writing – Page 7 – My Life in Paragraphs

Up for a Challenge?

I like challenges.

Especially when life feels like it’s drifting towards auto.

In the past, I’ve challenged myself to wear everything I own or donate it, try 100 new recipes in a year, shop only local for three months, and write a novel (see where that got me?).

Of late, I’ve challenged myself to read 52 books this year (goodreads is keeping me accountable) and finish my current novel-in-progress by April.

Big challenges are all splashy and fun, but it’s the little stuff that can make you batty. It’s also the little stuff that can change your life.

The minutiae that nag at your conscience (and your soul) can bog down your days and your to-do list. You know what I’m talking about – the tasks that won’t stop your world from turning if they don’t get done but would certainly improve your world if they did get done. You probably remember these things while you’re brushing your teeth before bed and then promptly neglect to do them again the next day.

And once you tackle these insidious little jobs, there’s room for inspiration and ideas and projects. All of which are accomplished one little insidious task at a time!

So I have a plan for me and YOU—so we can get some stuff done, maybe even change our lives.

This past week, I was the host of one of my publisher’s Facebook groups – The Back Booth: Talking Women’s Fiction. (btw, you’re WELCOME to join – we’d love to have you! The Back Booth offers daily discussions and visits with its authors and members.)

On Monday, I challenged members to post one thing that had been languishing on their to-do list– a task they would accomplish that week. I called it their Monday-Must-Do.

Lots of people were game and shared tasks big and small (make a doctor’s appointment, put away Christmas decorations, update a resume). On Friday I checked in with all of them and guess what? – nearly everybody had taken care of their Monday-Must-Do!

Telling people you’re going to do something, especially publicly in writing, creates accountability. It worked last week and it’s worked for me time and again when I took on challenges publicly via my blog.

So, for all our sakes, I’ve decided to create a way for us to challenge ourselves each week publicly, for real, on my little corner of the internet, and then hold ourselves (and me) accountable.

Even though many of you are dissing Facebook at the present (but please, who actually thought Facebook wasn’t collecting your stats and selling them?), I’m going to do this on my Facebook writer page.

You can follow along like a commoner lurking in the shadows OR you can join in! Every Monday I’m going to be telling you what my MONDAY MUST-DO is and asking you for yours. Are you game? Want to change your life, or at least get *hit done?

On Friday, I’ll follow up with you and ask how it went. Me, and my ~~thousands~~ hundreds (for now) of followers will want to know.

What I’m hoping, is that most weeks you’ll discover that if you push yourself, just a teeny-tiny bit, you’ll succeed.

And all those little tiny successes, week after week, add up to big things—of this I know. It’s how I wrote all my books. It’s how I’ve saved over 100 dogs. It’s how I took the toxins out of my house and my life. One little challenge each week. That’s all it takes to change your life, or at least make it a little bit better.

Up for the challenge? Follow me. (and be sure to click the notifications tab so you don’t miss my reminders! I promise I won’t nag, I will be only balloons and champagne, and if some weeks your To-Do gets the better of you, I’ll just casually look the other way and nod my head in understanding. We all have those weeks.)

I’ve got another challenge for myself brewing, but I’ll need a running start for that one. Look for it in next week’s post!

Hey, thanks for reading. I know you’ve got lots of options, so thanks for sharing a few of your minutes with me.

Honored,

Cara

If you’d like to know more about me, my books, and where you might run into me, check out my website, CaraWrites.com.

If you’d like to subscribe to my (sometimes) monthly e-newsletter, click here.

If you’re a dog lover, check out my other blog, Another Good Dog.

I’d love to connect with you on Facebook, twitter, or Instagram, and I’m thrilled to get email from readers (and writers), you can reach me at carasueachterberg@gmail.com.

COMING AUGUST 2018 FROM Pegasus Books:

But lucky you! You can preorder your copy now!

24/7 Writer Brain

“Being a writer invades my life 24/7.”

When I read that line in Shonda Rhimes’ book Year of Yes, I thought, Exactly.

All day long I take mental notes of everything I see. I can’t not do this, even when I want to shut my brain off. Even when I notice stupid details that will likely never make it into my writing, like how cigarette butts pile up in intersections where people empty their ashtrays while their cars idle or how the smell of the dollar store clings to you even after you’ve been out of the store for hours.

