I am a day late. Well a day for me. For you it’s 11pm but I’m just getting in from a morning run in Stockholm and realized I didn’t set up my blogs for while I was away. I don’t have much, as my trip has a rather demanding schedule and I’m trying to soak in these last few moments with my baby before she flys the nest. So here’s a poem. Next week I will try to do a little better.
Anticipation
Was there ever such sweet anticipation as a cherry in June? Held, eager between teeth where cold water droplets tease the tongue before the crisp breaking of delicate skin the flush of sun-warmed tartness carrying along the sugary bite but tender must teeth sink to gently toy with the unyeilding stone sucking it free of bright red pulp til pristine pebble is all that's left
I love this word. Abundance. Say it to yourself. Abundance. It feels full and heavy, it feels like satiation and potential. I love when my yoga teacher tells me to widen my stance, when bending forward to make space for my Abundance. It feels like a loving way to approach what we have, and to be content in our space.
As a creative, abundance is not something we may consider. In fact, if there’s anything a writer is good at, it’s practicing the fear of Abundances counter point; scarcity. Scarcity says that there won’t be a next idea. There won’t be a next poem or painting or song. Scarcity says you better hang on to this project and keep working on it, because it’s the only one you have. Scarcity will tell you lies of the well inside you, drying up. That once you expend so many words, there will be no more. Once you complete this idea, that will be the end of your road and maybe your career. So hang on, greedily to that idea, to that brilliant book proposal, that one perfect poem. It could be stolen or critiqued apart, or lost. Best to hold it close to you, where it maintains a certain pristine quality. Your precious.
The funny thing about scarcity, and abundance, is that they are both self- fulfilling states of being. When we hold on to one idea, one book, one poem…our hands are useless to catch more, to reach for more, to hold more. I know, its scary. To think that this might be your last, great idea. To let it go, either out into the world, or back into the drawer for a later date. It might feel (especially when you have been working on the same novel or project for years) that this is it. All you will ever be. All you will ever write. The great American novel, never to be surpassed. Perhaps you worry you’ll never write anything as good again ( I feel that, acutely friends) But I’m here to tell you from experience, that its a good time to look at it from a different perspective.
You see, your creativity and your potential to make more art, pursue different stories, write more…it’s endless. It is a bottomless well of energy. And even after we’re gone, the things that we put into the world spark more ideas, and more stories, so really…think of your writing and creativity as a river, not a stagnant pool. When you dam it up, from fear, from worry (I’ll never write another poem this good, my novel isn’t ‘ready’) stagnation will occur. It is the only idea (ie water) in your pond. Letting it go, releasing that barrier, putting it out, submitting it, allows the water to flow freely again.
Creativity, in this way, is abundant. It is a river that we dip our hands into and grasp the ideas that come our way, play with them, run with them, drink them in (don’t drink river water, please, giardia–Beaver Fever–is real) and then when its time, let them go down stream and sit along the banks for the next one to come along. And it will come.
How do we let go? We let others see it, we make the best changes we can and throw it out into the world. Be conscious that once you let it go, its a bird flown from the nest. It might come back to visit, but you are no longer it’s home, it belongs to the world now and you have a big beautiful space (time and mental playground) for the next hatchling.
I’ve used so many metaphors in this thing, I think I got lost myself. Rivers, birds, abundance. Always abundance. You have it. You have room for all the beautiful things in your brain and those that haven’t been found yet. So let go of the fear that you’ll dry up. Loosen your hands around your one great idea so you can embrace the potential of you.
In honor of Pride Month and celebrating all of the amazing human beings, in their struggled to be themselves, live fully, and be safe from violence and oppression, I’m doing all I can to support LGBTQ+ writers and poets. Listed below are a group of wonderful authors and their work that you should check out. If you can buy from them directly do, and leave positive reviews if you have some to give. Each one is an opportunity to learn, to grow, to understand and to find connection. Not just this month, but every month. Enjoy and be the loving force for change you want to see in the world.
