Tag Archives: nonfiction

Real Writers Live to be Inspired

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Writers’ lives are full of pressure. We set goals for ourselves and inch our way toward deadlines. We study our craft, attend conferences, pitch ideas to agents, and network with all sorts of people on social media. We constantly long to write but never have as much time as we would like. Raising the stakes unnecessarily higher, we bravely tell non-writers that we’re writing a book . . . and later realize the magnitude of having released our secret. We’re now accountable when our friends innocently ask, “How’s the book coming?”

Remember this famous line: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”? Repeated over and over, for pages and pages, that single sentence fills the white spaces of a fictitious, yet infamous, character’s work in progress. After days of producing nothing of substance for the book he’s supposed to be writing, Jack appears demented—or worse, possessed by a sinister ghost.

The iconic imagery above is, of course, from The Shining—Steven King’s 1977 bestselling novel later transformed into blockbuster horror film. It’s a dream for many writers to be as prolific and successful as Mr. King. But try as I may, I relate more to poor, ol’ menacing Jack: I could easily isolate myself from society, shore up in a room for days, and drown myself in my writing. I’m equally obsessed as he . . .  luckily not possessed, at least not usually. Still, I know Jack’s frustration all too well. Like him, I’m not making significant progress on the two writing projects I’m most passionate about.

One of my unfinished books is the biography of a female pastor, Janet Noble-Richardson. My inspiration to write about Janet stems from her influence on my spiritual life. I never met anyone who expressed such abundant Christ-like love in their own behavior. Janet taught love by modeling it, and I admired her faith-filled approach. I want people to see the way Janet lived her life and to understand what it looks like to be in close relationship with Christ. I hope her story will inspire people to develop their own connections to Christ and make Him the priority in their lives.

My job to tell Janet’s story is complicated for a variety of reasons. I need to verify facts, but I can’t ask Janet for clarification of personal details. She died in a car accident in 2006. So, I’m piecing the story together through written documents she left and through interviews with people who knew her.

Janet’s father told me stories of raising his family in Pakistan, where he and his wife served as missionaries. The family met people from many different nations. American diplomats and foreign ambassadors regularly attended church services at the Noble’s home in Islamabad.

Pastor Noble recounted one story with great fondness, and I could appreciate how significant the moment was for him and his family. On a vacation into northern India, they met a boy who said he was studying under the Dalai Lama. Ever since encountering the boy, the family has wondered whether he grew up to become the current Dalai Lama.

I started researching Janet’s story over two years ago and quickly realized that in representing facts accurately I would have to expose hard truths like this: It’s improbable that the boy the family met in India in 1961 could be the same man who is the current Dalai Lama. My investigation indicates that His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama, had been living in Dharamsala at the time the Nobles were visiting the area. As I write this article in 2017, however, the 14th Dalai Lama is still alive. Before the next can be chosen, His Holiness must die and reincarnate. Therefore, the 15th Dalai Lama has yet to be born, if at all. That means that the boy the Nobles met may have been a student of some sort, but he couldn’t have been training to be the Tibetan religious leader.

You can see why Janet’s biography is complicated. I hate thinking that I could ruin another really good family story. Regardless, I’m committed to doing my best, even if it takes me a decade to get the book done.

The other book I’m writing is for children. The story is flowery and fanciful—a work of fiction in which flora and fauna talk to one another. It has villains and heroes, conflict, resolution, symbolism, and a heart-warming ending. It is the kind of book that binds grandparents to their grandkids. The elders will want to read it aloud and the youth will cherish the book as their favorite.

I know the premise and I’m developing the cast of characters. One is named Grace—not for a didactic religious purpose, but because I promised my best friend during middle school that one day, I would name one of my children after her, Marjorie Grace.

You may all be thinking: finish one book before you start another. But writers don’t think like that. We can’t stop the ideas that come flooding our way. We do our best to harness them. Sometimes we’re desperate and reach for scraps of paper and napkins to scribble upon. Other times, we trap our story arcs in fancy journals until it’s time to unravel our thoughts and spin them into order with the help of software like Microsoft Word and Scrivener.

When friends like you ask how my books are coming, I know I overuse the words, “I wish I had more time to write,” and it feels like a horribly weak excuse. But I don’t worry about the time it takes. I know that I’m a work in progress too. While I’m forever thinking, composing, revising, and promoting, God is taking His time refining me—shaping my life through the people and experiences that are unique to me. I’m growing in knowledge and developing new skills. I’m learning to be a better person by juggling the demands of everyday life, experiencing burdens and joys, dealing with complex issues and personalities.

