A Poem About Writing Group by Wendy Bartlett

2004
Alone at Roma

I sit and wait and wonder why
The writers' group ain't comin' by
I scribble here to pass the hour
And wonder why they missed their power.

I know I'm here for myself first
The tea I bought will calm my thirst
For words that get stuck in my pen
I ask myself, do I need them?

I glance up to the door in hopes
That I may feel I'm not a dope
To think they might come here and write
And do their writing like a right.

If they and I remember well
For years all women couldn't tell
The truth that lurks in every vein
That must be written to make a change.

Again I glance up to the wall
A painter friend has come to call
Not me, but him, to show her art.
She's put the horse before the cart.

I nod and say, 'are these by you?'
She smiles and I can say with truth
The paintings here light up the place
And put a wide smile on our face.

For she's a woman who held her brush
Through all her life, in spite of the rush,
And saw her work as but life's cheer,
Her paintings, flawed, but shown and here.

But where is my dear writers' group?
Some are traveling, some out of the loop,
I hope they're scribbling in a coffee bar
In another part of the world, no matter how far.

San Francisco Writing for Change Conference

I spent the week-end as a volunteer at the Hilton in a wonderful atmosphere of writers, editors, agents, and entrepreneurs. The only problem I found was that I wanted to be everywhere at the same time. There is so much information coming out of the mouths of the speakers that you, as a writer, want and need to know. The frustration is now abated by your ability to go to the San Francisco Writers University, a new online University where you can download free and also pay for audios and videos of the lectures. http://www.sfwritersu.com/

NaNoWriMo Who me write a novel in a month?

After a long while, I am back to say that somehow I am starting to write my next book. It is social pressure. Writers I know keep asking me if I am doing the write-a-novel-in-the-month-of-November thing. No, I say. I couldn't possibly. I only got 30,000 words done last year. But my daughter, Elizabeth Stark, (www.elizbaethstark.com), even though she has two three year olds, is doing it and also helping others to do it at the same time! I said to her, heck, what can I do to help? So I am babysitting soon to give her more time. Meanwhile, something clicked and here I am again, writing up a storm. I missed one day already, but, again, what the heck, just like my credit card, I will pay it down a little every day. This is such a discipline, but the results are amazing. No criticism: just write, write, write. In thirty days, presto, 50,000 words. (You do the daily math, please!)

Elizabeth Stark interviews Author Michelle Richmond

http://bookwritingworld.com/2010/08/23/michelle-richmond/

Michelle Richmond’s Secrets: Our Video Interview on the Writing Life23rd August 2010 by Elizabeth Stark under Featured Michelle Richmond is a wonderful writer, and you can tell just hanging out with her that she, like Charlotte, is also a good friend. In any case, she was so much fun to talk with we didn’t want to leave. Plus her books are the kind you can’t put down.

Manuscripts in Progress: Marvin Spector finishing Stay High

Marvin is in his final six months of over twelve years with his long novel called Stay High. I mentioned it earlier in my blog. Here is one of his poems included in the book. If anybody knows of an agent who would be interested, this is extremely beautiful writing on the subject of the Hippie Trail.

