In the now...

By Karen Dums

Once upon a time I was a  young girl, young, not at all wild, not at all free.
Once upon a time I was a young girl, who longed all those things to be.
Now I am an old girl, the clock has ticked on by;
And what do you know? It happened, at last I can fly!
Why was I frightened those long years ago?
What held me back from being part of the flow?
Perhaps that was it, I danced a different tune.
Stepped to a different drummer, became "old" too soon.
Oddly enough I am happier this day 
Numbers don't matter, don't hold any sway.
I'll do what I do. I'll be what I am.
If others don't like it...well I won't give a damn.
I'll keep my own counsel. Keep my own ear.
Life's oh so much better living it "right here".

Odd it took me 50-plus years to begin living in the now. My late mother always suggested that I just let myself "be". I didn't understand her then. I understand her now. Beset by worry I held myself back from activities I enjoyed. Whatif, whatif, whatif!!! Let fear keep it's grip lest the world turn to ice ala Elsa in the movie "Frozen". Stayed stuck on the ground when the air was where I wanted to rise.

So I started late. At least I started. Self-exposure is not something I do well (out of the gutter please). Little glimpses are about all anyone is likely to get from me.

But cliche' aside (you know the one, life's a gift, that's why we call it the present) living in the present tense is not such a bad thing. One can get accustomed to letting the past go, looking forward to the future with something akin to hope, if not hope itself. Being spontaneous, spur of the moment. Fun. Even if we are the only ones who actually get the joke.

I'm not suggesting we cast aside all reason -- that would be pure chaos for me at least -- but flying by the seats of our pants once in a while can be a good thing. It takes us out of the rut. The box. The little corner we've painted ourselves into.

To hell with the paint, it can get smeared for all I care. I'm writing myself out of that corner at last. Pen in hand I'm going to give myself a shot by living completely in the now.
  

Open then close

By Karen Dums

We knock at the door of Christmas, hanging wreaths, decorating cookies, wrapping gifts. It's a whirlwind of activity for many. We can get tangled in our own tinsel, trip on the extensions cords running hither and yon, fall into the trap of too much.

Peace on Earth? Not in the checkout line at WalMart.

Good will to all? Not when three people want the last toy on the shelf. THE last toy of its kind. That's more "its every man for himself".

Wow.

For those of us who profess to be Christians there is the added aspect of the Advent season itself -- celebrating the birth of our Savior even as we await the time of His coming again. A foot in each of two separate worlds?

No wonder the season fills the most hardy souls amongst us with dread and probably fills psychiatric offices with patients new and old! We get caught up. Too caught up?

Isn't it more a time when we should be filled with joy? With wonder? With awe? Or can't we, at the very least, slow down, take time to reflect a bit? After all the window behind us is soon closing on another year while the window in front of us is opening to yet another.

As someone who loves all aspects of the written word, including writing itself, I always cast the new year in the role of a blank page. What will we write on it? What will be written on it for us? Its a piece of history, both personal and otherwise.

The bells of Christmas will hardly cease pealing when the bells ushering in a new year will begin chiming. Let's be awake for them. Let's be active participants on the next page of life.
What'cha think?  Let's dive through that open window head first.

Just the facts...

by Karen Dums

I've been working on a little non-fiction piece. It began as a poem and seems to be morphing into a series of essays. Written works will often do that. Take themselves on a path the writer never envisioned.

It's like this: I've lived in a small town nearly all my life. It's not a new idea that it seems to be in a state of decline, I've harbored that thought for a while. Now it wants to burst out onto the written page. I'm not sure about that. Not sure at all.

Writing fiction can be easy. We "make shit up" and no one gets hurt. When we're writing about the real hurt can happen. There can be fallout. We must be very careful.

So. Do I want to continue working on this piece?

The answer: an unequivocable yes.

Wish me luck.

Hard to say good-bye

By Karen Dums

Fellow Guild charter member Peg Zaemisch has taken a job that will take her away from the environs in which our writer's group exists. For five years she has been a voice of wit and wisdom, both at the writing table and aside from it.

I will miss her quiet speech.

I will miss her gentle humor.

I will miss her regaling us with a tale, anecdotal or pure fiction, that could make me roar with laughter or reduce me to near tears (I'm NOT an easy cryer).

I will miss her.

Then there's the pushier side of me: She's in the midst of penning a wonderful novel and I soooo want to be there to hear it complete. I sooooo want to be there when she receives word that an agent or publisher has picked it up. I soooo want to hear the joy in her voice when she gets the contract that is absolutely positively coming. I soooo want to be a part of her work in progress. It's been such a joy to watch and hear it unfold to an amazingly interesting point.

I will miss it, but not as much as her.

However.

Being unemployed is an unhappy circumstance. Thus this little voice inside of me keeps whispering "send her off with love,  with best wishes, with some semblance of joy".

She has obtained a job in the newspaper business, a business she has long been a part of.

She will reside closer to her beloved grandchildren.

Both those things make her happy.

It follows then that those things make me happy.

Loss of her weekly presence does not.

But...

"If you have other things in your life—family, friends, good productive day work—these can interact with your writing and the sum will be all the richer."
                                                                                         - David Brin

You are set to be rich indeed my friend. Good luck from your "uppity a/k/a third story" friends.

