Okay, so life is crazy goofy.  Me!  At my age … have decided to get in shape and grow a muscle.  Maybe two or even three.  For the past weeks, I’ve been working out with a personal trainer who stands over me and yells in my ear.  COME ON, WUSSY GIRL.  GIMME TEN MORE.  NOW!!!

Did I mention that I hate to sweat?

Noneheless, I’m doing it.  I’m growing a muscle.  Of course, you can’t see it yet, silly — it’s growing, not grown.  Sheesh.

You wonder why I’m torturing myself by spending hours every day in a gym that smells of man-sweat and iron weights?  I want to live long enough to see at least one of my novels published.  Simple as that.  As everyone in my family, I’ve developed a nasty habit of collecting cholesterol in my arteries.  Yeah, I’m still sorta young to have such cholesterol collecting ambitions, but I’ve always been something of a progeny.  Nevertheless, I’ve words to write and books to publish.  It’s as simple as that.

My apologies if I’ve been less-than attentive to my musings of late.  I’m busy growing a muscle.  Or two.

P.S.  The above picture is so NOT me, but courtesy of Getty Images.

Wilson the Labradoodle is growing up. Yesterday he received his first big-boy haircut. Yes, he’s growing up. Four months old now and using the great outdoors to do his business — every time! He knows sit, down, stay, come, wait, heel, kisses, off, leave it, stop that!, hey – what are you chewing?, oh no, wait, that’s my shoe, smile for the camera, and go to your naughty spot. Here’s Wilson in the car sporting his new hairdo:

Interestingly, this website has been recently getting a new do as well. Updated widgets and gadgets and whatnots that should make life easier for me. I thank Brian Tanaka for his kind and professional work. He’s a wizard! He somehow found an errant code I had embedded (yes, I’m a computer goober) that caused everything to go wacky — not unlike Wilson’s hair before his much-needed trim. Brian updated everything and magically made bad spammers go away. (I told you he’s a wizard.)

So, Wilson and Owner are now both trimmed and ready to go. We’ll probably need fixing again every now and then, but that’s why we have a groomer and a guru.

My thanks today go to a gifted woman named Kim who manages to make unkempt doggies look like a million bucks with just a pair of scissors and a few cookies. And a huge thanks to Brian Tanaka whose gentle approach to the fine art of computerizing stuff makes even goobers like me look better than deserved. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

If I were a bird, one might have called me “on the wing” today.  Away from the nest, but settled deep within an urgency to locate a source of food that might nourish my babies.  Myself.

I found today’s source of food in the whirring of a stationary bicycle as I crouched over it, urging my legs to go faster, faster.  Farther on.  Then, there was the scurrying of feet on a treadmill, my eyes watching the counter, tracking the time — interested in the perceived distance traveled while “on the wing.”

It’s interesting how we can travel without actually going anywhere.  Skittering.  Fluttering.  Still not an inch gained by all the activity.

Sometimes I have that sense of movement when I can nearly feel the wind pushing the hair back from my face, but I’ve not even made a step forward.  That was today when I bicycled the Alps, then briskly walked through a forest trail.  I moved miles away without leaving at all.  Amazing.

Amazing.

By normal standards, I wouldn’t have noticed an older man pushing his granddaughter through a store in a grocery cart any more than I’d have noticed anyone else in particular. I’m usually intent on sticking to my grocery list and scolding my hands that seem to delight in sneaking forbidden cookies and chips into my cart. But Grandfather and Granddaughter were parked in the middle of the aisle, deep in play and so enraptured with one another, I couldn’t help but notice. The little girl sat in the grocery cart, her body quaking with giggles, her eyes mesmerized by the antics of her grandfather who was dancing a jig, twirling about and tapping his feet to the rhythm of the muzak playing through the store. The dancing, giggling, twirling, tapping ended only with the return of Grandma (who had apparently been down another aisle), and now was back to get on with the serious business of shopping.

So often, my writing time seems much like that little grocery store scene. An idea delights me, twirling about my mind much like a dancing grandpa, but then serious grandma comes ’round and I have to get down to business and set the idea out properly before it’s lost.

I don’t know which I love better — the myriad ideas that float in and out, or the buckling down to choose one thought … one scene … then working at it until it’s right and good. I read somewhere that man, is above all the plaything of his memory.

