Tag Archive - writing

On School Author Visits and Porta Potties

February 28, 2012 in writing with 2 Comments

I am very grateful to the welcoming and enthusiastic students, teachers, staff, and parents at Swallow School in Hartland, Wisconsin, for inviting me to be their guest author today. What fun the morning was! To help them to kick off a school-wide writing contest, I spoke to three different groups of students, ranging from kindergarten through eighth grade, about writing and being a writer.

They made this beautiful poster for the event:

Image

One of my favorite moments came from the K-2 group of students. I was preparing them for a reading of an excerpt from the book (included below), and wanted to make sure they knew what an outhouse was. We talked about how things were different one hundred years ago, including the fact that most people did not have indoor bathrooms.

“Does anyone know what outdoor bathrooms were called?” I asked.

Several young heads nodded and many hands went up.

“Portable potties!” a girl said with confidence.

There is still one day left to put your name in the hat for one of five free copies of Oscar’s Gift to be given away at Goodreads.

* * * * * * *

Excerpt from Oscar’s Gift, Chapter 9: “Barn Dance”

Late in the summer, the wind began to blow on a Sunday afternoon. It blew all day Monday and all day Tuesday. By Wednesday morning, I couldn’t remember what it was like not to hear the wind. By Wednesday night, Mama could no longer keep up with sweeping out the dust that blew under our door and through the holes in our soddy. By Thursday, the wind had blown down our outhouse.

When I woke up on Friday morning, I thought someone had put cotton in my ears. Then I realized the wind had stopped. Everything sounded muffled without the roar of the wind.

I thought I would never again feel clean. My ears and nose were filled with dirt. Dust coated my hair and my clothes. Our beds were coated with dust. Our food tasted like the prairie sod.

Mama said I could go down to the creek to take a bath, even though tomorrow was Saturday. We usually took our baths on Saturday in a tub of heated water, so as to be clean for Sunday.

When I got to the creek, I stripped off my clothes and walked into the water. At first the water was so cold that I walked back out. But I knew that I would soon get used to the cold, so I went back in and walked to the deepest part, which only came up to my ribs. Soon the water felt warmer. I splashed and rubbed myself clean, swishing my hair in the water and wiggling my toes.

When I stepped out, the air made me shiver. I let the breeze dry me as I flapped my clothes in the air to shake out as much dirt as I could. Clean and dry and dressed, I felt like a new person. I walked back to the soddy with a spring in my step…

Oscar Micheaux: Indie Author (and a Goodreads giveaway!)

February 22, 2012 in Oscar Micheaux, writing with 1 Comment

Oscar Micheaux, the focus of my children’s historical novel, Oscar’s Gift: Planting Words with Oscar Micheaux,  not only broke ground as a homesteader and filmmaker, he also was an indie author.

Patrick McGilligan writes in his biography of Micheaux that after receiving only “bulky rejections,” Oscar eventually self-published his first novel, The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer, in the process “forging a new destiny” as an author: “As often happened in his career, touching bottom only spurred him to greater effort and higher ambition.”

At first Micheaux tried to use traveling salesmen to get his book in the hands of readers, but the salesmen’s high commissions led him to “set up his own sales network, hiring agents in different cities—though most of the business would be done by mail order, or door-to-door—making arrangements wherever possible for individual shops, bookstores, and libraries to carry his book.”

Read more in “The Self-Education of Oscar Micheaux,” a Psychology Today Editors’ Pick Creativity Essential Read:

“As with so many successful artists and entrepreneurs, one trait that set Micheaux apart was his response to failure, his ability to adapt and to reframe rather than limit his opportunities…” Read More

Also, through the end of  Black History Month, you can enter to receive one of five free copies of Oscar’s Gift on Goodreads (and be sure to read Jane Friedman’s recent blog post on “2 Ways to Make the Most of Goodreads“).

Goodreads

How are you forging your destiny as an author?

Why You Have To Keep On Writing, Even When You’re Not

February 20, 2012 in motivation, writing with 8 Comments

“When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.”  ― Friedrich Nietzsche
Writing Frustration

This post is for a friend who is struggling with her writing at the moment.

