The HEA Cafe

It’s December and the panic is in full swing to do all the Christmas preparation. It’s a time when I find it difficult to keep everything in perspective and when my creativity can almost wither and die if I’m not careful.   

Julia Cameron in her book, The Artist’s Way, discusses what she calls artist’s dates with the goal to fill the creative well. She suggests many ways and points out that artists (writers) can’t keep pouring out creativity from their brain, mind, heart, soul or wherever it comes from, without doing something to fill the well.

I thought I’d share my favorite ways though at this time of year they are more likely to be something I long for rather than something I do. But I like to dream. So in no particular order these are things that refresh my muse: 

Travel. A trip to Paris surrounded by the spirits of famous writers, the sights of old buildings, beautiful flowers along the Seine, the pink light, bistro tables outdoors for coffee, the cacophony of foreign languages…. I could go on and on but while Paris is a great place to fill the well, it is not a place I can just pick up and venture off to at a moment’s notice. There are other destinations. But it is not only the destination that fills my creative well, it’s the process of getting from Point A to Point B, to C, to D and—There is something about being confined to small, moving conveyance, unable to go do anything that focuses my thoughts inward to deeper places within me where stories and ideas lurk. Okay, honesty time here, I am happy to settle for a drive alone in my car most times.

Research. It might be just an excuse for more travel but not necessarily. Reading research books (currently I’m doing research on the history of Banff), poking through museums and galleries, talking to curators, exploring different places and gleaning information fills my head with all sorts of possibilities. And it’s fun. 

Flooding the senses. There is nothing like being surrounded by a glut of color, sound, or delicious scents to give the old muse a lift. Some of my favorite a-musing places quilt shops. I don’t quilt. I don’t have time. But to walk through the racks of variegated-color batts of fabric, to view the beautiful quilts others have made is to flood my senses with color. A favorite sound flood is sitting under a tree in the summer and listening to the various birds. A favorite scent place is flowers. Just to close my eyes and revel in the scent. There are lots of opportunities in the summer—gardens everywhere. In the winter, a visit to the florist works. 

Nap. Yup a nap is a good way to refill the well. It closes down the busy conscious thoughts and gives the subconscious a chance to send information to the surface. In her book, No More Rejections, Alice Orr speaks of keeping paper and pen by the bedside and writing for 10 minutes immediately upon wakening. She says it’s her most productive time, which proves that the muse likes to work in solitude while we sleep. At least I think it proves that. I like my naps even if they tend to be rare this time of year. 

Go to a coffee shop. This probably incorporates several other methods but because it’s so effective and so specific, I consider it a method worthy of it’s own recognition. Not all coffee shops work. It has to be a meditative type place or at least a place where no one stares if you plunk down and start to scribble in a notebook. If you find such a place your muse will thank you with lots of generous handouts. 

Talking to other writers. Put a bunch of writers together and there will be instant conversation on things such a plot, character, how to solve writing problems, how each has done with writing projects and a hundred other writerly things. It’s enough to send my muse into overdrive. A face-to-face meeting is the best. Combined with a coffee shop as in #5 and it’s past wonderful. Monthly meetings with local writing organizations are great. A telephone conversation is good. Email is good. My muse is just plain and simple greedy for other writers to talk to. 

Walk. Alone. Walking in town admiring the flowers and landscaping is good. Walking in the country with just me, my thoughts and nature is even better. 

People watching. This a wonderful way to refresh the muse. There’s just something about people, watching them and wondering what they’re up to. One of the best places to people watch is in a busy airport where people seem completely unselfconscious. But one particular scene from a Tim Horton’s coffee shop stands out in my mind. There was a young family of 4—mother, father, two school age children. The father and children came in first. Little was said. The father stood watching by the table, hesitant, anxious. Then the mother came in. She spoke not a word but from two tables away, I could feel the tension. I knew there had been a disagreement. And I wondered. And mused. 

Do something mindless. Iron (as if), weed the garden, shell peas, mop the floor, dust. Any mindless activity that seems to keep my hands busy but my mind free to roam works. I’ve had some of my best ideas while picking peas or folding laundry. 

Watch TV. Another mindless activity. But watching movies or hour-long dramas often triggers something in my brain. If I tried to explain how something on TV made me think of something in my story that is totally unrelated you would shake your head in disbelief. Perhaps ideas short circuit. 

These are a few of my favorite things for feeding my muse. I’d love to hear what others do. I might pick up a few new activities. 

Like many writers, it seems I’ve been at it for years. I joke about submitting to Archie and Veronica comic books when I was seven or eight but, honestly, that’s when I got the writing bug. I submitted faithfully for two or three years without getting even a rejection letter to my name.

