Cashew. Bless you. Yes, we're nuts...

There are at least two things that writers and triathletes have in common.

People think we’re nuts.

In the case of triathletes, it’s because most people just don’t get why we spend the time, put up with the discomfort, or buy all that gear to enter a race we have little or no hope of winning. I think most of those people have never crossed a finish line.

As writers, perhaps we’re stigmatized by all those wacky creatives who precede us, those brave and tortured souls who filled their pockets with stones and walked into deep water, or cut off part of an ear, or wrote naked in a glass room and periodically whipped themselves with knotted horse hair after plunging into an ice-water bath.

People who think writers are nuts, have never constructed THAT sentence…the one you wrote yourself and can read as many times as you want and it still makes the hairs on your arm stand up.

Note: People also think mountain climbers are crazy, but moutaineers have the “because it’s there” escape clause. I don’t know how they get away with that…it’s not even a strong sentence.

Moving forward…the other thing writers and triathletes have in common is that we feel the fear and do it anyway. It takes wild courage to put careful words on paper and read those words to a packed room. Anyone who’s done a reading knows how hard it is to batten down your bladder while you attempt to speak AND hold your breath at the same time. As a triathlete it’s hard to know that there’s family waiting at the finish line while you wonder if you have what it takes to arrive.

Last Christmas some friends of ours gave us a box of Kraft Dinner for Christmas…55 year old KD. When this KD was made, the Kraft people were still explaining what KD was. The box is labeled, in several places, “KRAFT macaroni and cheese DINNER for making macaroni and cheese”.

The fact that this box of KD exists at all means that, a long time ago, some man, woman or child made a conscious decision to preserve it. Perhaps it was plucked from the stores of a Cold War bunker, or from under the bed of an adolescent hoarder long since gone to college. The point is somebody saved a box of KD…for over 50 years. Seems a little weird to me. Do you think the neighbors knew?

Let’s own up - we’re all doing something a little nuts, whether we’re writing, running, or stashing soon-to-be-classic foods in a bunker under the garage.

Good thing too. Nuts is delicious. Crazy is a finish line. Weird is an act of courage. That said, it’s way more dangerous to keep your best words inside your head than it is to toss them into the air or onto a page.

Nuts is about one of the best things we can be.

Stay calm, be brave, write on.

Off to chew cashews,
Kari

Note: Microsoft Word recognizes KD as a word, but tries to ‘correct’ triathlete. Hmmmm.

Ice in Bowls and Perfect Swimming

I’ve battled the fear of open water for most of my life. I’m good for hundreds of lengths in the pool, but put me in water I can’t see the bottom of, and I panic.

About a month ago I read an article in Impact Magazine titled “Swimming Without Walls” (by Brian McAsey). Brian says that the reason many people shun lakes and oceans is that cold water, particularly in the face, causes the "fight or flight" response to kick in.

Brian honestly believes that you can condition yourself past panic by sticking your face in ice water and blowing bubbles.

Brian’s funny.

I’m desperate.

In less than two weeks I have to race the first leg of my triathlon (1.2 miles) in the balmy waters of Ghost Lake. Ghost Lake is even too cold for fish.

So I get out the big bowl, fill it, and submerge my face, five days in a row. My facial pores, it is noted by a close friend, are looking very refined. My complexion glows.

Better than refined pores, on Monday evening I spent a panic free hour swimming in that icy reservoir. I did.

Really, sometimes the weird sh*t works.

Now, let’s talk about my unfinished novel.

I like to consider myself the sort of person who gets things done. I set a goal, I break the process down into steps. I find the help I need. I do the work.

Why then, six years or so after beginning, am I still working on the same book?

Completion, it seems, is my other great fear.

What if I finish the book and nobody will publish it? What if somebody publishes it but nobody buys it? What if people buy it and hate it and say mean spirited things about it? What if the leftover copies end up in the Dollarama beside their collection of distasteful looking cookbooks and bad self-help literature?

All I have to do is imagine my book being rejected and I’m overcome by the urge to carry it to safety or kick someone.

