H is for Hawk or leaving the wild

H is for Hawk. By Helen Macdonald. This book has been winning awards and is wildly popular. As often is the case, I’m late to the party. But now I’m glad to have read it.

When Macdonald’s father died no one anticipated it, least of all Helen. In her grief she went a little crazy. As a child she was fascinated by birds of all kinds, but especially the predator birds – hawks, merlins, falcons, kites, kestrels. As an adult she learned how to train and fly some of the smaller species, but never the goshawk which is considered one of the most aggressive and difficult to train. Hawks, especially goshawks, are not pets in the way of dogs or cats, they remain ultimately wild and untamable. Intent on murder and blood, with their enormous talons and sharp beaks, they are perfectly, awesomely equipped to kill rabbits and pheasants. So in ways it felt natural to turn to the challenge of training Mabel, a young goshawk, in the hope that it would take her on a distracting journey out of grief. As the weeks passed she sank further into depression, withdrawing from friends and family, and identifying more and more with her goshawk. Until…

     It seems to me that the entire book could be summarized in this one paragraph. Don’t worry it’s not a spoiler – there is much more to the book that is fascinating: falconry –   what is required to train a hawk to fly free and then return to the gloved fist and Macdonald’s reflections on the layers of grief and the ways it manifests itself. As a research scholar at Cambridge, she was well equipped to write this book and also had the creative skill that makes it a good read.

     So here was the pivot – the wisdom garnered:

     “All the way home on the train I thought of Dad and the terrible mistake I had made. I’d thought that to heal my great hurt, I should flee to the wild. It was what people did. The nature books I’d read told me so. So many of them had been quests inspired by grief or sadness. Some had fixed themselves to the stars of elusive animals. Some sought snow geese. Others snow leopards. Others cleaved to the earth, walked trails, mountains, coasts and glens. Some sought wildness at a distance, others close to home. ‘Nature in her green tranquil woods heals and soothes all afflictions,’ wrote John Muir ‘Earth hath no sorrows that earth cannot heal.’ 

            Now I knew this for what it was: a beguiling but dangerous lie. I was furious with myself and my own unconscious certainty that this was the cure I needed. Hands are for other human hands to hold. They should not be reserved exclusively as perches for hawks. And the wild is not a panacea for the human soul; too much in the air can corrode it to nothing.”

     In a time when many believe that nature heals all afflictions, I admire Macdonald for bravely stating it does not, although I doubt she would call it brave. Because my roots grew out of a remote and rural place in northern Minnesota, I admit I’ve often been beguiled by the beauty of wild creation that can give a restorative perspective not found in an urban setting. At times in life I’ve been certain that leaving for the wild, perhaps forever, is what I need for calm and focus, but she’s right, the earth simply cannot heal everything. It cannot replace the community we were made to live in as human beings. We need relationships. It cannot heal all our sorrows – only God is able to do that even though we know not everything will necessarily be put to right until Jesus returns. So we wait for it in the now, but the not yet time. Meantime, I’m not quitting my jaunts to lonely places because they often serve to rephrase life, but it is good to remind your soul that those beautiful lonely places won’t deliver everything you need.

Where the wild ducks are

  Whether we look far away or close at hand – from France to the people of our hearts, we long for peace. We long for hope.

For a few days of solitude, I’ve come away to a quiet place. Perhaps I will find headspace to write again.

I’ve watched the wild ducks gather at the bottom of the lawn. In a puddle spread before the shore a family of mallards nibble and nibble on something under the water. Roots? Chickweed? They ruffle their tails and preen their breasts, comfortably relaxing into the soggy grass as if into a hot spa. A female scolds a male and he sprints from her clacking beak. After the ducks depart a pair of crows splash into the puddle and then sip their bathwater. A black squirrel runs up and down the oak with mouthfuls of leaves. I see she is building a winter nest as she shapes them into a ragged clump. There is healing in these observations. I waken to more than despair and “forethought of grief.” I do. I am almost happy.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. – Wendell Berry

Mallard Family eating in the rain.

Making a room for love and writing

It  always encourages me when I come across a writer who writes more slowly than me. One year at the Festival for Faith and Writing at Calvin College, I went to a workshop given by a man who had taken twenty years to publish his book. I left snapping my fingers saying, yessss. For my first book, The Exact Place, took seven years from start to finish. 

Jake & Joie Meador

 So what to do when you come across someone who writes so fast his pencils smoke?

