2lTqFecX0191rlHQLrxKD11o8kikv4EawVpesiM3_kNOmQns-UvCMkRpf3iRhFExX_f6FZanRkLtcdXSYFSG7X0AM57uM_siYh1k5JE88ks5qWjka0egbtfUErpT6li84fQM/s1600/emo+cat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDGO02xBq2lTqFecX0191rlHQLrxKD11o8kikv4EawVpesiM3_kNOmQns-UvCMkRpf3iRhFExX_f6FZanRkLtcdXSYFSG7X0AM57uM_siYh1k5JE88ks5qWjka0egbtfUErpT6li84fQM/s400/emo+cat.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"> "All artists are willing to suffer for their work. But why are so few prepared <br />
to learn to draw?"- <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy">Banksy</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">It's April in academia. The birds are singing. The snow is still falling. The flowers are blooming (and freezing). And yes, as usual, it's the month of dead and dying family members from the sweet mouths of our students. If you've got a kid in college, be careful when you start the car. But most of all, April is the month when students' expectations crash and burn in the pyre of self-loathing and (perish the thought) <i>work.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Here's what happens. The semester has almost ended (yes, yay, jumping in the halls, dancing in the streets, please oh please be over) and the students, those who do care and who have been coming to class and who have been learning and struggling, come face to face with the truth of: I haven't "gotten it" yet.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">They think writing is something one can "get" in fifteen weeks. Nay, sooner, since they have been writing for 20, 30, 40, 50 years by this point. How hard is it to arrange words? They had visions of where they would be by now, and although those who've shown up and participated have indeed made lots of progress, it doesn't look like what they thought it would.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">It never does. The tricky net of expectations has strangled many before them and will strangle many more after them. A semester is such an arbitrary amount of time, and it is such an insignificant amount of time in a life, that it seems impossible that we can teach anything at all of substance in a 15 week period. The art of writing is not a 15 week program. Yes, you can learn some things about craft in 15 weeks. Yes, you can read some forms of literature you might never have looked at before, and yes, you can stick your toes into the snake-infested swamp of revision. But you may find at the end of the semester you feel like you're in a worse place than you were when you started.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">You're not. You're just beginning to realize what you don't know and what you didn't even know to ask about. You're just starting to see the ways literature can be written and read. You're just starting to see that writing is not a task ... it is a path. And for some of you, that ain't what you signed up for.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I get it. I really do. You're accustomed to outcomes and measurable skill sets. You're a bright person. You should be able to "get" this. Writers know that writing is a lifelong pursuit. That there is no one-day epiphany that solves every story you'll ever write. Each story is a teacher. Each poem a Zen master. Writing one story well guarantees nothing for any future story. Writing one story poorly does not sentence you to a life of bad writing.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">If I had all the time in the world to teach writing in the way I truly felt was best, and if I had only students who were sincere in their educational pursuits, we would begin with the sentence, and we would not leave the sentence until we understood the nuance of the comma, the position of the verb. I haven't figured out any practical way to teach like this. Writers must come up with every aspect of the work first before learning the craft. To only address theory without practice is to spin and spin and spin. So instead, we write drafts and we talk about them and only after many years of writing practice do most writers come to realize the value of word choices, sentence structures, and paragraph lengths. The subtlety of rhythm contained within the way an author puts a sentence together. The places where the author left space for the reader to breathe. These things appear second nature when you read, but they are the result of thought and commitment on the part of the writer.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Students, if you're serious about "being a writer", remember these things:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">- You will always be a beginner.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">- There will always be people "better" than you.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">- You will always be alone with the blank page. No one can be there with you. Figure out how to be OK with that.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">- Take time away from writing. You can't produce twenty-four hours a day. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">- Remember the joy and sense of play that first brought you to language. If you lose that, you're adrift.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">- Study sentences. Study grammar. Look at books critically through the lens of a writer, rather than a reader. Start to get out of your own way when reading. It doesn't matter whether you like or don't like the work. Look at how the work was put together. That'll give you insight into craft.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">- Practice detachment from your writing. The tighter you attach to it and to your construct of what it means, the less chance you have of truly developing it into something that can breathe on its own. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">- There's no mastery - just deeper and deeper questioning. The more open you are to the questions, the more ease your writing practice will provide. If you attach and hold tight to wanting to know things and figure everything out, eventually you'll exhaust yourself. There's no figuring out. There's just experiencing and observing.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">As you walk the path with your writing, hold its hand loosely. Notice the wind and the earth beneath you, and let this observation be enough.</div>Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7153414249560751405.post-68453776193425550082011-03-30T17:25:00.000-07:002011-03-30T17:25:44.495-07:00E-Readers and E-Kitties and E-Thoughts and E-gads<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMTEzczRNXgmOqgpwybRuyHPCJgj_Erxizv3SaqNQwSIxNRkj4JfaZTr8ufKrhuR9aqDboeQXUTX9eMa0ib5scsT6gJZ-UFUUeD1lUIZPpSTSz76OCkEma00ODLBhaoqAz2aYsTltjbAc/s1600/kindle+cat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMTEzczRNXgmOqgpwybRuyHPCJgj_Erxizv3SaqNQwSIxNRkj4JfaZTr8ufKrhuR9aqDboeQXUTX9eMa0ib5scsT6gJZ-UFUUeD1lUIZPpSTSz76OCkEma00ODLBhaoqAz2aYsTltjbAc/s400/kindle+cat.jpg" width="400" /> </a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">At first it was a little like admitting to a crack addiction. (Not that I've ever had a crack addiction, Employer Who Might Read This Blog). I'm a writer. I love books. I love bookstores. I understand that we authors don't make anything to speak of from our work. I understand that bookstores are in trouble. But I also am a part of the 21st century, and if I do nothing else in this world well, I sit and watch with the best of 'em.