chance meeting at a birdbath

I met Jewell Parker Rhodes today. She is truly one of the nicest people I have ever met. She writes novels and she is the current director of the Piper House. I want to be like her.

Here’s how it happens. I had finished up with a meeting across campus from where I normally work. I was walking back to work but decided to take a little break first. I stopped at Piper House and sat beside a fountain, reading Girls in Pants.

Suddenly there was a bird in the fountain; he was black, and purple, and velvety looking. He walked around the fountain, eyeing me. Then he jumped in and splashed himself all over. I watched in fascination for a couple of minutes until the bird flew away. Jewell Parker Rhodes was suddenly next to me and said, “Wasn’t that beautiful?” She proceeded to tell me the history of Piper House, and how she had insisted that the fountain be put in, along with several other details that make Piper House so inviting.

I knew exactly who she was, but she of course didn’t know who I was. Yet she talked with me as if we were old friends. We introduced ourselves to each other. We exchanged our dream of writing a young adult novel (she writes mostly adult fiction). She asked me to email her so she could mail me a book. She said that we would bug each other until we had started writing our novels.

Meeting her has inspired me, not just to write (though she did inspire that), but also to be a good human being; to love and to embrace life. I am filled with light, just because of her wonderful spirit. I want to be that for other people. I feel so blessed to have met her.

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seeing with new eyes

Young children have such an amazing outlook. I wish I could see the world through a child’s eyes just for a while.

In my writing class we are working on using metaphors in our writing, and it’s not my strong point. My three-year-old niece grasps the concept much better than I do.

The other evening she was over at our house. The moon was a shiny sliver in the sky. My niece ran over to the window and looked out. She gasped in surprise and awe, “There’s a diamond in your sky!!!” She couldn’t stop looking at the diamond hanging in our sky.

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wild and precious life

I haven’t mentioned how my writing class went last week. I haven’t written here at all because I’ve been busy writing for the class.

I go into the classroom on Wednesday evening and sit around a circle with about 20 other people. I look at each of them, knowing I will know them all a lot better by the time this class is over.

The teacher makes odd jokes; he tells us we must write ‘real’– from our hearts. He tells us we must write for 30 minutes, five days a week. He tells us we will be ‘sharing’ our writing with the class. He tells us that this class will change both our writing and our being, or he will personally refund our tuition money.

The teacher says, “If you can’t commit to these things, now is the time to get up and leave.” One person left. I can’t tell you how much I wanted to get up and walk out the classroom door. This class scares me – this writing ‘real’ and sharing it with strangers. But I didn’t get up. I stayed. I know this class is what I need.

The syllabus shares a line from a poem by Mary Oliver:

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

That is why I am staying. For the possibilities. For the chance to see myself and the world in a new way. For the chance to live my one wild and precious life.

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looking at the bright side

I’ve had a bit of a bad week. Feeling a little better now.

I’m going to list some of the good changes going on in my life so far this year.

1. I made bread. Not for the first time (maybe the third time), but the first time that it tasted good. And boy did it ever! Sometimes, I’m a really good cook.

2. I go on walks and hikes with John. Our goal is three times a week, and we’re doing pretty good. Last Saturday we hiked in the White Tank Mountains. This week I think we’re going to try Papago Park. Being outdoors with the one I love really improves my mood. Winter in Arizona is so wonderful.

3. I sewed something. John gave me a sewing machine for Christmas, and I used it! I can’t wait to get better at sewing so I can try some of the projects I have floating around in my brain.

4. I’m still registered for the writing class…it starts January 17th. I’m still nervous, but still moving forward with it.

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self-doubt and job woes

I think my job is changing completely, and I’m not sure if I should be excited or scared. I think I’ll be learning the ins and outs of PeopleSoft, which could be a good thing. But at the same time, my workload could explode in the next little while, something I am not thrilled about.

I just wish I knew if we were moving in 8 months. If we aren’t, then job searching would be my top priority. If we are, I just don’t feel right about taking a new job and then leaving six months later. That’s not fair to the new employer.

So what I’ll do is get all the skills and training I can from this three-month PeopleSoft project. By then, I’ll know more about our future, and I can use my new skills toward getting a good job that I like.

In other news, I’m feeling insecure about taking the creative writing class. Mostly I’m insecure about my writing. The thought of reading it out loud in a classroom terrifies me! I’m on the verge of dropping the class, but I know I’ll regret it if I do. I can do this, right?

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passion and purpose

I registered for a graduate course next semester. It’s called ‘Writing and Being’. I’m both excited and nervous. I want to improve my writing, but at the same time, it scares me to think of reading and sharing my writing with a class…

I think it will be good for me. I need a creative outlet. I want to discover and develop my talents. And if this leads to me finding my passion and joy, all the better.

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poems

I’ve written poetry on and off for most of my life. For the past few years, it’s been off. I think the last decent poem I wrote was in the year 2000 while I was living in Beijing.

I miss the days when I used to write poetry. I don’t know that I ever gave myself a chance with it. I submitted poems once to a literary journal (can’t remember which one), but I think it was one with a very small acceptance rate. I could have kept trying, but I didn’t.

