Happy New Year

Happy New Year from All the Writers at Live to Write – Write to Live! 
(and Rabbit Rabbit)

© Susan W. Nye, 2012

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Friday Fun – Favorite Christmas Movie

Friday Fun is a group post from the writers of the NHWN blog. Each week, we’ll pose and answer a different, get-to-know-us question. We hope you’ll join in by providing your answer in the comments.

QUESTION: ’Tis the season to get cozy with a mug of cocoa and a bowl of popcorn in front of the television for a Christmas classic or not-so-classic movie. White Christmas? Elf? Love Actually? What is your favorite Christmas movie?

Jamie Wallace: Don’t laugh, but my favorite Christmas movie of all time is The Muppet Christmas Carol. I mean – come on – does it get any better than this?

Lisa J. Jackson: I really like Christmas Town, because I’ve never lost my childhood belief that Santa is real and this movie is just a little thing that helps keep my belief alive. It takes place in a quaint little town called Hollyville and the big industry is N.P. Enterprises. I like the plays on words trickled throughout the dialogue, but mostly watching the mom in the story come back to believing about Christmas.

Diane MacKinnon: My favorite Christmas movie used to be A Christmas Story. My siblings and I can all quote many, many lines from that movie. But lately, I’d have to say, my favorite Christmas movie is Elf–I look forward to seeing it again every year.

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Julie Hennrikus: Really, the question is what Christmas movies don’t I love. I love the story of A Christmas Carol, a lot. A couple of years ago I blogged about various versions, and rated them. Like Jamie, I am a Muppet Christmas Carol fan. I also like Scrooge, and the George C. Scott version. And I was fortunate enough to see Patrick Stewart do his fabulous one man Christmas Carol on stage twice. But I have other Christmas movies I love–White Christmas, The Bishop’s Wife, It’s a Wonderful Life, A Very Brady Christmas, Die Hard 1 & 2, Rankin and Bass Christmas shows, and an embarrassing number of Lifetime Christmas movies. And I will be checking out Christmas Town. I also have two Christmas trees in a one bedroom condo, so I am pretty hopeless.

Deborah Lee Luskin: Is there anyone else out there who doesn’t have a favorite? It’s not that there aren’t good ones out there; there must be. It’s just not a genre I watch. Every Christmas, I treat myself to my friend Archer Mayor’s latest Joe Gunther novel. I’m currently in the grips of Paradise City.
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Susan Nye: I love the classics – a It’s a Wonderful Life, White Christmas and Miracle on 34th Street.

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Day of Gratitude

Happy Thanksgiving!

Gratitude is one of the best feelings we human beings can feel. When you are in a state of appreciation, you cannot at the same time be in a state of fear or lack. So focusing on gratitude can actually improve your day, your mood, and even your sleep. Studies have shown that making a gratitude list, even in your head, before sleep, gives people more and better sleep (this works for children, too.) For more fascinating information about the benefits of gratitude, read Thanks! How Practicing Gratitude Can Make You Happier, by Robert Emmons.

In honor of the Day of Gratitude, I thought I’d offer a little gratitude exercise, especially for writers. I recommend you either print this out and fill in the blanks, as quick as you can, or just jot the answers in your journal as you read through the exercise.

Writer’s List of Gratitude

3 Books I Am Grateful Got Written So I Could Read Them (Okay, not great grammar, but you get me, right?)

My list:

1. I Know This Much Is True, by Wally Lamb
2. Peace Like a River, by Leif Enger
3. Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh

Your turn:

1. ___________________________________________________________
2. ___________________________________________________________
3. ___________________________________________________________

3 People Who Support Me As A Writer (Even If Still Have a Day Job.)

My list:

1. My husband
2. My sister
3. The nice lady at the coffee shop who is always friendly whenever I hang out there to write.

Your turn:

1. ____________________________________________________________
2. ____________________________________________________________
3. ____________________________________________________________

3 Pieces I’m Glad I Wrote:

My list:

1. That spoof on Star Trek back in college for Donna. I had so much fun writing that and I’ve never forgotten it.
2. My first novel, because I never thought I could ever do it.
3. Stupid Girl, an autobiographical poem I wrote, because it got a lot of emotion out of me and onto the page so I could see it and deal with it.