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I watched the music industry decide that people would always buy music in music stores. (How's that Tower Records stock doin' for ya?) Then I watched the music industry decide that only the pre-packaged monster acts would be supported. Then I watched the people who <i>make</i> the music tell them where they can take their studios. At first it was expensive and nearly impossible to make your own CD. Not so anymore. At first, it was nearly impossible to distribute that CD (um, cassette) unless you were affiliated with said Studio. Not so anymore.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And so I watched the publishing industry pretend like this transition has not happened to the music industry. They don't know what to do now, so they seem to be doing a combination of nothing and trying to negotiate higher e-book prices. But amazon beat them to the table and consumers aren't going to pay what the publishers want. Welcome to free enterprise -- you know, that class you had to take in 12th grade? Well, this is how it works. Anyone download an i-tunes song for $5.99? Didn't think so. The world saunters on. E-readers abound. E-books abound. The times, they are a-changin'. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Is this good for writers? Ultimately, I think so. Right now, it's a giant clusterf&*$(. But it'll shift away from that and people will wonder why they fought it so hard. The Authors Guild is negotiating for greater royalties for e-books. Will it happen? Don't know. But if I want to upload my new book straight to Kindle all on my own, can I do it? Yep. Is this freedom resulting in a lot of crappy e-books? Yep. But that'll shift around too. Gone to an art fair lately? There's a wide range of talent in the world. Literature is no exception. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So back to the crack addiction that I never had. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I used to read ALL THE TIME. I had books with me everywhere. And then, this pesky thing called a job showed up in my life, and that job involved continuous reading of student work for weeks on end. Last thing I wanted to do was read. Ever. Again. And really, the last thing I wanted to do was read on a computer or screen device since I did that all day long.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
Enter e-ink.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Enter devices that were designed to be like a book. A device that dissolves into the background and lets the story come to the forefront. I didn't think it was possible. Books smell good. They have pretty covers. I can walk past my bookshelves at home and say hello to all my friends. Enter Whitney Houston singing "I Will Always Love You." </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I will. Always.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But I have not been reading because my eyes are tired. I am at that over-forty place where the eyes start doing their own things. Reading glasses help, but not much. My eyes still tear up by the end of the day. Reading hurts them. It's really hard to read a book one page a day. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So under cover of darkness, cloaked in black, I went to Best Buy to touch the Kindle. I went to Barnes and Noble to touch the Nook. And then, making sure no one saw me, I bought the Kindle. I took it home. I downloaded a book. And ...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I read it. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Easily. No burning eyes. No tearing up. No headaches. I can make the font as big as I want. I can read it in sunlight. I can read it in bed. I can hold it at any angle and read. No glare. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">My e-reader has given me back reading. I have downloaded and finished reading more books in the last six months than the previous six years. True, they're not on my shelf. But they're in my body now, which, at least from my perspective as a writer, is exactly where I want my books to be in my readers. I don't want them holding up knick knacks on shelves. I want my books read. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">My Kindle helps me read more. As a writer, what could be more important? I don't care how you read my work. I don't care if it's scratched out on tree branches or sent up in smoke signals. Hardcover, paperback, e-book (Sony, Nook, Kindle, Kobo, iPad), audiobook. I don't care. But I want it read. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Books come to life when a reader enters the dream of the story. It doesn't matter what the door looks like. The more accessible and the more variety of doors we can offer as the transoms to our stories, the better chance we have of dancing in the dark with our readers, the better chance we have of our characters continuing to breathe.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I didn't want to do it. But I did, and because I did, I'm dreaming with other authors. I've got other characters in my body. I've got other stories in my cells. I got reading back. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So apparently, what I Will Always Love is stories, not the physical package of a book. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I didn't think it would be so easy to say good-bye, but it was. I didn't think it would be so easy to say good-bye to my '77 AMC Spirit that I drove in college, but it was. I didn't think it would be so easy to get rid of my land line, but it was. I didn't think it would be so easy to transition from an in-class instructor to a primarily on-line instructor, but it was. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I still feel a little disloyal, but it's passing quickly. Books want to be read too. They're only dead trees until someone opens the cover. It doesn't matter whether the cover is paper or a switch. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Just read.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Read.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Read.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Those of us who make the stories are grateful.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div>Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7153414249560751405.post-33262548569298167582011-03-18T09:59:00.000-07:002011-03-18T09:59:04.945-07:00Magical Thinking, Reinvention, Shopping and Writing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqozt7glmlMXTyPtWC5wDQDe2F44P5czEwF877opWtQTREJHFm3Sm_rpg485LNJ22B5ISC0lrFsoJCO22OILgqvFDopIrCAcYXRaNVGPyOrRH316IvTcFUgACEou90PkIUZ1v8H8FNGds/s1600/lady+gaga+kitteh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="397" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqozt7glmlMXTyPtWC5wDQDe2F44P5czEwF877opWtQTREJHFm3Sm_rpg485LNJ22B5ISC0lrFsoJCO22OILgqvFDopIrCAcYXRaNVGPyOrRH316IvTcFUgACEou90PkIUZ1v8H8FNGds/s400/lady+gaga+kitteh.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Here's how I know I'm a writer.<br />
<br />
