Monthly Archives: June 2012

puzzling it out

When I’m teaching or coaching other writers, I focus heavily on the power of right brain, and on balancing the two hemispheres of the brain. Generally, our culture over-trains the left brain, to the detriment of important right-brain functions, like the ability to access our intuition, to understand the parts that work together with such intricacy to create a gorgeous whole.

When we bring the right brain into an activity like writing (which requires so much left-brain verbosity and yes, often, logic), new avenues and pathways open up. Our intuition begins to speak to us and magic happens. Without knowing why, we know what we need to say.

Yesterday I had one of those days. You know, those days: when dragging yourself to the computer to write and work feels like an impossible chore; when putting words to ideas feels more like pushing a boulder up a very, very steep hill.

I love the romantic image of the inspired poet, from whose gifted brain poems fly like birds, in tune with the wind and at ease, always moving in the right direction. Like most romantic images, it doesn’t hold up so well to reality.

To assist my inner-poet, I pulled out one of my favorite brain-balancing activities: the jigsaw puzzle.

I started doing jigsaw puzzles during a time of crisis in my life–I had a brother in the hospital, and we weren’t certain of his recovery. I spent endless hours in waiting rooms and other areas set up for the families of the seriously injured.

In restless emotional pain, I didn’t know what to do with my hands. I found the collection of jigsaw puzzles on the shelf of one of these rooms, chose one that depicted a field of sunflowers, and dumped out the pieces.

The task looked hopeless–all those tiny pieces of yellow and gold looked the same. Yet the process calmed me. I started sorting out the flat-edged pieces first, and painstakingly constructed the puzzle’s border. I created a system for sorting pieces, testing them against each other to see what fit and what didn’t.

This task became a deep comfort to me–a meditation of sorts. Something felt almost sacred to me as I sat in a quiet room, winter sunlight pouring onto me through a window, as I quietly sorted pieces and fit them together, one small victory at a time, hour after hour.

I finished the sunflowers and moved on to the next puzzle in the waiting area, then the next, and the next.

I was younger then, and didn’t realize I was meditating. I hadn’t learned, yet, that any activity can become a meditation if you allow yourself to become quietly, patiently absorbed in it; if it causes you to lose track of time. 

So yesterday, out of frustration and moodiness, I pulled a long-untouched puzzle off of a shelf. It depicts five ballet dancers posed carefully on a set of stairs.

And I began to sort pieces. I put on music and, like a child, let myself be pulled with calm patience into the task of sorting, re-sorting, trying one piece and then another, enjoying the small triumph that comes with each successful piece. (Here is the face of a dancer and here are her hands; now just to connect them by way of a slender arm surrounded in snowy white tulle.)

Feeling child-like and calm, I let the afternoon pass in this manner, seeing it not as a waste of time, but as a powerful exercise that would calm me and draw me back toward my intuition.

Working jigsaw puzzles balances the brain because it calls upon us to see the whole picture, as opposed to seeing an endless set of disconnected parts. The right brain is the part that sees the whole picture first, then works intuitively toward a solution. (The left brain, on the other hand, requires logic in order to solve a problem or puzzle: it wants move from point a, to point b, to point c, until it reaches a conclusion. Valuable as the left hemisphere is, it does little good in the assembling of a jigsaw puzzle).

Now I have the puzzle, less than half-assembled, on my living room table, and have been taking frequent breaks to quietly move pieces around. A piece here, a piece there, each tiny victory leading toward the creation of a whole–rather like writing a novel, no?

A major piece of the Invincible Summer ecourse involves opening up and strengthening our right brain functions and processes–by reaching for your intuition, you reach within and start to hear your own voice. That’s why the course is full of exercises and projects to help students balance the brain. If you want in on the next session, now is the perfect time to sign up. Early-bird prices are only available through June 30th–July is fast approaching.

I believe in the power of print

When I saw an e-reader for the first time, my paranoid reaction was primarily fueled by 1960′s science fiction.

Have you ever seen the episode of The Twilight Zone where a librarian in a future society is declared obsolete and sentenced to death?

Being a grade-school girl spent an inordinate amount of time in libraries, I was scared out of my mind by that episode. I had nightmares, in fact.

How, I wondered, could books, of all things, be declared obsolete?

The Christmas that my dad gave my mom an Amazon Kindle as a gift, I believed I had finally seen how books could slowly be eased out of our society. Like those poor Mafiosos who join the Witness Protection Program, books would disappear quietly, and nobody would notice they were gone until it was too late.

I didn’t want to touch the Kindle and I didn’t want to understand it. (I’m aware that this makes me sound neurotic–a paranoid woman with a fear of technology. And yes, when I first saw that e-reader, that’s possibly just what I was).

