Passive Verbs and Qualifiers

      A few years ago I saw Fried Green Tomatoes, a great movie you may have seen also. It was the kind of movie that made you laugh and cry and nod your head. It was also a kind of mystery story and a story within a story. I liked it because still, I could keep up with it. And I learned some things.

     I liked the story within a story where one character experienced an epiphany. She spoke a phrase that sticks in my mind to this day. Have you ever seen something that changed your life and said, ”It was a sign” My sister and I say this often when things happen that verify what we had been thinking about doing or answered a question we had been trying to answer for years.

     It was a sign, was what I heard in my head at my writer’s critique group a couple of weeks ago. As an icebreaker, one of the participants asked us to share what it was about writing that ‘bugged us’. Passive verbs and Qualifiers popped into my head. Not procrastination, editing, revisions, or even sitting so long I had to run to make it to the bathroom. No, the words, Passive Verbs and Qualifiers, came out of my mouth.

     I’ve never been good at grammar or spelling. Since I have started to write again, I try hard but still struggle with everything I write. I have asked myself more than once. Why? Well, this is it. All my life I have been kind of a slow person. Not really passive per se but I do take my time. One of the biggest culprits for me is “was” and others like it (like is and was??) they slow down and sometimes stop the reader from reading.

        And my writing is also littered by my maybe’s, almost’s, sometime’s, someday’s, and if’s, etc. I qualify when I’m going to the store, when I’m going to write, when I am going to get this done or start that, if I like or don’t like something…it goes on and on.

     So the ‘sign’ I encountered pointed out to me the reason my writing is full of qualifiers and passive verbs. That’s who I am. Oh, sigh….By the way when I checked the spell checker I had not misspelled any words, anyway. There is hope.

What bugs you about writing?

Miles to Go

“But I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep” I recently came across this line from one of Robert Frost’s most read poems, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening as I was trying to get my head cleared to do some writing. I usually look through my folders to find something that clicks for the moment but which has clicked often in the past too. It is probably when I feel the most overwhelmed which is often. I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder when I was about 60 years old so this feeling became very familiar and for the longest time I wondered why I had trouble accomplishing things or just finishing things I wanted to do, not even counting the things I didn’t want to do. I remember at one point one of my most fervent prayers was that I would have to energy to do what I really wanted to do that day.
So today what I really want to do is to write a post for this blog. And maybe for my other one, Writing Outside the Barn, too. I have had a very busy month or two and have experienced some big changes. Change creates stress, we all know that, but that which surprises me often is that good change as well as bad change creates stress. One of my biggest stressors is myself. No surprise here. Right now I am caught up in a planning frenzy to prepare for a trip I am taking next week. I will be gone for 12 days and will be doing three different things. When I planned it I was very excited that I would be able to go to a 50th high school reunion in my home town of Cedar Rapids, Iowa then spend 3 days on a retreat at a place called Prairiewoods Franciscan Retreat Center in Hiawatha Iowa, outside of Cedar Rapids, then a friend is picking me up and we will be driving the 250 miles or so to Chicago where I will meet for some fun with my college sorority pledge class. I will ride back to Cedar Rapids and then fly back to Denver. The first part of my trip will be with my sister and I will be returning on my own. I have been trying to calm my fears about flying, travelling by myself for the first time in 14 years, and weather or not my animals will be taken care of adequately (so my cats don’t get out) My husband will take care of increased horse chores while I am gone and I just learned that my daughter’s husband will be gone most of the time I am gone too and she will most likely need a helping hand with her 3 toddlers while he is gone.
So the promises to keep have to do with re-touching with many old friends and family that I will probably not see again in my life and also to try and keep myself alert and appreciative of the fabulous opportunities will experience while on my journey.
So this promise, that I write in my blog, is a promise I have kept while the miles to go before I sleep will be miles of enjoying, relaxing , being content, being honest with my friends and family so that I will be able to bring gifts of myself and receive theirs. I CAN DO THIS!

Momentum!

Momentum was the first word that came to my mind when I realized it has been a month since my last post. For me, momentum has a lot to do with my writing. I see this little fly wheel merrily turning along until for some reason the juice stops flowing and it goes slower and slower until it stops. Then, Oh, brother it is the devil to get started again. At first it is so heavy and it goes so slow it feels as if a thousand little strings are holding it back, like in Gulliver's Travels. Then A Ha! it starts and all that heaviness seems to be helping instead of hindering getting started again.

When I returned from my husbands college fraternity reunion (including my best friends from my sorority as well) in San Diego the good weather, California cuisine, flowers, and renewed friendships spread a kind of euphoric flavor over everything. And it was good, that time out and soul filling. It also put me in an idealistic place as far as what was really going on in my life. Lots of little strings.

When we landed at DIA (while we were still getting off the plane) we got a call from our daughter. She said, "I wanted you to know before you got home that we have not seen Cookie since Saturday." It was her job to make sure the cats were in the house for dinner because of the nightime threat of being dinner for the coyotes, hawks, foxes and owls nearby. She had undoubtedly spent a few nights worrying and felt bad but the fact remained, my sweet tortoise-shell kitty was gone.