I’m paralyzed by the thought of not being accepted and loved for the genius that I am. I’m so worried about not being adored that I’m refusing to take the risks that come with completion.

Hmm...maybe what I need to get this book done is a bowl of ice water in which to soak my ego.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a bowl that big. Perhaps an icy lake will work.

Just keep swmming,

Kari

Let's Practice Counting

I count.

Constantly.

Which is to say, I’m always counting something. Steps, for example. I’ve worn a step-counter for so long my little girl thinks it’s like a pacemaker, or a prosthetic device. She is convinced that I will die if I leave the house and it is not clipped to my waistband.

When I’m pumping gas, I count the rhythmic sounds the pump makes. I calculate the beats per litre. At my Petro-Can, the pump beats at approximately 4/bpl.

I used to play drums in the military. I can still tap my fingers at 120 beats per minute. That is the standard pace for marching. That is the pace of a heartbeat in wartime. When I run, my pace is 180 footfalls per minute. That is the pace of someone running toward a finish line, not away from gunfire.

I count the kilometers I ride, the miles I run, the lengths I swim, the pushups I press out, the ball crunches.

I count calories. Calories in. Calories out. I try to make the former a lesser number than the latter. I fail constantly. That is why, despite my best efforts, I weigh 128 lb and my bodyfat is still over 20%.

My novel has a word count. It is 53,684. I think I need 10,000 more words to make it work. I don’t try to count them as I write because that would be far too confusing.

Yesterday I did 120 pushups. The day before that I was supposed to ride 100 kilometers, but I stopped at 94.6. There was hail...too much to count.

Today I swam 100 lengths of the pool. I did three loads of laundry and bought three magazines.

Despite all my counting, I know that the things that I count don’t make me “count”.

We talk about the miles we log, but we truly count when we cross a finish line holding the hand of someone we love. We count when we write the words that make a reader laugh, or cry, or throw down the story down in disgust. We count when we inspire someone else to write words that count, or take steps that count.

I count. You should count too.

Best,

Kari

(according to the Mac, this is 382 words)

Fall Courses Now Available

The AWCS is pleased to announce the 2010 fall courses are now available online. Choose from a wide array of 8 week courses, weekend intensives or one day workshops.

For details, please visit our website at www.alexandrawriters.org

Register soon, classes are already beginning to fill.

Hello the Unsuspecting:

Entropy. Even if you haven’t heard of it, you’ve experienced it.

It’s the tendency for every system in the universe to move from order to disorder. That’s right. In spite of our best efforts, everything around us is disorganizing (like that’s a surprise to any Mom). Physicists describe it one way, philosophers another. Yeats described it with particular eloquence “things fall apart; the center cannot hold: Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...”

My home is like the summer house of entropy...the place it retires to on weekends when the serious randomness has been taken care of... a house in Kansas, lifted by floodwater, is teetering in a tree, a doghouse in Australia has been destroyed by a small meteorite, and in a galaxy far away two planets have collided.

Entropy visits in irksome ways.For example, I have a system in my bathroom for keeping tooth related bathroom objects (paste, floss, brushes) in a special white container. Hair related objects (brushes, combs, clips etc) belong in a blue container. No one else in the home seems to understand or believe in my system and so, over time, hair objects and tooth objects make their way into the wrong boxes.

Eventually I find a toothbrush and hair brush in the same enclosed space. It’s disorderly...PLUS it’s gross.

I take issue with entropy. I am constantly at war with unmade beds, piles of shoes, unsorted socks. (NOTE: Socks and entropy have a “special” relationship with the time/space continuum that cannot be brought down. This makes it possible for a sock that disappeared from the laundry pile three years ago to randomly reappear, say, in the refrigerator, on a Thursday in May just two days after I FINALLY give up and toss its lonely mate in the trash. Tell me it hasn’t happened at your house. Please.

However, I have a friend, Kathleen Ralph, who is a brilliant artist. She’s currently on a mission to send a piece of original art to anyone in the world who asks for one.

Her work and her projects are inspiring. She’s busy mailing out small pieces of beauty while I collect dryer lint. She paints while I make sure all the videos are in the right cases.

