Reflections of a Tumbleweed

Wake up and...fight?

6/25/2018

Between September 1968 and June 1969, I was in eighth grade at St. Teresa School. I was asked to participate in a debate on whether or not the US should be in Vietnam, and to take the position for our participation. My knowledge of current events at the time was pretty limited – of course I did know about Vietnam, especially as I had two cousins there. What I’d learned from my parents at the time was unquestioning patriotism, so I had little difficulty in supporting participation.

My eighth grade graduation

A year later, I was one of 750 freshmen at North Hills High School, and wearing a black armband for the moratorium opposing Vietnam. I had joined an interdenominational Christian youth group and was opposed to violence and killing. In fact, when the moratoriums took a violent turn on some college campuses, I stopped wearing my black armband. I couldn’t see one kind of violence being okay when the other wasn’t.

Over the years I’ve been opposed to violence as a rule. On the other hand, I also appreciate those who serve in the military and the police, while I still preferred a non-violent approach to life. Yet here I am, organizing a workshop in which writers can experience the use of firearms, and do various other things that don’t fit readily into my non-violent leaning.

So why am I doing this?

Last Fourth of July I went to a groundbreaking ceremony at INPAX, because my brother is the developer for McCandless Crossing, where INPAX is located. There I met Sam Rosenberg, the founder and CEO of INPAX, and had a chance to talk with him. He was intrigued by the possibility of our working together on a project, and when I sat down with him over the winter, we came up with a program.

Sam Rosenberg

My sister-in-law is also a writer, and Hope had attended the Writer’s Police Academy when it was still located in North Carolina. She loved the experience, and while I didn’t want to copy the size or scope of it, I thought there might be a need for a smaller intensive in which fewer people all went through the same program together.

Years ago, when I was selling gargoyles at the flea market, I was parked next to a guy who was selling guns. We talked throughout the day, as neighbors do at a flea market, and in a quiet moment, he offered to let me hold one of his pistols. It was small, silver, and much heavier than I would have expected. Even more unexpected was that I found I liked it. Actually, I would call it appalling more than unexpected.

So, I know from experience that intellectual knowledge about a firearm is quite different from physical knowledge. I also know that intellectually imagining how to deter an attack on someone is quite different from physically training with Sam, who has been a bodyguard for Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel, and doing a field exercise under Sam’s supervision.

There’s no doubt, this workshop is out of my comfort zone. And to make it even tougher, I intend to participate in the activities, so that I know what participants are doing.

Picture from INPAX website

There’s also no doubt that Sam has helped me put together an incredible program. And being able to bring in New York Times bestselling author Robin Burcell (she co-authors a thriller series with Clive Cussler), who spent more than 30 years in law enforcement, to teach writers how to make their law enforcement characters realistic.

I’m curious how it will feel to do this workshop, and I’m grateful for the support I’ve had in pulling it together.

I’ll let you know how it turns out!

Take care,
Doc

A random harvest...

6/18/2018

Life is a mixed bag, isn't it? This week's post will be a mixed bag, too. A random harvest of my discoveries in the past week or so. Since the workshop - well, after I got home and unpacked from the workshop - I've been inspired to write. There was no time for that at the workshop, which is all about making it possible for others to write. So I came home and found myself pushing everything else aside so I could write. And I fell in love with my story all over again. Seriously. In love.

I'm not this neat, but I do all my editing by hand

Author Herman Wouk

Author Steve Haskin

Yesterday, I read the most wonderful post by my favorite racing writer, Steve Haskin. It did include horse racing, but it was mostly about his dad. He included a letter from his dad, who was in the service and wrote about his experience during the invasion of Luzon in the Pacific Theater during WWII. If you click on his name you can read it for yourself - as I wrote in my comment on the post, Steve's dad's letter reminded me of Herman Wouk and James Michener, writing of their own experiences in the South Pacific during the war. The awareness and clarity in how they wrote is powerful and moving. The funny part of this is that my comment to Steve kicked off a three-way thread with another commenter about Herman Wouk! Twenty-four hours later, the three of us are still going back and forth.

And then there's the title to this post - "random harvest." If you don't get the reference, I'm not surprised. There was a book by that name, Random Harvest, written by James Hilton, author of Lost Horizon and Goodbye Mr. Chips among others. Random Harvest was made into a film with Ronald Colman and Greer Garson. Like so many films, it wasn't as good as the book. On the other hand, it was still pretty darn terrific as I realized recently when I saw it on TCM.

