Category Archives: writing, writers, and stuff we like

I do so love the word “begets”

Posted on November 17, 2011 | 19 Comments

Not long ago, I was talking to a writer friend who hasn’t been writing. She’s had a lot going on, inside and out, and it’s been hard for her to find that place inside,  where it’s both quiet and humming, dreamy and focused, wild and disciplined… that place where the artist and the art beautifully, magically collide.

I understand. I’ve been there too. It’s like living on the perimeter of your soul. She said that she was thinking of trying something completely different: painting. She’d always been interested in it but never pursued it because she didn’t think she was good enough, and so… maybe now…

I dropped everything to reply:

Yes!

I think it’s so important for us to indulge our creativity – even when the project that pulls us isn’t part of our plan, even when it won’t make us money, even when it feels frivolous and beside the point. In fact, especially when it feels frivolous and beside the point.

I love ill-advised creativity, the kind we don’t really expect to be good at. When you do something creative outside your field, it’s like giving yourself permission to be an absolute beginner. You can mess up, challenge conventional wisdom (because… well, hell, you don’t even know what the conventional wisdom is). It’s hard for a writer to let herself write crap, but it’s not that hard for a writer to sculpt or paint or photograph crap.

When you indulge your creativity outside your field(s) of expertise, you invite a sense of play. Less attached to the result, you can open to the experience – the crazy firing synapses, the giddy newness, the FUN. I told my friend that I have that sense of adventure every time I take my camera out into the world. Talk about not being attached to the result, I’m delighted when my subject actually appears in the frame.

And here’s the really wonderful part. Much as love begets love, creativity (of all kinds) begets creativity. I think if my friend starts painting, those first beautiful, timid, exhilarating brush strokes may also be her first beautiful, timid, exhilarting steps back to her writing.

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The (real) worst thing

Posted on November 10, 2011 | 44 Comments

I was talking to a writer on Twitter, an amazingly talented writer who regularly blows me away with the power and clarity of her essays and the emotional precision of her stories. She told me that her parents don’t take her writing seriously. I know another writer who never told her husband when she decided to write a book. She didn’t tell him when she finished it either. Or when she landed her agent.

Sometimes chasing a dream, throwing your best, most creative self at something that doesn’t net you a regular paycheck, a positive performance review or a set of fancy business cards is lonely work. The people you normally depend on for emotional support and encouragement fall short; they don’t know what to say or how to say it. Maybe they don’t even understand what drives you.

Yesterday I was talking to a friend about this, telling her about how I sometimes get discouraged by the attention my writing doesn’t get from people I love or admire. I think it’s common for creatives to feel that way because so much of our work isn’t compensated, and the only measure we have that it’s good or impactful is the number of views we get, the comments or mentions, an editor’s decision to publish our piece.

In the end, I told her, you have to write (or paint, or take pictures, or perform, or make jewelry, or sculpt) because it’s where your passion lies, because it’s the thing you can’t not do, and because deep down inside, no matter what people say (or don’t say), you believe your work is meaningful.

Self-validation is a skill, one I’m only beginning to master (and by master I mean, most of the time, I can keep writing, not let the doubt and uncertainty swallow me whole). And when I’m feeling the aloneness of it, the disconnect between the fervor and faith inherent in my creative process and the sometimes unnervingly quiet response, I’m learning how to make myself feel better.

Sometimes I write myself through it. My journal is full of pages that start out as angsty artist rambling and end up as pep talks. Sometimes I grab my camera and go someplace pretty, or find a trail and let the rhythm of my feet align my insides. In the best of times, I tackle the next new thing, because I know that’s what creatives do. It’s the thing they can’t not do, and the only thing worse than failing (or being ignored) is not having created anything at all.

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Where the love is…

Posted on October 27, 2011 | 32 Comments

My friend Nancy sent me a link to this post, Go Where The Love Is, which I loved and you should read, but the title alone captured my imagination (and heart). The idea, of course, is not to try to force people to love (appreciate, understand) you (or agonize over the ones who don’t), but to surround yourself with the people who already do.

Amen to that. Love shouldn’t require a series of auditions, a well thought out argument or a balancing of the emotional tally sheet. If you keep having to prove yourself worthy, question the relationship, and…

go where the love is.

I love that phrase. I love it because it works both ways. You don’t have to love someone because they say you do, or because you’re related to them, or because you share a long and complicated history. While I think forgiveness and acceptance are critical components of a love-filled life, so is sanity and a sense of self. I once asked in a blog post if people believed you should have to fight for love. Almost everyone said yes, but I think Dominique Browning is right. “Sometimes better isn’t around the corner–and the fight only depletes precious inner resources.”

