A Texan's literary perspective on 2017, part 2

A bestselling Aussie author dropped in on Dallas, while a local writer revived my interest in short stories. Dallas got a new independent bookstore, and an iconic blast from the past. And I learned the literary value of theology, among other lessons from 2017.

6/22/17 Kate Forsyth’s secrets for page-turning suspense

So, the book started off great. And then . . . you as a reader found yourself flipping pages, looking for something to catch your eye until you finally put the book down. Never to pick it up again. And probably never, ever to buy another book by that author.

Kate Forsyth

Now you’re the one writing a book. And from time to time, you glance at that long-neglected volume on your shelf, and a chill runs down your back as you wonder whether readers of your book will grab it happily also, only to put lay it down well before they finish. Never to look at it, or any of your books, again.

What we need here are Australian author Kate Forsyth’s secrets for keeping those pages turning. 

Her tips, offered at a Dallas workshop, included likable (although not perfect!) characters, surprises, multiple forms of suspense and minimizing the gore. “If you’ve seen 17 characters skinned alive, what’s one more? Meh.”

7/11/17 Tall tales told briefly

I confess: after publishing nearly two dozen short stories, I’d given up. Writing workshops were starting to tell me my tales didn’t fit into the few-thousand-word format of a short story. Flash fiction, micro fiction? Forget about it!

Then at a recent meeting of the Dallas Mystery Writers, I heard short story writer Ann Fields speak on the few (but basic) principles, and thought, maybe I’ll find the courage to try the short form again. I’ll think of it as a summer wardrobe for my writing. Fewer pieces, no layering, just the basics. 

“I loved the long form, but I had a day job and found it hard to keep my focus. So, I took a detour through short form and fell in love with that form of writing,” she told her mystery-writing audience.

Her suggestion is, rather than fixating on word-counts, simply to write the story in your heart in the way that seems natural to you – and it. 

8/15/17 VooDoo and Oil: Will Clarke’s homecoming

The night at Interabang Books in Dallas looked like a home coming for author Will Clarke as he read and signed copies of his third novel, The Neon Palm of Madame Melançon to a standing room only crowd. There were a lot of hugs, a lot of well-wishing, more than a little wine flowing.

Will Clarke

Madame Melançon (and Clarke, her creator) had just received a glowing tribute from Dallas Morning News writer Robert Wilonsky. Clarke himself looked no older than he had when his first book, Lord Vishnu’s Love Handles, appeared more than a decade ago. He was all smiles at Interabang, the city’s newest (and chicest) independent book store. 

Clarke’s books are the written equivalent of a dizzying roller coaster. Which way is up, which way is down? How fast are we going? Will we survive? Who knows? All we can do is hang on. 

10/13/17 A whole lot of pages, but is it a book? 

There was standing room only this week at Interabang Books in Dallas, as writers and would be writers packed into hear a panel sponsored by the Writers League of Texas. Four North Texas authors, moderated by the League’s executive director, Becka Oliver, shared their methods for turning the mass of pages they sometimes end up into actual publishable – and published books.

“When you talk to four writers with four different kinds of backgrounds, you know we’re really going to dig in,” Oliver said, as she introduced writers Jeramey Kraatz, author of the Cloak Society and Space Runners novel series; Sanderia Faye (Mourner’s Bench); Mike Merschel (Revenge of the Star Survivors); and memoirist Sarah Hepola (Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget).

In case you don’t already know from reading these posts, where there are four writers in a room, there are will be four different methods of writing and revising that writing. I, and probably the rest of the audience, listened, hoping to find a little of this and a little of that we could put together to find our own recipe for success.

10/17/17 Flesh and blood characters for standout stories

You know how, when you’re thinking about something, everything around you seems to be that same something? For me recently, in writing, that “something” has been character. Everywhere I turn, strange, even bizarre characters have appeared. First, there’s the news, replete with characters to study. Then the writing course offered by NaNoWriMo through the online site Coursera includes a segment on character. Even when I turned to what seemed to be a delightful book about a woman and her pet bulldog, darned if the “character” aspect didn’t appear again. (For both woman and her canine friend!) Finally, half of this fall’s writing workshop sponsored by the Writers Guild of Texas hinged on the aspect of character. 

