the metaphor that ate my brain

It’s a rare moment that I read my horoscope in the daily paper.  I used to check it out regularly for laughs, but lately not so much.  It would have been better for my peace of mind if I had not glanced at it the other day.  Much better.  

There it was, on page two of the Island Life section, right next to Sylvia (“The woman who somtimes lacks empathy can always dredge up a bit for France”), and Annie’s Mailbox (“Woman finds her job unfulfilling, considers Air National Guard”), and the daily drama of advice for bridge players (“‘East opened,’ Louie said plaintively; ‘why not take the heart finesse?’”), and the latest Sudoku (reminding me once again why I didn’t major in math), and the New York Times Crossword (54 down, three letters, “___ vindice” [Confederacy motto], reminding me once again why I didn’t major in Latin).  

So there it was, my daily horoscope, courtesy of the Honolulu Advertiser:

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) 

Sail the seas of romance, but keep an eye peeled on business from your personal crow’s nest. New relationships may seem uncertain. Hold your course and be patient until storms of controversy pass.

As soon as I read these words I knew I was in trouble. The storms in my brain built quickly. Memories of bouts of seasickness on small boats, each memory colored by the most vivid physical sensations and events, replayed in the home theatre of my mind.  Throw in acrophobia—a condition I attribute to having fallen off the family couch and broken my collarbone when I was six months old, so yeah, right, I just can’t wait to climb up into that crow’s nest during a storm—and I’m in deep trouble with this horoscope.

Let’s break it down, shall we?  Sail the seas of romance, but ... hold on right there!  I’ve heard this siren call before.  I’d be happy to take a cruise on a large luxury liner, where there are no sails, and definitely no crow’s nests.  Romance and violent seasickness do not mix.  But if it is a romantic cruise, and I’m getting away from all the demands of my life on land, why do I have to keep an eye peeled on business?  Right now I’m trying not to think about peeled eyes.  I suspect that’s another metaphor, but I’m trying to drive it from my mind.

If I do decide to follow the advice and peel an eye on business, shouldn’t I keep my feet on the ground, or at least on the deck?  But no, it has to be from your personal crow’s nest.  Dammit, I don’t have a personal crow, and if I did I would leave it alone in its nest.  It’s at this point, I notice, that the metaphor begins to eat my brain.

The next sentence in the horoscope seems innocuous enough.  New relationships may seem uncertain. No metaphors here. And yet, I still feel a gnawing at my brain, and I know why.  New relationships are always uncertain.  So don’t waste my time with such drivel.

With what brain I have left I try to process the final sentence of the horoscope.  Hold your course and be patient until storms of controversy pass.  Storms of controversy?  Storms of controversy?!  It’s not enough that I’ve been assigned to a crow’s nest, but now we have to have storms at sea while I’m in the damn crow’s nest?  The storms are totally redundant.  I can be sick just climbing to the crow’s nest, or even standing on the deck and staring up at it.

Let’s recap what we’ve learned, before my brain is totally eaten away.  Seas of romance ... check. Eye peeled on business ... check.  Personal crow’s nest ... check.  New relationships yada yada yada ... check.  Patient during storms ... check.  As I begin to lose consciousness, I seem to see sailors climbing to the crow’s nest to rescue me.  Will they arrive in time?  

While waiting for them, I realize that the Honolulu Advertiser is still clutched in my hand, and I notice for the first time the name of the person who wrote the horoscope, the person responsible for the dire state of my brain.  Holiday Mathis is her name.  I reach for the computer in my personal crow’s nest (well, it’s my crow’s nest, and I insist on the computer ... and WiFi), and I google Holiday Mathis, and her photo appears, staring back at me intently, perhaps studying the degree of my seasickness and the percentage of my brain that is still intact.

