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Hi folks,

I'll be taking a break from the blog for a while. Work and family responsibilities require my attention be focused elsewhere, and I don't want to do a halfway kind of job on the posts. Thanks for reading, and I hope to be back soon.

Take care,
Doc

The best little library ever...

7/16/2018

One of the greatest joys of my life has been reading. I learned to read when I was four years old, thanks to a sister a year older who didn't seem to mind if I hung out while she was learning at home.

We loved reading so much we would use flashlights under our blankets so we could read at night, and Christmas time meant those electric candles in the window that gave enough light to read by.

My parents couldn't afford to buy a lot of books, so we used the bookmobile and then our community opened a little neighborhood library. It was called Perry-Highland Library, and it was in two small rooms at the back of someone's building on Perry Highway in Perrysville (north of Pittsburgh).

The adult/chapter book room included two desks for the volunteers who checked the books in and out, plus the stacks that went to the ceiling and two that were back-to-back in the middle of the room, which was probably 8' x 12'.

The children's room had the picture books and was roughly 5' x 5' with mostly shelves in the lower half of the three sides of the room, and windows above.

This is my rough approximation of the layout of the library - the blue rectangles are the stacks, the gray rectangles are the librarian desks. The black area is the entrance/stairs/little porch. The pinkish rectangle next to the desk is the card catalog.

As I write this, I realize I'm writing it as if it still exists - and it does, but only in my mind and heart, and probably my sister's and other folks like us who loved it. One of the reasons I'm writing this post is that I looked it up online, and there is not a single reference. Maybe it didn't exist for many years, but it did exist. Mrs. Schweers and the other volunteers spent many hours taking care of the library so we could enjoy it.

One of my favorite memories of Perry-Highland Library is the summer day that one of the volunteers didn't show up, and Mrs. Schweers let me sit behind the desk and check in the returned books. I felt as if I'd won a million bucks that day.

To the left is the building as it looks today. The library was the part under the red line. You can sort of see the stairs on the left side, which are now made of cement, not weathered wood.

The little outcropping on the right is the children's room. As you can see, all of the windows were removed - the old library is now a storage area for the business above and in front.

To the right is the view from above what used to be the library. We lived about a quarter of a mile from the library, and as young as six or seven my sister and I were allowed to walk there and back together, without an adult coming along.

Some of those walks were pretty exciting. You could choose from a variety of routes - one of my favorites took me past the home of a beautiful collie named Lad, that one also went past a cemetery and a tiny little house on the corner that you could barely see for all of the trees and bushes that surrounded it.

The book cover to the left is one of the stories of the legendary Lad of Albert Payson Terhune (not the Lad I visited on my way). My sister, brother, and I still own some of those books - they were sold to patrons when a larger library was built in the area. I was heartbroken to lose my beloved library, though I did enjoy the wider selection of the new one. It was never as homey, as intimate, but it did have greater resources.

There have been many wonderful libraries over the years, and I've appreciated every one of them. Perry-Highland Library no longer exists, but I still remember my card number - J694. It was a gift, and one I will treasure forever.

Take care,
Doc

Zach and my back...

7/9/2018

Last week I didn't post anything for this blog. Not only that, I didn't even post a note to explain why I wasn't posting. That's unusual for me, but it was kind of an unusual week. You see, I hurt my back picking up a bath mat.

Yep, you read that correctly. I picked up a bath mat and knocked myself flat on my back for most of last week. Not immediately, of course. First I did exactly what you shouldn't do - I went shopping. Not only did I go shopping, I also brought home a couple of heavy bags to make my back issues even more interesting. So much so that Tuesday morning when I woke up, I wasn't sure I could even get out of bed without assistance.

Fortunately, with very careful attention to every micromovement, I did get out of bed, only to discover there was no way to position myself that was not painful. The only brief respite from pain was when I exhaled. Unfortunately, it isn't possible to spend every moment exhaling, so there was a fair amount of pain going on.

I spent a fair bit of time on the rocker, ice pack on my lower back, reading

The view I faced while sitting on the rocker

Before calling 911 I naturally read up on back pain on the internet, and discovered my particular kind of pain was good (relatively speaking), because it meant I had strained a muscle. Nothing serious, just painful.

The upshot of this was that I was fairly immobile for a few days, didn't write my blog or do any work, but I did get a lot of reading done. One of the things I read was Zachary R. Wood's book Uncensored.

The subtitle of the book tells you something about what to expect. What I didn't expect was the power of his personal story, and the disarming honesty with which he shared it.

Just before I started to write this I listened to his TED Talk and was moved by his ability to weave his personal history into his way of being in the world, his work in the world.