After I read her piece, I started thinking about “where the love is.” What it means to root one’s self in love, to grab hold of what feeds and expands you – the people (activities, places, practices) that simultaneously ground and open you, make you more capable of love yourself.

Of course, I made a list. Here’s where I find love…

  1. With my generous friends (some of whom are family) who, miraculously, love me even more when I am completely unadorned.
  2. Walking – on trails, on sidewalks, along shorelines, in crowds. Walking has become meditative for me, a synching up of motion, mind, body and earth.
  3. In the love project. This month is a perfect example. I get frustrated, feel overwhelmed, feel alone, and I write a love letter. By the end, I am always, always in a better place.
  4. On the yoga mat. I breathe, stretch, hold, stress my muscles, still my mind, focus my efforts. I am never more attuned to myself than on my mat.
  5. Here, in Zebra Sounds. If I could figure out how to manifest in the physical world the intelligence, insight, good will and unabashed kindness that happens here every day… well, I guess we wouldn’t need a love project, would we?

Your turn. Where is the love for you?

~~~~~~~~~~

In other news…

Andrea Lewicki’s wonderful curiosity project launches Friday! I’m so excited! You can find out the latest (including how to log in and chat with me live at 3 pm PST Saturday) here.

At A Month of Sundays, I shared a bittersweet memory.

At FoW, I shared some thoughts on writing brave.

At Milliver’s Travels I shared my adventure in Sausalito (with pictures).

xo

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Wordplay

Posted on September 13, 2011 | 51 Comments

Recently, a friend wrote me a note that included, among other wonderful treasures, the word “proprioception.” It’s five syllables AND I had to look it up. I admit, I was dazzled. I sent a suitably swoony reply.

It made me think about my emotional, sometimes visceral reactions to words, and how those reactions aren’t always connected to the word’s actual meaning. Which led me to wonder about you…

  1. What word do you just plain love?
    I love shenanigans, badassery, wiggle, flagrant, pluck, synchronicity and mosey, to name a few.
  2. What word do you hate?
    I hate the word vomit. Throw up, puke, hurl, heave, regurgitate, upchuck and blow chunks… all okay, but not vomit.
  3. What word do you consistently misspell?
    Exhilarate, colonel, hierarchy, daiquiri and apropos. (I guessed all but one of those wrong the first time I typed them into this post.)
  4. What word’s meaning do you keep having to look up?
    Allusion. (I’ve just stopped using it.)
  5. What word do you think is completely overused?
    Organic and tribe are overused… but I still like them.
  6. What word do you think is underused?
    Doff. We should definitely doff more. And donn, for that matter.

Your turn!

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How do you want to feel?

Posted on August 30, 2011 | 76 Comments

Danielle LaPorte says a lot of wise things. One of the wise things she says is that we’ve got success all backwards. We tell ourselves that if we do this, and this, and this, we’ll feel that, and then we’re surprised when accomplishing what we set out to do doesn’t make us feel the way we thought it would.

She says we need to go at it from the other direction – decide how we want to feel, and then do stuff that makes us feel that way. It sounds easy to me, in that way that logic makes everything sound easier than it is. For instance, “If you want to be a writer, write!” is the best advice I’ve ever gotten on the subject of writing. That’s some irrefutable logic right there, but there are days when I think sprouting giant pterodactyl wings and taking flight from my balcony would be easier.

Still, I’m in the middle of an exhilarating transition, personally and professionally. It seems a good time for me to turn old assumptions on their heads – assumptions like the one that says if I accomplish great things (a big, bold, expanded Love Project for example, or a book deal, or a happy marriage, or a ginormous shiny platform), I will be happy.

The idea of deciding first what “being happy” even means, and then, second, doing the stuff that makes me feel that way appeals to my leaping, skittering genius, the part of me I most want to engage and expand. I think Danielle LaPorte is onto something.

So over the weekend I wrote down a bunch of things I want to feel. Words like alive, connected, inspired, brave, soulful, and compelling spilled out of me and onto the page in a stream-of-conscious flurry of self-examination. When I was done, I stared at the page and, following Danielle’s advice, I narrowed my list down to three. Three things I want to feel all the time, because if I’m feeling these three things, it will mean I’m successful and happy (two words that are so general as to be utterly meaningless).

Here are the three things I want to feel: wildly creative (the adverb is important here – I want to indulge my most playful and daring impulses in everything I create); abundant (never operating from a place a lack, but rather from a place of knowledge – absolute and cellular – that I am enough, I have enough, I do enough); and immeshed in meaningful (rooted in my connection to others and to the planet, bullshit free).