When oppressive thoughts lure me into thinking that it would be quicker and easier to check out from society—like Jack did—to mine my treasures, I know better. Fairy tale endings aren’t discovered in privacy and seclusion. Life among the living is rich with inspiration. I’m savoring my time in the real world with family and friends. I’m at peace knowing that I’ll finish what I need to when the time is perfectly right.

Coffee shop Chronicles: An awkward coffee conversation

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January 2017

Starbucks

Livonia, MI

My fingertips touch the grande cup of coffee when I think to ask, “This isn’t yours, is it?”

“Oh no,” the guy next to me says. “I watched her make mine because I got hazelnut in it. I’m trying something new.”

I didn’t really think it was mine; I was being polite. I always order a tall coffee in a grande cup so I have room to add milk. The barista set my side of steamed 2% milk on the counter at the same time she put his tall coffee down. That’s why I asked. Just in case.

It’s an embarrassing thing to touch someone else’s coffee cup. What’s the etiquette? I’ve seen people ask for a new cup of coffee, perhaps thinking of all the germy diseases that transferred from that two-second touch. I’ve seen people walk away without a second thought. Do you, the toucher, ask the touched if they want you to buy them a new cup of coffee? Touching a for-here mug, however, is that whole salad bar sneeze guard thing, except that there’s no sneeze guard at a coffee shop. Fortunately, I don’t need to worry about etiquette. Not today.

“I’m not a hazelnut person,” I say, stirring a Splenda packet in my mug. “What kind of coffee did you get?”

“Just the regular, the Pike,” he says. “I’m just a coffee guy. What about you?”

“I got a Veranda.”  He stares at me. This conversation has just turned awkward.

“It’s the blonde roast,” I explain. That’s how the Starbucks baristas refer to it. There’s dark, medium and light roast. Blonde is the lightest; Pike Place is the standard medium roast; and there’s a rotating variety of dark roast. Knowing to say “blonde roast” means you’re hip with the proper terms and slang to fit in. You know how to order a drink. You’re a regular. I’m a regular, but I still refer to the coffee by the BEAN/BLEND itself, mostly because the dark roast rotates. The average blue collar drinker uses the roast terms. Will this guy understand me?

“I’ve never had that,” he says as he pours excess, filled-to-the brim coffee into the trash bag.

Ew. This is why, I get a grande cup. Would you pour hot liquid into your trash bag at home?

“It’s the light roast,” I say, reaching for another Splenda. “It’s smooth…”

“Oh, yeah, yeah,” he interrupts me.

I’m a bit put out. He wanted to experience something new with his hazelnut. I want to share with him something I like that could turn into a new experience for him.

“They used to offer a vanilla blonde,” I continue, thinking of our shared reference of flavored syrup. I pause, he’s staring at me. I can’t tell if its stop or go, so I continue, “But the vanilla took away from the taste.”

He looks down at his coffee, stirring. I look over his shoulders at the signage board. It’s a place for my eyes to rest on before stirring more milk into my coffee.

“I got a friend who’s a coffee specialty guy. He comes for the special coffee,” the guy says.

Special coffee? What’s that? I’d like to try it if there’s something unique. “Does he come here to this store?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

“Oh, he must get the Reserve coffee,” I say, pointing to the signage board I was just staring at. Good move there. This store is a Clover location, which is one that has a special coffee machine. A Clover coffee was the first cup of coffee I had today, but you can only get a free refill with one of the regular coffees.

“Yeah, that’s it,” he says, his voice energetic, finally. He had sounded impatient, like I was keeping him from leaving or something, but now, he continues the conversation. “I call him a coffee connoisseur.”

If your speech could roll its eyes, this would be it. He wipes up his trash–poured coffee–he spilled. “Me, I’m a coffee guy.”

It’s that act of wiping the coffee that catches my eye and stops me. He’s cleaning up his mess, like he would do at home. And he’s really cleaning it up, wiping hard with the napkin and scrubbing the counter space.

‘Just coffee guys’ don’t do that. Heck, coffee connoisseurs don’t do that.  I do it when I can because there’s nothing more icky than setting your cup down on a sticky counter. Even when I put a napkin down first, I hope that sticky drop under my napkin is honey.