It's hard to say too much, because I want you to discover him for yourself, and take in what he has to share without me skewing it in any way . It was hard to put it down because I wanted to know what happened next. And although it didn't make me forget about my back, I may have been more emotionally open to what he had to say because my focus was limited to my back and his book,

I guess on some level I felt as if I connected with what he had to say. I'm one of those people who watched the entire Republican convention as well as the Democratic convention for the last few presidential elections, because I wanted to know what everyone had to say. I wanted to understand, even if I didn't agree, and I wanted to be open to what was being said.

I hope you'll read his book and listen to his TED Talk. You don't have to have a bad back to do it!

Take care,
Doc

Wake up and...fight?

6/25/2018

Between September 1968 and June 1969, I was in eighth grade at St. Teresa School. I was asked to participate in a debate on whether or not the US should be in Vietnam, and to take the position for our participation. My knowledge of current events at the time was pretty limited – of course I did know about Vietnam, especially as I had two cousins there. What I’d learned from my parents at the time was unquestioning patriotism, so I had little difficulty in supporting participation.

My eighth grade graduation

A year later, I was one of 750 freshmen at North Hills High School, and wearing a black armband for the moratorium opposing Vietnam. I had joined an interdenominational Christian youth group and was opposed to violence and killing. In fact, when the moratoriums took a violent turn on some college campuses, I stopped wearing my black armband. I couldn’t see one kind of violence being okay when the other wasn’t.

Over the years I’ve been opposed to violence as a rule. On the other hand, I also appreciate those who serve in the military and the police, while I still preferred a non-violent approach to life. Yet here I am, organizing a workshop in which writers can experience the use of firearms, and do various other things that don’t fit readily into my non-violent leaning.

So why am I doing this?

Last Fourth of July I went to a groundbreaking ceremony at INPAX, because my brother is the developer for McCandless Crossing, where INPAX is located. There I met Sam Rosenberg, the founder and CEO of INPAX, and had a chance to talk with him. He was intrigued by the possibility of our working together on a project, and when I sat down with him over the winter, we came up with a program.

Sam Rosenberg

My sister-in-law is also a writer, and Hope had attended the Writer’s Police Academy when it was still located in North Carolina. She loved the experience, and while I didn’t want to copy the size or scope of it, I thought there might be a need for a smaller intensive in which fewer people all went through the same program together.

Years ago, when I was selling gargoyles at the flea market, I was parked next to a guy who was selling guns. We talked throughout the day, as neighbors do at a flea market, and in a quiet moment, he offered to let me hold one of his pistols. It was small, silver, and much heavier than I would have expected. Even more unexpected was that I found I liked it. Actually, I would call it appalling more than unexpected.

So, I know from experience that intellectual knowledge about a firearm is quite different from physical knowledge. I also know that intellectually imagining how to deter an attack on someone is quite different from physically training with Sam, who has been a bodyguard for Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel, and doing a field exercise under Sam’s supervision.

There’s no doubt, this workshop is out of my comfort zone. And to make it even tougher, I intend to participate in the activities, so that I know what participants are doing.

Picture from INPAX website

There’s also no doubt that Sam has helped me put together an incredible program. And being able to bring in New York Times bestselling author Robin Burcell (she co-authors a thriller series with Clive Cussler), who spent more than 30 years in law enforcement, to teach writers how to make their law enforcement characters realistic.

I’m curious how it will feel to do this workshop, and I’m grateful for the support I’ve had in pulling it together.

I’ll let you know how it turns out!

Take care,
Doc

A random harvest...

6/18/2018

Life is a mixed bag, isn't it? This week's post will be a mixed bag, too. A random harvest of my discoveries in the past week or so. Since the workshop - well, after I got home and unpacked from the workshop - I've been inspired to write. There was no time for that at the workshop, which is all about making it possible for others to write. So I came home and found myself pushing everything else aside so I could write. And I fell in love with my story all over again. Seriously. In love.

I'm not this neat, but I do all my editing by hand

Author Herman Wouk

Author Steve Haskin

Yesterday, I read the most wonderful post by my favorite racing writer, Steve Haskin. It did include horse racing, but it was mostly about his dad. He included a letter from his dad, who was in the service and wrote about his experience during the invasion of Luzon in the Pacific Theater during WWII. If you click on his name you can read it for yourself - as I wrote in my comment on the post, Steve's dad's letter reminded me of Herman Wouk and James Michener, writing of their own experiences in the South Pacific during the war. The awareness and clarity in how they wrote is powerful and moving. The funny part of this is that my comment to Steve kicked off a three-way thread with another commenter about Herman Wouk! Twenty-four hours later, the three of us are still going back and forth.

And then there's the title to this post - "random harvest." If you don't get the reference, I'm not surprised. There was a book by that name, Random Harvest, written by James Hilton, author of Lost Horizon and Goodbye Mr. Chips among others. Random Harvest was made into a film with Ronald Colman and Greer Garson. Like so many films, it wasn't as good as the book. On the other hand, it was still pretty darn terrific as I realized recently when I saw it on TCM.