Creating fictional characters, we as human beings can relate to is such an essential element that the basic formula for story is: character + action = plot. But how to create those characters? 

During the Coursera lessons, novelist/instructor Amy Bloom noted, “Most of us have enough trouble being ourselves, without having to then take on the task of (inventing) other people. But when you’re a writer, that’s the job. You have to enter into their body, into their soul, and see the world as they see it.”

So no wonder that after bestselling romantic suspense author Cindy Dees, who taught the WGT workshop, confessed that character development isn’t her strongest point, she developed an entire course on the subject to help her compensate,

Writerly resolutions for 2018: dare to daydream!

(This post is a reprint. The writer is on vacation.)

image: pixabay

It’s time for entry number three in the annual list of New Year's resolutions for writers. And much as parents and teachers may have criticized us (OK, criticized me) for daydreaming, it’s more than an escape. It’s a necessary part of any creative work.

“At its simplest, daydreaming (or mind wandering, if you prefer that term), is just another information-processing system, but a highly creative one,” editor Amy Fries writes in her blog at Psychology Today. “(Einstein) famously said, ‘When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come close to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.’”

Or consider the connection Sigmund Freud drew between daydreaming and creative writing, as psychologist Maria Popova discusses at her blog Brain Pickings. “The child’s best-loved and most intense occupation is with his play or games. Might we not say that every child at play behaves like a creative writer, in that he creates a world of his own, or rather, rearranges the things of his world in a new way which pleases him? . . . The creative writer does the same as the child at play. He creates a world of fantasy which he takes very seriously. . .”

With the likes of Freud and Einstein weighing in, how can we afford to disparage daydreaming as, well, child’s play? And though it may sound crazy to give advice on how to daydream, serious dreaming requires serious effort. Not so much to dream as to make a clear space for dreaming.

I admit, working quiet time into a day isn’t easy. For starters, it means I have to stop filling my down time up with entertainment. I’m talking about turning off the IPod, TV, game system, even the internet. (But only after you finish reading this!) At least once in a while, we must take out the ear buds that insulate us from the world, ourselves, and our deeper work.

While clearing space inside our heads, let’s get a move on. Consider Einstein’s love of walking while carrying on that conversation with his thoughts. I have a gym
membership, but how can I daydream while I’m busy checking heart rates, mileage, and calories burned on the machine readouts? My dog makes me do at least some of my exercise the old fashioned way. It gives my daydreams a breath of fresh air as well.

But aren’t daydreams, by their nature, ephemeral? How is it possible to hang on to the insights of our daydreams? I found taking a notepad and pencil to boring work meetings always made me look industrious, although I was really “daydreaming” -- jotting down story ideas, descriptions, and dialogue. I’ve also survived jury duty summons with the aid of a notebook. I like soft-bound ones small enough to fit in a purse or pocket. Author/writing guru Anne Lamott writes that she carries index cards to capture insights. Use whatever works for you, even -- although I write this with some trepidation -- a mobile device.

And while we’re at it, let’s do some real dreaming, by getting enough sleep. Sleep that will leave what Stephen King calls “the boys in the basement” free to work on the stuff of your daydreams.

For more insights on the importance of daydreaming, see Fries' blog at Psychology Today, "The Power of Daydreaming".

Anne Lamott on the ‘kind face’ of mercy for the world

It’s not often I attend a theological convention. But I’d been looking forward to Anne Lamott’s appearance at the fall convocation of the Perkins School of Theology for the past year. Anne Lamott, author of the beloved writing handbook, Bird by Bird, teaching something that sounds as dry as theology? But after devouring several of her nonfiction books (and a novel or two), what other word would I have chosen to describe her earthy, funny, painful, joyous and heartrending words except – theology? At its best.

