Writing- How do I Love Thee?

(My youngest when he was little- someone else who loves the written word... or is that his toes?)

Ahhh writing. Let me count the ways I love thee.

1.  for making me embrace rejection- I love thee
2. for forcing me to strip back the crap and write it real- I love thee
3. for providing me with the term 'writer's block' so I don't have to say 'I'm afraid'- I love thee
4. for introducing me to twitter, blogger, facebook and many other ways to avoid a blank page I must fill- I love thee
5. for being my best excuse to be alone- I love thee
6. for helping me understand my own thoughts- I love thee
7. for all the lessons in humility (including the time I thought my first book was ready to query)- I love thee
8. for expanding my horizons to include like minded people so I no longer question my sanity- I love thee
9. for the sheer excitement of finishing 87,000 words without having burnt every dinner, neglecting the dog, forgetting where I put the children or filing for divorce- I love thee
10. for daily giving me reason to push through my limitations- I love thee

AND finally...

11.  for being the vehicle through which I am seen, known and understood- I love thee

Happy valentines Day all :)

What about you? Tell me about what you love?

PS- Thank you to those who came by and left there best wishes when I was having a difficult Friday. I appreciate you all.
X

Standing by Myself

(photo by Tabitha Bird)

"Feeling unpopular as a child gets one in shape for serious writing. 

Misfits spend a lot of time alone. Future writers use that time to make up imaginary playmates. 

As outsiders, the develop a habit of observing others. 

And being rejected by other kids 

not only fills young authors-to-be with grievances in need of redress 

but it gets them used to being disliked. 

That puts them in a very strong artistic position. 

Putting people off feels like business as usual."

~ Ralph Keys (The Courage to Write)

People have often told me I am intuitive. Now you know why. 

I've spent a great portion of my life observing. After a while I was actually surprised if I fitted in. The edge of the group became so familiar. 

Here's the thing, I've spent so much of my childhood and adulthood being alone that doing things my own way has become second nature. Being unpopular doesn't scare me since it's not really an issue to begin with. I'm already firmly camped on that ground.  

It's not that I don't want to belong, I do. But since I often find myself on the outside of things I'm left to take creative risks with my life that don't carry with them debilitating fear of ostracising myself from others. I am left to be myself in my words, in my writing and in my living. It has served me well. The more time I spend with me the more I find out about who Tab is and what she really wants to say. 

I highly recommend a bout of loneliness for sheer honesty in your writing. Get with you and find out what makes you tick. Find out what you would say if no one else was a round and then... say it. 

In my humble little opinion readers appreciate the authentic writer. Eventually I've found myself surround by others who live as though no one else is watching. There's freedom in that. I get to be myself. They get to be themselves. And suddenly I have a friend, perhaps two or three who don't need to take the social temperature of everyone around them before they speak... or in the case of a writer, before they put words on paper.

What about you? Am I the only loner out there? 

For Without a Reader

There was once a writer who had written no words for she had no words within her.
For without a reader to see her sadness there was nothing left to say

There once was a writer who didn't know she was until a listener encouraged her to talk
to open those pages and imagine what things inside her might spill out upon them
to breathe what was inside her very being onto the blank canvas of her dreams
And she did, that writer did.
For without a reader her words might never have been born.

There once was a writer whose dreams were short and her words unsteady on their feet, but there they were. On the page. Before her.
For without a reader those pages would have remained empty.

There once was a reader who began to build a little place to speak, a sentence placed here, a poem hung over there,
to give voice to the challenges that burned and the void inside that curdled
to reach out to those who might be like her; a writer, yet with no words of their own
And so she built. She stripped back and wove together.
For without a reader that building would remain unseen.

There once was a writer who finished her first book. Her dreams now longer. Long enough that her arms now wrapped not only around herself but around others. She is proud. And she is humbled.
For without you, my readers here, and all the many other readers in my life,  there might never have been anything left to say.

~

Thank you. To all my readers. To my first reader. To the man who reads with me.
May you all read if your read, and write if you write, for there is plenty that has been said. And plenty left to say.

Merry Christmas.