I suppose, then, my plaything for today is rolling around the sound of a little girl’s high laughter in a grocery store. Oh, and the way her grandfather’s long, gray mustache bounced over his lips when he danced. That too!

It’s the calm examination of the smallest parts that gives one the ability to wildly write about the whole.

A writer must take a moment in time, and smash it to pieces small as atoms, then glue that moment back together so no one notices it was ever broken. Like a kid who’s taken his father’s watch apart just to see how it works with all its tiny wheels and gears, or whatever is in watches nowadays — that kid ought not get caught with any watch parts in his fingers. I know — there’s hell to pay if you get caught.

I’m still afraid someone will catch me doing something ridiculous like watching dust motes flicker in the light. My journal is filled with simple things like grocery lists — bread, eggs, milk, noodles. But while I’m writing those endless lists of groceries and websites I intend to check out, I still think about how dust can dance through the air on a Monday afternoon. Then when no one’s looking, I write about the thing I’ve observed. I write about the magical truth of dust, hidden within the ordinary reminders of bread and eggs and noodles.

Writing sometimes works that way for me; find something exquisite and mention how it happens while no one’s looking.

Sometimes.

A couple of days ago, I bought a new outfit for Hawaii. I’ve never been to Hawaii. Royal blue golf shorts the color of those lagoon pictures you see in National Geographic. I have no specific plans to go to Hawaii. A white Annika Sorenstam top that slides on like a dream. I probably won’t go to Hawaii any time soon. Little matching golf socklets edged in that same lagoon blue as the shorts. I may never go at all. A beautiful golf outfit for Hawaii. I’m a horrid golfer.

Still, I was compelled. Helpless. “Those shorts are very slimming,” the salesclerk said as I twirled in front of the mirror, wondering why I was modeling an outfit for a sport I play poorly to wear to a place I wasn’t going. But she said the magic word. Slimming.

When I got home, bag in hand, wallet a great deal lighter, I announced to my husband that I’d just bought a beautiful golf outfit for Hawaii. “Good idea,” he said, enthusiasm filling his throat. My husband is brilliant. He knows to comment minimally when his wife has a sack of new clothes dangling in her hand. I know he’s toting up his next tit-for-tat purchase at Home Depot. We both smile. We’re both brilliant.

As I hung my new outfit in the closet, I began to form thoughts about how I was going to get myself from the dark of my closet all the way to the first tee on some Hawaiian Island course. I wandered into my office still contemplating the prospect.

It then occurred to me that having a vacation outfit in my closet wasn’t altogether different from having a couple of unpublished manuscripts in my desk drawer. Those shorts need to go to Hawaii, and my manuscripts need to get onto bookstore shelves. I may be underpublished and undertraveled, but I see no reason why those two events can’t occur, if not toot sweet, then at least within a reasonable time.

So it’s time to dust off the old manuscripts, spit on ’em and make ’em shine. Start Googling on Hawaii. Find those old query letters and make a new list of folks who I’m sure are breathlessly waiting for my stories. Find the travel section at the bookstore. Update those queries and fire up the printer. Pull out those slimming shorts now and then for inspiration. Carefully research who’s representing authors with similar tastes and politely knock on some new doors. Rummage through the pantry for that empty coffee can and start a Hawaii Fund. Stick stamps on SASEs and send out more letters.

Then sigh. And wait. And make a Pina Colada with a little paper umbrella.

Hold soldiers in your breath.

Grow a carrot and

Make soup of it.

Read a book

By candlelight.

Let a glacier

Fill your cup.

Paint your fingernails

Blue.

Find a bunny and whisper

In its ears.

Hold another soldier in your breath;

They fall so quickly these days.

Kiss a puppy’s nose.

Be unexpected.

Find a possibility and make it

Yours.

Be your own Easter and

Rise.

These are my hands.  They are small and knowledgeable; they know hard work, and they luxuriate in leisure.  They’ve enjoyed health, and they’ve been stricken with pain.  At times, these hands travel blithely over a computer keyboard spilling out words with grace and ease; other times they suffer whole lapses of unfruitful days with crushing failure.

These are a writer’s hands.

