Ruminations on a Beach Walk

I wrote this a couple of weeks ago. I am full of gratitude as I walk the beach on this beautiful morn. The thoughts of the lying, corruption and greed that is so disturbingly inherent in today’s society have deserted me. Thank God. In the bring sunshine, all around me are millions of seashells, some still clinging to the bright green seaweed that the ocean just ejected. It is a sobering thought that each one of these little seashells had a life and thus has a story.

Writing Ideas Flow When We Change our Venue

Almost immediately writing ideas began to flow. Thoughts of times in the past when writing was hard remind me that a change of venue, for me the best is the ocean, woke my muse. I came to a rock jetty and decided I’d risk painful knees and walk out to the end. If you’ve never walked a jetty, you might not know how carefully you have to choose each boulder you are going to make your next step on before you step. Sometimes there isn’t an easy way to proceed and you have to scramble down one boulder and back up another one before you can go on to the next boulder.

Is it really Writer’s Block or Something Else?

Isn’t this a lot like writing? Sometimes the words flow and then there are the times when stymied on how to get to the next word you’re stopped in your tracks. I don’t believe in writer’s block. I think sometimes writers become lazy and don’t want to do the work of finding the right next word so they procrastinate and soon find themselves out of a good writing habit. The only thing to do is write your way back.

I suggest changing your venue. Of course, not everyone has an ocean nearby to run away to, hence my gratitude. Other places will wake up your muse. For me it is always water. If you cannot get to the ocean for that rhythmic tidal flow of water, look for the nearest lake. Some writers might find the mountains inspiring.

Walk yourself into a Story

Walking is also a great way to set aside the mundane events of life and bring the creative thoughts forward. Walking is not only good exercise, but there is something about the rhythm of putting one foot after another that also reaches our creative depths. It is good to bring along a small pad and a pencil to record those thoughts as they come.

As I walk the beach, I’m watching a flock of sandpipers running back and forth with the flow of the tide, digging out and eating the little crabs. Immediately I wonder is it possible that we humans look like these little sandpipers to some creatures who might be watching us from outer space? AHA there might be a story in that thought.

Aging is Walking up Hills

I love to walk. I think it comes from my childhood when I had to walk miles to school. My kids hate to hear that one! I did live way down a long winding wooded lane in the backwoods of Pennsylvania. I still remember the excitement of watching for what I might see around the next bend. Sometimes it was a deer or bunny or a new wildflower in bloom. Twice it was a bear. My love of ‘all that is nature’ grew out of these experiences.

Always Look for What’s Next

One of my walking routes now takes me up a long hill with many notches. Each time I reach a crest. I stop, rest and consider quitting but I always want to see what is just over the next peak of the hill. I’m never disappointed. Each pinnacle shows me something more – a wildflower in bloom I hadn’t seen before, a deserted dilapidated house (I feel they all have a story waiting to be written), or a beautiful scenic view. Even when I walk the same route many days in a row, I still see things I haven’t seen before.

Then I reach the very top and there to delight me is a meadow full of wildflowers and singing birds flitting from bush to bush. I rest a bit and turn to go back but hear the drumming of a woodpecker a little ways ahead. Just a little further, I tell myself, and on I go.

Understanding the Journey

I see my walk through life as being very similar. As I age through each ridge of the hill (really feels more like a mountain) of life, new challenges and experiences present themselves. I gather them up and take a deliberate and conscious effort to understand my journey. Each new walk has something to offer me to feed my spirit if only I take the time to pay attention.

It’s Up to You

Each decade offers new opportunities and forks in the road and I know that as I reach another one, I have a decision to make. I can either wring my hands and bemoan how old I am and get out the rocking chair or I can thank God for bringing me this far and put on my walking shoes and set out for the next crest with enthusiasm.

Since I’m a very practical person and I have more walking shoes than slippers, the choice is easy for me. As the Nancy Sinatra’s song tell us, “These boots are made for walking.” I intend to continue to embrace life and walk (or crawl if I have to) to see what’s over the next bluff until I come to the final zenith. There are too many books to read and write to stop now.