One Day I Will Write About This Place: A Memoir by Binyavanga Wainaina
As Beautiful as Any Other: A Memoir of My Body by Kaya Wilson
La Bâtarde by Violette Leduc, translated by Derek Coltman
The Truth About Me: a Hijra Life Story by A. Revathi, translated by V Geetha
The Sex Lives of African Women: Self-Discovery, Freedom, and Healing by Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah
The Pink Line: Journeys Across the World’s Queer Frontiers by Mark Gevisser
Modern Nature by Derek Jarman
My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Nagata Kabi, translated by Jocelyne Allen
People Change by Vivek Shraya
Asylum: A Memoir & Manifesto by Edafe Okporo
Welcome to St. Hell: My Trans Teen Misadventure by Lewis Hancox
We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir by Samra Habib
Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir by Akwaeke Emezi
The Other Side of Paradise by Staceyann Chin
Red Azalea by Anchee Min
Me Hijra, Me Laxmi by Laxminarayan Tripathi, translated by PG Joshi and R. Raj Rao
They Called Me Queer compiled by Kim Windvogel and Kelly-Eve Koopman
Unicorn: The Memoir of a Muslim Drag Queen by Amrou Al-Kadhi
Angry Queer Somali Boy: A Complicated Memoir by Mohamed Abdulkarim Ali
Thérèse and Isabelle by Violette Leduc, translated by Sophie Lewis (1966)
Maurice by EM Forster (1971)
Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf (1928)
America is Not the Heart by Elaine Castillo
Hotel World by Ali Smith
Less by Sean Andrew Greer
The Price of Salt aka Carol by Patricia Highsmith
Valencia by Michelle Tea
Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta
Paper is White by Hilary Zaid
Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg.
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
Sodom Road Exit by Amber Dawn
Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes by Tony Kushner
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
The Book of Salt by Monique Truong
Tea by Stacey D’Erasmo
Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
Alice Isn’t Dead by Joseph Fink
Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
Marriage of A Thousand Lies by SJ Sindu
Nightwood by Djuna Barnes
Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
Close to Spider Man by Ivan E. Coyote
Jack Holmes and His Friend by Edmund White
A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
Fruit by Brian Francis
Salt Fish Girl by Larissa Lai
Morrow Island by Alexis M. Smith
Pages for You by Sylvia Brownrigg
Confucius Jane by Katie Lynch
Little Fish by Casey Plett
Such a Lonely, Lovely Road by Kagiso Lesego Molope
She of the Mountains by Vivek Shraya
For Today I Am A Boy by Kim Fu
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown
Disoriental by Négar Djavadi
Speak No Evil by Uzodinma Iweala
The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North
Never Anyone But You by Rupert Thomson
Hood by Emma Donoghue
Blue Boy By Rakesh Satyal
My Education by Susan Choi
Here Comes The Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
We Are Okay by Nina LaCour
Summer of Salt by Katrina Leno
48 Shades Of Brown by Nick Earls
Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman (2007)
The Language We Were Never Taught to Speak by Grace Lau
Butcher by Natasha T. Miller
Water I Won’t Touch by Kayleb Rae Candrilli
The Renunciations by Donika Kelly
Bestiary by Donika Kelly
Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor
Hello writers. How are you fairing in this strange, unhinged, cacophony of terror? Despite the political, cultural, and technological mess that we’re in, I hope that you’re shutting out distractions for at least a couple of hours a day to find some peace, and your own voice again.
Today, I wanted to talk about writing style. Not so much our voices as writers (though I’ll be covering that in a later post) but the way at which we approach the art, and the process of engaging in it. I’m in a busy season after signing on with my publishing company for another three-book series. It wouldn’t be so bad, but this is the first time I’ve proposed a series that was not yet complete. Which means, I now have a very real, somewhat daunting deadline of trying to write a novel (and polish it as well as I can) by the end of August. The first two books are done (mostly) so they will both be in editing by the end of this week. But the last book…
Let me start by explaining my process. I’ve written three trilogies. Two have been published, one is complete but won’t come out until 2026-2027. This newest one (my 4th) began with a Vella novel on Amazon (remember that flash in the pan?) and grew to a two book project that includes my first male-male romance as the second book. Both are fun, time-traveling fantasy romances, set in one of my favorite eras. All very exciting, and I had no trouble at all banging through the first drafts of them. Because I wrote them, as I always do, by puttering through whatever scene I was in the mood for at the time. Then I hodgepodged them together, as I always do, and fill in the gaps where needed.
