Santa Barbara Harbor and the girls in the basement

Posted on June 26, 2008
Filed Under A Writer Afoot, Travel, Writing life | 1 Comment

For the past three days, as I showered, or chatted with a student or another writer, or walked from one hotel to the other, the girls in the basement have kept up a little series of nudges.  “Now? Can we come out and talk now?”  

Teaching, however, takes a lot of heart energy, mind energy, and while it feeds the well as much or more than anything else I do (the exchange of ideas, the passion for writing, the delight of hearing a voice that’s fantastically well developed, the promise of young writers, the deep pleasure of talking about writing, day after day) there is not much left for the page after a day of talking.   So when I returned from the conference hotel, I walked on the beach.  I ambled around the harbor.   I tried fish tacos for the first time (yum!) and met my cousin Becky one night. 

Last night, I fell asleep early and slept like a teenager.  The girls were sitting on the edge of the bed. “Now can we go to the beach?”  So I ran a brush through my hair, grabbed a coffee and a croissant from the hotel breakfast area and took my notebook to the beach.  

Where we actually wrote very little, honestly.  I sat down and dutifully pulled out my pen and wrote down some notes about my observations last night, and settled to an “in the moment…” writing, and managed to record a little about the point jutting out into the sea, and the look of the water under the dappled sky.  But I kept getting lost in the moment.  The way a wave rises like a mountain, then breaks into white caps and curls down over itself, and splashes on to the beach.  The way the sound would come from my left, like an engine roaring down the beach, racing along to the right, over and over.  The knots of seaweed, the jumping sand flies paying me no attention.  I thought about the crabs along the wall of the harbor, moving in a direction that seemed surprisingly graceful.  I thought about eating their fat legs, though of course it wouldn’t be those crabs.  It still sort of bothered me.  I wish I could stop thinking of meat as animals.   My body seems to want meat, and yet….there’s that little problem of having to KILL something to eat it.  I dunno.

I wrote a few lines about the new novel, and some notes about the on-going memoir project, and the suggestions for a writing book one of the women in the memoir class suggested.  

But I think the girls just wanted to go be there on the beach, alone, watching the waves, feeling that specific wind, loving it.   As we walked back, they were busy in the basement, no longer whining, and I guess that’s what I was supposed to do.

Maybe they will have things to say as I fly home this afternoon.  Though they’re going to have to fight me over the reading I have slated.  :)

 

 

California dreamin’…tidbits

Posted on June 24, 2008
Filed Under A Writer Afoot, My books, Random Beauties, Travel, Writing life | 4 Comments

Celebrity sighting today: John McCain, no more than 20 feet from the room where we were about to begin our memoir class.  He is very small.  I’m not sure why that surprised me so much, but it did. 

For those looking for the voice worksheet, find it here: http://my.sbwriters.com/profile/BarbaraSamuel

I’m blogging tomorrow (Wednesday) at Writer Unboxed.  A teaser:

“I am a person who has always been afraid.  My six year old self was so afraid of wrecked cars that it seemed I could hear a chorus of screams whenever we passed a junkyard.   This caused a lot of trouble in my family because we had to pass a junkyard on the way to picking my father up from work, and I would be hysterical about it before we ever arrived.  My father finally decided to address it by taking me to the junkyard and showing me there was nothing to worry about.  I clearly remember being carried into the area, all those cars smashed and wrecked, crumpled bumpers and shattered windows, and all that violence.   ” Read more…

 

Really happy week of teaching thus far.  I love the connection that forms with a circle of writers giving their all.  This is an excellent conference. 

 

The auction for the critiques is over.  Thank you all SO much for your generosity.  I’m well over the goal I set for the walk, and it is coming up on Saturday!  :) 

 

I’m starting to look forward to a nice six-week stretch of just writing. The Girls in the Basement have been annoyed with me the past few days.  Every morning the shower, they say, “Today? Will you sit down and let us play today?”  I have promised them a couple of hours on the beach in the morning, with a big cup of coffee and the waves slapping on the sand, before many other people are around.

 

What have you done for the girls lately?

 

More things I like about California

Posted on June 22, 2008
Filed Under A Writer Afoot, Travel | 1 Comment

A mellow day, the calm before the fierceness of teaching and talking to come.   I walked down to the faculty meeting and then caught a ride back with the wonderful Mary Hershey , who is teaching humor at this conference.   I worked for awhile on class materials, making sure everything is in shape for tomorrow, then headed out to the beach. 

I love the beach. There are always those little surveys that say a person is either a desert, mountain, or beach person, and I am all three.  I dislike doing without any of them.  The desert is austere and severe and harsh, but I love the creatures and plants who have adapted to it–lizards and snakes and cactus flat and blooming only once a year.   My mountain love is obvious.   I met the ocean in the second grade, when my grandmother drove us up from Temecula to …what?  I don’t know. Some California beach in the south.  There was a wharf and seashells and that incredible depth of water, moving and moving and moving, singing all the while, and I was smitten forever. 

