Reblogged from deepamwadds:

First there was the cough… since September (coincidentally beginning shortly after my son decided he would rather live with his father) and the diagnosis of a chronic nasty lung that would follow me all of my days ( a result of my youthful, less conscious choices). Then there was me trying to “get in shape” via Kinect’s rather demanding “games” which resulted in a set of muscles and bones that spat and clawed at each other. Then there was the call to dance. Dance? I thought. I can’t even walk. And I …

I had already signed up for a Sanctuary Sunday, and anyone who has read my blogs know, these Sanctuary days of writing and reading are precious to me. I weighed and I tipped and balanced and then I wrote Sue to see if there was a waiting list, my reasoning being if someone wanted in badly and there wasn’t space for them, then I would make space and go to the Endless Waves workshop with Lucia Horan in Toronto.

And so it was. And so I did. And, yes. It was the medicine I needed. Even as I limped in, my mouth buried in my elbow, I knew it was where I was supposed to be.

I had been taking some homeopathic medicine for a few days prior to this event, with some remarkable shifts in my health, but I was still unsure how shaking up my bones and breathing heavy all weekend was going to affect my delicate condition.

I needn’t have worried. There is magic afoot on the dance floor. First, I saw a couple of people I hadn’t seen in a couple of years or more, people I’d danced with at other workshops, so those greetings provided an easy entry back into this challenging, ecstatic and turbulent world. Still, once I’d slipped on my little black dancing slippers and stepped on to the dance floor, the social aspect of things fell away to the background. I fell into the beat and began to unwind. In the beginning, I was very solicitous of my hip, softening the moves when I felt a twinge, easing in with as much consciousness as I could. The body loved this; loved the music, the listening between us, and it unclenched, unwound and unfurled, slowly and surely.

And I didn’t cough. A little ahem here and there between staccato and chaos, maybe. But otherwise, the lungs were clear and free and breathed so deep and wide. No restriction.

Lucia is wonderful. When one is in the hands of a person who has lived their art, one can let go, be directed and guided, and find one’s own way without interference. That is the gift of the 5Rhythms. You can’t do it wrong. And in the dangerous waters of opening, exposing, revealing, the dancer is safe there. Because after you’ve ripped open your heart and felt it broken afresh, it is given back to you, whole and sweet and beating in time with all the other hearts.

From the Gabrielle Roth 5Rhythms teacher site:  “No series of coursework makes someone a teacher.
It is only after one has completed the Teacher Training that the process of becoming a teacher truly begins: on real-life dance floors with broken hearts, broken sound systems, challenging students and great plans that fail in the face of the group that happens to show up that night.“

My relationship to the dancing tribe is much like the writing tribe I hang with, and much like the yoga tribe I sometimes manage to join. The space is created and held; prompts or suggestions for exploration are given, and the rest is up to me. And the gift is, if I tell the truth, if I don’t flinch, if I say yes instead of no, if I go “fearward” as Barbara Turner-Vesselago calls it, then I break through. In breaking through I find space and ease. So whether it’s a posture or a phrase or a rhythm, it is the allowing, the listening and the alertness which is in itself the reward.

And then there is the cool bit afterward… the muscles are sore, but good-sore, not painful… nothing that an Epsom salt bath won’t fix. The hips are moving like I am thirty-something. And the cough? All but gone.

Such gratitude in my heart for the medicine of dance, for the dancers who have the courage to show up, to those who bring these master dancers to places that make it easy, and to Gabrielle Roth, the cartographer of the body.

Alas, I’m so out of shape, I still hurt. But this weekend I’m off to Toronto to dance with one of Gabrielle Roth’s first teachers of the 5Rhythms dance practice, Lucia Horan. This practice is right up there in my top 5 things to do in the world. It was tough to decide between a Sanctuary Sunday day of writing and a weekend of bouncing around to great music and shaking my bones with a bunch of other people who love to dance. I thought it would be a great preparation for Costa Rica, where I’ll be leading a shortened version of a similar practice. So that’s one reason to celebrate. Well, two really, when you factor in TWO WEEKS IN COSTA RICA!!

Second reason is that this morning I received some very good news, but unfortunately, the details can’t be divulged just yet. I can only say that the news made me very happy indeed. As soon as I can open the bag and let the cat run free, I promise I will post it all here.

And the other reason that still brings goosebumps, that I have only made semi-public so far, is that carte blanche magazine has submitted Choose the Hammock, which they published in their May issue last year, to the Journey Prize, as well as to the Canadian Magazine awards. I won’t likely know anything until November, but just to be considered makes me all watery.

