What sustains you

First Anniversary of ‘Transcending’

Does a blog have a birthday or an anniversary? Following the communicatrix and others, I’ll go with anniversary. In this case, it’s the first anniversary of ‘Transcending’, a significant milestone. So what did I start out to do on May 2 last year? After much research, reading and thinking, I decided that ‘Transcending’ was my theme. And it still is. Sometimes I wonder, for sure, and I still need to do more work to build this theme and this platform; but I know that transcending is it, that it is relevant to so many people and that I need to keep mining it, milking it and keep that vein of possible riches flowing.

It’s been a huge battle at times. I’ve managed nearly a post a week on average and given the demands of my day job, seven weeks’ overseas travel, my daughter’s final year of school, a couple of operations and other dramas, that’s not so bad. I could do better, but it’s an achievement, all taken into account. The main thing is that I kept at it: writing, researching, tuning in and reading to others, synthesising and reflecting.

And as the communicatrix says so eloquently in her sixth anniversary post, it’s really all about writing:

What I’m trying to say, albeit rather clumsily, is that a lot of the time, the reason to write is just that—to write. You can write to promote yourself or write to make money or even write to find yourself but ultimately, you write to write. To be able to keep on writing. To be able to keep on getting better at writing. To be able, god willing, to write long enough that you write well enough to actually say something that will live on after you are no longer there to write.

But even if you don’t, even nobody reads your writing while you are alive and all your writing dies with you, if you are a writer (and maybe even if you are not), you are the better for having written.

Now, write.

That’s an important motivator for me: writing itself, the value of it, the process and the product. It’s what my working life has also been about.  I’ve been happy with what I’ve written here and how I’ve found a voice here over the past year. It’s a voice that can do much more and stretch itself out a little now. I do know that the feeling of having written here, once I get through the resistance and work it through, is like birds soaring in the clearest of skies. One of my earliest posts, ‘The value of howling into the wind‘ captures this in a way I am proud of and still has the  most hits of all my posts so clearly strikes a chord.

It is also the second anniversary of my father’s death today. His death and my brother’s tragic death in November 2007 are key motivators for this theme: one transcended in many ways in a sometimes difficult life and the other, also an incredible achiever, did not make it through one night. It is for these reasons, and the grief that goes with them, that transcending has become a theme in my life.

It’s why I write about transcending and resilience: working through, rising above, moving beyond, climbing across whatever is difficult or challenging. It’s not so I can look down on anyone else or feel superior in any way; that connotation sometimes worries me. It’s so that I, and you through reading and engaging, can work through, create, connect, be productive, strategise and achieve success in whatever is important: writing, grief, work, blogging, creativity, family contexts, planning and progress. Cut through and move on to the next challenge with the support of all those bloggers and other writers and creatives out there who are similarly focused on their life’s work and next project.

So what did I say I was going to do here 12 months ago? Here’s my first post:

‘Transcending’ is an exploration of the ways that we rise, overcome, climb across and pass beyond.

It celebrates the extraordinary power of the ordinary self in creativity, writing, in love, in the workplace and in our family contexts, such as our family history and what it means. It is about  resilience, grief, love, loss, longing and the resonating shapes and forms we make to deal with this and move on and through. It’s about constructive approaches at work – strategies that cut through, synthesise and provide solutions. And it’s about images, structures, texts and ways of thinking that makes this possible.

This theme resonates and connects for me in all spheres of life and I hope connects and resonates with you also.

Join me in this journey as it unfolds. Some of the areas I hope to explore are:

• writing as a way of transcending and moving through
• my own creative journey as a writer
• poetry and the shapes and structures we find to manage our emotions
• music and images as vehicles for experiencing and managing feelings
• family history and its stories of how we connect and experience life
• constructive leadership behaviours and strategies
• reading and reflections on transcending
• connections with other writers and thinkers on this theme in all its guises

Reflecting back, it’s still spot on and it’s what I have focussed on. I can do more to hone my platform and that’s a challenge I welcome. I’ve revamped my page recently and it’s whiter and brighter: a new theme, Linen, to usher in a new year. Like my theme, there’s more to learn with the technology but I’ve also loved that learning over the year: learning wordpress, flickr, managing RSS readers, linking, taking photos and everything else that goes with a blog.