Now that you have a little insight to my style (non-chronological, emotionally driven panster) I must tell you what a struggle this last, unwritten novel in the series is becoming. Because I had to write a proposal, I outlined it for my publisher. I never outline anything. I let the characters lead along a generalized path where there are key scenes I know I want to include. I had no key scenes starting out. I just knew a general path. It was all going along pretty well, for the first 20,000 words. And now…I’m stuck. I’ve pretty much written along the lines of my outline and I think the book won’t even make the 60,000 mark. In addition to that, when I’ve gone back to read, it all feels very flat. Like a Marvel movie. Like a dime-a-dozen romance. There’s no quirk. There’s no character depth. Even though it contains the same characters that I loved and developed for two books. So…what’s the deal?
Last night, after being stuck all week at that 20,000 word mark, I just let myself write a scene between the protagonist and the antagonist, a pivotal scene concerning the loss of someone very important. The concept was not in my outline. The scene was not planned, but just something my brain had been toying with in the shower after edits to the first novel started kicking in. I knew before starting this new scene, that it probably wouldn’t end up in the final version. It was just play.
But then…Suddenly there was passion. I saw true character coming out from underneath the gray and basic facade. I wrote over two thousand words in a matter of 20 minutes. That’s the kind of writing I’m used to. That’s my sweet spot. That’s my quirk. And I realized then, that for the last month I’ve been trying to write like other authors I know on deadlines. Straight through and stick to your outline. Keep it clean, time’s too limited to be able to waste it on multiple rounds of editing. The trouble is, there won’t be a book by the end of that limited time to edit, if I don’t write like my brain likes to write. I am not like any other writer. I’m quirky and I need to respect that.
So, that’s my lesson for you today. Yes, it’s important to try new methods and fart around with writing in different ways as a means to experiment and freshen up your routine, but I encourage you to find your quirk and respect it. What works for you, works. And when you’re on a deadline, do what works.
I’m in a weird mood today. This is the season of transitions, of pressures and demands, and I feel like I’m shutting down in the face of so much of it. Here’s a weird poem to align the inner workings of my mind to the outer life, relentlessly attacking.
Sweater
I put your memory on like an old sweater in all the little winters of my despair
Here the arms pull through to hide the stinging cuts Here, ribbed neck fraying to protect from the noose of loss
Here the cabled warmth falling over my eviscerated belly Here your memory tucks my vital pieces back together, safe and warm
The woolen comfort of words I will never hear again from nights you probably don't remember a softness in the dark, held briefly
I am a lint fuzz on your shoulder but you are my favorite sweater the one I cannot sleep without the only thing that offers relief
Purpose and hope exist in the scratchy bulk of a garment I once borrowed but was never mine to wear
I put your memory on like my favorite sweater in all these winters of self-imposed despair.
I’m at the last day of Writing Heights yearly Spring Workshop and Retreat. It’s been a wonderful two days filled with classes, writing time, collaborations, critiques, and conversation. Normally, I don’t do much talking or reaching outside of my happy little home-body shell, so these types of events are rare and sometimes anxiety fueled.
But when you agree to take leadership of something, you don’t really have the option to sit back and let someone more extroverted take over. I believe that living a decent life has more to do with stepping outside of your comfort than constantly seeking it. And the beauty of it is that the uncomfortable and large becomes like a warm sweater and an intimate evening. I’ve been to a lot of conferences and retreats, but somehow its this group that always feels like coming back home.