Throughout junior high and high school, I kept at it, writing poetry, songs and short stories, dreaming of becoming an author. But college and kids and life got in the way and I put those dreams back on the top shelf in the back of my mind. I plugged away at the technical writing work I’d been fortunate to get, telling myself that I’d get back to it tomorrow, or next month, or next year. It isn’t surprising that it took forty plus years to finally get my name on a fiction book.

Friends (aspiring writers, all) ask what finally got me off my duff (or, rather, back on my duff and in front of a computer monitor) to pen my first full length novel.

Well, it wasn’t the money, that I can promise you. After publishing a sports magazine geared to kids, I already knew how hard it is to make a decent living in publishing. Yes, there are multimillionaire authors out there, but for every one of them, there are thousands like me who just hope to make a little spending money after the marketing bills are paid.

The hard truth is I did it because I realized that tomorrow, and next month, and next year had come and gone. I’d been waiting for the perfect time and finally realized there is no perfect time.

Has my life changed since making the decision to try to make my dreams come true? You bet your sweet bippie it has (if that doesn’t date me, nothing will!) For one, I’ve chosen to immerse myself in the writing life. When people ask what I do, I tell them I write. I surround myself with yeah-sayers instead of naysayers, other writers who understand how hard this business is but keep plugging away. I drag friends to RWA chapter meetings, plug RWA Online, and volunteer at conferences. I shamelessly self-promote and buy lots of books from fellow authors, hoping they’ll do the same for me. When opportunities to travel for research present themselves, I pull out my credit card and jump in with both feet.

Over time, I’ve learned to take constructive criticism well, and to look at my writing not as something written in stone, but as a product I’m willing to rework over and over until it shines to perfection. I never stop working at the craft of writing and I plop myself in front of my computer nearly every day. I’ve got one book under my belt and two in the hopper.

I don’t have time to wait. Tomorrow is here!

Have a great day!

Recently, I had a an email conversation with a writer friend. She was discouraged because, even though she’d had some success with contests and landed an agent, after years of writing she still hadn’t sold. In a response to another friend’s congratulations on a contest final, she wrote: it’s hard to keep believing “this will be the one.”

I wasn’t functioning on all cylinders (which means just one cup of tea at that point), but I fired back a post before I could even think, because I felt she was doing herself a grave injustice. This is what I said:

What does *believing* have to do with it? I think there’s been so much emphasis on positive thinking in past years that the forest has got lost for the trees. Where positive thinking matters is that it keeps us working toward a goal. Believing that we can control things we can’t is crazy. The only thing you could control here was entering the contest. You finaled (w00t w00t) and now it’s completely out of your hands. What you do have is exposure and opportunity. Will it lead to anything? Who knows. but you can ride it for what it’s worth (like going to the conference which is GREAT). Will believing it will lead to something change the outcome? I sure don’t think so. Still, we have a mutual friend who sold her book based on a contest win, so the possibility must be acknowledged.

In many ways publishing (and life) is like throwing seeds into the wind. We can hope they’ll land somewhere and take root. But we can’t control that. We can only provide the opportunity. We can only keep going. The only way we can control things is to stop. And that isn’t an option for me, or for you.

To that, I would add now, that we get better at throwing those seeds. We learn how to gauge the wind. We find a hose and water–or learn how to do a rain dance. We do all we can and then trust the soil to nourish them and the sun to make them grow.

And then we go plant another garden. Happy writing!

As my first release date approaches, six days (not that I’m counting…lol), I have found myself looking back at the journey that brought me here.  I have realized how truly thankful I am for all the wonderful support and invaluable asssistance I have gotten along the way from RWA Online and Passionate Ink.

From Monica’s phenominal pitch boot camp that instilled me with the courage to do the pitch, and do a great job, to Chiron’s weekly motivational essays on the Challenge Forum, I have been constantly surrounded by fellow writers that are incredibly supportive.  So, group hug everyone!

I have also learned a lot along the way:

1. I learned that a lot of work goes into a work after you sign the contract.  I had no idea how many stages there were to it, and anyone who says e-publishers don’t edit has never dealt with my publisher…lol.  I always thought line edits and proofing were the same thing.  Uh, apparently not. Oh my!

2. I discovered that marketing yourself and getting your name out there is hard.  Very hard.  It is a lot of networking, and quite frankly, I have a lot to learn in this arena of it.

3. This publishing world is like a small fish bowl.  You never know who knows who. There is so much I could say about this one in particular, but I think that old saying sums it up best, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

4. The only way to find out what I need to know and don’t is to get the courage to ask.  I have yet to not get an insightful and informed answer from the wonderful authors in this forum. They are here to help, if we just have the courage to ask.