What I find most amazing about Kath is that she doesn’t give a pahoot about entropy. It lives in her house like another well loved and happily accepted family member. She doesn’t rant about it or try to overcome it...because she’s too busy painting.

That’s why she’s finishing up piece after piece of postcard art... and I’m still working on the same book I started YEARS ago. At the time of writing, Kathleen has made art for 304 consecutive days. It’s a safe bet that I’ve made beds every one of those days. But no one reads my beds, no one hangs them on a wall...and no one is inspired by the “hospital corner” style folds at the foot-ends of the bed. That said, if Martha Stewart drops in, I’m golden.

So...this week I resolve to write one page before I wipe those little pee drips off the rim of the toilet bowl. I resolve to write one page before I figure out whether the green stuff in the fridge is animal or vegetable, or before I wash the dog’s dishes (he eats poop for crying out loud, what does he care about the state of his dishes).

I’ll suck something out of me before I suck something out of the carpet on the stairs.

I’ll power through one page before I power through a bike or swim or run. Just one page.

Piss off entropy. You won’t miss me...plus I kind of like it when I find socks in the fridge. It’s like Christmas, only weirder.

Bless you (even if you didn't sneeze). Pass it on (to the guy who picked your nose in traffic...I know it's hard, do it anyway).

Rock... like there's nobody rollin'

Kari

To check in on Kathleen Ralph and her work:

http://web.me.com/kathleen.ralph/www.CalliopesMusing.com/Home.html.

Write, Submit…Rejected

You’ve worked hours on your next masterpiece. Sweat has poured from your brow as you have tried to get each word absolutely right. Punctuation in just the right place. Each line has been written and re-written until it flows like water from a tap. It’s perfect. How could any editor or judge not see it for what it is? The best manuscript you have ever written.

The literary magazine or contest has already been chosen, now you have to make sure you’re following the submission guidelines exactly. Page numbers are in place, a cover page written and you’re sure to not include your name or address on any of the written pages. You print your masterfully crafted pages, seal them in an envelope, address the envelope and skip off to the post office box, knowing the editors would be crazy to not publish this great work.

Now you wait. The submission deadline is still weeks away so you know you won’t hear anything for awhile. If at all. Now you start to question your abilities as a writer. You want more than anything to relish in that high of success. But there are so many good, no great, writers out there. Surely there will be something better than yours.

But what do you do? You can’t just sit around and wait for a response because it could be months and if it’s a contest you just submitted to, it’s likely the only way you’ll know you weren’t selected is when you receive that subscription that you had to pay for just to submit. Nothing like reading the stories that were better than yours. But maybe it’s not such a bad thing. You can read those stories and analyze them to see what it is the magazine was really looking for. Find that thing that stood out above all others and try to implement it into your own writing.

So what’s left? You want to be a writer but you know the likelihood of you getting published is slim to none. Do you give up on your dream or do you just keep trying? Stephen King didn’t give up. Margaret Atwood didn’t give up. No, giving up is not an option. All those famous writers were in your shoes once. Experiencing rejection after rejection but they kept on going.

You have to keep writing. Keep doing what you love. Crafting more and more great masterpieces. Keep submitting.

I have actually learned to appreciate the rejection letter. After all, it means that I have been writing. Someone once told me, each rejection just puts you that much closer to an acceptance. So how can you give up knowing that you are THAT close. What if the next one is the one?

To become a published writer is a long and arduous journey. The rejection can be demoralizing. Make you want to throw down that pencil and say screw it.

Anything worth doing is hard. Remember that, and keep writing. Enjoy the rejections because one day they will be a thing of the past.

 

Robin van Eck

A Riddle for Writers

This riddle has one general answer and ten specific answers.

RIDDLE – WHO ARE WE?

By Rick Borger

We’ll change the meanings of things you say.
Parts of your words we’ll cut away.
We might close in on your words at times
(As if some things you said were crimes).
We’ll stop you after every thought.
It may seem cruel, but it is not.
We’ll slow you down, or we’ll raise your tone!
Your words “won’t seem to be your own.”
We’ll strike three times when you grow silent...
Could we really be so violent,
Cutting you off with a single stroke—
Making you pause with a twist and a poke;
Turning your statements into riddles?
That’s how each of us fools and fiddles
With stories and essays and poems you write.
We’re only helping you get them right.