Leaving

Did someone shout freeedom?
Or was it just an icy dream on a fiery day?
From blood congealed by aching desire,
To the rich, red explosion of a juicy beet,
Past the tingling taste of the tiny
Purple and blush bubbles of a blood orange,
Freedom is scarlet, carmine, crimson, vermilion,
The penultimate shriek. Without it, nothing changes.
An opaque layer of burnt sienna blankets his mind,
Intensifies when he tightens closed eyes,
Only a mood, yet it seems more real than any relic of
Civilization built from bone, wood, or stone.
Suddenly the sonic vibrations from the shouted word,
“Freeedom,” shatter a crystalline chrysalis
Buried deep in his unconscious,
Crumbling the wall of color, freeing his mind of mauve.
92
In a dream within a dream,
He watches the sound of breaking glass
Awaken a tiny threadlike scorpion
Sleeping on a peach-scented bed of pellucid opal
In a golden bassinet lined with raw silk and fine linen.
The bed belongs to Babylove,
Who blindly reaches for a swollen breast,
While the deadly insect scurries away.
Did no one see? Just me, just me?
* * * *
He’s leaving today, but deep down it barely registers.
See, for him, everything’s middles,
No beginnings, no ends except birth and death.
Always, solving one problem automatically creates
another.
Like a pendulum overshooting its resting place,
His responses are always too much or too little.
In a nightmare,
Wounded, exhausted, he stumbles, and falls.
Blood dots the moonlit snow.
Gaining ground, the savage pack howls in triumph,
Encircling him in the bruised purple dawn,
Sitting on their thighs, slit-like topaz eyes
Gleam with suppressed excitement.
93
Stomachs growl, tongues loll as they wait without patience
For darker skies to hide dark deeds.
In every life he was the victim, preferred it.
How else maintain his humanity?
Since power corrupts, and fame attracts the infamous.
Good and bad meant little to him.
Most times he didn’t know the difference,
And arrogantly thought no one else does either.
Besides, one always becomes the other,
Like every opposite in this hell of the emotions.
Even though the ferocity
Of our over-the-top world stuns him,
Life is still sacred, isn’t it?
Despite the ravages of time, pain, and death,
We’re all undying spirits, right? God’s thoughts?
Again, that booming sound, freeedom.
Like blood coursing through plaque in an artery,
The word smashes through a spider’s web of dark and
Tangled thoughts, sweeping everything before it.
Now, he finally hears it, and for the first time in months,
He’s happy, deliriously happy, falling down happy!
Happy! Happy! Happy!
Nobody knows freedom like a convict released.

Write poems, write songs: while you wait for the muse

I go to my writers' group and I can't think of what I should be writing for my novel. Surely it is done, I say to myself. But this death in my family is taking its toll, and it seems easier just to write a song or two. And that is what I have done the past two Fridays at my writers' group. Now I have to think up the music. I would like to do that with my electric piano, with its dust collecting as it also waits.

Death as inspiration to a writer

I have not blogged lately because I have been dealing with a death in my family. It has only been five days now since he died, but how difficult to put into words what this means to me. It is a process of what was, what is not, and what will now be. It is those moments when a shock of recognition of the finality of it flow into my vision. It is the fodder of future writing.

It was night. I circled his bald head with my hand. Earlier when I did that he purred and turned his head towards his shoulder, eyes shut. Now there is nothing. Yet my other hand holds his hand and suddenly this dying person squeezes my hand twice. It was the last contact with another human being before he died. In the morning, it felt like those two squeezes were saying the most powerful words in a dying person's vocabulary: "good-bye."

Camping, Singing and garage sale freebies

On my way to the folk singing campout in Boulder Creek, I saw some free books. I got three hard cover brand new books of Harry Potter. I will hold them until my grandsons are ready. They are three now: that should be about a year at the rate they are reading.

I am trying to write a song to a friend's music. It is very complicated music, and I feel like I am writing an opera: many parts at once. Quite a challenge, and not at all like folksongs or novels. I listen to a recording of it as I drive and little-by-little the words find themselves.

I sang at the campfire, and I sang at the mike. Two heart songs: Plaisir d'Amour and The Sisters of Mercy. Quite a few members of the audience were younger and many had never heard these songs. I was delighted to re-introduce them and keep them alive.

A little more about Elizabeth Stark's Interview with Lucy Jane

This was an absolutely spellbinding intervew for me, as an author almost through with my third novel. I learned so much I thought I already knew. There is nothing like hearing about another writer’s process: a list of linking scenes, for example. By the end I was drooling to hear more about this actual novel, and when she said penguins, and the father-daughter, science-musical hints, and the effect the scenery can have on people’s characters, I was hooked. I look forward to reading this amazing book, The Big-Bang Symphony.

I liked the interplay of the interviewer, Elizabeth Stark, with the interviewee, Lucy Jane Bledsoe. Great interview!

Elizabeth Stark's Interview at BWW of Lucy Jane Bledsoe

I just checked out this spell-binding interview by Elizabeth Stark of author, Lucy Jane Bledsoe. It is long, but I was glued to the screen from beginning to end. What a treasure!


http://bookwritingworld.com/blog/2010/06/24/interview-with-author-lucy-jane-bledsoe/comment-page-1/#comment-264

That Song: like pulling teeth

You must have heard the story of a famous writer who is at a party and is talking with a dentist who is about to retire. He says, "You're a novelist? I am going to write a novel when I retire."

"Oh," says our famous novelist, "I am going to pull teeth when I retire."

Surely novelists put in millions more hours in their work than any dentist ever did. Novelists sweat hard behind the scenes to make a novel seem easy. Like dancers and musicians. Again and again and again. Back to the keyboard. Delete, delete, delete. Read back, listen. Read aloud. Bug your friends. Pay for readers, editors. Re-write.

