Giving Thanks

I am thankful for a great many things today - family, friends, health, ability to be home writing - but I wanted to speak specifically to a single recent experience.

Earlier this week I went on a retreat with a few writer friends and a few writer/artists strangers who are now friends. We gathered at the beach mostly with solitary intentions and yet, it seemed, the magic of where we were and the creative energy of those gathered had other ideas.

We came with no agenda, no speakers, nothing that absolutely had to be done.

Groups of two and three started to form. Individual work turned into freeform group writing fun. Books and art were shared. Gifts were acknowledged, praised. We were validated as professional creatives. Meals stretched for several hours as we lingered over coffee and tea. We sat by the fire and talked long into the night. We laughed (and some of us cried) and took a great many pictures.

Our backgrounds, our journeys to be writers, were of course very different.
Our passion however, was very much the same.

I am so grateful for the time spent with these fabulous and talented women. You have to understand that it isn't because someone took me aside and said a particular thing to me. It isn't because of anything we saw or ate or did. I think it might be because of what they didn't do.

They didn't say "do this." They didn't say "don't do that." They just listened. And accepted.

It rocked my world from the inside out.

Happy Thanksgiving to each of you. Thank you for all the times you read my blog. May your bellies and hearts be full of everything you need.

Time is running out - $1000 book trailer contest!

Time is running out for teens 13-18 to enter the $1000 book trailer contest! Please help spread the word to teens and teachers and librarians. The deadline for submissions is December 15th.

Please feel free to copy and paste from this post or if you want to link directly to the FreshBrain sign-up page, you can use this tiny url: http://tinyurl.com/rocktrailer

Download a reproducible flyer to post
in your library, bookstore, classroom. PDF Word



VIDEO BOOK TRAILER SCHOLARSHIP CONTEST
OPEN TO KIDS 13-18

Create a video book trailer for the novel "Hugging the Rock" by Susan Taylor Brown.

Put together a cast and act it out, create an animation, or use photos with text set to music - it's up to you. Be creative. Have fun. Make people want to read the book.

More details can be found at the Freshbrain.org website: http://tinyurl.com/rocktrailer

SUMMARY OF RULES
- U.S resident only between 13 and 18 years of age (as of the close of the contest)
- 30 seconds to 2 minutes in length and in a standard video format (.wmv, .mov, .avi, .mp4)
- Your own creation, NO copyrighted material
- Include a brief description of the process you followed
- Deadline for entries is 12/15/09

JUDGING
Judging will be based on the following criteria. Please see the official rules for more details.
- Creativity (50%)
- Consistency with the book (25%)
- Fit and finish (25%)

AWARDS
- The winner will receive a $1000 scholarship!

Buy a book, help raise money for young writers contest

Help the Mt. Diablo branch of California Writers Club raise money for their Young Writers Contest for middle grade students. If you shop at ANY Barnes and Noble Bookstore from Nov. 28 through Dec. 4th and present their voucher (http://tinyurl.com/yf3ypfx) they will receive 10 - 25% of the amount of your purchase to help fund their yearly writing contest for middle grade students.

For the first time this year, you can also use the ID on the voucher to shop online at the Barnes and Noble web site or any other B&N store in the nation.

Of Dogs and Writing - What did you bring me?

Whenever I come back from being away from home, (whether it's hours or days doesn't matter) Cassie has to give me the one over with her nose, gathering up all the scents from where I've been. Usually it's a quick sniff because I haven't been gone too long. And of course anything that comes in the house with me needs to be sniffed out as well. Sometimes I'll take an old toy with me and put it in my purse so she can sniff it out and be reunited with an old friend.

She'll be doing her sniffing routine and suddenly smell something that she knows, without a doubt, belongs to her. There's such joy for her those moments. She races to her rug with little yips of excitment and then waits, tail wagging like crazy, for me to give her the toy. Once she has it, whatever it is, she runs off to the library to toss it in the air a few times then pounce on it, pinning it to the ground with her paws.

