Posts Tagged ‘writing life’
Cindy on February 3rd, 2010
The more you clean, the more brilliant your writing will be.” — Billy Collins
Last week I shared Jane Hirshfield’s “The Poet” (about a writer at her desk), and in the comment section we all compared notes on where we do our own creative projects.
Writers are inherently messy — in a good way. We save scraps of paper scribbled with notes and ideas. We collect more pens and blank journals than we’ll ever use. And when we’re in the middle of editing an article or composing a poem, we litter and trash our workspace. But I’m not convinced that’s what Billy Collins is talking about in the poem below.
It’s open to interpretation, of course, but I like to think Collins is playing with the idea of clearing the mind to make room for fresh ideas. Each time I begin a new project or assignment, for example, I need to push past my fears, self-imposed limits, and creative road blocks.
Or maybe Collins is talking about writing rituals — the small acts we must perform (procrastination?) before we can lift our “yellow pencil.” What do you think? In any event, I think you’ll agree that Collins has both a wicked sense of humor and a knack for spotting the beauty in the ordinary. –CL
ADVICE TO WRITERS
By Billy Collins
Even if it keeps you up all night,
wash down the walls and scrub the floor
of your study before composing a syllable.
Clean the place as if the Pope were on his way.
Spotlessness is the niece of inspiration.
The more you clean, the more brilliant
your writing will be, so do not hesitate to take
to the open fields to scour the undersides
of rocks or swab in the dark forest
upper branches, nests full of eggs.
When you find your way back home
and stow the sponges and brushes under the sink,
you will behold in the light of dawn
the immaculate altar of your desk,
a clean surface in the middle of a clean world.
From a small vase, sparkling blue, lift
a yellow pencil, the sharpest of the bouquet,
and cover pages with tiny sentences
like long rows of devoted ants that followed you in from the woods.
–Reprinted from The Apple That Astonished Paris, by Billy Collins (The University of Arkansas Press); 1988
– Top photo “Blue Glass” (copyrighted) by Cindy La Ferle –
Cindy on January 11th, 2010
Be aware of wonder. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.” — Robert Fulghum
This year I’m trying to strike a healthy balance between living creatively and being consumed by creative work. All too often, when I’m immersed in an art project or engrossed in a piece of writing, it’s as if I’m living on another planet. I neglect other things I care about. I might forget to brush my teeth or return phone calls or feed my family.
When I first started writing weekly columns, for instance, everything was potential fodder for the newspaper. I couldn’t watch a new TV show or shop for toilet paper without thinking I should scribble some commentary about it. For weeks I carried a notebook everywhere, and would even jump out of the shower to jot down ideas for a column. Thankfully, that ridiculous phase was short-lived. As a photo-journalist friend reminded me: We need to ask ourselves if we’re living from the depth of our lives or merely documenting them.
Then there was the time I slaved for weeks on a book manuscript. I got into the habit of working until midnight, then rising at daybreak to revise or proofread what I’d typed the day before. My husband worked full-time then, so we grabbed most of our meals at local restaurants. Our son was away at college, and I was living the life I’d dreamed about for years — working 24/7 on my writing.
That’s when it hit me: My dream life wasn’t quite as satisfying as I’d imagined. I was exhausted and vaguely disappointed. Something essential was missing. And it’s not that the work wasn’t going well. For the most part, my writing was getting published in places I was proud to list on my resume. With my nest was empty, I’d even found extra hours to teach writing.
And there was problem, hidden in plain sight. Given my newly won freedom from parenting responsibilities, I’d become a woman obsessed. My whole life was about writing, writing, and more writing. I’d become so one-dimensional that I bored myself.
Kitchen lessons
The thing is, I’ve always believed the “good life” is a balanced life. A richly textured, multifaceted life.
After my epiphany, I made a list of “ingredients” that remain as essential to my happiness and well-being as writing. The list includes long talks with my husband and friends; gardening; keeping house; reading for pleasure; volunteering in my community; making art; visiting museums, and more. Of course, I’ve always enjoyed cooking (and reading about food) but my love affair with my computer left little time for the sensual pleasures of the kitchen.
And so, after putting my book project aside for a few days, I spent my first free morning poring over my cookbooks. Shopping for groceries later, I found even more inspiration in the colorful produce aisles at the local market. I couldn’t wait to get home and start cooking again. My mood lifted as I chopped and sauteed onions and red peppers, crafting a simple but satisfying meal with my hands.
“Real nourishment involves our whole being,” writes Anne Scott in Serving Fire: Food for Thought, Body, and Soul (Celestial Arts). “The search for it takes us on a journey into ourselves, confronting us with our inner hunger.”