Sometimes we all feel like chucking it in. We think about how much easier our life would be without the urge to write, the need to have written, the pull to create, the calling to translate our experience of being alive into something tangible that we can share. Our house would be cleaner. Our clothes would be properly hemmed and ironed. Our haircut wouldn’t be two months overdue. Our friends wouldn’t ask us about how our writing is going, and we wouldn’t have to hem and haw our way through an answer. We would wake up each morning with a practical and finite to-do list that did not include “write for an hour” or “finish short story” or write anything, anything at all, please.”

We would have peace of mind. All the time.

There is only one flaw in that line of thinking. It’s rubbish.

The urge to write does not go away because we tell it to. We might think we can give it up the way we give up a bad habit, but it doesn’t work that way. It would be like trying to give up loving. When we love fully—people, nature, life itself—we sometimes are on a high that seems to buoy us along, but other times our love brings us pain and sorrow and confusion. We might think that the answer is to give up loving so as to prevent the hard times.

We all know that’s not how it works.

If you are a writer who is struggling with the idea of whether you should keep at it, whether because you are comparing yourself to others or you are frustrated with the quest for publication or you simply aren’t writing much at the moment, remember that this, too, will pass.

“The lazy down days are part of the up days. Any day you are writing anything at all, even one sentence, is a cause for celebration. It’s that hard, what we are trying to do. Keep that in mind, and also the equally true thing—if I can do this, you can.” ~ Heather Sellers, Page after Page

1. Write your sentence today.

2. Celebrate.

3. Then watch or re-watch this TED Talk by Elizabeth Gilbert, and tell your Dobby-like genius that you will show up, every day, because you have no choice:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86x-u-tz0MA]

Christine Fonseca’s New Group Blog: An Intense Life

February 15, 2012 in guest post with 1 Comment

Author Christine Fonseca and I have a lot in common (I can’t believe we haven’t met in person…. yet), but what I don’t have and wish I did are her seemingly limitless energy and ability to get things done.  I am honored to be a part of a Christine’s new group blog, An Intense Life: Embracing chaos every day, where my first monthly post is up today: ”When Gifted Children Grow Up.”

“As a first-generation college student hundreds of miles from home, I hit the wall. Hard. Never having developed the study skills or work habits necessary to handle challenging classes, I was the textbook example of someone with what Carol Dweck has termed a fixed mindset: I believed that my ability was set and ultimately unknowable, something to protect at all costs rather than develop…” Read More

Be sure to check out the other terrific bloggers at An Intense Life while you are there.

Prioritizing What Is Important and Non-Urgent

February 12, 2012 in planning with 9 Comments

“Generally speaking, having a good work/life balance means that your actions and priorities are aligned in a way that is taking care of what is really important to you.” ~ Stephen R. Covey

Several years ago, a family of four lived across from us, and the daughter one day came over for a visit. She was a talker, and within thirty minutes we knew everything about her then five-year-old life. Her main complaint at the time was carpooling. She described how her mother picked up one child, then another, and another, until there were just “too much children” in the car. I can still see her in my mind’s eye, shaking her blond hair in exasperation.

Ever since, my husband and I have used the phrase “too much children” to describe situations that are too full, too crowded, and too much out of our control, with little space to breathe.

This morning, as I looked down the long list of all I need and want to do, and all I should have done by now but haven’t, I had a “too much children” moment. And then I remembered the wise words of Stephen R. Covey, which I quoted here a year ago:

“I find in interviews that most people will acknowledge that one half of their time is spent doing things that are not important, but that are urgent. They’re proximate, they’re pressing, they’re popular, but they’re not important. Smile about it. Say no to them.  Just say no. What difference does it make? I don’t even pick up the phone at home during dinner or during a family activity. I won’t even take it.”

Covey recommends we periodically fill out a matrix similar to this one, to help us to prioritize our activities and choices:

Even when we spend most of our time doing things that are important but urgent, we don’t have time for what is in quadrant 2, work that often cannot be rushed or packed into already too full calendars: planning for the future, thinking about our career goals, nurturing relationships, practicing deep self care.

In an article about leading a balanced life, Covey explains:

“One of the main implications of being out of balance, however you define it, is that you neglect other areas of your life; family, health, etc. are often some of the first. When you become so addicted to only dealing with your urgent tasks you don’t think there is time for the non-urgent. You think that there will be time to deal with them later. But often, when you ask people what they feel is most important in their life, things they really want to accomplish, they are things that take time and long-term investment. By the time these things become urgent, it’s often too late to affect them.”