Flash forward to Christmas of 2011, when I bashfully told my father that what I really wanted for Christmas was my own e-reader.

What can I say? I’m the sort of traveler who brings a multitude of books on any plane, train, or automobile trip. I need my pop/vacation fiction; I need my serious, highbrow fiction; I need something spiritual; I need something educational. The e-reader lured me with its light, slim build and its capacity to house an entire library.

So yes, I do now own a Kindle, for better or for worse. It’s mostly for the better, except for the fact that it’s much too easy for me to develop a sudden certainty that I need a particular book, and I don’t want to wait for it. And now, there’s the thrill of instant gratification: tap, tap, tap on my little reading device and boom! I own another book.

The advent of the e-reader has, indeed, changed the book market indelibly–some say it’s for the better, and others insist it’s for the worst. It’s easier than ever to self-publish any book you darn well please; at the same time, I’m watching beloved bookstores crumble and close, one by precious one.

Despite my new appreciation of the benefits of e-readers, I still believe firmly in print media: in its power, its beauty and–yes–its necessity.

And of course, there is the feel of a real book in your hands. Any book lover knows this feeling well. The pulpy pages beneath your fingers; the satisfying creases in the well-worn spine of a much-loved book. And yes, there’s the smell of books, too. Some say it’s musty; some find it off-putting. Personally, I love the smell of the inside of a book. The older, the mustier, the better.

Personally, I’m fairly certain that there will always be print books. I know that as long as there are, I will buy them, and I will check them out from libraries, too.

Digital publishing vs. traditional publishing: it’s a hot topic on writing blogs and all over the news.

What can I add to the melee of voices?

I’ll keep it simple: I love my e-reader. Nevertheless, once I have my novel published at last, I want it to exist, physically, 100, 200, even 300 years from now. If the screens of e-readers everywhere are somehow crashed and smashed in some great and horrible disaster, I want my book to exist, still, somewhere–for real, on pulpy pages that smell musty when you crack open the much-worn spine.

Announcement time:

The second session of Invincible Summer starts on July 20th, and it will be the last time I’m offering this life-changing creative writing e-course this year. 

I’d suggest joining the tribe sooner rather than later, as early-bird prices are only available through June 30th–after that, the cost will rise by $20. Come write with us.

Summer Reads: The Book Thief

I’ve decided to start reviewing books here–at least for as long as it’s summer and I have enough time to read whatever I darn well please. If you find yourself wondering what to read next, give Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief a spin. 

The Book ThiefI bought my copy of The Book Thief at my favorite bookstore in the country–Village Books (Fairhaven, WA–an unfortunate location for me; I’m lucky if I make it there more than once in a year).

At once poetic and straightforward, hilarious and tragic, Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief  (despite the desperate circumstances of its setting) is bound to bring about a strange and unexpected nostalgia for childhood; for those innocent years when you believed nothing truly horrible could ever happen to you, or your friends, or loved ones. This nostalgia does not lose its value even as the innocence of the book’s young characters begins to slowly unpeel.

The Book Thief tells the story of  Liesel Meminger who, at the story’s outset, is illiterate. Nevertheless, an inexplicable compulsion leads Liesel to steal a book left lying in the snow beside her younger brother’s fresh grave. As it happens, the book is entitled The Gravedigger’s Handbook, and from it, Liesel will learn to read.

Zusak sets The Book Thief in Nazi Germany, with World War II already underway. Although the war is ultimately central to the book’s plot, the opening chapters reveal the deceptive naivete with which Liesel (and her soon-to-be best friend Rudy Steiner) views the world.

Maybe, like me, you’ve read a whole lot of WWII books–so many that you fear the authors have taken the emotion, rawness, and the horrible lessons of that war and wrung them out until there’s nothing new left to be written; until we bookworms have stopped feeling any shock or surprise at anything we read about that particular war and time period. That sort of numbness is a travesty, as books about historical tragedies of immense proportions should never stop shocking us–lest we forget the lessons of history.

Reading The Book Thief proves that there are still authors with something new to say about WWII. Or there’s at least one, anyway, and his name is Martin Zusak.

There is very, very little in this book that could be considered boring, expected, or cliche.

The Book Thief is narrated by the Angel of Death. A gutsy move on Zusak’s part, and it’s a move that works. Moreover, the Angel of Death himself will also surprise you–because he is kind, because he gathers souls with such gentle compassion, and because he is such a precise and gifted narrator.

The Angel was at Liesel’s brother’s graveside, of course, so he witnesses Liesel’s first theft and is instantly intrigued by this girl–so intrigued that he breaks his angel-rules and takes a special interest in one single, living girl.

Shortly after her brother is buried, Liesel reaches her destination: the home of Hans and Rosa Hubermann, who have taken her in as a foster child, presumably because they receive money from the state for doing so. Hans and Rosa defy all cliched expectations.