Today, I found a stretch of beach that was quiet and unpeopled and let the sun scorch me.  (I know, I know, it isn’t good for you. I’m, however, a dark-skinned white woman and the sun does good things for me.  This year, thanks to all the hiking, I am the color of pecans and I like it that way. )  I read and dozed and watched children pulling boogie boards and three youths from India swimming along the shallows in the current.  When I grew too hot, I headed for the restaurants along the harbor, all blue and white with touches of teach, and ate a hearty lunch of nachos smothered in guacamole and wickedly drank a summer ale, then ambled back to my room and slept for awhile. 

Tomorrow, it all begins.   I would like to say again that I love mission fig trees.  They seem like trees with secrets.  Or the entrance to fairy lands. 

 

Extravagant California

Posted on June 20, 2008
Filed Under A Writer Afoot, Travel, Writing life | 6 Comments

I landed in Santa Barbara this afternoon.  I’m here for the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, but this year decided to stay somewhere outside the hermetically perfect conference hotel.   I’m about a mile up the beach, just right.  My room overlooks the pool. This afternoon, I set out on foot in the deep heat (93 degrees, which still didn’t seem that hot here) just to get the lay of the land, and was seduced, as ever, by the sheer extravagance of coastal California.   It’s an ordinary neighborhood in an smallish town (okay, a really expensivetown) and everywhere is that careless natural abundance.  Bouganvillia pouring over a fence and scattering hot magenta petals over the sidewalk.  Eucalyptus trees as wide as my car at their base, muscling the sidewalk out of the way.   Jacaranda trees are in bloom, their lavender clusters as bizarre and beautiful as a tree from another planet.   I walked by an open gate and smelled something sweet and hot and fainly rotten and saw a scatter of fallen oranges beneath the huge spreading branches of a tree, with dozens and dozens of oranges ready to be plucked, others molding on the ground.  On the way to a welcoming party, I stopped to admire the Moreton Bay fig tree nearby State Street and took a photo with my cell phone.  

After the party, I found an agreeable Indian restaurant and ate shasi panneer with hot plump raisins as big as my thumb.  My task was to eat alone in a strange place without reading or taking notes, just being there, participating in the flow of life, eating and watching.  And, too, being willing to be part of the moment for the room, the woman sitting by herself with a Taj Mahal, eating rice and raisins, enjoying herself. 

The hotel is just far enough away from the conference place that I can walk a mile or so.  Perfect. 

Do you like to eat alone in restaurants? Men find it easier than women, I think.  Why do you suppose that is?  

Summer reading

Posted on June 17, 2008
Filed Under Books | 8 Comments

Orpah Magazine had a list of 27 books for summer reading in the latest issue.   Now, I have nothing against Oprah books, but I gotta say that reading doesn’t have to be so…serious.

So, thinking some of you probably agree with me, here are some of my picks:

How to Knit a Wild Bikini, by Christie Ridgway. In the interest of full disclosure, she is my very good friend, but also in the interest of full disclosure, she’s an intelligent, sexy comedic writer with a lot of pizzazz.

The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger, which I read when it first came out and adored.  I’m mentioning it because my eldest just read it and was as demolished and haunted by it as I was.   If you’ve never read it, oh baby, I’m jealous.

Miss American Pie, A Diary of Love, Secrets, and Growing Up In the Seventies by Margaret Sartor. Because I did.  And because if you did, you know that song was played 4310 times every single day, to the point that every word is engraved on your heart.  I haven’t read this one yet, but I’m going to.

The Sugar Queen, by Sarah Addison Allen.  Because Garden Spells is one of the best books I’ve read in five years, and I have been saving (carefully) this one, but now I don’t think I can wait one second longer.

Belong to Me, by Marisa de los Santos, because it is heart wrenching and beautiful and funny and you will like it.  Trust me.

Your turn: what should I put on my list?  I’ve got some seriously long flights to fill.

Bid now for a manuscript critique

Posted on June 16, 2008
Filed Under Avon Walk_, Writing nuts and bolts | 4 Comments

I am offering three manuscript critiques in order to raise money for the Avon walk.   I’ll read three chapters and an outline and return them with notes. 

The bidding starts  now and will go for seven days. 

Manuscript critique #1

Manuscript critique #2

Manuscript critique #3

Again, this is a very unusual offer.   I hope you’ll bid. 

Avon walk and a critique offer

Posted on June 16, 2008
Filed Under A Writer Afoot, Avon Walk_ | 1 Comment

The Avon walk is in two weeks, and I would love to raise just a little more.  Everyone has been enormously generous, and I knew I could count on you all to help with this cause.  Thanks for listening to my training logs and my little whines.  To make a direct donation, go here.

Everyone knows I almost never offer critiques of manuscripts.  It’s mainly a time issue, but I’m going to break that rule and offer three critiques of two chapters and a synopsis, or 35 pages.   If you get win the auction and get the pages to me before July 5, I promise you’ll have it back in time for the RWA conference (if that is important to you), or within a month. 

