Write Well Me

My Response

Here was today's Note from the Universe:

I was wondering, Dawn, if we could use your name, story, and likeness to begin promoting a new series here for angel trainees called, "Extreme Success in Time and Space"?

You blow us away every single day.

Thanks,
    The Universe

Sure, Universe.  Happy to oblige.  Good luck with the series.  :)

Words of the Day

Every so often, I have words that are so impactful for me that I have to stop and take notice of them.  And, of course, since I process my world through words, I have to write them down.  (This is part of an ongoing series - at least in my head - of Power Words. See the original post from almost three years ago.)

And so for your viewing pleasure, today's words:

Allow
Shift
Clarity
Love
Trust
Faith
Amazing
Gratitude

Along with the above words, it appears that I have a mantra for today:

Allow.  Breathe.  Live.

What are your words for today?

License Plates - what they teach me about seeing words

NOTKENS

What do you see?

At first, I thought it was "no tokens."  Someone really passionate against the proposed slots bill here in Maryland.

But then I realized it was probably "Not Ken's."  (I figured it was Ken's wife's car, but Ken was driving.  Well, I did see this at the gas station, so maybe Ken was just being nice and getting gas in his wife's car.)

It's a bit like that exercise - what two words do you see in "NOWHERE"?

Either "no where" or "now here."

What I found interesting about this was how my brain broke up the string of words.  I saw "no" before I saw "not."

Introducing Molly and Jake

I started work on my next short story.  Last week, I spent time getting all my thoughts down on note cards and up on my big bulletin board.  I had thoughts but no direction.  Ideas but no structure.

Then, yesterday, in the shower, I received inspiration.  My main character was Molly, who was married to Jake.  I had a starting scene, personalities, details.

So I wrote the beginnings of the story, beginning with Molly and Jake.

It occurred to me when I was done that it would be cool to write it on a blog-like platform and let others see my writing process.  I teach writing; why not show it?

I'm not quite that brave yet.  :)  And I don't know that any of what I wrote yesterday will even make it into the story.  It might be all background and development, necessary for the writer to do in order to get a sense of her characters and the story, but perhaps never making the final cut.

And all that is part of the process, too.  And could be important for other writers to see.

Maybe the next one. 

For now, welcome to the world, Molly and Jake.

Book Review - Family Folktales: What Are Yours?

I was asked to review Family Folktales: What Are Yours as part of Karen Pierce Gonzalez's book blog tour.  I loved the idea of writing as folktales, and I was happily surprised that Karen's book included writing how-to's.  Over and over, she talks about writing as a process, and she gently encourages the reader (and future folktale writers!) to get started.

The best part of the book, for me, was the idea of popular folktale archetypes and motifs.  Almost like prompts, the lists of common folktale characters and settings shifted my mindset around the idea of writing family history.  I never thought about writing down family stories, but thinking of them in terms of folktales made me seriously consider it. 

Plus, it also helps that I have a great model for this in a family book my grandparents wrote a couple of years ago and distributed around.  Small Child recently used it as the basis of her genealogy project.  Seeing how much enjoyment she got out of learning things about her great-grandpa was heart-warming. She feels she is the keeper of his stories.

And now Karen's book shows us something of how anyone can be a keeper of his/her family's stories.

To find out more, visit Folkheart Press.

This review was a proud part of a blog tour. Yesterday, March 23rd, Leah Dallaire reviewed Family Folktales.

Tomorrow, March 25, the tour continues with Heidi Richards, and her interview with Karen about the book.

Commitment

I recently had a friend ask me about commitment.  What does it mean to be committed?  According to Dictionary.com (I went for easy, not Oxford English Dictionary.  Remember, we're trying to find an easy definition, not the 1000 places the word has shown up in history), "commitment" means "a pledge or promise; obligation; engagement; involvement."

So, what does it mean?

Does it mean that if you're committed to something or someone that you're committed to that thing or person to the exclusion of all else?

No.

For example, I'm committed to my writing.  One's perception of being committed to writing might look like this: I get up and write.  I take a break to eat breakfast, absentmindedly kiss my children good-bye for school, all the while thinking about my writing.  They leave for school, and it's back to writing.  I forget to eat lunch, I'm so engrossed in my writing.  When the door opens, accompanied by shouts of "Mommy! We're home," I jump and look guiltily at the clock, the pile of dirty laundry, and the empty pantry.  Ooops.  I hurry down to fix a snack out of old Saltines and the last bit of scraped peanut butter.  As soon as the children settle down to their homework, I rush back up to my creative space to see if I can get a few more pages in before someone magically manifests dinner.  After said magically manifested dinner, I beg off another round of Monopoly, crying out, "But I'm committed to my writing!" Everyone nods in understanding, and there I am back at the computer, churning out pages and pages of beautifully written literature.

Well, that's not how writing goes in my house.

Yes, I'm absolutely committed to my writing.  And I have two daughters.  And I have a business I'm fully engaged in.  And I have relationships I'm committed to.  Writing is important, yes, but I can be committed to many things at once. Somehow, I make them all fit. 