I'm a world-class clothing shopper. Some might call it an addiction, but that's such a nasty word. I don't buy everything. I don't have a compelling urge to buy flatware, or furniture, or cars. But I adore clothes. I love the <i>possibilities</i> of clothing. I've been thinking about this a lot this week as I did my spring cleaning. I was delighted to only have single-digit bags to give away, rather than the 40 plus bags of two summers ago. Whew! Addiction, um, enjoyable fun activity, in reasonable check.<br />
<br />
I'm giving away a lot of really great things. Items I loved, most of them still fit (whew, again - weight has not fluctuated 40 pounds in two years). There's nothing wrong with most of them. I don't wear out my clothes because I simply don't wear them enough to do it. But about every five days, there's a pull to a clothing store that goes off inside. Perhaps this is located where my non-existent biological clock is supposed to be. (Whew, again - much rather have the clothing-shopping clock than the biological clock). If I had kids, I'd have to buy them clothes, which would substantially cut into the amount of clothing I could buy for, um, me, and frankly, I like to think I'm subsidizing the Goodwill shoppers of the world with some pretty fabulous, good quality clothing once a year. (Here's where the fabulous magical thinking part starts to occur.)<br />
<br />
I don't think of clothing as a need. I think of clothing as art. So to that end, I'm continually creating and re-creating the canvas. Some people apparently only need five shirts and five pairs of pants. I simply do not understand how that is possible. Kind of like calculus.<br />
<br />
But here's how the writing figures in ...<br />
<br />
I find myself in a store. Oh, the sparkle! Oh, the mannequins with their fabulously accessorized outfits and really extraordinarily toned arms! Oh, the shoes! And here's where I fall into magic .... I could have the life of the woman who can wear that dress. I could have the feet that could run in those pointy stilettos. I could have the waist that could wear that bracelet as a belt. I could be in Central Park with that silk scarf and that fuschia bag. Oh yes, oh yes, I can.<br />
<br />
So then (and here's the important step) I take the dress off the rack. My size is not there. My size is never there on THOSE dresses -- the ones that you see on the skinny mannequins and the Styles section of the New York Times. But, I've fallen so deeply into the wonder of magical thinking that I believe that I may perhaps suddenly have become a size 8 (the largest size, of course, on the rack of THOSE dresses). This is America. Anything is possible. I hold it next to me and some sort of bizarre quantum occurrence happens when I see myself in a mirror holding the dress next to me and I believe that the body I see in the mirror will fit into that dress with room to spare. It's miraculous. Maybe I should take the size 6 too.<br />
<br />
Into the dressing room I go, and I've often wondered if there are still security cameras in dressing rooms because the show must be hilarious all day long. I step into the dress. It's not going to go above my knees. I can tell just by stepping in it. Of course, I knew that before I pulled it off the rack -- the only size 8s I have are feet -- but you know, it's America and anything is possible. <br />
<br />
I could be the woman who wears this dress if I ...<br />
<br />
- eat only broccoli and quinoa for the next three weeks<br />
- run to work<br />
- grade papers while running on the treadmill<br />
- run to work with the kettlebell (go up the stairs twice)<br />
- replace my DNA with Natalie Portman's<br />
<br />
Excellent. Sold. The most logical of all these thoughts is the DNA replacement. Surely, that's covered under the health insurance plan.<br />
<br />
Then it goes home. It's beautiful. I am on my way to Central Park. I am on my way to the National Book Awards. It goes in the closet. The dream is so complete, so full of possibility.<br />
<br />
And then the next day, sigh, I remember my beautiful dream, my walk in the park with a parasol, perhaps, and an accessory cat, and I look in the mirror where at least my feet are still a size 8, and I gather the receipt and the dress and the imaginary accessory cat, and go back to the store.<br />
<br />
But for a day, I believed it was possible. And that is the place you must get to in your fiction. You must believe 100% in the impossible. In magic. In this world you are creating and these people you are listening to. You must believe it. You can't think it's a joke. You can't think you're kidding yourself. Total immersion. Gotta go there.<br />
<br />
But then, you've also got to be able to look at that draft and be realistic about it. What is actually working? What will never work? What was what <i>you</i> wanted to work, rather than what the story wanted? (Ah, the biggie!) In other words, the next day, you've got to be woman enough to take things back to the store, but still, the next time you sit down to write, immerse yourself once again in magic.Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7153414249560751405.post-43044414564932037702011-03-11T15:53:00.000-08:002011-03-11T15:53:51.869-08:00How Cursing Became Part of Common Speech<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH3lRDpPPJKAERoSnyj4jDl-oY3wgEbBWJc9cjn5J8TVn6o6YQKXV9H5hmdJDxySELc8Yqn2CtsYfvIpe4uGnzzFCfxdgNSXDz05EOEkgkoRvlSDJsmQ0sbLnU6mh9Hqo2782VJ9rcGbg/s1600/ignored+call.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH3lRDpPPJKAERoSnyj4jDl-oY3wgEbBWJc9cjn5J8TVn6o6YQKXV9H5hmdJDxySELc8Yqn2CtsYfvIpe4uGnzzFCfxdgNSXDz05EOEkgkoRvlSDJsmQ0sbLnU6mh9Hqo2782VJ9rcGbg/s400/ignored+call.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
I've been bracing myself for two weeks. I knew I'd have to call. You know who. The BANK. I have to call because the BANK's website is designed by monkeys on steroids. I have to call because I pay my homeowner's insurance myself, rather than have it paid from my mortgage escrow account and apparently this is a concept too difficult to handle on line from THE BIGGEST BANK IN THE F-ING WORLD.<br />
<br />
OK. Breathe in. Breathe out. Coffee - two cups. BANK website open. Insurance company website open. Homeowner's policy pulled up. Numbers-a-plenty. Social security card. Property zip code. Mother's maiden name. First school. First best friend. Most annoying customer service center -- oh, wait, that's not an approved security question.<br />
<br />
Every March I have to do this. Every March the BANK thinks I have let my homeowner's policy lapse and feels compelled to send me a letter indicating that they will be buying a policy for me and charging me for it. I've never moved my homeowner's policy. I've been with the same insurance carrier for almost twenty years. They automatically renew my policy every year. Funny, how they never seem to forget to automatically deduct the payment from my account -- the account at the same BANK that holds my mortgage.<br />
<br />
I would love to renew this policy on the BANK's website, but it is not capable of understanding that I pay the premium myself. But just because it feels like spring today and the daffodils are starting to pop through the frozen earth, I thought I'd try. You know. Just in case. Like today could be the day when the world gives out free chocolate ice cream. Sigh. Today had no free chocolate ice cream.<br />
<br />
Coffee. Third cup. OK. Dial. Hello Automated-Female-Person with False Human Inflection.<br />
<br />
<i>How can I help you today? Please press or say 1 for account services, 2 for payment services. </i><br />