If this retreat has taught me anything, its that there are so many beautiful, intelligent, thoughtful and worthy voices in this world that need to be heard. It has taught me that art is not dead, that hope is not lost, and that we are all standing on the edge of something extraordinary. To know we are not alone in the struggle, to know that someone is rooting for us to continue on, and that words still matter maybe even more than ever is enough to lift any downtrodden heart out of the mud. Separate, we are all each a powerful story waiting to be told. Together we are an ocean of love, a battlefield of strength, a universe of humanity, and the unshakeable faith that something greater will be found in the connection to this beautiful tapestry of human consciousness.
My advice to you is this. Live your life with a sense of urgency (not anxiety) and purpose. Live as if you knew you didn’t have forever to waste. Do the thing. Today. Write the words, finish the poem, read it out loud. The love of writing, of learning, and seeing new perspectives is a rising tide against ignorance and hate. The world needs you now. We must not falter.
Thank you to my amazing writers (yes I’ve claimed you as mine, like a momma duck keeps all her littles safely close) to the teachers who helped me by offering their knowledge and expertise, their warm hearts and belly laughs. I hope if you’re a writer, reading this, then you find a way to meet us in the mountains next time. Bring your heart and all your words.
Next retreat is October 16-19th in Winter Park, CO. Find out more HERE
To be exact, they were what I would deem a “nightcrawler”. On my rainy walk, with my rescue dog River, and her distaste for the wet (I think it’s the pit bull in her mix) we encountered the large under-dweller, struggling against the asphalt. I watched for a moment. Remembering, that as a child growing up in a dry state (Wyoming), we rarely saw worms that size. If ever you did, was a good omen to gardeners and those were the ones you never took fishing. I bent down lower than my 45 year old knees liked and gently picked up its twisting body, and placed them gently in my palm where it squirmed for freedom, even from a small safety. The rain poured down around us and I let myself feel all of the tickling, wriggling, slightly slimy motion of a life in peril. I took them tenderly towards the grass and out of the space where tomorrow’s sun on the blacktop would bake them, and set them down.
“There you go buddy, good luck.” I said and a woman walking her dog on the sidewalk, moved carefully away from me.
Why don’t we care for things anymore? When did we become so crass? How is it we have become too busy to save even the smallest of consciousnesses? I’ve been thinking a great deal about ‘modern’ life these days, and how less like actual life it feels. “Life” is suddenly something we are fed, by those who control the information. Life is on screens, and filtered to be pretty, it’s reductive, or ridiculous. Competitive and unrealistic. It’s shallow and degrading. When was the last time you held something in your hand that was real? A worm? Your child’s hand? Dirt from your garden? A pen? An apple? Someone you loved (known or in secret) arms wrapped tight and trying to stop time, just for a minute? When did you notice last, a being in struggle? Did you stop? Did you help?
I no longer want to be part of an unreal world. I don’t have years to waste on anything not authentic. What is the point? If I only have so many days, why would I spend them sucked into an algorithm? I want to hear my friend’s voices. I want to read their handwriting. I want to see them across a table or next to me on a walk. I don’t want to be force fed advertising, and told that I need wrinkle cream. As though the natural progression of my body is not something to rejoice in and enjoy. I don’t want to be told in spiraling doom scroll what this world amounts to in the number of likes or angry faces it has. Watch the volley of hatred and hurtful ignorance between neighbors be slung around like poisoned arrows. See artists reduced to fodder for machines, and the brainwashing of it all being NECESSARY, take us over, as though we have no choice in the matter. How can we really justify, as artists, “needing” a platform that abuses and misuses our hard work? I can’t. I never had any big hopes of making it in the industry anyway, so I’m not going to keep buying into a system of false promises, while it robs me of my creativity and passion.
We haven’t always been this way. Don’t you remember?
I know I will miss out. Your faces, your lives, the beauty of your progression in the world. I will not see you. I won’t get to laugh at your memes or comfort you in times of loss. But I will think of you. Just because I’m not there, posting weird writing shit, or poetry, or my bastard of a cat…I am here, thinking about you. Whether we’ve been friends since the fourth grade, or you just joined my writing group, or you read my books, or you gave birth to me…I love you. You don’t need the algorithm to tell you that. You don’t need Facebook as a go-between to keep us connected. I’m here. Loving you. Hoping good things for you. Wishing you a day better than you thought it would be, every day. Each one of you. No likes necessary.