I am a over involved pet owner and a volunteer for the Fort Collins Cat rescue partly because of one cat I lost when we first moved to our 'farm' so this was a jolt. It made me mumble to myself during the whole two hours or so trip home from the airport. "She'll come back, she'll come back".

Long story short I found her that night as I walked ours and neighbors fields with a flashlight calling her and tapping her food dish. I called and listened for a minute, walked and called and waited. Then in that small silence I heard a quiet 'meow', looked around and there she was, trotting after me. When I picked her up in my arm she was purring.

So back to the momentum. Something like this slows it down but so does all the loose ends that were there when we left Colorado. I am trying to schedule and organize myself so I can produce some finished essays (by way of blogs) that take a tremendous amount of will power in order to get past the clutter and this over scheduled time in my life. This blog is the first I have actually sat down to give it a push. And what will come out of this one I don't know. It is just that as the sun comes up this Sunday morning those tethers are loosening and the wheel is beginning to turn ever so slowly.

A Box Office Smash Hit

I thought his years Northern Colorado Writer's Conference was a box office smash hit. It was easy to navigate, well organized, things started on time, the food was really good, and best of all the workshops were topnotch. I struggled to decide which of the workshops I had to leave out. The ones I attended moved me closer to my goal to prepare/finish a manuscript or two for publication sooner rather than 'one of these days'.

The nuts and bolts, the learning parts if you will, from Rachelle Gardner and Mike Befelor were complete and well presented. My afternoon sessions with John Calderazzo, Laura Pritchett and Tina Forkner were superb. I can't think of a better way to say it.

Although I didn't feel I was ready to do a pitch, I had planned to make contact with one of the presenters and I was able to do that over breakfast with Tina Forkner. I benefited by her depth of information about the inspirational market which parallels many of my interests. I believe we are on the same wave length and she invited me to e-mail her if I had questions.

But the best thing about the whole experience was that I got to listen to people who loved what they were doing. They woke up each morning excited about that day, from the Hollywood elegance of Stephen Cannell to Todd Mitchells heartfelt words to the delightful 'On the Spot" improv. group...they were all having fun! And so did I!

Thanks Kerrie!

Strands

Today my writer self feels like I am dangling. The other day I described this blog, The Spice of Life as a place to write about times when you have experienced spice in your life. It could be anything from what gives you meaning to what is fun. Writing spices up my life, it gives me meaning and is fun, except when I can’t decide what I want to say.
I discovered that when you write about your life and you are my age it is important to have a metaphor that helps to keep your thoughts within certain boundaries so you don’t go wandering off into irrelevant but interesting side trips. At least that is the way it is for me. Thinking of one’s life as a journey is always good but again, those pesky side trips don’t do anything but take you places you might need to go but a reader would probably become hopelessly lost and quit reading. An example is Route 66, the cross county highway that was eventually replaced by the interstate system. I wanted to mention this because I am 66 years old at the moment and it seemed relevant. If you drive across the country on Route 66 these days I imagine all that is left is bits and pieces here and there and it is not clear where it is going or where it went for that matter.
But at one time Route 66 actually went somewhere. I’m not so sure about my life. So I thought of a tangled ball of yarn that been unraveled but rolled back up, carelessly rolled back up so it was almost impossible to unravel, it was one continuous piece . But my life has not ever gone in one direction or in one continuous piece, at least not for long. It has been more like a ball of yarn that has lots of pieces, some that are long, or cut short, some buried, with different colors and textures, tied together, exciting, strange, or just left dangling. Now that is beginning to feel about right.
So the song goes on: “Say What You Need to Say”.

Searching for Silence

If you are a writer wannabe and have been struggling to get past that 'hey, I'm never going to get this #!!*# published", just take a look at the Northern Colorado Writer's website. You will find help for sure but more than that you will find an example of how one person with a good idea, persistence and energy can make a difference and change lives. And it just might make you into a writer who is having the time of her life. I happened to me. Kerrie Flanagan's vision that she wanted to create a way to encourage and support writers of all genre's and levels on their journey to writing success has been helping almost 200 writers in the two years since she began to develop her vision.

And like they say in horse circles, she was able to get me on the bit! In order to convince a 1,000 lb animal that wants nothing more at the moment than to graze in a nice green pasture, or to kick up her heels with her friends, to accept a saddle and bridle and listen, of all things ,to someone else's idea of what she needs to do today, is a struggle. Unless you realize that deep down the horse as well as the rider (writer) want to be useful and to please, each in their own way of course.

