I took two nights and the better part of three days to spend time alone in a log cabin in the woods overlooking a meadow. I had some writing-related decisions to make, and I wasn’t getting anywhere with the decision-making process at home. I’m pleased to say that I found the answers I was looking for. Amazing what some complete alone time can do. Although this morning I was surrounded by a dozen-plus deer, a coyote, a chipmunk, and a raven, so not really alone. 🙂

There was one thing about my stay at the log cabin that was unfortunate. The beds were all in a loft, and the steps to the loft were too steep for my bad hip to negotiate. So I had to sleep downstairs on the couch instead of in one of the comfy looking beds. I almost fell coming down the steps the first time, so I knew it wouldn’t be safe for me if I had to get up during the night.

I swear the cabin seemed a little bit haunted. More than once I heard what sounded like someone tapping on the door’s window. I also heard what sounded like feet sliding across the wood floors. I kept telling myself when I’d wake up to weird noises that “It’s just the cats.” And then I’d remember my cats weren’t there. The second night I was so tired after not sleeping well on the couch, that I just slept most of the night through. Woke up once to a loud thump, but I think it was all just logs creaking in the change of temperatures at night.

This cabin was located at the horse camp I attended when I was a kid. They used to tell us lots of ghost stories about the area. So I’ve always sort of felt that place was a bit spooky. Being all alone on a secluded hillside away from the main camp area and hearing bumps in the night was actually amusing. They’d set me up perfectly as child for a ghost-filled weekend.

UPDATE: I tried writing a poem today about yesterday’s visit with the herd of deer and the coyote. It seemed like a poetry-worthy moment. But after a good honest try? Nope. Whole lotta nope. Oh, well. It was a cool moment, though. 🙂
UPDATE:

I’m finding that writing memoir is like excavating the past. I’ve been digging in one area, but that leads to another completely different spot full of memories. For me, it’s such a mixed bag.

I’m just focusing on my childhood. Depending on how this goes, I might write about adult years at a later time. But for now, things will probably only go up to about 7th grade. Essentially the ending of a traumatic season of life. Although it’ll be focused on elementary and junior high, it won’t be Young Adult fiction. Or at least not intentionally. Some pretty adult and graphic topics.

For me, memoir has also proven to be a bit triggering. I was reading something aloud at a meeting last night, and suddenly had a flash of memory that stopped me in my tracks. I had to stumble around a bit to get back on track with my reading. People were looking at me with worried expressions, and I could imagine they were wondering if I just had a stroke. If they weren’t so concerned, it might have been embarrassing. But I didn’t feel judged. More like supported.

I think I’m going to head down to the library this afternoon and see if they have copies of Writer’s Digest and The Writer. I’d like to dig up some more articles on writing memoir. I’ve read a lot online, but I really like reading in print better. My eyes aren’t always behaving well when I read on the computer or phone.

The working title of the memoir is Growing Up in Mayberry. It’s both descriptive and ironic. The title will, of course, change, but I find it’s helpful to have a title/label to work with to keep things in focus.

I’ve done so much reading on writing lately, I feel like I’ve been taking a writing class. Here are some of the better books I’ve read, in case you’re interested:

1) On Writing: A Memoir on Craft, by Stephen King
2) Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, by Natalie Goldberg
3) Bird by Bird; Some Instructions on Writing and Life, by Anne Lamott
4) The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, by Julia Cameron
5) Your Book Starts Here, by Mary Carroll Moore
And a handful of memoirs.

All of these books (other than Your Book Starts Here) are things I’ve read before. But reading them all together, one right after the other, while taking extensive notes along the way, and putting things directly into practice has been interesting. And eye-opening. I feel like something’s being birthed in me. I just wish I didn’t have to juggle it all with my job. But I’m not in a position where I can retire yet. So the juggling will continue for a while.

I do get random days off, though. Tomorrow is one of them, so I hope to get some writing/reading/editing/exploring done. 🙂 And I think it’s time to call my publisher again to see about getting those book rights back.

I was reading a book on writing memoir earlier today and the author said she recommended starting out with a small section. Forget about everything leading up to the section. Assume your reader already knows the people, places and things they’ll need to know. Then dive right into the action, into the heart of the scene or story. If someone’s falling off a cliff, start where they fall and pretend like your reader already knows how they got there, etc..

