Category Archives: on writing

Discovering Who You Really Are

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Howard FalcoI recently chatted with Howard Falco, author of I AM: The Power of Discovering Who You Really Are for Examiner.com.

Click here to listen to our 15-minute convo: 


I asked him what the impetus was to write down his experience.  After all, it’s quite a process to write a book and follow through with editing and publication.  I was inspired by what he said:

“The impetus was the sheer grace, the sheer humility of what happened, and the deep desire to want to honor this grace.  To this day, I am humbled beyond words by the nature, the breadth and the depth of the information.  So, my greatest gift back to the universe for opening the door for me on this is to share it.”

I AM by Howard FalcoThis is how he summed up his message:

The essence of the message is that the unbelievable, beautiful, perfect, creative power of the universe is within you.  As you come to realize this more and more, you become more empowered to create more of a feeling of love, joy and happiness in every relationship you have in your world.  And that there is no one who is more beautifully perfect, right where you are, than you.  We all are, and we’re all working together on this journey of self-awareness.

Many thanks, Howard, for sharing a bit of your journey!

Speak from that place in your heart…

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Henri Nouwen slays me…

“Speak from that place in your heart where you are most yourself. Speak directly, simply, lovingly, gently and without any apologies. Tell us what you see and want us to see; tell us what you hear and want us to hear….Trust your own heart. The words will come. There is nothing to fear….”  ~  Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World

Thank you to Mark David Gerson for posting this on his blog yesterday.  It’s exactly what I needed to hear, particularly as I get into the habit of writing A LOT everyday (NaNoWriMo).

Here’s to pulling our words from that place in us which is most authentic.

NaNo ’09

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rebelSo I’ve committed to the insanity otherwise known as NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. Each November, over 100,000 participants around the world attempt to write a novel in 30 days.  The goal is 50,000 words (approximately 175 pages).  If I write every day of November, that comes out to 1,667 words, or 6 pages, per day.  I’ve never written anything remotely close — even in grad school, even when finishing my thesis.  But what the heck…

The thing is, I’m not writing a novel. I’m writing a memoir, which I committed to finishing this year in some god-forsaken previous blog post.  So according to the NaNo forums, I’m a NanoRebel… yeah, I like that.  They even gave us a special logo.

The official time starts in T minus 2 hours.  Here goes…

The Final Third

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I’ve been working in threes recently… it’s unintentional, but everything seems to divide nicely into thirds. The memoir I’m writing has developed into three sections, the marketing system I’m creating is a three-part process, and today I am considering the last four months of this year, the final third.

There are also three commitments that I’ve made, things I want to accomplish by December 31, 2009 and I’ll share them here to kick the accountability up a notch.
1. Complete a full first draft of my memoir – part one is mostly finished, two and three, not so much…
2. Remember the Spanish I’ve forgotten over the years and reach a comfortable fluency. I would love to be able to offer coaching services in both English and Spanish next year.
3. Grow my business to reach the monthly income goal I’ve held for some time now. This is absolutely possible in the next four months.

I don’t know much about numerology, but I always find it interesting to see what certain numbers symbolize when they consistently show up in my life. Here’s some cool stuff I found on http://www.crystalinks.com/numerology2.html about the number Three:

    Three (3)

The third dimension – we do things in threes so they will manifest in our physical realm.

It’s roots stem from the meaning of multiplicity. Creative power; growth. Three is a moving forward of energy, overcoming duality, expression, manifestation and synthesis. Pythagorean three means completion.

Good! So here we go, into the final third…

Things I Did Today Instead of Writing

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*  checked the mail (once in the morning for Saturday’s mail and once in the evening for Monday’s)

*  drove to Safeway in the Pearl to buy milk

*  checked my Twitter account about 8 million times

*  read through the awesome quotes people posted to the Awaken Consciousness Facebook group — thank you all!

*  changed my Chopra Center calendar to April even though it’s still March.  I’m ready for a new month.

*  took a nap

*  watched Dancing with the Stars

*  watched Castle

*  trimmed the pills from an old sweater (I promise, I could not make this stuff up)

*  put the dishes in the dishwasher

*  went to Amy’s for a massage

*  vacuumed the hall where the box spring has been sitting for months (thank you to the nice people from craigslist who came to get it last night!)