Naw, I think I will go out and pull some teeth!

Guilt! I didn't make it to the CA writers club today!

You know, I guess the sunshine prompted me to stay away and play the guitar and learn new chords so I can make up a great song one day. That's my excuse and I am sticking to it. Also, I was really bad: I didn't type in my writing today. I usually write on Friday and type it in on Sunday. It's the weather: what else can it be? But, hey, at least I did the writing. Pulling that novel together now. Like teeth.

Denmark, 1963 a poem by me, Wendy Bartlett

Denmark 1963

A quite simple matter
At twenty or so
A train ride to Denmark
Just backpack and go
From there on the ferry
To Tom’s Oslo town
I wasn’t afraid
Of the people around
The train in the station
Breathed one last sigh
The giant clock signaled
It was midnight, goodnight
The morning train slumbered
While I stood alone
The giant train station
Would now be my home
My eyelids they fluttered
My mouth made a yawn
The men in there shuddered
Nobody was warm
My knees wobbled slightly
The quietness came
Six hours to kill
Outside there was rain
My backpack was heavy
Put it down on the floor
Then lowered my body
Could not stand anymore
Sleep entered my body
Could not hold it back
I dreamed of my train
Asleep on its track
Six hours I huddled
And kept out the cold
Not one person touched me
Or talked to me, bold
So in Denmark a woman
Is left on her own
It isn’t an invite
If she crashes alone
It was freedom to be there
A new taste to me
A glorious feeling
Of how one can be free

San Francisco Free Folk Festival

Inspiration, folks! There stood Faith Petric, 94, singing and playing her guitar, and standing so very straight! I liked all her songs about sitting around singing together (and not checking email, etc.). She sang Malvina Reynolds, too. Hold it tight, and you won't have any. (a penny) I thought about writing my one last great song. I know so much more about story now that I have written a number of books. You would think I could get a song down well by now. But for some reason just setting myself up for a "great" song gives me writer's block on the subject. I know a woman who writes a song a day! I could do that! What an exercise to not have to write a great song! Just like this blog: it isn't great. It just is. And so it gets written, somehow. I think about songs: political songs, love songs, poetic songs, sad songs, funny songs. Perhaps one per day? No, all that is scary. I like the way we do it in writers' group: dig up four words and go on writing from there. Now, let me see, la, la, la.....

Manuscripts in Progress: born in a hollar

Well, this man calls his wife and himself, Bonnie and Clyde. He is a neighbor in Dutch Flat and he told me he just finished his memoirs. He was born in hmmm was it West Virginia? Where, he said, the Carter family lived. I supposed he meant the banjo types, not the nut types. He was orphaned, he said, at eight. He just doesn't know where to put the commas, as he only had a fifth grade education. So, of course, I said I would edit it for him. Only two hundred pages including photos. It intrigued me. We shall see. So many manuscripts in progress around this world!

Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada

A friend emailed me about this novel, written just after WWII. It is now translated into English and has made a huge come-back. I will start it tonight. It is based on a true story about a working class couple in Berlin who decided to take a stand against the Nazis. It is a deeply moving story of two people who stand up for what's right, and for each other. I know I will love this book. I ordered it from Mrs. Dalloway's, and not Amazon. What is more exciting than bringing a book home that you know you will really want to settle down with and read until it is very late and you ought to be in bed!

Kate Moses at Mrs. Dalloway's: June 3, 7:30 p.m./Elizabeth Starks Interview

I just saw Elizabeth Stark's interview with Kate Moses see Video Interview of Kate at http://bookwritingworld.com/blog/2010/05/21/interview-with-kate-moses-2/
and was thrilled to see that she will be reading locally on:
Thursday, June 3, 7:30 p.m.

At Mrs. Dalloway's: Kate Moses reads from Cakewalk: A Memoir (Doubleday, $26).

Growing up in the 1960s and ’70s, Kate Moses was surrounded by sugar: Twinkies in the basement freezer, honey on the fried chicken, Baby Ruth bars in her father’s sock drawer. But sweetness of the more intangible variety was harder to come by. Her parents were disastrously mismatched, far too preoccupied with their mutual misery to notice its effects on their kids.