Your turn:

1. _________________________________________________________
2. _________________________________________________________
3. _________________________________________________________

3 Places or Things That Support You As a Writer

My List:

1. A good cup of decaf coffee (You do not want to be in a writing group with me if I’ve had caffeine.)
2. Bonhoeffer’s Café, in Nashua. Great coffee, lots of outlets, and friendly faces.
3. My journal, a true companion. (I use Clairefontaine journals—love them!)

Your Turn:

1. __________________________________________________________
2. __________________________________________________________
3. __________________________________________________________

3 Qualities You Love About Yourself As a Writer 

My List:

1. My attention to detail.
2. My love of grammar.
3. My ability to tell a story.

Your Turn:

1. ___________________________________________________________
2. ___________________________________________________________
3. ___________________________________________________________

Okay, that’s it. Fill this out as fast as you can and bask in your attitude of gratitude. Doesn’t it feel good?

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!
Diane MacKinnon, MD, is thankful for the long holiday weekend and hopeful that she will be able to catch up on her word count for NaNo by Sunday night. She is hosting a Write-In on Saturday, November 24th, at Rodger’s Memorial Library in Hudson, NH, to join other like-minded individuals as they word sprint their way to a finished novel. If interested, or if you’d like more information, please click here.

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Happy Fourth of July!

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Susan Nye is a corporate dropout, writer and chef. Feel free to visit her food or photo blog. © Susan Nye, 2012

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Presidents Day and freeing up some time to enjoy it

Happy Presidents Day, everyone. 

I put this picture up on my blog Lessons Learned from the Flock today because, well, it is Presidents Day and it’s more than appropriate (and besides all that, it’s drop-dead cute) .

Now though, I want to talk about this photo with regard to being a writer. When you write you have to constantly come up with new ideas. Sometimes that means paying attention (read the post on people watching) or just sitting back and observing how life unfolds. It means keeping a running list of things you want to write about and directions you want your story to go.

A very important tool for all writers is planning. We took this photo this past summer, a few days after our chicks were hatched (seriously, I think that chick is about 3 days old.) I went down to the basement and gathered as many holiday decorations as I could and my husband, Marc took a million pictures. The planning part is this, on holidays, I don’t necessarily have the time to write a detailed post (more often than not, the kids are home and I simply can’t, hey I want to have fun too) but I still want to maintain a connection with my readers. So I put up prepared themed photos on my blog.

It frees up some time while still keeping my audience engaged (which means I get to go out to lunch today.)

So, by all means enjoy the day, eat that cherry pie and don’t tell a lie, but also start thinking about how you can make your lives easier while still being a writer who writes.

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Wendy Thomas is an award winning journalist, columnist, and blogger who believes that taking challenges in life will always lead to goodness. She is the mother of 6 funny and creative kids and it is her goal to teach them through stories and lessons.

Wendy’s current project involves writing about her family’s experiences with chickens (yes, chickens).

And yes, you’d better believe that we’ll be having cherry pie with vanilla ice cream for dessert tonight. 

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Top 10 Gifts for Writers

What do you give a writer? You can’t bottle inspiration, buying an agreeable agent would probably be out of your budget, and I don’t think the antidote for writer’s block has been discovered yet (though I’m betting a placebo would do just as well).

Have no fear. There are plenty of widely available and reasonably priced gift ideas for the writer(s) in your life. Here are my top 10 picks (which may or may not be on my own list).