It’s been a wonderful journey this past year and I thank all those who have been here with me and visited. I also thank my inspirational guides and leaders in this online space, my seven stars that continue to be guides and fellow travellers in so many ways. I look forward to the next year with a sense of brightness and light. I hope you will join me here also in the shedding of that light.

About stillness

While I have been doing my annual review of 2010 and goal setting for 2011 (and yes I do know it’s the middle of February already!), I have been thinking about my theme and word for this year.

It has become a popular concept to have a word for the year. I like the idea of having a word to focus you, direct you and power you, offering the opportunity of a clearly identified source of strength.

Here are some writers and thinkers employing and celebrating the word of the year in their lives and work:

• Sage Cohen wrote on this issue on her new site, the Path of Possibility, especially in relation to being a productive writer. Sage’s word of the year is grace.
• Shanna Germain’s piece on her word of the year and how its various meanings might play out in 2011 is so full of energy. Shanna’s word is the very powerful prime.
•  Ali Edwards has been writing about the power of One Little Word since 2007. She has a One Little Word online workshop where you can learn more about the power of working with the one word concept.  Ali’s word of the year is light.
• Christine Kane has a Word of the Year worksheet tool which provides a framework for working through your words and your goals.

I have been reflecting on my word and waiting for it. It came suddenly and perfectly whole one day in January. The word is stillness.

This word is about all aspects of my life and especially how I source my strength. I am highly intuitive and introspective according to the Myer Briggs Inventory.  I spend most of my days in constant contact with people at work; often very extraverted people, full of energy and ideas. I am keen to be more aware of how to be still, to listen, to charge my batteries and to be calm and to make a difference wherever I am.

Some definitions of stillness include:

• tranquil silence
• state of being quiet or calm
• the absence of sound
• calmness without winds
• a state of no motion of movement
• motionlessness, immobility, remaining in place

Here are some examples of what stillness means to me:

• choosing to close the door a little more to write and reflect
• listening to others and learning
• creating the space to enable people to come to their own solutions
• asking the right questions at the right time
• being early instead of rushing, being late or just on time
• resisting a sense of urgency to solve everything now
• being comfortable with a phase of muddle and overwhelm
• finding the right way to focus a difficult or unproductive team or meeting
• taking the time to consult and map a complex problem to get to the heart of it
• keeping things simple and not over-complicating
• knowing and allowing the space and conditions for creativity
• a candle burning steadily
• a walk on the beach and standing in a cool pool of water

Stillness is not always a complete absence of movement; it’s more the calm that will power the right moves and provide the time for reflection for myself and others. I am finding much strength in that ‘one little word’. As Ali Edwards says:

It can be the ripple in the pond that changes everything.

There is a sense of ‘stillness’ being absolutely the right word to navigate myself and consequently others. Through a sense of ease and calm, it seems more likely that desired goals like creative process, business success, teamwork and balance will be achieved.

And via @DennyCoates on twitter, comes a perfect quote from D H Lawrence:

“One’s action ought to come out of an achieved stillness: not to be a mere rushing on.”

Perfect. What word is working for you in 2011?

Gems #12 Planning and Productivity

 

Happy New Year!

It’s great to be reading all my favourite blogging writers reflecting on 2010 and plans for 2011. It’s an exciting time for planning to be productive in whatever priority areas are critical for you. I thought I’d share some gems on planning and productivity that might be of interest for setting your agenda for 2011. They will certainly be part of my own personal planning.