And I wonder about everything…The Wal-Mart employee with the raccoon eyes, snapping her gum as she stands frozen, starring at a shelf, a product in her hand. Is she putting away returned items? Is she doing a price check? Has her brain frozen in place? Does she know her eyeliner is running? Does she care? Maybe she’s depressed? Maybe her boyfriend just broke up with her this morning after he used her toothbrush and took the last bagel. Maybe….

The squished toad on the driveway, guts spewed out its flattened mouth. Did the driver notice before they ran it over? Did I run it over? The flattened skin has the same texture as a football.

The pink hue to the light at dusk and how it makes everything softer, the same way snow makes everything look cleaner. How do you capture its essence in words?

Walking the dog, I find myself narrating my actions as if I was in the story itself. “They crested the hill and scanned the woods for the fox that keeps watch over the chicken pen. A hawk circled overhead– was it a sign?”

I can’t seem to stop my brain. I tell it to chill, but it doesn’t listen. Maybe I should sign up for yoga or learn to meditate. Something to stop my busy brain.

Sometimes I’m frustrated when I can’t seem to put into words what I truly feel in my heart. The perfect words that floated through my thoughts as I ran along our country roads this morning, escape me when I finally sit down to type them out. When I read the writing of someone like Shonda Rimes, who so easily, almost embarrassingly, spills her heart on the page, I think, “Yes! That’s it!” I’m grateful for her talent and strive to open my own heart unfiltered as she does.

I find there to be a magic in writing, a power well beyond me. So I’m grateful for this 24/7 invasion. It makes my days richer, even as it means that my mind is preoccupied and sometimes I forget about the clothes on the line or the tea I left steeping on the counter.

Writing makes life more real for me. I’m awed by the potential power it holds. Maybe this next sentence will change a life or lift a spirit, bring back a memory, or at the very least, make someone wonder. Maybe it will shine right through, all the way from my heart to yours.

Hey, thanks for reading. I know you’ve got lots of options, so thanks for sharing a few of your minutes with me.

Honored,

Cara

If you’d like to know more about me, my books, and where you might run into me, check out my website, CaraWrites.com.

If you’d like to subscribe to my (sometimes) monthly e-newsletter, click here.

If you’re a dog lover, check out my other blog, Another Good Dog.

I’d love to connect with you on Facebook, twitter, or Instagram, and I’m thrilled to get email from readers (and writers), you can reach me at carasueachterberg@gmail.com.

COMING AUGUST 2018 FROM Pegasus Books:

Changing the World Over Donuts

Last Friday I had the great pleasure of speaking to 4^th and 5^th graders at an Elementary School in Maryland.

It was crazy fun and went by in a flash. I met with ten different small groups for only ten minutes each session, which was never enough time. I wasn’t quite sure I had something to say, but those kids sure had plenty. I loved hearing what they are reading and writing and I enjoyed answering their excellent questions.

I tried very hard to leave them with the message that words are powerful. Their words can change minds and hearts and they are here long after we are gone.

I went home with a smile on my face and hope in my heart. I wish I could visit with elementary age kids more often; they are certainly good for the soul.

Tomorrow I will have the opportunity to meet with another local group. This time it’s the Rotary Club.

I wasn’t too worried about it until I looked up what the Rotary Club is. For some reason, I thought they were the old guys who zoom around on their scooters in the Mummers parade.

Turns out, they’re not. They’re actually a group of business and professional men and women who to meet to talk about how they can help this world. They’re a service organization.

So now I’m pretty intimidated. I’m not sure I have anything to offer them beyond my story. Which isn’t really helping the world. At least not directly. Hopefully, my stories help entertain and maybe even inspire, but world changing? Probably not.

Like the elementary school kids, these folks are busy, so the meeting is brief. It starts long before those elementary kids are even on their buses, includes breakfast, and finishes up in a neat hour. The friend who invited me to come speak said they’d just like to hear my publishing story. That story is a long and winding road that changes every time I tell it.

It’s not that I’m embellishing with the glint of history, it’s just that I always try to condense it and I’m never quite sure if I get my cliff notes right.

What to include, what not to include? There have been so many false starts and pointless tangents. Because how do we know what really influences our journeys? Was it the word of a wise editor or the nudge of a trusted friend? Maybe it was a comment from a stranger or the doubt of a family member.

I freely admit, I did not always make the wisest choices as I followed my heart to where I am now, but I think it’s mightily better to follow your heart than the crowd.

