Cheryl Strayed at the UO and My Intro for her Event

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Sometimes life as a writer can't be topped. 

This past week, I was fortunate to be asked by Laura White from the University of Oregon Duckstore to introduce Cheryl Strayed at her event in Eugene last Wednesday night. I've known Cheryl since 2006 and, in an earlier post that you can read here, Cheryl gave me the courage to dig to the deepest part of my writer's heart. Once I was there, I was able to write another post, "The Day My Dad Died," that started a memoir.

So I have a lot to be thankful for.

Cheryl's event Wednesday night showed her ability to captivate an audience, swinging them from laughter to tears and back. She read from both books, her memoir Wild and a collection of her favorite Sugar columns, Tiny Beautiful Things. 

It's taken a week to post because I had one day after the event to prepare and pack for a week away from home: the weekend to attend Wordstock, Portland's brilliant book festival, and a week of writing at Colonyhouse with three of my posse. All I can say is, "I'm in heaven."

Me and best pal Jan Eliot

Jan talking with Cheryl

I decided to share the introduction I gave Wednesday night for three reasons: 1) to let you know that, even though the event sold out, the UO Library has a video recording of the evening, 2) I felt the intro would be encouraging to writers, and 3) readers will learn a few things about Cheryl that I'm pretty sure aren't out there on the internet.

A special thanks to Kirsten Steen for taking the photos and to Laura White who did, and always does, a superb job at organizing author events and does it with infectious enthusiasm.

(Bonus: If you read to the end, I give an inside detail about Cheryl's fashion for the evening.)

Introduction for Cheryl Strayed

UO Bookstore Event

7:00 pm, Oct. 10, 2012

When Laura asked me to introduced Cheryl, I thought, What an honor. And this will be easy.

An honor, yes. The easy part? Not so much. How do you introduce a literary rock star, especially Cheryl, who really needs no introduction?

Do I focus on the theme of grief, how Cheryl was a perfect example of the dual nature of grief where one wants to feel nothing because one feels too much. And what do you do to get past that? Or do I focus on her anonymous life as Sugar on The Rumpus, an unpaid gig, btw? How she used private stories to help others, showered her advice seekers with love, empathy, “honey buns” and “sweet peas?”

No, I didn’t need to tackle either of those because all you have to do is read Wild or Tiny Beautiful Things to immerse yourself in her overarching theme.

She’ll tell you this: “The unifying theme is resilience and faith. The unifying theme is being a warrior and a motherfucker. It’s not fragility. It’s strength. It’s nerve.”

Yes, that’s all there. But to me, her work, her life’s theme, is love. It takes strength and nerve to keep love as a theme. It takes resilience and faith to champion love. In her work, I see love as the motivation, conflict, struggle, journey, epiphany, and resolution, whether it’s love for a dead mom, love for herself, or love for those poor struggling, terrified, advice seekers.

So what do I say about Cheryl, especially now that she’s a literary super star and you know everything about her? When she’s in the phase of her life where she’s known as “Sugar,” “Oprah’s Pick,” or “a New York Times bestseller?” Amazing, the distance she’s traveled, both literally and figuratively.

In fact, when I met her in 2006 when she and a close friend of mine Randy Sue Coburn appeared at UO bookstore for a reading from their novels, approximately 25 people attended.

Oh, how some things have changed.

Many of you have probably followed Cheryl since Wild was published, what with the accompanying media blitz of articles, appearances, and interviews. The media has treated her as a literary darling and delved into the minutiae of her life as all celebrities are treated. We want to know what Cheryl eats for breakfast or how she copes with fame or, for example, what she packs around now. Is she still a Monster-carrying traveler in all her trips for promoting her books? We love our authors. We love our celebrities. We want to know them on a personal level.

Unfortunately, the media also likes to create buzz by sensationalizing stories. We are not naïve. We know they do this. But as writers we are sensitive to word choice, and that gave me my moment, the answer to how to introduce Cheryl.

Oh, yes, how some things have changed for her.

According to some media, Cheryl’s an “overnight sensation.” She’s also been referred to as “an unknown writer” who “came out of nowhere.”