I have something that belongs to her and she wants it back. She doesn't wonder if it is hers. She KNOWS. And once she has that toy back she gives it all of her attention, lavishes it with loving enthusiasm and then, once that reconnection is confirmed, she gives a loud sigh of contentment, dropping her head to the floor to rest upon the toy.

I just got home from a few days away at an informal writing retreat with a group of woman that have had a tremendous impact on my life. Some of that impact was apparent right away. Other pieces will make themselves known over time. And that's as it should be. Not all gold is mined from veins close to the surface. Sometimes you have to put in the effort to dig it out.

When I came home I had a plush toy waiting to be "reunited" with Cassie. I tucked in the pocket of my sweatshirt before I got out of the car. My husband let Cassie out front to meet me and she did her normal Cassie inspection, sniffing me up and down and all around. Then suddenly, she found the toy in my pocket. When I told her she could have it she gently tugged it free and then carried it back toward the house, her tail held high with pride, as if she had just scored a great kill in the forest.

And I guess she had.

By the time I got into the house she was contentedly resting in the library, one paw over the stuffed toy, the other tucked under her chin. She raised her head as I came in the room and then, in that way that big dogs do, she smiled her thanks to me.

Over the years, pieces of me have gone missing. Confidence has faded around the edges of my dreams. Chunks of self-esteem have been lost on the road to survival. My sense of self has been buried under a mountain of "would-ofs," "could-ofs," and "should-ofs."

I want these pieces of myself back.

But I can't expect to pull them out of my pocket unless I promise that I will accept these pieces of me, (however battered they might be,) with joy, that I will lavish them with love and kindness, that I will believe again, in my right to claim what's mine.

I want to smooth the jagged edges and polish them until they shine. That's where the real joy comes from - taking something not so pretty and believing in it enough that suddenly, it transforms right before your eyes, into a thing of beauty.

Of Dogs and Writing - waiting for lightbulbs

In addition to her basic commands Cassie knows a few tricks like shake, crawl, take a nap, tell me a secret, wave goodbye and peek-a-boo. The fact that she can do these things doesn't make me a brilliant trainer. It just makes me a good waiter.

Teaching a dog a trick requires a lot of patience. One you figure out what you want to teach the dog to do you have to break it down into steps and then link it together. And then you use up a lot of treats and a lot of time waiting for the light bulb to click on. Even with smart dogs like Cassie it takes time to get consistent results.

When teaching her something new I start off filled with proud mama enthusiasm about how wonderful it is going to be to show off the trick to my firends and how smart Cassie is so of course she'll pick it up really quickly. And then the training starts. Suddenly I'm thinking, "She's never going to get this. She's never going to make the connection between the words take a nap and the fact that I want her to sit, then lay down, then lay on her side, then put her down and close her eyes until I tell her she can wake up. Not going to happen."

But because many of my decisions in life are fueled by enthusiasm, I go ahead and try. I lure her with treats. I give command words. More treats. More waiting. A lot of near misses. And then...then I start to see the light bulbs going on. The first time I give the command "take a nap" and she goes through all the motions correctly I get all excited and scream YES! so loudly that she pops up and starts jumping on me. So I slow down again. And eventually she gets it. When she does it correctly she gets a treat. We race into my husband's office and she performs again. And again. And now it's a regular part of her routine.

I recently finished an eight week workshop that I used to jumpstart some stalled places in Flyboy. Once a week I turned in ten pages of my WIP to be workshopped by the editor, Jill Sanatpolo, who was leading the class, as well as fourteen other classmates. Once a week I read fourteen other stories. Once a week I got tons of feedback on my book. Now that the class is over I'm faced with trying to assimilate all that feedback. These were smart writers and smart critiquers and a smart editor so I have of questions they've asked me about the story, suggestions for improvements and brainstorms that I had asked for around certain plot issues.

