Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Writing with Rox WEEKLY—Are you there?

Hello? Hello? Are you there? Are you coming home?...

Occasionally I'll have a tapestry of lyrics from the 1980s and earlier running through my head....when I tune in and listen to my own head-radio it's pretty funny sometimes: just what are these lyrics trying to tell me? (This, too, makes a great writing prompt...) 

Laurie Anderson's Oh Superman is one of the most dreadfully depressing songs I have ever loved and I cringe to acknowledge it was close to #1 on my childhood soundtrack, a compilation that still awakens my lost and lonely adolescent self, yet ironically provides a certain self-indulgent Morrissey type misery-comfort I cannot get enough of. So what is Laurie asking of me? Why is Pink Floyd wanting me to wonder "is there anybody out there?"

I suppose there is a natural letdown after a weekend of writing with women. Once again, an entire weekend of writing and sharing stories with my women writing tribe reminds me that no matter how long you've known someone, and no matter how much you think you know them, there is always more, always deeper when you sit and write together. Of course, there is the added depth of being out of the city, relaxing by the fire, overlooking the lake and the quiet. The space to just hang out and be girls with each other. We hang out in our yoga clothes/PJs, drink our coffee and wine, watch the birds, eat our special food...  We talk about our men, our moms, our kids... take off our make-up,  forget about our hair...get growly, let our PMS all hang out—or whatever ails us. No need to hide anything. We do enough of that out there. Of course we let the joy hang out too; we write our dreams, of our happiest days and days to come, we get silly with Haiku and Haibun, we watch things our kids love on YouTube... And with each round of writing, we get closer and closer, to one another, to ourselves, our truth.

 God, I love my writing family. The collective voice that reverberates when we sit and write together is always this: I hear you. I am here. I am listening.

We need this. I need this, I should say. Especially days like today when it's gray. It's Tuesday. It's cold. You know winter is long and coming. Your brain is fuzzy. You sleep too late. Things are slightly out of focus. Writing offers comfort, and writing is a lonely business. It's a struggle to do the daily things. You know this too shall pass. You know the sludge will clear, the sun will spill itself eventually, the communities will soon gather near to write, to eat, to watch sunsets together... You know this is all part of the cycle of life. And yet, on days like this, you can't ignore the wondering...is there anybody out there? Where is everyone?

I wonder, what if, just out of curiosity, as an experiment, what if everyone reading this wrote a line that would create a collective poem that responded to that question: ARE YOU THERE? ARE YOU LISTENING? CAN YOU HEAR ME? I know you are there, I know you are listening, and... how would that echo out? What would a thousand voices echoing I am here sound like in cyber space? In real space?

What if there were so many answers, everything from "yes, Rox, I'm here. Here I am..." to "Yes. Hello..." to dead silence, to "I'm not sure where I am, Rox..." to "who are you and how the hell did I get on your mailing list?" ?

So what would happen if I invited you to scroll down and introduce yourself, say that you are here, listening to me, listening to you, listening to all of it at once? Are you there? Are you listening? What do you hear? Are you coming home?

You could answer by name or not, by song or haiku, by whatever intuitively comes... Can you hear me? Are you there?



But before you do... if you want to write in community with great women tribe, be sure and save your spot asap for the annual Winter Solstice WILD WOMEN WRITING RETREAT, SATURDAY DECEMBER 14, 2014, 10AM-4PM. We'll gather to write and remember our fire and sing our light on the page. Plus all the usual community, warm nourishing potluck joy, silly and sweetness. Register soon. Fills fast. $75

Now, as I was saying... Are you listening? Are you there?


Tuesday, October 22, 2013

WWRweekly—A New Car!

Growing up, I worshipped The Price is Right. We watched it nearly every summer day on my best friend Li's embroidered yellow couches, coming in from the pool to cool off, sprawled easily in our bathing suits, Pringles and Eskimo Pies at the ready.  Ah, the good life... there was something about being in Hollywood, watching Hollywood glamorized on television, knowing we were living a few miles away from the CBS studios in West Hollywood and watching folks "come on down!" to experience a little tease and taste of our glamorous palm tree culture.