Well, let’s clear this up right now. Many of you are UO students, some with dreams of becoming an author. Don’t fall for the idea that you can become an overnight sensation by being a writer. I know that our microwave culture sells us on the idea of now, fast, riches, fame, celebrity. But that isn’t the heart and soul of being a writer. We all come from a place where we seed ourselves in the soil of a literary community, grow with nourishment from other writers, and are tended by our families. We produce—a book, an essay, an article, a blog, a chapbook—and we keep steadily growing.

Cheryl recently posted about being referred to as a writer who “came out of nowhere”:

I bristle at this narrative not so much on my own behalf, but rather on behalf of the many writers I love, admire, respect and read. There is a strong and vibrant literary culture that exists and thrives in this nation and it does not exist in a place called nowhere, whether you know about it or not. It's the place where the writers work.

She may not bristle at this on her own behalf, but I do. Cheryl is sensational, but no overnight sensation. She’s never been an unknown writer. Just ask her lifelong friends, her writing group, her husband, Brian. The “nowhere” where she lives is a thriving little town called Portland.

The reality is, she started early and worked her tail off—or should I say toenails.

She didn’t just walk the Pacific Crest Trail, stop at a bridge, eat an ice cream cone, and write a book. She’s been on the long arduous, amazing, eye-opening, toe-bleeding writer’s trail since she was a kid.

As Cheryl says, her success is built on a million smaller successes. Cheryl began writing stories at age seven and never stopped. Her first real short story was called “Murder on the Midnight Express” and featured a talking parrot named Poncho.

She earned a Bachelor’s Degree in English and women’s studies from the U of Minnesota, and afterwards worked various jobs and wrote on the side. She earned her MFA in fiction writing at Syracuse University in 2002. In 2003 her short story “Good” was selected by Joyce Carol Oates for inclusion in The Best American Voices 2003. Her personal essays, “Heroin/e” and “The Love of My Life,” were both selected for inclusion in the prestigious Best American Essays collections in 2000 and 2003 respectively. Other short works were published in The Washington Post Magazine, Vogue, The Missouri Review, New York Times Magazine, Allure, and The Sun.

She won a Pushcart Prize for her essay “Munro Country.”

Her first novel Torch was published in 2006. That was the year I met Cheryl here at the UO bookstore.

Her unpaid career as Sugar, the anonymous Rumpus advice columnist, began in March 2010. Cheryl came out as Sugar this year on Valentine’s Day.

In June of this year, Wild was chosen as the inaugural selection for Oprah’s Book Club 2.0. Reese Witherspoon optioned Wild for her company Pacific Standard. Lisa Cholodenko is slated to write and direct the film with Witherspoon to star.

On Sept. 17, Cheryl’s 44^th birthday, she finally paid off her student loan debt.

Please welcome Cheryl Strayed.

 

If you've been patient (or cheated and skipped ahead), I'll tell you what Cheryl was wearing on her feet that night:

Black Harley Davidson boots. Yup. The girl keeps her edge.

And my favorite photo taken by Jan Eliot. How can I not love this.

Be brave! Stay adventurous!

Hugs,

Val

COMING UP:

Wordstock Fun

Where I Work: a photographic peek into my writing spaces

A Confession: What happened after my six readers responded to the Beta version of my novel

  

Save Your Writing Life: How NOT to Let Social Media Take Over—Part I

... Or How to Make Choices about Social Media

A few weeks ago, I rode up to the Portland Art Museum to see a David Hockney exhibit with my pal Jan Eliot.

I confessed how life lately felt overwhelming, and I couldn’t seem to accomplish the simple tasks on my list.

As all good pals do, she reminded me that I’d just finished a novel and was revising my last one and with all the work I’d been doing, never mind juggling family and a part-time job, it was understandable that I was a little “fried.”

Don’t you just love best pals?

I was also in the waiting game—six readers had my manuscript and I was waiting for their feedback. Waiting always weighs on me psychologically even though I try not to think about what the readers will say. Did they love my characters? Will they love the story? Did I miss something? How huge will the changes be? Did I blow it somehow? Would they buy this novel as a book? A dump truck of doubts will unload in my mind without permission.

So back to my pal Jan and our conversation.

My dumb luck was to actually have good timing. Jan had recently returned from L.A. and a visit to her brother-in-law and his wife who just happened to be reading The Now Habit, first published in 1989 and recently updated.

Jan said, “After talking about the book, I came away with one great rule for getting things done—do the most important thing on your list first.”

