Although we should instinctively know that when we build anything there will be work involved, we still sometimes expect (hope?) that the work won't be hard or even that we won't know that we're working at all.

​A conference is one of those events that presents itself as something fun and simple, but that actually can be quite exhausting because usually a conference is part of an attempt on our part to build something: knowledge, a supportive network, a bridge to a place where we'd like to live or at least visit more often. Here I am at the NESCBWI Spring Conference and I have to say I'm pretty tired, but not so tired that I'm not sitting here and writing this. That's a win! I'm writing--something, anything: this:)

The tricky thing about things like conferences is that I need to remember they are like Thanksgiving: there is a lot of great stuff, you're going to see lots of people, you're going to eat lots of food (not all healthy), and you might need a nap at odd intervals. The smart people take naps. I am not a smart conference attendee. I did not nap. There's just too much going on and there are just too many amazing and creative people all in one spot to take a break from.

Which brings me to what I have found to be one of the most important, but often the most challenging, aspects of a conference: meeting new people and reconnecting with people I haven't seen in a long time--especially since this is the first in-person conference since before the pandemic. Building creative community is probably one of the things I enjoy most. I love learning about others and then finding a way to connect them with someone else. Rinse and repeat. It takes effort and sometimes my brain cells and memory don't cooperate, but that's what laughter is for. Laughter is the Modge Podge I brush generously over the top of everything to smooth things out. Or make things worse, but usually better . . . I think:)

So, get out there. Sign up. Pack your bag. Put that name tag on and shove yourself into awkward situations and then, when it gets really awkward, get over it and move on and laugh a little along the way.

​Eventually you'll start to build a community and find yourself beyond your expiration date writing a semi-incoherent and possibly rambling blog entry on a random bench in a hotel hallway. 

As part of The Room to Write's Senior and Veterans programming, we have writing days that are more casual and unstructured. We call those writing days: Gather & Write. It's a way to make time for writing during the week that is less structured. An instructor shows up and offers a writing prompt or two, or whatever, to the group--something to get the wheels turning and the pen writing.

Being the only "poet" in the group has propelled me to utilize the time I am at the writing prompt helm to offer up something poetic. Not everybody in the group that gathers is necessarily interested in writing poetry--per se--but, really, poems are simply words that sometimes appear in a flowing sundress, sometimes in a polo shirt, and other times squeezed into a tuxedo and bowtie. 
​
For Valentine's Day, I decided to give the group a glimpse of a well-dressed poem. What form stood out to me as appropriate for the special day? The Sonnet, of course. When you think Sonnet, you often think Shakespeare. That might make you nervous, but it shouldn't. Shakespeare was in love with words. That's it. Sometimes passion can cause a person to get carried away, and so that is all that was--a man who got carried away with words. He was truly in love with words and so am I.

Now, do I sit at home crafting sonnets all day or even once a week? 
No. 

​I am more of a free-verse poet, but I do enjoy a challenge every now and then. Think of a sonnet as a word puzzle. Puzzles aren't always meant to be easy. They are meant to get your mind churning and working until: voila! You have solved it--or you come close to solving it. There is a satisfaction in that. Sonnets can be wonderful exercise for our brains!

I printed out some background, information and examples of the sonnet using a very helpful website, which you can access at: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/sonnet 
​
Keeping with the clothing theme, I told participants to think of a sonnet as a Corsette. Sonnets are a very tight poetic format. There are rules--strict ones. The sonnet forces you in place. It can be painful, but we persevered. 

You know what? Some participants actually enjoyed it. Others scoffed and at least one or two outright refused to conform to the format, which is perfectly fine. Still many surprised themselves with what they produced. 

I was one of them. Having been the person to force this poetic form upon the group, I was stumped when it came to sitting and writing until I simply decided to write about having to write a sonnet itself and the difficulty it posed for me. 

Like many others this past week--a pipe in our basement gave way to an imitation of the great Niagra Falls. Being a light sleeper came in handy this time around when I heard water at 3:30am, but I assumed it was coming from the nearby bathroom. Perhaps one of the kids was up getting a drink or washing their hands. But, then--the water kept flowing. What were they doing in there?

I got up. Nobody was in the bathroom. Nobody else was even awake. Just me. Maybe it was coming from my dish washer. I went downstairs. Nope. Kitchen was dry, but the sound of water was getting louder and I spun around, flicked on the basement lights and opened the door: Water! Cascading over the light at the bottom of the stairs which was now hanging out of the ceiling that had dissolved. Screams to my husband to turn off the main . . . 