Rick Borger is a long time AWCS member and volunteer.

Canada Day Special...The Lawn Chair

Happy Canada Day! You may have big plans to spend the day with your family. Go on an afternoon adventure to Heritage Park, Spruce Meadows or the Calgary Zoo.

Or maybe you spent your day gardening, housecleaning or...shopping for lawn furniture.

The Lawn Chair
by Gillian Zylka


I’m seeking a place for a nice sit. My front lawn is inviting; I’ve never taken a seat here before. The back yard is ripped up, a project on the go, torn silvered planks stacked from the ancient deck, plans materializing in our heads, dollars elusive.

There are many distractions on the street, semi constant traffic, it’s still early rush hour. Lots of green though; grass, trees, bushes. Here comes the bus, not green but blue, all these years on a bus route, handy for the kids. But never knew how busy until now. The sky is a water colour blue; chirping tiny birds are perched in the silver green leaves threatening to poop. Not on the laptop. Where are all these people going on our little street? It’s a bit breezy out here today, the leaves rustle above my head, and a screw is boring into my back.

Giving up my pay cheque to write, I merely observe rush hour traffic now, thinking of trips I have forgone, shopping expeditions I do with trepidation, new vehicles only a dream, knowing a job will provide these things, but will I give up my hours of deliberation? Nah.

I wrote this morning first one of many projects, realizing as I went how much revision I need to do. The little snippets here and the threads there, going through my head, never a single thought, always the abstract, which is the challenge, the excitement and the worry, altogether, it’s what I do

* * *

My project today; looking at Adirondack chairs at Canadian Tire, my only intent was to look, honest. The authentic versions that you would hope to find by a lakeside in Muskoka are expensive, but a sign thoughtfully guides me down to aisle thirty nine where the imitation wood chairs are. Nowhere in sight are these chairs, but what I do find are a couple of dandy cedar knock offs for $55.00 each. What I don’t count on when I get them home, and out of the box, is that there is some assembly required. Okay, my husband has three drills, if I can locate one that has a charge, I am in business. I pull all the pieces out of the box, carefully unwrap them of their ubiquitous bubble wrap and fit them together in a semblance of order, minus the screws mind you.

The mighty Ron mobile pulls up, the 1978 camper ho, and here is Dad, from Victoria unannounced, unexpected. At first I am irritated, annoyed, there goes the afternoon over to tea and biscuits and nonstop one sided conversation (his). The sucking of orange sections in the morning, and meticulous neatening of my otherwise flustered home, are two of the things he likes to do while visiting, but after the hugs and the formalities, well, there’s nothing my eighty year old Dad likes better than to put something together. From out of the camper come all the manual tools he uses on his boat. We figure out the pieces, the drilled holes, the long bolts, versus the medium bolts, the bolts with no screws, the bolts that fit, the bolts that don’t, the screws, the power cord that plugs into the dead power drill. He works like he is figuring out a puzzle, taking joy in each mystery solved of what goes where, and with minutes to spare from his evening dinner arrangement, he has that puppy put together. Minus three screws and without counter sinking the screw that now sticks in my back, I have my made in China, imitation Adirondack/Muskoka chair that I position on the front lawn, right by the shrubbery. Other than looking a little forlorn by itself, missing its partner, (still in the box), it adds a touch of je ne sais quoi to the curb appeal of my otherwise green-cottage home. My husband, Rick,will have to put the next one together, or Dad might show up again, provident and timely as only he can be.

I could attempt it myself.

Gillian Zylka has been published in the Kerby News for Seniors in Calgary Alberta, The National Post, and the Calgary Herald. Her creative non-fiction piece titled, "Jane Ann and Friends" will be published in the 2010 summer edition of Write On! Magazine. Also upcoming is a longer comment  in Literal Latte of New York City. She is currently at work on longer pieces of fiction and non fiction.