Check out Elizabeth Stark's wonderful, spellbinding interview. I am hoping to go and see Kate Moses in person this Thursday!
http://www.katemoses.com/site/

California Writers Club speaker: Kristen Caven on My Glamorous Cartooning Career

The other author I heard speak in Oakland at the California Writers Club was Kristen Caven, author of Perfectly Revolting: My Glamorous Cartooning Career
In 1990 Kristen Caven witnessed a revolt as students at Mills, one of the last remaining women’s colleges, shut down the campus to keep boys out of their classrooms. Her new memoir, Perfectly Revolting: My Glamorous Cartooning Career, includes a reprint of Inside the Mills Revolution —which won the Bay Guardian Cartoon Contest but was banned on the Mills campus—plus over 100 more of her hilarious cartoons, and a story about following her muses to womanhood.

Kristen was a wonderful speaker, full of genuine smiles and a nice sense of humor about life. I like to draw, so was fascinated to see how she made this book up with her cartoons. http://www.kristencaven.com/

The God Patent (www.TheGodPatent.com) Ransom W. Stephens

I went to the California Writers' Club a week ago which is now held at the Main Oakland Library. I had not been for awhile, and it was such a pleasure. There were two speakers, one of whom was Ransom W. Stephens, author of The God Patent. I found him to be an engaging speaker and one who I would want to hear again if the opportunity arose. It turns out he was a student of Stephanie Moore, as I was briefly. For more information on him, here is the connection: www.facebook.com/ransom.stephens. Here is a quote he puts out: Author of The God Patent, (now in print from Numina Press) www.TheGodPatent.com

“…the first debut novel to emerge from the new paradigm of online publishing… sings of the heart and the scientific method as two parts of the same song.” –SF Chronicle

I will write about the other speaker in another blog. Also engaging!

Two poems by Luis Lázaro Tijerina

AN INDIAN SUMMER
FOR ANITA O’DAY


Your alluring cat eyes beckon from the dark…
A voice teasing, quick to laugh,
your sensual face still in my heart,
I see your full, red-painted lips
singing to the trees, to the gentle wind
of the romances you lived through
in promising springtime,
only to have your heart broken
in an Indian summer.

Sweeet Georggia Brown,
with your luscious flare,
Sweeet Geroggia Brown with jazzy airs!
You, beautiful jazz lady
casting your spell with your black dress
and wide brimmed hat,
my Stella by Starlight…


A Birch Tree Stands in a Field

A birch tree stands in a field,
its white bark as loose as a girl’s chemise.
All is quiet this day, as it has always been...
Nothing stirs across the river; only the sounds
of distant birds can be heard, as it has always been.
Here, rumors of war or of the laughter of a girl playing,
or someone’s dying in quicksand, is taken
as a matter of course, just like
the river flowing past the birch tree.

A birch tree stands in a field, alone and slightly proud,
like my own life...but what I once valued I have thrown
into the raging waters of the St. Lawrence River.
I think rather of the river that flows here
near the birch in the field..
Sometimes I hear again the great songs
about the 22nd Krasnodar Division who fought
with heroism in the Far-East before I was born,
before the birch tree with its exquisite white bark
singled me out as its friend
I think quietly on this day
about those who will yet die, alone,
near the birch tree.

Kate Moses, interviewed by Bookwritingworld.com interviewer, Elizabeth Stark

Check out this wonderful video of Kate Moses by Elizabeth Stark. If you are a writer, watching and listening to Kate talk with Elizabeth will be enlightening and fascinating and help you with your own writing process. A great interview. Enjoy!

http://bookwritingworld.com/blog/2010/05/21/interview-with-kate-moses-2/#more-508

Guilt! Two weeks fumbling around, not writing

Why is it that when I go to my writers' group, and I can't write my novel, poetry doesn't count? In fact, that is when and where I have written most of my poems. But that new novel is sitting there frowning, begging me to get back to it. I think I have come to that sticky place where I have put it all in order and know I need to do so much more, yet it is starting to look like a real novel. This sequel to Cellini's Revenge, is fighting with me. Should it stand alone, or should it continue on? It can be both. But the pause was really necessary. Once I got back to it, I thought, heck, this is a really good novel. And tht is what those poetry moments are allowing me to do. We all need a break.

