Thanksgiving Food for Thought

Yesterday, I was talking long-distance to a 38 year old friend, the mother of two young children, who told me that this summer she revealed rather unexpectedly and compulsively, while visiting with long lost relatives whom she had never before met in person, that her favorite word was "fuck." Rather than blanch and stumble in blind shock and embarrassment off her assumed wide, shady and conservative mid-western front porch, they fell in line with her preference and celebrated the occasional and surprising likeness of family.

Her comment reminded me of an experience one of my best friends had over thirty years ago in the mid-seventies. She was in the Winn-Dixie in her small Bible-belt community, where her husband held a politically important job and she had already set herself up as a little strange by opening the town's first Montessori Pre-school. Both family incomes depended on a reflection of propriety defined by rural-southern-Christianity. As she pushed her cart through the aisles this particular morning, her three-year-old trailed behind commenting, fortunately with a heavy lisp, on the items he recognized on the grocery shelves. "Fuck, fucking, fucking corn flakes. Fuck, fucking, fucking Cheerios." I had suggested to her the year before that she used the f-word a lot in front of her children. She pointed out that she didn't say it any more often than I said "shit." Okay. For the next decade at least she stammered out f-f-f-fudge everytime the occasion called for her favorite expletive.

This afternoon, I was reading the blog of another 40ish person, whose writing I like very much. He wrote that it had been suggested that he was using the "f-word" too frequently in his blog, probably by someone who works for him and wants to protect his assets.

Now the word fuck doesn't have much to do with Thanksgiving in my recent experience. There was the year my then 17 year old daughter felt compelled to use it at the Thanksgiving dinner table in the presence of her grandmother. While I nearly went into convulsions, my mother barely blinked and ask her granddaughter to pass the dressing. (Her reaction was the same, a couple years later when my daughter's tattoo, which she had been hiding from her grandmother for at least 18 months, peeked below her shirt sleeve at another family dinner. It should be noted that had I said "fuck" in her presence or even "shit" as a full grown adult parent on the verge of being a grandparent or let a tattoo slip into her view, she would have had plenty to say.)

We humans often think we know all we need to know of other by the many categories into which we so eagerly put people; we road-block learning and the sharing of ideas by myriad criteria and silly judgements. You would think we'd realize from the wide variety of people who are comfortable these days with the f-word, if from no other indicator, that we are as Maya Angelou has said, "More alike than we are different" and that we all lose by labeling, categorizing. Today I found the Thanksgiving message I intend to share with my friends, relatives, acquaintances and loved ones of all ages, mid-western, southern, liberal, conservative, whatever label they may be peeking from behind or burdened with by others. I'm sharing it with you too. Click Here. Then read the November 18th post.

Memoir Writing Books

I just came across Kay Porterfield's site on Living and the Creative Process. She says: The creative process is a powerful, transformative tool for healing our minds and bodies, our relationships and our world. Each one of us carries this ancient medicine inside.Kay Marie Porterfield, M.A.

One valuable thing she includes on her site is a list of books on memoir and journal writing found at this link http://www.kporterfield.com/journal/Journal_Memoir_Books.html.

After three years, I am once again facilitating a memoir writing workshop in Puerto Vallarta, November 24 - December 1. If you are interested in memoir, recording family history, or journal writing, then join us in the sand and sun of Mexico for a week exploring our relationships and our world, hopefully healing and expanding our minds and bodies. For more info: www.BelleCora.com/Workshops.html.

Teen Writing Contest

STATEWIDE CONTEST FOR 14-19 YEAR-OLD NEW MEXICO WRITERS

The deadline for the Santa Fe Short Story Festival's writing contest for teens is coming up, August 3. I'm excited about the idea of the festival and particularly about this great opportunity for young writers in New Mexico.
I just recently spent time with a wonderfully creative group of teens in Colorado, where I conducted a workshop on creative writing and also a play writing workshops. They came of with surprising ideas and just performed their original play for a group of young children involved in a reading program at their local library. It has been awhile since I worked with teen writers. I had forgotten how inspirational their unbounded energy can be. I'm sure the short stories the Santa Fe Short Story Festival gleans from this contest will also be inspirational.