I spent yesterday looking at all the feedback and feeling overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of it all. First I merged everything into one giant file. Bad idea. All those comments in the margins made me feel even worse. Finally I decided to just break it down, week by week again. I created a new master file and took just one person's feedback, merged it and then went step by step through every comment. Then I took a second person's feedback and did the same thing. I know there are people who could read all the feedback, make a few notes, and then boom, move forward, but I don't work that way. I have to see it all, touch it all. I have to comb through the sentences again and again and again until finally the light bulbs start to click on and I can feel myself begin to "get" it. By the time I got to the third person's feedback I was starting to feel that little tingle that tells me something is connecting. The comment from one person and the question from another person trigged a different idea for me. I jotted down a few sentences. Then another. Then another. When I looked up again I'd written a few new paragraphs.

This is my process. A lot of trying. A lot of waiting. Waiting for light bulbs to turn on and shine a light on the path I need to take.

Of Dogs and Writing - Get a Little Closer

Cassie goes almost everywhere with us but depending on which car we take it's like traveling with two different dogs. In my car, a Honda coupe, she sits directly behind me on the back seat. She's happy as can be, looking out the back window or just laying down to wait for us to get wherever it is we need to go. But when the three of us go out, like on our 45 minute drives to Santa Cruz, we usually take my husband's car, a Toyota Four-Runner. We have a doggy gate in the back and Cassie races to the car and jumps in, always anxious to go along, until the car starts and we move down the road.

Then she turns into a barking machine, non-stop from San Jose to Los Gatos to Santa Cruz. Constant barking. Loud barking. Frantic barking.

It's been over a year that she's lived with us and nothing seemed to make a difference. Recently, after a long trip filled with barking in the Toyota I took her on a short trip in the Honda and noticed again how I didn't have any problems with her. I suggested to my husband that we take out the doggy gate and put down the seats so she could come up closer to where we were.

Filled with hope, we invited Cassie to go for a ride. She jumped in the backseat and then walked all the way up to the front and sat down. We started the car and headed down the road.

Silence. Total silence.

This past week we've done several more short trips, around the block a few miles downtown, and each one is just the same. A quiet dog happily going along for a ride. It's not a permanent solution but I think now that we know what the problem was, we'll be able to work on acclimating her to riding in the back. Heck, the view's better back there anyway with more windows. But for now, it's all about getting up close and personal on our family outings.

Some stories are like that, staying in the background, barking at you, begging for attention. They're never satisfied until you bring them up front with you, as close as they can get. But sometimes we're afraid to bring the stories too close. Afraid of what the story might show the world about us or perhaps afraid of the story might show us something we don't want to see.

I never expect that kind of writing to come easily to me. I scream at the computer and throw a few barking fits of my own. I've finally learned that I can't do that kind of deep, emotionally honest writing in one sitting. But I can do it in short bursts, like a trip around the block.

The best stories, the ones that stick in our hearts and minds, are the ones that reflect life as it is, not as we wish it were. The ones that bring us up close and personal.

Finding My Father

If you've read my blog for any length of time you've probably learned a few things about me.

1. I love writing poetry and books for kids, my dog, my native plant garden, Santa Cruz, and chocolate.

2. A little over a year ago I was laid off from my day job and have spent the last year adjusting and enjoying being a full-time writer.

3. I'm filled with all kinds of doubts and insecurities about who I am, what kind of a writer I'm supposed to be, and if I am ever good enough whatever task is waiting right in front of me. (In other words, I worry a lot about things I should quit worrying about.)

But probably the single thing that tells you the most about me is that I have never known my father. His name, yes, but that's all. I've never met him or anyone in his family. The only pictures I've ever seen were of him as a gawky young man in a white suit at their wedding. He was gone before I was born.