<br />
1<br />
<br />
<i>Which account can I help you with? Please press or say 1 for checking, 2 for savings, 3 for mortgage, 4 for credit card.</i><br />
<br />
3<br />
<br />
<i>Thank you.</i> (She's very jolly now) <i>Please enter the last four digits of your social security number followed by the pound sign.</i><br />
<br />
*$()#<br />
<br />
<i>Thank you. Please speak your mother's maiden name.</i><br />
<br />
($*))#(( (How do people who do not know their mother's maiden names manage their daily lives?)<br />
<br />
<i>Thank you. Please confirm the zip code of the property you are calling about.</i><br />
<br />
#*$()<br />
<br />
<i>Thank you. How may I assist you today? Please press or say 1 for property insurance, 2 for ....</i><br />
<br />
1<br />
<br />
<i>Thank you. What would you like to do? Please press or say 1 for change or renew policy, 2 for...</i><br />
<br />
1<br />
<br />
<i>Thank you. </i><br />
<br />
(Here's where we're going to have a problem. I know this Fake Human can't help because I've tried it before. The Fake Human wants to pay my homeowner's insurance from escrow. She's extremely rigid. She could benefit from deep breathing.)<br />
<br />
I'd like to speak to a representative.<br />
<br />
<i>I'm sorry? I thought I heard you say, </i>(dramatic pause) <i>"I'd like to speak to a representative."</i><br />
<br />
Yes.<br />
<br />
<i>There are many things I can help you with. Frequently, there is a long wait to speak with a customer service representative.</i><br />
<br />
I'd like to speak to a representative.<br />
<br />
<i>I'm sorry? I thought I heard you say, "I'd like to speak to a representative." </i>(she's pissed now)<i><br />
</i><br />
<br />
Yes.<br />
<br />
<i>I am capable of providing a wide range of services. Let's begin again. How may I help you? Please press or say 1 for ...</i><br />
<br />
I'd like to speak to a (deep breath, don't swear at the Fake Human) representative.<br />
<br />
<i>Did you say you would like to speak to a representative? Please press or say 1 for yes ...</i><br />
<br />
1<br />
<br />
She doesn't even say good-bye. There's a double beep, during which time I am sure she has disconnected me. Within the untenable wait of twenty entire seconds, I am greeted by a gentleman who assures me that customer service is very important to him. How can he help me?<br />
<br />
I need to renew my homeowner's policy.<br />
<br />
<i>May I have the last four digits of your social security number?</i><br />
<br />
(Refer to conversation with Fake Human for the next series of questions)<br />
<br />
<i>Thank you, Ms. Herring. How may I assist you today?</i><br />
<br />
I need to renew my homeowner's policy.<br />
<br />
<i>You can do that at www. THEBIGGESTBANKINTHEF-INGWORLD.com</i><br />
<br />
Actually, I can't because I pay my premium myself.<br />
<br />
Pause. <i>Can I put you on hold, Ms. Herring?</i><br />
<br />
<i>OK. You said you pay your premium yourself? Do you mean you write the insurance company a check?</i><br />
<br />
No. I mean they deduct my payment automatically from my checking account in your BIGGESTBANKINTHEF-INGWORLD.com bank. You can pull it up. For the last seven years.<br />
<br />
Pause. <i>Can I put you on hold, Ms. Herring?</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>OK. Thanks for holding. You're trying to tell me that your insurance premium is not paid from the escrow account, but that you pay it yourself.</i><br />
<br />
Yes.<br />
<br />
<i>So, you don't forget to pay it?</i><br />
<br />
No. You can check yourself in my checking account in your BIGGESTBANKINTHEF-INGWORLD bank.<br />
<br />
Pause. O<i>K. How do you remember to pay it?</i><br />
<br />
I don't have to remember. The insurance company remembers.<br />
<br />
<i>May I have the insurance company's number please?</i><br />
<br />
*$))@*()$&()<br />
<br />
<i>And the policy number?</i><br />
<br />
$*))&()#&)<br />
<br />
<i>What is the premium?</i><br />
<br />
$ &&()<br />
<br />
<i>Is that even or are there cents?</i><br />
<br />
It's even.<br />
<br />
<i>So we'll send a check to the insurance company from the escrow account.</i><br />
<br />
No. I have already paid the premium.<br />
<br />
Pause. <i>Can I put you on hold, Ms. Herring?</i><br />
<br />
<i>OK. So you actually pay the premium yourself.</i><br />
<br />
Yes.<br />
<br />
<i>OK. That is OK. I am sure that is OK.</i><br />
<br />
It's been OK for seven years.<br />
<br />
<i>OK. I am sure that is OK. Let me just ... OK. So, you're all updated, Ms. Herring. Is there anything else I can help you with?</i><br />
<br />
Can you put a note in my account that I pay my premium so I don't have to go through this next year?<br />
<br />
<i>Next year you can use www.BIGGESTBANKINTHEF-INGWORLD.com to update your policy.</i><br />
<br />
No, I can't.<br />
<br />
<i>Oh, right. Because you pay your own premium.</i><br />
<br />
Right.<br />
<br />
<i>That's very unusual.</i><br />
<br />
OK. So can you put a note in my file?<br />
<br />
<i>I'm sorry. There's no field for that. Is there anything else I can help you with?</i><br />
<br />
Nope.<br />
<br />
<i>Thank you for calling BIGGESTBANKINTHEF-INGWORLD. Again, my name is $*(*. Please have a pleasant day.</i><br />
<br />
Until next March ...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1HxiK7VUW-5ss5HMUB1t_tMe3pJ4pqbXPgS3TFLXQXcXNAwfZlzTwjVEsWOoCvLCMedgfhY4ORfOrE8X071BNr3d0wpjkVH55e1Q6XI3G0pC9RVKmFzFWb32bsa9gHNQKd44h1lSFFkc/s1600/wtf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1HxiK7VUW-5ss5HMUB1t_tMe3pJ4pqbXPgS3TFLXQXcXNAwfZlzTwjVEsWOoCvLCMedgfhY4ORfOrE8X071BNr3d0wpjkVH55e1Q6XI3G0pC9RVKmFzFWb32bsa9gHNQKd44h1lSFFkc/s400/wtf.jpg" width="273" /></a></div>Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7153414249560751405.post-75979309580006849032011-03-02T21:48:00.000-08:002011-03-02T21:48:44.574-08:00How Captain Jack Sparrow Helps Us Write A Story<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQvQRh7cpm63Z_ChmFeMsBVAM793x6pF308XU_dXY4OsboGGjvKLmqHJrAuXMGM19EYV5k72PFcmgjX-KbUCnpWiHMfYXeymmFcS6Vexd0joEDA6ynE8B_erL2D4zYg5KcAtMGIz4cOzE/s1600/Captain+Jack.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQvQRh7cpm63Z_ChmFeMsBVAM793x6pF308XU_dXY4OsboGGjvKLmqHJrAuXMGM19EYV5k72PFcmgjX-KbUCnpWiHMfYXeymmFcS6Vexd0joEDA6ynE8B_erL2D4zYg5KcAtMGIz4cOzE/s1600/Captain+Jack.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Warning: Extended Metaphor of Today's Blog May Not Work for All Readers </i>(but don't deny yourself a little look at the lovely!)<br />
<br />
Come on, ya'll. I know I don't have to tell you anything about that picture.<br />
<br />
Hello, there, Captain Jack. Yes, indeed. I know you are clearly one of those Stranger Danger folks they told us about in third grade. I know it's never good to be with a man who accessorizes better than I can. I know you've not had proper dental care, you smoke, and I know that you give the same look to all the girls.<br />
<br />
Sigh.<br />
<br />
And I know it doesn't matter one bit. Because maybe, just this once, that look will be for me. I'll be the one who can change you, Captain Jack. You spend too much time with the skinny girls anyway. You're wounded. You just need someone to love you who understands you. It's me. I promise. We'll run away together to an island. You'll rescue me from cannibals and we'll find ourselves in a strange encounter with a voodoo priestess and after a few swashbuckling moments of fancy and fun, you'll find yourself at the gallows, or about to walk the plank, or about to spend seven years under the sea in the hands of a creepy-weird-monster-creature. It's OK, Captain Jack. I'll wait for you.<br />