It will last forever - poem

May 2010

Last Forever by Wendy Bartlett

If you imagine that it will
Last forever
You are so mistaken
If you see only his face
His smile, his life
As a solution
Welcome to your new problems!
A person stands not alone
But on top of his family’s history
On top of stories
Of migration, immigration, prison,
A religion fleeing persecution
A while pressure on the backs of a nation,
Like the Indian Nations
Like the holocaust survivors
Like the politically persecuted
Or like the religiously shunned
The smile shows all the teeth
Or half the teeth, or
No teeth at all
A closed mouth
And in that smile and the cock of the head
You are welcomed into his past
Which with one kiss
You are invited to hold up his story
Witness his agony in his words
Nod and cry and make a fist
And then, you are invited
To kiss his brow



Again I sit with my four writers
Before which we have
Sorted the British election
The Orinda school prejudice
The holocaust, of course,
And the pros and cons of
Black solidarity against whites
And I didn’t speak
But I was there, listening,
And wondering why don’t I talk
Why do I listen quietly?
Where is my anger, my energy?
Don’t I care about the
Blackened sea turtles in the Gulf
Or the people lining up for their
Last Louisiana fish dinner
Or the Taliban in the SUV bomb
Or Haiti
Let’s bow our heads
Their misery continues like
A familiar friend
Is my mouth just ajar
As the news and views pour
Into my head
My bowed head now
Of course, I care,
But I wonder
Were we meant, with our large brains
To process this vast weight
Of negative information
Can I please just sit back
And notice the flowers
The sunny spring day
The classical music playing?
For yes, the impoverished
Still dance with gusto
And sing and drum
And go on
Or, yes,
They do not.

Poem: Writer's Block

Writer’s Block by Wendy Bartlett

Is what I’ve got here writer’s block?
It’s quite a first, a writer’s shock.
Is my head stuck on last night’s show?
Or is it just my hands won’t go?
That lady’s shoes are clacking loud
I always wrote, I was so proud
I’m not like them, a pen to lips
Or her, those hands upon her hips
The voices at the table there
Annoy me, drink and eat, don’t stare.
The other’s write their speedy drafts
And when they read they’ll get the laughs
But here am I, my pen is stuck
My mind’s a block of solid muck
It’s New Year’s Eve and still I know
By the end of the verse
I’ll have naught to show
So here I sit, my lip is blue
Here comes that woman
With the clacking shoe
At last, a smudge across the page
Displays the heart of writer’s rage
It’s birth again, a moan, a tear
I truly want to get out of here!
I’d then let down my writing friends
Who sit here, writing stuff to send
To agents in New York and France
I know I’ll never get a chance
To publish, but you’d think I’d learn
That writing’s hope,
It’s life that burns.
A scribble starts the words to flow
Oh, girls, I’ve got a page to show.

Characters in Cellini's Revenge

Catherine is the main character in Cellini's Revenge: The Mystery of the Silver Cups, by Wendy Bartlett.

We meet her first in 1956 when she is blamed for murdering her husband, David. Later on we meet her in Holloway Prison where she must stay for twelve years, and then in Brattleboro for the rest of her life UNTIL she discovers DNA.

Back she goes to London to find the REAL murderer with the help of Christopher, a charming Cockney man of fifty who leads Catherine back into her past, and to the hunt for the silver cups.

reviews on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Cellinis-Revenge-Mystery-Silver-Cups/dp/1440140456/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243560779&sr=1-2

Ebooks are the way to go for my books. Kindle or other ereaders are the new way. Older people like them because they can enlarge the print!

Voice and Elizabeth Stark's guy in the sand: (http://bookwritingsecrets.com)

I thought by now I would have understood "voice." But re-reading my lastest work, the sequel to Cellini's Revenge, I see I am still struggling like the guy in the sand in Elizabeth Stark's latest video. (http://bookwritingsecrets.com)

Elizabeth Stark was once my writing teacher. What a great teacher! I highly recommend her brilliance and insight.

But I heard she is working on "voice," just now with her new novel. It is one of the hardest things to get right, it seems to me. Who is the narrator, and can't she have a voice, and also he, and then a little bit of the other guy? No. Yes. Sometimes. I read it backwards, upside down, and out loud. I ask my teachers and writing friends. Then we vote. When I am done, I hire somebody to edit. For some reason, THEY know!

Contradictions by Jean Pestell

Contradictions

I remember the bomb-sites
but not the buildings,
talk of the enemy,
although I never met one,
blackout curtains,
not the bomb in Hendon that shattered our windows.

