Lori Ann Stephens's Blog, page 8

Random Things, because I can't focu

It's stormy outside, and the blue clouds hovering twenty feet above me (so it seems) look like menacing waves.

I was going to jog, but thanks to the grumbling weather, I'm writing instead. First blog, then chapter. The universe has a way of putting me in my place.

My mind is swirling.

The sky just opened and the street outside my window is already drenched.

 See? The focus-cog in my brain is malfunctioning.

I've been...not so good at blogging regularly this month. So I thought I'd better post at least one more before May ends. Here, I'm throwing caution to the wind and will just list some things going on in this head.

Just gave my son's Fourth Grade teacher her present (from the class) today: an album filled with typed letters, written by parents, about how magnificent she's been all year. These letters were mailed to the superintendent and the principal earlier in May. Also bookmarks, for her summer reading, with messages from each of the students on them. Keeping at bay weird feeling of impending doomAstonished by Amanda Palmer's Kickstarter campaign--makes my brain woozyThere's a PacMan cake I need to make for Julien's 9th birthday party on Saturday...and clean the house, which is even more daunting than my next chapterStill raining, and rumbling out my windowJumping into YA reading again. Beginning to suspect that the manuscript I'm writing is not YA.Too afraid to call my agent and ask her for a looksy...because I like the manuscript and want to finish it. I've learned all but the last minute of "The Ukulele Anthem," and dream of singing it in the Paris Metro. In the meantime, I sing it while jogging.Worried about Kyle and his family.Obsessed--OBSESSED, I tell you, with the ENO MiniOpera contest. Why?And finally, breaking all taboos, I'll just admit that I'm on "sub" (writers know what this means), and my heart is about to burst. Now I know what writers mean when they talk about "the crazies." I miss my man, who is in France. Can't wait to see you. One more week until I start asking for directions, un café, etc, in (embarrassingly bad) French.

 The rain has abated, but it is darker than ever outside. 9:32 AM. Perfect weather for the next chapter.

MiniOperas Galore!

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Today is the final day to submit minioperas to the English National Opera. Actually, I'm on Texas time, so the contest for scriptwriters is officially over.

But Twitter and the interworld have seen minioperas bounce into the digital landscape like wee bunnies. My entry, by the way, is here. While procrastinating on today's manuscript word count, I had a little fun digging through the Google tunnels to find some other contestants' entries. I was delighted, impressed, and awed by the creative energy, talent, and discipline of the participants. Way to go!

I thought I'd share a few that I came across. If you like musicals, operas, poetry, lyrics, please hop over to these links and give the contestants your encouraging responses. These are (mostly) just regular folks like me who are trying a hand at a new genre for fun.

Good luck, everyone!

(Oh, you might want to start by reading/listening to the mini-stories that the ENO posted to launch our create machinations here. I based mine on Neil Gaiman's story, as did, apparently, hundreds of others.)

"The Waitress and the Sweeper" by Henry Martin
"Wreckage of Dreams" by Shaun Gardiner

 "The Sweeper of Dreams" by Emily C. A. Snyder
"The Sweeper of Dreams" by Preston Roe
"A Day at the Office" by Katie McCullough

I hope they don't my sending traffic to their sites.


Thanks, ENO, for hosting such a fun competition, and congrats, everyone, on your entries!
If you stumbled upon this page and would like to link your mini-opera submission, please do so in the comments section. I'll go back and link it to this post, too.

Newest Obsession

Click here to read other posts in the BMM blogfest
Wednesday: May I ask you a question?

 I'm following writer Jessica Love's prompt today. (Jessica, I swear I'm not stalking you. You're just at the top of my Google Reader, and I see your blog every day. And I'm idea-lazy today.)

I've had "Anthems" that I listen to as I write a manuscript, but until now, the music was sans lyrics. How can anyone write when someone is yelling in your ears? I'd shake my head. Strange writers.

Then I discovered an artist on the iPod that lives in the dining room, in which I write in my Comfy Chair.  Lyrics! Drama! Folksy Inspiration! I was hooked. After listening to album ten times, I stopped hearing the lyrics as words--they're more like another pure instrument to me. Agnes Obel: Philharmonics. Get the album!



I also listen to Arvo Part (no lyrics) when I'm writing a serious scene (which is pretty much my entire current manuscript).

What do you think?



This post has me thinking: do you know any spare, folksy music that is perfect for a writing spell? I'd love to add the album/artist to my playlist. And do you prefer your "groove anthem" with Lyrics or No Lyrics?

A Silly Break from Writing

I'm seriously finishing a chapter today.  (Famous last words.) I'm serious, and I'm a writer, but I'm also in need some humor. (Humor me.) For those of you, like me, in need of some silly pictures of serious writers, here's one:
[image error]Neil Gaiman with a Cthulhu plushie on his head. Via Here
Hope over here (Flavorwire) for more "extremely silly pictures of extremely serious writers."