If you know a young writer be sure they get the following information: Original stories up to 2000 words in length postmarked by August 3, 2007 will be considered for the $500 grand prize, the $250 award for the runner-up, and two honorable mention awards of $125 each. The stories will be judged by an impartial panel of judges with writing credentials. The cash prizes will be awarded at a featured presentation and reading at this year's Santa Fe Short Story Festival, October 4, 5, 6. Professional actors will provide dramatic readings of the four prize-winning stories at the awards ceremony. There is no entry fee for the contest. Please see www.SantaFeShortStory.org to obtain the competition rules, the required story submission form, the complete call for submissions, and answers to frequently asked questions. This is the third year of the festival and the second year of the short story writing contest. The competition is open to ALL 14-19 year-olds in New Mexico, not just those enrolled in high school.

Internet and Writing, Caregiving, Sanity

It’s a strange new world today, that of webs and nets that are not only invisible to the naked eye, but that are morphing and being manipulated continuously by people most of us would never have had any contact with a decade or so ago. Like all the significant developments of man, there is the positive and the negative side to the new cyber world we live in.

The Internet is accessible to all economic and education levels. It only takes a half a dollar in many underdeveloped countries for a person to walk into a cyber café and sign on to the internet for a half an hour. This ability changes the perspective, the awareness, the goals, the possibilities and the self-esteem of a whole generation world-wide. It makes the world a smaller place, our differences, values, morals more obvious, but as we are exposed to them less scary, more manageable.

For the writer, the Internet has opened possibility of making a lonely job less so. Whole communities of like minded people develop with our technology and meeting your writing group doesn't neccesarily mean you go down to the coffee shop anymore. Though I still prefer it.

My last two and half years have had an odd shape of solitude, yet of feeling I was never alone. I was the primary caregiver for my mother, who passed away several weeks ago, (thus the long absence from blogging). I spent most of the time alone in the house with her. A good deal of that time, she was not present. So though I was alone, I wasn't. I guess the Internet saved my sanity. It gave me a connection to the world. Let me feel as though I was still fully present in my own work, yet it also gave me opportunity for escape. I learned a lot. Alot about the way the Internet functions, the vast variety of uses, the scary lack of control and how you can fool yourself into thinking you are accomplishing something...when maybe you aren't.

I know first hand the Internet is not always used for what we Westerners consider the common good. In fact there is a large faction of very clever users around the world, perhaps more motivated in third world countries, whose goals are to damage in some way users in developed countries. I try to remember the positive aspects and possibilities of this new world, when I am inundated with ever evolving and more clever scam emails and with spammers who find new ways around filters and new ways to waste my time.

One Chapter at a Time

Recently, I was encouraging a friend who had lost momentum and confidence on a book length project. I suggested "fear of book" as the problem.

For years I limited myself to magazine articles and short stories, because the idea of a book length project overwhelmed me. I had ideas for books, I might even get the first couple of chapters on paper. Then the day would come when I'd allow free rein to "monkey mind", as New Mexico writer/writing coach Natalie Goldberg calls our internal critic. Next I'd open the bottom file cabinet drawer and drop that idea into the abyss. My internal critic told me that writing a book, fiction or non-fiction required myriad details and consistent writing through out...can you really do that, Martie? "Uh huh, I thought not!"

Then came the day when I signed on the dotted line...I would complete a book on contract. Not so easy to drop in the bottom drawer of the file cabinet. I had no choice but to face my fears. In doing that it occurred to me that if I could write a decent sentence, a decent paragraph, a decent article or short story, I could write a book. It is after all just a matter of stringing a group of sentences together. A book I told myself is written one sentence at a time, one paragraph at a time.

