Women Authoring Change

Whidbey Island Writers Association hosts an open house the first Tuesday of every month at the Rockhopper in Clinton. This Tuesday I hopped on a ferry to Whidbey Island to attend the meeting. I'm so glad I did.

The focus of the July meeting was Hedgebrook, a retreat for women writers that is located on Whidbey Island. A thousand women from around the world have been hosted for residencies of two weeks to two months. The retreat can host six women at a time, each in one of six cabins. A seventh cabin hosts an established writer in residence. Gloria Steinem is the most recent writer in the seventh cabin.

The tagline at Hedgebrook is Women Authoring Change.

Gitana Garafalo, Director of Alumnae Relations at Hedgebrook, was the speaker Tuesday night. An engaging speaker, Garafalo was passionate about Hedgebrook and as an alumna herself, she is particularly knowledgeable.

I had the best of intentions to take wonderful notes on all the Hedgebrook details, but upon reviewing my notes I discovered I had, through the course of the meeting, written 4 pages of story ideas and outlined a couple projects. Just sitting in that room full of writers inspired me in my own writing.

To the aspiring writers in the crowd: Have you ever gone out of your way to put yourself in a (real world, not online) room full of writers? If not, I highly recommend you give it a try.

Both Hedgebrook and Whidbey Island Writers Association offer numerous literary events throughout the year. Stop by their websites to see if they offer something that might ring your bell.
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My Bookstore

My favorite place to write is at the local bookstore. Sure, I could write at home, but there are too many distractions. Writing in a cafe can be difficult due to the noise level and it carries the prerequisite of purchasing a coffee or other such item, a habit I've been trying to significantly restrict. The library does not sell nor allow snacks or beverages, and at times it can be downright intimidating.

At my bookstore (did I just say my bookstore? Why, yes I did. That's how I feel about it.), I can settle in to my table by the window, plug in the laptop or whip out a notebook and write away while noshing on my brought from home snacks and beverages.

At my bookstore I can focus. It's familiar enough to feel homey, yet there are no nagging obligations. I can turn off the phone, I don't have to look at the dirty dishes, if the bathroom needs to be cleaned, it will be done by someone other than me.

And my bookstore has air conditioning. It's been in the 90s lately, and this little girl from Alaska has no air conditioning in her apartment and is having some difficulty managing the heat gracefully.

I went to my bookstore to escape the heat and get some work done and discovered that my bookstore is being remodeled. Books piled up on carts rather than bookshelves. The shelves pushed around in strange configurations. A huge 3000 square foot area is cleared out and empty save a few piles of rubbish.

This huge cleared out area is the area in which my table used to sit next to my window, where I would occasionally look up from my writing to watch the toddlers play in the playground outside. The window had paper taped over it, completely blocking the view. Many of the tables were piled in a corner, others were pressed into service as book display. The chairs were lined up along the railing looking out into the walkway like the chairs lined up outside of the principles office.

Discombobulated.

That's the word of the day. I was discombobulated. I came to my bookstore for relief and found more frustration. I stood there looking around, wondering if I should sit in one of the chairs and wait for the principle to call me, or figure something else out.

I spent some time wandering around the bookstore and marveling at the way the books had been rearranged. I found Accounting and Bookkeeping books put away in the nature section (In my mind, accounting and bookkeeping both go against nature). In the Database/SQL Server section I found Breaking into Acting for Dummies, Three Theban Plays by Sophocles, and Pygmalion. In Regional Gardening, I was intrigued by The Boss of You: Everything a Woman Needs to Know to Start, Run and Maintain Her Own Business. I grabbed The Boss of You and retired to the store's cafe.

I usually avoid my bookstore's cafe because it is obscenely loud and it can be difficult to get a good seat. The baristas are curiously slow; so slow in fact that I find myself staring at them, not impatiently, I'm just completely mesmerized. There is no hesitation or confusion in the baristas, each movement is long and slow and languid and completely controlled. When she calls out my iced latte after setting it down in front of me, I'm startled back to this reality. I still need to find a table.

I sit at the one empty table, pull out my notebook and pen, and crack open The Boss of You to see what I think of the inside of this book. While perusing the table of contents I feel eyes on me. I notice over the top of the book that the elderly man with very long fingernails at the next table was staring at me while pit mining his nostrils. He stared intently and worked intently for a while, looking away only long enough to admire what he had produced so far, wipe it on the table, and then return to mining and staring. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Then he went back to reading his magazines. I immediately swore I would never read another magazine (we'll see how long that lasts) and from now on I will bring hand sanitizer to my bookstore with me.

Any hope of concentrating was gone. I left the book on the table and took my iced latte and notebook and went home. The Boss of You will have to be read and reviewed another day.

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The Reading Room

For the past couple of months Mr. H has been encouraging me to pack up my goodies and go spend a day studying in the reading room in the Suzzillo Library at the University of Washington. It's just a couple blocks away, but I've been resisting.

For some reason I felt intimidated.



I'm not sure why, in fact I think my IQ went up a few points just by my walking into the room.

This is such a beautiful room, and the people studying in the room treat it with respect. I love how there is a quiet in here that does not exist in other parts of the library. No jabbering on cell phones, no printers, no copiers, no high heels clacking.



Once I got over the gawkfest and took a few pictures, I was able to settle down and get some work done.



It was so nice to have a quiet place to work with no interruptions. Every once in a while Mr. H is right.

Where do you do your writing?

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

I read Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bonesthe first time in 1990. I was twenty and had just decided that I want to be a writer when I grow up. I had never imagined such a book: a writer writing about writing. It's a simple concept, I know. But it blew my mind. I devoured every word and then went back and read it again. I was so full of hope and ambition and passion. I went out and bought myself a big beautifully bound journal in which I would practice my craft.

I went to a bustling cafe, sat down with my big steaming cuppajoe, got out my new pen and stared at the blank page while I waited for a jewel of inspiration. Nothing. Nothing in my head was worthy of that fancy journal. Crap. Drivel. Cliche. Not a single thought that tickled my brain or twitched the nib of my pen was good enough to commit to paper. How the hell do writers do this? Everyday?

Damn.

I missed the basic premise of the book: just do it. Don't wait for it to be perfect, don't repaint your walls to create the perfect writing room, don't wait for the soundbites that everyone will still be quoting 50 years after you're gone. Just write. You find the good stuff in editing.

Eighteen years later I reintroduced myself to an old passion that never died; the dream of making a living as a writer. It's different this time. I write every day. Most of what write is crap, and that's a beautiful thing. I celebrate the shit. I write in spiral bound notebooks that pile up and clutter our apartment. I write, I doodle, I daydream, I do timed writes, I write even when my head is completely empty. I write when I don't know what to write. Sometimes I just write "I don't know what to write" over and over until my pen writes something else. It's not glamorous, it's not inspirational, it's not perfect. It's just writing down the bones.

I re-read Writing Down the Bonesand this time I got it. You have to be willing to be not perfect. I still have times when I find it critically important that I reorganize my files, or transcribe an entire spiral bound notebook into my computer, but on closer inspection that usually means I'm procrastinating and I'm afraid I might write crap. So then I sit down and write crap anyways.

My Aspirations, or Why I Want to be a Food Writer

According to Womens Wear Daily, during Monday's New York Women in Communications' Matrix Awards, "Top Chef" judge Padma Lakshmi was quoted saying:

"I'm living my mother's dream, I sit on my ass, I eat and I talk."

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