Thoughts from the Compost

Haiku Friday: Deep

Kim — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:05:03 +0000

Here’s my haiku for today, on the topic of Deep:

Zen will take you deep
and so will art or running
or mowing the grass

It’s Haiku Friday again. For the past twenty years or so, it has been my practice to write one haiku every day. Every Friday I share a haiku here, about whatever topic I happen to choose. I invite you to write a haiku on this topic too, and share it with me and the readers of this blog. Just write it in the Comments below. The only rules are: 1) your haiku must be about the named topic; 2) you must follow the 5-7-5 syllable format; 3) no obscenities or hate (I will delete those). That’s it.

Writing Tip: One Way to Handle the Writing Blues – Or Not

Kim — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:07:32 +0000

When I teach Writing as a Spiritual Practice, I boldly tell my students that even the minutia and trivia of their lives can be fodder for writing, especially when you think you have nothing worthwhile to say. Go ahead, write the awful truth: your life can be mundane, unimportant, boring. Write your daily “to do” list in narrative. Write “I can’t forget to buy dog food, and I better email Pat today, and oh gosh my hair looks awful, I need a haircut.” Can this be writing? It’s all compost, I say, someday you will find a tulip or a turnip growing there, I promise.

But some days I don’t believe my own stuff, you know? My listing compost won’t grow anything, it has no rich meaty red worms squirming with hunger, or slimy banana peels thick with mold. There are no invisible bacterial creatures going about their daily business, brutally colonizing the muck like Vikings landing on the unprotected shores of England. No no, my listing compost is made of flattened dust balls and year-old barbecue ashes that deaden anything they cover. I suspect my Muse is hiding out in her bathroom, sitting on the toilet and idly thumbing through a magazine, thinking her own thoughts and dumping her own waste, and withholding both from me. While here I am knee deep in dust bunnies and breathing stagnant air.

Sometimes writing ain’t no fun, you know?

Compost: My WIP

Kim — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 11:27:42 +0000

If you read my blog post from August 16th, you know I have started sharing snippets (unedited, first draft snippets!) from my new WIP, a novel with the working title of “Masks and Stories.” It is my hope that sharing these snippets will encourage me to keep writing this new book, and not let it go dormant again.

So here’s another passage:

“Long ago, or maybe only yesterday, there was a young girl who didn’t belong where she was born. She did not look like anyone in her family, or even in her town. They had blue eyes or green eyes, but no one else had dark eyes the color of mink, like she did. They had smooth pink and white skins, but her skin was a freckled goldy-brown. Their noses were short and broad, but hers was narrow and crooked. Their fingers were wide and stubby, as were their toes, but hers were long and thin. Their hair was brown and straight as plank boards, but her burnt orange locks grew in curls that were painful to comb in the mornings. In short, everyone else was beautiful, and she was not.”

Comments are welcome.

Haiku Friday: Blessing

Kim — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 11:53:43 +0000

Here’s my haiku for today, on the topic of Blessing:

may bears protect you
may otters share their laughter
may wolves howl welcome

Sharing History: The Consequences of Children’s Literature

Kim — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 11:58:56 +0000

One of the participants in my memoir-writing class remembered reading Little Toot by Hardie Gramatky, a 1939 classic children’s book about a courageous little tugboat, to her four-year-old son. It became his favorite book, and he demanded that she read it nearly every night for about a year. “I guess it’s true that literature has great power,” she said, “because he was fascinated by boats from then on. In fact he made them his life’s work – he’s now the captain of a ferry boat!”

What did your mom read to you when you were young? How did that book affect you? Or … what are you reading to your children or grandchildren right now?

Goody Beagle: UPS Men, Squirrels & the End of the World as We Know It

Kim — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 11:39:19 +0000

A fat squirrel came onto my porch and ate MY cookie that the UPS man left for me!

I howled and howled through the glass door and no one did anything and the fat squirrel went right on eating my cookie.

I believe the world is ending.

Haiku Friday: Birds

Kim — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:28:19 +0000

Here’s my haiku for today, on the topic of Birds:

robins, crows, juncos
chickadees, flickers, sparrows
it's crowded up there

Writing: Word History

Kim — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:51:00 +0000

I want to explore one last idiom, and it’s a doozie.

Do you know what a doozie is? Well, of course you do – it’s something that is really cool, impressive, or costs a whole lot of money.

But you may not know where this word originated. It’s a fairly new word, born in the 1920s. Have you ever seen a Duesenberg car? If you’re not a car nut, probably not. But if you’ve ever said, “What a doozie!” you are referring to this car.

The Duesenberg was a car built during the 1920s that was one of the most expensive and extravagant cars ever. It was made entirely by hand and its price was out of reach for middle class people, and even a stretch for the rich.

Maybe calling the Duesenberg a doozie brought it down out of the stratosphere, so even plain folks could talk about it.

Compost: My WIP

Kim — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 11:48:18 +0000

When I left corporate America and became a full-time writer, I thought, “Wow how cool, all my time just for writing!” Ideas for stories, novels, essays, and poems jumped around in my mind like caffeinated fleas.

And then I began ghostwriting. I write for other people, and I love it. However, there is a downside. I’m often so busy writing for others that my own work takes second place. Ghostwriting earns me reliable money. Making money from my own work is more of a crap shoot. Ghostwriting means I have made commitments and promises to other people. With my own writing, the commitments and promises are made only to myself, who I find easier to negotiate with.

The upshot is that many of my fleas have stopped jumping and gone back to sleep.

So what to do? One day I had a brainwave. One of the commitments to myself that I do keep steadfastly is to write this blog. I’m not writing for others here, this is my own work. So what if I shared here, on this blog, pieces from my current “for-me” WIP?

Right now I’m working on a novel with the working title of “Masks & Stories”. It’s about the masks we wear and the stories we tell, and how they make us who we are. I like it. I like it very much. When I work on it, I get excited. And when I share it, it becomes real.

So every now and again I’m going to share snippets of this WIP here on my blog. Maybe just a sentence or a paragraph at a time. This is kind of scary, since these will be first draft snippets; they are unedited, will probably change, or may even be eliminated from the final product. But I believe that sharing these snippets will keep me trucking along on this book that is crying out to be written. I think it will keep my fleas hopping.

I’ll start at the beginning, with the first paragraph of the book (as it is now). If you want to comment, I’d love to hear what you think.

“We opened the door and trooped eagerly into the house, just like we always had before. But we stopped in the entry way, the four of us bunched together as if uncertain of where to go, since Grandma wasn’t here to show us. Only a moment, but a long one, while her absence shouted from the walls and echoed in the empty air.”

Haiku Friday: Starting

Kim — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 11:39:22 +0000

Here’s my haiku for today, on the topic of Starting:

finish what you start
your mother always said so
you know she was right