  | I don't know how to kickstart the next stage of my book. With only two chapters left, I have been at a standstill for weeks. Spending time in poetry has kept me fresh and open, honed my skills as a writer, but today I am re-opening The Barefoot House document and moving forward. My mind says "The next chapter doesn't have a template. What can I say?" My original text for this section is overblown and verbose with too much everything, so it is a starting point, but I have been thinking about this more than doing. The thought for the day is this: Start. Don't wait, quit thinking about it, quit trying to decide. Start. Do one thing that will get you back on the path to moving forward. Start. Quit staring at your dog, stop daydreaming about love and do it. Put your (whatever you are procrastinating with) computer? TV? busywork? "unnecessary whatever" down or away and Start. |
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 Each morning when I wake up, my first thought after coffee is to grab my computer and make a list of things to do. In my life, even the most mundane activities require being put to paper.
I write everything down. Sometimes, my writing involves penning poetry or writing a critique for another poet. My therapy comes through my Life Lessons blog posts, but the big write is working on my book, a constant write and rewrite meditation thing that I get lost in, sometimes for days. The very act of typing or putting pen to paper is a daily must happen part of me. There are pitfalls to this insatiable need to record thought, like being forced to text in quantity when I can't get to a computer or find a piece of paper. I have pulled off the road to record a delicious phrase or line to my phone. Once an entire song ended up in a text to myself. Apparently, writing is involuntary behavior, although I consider the need to write everything down to be a little dangerous. I will often write down something that could be a little too much for everyday conversation. Those tidbits can be a good start for a poem or a scintillating revelation for my book. The cautionary tale here is that writing everything down can keep alive what it might be best to keep to oneself. I secretly revel in the fact that I can put things on paper that I rarely or never say out loud. I have a friend with whom I discuss these meaningful, often comical, thoughts on writing. She is Jessica Nettles, the accomplished author and instructor behind the blog Lamentations of the Instructor. I met her while working on the literary magazine in high school, and we found each other again decades later through social media, bonding over writing and sushi. We are both bloggers as well as authors, so we meet for lunch or dinner and discuss our amazing feats of literary genius, book progress, or single girl triumphs and woes. Our most recent conversation concerned why and how writers choose their professions, when she invited me to take part in a blog tour answering the question "Why do I write?" I've always been a storyteller. Since first grade, when I won a contest with the celebrated Bussy the Clown story, (which I still have because my mom celebrated by saving it) I have been creating stories, writing poetry and the occasional song. Growing up, I was obsessed with the written word, and read more than any person I knew. I wasn't reading Tolstoy at nine, but I was a book sponge a few years ahead of my age group, who always had a book under the covers at night illuminated by a flashlight. I inhaled books at the rate of ten or more a week in elementary school, always frustrated with the two book limit. All that reading fueled my writing and creativity, and then I became the story creator for my friends. I was a journal keeper too from the time I was 9, and carried those notebooks around for decades. Someone asks me now and then how I got started writing and the only response that makes any sense is that a writer will write.. No matter their age or occupation, they will find a way to write. Although I didn't get my degree in professional writing or English like I planned after high school, writing has been a constant thread running through my life. I was a Fine Arts major instead, nineteen and married when my mother died. The sadness that followed fueled hours of writing in longhand as I tried to reorient myself in a world without my mom. My only child was born nine months later, and for a while after that, the only writing I managed were letters to my family and friends. By the time I was 27, I had lost both my parents, lived in 7 states, and was dealing with a husband just back from war, a 7 year old, full time college, my job as an art teacher, and the death of my best friends husband. There was a lot of sorrow that I needed to deal with in a healthy way so that I could raise my daughter well. Journals, written prayer, and poetry became my lifeline. In writing and in private, I poured out how I felt, never realizing I was laying the groundwork for the