The sun has been out full force these past few days. But last month around this time, the skies were gray and the air was cold and the clouds insisted on throwing rain and sleet–perfect weather, really, since I had access to this wonderful, old house and two days of intensive writing.
Pop over to Write It Sideways and read more about the planning of this writing getaway and how you can create your own. (here’s a hint: take a friend).
She wakes early on a Sunday, when she wants to sleep in, and mumbles that an hour and a half of Yoga is asking too much. Still, she moves downstairs in bare feet and loose clothing and quiet. She hopes, begs, prays that it will stay quiet.
Sliding in the DVD, she steps onto her mat and waits for Mr. Exercise Guru to appear. He is loud and moves too fast to be a real yoga instructor, but he promises strength and balance and “the ride of your life.” And, she wants all that, the good and the exciting, wants to clear her mind like he says she should. But, she fast-forwards through his pep talk, knowing time is of the essence; sooner rather than later, someone in her house will stir.
Three stretches and one Warrior pose into the routine, she is sweating and meditating and grateful for the solitude, when the door to the TV room creaks open. ”You’re doing Yoga?” her son asks. She sighs and he sighs, and then he plops onto the couch. He knows his morning cartoons will be delayed now, but he stays anyway. Watching Yoga on TV is better than watching no TV at all, he says.
With this audience at her back, she stumbles through Crescent poses and painful Right Angle stances and too many Downward Dogs to count. He offers pointers and critiques. Fluffs a pillow, pulls at the lint in his sock. He asks for breakfast.
She relents and hits pause.
When she returns to Yoga, she settles into breathing and balancing and holding. Through the Tree stance and the Royal Dancer. She is good at the Royal Dancer. And, she wonders, in another life, could she have been a ballerina?
Having finished his breakfast, her son wanders back in and finds her gasping and grunting with her leg out in front in a toe lock. He laughs and dances the Limbo underneath her wobbly thigh. Twice.
She refuses to do the Half Moon.
“You should try, at least,” he says.
She skips past the Crane.
“Impossible,” she tells him.
They both do the Happy Baby and rock.
Well into the final stretching, her breathing rhythmic and her son quiet again, she falls into a calm. She is bent over, enjoying the feel of a hamstring well-worked, when the door creaks open a little wider this time.
Tiny feet travel the floor to her mat, and a small arm slips around hers. Bending over, too, like her mama, her daughter says there’s not enough room for them both, says she needs the mat.
“Yoga has become a group event,” she says out loud, more to herself than to her daughter, “Five more minutes.” That’s all she needs. “And, no talking,” she says. “Sit on the couch with your brother—and, no fighting! After, you can have the mat.”
She lies flat, then, and closes her eyes and breathes deep into the Corpse pose.
Five seconds.
Tens seconds.
Fifteen.
“Why are you so quiet, Mommy?” her daughter asks.
“I’m supposed to be quiet,” she says. “I’m not supposed to move.” She sighs. She opens one eye. “So, shhh.”
She breathes.
She concentrates.
She feels them both move in close.
Her son sits on one side and walks his fingers up her arm. Her daughter leans against her shoulder and feather’s her mama’s eyelashes with her tiny index finger.
They are quiet.
And, reverent.
And, meditative.
And, somewhere between the yin and the yang – between two, small bodies – she finds her center.
* Photo credit: Roxanneh on morguefile.com
Happy Mother’s Day.
Today I’m guest blogging for Rochelle Melander, the Write Now! Coach, and talking flash nonfiction:
There are certain stories my gut wants me to put down on paper.
Like the one about the summer I turned twenty-two, when I climbed into a tiny Isuzu Trooper and rode in the back seat all the way from Norman, Oklahoma to the Catskills of upstate New York. So much changed for me during that trip, change embodied in the vision of Pennsylvania’s vibrant green hills rolling along side me like waves.
Or how, the week after my mother died, I desperately clung to whatever artifacts of hers I could, from her bible to that pair of gaudy glasses she wore in the late eighties. Why did she keep those glasses, and why couldn’t I let them go?
