Some Soup for You!

       Yes, don't be alarmed by the exclamation mark in the title. It's so rarely used by me (I must leave ample room for ellipsis) and so over-used by some. (I try to convince my 3rd graders that unless an ambulance is about to run down their brother or sister, or unless they won the lottery, stick with a period or a question mark.)

      However, this soup is worthy of an exclamation mark. (And it will appease the Seinfeld fans, although my friend does not pattern herself after the Soup Nazi. She does not keep her recipes hidden in a wardrobe--she willingly shares her culinary secrets.)

      My friend the "chef" calls this delectable dietary bombshell "Orange-Scented Carrot Vichyssoise" but I call it simply "Better Than --- Soup." (It's not better than great --- but is way better than mediocre ---.) She made it for one of our WWWP dinners, and we each left that evening with scratches and gouge-marks on our arms, as we tried to fight each other over the last spoonful several pounds heavier.

      I refuse to name her. That would be unfair, because if I did, she would be flooded with requests for the recipe. You will just have to troll the internet in search of the recipe...

       The title of this post was going to be "Tumeric, Anyone?" because as I was making it, I was thinking if I could leave out some of the ingredients or substitute some. Leeks? Couldn't I use onions instead? Tumeric? I don't have any and I've never even used that spice...couldn't I leave it out? How about using milk instead of heavy cream?  (Okay, I admit it. I was all about the cream, and didn't even entertain the notion of substituting milk for it.)

        But when I tasted the one bowl I allowed myself (I poured the rest into a container for my daughter, to avoid the temptation), I swooned over the layers of flavors. The leeks, the carrots, the chicken stock...the tumeric...the orange zest...the honey, the nutmeg...And I realized that without just one of those ingredients, it would have fallen flat.

        Can we leave out the passion we have for our art--whether it is painting or photography or writing--if we're having a lackluster session? Can we leave out some of the complexity of our characters when we're writing fiction? Can we omit some of the emotional layers in order to shortcut to the end if we're crafting nonfiction? 

        Of course not.

       And now, I'm off to lick my bowl clean...

           

Why I Write Creative Nonfiction

       Last Friday I was off. Off on a mission. Off my normal schedule. Off work. (And no, I wasn't playing hooky so I could drive to our state's capitol and deface the Rush Limbaugh bust. My whole school district was off.)

      I took advantage of the fancy-free day to deliver a copy of the newest Chicken Soup book that has a story of mine. And I was delivering it to a very special young man.

       Last year I had an exceptional 3rd grader in my class. He did something quite thoughtful, and after interviewing him, his mother, writing a rough draft, getting it critiqued by the wonderful WWWPs, I submitted it to Chicken Soup. It made it over the numerous hurdles and--yahoo!--it was chosen as one of the 101 stories.

      This young man transferred to a neighboring school district this year, and so I decided to drop off a copy of the book on my day off. The most I hoped for: to have them call him down to the office so I could hand him the book. But what I got was so much more...

      The secretary called the principal into the office, the principal took me up to Timothy's classroom and after speaking to the teacher, the students stopped what they were doing to listen to my spiel. Tim is a humble kid, so when I said, "Timothy, do you want to tell them your story, do you want me to tell your story or do you want me to just shut up?" he said I could tell his story.

      Along with putting in a plug for the revision process and the importance of sharing their work with other writers, I told the class they had a famous kid in their class...that people all over the world would be reading about him. Their jaws dropped open, they clapped for Timothy...and the principal and the teacher both wiped tears from their eyes. (I later told my husband I made a principal and a teacher cry. He asked, "Did you want them to cry?" not knowing what had happened. He knows that sometimes I get spitting mad and sometimes I cry over my work. But this time, I was thrilled with the tears for a different reason. A writer is validated if tears are shed over sad or uproariously funny pieces.)  I also told the class that it was important--to me--to tell Tim's story because lots of people say kids today think only of themselves and don't do charitable things. Timothy grinned, accepted the anthology, I gave him a hug and breezed out.

       That is why I write creative nonfiction...