{I will be breaking for Christmas from now until the 3rd of January 2011.}

Writers, hear me. Your words matter.

Some of you may remember that back in OCT I took a break from blogging to focus on my re-writes. Well, they are very nearly complete. But that is not the reason I am back from my blogging hiatus early. While I was gone people visited my blog and I thank you, all of you. One person in particular though gifted me the following words and I want to share them with you. Especially if you are a writer. 


Writing is often a lonely pursuit. (No, sorry , being friends with your characters doesn't count.) And every now and then I stop and wonder about the purposefulness of it all. If giving of myself, my raw, honest hidden self, to my words is going to matter to anyone but me. 
And writers, hear this. 
Please. 
Stop and hear me on this. 
What you write DOES matter. It already matters and it will matter in the future. For there are as many different writers as there are readers who need to hold your words. 


A wise person recently said to me, "If you have a story inside you, write that story. You were given those words because someone out there needs to read them." 


This is the comment a fellow reader left on my post titled "Do I matter?" 


"I ask this question too, all the time. I found this beautiful post by googling.. "Do I matter?". I wanted to hear what others came to, deep down in the heart of hearts.

For me, I care about the world and all its people so, so much. I have always felt that they mattered, without a doubt, just because. I always felt that by treating each other better, helping to bring joy and love and growth and opportunity that we could bring that much more meaning to all of our lives.

But without realizing it.. I had always considered myself the exception to that rule. That everyone mattered, was unique, was lovable, was talented, was deserving, was memorable.. but me.

Here I am in in my first year of university, wondering if I matter. If what I will do one day matters. I also grew up hearing about how flawed, disappointing, angering and hopeless I was. I spent my younger years trying to be invisible, the least of a burden that I could be. I am trying to change those beliefs, and the fear they bring with them, at the very core.. and it is the hardest thing I've had to do yet. I can't thank you enough for these posts, and these comments.. because I know now that in the hearts of perfect strangers, I mean something important, and in mine.. they do too.

I am crying tears of joy. Thank you so much."
~ from Anonymous


So, write on my fellow writers. They are the words someone needs to hear. Never mind how imperfect you feel your words are.
Funny, isn't it, that when you extend your raw and honest hand through your words, someone takes it, pulls you close, and hugs you right back.

The Picture of my Life

Today was not the puzzle piece I was looking for. The colors were wrong. It didn't fit with yesterday. And it didn't seem to fit with the picture I have in my head of the future. Maybe I got the wrong piece? Maybe I am making the wrong puzzle? Or maybe, just maybe it is the right piece, but I don't yet see enough of the picture...

For the last two weeks our family has poured over 1000 puzzle pieces in various stages of fitting together and with various success. When one of us gets frustrated the other comes along and picks up another piece. Sometimes we do it together. Isaiah, my seven-year-old is proving himself a very competent puzzler. My husband, Matt, very determined. My three-year-old, very random. And me? Well, let's just say that I spend a lot of time glaring at stubborn pieces that will not fit where I want them too.

Isaiah was watching me the other afternoon and said, "Mom, that doesn't go there."
"Well, " I said, still trying to smoosh two pieces into some sort of happy union, "Well, they should!"
Isaiah laughed at me and went on his merry way. Later that night Matt found heaps more pieces that fitted together. By the time I went back to the puzzle it was easy to see where my piece belonged. I clicked it into place and thought nothing more about it.

Until today. My day that didn't fit. My day that seemed random and completely out of step with the picture I am desperately trying to create. And then I got it. It's not the puzzle piece. It's me. When handed a day that doesn't fit I  am all determine to stomp through until it submits to my will. Inevitably I end up in some sort of knotted mess saying things like, "Why, Lord, why? When, Lord when?" You know the kind of day. I'm not the only one who gets these, right?

But today I thought, what if 'why' and 'when' and all the other questions I throw up to the heavens are not even the right questions? What if I I simply need to wait another day, or month, or year, or three, to understand how this very day fits into the grand picture of my life? Maybe sometimes what I need is a few more puzzle pieces that click together before this piece makes sense to me, before I can see how this day is apart of my living and how everything is as it should be. Maybe then I can ask the right questions and find the answers that fit. Maybe. Maybe not.