Chris Guillebeau is something of a guru of personal planning. With a successful track record of setting and reviewing yearly goals, Chris shares his processes and goals with his readers generously. Chris has recently been working on his annual review of 2010 to inform planning for 2011. It starts with two simple questions:

What went well in 2010?

What did not go well in 2010?

From there, Chris reflects on 2010 and builds his plan for 2011, including setting the metrics for checking the achievement of his goals. I love his process and have found it personally rewarding over the last two years. Here are a couple of links to Chris’s recent writing on his annual review process:

2010 Annual Review – The Beginning

2010 Annual Review – Looking Forward

All of Chris’s recent posts on his annual review process are excellent and I will be revisiting them in full soon when I sit down to do my own reflection and planning process for 2011.

Charlie Gilkey has some excellent planning tools also at Productive Flourishing on his Free Planners page. There are all kinds of planning tools: ones for planning blog posts and daily, weekly and monthly action planners. There are also tools for identifying your most productive times. I will be looking to apply these in 2011. Highly recommended and again, shared generously which is appreciated.

In the writing field, Sage Cohen’s new book The Productive Writer provides strategies and systems for writers looking to maximise their time with all types of writing. Sage’s background crosses a broad range of writing areas including being a writer of strategic marketing content as well as a successful published poet. She is also a skilled and sensitive teacher; I have been an avid and appreciative student of her ‘Poetry for the People’ online courses. She is the author of one of my favourite books on writing, ‘Writing the Life Poetic: an Invitation to Read and Write Poetry’.  

I’ll write a fuller review of ‘The Productive Writer’ soon and Sage will also visit here soon for a guest post, so stay tuned. Sage’s writing is always clear, heartfelt and grounded in practicality and this book will be of great value to writers in getting organised and maximising their creative time. Sage’s new Path of Possibility site offers advice and resources for productivity in writing and in life.

What tips do you have for planning and productivity for 2011?

The one clear thing Part 3: the essential work

There has been a bit of a gap between parts 2 and 3 of this little series on clarity so let’s recap. These thoughts stem from a year of struggling with some complex challenges especially culminating at the end of the year. I have learnt much from this experience and am distilling this here as a form of clarity for myself and others.

My experiences this year taught me that it is very easy to over-complicate things. Keeping things simple is a very powerful cut-through tool to keep a focus on solving issues. So my suggestions for moving forward are to find the one clear thing that is the essence of what you are trying to do or solve. The one clear thing emerges for me as:

1. Finding the single question to ask that will answer much in its wake
2. Identifying the essential work that needs to be done to answer it
3. Putting in place the daily steps to get there and keep moving

Let’s think here about the essential work. Once you have identified the single question to ask, then you need to identify the essential work to be done to answer it. The key word here is ‘essential‘. It’s so easy to get side-tracked and over-complicate at this stage. So, at this point, identify the essential work that needs to be done to reach your goal or answer your question.

Examples of questions to ask at this point to identify or begin the essential work include:

• How do we isolate the critical work to be done?
• What data would provide clarity?
• What tools would really help move through this block?
• What’s the one change that would make the biggest difference?
• What are the essential priority tasks to be completed now?
• What is the immediate step forward to achieve this?
• What’s the one real block to moving on?
• Which critical people could help solve this issue?

Focused thought on these or similar questions can help you move through issues that are often quite simple and apparent but have become complex and muddy. If we can step away for some higher level thinking and rise above the detail, we can get a clearer view.

Talking to critical others can also be of great assistance: trusted friends, coaches, mentors, external customers and other stakeholders. Sometimes we are simply too close. A quick, sharply focused survey might assist for feedback to get improved clarity.

Mind-mapping, brain-storming and other problem-solving tools can also be of great value at this point. I have had a lot of success with Appreciative Inquiry as an overall framework for moving forward through complex situations as it focuses on the positive and what the future might look like. The four steps of Appreciative Inquiry are in themselves tools for identifying the essential work and getting a roadmap for moving forward.

