There are as many metaphors for words as there are stars in the sky. No, that's not quite right. But sometimes it seems that way. For are they not individual units of building materials, from which larger edifices can be constructed, larger shapes fashioned? Words, ideas in themselves, could be said to pave a path toward other more complex ideas...Or, words can be pieces of lumber used to support the weight of an ever-expanding story...It occurs to me, too, that words could be likened to the stones in a rock wall, going nowhere and everywhere at once, leading to magical places and things, but without giving away too many of their secrets.
Is that, then, the writer's job, to link those building units into something recognizable and thought-provoking, intriguing and, hopefully, inspiring? Thus, are writers not builders as well as word-linkers, or jewelry-makers, joining bright baubles together...or weavers, intertwining thoughts into larger tapestries? And are not words as organic as the minerals that flow up from the soil through a tree's roots and gives it life and vigor and longevity?
Words ARE eternal...once spoken, they cannot be unspoken...once written, cannot be unwritten but merely destroyed or refashioned, through the vestiges of them that remain in the minds of those who remember such things...And are not stories the things we all build through all our lives, and that await the teller or the chronicler to render them eternal?
An awesome mandate that...
https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS/
Friday, June 20, 2014
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Heart Wrenching
The words come hard sometimes, like pulling weeds that just refuse to part with their roots or their small seemingly inconsequential places in this world. I dig down deep below my words, below their roots, and still, I am not at the end, I am not at the place where they began. That would take shrinking myself down to the size of a verbal microbe and plunging into the deepest recesses of my memory whose many doors are no longer all open to me. It means digging up rocks whose large ends are always the most deeply buried, teasing me from the top, saying "We're small...you can dig us up," until I try and find that, the deeper I go, the bigger the rock. And then I abandon the effort in disgust and walk away.
Words are like that, and the ideas they organize themselves into...rocks whose small ends show until I've broken a sweat digging, only to find that the big end, and sometimes the gem hiding inside, are too deep, and there is no getting at them, and so I must let nature, and my life, continue to pile even more experiences and memories on top of them, leaving me no choice but to move on.
But couldn't I get at them from the side, I wonder, dig down through the softer soil and then horizontally to the gem? I could, but that might mean ignoring those small seemingly insignificant words that are closer to the surface and that beckon less ostentatiously or lie there awaiting the sun's touch to glint their meaning to me. I might miss them, though, while I dig, blinded by the sweat in my eyes, failing to see the pebbles of greater meaning tumbling into the hole, gone forever.
https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS/
Words are like that, and the ideas they organize themselves into...rocks whose small ends show until I've broken a sweat digging, only to find that the big end, and sometimes the gem hiding inside, are too deep, and there is no getting at them, and so I must let nature, and my life, continue to pile even more experiences and memories on top of them, leaving me no choice but to move on.
But couldn't I get at them from the side, I wonder, dig down through the softer soil and then horizontally to the gem? I could, but that might mean ignoring those small seemingly insignificant words that are closer to the surface and that beckon less ostentatiously or lie there awaiting the sun's touch to glint their meaning to me. I might miss them, though, while I dig, blinded by the sweat in my eyes, failing to see the pebbles of greater meaning tumbling into the hole, gone forever.
https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS/
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Funny...
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine read the first short novel I'd published and told me that she was going to pass it on to her son-in-law who is an editor at a large publishing house. I was skeptical at first, and once again, I allowed my fear to cancel out what should have been joy at knowing that she thought my work good enough to show to this man. When I hadn't heard back from her after a few weeks, I decided that he'd probably taken a look at it, had decided that it wasn't worth his time, and she was just too nice to hurt my feelings by telling me so.
As it turned out, that wasn't the case at all, for about a week ago, I got an email from him that she forwarded to me in which he informed me what he thought the book needed. He also told me that it had promise, was well developed, and well written, and he had just three problems with it: it's too short, and I should expand and elaborate more upon two key sections of it in order to grow it into a full-length novel.