book I would write, The Barefoot House. Most often the questions posed to me about my career are about the kind of writing I do, or more importantly "Are you published yet?" I am in the final chapter of the final rewrite of my book, and though I am not published yet, there is no question that I am an author. For me, writing is and has always been an exercise in freedom, a way to gain structure, release emotion, and share all that is good and bad about life. When I type something and leave it there, no matter how difficult or crazy sounding, it is liberating. Writing is the one constant pursuit in my otherwise ever-changing life. It is rare for someone to ask me why I write, but the answer is simply that I write because it is an extension of myself. It is the way I cope, the way I rejoice, emote, organize, entertain, share, love, create, teach, learn, and most of all give what I have to give to the world. It is where I find and share peace, doing what I was meant to do. I write, because deep down I am a storytelling, list making, purveyor of the written word. Barefoot and writing, Kim Just as I was asked to tell why I write, I have chosen two writers to pose the question to as well. Both are child advocates, which is near and dear to my heart. To pass the baton in this blog tour to a writer I like and respect, I want to first introduce my colleague Donna Duff, a blogger who started Creativetidalwave.wordpress.com. Her blog is an outreach to help provide positive and creative solutions for folks with ADHD and Learning Disabilities or those working with someone with those issues. She is the educational consultant and the CEO of Creative Tidal Wave, Life Coaching via Arts with Purpose, Arts for Pleasure. Donna filled a need among friends, former students, and family members struggling to adapt to real world learning challenges. She has a BS in Special Education from Georgia Southwestern University and a M Ed from Lesley University in Integrating the Arts in Education. She is also a certified Artbundance Coach and Presenter. With 20 years experience in education and administration, she is also an artist, creative director for the local theater, and a mother of two awesome adult children. Donna currently resides in the North Georgia area. Follow her on twitter https://twitter.com/@thewave_duff on face book at https://www.facebook.com/CreativeTidalWave?ref=br_rs and find her blog at http://www.creativetidalewave.wordpress.com My second introduction is Barbara Franzen, a Nebraska native I met through a poetry group. It is clear that her life has been one of advocacy for children. What we found in common was seeing life as a series of joys even when fighting illness. She says her blog is more about her random thoughts than her cause, but I like that also. Blog therapy is something we also share. She began writing in 1997 when diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. A Mental Health Therapist, writer, poet, and blogger with a BA in Elementary Education and a Masters in Counseling Psychology, Barb was a winner in the Nebraska Bess Streeter Aldrich Short Story contest. She also writes for the on-line magazine Living Better at over Fifty Plus. Her specialty is children of trauma, and she is the author of the novel Rag Princess published on Amazon.com drawn from her experience as a child therapist. Meet Barbara Franzen at her blog Inner Joy. http://gabbi-innerjoy.blogspot.com/ popular posts from kimberlycarol.com  These last few weeks, I have taken a break from my blog, and from my book, to write some poetry and bend the ear of some poets and writers who caught my attention. The lessons I have learned from the collaboration with other writers and other genres have been so beneficial to me. From discussions on concise language and a "less is more" approach, advice on focus, and limiting ideas to the best of the best, I have been energized and inspired to do what I do better. The poetry reading and critiquing I have been a part of this month has highlighted the need to edit/simplify/reduce and keep only what is the essence and very best of what I write. Surrounded online (in a group forum) by poets and editors, I was able to see that poets say more with less. Using metaphor, simile, cadence, and word sounds along with rhythm and meter to reveal something, a great poet can use a few lines to say what I might take a page to say in prose. The result is that collaborative poetry and critique is giving my writing some edge and a more concise style. The truth that I have been reminded of from the collaboration is that "When you surround yourself with people who do what you do, and do it well, you will learn, grow, and develop to a higher level." So feed off the best in your field, collaborate, and share knowledge. When we check our egos at the door, we might learn something new...a good thing. Barefoot and writing, Kim popular posts excerpt from The Barefoot House about me  1971 How much of what I write should be fact?
