WEEKLY WRITER'S PATH #29
It’s almost too unbearably beautiful to live in Santa Fe in the fall, so the great jokester created pollen. Swaths of yellow buttercups across highways and meadows frizz the air above them with visible clouds of powdery ammunition. The blue sky gets deeper this time of year. It’s so lovely to look at through the tightly-sealed windows of your house.
Contact lenses are a luxury and pharmacies run out of medicine. The longer you live in Santa Fe, the worse your allergies get.
But fall is my most creative and productive time to write. The heat waves are gone and the birds sing all night long inspiring crazy ideas and entire film plot narratives.
There are people who appreciate my writing, who respond to my blog, who have cheered my efforts and been touched by my words.
Then there is my husband.
It’s not easy sharing a life with someone who only reads crossword puzzles and septic system manuals regularly.
And yet he learns. I ask him to look at my latest copy for a fall ad campaign and he says, Wow. This ad really makes you look thinner.
In deference to his attempt at constructive criticism, I have tried to learn some things myself over the years. Like the birthdates of our three children—something he finds extremely easy.
When someone asks me when the kids were born, I start to get all silly. This is how my brain goes: What year was Talaya born? Talaya is 16. No, wait, 17. OK. that means she was born in [2007, no, 2006-17=? the answer has a 9 in it, right?] She was born the year we came back from Japan, the year Emperor Hirohito died, 1988? [1988+17=? 8+7=15. 8. 9. 10 . . .] No, 1988 was the year we went to Japan, except I was pregnant when the year changed . . .
And so it goes. Times three. It’s like there is a seam in my brain and I keep trying to drive up and over the bump, but the back wheels keep getting deeper in the mud. I even tried straight out memorizing the years but it’s actually just easier to ask the kids. They know.
What is this simple math deficiency? Why do I have that when I can read John Nash’s biography and understand game theory? I can set up a 4-year cash flow projection and actually see, envision a reality in the numbers, the quarterly tax percentage on the last three months, my estimated income based on the types of clients I have. I can juggle numbers but I can’t subtract them.
Or perhaps the trauma of giving birth three times without anesthesia has created permanent scar tissue in my memory bank which compassionately keeps me from revisiting the pain.
It’s my personal speed bump. Everyone has one. What’s yours? I know a lot of people who don’t see dirty dishes in the sink—they walk right past them like they have a blind spot. Even when I point them out they have no idea what I’m talking about. So I can sympathize with them.
When they ask, What dishes? I say, How old are you again?
Monday, August 28, 2006
Sunday, August 20, 2006
organizing chaos
WEEKLY WRITER'S PATH #28
All my life people have extolled my organizational virtues and all my life I have shunned them. The phrase, “You’re so organized!” makes me wince because I equate it with the opposite of creativity. But there comes a time when you realize you’re going to get farther and do what you need to do on this earth by working with and not against your talents.
To that end, I have compiled a list for you (so organized!) of things I do that help me keep it all together. I hope you’ll find something useful in it.
• Start with what’s finished. When you make a “To Do” list, make the first couple items things you have already done, then you can check them off with a flourish, gain an immediate sense of accomplishment and prime the pump for the work ahead. This is not cheating, but in fact is an accurate assessment of where you stand.
• Put it all on one page. Whether it’s the regular list of bills to pay or a faxed resume, one page is easier to deal with in our current environment of byte-sized info chunks. Of course sometimes you have to be longer, but the respect you gain by being succinct will reward you. This takes a lot of tweaking, editing and tossing information you think is valuable, but every extra word someone has to read is one less truly vital word they’re going to miss. If there is no way to fit the job on one page, then it is two separate jobs!
• Organize visually. I started a practice of writing reminders on sticky notes and lining them up on my desktop. Green are for one client, yellow another, orange for business, pink for family, etc. When I get one done, it either gets thrown away (organized people love to trash things) or goes into my zipper office on today’s page under “done.”
• Zipper Office: I learned a lot about organizing from my film production jobs. One trick was carrying an entire office around in a leather, zippered bag. You can buy them at Office Despot or the like. There’s a place for files, full pages of daily logs, a 3-ring binder, calculator, pen holder, etc. It all zips up so nothing falls out and has a handle that makes it a one-finger hold when necessary.
• If you’re going to buy one, buy three. This works for lamps, plants, pens, everything. The reasoning is both to please the visual eye, but also to save money and time. Three (or five) reinforces the eye’s love of repetition and generates intention. I have too often bought one of something only to wish that I had had the money to get three. By the time I get back to the store—sometimes months later—they don’t have any more in stock. This also saves money in a strange way: if they don’t have three available, I reconsider the purchase.
• Do your taxes at the last minute. Having something as painful as year-end taxes to do makes every other job that needs to be done much more attractive. And you can always file for a six-month extension.