And then, the story of how, preeclamptic, I gave birth to my son three weeks early, in a state of frenzy. Then, I walked around in a slight haze of post-partum depression for the next six months, so much so that getting him and myself from the upstairs to the downstairs floor of our house by day’s end was cause to rejoice. In a ball of tears. Because everything about motherhood frightened me.
I want to write these stories. In fact, I’ve tried to write all three. But, I’ve struggled to transform the power of those memories onto the page.
Read more from my article, Writing in Short Form: The Power of Flash Nonfiction on Rochelle’s blog.
When I first set out to write seriously, I cranked out essay after essay, believing I could never make up an entire story from scratch, much less a novel, but I had plenty of life experience to share. Now, I write mostly fiction, more confident in my imagination and much less so in my own memory (and the amount of intrigue in my oh-so-exciting experiences). But, since I started my once-a-month creative writing class with Seniors, I’ve been diving back into memoir, flash nonfiction to be exact, and I’ve learned a couple of pertinent lessons.
Hard, not only because of the compact aspect of the genre, as the story must fit nicely within a small word count, but because every time I sit down to write a bit of my own self onto the page, it comes out clunky, dramatic, or flat. Or, maybe just dramatically flat. When I read my simple stories out loud to the Senior citizens at the table, I wonder what they must think; I can never match the extent of their tales from lives more rich in history. My gut reaction is to fall back on fiction, where I can dress up my experiences with more exciting details. But, here’s the other thing….
One of my favorite quotes right now comes from E. L. Doctorow in a lecture he gave on Historical Fiction at the City University of New York (CUNY) :
What is the past if not the present and the future?
Sure, he’s talking fiction, but this particular message rings true for memoir as well. I don’t need to tell you the importance of listening to the stories from an older generation. We learn much by studying and honoring people and events rooted in our past, more than revelations as to how much we’ve changed (or not, as the case may be). Bruce Feiler, in this New York Times essay, writes about the effects of family narratives on children, pulling from research by psychologists, Marshall Duke and Robin Fivush:
[C]hildren who have the most self-confidence have what [is called] a strong ‘intergenerational self.’ they know they belong to something bigger than themselves.
As humans, we need the stories from our past, from a family member’s struggle with mental health, to the birth of a first child, to the discovery of a father’s short stint in a band when you’ve never know him to be musical. Ever. Those histories belong to us. They teach us how to live life on life’s terms, how to embrace the unknown, and how to see others in new ways.
We, that is I, must take the time to unwind these memories, however difficult, however banal, and turn them into stories to share.
Long car rides. Pit stops. Getting lost.
This prompt comes from Hippocampus Online Literary Magazine and goes on to read:
There are many types of travel, but this wanderlust-filled issue will feature those that have one thing in common about getting from point A to pint B: Four wheels. Five, if you count the steering wheel.
If, once you write this piece, you’re interested in submitting, the guidelines are here, and the deadline May 31st.
* Photo credit: [Man on beach] Shelling, by veggiegretz on Morguefile.com
Today, I welcome Write Now! Coach, Rochelle Melander to the blog.
Rochelle and I met a short while ago over coffee, and, while I nibbled away on a giant blueberry muffin, I groaned about my inability to move beyond the first draft of my novel. I can’t possibly tackle such a large work of writing, I complained. Rochelle then offered me a bit of perspective on long, complicated projects like novels. I loved her advice so well that I asked her to write a guest post about it.
And, lucky for you, she’s not only giving us three tips for surmounting the insurmountable, but she’s also giving away a 30-minute complimentary coaching session. If I were you (and I wish I were!), I’d drop my name in the comments, stat! Random.org will choose the winner on Tuesday, April 30th.
by Rochelle Melander
Highly visionary companies often use bold missions–what we prefer to call BHAGs (pronounced bee-hags, short for “Big Hairy Audacious Goals”)–as a particularly powerful mechanism to stimulate progress. —Jim Collins
Accomplish the great task by a series of small acts. —Tao Te Ching
I start the day with buckets of energy and a packed to-write list. Not only do I have several blog posts due, but there are queries to write, speeches to prepare, and stacks of books to read. Add to that my day job: I’m a writing coach and productivity consultant. I can’t imagine life without at least one “big hairy audacious goal” – and right now I have a few racing around my brain, competing for slots in my schedule. Before I get to my mid-morning snack, I panic and my energy level sinks. How can I accomplish all this?
