benevolent despot

Uantum year ? looks like you-want-em year. I do, I want the fruit of our labor of 2009. Work. Good, interesting, challenging, and financially-rewarding work. Is that too much to ask the universe? Nothing is too much to ask, if you can let go of the outcome. Dictating to the universe never works. It is a benevolent despot. Our job is to let it know what we want; it’s role is to figure out what’s best for us. Sometimes the results are humorous, at other times, ironic, enigmatic, unimaginable, but always wise.

the novel

oh joy. i haven't quit. only 20,000 words behind on nanowrimo. but characters are creaking out of the granite of immobility....blandness. do they have sex lives...let's just get them up and moving first. what has kept me in the game (had to slog through every excuse combination known to man....depression, work issues, unexpected 'to do's', sudden recommitments to an art project ) are the pep talks i get from other nanowrimo participants. they are behind too on their novels. they haven't thought up a plot yet. they tell me to use filler. ie describe a person for 1000 words. describe a place.

this is a quantum year. my characters have illuminated something for me. it is easy to stay put. to have cartoon character conversations that are dull. tonight is a write in at the bookstore. but tonight is the semi final of top chef. and i'll have worked all day. i have a good bottle of red wine. the sofa. hmmm. a quantum choice. or not. what would my characters do? (well right now i know they would take the sofa and the wine. and thinking about writing - no scratch that. they will think about having written.)

Launch date

Maybe we should ask Leroy to launch our website Editors2.com on All Souls Day or All Saints Day, Oct. 31, Nov. 1. I am beyond my first panic paralysis and now doggedly determined to start marketing the heck out of Editors2.com. Literary agents, publishers, BSU profs, journals we have written for, FMRI docs - the few writers that I know, Ann, Brian, Waj, Dave, Ted, Diane, Sheila, and a select email list of goddesses, family members (?), and anyone else in my contacts that I think might be a friend of a friend who needs an editor. If we can get in with literary agents and/or small presses, show them samples of our work, we can get assignments as they receive things they like but that need help, OUR help. This will happen. I think the free try is the most compelling thing on our website and in our personal marketing. Who can resist free? Wish us luck.

back-pedaling

that is me today. november begins writing month. have ideas popped into my head for the novel? no. criticisms about the ideas and characters already in mind have come up of course. And twenty reasons why NOT to go ahead with novel month. (I'm listening to a forties station "there is no business liike show business") okay the show must go on. i'll show up at rediscovered bookstore at 10 PM for the party to kick off novel month. and dive in with my fingers tapping. no plot yet.

in a way deciding to have a "quantum year" is like a long writing project. you can't just say "I'm going to have a quantum year" and then sit on your hands. all the same puzzle pieces of life will arrange themselves as they ever have. with indrmental changes sifting through. a quantum experience is a verb experience. so it is a year of picking up the pen so to speak. taking a walk tuesday night instead of turning on "so you think you can dance." going outside the usual edges. paying attention is crucial as well. look to see the interlocking pieces and find a way to pry them apart. the characters in the novel can do things that i cannot or am not doing.

Nearly real

We are on Test 4 of our website...what a trip! Fortunately laurie and I are sympatico tempermentally and so we've enjoyed the process. Our web designer? Not so much. But then he gets paid for our changes, edits, and whims. My life needs editing...such wise words from Mort Sahl. I am constantly revisiting the home page of my life to tweak with furnishings, lighting, and entry ways. Whom do I let in? How do I view that relationship? What are my exit strategies?

bootcamp!!

okay i'm going to do it. join the november is novel month experience. the commitment? you have to write 50,000 words by November 30th. yesirree. how many pages is that a day? will i still get to watch top chef? does there need to be a beginning, middle and end? can i use purple prose. YES to all. turn on the tv if you need to. but write write write . the only rule. one i used to tell my ex when he went bowling. don't think. every character you ever thought about - bring them out of the closet. mix them and match them. rearrange them. take them to court. kill them off. dress them up in sequins. write. this will be life changing even if no one ever reads a word of what you write. even if YOU don't read a word of it. write. you'll emerge off the mountain of november like charlton heston in ten commandments. hair turned white (wait it already it white) light in the eyes. ferocious with knowing what to do next. write. (I'll keep you posted)

At last!

