Fear and Fuel

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I was wasting time (yes, I do that) and reading some of my favorite blogs when, quite by accident, I came across this TedX talk by Jonathan Fields.

I listened to it, then I opened my notebook and wrote like crazy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkFRwhJEOos

For the youtube impaired, I’ll sum up by repeating Fields’s three questions you should ask yourself when you want to tackle something, but you’re afraid.

1) What will happen if I fail?

2) What will happen if I do nothing?

3) What will happen if I succeed?

On the surface, it doesn’t sound earth-shattering. But his point is that we often let unexamined fear stop us in our tracks.

The Writing Contract

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P1040599Remember three weeks ago when I blogged about my friend who drew up the writing contract? Today we had our follow-up meeting. She had not written every single day, but she wrote most days, and sometimes for a couple of hours instead of for the agreed-upon 20 minutes. This despite having the flu for a week.  She was satisfied. I read a couple of her pieces–along the lines of personal essay. I nagged her about revision. We wrote for 20 minutes, talked a little more, and ran off to our various meetings.

I met with another writer friend on Sunday, and she shared one of her contract-like stories. She has a friend who didn’t need a critique group for NaNoWriMo, but she did want to be able to call someone twice a day–once when she started writing, and once to report how much she had written. I like that idea.

So far this month, I have written at least a little bit every day. Many days I  spent 3-4 hours writing. I’ve written about 9,000 words total.  I have also cleaned up (again) the first 102 pages of my novel and I’ve given them (today) to my screenwriter friend, Deb, who has been begging me for them. 

What have you done?

Dear Alzheimer’s: A Caregiver’s Diary & Poems

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I hope it is not presumptuous of me to call Esther Helfgott my dear friend. I’ve known her for many years. We’ve been bumping into one another around Seattle poetry for decades, in fact, and in the last couple of years our meetings have grown in intensity, if not always in duration. I feel blessed to know, first hand, both her and her wise, thoughtful writing.

Esther was one of the first people to buy a copy of my new book, Sparrow, and I am very pleased to now be in possession of her new book, Dear Alzheimer’s: A Caregiver’s Diary & Poems. This coming Sunday she has an event at Ravenna’s Third Place Books, at 4 p.m., and I plan to be there.

I’ll let you know all about it. If you can come, let me know and we’ll talk after.

At the reading…

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This evening at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford  (7 p.m.) I’ll be reading from Sparrow. Here’s a sample:

On a Lack of Apples

The Lombardy Poplars line up
at the far end of the park like girls,

their arms linked, ready
to call Red Rover, Red Rover and come running in.

Maybe fruit was only a metaphor–

image to assuage the mind’s tongue,
fancy’s luminous palate. Outside the garden

fall litters the ground, a carpet
of discarded color. Through bare ladders

of the poplars, the sky hangs blue
and full of God as ever. In the air, a chill,

the call of geese departing,
or no sound at all, the sound

a snake must make, seeking warmth deep
in the earth’s deep pockets.

apples