In other words, my soul had been starving for something more than words and ideas heaped on a page or a computer screen. I was tired of living in my head, and kitchen work provided the physicality I’d been missing. For me, the ordinary arts of daily living are not optional — and I try to remember that whenever I’m off-kilter or obsessed.
Even if cooking isn’t your thing, you have your own list of pleasures to draw from when you need to feel balanced and whole.
“Be moderate in order to taste the joys of life in abundance,” advised the philosopher Epicurus. In the Epicurean view, the hallmarks of the good life include tranquility, freedom from fear, a variety of experiences, and the pure enjoyment of simple pleasures. Easier said than done, of course, but worth aspiring to. – Cindy La Ferle
– Kitchen photos (our kitchen in Royal Oak) by Cindy La Ferle–
Cindy on January 12th, 2009
“I take rejection as someone blowing in my ear to wake me up and get going, rather than retreat.” — Sylvester Stallone
This week I’m filling out entry forms and taking photos of my work for an art competition. I’m new at submitting my artwork to gallery competitions — and nervous about subjecting myself to a brand-new form of rejection. Here’s a column I wrote a few years ago about learning to deal with rejection as a writer. . . .
The Slings and Arrows of Rejection
I meet them every time I attend a cocktail party or a business function. They’re the stressed-out professionals who’d love to quit their jobs and try “something more fun.” Most of them want to get published. I was cornered by one of these aspiring authors at a seminar last month. A colleague of my husband’s, the man works as a designer for a high-profile architecture firm, but he really wants to be recognized for his byline.
The colleague said he wrote essays occasionally. He had experienced the fleeting thrill of seeing a couple of his pieces in the local paper — âa real high,â as he put it. He wanted to publish more often in Sunday newspaper magazines, and he wanted to earn some money for his writing. But after receiving several rejection slips, he was ready to give up.
“How do you handle the rejection?” he asked. “I just hate rejection.â
“Well, I deal with it the same way architects do when their designs get shot down,” I told him.
“Oh, no,” he said. “That’s not as personal.”
Rejection and its evil twin, Criticism, are part and parcel of the writing life. I don’t care much for either of them, yet both keep in touch with me periodically. And while it’s true that rejection letters can sting for a few days, eventually you get used to them. You learn to accept that you can’t hit the editorial bull’s-eye every time.
A fellow writer once offered this consolation, and I believe she’s right: If you’re not getting rejection letters, you’re not aiming high enough or sending out enough material. You have to toughen up, get busy, and hold your breath every time you open the mailbox. And you must start the process all over again.
As I reminded the guy from the architecture firm, “personal” rejection is hardly the sole province of publishing. Anything you dearly hope to achieve, including love itself, holds the possibility of loss. That said, I’ll admit that the very word “rejection” dissolves bone marrow and turns warm blood to ice water. On a really bad day, it can make even the most aggressive self-promoter drop her best ideas and run home.
That’s why I often share a favorite story about Madeleine L’Engle, whose award-winning children’s book, A Wrinkle in Time, was rejected by more than forty publishers before it finally went to press. “Every rejection slip was like the rejection of me, myself,” L’Engle wrote. But she believed in her book, believed in its power to inspire children, and absolutely refused to let it die. Today it remains a beloved best-seller for young people.
It also helps to remember that the craft of writing offers second and third chances. As Frank Lloyd Wright said, “A doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only advise his client to plant vines.” Thankfully, redemption is so much easier for writers. We can reorganize, revise, revamp, and send our stuff out into the world again.
But the real secret to coping with rejection â aside from keeping faith in your own abilities — is to enjoy the process, the work itself. You have to fall in love with words and take pleasure in the way you string them together. And it’s essential to remember that publishing, as novelist Anne Lamott once said, is an addictive drug. Your last hit will never feel like enough.
Still, the small victories are sweet. Not long ago, one of my favorite pieces was rejected by a regional magazine. Several postage stamps later, it was accepted by a national publication for more money than I’d expected — and I hadn’t changed a word. That doesn’t happen as often as I’d like, of course. Just often enough to fuel my hopes and make my work more fun than architecture. – Cindy La Ferle
*This piece was first published in The Daily Tribune, Royal Oak, MI, then in my book, Writing Home. Last year it was excerpted in Sixty Candles: Reflections on the Writing Life, published by the American Society of Journalists and Authors.