We recited the lines along with Bob Barker telling the contestant onstage that "I'd love to give you this..." pause, pause...and then along with Johnny Olson voice overing: "A NEW CAR!" and the screens would open to reveal a shiny new Mustang or convertible with a blonde model standing next to it for emphasis, as if to say, "sure! I come with the car! Aren't we a sexy pair?"

Then the guy or gal would do some wild seventies dance which we would sometimes do in unison. After all, what could be better than a shiny new car? Cars were everything in my young mind. Advertising promoting superficial values worked well on me and I envisioned my future on Rodeo Drive driving a different Rolls Royce for every day of the week. My soccer coach picked me up weekly in his Rolls or Mercedes and I figured as a "famous actress," I'd be able to afford at least ten times that and more, for he was just a soccer coach, after all. Naivete comes in handy when your just a young girl with stars in your eyes.

The truth is I never owned a NEW CAR! In fact, I have a really hard time with new. New clothes, new things for the house, books, etc all tend to sit around for a good while before I am brave enough to remove the plastic/tags/etc and use them. I've had four cars in my young life, all of which have been hand-me-downs from my dad. Last week I had to retire the last, Odelle, in the father-daughter line because it's getting time to put her down.

The irony is that I'm not one bit of a car gal. My enthusiasm for shopping for a "new" car these past weeks was akin to shopping for a vacuum. Not that I don't love, "Four," my new 2010 Prius... not that she won't be part of the family in no time. It's just that she's too... new. I'm afraid of her. I don't want to hurt her and I'm just a tiny bit concerned that she doesn't feel the same about me. I'm not sure were that well suited; I may not be hip enough for her. If cars were assigned based on hipness, I'd be assigned the horse and buggy.  Essentially she's like my Smart Phone, but she moves; it's been two years and I still  haven't figured out my phone yet... heck maybe it moves too! In any case, I don't want her to get the wrong idea about my lifestyle...I don't know if I can keep up with her. She's much more advanced in the ways of the modern world than I, makes a bold statement about the current times, which she obviously knows a lot more about than I do.

So then Four is a Smart Car; she's a machine that also happens to drive, which I am starting to figure out, but it's taking me a while. Did you know I can answer the phone with my steering wheel? I can also watch a DVD while cruising down 94. It plays a million CDs at a time and even has satellite radio; I don't know what satellite radio is. Nothing surprises me since going to House on the Rock this past summer, but how am I supposed to concentrate on my driving when I'm trying to sync up my phone with my car via bluetooth and I don't even know what Bluetooth is. Does it have anything to do with someone's mouth? She has an onscreen map that tells me exactly where I am, where I've been and where I'm going, meaning she has a much better memory than I do. The kicker is that you don't need a key to start her up. That's right, just like the future promised. When Jude, my six-year-old, got in today for the first time he must have thought he walked into a moving video game because as I was remembering how to start it (really), he goes, "Can I push some buttons too, Mama?" I couldn't explain why or why not. "Later," I said, which I will regret. I believe I'm still in shock, still forcing my brain into a cognitive reality it is not yet willing to embrace. When Too Cute Face got in, he couldn't stop repeating how much it resembled a spaceship. I think that was how he handled the shock.

Keep in mind, neither of us has spent much time in a car built before 2000 and if we had our way, we'd all go by bike and foot.
A NEW CAR!!!


If Bob Barker back in the seventies would have shown us the car of the future on The Price is Right,  Four would have been it for sure. I can just imagine little me on Li's couch, wide-eyed with relief, dreaming of my future life where all I would need to get out of LA and live happily ever after was a click of a button or wave of the hand.  Good old Bob Barker and his Hollywood pals had convinced me it was that easy and I couldn't afford to imagine it any other way. Some day life would be too good to be true.



WHAT IS YOUR (NEW)CAR STORY? 




Want to comment on this post? Share your "NEW CAR" story?  Sure you do! Scroll and stroll through the GOOD NEWSand you're there! Don't have an account? Or... don't want anyone to know you wrote it? Okay! No prob! Simply click "anonymous"and write write write away into the night....