Random Harvest is a love story, an unusual love story. I've been trying to think of why this fits in with the other elements of this post, and that's it - an unusual love story. That's the common theme here - unusual love stories. A writer falls in love with her own story, a father's love for his son leads him to do something extraordinary, and I can't tell you about Random Harvest and what's unusual there - you have to read it and find out for yourself.

Enjoy your reading, enjoy your writing, and enjoy your own unusual love story...

Take care,
Doc

The best workshop ever...

6/11/2018

Someone asked me when I first started Wake Up and Write WRW why I would start yet another workshop. What, they asked, made mine different – in other words, why would anyone want to come to it? While it’s a legitimate question, I remember at the time hearing my mother’s voice when I told her I wanted to be a writer, asking me why I thought I was good enough to write.

There are all kinds of reasonable answers to both questions, but in the end, the only answer that makes any sense at all is the same for both: because I want to.

Portrait of me by Nushka, May 2018

Writers from May 2018 in Boise, Idaho

We completed the May workshop in Boise, Idaho just over a week ago. There are pictures on the website and the Facebook page and in this blog post, and the people in those pictures are why I want to run a workshop – in particular the Writers Retreat Workshop and the offshoot I started, Wake Up and Write WRW.

The people in those pictures are writers, who want to share their writing with the world, and want to learn whatever they can to make that happen. And there are instructors and an agent in those pictures, many of them also writers. And then there’s me.

My kindergarten picturre

I don’t remember not writing. Or reading. Before I got to school I already knew how to read and write, thanks to an older sister and an insatiable desire for books that continues to this day. Books are my addiction, more than anything else. And my avid reading is probably what gave me the desire to write, but I can’t honestly say I remember a moment when that happened.

I was always a storyteller, which in my case meant, I was always a liar. At a young age I lied for a variety of reasons: fear (there were tigers in the bathroom in the dark), competitiveness (okay, I rewrote the rules of Clue so I could win, and my friends trusted that I was telling them the truth), and religious fervor (I had to come up with some kind of sins to tell the priest in confession). In school I learned how to use my storytelling skills for more creative purposes than lying.

What I remember more than anything about the first Writers Retreat Workshop I attended, is that I felt as if I belonged. Since that particular feeling had eluded me for the first 37 years of my life, that was no small thing. When I returned to WRW in 2012 after being away for more than 10 years, that sense of belonging returned.

I can’t explain it. There are different people at every workshop. Jason and I talked about the fact that every workshop seems like the best one. And it is. Every one.

Rosalyn and Lisa

Creating a coat of arms

strange Play-Do sculpture created during a Shop Talk

A long time ago I was at a Pizza Hut with some WRW alums and someone quoted Maya Angelou’s statement that she’d die if she couldn’t write. I remember sitting there, knowing that wasn’t true for me. It wasn’t then. It isn’t now, though I would die if I couldn’t find a way to express the things I now write about.

While I am writing a novel, I also have written literally books of poetry, some non-fiction, several year’s worth of this blog, thousands (if not millions) of emails, and myriad other things. I also draw and paint and do crazy things with Play-Do and create a coat of arms for myself and my book.

My life is an expression of what I write about. Sometimes I wish it weren’t, sometimes I wish I could hide it or hide from it. But as I sit here tonight on my back porch which once again looks out over a lush, green woods with birdsong and traffic creating a soundtrack for the night, I am grateful.

I have seen my fifth Triple Crown winner, Justify, ridden by my favorite jockey, Mike Smith.

I watched Scott Dixon become the third winningest driver in Indy Car history in Texas Saturday night.

Glenda Jackson with her Tony award

And Sunday night I watched Glenda Jackson win her first Tony award after 30 years away from the stage to serve in Parliament, I watched The Band’s Visit sweep the musical Tonys and listened to some extraordinary acceptance speeches, and I found myself in tears when the Parkland students sang about love from the stage of Radio City Music Hall.

Life isn’t always easy, and it isn’t always good, but damn, I sure am lucky. I am able to live my life as an expression of who I am, which includes writing, and horse racing, and constant change and challenge. Life is the best workshop, ever…

Take care,

Doc

Rebecca

Connie and Hannah

Nushka (l), Janine (r), and some friends

Nushka, Lee, and Frank on the patio

It's time...

5/14/2018

Come Friday morning I'll be on my way to Idaho, and the Writers Retreat Workshop at Nazareth Retreat Center!

Most of today was spent putting the binders together (see the cover on the right), and in between times devouring the new Paul Simon biography along with my breakfast and lunch. Right now, virtually everything is seen through the lens of the workshop - I had on the third part of a three-part DVD bio of Noël Coward while I put binders together, and as I watched and listened I wondered if it would be useful for the writers to hear him talk about his work.