Hello November

By Karen Dums

Some may know and some may not know that November is National Novel Writing Month, for those of us in the "biz", NANO for short. But who wants to write an entire novel in just 30 days? It's sooo daunting. How can it be done? But wait...perhaps we need to do the math. Hmmm.

30 days. 50,000 words. By my calculations that's 1660 words a day. Doable? Let's investigate.

Say one can type 100 words a minute that's 6000 words in an hour. Wow.

Of course we must factor in thinking time. And perhaps we don't type but use the pen. And perhaps we won't be typing 100 words a minute even if we could still. Doable? Possible? Yes.

So do it.

Or not.

Do what some of us do. Set a goal.

I'm going to edit my most recent work.

I'm doing to rewrite that piece I abandoned long ago.

I'm going to read my novel aloud to check for cadence and flow.

I'm going to hit the books, find an agent, a publishing house, or maybe several, to submit to.
Ah but first I'd best tweak my query letter.

I'm going to fill up that space behind the blinking cursor.

There's more to writing than putting out as many words as you can in the shortest time possible. But it can be done.

Do it.

Or not.

Embrace it.

Here it comes.

Go...

words, words, words

by Anna Maria Hansen


Sometimes my words are not enough. Hollow, ringing, ostentatious, flippant, brassy. My paper becomes a snarl of scribbles, scratched-out lines, fragments, disconnected by blank spaces.

Fortunately,  my words are are not the only ones. When they are not enough, I find friends, mentors, guides, and inspirations in the writing of others who say what I cannot. Words surround me... a web... a wind... an embrace... a circle of words all around. When I'm not writing, I'm reading. I learn from it all; the bad, the good, the great.

It is my belief that all writers are other writers' guides. There is no such thing as a solitary writer. We are all affected by each other... that is how writing works. Find me a writer who doesn't read. More specifically, I have a hard time finding a writer who hasn't been moved to write by something they read. Endless circle. A pattern of writers making writers.

Seldom do writers realize the worth of their own words. Louisa May Alcott nearly burned Little Women. Joe Shuster (original Superman creator) did burn the first Superman story. Robert Lewis Stevenson never made more than 14 pounds off of Treasure Island, which is now sprinkled like salt over the face of the planet and is one of the best known stories ever told. Tolkien held onto the beautiful, majestic, intricately detailed Silmarillion until his death believing that somehow he would be able to make it better. And you know what? He probably could have. But millions of people have read it just the way it is and this it perfect.

So even when your words seem empty, continue. Even when you're not certain who will read them, continue. When you don't know if it is finished, continue.

For we are all just writers and readers in the end; the audience and the storyteller. And all of us, every one, loves a good story.

reader's regret...

By Karen Dums

Suddenly, or so it would seem, I've discovered authors I paid not one bit of attention to during all my reading life. My bad, since the two combined have given me more insight into my writing life than all the scribblings and scratchings I've been at for the past 40+ years. (note: I started VERY young)

The first is Ursula LeGuin. I've not touched her fiction. Fantasy of that sort is not truly my thing, unless of course the author's name is Tolkien or Lewis. A snob. I admit it. But her non-fiction A Wave in the Mind is absolutely, hilariously entertaining and enlightening. Seems all these years I've spent fretting over not fitting in were a sheer waste of time. Many of us have simply not been invented until just recently, if at all. What a relief it was for Ms. LeGuin to move out of the eternal "he" and into her own self at last. Apparently my "fit", as well as my relief, awaits.

The second author was not simply stumbled upon while browsing among the stacks, but recommended by a friend. Ann Patchett's Happy Marriage has little to do with the married life and everything to do with the writing life. Having fallen asleep while deep in this book I had a dream which the next morning became the new opening of the first chapter of my novel. Was she my muse? Perhaps. Or perhaps my mind was open enough to let an idea that had been clamoring in.

One idea Ms. Patchett reiterates in nearly every chapter is one that Third Story Writer's Guild members share. We must keep working. If we're not writing we're not honing our craft. We're not becoming the best writer's we can be. What's the point then? Our minds can be filled with ideas.  Good ideas. Bad ideas. Ugly ideas. Unless we get them down on paper or on the hard drive or flash drive of our computer if that's how we work, they are going nowhere.

How hard is it to pick up a pen? Or to sit down at a computer terminal? The answer would seem to be "easy" -- but in the real world it is not. For many of us it is hard. We are inundated with demands on our time. Real demands. Work. Family. Volunteerism. A to-do list that runs from here to eternity. The clock ticks eternally. Yet if a writer is what we would be, then write we must, or fail in our attempt at what we hope to attain.

Patchett makes a neat comparison that I found particularly intriguing. If we want to learn to play the cello (or any other musical instrument) we enter into it with the idea that it will take work and practice. While some may say that playing a musical instrument is simply regurgitating another's art I disagree. Playing, as singing, painting, drawing, crafting, sewing or any other art form is just that, an art form. Writing is no different. While it would be lovely to sit under a tree or on a beach or in whatever place we find lovely and wait for the lightning of inspiration to strike, that's not how it works. It works when we work.

All of us can't "quit our day jobs", nor perhaps should we. But if writing is to be a part of our lives it is up to us and no one else to make it so. Carve out even a few minutes each day. Who knows how far it will take you? Best of all, unlike me, you'll be left with no regret.