What’s In a Name?

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" - Shakespeare

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” – Shakespeare

It’s true, I suppose. We could call a rose by another name, Armadillo for example, and it would smell as sweet, would look as beautiful.

We would, on certain occasions, be tempted to procure a dozen armadillos for that special someone. Tenderness and love would be implied by that single armadillo on your pillow. Those armadillo petals strewn throughout the house—a romantic path one would surely want to follow.

I get it. And yet, we do call a rose a rose, which is why armadillo feels so wrong in the same context. In part, of course, because it already has its own meaning, its own connotations, its own identity.
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The Obstacle Is The Path

Boat and Boy by Peter van Straten

“Boy and Boat” by Peter van Straten

There is a Zen saying that sometimes the obstacle in the path is the path.

A friend of mine who is not a writer, though he is a very talented visual artist, shared some insight with me once that has resonated with me quite a bit the past few months.

“Consider this,” he said: “in the Chinese language, there is a word for Crisis. Much like words in English, the word is made up by combining two different words. The first symbol is the Chinese word for Danger. The second symbol is the Chinese word for Opportunity.”

On Leadership by Peter van Straten

“On Leadership” by Peter van Straten

When we consider the duality of all things, and the idea that an obstacle might also be an opportunity . . . when we acknowledge that the unwanted condition has a right to exist; that every conceivable state might have a purpose in the grand scheme (even if only as a “learning experience”), we provide ourselves with the chance to grow.

Back in November and December of last year, I wasn’t writing. From August through the end of the year, I was working nearly every day and was utterly exhausted those meager hours each week I wasn’t working.

I was frustrated, but believed that things would slow down in the new year. After all, my job is busiest August through November.

Except when it’s not.
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What To Do When Feeling Lost, Stuck, or Lacking Motivation

Stricken With Self-Doubt by Just.Luc

Stricken With Self-Doubt by Just.Luc

“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”  – Sylvia Plath

Of course, as discussed before, there are several other enemies including a lack of motivation. In my experience, a lack of motivation often stems from one or more of the following things: doubt, fear, an inability to focus and/or to concentrate due to anxiety or feeling overwhelmed from too many responsibilities/distraction, or lost interest.

I’ve written some about fear and anxiety and about self-doubt. A lack of interest seems to explain itself – find the thing that interests you, about which you are truly passionate. Being overwhelmed often requires us to break our tasks into smaller steps and to set intentions for each of our essential responsibilities and then remind ourselves of those intentions.

OFTEN!

One thing that helps me with all these challenges appears below (hint, it has to do with other people).

There are times in most people’s lives when they feel doubt – about a relationship, a sport, a college (major, class, career direction), a job, some other pursuit. Anything that requires a choice brings with it the potential for doubt. And we can doubt just about anything related to those decisions we make . . . or have to make . . . or want to make (before, during, and after we make the decision).

That doesn’t even take into account the doubt some people have about themselves.

At various points in our lives, questions arise. Do they really like me for who I am? Who the heck am I? Am I fooling myself? Do I have the ability needed? Is it done? How do I know?

Writers, artists, and other people chasing their creative dreams occasionally encounter various forms of doubt, fear, lack of motivation, and other obstacles. As a matter of fact, among many creatives I know, self-doubt is one of the biggest obstacles they have to overcome.

I’m not going to pretend one thing works for all forms of doubt. But I will say this, one thing I’ve learned that helps me regardless of the reason behind the doubt is the knowledge that each step taken gets me closer to my goals.

Another thing, that helps me even more than that, is reminding myself what my intention is for chasing those goals in the first place.

What Am I Writing For?

Answering that question (and reminding myself of the answer whenever I feel stuck, unsure) has helped me more than anything.

A third thing that helps me stay inspired . . . that reminds me that those obstacles can be overcome . . . is the accomplishments of my friends and colleagues.
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Being Receptive – Creative Sparks Take Many Forms

sparkles on water

Children are extremely perceptive and absorb what goes on around them long before they can talk or even comprehend language. They are like finely tuned receivers that pick up much more than is merely said. They are receptive and attuned to every mood, feeling, and change that goes on in people around them.”
– Theodore Isaac Rubin

I just got back from an amazing week in Historic New Harmony where my friend Terry Price and I led a week-long retreat for writers called West of the Moon Retreat. It was our third year doing the retreat and, somehow, each year tops the last.

One of the underlying intentions for the week was to encourage the writers to be RECEPTORS or RECEIVERS (i.e. to more RECEPTIVE – like those old Pioneer and Bose receivers that allowed stereos to pick up so much extra musical goodness that was bouncing around the stratosphere).

We invited them to be OPEN to whatever sort of inspiration might present itself rather than going into each writing session with preconceptions about how their inspiration would come to them.

There’s a need to approach each writing session with a specific intention, a focus, but we discussed how writers often go into a session expecting their inspiration to come in a specific way. As a result, we set our dials and tune in to that one way and we tend to dismiss so many other signals instead of recognizing that our body and our unconscious mind reach out to us in a variety of ways.