Looking for the essential work, the key question and how to answer it, can also help overcome resistance, as complexity and murkiness are in themselves engaging and can stop resolution of issues. You can find yourself easily stuck and doing a lot of busywork and conceptualising and achieve very little.

What’s the essential work for you at present? How can you progress it?

Image, The sky is clear now by vincepal from flickr and used under a Creative Commons license with thanks

Gems #11 Managing complexity

Some recent gems about managing complexity.

While working on ‘the one clear thing’ series of posts and also while managing much complexity at work this year, I have been reading and reflecting about complexity: how we make things complex, how we can make them simpler and what enables this. Here are three great recent posts on this topic:

1. Pruning for Better Growth - Dr Monique Beedles

Part of the search for simplicity and clarity may relate to cutting back: weeding out , uncluttering the physical and psychological space and deciding where effort is best directed. Dr Monique Beedles says:

It seems counterintuitive, to cut something back in order to help it grow – but any gardener knows that a good prune is essential to healthy growth.

Are you, your blog or your business trying to be all things to all people? Maybe it’s time to review what’s really important and where to focus strategy and effort. See Monique’s article, a beautiful clear statement in itself, for some powerful questions to help review the focus of your business.

2. It’s complicated! Or is managing complexity simpler than you think? -  Australian School of Business

This excellent article discusses mindsets for managing complexity. It recognises that the old hierarchical, command and control models of leadership may not serve us in increasingly complex and competitive environments. The shift is to new leadership models that focus on creative problem-solving and the enabling of others to be solution focused.

Steve Vamos, president of the Society for Knowledge Economics (SKE) and the former chief executive of Microsoft Australia says:

The focus of modern leadership should be around breaking down complexity – or “making the complex simpler”…

Some of the key strategies discussed are around the concepts of:

• the need for clarity of purpose
• people understanding their place in the business
• being solution-focused
• the re-emergence of generalist leaders with strong problem-solving skills
• the value of conversation and story-telling
• the 80/20 rule and how to use it drive focus of effort
• managing ‘wicked’, seemingly impenetrable problems with a new mind-set
• bravery in tackling ‘wicked’ problems
• strong leadership as the enabling of others to find solutions
• persistence

Suggested approaches for superior leadership and the programs that develop it include: social entrepreneurship, design theory and innovation strategy. These skill-sets are seen as critical to encouraging different ways of thinking and promoting new solutions.

3. The eight word mission statement - Eric Hellweg, Harvard Business Review

Finally, a great approach from  Kevin Starr, the executive director of the Mulago Foundation which channels investments to socially minded businesses. His focus is around how clearly businesses can summarise their main reason for being through their mission statement.

So many mission statements are wordy, long, unclear and fall flat in the communication of their central message to those that matter in achieving it. Starr insists that companies he supports state their mission statement in under eight words using the format, “Verb, target, outcome.” Some examples provided are: “Save endangered species from extinction” and “Improve African children’s health.”

This is an excellent approach for enhancing personal and business focus. How clear are your personal and business goals? Can you express them in an eight word mission statement? How then can you measure success against the statement?

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How are you making the complex easier to manage and solve in your personal and business contexts?

Image, Simple yet Beautiful by pranav from flickr and used under a Creative Commons license with thanks

The one clear thing Part 2

 

In  The one clear thing Part 1, I talked about the complexity and challenge around me and how the writing of this blog has emerged as one clear thing I can focus on at present. 

Finding ‘the one clear thing’ is the message emerging from all the complexity and multiplicity around me. It can be so easy to get overwhelmed and do the wrong thing or nothing. There is an almost innate tendency to make things more complex than they need to be.

What does it mean to ‘find the one clear thing’? It means keeping the complex simple. It means providing a cut-through to moving on and solution. The one clear thing is emerging for me as:

1. Identifying the key question(s)

2. Beginning the essential work

3. Making the daily steps

 

 1. Identifying the key question(s)

What key question(s) can you focus on, ask, that if answered carefully and consciously, would enable all the rest to fall into place?