I remember our Jewish neighbours, the Beckharts,
not why they’d left Wiesbaden,
hearing Yiddish spoken by local shopkeepers,
never questioning why they were here.
I remember turning on their lights on the Sabbath
but not why they had to pay me to do it.

I remember going to a Catholic school,
even though I was C of E,
nuns leaving for missions in Africa,
yet so few of them were really kind.
I remember buying an African child for half a crown to be ‘saved’
but never felt shame as I put a gold star in my scrapbook

I remember going to school in France later
but not why they blamed me for the war;
they said we’d bombed their port of Brest,
not that the Fuhrer’s ships were sheltering there.

I remember learning about prejudice early
but not how to justify it.

I remember my first ever German friend from Dusseldorf
but not the significance of her mother’s pension from Krupp;
her father was killed by the Allies
but I didn’t understand why he’d fought against us.

I remember my first German boyfriend in Spain,
not why he’d been on of the Hitler Youth,
our shared love of art, literature and philosophy,
not the fiancée he’d already had in Hamburg.
I remember breaking up with another boyfriend,
yet will never forget that gin doesn’t make misery disappear.

I remember learning about life’s contradictions early
and not to forget to remember that.

Copyright jean pestell April 2010

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

This long title goes with a relatively light book, perfect for a trip to England. It is about a writer who must write about this particular Literary Society which was formed in the Second World War on Guernsey Island when it was taken over by the Germans. What I loved about this book was how it delicately moved along, not kicking you in the teeth, not shoving violence down your throat, but just telling the story in letters with many different people, all with his or her version of life at that time. Of course, there is a love story or two and we are introduced to many books the members of the society read along the way.

It is published by Dial Press. It is written by Mary Ann Shaffer and her daughter Annie Barrows. Mary Ann had written most of it but then her health began to fail, and Annie took it over and finished it. I recommend it to anybody interested in a glimpse into WWII, on a very human scale.

Volcano Ash and the London Book Fair

I am back from England after nine days. I went to the London Book Fair one day and enjoyed it thoroughly. However, because so many flights were cancelled in and out of Heathrow for six days, there were quite a few displays that were blank. Also, people mentioned that it felt very sparsely attended. Many people were trying to get back from Europe by train, car and rail and boats. In a word, life as we know it was on hold. I went to three seminars: ipad (get one); survival of independent bookstores (have happenings); and who is reading on ipads vs. Kindle, etc. A LOT of people. Sales are very high of ipads compared to similar sales on Kindle in the past year. I particularly loved the creative energy of the bookstore speakers. Once I find my notes, and unpack, I will try to tell you who and where they are. It is amazing what can be done. Certainly, Mrs. Dalloway's in Berkeley has similar happenings and have a strong following. Gardening books are a specialty.

Memoir or Novel? Which one is the more important?

I have been thinking about fiction and non-fiction. I have no idea where my characters come from in my novels, but I am passionate about them and their lives, so I would guess they come from some very deep place right inside me. Okay, maybe they do. I hate to admit that! Are they still fiction? I think so. Meanwhile, my memoir sits there wondering if only my relatives should read it, or maybe, should not!

I think about this a lot while doing other things. Truth or fiction, or a bit of both. What is really happening, I would guess, is a new book, which will be both fiction and non-fiction. Is that a memoir anyway? The creative process at work!

I am packed and ready for London, so am not too sure if this blog will have to wait until my return. We shall see. I am so looking forward to the London Book Fair.

London Book Fair: I bought my ticket!

The ticket was cheaper than I thought. Must be the new exchange rate. I will report on my tour when I return later in April. It is a huge event, and I don't plan more than three hours there, so I have to zero in on the people who might represent Cellini's Revenge next time. The sequel, too. I am excited!

The London Book Fair - should I go?

I will be in London briefly the week of the London Book Fair. It is in Earl's Court, not too far for me. If I buy my ticket online it will be a lot cheaper. I think I will buy the ticket and see if I can get there with all the wonderful people I want to see as well. Squeeze it in. I would love to go to Rottingdean, too. That might have to wait until next time. (That is where part of my novel, Cellini's Revenge, takes place).
http://www.londonbookfair.co.uk/
wendy@wendybartlett.com
Cheapest ebook of Cellini's Revenge: iUniverse.com

Manuscripts in Progress: Joyce Scott

Joyce Scott, sister of the world-reknowned Outsider sculptor, Judith Scott, gave a reading from her manuscript, EnTwined, yesterday at a wonderful house of a friend in Kensington, California. It was attended by about fifty people.

