Immersive Writing - Immersive Reading

 Today holds an energy of serendipity. A near sleepless night because of a seasonal cold has left me vulnerable to insights about what I'm doing, or not doing, with my writing specifically. Well, I've been reading. Immersively. I find this helps me process lots of life changes. Which, alongside my private journal entries, creates bridges for me to walk back over and select what I need to move forward in the present.

Since my last blog post was over three years ago, there's obviously some catching up to do with my blog entries. I will simply start with the present and, through some relevant flashbacks, allow any missing elements to emerge of their own free will.

Olga. A tiny whisper of a rural town (unincorporated) on Orcas Island. This has become my home. I didn't see it coming, to be honest. I arranged a week-long writing retreat, in the home of a friend, two years ago.  I came. I wrote alone in the mornings. I spent the afternoons in walks and conversations with my friend. The leaves were changing. The geese had flown off to other lands. I went back to my job and cohousing friends in Sebastopol, California. And this time we went from a few conversations a year to daily texts and video chats. 

We met up again in December of 2024. Our decision to become a couple was conceived. I went back to Sebastopol to pack and complete my agreed work notice. After eight years away from the island where I had reared my children, I was back. All was different but the calling of the land and pocket communities was the same: Be here now. Dig in. Sit. Listen.

And now I live here in Olga. Married to the man I have loved, secretly and quietly, since 2012. 

My tiny home community dream, for Sebastopol, didn't materialize. The organizing energy and funding requirements, along with the slowly changing regulations for tiny home living, just didn't match my aging capacities and sense of timing. That's my retrospective outlook. I now believe that my calling to Orcas Island, arriving initially in 2003, when I landed here with four kids, was meant for my kids. For them to be raised in a community setting that could ameliorate the extended family roles they could not have with my own blood relatives. And, I needed the safety of this island setting to continue my own healing, as I matured as a parent and educator. 

Guiding children safely and sanely into adulthood is no small or simple undertaking. There is no perfection in it. There are no rewards. I experienced many small pleasures and insights into life, motivated by my own kind of generosity of spirit and love. I hope that this love finds an enduring home in the hearts and lives of my adult offspring . But there are no guarantees in such a holistic result. We are in an epidemic of parent - child estrangement. How much of that is influenced by the 24/7 internet availability and technological captivity of the current generation is yet to be determined.

March of this year became my official retirement month. I'm still in awe of the opportunities to catch up to myself and my creative impulse. Blending two households and taking on the restoration of a large hoop house, almost half an acre of fallow garden, and an abundant orchard area, has filled my days and nights for the past twenty-two months. Harvest is in and still being processed for long-term food preservation. Today graced us with a much needed rain. There's still some cover crop seeds to sow and mulch hay to lay down. My days are getting quieter. A bit of bittersweet now. That's how the autumn impacts me. A purposeful melancholy as we approach wintering in. Here's a snapshot of a section of my hoop house, heading into winter...

A friend in town (Eastsound) who owns a local bookstore and is a big supporter of writers in the area, asked me yesterday, when I was picking up a book I had ordered, if I was joining Write Doe Bay. "What's that, a local writer's group?" I asked. She said, "No. It's a gathering of authors - which happens about twice a year." After telling me a few details (it's in November already!) she said she was participating as a writer - for the first time; she thought I would like it or was already a part of it. Hmm, I thought. "I'll look into it and see if it calls to me." I paid for my new book and retrieved the hot cocoa I had ordered, keeping track of the hour because I still had two more errands to complete by 5:30 pm. It was now 4:40 pm. Perhaps this was a divine calling, coming from a friend who knows my interests.

Of course Write Doe Bay calls me. I had been reading these last few weeks, immersively, about story craft, and character arcs, and buffing up on new skills with recently downloaded Scrivener software. I'm writing a novel series and a memoir - been working on them since 2021. Now I'm ready for the deeper commitment of writing on a schedule and having a goal toward completion. This does not feel scary to me because I have specific elements already on hand, partially developed. But it does feel intense. I've had a writing coach for limited time periods, which has been helpful. I've written almost every day of my life since I was twenty-nine, in a journal (Thirty-six years and counting). Added to that, there's all the research and writing required of my M.Ed. and Ed.D programs -- now behind me. So it is my nature to process my experiences through writing. And now the opportunity is literally, right next door to my home. The Doe Bay retreat center property abuts our land. 

I purchased my ticket today (gulp) and this creative event is now eighteen days away. This day has been spent in my pajamas and in bed, letting the aches and coughs roll though me. My Saturday was not what I had planned but now I have a meaningful plan in place for November.  I cannot help but be curious about what will be shared from the teaching artists that I will find useful. 

Of late, I have discovered the work of Lisa Cron (Wired for Story, Story Genius) and Jessica Brody (Page One to Done, Save the Cat Writes a Novel). I feel myself in good company!

“Before there were books, we read each other.”

― Lisa Cron, Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence

On Perfectionism: 

"Mistakes can be fixed. Bad decisions can be undone. Model houses can be rebuilt. And perfection is only a word that makes you feel bad about yourself." 

— from My Life Undecided