Having nothing to lose at that point, I replied to him directly to thank him for his time and his suggestions and to ask if he'd consider my book again if I were to develop it into a novel. I am now awaiting his reply, as I have other projects to work on in the meantime. I may, however, just go ahead with expanding it, and then seeing if I can publish it elsewhere if I either don't hear from him and I do and his answer is that he wouldn't be interested.
I suspect that I should be seeing this as valuable information, for I doubt that many writers get this kind of impromptu unsolicited feedback from any editor. And if he feels this strongly and actually took the time to share his thoughts with me, then I'd be foolish to ignore his suggestions and just let the project lie there unfinished.
It seems that I have resolved my own dilemma simply by rehashing it out here in this blog. Funny how that works...
https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS/
As it turned out, that wasn't the case at all, for about a week ago, I got an email from him that she forwarded to me in which he informed me what he thought the book needed. He also told me that it had promise, was well developed, and well written, and he had just three problems with it: it's too short, and I should expand and elaborate more upon two key sections of it in order to grow it into a full-length novel.
Having nothing to lose at that point, I replied to him directly to thank him for his time and his suggestions and to ask if he'd consider my book again if I were to develop it into a novel. I am now awaiting his reply, as I have other projects to work on in the meantime. I may, however, just go ahead with expanding it, and then seeing if I can publish it elsewhere if I either don't hear from him and I do and his answer is that he wouldn't be interested.
I suspect that I should be seeing this as valuable information, for I doubt that many writers get this kind of impromptu unsolicited feedback from any editor. And if he feels this strongly and actually took the time to share his thoughts with me, then I'd be foolish to ignore his suggestions and just let the project lie there unfinished.
It seems that I have resolved my own dilemma simply by rehashing it out here in this blog. Funny how that works...
https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS/
Behind a Tree
If I'm not careful, I will fall into the same rut with this blog that I have during the past 10 years or so with my handwritten journals--I'll simply forget to write in it, and after awhile, it will cease to matter. Actually, entire stretches of time can seem that way--as though they don't matter. But truth is, they do, and it is during those stretches of inactivity that I feel the guiltiest, because I am not doing what I feel I should be doing, and that is writing.
In all honesty, I don't know many writers. In fact, I know very few, and I've never been privileged enough to know any serious writer that intimately...the type of writer who writes no matter what, when writing is the last thing that he or she wants to do, the type who won't survive if he or she doesn't write, in both an economic and a spiritual sense. As with so much else in my life, I only have my own experiences to go by, so that I can't know if or when other writers come up against walls like this, and because they feel that it's not going anywhere, they simply stop. Am I behind a tree again, such as the one an old college professor of mine told me once that I have tendency to get stuck behind? "When you're behind that tree," he said, "you stop, and you look around it, but you don't go any further." Is that where I am right now, behind a tree, looking around but not daring to move past it for fear of what lies beyond it, again???
It's not really such a bad place to be...behind a tree. I love trees, and I feel safe when I'm near one, especially one of those giant ones that has been here for what seems like forever. And other than during a lightning storm, what better place IS there to be than behind a tree?
That, in itself, is an interesting concept. For how does one actually end up BEHIND a tree? Does a tree have sides, a front, a back? And how does one know which is which, which is the front, or the back, or the side? I've just always perceived trees as having bottoms and tops. I've never seen trees as having sides, fronts or backs. So in effect, whenever I seem to be behind one, I may very well be in front of it, or at least on the side, so that the way before me is clear and unobstructed. And no matter where I'm standing with regards to the tree, it really doesn't matter in the end, for no matter where I start moving away from it, I will be moving in a new and unexplored direction.