EnTwined is the story of her life with her twin sister, Judy, who was born with Down Syndrome, and Judy's rise to fame later in life when she came to live in California and attended the Oakland art school called Creative Growth. Judy's large and colorful fiber sculptures have traveled the globe in exhibitions from Tokyo to Switzerland.

It is with great anticipation that we await the publication of this new book which Joyce has been writing for many years. The reading was touching, and had all of us on the verge of tears.

Manuscripts in progress: Marvin Spector

Marvin Spector has been writing his novel, Die High, for about ten years now; a long, terrific, fictionalized account of his journeys around the world back on the Hippie Trail.

"When a person feels so good that s/he says if I die now it would be ok, then s/he is willing to die high," writes Marvin. I know personally that Marvin has worked exceedingly hard on this amazing journey: a piece of history from an amazing era.

Marvin Spector is also a well-polished poet and has read his wonderful poems in the Bay Area for many years.

He is not willing to search for an agent until his work is done. I hear that it is almost finished. He has worked very hard with Bay Area Beat poet and writing teacher, Clive Matson, (http://www.matsonpoet.com/cmpoetry.shtml) for five years, writing and polishing. It is beautifully written, as a poet might do.

Volunteering for Writers' Conferences does you good!

After several years going to the wonderful San Francisco Writers Conference, my finances took a turn for the worst. There was no way I was going to miss it. I asked to volunteer the next year and have done it now for three years. They always say you get so much from giving, and in this case, it was really true. I got something more than the great information and meeting agents and authors. I got something deep in my soul. There is no pay higher than that! I highly recommend it if you get a chance; any writers' conference near you.
Check it out! www.sfwritersconferences.org/

Elizabeth George said: Show up!

Elizabeth George writes in her book "Write Away":
"You will be published is you possess three qualities - talent, passion and discipline. You will probably be published if you possess two of the three qualities in either combination - either talent and discipline or passion and discipline. You will likely be published if you possess neither talent nor passion but still have discipline. Just go to the bookstore and pick up a few "notable titles and you'll see what I mean. But if all you possess is talent or passion, if all you possess is talent and passion you will not be published...A lot of writing is simply showing up. A lot of writing is just being willing to show up day after day; same time, same place..."

What has weight got to do with writing?

A good writer is a good reader. And that means sitting still. And that means not moving much. A good writer spends time sitting at the computer, correcting work, re-reading work, and typing in new work. Sitting. Gaining weight. There must be a balance and that means avoiding the kitchen at night, and walking and exercising some part of every day. How can we find the time for all this? Stop doing the other things. Or shorten them. It is possible. I know. It just takes courage.

Our Weight: we can start tonight!

As teenagers, we want to look cute and be popular and liked. As we grow older, we like to be healthy. We think about calories. We buy clothes too large or too small because our weight is unpredictable. We diet. Oh, we diet! In the end, it is all about our health, both physical and mental. We get neurotic: we open the refrigerator. We feel unloved, we open it again. We search each shelf. We don't know what it is we are looking for. Could it be love? Food used to be love, way back when we could cry and get some. But tonight we could close that refrigerator door without grabbing anything at all, and we will have triumphed! Now we can run out of the kitchen! Instead of, "I'll start tomorrow," we can leave that kitchen in the dark, and start tonight!

Writer's Block

Writer’s Block

Is what I’ve got here writer’s block?
It’s quite a first, a writer’s shock.
Is my head stuck on last night’s show?
Or is it just my hands won’t go?
That lady’s shoes are clacking loud
I always wrote, I was so proud
I’m not like them, a pen to lips
Or her, those hands upon her hips
The voices at the table there
Annoy me, drink and eat, don’t stare.
The other’s write their speedy drafts
And when they read they’ll get the laughs
But here am I, my pen is stuck
My mind’s a block of solid muck
It’s New Year’s Eve and still I know
By the end of the verse
I’ll have naught to show
So here I sit, my lip is blue
Here comes that woman
With the clacking shoe
At last, a smudge across the page
Displays the heart of writer’s rage
It’s birth again, a moan, a tear
I truly want to get out of here!
I’d then let down my writing friends
Who sit here, writing stuff to send
To agents in New York and France
I know I’ll never get a chance
To publish, but you’d think I’d learn
That writing’s hope,
It’s life that burns.
A scribble starts the words to flow
Oh, girls, I’ve got a page to show.