But his I know. Everyday, even a stubborn day, even a puzzle piece that I was not looking for, is apart of something. It is apart of the picture of my life.

Maybe it is only when the picture is complete that we see how beautiful this messy thing we call life is.


What about you? Do you puzzle?
 If you write, do you puzzle your way through a book, or does it have to fit from the start?

Puzzle on people, puzzle on

Ugly Fruit

"But if something is slightly bruised, speckled or dinged on the outside, we don't usually take the time to wonder if it might be ambrosial within."

~ Monica Eng, Chicago Tribune, August, 2010.

Around the blogosphere, I hear a lot of self-doubt. Writers are known to wade in a fair bit of the muck. I include myself here. If my words don't strut onto my page in high heels and Versace dress first time around I want to throw my computer off the balcony. You might say I expect a lot of myself and you'd be right. I want the divine. Red carpet all the way.

When my words clunk on in with torn checkered shirts and mud on their Ugg Boots (as they frequently do) I am not sure whether to attempt a makeover right there on the red carpet or throw myself on the floor and head bang. (Sheesh! Who do these words think they are anyway?)

Then I got to thinking, what if words are really more like fruit? (I know, from red carpet to fruit- work with me here) Ever grown tomatoes?  They start with a little flower. Pretty, but if you are only interested in the red fruit you'd miss that. If you didn't know something better was coming you wouldn't be excited when those first buds appeared. 

And avocado. Now there's an ugly fruit. The thing is black and wrinkled before it has flavor inside. 

What am I saying? (apart from the fact that I am obviously lovin my metaphors today) 

Embrace the ugly fruit. 

Enjoy the little flower. 

How can a fruit know how close to being ripe it is? 

Our job is to be where we are on the path to wherever we are going. Given time, our lives and words might also be ambrosial inside.

What about you? Red carpet glamorous? or Lover of the Ugly Fruit?

About a Dog

There's a little head resting on my ankle as I type. I get so used to the furry weight that I forget she is there. But she is. Always. She is simply there.

When I go to bed at night she tucks herself up behind my legs. When I nightmare she tucks herself in closer. If I wake to grainy images still running though my head and a dark, too-quiet world, she is there. When I wake in the mornings, twisted in my sheets, she is there. When I drag my limbs from the tangles and wonder how on earth to put my feet on the floor and begin my day, she is there. When I creep into my morning with  a sodden heart from a night of crying, she is there. As my boys bang and fuss and race about in my morning chaos, she is there. If I take five minutes to sit with a cup of tea and gather my head, she is there.

Some days ebb and flow better than others. She ebbs and flows with me. Some days find their rhythm without my forcing the hours along. Together we barely notice how time moves around us.

Some days are bent only on crashing me on the rocks of all alone. My arms dangle by themselves until a little wet nose pushes into my hand.  She is simply there.

She has no answers. She asks no questions. I don't have to tell her how I am feeling, but if I want to she'll sit for as along as I sit, and listen. She watches me yell at the walls when no one else is home. She knows I cry in the shower. She also knows I laugh at lady bugs and dance when it rains. And we love cupcakes. Both of us. Even though we know we shouldn't eat them, we do.

And we write. Since she was a tiny handful we have written together. She was there for all the midnight hours of my first draft. And for the stolen daytime hours of my second and third drafts. She was there during the chaotic hours, both day and nigh,t of my fourth draft. And she is with me now, as I attempt the fifth draft of my memoir. If I am at my computer I know where she will be- with me.

This I know: Dog is not Woman's best friend because Woman is such good company. Dog is Woman's best friend because Dog is there. Always. She is simply there.

What about you? Do you do the long hours with someone who is 'simply there'?

(photo: Me and my chihuahua "Lion." Yes, you read that right. Her name is Lion :)

Do it afraid

One fine evening (possibly wine and pizza fueled) you think- I think I want to be a writer.
This though is a cozy fire in your hearth until the unexpected knock at your door.
A brash, cigar smoking man complete with moustache is standing in your entry.  "You want to be a writer? YOU?"