For a minute, that sounded so obvious that I was about to dismiss it. Do the most important thing first. Hmm.

Then I had to admit something to myself—I usually did just the opposite. I took care of little tasks first so I felt that I’d accomplished something right away.

A follow-up to an email. Accepting a friend request. Sending a pdf of the notes to a meeting.

I should know that little trap. A few hours later, I’ve gone from email, to the web because I just have to respond to one of my social media pals because I’m a responsible human being. Or I need to post something so important. If I’m really sucked in (and my mind has been taken over by future tripping), I watch a TED talk on book cover design because, of course, that will be important in the future if I decide to self publish.

(Ha! Admit it. Right now you’re thinking, What TED talk on book cover design?)

Jan and I talked about this big aha moment, how such a simple bit of advice seemed so important. Don’t we always have to be reminded of the obvious? Then we arrived at the museum, and we surrendered to Hockney and art.

The next day, I remembered our discussion and downloaded a sample of The Now Habit onto my Kindle. This paragraph grabbed my attention; the bold highlights are mine:

“Surfing the Internet, instant messaging, e-mailing, and the use of cell phones have added to the number of distractions that can seduce us away from our mission of starting on a major project that could change our lives. Because these new devices give us an immediate response, they have an unfair competitive edge over activities that will not be rewarded until the end of the month or—as in the case of finishing school, writing a book, or learning to play the piano—until after one to four years of intensive work. All the more reason to use the tools offered you by The Now Habit.”

Bingo. I had a new rule—do the most important task on your list first.

One of his points is about procrastination, and I’m guessing here that this has to do with fiddling around with small chores before doing the most demanding because, well, it’s the most demanding. The other, I’ll bet, is about breaking habits that let us believe we’re being productive when, in fact, they’re not.

So how do I change the habit of going for the immediate reward?

(Well, not exactly)

Back to my beginnings

To answer that question (and while I read the book), I decided to go back to the beginning of my own experience in social media to understand what I’ve done, why I made my choices, and where I’m at now.

As a writer, I’m always reading about why I must be a social media expert in order to be successful. Articles abound about the topic, but I have not found many that help a writer make personal decisions about the social media that will work for them and how to manage it along with writing a novel, memoir or anything else.

I decided to approach such a big subject by breaking it down into three blog posts, kind of like a three-act structure--beginning, middle and end:

Part I (below) – Back to my beginnings. How I chose the social media that I thought fit my personality and needs, and my major screw ups.

Part II –Asking for help and making my biggest mistake. How four of my writer friends responded when I asked what they chose to do and why (Jennie Shortridge, LJ Sellers, Cheryl Strayed and Christina Katz), followed by my doozy decision.

Part III – What I’m doing to save myself, plus a few hardcore ways to manage social media and put writing time first. Ideas to vanquish demons, break a habit, and not feel guilty, plus a few tools for your toolbox for retraining purposes.

PART I

How did I begin? The usual. I just dove in.

I joined Facebook on November 23, 2007. How do I know this? Facebook’s Timeline. Great for keeping track of yourself.

From the beginning, I wanted the FB page to focus on writing. I’m not one for needing to know if a friend had just kissed a walrus or ate a nouvelle cuisine worm pie. (Sorry, but sometimes posts do seem this ridiculous.)

At the time, I was at a month-long writer’s residency at Vermont Studio Center. Two friends, Randy Sue Coburn and Cheryl Strayed, posted on my page. I think I had six friends in all. I started out with the right intention, to make Facebook focus on my writing. My first “like” was PBS. Good start.

But then came the social media gurus, the people who tell you that, as a writer, you need to build a platform, to “brand” yourself online so that you become known before you publish. Then that fan group will purchase your book.

I confess: my mom once said, “Valerie, you’re a good girl who wants to be a bad girl.” I think she meant I do what I’m supposed to do until I smack my forehead and say, “This isn’t working for me, People!”

Years went by and, like a good girl, I joined Twitter, two Yahoo groups, and LinkedIn. I joined groups within those social networks and the next thing I knew, my email box was flooded. I was following blogs, I’m clicking on links that have to do with how to encourage followers, how to e-publish, the pros and cons of self-publishing, how to use key words, etc. ad nauseum.

 If I were still a pirate, I would be yelling, “Arrrrrgh!”

Oh, what the hell. “Arrrrrgh!”