All my life people have extolled my organizational virtues and all my life I have shunned them. The phrase, “You’re so organized!” makes me wince because I equate it with the opposite of creativity. But there comes a time when you realize you’re going to get farther and do what you need to do on this earth by working with and not against your talents.
To that end, I have compiled a list for you (so organized!) of things I do that help me keep it all together. I hope you’ll find something useful in it.
• Start with what’s finished. When you make a “To Do” list, make the first couple items things you have already done, then you can check them off with a flourish, gain an immediate sense of accomplishment and prime the pump for the work ahead. This is not cheating, but in fact is an accurate assessment of where you stand.
• Put it all on one page. Whether it’s the regular list of bills to pay or a faxed resume, one page is easier to deal with in our current environment of byte-sized info chunks. Of course sometimes you have to be longer, but the respect you gain by being succinct will reward you. This takes a lot of tweaking, editing and tossing information you think is valuable, but every extra word someone has to read is one less truly vital word they’re going to miss. If there is no way to fit the job on one page, then it is two separate jobs!
• Organize visually. I started a practice of writing reminders on sticky notes and lining them up on my desktop. Green are for one client, yellow another, orange for business, pink for family, etc. When I get one done, it either gets thrown away (organized people love to trash things) or goes into my zipper office on today’s page under “done.”
• Zipper Office: I learned a lot about organizing from my film production jobs. One trick was carrying an entire office around in a leather, zippered bag. You can buy them at Office Despot or the like. There’s a place for files, full pages of daily logs, a 3-ring binder, calculator, pen holder, etc. It all zips up so nothing falls out and has a handle that makes it a one-finger hold when necessary.
• If you’re going to buy one, buy three. This works for lamps, plants, pens, everything. The reasoning is both to please the visual eye, but also to save money and time. Three (or five) reinforces the eye’s love of repetition and generates intention. I have too often bought one of something only to wish that I had had the money to get three. By the time I get back to the store—sometimes months later—they don’t have any more in stock. This also saves money in a strange way: if they don’t have three available, I reconsider the purchase.
• Do your taxes at the last minute. Having something as painful as year-end taxes to do makes every other job that needs to be done much more attractive. And you can always file for a six-month extension.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
anvil thunderheads
WEEKLY WRITER'S PATH #27
I’d been meaning to write about the clouds on Thursday, anvil-shaped thunderheads ten miles high and thirty miles across, but life got very complicated.
At 3pm I was sitting in the courtyard of our neighborhood shopping mall staring at the wild colors of the xeric garden in full bloom: salmon, red and white roses, coneflowers with neon pink petals, fat bushes of lavender heavy with bees, white protruding butterfly bushes—all interspersed with crawling primroses and sage—gramma grass stalks pinning it together like bobby pins in wild locks.
I was breathing and this was a good sign. There was food next to me in clear recyclable plastic boxes. Some of my favorite food: cold fried chicken, a stuffed spring roll with peanut sauce and peach tea. Asher sat next to me enjoying vegetable egg rolls. The sun was shining in between the enormous clouds but we had a shady spot.
There was a giddy, stunned after-blow to my nervous system that came from my decision to laugh at my predicament instead of hitting my head against the wall. I’d just finished an hour’s design session with an impossible client and instead of a freefall into despair, I was resilient, like a trampoline; I’d been trampled on and I bounced back. I didn’t get paid for my work, but it was only one hour and I was recovering my balance by eating protein and vegetables in a flowering garden with my son for company.
We designers all have clients like this: They send you a Word document “just to give you an idea” of the layout, all flattery when they demand “You’re the designer—show me what you would do.” Then inch by inch, they start asking you to follow their typed document.
Out of a roll of 50 fonts they are only comfortable with the five on their own PC, and they think comfort is good for design. They ask you what you think of the copy and you point out the repetitive phrases while they argue each word is necessary. Then they ask you why you can’t make it look like the ad in a publication which was done with 30% less verbiage. They insist, after 45 minutes that they are not liking what they are seeing.
This was when I said it wasn’t working, let’s just stop. She offered to pay for my time, but I declined. I began to wonder, How did I end up in her little drama?
After the door closed behind her, I wanted to scream. I went into my bathroom but decided screaming wouldn’t help. I wanted to hit my head against the wall, but I remembered the last time I did that. I felt like sticking my whole head under the cold water faucet in the tub; that would feel good, but I would be a mess. The room was so sunny it was surreal. Raindrops started whipping against the window. I went back into the living room and saw that she was pulling out of the driveway.
“Are you hungry?” I asked Asher who was playing Star Wars, calmly slicing droids in half with his blue light saber. “Not really,”
“Let’s go get some lunch,” I said, ignoring him. “I didn’t have time to eat breakfast and I need to eat before I crash.”
