Decisions

I really don't know what to say about this summer. We got in a modest family vacation and my husband and I were able to enjoy a couple of cultural events by ourselves when we celebrated our twenty-fifth anniversary. All of this is more than many people can do these days. I know how blessed we are.

I just wonder if writing is ever going to pay off even marginally and I wonder if I should concentrate on finding some kind of employment that will enable my husband to actually retire when thirty years at his current job are over. The past couple of weeks I've spent hours looking at job prospects or reading about a couple of careers that seemed mildly appealing only to discover that there is no work in those fields here. I'm no longer a twentysomething who is free to work any where since my husband has a stable career and family issues need careful consideration.

Essentially I want to continue writing more than anything else. Is it too much of a "luxury" to spend a lot of time on it right now? Am I selfish, egotistical or unwilling to face reality?

Most people don't live their dreams. In hard times they fold or do whatever is necessary to survive. It might come to that. I read the news. But, as I told my husband, I spent too many years believing that I wasn't good enough to succeed with my talents. If I have to work outside the home, I want to do something meaningful. I've just got to figure out what's right for this stage of my life.

In spite of the economy, people still write books. But most of them have day jobs. Decisions . . .

Two for the (Online) Road

http://wilderness.motleyvision.org/

This is the link for two of my poems, titled "Spring Outing" and "At the Enterprise Reservoir Dam" that have been posted on Wilderness Interface Zone as part of the Spring Runoff Poetry Contest. Read and enjoy, but if you want to share them please remember to include my name with each one and give credit where it's due.

R and R

I'm writing this post from a sunny beach in Hawaii where hula dancers sway to the music of ukuleles and turquoise waves lap the shimmering sand. Ahhhh . . . the South Pacific. Let all worries dissolve in paradise.

April Fools!

So I'm fantasizing about an exotic escape at 3:00 a.m. March has passed in flurries of wind, rain and snow, with only a few intervals of balmy days. Few desert dwellers complain about storms but I have felt as volatile as the weather. Change is in the air and family challenges left me feeling too unsettled to write. Life is never perfect, however, and vacations are out of the question so I must find other ways to resurrect my muse.

One solution came unexpectedly this week. I decided to enter an online poetry contest and consequently revised some old nature poems from college days that described spring. Reading faded words on yellowing paper could have been depressing. (Yes, it's been twenty-six years since I tapped out what seemed to be final drafts of those poems on an ancient manual typewriter. Yes, I've allowed several things to derail writing since then.) Instead, I found myself enjoying the process of playing with line breaks and rhythms and weeding extraneous words. I even came up with some new images which surprised me, considering the initial apathy I'd felt towards these poems. I look forward to receiving some feedback when they are posted on Wilderness Interface Zone.


It's been years since I revisited old poems and memories of a time when writing came easily. As a student in creative writing, I wasn't worried about producing something that would sell. I just tuned in to my senses, looked at the world with new eyes, and then relaxed as I wrote about whatever brought me joy. Here's an example of a college poem (published long ago) that I didn't change or include in my contest entries. Don't ask me why I called it February Solstice (I hate thinking up titles) but I still think it evokes early spring in the high desert.

February Solstice

Fog strays into predawn sage,
Stratum of night unshaping.

Crone hands uncurl the revelation
Cottonwoods' naked grasp.

Her fingers thin into wind,
Groping for transparent spring.

I no longer have much time to sit and contemplate nature; my interests now include people and their interactions. But recreating my early poems left me feeling exhilerated and enthused about returning to the first draft of my novel. It's haphazard and huge, a conglomoration of prose in which I'm trying to find a few gems of truth. Next time I'm tired or stymied by the "critical crazies" I'll pull some yellowed pages from my writing files and try a little R and R: relax and revise.

In the meantime, it's gray and gloomy outside. A luau in a coconut grove sounds great.

Olympic Inspiration

I'm a very selective sports fan, but have spent a couple of hours most evenings watching the Winter Olympics. My favorite events are figure skating and ice dancing but, because the guys in my family have catered to my obsession, I've also sat in on some skiing and bobsledding races. From the comfort of home, I've experienced the excitement of witnessing athletes achieve excellence after years of disciplined training. Their stories carry common themes of struggle against adversity and the tantalizing question of whether or not they will succeed in this ultimate test.