One small step at a time. That’s how.
According to psychologist Robert Maurer, author of One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way, the fear center of our brains panic at the thought of a big hairy audacious goal. When we think about writing a book, our fight-or-flight response kicks in, and the thinking part of our brain freezes. We experience “writer’s block.” When we break that big goal into small steps, taking teeny tiny steps toward writing a book, we tiptoe past the fear part of our brain and are able to move forward without panic.
I’ve been using the small step method to write books for years. And that’s how I plan to get through this week and accomplish my next big hairy audacious goal. Here are three ways to use the small-step method to tackle your writing goals.
It doesn’t matter what you are writing, an epic novel or the definitive guide to soup—every single project can be broken down into small chunks. In Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird, she equates the big old writing project to “trying to scale a glacier.” No kidding. Her solution: “I go back to trying to breathe, slowly and calmly, and I finally notice the one-inch picture frame that I put on my desk to remind me of short assignments. It reminds me that all I have to do is write down as much as I can see through a one-inch picture frame.” (p. 17). The one-inch picture frame puts a wonderful visual boundary around your writing. Other small chunks include: a scene, a character action, a paragraph, a single idea, a sidebar, or a descriptive detail.
Small step: Break down your big project into a list of several small chunks.
Many of the clients I work with bemoan their lack of time to write. They long for a whole day or weekend spread out before them so that they can play with big ideas and dig into their writing. I’ve had the same desires, until I actually get those big chunks of time without the spouse, kids, and dogs. Then I panic: “Oh my, oh my, oh no—how can I possibly fill all this time?” I long to be back home, where I can fold towels, chop vegetables, and walk dogs between writing sessions. Over the years, I’ve discovered that I actually accomplish more in a series of short chunks of time than I do with a whole day of “free time.”
Small step: Schedule a short period of time (5-15 minutes) to write every day this week. “Every day?” you ask. Yup. That way it will become a habit. Up your chances of success by tying your writing to something you already do: a morning cup of coffee or your lunch break.
Have you heard this quote from Cicero, “Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents and everyone is writing a book.” Cicero was a Roman philosopher who lived in the mid-first century BCE (106-43 BCE). As a writing coach, I can assure you that nothing has changed. Children still disobey their parents and nearly everyone I meet wants to write a book. Few seem to have a smidgen of interest in tiny projects. And yet here’s the deal: short writing assignments placed in big venues can garner a lot more attention than a book. According to an article in the Huffington Post, “The average U.S. nonfiction book is now selling less than 250 copies per year and less than 3,000 copies over its lifetime.” Compare that to the million or so readers who might encounter your short piece in a periodical or online.
Small step: Choose a small writing project to work on—a blog post, a filler piece for a print magazine, or a flash fiction story.
Your turn: How has the small step method helped you tackle big hairy audacious goals?
Rochelle Melander is an author, speaker, and certified professional coach. She has used the small step method to write ten books, including the National Novel Writing Month Guide Write-A-Thon: Write Your Book in 26 Days (and Live to Tell About It) (Writers Digest, 2011). Rochelle teaches professionals how to create a writing life, write books fast, get published, and connect with readers through social media. For more tips and a complementary download of the first two chapters of Write-A-Thon, visit her online at www.writenowcoach.com.
Also, subscribe to her Facebook page or follow her on Twitter.
PS. Don’t forget to drop your name in a comment; you could win a 30-minute complimentary coaching session.
* Snail climbing wall Photo credit: lisasolonynko from morguefile.com
By Suzannah Windsor Freeman