He says something else, but it’s that friendly garble-rush of someone finishing a conversation with no room to continue. I don’t hear what it is because I stare at his clean counter area. I was wrong about him? He takes a seat at the window seat behind me. So, he wasn’t rushing to get out to his car after all. For some reason, him sitting there surprises me. Regardless, our moment is over.

I’ve spilled some Splenda on the counter. I’d wipe it and brush it into the trash bag, but there’s a rim around the trash bag that I can’t get over. I brush the white powder on the floor instead. It’s something.

The Amazing Aruba Sandman

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The Caribbean Sea smashed onto shore with nearly the same intensity as a migraine I woke with. “Stay . . . Rest a little longer . . . Warmth and the sunshine are good for you.” The self-indulgent temptation to remain in Aruba sang to me like a siren and fought hard to keep me firmly planted in paradise. A pounding headache was just a ploy to keep me from confronting my reality: my respite was over. Home—snow-covered, below zero, Michigan—beckoned. There was only time left to finish packing, shower, check-out, and drive to the airport. Rebellious, I drowned the pain with two Excedrin so I could make my way, once more, to the beach. I couldn’t fathom leaving without taking a picture of the spectacular sand sculpture that had been finished the day before.

Cathy and Heidi, my friends and travel companions, returned from a short walk and said there was a problem. During the night, the selfish tide had reached its gnarly fingers onto shore to reclaim raw materials it wanted back. Bit by bit, the ocean defiantly picked apart the seventy hours of craftsmanship that Marc Mangia had spent in building a story out of the sand.

I rushed to the shore. Marc wasn’t in sight, but other early risers were nearby, under the shade of their palapas. Five-gallon, white plastic buckets still held sand in them from days before and rested near Marc and his wife Debbie’s lounge chairs. Even in a state of collapse, the sand sculpture was impressive. One man walked slowly around the display and videotaped it from every direction. I sat close by so I could watch the reactions of others and hear their comments about Marc’s rapidly dilapidating creation.

“What a shame.”

“How awful.”

“That’s too bad.”

“It looks like the ruins of ancient Greece.”

All comments were tinged with pain as if the onlookers to the tragedy had spent their vacations transforming nature into another art form.

“No wonder Marc isn’t anywhere to be seen,” I thought. “He must be devastated, witnessing the erosion.” But when he came forward, it was clear that, all along, he understood the impermanence of his craft. He quietly conceded, “What can I do? It’s the way it is.”

Initially, the passersby seemed more disappointed in the destruction than Marc, who didn’t outwardly convey how he was feeling. He told me that he had never before seen his work wash away. Usually, his pieces hold together long after he finishes his vacation and returns home to Ohio, where he’s a carpenter and business owner. Once, another vacationer sent him an e-mail to tell him that his work was still standing two weeks later.

I continued talking with Marc and watched him closely. Fighting an ache in his back that had plagued him for days, he stooped down to his knees once again. This time, he wasn’t adding a fine detail—chiseling miniature bricks; hollowing out windows; carving his name above a doorway. He bent down so he could reach a perfectly intact, miniature clay pot that had been pushed out of place by unruly waves. Marc gently lifted the pot and repositioned it to higher ground—on the steps of an arch that were half-gone. He prolonged the life of this one tiny remnant.

Not an artist, not a sculptor, Marc Mangia is a talented hobbyist who inspires people of all ages to play in the sand.

Marc next picked up a damaged and unidentifiable part of his masterpiece. He stood to show it to me. He explained that the outer covering was made from one part glue mixed with nine parts water. The concoction was gently sprayed to seal in moisture so the sand structure would hold together longer. He crushed the clump gently between his fingers, and I could see the fine sand underneath the outer surface. He handed some to me so I could squish it too. The outside consistency resembled icing on a cake—once the icing has been exposed to air for awhile and gets a little firm or stale. Inside, the sand was still moist and powdery. It crumbled easily.

“In the fifteen years we’ve been coming here, I’ve never seen the water come up this high,” he said.

Comparably, this was my sixth visit to Aruba and first time meeting The Aruba Sandman. On the first night of this trip, Cathy and I had arrived at the Marriott Ocean Club in time to make it to the beach for sunset, but Marc’s partially completed sand sculpture stole our attention away from the setting sun. Reaching up about five feet towards heaven, a lighthouse was the focal point and served as the foundation for the rest of the display. A spiral staircase wound its way up one side of the beacon.  Another set of stairs was carved into its rocky-looking base. Beneath an arch that connected the lighthouse to a clock-tower was a small fishing boat.