So I tried her idea. There was a scene that I’ve known I’ve wanted to write about for a long time, but I would get all bogged down in leading up to it, introducing the people, setting the scene, explaining things. This time I started right into the action. I wrote three long-hand pages with no trouble at all. And it was powerful to write! It’s a very disturbing thing that happened when I was in Junior High. And I finally have the core of it out on paper! The rest of the details can be filled in later.

Wow. I really learned something today. Oh, and the author also said to take about twenty minutes prior to writing, basically sitting quietly and meditating on what it is you want to write. I felt very clear-headed about how I wanted to approach it after I sat with it for a while.

She also said that hitting an important scene like this can cause a lot of emotion. I felt tears, I felt angry, I felt empowered. And I still feel kind of shaky and breathless.

Diving into the heart and heat of it. Then fill in the details later. Wow. So simple. But perhaps proving to be so effective.

When I think of writing, I tend to think in terms of book-length projects. Or the other extreme of short little blog posts.

I just had an “ah ha!” moment while doing my morning journaling. What about working on something in between? Like short stories or essays?

For example, I have a memoir in mind but it’s such a big project, it overwhelms me and I don’t even start. But what if I took one element or one scene and wrote it out as a personal essay? A collection of those could become a book later, but even if they just stand alone, it might be a way to break through the writer’s block that seems to have hit with the memoir idea.

Maybe I’ll go back through past issues of The New Yorker and read their personal essays to get a better sense of what that looks like. I feel encouraged and maybe even a little inspired.

On the topic of memoir, I’m reading the classic memoir A Childhood: A Biography of a Place by Harry Crews. It was recommended to me by someone who claimed it’s the “greatest memoir ever written!” Well, I don’t know about that yet, but it’s definitely good so far. 🙂

My dad asked me to wash his sleeping bag in my new washing machine. It doesn’t have a center post, so it can wash large items like blankets, etc. My dryer didn’t want to dry the sleeping bag so I have the bag flung over a chair.

They let me off work early today (which is weird that it was so slow in the middle of a sale). So, what did I do with my sudden day free?

More laundry.

Blankets, sheets, and more sheets. Now I have another blanket flopped over another chair. I feel like I’m living in a laundry.

And all I want to do is nap. But my bed is torn apart and being laundered.

So that’s my day. Laundry. And no nap. Although the couch is starting to look inviting.

I’ve gotten a lot of work done–between laundry loads–on an outline for the writing class I’m going to teach next month. Did some research, read some of my favorite authors on writing. And it’s amazing how often they all disagree with each other. There definitely isn’t one right way to write.

I’m preparing my notes for a beginning writing class I’ll be teaching next month. I want to share Anne Lamott’s idea of writing really bad first drafts. She calls them sh*tty first drafts. Notice how I didn’t use the “s” word? Yeah, that’s what I decided to write about just now.

Not long ago, a friend told me, “I noticed that you never swear. Why is that?”

Wow. I hadn’t realized I didn’t swear. I’m not particularly prudish about swearing. Other people swearing doesn’t offend me. All I could say in response was, “Sometimes I do.” Or I think I do, anyway. I definitely think swear words. But maybe they don’t come out of my mouth. lol

It gave me food for thought. Had I always been a non-swearer? Was there a time when I stopped swearing? I didn’t know.

To the best of my knowledge, I think I stopped swearing when I became a mother. Setting a good example for the kiddos was a high priority to me. I was surrounded by kids. My own. My kids’ friends. The 4-H Club. The neighbors. Everyone came to my house to play because we had the biggest front yard and the best snacks.

Swearing just wasn’t an option for me with all those impressionable little people running around. And once the non-swearing habit was firmly set, it never became an option again.

So here I sit, a full-grown adult teaching a writing class who can’t type the word sh*tty. I wonder if I’ll be able to say it in the class? Probably not without a bunch of apologizes and excuses and embarrassment.

There’s something that amuses me in this situation. 😃

I’d been reading a book about finding more direction and purpose to your life. Identifying your dreams or discovering the path opening to personal fulfillment. I was at a crossroads—would I move to a new location with all the stresses that come with a move to a new community, or would I stay put with all the stresses I was currently experiencing. But at least those present stresses were known and familiar.