At the beginning of November I attended the N.C.W. retreat at Sylvan Dale Ranch. While there I set a goal, or rather an intention, to get back to something I tried to do almost two years ago but gave up on. I had decided to start a blog. But I didn't get very far. I have learned it was about more than the blog, it was about being willing to be honest about who I am. I had to quit using all the other stuff that was going on in my life as an excuse to blow it off. And I had to commit. So here I go again. I had two compelling ideas and felt it would be less confusing to design two blogs. I would continue the one I started last year and then begin a new one. So I would need to write two posts on two blogs each week. As you can see, my last entry was in April and the first one ever was in January of 2008. Can I really do it? Yes, this time I will.

So what do you have to look forward to? Ideas have been waking me up really early the last few mornings. Animals and how we relate to them and how we learn from them have captured my interest. Most of those will show up in my new blog, Writing Outside the Barn. (http://www.pamelawolf.blogspot.com)i/. Sidestepping or putting on the shelf will not work anymore if I am to be honest. Reconnecting strands is what it is all about now, strands from seminary to the barn, strands that have been forgotten or broken and leave me feeling empty.

I will say that in my often fuzzy unfocused brain I have learned how important space and quiet time is in order to write. I yearn for the times when I can find the pathway into that magic place where the thoughts begin to come clear. I write to make sense of my life so I will be able to recognize myself and know what I have to say.

While at the retreat I think we all had the chance to connect to those magic moments. As we began we read these words by well known southwestern poet, Nancy Wood.

It is our quiet time.
We do not speak because the voices are within us.
It is our quiet time.
We do not walk because the earth is all within us.
It is our quiet time.
We do not dance because the music has lifted us
to a place where the spirit is.
It is our quiet time.
We rest with all of nature.

Thank you Kerrie for those nurturing moments of quiet
and the opportunity to listen to our own voices.

Genesis

Genesis...to me this means 'in the beginning' or just, the beginning. The dictionary (small g) says it means origin; creation, but I don't want to go there. I'm thinking about it in a much smaller context, like this beginning, sitting on my bed with my two cats and my computer writing my first blog. The word Genesis is loaded. It has come to mean more, like, how did I get here and who am I anyway. But Genesis (big G) makes me wonder, did I appear from nothing or did I come here out of chaos. If I appeared out of chaos it means I did not appear out of nothing. When I think about it that is what I think. It is true mainly because, as much as I am tuned into a mysterious universe beyond understanding, I cannot comprehend appearing out of nothing. And anyway, if there is no chaos around I can create it quite well. Now love, that is another story. Love is not like a planet, or a star, even though sometimes it seems inaccessible and it does not have a form, and it looks like nothing, it is not millions of miles away, it is not so many cubits wide and so many cubits tall made out of cypress or acacia wood, no, love does not have this kind of form, but there is no doubt that it does have form. And I think now that I have said all this, that that is what this blog will be about. Love.

MSG-Monosodium Glutamate: Seasoning Salt. In my day this was the kind of seasoning we used dailyon our food. That is until we learned it wasn't good for us, that the msg contained carcinogens, that it caused cancer. So then we stopped using it, except the kind that took out the MSG. But, a few years ago when I was going through my 'change'..my what? :-) I wanted to invite a few friends to join me in a weekly or monthly conversation and (bright light flips on) I thought Menopause Support Group, that's it. And then, somehow, out of those swirling thoughts came the idea that we would be about encouraging each other to live the next years the best we could, that they would become the best years...more flavor, deeper colors, tastier, and, yes, spicier. So, who to invite. Neighbors?, poets?, horsey friends?, peace activates ? writers ? ministers ? animal advocates? women ? (oh yeah, of course women :-) it was too much for my ADD brain so it landed like most good ideas, squarely in the closest black hole.

A few weeks ago I was trying to think of a new e-mail name and for a reason only known to the universe (hmmm mysterious) I thought of 'pam2spicy'. The idea came shooting back...like a star? And this time my friends not only were diverse in age and interest but also have moved all over the country (including me). What to do? When my daughter offered to help me begin a blog it began to fit together again. (Contrary to accepted webbabble )(and other babble too) I do know I get more than one chance to do the things I have planned and dreamed and lost along the way...but if the light is still on somewhere in that dark brain or broken heart I can find that spark again because if it is a really good idea, it still lives and it will find me. This happens too. My MSG group idea, which is clearly outdated, became (or is becoming) 'grammy2spicy' (I got advice that 'pam2spicy' might give the wrong impression :-( (Spice of Life for my URL fits much better than my clothes these days)

So this is my new genesis. This blog. I originally came to the computer with fear and mistrust. Slowly I have found it is miraculously helpful. I could never have gotten through seminary without it (but that is another Genesis story) I have written poetry, sermons, a book, and yes, it is worth the struggle.

Now this has probably broken every good writing rule there is and has more bad sentences than good ones but I have had fun writing it. And that is what I want you to do. Have fun! Just write! Write down the bones as one of my favorite authors has titled her book on writing. And lets chat about writing, our kids, families, questions about who we are, but more importantly why we are here and what we want to do with the rest of our lives. Lets not complain (too much) lets think about what is possible...that reminds me of an essay I wrote about fireflies.......