This morning I realized that my poetic voice includes soliloquy with rap elements (did I just say that?) called slant rhyme, and a soft feminine vibe, so it is unique. (According to Dictionary.com, soliloquy is: an utterance or discourse by a person who is talking to himself or herself or is disregardful of or oblivious to any hearers present (often used as a device in drama to disclose a character's innermost thoughts) I have not seen any poetry like my own, probably a good reason for that, but it is personal and I find it enjoyable, so I do it, self indulgent as it can be at times. In comparison, my blog posts are teaching focused, mindful of the audience, but also written to myself. The third type of writing in my life is my book, and I have struggled with the question, "Who I am writing to?," and "Why?" Who is the intended audience? How much of it should be fact? Should I use real names? Too many goals muddle writing, so I have been careful not to pontificate ( I use my blog for that), left out my poetry (put it on the blog also), and tried to leave out unimportant details or scenes. Consider a couple of recent best sellers. 50 Shades of Grey is clearly erotic and disturbing, but also a love story and stays there; the focus holds our attention. The young adult series' Twilight is a love story set in a unique and difficult situation, but also keeps it's focus while introducing many characters and story lines. These books are fiction however, while my current project is creative non-fiction/memoir, so what do I include in this book about my life? The audience is the reader (not myself) that I want to draw into my personal experience, so I must tell the truths in a way that is engaging and focused, beautiful in places, brutal in others. While writing my memoir, I learned that sometimes the facts are not as important as the truths unearthed and laid bare by the story. I read a great article on this: Turning real life into fiction by Julie Schumacher. Before I came across her article, I tried to explain to folks that I was writing creative non-fiction: Fictionalizing parts of the events of my life, but keeping many facts that get to the real truths at the heart of the story. When I read The Hunger Games a couple of years ago and then saw the movie, I recognized the same focus in the screen writing. It was not exactly like the book, but portrayed the truths of the story. Can you imagine Anna Karenina as a movie, the screenplay written exactly as the story and acted out 100%? We would be in the theater for days. I can't tell every detail of my life. Who would want to read that anyway? What I can tell is what made me who I am, what happened that makes me unique, or what happened within my the theme that I have chosen to focus on and flesh it out in a way that is interesting. It is a coming of age story, a memoir, and a love story. It is a facing the middle age crisis, triumph over illness and death, and going through divorce and living through it, book. - See more at: http://www.kimberlycarol.com/my-book/no-longer-stuck-in-chapter-nine#sthash.FbtW4sbm.dpuf So with my audience in mind, my theme solidified, and the desire to give the audience truths in an engaging way, I am starting Chapter 14 of The Barefoot House in my genre "creative non fiction." After this fourth entire book rewrite, I think I am finally getting somewhere. Barefoot and writing, Kim popular posts about me My Book posts  ...finished Chapter 13 today.
I will probably do one more edit and then send it on to my readers. It was a difficult chapter to write, but one of the most important, because that chapter tells the story of where the unraveling of my marriage and our lives began. I have been visiting my daughter and grandbabies, so not able to write much. It was hard to get back into writing, much less dive in at such a difficult place in the story, but I did write today, all day. My birthday is coming up and I am thinking that this is the year. It is the year I turn 49, and the year I will finish my book. I want it to be spectacular. This morning for just a few minutes, I had some doubt and worry over the writing and finishing it, and then I wrote a poem and let it go. We all have doubts, we all have moments of worry or sadness, but we can choose to linger there, or not. lines and places I've been Words strung together eluded me this week. I was distracted, lost my focus when life's good things interrupted. But in the back of my mind, I heard "I don't want to lose myself, be what I was before, lonely, discouraged, a woman poor in spirit..." When I make no additions, and the book lies open, my new pages blank. There's nothing to soften the blows of yesterday. When the words leave me, and I feel them go, I have to get away, all by myself Or the words of my life will be shelved in some laptop land of hidden works, where people lose them letting mounds of dirt cover. Shall I open the pages now? Force the words somehow? Is it still worth the effort to let go of daily life and purposefully fill the moments and write? Does anyone care but me? Ah but here it comes. My body is not cooperating, and my age is showing. But I want to get going and make something profound. Words so gripping for the reader, worth missing a meeting, staying up late reading, leaving my mark. So I will. Let go for the words and fill the pages, no worries, no fears, just lines and places I've been. Barefoot and writing, Kim popular posts about me poetry  I love what I do.