<br />
Sigh. <br />
<br />
I think that when we write, we have a Captain Jack Phase. Let's call it CJP. In the CJP, we do a lot of things we wouldn't do pre-CJP. We do a lot of things we'll wonder about post-CJP.<br />
<br />
Here's the Peer-Reviewed-Iowa-Writing-Workshop-Endorsed Captain Jack Theory of writing:<br />
<br />
- We follow the prettiest, most bewitching idea. This is not necessarily a problem, until we can no longer see ourselves along the way. The prettiest, most bewitching idea has captured us, and we find ourselves enslaved by the spectacle, so much so we can't tell if there is substance beneath it, and we don't want to do the work to find out because, well, he's just so darn beautiful.<br />
<br />
- We let ourselves get tricked, bewitched, befuddled and bewildered because we simply can't believe someone as FREAKIN' GORGEOUS as Captain Jack is giving us the time of day. Because clearly he is, we forget that he does this to all the girls. When the bluster of the night of sound-tracked love is through, the sword is gone. The rum is gone. The dirty dishes are there, the dirty sheets, the Visa bills. How did that happen to my story? I had THE COOLEST MOST AMAZING GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL ever. Why is my story gone?<br />
<br />
- Our ego wins. He likes ME. He really really likes ME. The ego jumps on board with that, oh ye of the mousy brown hair and middle aged bosom, and says, "Oh yeah. Sign me up. Paparazzi? I'm right here." When this happens, we reflect back only the spectacle in front of us. We reflect back our need to be seen, to be good enough, smart enough, and pretty enough. We begin to exist through the eyes of others. Our center rises and falls based on external forces. That empty reflection rusts us.<br />
<br />
- The seductive idea is exactly that: The Seductive Idea. Follow it. Only a fool would say no, no matter how many women have gone before you. But keep your center. Don't let the lure of the magnificence of your Seductive Idea, the promise of book reviews by that oh-so-powerful New York Times, the dream that Oprah will revive her book club just for THIS MOST AMAZING book keep you from seeing the <i>actual book</i>.<br />
<br />
- The Seductive Idea splashes fire. We can't help but notice. Don't mistake the illusion for the steadily burning center. Too often we'll chase sparks because they're bright and loud and new. The work of writing doesn't live in the sparks. It lives in the coals. <br />
<br />
- Pay attention to what is left when the fire burns out. Rather than blame the Seductive Idea for being exactly what it is: A Seductive Idea; instead, ask yourself what it gave you, not what it took. What were you questioning when you fell into its web? What were you searching for? And now, that he took his rum and his sword and his hair and left, what are you still asking? That may be the question of your novel.<br />
<br />
- That explosion of seduction struck a match. Its nature is to burn out. Your job is to be thankful for the flame, and to then determine what you can do to sustain it after he's well on his way to another gal. What passions did he light? Explore those.<br />
<br />
- The gift of the Captain Jack Phase is the afterglow, not the initial first blush of lust. He leaves you in the dark, panting, vulnerable and real. It's when he leaves, that you can write. Don't chase him. He won't come back. He's not supposed to stay. Wrap yourself in his abandoned nightshirt. Touch the place on your cheek he stroked on his way out your door. But don't chase. Stay still. Stay rooted in the rubble of what he burned. Dig there for your story's truths. Dig there for your glowing embers, and when you've turned them all over, cooled them with nouns and verbs and breath, take the ash and spread it in your garden. And wait. When Captain Jack knocks again, let him in. Look him in the eye. Hand him your pen and ask, "What are you about? Take off the makeup. Take off the braids. Take off the bandana. Who are you?"<br />
<br />
The answer is your novel.<br />
<br />
Go ahead and watch, ladies. Gents, I won't tell. Life's too short not to honor beauty.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-kg6aVORe5Y?rel=0" title="YouTube video player" width="480"></iframe> <br />
<br />
And when you're done watching (and whatever else you feel compelled to do), write directly into that fire. Use the tip of the coal to scratch the words on the paper. Take that cooling fire and make your art. Not Captain Jack's art. Not the New York Times Book Review's art. Not Oprah's art.<br />
<br />
Captain Jack came for you. Wouldn't it be a shame if you didn't listen?Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7153414249560751405.post-67059333473392727542011-02-15T16:10:00.000-08:002011-02-15T16:10:30.906-08:00I'm Real! I'm Real!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN1twXjAPHUpnkwGWjdD05zhCW1kttrwWEC6E9-NGAyEV9OStVXxSFZ9QrKR0J7OyeShsQLH0fSU6SKvTiZScz4CV-LXi7_u_NgTJ0oHpwF2So8MZ_JiMi4q5nSu9lxx1rPgDknEHmDyc/s1600/suddenly+a+giraffe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN1twXjAPHUpnkwGWjdD05zhCW1kttrwWEC6E9-NGAyEV9OStVXxSFZ9QrKR0J7OyeShsQLH0fSU6SKvTiZScz4CV-LXi7_u_NgTJ0oHpwF2So8MZ_JiMi4q5nSu9lxx1rPgDknEHmDyc/s400/suddenly+a+giraffe.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Some days you think you really have a sense of what's going to happen. The fact that life has always proven otherwise seems to always fall by the wayside.<br />
<br />
Last weekend, we played Super-Sleuth trying to determine who was affected by the ginormous budget cuts our college is facing. We had bits of information. Connect person A to gossip B and get faulty conclusion C. But we knew something was coming, and that something was going to be big. On Friday, they said that all of us who were not going to be employed anymore have been notified. Whew. Add piece of information A to verifiable e-mail B and get one solid answer. Job Still In Place. Check. Whew.<br />
<br />
Yesterday, we had an all-employee meeting. Who knew we had so many employees? They came out of cubicles and doors. They came from under the buildings and above the buildings. They came from facilities and faculty and staff and part-time and quarter-time and full-time and administration. We came for ... wait for it ... a Power Point presentation on the state of our lives.<br />
<br />
Slides slid in and out. Charts appeared, morphed, and vanished. 15 full time positions eliminated. 18,000 part-time hours cut. Work week hours increased. Health center closing. Two sports teams eliminated. Ten open positions closed out. 11 faculty members who are eligible for early retirement will get to buy that Range Rover they've always wanted. And then, the organizational restructuring chart. We stared. 13 divisions condensed into 6. Alliances shifted. Who? Where? When? How? Seriously?<br />