Check back later today for the actual auction announcement, which I’ll conduct through ebay.  And feel free to tell anyone you think might want to bid.  

Now to the training log:
This weekend: 33 miles; 23 Saturday, 10 on Sunday (hooray!).  For the week: 38.

My friend Renate walked with me on Saturday.  It’s the first time I’ve had a companion on the long walk, and it made the time go by so much faster.  We talked about positive thinking and our upcoming trips (hers to Germany, mine to Australia) and sang folks songs, mostly to each other since she is German and we didn’t know many of the same songs, except ”The Saints Go Marching In.”  She sang me songs in German, about her village and valley in Bavaria, and then I sang some songs from my childhood, Olayomakeo (I have no idea how that is spelled), about a girl who never wants to get married, and she sang a song I knew as “The Apple Dumpling Song” from Suzuki practice when my boys were learning violin and cello. 

The German songs and translations made me remember going to the VFW with my friend Sally to hear her brother and sister play in the band.  She would translate the songs, all of them bloody and sad (”this one is about a man who killed his wife and lover, then followed them to heaven, where he killed them again.”) When I told Renate, she said, “oh yes, kitchen songs!” and sang a song about a boy who went looking for Edelweiss to win his fair love’s heart, and died bringing it back.  

 She got a blister from a walking sandal and we rigged up a special bandage out of bandaids and tissues, which made me remember all the things I have learned by training.   Which socks to wear, which hat, which pack I want to carry, which one makes my shoulders ache.   By the end, we were both tired and giddy, but vowing to walk Pikes Peak in July. 

Yesterday was my last long training walk before the taper.  I went to Rampart Reservoir, and it was so beautiful I had to take pictures for you, even if they are lousy cell phone shots.  This is a STUNNING spot.  Aspens shaking pale green coin leaves above white bark, dark Ponderose pines, the forest floor starred with wild iris and something that looks like yellow sweet peas.  The water is extraordinarily clear, so in some places, you can see the red boulders just below the surface, like a table for mermaids. 

I’d never been there before, but I can tell you I will be back to hike the circle.  Soon!

 

 

Elena, moving along

Posted on June 13, 2008
Filed Under Books, My books, Writing life | 2 Comments

Elena’s book is finally moving into Reality-Ville.   I saw some art for the cover the other day (beautiful!) and it is officially on the schedule for January 27 (that is, if you’re counting, only six months).   If you want to sign up for a one-time only email notification when it is on the shelves, you can sign up here.

 
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Summer rituals

Posted on June 11, 2008
Filed Under Random Beauties, Writing life | 5 Comments

When I was a tween, my grandmother lived in Sedalia, Colorado.  At the time, it was about six by twelve houses wide, a spit of town scattered behind a Johnson’s Corner on a narrow two lane highway between west Denver and I-25.   A train track ran along the road in front of my grandmother’s house, and when I slept in the living room, I was absolutely sure that the noise would shake my heart out of my chest and they would find me dead on the sleeper-sofa in the morning.  Luckily, that didn’t happen.

Last night, I found myself remembering the hammock she had there.  It was green canvas, hung on a structure of hollow metal tubes that were taken apart for storage.  We (that would be my siblings and I) fought over that hammock like crazy, which we set up in the side yard in the grass, in the shade, nearby the wading pool.

The bad part was setting it up, because pincher bugs loved to hide inside the tubes and I was terrified of their pinchy parts, sure they would attack and hurt us.  (It occurs to me that I never once had a pincher bug pinch me, or have ever known anyone who was pinched by one.)   Setting it up required gingerly dragging the metal tubes out of the garage while jumping around, shaking off hands as necessary, squealing as the bugs scurried away.  Then, it took at least two of us to get it put together, and then we had to take turns lying in it.   I was the oldest and the most imperious, plus I was the biggest reader (also shamefully played on my grandmother’s shocking favoritism) and spent the lion’s share of time on it.    Lying there, swaying slightly, the breezes brushing over face and lanky brown arms, a pocket full of hard candy snitched from my grandpa’s stash–heaven.  I read The Diary of Anne Frank that summer, and started keeping my own diary, which I called “Kitty.”   It was a heavenly summer–the last one of pure childhood, as it turned out, though I didn’t know it then.

What do you remember about a childhood summer?

Creative Commons photo by Mangus9

Ordinary things

Posted on June 10, 2008
Filed Under Food and Drink, Random Beauties | 1 Comment

Creative commons photo by fluor doublet

Last night, I carried an orange upstairs with me as my evening snack.  When I peeled it, there was a perfectly formed baby orange inside, complete with thin perfect skin and perfectly formed, tiny segments inside.  I would have taken a photo, but it was really so adorable and intriguing that I became scientist before artist, taking it apart to see if it was going to be a whole baby orange inside the mother orange.  It was.  I ate it.

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