Plus, I have forbidden myself to die before my book, Tracing the Invisible Women, is published.

November – Finish a Book Month

I’ve been working on my book “Tracing the Invisible Women” for a long time now and know I need a way to rejuvenate my commitment. I have participated in NANOWRIMO (for those who don’t know, this is a program for writing a novel in a month) a couple of times for short periods, but it didn’t work for me. I am primarily a narrative nonfiction writer. Short stories are a possibility I have explored in past years, but this year in the middle of a nonfiction book, I just didn’t think NANO was going to work for me.

The Challenge for Nonfiction Writers

Lo and behold one morning I saw a post (somewhere – I am definitely on social media overload) by Nina Amir about her blog, “Challenge to Write and Publish Nonfiction All Year Long.” Immediately drawn to the section on the her website entitled “Write Nonfiction in November,” where Nina explains that WNN is a blog and a challenge not a contest, I thought, this is what I need.

Information to Get Me There

Nina has suggestions on her blog (http://awesm/5XYoE) about planning the month ahead of time, which I am doing now. Preparation is extremely important. I’m busy tying up loose ends and other projects so I can concentrate on just finishing the book. It is amazing how differently I am looking at the month of November, not normally a month that I like. To me, November is a harbinger of winter, the season I hate. Now I’m excited that November is coming.

All Goals Need a Plan

I have torn the November page from my calendar to map out my daily goals. What delights me about this program is that a month is so little time; I won't be able to let up. The 30-day deadline is something I can manage. There have been times in the past, especially when I was publishing a magazine, when a project deadline required an all-nighter. I’m hoping that I’m being realistic with my daily plans so none of those are necessary. All-nighters (for any purpose) are for when you’re young. I see this program as 30 deadlines and I have never missed a deadline in my writing career.

How Not to Let the Pressure Become Stress

My number one method to avoid the burnout of writing intensely under time pressure on a large project such as a book is exercise. For the month of November, I’m treating myself to a membership in the fitness center down the street. An hour on the treadmill will rev up the creative juices and start the day off with a jolt.

To me this is akin to a marathon. When I reach the finish line on Nov. 30, I will be celebrating the completion of my book, “Tracing the Invisible Women.”

Plodder, Planner, Plunger – Which are You?

What kind of writer are you? Faced with a writing project, how you advance, is determined by your character traits. I’m a planner. On longer writings, I make an outline but for shorter pieces, I only need to have an idea of my main focus and important points that show that focus. That’s when I’m comfortable.  I know some writers say planning takes away the creativity. They plunge right in without knowing where they are going.

Patterns of behavior signify our unique personalities. It is especially valuable for writers to understand how personality patterns direct their decision-making. A writer’s character is behind every word written and that is a thought that occasionally stops some writers in their tracks. Writers placated by certain personality traits are comfortable only within narrow perimeters and are less often willing to move into new writing arenas. 

The Paradox

Successful writers deal with becoming so popular in one genre that they find it difficult to change what has been the status quo of their writing. They feel it is too large a risk of losing some of their readers if they try something new. Without being willing to stretch and grow in new directions and developing new paradigms, a writer becomes bored, boring and stale.

Learning More about our Personality Traits

Building a writing career that is fulfilling to the writer as well as the reader takes introspection on the part of the writer. It behooves a writer to practice self-analysis to ascertain the best way to marry your personality traits with your writing career. Are you spontaneous or do you like routine. If you are the former, you will need to find ways to feed your muse but if you are the latter, you will want to affix a time of time to write every day. Are you extroverted or introverted? Knowing might determine whether you would be comfortable in a writing group. Understanding how your traits affect your writing allows you the opportunity to step out of your comfort zone and do something you are not comfortable doing.

                                                                       Jung's Theory

As a writer/teacher, I have studied Jung’s theories regarding our psyches operating on two levels – the conscious and the unconscious. We may be conscious of some of our personality traits but it takes serious analysis to uncover what might be going on at the unconscious level. Just think that might be exactly where the best writing happens.

