Tell the Truth As You Understand It

“If something inside of you is real, we will probably find it interesting, and it will probably be universal. So you must risk placing real emotion at the center of your work. Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it. If you’re a writer you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act—truth is always subversive.” – Anne Lamott     Goodness, here I sit on a Monday night with a Tuesday morning deadline to write a blog post. There are a number of other things I could be doing, like watching the latest episode of Downtown Abby and finding out, good god, if Edith’s boyfriend, the father of her unborn baby, miraculously returns, saving Edith’s reputation and bringing her the happiness we know she deserves.  Seriously, I’ve tried to write this blog post a few times, even looking back into recent Wild Writing journals to see what I could get away with. Nothing. I’m feeling pressed to do something and I’m feeling empty of anything pithy, funny, smart or admirable. Sitting here trying to rouse the troop of my words, I get this quote sent to me from my friend Marci Hannewald and I realize the jig is up.   Forget about writing something funny. Something that bathes you in the best light. Forget about writing something important or sage and that will inspire people to want to work with you or know you. Just write about what’s true. “Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability....

Telling True Stories

One of the best things about staying with your work for a very long time is that you have a chance to understand, year after year, what exactly you’re doing. Not even because you’re trying to do it better, but because each year your work reveals itself even more to you, and you can deepen your understanding as to what it is about your work that you really care about.   I knew I was teaching people something about writing for the last 14 years, but each year was an opportunity for me to peel away a little more the layers and get to the center of that work. Yes I could help people get published and find homes for their books and stories. Yes I wanted to help them tell their stories in engaging ways, but the more I worked with people, the more I understood that what I really cared about – more than whether someone published – was to inspire and to be among people who were striving to find the most honest language to tell their stories with.   My aim is to help people find the words that open like doors and which invite both the reader and writer into deeper understanding of what it means to be alive.   What I look for in a story is a chance to learn something – – not even a lesson per se, but perhaps some instruction on how to behave in the world. I remember seeing Ira Glass from the radio program, This American Life, on stage in S.F. many years ago and he told...

Running is Not Funny!

It wasn’t a big race, there were no prizes, I didn’t have to train or make sure I had the right outfit – – I just had to show up and be ready to run. And not even the whole 3.2 miles, mind you. I could walk it along with my 76-year-old mother and my 8-year-old nephew – who I heard got a little surly around mile #1 and sat down in protest. Hey! I didn’t like running either! The most I’d run in years had been the day before when my sister Wendy and I challenged ourselves to run 2 miles around a lake. And I’d only done that because I was scared to run a whole 5K –  even if all the money was going to the Colorado flood victims. I would have rather given them the dough because the thought of hauling my middle aged body over hill and dale was enough to make me chuck. “Hell yes! I’ll run it!” I said, when when my little sister Amanda – total stud runner –invited me and everyone else in my family to run. I’m pretty competitive – I didn’t want to look like a slouch on Thanksgiving Day.  No, I was going to work for my meal. Of course Amanda didn’t give two hoots who ran it; I’m pretty sure she invited us so we could watch the crew of kids she’d just begun coaching, but which ended up being one brave 7-year-old boy. Of course I didn’t actually see them running because they were way ahead of me, so I’m taking Amanda’s word for it...

Learning To Make Mistakes

“Why do you work so hard?” my friend Deb asked me the other day. “You seem like you’re in such a hurry to get somewhere.”  “I think I’m trying to get to a sense of rest,” I said. “Some place on the other side of all this hard work where I’ll feel calm.” “But you never get there, right?” says Deb with a sinister smile. “Um, no. There’s just more work.”  Damn that Deb. She’s such a smarty pants. Welcome to my magical to-do list that mysteriously grows longer the more tasks I cross out. On the surface I’m a mass of kick back, unruly curls, but on the inside I’m a 7-armed goddess monster who squeezes more out of each day than is sanely possible. A woman who means to take care of her house, her kids, sell her classes, create new products, teach her classes, get to the gym, return emails, phone calls and about 1000 other things that I’m not even going to mention. It’s nutty, and I’m sorry if you feel sick just reading this. I’m even sorrier if you know this world all too well. On top of it, if you’re like me, you’ll cop to a deep need to make everything you do perfect, bullet proof, exceptional. And while it’s not bad to want to create and deliver good things, the anxiety that accompanies this need for perfection is killing me. So this summer I promised myself that I was going to take a break and relax. As fate would have it a juicy writing project came my way and my “free time” evaporated…poof!...

One Stinky Breath at a Time

My adorable Chinese medical doctor, Scott Blossom, tells me that the lungs are connected to grief – which explains my love affair with cigarettes this past week. I wasn’t going to tell him I was smoking, and planned on not having a smoke until after our 5pm appointment was over so he wouldn’t smell it on me. That was some serious nail biting for someone who had lately been having her first cigarette before the milkman arrived. I know. It’s been a rough little spell. Between the overnight departure of the sexy cowboy, which left me in a crumbled little huddle, and an avalanche of deadlines which appeared out of nowhere – I found myself overwhelmed, distracted, incapable and exhausted. Cigarettes and their delicious nicotine rush were more rewarding than a hot bath, a glass of wine, even a good cry. I think it was the way Scott lifted up my limp little wrist to feel my pulse, the way his forgiving green eyes bore down on me – I couldn’t help myself and I blurted, “I’ve been smoking!” Then I burst into tears. At least Scott would know the truth about me and wouldn’t confuse me with those darling yoga girls who traipse through his office with their starry I’M CHANNELING BLISS eyes. I can be me; messy, goodhearted, clunky and sorely imperfect. Besides, I’m a terrible liar. “I can feel it in your pulses,” he smiled. “Your lungs are like…” and then he made this horrible sound like he was a small rat drowning in sewer sludge.  Three cheers for me for telling him the truth. “It’s...