Anyway, I’ve been going to poetry daily to get my fix of good poems, and I’m getting inspired. If you like poetry, I highly recommend the site. I love the way poetry makes me feel. I even dreamed I was writing it the other night. Perhaps poetry will come back to me soon.

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nano is no more

Remember that one time when I said I was going to do nanowrimo? Well, I was wrong. I started on November 1st, and I wrote 1,066 words, which is only 600 words short of my quota of the day. Which is no big deal — what’s 600 words when you’re writing up to 2,500 words a day?

But the bottom line is, nothing that I wrote spoke to me. I had to face facts: I needed just a hint of a plot. I needed at least one character I cared about. I didn’t want to slog through thirty days of writing trash I didn’t like.

So I quit. And then my husband tells me that I left my nanowrimo document open and he read it. He said it was so good that I *had* to finish it. He said I was wasting my talent. I was shocked by this, because my first reaction was absolute horror that any human besides me saw such crap writing. For him to think it was good…well, it’s flattering. It makes me wonder if perhaps I am too hard on myself and my writing.

But it’s not going to make me continue with nanowrimo. My heart’s not in it this year. Maybe next year. I will say this: my nemisis Stacey Cochran (I don’t know him, and he doesn’t know me or have any idea that he is my nemisis) *is* participating in nanowrimo, and that provokes me ALMOST to the point of saying YES! I will beat Stacey Cochran this year! But the truth is, I won’t. But next year, Stacey! Next year! You just watch out.

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nanowrimo fever

Am I crazy? I just commited myself to nanowrimo — you all know what that is by now, right? National Novel Writing Month, for the unaware. (And it started today) You write a 50,000 word novel in one month, and that’s all there is to it. But ‘all there is to it’ means I’ll be writing an average of 1,666 words per day. I am crazy.

I actually did this once before, in 2002. My sister and I joined nanowrimo, and we each finished our novels in 30 days. In 26 days, actually. We finished early. (Because of a deadline we couldn’t get out of. Otherwise, I would have been up til midnight on November 30th.) We were fueled on by fellow Arizonan Stacey Cochran, who actually had a published novel under his belt. He doesn’t know us and we don’t know him, but we could not, could NOT let him finish his novel before we did. And I actually wrote a novel. A very bad, amateurish novel, but a novel, all the same.

But that was three years ago. That was when I was young, had energy, had no obligation to anyone or anything. However, a while back, John and I discussed nanowrimo, and we both decided to go for it. I forgot all about it. I didn’t plan a plot, characters, nothing. But today, John said, “I signed up for nanowrimo. Did you?” I panicked. I can’t write a novel! I don’t have it in me!

But I didn’t want to go back on my word. I said I would do it with him, and so I will. And thus far, I’ve got a page-and-a-half written. 521 words, to be exact. 1,145 words to go. I don’t know if I can do it, but I’m suddenly excited to take on the challenge.

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blink and you miss it

I’m slowly moving out of the funk I was in. You want to know how I know?

Because I cleaned my kitchen. Because I want to take guitar lessons. Because I want to write poetry. Because I’m interested in people again. Because missing my husband (he’s in Kansas) doesn’t make me feel sad, it makes me feel alive.

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we eat ham and jam and spam a lot!

That’s it. Enough with the spam already. I am now turning on the comment feature that makes it so if you’re going to comment on my site, you have to type in the word you see. This should prevent any more spam from happening. Some of the spam seemed harmless, but a pornography one pushed me over the edge. (I delete the spam comments, so that’s why I’m ranting away about spam and you don’t see what I’m talking about anywhere on my site.)

Anyway, sorry for the inconvenience–to all you real people, please keep commenting! I appreciate all of your comments.

love,
HJ

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NaNoWriMo blues

In the year 2002, I participated in NaNoWriMo. If you haven’t heard of it, that stands for National Novel Writing Month. November is the month, and in 2002, I wrote a whole novel during the month of November. It is an accomplishment I am quite proud of, because it definitely wasn’t easy.

I didn’t participate during 2003 or 2004 because of grad school—I would have gone crazy. I was so looking forward to NaNoWriMo 2005 so I could write my second novel. But November 1 is fast approaching, and I find that my heart just isn’t in it. I want to do it—the thrill of writing a novel in a month (along with 20,000 other people!) and knowing that you accomplished something that difficult and big, well, there’s nothing like that feeling.

So what’s keeping me from signing up? Why am I not dreaming up plots, developing characters, and listening in on other people’s conversations for inspiration? (Haha. Listening in on conversations is fun to do, and often quite inspirational!) It’s plain my heart isn’t in it, and I can’t write 50,000 words in one month without a whole lot of conviction and heart. I almost quit halfway through the month (when I had written 25,000 words already!) the first time I participated, so I KNOW that NaNoWriMo is not for the faint of heart.

If something changes by November 1, then I’ll go at it full force! I guess I just don’t know why I’m so lethargic about it…Anyone out there thinking of participating this year? Anyone willing to try and help psych me up for this?

Oh, p.s. This shirt makes nanowrimo awfully tempting…

So NOW who’s with me? For those about to write, we salute you.

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