Reflecting on the influences upon my own story, I can’t help but picture the eager faces I encountered last Friday. I hope that the words I said and the answers I gave are little seeds planted in those kiddos that will someday help them know the power of their own voices.

And tomorrow?

I don’t know what I’ll say, or if any of it will be of consequence, but I’ll offer it up straight from my heart and hope it helps make the world a little better.

Or at least entertains some mighty impressive people over donuts.

Hey, thanks for reading. I know you’ve got lots of options, so thanks for sharing a few of your minutes with me.

Honored,

Cara

If you’d like to know more about me, my books, and where you might run into me, check out my website, CaraWrites.com.

If you’d like to subscribe to my (sometimes) monthly e-newsletter, click here.

If you’re a dog lover, check out my other blog, Another Good Dog.

I’d love to connect with you on Facebook, twitter, or Instagram, and I’m thrilled to get email from readers (and writers), you can reach me at carasueachterberg@gmail.com.

Changing the World

I have a speaking engagement coming up tomorrow in front of a tough audience.

Elementary school students.

It’s Career Day and I was invited to an Elementary School in Maryland, along with lots of people who likely have much more exciting careers than mine. I’ll have just 10 minutes per group to talk about what I do and answer questions.

I’m in a quandary about what I should tell them.

Writing is pretty boring. At least the act of it.

Unless you’re inside my brain, I appear awfully sedentary. Most days I bore my office mates to sleep.

So, what should I tell the kids?

Obviously, they’ll find my dog writing much more interesting than my women’s fiction writing or my occasional freelance pieces about parenting or organics or writing. They probably know more than me about marketing yourself via social media. And I’m pretty sure that talking about the largest part of my writing day – editing – would bore the life out of them, as it does me.

My tentative plan is to dazzle them with the dogs. I’ve even printed out a few 8x10s of some of my more exciting foster dogs to flash them.

My biggest dog- Whoopi. Continue reading “Changing the World”

Lacking Inspiration?

Feeling inspired?

No?

You’re surrounded by inspiration, as ever-present as the air you breathe.

Okay, sometimes you have to reach further to find it, but it’s there, believe me. All you need is an open mind, a little creativity, and a good analogy.

Okay, maybe the analogy doesn’t have to be that good.

Glancing around my workspace, I can see a pencil sharpener. That pencil sharpener is like me working on my latest manuscript – I carve and twist and sharpen my point to perfection, but really, will anybody need that pencil? Nobody uses pencils anymore.

Depressing? Yeah, kind of.

Here’s an even more depressing one from PG Wodehouse:

“It has been well said that an author who expects results from a first novel is in a position similar to that of a man who drops a rose petal down the Grand Canyon of Arizona and listens for the echo.”

Do you suppose he was looking out the window at his garden when he came up with that one or maybe there was a brochure for the grand canyon on his desk?

Maybe you read that and thought, who thinks like that?

I would assert – anyone and everyone.

You, for instance.

You are surrounded by potential analogies. They’re everywhere.

My oldest child is a creative soul. This made him both a pleasure and a pain to raise.

He is also smart. His standardized test scores came in very high in every area, except one.

Analogies.

These questions he would miss with alarming regularity. The problem was that he could always see two sides of everything.

He could absolutely understand how a bear could live in a hotel or a table could be used to sleep or a car is part of a kitchen or that something that is right is very wrong.

Look around you.

What does that lamp look like? A snake? A butter churn? An alien?

How could whether or not you made your bed this morning be an analogy for how you live your life?

What about your dog? Is he living the life he always wanted or is he a prisoner in a foreign land who has adapted well?

The truck rattling down the street — where is it going? What is it carrying? What has it seen? Who’s trapped inside? Did it runover the walnuts covering the street, the sound of the shells cracking like bullets exploding?

There is inspiration all around you, free for the taking.

My cat has been slowly destroying my laptop. Whenever I leave it open, she nests on it. Her relentless plucking has removed key after key, her efforts so thorough most are unable to be snapped back on. This week she tore off the control key. I’m annoyed with her, but I’m sure there’s an essay in there. (I’ve lost my control….)

Being open to possibility is the first step to discovering inspiration.

Sometimes when I’m journaling and can’t think of what to write, I’ll open a nearby book and randomly place my finger on a word or line. Then I’ll either continue the sentence or write about what that word or line brings to my mind. Other times I’ll look out the window and see what first catches my eye and explore why.