We who ask tremendous loyalty from our hands sometimes cause them to suffer under our constant and daily over-taxing of them.

Now and then, I use a post to remind others (as well as myself) the importance of hands in our work, and how we might best protect them.  Without sounding like a scratchy broken record, here are a few easy things we can do to keep our writers’ hands strong and safe:

1. Do your best to provide an ergonomically correct work space.  Sitting in Starbucks with a laptop on your legs and a Grande Latte at the ready may be glamorous, but try to change it up now and then.
2. Plan your toughest days when you’re doing that marathon editing session in the comfort of your ergonomic writing space.
3. When you’re doing the happy dance because you’ve just signed a contract with your dream agent, be prepared for your hands to be busier than ever.  Reward those hands with frequent breaks and plenty of time off for good behavior when the big push is over.
4. Have a nice massage now and then to help keep tension at bay.  Remember that, as the old song goes, the head bone’s connected to hand bone (or something like that).
5. Also, take your hands out to a good meal now and then.  Good nutrition is necessary for us pasty-skinned writers who hole up in our writing caves for long stretches at a time.

One last thing — do try to keep from singeing those beautiful hands in the fires of your writing passion.  Oh, and let your hands practice the princess wave for that time you’ll be greeting all your fans.

“Henceforth I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune.”

Walt Whitman

I’m struck by the notion that we represent our own good fortune. Writers often consider that our fortunes lie in the hands of others. Agents. Editors. Various publicists, booksellers and librarians. Readers who shell out good money for our stories. Of course, every individual involved in the publication of a work is important to the process, and disregarding any particular person isn’t my point in today’s post.

What I’d like us to consider is that without following the initial inspiration of our stories, working through those late night editing sessions, mailing endless query letters — our good fortune would certainly never occur in the first place.

If we only dream, then sadly, we’re just dreamers.

Take, for example, Walt Whitman, who is considered one of the most influential in America’s canon. He knew from an early age the benefit of creating one’s own path. Born to a less-than-wealthy family and educated to only the age of eleven, Whitman’s childhood was generally restless and unhappy. Yet, this gifted and often controversial figure’s most famous work, Leaves of Grass,was originally self-published and without his name as its author. An early review called the work, “trashy, profane and obscene,” and referred to the unknown author as “a pretentious ass.” (Ah, wouldn’t we all love to have such reviews? Nowadays, controversy sells!) Whitman created his own good fortune by self-publishing what has become one of America’s most note-worthy works of American poetry.

Whitman began writing Leaves of Grass in 1850 and continued to revise and edit the book through numerous publications until his death. During his final year, he wrote, “L. of G. at last complete—after 33 y’rs of hacking at it, all times & moods of my life, fair weather & foul, all parts of the land, and peace & war, young & old.”

May we all find our inner Walt today. May we not hand over our good fortune to the whims of others, but rather, may we be brave in our work, give ourselves plenty of grace and mercy as we stumble here and there … but mostly, may we write today as if Mssr. Whitman is looking over our shoulder and urging us to write, write, write!

My best to writers everywhere as we each strive to be our own good fortune.

He flies through the house, puppy paws going a mile a minute, his mouth smiling, his fur waving every which way. Play with me. Play! I swear, he actually laughs!

What else would a writer do, then, but stop all else to play, and train … and clean up after her new puppy? I’m trying very hard to be smarter than a puppy. I think he has a decided advantage. Nevertheless, for the first time in days, I’m at my desk, a doggy at last sleeping at my feet, and my fingers trying to remember how to translate a few foggy brain firings into words. Trying is the operative word, here. I’m not getting much sleep these days.

I hear my wonderful husband in the other room, shampooing a week’s worth of my mistakes off the carpet. I call them my mistakes only because a nine week-old puppy has neither the constitution nor the memory to avoid a now-and-then mishap, especially when his guardian is otherwise occupied and less-than vigilant with her foggy, sleep deprived brain. At least we have a few other training tricks mastered. He’s an expert already at ferreting out cookies in my pocket, and how to make me laugh with delight in spite of those little carpet errors.

Now, short blog completed, it’s off to another needed edit of my recent manuscript. We’ll see how long this computer session might last. Deadlines may loom, but puppies rule! Wish me luck.