WRITING WITH ROX WEEKLY (Good) News

I got a new car!

WRITING WITH ROX WEEKLY (Happy) Announcements

Great news! I have immediate openings in my Friday Morning Women's Writing Group as well as my monthly Tuesday evening Healing Group! Email me rox@writingwithrox.com if you want to join in on the coolness!


I need an intern! Free classes/retreats/etc, great experience!
 rox@writingwithrox.com

Want to write but not ready to come to a class?   
You can take any of my classes online! Inquire within!rox@writingwithrox.com  

Also, I am happy to introduce WRITE LOVE NOW, my first online class. Want more love in your life? For your life? For your writing? For yourself? For your (Jewish) mother? Grow the love, linger in the love week-by week and see how "if you write it, it will come!" Call or e me for more information: rox@writingwithrox.com    612-703-4321  

Got news to share? Let me know! I'll post it here!


UPCOMING ♥           ♥               


Wild Woman Wild Solstice Writing Retreat  Saturday December 21, 2013


WRITING WITH ROX WEEKLY Woo-Woo Writing Wisdom...


Admit your shortcomings on the page! Laugh at yourself, allow the world to laugh with you and write their own shortcomings stories... Admit what you don't know and see how far that can take you on the page. You'll have lots of fun. You might begin to take life less seriously too♥  

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Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Writing with Rox WEEKLy—Revising: Your Memoir or Your Life


I like to tell writers around here that "if you write it, it will come," which makes me like the zillionth person to parodize the original from the baseball movie with Kevin Costner.... er.... Field of Dreams? Well... here at the little Beach of Dreams, which, yes, I "built" out of my dreams, I love to see how writers are able to visualize their "ideal"or "dream" life on the page with all the warm fuzzy details. And over time, wouldn't you know it, that life begins to get closer and closer to the here and now until voila, dreams come true.



Not that they aren't actions to take along the way. Hard work to do, etc. In fact, along the way......

Sometimes writers go back in time to revise/revision their lives with a new voice, a now voice, a VOICE OF EXPERIENCE, as memoirist Sue Silverman writes about in her memoir Fearless Confessions. In that all-knowing, all-loving voice, we are able to talk to our younger selves and offer whatever words we needed at the time, but for whatever reasons were unable to give ourselves. By traveling back in time on the page, we can do some wonderful healing work on ourselves and our life "story"/script. Writing is quite amazing for time travel. You can go anywhere and just linger. Talk to anyone.

Lately my dad has been coming to me on the page, a voice of experience of a different kind. He likes to remind me that I am doing a fine job raising my son, and... it's important that I remember boys are not girls.

"Rox..." he says in his familiar point-making-with-a-pause voice, "He's a boy...  let him do boy things, already. What? You expect him to always want to go shopping with you? Take nature walks? This is a  strong boy, Rox... he wants to use some force, some strength... Take him out to hit baseballs..."

"Dad. I do..."

"Take him out to hit baseballs...he doesn't want to go to Target or go have coffee...He spends too much time with adults having coffee..."

"Dad, I know. I wish you were here to take him to do some of these things. You guys would be such great friends. He's a lot like you. You should see him run..."

"I see him... I see him... He's my grandson for Christ Sakes."

"Well, don't you think he takes after you?"

 "Alright, that's enough now. I'm off to the ocean. Just remember about the baseballs... By the way, Rox... I met your friend Grandma Rose. She's... I like her, Rox... she's... she's an artist, you know? Artist..."

"That's great dad. I knew you two would hit it off."



The point is...Over the years I like to  re-read the memoir that I wrote during early 00's getting my MFA at the U called "I Love Lucy and She Loves Me Too" about growing up latchkey in seventies LA. The more distance I get from it, the more it reads like a novel and I find my empathy for younger me to be enormous: Wow! Who is this angry young person? Why is she so hard on herself? Yikes, I don't think that's a very wise decision... Man,  if only she could take a yoga class... Sometimes I forget it is actually me I am reading about and I find myself wondering what the heck is going to happen next!