You can find inspiration on billboards, click bait, cereal packaging, or sales circulars. You can find it in the dirty laundry on the floor or the gunk in the sink drainer or the sarcasm in your teenager’s remark. There are analogies to be had in being late because the cat threw up or being lost when your GPS fails you.

Inspiration is everywhere. The place is lousy with it.

Breathe it in, and see where it takes your mind.

Need a chuckle? Check out these hilarious analogies written by high school students.

Hey, thanks for reading. I know you’ve got lots of options, so thanks for sharing a few of your minutes with me.

Honored,

Cara

If you’d like to know more about me, my books, and where you might run into me, check out my website, CaraWrites.com.

If you’d like to subscribe to my (sometimes) monthly e-newsletter, click here.

If you’re a dog lover, check out my other blog, Another Good Dog.

I’d love to connect with you on Facebook, twitter, or Instagram, and I’m thrilled to get email from readers (and writers), you can reach me at carasueachterberg@gmail.com.

Sometimes It’s Brilliant, Sometimes it’s Cleaning Vegetables

“If every time you sat down, you expected something great, writing would always be a great disappointment.” -Natalie Goldberg (Writing Down the Bones)

This is the third post I’ve written for the blog this week. (Do notice that it’s the only post I’ve actually posted.)

The magic just wasn’t happening.

*sigh*

Maybe it’s the sore shoulder. (Writing injury. No lie. I won’t bore you with the entire post I wrote about it.)

Maybe it’s the gray-gray-gray of the never-ever-ever-ever ending winter. (We still have to get through February? March? The dental hygienist reminded me that April can be iffy, too.)

Maybe it’s the lack of puppies. (I own that addiction.)

Maybe it’s my new (depressing) resolution not to eat after 6pm (including wine?).

Whatever it is, when I sat down to write, everything that came out was boring and trite and no-help-to-anyone.

Those days happen. They’re part of being a writer.

Now here’s the part about being a professional writer….

I still wrote. Every. Day.

Even when it was horrible.

Because you know what?

Every time I put what’s on my mind and in my heart onto the page, it makes room for the bigger, better thoughts. Kind of like cleaning vegetables. I shucked the skin and cut off the core and picked out the seeds. Necessary work to get to the good stuff.

So maybe when I sit down to write next week, it’ll be clear sailing. Nothing but brilliance in prose form.

And if not?

I’ll write anyway.

How about you?

Hey, thanks for reading. I know you’ve got lots of options, so thanks for sharing a few of your minutes with me.

Honored,

Cara

If you’d like to know more about me, my books, and where you might run into me, check out my website, CaraWrites.com.

If you’d like to subscribe to my (sometimes) monthly e-newsletter, click here.

If you’re a dog lover, check out my other blog, Another Good Dog.

I’d love to connect with you on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, and I’m thrilled to get email from readers (and writers), you can reach me at carasueachterberg@gmail.com.

Embrace the Yuck

Last post I was ready to take on the world.

This post, I’m thinking maybe it would be best if I just slunk away and holed up somewhere with my dog. Maybe on a mountain, out of cell-phone range.

Writing, especially publishing, is much like ping pong.

You’re amazing – You suck – You’re brilliant – You’re an idiot – You’re happy – You’re devastated.

Maybe it’s the nature of an artist (is that what I am?) to feel such high highs and such low lows.

Today it is gray, cold, unwelcoming.

My agent informs me that my re-written manuscript (the one in which I was certain I’d finally nailed it) is still not up to snuff.

I began to re-read my in-progress manuscript, remembering how fabulous I thought it was when I started and realized it’s horrible. Plain horrible. I don’t even want to read it.

The article I’m working on keeps spinning in circles. I can’t find a flow, a structure, or even, really, a point.

Several of my latest efforts to ‘try something new’ to get my books out there, have been met with technicalities, false hopes, no-thank yous, and hidden (impossible) costs.

Facebook, Amazon, and Goodreads, the major marketing tools of most authors, have once again, changed the rules and I’m too untechy-savy/late-to-the-game/old to figure it out.

Ugh.

I need a pep talk.

I can (still) do this.

But maybe for today, I’ll need to embrace the yuck. Let it have its way. Eat the leftover apple cobbler, stay in my jammies, and lay around reading books written by real writers who know what they’re doing.

Just for today, I will not try. I’ll hang out with my dog. Embrace the suckiness of my situation in all it’s awful glory.