So we were sitting in the garden of the agora when I remembered what a friend had just said to me: Santa Fe has a way of testing you. You think you’ve lived here 25 years and the test is over, but when you start something new, this city just doesn’t work like any other. You need to see this new business through a full year. It doesn’t have to be graceful, but you have to hang on.
That was a test, then, I decided. Did I pass? I didn’t travel down to the pit of despair because I couldn’t make a client happy. I would still feel open to working in the moment with a client as I designed, just not that particular client. Would I be able to recognize that type of client in the future? If I paid attention to the signs, I would. So yes, I decided, I had passed the test. I was still hanging on.
I took a sip of tea but it smelled bad. Asher thought so, too. I asked if he would return it and get our money back.
At that moment my phone buzzed. It was Linda, my business loan counselor.
“I have good news for you,” she said calmly. “They approved your loan. Congratulations!”
Her voice was the sound of the universe answering.
I’d been meaning to write about the clouds on Thursday, anvil-shaped thunderheads ten miles high and thirty miles across, but life got very complicated.
At 3pm I was sitting in the courtyard of our neighborhood shopping mall staring at the wild colors of the xeric garden in full bloom: salmon, red and white roses, coneflowers with neon pink petals, fat bushes of lavender heavy with bees, white protruding butterfly bushes—all interspersed with crawling primroses and sage—gramma grass stalks pinning it together like bobby pins in wild locks.
I was breathing and this was a good sign. There was food next to me in clear recyclable plastic boxes. Some of my favorite food: cold fried chicken, a stuffed spring roll with peanut sauce and peach tea. Asher sat next to me enjoying vegetable egg rolls. The sun was shining in between the enormous clouds but we had a shady spot.
There was a giddy, stunned after-blow to my nervous system that came from my decision to laugh at my predicament instead of hitting my head against the wall. I’d just finished an hour’s design session with an impossible client and instead of a freefall into despair, I was resilient, like a trampoline; I’d been trampled on and I bounced back. I didn’t get paid for my work, but it was only one hour and I was recovering my balance by eating protein and vegetables in a flowering garden with my son for company.
We designers all have clients like this: They send you a Word document “just to give you an idea” of the layout, all flattery when they demand “You’re the designer—show me what you would do.” Then inch by inch, they start asking you to follow their typed document.
Out of a roll of 50 fonts they are only comfortable with the five on their own PC, and they think comfort is good for design. They ask you what you think of the copy and you point out the repetitive phrases while they argue each word is necessary. Then they ask you why you can’t make it look like the ad in a publication which was done with 30% less verbiage. They insist, after 45 minutes that they are not liking what they are seeing.
This was when I said it wasn’t working, let’s just stop. She offered to pay for my time, but I declined. I began to wonder, How did I end up in her little drama?
After the door closed behind her, I wanted to scream. I went into my bathroom but decided screaming wouldn’t help. I wanted to hit my head against the wall, but I remembered the last time I did that. I felt like sticking my whole head under the cold water faucet in the tub; that would feel good, but I would be a mess. The room was so sunny it was surreal. Raindrops started whipping against the window. I went back into the living room and saw that she was pulling out of the driveway.
“Are you hungry?” I asked Asher who was playing Star Wars, calmly slicing droids in half with his blue light saber. “Not really,”
“Let’s go get some lunch,” I said, ignoring him. “I didn’t have time to eat breakfast and I need to eat before I crash.”
So we were sitting in the garden of the agora when I remembered what a friend had just said to me: Santa Fe has a way of testing you. You think you’ve lived here 25 years and the test is over, but when you start something new, this city just doesn’t work like any other. You need to see this new business through a full year. It doesn’t have to be graceful, but you have to hang on.
That was a test, then, I decided. Did I pass? I didn’t travel down to the pit of despair because I couldn’t make a client happy. I would still feel open to working in the moment with a client as I designed, just not that particular client. Would I be able to recognize that type of client in the future? If I paid attention to the signs, I would. So yes, I decided, I had passed the test. I was still hanging on.
I took a sip of tea but it smelled bad. Asher thought so, too. I asked if he would return it and get our money back.
At that moment my phone buzzed. It was Linda, my business loan counselor.
“I have good news for you,” she said calmly. “They approved your loan. Congratulations!”
Her voice was the sound of the universe answering.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
chasing athena
WEEKLY WRITER'S PATH #26
We’ve been hearing owls this week as the rains have been frequent and the mist crawls through the valleys in the morning like cloud snakes.
Last night when Asher and I went out for a walk, we heard the distinctive hoo-hoo, HOO. HOO. HOO. We walked to the backyard and saw two owls, both perched on the top of the old wooden swing-set—a deteriorating grey structure built from 20-foot logs. One flew away to the south and one to the east as we approached. I followed the first and Asher the second.