The creation looked so perfect that I initially thought it was made of plastic, like the three-foot high chess pieces laid out by Marriott for the vacationers to wile away their time. With closer inspection and considering the sign that requested, “Take pictures, but please don’t touch,” I realized that the sand sculpture was amazing.

That same evening, a father and son walked up and admired yet another feature—a church. Marc pulled out a picture of the island’s Alta Vista Chapel, showed it to the boy, and explained that this part of the sculpture was a replica of the church located nearby on the island.

Cathy and I examined the intricate design further. Detailed attention had been given to each part of the sandy display. Plastic, flameless, tea-light candles had been added for night-time ambiance. It was easy to visualize the hustle and bustle of a busy seaside town and imagine its residents hurrying home after a long day of work. Anchor the boat, cross over the bridge, stop in the chapel to light a candle, and get home before nightfall.

In a jealous attempt to earn back our admiration, the night sky could wait no longer to boast of its beauty. Clouds blocked the sun and hid it from view, but it wouldn’t go down without a fight. It squeezed in between every soft crevice it found and exploded with a fury. Reds, oranges, yellows and blues lashed out and burned away the daylight in a fiery glow. “One of the nicest sunsets I’ve seen,” was spoken out loud by many, including me.

“How did you get started in sand-sculpting?” I asked Marc.

“My wife and I spend a lot of time on the beach, and I just got sort of antsy. I started playing in the sand. I figured it out on my own throughout the years. What’s funny is that I recently spent time watching others so I could learn their techniques. But they weren’t doing anything different from what I was doing.”

Those of us who appreciate Marc’s talent disagree: That’s not so, Mr. Sandman. Not so.

 

 

 

Coffee Shop Chronicles: On staying and leaving,

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Starbucks
Cherry Hill, NJ
October 2002

I’m shaking from hitting the curb as I pulled in.

I don’t see any damage, but I’m uncontrollably jittery.  It’s a good thing I brought my journal tonight.  My mocha Frappuccino will just add caffeine to my jitters, but the journal, well, that’s relaxing.  I hope.

It’s an older journal, and I’m looking for something writing related.  A passage caught my eye this morning, notes from my belly dancing article for U. S. 1. It draws my mind back to the interview.

Kim, my instructor, says, “I learned that I want to stay there.”

She’s talking about her time in Turkey. “It was more of a style and a feel that I learned,” she continued, discussing her dancing techniques. “Turkish feels very funky, earthy, aggressive.”

Movement draws my attention. The two chess guys have left my table, so I pop over, freeing myself from Mr. Wobbles here.  I’m closer to the windows now.  It’s suddenly dark outside, the dark of a storm approaching.  Trees are stretching their branches in that helpless way, reaching to stop the storm, knowing they can’t.  They’re victim to the tosses of storm winds.

I continue reading my notes and transcription.  I might as well because I can’t find what I’m looking for. 

“It confirmed a lot of things I’ve learned over the years,” Kim says.

“You learn things and you’re not really sure what their roots are.”

I spread out with room to spare and reread the U. S. 1 Philly nightlife article.  I still adore the twists and turns of the language.  I don’t like the attitude of the writer–she comes across as too know-it-all in-your-face–but the language is alive.  “Rolling sushi with ‘frightening perfection'” is still my favorite.

Her vibrant language makes you want to keep reading to discover what she’ll describe next, and how.  This is how you write Show Don’t Tell: “J. Crew crowd and martini meat market.”  Her typing tongue makes some of my Singles articles pale in language comparison.  But it also inspires me to write outside the box, to stretch, to compare and to create.

Back to my journal.  What did Kim say next?  How good was my article with the material I collected?

“I learned and loved it and wondered later, ‘where does it come from, why does it feel like this, what does it mean?’”she says, “so it brought these things home and I got my answers.”

My fiancé–oh, I just love the sound of that– just called to share warm fuzziness.  He’s on his way up for the weekend, and he was thinking how he’ll only be doing this drive for a few more months–155 days, to be exact.  Then I’ll be in Delaware.  That made him think of the box and shopping bag of my stuff upstairs.  I take a symbolic “something” every time I drive down to spend the weekend.  He said he realized soon all my stuff will be in his house.  Our house.  We did a simultaneous awwwwww. Together.

He’s an adorable man.  We are going to have a great life together.

10:15pm.  I’ll be kicked out soon.  That’s okay—I’m done for the night.