Just for fun

My earliest memory, I kid you not, is being chased by a mean gander, one of the many animals that lived in our Little Red Barn in our acre-sized back yard in suburban Garland, before the farm-animal ordinances.  It was terrifying.

That's why I appreciate this video. I've watched it a few times, and I laugh every time. Happy Friday:

Poetry and Revenants

[image error]I used to love poetry. As a young thing, I spent hours filling up spiral notebook (which I titled Poetry Journal) with poems called "I Love Him" and "Heartache" and "Secret Love" and "Love, oh, Love, where art thou."

Yep.

It got better in high school and college, where I was introduced to real poetry that made my heart explode.

At some point, after college, I think, I stopped reading poems. It's a shame. My life was missing something, and I didn't even know what it was until recently.


A very talented writer-friend of mine, Andrea Witzke Slot,  published her first book of poems, To Find a New Beauty, with Gold Wake Press, and when she traveled from Chicago to Dallas on her brief book tour, I had the pleasure of hearing her read. I knew she was talented, but holy crap. These poems are marvelous. I wrote a review on Amazon and practically begged people, especially women and mothers, to buy it.
It's worth buying for Mother's Day.

Another writer-friend of mine, Amy Plum, had her Book Birthday yesterday for YA book II, Until I Die.  She's on tour in the states, and she is such a lovely person, I would invite her to any party with anyone I know. And you can't say that about everyone, can you? She kicks butt in the YA paranormal romance department. (Literally, the revenants are skilled fighters.) If you're looking for a new YA book series for summer reading, this one is it.

 Happy Reading.

Remember Who Kindled the Fire

You may or may not know that it's Teacher Appreciation Week (and yesterday was the actual Teacher Appreciation Day). As a writer, the people who influenced me most happened to be artists, too.

Here are three:

1. Michael Morton, my high school choir teacher. I knew about him long before I entered North Garland High School because my brother sang in the show choir, then my older sister continued the Stephens tradition. I worshiped the strawberry-blond-haired man before I sat my butt down for the first time in the great big, daunting music room. He taught me, more than anything else, patience. Be patient with the artistic thing you love. But yell at it, too, a few times, if it gets unruly or doesn't want to work. (We choir students could be little shits, giggling and chatting and joking, while Morton leaned over and banged his head against the black sheet-music stand.) Oh, how I loved Mr. Morton and wanted him to love me more than anyone. He was good and patient and kind and a believer in all of us, and I knew I wanted to be that kind of person, too. He's retired now, and still visits with past students. I think I'll call him.

2. Sherry Mendel "Harper," my Creative Writing/English teacher from high school. I was really bad at creative writing, and barely scraped into that special class. I remember not only the creative writing exercises, but my telling her in the quiet hours, my personal and private demons; I remember her Audrey Hepburn-esque black pants and ballet flats she wore one day, and her reading some student's astonishingly good short story to the entire class and wishing it were mine. She made me want to write, not only for the product, but for the process. And she made me realize that although I was capable of loving abundantly, I shouldn't always do so.

3. My mother, Miss Bobbie, who was my Kindergarten teacher and surrogate mother to all the other students in her Kindergarten class (and to her First and Second Graders now). Mother has been the greatest teacher of all. Even she kindled the fire for writing: I was delighted and awed by her poems and stories that she kept hidden in her dresser drawer. I pulled them out when she wasn't there and read them over and over.
If anyone embodies unconditional love, it is her. From her, I learned everything:
how to read and cook and ask important questions, how to believe when everything tells you not to, how to hope, how to let go. To be curious about nature, to love animals and respect insects, to forgive, to be skeptical, to research, to dig for truth, to trust that you won't always find evidence of something that is there. Devotion, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, forever.
How could I ever thank you enough, Mother?


Take a few minutes this week and think about who inspired you in those malleable years of your youth. Who made you see the possibilities in the world, nurtured your creative soul, or told you that you have something unique to offer? Who appreciated you when you didn't have the sense or the vision to appreciate yourself? Tell them.

And a special video:
This morning, I woke up and saw this, posted on the Scobberblotch blog (Thanks, Karen, for sharing it).


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ee-gads!

(FYI: This is a BlogFest series for May. Jump over here to check out the other participants' posts.)
Tuesday: This is the "May I tell you something about myself?" day.


I have ten minutes to blog before my sweet partner comes home, and because I promised that I would cook tonight (a rare occasion), I've got to scoot to make the tofu. But since I have to tell you something about me, and it's pretty obvious that I'm a writer, I'll tell you something on the gross side of information overload.