Well, I think many factors are woven together in a person that makes his or her writing style unique. Personal habits, stage of life, natural talent. And it helps to be someone who doesn’t wait for ideal conditions in which to write. (I am expert on that topic. I often avoid putting words to paper because I am waiting for my body, the pantry, the weather, the stars to align before I get down to business.) So I applaud this young friend, Jake Meador –  as he pours himself wholeheartedly into the art of writing. He has a fascinating array of interests and is able to write well about each of them. From theology to soccer columns, journalism reports to blog posts about the demands of love in Harry Potter, they all pour out of his head. I once asked him how he managed to write so prolifically and yet do it well. He answered like this – and I have permission to share:

“My wife and I joke that I have undiagnosed Asperger’s, which is actually a real possibility, and so being in a place with noise is actually awful for my working. I need silence b/c I want to focus super intensely on whatever I'm doing, but I hear everything at the same time at close to the same volume, so being able to focus is hard for me if I'm in a place with a lot of noise. So I either work in a home office or in the stacks at the local university's research library. The upside to the Asperger’s is that I'm able to do a ton of writing in a fairly short amount of time at a level I'm happy with, which is probably the only reason I can write for four soccer sites while also doing work for Mere Orthodoxy, Fare Forward, and whatever freelance stuff I pick up.”

Yesterday Jake posted a piece about the work of Wendell Berry on Fare Forward. It is so insightful that Jake had me wanting to go back to read all of Berry’s work in order to explore this particular theme. His piece is a summary, in a way, of Berry’s understanding of what it means “to daily break the body and shed the blood of Creation.” Clearly, the burden of learning to live in creation lovingly and knowingly is suffused throughout Berry’s essays and works of fiction. Jake’s summary is done with such tender insight I had to share it with you. Go to the site, read the post. You’ll be blessed.

 

“In Berry’s work, marriage isn’t simply a social contract or an emotional bond; it’s a way of orienting oneself to the rhythms of creation. It’s the process of undergoing an organic “breaking,” much as one would break the earth when plowing, in order to produce a harvest. Seeds are planted and in time we reap a harvest—Paul might say a resurrection. For Berry the language of marriage is never far from the language of health, flourishing, and beauty.”  - Wendell Berry’s Room of Love by Jake Meador.

"Bless Your Heart"?

What is it called when the words you say have a meaning completely opposite from their actual  definition? Here's a for instance that is pretty innocuous. Or is it? I'm not sure.

In conversation if you tell someone something and they respond in a hearty voice with, “Good!” or "Great!" You kinda get they don't mean good or great at all. What they probably mean is, I don't have time to listen to your pathetic stories. Or, you are boring me so bad, I’d like to slap you, but I love Jesus. Or, leftovers again? Or….?

The satirist at The Cresset, (a literary and art journal published by Valparaiso University) – Tom Willadsen, wrote a little rant about what "Bless your heart," really means, and it got me thinking about my own use of handy verbal punctuation and a little habit I have of taking others to task for their use of it.

I've had some conversations about that very phrase and my friends agreed that, for example, if someone says, "Bless her heart, she's trying to lose weight" what that really means is: “I’m sure glad I’m a size 4!”  Or, “too bad she can’t stay on that diet, because she’s a big momma.” Or, “I lay money on it. She’s a closet eater.” I had already decided not to use that comment again. But there are others I need to excise. Just saying I’m not exactly snow-white here. 

Willadsen wrote:

“I now use the phrase as a verbal crossed fingers behind my back. I say “Bless your heart,: but I mean:

·      Each day in my prayers I lament that you had children, or

·      As far as I can tell, your sole purpose on the planet is to irritate everyone you encounter, or

·      Given a choice between having white-hot tungsten spikes thrust through my lungs, and accepting your invitation, I’m going with the spikes, or

·      Remember that device I told you about that measures my hostility? Your request has rendered it obsolete, or

·      I hate you.”

My thinking this is funny might reveal something twisted in me. I can yammer on about how we ought to be living and growing in the fruit of the spirit – in fact, only the other day I pressed hard on someone who was verbally unkind to another. This could be dangerous, like I’m the self-righteous, brickhead Publican dumping on the Sinner over in the corner.

On the other hand, if satire is, as the dictionary defines it, “the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices;” and if satire is what Willadsen is doing, then, he succeeded and maybe we can laugh because we see ourselves and humor helps it go down a little more easily.