Then I click on the LA Times entry for Holiday Mathis, and I read this disclaimer:  “The astrological forecast should be read for entertainment.”  I want to send a strongly worded reply to the LA Times, to ask them if this is their idea of entertainment.  And I want to write to Holiday Mathis and tell her exactly what she can do with her seas of romance and crow’s nests and storms of controversy.  But I have no energy left, and the sailors have finally reached me in my personal crow’s nest.  “It’s Holiday,” I say weakly, “she made me do it.”  But they don’t understand.  They whisper to each other about my brain.  I close my eyes and wait for the storms of controversy to pass.

picture the ending

Writers spend a lot of time on their opening paragraphs, and rightly so. Then we stand on the corner, displaying our wares under a streetlamp, waiting for a reader (or agent, or editor) to drive by. When they slow down, or stop at a red light, we boldly slink out to the curb, holding the first manuscript page of our novel up to the car window, pointing to that first seductive sentence, the alluring opening paragraph, the irresistible hook that will charm them into opening the passenger door and inviting us in. Hooker and hookee, together at last in a kind of erotic literary eHarmony dream.

But—and I apologize if you wanted me to pursue this dream further—what about the final paragraph of the novel? How about that moment on page 324 when you’re exhausted from months of writing, and the plot’s resolved, and the characters have done about all the damage you can handle, and it’s time to end the damn thing? Do you have the creative energy and vision left to write a strong ending? After all the blood, sweat, and tears, maybe you owe it to yourself, and to your story, to write a great ending.

Let’s look at a few famous endings in fiction and see what we can learn. You’ll have your own favorite endings, the ones that have influenced your own writing, whether consciously or not, but these are some of mine.

At the end of Gone With the Wind, after a thousand pages of life with Scarlett and Rhett and friends, after all the triumphs and defeats, all the living and suffering and dying, what image does Margaret Mitchell leave us with? It’s Scarlett O’Hara alone, because Rhett Butler has just walked away from her life again, rejecting her at the end of a long dialogue scene in which the two revisit their past and current feelings. After Rhett disappears up the stairs, and out of her life again, Scarlett is left alone, and in these final moments of chapter 63, and the novel, we are inside the heroine’s mind. Here are the last two paragraphs.

With the spirit of her people who would not know defeat, even when it stared them in the face, she raised her chin. She could get Rhett back. She knew she could. There had never been a man she couldn't get, once she set her mind upon him.

"I'll think of it all tomorrow, at Tara. I can stand it then. Tomorrow, I'll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day."

Romantic enough for you? Hopeful enough? Well, that’s our Scarlett. She’s going home, the place that, as Dorothy Gale reminds us in The Wizard of Oz, there’s no place like. Not a bad ending. Not a bad first novel for Margaret Mitchell. Sold a few copies. We’re left with the image of a strong heroine, going home to Tara for comfort and strength, to rise again, to win back her man.

Picture that ending. It has a sharp image, tightly focused on the central character, and it evokes strong emotions, for Scarlett, for Margaret Mitchell (imagine her writing that ending), and for the reader. The emotional ending is not gratuitous. Scarlett, and her creator, and the reader have gone through an amazing long journey to reach that ending; they deserve it.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, at the end of The Great Gatsby, leaves us with the narrator, outsider Nick Carraway, about to go home again, to return to his roots in the Midwest. But first Nick revisits another home, Gatsby’s Long Island mansion. The house is quiet now. Its wild parties have receded into the past, along with its owner. In the final paragraphs Nick imagines the “old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes—a fresh, green breast of the new world.” Then, in the novel’s closing paragraphs, he imagines his friend Gatsby’s own discovery:

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning—

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

A great lyrical ending, with a strong image tightly focused on the central character, and evoking strong emotions in the novel’s final moments.

E. B. White’s classic Charlotte’s Web, which opens with Fern saving the runt pig Wilbur from the ax, ends with a hymn to friendship. Wilbur tells Charlotte’s children about their mother, and White writes simply and beautifully of the passing of the seasons, and generations, on the farm. Wilbur’s farm. Home. This last image, of Wilbur happy and surrounded by friends, and remembering Charlotte, brings the book to a perfect end. The final paragraph is a lesson for writers in the elements of style, in the power of a few words:

Wilbur never forgot Charlotte. Although he loved her children and grandchildren dearly, none of the new spiders ever quite took her place in his heart. She was in a class by herself. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.