I have a somewhat rare disorder called eosinophillic esophagitis, which basically means that my white blood cells go on attack mode when I eat, and much like an asthmatic's lungs, my throat tightens into a fist, and I can't swallow anything. Not even spit. I can breathe, but my death-grip esophagus is extraordinarily painful from anywhere between 5 and 45 minutes. I have to excuse myself and pretend-walk (make a mad dash) to the restroom, where I stand over the sink and drool into it until my muscles decide to relax and let me swallow again. It's embarrassing. And then I have to explain to my dinner companions without unduly alarming them or giving them TMI over dinner.

It happens several times a week.

My fabulous specialist finally diagnosed and biopsied me, and has been following my case for several years, as I have the worst condition he's ever seen or heard of.

Then, (Hooray!) because the budesonide meds weren't working to fix my symptoms, he sent me to an allergist. We were both highly skeptical about those allergist people who like to stick needles in their patients. But I bravely went, and had over 100 "scratches" (these are pokes with needles, folks, which in my dictionary are shots), and 14 injections in my arm:

[image error] This was not a fun day.
Dr. Baxter (brilliant woman!) saw a connection between my choking and allergens in the air (I didn't show allergies to foods). She concocted a serum for immunotherapy for my plethora of allergies to grasses, trees, dog, etc, which I didn't realize I had, and placed me on a high dose of asthma Respules in liquid form, which I swallow twice a day instead of inhale on a ventilator.

And folks, ever since I've been on the combination of shots and double budesonide, I haven't choked once. I haven't felt this normal in years. This is a happy me.
[image error]

If you have ee, or have a friend or family member whose throat swells shut when eating, I hope this info helps you. Ask your doctor about seeing an allergist and upping your budesonide doses. Good luck!

On Breaking Through

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(Jump over here to check out the other participants' posts.)

Yesterday, I blah-ged about writing. Today, I have nothing but good vibes to share.

I broke through that tough scene and found my groove. What's funny (now--not at the moment when I was writing that last blog post) is that I know how to get through those bluesy periods of writing. Just write and write, and stop worrying that it doesn't sound "literary" or "clever" or "poignant" enough, stop revising my sentences as I type, and remind myself that I'm not writing POETRY. I'm just trying to get a SENTENCE down.

Everyone has his or her own writing groove. For me, all it takes is time. It sounds so simple, it's ridiculous. But it's true and I know it. If I sit my butt down and turn on my mood music and tell myself I will not get up until I have written 1000 words, after a few hours, the words stop being painful to write. But first, I go through a spell of deep, dark, self-flagellation (i.e., wanting to whip every word on the page). After that's over (60-90 minutes or so) I emerge. Maybe this scene isn't so bad! I get excited about the scene(s), and pretty soon, I'm at 1500 words. Or 2000 words. That's a very good day. Some days, I'm not as productive, but that's okay. It's only when those days pile up, and I've not committed to the butt-in-seat ritual, that I start to feel bluesy.

I have the sneaking suspicion that most writers know what they need to do to get to the groove. It's just the unpleasant part--the letting go--that keeps us from actually doing what we need to do to produce fiction.

I teach writing, and one of the mantras I hear all the time is this: Writing Is Hard! And that's true.

What I want to work on is letting the little creative sprite in me run amok a bit. There are so many things we "need" to do (ticking off that checklist) when writing fiction, we forget to have fun. We forget that writing, that creating, is supposed to be a joyful experience.

I'll leave you with a little video that always reminds me to stop complaining and seize the joy and creativity in life. And to spread it. She's got her uke. I've got my laptop.

Blah-g

I'm not keeping up with the May blog posts very well, am I?  But no apologies here. I've been hammering out a manuscript, and it gets shotgun seat.

Except for right this moment. Blog rides shotgun. I'm writing one of those scenes that I need to write, but I don't really like it. Maybe I'm going through my uninspired phase, which I get at the end of every semester. Right before I turn in final grades, I get excited about all the extra time I'll have to write the ms. Then the grades are turned in, and instead of becoming a freaking genius, my fingers like hummingbird wings at the keyboard, I turn into a sedate koala with the Wii remote permanently fixed to my palm, Netflix my drug of choice.

It's not that bad this semester. I've been a good girl at the laptop. I've watched only three movies in the past week. But this scene I'm writing--I know I just have to barrel through it. Anyone out there have  suggestions about kindling the love for your scene? (Wine and chocolate don't work in the mornings. Done that. It messes with your day.)

I'll leave you with something that made me smile: something my 8-year-old said, of course.
Julien said he thought we should go to the pet store and get a friend for his Djungarian hamster. (If you haven't seen these itty bitty darlings, you haven't experience rodent love, folks.)
from here"But what if they fight? What would we do?" I asked him.
He thought for a few seconds, and then said, "Well, we'll put the new one in a cardboard box, then give him to a homeless person."
"A homeless person?" I laughed.
"They need pets, too."