On Inspiration

From a Wired article about where certain people got their inspiration from...

#4 was J.K. Rowling on how she got the idea for her wildly successful series of Harry Potter books. She says it came to her as she was riding in a train car between Manchester and London.

It was extraordinary, because I had never planned to write for children. Harry came to me immediately, as did the school and a few of the other characters such as Nearly Headless Nick, the ghost whose head is not quite cut off. The train was delayed, and for hours I sat there thinking and thinking and thinking... The irony is I almost always have pen and paper; I write all the time. And on this one occasion when I had the idea of my life, I didn't have a pen. For four hours my head was buzzing. It was probably the best thing, because I ednded up working the whole thing out before I got off the train.

Crazy! But I really do believe that there are stories out there, floating somewhere in the energy of the universe -- that want to be written. And that if you can keep your channels open (as Georgia Heard says), one of them might find you and speak through you. Which is why it is so important to follow the advice of Julia Cameron (or was it Natalaie Goldberg -- sorry if I've got the wrong person) who says it is vital for writers to spend time each morning writing what she calls "Morning pages." Three pages (or was it three hours?) of writing every day about anything so long as you are putting words on the page.

I was doing it religiously last fall, until I got discouraged by people (mostly non-writers) who would ask, "So, what are you working on?" and when I didn't have a specific project to answer with, "Well, what's your genre then?" and wouldn't take "I'm just writing" for an answer. I know, it's a convenient excuse now that time is no longer an issue for me, and if it weren't that one, it would probably be another.

So it's time for me to get back to those morning pages in my notebook. To spend time each morning listening for those voices in the universe, the ones that want their stories to be told, the ones that want to be heard.

We Try...

I was reading the beginning of Julia Cameron's The Right to Write again this morning (thanks to my friend CF who reminded me that this book existed and that I already owned a copy of it), when I came across the following passage. Well, "came across" is putting it too lightly -- it was more like the words jumped off the page at me, waving white flags and shouting "hello" and "this means you" to get my attention. She writes:

...most of us try to write too carefully. We try to do it 'right.' We try to sound smart. We try, period. Writing goes much better when we don't work at it so much. When we give ourselves permission to just hang out on the page. (3)

It's what happens to me when I write entries for this blog vs. what happens when I write in the pages of my notebooks. Something happens and suddenly I'm trying too hard. Worrying about making sense and finding just the right word and whether to use a semicolon or a dash at a particular junction of thought instead of just letting the words and thoughts flow. Writing becomes work instead of play. Maybe I just need to try to impress less and "hang out" more in these entries.

Thank you, Julia, for helping me remember this!

Color Me Happy

A little experiment...can I successfully put an image in today's blog? Or will it just look like a lot of code?


Click here to create your own painting.

Hey, it worked!

It's a computer-generated painting of my day from a site my friend RVW's blog pointed me to. Analyzer that I am, I'm still trying to interpret the resulting image, particularly that thick, curvy stripe that looks a bit like a rainbow-colored yellow-brick road. The road to nowhere? Or the path I am on? And why does it say "IT" in blue-green letters in middle of the landscape? The end of an expletive? Or a sign that I've arrived (an "it-girl" without even trying)? I wonder how it would have turned out if I had said I was feeling depressed instead of happy?

What does your day look like? Go ahead, give it a try...you know you want to!

Straight from Yesterday's News...

From an article in the Baltimore Sun's real estate section yesterday about clearing the clutter out of your house to make it more attractive to homebuyers, this surprising statistic:

"31 percent of respondents to an IKEA survey said cleaning their closet was more satisfying than sex."

Hmmm. There is so much more I could say, but I think I will leave it at that for now and let you arrive at your own conclusions. (Perhaps I'll publish a few of my own in a later entry.)

Tawlk amongst yourselves...

Perfect Match: On Dreamhouses and Soulmates

Three years ago, I used my computer to find a husband. These days, I'm using it to find a new house. Different goals, yes, but the process is strangely similar.

When my husband and I first signed up, we had to tell the computer exactly what we were looking for in a living space: location, style of house, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and desired price range. (Thankfully, we didn't have to fill out a personality inventory with hundreds of questions first.) From then on, the database has emailed us daily updates with new property listings and changes in the status of houses on the market (i.e. withdrawn, under contract, sold, price changes).

When we click on a link in the message, voila! Each house appears on it's own page, complete with additional information that will help us determine if it matches our criteria. We check the address to see if it falls within our geographic preferences, read the description (chock full of flattering adjectives supplied by the realtor), glance at room dimensions to get an idea of the space, and then, if we are still interested, we click on the virtual tour button. That is, provided the seller has made pictures of the house available. For us, pictures are key. If you want us to come look at your house in person, we want a preview first to make sure that the description is not just filling our heads with pleasant lies to reel us in.