Sometimes the strongest contenders deliver a flawless performance. Sometimes a less-favored athlete takes an event by storm. The thrill of suspense, the juxtaposition of prediction and possibility keep me glued to the screen. No matter what country the winners call home, I love to see their huge smiles of triumph, their fists thrust into the air, and frequent tears when they stand on the podium to receive their medals.

But I'm most inspired by the athletes' drive to put themselves on the line, risking failure and flukes of nature for a chance to achieve their dreams. And the failures are painfully real. Skiers crash and skaters stumble; the commentators are quick to note any mistakes as the judges subtract points. Barring injury or disqualification, the athletes pick themselves up from the ice or snow, continuing their race or program , or standing at another starting line the next day.

This past week, the Winter Olympics became a metaphor for me as a writer. I received two rejections which means that none of the work I submitted last year garnered acceptance or publication. Oh, well. If a skater can survive the humiliation of falling in front of millions of spectators, I can take a couple of rejections in stride and keep typing. And revising. And risking failure again.

Seeing carefully-crafted words in print or even just feeling a quiet stroke of inspiration is my private gold-medal moment.

Going Rogue--I'm with Sarah Palin

I have obviously not been very consistent with blogging. Daily life steals time and thought with concerns that range from our children to my latest writing project and the national political scene. Most of all, it's been hard for me think of something to post online that would interest anyone who cares to look me up.

But this week I experienced a catharsis. I'm declaring my independence from debilitating worry about what literary highbrows might think or say if my work-in-progress novel ever makes it into print.

It all started when I discovered blogs--specifically writing blogs full of tips and reviews and commentary on the L.D.S. culture and arts scene. It's been a blessing for me to feel a sense of connection even though I haven't found a local writing group that meets my present needs. I also enjoyed learning about the newest novels, the Whitney Awards, and an annual writers' conference that I enjoyed attending.

Then I started pondering some of the academics' opinions about the present state of L.D.S. fiction which basically exists in two camps: the popular romances, thrillers, and other genre titles and the literary novels usually penned by college professors who question and explore the nuances of L.D.S. life. I initially felt intimidated by their intellectual musings and wondered if I should abandon my novel altogether since the characters are born-in-the-covenant faithful Mormons who live in a small southern Utah town. Apparently some literary types frown upon rural Utah/Idaho settings.

I finally realized that I don't belong in the literary camp.

Yes, I've had aspirations of writing well enough to possibly win the Marilyn Brown award for the best novel of the year. I've prided myself on my B.A. in English and was taught to write literary fiction. I've turned up my nose at anything else.

After reading an interview with a best-selling author in which he blasts literary fiction with its existentialism and elitism, I was a bit shocked. Was it possible that well-written genre novels could be considered "legitimate" fiction? I was especially intrigued by his challenge to write like Shakespeare who created fascinating characters and many levels of meaning, but didn't neglect to tell a dang good story.

People from all social classes flocked to see his plays. And the stories had to be good or else the peasant "groundlings" who crowded in front of the stage would pelt the actors with rotten tomatoes or worse. Little did they know they had the best seats in the house which now sell for the highest prices at the Shakespearean festival!

Back to my original thought: I've decided that I'm going rogue as a writer. Who says there has to be only two camps in the world of L.D.S. fiction? As a writer, I'm somewhere in between. In this particular novel, I want to explore the drama of daily life with its juxtapositions of the bitter and the sweet, goodness and evil. I believe that characters in a rural setting can still develop widespread appeal in our modern, urbanized world. (Heaven knows we can relate to the tragic results of Hamlet's indecisiveness even though he was a prince in medieval Denmark.) A middle-brow audience of ordinary people is out there, their taste is valid, and their challenges and triumphs can be addressed in a dang good story.

You betcha.

What's in a Name?

I've been thinking about setting up a blog for a few weeks now. The deed is finally done--far more easily than I anticipated. It's another step forward in my goal to become more comfortable with technology.

My biggest challenge was thinking of a title for my blog, which reminded me of the struggle I usually experience when naming a song, short story, or poem. I happened to be reading a compilation of Robert Frost's poems this afternoon so I turned to it again, hoping for inspiration. "Mountain Interval", the title of Frost's third book, caught my attention. My home is the polar opposite of his New England but I, too, am a writer who draws from a distinctive culture and landscape in my attempt to define an ordinary existence. I don't pretend to be anywhere near Robert Frost's level of artistry, but "Desert Interval" seems a fitting description of readers may find here: a chance to step back and share my thoughts on writing and other things that shape my world.