Random Harvest is a love story, an unusual love story. I've been trying to think of why this fits in with the other elements of this post, and that's it - an unusual love story. That's the common theme here - unusual love stories. A writer falls in love with her own story, a father's love for his son leads him to do something extraordinary, and I can't tell you about Random Harvest and what's unusual there - you have to read it and find out for yourself.

Enjoy your reading, enjoy your writing, and enjoy your own unusual love story...

Take care,
Doc

The best workshop ever...

6/11/2018

Someone asked me when I first started Wake Up and Write WRW why I would start yet another workshop. What, they asked, made mine different – in other words, why would anyone want to come to it? While it’s a legitimate question, I remember at the time hearing my mother’s voice when I told her I wanted to be a writer, asking me why I thought I was good enough to write.

There are all kinds of reasonable answers to both questions, but in the end, the only answer that makes any sense at all is the same for both: because I want to.

Portrait of me by Nushka, May 2018

Writers from May 2018 in Boise, Idaho

We completed the May workshop in Boise, Idaho just over a week ago. There are pictures on the website and the Facebook page and in this blog post, and the people in those pictures are why I want to run a workshop – in particular the Writers Retreat Workshop and the offshoot I started, Wake Up and Write WRW.

The people in those pictures are writers, who want to share their writing with the world, and want to learn whatever they can to make that happen. And there are instructors and an agent in those pictures, many of them also writers. And then there’s me.

My kindergarten picturre

I don’t remember not writing. Or reading. Before I got to school I already knew how to read and write, thanks to an older sister and an insatiable desire for books that continues to this day. Books are my addiction, more than anything else. And my avid reading is probably what gave me the desire to write, but I can’t honestly say I remember a moment when that happened.

I was always a storyteller, which in my case meant, I was always a liar. At a young age I lied for a variety of reasons: fear (there were tigers in the bathroom in the dark), competitiveness (okay, I rewrote the rules of Clue so I could win, and my friends trusted that I was telling them the truth), and religious fervor (I had to come up with some kind of sins to tell the priest in confession). In school I learned how to use my storytelling skills for more creative purposes than lying.

What I remember more than anything about the first Writers Retreat Workshop I attended, is that I felt as if I belonged. Since that particular feeling had eluded me for the first 37 years of my life, that was no small thing. When I returned to WRW in 2012 after being away for more than 10 years, that sense of belonging returned.

I can’t explain it. There are different people at every workshop. Jason and I talked about the fact that every workshop seems like the best one. And it is. Every one.

Rosalyn and Lisa

Creating a coat of arms

strange Play-Do sculpture created during a Shop Talk

A long time ago I was at a Pizza Hut with some WRW alums and someone quoted Maya Angelou’s statement that she’d die if she couldn’t write. I remember sitting there, knowing that wasn’t true for me. It wasn’t then. It isn’t now, though I would die if I couldn’t find a way to express the things I now write about.

While I am writing a novel, I also have written literally books of poetry, some non-fiction, several year’s worth of this blog, thousands (if not millions) of emails, and myriad other things. I also draw and paint and do crazy things with Play-Do and create a coat of arms for myself and my book.

My life is an expression of what I write about. Sometimes I wish it weren’t, sometimes I wish I could hide it or hide from it. But as I sit here tonight on my back porch which once again looks out over a lush, green woods with birdsong and traffic creating a soundtrack for the night, I am grateful.

I have seen my fifth Triple Crown winner, Justify, ridden by my favorite jockey, Mike Smith.

I watched Scott Dixon become the third winningest driver in Indy Car history in Texas Saturday night.

Glenda Jackson with her Tony award

And Sunday night I watched Glenda Jackson win her first Tony award after 30 years away from the stage to serve in Parliament, I watched The Band’s Visit sweep the musical Tonys and listened to some extraordinary acceptance speeches, and I found myself in tears when the Parkland students sang about love from the stage of Radio City Music Hall.

Life isn’t always easy, and it isn’t always good, but damn, I sure am lucky. I am able to live my life as an expression of who I am, which includes writing, and horse racing, and constant change and challenge. Life is the best workshop, ever…

Take care,

Doc

Rebecca

Connie and Hannah

Nushka (l), Janine (r), and some friends

Nushka, Lee, and Frank on the patio