Thanks, Matthew McConaughey, for the Epiphany

I had an epiphany this week. I think it started when we were watching “True Detectives,” a new HBO series my husband and I can finally sink our teeth into. McConaughey plays the best role I’ve ever seen him play, including his stellar performance in Dallas Buyer’s Club. Something was different about this role. He shines in a way his other picks have not allowed him to shine. The satisfaction he feels playing Detective Rust Cohle is palpable, and it makes watching it so satisfying. The energy comes through.

When I think about the writings I’ve loved, I can feel it when the author is having the same experience as McConaughey in this role. It doesn’t matter whether the writer is a poet, a blogger, a teen writing a paper, or a kid writing a poem for his mom. I can feel it when the person poured themselves into the words and they are not just a mere combination plate of syntax and correct punctuation with a simile and metaphor thrown in on the side. These are the writings that move me.

I can also feel it on the writing side which is why I like blogging so much. I don’t blog for my Ego’s sake, or my web presence, or to show off how to spell big words or just pretty literary quips. If those were my primary motivators, I’d quit in about 5 minutes. I blog because I’m really moved by something and want to put those feelings into language because that’s my playground.

This is also why I have to work on novels I’m passionate about, not ones that follow a formula and fit nicely into a commercial genre in the bookstore. If the feeling isn’t there for this 90% kinesthetic girl, the writing is going to be shit. On this, I’m clear.

This idea seems so basic, yet struck me so profoundly. Thank you, Matthew McConaughey, for the moment of clarity. It’s a good reminder of where my heart needs to stay.

Sacred Space

Some people fantasize about exotic trips around the world. Others crave fame, or recognition for their work, money, or admiration for their educational and professional accomplishments. Here’s what I fantasize about, right here to your left: sacred space.

The idea of sacred space is as old as man. It’s a concept I’ve seen played out by the Native American’s in beautiful ways. When I was young, we had a friend who was the matriarch of a Northern California Native tribe. Her daughter was the tribal shaman for a period of time. The daughter would go up to a mountain top (a place no non-tribal person could ever go) and she would stay there overnight while her mother kept guard on the ledge below doing ceremony. They knew this space would help accelerate the healing that needed to take place between tribe members and they gave it great respect and reverence.

The desert is also one of these places. Once in Sedona, we had a trail guide take us to sacred sites and perform Native rituals intended to help us see the world in a more connected way. He wrapped a native blanket around us and took us through a guided visualization commonly performed in Native traditions. Just being on the top of a mesa, looking out at the stunning valley of red rock and indigenous plants, with an eagle soaring through the lavender-blue sky, accelerated the experience in a way that couldn’t happen in a Safeway parking lot. The Sacred Space cemented the journey.

A friend and I were recently discussing this idea. She and her dying son had taken a sojourn to sacred spaces all across the country before his death. Each morning over coffee, they would share their dreams. Not long after their journey started, they started having the same dreams, and attributed that to the sacred spaces they slept in.

Sacred Space is palpable. N. Scott Momaday said when you’re in this space, “you touch the pulse of the living planet; you feel its breath upon you.” People sense it. They seek it out. They know when they’re in it. And when I’m in it, my creative flow gushes through me in a way it doesn’t show up in other spaces. Building one writing space, for this very reason, is something I crave. (Now, when I write, it’s often on the couch, or at my childhood home where I can get quiet and see the vast green outside, or in some other nomadic location, including my car while waiting to pick up my kids.)

I dream of a place like the one in this picture. A simple place, where I can see out into nature and crack open to that creatively flow. The same space where I can go every day. A place with a desk and a chair and maybe a small bed. I picture Thoreau’s cabin, which we’ve visited on Walden Pond in Boston. (I’ve only recently learned that he and Emerson were friends and Emerson let Thoreau put the cabin on the land as a place to fully commune with nature.) In this phase of my life, I care less about accumulation and more about the simplicity of space, the space that allows me to hear that quiet voice flow through and feeling its breath on my neck.

“If you have been in the vicinity of the sacred – ever brushed against the holy – you retain it more in your bones than in your head; and if you haven’t, no description of the experience will ever be satisfactory.”

― Daniel Taylor, In Search of Sacred Places: Looking for Wisdom on Celtic Holy Islands

Trade Secrets

I’m inspired, intrigued, and aggravated when I listen to other writers discuss how they draft a novel. This is especially true–on all counts–if they’re really experienced and well-published. Somehow, it seems they may hold the keys to the Kingdom of Demystifcation, the magic place writers go to learn how most efficiently to do this whole novel writing thing.

Today, I felt those feelings whip around inside me, a tornado of uncertainty, as I sat and tried to keep an open mind while listening to Simon Wood speak about how he drafts his mystery/suspense/horror novels. He’s a prolific writer, mind you, and in the time it’s taken me to move one novel into the “publisher shopping” phase and start writing a second, he’s published God knows how many books (I’ve lost track), written numerous short stories, has audio books out, you name it. He’s a busy guy and he obviously has some secrets I need to know.

With a mechanical engineering background, he thinks in terms of design which means more of a laid out approach up front. Good idea, I think. Spreadsheets. I need spreadsheets. He gave great techniques, like color-coding scenes to balance protagonist, antagonist and subplot, and identify that you are keeping scene length consistent. Brilliant, I thought (with a charming English accent because that’s how he talks). I must do that straight away.

By the time he was done, I had a whole new approach laid out in my mind. But wait! I tried this last time! I was so organized on my first novel. I had a big master plan and acts and scenes–the whole shebang. In the redraft, I dumped it all on its head completely. The end product didn’t even look like a distant cousin of the first draft.

On my current novel, I have no poster board because I decided I’d just watch the movie unfold. This is more fun for me than the other way and I know the main story well so I figured this wouldn’t be a problem. I like the way my characters evolve and come into themselves in a way I couldn’t have forecasted in an outline. However, detail-wise, I’m floundering, and wishing I had a spreadsheet.

After listening to Simon’s process, I’m inspired to make a few tweaks. I’m grateful it came at this point in my suspense thriller because that’s his genre and he clearly knows his stuff. Hopefully, at some point, I’ll figure out some trade secrets I can share to make the writing process a little less mystifying for other writers.

I Live With My Editor

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday morning my editor (aka my husband) comes downstairs with a varying report on my blog of the day. (Knowing for sure I have at least one consistent reader makes my heart sing. Thank you, honey.) He’ll say things like “there are some problems with today’s blog” or “I liked your blog today” or “just one fix today.”

Since the Monday and Wednesday blogs archive, I fix those changes. Thursdays I don’t save. Sorry for you that you have to see the less perfect version, but if you ever go back and re-read one, most likely my editor and I will have it all cleaned up.

My first reaction used to be from my ego. “Oh, great. Now I’m going to look like I don’t know how to use the word there.” This really speaks to my own tendency to judge companies/FB statuses/emails from adults/menus that have multiple spelling errors as lacking in intelligence somehow.

I’ve come to learn that this is often not true and in fact keeps people from bravely expressing ideas, comments, themselves. The judging thing is my issue, my own personal vulnerability. I’ve given over to firmly believing wherever you are on the spelling and grammar spectrum, putting down your thoughts and showing who you are is the most important thing.

So I’m following my own advice. What you always get from me is first draft thoughts. I don’t spend time editing myself (that’s my editor’s job) and trying to sound anything else other than what I am in that moment, speling errrrors and alll.