Now, as I decide where to focus my energy, I think “what things can I do today, this week, this quarter, that will make me feel wildly creative, abundant, and immeshed in meaningful?” I know it won’t make every moment of my life kickass and evolutionary, but it will make more of them feel that way, and who wouldn’t want that?

Okay, so now it’s your turn. Even if you just do it to play with me, I really want to know: how do you want to feel? And what can you do today to feel like that?

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What if…

Posted on March 30, 2011 | 33 Comments

My favorite thing about Zebra Sounds is not the opportunity it provides me to write (though I love that too), it’s the conversations that break out after I write. It’s the part where you come in and, in your comments, offer me another way to see my own words. That’s the magic of conversation (here and everywhere); as long as we’re open, it allows us to see the world from multiple points of view.

Yesterday, in response to my love story post, Rose commented that, like me, she’d never dreamed of having children. The difference is that she didn’t have any. She said, “If I think about it I feel regret that I didn’t, but I don’t really think about it that much. Life has/had other plans for me, like being that wild child you wanted to be.” She said she had few regrets about that – being the wild child – and that made me smile. I liked knowing she’d taken the path I hadn’t and had been mostly happy there.

I thought about Rose, and for a few minutes I wondered about me, about how things would be different if I’d taken that path. What if I’d traveled to all the places I now wish I’d been, fallen passionately in love only to have my heart broken in a village where no one speaks English (but everyone understands tears)? What if I’d grown used to the smell of rain forests, the sound of jungles, the feel of black sand beneath my feet? What if I’d learned to like martinis, ride a mechanical bull, argue before a judge in favor of the tree huggers, the crusaders, the do-gooders in this world? What if I’d watched fireworks looking down from a mountain peak, swam beneath a waterfall, stood up because that’s what you do when the President walks into the room?

I like the part of me that wonders. The part that feels the what if questions like sand in my shoes I should empty out. I know I could claim the rightness of my choices, plant my flag in a life without regret, but I don’t want to. I like the phantom tug of memory, the little bit of restlessness, the possibility I feel when I close my eyes and imagine for a minute that the sand beneath my feet is attached to a distant shore.

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1/96th of a day

Posted on February 8, 2011 | 36 Comments

So, besides hugging the whole world in February, I’ve also committed to writing 15 minutes every day. You can read all about it here, but the impetus behind my deciding to do it was this: I can spare 15 minutes a day. We all can. Even the most high-powered, globe-trotting, insanely busy among us can come up with fifteen minutes.

Fifteen minutes is nothing.

And everything.

Honestly, when I posted my goal on January 31st, I was already writing way more than fifteen minutes a day, but almost always for specific writing projects. What I wasn’t doing was playing, writing wild, letting whatever happens happen and worrying about the market later. With all that I have going on, that kind of writing (which is exhilarating and wonderful and the reason I was driven to write in the first place) never felt like an effective use of my time.

That is, until I declared it. I made it a goal and said it aloud, and then the need to follow through became more important to me than all the (really stupid) very important obligations that were keeping me from doing what I love.

It’s been a little over a week and I’ve written a monologue, the skeleton of an essay, the beginning of a story about a couple sitting outside a coffee shop between rainstorms. I think they’re breaking up, but I’m not sure. I’m learning about them slowly, fifteen minutes at a time.

So here’s the thing. I truly believe we can all find fifteen minutes a day to do something we love, or accomplish something we’ve been putting off. In fifteen minutes you could do an ab workout, walk around the block, throw outrageous ingredients into a slow-cooker, make out on the couch with someone you love. Over the course of February, working fifteen minutes a day, you could clear out a closet, organize your photos, fill out college applications, paint the solar system on your ceiling, write a story, create a portfolio, pen an epic love letter, read a book, learn to dance, write a slew of blog posts, sew a dress, hug 28 people…

I think it would be cool if we all did this, each of us picking our thing, and for fifteen minutes a day in February, making it happen.

What do you think? Have I convinced you?

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I’m Glad You Asked

Posted on January 19, 2011 | 49 Comments

I read this great post on Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist blog: “How to answer the question, What do you do?” It’s all about how awkward that question can be, not just for people who don’t have a job but for people who don’t want to talk about the job they do have.

I think the question is misguided. I always have. It’s not even really what we want to know about a person, is it? What we want to know is what interests them. What makes them feel alive, passionate, energized, driven. If that’s their job, great! If not, who cares how they earn a salary?