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And then I saw the slide that set me free. I, a proud and noble department of one, long struggling (cue melodrama music) under the heavy shadow of Composition studies, have been divorced (amicably) from the English department. I am now actually officially a department, and I am now part of Liberal Arts and Sciences. My English department colleagues have become part of the Math department (how fun, though, it would have been to call my mom and tell her I've been moved to the Math department) under the new division of Foundation Studies. I've always felt like an impostor in the English department. I can teach anybody how to write better, but it's inauthentic to me to teach composition. I've pretended well, and I think because I understand writing, it's sort of worked, but my soul has shivered a bit. "It's OK," I tell her. "We teach composition so we can buy funky clothes." Usually that works.<br />
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But now, I can play with the other crazy art people where I have always belonged. I now can have department meetings with only myself instead of having to sit through hours of English department meetings which dealt with things I don't have to deal with. I no longer have to pretend that teaching rhetoric is important to me, and no one will expect that I care about or keep up with composition studies. It's been so exhausting (cue hand to forehead) being a twirly-crazy-dancy-person in a field of rigid paragraph structures and outcomes assessment. I can now talk about stories with the crazy Humanities instructor whose PhD is in mythology. The psychology professor stopped by yesterday and we wrote a poem together. My people! My people! I have arrived!<br />
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I also get to keep my supervisor, who has been a staunch supporter of creative writing and my program. So, I tried not to be too giddy as my colleagues of 7 years try to readjust to being with a new division with a new dean who does not know their subject matter. I tried to not be too giddy, but I am anyway. And ultimately, I'm grateful for a job, and if one day I find myself back in the English department, I'll be grateful for a job and the ability to diversify, and fewer years to go before retirement.<br />
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But in the meantime, I am very excited about what this new organization can mean for the creative writing program. Yes, we have to cut back and cut our course offerings like everyone else, but we have a chance at a legitimacy we could never have in the shadow of Composition. We will be able to grow up now -- to individuate and become something we could never be in an English department. I've already talked with some of the arty-folks no one knows how to classify about doing Guerrilla Art on campus and around town to try and promote the arts and general education classes. Spontaneous poetry? Dance? Who knows. <br />
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The administration waved a magic wand and set me free. At last. They see me, my students, and my program for what it has always been: Artists creating art.<br />
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Oh happy, happy day.Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7153414249560751405.post-78239751984209870272011-01-10T13:39:00.000-08:002011-01-10T13:39:32.560-08:00Calvin & Hobbes & Us & Them & Arizona<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWzm_DT-D3tu2IVFu54Nsn8hNOdl4NY0xle_OrELVxE4yt-Q6kA0bTupGQUwOs3GoaW0_yXBU87Eksk9GxMD_MnzjB5TWp_DZVDDt1_r-p1N6jMbzhRXa7a-o0j8IoenAaDxcxhP-w5Ng/s1600/calvin+and+hobbes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWzm_DT-D3tu2IVFu54Nsn8hNOdl4NY0xle_OrELVxE4yt-Q6kA0bTupGQUwOs3GoaW0_yXBU87Eksk9GxMD_MnzjB5TWp_DZVDDt1_r-p1N6jMbzhRXa7a-o0j8IoenAaDxcxhP-w5Ng/s320/calvin+and+hobbes.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
Here's a <a href="http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y46/fenderrocker/CalvinandHobbeswinter-1.png">link</a> to the Calvin & Hobbes cartoon above.<br />
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Most of you know I live in Arizona, a state that has been in national news a lot this past year for a variety of reasons, very few of them positive. This weekend, you've no doubt heard about the Tucson shooting. I have been thinking about what to say about that, if anything. I have been sitting for the past year in the cesspool of the political rhetoric in AZ on both sides on immigration, on citizenship issues, on English and Spanish language in schools. I know exactly what Safeway parking lot the shooting took place in. Tucson was my home for a little over two years, and I always think of Tucson in shades of yellow and turquoise.<br />
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I went to the YouTube site of the alleged shooter. I won't link to it here. You know how to find it if you want to read what he said. I went to his site because the man was a community college creative writing student. I went there, like I went to the Virginia Tech shooter's site (who was also a creative writing student), because each man was using language to try and say something.<br />
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It's my job to read people's writing and then try and help them figure out what they are trying to say. Every semester, we get students whose thought processes don't make sense on the page -- ideologies aside, their sentence structures are backwards, their logical leaps fall off cliffs. Every semester, we get students who are the lone wolves, the outsiders, the ones who don't gel with the group. Every semester we get a threatening one.<br />
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The last time I taught freshman composition, I realized the depth of the divisions among our students. For $50K a year, do I have the energy to incite them out of their belief systems and into honest dialogue? Not really. We faculty get told we're promoting left wing agendas. We get told we're communists. Elitists. Intellectuals. We get called all sorts of things, but most of us are just trying to help people think critically. Believe what you want. Vote how you want. But understand how and why you believe what you believe. Look at other points of view. When I first started teaching, I enjoyed teaching argumentation and rhetoric because it was fascinating to watch people open to other viewpoints (both sides). I don't see this as much, and in a state where we think it's OK to carry concealed weapons anywhere, I'm not inclined to push at doors that are sealed shut.<br />
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I read the writings of the alleged shooter. His thought processes (not the content, but the process itself) are very familiar to me as a teacher of developmental and first year composition. And though he's writing what appears to ramble, those ramblings reveal clues. He appears to recognize the importance of words even though he does not know how to use them well. He wrote, 'What's government, if words don't have meaning?'<br />
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I thought about that sentence a lot. I thought about how hard it is to accept the chaos and randomness of this world. I thought of all the religions and belief systems set up by people to help provide a way we can make meaning out of chaos. As humans, we seem to need to have a meaning almost more than we need oxygen. The commentators and news programs yesterday and today are already tracking the path of the shooter, laying down the clues, the breadcrumbs, that will help them write the story of meaning (or at least a reason for) the killing. Meaning helps us be at peace, it seems. Only, since no one can agree on meaning, the stories we create seeking peace often incite conflict.<br />