Anne Lamott

Although I had trumpeted my intention to attend Lamott’s talk for the past six weeks, I apparently had forgotten to actually register to attend, back when tickets for her appearance were free. Now, moving to the entrance to McFarlin (seating capacity 2,300), I noticed people presenting paperwork to verify their right to attend. The university had announced days earlier that, with limited seating, no more free tickets would be issued. I could pay to attend the entire two-day convocation or I could go home. Luckily (or so I believed) I had printed my initial email invitation and held it out, prepared to argue with the ushers. One of the smiling women at the door simply tore off a corner of my printed email, dropped it in a basket, and waved me in. Not luck, but mercy, the theme of Lamott’s latest book, Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy.

Lamott emerged onto the stage, looking more petite than ever next to tall Perkins dean Dr. Craig Hill. A pink scarf tied bandeau-style around her head covered some of Lamott’s trademark short dreadlocks of graying blonde hair. She wore blue slacks and a green sweater with another, darker scarf draped around her neck.

After Texas’ trials of hurricane and, little more than a week before Lamott’s appearance, the most horrific mass murder in the state’s history, “We’re had Texas in our prayers a lot,” Lamott told the audience that nearly filled McFarlin to capacity. “I love Texas. And,” pausing a beat, “I especially love Texas when it’s not summer.” One hundred plus degree summer days in the Lone Star State? Everybody in the audience understood that one, and alternately laughed and applauded Lamott throughout.

“I accidently wrote this book on mercy,” Lamott continued. Pondering where to turn for hope and guidance in “these agonizing days, she had searched her Bible from the beginning, finding little help until she reached the Old Testament book of the prophet Micah. “He must have looked a stoner. Or a Game of Thrones extra, and smelled like a goat,” she said, “but his admonitions struck her: do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with your God.

Justice? Humility? Not happening in this world, as far as she could tell. But mercy? That might be doable. 

“I started to notice whenever I used that word (mercy), people responded.” She began to ask herself, what’s the next merciful thing you could do today? And She decided that mercy must include kindness, wrote a note to herself “why not be kind?” and ended by writing her “accidental” book. 

“Mercy calls us for sharing at our must human, without the armor and without the masks. It’s scary and gorgeous to become a person of radical mercy. The bad news is that it begins with developing a merciful attitude toward ourselves.”

She briefly recounted her early life – many of the details already familiar to her audience from her books – her parents’ troubled marriage, a brilliant alcoholic father she worshipped, the years of childhood and adolescence spent trying to be whatever others needed, while “stuffing down” her own needs.

“I didn’t want to go back and experience that kind of bleakness, but stuffing it down doesn’t help.”

Do we sometimes think neither the stuffing down nor the merciful attitude applies to us? Didn’t grow up in a dysfunctional family? Aren’t/weren’t an alcoholic like Lamott? Not an unwed parent? Not a person who forgets to sign up for something she dearly loves?

“Some of you are fine,” Lamott assured us, then skewered her 2,300-hundred-member audience, ever so gently. us. “Well, eight of you are fine. The rest of us are really messed up. . . We get well in such small increments, and I hate it. If I were God, or God’s West Coast representative, I would just wave a wand. But I’m not. Mercy means a heart for someone else’s troubles – and not in that co-dependent way. It means (God) turning a kind face toward you,” and because of that, “you decide to be fully alive for as long as your live, a person of hilarious generosity.”

(For more about Anne Lamott, take a look at her Facebook page, because she’s probably the most public person who doesn’t have her own website. Or better yet, read her books.)

Fall literary events in Texas – a hurricane can’t stop ‘em!

The last post about the storm of fall literary events in North Texas only had room for August-September events. But fall’s barely started, and festivals, author tours, and workshops are sprouting like mushrooms after a deluge, starting with:

image: pixabay

September 7: If you loved Finn Murphy’s truck driving memoir, The Long Haul, as much as I did (or if you haven’t been introduced to Murphy’s book), truck over to Dallas’ newest independent bookstore, Interabang Books, 10720 Preston Road (Preston at Royal), at 7 p.m. this Thursday, September 7, to meet him and even buy a signed copy of his book.