Zusak’s singular style includes the peppering of each chapter with pronouncements, lists, and explanations that shout at the reader in bold-face print, such as this one:

“Some Facts About Rosa Hubermann:

She was five feet, one inch tall and wore her browny gray strands of elastic hair in a bun … Her cooking was atrocious … She possessed the unique ability to aggravate anyone she ever met. But she did love Liesel Meminger. Her way of showing it just happened to be strange. It involve bashing her with wooden spoon and words at various intervals.”

A character like Rosa Hubermann (who eventually asks Liesel to call her “Mama” from now on) is just one example of the strange, contradictory, and lovable humans who populate the pages of The Book Thief. Just as it is with those people we live with each day in our own lives, her contradictions don’t always make sense, and they are never fully explained: yet Rosa is as believable as any character I’ve met in any great novel, and her love for Liesel Meminger, strange as it may seem, is somehow perfectly understandable in this reader’s eyes.

Among the parade of unforgettable characters who fill these pages, you will meet Hans Hubermann (“Papa”), who plays an accordion in the street, teaches Liesel to read, and works for no pay even when starving; you’ll meet Rudy Steiner, who is repeatedly described as a boy with “hair like a candle flame”–Rudy Steiner, who assists Liesel on her book-stealing errands; Rudy Steiner, who loves Liesel hopelessly; Rudy, who routinely defies the leaders of his Hitler Youth division.

You’ll meet Max Vandenburg, the Jew who has nightmares in tandem with Liesel, and who writes and illustrates beautiful books upon the pages of Mein Kampf, which he has carefully covered in white paint.

And you’ll follow the Angel of Death from place to place as he describes the unspeakable increase in his workload as the war progresses. Never have I “met” an angel so very human as the one who narrates this tale:

“There were broken bodies and dead, sweet hearts … Some of them I caught when they were only halfway down. Saved you, I’d think, holding their souls in midair … All of them were light, like the cases of empty walnuts. Smoky sky in those places. The sky like a stove, but still so cold.

I shiver when I remember–as I try to de-realize it. I blow warm air into my hands, to heat them up. But it’s hard to keep them warm when the souls still shiver. God. I always say that name when I think of it.” 

It sounds like a sad book, and it is, but it will also defy your expectations by bringing you moments of laughter. You’ll find that you love the foster mother who swears incessantly at Hans and at Liesel; you’ll find, against all odds, that you love and pity the Angel of Death.

You’ll find yourself crossing your fingers and rooting silently for Liesel each time she slips, shoeless, through a library window to steal another book (one which has likely been banned). You’ll wish, along with Rudy Steiner, that Liesel will grant him that single kiss he so often asks for.

Nazi Germany provides the backdrop of this story–a story which wouldn’t be what it is without this backdrop. Yet somehow, the conflicts played out between, among, and within the unforgettable characters who populate these pages will enthrall you and absorb you even more than the war. In fact, for entire chapters, you may even forget that you’re reading a story set in a city in a country destined to lose the war it perpetuates. You may even forget that the characters you’ve come to love are, each and every day, in grave danger.

This is the forgetting of childhood and adolescence; the forgetting you’ll witness in Liesel, Rudy, and also the adults who live in these pages.

These are characters who will live in your memory as if you knew them in “real life.”

When you travel with the Angel of Death, you are destined to meet tragedy. But in this case, the journey is well worth your while.

Why “Invincible Summer?”

I’m often asked what inspired me to name my business, my blog, and my ecourses ”Invincible Summer.”

If you know me, then you certainly know, too, that I am a hopeless word lover; I drown myself in words. I collect quotes & I copy beloved poems by beloved poets, living and dead, into my own personal notebook, so I can have the most lovely of lovely words close at hand any time.

Many of you are certainly familiar with Albert Camus‘s quote: “In the depths of winter, I finally learned that there was, in me, an invincible summer.” 

So, as a woman with a stack of notebooks filled with beautiful words, how did I choose Camus’s quote to influence my blog and (dare I say it?) my “brand?”

Long ago, I made the quote into a kind of personal mantra–the mantra for the hardest times, the darkest times.

I have written it on the inside cover of every journal I’ve kept, for years–I don’t even know how many years it’s been. Five or six, I’m sure.

I made it my personal email signature years ago, too.

In essence, I’d call this quotation my motto. These are words I live by.

Let me tell you the story of how I became completely hooked on yoga.

I think it was 2002. I shared a run-down, adobe house near my university in the American Southwest. Even though the water heater broke down on a monthly basis and the bathroom was an electrical disaster waiting to happen, I loved the house–for the apple tree in the front yard, the garden in back, the view from the rooftop, and the owner’s shrine to the Virgen de Guadalupe that overlooked the little garden. (I wasn’t religious, but the little altar housed in glass was so very beautiful, all the same).