What about endings for short stories? I believe the same principles apply as for novels. Two of my favorite short stories are from Dubliners. Both end with what James Joyce called an epiphany, a moment of revelation and insight, “a sudden spiritual manifestation.” In Joyce’s “Araby,” the young narrator with a deep crush on Mangan’s sister makes a difficult journey to buy a promised gift for her at the Araby bazaar. The boy fails in his romantic quest, however, arriving as the bazaar is closing and without enough money for something nice. At the end of the story we see him in the darkness of the closing bazaar, as Joyce delivers the epiphany in one concluding sentence: “Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.” Again, a sharp image of the central character, evoking strong emotion.

In “The Dead,” Joyce is at his best, writing a longer story with a deeper epiphany. It begins simply with Gabriel Conroy, the central character, attending a Christmas party thrown by his aunts, and ends dramatically with a scene between Gabriel and his wife, Gretta. After the party they ride out a snowstorm in a hotel room, where Gretta tells Gabriel that the song that moved her at the party was the song that a young man she once loved greatly used to sing, a man who died for love of her. Gretta lies crying on the bed, and finally falls asleep while Gabriel gazes out at the snow and experiences his spiritual moment of insight.

Generous tears filled Gabriel's eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love. The tears gathered more thickly in his eyes and in the partial darkness he imagined he saw the form of a young man standing under a dripping tree. Other forms were near. His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence. His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself, which these dead had one time reared and lived in, was dissolving and dwindling.

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

So there we have it. Five endings, all with powerful images and emotions and focused on the central characters who have been at the heart of the story. Notice that these are examples of denouement—that often quiet, reflective period following the climax of the plot. The story has reached afterglow, the golden hour, the last light of day between sunset and evening.

When I’m writing a short story or novel, and have resolved the conflict, I find myself naturally writing by that last light of day, adding a short scene or paragraph that inevitably is influenced and inspired by dozens of favorite endings. As the cowboy rides off into the sunset, his battles won, what is he thinking? Perhaps he stops and looks back at the town and gives a final wave. Or maybe, just maybe, he turns and rides back into town and, without stopping, sweeps the blonde saloon girl off her feet, just when she feared she would never see him again. Now there’s an image I like.

it's where you finish

“It’s an amazing story. They talk about it all the time. The players keep saying, ‘It’s not where you start, but where you finish.' "
... Brandi Chastain, Beijing 2008

Immediately after the emotional ending of the Olympic women’s soccer gold medal match in Beijing, as the cameras showed the faces of the American players, TV commentator Brandi Chastain gave us one of the many lessons that we can take away from an exhilarating two hours of sport and human drama.

The USA women had just stuck together as a team to edge out favored Brazil for the gold, 1-0. Carli Lloyd’s shot in overtime had eluded the Brazilian goalkeeper’s fingers by inches. Then, in the closing minutes, the Americans had withstood furious attacks on their goal.

After the final whistle Hope Solo (the best name for a goalie ever) walked triumphantly across the field. Solo’s own story is, in itself, one of redemption and validation. In the World Cup last year, although she had performed admirably, Solo was benched by the American coach (soon to be replaced himself) in an unpopular move before a loss to Brazil that knocked her team out of the Cup.

Now, a year later, as we watched Hope Solo and the rest of the victorious American women, Chastain spoke of the team’s mantra, “It’s not where you start, but where you finish.”

In Beijing the American women did not start well. Missing their injured star and top player, Abby Wambach, they opened against Norway and promptly surrendered two goals in the first four minutes. They lost that first game 2-0, but during the following two weeks they dug in and advanced to the gold medal game, where in spite of the incredible skills and flare of the Brazilian players, in spite of a crowd that largely cheered on the favored Brazil, they proved that soccer is a team sport. All the lessons you’ve ever been taught about teamwork and sticking together in tough times were there on that Olympic soccer field.

Then we were treated to the medal ceremony, and for once the network showed the full ceremony, with all the flowers and music and smiles and tears and medals. Were there ever medals. Bronze medals for the young German team, which seemed quite proud of its achievement. Silver medals for the talented Brazilians, the crushing weight of another bitter defeat showing in their faces.