This approach enables you to:

• focus energy and effort 
• avoid resistance and distraction
• avoid the allure of complexity

As an example, in a workshop recently, we were working to resolve a complex business issue. The workshop was focused around a single, powerful question honed from a previous workshop of senior managers. It was our task to answer it. It was incredibly hard to keep the group focused but with the aid of a very skilled and dogged external facilitator, at the end, we were able to clearly and succinctly answer the question. We will use these principles to drive future business directions, structure and staff capability development now that we are clear.

Chris Guillebeau also uses the key question approach in his World Domination work to guide goal-setting for individuals and the difference they can make.  In ‘A Brief Guide to World Domination – How to live a remarkable life in a conventional world’, Chris talks about personal goals, ordinary people pursuing big ideas and also through this, making a difference in the lives of others. The key questions he asks you to consider, ‘the two most important questions in the universe’ are:

#1 What do you really want to get out of life?

#2 What can you offer the world that no-one else can?

I have written about this in an early post, ‘Why Transcending?’ and shown how answering these questions helped me to develop my focus here. Read Chris’s Art of Non-Conformity blog to see many examples of people who have used this technique to get them focused on the one clear thing that matters to them in their life’s work. For me now, the key question is reviewing ‘How can my blog work here bring my answers to those two key questions to life?’

Jonathan Fields in a recent post, The Bucket List Lie on his blog, Awake at the Wheel, also encourages us to keep it simple by making a list of one:

A single, meaningful action you’re going to take before the end of the day to move you one step closer to a single, deeply meaningful quest. 

Julie Kay of JK Leadership Development and the wonderful Developing Leaders Online encourages businesses to focus on The single most effective question you can ask in the context of customer service and feedback from clients. It’s a great question because it’s solution focused and provides some metrics for knowing when improvement has taken place.

You can see that the first step identifying the key question is:

• action oriented
• solution focused
• resistance averse

So what’s the key question for you right now, the one clear thing that can take you forward?

I’ll explore the next step ’The essential work to be done’ in a follow-up post very soon.

Image, The base of Looking Glass Falls near Asheville, North Carolina by Alaskan Dude from flickr and used under a Creative Commons license with thanks

The one clear thing Part 1

It’s been quiet here. You may have noticed. Quiet from my side and also the readers’ side. No surprises that the two are linked. There’s been a lot happening. There is a lot of complexity around me at present.

I am doing the Unravelling e-course with Susannah Conway and a wonderful group of women from across the world and there is much delving into deep layers in that space.

At work, there are challenging issues to solve, multiplicity, new systems being implemented, many projects on the boil and a constant search for streamlining and solutions.

At home, there is much change currently and on the horizon as my daughter finishes school. The effects of grief and chronic illness in the lives of my immediate family weave a web of constant challenge. And the dog is suddenly quite disabled and has to be carried from one place to the other.

So yes, it has been quiet here but I do so love this blog, what it means to me and how it tracks my progress and development, my thoughts on transcending issues like I am experiencing now: the cut through, the coping, the methods, the strategy, the passions. I am loving Unravelling at present for also taking me through this in another way; mainly through images, photos, but also writing, connecting with others and a supported environment for creativity and expression.

So to the blog. I have been wondering if I am on the right track. Have I lost my way here? Is ‘Transcending’ the right focus? Am I connecting? Am I lost? I have been thinking about starting a second blog about my work on reading as it doesn’t seem to connect. Whenever I post on reading and book voyeurs, my stats seem to dive and take a while to pick up. But this is important to me – reading as a form of transcending and riding above, crossing over, connecting. Reading has kept me focused for much of my life on the present, what could be in the future and how to get there.