September 9-11: It’s almost here – the grand opening of Interabang culminating in a party September 11, from 6-9 p.m. with guest of honor Ann Patchett. Patchett is expected to speak at approximately 7 p.m. September 11. Although she will not be able to personalize books, signed copies of her works will be available for sale.

September 24: I said it before, and I’ll say it again – bestselling author Ken Follett’s appearance to open this season’s Arts & Letters Live of the Dallas Museum of Art is a must-hear. He will speak at 7:30 p.m. in First United Methodist Church of Dallas, 1928 Ross Avenue (across from the DMA). Tickets start at $60 for the public, and include a copy of Follett’s latest book. 

October 4: Art Garfunkel appears at the Authors LIVE!  presentation of Friends of SMU Libraries and Friends of the Highland Park Library, to discuss and sign his book, What is All But Luminous. In Wesley Hall of Highland Park United Methodist Church, 3300 Mockingbird Lane, Dallas, 7 p.m. Unlike most Authors LIVE! events, this one is ticketed, $28, which includes a copy of the book. See the site for details, and preview more of its coming authors.

October 7: The Writers Guild of Texas hosts New York Times bestselling author Cindy Dees as instructor for its fall writing workshop, 9 a.m. – noon in the Richardson, Texas, Civic Center, 411 West Arapaho Road, Richardson. Visit the site for details. Online tickets: $25 for WGT members, $35 for nonmembers. Tickets at the door: $35 for members, $40 for nonmembers at the door, as space is available.

October 7: The Texas Teen Book Festival, 8:30 a.m. – 6:30 p.m., at St. Edward’s University, 3001 S. Congress Avenue, Austin, Texas. It’s free and so is parking (even for buses). Keynote address by New York Times bestselling author Marie Lu. Costume contest, book signings, dozens of authors! See the site for details and complete author list.

October 10: The Writers League of Texas visits Interabang Books, 10720 Preston Road, Dallas, for a panel discussion: Turn a Mess of Pages into a Book. Something to think about, considering:

November 1-30: November’s month-long run of NaNoWriMo events. (More to come on this topic!)

Vincent Villafranca (file photo)

November 2-5: World Fantasy Convention, Wyndham Riverwalk, 111 East Pecan Street, San Antonio. Yes, THE annual fantasy convention will be in Texas! (Aren't you glad it's not in Houston?) Winner of the design for the WFC Award is Texas sculptor Vincent Villafranca, who some readers may remember from last year's ArmadilloCon in Austin. I mentioned the WFC in an earlier post, then forgot until I saw a post at a literary agency website saying responses may take longer if they happen to be at the WFC. Oops! See the site for details and memberships.

November 4-5: The Texas Book Festival – the BIG ONE! In and around the grounds of the state capitol in Austin. Authors include Dan Rather, Jeffrey Eugenides, Angie Thomas, Claire Messud, and many, many more. See the site for details.

November 10-12: Readers & ‘ritas, Hilton Garden Inn, 705 Central Expressway South, Allen, Texas. is a weekend-long binge of parties with favorite romance authors, panels, and food. Guests of honor are Sherrilyn Kenyon, Cathy Maxwell and Marie Bostwick. See the site for details and pricing, including a weekend pass option which includes a writers workshop November 10, 9:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.

November 13: Anne Lamott provides the keynote address for the fall convocation of Perkins School of Theology: The Power of the Story, on the SMU campus. Lamott will read and discuss her latest book, Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy, from 7:30 p.m. – 9 p.m. at McFarlin Auditorium on the SMU campus. Books will be available for signing from 9-9:30 p.m. Her appearance is free. See the site for information on the full schedule of convocation events and pricing.

December 1: Texas Book Festival goes to Houston for Reading Rock Stars. Currently, the festival is scheduled to bring six authors to four elementary schools in Houston. See the site for updates as the situation in Houston progresses.