Tomorrow, I’ll get back at it.

Promise.

Hey, thanks for reading. I know you’ve got lots of options, so thanks for sharing a few of your minutes with me.

Honored,

Cara

If you’d like to know more about me, my books, and where you might run into me, check out my website, CaraWrites.com.

If you’d like to subscribe to my (sometimes) monthly e-newsletter, click here.

If you’re a dog lover, check out my other blog, Another Good Dog.

I’d love to connect with you on Facebook, twitter, or Instagram, and I’m thrilled to get email from readers (and writers), you can reach me at carasueachterberg@gmail.com.

Is There Any Reason to be Reasonable?

Every new year I make a list of resolutions. This year’s list is long. I’m not going to share it here because that would mean you might hold me to it. I’m gonna hold me to it, so you don’t have to. But also because some of my resolutions are deeply personal. I’m digging deeper this year.

2017 was fine. Lots of good stuff happened. I learned quite a lot. I adopted a puppy and bought a convertible, so I really can’t complain.

But 2018….this is gonna be my year. I’m going to make it so.

When I first scratched out my list, I thought, yeah, right, you are so overshooting. But then I thought – why can’t I overshoot? Why can’t I reach for bigger stuff and bigger dreams (and maybe a smaller waistline)? Why can’t I want it all?

I’ve read a slew of new year’s posts full of very nice resolutions and advice. Make it reasonable. Make it doable. Make it measurable. Pick one word, one resolution, focus on that.

Why?

I see no reason to be reasonable. Our world has seemed incredibly unreasonable this past year. No one else is staying within the lines, why should I?

And doable? Well, there’s no way to know if something is doable until you try to do it. So I plan to.

And the thing about measurable is that it’s restrictive and reeks of judgment. It’s more or less a pass/fail situation and that doesn’t leave enough room for really great tries or hitting it out of the park. As Norman Vincent Peale said, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”

I’ve made ten resolutions. Ten big ones. For a great part of my life, I’ve been practical; I was learning, growing, practicing, trying, but you know what? I don’t know how much life I left (neither do you), so enough rehearsing, it’s time to act. It’s time to make this thing real.

How about you? What are you resolving to change? Cause if you don’t get moving, you’ll surely get runover just sitting there. It’s time, people.

Hey, thanks for reading. I know you’ve got lots of options, so thanks for sharing a few of your minutes with me.

Honored,

Cara

If you’d like to know more about me, my books, and where you might run into me, check out my website, CaraWrites.com.

If you’d like to subscribe to my (sometimes) monthly e-newsletter, click here.

If you’re a dog lover, check out my other blog, Another Good Dog.

I’d love to connect with you on Facebook, twitter, or Instagram, and I’m thrilled to get email from readers (and writers), you can reach me at carasueachterberg@gmail.com.

Book Festivalling

Book festivals are not everyone’s thing. I get that.

Okay, maybe I don’t. What’s not to like? Books? Authors? Festivalling?

This month, I traveled to three different festivals. The first festival I attended was in Williamsburg, Virginia. I traveled there with a dear friend, beta reader, book & wine lover named Gina. I had no expectations for this festival, I told Gina. In doing my research, I’d talked to three authors who attended in years past. One was enthusiastic about the experience, saying it was well organized and the crowd was lovely. She sold many books.

The second author I contacted said it was awful. She was stuck in a side room and no one could find her table. The people who did were just looking for free stuff. Hmmm. Continue reading “Book Festivalling”

What is YOUR Creative Self Saying?

I started teaching a new course of Creative Writing this week. I forgot how much I love it. My class last spring didn’t fill and was canceled. At the time, I was busy preparing for a book launch, so I was somewhat relieved.

Driving home after class this week, I was energized. It’s so exciting to work with writers who are just beginning their journey. The possibilities are fresh and exciting.

The knowing nods when we talk about the urgent need to write, reassure me. I’m not the only crazy person in my town who feels this compelling urge to bear witness to all the little oddities in my life and heart.

We talked about what we write and why. So many echoed the same sentiment—a voice running through their heads aching to get out on paper. I recognize that insistency. It’s their creative spirit. Everyone has one. That spirit can find its way out in a plethora of ways, but when its left trapped inside, unrecognized and unfed, it can lead to a confused despondency, a sadness borne of a day-after-day sameness. Continue reading “What is YOUR Creative Self Saying?”