Fortunately today I came across a couple of great posts from Penelope Trunk, originally via the communicatrix and her fantastic Friday round-up which led me to Penelope’s post ‘Being a snob creates too many limits’ about books, love of books, book sorting, reading and many things I am also passionate about. Then at the end, I read these words as if written for me:

You will notice there are not any work-related books. Anywhere. Which is odd because I receive at least one in the mail every day. I don’t save those books because they bore me. I wish I didn’t have to write that. But I think they bore you, too. That’s why you read this blog.

The best advice about how to conduct yourself at work is to know yourself, and get new information—from outside your own experience—about what is possible in the world. And that is what fiction, and plays, and poetry, and this blog, are about.

Hola! Fantastic and that is truly why I write this blog also. I know I am in another place altogether with far, far fewer readers than Penelope with her thousands of subscribers that she has built up, but I recognise the essence and motivation. I also try to connect what I know from work, from reading, from experience and distil it here. ‘The one clear thing’ was the title I planned to write about today and I have my draft of notes around that. It will need to be part 2. The one clear thing at the moment here, part 1, is to keep focus here in moving forward.

So I read some more of Penelope’s blog. I read:

Penelope’s Guide to Blogging which is excellent – great summary advice and links to previous articles Penelope has written that delve into each topic in more depth.

The one of course that attracted me: Don’t Start a New Blog: Stick with the one you have  How come this woman is inside my mind and talking straight to me today? I think she has been talking for a while and I just haven’t been in hearing range. The words that jump out at me are:

But each of us has multiple aspects to our personality. This doesn’t mean you need to start a new blog. It means you need to understand how your changing self integrates with your old self. Your blog is a way to watch yourself change. Your topic is a way to ground yourself. Write at the edge of your topic. That is where things are most interesting, anyway.

So thanks to Penelope Trunk and Colleen Wainwright, the communicatrix for the leads (do so love the communicatrix’s Frrrrriday rrrrround up. It often seems to get me back on track somehow) and to Susannah Conway for the Unravelling experience which is one of deep change right now. I will:

• write at the edge of my topic
• explore my topic as a way of grounding myself
• understand how my changing self integrates with my old self
• know myself and get new information about what is possible: at work, at home, in creativity, in writing and through blogs, twitter and other connections

That is the one clear thing for today: the writing of this blog as the way forward and the steps it might take from here.

Do you have any other thoughts on blogging and keeping clear on your focus there and elsewhere?

Image, Glass of Water by gfrphoto from flickr and used under a Creative Commons license with thanks

The Writer as Hero

I’ve been reading Chris Guillebeau’s great post, ‘The Agenda Part II: The Individual as Hero’ about how it’s okay to pursue your big dreams, invest in yourself and understandable that you have difficulty explaining the reasons for your quests to others:

 

You don’t have to apologise for pursuing a big dream, because a distinguishing feature of such things is that not everyone relates to them.

Chris talks about the Olympics, marathon runners and other sports people among his heroes. I acknowledge these journey and achievements, but like Chris says, they are not the heroes I relate to. My heroes are writers – their stories are the ones I read, treasure and follow.

For me, there is something incredibly heroic about the writer’s life and journey. This is because it is my goal: to write and publish work of value that speaks to others: poetry, novels, creative non-fiction. This blog is part of that goal – getting me writing and connecting with writers – but the real goal is larger and more compelling, hard to explain, talk about and justify, but I know it’s what makes sense and connects the dots for me. I know it’s elusive and also very hard work, but it’s when I am writing that I feel truly alive and myself. So today, following Chris’s lead, I celebrate the writing heroes who inspire me.

My writer heroes fall into two categories:

1. Published, famous writers whose books I read and biographies I study assiduously
2. My blogging heroes who are all out there creating now and inspiring me

In this post, I’ll concentrate on the first category; next post, I’ll talk about my blogging heroes also writing books right now and documenting their journey.