• Pens and Notebooks: If you’ve been hanging out here at Live to Write-Write to Live, you already know we have a pretty strong addiction to pens and notebooks. They are, after all, the writer’s constant companion and tools of the trade. We can never get enough. Seriously. Never.
• Online and Offline Classes and Workshops: Nothing makes writing procrastination more palatable than being able to say the “distraction” (in this case an educational opportunity) is actually helping you with your craft. Enable your writer friend with a seat in a virtual or real world classroom. There are also a lot of different book-ish courses out there in the online world, covering everything from writing to publishing to e-publishing to proposal writing. Worth a look.
• Coffee Shop Gift Certificates: Cafes are a writer’s home away from home. Help us pay our transient rent by tossing us a few bucks for one of those fancy, foreign drinks that make our fingers twitch and our brains reel.
• Writing Software: This one could go either way: procrastination tool or productivity booster. Writing software can be tricky to select, but I don’t think you can go wrong with the cream of the crop – Scrivener (originally only for Mac, now also available for PC).
• Writing Books (and E-books!): Like pens and notebooks, we can never get enough books on writing. In moments of desperation, we’ll take advice from anyone so don’t worry too much about which title to choose. Just find something with a comforting looking cover. (May I suggest anything by Larry Brooks?)
• Consultations and Services: Perhaps your writer friend could use an editor’s assistance or a professional review of a book proposal. Giving professional services may be just the fire your writer friend needs under the proverbial butt.
• Tickets to an Event: Professional networking events, author speaking tours, and writer’s conferences can be pretty pricey. Give your writer friend the opportunity to rub shoulders or admire from afar with tickets to a special event. (Earlier this year, my beau and I went to the Portsmouth Music Hall to see Neil Gaiman speak – loved it!)
• Reading Accessories: Writers are, by default, readers, so anything related to reading works. There is, of course, the ubiquitous e-reader, but you might also consider a subscription to Audible Books (audio books aren’t cheating), or some nifty something-or-other from Levenger.
• Reading Material: Books, magazine subscriptions, e-books … we don’t really care about the format, we just want more good stuff to read. (And, please, try to support an indie bookstore if you can!)
• Time: The best gift of all for any writer is time. Is your writer friend a mom who has a hard time carving writing time out of her busy day? Offer to babysit for an afternoon. Maybe your writer friend is a colleague who can’t finish his book outline because he’s always having to work late. Offer to help out at the office so he can leave on time. Maybe your writer friend is your spouse. Skip the honey-do list for a weekend and give him or her forty-eight hours of uninterrupted (and enforced) creative time.

Whatever gift you choose, something to do with writing and/or reading will let the scribe in your life know that you support that creative urge. That’s what we love to hear. So, merry-merry and happy-happy and good writing to all!

What was your favorite writerly gift ever – given or received?

Jamie Lee Wallace is a writer who also happens to be a marketer. She helps her Suddenly Marketing clients discover their voice, connect with their audience, and find their marketing groove. She is also a mom, a prolific blogger, and a student of voice and trapeze (not at the same time). Introduce yourself on facebook or twitter. She doesn’t bite … usually.

Image Credit: Oliver Hammond (“sparkled” using iPhone app LensLight)

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Surviving the Holidays

Here it is, that time of year again, when it seems to take all our fortitude to avoid holiday hype, eat reasonably and actually enjoy our families – and yet somehow not lose the thread of our words.

There was a time, when my kids were young, when I would squander all my childcare hours sewing clothes for my daughters’ American Girl Dolls. In hindsight, I would have done better staying at my desk, not my sewing machine. Yes, the kids played with the clothes – for a day or a month or a year, who remembers? I wonder, now that my youngest is twenty, if I wouldn’t have been wiser to spend that time writing and therefore been less cranky when the daycare hours came to an end.

My holiday crankiness persisted, even as my children grew. With the pressure I felt “to make Christmas,” I put baking and decorating and gift-making and shopping ahead of my writing – and this at a time when I was working for pay in an office and getting up early to write.

Ironically, now that I am able to write for as long as I can sit at my desk, I’m also able to keep writing during the holidays, even with a dozen guests in the house. It helps that I have a separate space to retreat to – a room of my own where I do nothing but write. It also helps that I’m an early riser, and can sneak off to my desk while the household snores.

This past week, with anywhere between twelve and twenty at table starting Tuesday and lasting through the weekend, I was still able to put in one to two hours every morning, and arrive in the kitchen just as the second pot of coffee was brewing.  An hour or two isn’t much – but it’s something. It means that I was able to hold on to the narrative thread I’ve been knitting, and I’ve returned to my desk Monday morning without having to unravel chapter after chapter to pick up a dropped stitch.