So once again, it's more of a case of simply taking that first step, as it has so often been in my life...that first step...often the hardest of all to take as I move away from my comforting and protective tree toward the unknown...
https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS/
In all honesty, I don't know many writers. In fact, I know very few, and I've never been privileged enough to know any serious writer that intimately...the type of writer who writes no matter what, when writing is the last thing that he or she wants to do, the type who won't survive if he or she doesn't write, in both an economic and a spiritual sense. As with so much else in my life, I only have my own experiences to go by, so that I can't know if or when other writers come up against walls like this, and because they feel that it's not going anywhere, they simply stop. Am I behind a tree again, such as the one an old college professor of mine told me once that I have tendency to get stuck behind? "When you're behind that tree," he said, "you stop, and you look around it, but you don't go any further." Is that where I am right now, behind a tree, looking around but not daring to move past it for fear of what lies beyond it, again???
It's not really such a bad place to be...behind a tree. I love trees, and I feel safe when I'm near one, especially one of those giant ones that has been here for what seems like forever. And other than during a lightning storm, what better place IS there to be than behind a tree?
That, in itself, is an interesting concept. For how does one actually end up BEHIND a tree? Does a tree have sides, a front, a back? And how does one know which is which, which is the front, or the back, or the side? I've just always perceived trees as having bottoms and tops. I've never seen trees as having sides, fronts or backs. So in effect, whenever I seem to be behind one, I may very well be in front of it, or at least on the side, so that the way before me is clear and unobstructed. And no matter where I'm standing with regards to the tree, it really doesn't matter in the end, for no matter where I start moving away from it, I will be moving in a new and unexplored direction.
So once again, it's more of a case of simply taking that first step, as it has so often been in my life...that first step...often the hardest of all to take as I move away from my comforting and protective tree toward the unknown...
https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS/
Monday, June 9, 2014
A Gray Day
Either my mood matches the day or the day matches my mood. I've never quite known which it is. Maybe it's neither, or maybe it's both. One thing I do know is that certain days seem to lend themselves more efficiently to the writing craft, and I spend far too much time deliberating this rather than actually setting words down. (I would once have said setting words "to paper," but in this technical age, that no longer applies, at least not in my case, and I feel that something's been lost there along the way.)
In any case, there aren't many days anymore when one of the first things I do is NOT to put something down SOMEWHERE...be it the fits and starts of a story, a bit of blogging, an email, or one of my nature columns. Whatever it is, I am always writing. And in the spurts between those attempts, some futile, some not so much, I am reading, which only adds to the confusion some days. Reading has an uncanny way of taking me in an entirely new direction from where I am presently at along some point in a composition, and that can be dangerous, especially if the story and the writing are engaging enough to take me that far away.
My reading tastes have always been pretty eclectic, and I have finally reached a point where many people were some 150 years or so ago when a book, ANY book, was a thrill to work through, if only for the simple joy in the act of reading itself. As time went on, literary tastes became more specialized and narrowed to the point where, nowadays, many people read, sadly, only one or two types of books. And I know a woman who, when asked what she reads, replies, "Oh, I read large-print books, because they're easier on my eyes." Duly noted.
But I digress. I rarely go to libraries anymore, which is, yes, quite sad, so I must do something about that. I usually don't have to, though, because I always have quite an assortment of "found" or "otherwise obtained" books kicking around that I slowly work my way through, and there is no rhyme or reason to it at all. Here's an example.
I just finished reading "Concubine," by Nora Lofts, concerning the partly fictionalized account of Anne Boleyn's treatment at the hand of Henry VIII. Now, I'm reading another oldie but goodie entitled "All the President's Men," by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, which is the historic account of the Watergate break-in. I was not closely attuned to that event while it was actually taking place, but as the old saying goes, "better late than never." And this aptly illustrates my point about how a book can take me far far away from the moment, as this one certainly has. I'm back in the 1970's, a time when I was first married and raising my first child, and it is a gross distraction from where my "writing mind" is at the moment.
But that's how a writer's (at least this writer's) mind works...it's in a thousand different places at any one time, and the trick is always to get back to square one, and the RIGHT square one, which is where I was at when I decided to take this latest little side trip.