My published and famous writing heroes’ lives intrigue me for their romanticism, their lyricism and their commitment to craft and writing practice. They embody what I aspire to. They are mostly women; today’s list of my key writing heroes is all women. Their stories of how they strived to balance work, family, creativity and their craft are often difficult journeys. There are themes of obsessive love, drugs, alcohol, mental illness, suicide, struggling to make ends meet, trying to write while making a living, reclusiveness and withdrawal. There are also themes of: success, achievement, the pursuit of perfection, hard work, constant crafting, connection with people, being in the literary milieu of an age,  publishing and public readings attracting many.

For these heroes, it was mostly a battle for their creativity to be expressed in the works that endure. I am grateful for their determination, their quest and the lyricism of their work that speaks to me over the years. It is because these heroes understood the ‘big dream’ and lived it that they mean so much to me. I celebrate these six heroes:

Daphne Du Maurier

I love Daphne Du Maurier’s sheer prolific work, diversity, narrative and story-telling skills and her dedication to her craft. Her unique vision created historical fiction, psychological thrillers such as ‘Rebecca’ and ‘The Birds’ and wonderfully innovative works such as ‘The House on the Strand’ which blends historical and psychological fiction together in a narrative about experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs way before it was fashionable. I am absolutely in awe of Daphne’s writing skills and writing life. My journey to Fowey in Cornwall where she lived was a pilgrimage and to be there taking the ferry across to Fowey and walking the narrow streets was thrilling. There are some excellent pictorial memoirs of Daphne Du Maurier’s Cornwall and the country that inspired her.

Suggestions to read: Rebecca, The Birds and other stories, The House on the Strand, Pictorial memoirs: Daphne Du Maurier Country – Martyn Shallcross; Daphne Du Maurier’s Cornwall – by Daphne Du Maurier.

 Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf’s novels are wonderful but I especially am inspired by her non-fiction, essays and diaries. ‘A Room of One’s Own’ is sitting here in front of me on my rolltop and is never far away. ‘Three Guineas’ is a favourite thought piece on war and also women; Virginia’s writing on women and writing excite and support me as the pioneering work they are. These works explore the barriers that women face in attempting to produce literature and help to understand the challenges in the dream of being a writer especially as a woman.

Suggestions to read: A Room of One’s Own, Three Guineas, Virginia Woolf: Women and Writing (The Women’s Press collection)

Sylvia Plath

I love Sylvia Plath’s poems for their genius, craft and power. Her poetry has had the most impact on me of any poet and I am thankful for her body of work and what she achieved in such difficult circumstances. I especially love the books that shows Sylvia’s mind at work as she edits and crafts her poems, the precision of it, the artist at work.

Suggestions to read: Sylvia Plath: Collected Poems, Sylvia Plath: a Critical Study – Tim Kendall (Faber & Faber) – for some wonderful copies of original drafting processes on poems

Emily Dickinson

I love Emily’s reclusiveness, her unique voice, her secretive commitment to her craft, her pearls created. The sheer volume of work created without an immediate audience is staggering showing a complete commitment to her individual vision and style. The story of her life is fascinating and worth a read for the contexts in which she was creating the work we now know and value.

Suggestions to read: The Life of Emily Dickinson, Vols 1 & 2, Richard B Sewall (Faber & Faber).

Elizabeth Smart

‘By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept’ is one of my favourite books for its sheer poetic power. A novella, ‘a cry of complete vulnerability’ as my copy says on the back. The story of Elizabeth Smart’s life is about balancing love, writing, creativity, children and a fight for self-expression. The narrative of her life is about ’the experience of being a woman artist in the middle of the century.’ (Sullivan – below p xi) I wish she’d written more but I know it was difficult with how life played out and the choices she made, but I treasure ‘Grand Central Station’ as a classic novella in the style I would like to write in.