Cindy on January 6th, 2009
The key question isn’t “What fosters creativity?” But it is, why in God’s name isn’t everyone creative? Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled? I think therefore a good question might be not why do people create — but why do people not create or innovate? — Abraham Maslow
Lately I’ve been feeling stuck, burned out, immobilized. And it’s not just because I’m worried about the so-called print media crisis. I’ve been working long enough to know that periods of fallow time are part and parcel of the writing life. I know that all writers go through days or weeks when the work feels off, or never good enough — when self-doubt is a faithful office companion. And I know that it passes soon enough.
In her new book, Stuck: Why We Can’t (or Won’t) Move On, Anneli Rufus talks about why so many of us struggle to make necessary career changes when we know it’s time to move on. Or why we can’t seem to mend relationships that aren’t working. She details some of the things that keep us stalled — living in the past; holding grudges; the need for instant gratification; bad habits; perfectionism; consumerism. I recognize my “stuckness” in many of Rufus’s pages.
Thankfully, I’ve learned over the years that my best antidote to writer’s block is focusing on different creative projects that have little or nothing to do with writing or publishing. Cooking a beautiful meal, for one example, satisfies my need to work with my hands and to offer something that will nourish others.
But I’ve found my greatest satisfaction working on mixed-media collage or constructions in the art studio upstairs. This art form requires that you use “found objects” or whatever else you have at hand — sort of like rustling up dinner from the pantry when you haven’t had time to grocery shop. It’s imaginative and messy and challenging. (The piece of art shown in the photo above is an example of mixed-media construction, recently created by my husband Douglas.)
When my life feels like a series of disparate parts that don’t make sense, mixed-media collage is also wonderfully therapeutic. Crafting a collage, like writing an essay, requires that I look at my world in new ways. I hunt for beauty in places I’ve overlooked before: tool boxes; hardware stores; the recycle bins in my garage. I’m compelled to hunt for possibilities in thrift shops and my own junk drawers. Every object is sacred in the mystical-ordinary sense, and even junk mail is worth a second look. Everything has a story waiting to be told — not necessarily in words, but in shape, form, texture and color.
I’ve been writing steadily and professionally for nearly 30 years, and I don’t imagine that I’d ever stop altogether. Keeping a journal and posting these essays is my way of making sense of the world. But this year it’s likely that I’ll devote more time to artwork and look for new ways to explore my creativity. Shifting the balance feels a little risky now (change always does) but that’s what makes midlife fresh and exciting. This could be the year I take the leap — and get unstuck. — Cindy La Ferle
– Original artwork, “Dad’s Younger Brother,” by Douglas La Ferle –
Cindy on December 17th, 2008
“How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.” — Annie Dillard
I can’t think of one creative person — painter, auto mechanic, poet, or pastry chef — who hasn’t had to endure a creative slump. In fact, I haven’t met anyone who, at some point, hasn’t questioned his or her purpose on the planet or at least struggled to reclaim it. What can you do when that happens? You can howl at the moon, polish off a carton of chocolate-fudge ice cream, or reorganize the tool shed.
Or, better yet, you can read Patti Digh’s Life Is a Verb: 37 Days to Wake Up, Be Mindful, and Live Intentionally. This book will inspire you to look at your life with fresh perspective. It will help you find the creative possibility and wonder in every moment, whether you’re chopping onions in the kitchen or struggling to make conversation at a family reunion. Sounds like a New Age cliche? I suppose it does. But this book works, and I really, really like it.
Why thirty-seven days? As Patti Digh explains it, “At some point in your life you’ll have only thirty-seven days to live. Maybe that day is today. Maybe not.” Digh goes on to tell the story of how her stepfather, a tall guy with “a golfer’s tan, five World War II bronze stars, and a forest-green Lincoln Town Car” was diagnosed with cancer on a beautiful autumn day and died just thirty-seven days later.
“I tried to reconcile the fact that this fearful death was happening with the understanding that I needed to make something good out of it,” Digh writes. “What emerged was a commitment to ask myself this question every morning: What would I be doing today if I had only thirty-seven days to live?”
The result is a book that is part memoir, part creative manual. Illustrated with original artwork, Life Is A Verb brims with “action challenges” and inspiration for writers, artists, and other creative dreamers. Each chapter focuses on one of Digh’s six essential practices for intentional living: Say Yes, Be Generous, Speak Up, Love More, Trust Yourself, Slow Down.
I’m still working on the challenge at the back of the book, which is to “list twenty people who’ve helped you in some way and write one or two sentences that capture the gift they’ve given you.” A couple of examples: “Thank you for teaching me how to whistle” or “Thank you for asking how you can support me” and so on. Lucky me — my list already contains more than twenty people! – Cindy La Ferle
Last week I shared Jane Hirshfield’s “The Poet” (about a writer at her desk), and in the comment section we all compared notes on where we do our own creative projects. 