And finally gold medals for the Americans, who had earned their medals and celebration with 120 minutes of gritty team effort against all odds, rewarded for all their hard work in the months and years leading up to the Olympics, and rewarded for their belief in themselves. They had finished incredibly well, on top of the soccer world.

There’s a lesson in there for all of us, in our lives and in our careers. If you’re a writer you might want to put the American team’s mantra on your desk, where you can see it every day: “It’s not where you start, but where you finish.”

So many difficult beginnings in a writer’s life. So many obstacles to overcome. A new story that does not start well. Struggling through a muddled middle, searching for that happy ending. Then a first draft completed, but needing so much revision. Writing is rewriting. You do your best. Then somehow you do better. And after all that there may be no gold medal waiting for you. Where’s the reward?

Take a day away from the keyboard, away from the writing. Take a long walk and think about why you write, why you began writing and continue. Then return and write again. Write from the heart. Tell your story. It’s where you finish that matters.

Then take that mantra and apply it to your characters. If they don’t start well, if the odds are against them, so much the better. We love to root for the underdog. Let them dig down and find their way. Let them find redemption and finish well.

Remember Hope Solo’s story. Remember the American women in Beijing, members of a team that worked together and celebrated together, young athletes who deserved each petal on the roses they held at the end, and each medal they wore proudly around their necks.

debbie in wonderland: playing the name game

Thank you for playing our game. Say what? Well, no, you actually have been playing our game. If you write fiction, or plays, you must play the name game. Name your characters, name yourself even. You do have a pen name, don’t you? Not even a secret one? Mine is Cuba Libre. Oops, not so secret anymore.

I know that some writers agonize over naming their characters. It’s right up there with having to write a synopsis or outline. But I love the name game. It’s an important exercise, not to be taken too lightly, but it’s still a game.

Just think, you’re in great company. Shakespeare had to name all those characters. He didn’t give us Romeo and Debbie. Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson’s nom de plume) didn’t give us Debbie in Wonderland. Just for the record, I have absolutely nothing against the name Debbie. In fact, I just named my latest character Debbie, a woman who is admirable in every way, including being the patron saint of recycling in my current short story.

So here I am playing the name game again, for characters who will live for only a few pages, barring their reappearance in other stories. In addition to the estimable Debbie, there’s also a Rick and a Noelle and a Brad and a Jennifer (not that Brad and not that Jennifer, although I do often find names, and crises, on the magazine covers in the checkout line). There’s another character who keeps popping up in the story and who may eventually need a name. For now I call him Surfer Dude, as do the other characters.

Part of the fun in playing the name game derives from using names of those we know (in “real life”). Lewis Carroll, of course, named his immortal Alice after a young friend who was his favorite. My Noelle character shares her name with a friend of mine; both Noelles are bright, cheerful, and confident. Rick, on the other hand, is the name of the Bogart character in Casablanca, so I’ve always liked the name. Rick is married to Debbie and they are both from Southern California. They have All-American names. Don’t tell me they are not ethnic; they’re Southern Californians! Brad and Jennifer, in my story, have just split up, as art once again imitates the magazines in the checkout line.

Have you ever used your own name for a character? I try to avoid it, and I don’t see it much, if at all, in other writers. I’ll leave it to you, and the psychologists, to analyze that one. I only know that I run from the subject.

I think of myself as Michael, but I once named a minor character Mike, who was the distant boyfriend of an Annie, who worked in a gallery in Seattle. In this unfinished novel I placed Mike in Alaska, in the ‘70s, working on the pipeline, and planned to either kill him off or, more likely, have him run off with another woman. He’s not me, but I did put a lot of myself into the protagonist Daniel in that story. I believe that’s a common practice for writers.

Some names, as soon as they occur to us, are just right and we know it. In “Speedy Delivery,” the romantic local mailman is Russell. The blonde heroine of my novel Queen of the Rodeo was, before I wrote a sentence of it, named Donna. The original Donna was a former girlfriend in Seattle who was (a) blonde, (b) romantic, and (c) heroic, although she never claimed to be a rodeo queen. In “Keeping an Eye on Lucy,” the title character is an expensive doll who resides in the adult section of a video store. The name Lucy alludes to a similar character in the film Clockwork Orange. My doll character had to be a Lucy.

