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.

“Every man’s memory is his private literature.”

Aldous Huxley

Today we spent time reading, eating Mexican, drinking margaritas, driving under pink Arizona clouds. These things helped to lessen the impact of yet one more form agent inquiry rejection letter. This one truly stung. “Dear Writer,” it began. Dear Writer? But I gave you my name. I gave you my story. I let threads of my heart fall across your desk. And you gave me Dear Writer?

Ah, but such is the business of writing. I’m collecting the names of best-selling authors who’ve suffered the pang of rejection after rejection. Their number is growing.

After today’s letter, I vowed to double, no … triple my efforts to obtain a worthy agent. I remember reading to my youngest a wonderful children’s story entitled, “Barney Beagle.” The story follows Barney Beagle who wonders if each boy who enters the pet store to buy a dog is “HIS” boy. It took a number of boys who each fell in love with other dogs before Barney Beagle at last found HIS boy.

So, I’m looking for MY agent. The one who loves my story even more than I think possible. I’ve come to the conclusion (after two margaritas) that I might be the human likeness of Barney Beagle!

Regardless those “Dear Writer” letters, the story of my fictional character, Lillie Claire Glidden, is beautiful and provocative … and I’ll not give up on her. She would do no less for me. We’ve intertwined our stories until our memory has become our private literature. Lillie Claire is every woman who wishes to leave a legacy to her children. I’m no less a woman.

May I wish all a happy Saturday night.

“Bread and books: food for the body and food for the soul — what could be more worthy of our respect, and even love?”

— Salman Rushdie

A perfect thought for a Sunday evening. That, and this picture from a fellow writer of his beloved dogs enjoying their own sort of feast.

Ah,

Sweet

Love …

Every writer should have a dog, don’t you think? A faithful companion gazing into the hearth while the writer sits at a desk, hammering out beautiful prose on that old red, Remington typewriter that has served without a breakdown since God invented the space bar. Clackity-Clack. Tappity-Tap. Ting!

Every now and then, the writer can look over at the dog who’s now struck a pose worthy of a Norman Rockwell portrait. Our writer … let’s call him Jeoffrey … plucks out a single, crisp sheet of 24 lb. fine linen paper and places it into the roller of his Remington. Ticka-ticka-ticka. He rolls the paper in until it rests at the properly-prescribed margin. Our Jeoffrey smiles then as he recalls another dog in another time. He takes a breath and sets down his first sentence …

The spaniel glanced at his master– who felt a sudden inspiration not unlike that night in Singapore when the rickshaw broke down in front of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, just as that mysterious woman in the red mandarin dress walked by, oranges dropping from a hole in her grocery bag like a trail of breadcrumbs he was compelled to follow; that is, after first knocking back several Singapore Slings while the rickshaw was repaired, and both the tsunami warning and the ensuing hangover passed–just before lifting his leg on the corner of the couch.

Ah, so much for my impression of Edward George Bulwer-Lytton’s writing from the novel, Paul Clifford, which began with those grand words, “It was a dark and stormy night”. (It’s quite fun to write those, by the way. Try it some time yourself then send them to me, or even better, enter them in the Dark and Stormy Night contest. So much fun!) But back to the dog. The dog? That I’m quite serious about. You see, I’m buying a puppy. A Puppy! Here’s his picture:

This now six-week old Labradoodle will be coming in two weeks to grace our home and probably piddle our carpet. The gracing of the home will be a welcome addition, and if we’re careful, the piddling will be minimal, as will be the chewing on the leg of grandma’s priceless table. In a year’s time, I expect to have a perfectly-trained dog … and my next great American novel completed.

Do wish me luck with both endeavors.

I’d like to step away from character selection today and get back to the subject of our aching, whining, Wrists-That-Shall-Not-Be-Ignored. For those of us who suffer repetitive motion injury, here are a few tips that may make life more keyboard-friendly:

• You can help prevent injury by making sure that your setup and equipment are appropriate for your height. If you work outside of your home, ask your employer to allow an ergonomic evaluation of your work station. Then apply the same measurements to your home writing station. (Just as chocolate is a major food group and … trust me on this … won’t add a ounce to your weight, this particular tip doesn’t apply when you’re slouching at your neighborhood coffee shop with a laptop on your knees and a double frappachino thingy-whacky in your hand.)

• Take frequent breaks. (Breaks! Oooo — I LIKE breaks.)

• Consciously remember to relax your grip when you’re using your mouse. (Yeah … Hey! Try not to choke that poor little mouse to death.)

• Exercise (my least favorite word) your wrists frequently throughout the day. First, bend and flex your wrists. Then make a fist, and then stretch out your fingers. If you already have carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), consult your doctor to make certain that these or other exercises are appropriate for you. (Allow me to recommend my favorite reward after any exercise: Chocolate!!!)

• Keep your hands and wrists warm. Cold muscles are more prone to injury. (I’m sorry about this for you folks in the frozen tundra, or any place north of the equator, for that matter.)

If you are one of nearly eight million Americans who have CTS, you’re at least not alone. Get treated if you think you may have repetitive injury. If left alone, those with CTS can develop a loss of feeling in some fingers and permanent weakness of the thumb. Unlike my hips, your thumb muscles can actually waste away over time.

Be safe out there, my fellow writers. Take care of your hands and wrists. Remember — you’ll need them for signing all those autographs in your books!