Staying in touch with my characters and the alternate reality of my fiction for even an hour a day was soothing, and I found myself enjoying my children and our friends as never before. With a chance to visit my imaginary universe every morning, I was able to be the gracious hostess afternoons and evenings. Despite so many people in the house – and so many meals to prepare – I never resented the onslaught of visitors who stopped by or stayed over. It was perhaps the first time I really enjoyed my own house party. And I credit it all to staying in touch with my prose.

Being able to return to work on Monday without having to backtrack is an added bonus. I was able to sit down at my desk Monday morning – and stay there till lunch time. After lunch, I returned, putting in my first full day of work in a week. Instead of an interruption, Thanksgiving was a hiatus, filled with good food and good conversation, a few leisurely walks, and the annual bonfire.

Not everyone will be able to sneak away for an hour on holiday mornings – and not everyone will want to. But for those writers who are anchored to the world by their words on a page, I highly recommend figuring out a way to write – for five for fifteen or fifty minutes – even with a houseful of guests or a young family or at your in-laws’. It’s the habit of writing that matters; it’s the habit that keeps us toned, so that we can break out in literary flourishes when time and circumstance allow.

I’d love to know how other people maintain their writing selves during the upheaval of holidays from the end of November through the end of the year. Please let me know.

Deborah Lee Luskin is the author of the award-winning novel, Into The Wilderness, “a fiercely intelligent love story” set in Vermont in 1964. She is a regular Commentator on Vermont Public Radio and teaches for the Vermont Humanities Council. Learn more at her website: www.deborahleeluskin.com

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Gratitude

On Friday Fun last week we all did a gratitude post. Since it is the day before Thanksgiving, I thought I’d hit the theme again.

Did anyone else do a Gratitude Journal after reading Simple Abundance? It called for writing down five things you are truly grateful for daily. No matter what the day was like. For me, the journaling ceased,  but the practice hasn’t.  So, let me take a moment and make a list for my writing life. I am grateful for:

1. This blog, and the amazing blog calendar that keeps me on track to post every two weeks.
2. My blogmates.
3. Sisters in Crime, the Guppies, and Sisters in Crime New England. In other words, my in person and on line mystery writing community.
4. My fellow board members for Sisters in Crime New England. We are a volunteer group, but the dedication is formidable.
5. The New England Crime Bake. A three day writers’ conference that always inspires and rejuvenates me.
6. Level Best Books. My short story, “Her Wish”, was included in Dead Calm, their new anthology. We did a signing at Crime Bake, another thrill.
7. Writing mentors who give you criticism and support.
8. DropBox. My novel is with me all the time, no matter which computer I am using. And it is backed up.
9. Computers. Not necessarily for first drafts, but definitely for revisions.
10. Friends and family who are willing to be first readers of my work.
11. P.D. James. Not only is she still going well into her 90′s, but she released a Jane Austen mash-up called Death Comes to Pemberley. On my holiday reading list.
12. NaNoWriMo. Though it is kicking me in the butt, I am writing. And finding time to write. And for that I am grateful.
13. You. For reading, commenting, following and supporting this blog. Thank you!

A baker’s dozen of gratitude. An incomplete list, but one I will continue to work on through the holidays.

Happy Thanksgiving dear readers.

Julie

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J.A. Hennrikus J.A. (Julie) Hennrikus is the Executive Director of StageSource. She is a mystery writer who will have her story “Her Wish” published by Level Best Books this fall. She is a huge social media fan, and tweets under @JulieHennrikus. She wrestles with allusions of athleticism, is an avid theatre goer and a proud member of Red Sox nation. Her website is jahennrikus.com. Her short story, “Tag, You’re Dead” was published by Level Best Books in Thin Ice, an anthology of crime stories by New England writers. Julie is a member of Sisters in Crime and the Guppies. She is a board member of the New England Chapter of Sisters in Crime.

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Souvenirs from the Edge

In Happy Trails, my last post before I left on vacation, I anticipated collecting stories while I was away. But one of the wonders of travel is its element of surprise: I didn’t collect so many stories as I collected pages and pages of words. Southwest Utah is beautiful and strange, a place where geology left me slack-jawed with wonder and awe. The only way I could make sense of what saw was to learn the words that explain it.