Curating with gasps

I recently discovered the artist and writer Maira Kalman and am utterly charmed. In the first glances at her work I wondered if I was looking at a child’s art project because her drawings are folky and simple. But what quickly emerges is cunning truth about the subject and a subtle humor that reveals a mature hand behind the work. Her gift is to give you pause. To reconsider what you nearly passed by, what you so quickly consigned to the trite and ordinary, to pause for a minute and find unexpected meaning and/or beauty.

BrainPickings describes her work as having: “a spartan sincerity … an elegantly choreographed spontaneity – words meticulously chosen to be as simple as possible, yet impossibly expressive; drawings that invoke childhood yet brim with the complex awarenesses of a life lived long and wide.”

She has published a number of books but the one I discovered first was My Favorite Things. I had to get past the title  – at first, all I could hear was Julie Andrews droning on … “these are a few of my favorite things… da-da, da, dah..” But the book quickly invites you to look at her list and think in new categories. At the same time she asks the reader a serious question: “How do you curate a life?” I ask, how do you curate your life? Or mine?

 “…We begin with a portrait…” she writes.

In her hand-written, plain prose she tells us she has been chosen to curate an exhibition for a small museum in New York City, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, and what a dilemma it is to choose from among centuries-worth of objects! Post cards from the Hotel Celeste in Tunisia. Hats. A fragile vase carefully painted in red and green and signed – someone loved it enough to keep it over a lifetime then pass it on.

This is why her work captured me: It struck me that her filter is one through which we could all strain our own collections. She writes: “The pieces I chose were based on ONE thing only – a gasp of DELIGHT.” Then she asks, “Isn’t that the only way to CURATE a LIFE? To live among things that make you GASP with delight?” (p. 9)

Of COURSE, not everything is going to make you gasp. What inspires me may quietly turn you off.  (If you are kind you won’t mention it. And I promise your inspirations won’t make me sign you up for an exorcism.) I began to realize that is why some of the very things others pass over will make another “gasp with delight.” It can be quite an individual matter. For example, I could see by the cover illustration on her book that Kalman enjoys photos of dandies from the 1930s. The way they dressed and paraded across the sand in their garish red and white stripped suits on the beach at Coney Island looking all satisfied with themselves. They make me smile.

I understand that not EVERYthing needs to make me gasp. I don’t want to have an asthma attack when I climb into bed at night. I mean. There needs to be calm scenes. Functionality. Quiet colors. Soft beds. Crisp sheets. Most of my bedroom is not required to make me gasp. We understand. But there are things I might now keep and others I may shed because she has named this way of curating.

I am intrigued by possibilities. By a new way of thinking about what everyday things can delight. What causes us to gasp? In this world with so much that is broken, broken, broken, I wonder if we could keep some of those good things, and also share a little. Like the annoying “Little Drummer Boy,” (oops. I guess he’s not on my gasping list.) perhaps I can give you what I have, which isn’t much, I admit. I can give what I write this year. I can keep on trying to stay focused long enough to make something of it. If my writing can cause you to, well, if not GASP with delight, but perhaps give a slight twitch in your nucleus accumbens (look it up.) that would make me very happy.

Work, writing, and dodging rotten fish

 Tell me what made you think I’d want to read about what you did yesterday? Your books didn’t arrive on the UPS truck when they were supposed to and now all your orders are late? You need new socks because all your old ones have holes? Waaa. Hearing about whatever it is you are up to is a waste of my time. Throw rotten fish.

There is a person in my life who sits on my shoulder, watching, someone who lifts an eyebrow and a corner of the lip while reading my sentences. I sense a cynical vibe asking, why aren’t you doing something more meaningful? Feeding the hungry? Something valuable. Perhaps you should clean your closet or something. But stop this bushwa.

We (Denis & I) often talk about how every square inch of life and reality belongs to the Lord Christ. That includes calling and vocation. Part of my calling right now is writing. Working on another manuscript. Posting to my blog. Writing my quarterly publication “Letters from the House Between.” Answering mail. Even after all these years of understanding the importance of being faithful in what you’ve been called to do today and not imagining some big sensational save or Pulitzer Prize for your astonishing work, I can have doubts about what I do.