I'll post a new blog when I return from Idaho, and we'll try to include some photos from the workshop on the Facebook page.

Take care,

Doc

Inspiration...found tonight

5/7/2018

There are times when the world offers one moment of inspiration after another. This weekend offered the magnificent performances of Justify, Mike Smith, and Bob Baffert in the Kentucky Derby. The next day I watched two episodes of one of the greatest TV series ever - West Wing. And then there's the Hamilton/Dear Evan Hansen mashup with Lin Manuel Miranda and Ben Platt, Found Tonight.

left - Lin Manuel Miranda, right - Ben Platt

Rather than me try to describe it to you, take a look for yourself - here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aQykuIaJVI. Not only is it a gorgeous and heart-wrenching musical wonder, but it is also a fund-raiser for the March For Our Lives Initiative.

What's more inspiring - the music, the creativity, or the making it all work for the good? Isn't this what many of us strive for in our lives? To find work we love, that is personally meaningful, and that touches other lives, maybe even changes them?

Lin Manuel Miranda in HAMILTON

It seems to come so naturally, so seamlessly, for Lin Manuel Miranda. My office area is filled with items from his Tee Rico website - https://www.teerico.com/ - which includes items that support Puerto Rico Relief and Hamilton Charities as well as other causes. Probably the one that means the most to me is his sonnet, Love is Love is Love, which he wrote the day of the Tony Awards as his acceptance speech for one of the many awards won by Hamilton. It was revised because the night before had been the nightclub shootings in Florida, and when he shared this sonnet, his voice shook with emotion, and I am still moved when I read it.

It's too easy to say, But that's Lin Manuel Miranda, not me! I couldn't do that. The truth is that most of us have no idea what we are capable of doing, because we don't demand of ourselves that we dig deep and find that which we've buried or hidden because it's safer. I include myself in that group. We all have our reasons, many of them compelling, for why we did so. At times, our survival may have depended on it.

But there is a time when something reaches into that deep space and suddenly there is a hint of light, a hint of inspiration. Hamilton didn't start as a big, Broadway musical. It started publicly at a poetry jam at the White House - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNFf7nMIGnE - a night when a young performer took the risk of exposing his dream.

May the light of inspiration find you, and the deepest heart of what matters most to you...

Doc

Lin Manuel Miranda at the White House...

...performing the opening of HAMILTON for an enthralled President and First Lady

The magic notebook...

4/30/2018

Writing is an important part of my life, and has been since I first learned to read and write. I remember holding those fat pencils and laboring over my letters on the yellow paper of first grade. Due to my propensity for mistakes, and the lack of an eraser on the fat pencil, there were often wet holes rubbed in the paper in a misguided effort to hide my errors.

Last week, Barbara O'Neal talked about notebooks in her Writer Unboxed post on the importance of having a private writing practice. It brought up memories of the various journals I've had, and what's worked for me and what hasn't. On the right is a journal I bought from the old Abbey Press when I was in law school. I bought one for every member of the family, but I think I'm the only one who filled mine completely. At that time, I included quotes from things I was reading, as well as my thoughts about my life, the world, and a lot of things.

My first genuine journal

My very first journal, however, was a spiral-bound steno pad that I used as a journal the summer I was an exchange student in Costa Rica. A returned exchange student urged me to keep a journal, as she said it's so easy to forget things once you get home. She was right. When I read through it years later I was stunned by my 16-year-old perceptions, and the experiences that had completely escaped my memory.

The eight years between my Costa Rican adventures and the law school journal were filled with my senior year in high school, college, and my first year or so of law school. I don't think it ever occurred to me to keep a journal in those years - I was far too busy living them to keep that kind of record. It was in law school that the scream inside of me began to demand an outlet. And I started a journal.

The notebook on the left was given to me by a friend when I was lay-ordained. I met her at a Natalie Goldberg writing practice workshop. The notebook on the right I discovered in the gift shop at the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.

One journal was written in the form of letters to a friend, who suggested it as a way to deal with a devastating loss. Like Barbara O'Neal, I love the Moleskine notebooks, though I use many different kinds. For notes and writing practices on my novel, I use the sugarcane-based notebooks made for Staples, even though they no longer have the cute covers. My favorite was the one with the owls.

I've lost count of the number of notebooks I've filled with poetry. For years I kept telling myself I wasn't a poet. And I'm not, if you are looking for a Mary Oliver or David Whyte. On the other hand, I've written hundreds of poems in various notebooks. One of the workshops I attended with Natalie Goldberg was the haiku workshop she did with Clark Strand. I still write haiku when inspiration strikes. No matter the notebook, I find something magical in taking my pen in hand to fill the empty page with things that only I can write.

With the workshop coming up at the end of May, I'm already wondering what notebooks to take with me...

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