You know you've been too busy when...

The summer of 2010 saw the arrival of three trains weekly at Thurman Station, and, as president of the Thurman Station Association, I was involved in helping to create and publicize special activities in Thurman to attract and entertain rail passengers. Added to my other regular activities, it made for one crazy summer, with way too much stuffed into my volunteer schedule. Not only did I not blog, I let myriad other things slip between the cracks of my life, as well. I've finally found a few minutes to reflect on that crazy busy-ness, and the impact it had on me:

You know you've been too busy when your "short" hair cut is curling down around your collar and you realize it has been three months since you felt you could afford twenty minutes to sit down and have it cut.

You know you've been too busy when the pile of documents to be dealt with on your desk teeters above the screen of your open laptop and threaten to topple down onto it.

You know when you listen intently to a story your spouse is telling and realize moments later that not one word pierced your brain --- which was focused on that teetering pile.

You know when you forget to eat, to sleep, to go to the bathroom.

When you forget what file you were just about to open, whose number you were about to dial, what face belongs to the name on the page in front of you.

I knew best yesterday, when I sat down to work and suddenly was flooded with the awareness there was nothing -- NOTHING -- that I needed to do right away for any of those volunteer projects. It took a few minutes to fully realize that I had time to.....to what? I'd almost forgotten the alternatives.

I had time (not unlimited, but time, nonetheless) to phone a friend. Time to listen to some music and plug a few pieces into a jigsaw puzzle on the coffee table. Time to pull up a piece of fiction I wanted to noodle around with before my next writers' retreat.

Time to share a few thoughts with you in this long-neglected blog.

I've missed that.

Till soon,
Perky

Readers at the Ready for Willows Bistro

Informally dubbed "The Bistro Readers," an expanding group of Adirondack area writers continue an ambitious program of monthly readings at Willows Bistro, 3749 Main Street, Warrensburg, NY.

On the second Thursday of each month, four to six writers give short readings from their published and unpublished works--fiction, memoir, humor, poetry and more. They serve up excellent entertainment, with that electricity that new work carries. Bistro owner Debbie Swan dishes up some fine food and beverages.

The free program to be presented on April 8th at 7 p.m. will highlight L.R. Warner, Elizabethtown, author of From the Blackest Cloud; Sonja Aubin, Elizabethtown, co-author of Growing Up Strong; Kathleen O'Day, Warrensburg, sharing memoir about teaching on an Indian Reservation; Carol Gregson, of Minerva, author of Leaky Boots, with new complaints; Doug Deneen, Warrensburg, with new...well, just come see what he has come up with. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll eat, you'll drink.... You don't really want to spend another night in front of TV reruns, when you could enjoy the most fresh material in the county, do you? Pick up a friend and get out to Willows. More readings are coming up, and you won't want to miss them.

Perhaps you've been wondering how to become a reader? Feel free to leave a comment here, email me from my web site (www.FictionAmongFriends.com) or call Debbie at Willows Bistro (518-504-4344). Each month's lineup is put together about three weeks in advance in order to make publicity deadlines. Readings will continue at 7 p.m. on the second Thursday throughout the spring and summer. See you there.

Writer's Alliance of Gainesville Hosts Lola Haskins

Well!

I went to my first poetry reading when I was a teenager, a long time ago.

I went to my second on Sunday. (What was my hurry?)

The first one was a reading in Hudson, NY, given by Dorothy Stickney, who, as I recall, was a close friend of Edna St. Vincent Millay. She read from Millay's works, and the poem that has stuck in my mind since that night lent its name to the evening's performance, "A Lovely Light."

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--
It gives a lovely light!

Sometimes I feel as though I've adopted that philosophy in my own life. So surely I wasn't scarred by my first poetry reading.

It amazed me on Sunday to realize that my life has flown by without further exposure to performed poetry. Lola Haskins was wonderful, both in her recitation of works and in her remarks about the "cross fertilization" of the arts. Of particular interest to me was her story of teaching a course to medical students. As I understand it, her goal was to get them to think in new ways, to open up their creative receptors. She said she had them dance and paint and sing and they worked very hard at it. She had to stop them and say, "You aren't going to get an 'A' for studying hard in this course. You won't get an 'A' until you jump off the cliff." What a concept! What a creative woman, who regularly works with artists in many disciplines. I'm disappointed that I didn't stick around to pick up her book on writing, but expect to do that soon. Check out "Not Feathers Yet" if this intrigues you as much as it does me.