We all enjoy overhearing bits of conversation from strangers as well as friends, as we shop for names and story ideas. I always read nametags, especially those of waitresses. I stole the name Danette from a waitress at Big Island Steak House and gave it to a small town Texas girl in Queen of the Rodeo. I also get a kick out of naming waitresses after friends, including Jackie and Carlotta in “How Jackie Got Her Oil Changed.”

Sometimes a nickname works better than a given name, which I learned while writing a short story called “Mushroom Girl.” Here’s the opening of that story:

Mushroom Girl used to have a real name. Her friends stopped using it, however, after the traumatic mushroom incident, and the rumble with Tomato Girl, and the timely meeting with a handsome carnivore.

We never do learn Mushroom Girl’s real name. The handsome carnivore turned out to be T-Bone Man, of course. This story was inspired by a friend’s experience as a vegetable. My friend is named Meredith, but I call her Mushroom Girl, and in my mind I always see her wearing the mushroom costume.

Thank you, Mushroom Girl, and Danette, and Lucy, and Donna, and Jackie, and Carlotta, and Russell, and Noelle, and Brad, and Jennifer, and Surfer Dude, and Rick, and Debbie. Thank you for playing our game.

reading aloud

Ideally the following words would be spoken. You would close your eyes, turn off the voices in your head, and just listen as the words are read to you. When was the last time someone read aloud to you? When was the first time? Classic stories, no doubt. The cat in the hat, that rascal. I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them, Sam-I-am, then or now. Famous poems, too, about owls and pussycats (who were married by the turkey who lives on the hill, lest we forget) and other creatures having great adventures.

Being read to, often at naptime or bedtime, slowing down, easing into sleep. Reading aloud, a pleasure we rediscover when we become parents or uncles or aunties. But also, if we are very lucky, a pleasure that we share with other adults. It’s one of the overlooked luxuries in life and priceless. You might pay someone to read to you, if you had no friends, but how sad that would be. Reading aloud, and being read to, is a joyful time for those who love stories and poems, who love words.

Close your eyes and listen to the words. We read slowly and listen slowly, savoring each gourmet bite. No fast food here, please. Tonight we’re reading Raymond Chandler, here the opening of “Red Wind”:

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those
hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain
passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your
skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight.
Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study
their husbands’ necks. Anything can happen.

Now that’s an opening. Maybe not a good bedtime story though. It was Ross Macdonald who said that “Chandler wrote like a slumming angel and invested the sun-blinded streets of Los Angeles with a romantic presence.” Here’s another passage from Chandler, from Farewell, My Lovely:

The smell of sage drifted up from a canyon and made me
think of a dead man and a moonless sky. Straggly stucco
houses were molded flat to the side of the hill, like bas-reliefs.
Then there were no more houses, just the still dark foothills
with an early star or two above them, and the concrete ribbon
of road and a sheer drop on one side into a tangle of scrub
oak and manzanita where sometimes you can hear the call of
the quails if you stop and keep still and wait. On the other side
of the road was a raw clay bank at the edge of which a few
unbeatable wild flowers hung on like naughty children that
won’t go to bed.

Don’t stop to comment, just read. We’re not critiquing. Read. Listen. Be the words. If you like Chandler, you’ll probably like James Lee Burke. Here’s the opening of Last Car to Elysian Fields:

The first week after Labor Day, after a summer of hot
wind and drought that left the cane fields dust blown and
spiderwebbed with cracks, rain showers once more
danced across the wetlands, the temperature dropped
twenty degrees, and the sky turned the hard flawless blue
of an inverted ceramic bowl. In the evenings I sat on the
back steps of a rented shotgun house on Bayou Teche
and watched the boats passing in the twilight and listened
to the Sunset Limited blowing down the line. Just as the
light went out of the sky the moon would rise like an orange
planet above the oaks that covered my rented backyard,
then I would go inside and fix supper for myself and eat
alone at the kitchen table.

