Of Dogs and Writing - Taking it Seriously

There are two things that Cassie takes very seriously, food and sleep. She loves to eat but she REALLY loves to sleep. The whole process of settling in for a nap requires much pacing and groaning and moaning and sighing when, at last, she lowers her body to the floor and closes her eyes. She's pretty predicitable too. After dinner she plays for a while and then it's coma dog, crashed out in the library or whatever room we are in at the moment. This is good and bad. The good is that she's quiet and not bothering anyone. I can write or we can watch TV without popping up to rescue the ball out from under the couch 100 times. the bad is that she's a coma dog. By that I mean she won't wake up. Which wouldn't be a REALLY bad thing except that before we go upstairs so we can all go to bed she really needs to go outside and take care of business one last time.

But she won't wake up. It's sleep time and she intends to keep right on sleeping until I can give her a good reason why she ought to get out of her comfy bed. That good reason is usually the sound of me tapping the lid of her cookie jar against the side of the jar. Like a doorbell, it gets her attention. With the promise of a cookie, she'll get out of bed and go outside.

One of my favorite times of night is our bedtime routine. After her last trip outside she trots off to my husband's office to tell him goodnight and then waits at the bottom of the stairs, for me to follow. We head up to the bedroom and she goes through the whole settling down process and then she rests her head on the edge of her bed and stares at me. I usually sit up with the light on and read for a while. When I finally turn off the light she moans as though she has been suffering 100 years waiting for the dark to fill the room. I love the sound of that goodni

Recently we decided to let her have a chair in the library. (Sorry, Cecila) It's been really funny to watch because she's a big dog who should be able to bound up into the chair easily but instead she climbs up, one foot at a time, like an old woman. And now she has a new routine. After dinner and playtime she naps in her bed in front of the fireplace and then after a few hours, climbs into the chair and goes back to sleep.



But she is still coma dog, intent on sleeping through any possible command I give her. Like I said, she takes her sleep seriously. She gives it 110%. And then some. She commits.

Some books are harder to write than others. Some come out as gifts and we stare at them, wondering where they came from. Others tease us with a few sentences or a paragraph or two and then it gets tough and we find it easy to walk away from the story. And sometimes walking away is the right thing to do. Sometimes a story needs a longer incubation time.

But not always. At least not for me. Most of the time for me it is a matter of taking it seriously. Making a commitment to tell that particular story with the same single-minded determination that Cassie applies to taking a nap. I might do a lot of pacing and circling and moaning and groaning before I get comfortable with it but the important thing for me is to put in the time, the butt in the chair and the fingers on the keys.

Lots of people want to "have written" more than they want to make the commitment to be a writer. You have to be willing to do the work.

31 Blogs You Might Not Know - Elaine Marie Alphin

Today's visit is to the blog home of the award winning author Elaine Marie Alphin. Elaine's books include, Ghost Soldier, Counterfeit Son, and The Perfect Shot. Elaine's posts might be sporadic but every one of them is rich in the details of her writing life. A couple of my favorite posts are Father's Day Stories which goes right to the root of her storytelling past and Inviting Readers to Read about the importance of creating doors through which we writers can invite readers to begin their journey.

Tell Elaine hello from me when you stop by.

31 Blogs You Might Not Know - Teri Sloat

I stole this idea from Greg Pincus who, back in April of this year, gave us 30 Poets in 30 Days for National Poetry Month. Every day, for 30 days, he highlighted a different poet and by the end of the month I had a great many new poets to follow. What a great idea!

When I was trying to think of what kind of gift I could give my blog readers the holiday season I thought I could introduce them to some blog they might not know about but that I think are worth checking out. So I introduce the first (for me) of 31 Blogs (You Might Not Know) in 31 Days. Every day in December I will post a little teaser about a blog that perhaps isn't as well known as some of the other blogs we tend to frequent. There will be writers and poets and maybe an illustrator or two. I hope you enjoy the journey.

Many of you are already familiar with author/illustrator Teri Sloat's beautiful picture books (I'm a Duck, There Was an Old Man Who Painted the Sky, and many more) and her exquisite art. What you might not know is that she is a brand-new blogger.

Her blog, Painting the Sky is all about her creative journey. A couple of my favorite posts are Julie and Julia and the Invisibile Audience where she talks about the lessons she took away from the movie Julie and Julia and Walking Through a Story where she talks about her love of creation stories.

Say hello from me when you stop by.