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We have been killing each other as long as we have had the tools to do so. We have yet, apparently, to find a story about it that makes it make sense to everyone. A story that makes it OK. Or a story that will convince all of us to stop. We continue our killing, actively and passively, and we then try and make a hierarchy of the dead so the illusion of order is maintained. (You can think about this hierarchy in the context of food -- this animal and this one are OK for food -- those animals are pets. Of course, choosing which animals are pets and which are food is the luxury of those with enough to eat.)<br />
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Our media is going to use language, words, to construct the story of this shooting and the story of the shooter. We are going to find a way with language to tuck this into the fabric of our country in the pattern we are most comfortable with. Right now, what seems comfortable is to blame the events on a climate of bitterness. It's this radio host; no it's that one! It's this cable show; no it's that one! The blame story, a familiar one, is also an external one. It is also only a single part of the fabric. I always had trouble teaching cause and effect writing because I don't believe there's a clear sequence. To me, causes and effects are simultaneous, and there are a multitude of factors involved in any action which results in a consequence. There's not a single reason for things, and often, I think, there is no reason at all. It just is. Things just are. The mind fights this concept. Observe it.<br />
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When I was in my twenties, all I knew to do was shout. I read books on feminism that made me angrier and angrier at what I felt had been denied to me because I was a woman. I read rants, wrote rants, and wrote plays and stories that attacked men, attacked patriarchy, attacked society.<br />
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I don't do this anymore. I have become apolitical. I vote, but I do not engage in political discussions except with those closest to me. I do not try to persuade or coerce. Instead, I have been listening, and rather than trying to shout back, I have been trying to live a life of quiet grace and peace. I honestly don't know if this is akin to burying my head in the sand. I know some would say so. My favorite bumper sticker of my early twenties was "if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." I have found for myself that outrage leads to high blood pressure, weight gain, a sore throat, and a closed heart. The fire-anger I stoked in my body began to turn on me. I had to find another way. If I put a bumper sticker on my car today, it would be something like: Shut up. Listen.<br />
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Words are my way. Stories are my way. I read books with content I'd rather not know about. I watch documentaries and television shows that keep showing me that the world is much bigger than my tiny mountain town. It is too easy to live in Prescott, and I do not want to fall asleep. The very least I can do is bear witness to suffering. The very least. <br />
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I do not believe in a heaven and a hell. I do not believe in a being of some type who has predetermined our lives or who is manipulating them or benevolently watching over them. I do, though, see divinity all around me, in what we label as sacred and what we label as profane. Our practice, as I see it, is to face ourselves. To sit with the conflicts raging within us and breathe into them. Soften to them. Open the door to the totality of who we are -- the parts of us who will rescue an animal from the humane society and the parts of us who will step over a homeless person on the street. Observe these things. Us and them, you and me, all contained inside each terrifying, beautiful human. Find the way to sit at peace with that.<br />
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Arizona has been bashed as a bastion of hate, bigotry, and intolerance. I am not prepared to deny those claims, and I am often ashamed and appalled by the rhetoric of Arizona, but I will propose that Arizona is part of a larger whole, and that which is found in Arizona is found in every state, in every country. These are not qualities of Arizona. These are human qualities. The shooter's website also stated "I am human." Indeed. Let us not turn our backs to that. Let us dare to look at the totality of humanness, not just its tenderness and gentleness. The more we turn away and deny the sides of ourselves we find 'ugly', the fiercer and louder they become. <br />
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I cannot imagine holding a gun and shooting a living thing, yet I eat meat, I drive a car, I wear leather. I cannot deny that I am a part of a world that kills, even if I am not the one with the literal gun in my hand. If I rage against the hunter while still consuming what he kills, I am fracturing myself into unrecognizable pieces. I cannot imagine the grief of the parents of the child who died, or the families of the other victims, or the feelings of Representative Gifford's husband, but neither can I offer them a half-sculpted story of the hows and whys. If I were sitting with them today, I could only sit with them, listen, hold their hands if they asked, stay silent while they cried. <br />
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My friend <a href="http://www.caincarroll.com/">Cain Carroll</a> tweeted this last summer: <i>The heart may have to break a thousand times to make enough room for the kind of love it takes to embrace the world as it is.</i><br />
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My prayer and hope for us is that we sit still, listen without judgment, and breathe. That we allow our hearts to break open, screaming all the while until the breath runs clear and crisp and the edges we thought were barriers have vanished into stars.<br />
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As we write the story of these events, let's start inside ourselves. As we write the story, rather than look outward for meaning, look inward for compassion.<br />
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And then, may we let our stories go and stand empty in the field.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkTiA0QKvGueH9av8YnV9eX06ZtfM61U-_SgMqVOZcAaOhCP6NkwC85bqUfrr0KcvyPBU2exk43qL3ZtV0OTFOT5UUaeHMbCEddz3ojj_JwGvD9cCBKVz_gvEXO2RdaR5FD0AAT6gEYcU/s1600/cat+existential+crisis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="396" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkTiA0QKvGueH9av8YnV9eX06ZtfM61U-_SgMqVOZcAaOhCP6NkwC85bqUfrr0KcvyPBU2exk43qL3ZtV0OTFOT5UUaeHMbCEddz3ojj_JwGvD9cCBKVz_gvEXO2RdaR5FD0AAT6gEYcU/s400/cat+existential+crisis.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7153414249560751405.post-34522462717046826332010-11-29T13:58:00.000-08:002010-11-29T13:58:36.479-08:00So You Want to Write a Novel<iframe frameborder="0" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/c9fc-crEFDw?fs=1" width="425"></iframe><br />