Now where was that again?
https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS/
In any case, there aren't many days anymore when one of the first things I do is NOT to put something down SOMEWHERE...be it the fits and starts of a story, a bit of blogging, an email, or one of my nature columns. Whatever it is, I am always writing. And in the spurts between those attempts, some futile, some not so much, I am reading, which only adds to the confusion some days. Reading has an uncanny way of taking me in an entirely new direction from where I am presently at along some point in a composition, and that can be dangerous, especially if the story and the writing are engaging enough to take me that far away.
My reading tastes have always been pretty eclectic, and I have finally reached a point where many people were some 150 years or so ago when a book, ANY book, was a thrill to work through, if only for the simple joy in the act of reading itself. As time went on, literary tastes became more specialized and narrowed to the point where, nowadays, many people read, sadly, only one or two types of books. And I know a woman who, when asked what she reads, replies, "Oh, I read large-print books, because they're easier on my eyes." Duly noted.
But I digress. I rarely go to libraries anymore, which is, yes, quite sad, so I must do something about that. I usually don't have to, though, because I always have quite an assortment of "found" or "otherwise obtained" books kicking around that I slowly work my way through, and there is no rhyme or reason to it at all. Here's an example.
I just finished reading "Concubine," by Nora Lofts, concerning the partly fictionalized account of Anne Boleyn's treatment at the hand of Henry VIII. Now, I'm reading another oldie but goodie entitled "All the President's Men," by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, which is the historic account of the Watergate break-in. I was not closely attuned to that event while it was actually taking place, but as the old saying goes, "better late than never." And this aptly illustrates my point about how a book can take me far far away from the moment, as this one certainly has. I'm back in the 1970's, a time when I was first married and raising my first child, and it is a gross distraction from where my "writing mind" is at the moment.
But that's how a writer's (at least this writer's) mind works...it's in a thousand different places at any one time, and the trick is always to get back to square one, and the RIGHT square one, which is where I was at when I decided to take this latest little side trip.
Now where was that again?
https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS/
Saturday, June 7, 2014
The Kaleidoscope Effect
Sometimes, a writer's thoughts, mine anyway, tumble about like the pieces of colored plastic inside a kaleidoscope. No matter how often I turn the end of the tube, the shards never regroup into exactly the same configuration, and my mind's eye must adjust to the new image and what it implies.
They're not like snowflakes, over which I have no control, nature sending water droplets down from the clouds through a swath of cold air where they crystallize and fall to earth as something we must bend our backs to. No, it's not like that at all. For the colored bits ask nothing more of me than to try to make something of them. And rather than my back bending, my mind must bend around them in as many directions as possible until it begins to recognize a pattern, a way to make sense of it all.
The trick is not to try to achieve any particular pattern but to let it assume its own, and then comes the deciphering, the translating, the refashioning from random shapes to words to coherent sentences that take the small incongruous pieces from inconsequential matter to ideas loaded with meaning. It's no small feat, this, which is why the writer's work can be as demanding and draining as the moving of stones or the hefting of tree trunks. Those colored pieces are heavy, which is the greatest irony of all.
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Bragging Rights
All the writers' manuals and markets, as well as websites devoted to the writing craft, have one thing in common nowadays: they strongly advise writers to employ social media as a valuable tool to promote their work. So that's what I'm doing here now--adding a link to my Amazon profile and list, albeit short to date, of my work. Writing is like any other type of artistic endeavor, as there is no point to doing it if it's just all going to end up in a drawer or file cabinet or obscure desk-top folder.
I started writing when I was 16, and a sophomore in high school. I'd read a biography of Phyllis Wheatley, a black slave girl who happened to have been very well educated and who went on to write poetry. And in typical impressionable teenage fashion, I thought, "If she could do it, why can't I?" I still have the original copies of all those very bad poems I churned out that first year, and I won't ever attempt to polish them, for they're a chronicle of my first efforts at a time when life held precious little else to look forward to.