When I lost track of mine, I joined with Asher, stalking a bumpy silhouette against the stormy sky. It sat at the very top of an old juniper, looking like Totoro in the moonlight. When it turned its right ear to our approach, we saw the feathery tufts that indicated it was a Great Horned Owl.
We followed it from tree to tree, playing a kind of “statue” game. We approached quietly and as soon as it turned its head, we froze. But there is no kidding an owl whose hearing is far beyond that of humans.
With all the rain last month, the desert grasses and flowers were blooming: globe mallow, chamisa, milkweed. There was a carpet of gramma grass as neat as a mowed lawn of Kentucky blue grass covering the five acres adjacent to our house.
I was so focused on stepping over cacti while keeping one eye on the wind-whipped owl, that when it finally flew away, I realized I was in a different part of the land than I’d ever been before. It took a few moments for me to set my inner compass as I looked out over the trees at the retreating owl. I listened for a car on the road and when I saw it, I was shocked. The road in front of our house has always been the spine of my physical perception; the front of our house lies parallel to it, our driveway, perpendicular.
But looking at it from an owl’s perspective, the road ran on the top edge of a sloping parcel of land, an almost insignificant ribbon fluttering away at an angle in the wind. Even now, as I sit at my desk looking out toward the road, I can’t think the same way about it. This change of perception is a new current in my life.
I dropped my DIZZY SUSHI manuscript off at an agent’s door in town this week and as I prepared the box, I noticed the difference between myself now and what I was like seven months ago.
I didn’t bother to make sure every page was in order like I would have then. I didn’t type a nice little memo, print it out and trim the page down to a neat size. Instead I slapped a post-it note on the box that said to email me if the ms needed to be returned and I would pick it up. (Read: I didn’t include postage.)
I didn’t do the little “I-want-to-be-published” dance either as I wrapped the box in a clear plastic bag. I didn’t include a synopsis, the table of contents, my next writing project plans or even my resume. The local agent said she liked the first 50 pages and wanted to see the rest so I was simply giving her the rest.
I don’t think this change indicates a lack of resolve on my part, or less interest, or even a hard kind of submission. It’s simply seeing the road differently: no longer the path that must be walked, but only one part on the edge of my life that is already teeming with creatures and flowers and chasing owls.
We’ve been hearing owls this week as the rains have been frequent and the mist crawls through the valleys in the morning like cloud snakes.
Last night when Asher and I went out for a walk, we heard the distinctive hoo-hoo, HOO. HOO. HOO. We walked to the backyard and saw two owls, both perched on the top of the old wooden swing-set—a deteriorating grey structure built from 20-foot logs. One flew away to the south and one to the east as we approached. I followed the first and Asher the second.
When I lost track of mine, I joined with Asher, stalking a bumpy silhouette against the stormy sky. It sat at the very top of an old juniper, looking like Totoro in the moonlight. When it turned its right ear to our approach, we saw the feathery tufts that indicated it was a Great Horned Owl.
We followed it from tree to tree, playing a kind of “statue” game. We approached quietly and as soon as it turned its head, we froze. But there is no kidding an owl whose hearing is far beyond that of humans.
With all the rain last month, the desert grasses and flowers were blooming: globe mallow, chamisa, milkweed. There was a carpet of gramma grass as neat as a mowed lawn of Kentucky blue grass covering the five acres adjacent to our house.
I was so focused on stepping over cacti while keeping one eye on the wind-whipped owl, that when it finally flew away, I realized I was in a different part of the land than I’d ever been before. It took a few moments for me to set my inner compass as I looked out over the trees at the retreating owl. I listened for a car on the road and when I saw it, I was shocked. The road in front of our house has always been the spine of my physical perception; the front of our house lies parallel to it, our driveway, perpendicular.
But looking at it from an owl’s perspective, the road ran on the top edge of a sloping parcel of land, an almost insignificant ribbon fluttering away at an angle in the wind. Even now, as I sit at my desk looking out toward the road, I can’t think the same way about it. This change of perception is a new current in my life.
I dropped my DIZZY SUSHI manuscript off at an agent’s door in town this week and as I prepared the box, I noticed the difference between myself now and what I was like seven months ago.
I didn’t bother to make sure every page was in order like I would have then. I didn’t type a nice little memo, print it out and trim the page down to a neat size. Instead I slapped a post-it note on the box that said to email me if the ms needed to be returned and I would pick it up. (Read: I didn’t include postage.)
I didn’t do the little “I-want-to-be-published” dance either as I wrapped the box in a clear plastic bag. I didn’t include a synopsis, the table of contents, my next writing project plans or even my resume. The local agent said she liked the first 50 pages and wanted to see the rest so I was simply giving her the rest.
I don’t think this change indicates a lack of resolve on my part, or less interest, or even a hard kind of submission. It’s simply seeing the road differently: no longer the path that must be walked, but only one part on the edge of my life that is already teeming with creatures and flowers and chasing owls.
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