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If only I wrote this, but I didn't. But I could have. And at this time of the semester when I have heard everything (& I mean everything) about how easy writing is, how anyone can do it, why grammar doesn't matter (there are editors, silly girl!), why reading is dying, why there's no craft involved in writing, no work involved, no revision, no discipline (it's creative after all) ... how I want to be allowed to say, as this poor teacher in the video says, "I wish I could kill you and get away with it."<br />
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But I can't say it.<br />
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So, for all of you who are teaching writing, this is for you. And for all of you who are writing, this is for you.<br />
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And for those of you who are my students who do get it (and I know who you are, and I think you do too...) thank you. It's because of you that I can stand the rest of it. If you know why the phrase "fiction novel" is hilarious, thank you. If you know why this dear young writer is delusional, thank you. If you understand why phoning agents is hilarious, why "I've been living my life, not wasting my time reading" is hilarious, why "but my idea is a guaranteed bestseller", why the emphasis on "my work is copyrighted" is hilarious, and why "but I'm the talent" is hilarious, thank you, thank you, thank you. Come back to my class anytime. We'll work it. <br />
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And to whomever put this video together, thank you for saying everything that my overworked, end of the semester internal censor must stop cold at my teeth.<br />
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I'll see you on Oprah. :-) (that's hilarious too...)Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7153414249560751405.post-74982396458112730162010-11-17T14:26:00.000-08:002010-11-17T14:26:20.132-08:00In Defense of Fiction<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQJp3h3dnL3lKmQ1aAdmtC4Z_vEpUtQYNPESylYX8JnrOQxP_xAfOfV-RjWBnCBFbxCPsPtOGcf0pvxXBQUw9cbE4ulYQ7OGvuuSKR2YL72an_1Bfsy8LgazzXZrDo5QJcZbjKO8MG1SQ/s320/voices+in+head+kitteh.jpg" width="320" /></div><br />
Something has happened. Somewhere along the line, imagination has become a bad word. Reading stories that are not "true" has become a waste of time, something one does while waiting for a root canal, or because one is in a literature class being force-fed novels. There are so many "true" books out there, why read fiction? <br />
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I hear this from my students (keep in mind, these are students who want to be writers). The gifts of a story, a piece of fiction, have gotten lost in the labyrinth of information and data and statistics that have become the ways in which we measure the success of our lives. I simply cannot tell you how this breaks my heart. Data never makes me cry (well, maybe in frustration). Information may tell me which train to take and what corner to stand on to catch that next bus, but it won't make meaning of my journey. The meaning comes from the filters. From the point of view, from the characters, from the false starts, the connections, the disconnections, the revisioning, and most important of all, the reflection.<br />
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The characters from my childhood fictions (Ramona the Pest, Harriet the Spy, Betsey, Tacy and Tibb, Paddington the Bear, the Velveteen Rabbit) are as much a part of my family as my literal family. Toni Morrison's stunning character Beloved, Shug Avery in Alice Walker's <i>The Color Purple</i>, Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King, John Grimes from James Baldwin's <i>Go Tell It On the Mountain</i>, Rosa in Alma Luz Villanueva's <i>The Ultraviolet Sky</i> -- these characters, these people, (and thousands more) showed me something about myself. They showed me something of the world, of a different way of living, of unexamined possibilities.<br />
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Data did not tell me I could be a writer (though my childhood test scores showed that.) Harriet the Spy told me that. Data did not tell me I could move out of Phoenix, but Rose in <i>The Ultraviolet Sky</i> did. I don't know how to show my students how much fiction matters. The obsession with 'truth' in world filled, at best, with 'truthiness', is puzzling to me. <br />
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I fear that we are losing the people underneath all our knowledge.<br />
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I fear that we are losing empathy in our desire to be right.<br />
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I fear that we are losing compassion in a rush to be first.<br />
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What if we stopped dividing into true/not true and just told stories? What if, by "just" telling stories, we learned to listen rather than argue? And what if, in the middle of all of that, we heard one another rather than distilled each other's words down to the lowest common denominator? <br />
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Even I cringe at the Pollyanna-ish nature of that paragraph. (But Pollyanna, of course, was a fiction). But I am going to continue to shout it out because I cannot bear the thought of a world without stories. I cannot imagine who I would have been without them.<br />
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Read them. Write them. Tell them. Nurture them. Buy them. Make up characters and dance with them. Create storylines and inhabit them. It is imagination that will free us. It is imagination that will open doors.<br />
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This image below is from Phillip Toledano's website <a href="http://www.dayswithmyfather.com/">Days With My Father</a>. The website is a gorgeous photo essay of the final days of his father's life. His dad had Alzheimer's and died at 99 years old. The photo essay opens with the death of Phillip's mother, Helene. His father doesn't understand where Helene has gone, and it's tearing both of them apart for Phillip to keep saying day after day, "She died, dad. Mom died." So, Phillip told him that she had gone to Paris, which seemed to help them both. A fiction. A truth. Please go take a look at Phillip's website. It ends with this note that his father had written to Helene (who had already died, of course, but was, to him, happily in Paris).<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOHLtUAbVIQ8LIuaNliQFiF_-DsoPlTEtoC-vysS-yMiUBXSqAN5jn4U5_r70BnwyJW0rDn91dxp8QAEZ46OCxmrnoLmVAcorXpN7UEiwfGN9PtYkXK8764bFDoyV6Yxpkb65viaZ2d5o/s1600/dayswithmyfather.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOHLtUAbVIQ8LIuaNliQFiF_-DsoPlTEtoC-vysS-yMiUBXSqAN5jn4U5_r70BnwyJW0rDn91dxp8QAEZ46OCxmrnoLmVAcorXpN7UEiwfGN9PtYkXK8764bFDoyV6Yxpkb65viaZ2d5o/s320/dayswithmyfather.jpg" width="303" /></a></div>Now tell me again why fiction doesn't matter. Why only the literal truth (whatever that is) will save us. Tell me again why we communicate best in zeros, ones, and pie charts.<br />
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Tell me again, but please, tell it to me in story, the language of my heart, the only language of love.Laraine Herringhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05890043873658222111noreply@blogger.com5