Suggestions to read: By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, By Heart: the life of Elizabeth Smart – Rosemary Sullivan (Flamingo)

Edna St Vincent Millay

I love Edna St Vincent Millay’s romantic lyricism, her sonnets and her commitment to form. She was amazingly well-known in her time – the most famous poet of the Jazz Age and the image of  ‘the new woman’. She was incredibly committed to her art and lived an extraordinary life for her times, taking many lovers of both sexes. Her poetry was widely celebrated with her poetry readings often sell-outs with around 1600 people attending in some cases and her collection of sonnets, ‘Fatal Interview’ selling 35,000 copies in the early weeks of release in the middle of the Depression. The beautiful  photo of Edna St Vincent Millay when young surrounded by blossoms graces my desk here and inspires me.

Suggestions to read: Savage Beauty: the life of Edna St Vincent Millay – Nancy Milford (Random House)

These are my heroes, my heroines. I didn’t seek out for them to be all women but they are. I love them for:

• their commitment to their craft and art
• the narrative of their writing lives
• their passion and love for writing
• the works they have created
• the lines that make my heart sing
• the ideas that support me

Especially I love them for being my heroes, the female role models of the ‘big dream’ of writing because they understood it and lived it. 

Image, Vintage Underwood Number 5 typewriter by emilydickinsonridesabmx from flickr and used under a Creative Commons license with thanks

Gems #9 Shining light on yourself

Some gems about shining a little light back on yourself…

Just at the same time as Chris Guillebeau is enjoying great popularity with the publication of his book, ‘The Art of Non-Conformity’ , he writes an excellent post shining the light back on his readers. That’s one of the reasons I love Chris and his work: expect the unexpected. I always get such a wonderful blast of fresh thinking and often the reverse of current trends; hence his specialty, ‘nonconformity’, I guess.

In his post, What’s your message? Why not share it? Chris starts by referring to the current trend in social media of talking about others more than yourself. Chris turns the spotlight squarely back:

..ultimately people will follow you because you are doing something interesting, not because you are good at passing on other people’s messages.

A point very well made with much relevance for blogging, tweeting and much of life really:

Be interesting. Be yourself. Do something worth talking about.

Chris then encourages readers to comment about their message. There is much to learn and enjoy in the responses as people focus back on their message and reflect it out again.

Danielle LaPorte’s post on ‘The initiated woman’  shone a light on a very deep place and I knew exactly what she was talking about. It starts with bleeding, vulnerability and giving of the quintessential:

she’s bled from poor decisions that sliced her esteem wide open; and from unguarded boundaries being obliterated; and she’s bled willingly because that’s what you do when people you love are anemic or have been hit by life — you give them your blood. Here, I have lots, it’s fresh and warm. I’ll make more.

And it moves from there to describe a place where the outcomes of experience become a wisdom and strength that can help others. Read it – it is the most beautiful piece of writing. It reminds me of the wonderfully understated words from the song ‘You’re a Heathen of Love’  by Marian Bradfield:

‘Cause experience in a woman never goes astray.

And because Chris says ‘tell us your message’ and ‘be yourself’ and because Danielle says:

She’s so tender she prefers to whisper about her true nature, or write a poem. Abstract. Protected.

…here’s a poem from me. It was written and crafted during my time in Sage Cohen’s highly recommended ‘Poetry for the People’ classes and was featured along with the work of my fellow students on Sage’s ‘Writing the Life Poetic’  blog.

Narrative

She starts up high, facing north

towards slow mist,

watching the sea wash

into the rain’s drift below.

She is called to the beach

as if to a baptism, bride-like,

white as the air, stepping

down the rough rock stairs.

She narrates her life,

writes as she walks,

as if the sand and shells are

the bones of her story.

And the pieces connect her:

an imperfect white oval shell,

a fig leaf from a canopy,

the sketched black lines

of a creature’s moving home.

Cool and tight limbed,

she ends in another place,

as if washed by waves,

her contours, clear and shell-lined

as the Borromean grottoes

of Isolabella,

her white shining lights

coming home.

 

Image, Inishowen Mirror by Janek Kloss from flickr and used under a Creative Commons license with thanks