Happily, geology is a descriptive science, and the language of the discipline is pure delight: lithification describes the processes by which loose sediment hardens into rock; erosion eats away at a plateau, forming a canyon; an arroyo is a dry watercourse; the slot canyon I hiked was a wet one, with the Virgin River washing through it. I saw escarpments and buttresses, pinnacles, valley floors. I saw evidence of sedimentation, faults, uplifts and anticlines, volcanic eruptions and aeolian erosion – the force of wind over time – wearing down rock as if it were a well-used bar of soap.

Whether it was water or wind that whittled the rock, the result was wild with beauty. At Bryce Canyon National Park, sandstone has been washed and blown away, leaving a landscape of hoodoos – the stone pillars that remain after the wind and water wear away the land. The only way to make sense of the landscape was to seek metaphors: the hoodoos stood like sentinels, like chess pieces, like columns, flying buttresses, minarets, towers, steeples, the dome of a mosque. The stone was melting like so many candles, dissolving, like pillars of salt. Advancing like an army. Holding steady like Rodin’s Burghers of Calais. It was almost impossible to see the stone qua stone; it always appeared as something else. Even the park rangers had names to identify landforms: Chinese Wall; Queen Victoria; Christopher Columbus; Fairyland Canyon.

This landscape also taught me chemistry and color. Where water seeps from the rocks, minerals leach out: calcium carbonate makes white; ferrous oxide red; copper sulfate green. It’s a Kodachrome landscape, with White Cliffs and coral pink sand dunes and sagebrush scrub.

The flowers were another source of amazement, growing in soil that was little more than rock dust, parched by the sun and rationed to fifteen inches of water all year. Yet the biodiversity was astounding, and I bought myself a field guide in an attempt to learn the poetry of names: Greenleaf manzanita, juniper, ponderosa pine, aspen and aster, cedar, scrub oak, thistle, columbine, lobelia, holly, box elder, corymbed buckwheat, cliffrose, sacred datura. I saw broom snakeweed, slenderleaf rabbitbrush, yellow beeplant, Freemont’s mahonia, crescent milkvetch and storksbill.

I saw new fauna as well: magpies and ravens, mule deer and bison, Steller’s Jays and one giant, wild, California Condor. I stuffed my notebook with all these new words and learned as much as I could about this desert ecosystem: how it was formed, how it keeps changing, how it was settled, how it’s threatened and how it’s being protected.

I don’t know what I’ll do with all these verbal souvenirs of my trip. I know that simply turning them over in my mouth gives me great aural pleasure. They also remind me how much I love language – the raw material of my work. And they may serve as the source of future metaphors, just as the hiking I did was like writing a new book. Putting one foot in front of the other on the narrow path leading up to Observation Point in Zion National Park was easy; looking over the edge was not. Heights make me dizzy, and my faith in the power of gravity to keep me secure in my boots wavered. I feared that somehow, I’d be pulled over the edge. I didn’t think about hitting the ground; it’s the fall I’m afraid of, of being so completely out of control.

But I battled fear with metaphor. Climbing a narrow trail blasted from rock is not too different from writing a book: challenging, relentless, on the edge. But the sense of wonder! The accomplishment! I practiced embracing my fears. That’s what I’ll keep in mind – that beckoning edge – as I buckle down to the scary hike into a new story. After a great vacation, I’m ready to face the blank page again.

Deborah Lee Luskin is the author of the award-winning novel, Into The Wilderness, “a fiercely intelligent love story” set in Vermont in 1964. She is a regular Commentator on Vermont Public Radio and teaches for the Vermont Humanities Council. Learn more at her website: www.deborahleeluskin.com

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The Long Holiday Weekend

 The L2W-W2L Writers are enjoying a day off. Hope you are too!

Full-sized View

© Susan W. Nye, 2011

This photograph was originally taken for and posted on my photoblog.

Susan Nye is a writer, blogger, photographer and chef. Her favorite topics are family, food, green living, marketing and branding. She invites you to take a minute to learn about her philanthropic project Eat Well – Do Good. 

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