Soon, I was creating folders for articles I needed to read but didn’t have time for. Soon, I was dreading my email because I felt guilty because I couldn’t keep up. Then I received two abusive responses on LinkedIn for a post of an article about Amazon.

What in heck was I doing?

None of it helped the writing. None of it gave me that gorgeous imaginative space for creation. None of it inspired me.

I was fractured.

What happened next?

Tune in for Part II, next week, when I do something really stupid.

Until then, walk around a new neighborhood, fill your lungs with fresh air, clear your head, and escape into that magical zone of daydreaming.

And if you, too, have something to confess or can guess where this is going, leave a comment. I’d love to hear what you’ve been through, how you began.

Let your naked thoughts and confessions find respite here.

Hugs,

Val

COMING UP AFTER Part II & III:

Where I work. A photographic peek into my writing spaces.

A confession: What happened after my six readers responded to my novel.

And thanks, Jan, for your fun comic strips about the 40th Birthday of Title IX! Check it out:

Stone Soup Cartoons

News and Confirmed Gossip from the Writing World

Buccaneers!

I’m anchored in Rockaway Beach, finishing my novel (two chapters to go) and have been derelict in my Captain’s Logs. But the writer’s life for me! Here be your latest news, confirmed gossip and tip for the week.

* * * * *

If you’re curious about what’s really going on in the world of publishing, you must buy the October issue of Vanity Fair and read the article (not published on their site, though), “The Book on Publishing,” a tell-all, current story about how one book was published. Includes anecdotes (an agent on crack? Really!) from inside the publishers world. Shocking. Amazing. Bewildering. Nevertheless, writers will always have to write. Whether they go with the traditional route of publishing is another story.

* * * * *

For book lovers who want their authors live and wish to sail in the same seas as them, here’s your chance.

Wordstock Festival!

This weekend, Oct. 6^th – 9^th

Portland Oregon Convention Center, 777 NE MLK Jr. Blvd.

Wordstock Festival presents a super fest of authors and publishers, small writing workshops and BIG readings. Here’s the schedule of authors and workshops. These are just a few of the amazing (and my favorite) people who will be there. Huzzah!

Steve Almond

If you’ve never heard of this zany, brilliant guy, you’re missing out. He just published God Bless American and here’s the blurb from his publisher’s page:

From a “gifted storyteller” who delivers “always enjoyable, often hysterical stories” (New York Times Book Review) comes a meditation on the American Dream and its discontents. In his most ambitious collection yet, Steve Almond offers a comic and forlorn portrait of these United States: our lust for fame, our racial tensions, the toll of perpetual war, and the pursuit of romantic happiness.

His satirical book trailer is worthy of pirate praise and future lore as he subverts the robber barons at Fox News:

 

Diana Abu Jaber & Julia Glass

Double your pleasure with two of the best. I loved Diana’s Arabian Jazz  and Origin, and her new novel Birds of Paradise is garnering rave reviews and sits in my reading stack.

Julia Glass is author of one my all-time favorite novels Three Junes. A blurb: An astonishing first novel that traces the lives of a Scottish family over a decade as they confront the joys and longings, fulfillments and betrayals of love in all its guises.

Michael Ondaatje

Yes, the one who wrote The English Patient. ‘Nuff said.

Isabel Wilkerson

Isabel won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for her reporting as Chicago bureau chief of the New York Times. The award made her the first black woman in the history of American journalism to win a Pulitzer Prize and the first African American to win for individual reporting. The Warmth of Other Suns  is her first book. Check out this video.

David Rocklin

My new favorite, David Rocklin rocks with his new novel The Luminist. From Powell’s website:

In Colonial India, at a time of growing friction between the ruling British and the restless Indian populace, a Victorian woman and her young Tamil Indian servant defy convention, class, and heartbreak to investigate what is gained and lost by holding life still. Suggested by the life and work of photographic pioneer Julia Margaret Cameron, David Rocklin's novel The Luminist (Hawthorne Press) examines 19th-century Ceylon through the lives of an English woman and her Tamil apprentice.

Check out Unabridged Chick for a saucy review. She compares the writing to A.S. Byatt's.

What’s With American’s Sexual/Literary Hangup?

If you like sex, both in your life and in your literature, here’s a panel that is primed to talk about it on Sunday at 11:00 a.m.: Cheryl Strayed, Steve Almond, Lidia Yuknavitch, and Viva Las Vegas.