*  decided on a new jacket to order from Eddie Bauer, only to find out that it’s sold out

*  updated my Mint account to view the current status of my finances

*  read some stuff on Mashable to see what I need to know about social media trends

*  organized my passwords into one file so I will actually be able to find them when needed

*  scanned the NYT headlines and

*  jumped on the trampoline for a while

so you see…  there was hardly time to write!  =P

The Little Fox

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My friend and fellow writer Adrianna Buonarroti introduced me to the little fox from Google’s tea house theme.  I am always curious what he is up to.  For instance, in the image below, he’s sitting on his pier with his lantern watching toy boats in the evening.  If you check back an hour later, he’ll be stargazing with his telescope.

The tea house theme for gmail depicts another view, on the opposite side his pagoda.  Sometimes he is picking flowers in his courtyard or as of five minutes ago, he is cooking dinner inside.  Why does this little guy’s activity intrigue me?  Perhaps it is simply another form of procrastination, one more thing to check out before getting down to the business of writing.

tea-house1

MFA Notes: Barry Lopez

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Barry Lopez spoke as a visiting writer at Pacific University’s MFA program winter residency.  I loved his introduction: “When you show up, you bring big trouble.”  This from the soft-spoken writer who documents the connection between land and people.  He answered the questions: Who are you?  Where are you from?  and Why are you here? in a sense, teaching us by example what we need to do in our writing as we claim the authoritative voice.  Barry pointed out though, that the reader is the one who grants the authority.

“To write,” he said, “is to enter into a moral relationship with oneself and with the community.”  Having the ability to write down what you mean, and a stranger being able to comprehend it, truly, “you are in the landscape of miracles.”

Barry shared a beautiful word, the Japanese kotodama, which means the soul or spirit of a word, the spiritual interior of a word itself.  He reminded us that we must write with a bow of respect to the material and to the reader.

MFA Notes: Kim Barnes

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Kim Barnes, author of the new novel A Country Called Home (and my thesis advisor!) told us, “Even if it’s a personal story, it’s NOT ABOUT YOU.”  That statement will forever change the way I think about memoir.  There is always a much larger, more universal, story surrounding any of the events we write about.

She reminded us that our service must be to the story first, to the craft, not to our personal experience.  We are to “shine the light of why onto the what of the essay.”  The “what” in nonfiction is always false tension; the actual tension lies in the “why,” the emotional arc of the story.

MFA Notes: Kwame Dawes

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I can still hear poet Kwame Dawes saying, “born at de right time,” in his smooth Jamaican accent.  He opened his craft talk with a brief biographical sketch: born in Ghana where he heard stories of glorious Jamaica from his father.  When he moved with his family to the island, he discovered a far different place and culture than he had imagined.  “I was trying to find home,” he said.  Was he a Jamaican living in Africa or an African living in Jamaica?

Questions surfaced regarding the search for self in art.  How do we fit into the works created by authors in other lands, other cultures?  How does their writing define our own culture?  Or how do we place ourselves in art that does not typically include people like us or cultures like ours?

I did not realize at the time that Kwame’s book on the lyrics of Bob Marley is the most authoritative text on the subject.  Kwame spoke of how Marley wrote the narrative of Jamaica and the culture through reggae.  It was a “present music” including both the collective history and the events of the day.  We were left with a reminder to “be engaged in what makes the times what they are.”

MFA Notes: Jack Driscoll

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Jack Driscoll described what he attempts to do through writing, “To speak what it feels like to be human.”  As far as I’m concerned, he could have ended his craft talk there and left us with the inspiration and invitation to go forth and attempt it for ourselves.

He encouraged us to “undress” our characters, literally (if that happens to be part of the story) and metaphorically.  To allow the inner-workings of a character’s heart and psyche to be communicated to the reader.  We must know them that intimately.

Jack presented the 3 Ms as a way to avoid writing flat, insipid characters:
1.    Motivation
What compels them? Does the story make it clear why?
2.    Motion
The way the character takes aim at whatever stands in her way.
3.    E/motion
Desire/Trouble/Redemption