5. Determination and hard work will pay off eventually, you just have to have the patience to see it through to the end.

There are so many more things, but those are my personal top 5 for what it’s worth. 

So, I am keeping this first post here short and simple.  Have a great Thanksgiving, to those celebrating.  And if you are one of the many and the brave facing the “Black Friday” shopping frenzy, may the force be with you.  And your credit cards, of course.

As we all know, a writer’s job is to challenge her characters, put them in impossible situations, and really make them suffer.  That’s how we force them to change and grow.  Well, little did I know when I took a recent research trip to Peru that my experience would challenge me as much as any character in my book.

I went to Peru to do research for the second book of my upcoming miniseries for Silhouette Romantic Suspense (To Protect a Princess, coming Fall 2008).  I didn’t want to stick to the usual tourist routes; I wanted to get off the beaten track and into the remote mountain villages just as my characters do.  So I got the bright idea to spend a week with a medical missionary group working around Ayaviri, a town at nearly 13,000 feet in the Andes Mountains.

Of course, I prepared for the trip.  I read everything I could about Peru, spent weeks planning, packing, gathering supplies.  I got a slew of shots, started taking Diamox, which is a medicine that helps your body acclimate to high altitude.  Unfortunately, none of this helped.

First off, I got sunburned.  Ayaviri is a dusty, treeless place with freezing winds and brutal sun.  And I mean brutal.  My 65 SPF sunblock was useless.  Luckily, someone in our group lent me a hat to wear (I had planned to buy one there, but it turns out that Ayaviri is not exactly the place to shop, unless you are in the market for potatoes and coca leaves).  And October is “springtime” in Ayaviri, which means dressing in several sweaters, a jacket, a wool scarf, hat and gloves.  Night and day.  I froze.  I’ve never worn so many clothes to bed in my life.

And despite the medication, I immediately came down with altitude sickness.  My head throbbed constantly.  My blood oxygen level dipped to a dangerous 71%.  Walking across a room left me gasping and heaving for breath.  One of the doctors in our group had to be hospitalized and put on steroids because the fluids in his brain swelled. I escaped that fate, but the entire week I was there I felt dreadfully weak.

It didn’t help that we were “roughing it” on this trip.  We stayed in a hotel with no heat, no hot water, no towels, soap, toilet paper or mirror.  Electricity was sporadic.  Toward the end of the week, even the water completely shut off.

But like a true heroine, none of this kept me from doing my research.  Each day I staggered around with the group as we went to different villages to set up our medical clinic.  And I got lots of authentic details for my book.  The people in that area are mostly Quechua, descendants of the Inca.  Many don’t speak Spanish.  They grow potatoes and beans, sheep, cattle, alpaca, and pigs.  They live in mud-brick huts with thatched roofs and no running water, electricity, or heat.  Bathrooms consist of holes in the ground.  Women herd animals and hoe potatoes with their babies strapped in blankets on their backs.

The poverty is overwhelming.  Disease (especially caused by parasites) is rampant.  Health care is nonexistent.  Dental care consists of pulling rotten teeth.  Even the children’s cute “rosy” cheeks are thick calluses caused by the damaging sun.

So, obviously, after seeing how they live, I could hardly complain about my temporary deprivations.  So what if I had to do without heat or hot water for a week?  So what if the electricity occasionally went out?  These people went without such necessities their entire lives.

At the end of the week, my husband and I left the medical group and traveled by bus to Cuzco.  My plan was to wrap up my research by touring Machu Picchu, which I have always wanted to see.  We booked a room in a beautiful hotel which felt sinfully luxurious after our week roughing it in Ayaviri.

Unfortunately, fate had further punishments in store for me.  Not only didn’t the altitude sickness subside at the slightly lower elevation, but I came down with a violent case of traveler’s diarrhea — so bad, in fact, that I missed the tour of Machu Picchu.  I spent the entire day sitting by the baño while my husband enjoyed the tour.  I came home ten pounds lighter, and with the depressing knowledge that I lead a spoiled and pampered life.

I’m sad to conclude that I’m probably not heroine material.  If I had to face any of the disasters my characters face in my book, I would not prevail.

But despite everything, the journey really did make me grow and change.  I certainly appreciate such amenities as safe food, hot, clean water, and heat.

Will I do it again?  Maybe.  I’d like to think so.  A real heroine would.  But me?  Hmm… I’ll have to think about that for awhile…

If you’d like to see photos from my adventurous trip, you’ll find them on the EXTRAS page on my website: www.gailbarrett.com.  I hope you’ll take a look!