Later, as a young mother who lacked the self-confidence to go out into the world and forge a path for herself, I stayed home, took care of my children, and wrote, much of which ended up in the aforementioned drawer. And later still, during my years as a non-traditional college student pursuing an English degree, I wrote even more; and it was about that time when a local newspaper editor who had, in the past, noticed my frequent letters to the editor, called to offer me a correspondent's job. Those years allowed me to become comfortable producing copy for the public eye, and I eventually went to work for a small local newspaper company as a reporter, as well as a weekly columnist for the very paper for whom I'd served years before as a correspondent. I soon tired of reporting, though, as I'm just not the inquisitive type. I'd much prefer to work from imagination than with cold facts that can't be manipulated, and that's why I love fiction. It's not unreasonable to say that, once embarked on a fictional journey, it sometimes takes you in a whole different direction than you anticipated.
That said, here's my brag: https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS
I started writing when I was 16, and a sophomore in high school. I'd read a biography of Phyllis Wheatley, a black slave girl who happened to have been very well educated and who went on to write poetry. And in typical impressionable teenage fashion, I thought, "If she could do it, why can't I?" I still have the original copies of all those very bad poems I churned out that first year, and I won't ever attempt to polish them, for they're a chronicle of my first efforts at a time when life held precious little else to look forward to.
Later, as a young mother who lacked the self-confidence to go out into the world and forge a path for herself, I stayed home, took care of my children, and wrote, much of which ended up in the aforementioned drawer. And later still, during my years as a non-traditional college student pursuing an English degree, I wrote even more; and it was about that time when a local newspaper editor who had, in the past, noticed my frequent letters to the editor, called to offer me a correspondent's job. Those years allowed me to become comfortable producing copy for the public eye, and I eventually went to work for a small local newspaper company as a reporter, as well as a weekly columnist for the very paper for whom I'd served years before as a correspondent. I soon tired of reporting, though, as I'm just not the inquisitive type. I'd much prefer to work from imagination than with cold facts that can't be manipulated, and that's why I love fiction. It's not unreasonable to say that, once embarked on a fictional journey, it sometimes takes you in a whole different direction than you anticipated.
That said, here's my brag: https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS
Monday, June 2, 2014
Reading to Write
There was a time when I read whatever I could get my hands on simply for the sake of reading...to absorb information, expand my body of knowledge, and travel to places that I couldn't otherwise afford to visit physically. At one point, I started keeping a written record of the books I'd read, and sometimes, I averaged between four to five a month, and some months less. This isn't nearly as fast a pace as some are able to maintain; and recently, as my eyesight ages along with the rest of me, it has slowed even more. And after staring at this computer screen almost all day and nearly every day, sometimes I can't even do any reading beyond what I've done here.
When I do read now, though, I find that I am reading as much to improve my writing skills as simply to absorb knowledge. I have also come to the realization that learning how to write through reading happens subliminally. As my mind scans and processes words, sentences and paragraphs, it is also storing them all away for future reference, not from an informational perspective but from a purely structural viewpoint. I have, in other words (pun intended), learned without even knowing I was HOW to write, how to craft sentences and paragraphs, as well as how to assemble them as so many puzzle pieces into a coherent account, be it fictional or not. All of that stored information is now resurfacing to my consciousness where I can make ready use of it to move ahead with fiction writing. I no longer need to refer back to my mental writing guide files and "search" for how to construct a meaningful sentence or which word to choose to replace one that just doesn't move me.
From that I have deduced that all those years I spent reading were not for naught. For I am reaping their benefits now through my own work. So if I had any advice to give an aspiring writer, it would be to READ, READ, and READ. And when you're ready to put those first few words down, you may be surprised to find that it will be a lot easier than you thought.
https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS
When I do read now, though, I find that I am reading as much to improve my writing skills as simply to absorb knowledge. I have also come to the realization that learning how to write through reading happens subliminally. As my mind scans and processes words, sentences and paragraphs, it is also storing them all away for future reference, not from an informational perspective but from a purely structural viewpoint. I have, in other words (pun intended), learned without even knowing I was HOW to write, how to craft sentences and paragraphs, as well as how to assemble them as so many puzzle pieces into a coherent account, be it fictional or not. All of that stored information is now resurfacing to my consciousness where I can make ready use of it to move ahead with fiction writing. I no longer need to refer back to my mental writing guide files and "search" for how to construct a meaningful sentence or which word to choose to replace one that just doesn't move me.