Adventure classics -- For unto us a son is given (oops!)

Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year

by Anne Lamott

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“I woke up with a start at 4:00 one morning and realized that I was very, very pregnant,” Anne Lamott writes in the opening of her 1993 memoir, Operating Instructions. “What tipped me off was that, lying on my side and needing to turn over, I found myself unable to move. My first thought was that I had had a stroke.”

Being Lamott, who writes with sometimes hilarious, sometimes agonizing frankness about her struggles with writing itself, with addiction, love, death, Republicans, God¾ especially God¾ we understand this will not be a Dr. Spock-style manual on childrearing.

Or will it? She’s full of first-hand advice on what it feels like to trim your baby’s fingernails too close, whether to circumcise, the pros and cons of natural childbirth and breastfeeding. And things I worried about with my child, (and maybe that other parents worry about as well). Are they eating enough? When will they sleep through the night? How can I deal with their pain and sickness? And most of all: How are we going to do this, with all that this implies?

In Lamott's story, in 1989, a few years after becoming sober, and after previous abortions, she became pregnant again. This time, she wanted to keep the baby. Her lover, however, “was dramatically less excited than I was to find out I was pregnant,” she writes, “so much so that I have not seen or heard from him in months.”

She dreaded facing another abortion, she writes, even while fearing over and over “that I am much too self-centered, cynical, eccentric, and edge to raise a baby, especially alone ¼ At thirty-five years old, I may be too old and too tired to be having my first child. And I really did think for several seconds that I might have had a stroke; it is not second nature for me to believe that everything is more or less okay.”

Struggling with her decision, she wrote her fears on paper and “said to God ¼ I am willing to have the baby if that is your will, if that is the right thing for us, and I am willing to have an abortion, if that would be best for the baby and me; so I am putting this in your in-box, and I’m just going to wait for my next operating instructions.”

And so it goes, through the journey of self-discovery that comes from bringing up another human being, the son she would name Sam. Her emotions range from the ecstasy of her first sight on her newborn¾ “he was like moonlight” to ruminations about his “reptilian head” as he wakes her yet again, exhausted from too little sleep and realizing, like many new parents, that she can’t remember when she last had enough free time even to bathe or brush her teeth.

As Lamott fans know, still ahead at the end of Operating Instructions ends is Sam’s own journey of self-discovery, including his present life as the unmarried father of a son born before he was out of his teens.

But in 1989, that was still in the unforeseeable future.

“There are times when he experiences bad things, pain or fear or hurt feeling, and he clings to me like a wet cat,” Lamott writes at the end of her book. “I don’t know what to make of it all. But, as I was writing this just now, Sam went into the living room closet, played a little song on the guitar, and then, just then, just this second, peered around from behind the closet door, babbling absolutely incoherently, grinning at me like some crazy old Indian holy man.”

(Next Wednesday, Adventure classics completes a December of spirited adventures with Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s “Roshomon.”)

Wordcraft -- Readers’ favorite posts: the first runner-up

With major changes coming to this blog next year, I’m using these last December weeks of Wordcraft to count down readers’ all-time favorite posts. Today’s entry is the first runner-up among most highly-viewed pages in all categories. It’s actually the most highly viewed of Wordcraft posts, and one of my earliest, from April 13, 2011, titled, “Anne Lamott on writing, families and faith.”

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Anne Lamott arrived at the Barnes and Noble bookstore on Dallas’s Northwest Highway last Friday looking waifish. Still slim at nearly fifty-seven, her graying blonde hair in its signature short dreadlocks, and with skin pale enough to write on¾ which she apparently does if she has ideas without paper at hand¾ she took charge of the crowd, inviting people to sit on the carpeted area near the podium when all the store’s spare chairs filled.

She was there for the paperback release of her latest novel, Imperfect Birds, but pronounced herself reluctant to talk about the book after a weeklong publicity tour.

“Tell us about Sam,” an audience member asked.