The book is better if those sentences, those paragraphs are consistently interesting and well written, but they aren't all going to be. Every few thousand words most of us write something boring, convoluted, redundant or maybe even ignorant. But, hey, what are editors for? I don't mind any more making an editor's day. In fact, I am pretty sure I can do that rather consistently and still get to the end of a book, one sentence, one paragraph, one chapter at a time.

A Dark and Stormy Night

In checking through a list of writing contest deadlines, I came across this statement:
"The official deadline is April 15 (a date that Americans associate with painful submissions and making up bad stories). The actual deadline may be as late as June 30."
Following a link, I was treated to; "The contest accepts submissions every day of the livelong year." "Wild Card Rule: Resist the temptation to work with puns like 'It was a stark and dormy night.'" And, "Finally, in keeping with the gravitas, high seriousness, and general bignitude of the contest, the grand prize winner will receive . . . a pittance."

As you might have guessed, I was on the website for the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest where "www means wretched writers welcome." The contest was named for Edward George Bulwer-Lytton whose 1830 English character, Paul Clifford, generously provided the words "It was a dark and stormy night," for 20th century English teachers.

If you are trying to avoid your blog, your journal, your unfinished manuscript, that deadline ticking ever closer, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest website will provide a half an hour's diversion. I particularly enjoyed the TheRules page.

If you are interested in submitting your 50 words to this annual contest your invited to send your entries to:
Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest
Department of English
San Jose State University
San Jose, CA 95192-0090, or

"To inflict your BLFC entry electronically, digitally [go to the website] and stimulate Bulwer's nasal member" including your name, phone number, and addresses and e-mail address.

Copyright © 2007 by Martie LaCasse

Becoming a Writer Seriously

I just stumbled (yes my usual mode of negotiating the Internet) on to a wonderful "blog" on writing for writers. Unlike my own, which acts as a tool of exploration of my own experiences as a writer and hopefully passes on some interesting information, ideas, inspiration to other writers, this blog is loaded with practical information.

Titled Becoming a Writer Seriously; Tools and Trade Secrets for Aspiring Writers, the blog was conceived and developed by friend and fellow member of the Puerto Vallarta Writers Group, Tom Colvin. Though Tom refers to Becoming a Writer Seriously on the About Us page as a blog, it is to me a full-fledged serious website. This last statement may further expose my confusion in the cyber world...oh well.

Becoming a Writer Seriously promises to provide software, tools, secrets and how-to information for writers, screenwriters, novelists. Tom says, "In gestation for over a year, this blog was launched the first week of January 2007. To avoid overload on vistors & subscribers, major posts will be uploaded only once or twice a week, along with whatever tidbits about tools and trade secrets for writers come to light. Emphasis will be on detailed descriptions of HOW writers can utilize available TOOLS to best advantage. Over time, the blog will also provide an overview of the various pieces comprising the BUSINESS side of writing. Our aim is to become an indispensible resource & reference on the web for writers."

Check it out and let me know if you find it helpful.

Copyright © 2007 by Martie LaCasse

Play Writing with Teens

Like every subject I am interested in I just discovered there is a confusing number of website related to play writing and teens. I thought I was feeling rusty when I facilitated a creative writing workshop for teens this winter. Hadn't worked with that age group for several years. Now I have been asked and agreed to work with a group of teens who will create a stage production for the entertainment of children in their local libraries summer reading program. I am an old teacher. I am a published writer. I have edited a variety of writing projects including plays and truthfully I used to think myself quite the thespian when I would stage, write and direct my younger brothers and cousins through productions based on my favorite comic strips. But, I still felt I needed a little guidance on this project.

Still confined to the house 90% of the time as caregiver to my elderly and ill mother, I naturally looked to the Internet for my research. Again, I am reminded of the Tower of Babel (see my blog post titled Babel, February 7, 2007 ). So, please, old teachers and active writers, which source of guidance would you suggest for assisting teens in structuring a play?
Copyright © 2007 by Martie LaCasse

Anne Lamott's Good Writing

I read recently in a review of Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott, that she said that the very first thing she tells new students on the first day of a workshop is that good writing is about telling the truth.