After nearly ten years, I'm slowly making my way back toward the memoir with the story that needs to be written. I had to do some living first, some revising and re-visioning of my personal life—build up the story a bit, own my part, do my healing, etc—so that I'd actually have something more than a funny rant about Ma and LA, the two central characters. Not only have I changed the title to "Here's Fifty Cents and You Two F*ckers Can Take the Bus Home!" but I have also dug in there with my Voice of Experience to heal the younger me who wrote the first draft. Could I have published it then? Sure, probably...but I just knew it wasn't ready or right. Will I publish it eventually? Sure... and there's no hurry. The story stands strong and I sure look forward to being able to spend some time with it... and I suspect I will feel that way about writing (and my life) for a very long time, which perhaps is how (and why) it ends happily ever after.

WHAT IS YOUR HAPPILY EVER AFTER STORY? WHAT PART OF YOUR MEMOIR/LIFE WOULD YOU LIKE TO GO BACK AND VISIT AND SPEAK TO IN YOUR VOICE OF EXPERIENCE? WHO DO YOU WANT TO MEET ON THE PAGE?


Want to comment on this post? Share your "happily ever after" story?  Sure you do! Scroll and stroll through the GOOD NEWS and you're there! Don't have an account? Or... don't want anyone to know you wrote it? Okay! No prob! Simply click "anonymous"and write write write away into the warm hot night....



WRITING WITH ROX WEEKLY (Good) News

Want to see something really funny? It has nothing to do with anything but boy, is is funny!  http://jjcoconutpark.blogspot.com/2013/10/cow-eats-my-phone.html

Speaking of dreams...I'm beginning to dream again about the Little Book of Beach, a long-time-in-the-making anthology of the amazing raw/intuitive writing that has been written here at the Beach, hopefully the first of many...  

WRITING WITH ROX WEEKLY (Happy) Announcements

Great news! I have immediate openings in my Friday Morning Women's Writing Group as well as my monthly Tuesday evening Healing Group! Email me rox@writingwithrox.com if you want to join in on the coolness!

Attention writers! My amazing friend Lindsay is doing some really cool amazing work over at Courageous Hearts and is looking for a few helpers with heart! Here's what she has to say!

"We're planning to have a writing class at courageous heARTS for the 2nd quarter! The Youth Advisory Board chose to have a character development class called "Heroes and Villains".  We're hoping this can lead in to an illustration/comic book class during the next session. 

We're looking for someone to serve as a Creative Guide for this class on either Wed or Thurs evenings.  The class will be from 4:30-6p and Guides are asked to add 30 min on either end for prep and clean up.  2nd quarter runs for 9 weeks from Nov. 4-Jan. 17 (2 weeks off for winter break).  

http://www.courageous-hearts.org/index.html

I need an intern! Free classes/retreats/etc, great experience!
 rox@writingwithrox.com

Want to write but not ready to come to a class?   
You can take any of my classes online! Inquire within!rox@writingwithrox.com  

Also, I am happy to introduce WRITE LOVE NOW, my first online class. Want more love in your life? For your life? For your writing? For yourself? For your (Jewish) mother? Grow the love, linger in the love week-by week and see how "if you write it, it will come!" Call or e me for more information: rox@writingwithrox.com    612-703-4321  

Got news to share? Let me know! I'll post it here!


UPCOMING ♥           ♥               


New! Fourth Annual Fall Women's Writing Retreat On the lake in Spicer, MN!
Friday October 25-27, 2013 
Noon Friday-1 pm Sunday    Call for details!  

Wild Woman Solstice Retreat Returning soon! Stay tuned for details!

WRITING WITH ROX WEEKLY Woo-Woo Writing Wisdom...


Always keep in mind that change is possible and more importantly, expected in a memoir (just like in a novel or movie!) We as readers hunger to see the "main character" change on the page so as to inspire our own change, etc!     So...as needed or wanted.... change on the page/change in life! Write a great memoir! Live a great life!♥  

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