Are there times that one of those priorities takes precedence over another? Absolutely.  If my children are sick, screw the writing, and my clients will understand.  If I've been working too much, then I might need to slack off at home and go play with my friends.

It all works out.

So, while my being committed to writing may not look like that perception above of a truly committed writer, I AM committed.  I write.  I take classes and workshops on writing.  I develop classes and workshops on writing.  I teach writing. I read, sometimes for enjoyment, and sometimes with a writer's eye to how that author did that.  I'm noting scenes, characters, theories, plots... And I write.

What does commitment look like to you?

Spaces in Your Togetherness

I was struck by several opposing themes in the poem below:  spaces in your togetherness...

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.   

"On Marriage" - Kahlil Gibran   

Speaking in Metaphors - Part II

A few weeks ago, I wrote about all the metaphors I had been using, and Doug wanted to know if using metaphors was a learned talent or if I've always spoken/written in metaphors.

I honestly don't know.  I don't think there was ever a conscious effort to start using metaphors.  "Hmmm. Let me now start using metaphors."  (Kinda reminds one of Monty Python and the Holy Grail:  "We are now no longer the Knights Who Say Ni.")

I do know that I've been more conscious of them (metaphors, not the Knights Who Say Ni - or don't) since writing has become a bigger part of my life.  I'm aware of metaphors, I use them, and I think about how they affect my writing and my ability to convey my message.

So, sorry, Doug. I can't really tell you if it's natural or a learned thing.  A bit of both, I suspect.  How can we get there? By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the social and economic differences in our society! If there's EVER going to be any progress ...

(Sorry, had to let my inner geek peek through for a minute.)

Push Vs. Pull

In my coaching session with Stacy last week, we talked about all these amazing things that are coming so easily to me:  being approached to give and get paid for - very important! - a writing workshop; potential travel to Boston and Scotland (yes, the country) paid for by my clients; a new collaboration that's going to do wonderful things for Write Well U and writers who are interested in publishing; finishing my short story and working on the next one;  excited about my future...

I gushed and gushed about all these wonderful things happening. It feels like Christmas all the time.

Stacy's observation:  "You've been pushing most of your life to get where you are.  Now, you're not pushing so much, and you're pulling these things to you."

And I realized she's right.  Most of my life has been constant pushing.  The last few months, as rough as they have been, have involved me letting go of some of these areas (maybe all - I can't think of an area where I'm still having to push).  And since I let them go (at the time not realizing how much I had had to push and work), it's freed my energies, and I'm not fighting against the current.

That's where I want to be.  Maybe all of us want to be there, but how many of us really are?  How much of our lives are spent pushing, pushing, pushing because that's the way we think it has to be? Or it's not an ideal situation and we're trying to make the most of it? Or we're taking responsibility for everything to make life bearable, to make it work?  Or we put up with things because we think we have to, because that's just the way things are?

So I give up the pushing, and, instead, I pull things to me.  To put it another way, and to use another metaphor, it's like flowing downstream instead of fighting upstream.  (That metaphor comes from Stacy and when I wrote this post, it was Dominic's birthday weekend.  I wasn't going to bug her for clarification. I'm sure she'll happily comment and expand upon that metaphor if necessary.)

Here's to pulling life, wonder, gifts, desire, joy, love, fulfillment, creativity to me.  Even just writing that sends shivers up my spine. 

Still Virtual, But Flesh-and-blood, Too

A little over a week ago, I facilitated a writing workshop for a women's group.  This group of women meets once a month, and they explore topics ranging from Reiki to time management to writing.  (Hint: that last is where I come in.)

Several women in the group write and/or are interested in writing, but their main obstacle to being happy little writers is getting past the noise in their minds to the words behind the clutter.  A common problem, and one that I help people with all the time.  It was quite easy (and soooooooo much fun) to design a workshop around this topic.  I had material, exercises, tools... The workshop ran for 2 1/2 hours, and I didn't come anywhere near using all my material.  (The benefits of a teaching background - NEVER run out of things for the kidlets to do.  Or maybe that's from twelve years of kids' birthday parties...).

One of the tools I showed them was a strategy I showed small child some time ago.  Anastasia came to me, frustrated.  "I have all these ideas in my head, and I don't know what do with them!"  I gave her a box that fits index cards, and we brainstormed different categories.  She has a category for ideas for characters, titles, ideas for stories, scenes, added ideas - ones that are put together to make up a story.

I asked her if I could take her writer's box to the workshop as an example.  "Cool!" she said.  "I'll be famous to, like, ten people." 

"I'm also going to write about it on my blog."

"Oh.  Well, then, I'll be famous to eleven people." 

She thinks she's funny.  I have at least two readers of my blog.

Anyway, being asked to do this workshop (and getting paid for it, by the way), designing it, and giving it reminded me that facilitating workshops and eventually retreats has been part of my long-term goals.  I do virtual very well, but I shine in person. 

Giving in-person workshops is going to become a bigger facet of Write Well U, and I just can't express how dog-gone excited I am about it. 

Lost an Ovary; Gained a Short Story

Last spring, I had some medical issues come up, of the feminine variety.  To dot all the i's and cross all the t's, my doctor did a biopsy of a cyst he found on my ovary. Common occurrence, regular procedure.  Still, one worries.  Well, at least I did. 