When I first started computer dating, I was adamant about not making my picture available until a later stage of communication (there are four in the eHarmony process). I wanted my potential matches to be more interested in my personality than my appearance. But it only took one experience of communicating with someone who then turned out to be far from my preference of body type to realize that it wasn't shallow of people to want to see you first. Appearance isn't everything, but it does matter. Just like with the houses. The way we figure it, if the seller isn't willing to post pictures, there must be something they want to hide.

There is an exception to every rule, and a house we visited last weekend was that exception. On the website, the seller (or agent) had posted only an exterior view of the house. But since it was in a neighborhood we were seeing several other homes in anyway, we decided to take a chance. It turned out to be not only much cuter on the outside than its internet photo revealed, but beautiful and meticulously maintained on the inside as well. Needless to say, we were pleasantly surprised.

The question that has eluded us throughout our search for the perfect home is the same one that has plagued lovers throughout the ages: how do you know when you find the one? Not just a possibility, not just one that we like, but the one that we want to stick with for the rest of our lives (or at least a significant numbers of years)? Is there more than one perfect match for everybody? Or is this really the one?

In real estate, as in love, there is a danger in putting off a decision for too long. You can save the profile of the house or potential mate, tuck it away in your mailbox for future consideration, but if you don't act fast enough, your ideal candidate may be snatched up by someone else who is...hungrier? more decisive? more desperate? And one day, you'll open your box to find the profile closed, or worse, erased from your list. It's already happened with a couple of houses that we had serious crushes on. Each time, our hearts sank when we noticed the empty space in our saved list of properties.

I'm not sure when (or if) we will find the perfect home, but I do know that if we do as well finding our dream house as we did finding each other, we will be very happy in our new home.

Cheating?

Does anybody really read this? Does it really matter?

Would I have more incentive to post entries in my blog if I knew hundreds of people were reading it every week? Or would that make me so careful of my words that my creativity would be paralyzed and my voice compromised?

Ever since I started this blog, I write less in my notebook. I used to set aside at least three hours each morning for writing, and if I ran out of words before the time had passed, I would pick up a book and lose myself in another writer's words, study someone else's craft. These days, if I've posted an entry, I can say I've done my writing for the day regardless of how much (or how little) time it took me to produce.

I feel like I'm cheating on my notebook, having an illicit affair with my desktop computer, even as my notebook sits beside me waiting for the familiar touch of my pen. Except where time spent with my notebook is a meandering walk through the park holding hands, the time spent on the computer is an afternoon quickie in a motel with red heart-shaped beds.

I guess they serve different purposes, fill different needs. In my notebook, I can jump from one topic to the next without providing any sort of logical segue. I can spew out thoughts in grammatically incorrect sentences if they are coming too fast to be interrupted by proper punctuation. I can try out an idea before it's ready for the eyes of the world. It doesn't have to make sense to anyone but me. There is a great freedom in the pages of my notebook. Room for the unexpected to surface unsummoned.

In my blog, I feel the need to have some sort of topic in mind as I write and to develop it to some extent before moving on to the next thought. I am conscious of the possibility that I am writing for an audience, but it is a big, faceless, nondescript audience (aside from known friends and family) that in fact may not now, or ever, exist anywhere beyond my imagination. I don't feel at liberty to ramble on for pages at a time because blog audiences, it is said, like to get in and get out, not find themselves elbow deep in a dissertation.

Part of this, admittedly, may be my fault, the result of expectations I brought to this writing endeavor. A hope that my voice might become part of a broader dialogue or conversation going on in the blogiverse and in the world. a subconscious seeking of approval or adulation from others to feed my ever-hungry ego. Perhaps I just need to give it more time, be patient, enjoy the journey, let my words find their own way into the world. Wouldn't be the first time the universe was trying to teach me that lesson. Maybe this time I'll learn.

Zen and the Art of Wallpaper Removal

I have spent much of the last week in the closet. In the bedroom closet, that is. Somebody who owned this house before my husband thought it would be wise to put wallpaper, of all places, inside the closets of the bedrooms.

As it turns out, this is a fairly common practice among homeowners, as I first discovered when painting the inside of the coat closet in my previous home. Only I didn't realize I was dealing with wallpaper at all until it was already too late. I was in the middle of applying a new layer of paint when suddenly, instead of leaving a beige color behind, the roller revealed a blank spot of wall. The wallpaper, as it soaked in the moisture provided by the new layer of paint, was coming loose from the wall and peeling off in little flakes, much to my dismay. With a slight change of tools, I was able to get away with burying the old paper under yet another layer of paint. With any luck, the new owners won't discover what's hidden in the closet until years from now when they decide to freshen up the paint.