You answer. "Yes. I love to write."
Your first mistake. Because all fear needs is a conversation to invite himself in.
"You love to write, hey? And what have you written?"
Fear needs no further invitation to mosey on over to your couch and put his feet up on your coffee table.
But he makes a good point, you think. What will I write? Oh gosh, if I want to write, that means I HAVE TO WRITE. It will involve, gasp, a blank page! 

By now fear is flicking on your television and taking off his shoes.
"Yes, and you will have to fill that blank page." He chuckles as his puts on your dressing gown and ashes on your rug.

You cringe.
What if you have nothing to say? What if all those ideas in your head just shrivel up and die once nailed to a page? 
You pace the room. For days.
Fear comes and goes always returning with a larger box. He says he's moving in. Your apartment is nicer than his. Plus you have a view over Central Park. How you afford that apartment since you want to be a writer is not the point of this story. You afford it. And fear wants in.
You don't question it. Fear seems to belong.  Every time he returns with another box it is as if he has always lived with you.

Two pillows, a beer fridge, a dart board, a stereo, his CD collection and the entire star wars trilogy later, fear has taken up residency. The final evidence that he lives with you is the appearance of  his tooth brush next to yours in the bathroom. Yes, fear has teeth. BIG sharp ones. All the better to...

While all this is going on you are sitting before that Dreaded Blank Page.  Foolishly you wonder, how scary can one blank page be? You quickly find out. Terrifying. The stuff horror movies are made of. Writing sputters out of you. At least you think that's what it might be. But it could just as easily be blood, sweat and tears filling the page. Nothing sounds as good as it did in your head. Nothing comes close the the magic you'd planned in your careful outline.
Then... nothing comes at all.

Fear runs a bubble bath for himself, his second today, and demands you make his dinner. Lamb chops with mint sauce. Or a roast. He doesn't mind, as long as you go to lots of trouble.
Lots of trouble and several weeks later you have yourself (not to mention your kitchen) in a state.
What were you thinking? People are going to read this stuff you call a story. And they will laugh. Laugh and laugh and laugh. And then everyone will know. You are not a writer. YOU. ARE. NOT. A. WRITER!

This goes on for months. You cooking and cleaning. Fear shouting orders. "Bring my pillow. I need another beer. What are you doing at that computer? Give up already.  You have nothing important to say. No story wroth writing. Quit now while you can still pretend you didn't really try."

You don't stop. Okay, you do. In fits and starts. Tending to fear is exhausting. He has you refilling the beer fridge and doing his laundry. Not to mention entertaining his friends, Doubt and Worry.
But you write. You write and write. Embracing the anxiety, you write. Afraid of people reading you, you write and re-write and revise and write again. Afraid of people saying you had nothing to say, you make darn sure you write from that place that exposes your very being. At least you will know you wrote in raw honesty.

Almost a year later, you have it. A complete first draft. And fear. He's a little quieter these days. Since it's apparent that you did indeed write. Some times you succeed in evicting him for days at a time. There have been lots of clothes out the window, yelling in the kitchen, knifes thrown at walls scenes straight out of War of the Roses. But fear always returns. You getting better at not letting him in. Or writing even if he's in the room.

Months of editing and alpha, beta, gamma, whatever, readers later you submit. Query. Resubmit. Re-query. Cry. Wage war with fear and finally... finally... you...

Well, that's a story for another time. But that, my friends, is called being a writer. We do it afraid and we conquer our fears.


What about you? Have you got a house guest? How to you chase you goals even if fear is present?

For Shame

Since these moments are so small, I might have missed them...
For shame.

Tiny teardrops of water resting on my son's cheek before sliding off into his laughter and bath time splashes.

Fingers of the sun weaving through his baby hair as his chest rises and falls with the softness of an afternoon nap.

A drive to nowhere in particular with my seven-year-old when he looks out at the afternoon sky and says, "It looks like orange peel Mommy, only oranges are too bright. This sky is a smudgy orange, like peach-orange maybe."

The pride in my grandmother's voice from across the miles telling me she has all my letters, every single one. Right back to those I wrote while travelling through Asia.

The way he can't say dinosaur or hospital. 'DiN-a-Nors' and 'Hos-t-ables' make me smile.