I’d taken some time for a personal retreat to mull over the possible changes I may be facing. A new house, new people, even things as mundane as new grocery stores. So much change is involved with a move.

My personal retreat took place at a former horse camp I’d attended as a child. Over the years, it’d been refurbished and reimagined into a guest ranch for all ages. There were still horses in the field and trails on the hill. I found that so many memories were triggered from the familiar buildings and by talking with the family members of the original owners.

My childhood memories of trail rides, barn dances, and campfires combined with my grownup musings about choices I needed to make. What choices would Horse Camp Girl have made in the current situation? Would her dreams fit in with any of my thoughts or life transitions today?

What were Horse Camp Girl’s dreams? Well, for one thing, she wanted to write. I remember girlhood dreams of the writer’s life. She imagined a room of her own, a typewriter by the window, the room decorated with things she loved, there was at least one cat, a view of something green and relaxing out the window, peace and quiet. My girlhood dreams were pretty simple.

Fast forward to now. I live in a small home all my own with two cats, a view out my writing window of a greenbelt, my grandma’s piano and my grandfather’s rocking chair in places of honor, a table strewn with notebooks, pens, books, and Post-it notes. No typewriter, but more than one computer. Times and writerly equipment change.

I made the choice to move. And suddenly one day I realized that although the details are different, I’d made a choice which actually aligned with my childhood dreams. Writing, housing, cats, a view. While my current house may not be my Dream House, I think it’s a living situation of my dreams.

Making the choice to move rather than stay put was made not just for sensible, logical reasons, but also through meditative, intuitive, thoughtful, prayerful steps. And, also, it was a decision to make the best of the choices I’ve made, realizing that all choices are a mixed bag of good and bad. Of joys and challenges. Although I’m living a life with heartbreak and challenges, in many ways, I am living the dreams of my life. And that’s important to remember during the dark times.

I was reading today and the writer shared about a simple meditation to help determine changes you might want to make in your life.

So I closed my eyes and imagined my happy place. (It’s a secluded beach in the Bahamas.) I asked the Universe what changes would be important to make in my life right now. Basically asked myself, “What isn’t working?”

Having just moved, that pretty much upended my life, so a lot of options for changes weren’t really necessary to consider.

After some time of just sitting quietly, I suddenly saw myself in my mind’s eye walking around with my nice camera, taking photos of beautiful locations and interesting objects. Wow, I miss my camera. It just never got unpacked when I moved. Definitely a change I want to make.

I also saw myself shutting my computer instead of playing games online. Those games are often just a time waster, but also can be a welcome respite from life’s stresses. Hm. I had the thought, “I could give the games up for Lent.” Which was a funny thought because I don’t usually give things up for Lent. But I was suddenly wondering, how would my life be different if I gave up the games for a while? I’d probably choose other simple activities. Reading. Writing. Cleaning. Photography. Art. Walking. Playing with the cats.

How long is Lent, anyway? 40 days? 46 days if you count Sundays? Anyway, I know it ends on Easter. I’m not even sure when Easter is this year. (I just checked. Easter is March 31st this year.)

So my little trip to my deserted beach in my mind brought out the desire to bring my camera out of the back recesses of the closet, and to take a little break from online games for a bit.

It felt like a worthwhile activity to find those answers.

I was given a file cabinet shortly after I moved. I’d been without a file cabinet for a number of years, so I was totally out of the habit.

I’ve been wanting to set it up, but perfectionism kept getting in the way. If I didn’t know exactly how I was going to set up the files, and if it wasn’t the perfect system, then I wasn’t going to do anything. So I’ve sat here with an empty file cabinet and a couple of piles of paper on my desk that needed to be filed.

Finally, a couple of days ago, I said to myself, “Progress is better than perfection.” So I went over to the first pile of papers, grabbed the first piece of random paper off the top, and made a file for it. And did this with each piece of paper in the pile. If there was already a file where it fit, I’d put it there. Otherwise, I’d create a new file. I just kept putting these random files one behind the other in no particular order. (I’ll sort that out later.)

For now, I have papers in files and no longer have piles on my desk.

Significant progress has been made! I’m quite pleased.