It has taken me a long time to find out exactly what I am supposed to be doing in this season of life, but here I am, writing everyday and excited to do it. My book has been the best therapy that I could possibly have undertaken. It is a revelation similar to the epiphany that George Bailey experienced in "It's a Wonderful Life." Our lives, difficult as they can be, are ours and worth living, so let's spend them doing something that adds to our lives and the lives of others. When I leave this post and work on my book, I will have hours to write and create. It is my purpose and that which drives me. In the great cosmic created scheme of things, finding purpose is right up there with air and water. It is life-giving to the man or woman who finds the thing they were put here to do. I keep that in mind as I edit. What is the purpose of this book? To whom am I speaking? Is there value here? Is this what I truly believe? Is this part integral to the theme and does it move the plot along? If you were writing a book, what thing in your life would be the subject, theme, etc. What is at the center of your life? Beyond faith and family, what stirs you up? Whatever moves you, get single-minded about it. Focus on that one thing and take it somewhere, let it take you somewhere. There is no time like the present to quit waiting on life to happen to you. With eyes wide open, charge forward. It is time. Choose your story. Barefoot and writing, Kim you might also enjoy the popular posts page or 100 best life lessons or poetry about me  self portrait "transparency" Inspired by the Poets and Editors group I am a part of, I have to talk about transparency. It seems to be a theme in my work, whether to be genuinely transparent OR try to hide some things. To tell the truth in my memoir is a combination of telling the stories, and telling them in their entirety, even if I come off in a negative way.
I realized that it is easy for me to be transparent in poetry. I write so much about heart things, love, love lost, family, feelings and in these poems, I dig deep and let all the skeletons show. I lay it out, bare, and do not hide the worst. In poetry, truth can be dealt with in the abstract, and without names or places, the truth becomes anonymous. With fiction, it is also simpler to be transparent. We can give a character the attributes of our worst selves, let the evil black heart show. That character is a fictional villain. In memoir though, when we are telling the story of ourselves. We are owning the negative behavior and ugly parts of ourselves. We give the grime our name, so it is hard to share the worst. Or, we may choose to share it, but sugarcoat it. When we are not genuine, our writing/our lives will have the air of something that is not quite right. It won't resonate; it may sound self righteous. I have struggled while writing my memoir with what to leave in, and what to take out. It was not my intension to write a tell-all book, but I have to tell some to tell the story. I skipped scenes and told myself, that those did not add to the story or push the plot forward, but sometimes, I just didn't want to tell it out of complete embarrassment for myself or others. I left out a couple of stories about others that were marks on their otherwise pure lives, because those are not my skeletons to reveal. In the rewrite of my memoir, I have been more forthcoming and let more of my true self show. This transparency is laying ourselves out like a sheet just out of the wash, that hangs on the line in bright sun reveals our darkest truths, our greatest failures, and our greatest moments. Triumph makes more sense when we have seen the depths. Joy rings true when we show the depression that sucked the life right out of someone. We are not characters in a book. We will exhibit "out of character" behavior from time to time, but seeing our own flaws, revealing them makes us better writers and for people at large, better human beings. Transparency creates humility. Owning our behavior creates empathy. And those two attributes create great writing. Barefoot and writing, Kim more popular posts poetry you may also enjoy- Prologue: The Barefoot House  The Barefoot House 2007 I have been writing diligently, pushing my book towards the task of securing publication, forcing The Barefoot House to the finish. Closing in on the final chapters, I am surprised the story, especially the ending, has changed so much since I started writing it in book form.
It was supposed to be a about falling in love with a house, then finding true love and healing, but so far, it is 68,000 words that I am trying to wrangle into something profound, and the love story still eludes me. Maybe the real love story has been learning to love myself enough to choose a wonderful life for myself every day. As I consider that, I am re-reading this morning and realize that Chapter 10 still needs another strong edit. The pages have moments of wonderful, but deciding what to keep and what to discard in each section makes each page difficult. There are so many ways to say the same thing, but I want to get it just right, so that it will ring of truth and move people. Last night I wrote a poem, which I will include an excerpt of and shared it with my Poets and Editors group. When I got the feedback that it was "so moving," I was more determined than ever to give my book the same type of life, where every page is heartbreaking or funny, powerful, interesting, or profound. It is a much more difficult task that I could imagine when I decided to turn my journal writings into a book. So, though I am in Chapter 13, Chapter 10 needs some tweaking to bring it to life. It is dull. My pushing it to the finish should not shortchange quality or be a rush that will make a big weak ending, so I will soldier on, so to speak. Whatever your passion is, don't give up. Just keep doing it until you are happy with where it is, and then do it some more to really savor it. Let's leave a legacy of something great in our small corner of the world. "Like a sun's light in one great pour, I was filled from within, and could not contain all the lines that flowed from me then. But the words to describe it were not enough, and I said forever. He said more." Barefoot and writing, Kim You might also enjoy: excerpt Chapter 1 of The Barefoot House Popular posts About me  I have been writing diligently for days since I got back from my trip. The hard part is that I relive every word as I write it. The section I am editing/rewriting is where it all happened, the hard part, but I have changed. I am not the girl/woman I was when I started writing it all down in 2005. It has changed me to write the story and see the progress of my life, how I coped or rejoiced at each stage. I feel good now about how I handled things, and can see in retrospect that I forged on and raised my daughter in a happy-well- maintained household despite tragedy. Her life has been filled with joy, good friends, a close family, no drama. The adults in her life were adults, all good things.