His look across the dining room table, over the heads of our sons... over the noise... over the bubbling chaos of family mealtimes... his look that holds me.


Since these moments are so small, I might have missed them...
For shame.


What about you? Do you see the moments? If you are a writer, do you make a point of seeing?

Write the Dragon. Read the Beast.

"Fairy tales don't tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed." Author unknown.


She draws with candy sticks of color. Stick figures smiling back at her from the page. She looks in the mirror wondering where her smiles have gone. Who has seen them? Who would know?

Passion fruit eating fairies listen to the stories she tells in their garden. Little winged people all tucked up in her mother's forgotten garden. Weeds live here too. She thinks she might be one of them.

She reads. Like one would breathe, she reads. Mostly at night. As if darkness could gobble up her bedroom and torch light could free the words on her page. She hasn't yet worked out that she will one day grow up. When she does these stories will matter.

Wolves huff and puff. Piggies shake in houses that fall. Red Riding Hood isn't safe is stalked in the forest. Gingerbread men run away.  Grandmother's morph into creatures with big eyes, and ears and child eating teeth. The sky is falling. And dragon's breathe fire.

Children live in world's you could never imagine.
If you write for them, tell the truth. Dragons can be slayed.
If you read to them, discuss the truth. Confront the villains. Cut the beasts to size. And give childhood back its freedom.

What about you? Do you write the dragon or read the beast?

Branded with a Butterfly

"Just when the caterpillar thought her world had ended she turned into a butterfly."

Are you branded?

Twelve years ago, without words to express why I was drawn to them, I had a butterfly tattooed on my right ankle.

Blue, vigorous and enduring.

The foreverness of tattoos coupled with the image of fragile wings whispered everything my heart couldn't speak about my life.

I was broken and I was strong. And I was about to be married.

Two years ago, with a vague understanding of the landscape inside me, I drew the designs for two more butterflies. The entwining creatures were tattooed on my left shoulder blade. The names of my sons sit underneath their wings. The foreverness of tattoos coupled with the fleeting nature of boyhood. Flight and children. A perfect partnership?

I was broken and I was strong. And I was searching for a way to hold them eternally.

Almost a year ago I started sharing my writing here. Blogger demanded an image. A tag. A brand.

This time I was halfway to a memoir and halfway to healing. I came across this proverb.

"Just when the caterpillar thought her world had ended she turned into a butterfly."

And I knew.

I was already branded.

Around the blogosphere you'll see my wings. The blue butterfly that tags my comments.

I am broken and I am strong. And daily I birth the woman inside me.

What about you? Are you branded?

Insert Screeching of Brakes

I was born. Fast and hard.
I grew up. Fast and hard
I played. Fast and hard.
And I broke.
Are we there yet?

I met him. Fast and hard.
We grew up. Fast and hard.
We played. Fast and hard.
But I was broken
Are we there yet?

I got honest. Fast and hard.
I looked in the mirror. Fast and hard.
There were moments. Fast and hard.
But I found me.
Are we there yet?

I boxed. Fast and hard.
I ran. Fast and hard.
And I wrote a memoir. Fast and hard.
My work gained interest.
Are we there yet?


(insert screeching of brakes)

Here's what I know.
Fast and Hard is at great risk of missing Gentle and Ready.
The right moment is known only to itself. Or God. And they aren't telling me.
I'll get there when I get there.
No. Not now.... or now ...... or even now.
And when it happens, I'll understand the divine purpose in waiting.

I still box. Fast and hard.
I still run. Fast and hard.
I still write. Fast and hard
And I ask-
Are we there yet?


What about you? Do you do slow well?

You are more

Words drip from me like the rain, like a long awaited storm. How the earth inside me waited. For years, I waited. My internal skin a desert. The barren skies raped of stars. The nights devoid of moon. Such was the darkness that I did not even see the clouds grouping together. Clinging to each other, waiting for the magic of the moment when they could no longer be expected to hold back what they longed to birth.