Art? What is it good for? Absolutely somethin'!

       What is art? Is a canvas that is simply painted black, but with some texture added...is that art? Is a large, mounded-up circle of rocks--is that art? Is a chair art?

       According to the St. Louis Art Museum, all of the above is considered art worthy of a display. And if you were to engage in a hands-on activity to create a bit of modern art, perhaps your definition of what is "art" might be transformed...

      Last Saturday I spent four hours at the museum with my granddaughter. A huge addition to the museum is no longer particularly new for our city but it was new to me. One of my favorite pieces--"Keith"--is too large to have always been displayed in the past, but now has a permanent place to hang his head on. I was eager to see him again.

     Oh, you've never met Keith? Here he is.

"Keith" by Chuck Close

      This snapshot that I stole off the internet because I cannot find the USB cord for my phone and I've tried a multitude of cords, trying to jam them into the phone's orifice, to no avail does not do the piece justice. It's a self-portrait by Chuck Close (yeah, I know, I'm not sure why it has that title) , is huge-huge-huge and looks like a photograph. You can see the pores of his skin, individual whiskers--it's amazing. (Chuck Close is now paralyzed--a quadriplegic, I believe--but still creates art. It's different, but cool nonetheless.)

       Before dragging Riley to the new wing so we both could spray spittle all over the place in excitement, she did some sketches of pieces that caught her eye. Anselm Kiefer's enormous sculpture titled "Breaking of the Vessels," inspired by Kristallnacht (the "Night of Broken Glass" in Germany) was the first. She spent almost half an hour painstakingly recreating Kiefer's work with pencil and paper.

      Oh, you haven't seen this piece, either?  Take a gander...and then keep on reading.

Anselm Kiefer's "Breaking of the Vessels"

       What you cannot see (very clearly) is that this sculpture is surrounded by broken glass all over the floor. Kiefer came and installed it, after questioning their choice of placement (museum muckety-mucks had chosen a spot on an upper floor, and this piece is massively heavy). "Are you sure this is where you want it?" he asked. Once in place, the officials (probably all men ;) determined the piece needed more support and needed to be moved to the main floor. Kiefer refused to fly back, (I imagine he at least was thinking, 'I told you so.') so the staff had to meticulously diagram where every shard of glass was on the floor and then rearrange it in the same way in its (now permanent--whew) new home. 

     I used to think that ultra-modern pieces like paintings made simply with squares of blue and red and yellow arranged on a white canvas--I used to think they weren't really "art." I mean, how hard could that be? If I had a ruler or some masking tape, I could do it. But when I took a "Teaching Art" class to become a teacher, the instructor took our scoffing selves and gave us each an envelope full of construction paper rectangles and squares--red, blue and yellow ones--and told us to create a piece of art. My snarky self thought it would take seven seconds...and yet twenty minutes later, I was still arranging and rearranging the pieces. It certainly wasn't as easy as I had thought.

      It was a wonderful way to spend our day, and perhaps some day, when I find the cord that can be properly jammed into my phone, allowing me to retrieve the pictures I took, I will share my own photos.

     How do you define art? 

    

THIS is Why I Belong to a Critique Group

        This is a follow-up to my previous post, where I wrote about why I teach. If it was Pulitzer Prize material, I'd provide a link, but it's not, so if you're burning with desire  mildly curious  interested bored out of your gourd, meander around my blog and check it out. I'll be here when you return...

         Why do I belong to a critique group? Why do I stay out late every other Wednesday? (Our writing critique sessions go from 6:30 to 9:30 or 10:00, and none some of that time is spent on shenanigans and rowdy-ness.) Why do I give up a fun night of grading papers to get my writing criticized? Here's why:

1.  I'm working on my circus act...soon, I'll be ready for Barnum and Bailey. The words that are thrown my way on critique nights are razor-sharp and so cutting, I could fill in for the female assistant in the knife-throwing act...and I'd have no fear. (Okay, their words ARE sharp, but sharp as in witty. I've never felt like I needed to thicken up my skin when it comes to the WWWPs.)