This isn’t strictly a “Christian” problem; people who don’t necessarily practice a faith also suffer from the guilt of living in a world with so much misery and sorrow and trying to reckon the worth of what they do. Recently I watched a 60 Minutes program about Syrian refugees that was so heartbreaking I sat on the couch and bawled. How could I be living in safety with a bowl of popcorn and a can of Coke while thousands were escaping up a hill into a Jordanian refugee camp  - their wounded bodies and hearts repositories of violence – their faces pinched with starvation and fear – How could I go about being a barista or a software developer or a writer? Especially a writer? (Opportunities to help do abound. And we can find them. That is a good topic for another time.) But, I’ve needed to reaffirm that it isn’t just okay, it is good to write.

Molly Wizenberg concludes her book Delancy: A Man, A Woman, ARestaurant, A Marriage by trying to work out their dilemma regarding the significance of opening a restaurant and her choice to write.

“…when I decided to quit graduate school, I was newly broken up with a boyfriend. He was a very kind, serious, thoughtful guy, someone who tutors kids with severe learning disabilities in his free time. I remember feeling so frivolous in comparison, so guilty, as I thought about giving up academia to try being a food writer. Food writing wasn’t important. It wouldn’t save a life. I did it anyway, because I wanted to, but I certainly couldn’t justify it on the grounds of world peace. That justification doesn’t work for opening a restaurant either. But there is something about Delancey that, to me, matters just as much: We get to make people happy. We get to give people a good night. We get to spend our days doing work that we can be proud of, and when we’re done, there’s all the pizza you can eat.”  P 225.

What I do everyday does matter. It may not be worthy of a Ten Best Books list, but I know this is what God has for me to do right now. If I listened too much to my doubts or to that person who sits on my shoulder sifting my words, paralysis would set in. Wizenberg may not be able to say “God has made me for this purpose” and understand that because they are making the best pizzas they can and she is being a good food writer honors God, but I can say it. He has created humans to live and work before him and it pleases him to bless us however big or small, significant or insignificant our work.  

Fort Lauderdale here and there

Taking a short break from my ordinary. Yesterday, I finished writing the next issue of Letters from the House Between. (Although it will be another three weeks before it gets mailed out.) Wrapping always gives equal waves of relief, regrets for what I wrote – never good enough –  and the urge to leave. Perhaps it’s a common feeling when something is completed, something you pour yourself into, that you have a sense of emptiness? To persuade myself not to pay much attention to that, I go to a coffee shop. Lingering, then moving on to the next thing. Today it was Patisserie 46. Denis dropped Anita and I off while he went on to Bethel University to visit their library and book store, doing some research for a project. I see why 46 gets raves – I had an almond croissant – never one this flaky, melty-good – and a creamy almond latte. Feeling better.

Almond latte at Patisserie 46

 We leave for Fort Lauderdale next week. Not vacation, but work. We welcome this trip, though. It’s a chance to connect with people who love the arts, are interested in creativity and how popular culture reflects human longing for meaning. So if you are a friend who lives in the area, or would like to BE our friend,  join us in discussion. I will be reflecting on the ordinary: how it carries traces of the sacred (are you shocked? No?) and reading from God in the Sink. Denis will be giving lectures on film and how they can give windows of insight into our culture. (His lectures are always prime. Truly, I am his severest critic, trust me):

Here is where we’ll be:

Monday, November 10, St. Mark’s Episcopal, Fort Lauderdale. Evening session.

Tuesday Noon, November 11,  I will be at Kenny Lunsford’s Book Club in Boca Raton.

Tuesday Evening, November 11, we will be at Coral Ridge Church, Fort Lauderdale sharing an evening session.

Wednesday Morning, November 12, Dianne Garvin’s Book Club.

Wednesday Evening, November 12, New Covenant Church, Pompano Beach, for their evening supper and service.

Please forgive my bumbling efforts to get a workable button on the sidebar. It looks anything but professional. I can’t get the entire book cover to show, just “the sink” part. You can still help launch this little book into the world if you pre-order God in the Sink now. It’s on sale for $9:95 until its release in mid-November. At that rate, everyone you know could receive a copy for Christmas.  Or for any reason, any time. 

Serious Gray

My office is gradually becoming this color ...  Serious Gray by Sherwin Williams. I think it should be called something else. Perhaps just for today. Quietly Happy. Or Unexpected Grey.

"Serious Gray"

 My day began with a random surprise. After I dropped my sister-in-law off at the airport it was 5:50 A.M. and I pulled through Starbucks drive-up for a latte. When I reached the window the barista told me the person ahead of me had paid for my coffee and said I should have a good day. A random act of kindness. All day long I've tasted that sweet moment - it has made me feel like I sit under a rainbow or something.