“I’d much rather talk about Sam,” Lamott agreed, referring to the son whose infancy she chronicled in her memoir Operating Instructions. Sam, now nearly twenty-one, has a twenty-month old son, Jax, who shares the current dedication page. (The original hardcover version of included a poem by the Sufi poet al-Rumi that explained the title of Imperfect Birds. But most of the crowd seemed to treat it as a reference to Lamott’s cult-status writing handbook, Bird by Bird.)

“Sam is tall and thin and has dark, normal hair.” She paused for knowing laughter from the audience at the comparison to her own hair, so curly she related opting for dreads as the only way to control it. “He’s very funny, full-time art academy. He’s a believer. I gave him a lot of rope to walk his own spiritual path.” For the rest of the discussion, Lamott’s passions for family and spirituality intertwined with her passion to writing.

“I write the same book,” she said in response to a question about what she’s writing. “(I write) that it’s scary here. That for people like me who are shy, it’s not a good match.” But she writes, she said, as part of the conversation she has with life, God and her readers. She doesn’t write, she said, because she enjoys it, but because she counts herself among those “longing to be one of the storytellers of the culture,” who serve as narrators for a collective. “Nothing has ever happened to me that hasn’t happened to you. The great words of all liberators, including Christ (are) ‘me, too.’ Only the details are different.”

After nearly an hour, she tore herself away from the discussion with the audience, which clearly loved her, to read and comment on her book. Imperfect Birds is the third in series about the Ferguson family that began with Rosie and continued with Crooked Little Heart. Lamott called it a trilogy, but I had to wonder whether the Fergusons might turn up
again whenever society has problems their creator feels they can address. They dealt earlier with the death of young Rosie’s father and the effects of the highly competitive environment that Rosie (and Lamott) experienced as adolescents. The present book shows Rosie at seventeen, “beautiful and yet with a lot of secrets,” Lamott said, “and it starts to occur to Elizabeth (her mother) that she’s in over her head.”

It’s no secret to readers now that Rosie’s problem is drug addiction. Lamott has struggled all her life with various addictions, and admitted that there’s some of her in all her characters. In this case, she felt the need to hold a conversation with young people and their parents about the evils of addiction, the reason, as she states at the beginning of her book that “a teenager died nearly every year after a party and kids routinely went from high school to psych wards, halfway houses or jail.”

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When this post first appeared, I thought its popularity might be due to Lamott’s shyness about embracing social media. It’s hard to believe, but three and a half years ago, there were few mentions of her online except a few interviews. Now she’s made the leap to Wikipedia, Twitter (@annelamott) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/AnneLamott/) but readers still drop by here, for which I’m grateful. Sometimes you’re looking for the complete al-Rumi quote that headed the first edition of Imperfect Birds. I have not been able to locate a source, despite searching several English translations. But I’ll leave you another, which I think Lamott would approve. Khaled Hosseini quoted it when he visited Dallas last year: “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” The complete verse is available in The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks.

(Next Monday, Anne Lamott’s post actually has a close competitor. What is it? You’ll have to check back here to find out.)

Wordcraft -- Resolution III: dare to daydream

It’s entry number three in the annual list of New Year's resolutions for writers. And much as parents and teachers may have criticized us (okay, criticized me) for daydreaming, it’s more than an escape. It’s a necessary part of any creative work.

“At its simplest, daydreaming (or mind wandering, if you prefer that term), is just another information-processing system, but a highly creative one,” editor Amy Fries writes in her blog at Psychology Today. “(Einstein) famously said, ‘When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come close to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.’”

Or consider the connection Sigmund Freud drew between daydreaming and creative writing, as Maria Popova discusses at her blog Brainpickings. “The child’s best-loved and most intense occupation is with his play or games. Might we not say that every child at play behaves like a creative writer, in that he creates a world of his own, or rather, rearranges the things of his world in a new way which pleases him? . . . The creative writer does the same as the child at play. He creates a world of fantasy which he takes very seriously. . .”