After showing the writers a series of yoga poses (not to be confused with ninja moves) put together in a brief sequence for the purpose of opening them up for those myriad signals (any image, color, word, sensation, etc), I finally had my own chance to walk the walk, so to speak. And what a walk it turned out to be.

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Time: Making Every Second Count While Chasing Your Dream

caffeinating, calculating, computerating by ryantron

caffeinating, calculating, computerating by ryantron

Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine
how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.” – Carl Sandburg

Believe it or not, I barely had enough time to get this post done. And I’ve been working on it for the past three weeks. But I digress. Sort of.

This is a post about chasing dreams. And about time. And about multi-tasking, in a manner of speaking.

I have long accepted the fact that I have a jiffy-pop brain. My thoughts, though linear at times, tend to pop all over the place about seemingly unrelated or random things. Of course, they pop even more frequently about related things – as in things related to my dream of being a full-time professional writer.

As a result, I have several projects going on all the time. Like this very moment, I’ve got a new Reading Series that launches tomorrow at Ravines Wine Cellars, I leave a week from today for Historic New Harmony to co-host a week-long retreat for writers and other creatives (which means I’m still fine tuning workshop ideas and materials). I’m tutoring my niece for all sorts of 10th Grade Regents Examination Craziness, and working my job. Oh, and trying to keep up with this blog and work on new poetry for the YA novel-in-verse, and there’s the very cool collaboration project I’m working on with the artist who helped create this website and . . .

You could call it multitasking, I suppose, though recent studies suggest that term to be a misnomer – as we are really only able to truly focus on one thing at a time, we’re just able to move from one thing to the next thing and back again almost instantaneously.

The human brain is wired in such a way that allows for that ultra-fast processing (a.k.a. what we call multitasking), but because we have that capability we often fall into the habit of non-stop multitasking. And that can be a problem (on so many levels).

Our brains are designed to scan, to search for potential dangers, to be on alert. It’s a survival mechanism.

I could go into the potential physiological problems that arise from the growing trend to have our brains in the fight-or-flight state most of the time, but I’ll leave that to those more qualified. Instead, I’ll allude to the quality of work such rapid-fire focus produces. Or, in particular, working on multiple projects simultaneously has worked for me.

One of the interesting paradoxes of creativity is that we need to focus on the task at hand in order to turn inward and to mine the gems deep inside. We also need to be open to whatever comes our way, to be receptive.

Sometimes we force ourselves to focus so hard on what we believe we’re supposed to be focused on that we actually prevent ourselves from receiving creative impulses and ideas rushing toward us. Of course, sometimes we get so caught up in starting every idea that comes our way, that we never complete anything.

Such is the juggling act of the writer, the artist, the creative.

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Hope, The Stuff of Dreams

“Hope is the thing with feathers –
that perches in the soul –
and sings the tunes without the words –
and never stops at all.” – Emily Dickinson

Those lines form one of my favorite stanzas by Dickinson or anyone really, not for the meter, the rhythm or the rhyme, not for the way the thought is said at all, but for the thought itself, the meaning behind the words.

I’ve been a positive person as long as I can remember. Spending most days with a smile that comes from an appreciation that’s difficult to describe. I’m a genuinely happy guy.

I joke sometimes and say I’ve had an octogenarian’s outlook on each new day ever since I was thirteen and nearly died. But it’s not really a joke. I spent each day over the next four years (my entire time in high school) absolutely terrified that my time had run out, and every night when I went to bed I was palpably afraid that would be the end, which is also why I greeted each new day profoundly thankful for another chance.

I’ve been praised for my outlook, and thanked by those around me who have drawn on my positive energy, and ridiculed by some of the latter as well.

“People who smile all the time,” I’ve been told, “are just putting on a face for others, hiding the pain and the frustrations of life.” Well, I suppose if one pretends there is no pain and that there are no frustrations, then that might be true. Except, I’ve found that choosing to acknowledge the pain and frustration to myself, assessing what things I can change and what things just are the way they are, and then approaching the moment with an attitude of hope, that is the reason I tend to smile.

And, most days, most of the time, no one else needs to be made aware of my pain or my frustrations.

Anyone who truly knows me also understands, that’s part of the reason I write. I see the darkness. I feel it emphatically. I am a very empathetic person, too much so, perhaps. And I’m also a very sensitive person when it comes to the struggles of others.

Read one thing I’ve written and you’ll get it. I focus on the shadows, the storms, the unpleasantness of the human condition in nearly every poem, in every single piece of prose. But, I do so from the perspective of hope.

I’m that way in my relationships, that way with my work, and also with my dreams though I did put those on hold for a long time. I believe that hope is an essential ingredient when it comes to making dreams a reality.
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Off-season Workout, A Poem

Lafayette & FootballSome people think football is a matter of life and death.
I assure you, it’s much more serious than that. – Bill Shankly

Football and poetry have more in common than you might think. They’re both played on a field of sorts, each with its own specific rules, and each relies on teamwork. There’s a rhythm in the cadence of the QB, in the footwork of receivers. There are plosive sounds as vowels and consonants collide, not unlike the onomatopoetic nature of the game.