Removing the wallpaper in our bedroom closet has been much like an archaeological dig due to the fact that quite a lot of decorating has gone on in said closet over the years. Underneath the faded floral wallpaper which we could see, was a layer of pink paint, which in turn was hiding another layer of wallpaper. Thankfully, only one of the previous homeowners had deemed it necessary to decorate even the closet's ceiling with wallpaper. (Who thought that would be a good idea??)

If not for the layer of paint in between layers of paper, I suspect the job might have been a bit easier, though "removing wallpaper" and "easy" are not words that are often used in the same sentence.

After the first few hours spent with the wallpaper steamer in one hand and a scraper in the other, I arrived at a zen-like state of acceptance. I came to terms with the simple fact that this was not going to be a quick or easy job. It might be several days before all of the layers were removed. Instead of thinking about all of the other things I could be doing if I weren't stuck in the closet, I focused on clearing small sections of the wall, celebrating one square foot of achievement at a time.

This afternoon, I scraped off the last little bits, with some help from a solution of vinegar and water (better than any store-bought chemical solution you can buy). Then I spent another few hours sponging down the walls to remove the uneven coating of brownish glue that had been left behind. Once I've done a bit of spackling, I can finally get down to the business of painting, which I could have started days ago, if only...

Let's just say there should be a rule for would-be decorators: Before putting up any wallpaper in your home, you must have had at least one experience taking it down. I think it's safe to say that would save our walls from a lot of ugly paper and save ourselves a lot of trouble!

On a Webcast and a Prayer

The highlight of the last few days was undoubtedly -- no, not Oprah's much anticipated webcast -- but a visit with my niece and nephew.

They, and their parents (my brother and sister-in-law), were visiting their grandparents in VA this week, so I got to take a day off from wallpaper removal (more on that another time) to play with them. The most memorable moment (among many) was when Calvin, who is three, led the prayer before dinner. After reciting several verses of "God is good, God is great..." he then declared that we would conclude the prayer by joining him in singing Johnny Appleseed -- "at a medium tempo." His words. So that's what we did.

It's no wonder, having spent just 24 hours with them, that his antics, and his sister's, provide constant content and inspiration for my sister-in-law's blog (which, if you want to check it out is at www.babsland.blogspot.com!]

As for the big Oprah Webcast, it was indeed big, but a bit of a let down, as my technology was less than cooperative. I got to hear most of the first 10 minutes of the program, missing only a word or two here and there due to hiccups in the audio. I found out some interesting things about Tolle's background and his writing habits. But after that, it all went downhill. The picture kept freezing and the audio would disappear at the same time, leaving large gaps in the conversation. It went something like this: Pretend that you don't know...we're so trapped in this continuous...thought, I could say that's the new...so my question...ummm, the absolute...box because I grew up in the Baptist...eloquently put...when you read it. [It's okay, it's not supposed to make any sense.]

What made it more disappointing was that I ended a long distance call with my husband, who is away for a couple of weeks, in order to watch it. That'll teach me. Hopefully they'll get some of the technical problems ironed out before next week. Meanwhile, I'll have to settle for a download or a written transcript.

Online with Oprah

I have a confession to make. I have jumped onto the Oprah's Book Club bandwagon. This is somewhat unusual for me, because I am not typically a bandwagon person. You know the type I'm talking about. The people who want to be part of every trend, and not just part of it, but among the first to get on board so they can brag about being one of the first.

The truth is, I typically resist anything that qualifies as the latest trend. When all of my classmates in fifth and sixth grade were reading The Hobbit, I refused to read it (and not because I hated reading). How good can a book whose main character has a name like Bilbo Baggins be, I reasoned. (Pretty good, it turns out. I finally read it a few years back.) When cell phones were the new big thing, I swore I would never have one. Who wants to be available 24/7, I wondered. (Apparently I do. Turns out they're pretty useful. But mine doesn't have a camera, and I still haven't figured out how to send a text message. See? Resisting.)

So when Oprah started talking about this book A New Earth, I was skeptical. I am not one to read a book just because it has the little "O" sticker on the front. But when I heard that the subtitle was "Awakening to Your Life's Purpose" (something I've been wondering about since hanging up my teacher's hat), and when I found out that she and Eckhart Tolle (the author) were going to offer a free web class, my curiosity got the better of me.

I went to Barnes & Noble (or maybe it was Border's) to check it out. Sitting in the cafe, a caramel latte in hand, I read the first two chapters to make sure it would be worth buying a copy. With themes like increasing your consciousness, breaking free of the ego, being with a capital "B," and transformation, the book stoked my curiosity just enough to convince me to by a copy. But not because Oprah said so.

The first class -- a worldwide event -- is tonight. I received an email from Oprah's team yesterday telling me that I am to login and take my virtual seat twenty minutes before the broadcast begins. I have no idea what to expect. It could be a total bust for all I know. Or I could find myself connected to a community of people who think (with apologies to Eckhart for using that verb) like I do...a new experience indeed.