As I kid I used to bug my mom all the time for information about him but she never really said much. No one in the family talked about him and when they did, they never painted the prettiest picture. But here's the thing, I didn't want them to tell me whether the picture was any good or not. I wanted to see for myself. Still families do what they can to protect what they feel needs protecting and by the time I was in the 4th grade and someone asked me if I was Tommy Webb's daughter I said no, without hesitation. I had been trained well.

When you have a hole like that in your life it's like a scab you can't let heal. And people who don't have the same kind of hole often find it difficult to understand why just can't leave it all alone and move on. I can't explain the why. I can only claim the hole. It's grown smaller over the years but it's still there.

Last week I wrote about the distance we need between real life and our stories before we can write about them. In the past I've written about feeling safe enough to write the truth of your story. I believe we should always strive to write with emotional honesty, even when (or especially when) that seems like an impossible task.

That's where Flyboy comes in. Every question I've ever had about my father, about my worth as a person, about how I felt something missing when there was no reason to feel that way because my life was just fine the way it was....all of that has been pouring into Flyboy for, well, over 25 years now.

Characters and plot, I've got them. But to take that emotional plunge into the ice water of my past...I just couldn't make myself do it. I give myself a lot of sleep suggestions about my books, hoping my subconscious will take me where I need to go.

Four years ago I had a dream about my father. In my dream I went to answer the front door and there was a man there, kind of old, his short beard was gray but he had some black hair on his head. He wore a suit that had seen better days. He handed me a box, a white box, like one you might get clothes in or a little bigger. It was tied with string, not a ribbon. I asked him what was in the box. He shook his head. I asked him again to please tell me what was in the box. Nothing. I don't know why I didn't just open it myself but I didn't. Then he walked away. I asked him to wait. He kept walking. Then I asked him who he was. He turned around and said, "I am your father." And then I woke up without opening the box.

Last week for some random reason I decided to check for my father on Classmates.com. I knew where he had gone to high school so I kept hoping that he might show up there. It was a far-fetched hope since people in his generation aren't as into the Internet as I am. Once I had gone there and found nothing I went through my normal little routine, putting in his name, the town he went to school in and the state where he was born. I'd never gotten anything back with that combo before but it was a familiar search I had done many, many times.

This time was different. This time an obituary popped up. I read it and burst into tears then almost as quickly I chastised myself for crying over someone who had never wanted me.

I've pieced together a story from my mom over the years. My father Tommy Webb was born in Arkansas and went to high school in Vallejo, California. His family eventually moved to Concord, to Bonifacio Street, into the little duplex across the street from where my mom lived. He worked at a service station in Walnut Creek, back when they had guys who pumped the gas for you. My grandmother's name was Tina. She was pregnant with my uncle Robert at the same time my mom was pregnant with me. I had an aunt Kitty who was two years older than I am. There was another aunt Janette. That's about it. Except for the not so pretty stories that I'll keep to myself because, as my mom told me today. He could have changed. Turned his life around. People do it all the time.

My father died in Missouri. In January. This year.

In January I was still recovering from being laid off, trying to piece my new life together, trying to figure out how to create a life that nourished my creative soul. I was whole but with rough edges that still needed smoothing. I think if I had found him then it would have been too much. Much too much. Sometimes distance is a good thing. Even if it means we never get the chance to say goodbye.

His obituary mentions my aunts and my uncle. Where they live. It also says he has two sons and a daughter. My half-siblings. And lots of grandchildren. Aunts and Uncles. Bothers and Sisters. Nieces and Nephews. Family or not. It all depends on your point of view. The kind of picture you want to paint.

The obituary does not, of course, mention me.

I keep thinking about that dream I had. How odd to think that my father, who never paid a dime of child support, might give me a gift I've always wanted. Answers to questions that have haunted me for years.

The Internet makes things easy sometimes. Really it took no more than a few hours of searching to locate most of the family. They're not active online. No websites or blogs or Facebook profiles. But mailing addresses. Phone numbers. I have some of them now.

It's a chance. A chance to see at least part of the picture for myself.