So sail to Wordstock and find a ransom of writerly gold. Meet you in the conference bar at 5:00!

* * * * *

From Kurt Vonnegut—advice on what you should write about if you’re a writer:

Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style. I am not urging you to write a novel, by the way -- although I would not be sorry if you wrote one, provided you genuinely cared about something. A petition to the mayor about a pothole in front of your house or a love letter to the girl next door will do.

Full sail ahead!

Captain Val

If you haven’t tried naming my Muse, you have two more weeks! Thanks to all who have guessed. Here’s a hint for those who have tried:  Forget gender; one word. Now try again! There could be a little prize involved. Har-har!

Coming Up!

Gobsmacked Wins Awards, Gives Awards, Starts the Buccaneer Award!

FINALLY! Interview with Jan Eliot, creator of Stone Soup—and it’s a good one!

What It Takes to be a Writer (besides a serious masochistic streak!)

Time for The Muse: What Fashionable Pirates Will Wear This Season

Hello, Welcome.

            I am Captain Val’s muse, and she’s asked me to fill in for her this week. I’m a little put out as I thought she needed me while she writes her novel’s last chapters. But, no. I guess she’s sailing solo on this, and I wish her all the best.

            Hurrumph.

            As she’s given me carte blanche to do as I please, I will, thank you very much. I do believe she has a bit of burnout at this juncture and needs a little fun. As Steve Jobs (yes, that one) once said, “It’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy.”

            And as I’m quite good as her muse (not unreliable as she sometimes says, and not MIA when desperately needed; I mean, honestly, I do try, and it’s not as if I don’t have a life too), I’ve chosen fashion as my topic this week.

            You see, I’m quite taken by fashion as art, how we find ways to adorn ourselves without looking like everyone else, which of course is difficult, I know. But I’ve a fondness for pirates, as you can tell by my choosing Captain Val (FYI: muses choose their subjects, not the other way around), and pirates love their dress. Yes, yes, they love their ship, their treasure, the cute little way they speak. But really, look at what they wear!

            Now, here’s an inside bit you may not know about our Captain Val: she was inspired by one of her very early crushes:  Errol Flynn in “Captain Blood.” Was it his handsome bad-boy looks and behavior? Or is it true that the clothes (or in this case costumes) make the man? Well, have a look and judge for yourself. (The song accompanying the video? Perfect!)

            Pirates have been an inspiration for—well, forever! (or as long as I can remember and I’m not that old of a muse) Pirate garb has even shown up on the New York runways.

            As for pirate costumes, Halloween will soon wrap us in our alter egos, and I’ll give a little free advert to this site as they have pirate costumes galore and this might  be my fave …

            … although! I do wish this site, Gypsy Moon, still offered their “World’s End” collection. Ahhh.

            For the serious pirates out there, you will drool over this site from Europe: Pirates Cave. They offer custom-made pirate wear. Oh, my, I’m so … so … gobsmacked! To have a chest of gold to buy any of these!

            Ah, but thanks ToBeaPirate.com. More fitting for my purse. I’m rather fond of the frilly red Mary Read (ai, a pirate herself) set, but, oh, my Captain wouldn’t be.

            She’d dress like the captain she is, although, I happen to know she loves the romantic look when she’s ashore, and this happens to be her favorite for being at court.

            Oh, good heavens and North Star! I must fly. I’m late. I’m never late, well, not often, but right now, I must be off and let my captain once again take over her log. She’s promised to give you some juicy stuff in the next two weeks, including the interview with Jan Eliot, another pirate of the comic sort.

            To you who love the swashbuckling life, I say adieu, and confess that if I had my way, I’d choose this swashbuckler for an amusing time.

            I hope you’ve enjoyed this fun little escape and as my captain often says, if we don’t have fun once in awhile, we can’t possibly be good at our jobs, now, can we. Until I'm called to rescue her again,

             Creative Cravings and Amusing Musings to You!

From the Captain

            Thank you, muse. As always, you either cheer me up or I can’t locate you (yes, honey, you do go MIA, but not often; I understand, really I do). But today, I’m back in fine fettle and have a few questions for my shipmates.

            Have you had fun lately? Have you played with your muse?