I know in my heart which of my many tasks is the one I should prioritize this morning, and once I press “Publish” for this post, that’s where I’m going without looking back, while the day is quiet and still and my mind is fresh.

What important but non-urgent work or activity do you need to prioritize today?

We go both round and upward: Why every writer should attend writer’s conferences

February 11, 2012 in the writing life with 0 Comments

“Life is a journey up a spiral staircase; as we grow older we cover the ground we have covered before, only higher up; as we look down the winding stair below us we measure our progress by the number of places where we were but no longer are. The journey is both repetitious and progressive; we go both round and upward.” ~ William Butler Yeats


I don’t know about you, but 2012 rang in like the start of the Kentucky Derby and hasn’t slowed down since. That’s one reason I am counting the days to the AWP Annual Conference & Bookfair, which this year is in Chicago, an easy gallop from my home in Milwaukee. The conference falls conveniently at the end of my university’s break between terms, so I will have no grading to do, and I am working hard to clear the track so that those three or four days are dedicated to all things writing.

Writer’s conferences cost money, yes. They require some schedule juggling and planning. They may feel like a luxury, especially for writers who are not yet published.

But I am convinced they are a valuable part of any writer’s career.

One writer’s conference I have benefited from greatly is Milwaukee’s UWM Writers Festival. This year I was invited to share my experiences:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUh4DmI_j-k]

In the video, I talk about the differences between the two times when I attended the Festival, first in 2006 and then again in 2010. The second time, I was struck by how much more prepared I was to soak in the information and take advantage of opportunities. How much more I came away with, in terms of both energy and practical knowledge. How many people I connected with in a very real way. Coincidences and serendipity met me at every turn (for example, I found myself sitting next to someone who was born only miles from the rural community where I grew up), as they seem to do when we know we are in the very place where we are meant to be, at the only time that makes sense, with others who are meant to be there, too. This second experience was made possible by the first, and the first required the confidence to take the initial baby step: to sign up and tell myself, “I belong there.”

A writer’s career is less like the unrelenting laps of a horse race and more like a never-ending spiral staircase. As we climb the steps, it helps to stop and look at the view once in a while. Have we been here before? What is the same, but different? What patterns do we now notice? What distant landscapes are clearer? What details used to loom large but now are diminished? Being among other writers can help you to place yourself on your own staircase with its invaluable perspective.

If you have never attended a writer’s conference because you feel you don’t belong there or you don’t yet deserve it, shush those voices and get thee to the nearest registration form. You owe it to yourself as a writer.

A Minority Approach to Writing, by E. Victoria Flynn

February 8, 2012 in guest post, writing with 10 Comments

Note from Lisa: I am thrilled today to share a guest post by fellow Wisconsin author E. Victoria Flynn. Read more about her and her fantastically creative online artists’ cafe in the bio, below, and be sure to connect with her on Twitter and Facebook.

A Minority Approach to Writing

by E. Victoria Flynn

Natalie Goldberg insists, “Keep the hand moving.” It’s her ultimate writing rule. Write nonsense, write color, write what is right in front of you, but don’t stop; don’t let the critic in.

This is the part I’m good at, typing alone at the dining room table with kids trampling above my head. It sounds like they’re moving furniture some days, what with the wooden train rattling across the floor. My lap top is open, my hands tap out fragments on their own. I type fastest staring at trees.

The beginning of the session takes place inside an old file titled, “NaNo Notes,”started in November of 2010. There are a lot of words in here, but very few of them transfer to anything sustainable. It is simply the texture of hands moving.

It seems nonsensical, writing anything to get to something, but my work often starts with a question,  What am I going to write? How am I going to say this? Who is this character? And ends with the golden ticket.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtt2Xe2y0FI]

Think of “The Minority Report.”

There you see a scene, a mess of action and confusion. Chief John Anderton (Tom Cruise) sifts and sorts images. Stops. Pulls an image to the side. More images. Stop. Rewind. Hone in. Image match. Suspect decoded.

I feel like our brains work a lot like this. We’re a mess of detail and sense. We’re walking experience and emotion. The secret to writing, to harnessing our creativity, lies in moving the nonsense out of the way and nabbing the focus.

Meditation works for some.