Finally, we sent the web designer the text for Editors2.com. A year's worth of meetings and discussion has turned into a concrete vehicle for our combined interests and expertise. I am grateful for Laurie's patience and perserverance, for this opportunity to help others realize their written dreams, and for being here in this place at this time.

quantum year revisited

okay i told myself this morning. i was driving to meet mary and thinking about choosing this year to be "the quantum year." think about quantum year as a verb rather than a noun. life tends to settle into fixed patterns. for me, i have work, projects, and recreation. all those are set in the field of being that streams in from the news, my own life situation with its cast of characters, the criss crossing lines of unconscious expectations and hopes. these pieces all crowd together on a confined landscape. to speak "quantum year" is to say...."hold on. let me push all the known pieces of my life apart. let's create some space....and what will happen if i don't tamper with the space. what if i walk around in it without commentary." quantum year is opening up to the unknown before taking next steps.

This is a test.

vision statement - a beginning

We begin the flow - syngergize the writer's gift to her words. We polish the window so that the pure expression shows through.

Our mission is to attract manuscripts of any kind or size. from writers of all walks of experience. we make sure that a writer perfects they beginning, middle and end of her manuscript.

Our mission is to provide non-invasive support for a writers's vision - from science and technology to poetry. To our fellow writers: "We can help you bring your truth and intent into fruition."

statute of limitations

I had a letter from my ex today who has reunited with our oldest daughter after several years and is tentative at best with our other daughter. He asked about their finances and alluded to our putting our heads together to see how we could help.

A surge of reaction settled upon me and I morphed into a dreamlike beach scene. I was standing at the shoreline while memories and resentments about my ex and about money came washing ashore like waves streaming in from infinity. some waves almost toppled me over. others eddied around my feet. the inner voice that makes pronouncements began to exhort and list dates, times, reasons why. "you could have made a difference if you'd paid the amount of blah blah blah ..." and it all boiled down to "you owe me." waves of digits and sums adding up years of red ink.

or forwarding to the present:...."when you tell me about your trips to far places and your big bank account i get mad."

so i churned up self righteous lists of events that caused other events which hand held and walked me to this moment. that's a lot of years of walking and remembering.

then I thought of something else. "you owe me" is a condensation of an attitude and belief system I may have brought into this lifetime. who knows from whence it came. and my ex is a character merely drummed into being to reinforce this myth. ie who is the boss here? who has the baton? do i want to keep this play going for another thirty years?

and in a breath the resentment vanished, the waves disappeared, and the self righteous enumeration chugged to a halt in mid chronology - i was only up to the mid 1990's.

shook myself off and completed my day in the lab. watched an old stewart granger movie with nary a twinge of resentment. "i've been healed" as they say in the movies. so on to the vision statement.!!

welcome to our blog amethyst

well you made it!!! now to figure out this system.... hot day and off to do errands. our quantum year has taken on a life of its own. if we are squirming a bit that is good news. i'm trying out this question: "why not?".

underemployment

i was thinking this evening while pulling goatheads from the yard (an endless task with no guaranteed results....) about the inner critic that i used to try to put in the backseat of the auto so she wouldn't criticize, me or others, wouldn't voice worries and doubts. not too long ago i shifted her position and decided to include her more fully in my life. cleaned her up....paid attention to her. gave her respect and listened. so now she has become more of a guide. tonight, weeding, i started to realize how we underemploy parts of ourselves. so these parts pine away with nothing worthy to do. it never occurred to me that the critic was bored, over- qualified and so spoke through a vapor of stifled expression. no wonder her voice translated as complaints and assessments.