And what would you name my muse? She seems quite lovely here, doesn’t she? I won’t, however, in the future let her take over the ship when she’s … cough … not so sweet and, let’s say, obliging.

            But what, pray, is a muse without a name? I do have a name for her, but I’d like to see if you can guess it or top mine. If you do, there’s a surprise in me treasure chest for you.

            A clue about her name: she’s named after a pirate who hasn’t been mentioned in this log. If you can’t guess it now, I’m gobsmacked.

COMING UP!

More News and Confirmed Gossip from the Writing World

What it Takes to be a Writer

And … an unusual interview with cartoonist Jan Eliot of “Stone Soup”

More News & Confirmed Gossip from the Writing World

Ahoy, Buccaneers!

            Busy on the high seas this summer? Ai, me, too.

            This past weekend I was shanghaied by the Oregon Writers Colony crew to work at our annual Founder’s Day Celebration in Rockaway Beach. Saturday morn we offered a class on publishing non-fiction. After the noon meal, we gathered for a reading at the library followed by the dedication of a poetry pole at Colonyhouse, our OWC home. Sunday, fifty-five writers took over City Hall for presentations, book sales, good eats, and round table discussions. Here be the highlights according to yours truly:

At the Rockaway Beach Library

            Library readin’s began wi’ Barbara Corrado Pope (Pirate Award here for her name). She talked about research she did for her new novel Blood of Lorraine. She’s a right fascinatin’ woman with a bounty of information, no bones about it. Here be an interview with Barbara, if ye be interested in anti-Semitism in 19^th Century France following the Dreyfus Affair—oh, and a murder mystery. The story, besides being a damned good yarn and set in France, examines how suspicion and prejudice can seep into even those who fight against it. Forsooth, I be gobsmacked with her detail of place, a writer’s jewel of “place as character.”

            Oregon Poet Laureate Paulann Petersen followed Barbara.

Photos  by Sandy Schmidt Wilson

            Ai, I be a pirate who loves poetry. As a writer, I chum me prose by reading poetry, lovin’ it for its musicality and imagery. Paulann be everything a PL could be—gracious, classy, great sense of humor, and a Buddhist stillness combined with a brilliant mind and creative blood. I bought her first collection. But before reading her poetry, she offered this quote from Meister Eckhart:

"When the soul wants to experience something, she throws out an image in front of her and then steps into it."

Shiver! And not me timbers.

            Later, she dedicated our Colonyhouse poetry pole. Not familiar with poetry poles? They hold sheets of poetry for those hungry for a slice. Just drop by and take a page.

On Sunday

            Sunday at Rockaway Beach City Hall we opened the official Founder’s Day with author Bill Cameron. Blimey! What a funny bloke. A true pirate, that man! Readers can see his funny bones in the first few things he threw at us writers, includin’ this gem in the intro:

Writing is like religion; everyone has their own beliefs, so nay to right and wrong. Adopt what works for you. (I’m paraphrasing here, so correct me, Bill, if I’m a rogue and got it wrong.)

            Here be a few of titles of his “rules,” copyrighted, and small wonder:

• Misery begets plot
• Weakness is Your Plaything
• Loss is Character-Building

            If ye be a writer and interested in his two page pdf with all the “rules” and a few good writer’s tips, go to his website, contact him and ask for Whydunit_2p.

            Next, I sail the internet where I hear the latest on a few of me favorites.

            Chris Bohjalian as posted on Facebook August 18^th:

Today Lifetime is filming the "Secrets of Eden" Stephen Drew/Alice Hayward love scene.

             His latest novel The Night Strangers is a creepy ghost story.

            Alice Hoffman according to her page:

All the cover photographs on my new Kindle releases on Pisces Press are taken by me. I love making bookcovers!

Here be a few—

            Maties, what do you think of the covers?

            As a Francophile, I share Cara Black’s love of Paris. I gobble up her mysteries which are set there and have had the greatest fortune of spending time with her one afternoon and sharing our giddiness over the City of Light. The other day she posted this link on FB:

200-year-old Paris trouser ban for women may finally be repealed

Here at home …

… with me very own critique group. Huzza!