With the likes of Freud and Einstein weighing in, how can we afford to disparage daydreaming as, well, child’s play? And though it may sound crazy to give advice on how to daydream, serious dreaming requires serious effort. Not so much to dream as to make a clear space for dreaming.

I admit, working quiet time into a day isn’t easy. For starters, it means I have to stop filling my down time up with entertainment. I’m talking about turning off the IPod, TV, game system, even the Internet. (But only after you finish reading this!) At least once in a while, we must take out the ear buds that insulate us from the world, ourselves, and our deeper work.

While clearing space inside our heads, let’s get a move on. Consider Einstein’s love of walking while carrying on that conversation with his thoughts. I have a gym
membership, but how can I daydream while I’m busy checking heart rates, mileage, and calories burned on the machine readouts? My dog makes me do at least some of my exercise the old fashioned way. It gives my daydreams a breath of fresh air as well.

But aren’t daydreams, by their nature, ephemeral? How is it possible to hang on to the insights of our daydreams? I found taking a notepad and pencil to boring work meetings always made me look industrious, although I was really “daydreaming” -- jotting down story ideas, descriptions, and dialogue. I’ve also survived jury duty summons with the aid of a notebook. I like soft-bound ones small enough to fit in a purse or pocket. Anne Lamott writes that she carries index cards to capture insights. Use whatever works for you, even -- although I write this with some trepidation -- a mobile device.

And while we’re at it, let’s do some real dreaming, by getting enough sleep. Sleep that will leave what Stephen King calls “the boys in the basement” free to work on the stuff of your daydreams.

For more insights from Fries and Popova on the importance of daydreaming, see www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-power-daydreaming/ and www.brainpickings.org/.

Wordcraft -- Things you've looked for

There’s so much to write about, I don’t always take the time to address the concerns you, my reader, have. You use great search words, but I don’t always see page views in Blogger’s statistics for the posts they relate to. So I’m spending today’s post addressing more direct links to plug into this blog’s search engine for the posts you like best.

And because I haven’t been able to archive the pictures originally published with posts, I’ve set up a pinterest board named “melissa embry’s blog in pictures” to put favorite images in one place. You’ll need to ask for an invitation at www.pinterest.com/ .  I’ll add more pictures each week, including alternates that didn’t appear with the original posts. I also include search words and any updated information available. Tell me which posts’ pictures you want to see!

To help make sense of the archives, here are some posts with frequently used search words:

Anne Lamott -- April 13, 2011, for “Anne Lamott on writing, families and faith.” Or friend her on Facebook. Yes, she’s on the internet now! She’s your all time favorite blog subject -- so I’m reprinting her picture, taken with my phone, since I forgot my camera that day.

Blueberries in Texas -- Blueberry Hill Farms reports berries still available. See their site, www.blueberryhillfarms.com/ and my June 15, 2012, post, “Berries blue and beautiful.”

Bran Mak Morn -- See June 6, 2012, “Entry to the storyteller’s guild,” for a discussion of Robert E. Howard’s semi-historical take on his Pictish hero.

Duck Creek train -- December 26, 2011, “Can you hear the train coming?” Train administrator Joel Occhiuzzo doesn’t list a date yet for the 2012-2013 season, but if he’s on his usual schedule, the downscaled train in the Duck Creek neighborhood of Richardson, Texas, will start taking riders the day after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday,
Nov. 23, 2012. See his site,
http://holidayexpressridingtrain.wordpress.com/ .

Heard Museum’s animatronic dinosaurs -- See October 24, 2011, “Robot dinosaurs invade McKinney.” The museum’s site, www.heardmuseum.org/, reports the dinos will return October 2, 2012.

Katharine Woolley -- Agatha Christie killed the fictional counterpart of the demanding wife of her husband Max Mallowan’s boss in Murder in Mesopotamia. See April 20, 2012, “The art of murder made personal.” I’d love to see a biography of the mysterious Mrs. Woolley whose first husband was reported to have committed suicide on their honeymoon.