Random kindness

Today I'm doing a final proof of the manuscript God in the Sink. I could spend hours hunched over the pages and the computer. So to keep myself from getting permanently crooked I decided to set the timer. 45 minutes at the computer and 45 minutes painting my office.  I'm almost done with the manuscript, about 1/4 of the office is painted and there are still some hours left in the day. It's been a good plan for this day.

Proofing

So far the funniest mistake I found was a sentence that mentioned how Minnesotans often end sentences with a preposition, like "Do you wanna go with?" Instead of preposition I had written proposition. Can't remember the last time I was propositioned. Oh, well.

During the last painting slot I listened to an interview with John Stott. I think the best quote out of it was:
"I've learnt very early on that Christianity is not a religion and it is not an institution, it is a person. It was enormously helpful for me to discover that Christianity is Christ and and that what matters is a personal relationship to Christ..... It's all Christ, Christ, Christ, Christ. Knowing Him, loving Him, serving Him, trusting Him, gaining Him. 'To me to live is Christ', Paul said, and I think, I hope without boasting I can say the same, it is a Person."

I almost chose "Gibralter" a shade of darkened stone. But maybe that would've been appropriate, too. Christ, our Rock.
  
Thanks for stopping by. I hope some time, some day a stranger gives you a coffee, too.

Naming a book

 I have a pretty hard time with titles. I know not everyone cares about this. So it won’t offend me if you go  away. But I suspect everyone faces a time when they need to name something or other whether it is a pet or a weekend seminar. Getting something that people identify with, that draws them in, doesn’t embarrass you and is still artistic? Good luck, Margie.

My work today is deciding a title for a new book, a collection of Notes From Toad Hall a publication I’ve been writing for almost forever. A few days ago, I began with some suggestions from my editor and a working title Real Life at Toad Hall. But decided the book doesn’t represent “Real” life at Toad Hall. It’s only a few snapshots of life picked out of a myriad.

Next I tried Stumbling Toward Grace: A Collection of Notes From Toad Hall. A friend asked, really? Do we stumble toward grace or is it that God pursues us with grace. Well, yes. That’s true. Plus it seemed long and cumbersome.

Trying to generalize a collection could even bore the author’s mother. As in  Notes From Toad Hall: A Collection. Another problem that friend pointed out is that with a collection if you try too hard to enfold or capture all the content into one title it becomes artificial and you end up with something formal and stiff. Or boring. Brilliant. I’d never thought of it that way.

So how do you capture a theme with so many different storylines and events? Basically you don’t. Better to concentrate on something more specific. We know most people respond in concrete ways to concrete images. So as we looked through the chapters we hoped that something would emerge, something that would evoke, not only an interesting image, but could, in a multi-layered way, represent more than just that chapter.

The introduction then popped because of an image used there. But the next temptation was getting too clever. Clever in your own mind anyway. I came up with Bobblehead Jesus is Watching You: A Collection of Notes From Toad Hall. First of all it seemed way too long, then it seemed too quirky, like I was trying too hard to be funny. It is also one-layered and obscure.

So I went back to an image that stood out from the introduction, thanks to that same genius friend – that of God being in the sink with us. It had potential. If we think of life as a sink – it really is true that God is in there with us whether the sink is full of sudsy warm water or a pile of greasy, dirty dishes. We’ve all lived on both sides of that equation. Sorry, if that was insultingly obvious.

So this is where we’ve landed God in the Sink: Essays From Toad Hall.  In the meantime, while I dwaddled with this post, the editor decided for sure. This will be the title of my next book which will be out in November if all goes well. I’m excited about this.

Thanks for stopping by.

2014 Blog Tour - Writing in the Cracks

Nancy Nordenson, a writer friend, invited me to join a blog tour - called The Magical Mystery Tour - about the process of writing, not the Beatles. Not sure the exact meaning, except that writing often feels like someone needs to sprinkle magic on my words or they won't be readable.

Nancy is a respected Medical Writer and essayist, the author of JustThink, Nourish Your Mind to Feed Your Soul, and of the forthcoming Finding Livelihood: A Progress of Work andLeisure. Her blog is called Just Thinking where she does her creative writing. To read her answers click on her blog.