Rob Breszny’s got it all figured out. Let those roses fall into the canyon and let that act be the very thing. The only thing. And it will be enough. It is. An echo is beautiful. Silence is just as beautiful.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “Publishing a volume of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo,” said author Don Marquis, speaking from experience. Something you’re considering, Leo, may seem to fit that description, too. It’s a project or action or gift that you’d feel good about offering, but you also wonder whether it will generate the same buzz as that rose petal floating down into the Grand Canyon. Here’s what I think: To the degree that you shed your attachment to making an impact, you will make the exact impact that matters most. Give yourself without any expectations.

And then there’s this:

LUMINOUS TEASE

Change yourself in the way you want everyone else to change
Love your enemies in case your friends turn out to be jerks
Avoid thinking about winning the lottery while making love
Brainwash yourself before someone nasty beats you to it
Confess big secrets to people who aren’t very interested
Write a love letter to your evil twin during a lunar eclipse
Fool the tricky red beasts guarding the Wheels of Time
Locate the master codex and add erudite graffiti to it
Dream up wilder, wetter, more interesting problems
Change your name every day for a thousand days
Exaggerate your flaws till they turn into virtues
Kill the apocalypse and annihilate Armageddon
Brag about what you can’t do and don’t have
Get a vanity license plate that reads KZMYAZ
Bow down to the greatest mystery you know
Make fun of people who make fun of people
See how far you can spit a mouthful of beer
Pick blackberries naked in the pouring rain
Scare yourself with how beautiful you are
Simulate global warming into your pants
Stage a slow-motion water balloon fight
Pretend your wounds are exotic tattoos
Sing anarchist lullabies to lesbian trees
Plunge butcher knives into accordions
Commit a crime that breaks no laws
Sip the tears of someone you love
Build a plush orphanage in Minsk
Feel sorry for a devious lawyer
Rebel against your horoscope
Give yourself another chance
Write your autohagiography
Play games with no rules
Teach animals to dance
Trick your nightmares
Relax and go deeper
Dream like stones
Mock your fears
Drink the sun
Sing love
Be mojo
Do jigs
Ask id

This is from his book. Everyone should have a copy. I’m not too keen on the bit about the accordion, but otherwise, why not?

Oh and picking berries naked in the rain sounds like fun, but where I come from, deer flies and mosquitoes bite even in the rain, so you won’t likely find me squatting by any bushes this summer in my skinny bares.

I just love the guy. That’s the kind of news I like in my inbox.

That’s all for now. I just had to share.

This story is about my time with Osho, from the first whisper of words that cracked my heart to the final return from India to the west. It’s about the hope the commune ignited in me, the solace of the ashram, about falling in love, both the big kind and the human kind, about having my heart broken, about the call to India, despite me never wanting to go there, to learn the trade that has sustained me for twenty-three years… It’s about the search for truth; the longing to have the wax coating, that has always kept me from hearing and seeing, melt away. It’s about community, great sex, big joy, silence and love, dancing through the night, cuckoos, peacocks and cockatiels, about illness and healing, headaches in the air conditioning, about manipulation and what I was willing and not willing to do or give to stay. It’s about great hope and great loss, about learning to touch and be touched,  and it’s about the poison of jealousy. This is the story about almost almost almost hearing what the real question was.

What I learned in that training was more than just how to massage people; I learned about how emotions are stored in the body, how to allow myself to be touched, and many other aspects of bodywork, but through it all I learned about how I learn. This training was not an academic undertaking – the whole intensive six months was entirely experiential; we learned by doing. By the time I left India, I had received and given approximately one-hundred and fifty massages. My body understood much that it would take my mind years to catch up to.

For the last four years I have been learning to write a novel by writing a novel. It may not as first or second glance seem like the same thing, but for me, it is. Or, perhaps, more accurately, I should say, I have learned how not to write a novel. Sue Reynolds often reminds me that everything one writes is part of the process that leads one to the finished product. (No matter how crappy it is, I guess.) After workshops and conferences and courses, almost all of which were hands-on, and at least five full rewrites and two hundred pages of slain darlings, I have on my screen a nearly complete version of the story I will present to Penguin and to a particular agent to whom I have been pointed.

I’m not done.

