Memoirous

First it was the eyes, then the surgeries, then the heat, now the Canadian wildfires—there’s always a reason to put things off and lay around the house reading or doing a craft. Taking a walk or a short bike ride through the woods, watching the sunset orange and mauve or rise all yokey in the morning. I make excuses to visit the garden to meditate over the cucumbers, kale, the tomatoes that stubbornly refuse to bear fruit. Anything. Everything except settle in to write. I had a check in the other day with a writer friend. This person is head and shoulders above me with her abilities and talents, yet—she told me she’s not writing and has no pans to at the moment. I asked if it was for a season or what?? She answered, I don’t know. She hadn’t made a decision to quit, only to stop feeling bad about not writing. It freaked me out. I can let things slide. I can take a break, but I can never stop thinking I should be writing. The voice inside my head, the devil on my shoulder: they’ve ...

With the time change, it is completely dark when I get up these days. I’m trying to turn over a new leaf by getting up at 6 a.m. to write. It’s a bit aspirational as I don’t always get out of bed when the alarm goes off. But I am doing more butt in chair this week, at least. The problem was: Running out of time. You see the grandkids are much more mobile. The little one, especially, has figured out how to unlock the sliding door leading out to the cascade of decks and would randomly wander over. Sometimes with no diaper. I have to beat sunrise and the warmer temps before they are unleashed. So, for now, my plan is to arise early (enough) to get in a few undisturbed hours and then invite them over for a cracker or game or to just mess about. In other news, I got a random message from a fan of Woman of a Certain Age . It’s nice to know the story collection is resonating with readers. People ask where they can get a copy. It’s available everywhere—local bookstores can order it in ...

Though things have been somewhat sparser here at the blog in the way of frequent postings, I nevertheless, have about 35 tab open and in WORD several “pages” open on the desktop. Though open doesn’t always equate progress. Which means, I’m making stabs at everything, while not much is getting done. The universal dilemma: Where do I go next? When my agent dropped my creative nonfiction project I switched to putting together a short story collection. I realized I had A LOT of good material and have managed to group an exciting array of stories around a theme of empowering women my age to keep moving, keep searching, To start again. Apropos. Also, in keeping with a fresh start, signed up for classes at OCWW, Off Campus Writers Workshop, the longest-running writing workshop in the US, and am “attending” via Zoom the recorded sessions. Fred Shafer is an excellent way to jumpstart my writing and revision process. There are few writers and speakers for that matter who can convey the a...

When my daughter was in college and would call home with a crisis—and believe me they were, not to belittle them—I’d say this isn’t the end of the world. That is going to look a lot different. It was my attempt to interject some perspective. Now that I’m in a crisis of, well, too much to list at the moment, I feel I need some perspective. Except it is the end of the world. Who could have imagined a worldwide pandemic and the United States falling behind, losing status? Its people tearing each other apart. I mean I did imagine it. Ages ago, in 2011, I wrote a flash called “Before the World Changed” that has been reprinted and anthologized since then. In this piece I lyrically laid out the incremental steps that take over a middleclass couple. How they shifted and adjusted their lifestyle either because of environmental pressures or even an ecological outlook and events rapidly took over and directly began to impact their life and economy. See story here: But, now that the wo...

People keep saying I’m brave. I’m not tracking—I mean just because I rode my bike across the United States by myself at age 61? During a pandemic? Riding a bike felt natural and it helped me forget about Covid. If anything I was safer, out in the countryside, away from crowds. Nothing beats social distancing like riding solo. I could go all day without talking to a soul. How is this different from quarantine? At least while on my bike I felt alive, strong, capable—if even at the time I doubted my ability. Sitting in my tent at night, watching the sun lower and dusty dusk filter around me, the quiet all around, I knew I’d done this, my body had gotten me to this place. I loved that feeling of self-satisfaction. It’s what’s missing in my life now.

I can’t tell you how many times people have told me they want to write. Great! The world needs your story. Years later they are still talking about writing. You see, it's easier said than done. Every day we have to wake up and face hard tasks. Ones that in our imagination seem easy, but once faced with them, we are overwhelmed. How does one get started with a great idea? I recall one such dilemma I encountered. When I was in high school I wanted to start a club for kids in a housing project down the road. These children didn’t have access to the swimming pool or after-school softball or soccer teams where you have to pay for membership. They had very few opportunities for fun and organized recreation. My idea was to present games, crafts, treats, and mentoring. This was before the Internet, before social media. How in the world would I be able to get something like this going? It’s not like you can just go into an open field on the property and gather up loose kid...

Fear—we’re all afraid of something. None of us want to fail. When I do my bike trips people are constantly saying: You’re so brave. Not really. I’d wake up every day while on my trips wondering if I’d make it to my destination. You see, I don’t always ride with maps. But, even with maps, I often get lost. This past summer I rode my bike by myself from Amsterdam to Sandnes, Norway. I had to deal daily with different languages, currency, kilometers, road closures, my smartphone dying. Yet always by the end of the day I got somewhere. I’d put up my little tent, fire up my tin-can stove, and prepare a bit of supper. Always there was a tomorrow where I would once again wake up and question my abilities—and as usual ride closer to my destination. In Norway on my last day, I made the decision to ride a plateau rode that is known for its difficulty. I climbed and climbed up past the tree line, up above alpine lakes—then when it came time to descend into the fjord below there we...

Tim Tintera’s Thesaurus I don’t know when I decided I was going to be a writer. Certainly I was a big reader, always had been and admired many writers, especially Louisa May Alcott. I wanted to be Jo. But that didn’t necessarily translate into being a writer. There must have come a time when it became obvious that it wasn’t a phase. The Jane who wrote poetry and fastidiously kept a journal was going to write her own stories. But first I had to steal Tim Tintera’s thesaurus. What a word! What was this odd kind of book. It was about numbers and words. It was half science and half English. With a smidgen of Latin—at least when it came to the arcane classifications. Yet a thesaurus made sense of the crazy universe. I was maybe a 6 th grader and Tim Tintera was a lot older. Likely an 8 th grader. I played after school with his sister. I might have thought he was cute, when he wasn’t being annoying and a bully. He mostly ignored us. Which was good because when I snuck into his...

Remember the old days? Before the internet—I used to read physical books. Now, of course, you can find it all on-line. I just watched a video this a.m. of Ta-Nehisi Coates talking about his writing process. I’ve got to admit he’s the man. If there is anything out there written by him, I read it because he’s the real deal. He said writing is about failure. Pretty much failure after failure, like one word after another. You write one crappy thing and then come back and fix it and then see other things that got to be fixed. Like a Whack a Mole. Writing is basically getting started and then changing it and seeing where you need research, where you need to pull it together. Relax and make mistakes. I write about this in Freeze Frame and 365 Affirmations forthe Writer . Montaigne called his style of writing “essay,” meaning attempts. Listen, you don’t have anything to prove. Just try to write that memory from your point of view; you don’t have to have all the answers or p...