I have to empty the gutters.

At some point between madcap clicks, a phrase comes down and sticks. It’s the line other lines follow, the adventuresome sentinel calling out the troops.

With that line, I start again—hand moving, clickity-clack. This time the focus is clear and I’m able to talk through the premise of the story, the character, the blog post, on the page.

Depending on the seriousness of the matter, or the length of the piece I’m working on, I may write the entire thing in this draft file before transferring it to its own page. Whenever I decide to cut and paste, there is no empty white space staring me down because there’s already a hook to keep me anchored.

Certainly, this method isn’t for everyone, but I dare you to give it a run. Lose yourself in everything you’re thinking, then choose a line that sings, and run again.

Now tell me, how does that feel?

 * * * * * * * *

E. Victoria Flynn is a mother writer, NPR addict, coffee glutton, contributing author to The Dead Shoe Society and proprietor of V’s Place, an online artists’ cafe.

Writing Fast and Slow

February 5, 2012 in writing with 7 Comments

I am patiently waiting for my husband to finish reading Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman, so that I can have my turn. In the meantime, I guess I’ll make some oatmeal.

After enjoying the most smooth, richly textured hot breakfast cereal imaginable on our trips to London over the years, I finally decided to see if I could duplicate it at home. The answer was on the shelves of our nearest grocery store: McCann’s Steel Cut Irish Oatmeal.

Steel-cut oats are coarsely chopped groats (hulled oats with some of the bran intact), whereas the rolled oats we are more familiar with are bran-free, flattened with heavy rollers, and often steamed or processed in some way to shorten cooking time.

Oatmeal made from rolled oats can be on the table or in a to-go cup in 5-10 minutes, even faster if you use the instant variety. Nothing is handier in a pinch on a cold, winter morning, especially for college students and busy parents of young children.

Oatmeal made from steel-cut oats, on the other hand, takes up to an hour from start to finish and requires four cups of water per one cup of oats. The result is the best oatmeal you will ever have. Trust me. If you want to enjoy it first thing in the morning, simply toss the ingredients together in a slow-cooker the night before.

Writing offers similar options. The quick-cooking, instant variety is useful for fast drafts, daily blog posts, or other on-the-go word snacks when there is little time to wait around.

But writing that is allowed to simmer for a while, that absorbs more of what surrounds it, and that is stirred now and again, tasted, re-seasoned, and then covered and allowed to cook a little longer while we go about our other business, will be all the richer and more satisfying for the waiting.

Do you have an example to share of writing that has been worth the wait?

“Micheaux’s Gift,” from South Dakota Magazine

February 4, 2012 in writing with 5 Comments

As I get ready for a series of posts this month about Oscar Micheaux, I was very happy to see this notice from the latest issue of South Dakota Magazine:

News and Updates

January 25, 2012 in speaking with 1 Comment

Life has been busy, in a good way, so here are some quick updates and links until I have time to write a more meaty post.

ADHD Diagnoses in Young Gifted Children

As a board member for SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted), I am eager to promote our new global public awareness campaign to education pediatricians and others about the complexities of ADHD diagnosis in young gifted children. Please share and read our news release and list of resources, and watch SENG’s video on The Misdiagnosis of Gifted Children:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XN7IOteagI]

If you have your own story to share, please feel free to do so in the comments.

New Psychology Today Post: Many Ages at Once

As part of the SENG effort, my newest post at Psychology Today focuses on the out-of-sync development of gifted children and the science that supports what parents and teachers have long known from personal experience: that very bright children develop on a different timetable.

“Parents often describe these children as being many ages at once. A five year old, for example, might read third-grade books, lack the small motor coordination necessary for kindergarten art projects, have lengthy conversations with adults, and struggle to communicate effectively with age peers—all at the same time. Asynchronous development becomes less of an issue as children grow up, but the challenges can last well into adolescence.“ Read More

Psychology Today image

Summer in Colorado! The 10th International Dabrowski Congress

I am looking forward to attending and giving a presentation at the 10th International Dabrowski Congress, sponsored by the Institute for the Study of Advanced Development and hosted by R. Frank Falk, Ph.D and Linda K. Silverman, Ph.D. This year’s theme is From Conflict to Peace: Globally and Personally. I hope to see some of you there.

That’s all for now. Enjoy the rest of January!

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