When can I write? I don't have time!

I used to paint watercolor. I would set up a scene, set up my watercolors and proceed to rush about my day, going to work, picking up my daughter, rushing to shop, rushing to cook and sitting down, still, to eat. I discovered that with watercolors I could pick up my paintbrush, dab it into the water, dab a color onto it, and dab it right where I was dreaming as I dashed by, that it would go when I got a second. Many paintings were accomplished like that. Writing can be like that. Five minutes here, three minutes there, and a lovely twenty minutes once in awhile. After all, reading your own writing counts, too! Thinking about it counts! Those wonderful ah! ha! moments count, too! This blog has taken me three minutes. It counts, too! Join me!

Wendy Bartlett: iUniverse ebook of Cellini's Revenge is only $6.99

Wendy Bartlett: iUniverse ebook of Cellini's Revenge is only $6.99

Cellini's Revenge on Amazon

Broad Reach on Amazon

iUniverse ebook of Cellini's Revenge is only $6.99

I thought it would be great to have my books as ebooks, but I found out they already were. What I didn't know was that they are available at $9.99 from Amazon, BUT they are only $6.99 at iUniverse. Now, where is my ipad?

Our Writers' Group: the importance of those four words

I have been in a writers' group for ten or more years. It has been my anchor through other writing groups and classes. I go even if nobody turns up and I write. If nobody turns up, I write poetry. But usually four or five turn up, so then I write fiction. The secret of getting writing done is this: a member of our group brings a magazine and reads a random four or five words to us and maybe another four or five from another section of the magazine, and we jot them down, and then keep writing. This is a free write. I swear I would never write what I write in our group if we just said, okay, write. Those four words lead my mind far and wide. It is amazing!

Mumbai, 2008

Women squatting
Over bowls and buckets
Washing clothes
Washing dishes
Washing children
Squatting, knees ajar
Back towards me
Busy at the day's routine
A child just standing
Only in his dirty shirt
and curly black hair
Playing with nothing
But a brick wall.
His older brother tiptoeing at the dumpster
Peeking to find anything
Anything at all to sell
So they could eat
Something, something, this day.

My consciousness altered, then I was a writer

I remember not being a writer. It was thirteen years ago. Oh, I have written journals since age twelve with only two years missing, so really I was a writer. I just didn’t call myself one. But when I switched to fiction and after several years and maybe two of the four novels I’ve completed, I started to call myself “a writer.” I even got calling cards saying “writer, fiction, non-fiction.” I think the day I felt at ease saying I was a ‘writer,’ especially with myself, was the day I realized I had to simplify my enormously complicated existence in order to get it all written. It was a long process, getting the writing to the top of my endless ‘To Do’ list. But when my consciousness altered, then I knew I was a writer.

Peter's new book

Surviving Paradise, One Year on a Disappearing Island, is a timely book. Peter Rudiak-Gould has captured a way of life that is far removed from his California roots. As a young man, he volunteered to teach on Ujae, one of the Marshall Islands. He ventured into a very foreign way of life and studied it with a fine tooth comb. This author is obviously extremely observant of small, interesting details; the ones most of us might never know about except by reading this fascinating tale. Peter’s own values were challenged to his bones as he tried to teach the young Marshallese children. But he didn’t leave; he got in there and worked his tail off. He learned their language and he learned their values. The writing is superb; intellectual, but easy to read. Not only is it a story of his teaching, but of love, sickness, boredom and adventure. It would be an ideal introduction to an anthropology course because is covers so much in a friendly and easy-to-read way. It would be an adventure for those who might want to try something like this, but who might need a sober introduction! A fun read for any age. Well done!

Working in Cellini's Revenge, the sequel

I write backwards! I freewrite on a certain book, like Cellini's Revenge, the sequel, and I don't know much where I am going. I do know the ending. But even that can change. I think this is a very creative process and one that it takes some nerve to continue to do. Most people think you should plan a book. Well, my plan is to write it any way I can. Knowing the ending helps. But characters pop up from my imagination that I could never have planned, and I think that is fun and interesting and keeps me writing. In the end I have many writings, done in twenty minute slots, that I piece together. It isn't easy. It is very challenging. But it is like a crossword puzzle. There is a place for each piece. Note, however, that four pieces I wrote seem to be asking to be put in the sequel to the sequel. It is a wonderful process. I love it!