While writing today, I also realized that my husband and I were able to cope with his personal struggle with life/job/dream changes and the loss of his father, by focusing on our life with our daughter, the way I had poured into her as a baby when my mother died. Our daughter's presence in our daily life and home was a ray of light. We participated in her school life and supported her basketball and cheerleading activities. We helped her grow musically with our leadership in youth, our band, and worship team. There were formals and family trips, church and the maintenance of our home. We held youth activities in our home and took them all to camp. The last year she was at home we worked on her incredible wedding that would gather our extended family together for the last time. When she graduated and went off to college, moved out and got married, we were in the middle of other changes too. We got an assignment to Texas where Chris would teach flying instruction to new instructors. He was still flying at 44 and had a great career, even post F-16 pilot, instructor, and other tremendous accomplishments. That move was the first since 1985 without our daughter. We moved as a couple, a smaller unit. I got a job as a worship leader in Texas, but not long after we moved there, Chris was forced to stop flying because of severe allergic reactions to Texas. He was still with the Air Force, but his job changed and that changed us. His career that had been so interesting and exciting became a source of disappointment and frustration over time. Once so symbiant, our lives seem to be lived near each other, and not close and working in sync anymore. We saw that his career with the Air Force was at the point where it had reached its zenith, and we would have to figure out how to adjust. Over the two years we lived there (married move 18 I think?), the lifelessness and losses spilled into our marriage. My book is about the antebellum house I bought to give us a new challenge and focus, when he retired as a Lt. Colonel and we moved back to Mississippi. It is about my life, growing up in the 60's and 70's, coping with death and other life changing events, but it also about triumph. It is about my amazing parents and how fun it was to be a child in their household. It is about discovering that my happy life would be happy again, and how to revitalize life after the kids are gone and your career runs its course. It is not an easy task. At 65,000 words so far, the edit and rewrite are the most difficult and exciting thing I have ever done. My questions for you are "Do you know who you are without your career or your children? What about without your spouse?" When those things change or are lost, we will have to know ourselves, and find a way to adjust/revitalize what we have left. Barefoot and writing, Kim as always I write to myself, take what speaks to you and leave the rest you many also enjoy: Life Lesson 49: Your life is now. Popular posts About me  An excerpt from Chapter 9 of The Barefoot House.
As we ascended the familiar steep and curving hill in Randy's orange truck, leaves were falling all around us like a shower. The sun peeked through in places making white gold spotlights that splashed over the hood and onto our laps. I had my head on Alex’s shoulder, warm and secure up against his body. I was thinking that I had never been so happy as I was at that moment, when Angie said quietly, “This day is so perfect, I want it to last forever…” For once, nobody made fun or said anything right away as Randy turned up Journey on the radio. We kept quiet for a few minutes feeling it, listening to the radio, crammed together like sardines, happy. And then Randy said, "It will always be this way," and we nodded in assent as if we knew it would never change. It was a moment in time that passed so quickly, I barely had time to feel it before it was gone. Things were simpler then. It was before we lost the innocence of us. copyright 2014 kimberlycarol I am reminded of the song "Innocent". music and lyrics by Taylor Swift. She so perfectly penned that things were easier in "your lunchbox days" when "everybody believed in you." We were all innocent and had not hurt each other yet. Barefoot and writing, Kim you might also enjoy: Chapter 1 excerpt The Barefoot House more popular posts about me |