We read aloud before falling asleep, then let the words and images work their magic in our heads, coloring our dreams. Then, perhaps, if we are very lucky, the rhythms of Chandler and Burke and Dr. Seuss and Edward Lear will stay on after we awake and help shape our own words and sentences at the keyboard. Maybe the cat in the hat will teach us all we need to know about conflict. Perhaps the owl and the pussycat will teach us profound lessons in romance. If not, then so be it. The words await us anyway. Like a child who begs for a favorite story again and again, we will return.

And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,

They danced by the light of the moon,

The moon,

The moon,

They danced by the light of the moon.

what do you write with?

Answer fast. What do you write with? There are no wrong answers, so just answer. Now record your answer. Did you come up with “computer,” or “pen” or “pencil?” Or maybe you said “imagination” (if so, give yourself extra points). Or perhaps you answered “fear and loathing” (in that case, you win the Hunter Thompson award).

All right, here’s a second chance. What do you write with? This time make it a list of what you write with. Yes, you can include the “fear and loathing” answer if it’s true. When you’ve finished your list, come back and let’s compare notes.

While I was waiting for you, I proofed my first two paragraphs and got thoroughly hung up on the spelling of the word “answer.” There’s a “w” in there, a letter that made me suddenly uncomfortable. Typical of our crazy English language, with a silent letter that had me running to the Oxford English Dictionary (the “shorter” version, which is two huge volumes). That silent “w,” found in the Old English and Old Norse words, has survived to this day, God bless it, like a diligent little fossil that keeps showing up every day for work but nobody has the heart to retire it to a museum.

The silent “w” in “answer” has a more famous cousin, of course, in the Middle English word “often.” That silent “t” is silent, isn’t it, although I often hear it pronounced, and the dictionaries include the non-silent version as an alternative pronunciation. Let’s just pray that the silent “w” in “answer” doesn’t suddenly decide to imitate its cousin and come out of that quiet closet!

But I digress. Let’s compare lists. On your list did you include the ear? It’s on my list, near the top. I write with a computer keyboard and screen (tactile and visual); with varying degrees of imagination (the mind’s eye); with fear and loathing (fear of having nothing to say, and loathing the muses for going on frequent long vacations); and with the ear.

I always speak of my writing room as a quiet place to write, but it’s not. Right now there’s music in the room. Diana Krall is singing a sultry “Besame Mucho,” and my parrot Tobi is talking away, saying “did you miss me?” and “give us a kiss.” Wild birds singing outside, although not in English. Wind in the trees outside my window. With all this inspiration I should probably be writing a romantic story or poem, instead of writing about silent letters.

Other sounds in the room? The tapping of the keys as I write, and when I’m waiting for the next thought I tap lightly at the keys without pressing down, like a batter taking practice swings while the pitcher reads the catcher’s signs. The click of the computer mouse. The slow tapping of my foot to the music. More faint are the sounds of the parrot eating cashews and biting on a paper bowl.

I close my eyes and hear my own breathing. I slow the breathing and slow my mind. All the sounds in my writing room are familiar and welcome. They relax me and comfort me while I wait for that damn Thalia to return from wherever the hell she’s wandered off to this time. I know that if I wait she will eventually return, to nudge me toward an idea for a new story, perhaps something light and humorous. Or, as is more often the case, she will take the large sledge hammer that she carries, the one with my name on it, and apply it to my thick head, producing a remarkable sound that drowns out all the other sounds, a sound that opens my ears to a new story that was right there in front of my face all the time.

In the meantime I listen to my own sighs. Diana Krall is singing “I get along without you very well.” Oh, great! Just five minutes ago it was “besame mucho,” and now this. I give the parrot another cashew and wait for the sound of the sledge hammer.

winter olympics for writers

Yes, the 2008 Olympics are about to begin in Beijing, but I'm one of those people who enjoy the Winter Olympics more. It's smaller and cozier, and it has all that snow and ice, cool stuff we don't see living in Hawaii. Before the craziness begins on 8/8/08 in China, I'm feeling nostalgic for the 2006 Winter Olympics from Turin. Here's what I wrote two years ago about some of the nice-on-ice highlights, including some lessons for writers.