Meantime, I'll be thinking about jumping off some "cliffs." And maybe I won't wait another fifty years to attend another poetry reading.

Reading and Writing

If you check in on this blog with any regularity, you already know that I write here only sporadically, and lately have been slacking off big-time. I apologize--with an explanation/excuse.

I've been reading.

As writers, we are told frequently that we should read good literature to better understand our craft and find worthy models, and that certainly is true. My recent reading has included a number of books submitted to me for review--some really good, some not so good. And some well-written, but mechanically flawed. I'm finding that all of them help me in some respect. The really good ones teach and inspire me; the not-so-good ones heighten my awareness of the rookie mistakes that always want to worm their way into my work. (I can see them so easily in the work of others; maybe I'll become better about spotting them in my own.)

And those mechanically-flawed ones! As the self-proclaimed Queen of Typos, I'm not throwing stones here, but I feel compelled to say that we, as writers, have to remember how much errors detract from the positive impact of our work. I used to bristle at the idea that an editor at a publishing house might "whimsically" reject a query or manuscript just because of simple errors, but I have come to understand how that can be. We need to methodically inspect our work, then enlist the aid of others known to be meticulous in such matters, to go over the work again and again. And again.

My recent reads, in addition to Eric Norcross's "The Violin Diary" mentioned earlier, include "Sassy Pat Knitting: A Memoir" by Pat Richards; "Echoes in These Mountains: Historic Sites and Stories Disappearing in Johnsburg, an Adirondack Community" by Glenn Pearsall; "The Moose with Loose Poops," (don't ask!) by Charlotte Cowan, M.D. Most of these appear at www.BookPleasures.com.

I'm currently working my way through "Journeys: An Anthology of Short Stories" a collection of prize-winning stories published by The Creative Writer's Notebook, and "Your Spacious Self: Clear Your Clutter and Discover Who You Are," by Stephanie Bennett Vogt. I'm also reading some short stories submitted for the current Creative Writer's Notebook contest.

So that's my excuse, and some thoughts prompted by all the reading. Share with us here what you are writing or reading.

My best,
Perky
P.S. I've just gone over this thing and fixed about six errors. Let me know if you see more!

Prooofing and Editting

This winter I've enjoyed reviewing some books for BookPleasures.com. Authors and publishers seeking reviews of works can contact Norm Goldman at the web site and request one. He relays the request to his reviewers to see who has time and interest, and the book is sent there. My experience has highlighted a problem - the importance of mechanical correctness.

When I was a student, that was a high priority, and was sometimes emphasized more than literary creativity. So years later, when I became acquainted with the concept of whole language instruction of students and the notion that kids be taught to worry about creative content first and to clean up the mechanics afterward, I applauded the idea. Naysayers said that students had to learn the rules, had to put them first. I argued that a balance was important.

Now I'm seeing material roll off the presses with lots of errors--wrong words, wrong spellings, wrong or missing punctuation, lots of mechanical stuff that should have been caught. As a self-published author, I know how easy it is to let this happen (and have contributed to the pile of "wrongs" myself). Having now reviewed three works that were decent books filled with typos and worse, any ambivalence I've had about the importance of mechanical correctness is gone. I'm rededicated to cleaning up my errors before publication meets public eye. Stumbling across typos in a good read is like biting down on a grain of sand in a great spinach salad. It's bone-jarring and distracts from the content. Creative genius deserves better!

So I'm going out on a limb here. Let me know when you find errors on my blog, and I'll correct them. But feel free, too, to focus on content and add your two cents.

And have a great day.

Blogging, Day Two

Yes, I know that's a lame heading. As I mentioned yesterday, I'm trying to build some discipline, and it's a bit of a struggle for me. Please bear with me. I'm looking at a mound of papers that need to be dealt with, emails to be responded to, lists of writing contests and freelance options to explore, and an old diary to transcribe, and I'm trying to figure out what to do first. Ultimately I will have to decide NOT to do some things--and that's difficult for a semi-manic optimist like me.

In my befuddled mind, all things are possible, and all I have to do is keep plugging away. My sane half knows that would be true if there were unlimited hours in the day and unlimited days in life. There aren't, so I need to prioritize. With a new book that needs to be promoted, a new issue of a historical society magazine to put together, a new writers' retreat to plan, I feel as though I'm standing before a loaded buffet table with a very tiny plate. I want to have it all, but how? It's a nice problem to have. To borrow an expression rapidly becoming trite, life is good.

So what are you working on? Or aren't you? What pushes your choices around? Drop a note here.