I had a friend who often cautioned me to take my time, but I was always fighting her, bouncing up and down with my brilliant work, ready to shop it to all the agents who were going to drool over it. I don’t like to take my time; I like to get there, celebrate, pop open the champagne. But in this round of my life, I am learning to appreciate just that; the beautiful blossoms that open in their own time, who are not forced to bloom. I was told, it’s true, that I needed to take it slowly, to rub each word, phrase, scene in my fingers, to run my hands over the arc of the story, feeling for rough edges and seamless transitions, to put my ear to the mouths of my characters and listen all night long to them speak, but until I did those things, I couldn’t possibly know their value.

Now I’m involved in Author Salon, a brutal process of pitch evaluation, where we scour the site for “peers”; those we feel are a good fit, connect with at least five of them, and exchange critiques of our extensive profiles. The profiles include the “hook” line, a synopsis, the first two pages of our book, a breakdown of the conflict, stakes and climax, an introduction to all the characters, and samples of dialogue and our best writing. I thought that was the hard part, but as usual, I was wrong. Our critique guidelines are extensive – pages of in-depth questions regarding the profile, including things such as whether this story contains the necessary tropes of its genre. If so, explain. If not, explain….

I was ready to call it quits when the administrators threatened to delete any critiques that were inadequate. But the motivation of the site is to have polished, high concept works for editors and agents to peruse. It makes sense that the work has to sparkle and shine. Otherwise, the agents and editors will come only once. So I didn’t quit. I’m sitting with my Robyn Read edits and four peer critiques and having at yet another rewrite.

One aspect of my novel that has popped up in everyone’s evaluation is my antagonist. She needs more dimension, more depth. I always thought she was fine – I know people like that. Everyone knows people like that. But as if I had just thought of it myself, I suddenly understood what was wrong and how to fix it. I’m sure I could have learned how to do this in a classroom and obediently written down all the rules and regulations about how to fashion a literary antagonist, and I might have executed her (!) perfectly the first time. And I have read all those rules, guidelines and “necessary tropes”. But apparently, I have to learn how to do it right by doing it wrong the first time. This particular aspect of my own character seems to keep making me more compassionate. Huh.

You learn writing by writing. (I could have said that alone, but a blog post of five words isn’t as much fun as one of eight hundred and seventy-six.)

As I sat listening to Hilary McMahon speak this morning at the WCDR breakfast I heard her say almost word for word what I heard Samantha Haywood say two years ago at the Ontario Writers’ Conference: that non fiction sells more easily than fiction, and that if you have a passion or an expertise then write about that, sell it and then tell your agent or publisher that you happen to have written a novel. I got very excited, since I am writing a memoir, until Hilary made it clear that memoirs weren’t part of this sure-fire non fiction path to getting published. But but but…

Hilary spoke about the downward spiral of the traditional publishing industry, which once again underscored the need to write because of the love of writing, and that any reward, award, acknowledgement or book deal is gravy, icing, or perhaps the chocolate sauce on your pancakes. I can’t argue with that. I know it’s true. Last year, when one short story was accepted for publication in  a literary journal, I was over the moon. When they wanted to actually PAY me for it, I thought I’d grown wings. A few weeks ago that literary journal’s editor emailed me to ask permission to enter that story into not one, but two, annual award competitions. This part of the story is going to get its own blog post, but here I just want to say that even when I just think about what that means I get all goosefleshy and teary. A bow to Sally Fields here. Acknowledgement is EXTRA. It’s the writing that thrills me. Especially when it’s done; when I sit back and look over a finished draft and know that, as Pat Schneider says, that I’ve “got it”.

Last Monday, I started A Novel Approach to Memoir with Sue Reynolds. One of the first exercises was a prompt from a lovely untitled poem by Bruce Detlefsen where the poet explores what he might write about had he only a few lines worth of ink or time left. We were invited to write about what we might write given those limitations.

This is what I wrote:

what would I write?

- how I wandered Queen Street chanting,

I can’t have cancer,

and how I did

have cancer

- how I stayed alone in the cabin

because I wanted to,

and how I wished every moment of that year

for company

- how dearly I was loved, held so close

only to break his fine heart

half a dozen times,

- how dearly I loved,

only to have my heart removed

and sutured back in place

- how I sat for hours, days, years

at the feet of light and love

and learned almost nothing

but this:

be

here

now

- how I believed that I could hear,

that I could see

only to discover that I was both deaf

and blind

- how in one moment

all  love felt and known

was a puff of dust

when I held him first,

wires and tubes in all his tender skin

- how I circled the globe

in search of home

only to find it here,

already here

- how I tore into strips every piece of advice, every lesson

only to spend years

on my knees

sewing them back up again.