Here’s what I love best in the post. Penelope says your answer to the question “What do you do?” matters because it “frames your story for you in a much more visceral way than it frames it for everyone else.” Answering the question with what excites you – if not your job, then your hobbies, your goals, what you’re learning about, what you’re attempting, what you believe, where you’re headed – reaffirms your direction and gives you something real to talk about. Let’s face it. If your answer reflects your discomfort with the question, there’s not going to be much to say. On the other hand, if your answer is about the thing that’s lighting you up inside, there will be plenty to talk about.

I love that. You should read the whole post… right after you play with me. Her post got me thinking about what I could say next time someone asks me what I do. Penelope says to focus on where I spend my time and energy and what I’m learning. So okay… here are three possible answers to the question, What do you do?

  1. “I’m a writer of secret documents.” I will say this with a solemn, regretful expression that conveys my frustration at not being able to tell them more, thus avoiding the whole “What do you write about?” question which really is worse than the “What do you do?” question.
  2. “I have this Love Project I’m working on.” I love talking about love. I can see myself following people around, going on and on about how I think love really is the answer, how powerful even the smallest gestures can be, how I think the Beatles had it right – not the part about love being all you need, but the part about the love you take being, in the end, equal to the love you make. They’ll stare at me, these people who have asked me what I do. They’ll look dumbfounded and maybe a little overwhelmed. I’ll smile reassuringly. I’ll decide it’s in the best interest of everyone that  I refrain from actually following people around.
  3. “I take care of two slightly neurotic rescue dogs; I just read Miranda July’s book, No one belongs here more than you and I’m about to start Jennifer Egan’s A visit from the goon squad; I do yoga, and hike, and wakeboard, and compulsively consume political news; I’m becoming a vegetarian; I’m learning to cook; The Boy has been teaching me about the history of gas masks; I’ve been trying to read more poetry; I recently saw the Coen Brothers’ True Grit and then came home and watched the original so I could compare them. I don’t think either version quite nailed the ending…” Here is where I might pause to breathe.

My point is that you can handle the question anyway you want. You can talk about your job if your job is what defines you, or you can talk about the things that make you feel most alive.

So, what will you say the next time someone asks you what you do?

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A book review, an interview, a give away, oh my!

Posted on January 2, 2011 | 43 Comments

In December, I read Julie Klam’s book, You Had Me At Woof: How Dogs Taught Me The Secrets Of Happiness.

It is divided into 11 chapters, or lessons, and it’s more than a little wonderful. I have long believed that the lessons we learn from our pets –  in patience, acceptance, love, grief, happiness, abandon – are intense, accelerated lessons in life. This might be especially true with dogs, because they tend to be less independent than, say, cats or goldfish or tarantulas; they are more apt to crave attention, be underfoot, offer their people a slobbering, rambunctious, very-in-the-now sort of love. Julie writes “I’ve always thought that dogs are spiritually superior to humans, which is why I think they have such abbreviated lives. They do their business here on earth and then move on.”

She would know. She has learned a lot from dogs. From her first true love (and heartbreak), a sweet, funny, bug-eyed Boston Terrier named Otto, she learned “the give-and-take that is needed in a relationship.” As a volunteer for Northeast Boston Terrier Rescue, she learned that “the rhythm of rescue involves expecting anything at any time.” Moses, a somber faced Boston Terrier foster-turned-adoption, taught Julie how to love again… and then, achingly, how to grieve… again. One of my favorite lines in the book is this: “I know I’d rather have any amount of time with a dog I love and suffer the mourning than not have the time at all.”

I don’t think you have to be dog lover to love You Had Me At Woof. Julie’s writing is often hilarious, as when she describes her sleepless nights with a new baby and a new puppy. “I started to cry and think that maybe in the morning I’d be able to have myself committed to a mental institution – just for a couple of days, so I could sleep.” There is a brisk, breathless quality to You Had Me At Woof, reflective, I guess, of how it feels to live the life of a wife-mother-writer-rescue volunteer in New York City. But once in a while, Julie slows the pace down just enough, and the scenes that unfold are so poignant – beautiful and heartbreaking and miraculous –  like the very best scenes of our own lives.

I so loved the book that I asked Julie if she’d let me interview her here on ZS, and she was just goofy enough to say yes… and awesome enough to agree to sign a copy of her book for one of you. Leave a comment here, and I’ll put your name in The Boy’s top hat. I’ll draw a lucky winner in time to announce it as part of the Friday List.