I feel a bit like Neo. Taking the pill. To wake back up to what is real. And it’s scary. And I don’t know if I’ll just be forgotten. Maybe I will. But I suppose the hearts that forget me, I never really had residence in to begin with. Today’s the last day and I’m a little scared. The connection it offered was wonderful, the addiction it’s brought me to and the worry it sustains, is not healthy. For any of us. Here’s where you can find me:
Address (I love letters and will send you one if you provide a return address): NCW, 4128 Main St, #144, Timnath, Colorado 80547
I hope I see you in the real life. I hope you find the balance you need. I hope you don’t give in to the idea that you’re data points and not a living, breathing, squirming, fighting, good-omen of humanity. I won’t be there anymore, but I’ll be around.
Photo by Grafixart_photo Samir BELHAMRA on Pexels.com
I’m going to drive ya’ll nuts, but there’s a link below, if you’re interested in buying my latest book; “No Words After I Love You”.
This stand alone novel is a journey through grief, friendship, creativity and love. It’s about how the heart heals, (or doesn’t) and all the ways humans punish themselves in an effort to be ‘strong’. It’s about deep-seated friends, the kind you’d answer the phone for, even if you don’t answer the phone. It’s about choosing your own family, and learning how to let go the wounds from the real one. Its about trying not to fall in love, even when your heart is already decided. It’s about soup, and rain on dirt roads, its about knowing how they take their coffee and a campaign for bushier, wilder eyebrows. It’s about denouncing god and still finding divinity. Check it out: BUY NO WORDS AFTER I LOVE YOU
And now, a short poem:
Daredevil
My heart does all her own stunts Never one to sit back from the danger or sip Rosé while someone else takes the fall
Oh no, she's always been all in
She sees the perilous ledge the death defying leap the broken bone canyon and nods with bravado flicks her Marlborough into the abyss exhales the clouds of calm and dives in
My heart does all her own stunts but the scars are starting to show and the puckered skin and toughened hide cannot beat as strongly as her younger self once did The bullets she's taken, stab wounds and excisions the irreparable losses that linger in phantom limb syndrome beat ragged and untimed
My heart does all her own stunts but I cannot convince her to stop
(image respectfully borrowed from Nick Cocozza’s amazing “selfies” series)
F*&k yeah, I just copied and pasted another great blog I wrote on Character (sorry for using F*&k in the first sentence, Mom). But if you haven’t followed me from the start you might have needed a reminder and I needed to work on some other projects. So… Ladies and Gents, enjoy Part Deux of Character.
From the dark, cavernous recesses of the author’s twisted mind springs forward all sorts of nasty and derelict creations.
Okay, that’s a touch overdramatic.
Frankly most writers will begin by creating a story from people they know or have read about. Sometimes we do it without even realizing it. Characters and personality traits that we admire, or equally cringe at, stay with us in that sometimes-twisted-but-always-magical realm of our subconscious. Realism in characters is important because it adds to their believability and with that, their ability to connect with our readers.
Why is it so important to connect your character to your reader?
We are a society of channel flippers, of instant gratification lovin’, drive-thru eatin’, convenience hounds. We have the attention spans of goldfish. If you can’t connect your readers to your character through the common ground of sympathetic and universal traits they will put your book down. And often, when a book lands on the nightstand, it never gets picked up again.
I shudder to think how many amazing stories were lost to the underside of the coffee table.
If your reader can’t identify with your character in even some small way, they will cease to care about that character and will not follow them, no matter how interesting the story is. The human element is very important.
So along with grabbing them from the beginning with an interesting and challenging first scene, you must hold your reader to a character that they care about, either because they relate to them, or because they are fascinated by their darker side. Their traits and foibles make your readers want to know what’s going to happen to them next. And that keeps them reading.