            One of our crew has boarded the agent ship of Donadio and Olson, a NY topnotch literary agency. They say her voice is one of the most original they’ve read. Our-member-who-remains-anonymous is waiting to hear about her first novel that’s out with editors as I write. Her agent is not only taken on her novel, but she’s looking at her short fiction and has offered to help her with social media. Here’s a treasure chest if I ever!! I can’t tell you her name—YET—as we writers tend to be superstitious about announcing anything until the check is in hand (and even then, we still are wary). So cross fingers and spit.

… with me best pal

            Jan Eliot, creator of the syndicated cartoon “Stone Soup,” will be traveling in November to Haiti with Jimmy and Roslyn Carter for Habitat’s Women Build. She’s been on a Women Build project in Thailand. Habitat uses her cartoon characters in their promotion. What a buccaneer! The question: does that mean Grandma in her strip with be travelin' to Haiti? Ah, me thinks she might.

… Your Captain’s News

            This week I be off to the fine port of Waldport, Oregon to seek privacy for four days with a writer pal. I be headin’ into the final chapters of me novel and will immerse in all things non pirate to bring to life my last climactic scenes.

For now, I tip me hat to ye all. Thanks for bein’ on board and sailin’ w’ me. You’re a mighty fine crew!

Yours through storm and smooth sailin’,

Captain Val

COMING UP!

Fashionable Writer-Pirates: What They're Wearing This Season

Readers Beware! What you need to know about reviews and recommendations

What it Takes to be a Writer

And … an unusual interview with cartoonist Jan Eliot of “Stone Soup”

Runnin’ for Me Life: Tsunami! Part II

Gobsmacked continues, maties with the tale of a writer's retreat interrupted by tsunami warning. Now you scallywags know that writing, as is pirating, is a dangerous profession. My pirate pal, Grace Castle and I are fleeing up the hillside from the impending tsunami.

__________________________

             A man with a bottle of wine walked past, joking how he’d been pulled from the bar and was missing a pool tournament and the Detroit game. Someone yelled, “Save some of that wine for me.” I was surprised it wasn’t a bottle of rum.

            Grace and I stopped a fireman and asked how high we were. “Maybe Seventy-five feet,” he said. “We’re okay here.” I looked back at the water. I wasn’t reassured.

            I was, however, happy the earthquake hadn’t happened at the Oregon coast or there'd be no time to escape. Recently, a PBS program focused on the Northwest being overdue for an earthquake. Our fault line, the Cascadia subduction zone, causes a devastating earthquake every three- to six-hundred years. Indian lore agrees with the science. I remember when I first arrived in Oregon how lucky I felt; at that time there was confusion about the plates, and as explained to me at that time, the plates moved away from each other, so there was no possibility of a major earthquake in the Northwest. That, of course, was wrong.

           Grace and I stopped and looked back. The ocean appeared to be far enough away, but I didn’t trust myself with measurements. Grace and I talked. No reason not to head up higher.

            Near the top of the road we finally stopped at a newly graveled, vacant house lot. Not only did this look high enough from the ocean but it looked like the perfect place to set up camp. I checked my watch. Eight thirty.

            The man next to us had his hands stuffed in his jean pockets and his suntanned face was tight with misery.

            “Are you from Rockaway?” I asked.

            “Yes.”

            “Are you okay?”

            “My house is about one-hundred feet from the ocean.”

            I didn’t have a house at the ocean, but I did have a car. More important to me as a writer, that car held my laptop and all my writing, including my novel. I’d left my external hard drive at Colonyhouse, so my laptop was my only hope. Even leaving my wedding ring behind didn’t matter at the moment. (I take my rings off when I work.) Truth is, I could replace a wedding ring, but I’d never be able to rewrite the novel.

            Was my car high enough to survive the tsunami? Plus, I wondered why no one else was driving up to this vacant lot or the driveway behind it. I asked the man next to me how high we were.

            “We’re okay here, maybe fifty feet above sea level.”

            Okay, I wasn’t the only height-challenged one among us.

            I turned to Grace. “I think I’m going to move my car up here.”

            She nodded.

            No one tried to stop me. No one even copied my move. I pulled my Honda into the gravel-filled lot and felt relieved. We would not only have our laptops, we’d have water and shelter.