There are those that say personality traits cannot change. We are who we are and that’s that.  I wholehearted disagree with that notion. I feel sorry for the many individuals who live out their lives in denial of the fact that working on changing parts of their personality that are holding them back would give them a richer, fuller life. This is, of course, quite true for writers.  Planning, plodding or plunging are all fine ways to operate a writing career if the writer is happy with the results.

Which are you

Have We Come Too Far

As I surface from my research and writing about the seventeenth century, I listen to what is going on in today’s society. I think that the brave people who came to these shores and settled this country one town at a time would not be happy with the lack of leadership, the erosion of respect for each other, and the just plain greedy corruption of our government.

To begin I have to acknowledge that there was greed in the 1600s and the leaders chosen were from the wealthiest – sound familiar. There also was no equality for women. However, our foremothers were more comfortable in their skins than we women are today.

The correlations of struggle

Since my book, “Tracing the Invisible Women” is about the first women that walked our land, I am trying to find correlations between their lives of struggle and today’s challenges for women. We have all manner of machines to do our work for us. Washing machines do the laundry instead of a full day of having to boil the water outside and scrub the clothes by hand. We go to the shops and buy our clothes instead of carding, spooling, warping, spinning, knitting, weaving, sewing and the many other tasks it took to cloth a family.

There are, however, two ways I think the colonial women had it better than us.

A mission – a passion – a purpose

The pioneering women who helped settle this country lived with a purpose. We may not agree today that having as many children as possible to populate a new country for their faith was a reasonable mission but where would we be if they had not had this spiritual fervor. That, of course, is not all that they did. They helped build communities of people who took care of each other.

As I research the lives of these women, I recognize that they have descendants in every corner of our country today. That is quite a legacy.

Expectation – the drive to have

 Our foremothers were building a legacy for their faith and their only expectation was that God would smile on their efforts and they would multiply.

Conversely, our society today driven to possess, to own, is bankrupting itself. The expectations are so high that we SHOULD HAVE everything we want we have unfortunately reduced the pleasure in what we do have.

Do we have the answers?

The question is how can we stop ourselves from the rampant consumerism and be satisfied with less material goods and put our energies instead toward being involved in building communities.

Can we do it? Do you have any suggestions on how? I would love to hear them. Comment here, tweet me or find me on Facebook. Let’s start the discussion.

The Jigsaw Puzzle of Seventeenth Century Women

I know people who love jigsaw puzzles so much they will sit there and work on one for hours. I never had the patience for that. I do jigsaw puzzles on my iPad.

The Puzzles within the Puzzle

Soon after I started the research for my book on seventeenth century women, I realized my project is one big jigsaw with myriad puzzles within. All the research has to be done following men connected to the women on whom I am seeking information.

In some cases, my research turns up a marriage. This is one piece of the puzzle (for one woman). Then I have to ferret out when and where she was born, married, had children, how many children, when were they born and, of course, when everyone involved died.

Making the Invisible Visible

The two prided accomplishments of women in this century were to marry and have numerous children. This was the woman’s value to the Puritan community. The more children reared in the Puritan faith that populated the land, the stronger the strength of the Puritan faith in the colony. Yet, they were and did so much more.

I look at each fact I gather as a way to complete the puzzle within the puzzle and give each woman a visible life.

Even Unreliable Source Give Something

I have found numerous resources but the question becomes one of how much weight to give some of them. Almost no primary sources are available on the seventeenth century. Consequently, it means turning to secondary sources that might not be accurate.

I have found it takes a great deal of discernment to separate the wheat from the shaft. Sometimes the inaccuracies jump right out from the page. An example is when a mother’s death is listed six months before her last baby was born. Another is when the mother would have been in her 60s if she gave birth as listed. I’ve learned to do a lot of math.

Sometimes even an unreliable source will provide one clue that opens my eyes to a possibility I had not considered.

Enter Stepmother

One such instance was one online source had the children of a woman mixed up but suddenly made some aspects of her clearer by the listing of a stepmother that heretofore had not shown up. Another surprising item about stepmother is that they did not refer to their stepmothers as such but as mother-in-law. Talk about confusing!