Everybody was up. My youngest was as frightened as if we were in a sinking ship that was taking on water. My oldest? Being a teenager who values every minute of sleep left her only annoyed by abruptly being woken in the middle of the night. She went back to sleep. The other two took it all in with reactions floating somewhere in the middle of the youngest and the oldest. 

​I'm sure you've heard of the term, "I've got a frog in my throat." 99 times out of 100--the person is not referring to an actual reptile that has hopped down their windpipe unbeknownst, though last summer frogs were beyond reasonable numbers in my backyard. (See July's blog posting: Wild Kingdom or Unexpected Sanctuary for more on the frogs.) The vast majority of "frogs" in throats are actually emotion or nerves. Emotion can make it difficult to get words out.

​Emotion is like a cloud floating above us, unnoticed while we buzz about our daily routines, until they gather and rain. Just as clouds can shed water, emotion can become too much to ignore. The frog in my throat presented more like a frog in my pen. I couldn't get words out on paper--aside from the necessary words for correspondence and work-related writing.

When my mother passed away at the beginning of last year my work-in-progress, which is a middle grade novel that focuses on a secret garden, got dropped suddenly from my list of "things to do." For some, grief and creativity work well together. For me, grief is a head space hog. It saunters in, plunks down with elbows boldly claiming what I understood to be a shared armrest. Shoes kick off, cell phone conversation blares--smelly and loud all at once. Grief is the most obnoxious and inconsiderate airplane seat mate imaginable. There will be no relaxing, no focusing, no enjoyment on a flight alongside grief. 

Creativity evaporated. I had been really enjoying my work-in-progress, Secret Lives of Leaves, up until my attention was no longer my own and grief took hold of all my senses, sucked out my reserves of energy--insisted on getting my full attention. Clearing my mind became impossible. Time passed. A whole year. Then, a couple weeks ago--I sat down to write the next chapter of that novel. One great thing about middle grade is that it allows for shorter chapters. So, I talked myself into writing a paragraph, then two--then, might as well finish the page . . . as I rounded the corner to the next page, I developed a scene in my head and had to follow it at least until page two. The result was a 6-page chapter.

It felt so good to get a little further on a fun project that had so long lay dormant, just as I had been getting to the good part: the secret garden! One year later, I find myself at the other end of the emotional spectrum. The juxtapositions of life border on comedy--satire, really. 

I'm not a big dinner roll person at Thanksgiving. I'd rather dig into all the other stuff, but my brother likes them and I thought his wife might enjoy a fresh-baked roll. The recipe I found, which you can find HERE, didn't require the greasing of bowls and it only made 12 rolls, which is a reasonable amount. I don't need the 24 rolls that many recipes yield.

I did have a couple of tweaks: I had to use regular yeast I had in a jar (so activated it before mixing it by combining it with the very warm water and then a teaspoon of sugar and waited ten minutes), I used a wooden spoon and elbow grease to mix instead of the electric mixer in the recipe, and then just followed the recipe and let it "rise" for more than the 30 minutes in the recipe, but still they were really fast as far as homemade bread goes. I didn't brush them with anything before baking and they came out golden brown. 

A success! These days with so much going wrong all around us, it's nice to have a humble success to celebrate--and eat:)

Sometimes weekends away are relaxing. Some are more along the lines of work. Other times they are a hybrid of the two and you come away exhausted but content. But, definitely exhausted:)

Two weekends ago I went on a "retreat" that I had no business going on because life was rather ramped up at the moment with four kids back to school and sports exploding all over the calendar in addition to those not-so-savory things a person has to do--like clean the house, do the laundry, break into the fall wardrobe while still floating the summer shorts.

​Don't even get me started on the socks!

​Socks. On the floor. A basket of matchless singles growing and growing. Smelly socks stuffed in shoes. Inside out socks in the middle of the stairs. Even socks OUTSIDE! Enough about the socks. On this retreat there wasn't a sock in sight. :)

There I was, on a writer's retreat to Squam Lake. What a beautiful location! So beautiful that it was a challenge to not spend the whole time walking around exploring or jumping in the lake. I was there to focus on my writing, so I soaked all the nature in from a comfortable and semi-productive distance.

What was so exhausting about that?
​Well, it was a bit like a mini-conference and anybody who has ever been to a conference knows there's a lot of talking, meeting people, introducing yourself, figuring out what it is you might tell them, wondering more about them, and sharing a room with a stranger. Sure, she'll feel like a friend by the end of the weekend, but there's a process and so sharing a room can add to the lethargy. Throw in a wonderful old cabin that doesn't muffle anything and only amplifies every footstep and shift of weight. A toilet flushing? Sounds like Niagra Falls has just dumped down the walls and onto the floor. 