            As I slid out of the car, a young couple walked out of the woods with backpacks. Where the heck did they come from? They knew nothing about what was happening. We told them. Nearby, a young couple and their children were struggling, the mom pushing a stroller with a year-old boy, the dad carrying a three-year-old girl. They said they never heard the siren, the kids were asleep, and they were watching a movie. Someone called them. The mom couldn’t keep the blanket wrapped around her little boy. Neither she nor her husband had a jacket or blanket. Nearby, a woman who had seen better days was trying to hold onto five leashed dogs. When the young woman said, “What if we have to sleep here tonight?” to her husband, I told them they could crowd into my back seat. That started me thinking: Do we share our water? With whom? How much? How do we dole it out? Will we give the children our blankets and jackets? How long will we be here? Days? Weeks? How will we be evacuated?

            Just as I was mentally preparing for the worst, a firefighter walked by and shouted, “The warning has been cancelled. There will be no tsunami. Everyone can go home.”

            Grace and I looked at each other. What?

            No one moved. Everyone had kept an eye on the ocean and now were suspicious of what it would and could deliver. Sure it looked serene, but how did they know there was no tsunami?

            When people began to leave, Grace and I headed to the car, saying nothing. My mind switched gears. Should we go back to Colonyhouse right away? What if they’re wrong? What if there’s another quake? How will we find out if we have no television or radio? What do we do when we get back to the house? Do we stay? Can we sleep now? Should we go home? What do we tell our families? What’s the smartest thing to do? Is that the cautious thing to do?

            At Colonyhouse, the questions changed. How are we going to feel if we stay? There was a quake in San Diego on Friday, now this one on Tuesday. Is this a series of quakes working its way up the coast? Are we next? Is this a prelude to the big one? We’ve spent money coming over here to hold up and write. Are we going to just throw that away?

            Inside, Grace and I talked, but we had no answers. She told me about the time she was in San Francisco at a conference and a quake hit. Not being a drinker, she wasn’t in the bar that night and had no idea what to do during a quake, so she burrowed into her bed and fell asleep. Fell asleep? How did she do that?

            Grace and I went back and forth—go or stay, go or stay? I called Dan. He said, “If you have to, go inland and get a hotel. Take your laptop and leave the rest. Then you can go back and pack up if you want to come home.” I hated to tell him there was no “inland,” that inland here is a hike up a mountain. I promised to call him when we figured it out.

            I made a cup of tea. By now I knew I was staying. I just couldn’t live in fear.

            Grace finished the salad she left and then changed into her pajamas. She brought down pages of her novel to edit. I called Dan back to tell him about the woman fire department chief I met on the way down after the warning was cancelled.

            The fire chief had said, “Rockaway Beach is the only fully tsunami-prepared community on the entire Northwest coast.”

            I believed it.

            After we hung up, I lay down on the couch and was reading a New Yorker article by Edmund White about the women he’d loved when Grace said, “I think maybe I should sleep in my clothes.”

            I can’t sleep in pajamas or clothes, so when I went to bed at eleven-thirty, as I undressed, I laid my clothes on the other bed in the order they came off. If there was another evacuation, my clothes would at least be easy to jump into.

            The next morning, we learned that the earthquake in Northern California didn’t produce a tsunami because the plates moved back and forth, not up and down like pistons. In the reports to come, I would learn about police having to block entrances to the beach of those who wanted to watch the tsunami in Coos Bay. Cannon Beach right up the road from Rockaway Beach experienced traffic jams and people had to abandon their cars.

            The day after the tsunami warning, I wrote about the evacuation. I couldn't let the fear of a tsunami make me scared of the ocean. I just couldn't. An earthquake wasn't the ocean's fault. I had to do something that gave the ocean back to me, its life force, not its destructive force. I had to love the ocean again without condition because the ocean meant too much to me. 

             That afternoon, I walked down to the beach and the water's edge, and I danced. I let myself go, choreographing a modern dance with a few jazz steps. I leaped, circled, and swept across the sand.  And I didn’t care if anyone saw me. I danced and thanked the life force of the ocean, for giving us food, for giving us the tides, for giving us more than it took away.

* * * * *

            Ai, me love of the ocean is still in me heart. 'Tis the life blood of a pirate and I ne'er dismiss the pleasure it gives. Fear can only taint the well. Here's to the sea!

            Yours,

            Captain Val

 

COMING UP!

More News & Confirmed Gossip from the Writing World
Fashionable Writer-Pirates: What They're Wearing This Season

What it Takes to be a Writer

And … an unusual interview with cartoonist Jan Eliot of “Stone Soup”