From that I have deduced that all those years I spent reading were not for naught. For I am reaping their benefits now through my own work. So if I had any advice to give an aspiring writer, it would be to READ, READ, and READ. And when you're ready to put those first few words down, you may be surprised to find that it will be a lot easier than you thought.
https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS
Sunday, June 1, 2014
My Reality
Do you ever have one of those days when everything outside of yourself is so perfect that you can't help but wish that everything inside was just as perfect? Today is one of those days, at least for me. Outside, the weather is what you would call picture-perfect...cloudless blue sky...bright sunlight bathing the leaves that seem to have unfurled overnight this year...light breeze...70 degrees...Who could not love such a day? Certainly not I, but then, for one brief moment, I turn inwardly, and there it is--my reality--and it is nothing like the day.
Oh sure, I could make it like the day. I could sit here trying to convince myself that all of my many problems and issues have no power over this day, that no matter how much I rant and rave (inwardly), the sun will continue to shine, the clouds will stay away, and the day will glow. For nature, as has been said, really doesn't care much about me or my issues, and everything around me existed long before I got here, so I am but a blip on its radar screen. It will persevere with or without me.
But once again, that would take yet one more enormous effort of the will on my part to achieve, to pretend, for the remaining hours of this day, that all is as well within as it is without. So is that really what it's about, getting up each morning and facing each day with a renewed resolve not to allow reality to spoil the view? If nature, and all this beauty around me is indeed a balm to the soul, then all that means is that my soul needs a lot of balm, and that the underlying issues will never go away and will need perpetual tending.
I've come to the conclusion that everything I do is but a way to offset the inevitable, which is that someday, all this will end. When my mother died 12 years ago, I spent the next several years grasping at whatever I could that simply FELT good, or at least that felt better than facing the truth that she was gone. I bumbled about for a long long time dabbling in whatever eased the pain for a few hours or a few days, and it took as long, if not longer, to finally reach a plateau where that was no longer so immediate, and I found that I could get through a day without needing so much solace or comfort.
Which takes me to where I am now, once again grasping at those things that feel good, and that make ME feel good, though they now represent choices that are vastly different from those I made back then. Now they involve walking in the woods, taking photos of the things I see and love, watching old movies, losing myself in a good book or some good music, and, of course, writing.
Always always...writing!
https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS
Oh sure, I could make it like the day. I could sit here trying to convince myself that all of my many problems and issues have no power over this day, that no matter how much I rant and rave (inwardly), the sun will continue to shine, the clouds will stay away, and the day will glow. For nature, as has been said, really doesn't care much about me or my issues, and everything around me existed long before I got here, so I am but a blip on its radar screen. It will persevere with or without me.
But once again, that would take yet one more enormous effort of the will on my part to achieve, to pretend, for the remaining hours of this day, that all is as well within as it is without. So is that really what it's about, getting up each morning and facing each day with a renewed resolve not to allow reality to spoil the view? If nature, and all this beauty around me is indeed a balm to the soul, then all that means is that my soul needs a lot of balm, and that the underlying issues will never go away and will need perpetual tending.
I've come to the conclusion that everything I do is but a way to offset the inevitable, which is that someday, all this will end. When my mother died 12 years ago, I spent the next several years grasping at whatever I could that simply FELT good, or at least that felt better than facing the truth that she was gone. I bumbled about for a long long time dabbling in whatever eased the pain for a few hours or a few days, and it took as long, if not longer, to finally reach a plateau where that was no longer so immediate, and I found that I could get through a day without needing so much solace or comfort.
Which takes me to where I am now, once again grasping at those things that feel good, and that make ME feel good, though they now represent choices that are vastly different from those I made back then. Now they involve walking in the woods, taking photos of the things I see and love, watching old movies, losing myself in a good book or some good music, and, of course, writing.
Always always...writing!
https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS
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