2. I've joined a 12-step program, the EA, and I'm making progress. In fact, the last piece I shared had no ellipsis...None...Nada...Zilch...As an ellipsisholic, I must mutter the serenity prayer on a regular basis: Grant me the serenity to accept a short story without insisting it needs at least 14 sets of ellipsis... Last Wednesday evening I got my "1 story chip" and I'm looking forward to earning even more...

3.  When my critique members are not around, it's as if their spirit is. There are times--not often enough, unfortunately--when I'm revising a piece and it comes to me. I know exactly what I need to do to improve the story, I know what needs to be cut, I know how I can punch up the beginning...because I've heard it often enough from the other WWWPs.

4. Pantyliner producers need my support. The four fierce women in my critique group are HE. LARE. E. US. Only one of them has a trouble-making twinkle in her eyes--the other three look prim and proper and oh-so-serious, but that is just a clever ruse.  All of them have mischief and mayhem bubbling right under the surface. Laughter is good for the soul...damp underwear, not so much.

5.  In this part of the season, when the bugs are having their last flings, every fly-catcher is welcome. There are times when my mouth gapes open in amazement. Lynn has the ability to create an authentic voice of a character...and she keeps it up for the whole novel. Beth can do the same. Both of them are working on novels with a teenager as the centerpiece--and every word the characters say and every thought that goes through their head is spot-on. Linda consistently writes warm and witty and snappy. She can paint a picture and pull you back to a moment in your past with just her written words. And Tammy... Everyone hates to follow Tammy. Tammy can (and did) transform a story about a hamster into a lyrical piece that dances across the page. The images she creates are pristine...and phenomenal. When their stories are shared, my mouth drops open and I have to shove it closed...


        And what about you? Why do you write or dance or paint or shop or cook or bake or zentangle or take photographs? Nosey people (like me) want to know...

This is Why I Teach

       A few days ago I got an email from a former student. Kendra had been in my 4th grade class; now she's a freshman in college. It's been years...

     Most people think teachers remember the "challenging" students the most--the kids who made them buy hair dye every six weeks every month every afternoon. Perhaps some educators do dwell more on the tougher-nuts-to-crack than the rest of their students. In my opinion, though, something happens in the classroom that's similar to what happens when a woman gives birth: some magical liquid courses through her body, ensuring she does not remember the excruciating pain and thus rendering her willing to have another child somewhere down the road.

      Teaching is like that. Full of expectations. Exciting. Sometimes painful. And the changes that happen to your body are downright horrifying...The students who never leave my head or my heart are the gifted writers, the kids who overcome incredible obstacles, the students who are exemplary role models...The tough times shed away, leaving me excited about each new school year.

        Kendra was in my 4th grade class the year I did a research project with the National Writing Project. Even at the age of 10, she wrote stuff that had such depth, and yet it seemed to be effortless for her.

        She's beginning a nursing program. I only hope she makes the time to continue writing...

         What friend or colleague has recently contacted you, like a blast from the past? Tell, please.

Paddling Along

       Sometimes the waters push at you, and you must expend a great deal of effort to stay your course.

       Other times, you are able to coast along. The waters are tranquil--perhaps even shallow--and you can lie back and relax.

   
         Right now my "real" job is pushing and pulling at me. The waves are rough, leaving me exhausted most of the time. I have time to--sometimes--work on my writing, but it's only in small spurts. Lacking stamina, I am letting my "longish" project coast along. However, I am doing some mental writing. Small currents are meandering around in my brain. At some point, enough will accumulate to form a swell...

       The kayak pictured above belongs to "Doc" Savage. This summer he paddled 340 grueling miles along the Missouri River, from Kansas City to St. Charles. He paddled to raise money. He paddled for puppies. (Half of the money that was pledged went to Love a Golden Rescue. The other half went to a charity in his hometown.)

      If you'd like to read about this event, go to MR340. It was beyond tough...

      And now--what kind of "tough" things have you tackled lately? Sioux's nosey nature wants to know...