Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Winter Wonderland–It’s All in How You Look At It

Sunburst in snowy woods SL (Custom)This photo is my favorite of all the snow pictures I’ve ever seen or taken. I was standing on our sun porch the morning of December 10, 2003 (I know the date because it’s embedded in the original digital photo file), rejoicing in the return of sunshine after the first serious snow of the winter. I had my camera in hand, already framing the shot, when a branch in the background suddenly relieved itself of its burden. Diamond mist filled the air just as I snapped the shutter.

I lowered the camera and watched this enchanted scene play out. I was bursting with gratitude that I’d been there to see it. This picture reminds me that even during the dreeriest, darkest, coldest times (like the past several weeks in the northeast), flashes of beauty and gratitude appear to lift our spirits.

It reminds me that beauty is all around us, if we learn to look. I was indeed fortunate to be there that day and see a scene nobody could ignore. But I can find beauty anywhere. I look around the room where I sit and admire the tapestry fabric on a chair. I see Chinese embroidery, fine as spider’s web, preserved on a tiny tray that serves as a coaster for my coffee mug. Even when it’s snowing (again!), the flakes and new fallen blanket are beautiful. Slush? I’m working on that.

These are physical objects I can see with my eyes. Finding the beauty may be harder in situations. How do you find beauty and gratitude in pain, anger, loss and grief?

My method is to write. I scribble on piles of paper, I vent in volumes of journals. I bang out stories, real and imagined. Once I have a draft on paper (sometimes in pixels), I start asking questions to crack open assumptions and beliefs:

  • How else could I see this?
  • How might (whoever) see this?
  • Could (that person) have actually meant (this)?
  • What would (advisor of my choice, real or imagined) tell me about this?
  • What if … (fill in the blank)?

One question, from The Work of Byron Katie is so powerful it’s in a class of its own:

  • Is this true?

Three other questions support that one. You can download more information on Byron Katie’s site: The Work.com. Whatever questions I use, I write the answers. I may write them several times.

I don’t always find answers and beauty right away. It may take years, but I know it’s there, and pictures like the one above help me remember that one day, in a blinding flash of the obvious, I’ll see what was always there, but hidden by the darkness of a storm. I’ll find my old story flipping upside down or turning inside out to form a new one. I’ll feel relieved and enormously grateful.

Write now: look around you and find some beauty that inspires gratitude. Write about this. Then think of a situation that’s harder to parse. Use tools like the ones above to write your way through to what may be a jolting conclusion and new way of looking at life.

Full size image link: http://t.co/JeokuYdSp6

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Adventures of a Chilehead — Formal Debut

Chilihead Cover KindleToday is the official debut of Adventures of a Chilehead. It’s a quiet affair. No big party it’s too cold and icy right now. No champagne but I will celebrate and toast the book with a bowl of chile, complete with guacamole topping  and a beer.

Books are much like debutantes —  when they make their formal debut, the whole community has watched them grow up and mature. Likewise, regular followers of this blog have read a number of posts about this book's progress.

You know, for example, that it began as a simple story album and grew organically into a true memoir. You know that I learned many lessons along the way, and one that’s seldom discussed is the matter of length. People often ask how long a memoir should be. As with any story, a memoir should be as long as it needs to be to tell the story.

This book is short. You can read the stories in a couple of hours. And yet it does have all the components of a formal memoir:

  • It has a story thread or theme, my love of hot chile, that runs through and ties individual scenes together.
  • It remains tightly focused on that theme.
  • It has a story arc, progressing from my first public involvement with surprisingly hot chile to the present, demonstrating change of perspective along the way.
  • It is comprised of scenes, with a new adventure in each one.
  • It hits the highlights without becoming mired in the mundane.

The book is short because it does remain focused tightly on its topic. If I’d wanted to make it longer, I could have pulled in other stories, or broadened the topic to food or cooking in general. But that was not my purpose. This is a tribute to  my beloved chile, and to the goddess Capsacia, who revealed herself in the process of writing. I said all I had to say on that topic. Thus I coined the term, “mini-memoir.

I think of this term as the memoir equivalent of a novella, a written, fictional, prose narrative normally longer than a short story but shorter than a novel. Novellas have no specific word count. They are generally more highly characterized than a simple short story, but less layered and complex than a full-length novel.

Although I had not heard the term “mini-memoir” before, I found it a delight to work with. Like a novella, it’s long enough to sink your teeth into, but short enough to avoid becoming bogged down. Especially with the advent of eBooks, mimi-memoir offers great potential. I chose to do a print version of this one, primarily because several people asked for one. They want to have the recipes handy in the kitchen. But a series of short eBooks would work just fine.

If you have several minis, you may eventually want to bundle two or three into a single print volume. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination. If you haven’t already read it, pop over to Amazon and order a copy. If you order print, the Kindle version is included for free.

Write now: look through your pile of finished stories and find a cluster of related ones. Consider ways of organizing them into a mini-memoir, using the “Story Album to Memoir” post as guidelines to help you organize your thoughts. If you don’t have more than a couple of finished stories, think of a theme, make a list of story ideas, and start writing, one story at a time. Don’t fret about weaving them together until you have them all finished.

Preserve a Record of Life As It Was

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