​It's all part of the charm, but also the process of allowing yourself to be uncomfortable, a little awkward, and eventually feel a bit like family when it's all said and done. It was a great experience and it felt so good to meet so many wonderful, creative, nerdy minds like myself. People who wrote, researched, animated, edited, agented, revised, read, made dolls and were all interested in each other. It's a great feeling to be surrounded by people committed to creativity!

The weather was perfect. Everything was photogenic, as you'll see below, and the whole experience helped me to grow a little bit more as a writer, a reader, and a member of the big wide creative community I love being a part of.

Delete. It's magic and it's a curse that's available at the touch of a finger.
No wand required.
This (here) text block had previously waxed poetic about Due Dates. 
Yes, I went on about it for about the same length I will consequently go on about Dew Points, but with one important difference: I deleted the block about Due Dates. 

Did I mean to? No. I had inserted an image and then something went kaflooey, as things tend to do in the tech world, and as I thought, "Maybe I should copy the text in case something goes wrong." Another thought pushed that first thought out of the way insisting, "Just keep going--fast. Do it. Press that little 'x' and only the image will disappear, not all of the text too." 
So, I went with option number two and "Delete" happened. And, worse? I did not see an "Undo" for the life of me. 
Come on! No "undo" to hit?
Whatever.
​It's done. 
I'm not rewriting it. I'm writing this rant instead and since this is a blog and not a term paper, or a novel, I can do that.
Thank the good Lord for blogs and journals.
Now, onto Dew Points . . . 

Dew Points?
Wow--how did I go most of my life without caring or even knowing what these were?
It's not the heat, it's the humidity. No--it's the dew point! Dang that number that either means I'm going to have a refreshing breeze dance by or that I'm going to feel beads of sweat gather and drip down my back or from the inside crease of my elbow at some point. Ugh and ew!
Does that change anything? No. But today started out with a dew point in the 70s, which is nasty, and it ends somewhere in the 50s, which is Shangri-La.
After a summer that has been moist in all the worst ways and yet somehow extremely dry also in all the worst ways, I am running towards September and its promise of low dew points and long sweaters with absolute adoration in my eyes.

I have a few wonderful events coming up that will mark the transition from summer--when I let my brain go into detox and veg mode--to fall--when I fire up my pens and all things start to buzz and bubble with energy. Next weekend (not to be confused with this weekend:) I am off to a Writers' Retreat at Squam Lake. Boy, could I use anything with the word "retreat" in the title just about now. Then the following week is the Commonwealth Pen Show in Somerville, MA where I can go and luxuriate in all things pen and ink and paper. If there is a better two-weekend lineup that inspires the written word, I can't imagine it right now.

So, go. Retreat. Write. Then, pen. Write some more.
I'll put the pen show flier below for those who would like to attend and need more concrete details than my general gushing above offers.
Here's to extended deadlines and falling dew points!
Happy Autumn:)

Dear Diary,

I can't help but feel like a slacker. The trouble is there's still only the original 24 hours in a day and that just doesn't seem to be enough for me to get the things I need done, followed by the things I want to do done, followed by the things I should do done: you know that resting, relaxing, recovering, and rejuvenating thing we hear is necessary for a healthy and happy life.

Some writers and artists seem to create when the mood strikes them or when they feel something come over them and that used to be my method too, but with life so busy I'm going to have to come up with some other way that forces me to make more time for my personal writing projects, not just the writing I need to do for work or various other commitments, but the novels and poetry and blog posts (ahem!) I really want to be able to do. 

Some writers and artists claim that the morning hours are best and I'm sure they are, but I'm not a morning person. Can I try to become one? Sure. Do I want to try to become one? No. I don't want to try, anyway. If I woke up one morning and was suddenly a morning person--sure, I'd love that. But, I don't have the energy to try to become one.

So, what's a gal to do? Well, it's almost summer. Ok--technically it's summer on the calendar and meteorologically it's summer, but according to my children's school summer is has not started yet. Yes, it's nearly July and "summer vacation" is still hours away. 

What does summer have to do with anything, you may be wondering?

More time? Hopefully. But, based on historical precedent there seems to be no more time in the summer months than there are in the other nine and anything extra should be devoted to a good amount of resting and relaxing that every body needs in order to carry on for those other hectic, hurry-up-and-go months. One thing July has going for it is sunnier mornings which may be a help toward earlier mornings which may be a help toward writing in the mornings.

Throw in a good, old fashioned one-month challenge! Don't forget to include public accountability so others can see if you are holding to your commitment and have every right to heckle you if you slack off.

So, here goes. I am going to try to challenge myself to produce something creative for one month's time. I suppose I have to figure out what that is first, but I have a week to come up with something and report back.

That's just what I'll do.
​Stay tuned. :)