What would I write if I only had a moment’s worth of time or ink? I would write, thank you, a thousand times thank you – for this moment, this day, this fragile body that gives me such profound pleasure, such surprising pain, these lips that touch, that speak, that drink and taste; all these parts given without barter… if I had only these few moments to say what I need to say, I would say thank you. For friendship, for dance and heartache, for fiery words, fiery kisses, limbs and breath and all the things this momentary container has known. Just this – a grateful humble heart. What else do I have to say but thank you? – to motherfathergodexistencegreatmothergoddessearth – the name doesn’t matter. What would I write besides gratitude? A plea for kindness? For clarity? For vision?

What do I have to say? I have lived, loved, been loved.

It is enough.

I’m sorry if I whined.

My Platform

Well, I built it, and only a few came, mostly my writing friends with their own clever and entertaining blogs, and a few old friends who who want to support me. We all comment on each other’s posts and have created a cozy comfortable little circle. But I wanted more: more commentary, more traffic, more engagement. This business is supposed to be about making friends, not about “selling” yourself. That’s what they say. The wisdom is to comment on blogs and they will check you out. I read Nathan Bransford and Rachel Gardner’s blogs, but felt nervous about commenting. What if I sounded like an idiot? What if I said something so glaringly obvious that I would be able to hear them laughing all the way to Sebright (It’s okay if you don’t know where that is, just trust me – it’s far from where you live.)

Okay, now comes the part about my resolution. I told myself it was time to stop being such a coward and search out other writing blogs and make comments. So I did. What a wonderful thing to do, I’ve discovered. There are some very entertaining, enlightening, fun, sweet, and touching blogs out there, by some very cool people. And I don’t feel as if I’m pretending to make friends while I’m actually trying to sell myself. Now I wish I had more time to search out blogs and connect with their authors.

Here are some of my favorite new writers of blogs:

http://slicewriting.wordpress.com/

http://snagglewordz.wordpress.com/

http://myrandommuse.wordpress.com/

http://limebirduk.wordpress.com/

The writing of lots of words isn’t an issue; it doesn’t need a resolution. Tomorrow I begin my Novel Approach to Memoir year-long course with Sue Reynolds, so I will be turning out at least two pages a day. And on the 15th of February we set off for Costa Rica to write our hearts for two weeks straight. Oh yes. (Two spots left, folks!)

Well, you will have already guessed from my opening, that she did indeed like my story of a good guy who can’t manage to stay connected with his daughter. She particularly liked most of my favorite bits. But what was the most thrilling was just to sit and discuss deeply this world I have been living in for over three years with someone who has read the whole thing, thinks it works, and totally gets it. I talk about the story, explain it, describe, and my good friend Sharon has listened to about a third of it read to her, but there has been no one up until now who has read the whole thing start to finish in its present form.

If you asked my friends they will confirm that I suspected I was going to have to write the thing all over again from start to finish. One acquiring editor at the Algonkian pitch conference suggested that I might do well to change the POV entirely. I really didn’t want to, especially since that’s what I did the first time around, but was interested to hear what Robyn had to say. Whew. She likes the first person POV, feels it works very well.

For the first time, after a meeting such as this, I don’t feel overwhelmed. I agreed with most of her suggestions and can see how easily they can be implemented. Since I’m about to begin a year-long process of getting the first draft of my memoir, Four Winters in India, done, I was a little anxious about trying to focus on two projects at once, but I’m fairly certain I can have these edits done in about a month.

There were a few surprises. Such as her sense that this book has commercial (read American/international) potential. I’m pumped and ready to roll up my sleeves and get to it. Funny, how even those aspects of the book I had struggled with, such a researching the technical aspects of the study of weather, suddenly seem simple.

This reminds me of something that Pat Schneider says, that if you go away from a teacher, course, or editor feeling that you want to write, (and that you can) then that encounter has been a success. So, by extension, if you feel small, overwhelmed, inept, stupid and the like, then it’s pretty clear that the facilitator of that meeting did not do their job well. Robyn did her job very well.

I heard on CBC radio today that the space between novice and amateur is very small; once you mastered the initial elements of a skill, you feel capable and expect that the space between novice and expert should perhaps be just as small. Unfortunately, the truth that the more you learn, the less you realize you know looms quickly, and all that initial confidence (and cockiness) goes down the tubes. Today, I experience a bit of respite from that awful sense that I will never finish this novel, that it has only been an exercise in which to learn how to write a novel.

I know there is still a long way to go, but I put my feet back on the path refreshed and encouraged.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,000 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 33 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.