In the ignorance of youth, I used to think that my character could be anything and do anything. They could be perfect because I was building their world and I could make them flawless. They could be smart, and athletic, and beautiful, always saying and doing the right thing, always in control of their situation and aware of their future. (In the business we call these characters “Mary-Sue”s or “Sunshine Sallys”).
Snooze-o-rama and eye-roll Central.
Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, wants to read about some pristine person who’s practically perfect in every way.
For one, we don’t need perfection rubbed in our face. We get enough from the glaring social media machine. Secondly, a character that always says the right things, does the right things, and looks like a supermodel is not challenged and if they are, they do not fail. Characters that never fail are unrealistic, which means they cannot relate to the nerdy girl in her frumpy sweater and ripped jeans, curled up with your book (Yep, that’s me I just described). And what happens when that person doesn’t relate? The book is given a good chuck over the shoulder with a hearty ‘Good riddance’.
So make your characters dirty. Make them tarnished and worn. If they have to be beautiful, make them fundamentally broken somehow inside. If they are self-assured and intelligent, give them an outward physical challenge that hinders them. When a reader sees your character fail, they see the humanity within their own failures. More importantly, when they see them overcome the faults that stall their growth, they feel hopeful for their own path. They follow that character. They root for that character.
*In an amendmentto this section, I would like to say, due to the overwhelming lack of Mary-Sue characters these days, they’re actually a bit of a phenomenon. So, if you must create a Mary-Sue, own the hell out of it. Make them so staggeringly perfect that its almost comical…or otherwise interesting. Think of the person with extraordinary good luck, that can’t do wrong, even when they try.*
As a beginner writer it’s tempting to live out the life you wish you had in your pages, and it’s okay to write those ideas down. But keep those rarities for yourself. When it’s time to write an amazing story for the world, give the reader a character they can root for.
This advice is straightforward for developing the protagonist’s character traits. But it’s equally important to give this attention to your antagonist.
Something tells me this guy has rope, a damsel, and a train to catch
No ‘good guy’ is all good, and no ‘bad guy’ is all bad. Even the worst ‘bad guy’ has to have reasoning in his actions. They must have something that drives them, and it has to be something we can understand on our basic human level, even if we don’t agree with it.
Having even a slight sympathetic response to an antagonist builds tension between the characters and gives your reader the nail-bite reaction. The opposing forces both come from places that can seem justified and ‘right’ in their position, which makes the battle all the more important on both sides and the outcome so much more brutal or celebratory.
This week’s exercise is to take a hard look at your characters. Do they have some baseline, deep-rooted faults? Are these faults causing interesting and plot-driving stumbling blocks? Are they loveable, and a little bit annoying? Are they dangerous, but still broken?
If you find that they’re not engaging enough, throw in a life-changing event into their past and rewrite them based on their new fault. Divorce, fire, murder, car accident, illness, or the loss of loved one can be good ideas to play with. Take away one of their defining traits and replace it with its opposite. Nothing you play with is set in stone, it’s just a way to grow your character’s depth and help you to know them better.
If you’re looking for a good reference, one of my favorite books on the subject is Writer’s Guide to Character Traits by Linda N. Edelstein, PH.D Writer’s Guide to Character Traits.
Good luck out there, kiddos. I’d love to hear if this helped you out and how!
She breaks the silence with the crack of a match strike instant whirl of smoke and snap open jumps the flame
She’s Magic on dark nights when I need reprieve from myself when I yearn to slip into someone else’s skin and be the one my parents warned me about
The kind who lives truth through match strikes and bared teeth and hard, dirty alleys rough brick scraping backs of thighs and halting breath that never begs
Unleashed from boredom She carries the burning ember of strife at the end of her cigarette and coaxes the glowing cinder with deep inhalations Blowing out sinuous tails through lips split by love
Back again for more? Quirked eyebrow, pierced and dauntless
yes, again pray unbroken lips with underground currents of tightly wound desire.