The first brave drop fell on its own. As first drops often do.
Falling as if it were navigating the beginning of life itself. Without knowing where it would land, without knowing that there was land.
But indeed there was a world awaiting what it could bring. The cracked and scared plain of my heart that would forever be transformed.
With the touch of that first drop on the seeds long dormant under the earth, my soul cried out.
And the rains fell.
How they fell.
And fell.
And fell.
Words.
Gorgeous fat drops of water like words, joining other waters until they became streams and the streams, rivers.

Perhaps it is not surprising that I thought I'd become these words. My very being nothing more than the sum of the rain. Romantic. Oppressive, but romantic.

Until she spoke, as she does, right into that place inside me that knows I am more. I have always been more. I will always be more.
"In this space, you are more than the sum of your words," she said.
And I reached into who I am and knew. I think she knows that about herself too. It doesn't stop the wanting. But we know.

Every creator is more than the sum of their creation.
Every writer, a person.
Every poet, a soul.
Every dreamer, a life.
Even if as yet, no one else knows. No one else walks with me. I know. And one day I will again be ready to share those places with another who might herself understand that she is more too.

What about you? Are you more?

[image]

Look! No Hair.

No hair makes me very happy. One friend who saw the new style said, "I have always wanted to do that. The freedom must be amazing."


Freedom? I suppose so. Reclaimed hours hairstyling, definitely.
Freedom was not the reason I shaved my head.


When my husband  first shaved my head, yes, I said the words 'husband' and 'shaved-my-head in the same sentence, I looked in the mirror and smiled.
A real smile.
"Hi there," I said. "I look like me."
I looked more like me than ever before. And it felt good. To look like me felt really good.
I have looked like hairdressers' versions of me, of magazines' ideas or what me should be. 
The real me has, well, evaded me.

Now I think I look like Tab. And lately, I like her. I really do.


Sometimes I wonder about my writing. 
Does it look like me? 
Or does it look like the sum of Noah Lukeman's 'The First Five Pages, and other such 'writerly' advise?
And I ask myself, "What is the point of writing a story that anyone could have written? 
When I get my memoir looking like me, I'll know it's time to query it. I see a faint reflection, but I am not there yet.


What about you? What is the most you have ever looked like you? Do your words look like you?

You Need...

A writer needs:

a comfy rear end

a good laugh

a good cry

a good shoulder to cry on

a good couple of pain killers 

a good couple of hours

a good couple of hours past the good pain killers

a good place to hide

a good place to run

a good place to return

a good return run from hiding

a good friend to call

a good book to read

a good friend with a good book she'll let you read

a good drop of wine

a good night sleep

a good sleep after a good whine

a good idea...

a good plan B

a good trash can for throwing out plans

and lastly..

a good swift kick in the procrastinating comfortable rear end

by a good friend who knows how to swift kick good.

You? What do you need?

Writing Buddy.

Husband 'Thrilled' about Dog in his Back Pocket.

Just thought I'd introduce my tiny, but long suffering writing buddy. When I was really hacking through some tough stuff last year I bought this little bag of bones that I comically refer to as 'Lion'. See how happy Matt is about my dog in his back pocket! We all know she is far from a dog let alone a lion, but I wanted the first laugh. Yes, I know she is the dog you have when you are not having a dog, but I adore her. She sits patiently curled up at my feet or wedged behind my back as I write. We have seen more than one dawn together, quiet a few midnights and she never complains about my incessant need to play with her ears.

She has no tail, no idea that other dogs are not scared of her and no sense of the fact that my husband refuses to admit that he loves her. The best part about Lion is that she's all mine. I love that 'tiny furry' at my feet. She makes the hours I spend writing seem a lot less lonely. And, yeah, sometimes writing can be lonely.

Of course she's not just a writing buddy. She also holds her own as a 'sleep-in' buddy and a 'feed-me- your cake' mate. Every night my husband drags her out from beneath our blankets to put her in her own little bed. Every night she looks forlornly in my direction.

She has been known to tear up innocent socks and beat up unsuspecting toys. The toilet roll is not safe either. But she is very skilled at licking away tears and knows just when to stay close by me. I wonder what I ever did without her!

So, there you have it. My writing buddy and companion, Lion.

The dog that wasn't!