This is the first of several posts about football and poetry, and about how bringing the two together might just be one of the most important undertakings of my writing life.
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The Writer’s Quest

A Knight and His Horse by SPT Photographe

A Knight and His Horse by SPT Photographe

“Say it, reader. Say the word ‘quest‘ out loud. It is an extraordinary word, isn’t it?
So small and yet so full of wonder, so full of hope.” – Kate DiCamillo

From the outside, quests seem exciting. They’re full of adventure, the unknown, danger, and heroic feats. From the inside, though, they can sometimes feel impossible to complete.

Of course, many times the writer is simply lacking a few essentials elements found on most quests.

Joseph Campbell identified the common stages to The Heroic Quest:

ORDINARY WORLD

THE CALL TO ADVENTURE (what are you writing for?)

REFUSAL OF THE CALL

MEETING WITH THE MENTOR

CROSSING THE THRESHOLD

TESTS, ALLIES AND ENEMIES

THE APPROACH

THE ORDEAL

THE REWARD

THE ROAD BACK

THE RESURRECTION

RETURN WITH THE ELIXIR

If you continue to refuse the call, the other stages won’t really matter. But, if you’ve heeded your call, if you’re trying to find some way to live a life that includes your creativity (for me that’s writing), well, then there are three stages you might want to make sure you have covered.
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For Love of Art

Other Cool Birds "Painted Egret" by Gretchen Deahl

Other Cool Birds “Painted Egret” by Gretchen Deahl

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” – Thomas Merton

I’ll admit this up front. I don’t know art lingo. I’m not familiar with technical traits that make a work of art a “masterpiece” aside from the way it makes me feel, and perhaps think, but mostly feel.

Last weekend a new project of mine took flight, one that’s been fluttering around inside the cave of my head for a couple years now. It has to do with my appreciation for art. For the way art impacts my life.

Art in its various forms is an expression of the self, a communication through a unique language (whether that’s actual words used by writers, or images or sounds or movement). I appreciate all types of art, from literary to dance to musical to visual, for the same reason and for different reasons as well. The primary reason, however, is the way it makes me feel.

My new project, called Other Cool Birds, is my attempt to pay homage to artists working in all those aforementioned media through one – visual art.

Not the visual art, I create, but visual art I have come across and have brought together for the purpose of creating a virtual forest where artists gather to share their unique and sundry voices.

Plain and simple, art relies on emotion, evokes emotion, is a means of communicating emotion . . . a way of connecting audience and artist, of connecting the imagination and memory and ideas of one to the other.
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Why Write Fiction?

Books by Philip F Deaver

“After the family broke, 

and when the house was about to sell,

I walked around it for a last look.

Under the eaves, on the ground,

there was a path worn in the dirt,

tight against the foundation —

small padded feet, year after year,

window to window.” (excerpt from the poem “Gray” by Philip F. Deaver)

In addition to winning the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction and other prestigious honors, Philip Deaver’s work has been published by some of the finest magazines and has even appeared on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac on multiple occasions (you can listen to Garrison Keillor read the poem “Gray” here – he starts the poem around the 2:43 mark).

As a graduate student, I had the good fortune of listening to Phil read selections of his wonderful poetry and his exceptional short fiction several times before I had the even better fortune of getting to know him as a person.

As good as his writing is (and it’s damn good), what has impressed me most about Phil is his sincerity, his generosity, and his compassion.

He’s not just a man in the sense of his being a husband, and a father, he’s also a guy.

I’m not talking about all that testosterone-laden machismo you see sometimes. I simply mean Phil has always reminded me of the men of my childhood, the hard working, blue collar men I grew up around. Yet infused in that down-to-earth persona is a strong, quiet sensitivity, a creativity and a tenderness and an intelligence. He’s quite a bright man, after all, yet spend some time with him and you’ll soon realize he’s also just one of the guys: the sort of person equally at home in the outdoors, on the sports field, in the classroom, or at the page.

If you spend some time with his work (and I strongly urge you to do so), you’ll undoubtedly find many of those same traits – an honesty, a truthfulness, a sensitivity, an earthiness, an authenticity that will have you feeling that “soaring mountain/wind lifting through the pine stand.”

There’s a personal element to Phil’s writing that is neither overly sentimentalized nor devoid of emotion, a sensibility that feels real and true. There’s a reason the New York Times wrote of his short story collection, Silent Retreats: “Written in vivid, spare prose, the best of these stories linger, sad and profound, like songs you sing to yourself.”

You’ll find yourself not merely immersed in a realistic tale, but also witness to “the heart of why” the story was written.

It’s my honor to offer a special Guest Post by Philip Deaver (not just a writer I admire, but a friend I admire) as he offers an intimate and thoughtful response to the question What Are You Writing For?

As a writer, it’s interesting to me how differently each writer approaches that question.

Of course, Phil’s post is also a response of sorts to a talk given by author Tim O’Brien last summer. Enjoy!
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