~~~~~~~~~~

j: Hi, Julie. I want the dog on the cover of your book to be Otto. Is it? (You can lie to me.)

Julie: The dog on the cover is Otto in the way that the cover of In Style Magazine is me. It could very well be, but it isn’t.

j: In your book, you say that “dog” is its own category of “love.” I agree. I have two big, messy, exuberant rescue dogs. I definitely work harder at our relationship than they do, and I’m willing to do that for them in a way I’m not willing to do with most people. Why do you think our dogs so completely capture our hearts?

Julie: I think some of it has to do with their completely lovely gracious spirits and the fact that they can’t talk back or disagree with us. Some of it is just an X-factor which I guess was what I meant about the dog category of love.

j: I’m curious about fostering. It seems tricky to me, taking in dogs that won’t stay, giving them love… but not too much of your heart. Some of your most hilarious stories are about dogs you’ve fostered (Sherlock just about killed me). Fostering seems so very selfless. What do you think people should think about before they decide to foster?

Clementine Eve Bows (Julie's new foster)

Julie: First if you are part of a family, you need everyone to be at least somewhat on board. It’s a big responsibility. Also, when you get a foster, you are pretty clueless about what you’re getting. The dog that walks in your door is not the one whose going to walk out it. They get more comfortable and become ‘who they are.’ And it’s your responsiblity to figure out what forever home would be the best for them. Our group has a minimum foster time of 2 weeks but you could have a foster for months before you get it vetted and assessed and find the right family. Once we find someone, we do reference checks and a home visit which also takes time, so you need to be prepared for a long-term guest. If you have the support of a good group it makes all the difference.

j: Your foster, Dahlia. Wow. That’s not really a question.

Julie: Word. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t read it, but let’s say if She Is Woman!

j: Your book is doing really well. I’ve heard many dogs have come to your signings. How does that work, exactly (asks the owner of two dogs who could seriously disrupt a reading)?

Julie: It’s AMAZING! Having done a book before that had only human signings, having a dog suddenly start barking in the middle of your reading is heaven. The atmosphere is totally different, and you really get a sense of someone based on their dog relationship.  It’s also been quite eye-opening to find out just how many dogs can read.

j: Why do you think dog books are so popular right now?

Julie: Times are hard, dog books are not.  My publisher (the great Geoff Kloske) said they’re feel good stories and you know when you read a dog book you aren’t going to get to the end and find out that the dog is actually a war criminal. I think that’s true… for the most part, anyway.

j: While I was reading about your valiant struggle to walk four dogs at once down a NYC street, two poodles sitting outside Peet’s began to bark, and right at that moment, Chad was sitting across from me reading The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, in which dogs figure quite prominently…. What do you think it means?

Julie: Dogs are preparing to take over the world. Right?

j: Exactly.

Buy You Had Me At Woof from Amazon.com or an indie bookstore near you via Indiebound

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Grabbing hold of what stirs you

Posted on December 28, 2010 | 35 Comments

I’ve been a little enamored with manifestos ever since I read Danielle Laporte’s Manifesto of Encouragement and this one from Holstee. They are beautiful, provocative, kickass and inspiring. Can’t ask for more than that.

Well, actually, you can. You can write your own beautiful, provocative, kickass, inspiring manifesto. I wrote mine in just a few minutes today (though, in fairness, I’ve spent all of December thinking about where I am, where I’m headed, and what scary, scenic, surprising roads I might want to take in 2011).

I had fun writing it. And since part of the definition of a manifesto is that it be a public declaration, here it is:

I will…  be j; aim for fearless love; act how I want to feel; connect mindfully, soulfully; inspire; be awed; attempt to affect how people see their world; touch and be touched; leap; believe in myself; trust; create; know my motivation; question; dance; make noise; be present; let go; embrace the messy; listen; collaborate; risk; and…

write about it all.  Like a mother fucker.

Here’s what I’d love. If everyone reading this would take a few minutes today to grab hold of what stirs them and write a manifesto. Then publicly declare it here, a chorus of kickassery.

*************************************

At Fear of Writing, I wrote a piece, “From the Rooftop,” all about the value of publicly stating your goals.

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