I was thinking about first words when I came across this review, because at the time I was preparing for a writing workshop that I had been asked to teach with a group of teens. I hadn't conducted a teen writing workshop, for several years and was feeling a bit uneasy. I had written at the top of my notebook page, "Writing is about painting pictures with words." That was about as far as I had gotten with my preparatory notes.

It was a familiar, comfortable group of words for me. I'd been using the image to open workshops for years for children through adults. I think I first used the sentence in a classroom of dyslexic pre-teens who were convinced that because they could not spell, could in fact barely read, that they could not write. It was an image they could grasp and in which they could find hope. We can all describe, paint pictures with words and if our image is not as finely crafted as that of other's or satisfying to our own ear, we can work it over.

I love Lamott's Bird by Bird and the truth of the statement "...good writing is about telling the truth." I'm not sure I would open my next teen workshop with it, however. I'm not sure truth gives teens much hope. But, I have been placing it at the top of my own pages of images for the last couple of months.
Copyright © 2007 by Martie LaCasse

Fuzzy Writing from Fuzzy Memoires for a Fuzzy Period

A friend from Marine-on-St. Croix, Jimmy Johnson, pointed out to me one spring about twenty-eight years ago, that this is a fuzzy time of year. Well, not exactly fuzzy! Maybe, he said blurry!

Everyone knows my memory is not so great today as it was three decades ago. What I do remember is that we were standing on the steps of the Lutheran Church (what else) in the nearby town of Scandia on an April morning. Neither of our families belonged to that church. It being Minnesota, we had our own perfectly good Lutheran Church in our own Scandinavian community of Marine just three miles down river. I think the Johnson's were Catholic anyway. I can only guess that we were in Scandia for a wedding, a funeral, or a Minnesota cultural exchange program for our children. Ya, you betcha, let's show the kids how those northern Lutherans do things.

Jim pointed towards the trees in the park. He said he loved the particular shade of green that occurred for only a few days in spring as the trees start to bud. Then, he said it gives everything a blurred quality, as though you had slightly crossed your eyes. It was a passing comment to a neighbor. It stuck with me, maybe because there was joy and passion in the observation, or maybe because the poetry of it took me by surprise. I thought of Jim as a jock, with interesting political views, who liked to joke. However, for most of three decades, I've watched for those days every spring, where ever I am, but not this one.

I've been doing one of the hardest jobs of my life for most of two years; caring for my elderly mother who has multiple health issues, the primary two being cancer and dementia. I never expected the job to go this many months, nor would my mother have wanted to live to the debilitated state her diseases have brought her. Unfortunately, her mind did not survive in tact long enough for her to make the deal of surrender with her spirit. Now it is out of her hands and ours. I say of her physical survival, "she is a mean little Irish machine." No, not Scandinavian.

The last two months have been the most demanding and, as things progress naturally, the next weeks will each be harder than the previous. Some time early in March, with spring approaching, my vision went fuzzy, figuratively. I've spent the two months since plodding through the damp, smelly, sticky, silent tasks of care giving, fuzzy day after day, wondering each morning if it would be the last. Days have blurred into weeks and the weeks into two months.

Suddenly, this morning I see that the leaves of the Maple tree in the front yard are wide, approaching jade green. They're defined, identifiable by several sharp points on each as descended from the Maple leaves of last year. I've missed that crossed eyed lime-hued blur of spring, two months of positive writing and two months of writing this blog! I have been writing, as I must, whiney poor me bits, and the basic stuff to make my deadlines. I have taught a couple of workshops. But, this morning's message for me is that it is time to sharpen my focus, emerge from the fuzziness of a spring unobserved and keep living. My mother would want that.

Copyright © 2007 by Martie LaCasse