At any rate, my roommate convinced me to attend a yoga class with her. The first class was free, and the studio was in walking distance, so I went.

That day, I met Ulla, who was to become my primary yoga instructor for the next 6 years.

The class was perfectly lovely all around–I experienced, for the first time, the bliss of the body-and-mind high that come with a truly gorgeous asana class.

But it was the end of the class that hooked me.

After we’d finished savasana, and had sat up again, our eyes still closed, Ulla spoke soft words to guide our meditation.

She told us that every person has a light–a bright and perfect essence that shines in the very center of us, that lives at our core.

She told us that this essence never changes, “no matter what you’ve done, or what anybody has done to you.”

Those were the words that made me an instant yoga junkie. (I bought a class pass that day and started going to yoga every single day after work).

It felt amazing to be told that there was something indestructible in me, something good and holy at my center, something that had never changed or diminished, despite any struggles I had experienced.

For me, the light of which Ulla spoke that day is like an invincible summer.

I remember that light when I am afraid, when I despair, when I wonder if my life is ever going to get any better.

And I call upon that light when I need to write, to create, because I know it is always there–an endless well of goodness and sacred inspiration, always ready to be tapped, always ready to reveal itself.

And I believe you carry such a light at your center, too.

Yes, I truly do.

slow down without stopping

Something about these long, warm June days makes me want to slow down, slow everything down. My motivation  melts like an ice cream cone in a child’s hand on a bench, in a park, in the ripples of sun that cast themselves down on us through the screen of shimmering, green leaves.

I come to my computer: to write, to work, to pay bills–activities that I allow my mind to label “chores,” activities that I approach with more anxiety the longer I procrastinate on them.

You see, as the days lengthen, with light stretching itself long into evening, far past 9:00, I feel that time itself is lengthening, stretching its legs, slowing, pausing.

I am swimming in memories of the summers of my youth, when it seemed the days lasted forever, and the beginning of the next school year felt a lifetime away. I spent those long, hot days among stacks of library books, hungry for words, turning pages quickly, eager for the other-world escape a child finds so easily between the pages of a book.

Today, I awoke and wanted nothing more than to lie in bed for several hours, floating between the time of dreams and the time of focused work, my nose buried in a book.

I want to read summer books–fiction, stories unfolding before me as I turn pages just for the joy of it. I want to read slowly and savor the words; to read poems out loud to myself, several times, until they ring true in my ears.

I’m a firm believer in naps, in going easy on the self, in embracing slowness and simplicity.

Yet, as writers, as artists, we know there is a bit of danger in slowing down. The danger is that we might slow all the way to a stop, and end up not writing anything for several days, maybe even a week.

The longer I go without picking up a pen, the more resistance I create in my mind. If I don’t write for two days, an irrational phobia rises in me, a fear I can’t explain. The pen seems heavier and heavier, and I become sure that once I pick it up, I will have nothing to say.

So how do we allow ourselves the lush pleasure of long, lazy summer days and continue to create?

Here are a few of my tricks:

1. Do a little bit, a lot. This means, write often, but in short bursts. Set a ten or twenty minute timer and write for that short amount of time, a few times a day. It adds up to 30-60 minutes of writing in a day–not bad for a writer on “summer vacation,” yes?

2. Handle one thing at a time. One blog post, one article, one page, one poem. Do just that one thing. Promise yourself that for right now, you will work on just this one thing, and when you’re done, you can stop and return to your lazy, slowed-down, dreamy summer reverie activities (whatever those may be).

3. Make the slowed-down times totally enjoyable. Be like a kid about it. Take your books, or your iPod and headphones, or your fingerpaints, to a special place. Build a fort from blankets and bed sheets. (I can’t count the number of forts I built and tore down as a child; I only know that each one transformed the world into a place that I could craft and mold with my own hands–a place of magic and possibility.) Or take your restful time outside, in a park somewhere, listening to the birds sing; beside a pool; on a beach.

4. Give yourself leeway.  Yes, writing is work and art is work. And if you’re making your living by creating, then you do need to return to the page, the pen, the screen, or wherever it is that your real work is done. But can you ease up on yourself? Can you say, maybe, that for one week, your blog is offline, and set up an email auto-responder? Can you stretch any of your self-imposed due dates (within reason)? Are there activities you could cut out for a day or a week, and still keep your artistic juices flowing?

It is OK to do less.

Find the balance between effort and surrender. Do the work you’ve promised yourself that you will do, but approach it like play rather than work. Make things easy. Make a game out of a chore. Take breaks. Reward yourself often.

You can slow down, and you do not have to stop.