meanwhile

waiting, again, for response

from those commissioned

to critique, prepare for publication

offer staging directions

for the fourth Nandria novel

and the play between father and son

while i edit and proof

i need to be thinking about the next

stage play project that will challenge

my words and the pictures

in my head

WiGs during Festival of the Arts

 Writers in the  Grove astound me

with their generosity in listening

and encouraging other writers

Their four Wednesdays participating

in Forest Grove’s Festival of the Arts

this past summer teaching, sharing

showing their own work

setting up the Open Mic

laughing, gently suggesting

admitting when they do not know

helping to find solutions

being warm and accepting when

others are vulnerable in reaching out

Writers in the Grove is one amazing

group of gracious individuals

Thank you!

stages of loneliness

thrilled to have my stage play admired

by one of the best playwrights

and scriptwriting teachers in the country

we will be meeting to talk it over

for ideas to expand it to a full-length

production and cut down the cast

to manageable size but the dialogue

and the characters are “strong”

and i glow in praise i seldom hear

writing is such a lonely calling

Spousal Support – Sort’of

My husband Earl joked that I would take pen and paper with me to the grave. He’d tolerated a lot of time when I would sit at my computer to type while he played golf. Most mornings, I would finish about eleven and walk out on the golf course to join him as he finished his last four or five holes.

We had both retired when we married. He’d been wintering in southern California, enjoying 18 to 36 holes every day under the endless blue skies of the desert.

He had earned the privilege, having started in the woods as a boy. He was a high climber while in his teens and had spent decades logging, buying and selling land.

An avid reader, he was never an author—with one exception of which he was very proud. He kept a copy of his letter to the editor that had been printed years before. But if writing wasn’t his forte, he smiled at my endless hours trying.

You can read more about the wonderful, charismatic man Earl was in my book EARLY: Logging Tales Too Human to be Fiction here.

Classic Case of Owing

It’s been suggested that as I work on a script that I play tapes of music from the period I am writing about. To get into the mood of the time. And sometimes I do. But there is something about classical music. Something enveloping in the intertwining rhythms. Something in the blends and harmonies of vastly different instruments reaches for richer meanings in my writing.

The effect is subtle. I am not truly aware of what is being stirred in my mind. Or of what connections are being made with memories or experiences or the flow of words. But if I ever create a best seller, I will need to mail my local classical radio station a substantial check in gratitude for what is going on around and within me as it plays.

For me, it is one of the joys of writing to have created a personality with the gumption to yell at me. Not so much fun when characters in my non-writing life contradict or holler at me, though.