Sonia Pahcheka (great-great-granddaughter of Comanche chief Quanah Parker) -- May 11, 2011, “Quanah Parker’s descendent drops in.” Ms. Pahcheka’s picture is on my pinterest board. Recent news from Comanche country -- the tribe’s adoption of actor Johnny Depp, playing a Comanche character in the upcoming Lone Ranger movie.

State Fair of Texas -- See October 3, 2011, “State forecast: Sunny and fair.” The 2012 state fair dates are Sept. 28 - Oct. 21.

Wolf Larsen -- I discussed Jack London’s anti-hero August 12, 2011, in “The author as
super-man.” Another London work also appeared February 10, 2012, in “Spinning fool’s gold into fame.”

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Sister-in-law Juneau Embry sent a link to a new-to-me writing conference, Lexicon, this coming weekend, July 21-22, in Denton, Texas. Sounds interesting. See their site,
http://lexi-conwritersconference.com/.

Wordcraft on Wednesdays -- Anne Lamott on writing, families, and faith

Anne Lamott arrived at the Barnes and Noble bookstore on Dallas’s Northwest Highway
last Friday looking waifish.  Still slim at nearly fifty-seven, her graying blonde hair in its signature short dreadlocks, and with skin pale enough to write on -- which she apparently does if she has ideas without paper at hand –she took charge of the crowd, inviting people to sit on the carpeted area near the podium when all the store’s spare chairs filled.

She was there for the paperback release of her latest novel, Imperfect Birds, but pronounced herself reluctant to talk about the book after a weeklong publicity tour.

“Tell us about Sam,” an audience member asked.

Anne Lamott

“I’d much rather talk about Sam,” Lamott agreed, referring to the son whose infancy she chronicled in her memoir Operating Instructions.  Sam, now nearly twenty-one, has a twenty-month old son, Jax, who shares the current dedication page.  (The original hardcover version of Imperfect Birds included a poem by the Sufi poet al-Rumi that explained the title, but most of the crowd seemed to treat it as a reference to Lamott’s cult-status writing handbook, Bird by Bird.)

“Sam is tall and thin and has dark, normal hair.”  She paused for knowing laughter from the audience at the comparison to her own hair, so curly she related opting for dreads as the only way to control it.  “He’s very funny, full-time art academy.  He’s a believer.  I gave him a lot of rope to walk his own spiritual path.”  For the rest of the discussion, Lamott’s passions for family and spirituality intertwined with her passion to writing.

“I write the same book,” she said in response to a question about what she’s writing.  “(I write) that it’s scary here.  That for people like me who are shy, it’s not a good match.”  But she writes, she said, as part of the conversation she has with life, God and her readers.  She doesn’t write, she said, because she enjoys it, but because she counts herself among those “longing to be one of the storytellers of the culture,” who serve as narrators for a collective.  “Nothing has ever happened to me that hasn’t happened to you.  The great words of all liberators, including Christ (are) ‘me, too.’  Only the details are different.”

After nearly an hour, she tore herself away from the discussion with the audience, which clearly loved her, to read and comment on her book.  Imperfect Birds is the third in series about the Ferguson family that began with Rosie and continued with Crooked Little Heart.  Lamott called it a trilogy, but I had to wonder whether the Fergusons might turn up again whenever society has problems their creator feels they can address.  They dealt earlier with the death of young Rosie’s father and the effects of the highly competitive environment that Rosie (and Lamott) experienced as adolescents.  The present book shows Rosie at seventeen, “beautiful and yet with a lot of secrets,” Lamott said, “and it starts to occur to Elizabeth (her mother) that she’s in over her head.”

It’s no secret to readers now that Rosie’s problem is drug addiction.  Lamott has struggled all her life with various addictions, and admitted that there’s some of her in all her characters.  In this case, she felt the need to hold a conversation with young people and their parents about the evils of addiction, the reason, as she states at the beginning of her book that “a teenager died nearly every year after a party and kids routinely went from high school to psych wards, halfway houses or jail.”

(Next week -- Character vs. plot -- agent Weronika Janczuk's series on plotting returns)