It happens every four years. The Olympic Winter Games take over my life, and the lives of many others. I didn’t make it to Turin this past month, but I was there in spirit. Following the closing ceremonies on Sunday evening I spent a couple of hours ungluing my eyes from the television screen. For two weeks I was totally involved in the human drama of this great event, each athlete a story, each day a new opportunity for glory. We watched them fall, then rise again to fight for redemption, as figure skater Sasha Cohen did in winning the silver medal with her amazing performance.

The Olympics always teach us something about participating and competing. I was fortunate to catch an interview with Sarah Hughes, the gold medal figure skater from the 2002 Salt Lake Games. She was asked if she gave advice to her younger sister before Emily Hughes went out on the ice in these 2006 Games. Sarah said that when you train and compete you just have to find what works for you and then stick with that. She said that Emily would follow her same routine, including sleeping for nine and a quarter hours the night before the competition. How precise! Obviously Emily has discovered exactly how much sleep she needs each night.

Nobody said it then, but this seems to be good advice for writers as well. Find what works for you. Then stick with it. This implies a writing routine, one that works in your life, deciding when to write, and how to write, what kind of outline, or no outline, and so on. Then it’s all about discipline. If you give yourself to the discipline you will discover the freedom to grow, as one might lock oneself in a writing room all morning, only to discover that there are no locks on the imagination, and no walls to confine the creative spirit.

I learned other valuable lessons from the Winter Games this time around. You can learn a lot by watching a person slide a 42-pound granite stone (or “rock”) down a long sheet of ice, with two teammates walking in front of the stone and sweeping hard, or lightly, or not at all (with what Lynn calls “those little sweepy things”), as the stone makes it way to the target (or “house”). Yes, it’s curling! I used to believe that the world was divided into those who loved anchovies and those who would rather starve than eat one. Now I am convinced that the world is divided into those who don’t get curling, those who love curling, and those who would love curling if they only gave it a chance.

Curling is that strange girl in your high school English class who was from another planet, but her charms were only waiting to be discovered. Once enchanted, however, you could not resist her. One of the Olympic commentators said that curling is like peanuts, that once you start it’s hard to stop. All I know is that I found myself waking up at 5 in the morning, without an alarm, knowing only that a curling game was on TV at that very moment. The siren call pulled me down the stairs, still half asleep, turning on the game, and the coffee, and curling up on the sofa for yet another date.

Midway through the Olympics I knew enough about the sport to have an opinion about the tactics of each rock. Curling has been called “chess on ice,” an apt description. The captain of the four-person team, called the skip, is the mastermind, thinking several turns ahead and mapping the team’s strategy. The skip also throws the last two rocks in each of the ten ends (innings), so he must perform well at these critical moments.

It is instructive to watch the closeups of the eyes of the curlers as they slide and release the rock. Eyes steady on the target, the picture of concentration. The next time I need to focus in my writing, I will see those eyes. I will also see the USA skip, Pete Fenson, from small-town Minnesota, owner of Dave’s Pizza. If Pete were in a Western movie he would be the leader of an outlaw gang, the one you would call “a cool customer,” telling the guys just what to do and when to do it, then riding into town to rob the bank. In Turin, Pete and his gang rode out of town with bronze medals to chants of “USA! USA!”

The team’s female fans also serenaded them with “Jeepers, creepers, where’d you get those sweepers? Jeepers, creepers, where’d you get those guys?” Curling fans wear crazy hats too, but that’s another story. After watching the fans during the games, I have a hunch that most, if not all, of them love anchovies too. Next time I’m in Bemidji, Minnesota, I plan to drop in at Dave’s Pizza and order a pizza with extra anchovies. Shouldn’t be a problem.

Bemidji is also the home of the USA women’s curling team, which struggled during the Olympics but was still just a few good shots at critical times from bringing back medals. The young women on the team are from northern regions — Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Alaska — and have those fair complexions and clear eyes that seem just right for the sport of curling. Like the men’s team, they were good teammates, together in victory or defeat. I wish them well. Perhaps they will make it to the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver. Maybe by then there will be a Curling Channel on cable. Stay tuned.