I am honored to be asked by Nancy and in a sort of pass-it-on style I'm to tag two more writers who can join the tour and spread the magic. However, I've been so out of touch with other bloggers, they've finally all left me. However, I do know one person who will do a terrific job on this tour and has graciously agreed to join. (Please see more on Jenni below.)

New office in "The House Between." No excuses now.

I often write in the cracks of life - about something as ordinary as weeds, the weeds you try to pull from the sidewalk in your front yard. This is how I answered the questions:

1-What am I working on?

2-How does my work differ from others in its genre?

3-Why do I write what I do?

4-How does my writing process work?

1. What am I working on?

Perhaps answering these questions will inspire me to finish working toward my current deadline.

Right now, this very minute I should be rewriting an essay to be included in a collection coming out later this year called Real Life at Toad Hall. Yesterday, I thought we would need to leave this one out because I began at point A and switched directions so many times without logic or warning it would confuse a gyroscope. I wondered how I could have published it in the first place. It made me feel desperate. I don’t think of killing myself, but I would like to kill something, maybe an earwig. I am three days past my editor’s deadline and it looks like it  will take longer, with at least three more to wrangle.  A break to join this blog tour may be just the thing that helps.

2. How does my work differ from others in its genre?

I write memoir and personal essay with an emphasis on narrative. But I have trouble clarifying how it differs from other like writing. Perhaps it’s a self-image issue. My step-dad used to say, “Girl, you’re not half so smart as you think you are.” In a way, I grew up believing some of that and fighting with it. Foundational to all my writing is the issue of faith and spirituality – how it shapes and informs all parts of life. When my memoir The Exact Place was published, I learned there are many who dislike memoir with good reason. They find many of them self-absorbed or insufferably bitter. Somehow, I avoided that while writing about difficult things at the same time. In both memoir and in my personal essays, which for many years have appeared as “Notes From Toad Hall,” I strive for honesty. I especially think that many of us who claim Christianity struggle with letting others see us – flawed and intemperate as we are. So it is important to me that we challenge that image and yet find hope that helps us continue our journey. I don’t think this desire is unique to me. Each writer has a distinct voice that is important to find. Mine doesn’t sound that memorable to me, but at least I recognize it, and will keep practicing the scales and singing the songs, trying to get it right. That’s not a bad thing.

3. Why do I write what I do?

I think it is very connected to what I mentioned already about being honest. Honesty is stronger when it is united with a desire to love others, not just bash them with the truth. Honesty is not just telling every detail about the troubles you have, either. But I guess we know that, don’t we? So, what motivates me is… well, let me go back for an example. When I was newly married, we attended a church and saw mature couples all nicely dressed sitting beside one another in the pew, the husband’s arm around his wife. No one ever, EVER breathed a word about the troubles a couple might face in getting along with one another. I know that was way back in the day and some things are a lot more healthy and open now. I knew the inside of some of these homes, they were not as pretty as they presented. When my young husband and I faced bumps, there was nowhere to go for mentors or models. Sometimes in desperation I yelled at my husband; “I wish I were a guy and I would so beat you up.” Yes, yes, I know. Abuse. I want to write to give people hope that we are not alone, that there are potentially other ways of looking at things. I want people to know there may not be answers, but there is Someone who is not surprised by any of our scheisse and loves us still.

Weeds in the cracks

4. How does my writing process work?

I am pathetic. Writing is the hardest work I do. I often avoid it at all costs, I will be out pulling weeds from the cracks in the sidewalk when I should be writing. I write at the computer, but revise and edit on paper. The internet has infinite ways of destroying my concentration. I shut off email when the burden to write grows heavier than I can bear. It can’t be dinging at me when I’m trying to compose. I stare out the window. Wipe the crumbs off my keyboard. Chew the eraser heads off pencils. Because I live with some physical issues, I need to set the timer to make myself get up and walk around every so often or my muscles freeze. When I face a blockage, I know that to get past it I HAVE to live with it. So I sit and fidget with the piece and tell myself I am not allowed out of my chair for one whole hour. I may do nothing more than shift a comma, but I don’t let myself leave until the time is up. Then I reward myself with a piece of chocolate and a cup of coffee. It is a mystery to me how this can work, but it actually, usually, often, gets me past the wall.

Jenni Simmons, who wears many hats as an editor and writer, is up next. She is editor of Arthouse America Blog, and just recently became general editor for Kalos Press. Jenni is also a seasoned tweeter and instagramer with an eye for beauty found in everyday places.