Hi, everyone!
This month: Some things I learned from horses, what I'm reading, a questionable art fail, and more.
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I spent a week or so mucking about the Midwest. I did some research for my work-in-progress, which is partly set in Milwaukee, and learned some interesting things about my protagonist. Namely, I learned that she's a wickedly expensive breakfast-food shopper. She insists on locally roasted, artisanal tea (yes, there is such a thing in Milwaukee!) while her best friend insists on things like the incredible "prix fixe" from Milwaukee's Nomad Bar, which is a shot of Jamesons, a can of PBR, and a ciggie.
But the last half of the week was spent in the amazing company of the #Write2theEnd writer's workshop, which put on their first-ever writing retreat (at a horse farm!!!). Sheer joyful exhaustion is the reason I didn't get this newsletter out last week, when it was supposed to go out, but I'm only a little bit sorry. Guys, if you ever have the opportunity to spend time in the company of folks who are excited about writing, do it. And, if you're ever a faculty member, like I was this time around, take advantage of that time and really spend it with the attendees. Eat with them; socialize with them. It's totally worth it.
One last note before we move on to the newsletter: Essayist and novelist Brian Doyle passed away this weekend. I've never met anyone who was so exactly like his essays as Brian was. His work challenged me to infuse my work with more of myself. Brian cried reading work out loud. His essays ran pell-mell, leggy and splay-footed in the most masterful of ways. (Here is one I love; scroll down). I have never read his novels, because I am afraid they will not meet the very high standard I carry, like a hangover, from his essays. Maybe now is the time.
And now, your regular content.
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Things what I read
This month's featured bookstore is a little unusual: It's Downtown Bookstore, a used bookstore in Milwaukee that I just was utterly charmed by. They have a robust Amazon storefront, but you can also call and ask them for any book you like, and they'll mail it to you. Here's their link. Treasures everywhere in this place, you guys. I mean, just look:
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Kindred, Octavia Butler
So there's a new exhibit on Octavia Butler at my nearby Huntington Gardens, and it was high time I read something by her, anyway. I love sci-fi and fantasy, and since the book I'm working on involves time travel, this was a perfect fit.
I liked this. But it felt...I dunno, dated, somehow. Literature has definitely become more sophisticated over the years, especially in the realm of fantasy, so maybe that's what I'm feeling, but I closed this book feeling dissatisfied. Not so with Daphne Dumaurier's _The House on the Strand_, which is just as old, if not older, than this one. Anyway, there's a new graphic novel out of Kindred, so maybe I'll pick that up next.
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Tomboy,
Barbara Clayton
Hopelessly, horribly outdated. But I was curious. Again, a lesson in how writing styles have changed, but also an interesting snapshot on social mores of the time. For the record, a "tomboy" is a bad thing in the era of this book. And you can't, apparently, be feminine and a tomboy. Plus, everything comes up roses in the end if you just put on a pretty red dress and pixy [stet] style your bangs. I'm oversimplifying, of course. But blargh.
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Wind in the Willows
Kenneth Graham
Sometimes you just need a little trip back to a simpler, more pastoral time. This one's not dated. It never will be. I will love it until you pry it from my cold, dead hands, and then I will love it from the grave, because look: animals in waistcoats and dressing gowns. Picnic baskets full of cold chicken and ginger beer, plus ale. Also, stoats and weasels as the bad guys, and a hapless, enthusiastic Toad in driving hat and goggles. Get the illustrated-by-Ernest-Shepherd version. Please.
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ArtFail
This month's ArtFail is my very own handwriting. Also, I'm not making enough visual art to have a real artfail, so this section will change next month to a Quotidien Object I Love. It'll be much more interesting, I promse!
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Where to find me this month
This month is nearly all ShelterBox, all the time. Plus, okay, some writing stuff.
June 4-8: We're vetting the next crop of ShelterBox Response Team hopefuls at our top-secret Canadian training grounds (I mean, it's not really secret, but it's so much more fun to pretend it is). Learn more about what Response Team members do here.
June 9-15: I'll be at the Rotary International Conference in Atlanta repping for ShelterBox International. I'll hope to catch up with some good friends while I'm there, and to maybe catch a glimpse of the High Museum too. Do you happen to be going there? Come say HI.
June 17: The Death Valley Book Club is reading my novel, and I get to go visit!! I cannot possibly explain how twitterpated* I am over this. (Death Valley is where we got married.) I'm also re-visiting the Manzanar War Relocation Area (internment camp; call it what it is) to see their new re-constructions and to have lunch with a park ranger there, because I think park rangers are beyond cool role models.
*suck it, spellcheck. "twitterpated" was a word way before Twitter.
All this month! Here's the link to my piece about being Stuck Not Writing. It was horrible; trust me. Here's the whole ugly story.
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The Last Word
My friend Ami has a horse named Theo. He is a Percheron. I think Ami said he stands 19 hands tall. (An average Arabian stands at 15 hands, according to some chart on the Interwebs.) Ami let me ride Theo for a little while by way of some riding lessons while I was visiting her, and I watched her ride, too, and that brought me back to something we discussed over the weekend at the writer's retreat: The Wonder Woman stance, or the "Power Pose," as social psychologist Amy Cuddy puts it.
The theory is this: If you stand in the classic Wonder Woman pose, you will immediately feel more confident. Cuddy goes further in her TED talk: if you Power Pose for just a few minutes before each presentation or interview or whatever, you will feel more confident.
Ami does not have a problem with confidence, and I think this is part of the reason why:
Ami's horse weighs over a ton. Once you have worked peacefully with a creature of Theo's size and you have confidence in your communication with him, you really are not afraid of much. I felt this, and I was on Theo for less than 20 minutes. Ami has worked with big horses since she was 8.
Power Pose, my tuchus. The next time you're faced with something potentially scary, recall the last time you felt great. Powerful. Accomplished. (Maybe this is chicken-and-egg; maybe you stand taller when you're recalling something great. Maybe it's easier to put your body in that situation first, so your brain automatically goes there.)
Either way, square those shoulders. Face the day head-on. Recall the days you felt competent and powerful (Wonder Woman does not fling that golden lasso with timidity), and have at it.
When was the last time you felt powerful? Tell me via e-mail. I love hearing from you.
Thanks for reading, you guys! See you next month. |
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