now that she is freed up - she is clearer, compassionate and good company too.

good morning

it's been many moons since I posted. it is a quiet balmy morning. a reminder comes that each morning is brand new. not a list of cases i have to get done. if matters are pressing, then how can i regenerate this morning so that i am starting out easily with no expectation? let life be. it is so easy to want to squeeze this day into yesterday's mold.

ups and downs

One more drawing down and 8 more to go. Tonight, at around nine pm I was drawing intently and kept hearing a funny noise next to my left ear. Finally I turned my head and there was Gracie from next door peering through the window at what I was doing. She came in and sat down next to me and said wow those are great! She looked at all the illustrations and talked aboiut her own drawing. I asked if her parents knew she was here and she said brightly, "no, but it's okay." I made her go tell someone and she came right back. And was proceeding to help me put white dots on the grass I was drawing and the phone rang and Risse, sounding grim, asking if Gracie was here..."yes." "Tell her to get her butt home and that she is in trouble." so went the art lesson.

Been thinking....what if, when the website goes up, I really do get orders? That is why taking next steps is scary. They actually take you somewhere and what might have been a fond thought becomes a real prospect. Each new change creates its own logistics. If I got five orders in a month and got in lots of lab work at the same time - that would present a new kind of logistics situation in my life. So the answer to that is to have some plans, but to keep my eye on my feet.

"Rabbit whistle". I'll be the first to attend, Mary. There is great power in putting a name to a project. It is like moving from dating to commitment.After this past week it has been funny and revealing to plan a new scheme for my life. The past two weeks I decided that "seeking" was over. Analyzing issues and working hard as a lifestyle was over. So the moment I decided I'd author and illustrate and sell my children's book and become a working artist as well, the old skin of my life seemed to cave in letting in the debris of all sorts of uncanny events. A fraud attempt on my mom and my bank accounts (change all the accounts), burst pipes and a flood (new hot water heater) , mom's tooth fell out (the tip of a very large iceberg of processes and appointments to come), and a malfunctioning kiln at the lab (exploding investment rings and redoing work over and over and a tech who is telling me "well it could be an assortment of causes...let's start with step one....etc"). But in a way all these events are like a group of herding dogs guiding me, a lone lazy sheep, into a new kind of straight and narrow. Underlying each event was the necessity to find something out and then act on it. Like caring for my mom, working in my lab, maintaining the house. I could say "it is a purification process" but that is language from the me who was seeking or who needed purification. So...... I can move into no excuses mode. If I do an illustration a week for the book i'll be done in eight weeks. or....if I do two illustrations a week, then in four weeks the book is mapped out and all the next steps are awaiting. There is lots of room and space to play this out.

posted by laurie in boise

Mission

This year contains landmarks, beginning with an entry in my journal about my mission statement as a writer, "I want to find or create an organizing structure that will carry me through and provide the theme for a fine story." With "Screenwriting for Dummies" in hand, I begin to visualize my 'new' self. I start with my own story written by moi, no collaboration needed, except by the Universe. Other signposts that reinforce this as my true path: In September I meet with screenwriters/producers. I tell them about my work, ask if I can them an outline or whatever it is that Dummies tell me is needed [my goal is the entire 120-page screenplay]. They, she, Kathleen? say Yes and suggest a deadline, something like "if you get it to me by the end of the year, I can take it to Hollywood with me..."

Starting today I stop obsessing about my son's lack of communication, begin to say "no" to unrelated events, tell Brian I intend to fit writing Nelle into my life, and DO IT.

For some superstitious reason I decide not to share what I'm doing with anyone but Laurie, Ann in Boston, and Brian. What I tell friends adn family is that I'm working on a project. I deliver my work to Kathleen, who seems pleased, then I begin the next phase of the script, whatever Dummies tell me that is. I hear good things, encouragement, from Kathleen. She wants to see more, which I've written in her absence. I send it and two weeks later she calls and says she wants to make the movie, Rabbit Whistle.