I wrote a bit about the worries and how they were connected to the novel I was writing at the time.  I didn't mention the particular medical issues at the time; they weren't key to the point I was making.  The issue was that I absolutely felt that my health was directly related to what I was writing.  Here's what I said about it:

I have to get this book done.  Writing it is causing mental and physical distress.  Now, I could choose to not write it, but that doesn't feel like an option either.  Not writing it would cause even more mental distress, and maybe more physical problems.  Writing this book will get me well.  So Write Well Me becomes write to get myself well.

Fast forward a bit.  My doctor and I have been keeping an eye on the cyst, and my last exam didn't show anything. "The cyst has shrunk!" declared Dr. Kleinman. By the way, that exam was at the end of January.

With me so far?

Fast forward to two weeks ago and switch gears to the novel.  I decided I just couldn't write in that larger story any more; I was done with it, and wanted no part of it.  However, after my trip to Virginia Beach and being part of Laura's retreat of fabulous women, I resolved to write every day.  I got home from Virginia Beach on Friday night, and I started my writing routine up on Sunday (and I wrote about that here).

That night, swear to God, I started having pain.  I took some Tylenol, went to bed, and pretty much didn't think any more about it.  I woke up Monday morning, pain still there.  It wasn't any worse than cramps, so I still didn't think much about it.

However, as the morning wore on, my pain got worse and worse until I was having trouble breathing and moving. Dr. K. insisted I be seen by a doctor, so I drove myself to his office.  By the time I got there, I was in so much pain he couldn't do an exam.  He sent me to the ER, where, after four hours of waiting, I had a sonogram and a CT scan.  The cyst was back and measured about 5-6 cm (for those of you who aren't intimately familiar with female "stuff," when a woman dilates to 10cm, she's ready to give birth.  The cyst was half the size of a baby's head. Lovely).

Two days later, I had surgery to remove the cyst as well as my left ovary.  According to the surgeon and Dr. K., it was "all mashed in there together and definitely needed to come out."  (As one of my clients said, "Seven years of medical school, and all they can come up with is a term to describe potatoes?")

I can't help but think that it's WAY too much of a coincidence when I made the decision to cut out a major part of my novel (and that part being the piece of the novel that I believed was directly related to my state of health), the health issues recurred on a major scale, and I had that piece cut out of me.

Now I'm down to Ilsa's story, which is lovely, by the way.  Since I'm just working on this as the only story element, I'm down to about 12,000 words. Nothing near what I need for a novel. So, I'll probably make this the feature story in a collection of short stories: Out Of Nothing and Other Short Stories, by Dawn M. Goldberg.

I'm thinking that perhaps there could have been an easier way to get to this place.  ;->

What's In A Name - Part II

(As I went to type this in, I didn't realize I had already written another blog post with that title. It's not related, but "What's In a Name" is a perfect title for this post.  You can go read the original again if you want. It won't hurt you, I promise.)

So, I get tagged - again - on Facebook to do another meme.  I sooooooo wasn't going to do this one (how many Facebook tagging things can one do? All right, don't answer that...), but then it's all about names and words and the like.

Sigh.

Fine.

Here goes.

1. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother & father's middle name)
Lynn Aaron

2. NASCAR NAME: (first name of your mother's dad, father's dad)
George Thomas

3. STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name)
Golda (I really don't like this one. Can't I have a cooler Star Wars name?)

4. DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)
Purple Hippo (Ain't no one gonna hire a detective named Purple Hippo. Just sayin'.)

5. SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)
Michelle Meridian

6. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd fav color, fav drink, add "THE" to the beginning)
The Burgundy Cosmo

7. FLY NAME: (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name)
Darg (Okay, that's funny right there.)

8. GANGSTA NAME: (fav ice cream flavor, fav cookie)
Butter Pecan Chocolate Chip (Sigh. Still no one's going to take me seriously.)

9. ROCK STAR NAME: (current pet's name, current street name)
Sam Woodfield School (It's getting worse....)

10. STRIPPER NAME: (name of your fav perfume/cologne, fav candy)
Beautiful Godiva (Ha!!! Finally! A good one!)

11. PORN NAME: (1st pet, street you grew up on)
Coca Zang (I've always liked this one.)

Writing Tells Stories

Writing is all about connection. We write in order to connect to people.  Even if we're journaling, and no one else is ever going to see what we wrote, we're connecting with ourselves. 

I've been looking at the part that words play in my life, and I realize that my story is everywhere around me.  My story is in the pictures I take, the magic stones I surround myself with, the flair board on my Facebook page, the playlists on my iPod, my Power Words, the blog posts I write.

All of these pieces tell as a story in their own right.  There's a story behind the four magic stones above (abundance, magic, bliss, amazing).  Every button on my flair board is there for a very good reason.

Those who know me or follow my blog can pick out familiar pieces of my story.  There are probably only a few people who know the whole story.  Heck, do *I* even know my whole story?

Even if you're primarily writing for business or general nonfiction, your writing is telling a story.  You want to connect with the reader.

What are the stories you're trying to tell? And where are those words showing up?