Let Me EntertainYou

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My husband asked what I was writing about this month. After I answered him, I could tell that he wasn’t impressed—probably not even slightly interested—with my subject. “Finding iPhones,” I said. He smirked, and I knew he was thinking: boring. So, I gently reminded him that “I’m a writer. If I do my job well, then the story won’t be boring.”

But after finishing the piece, I worried that Greg was right. Doubt had crept into my writing process like it does just about every month. I lose the ability to discern whether my personal essays and memoirs will spur smiles, indifference, or yawns.

I’m a practical person. I know that none of my writing will ever be perfect, that’s just not possible. So at the very least, I aim to entertain. Then I revise as much as possible before having to part with my little darlings—my painstakingly crafted articles. Pushing deadlines and my editor’s patience, I eventually let go and watch my little ones fly. This month, after three long days of trying to improve my article and after going off on tangents into unrelated topics, I realized that even I was disinterested with what I had written.

Friend and fellow Deadwood Writer, Diana Hirsch, says “blogging is supposed to be fun.” The first time she said it to me was when I was struggling to transform my jumbled thoughts into a structured idea that wouldn’t put readers to sleep. She may have presumed I wasn’t enjoying the creative process, but that wasn’t the case. I can . . . and do . . . sit for hours writing, because I like most everything about it.

Introspectively, I analyze relationships and reflect on life. I savor the peace and quiet of researching and indulge in sipping coffee throughout the day. I thrive on the challenge of organizing my material into something clever and orderly; of shaping stories, revising them over and over. And—just like I adore holding a book and flipping pages—I love printing my finished articles so I can pass them between my fingers too. I lay the pages out, scan them for errors, and dot them with red ink where needed. I’m sorry for the trees I murder. But there is something wonderful about the feel of crisp paper with knife-like edges; the sight of black ink being constrained by white, one-inch margins; and the sound of pages clicking in place as I line them perfectly on top of one another and then bring them together with a swift tap or two against the surface of my desk—prepping them for stapling in their upper-left corners.

My little darlings are unlike other writers’ self-indulgent brats—superfluous material, screaming to be cut out from the current body of work and saved for a more befitting purpose. My babies comprise the entire article in its imperfect yet finished form. They are born from each letter and every punctuation mark I type and handcraft with love for you.

Dear readers, you are the driving force behind my efforts to raise good children. I want you to find something encouraging or useful in what I write. If I can entertain you or make you smile at some point, I’m ecstatic, but I’m about as far from Gypsy Rose Lee as one can be. I’m not a natural showgirl or a well-known author. I’m a writer battling against mediocrity in my blogs.

Palumbo, Fred, photographer. [Gypsy Rose Lee, full-length portrait, seated at a typewriter, facing slightly right/ World Telegram & Sun photo by Fred Palumbo]. 1956. Image. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/94511004/. (Accessed January 06, 2017.)

Many of Hollywood’s leading ladies have stepped onstage to sing the lyrics to the iconic “Let Me Entertain You.” The song was inspired by Gypsy Rose Lee’s popularity as a burlesque dancer. This is how I like to remember her: as an author.

Because you’re important to me, I’m not going to succumb to the pressure of a due date, the one thing about writing I don’t like. Deadlines stress college students, journalists, businessmen and writers of all kinds—in this case, me—who could use just a little more time to finish respective projects. Merriam-Webster hints at the origin of “deadline” with this dreadful definition: “a line drawn within or around a prison that a prisoner passes at the risk of being shot.”

Imagine: A prisoner, whose only chance for escape involves crossing a line that’s being guarded by expert shooters. He knows that crossing that line will most likely result in his death. He frets. He schemes. He hopes. He commits, knowing there is no turning back. No return; no surrender. There is no undoing what he’s about to do. At best, he’ll succeed and live a long life on the run. But doubt creeps in as he faces the fact that his attempt at freedom—at crossing the deadline—will probably result in death.

This month, I hope you’re relieved to find out that you don’t get to read a boring account of the iPhone I stumbled upon while Christmas shopping . . .  just because I have a deadline. I’m preserving any good impression you may have of me by killing my darlings.

 

Photo credit: Palumbo, Fred, photographer. [Gypsy Rose Lee, full-length portrait, seated at a typewriter, facing slightly right/ World Telegram & Sun photo by Fred Palumbo]. 1956. Image. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/94511004/. (Accessed January 06, 2017.)