April Newsletter

By Jessica Page Morrell

Passion renewed ãWriters end up writing about their obsessions. Things that haunt them; things they canât forget; stories they carry in their bodies waiting to be released.ä Natalie Goldberg On a raw day in December I drove home from a workout and heard a news story about women mountain climbers. It was the birthday of a French woman, Liliane Barrad who was one of only five women who has summated K2, a savage mountain that stabs the Pakistani skies. Three of the women died on their descent down the mountain and two while attempting other mountains. I was struck by some of the data I heard about the mountain and the people who try to climb its treacherous peak. K2, called Chogori, the Great Mountain, is more dangerous than Everest, with more punishing weather and a sleek shape like a pyramid. In fact, itâs the most difficult and dangerous mountain in the world and only 52 have summated its sheer, vertical ascent. Chances of death are 1 in 12 on Everest or 1 in 4 on K2. If you run into trouble on K2, you cannot be rescued, only your own hands and feet will take you off its frozen slopes. The reporter went on to describe how all five women who died while climbing were at the top of their game, but ran into avalanches or just plain bad luck. If you look at the statistics for the deaths on K2 youâll note that the climbers die from factors caused by weather, pneumonia, strokes, falls, cerebral edema, or simply disappear. Of the five women climbers, the best in the world, some were mothers. I tried to imagine the families and friends theyâd left behind, and of their lifeless bodies so far from home, frozen in hideous perpetuity on a lonely slope. Passion leads humans into many avenues, some foolish, some grand, some healthy, some deadly. Stories and movies have long explored the darker side of passion, the high risk, adrenalin-pulsing thrill ride. But there is another side of passion that writers can nurture. Itâs not a gentler version, but itâs a source, and it can always renew us with its energy. I was talking with a friend about this subject. Heâs been practicing martial arts for 25 years and described passion in martial art terms. He mentioned that Bruce Lee said that passion creates talent and how passion always burns within each of us, white and deep. He reminded me that ãpassion is a well tended flame.ä We explained the finely honed Samurai sword and the aspects of passion. When it is expressed, it provides light; when it cannot be expressed, neurosis and unhappiness result; when passion is not carefully tended, you can burn in your own fire. A lot of advice is directed at writers, but perhaps the advice that is best ignored is Îwrite what you know.â Now, as advice goes, it can sometimes work. But if you examine the lives of most artists, writers among them, youâll find a lifeblood of passion that propelled them to create. And youâll notice that they didnât necessarily create from what they saw out their window. For each of us, there is something that instills in us a pulsing need to be heard; whether on the page, a canvas, or in the soaring lines of a skyscraper. When you create from your bubbling passion, you will automatically dig beneath the surface and uncover layers of the self. Passion brings emotional intensity to our words, explores what lies beneath ordinary reality. Writing with passion means youâll be caught up in the excitement of your inner flame and that the writing will be true to who you are. Hemingway was a larger than life writer for many reasons. Years after his death, he continues to fascinate. His writing style is crisp and real and breaks through the senses and slips into the readerâs bloodstream. He fascinates because his stories asked unsettling questions: What does it mean to be a hero? How is fear conquered? Is the cost of war ever worth it? But his legacy also lives on because he was a man who followed and wrote about his passions÷fishing, hunting, bullfighting, war, travel. In his work we find a passionate observer and someone who lived with gusto. And his characters linger in our memories, wounded heroes who struggle with life and death dramas and haunting choices. Itâs sometimes easy to uncover the themes in a work that reveal the writerâs concerns and fascinations, the passions that fueled them. Dickens cared about the grinding poverty and inequities that tortured the lower classes in industrial England. Phillip K. Dick whose novels have been adapted into Bladerunner and six other movies, thought deeply about human nature, the human condition, and a host of other questions. Between 1959 and 1964, at his creative peak, he wrote sixteen SciFi novels that were published, as well as mainstream novels that were never published, much to his dismay. Dick wrote: ãSo I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudorealities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing. It is my job to create universes, as the basis of one novel after another. And I have to build them in such a way that they do not fall apart two days later. Or at least that is what my editors hope. However, I will reveal a secret to you: I like to build universes that do fall apart. I like to see them come unglued, and I like to see how the characters in the novels cope with this problem. I have a secret love of chaos. There should be more of it. Do not believe--and I am dead serious when I say this-- do not assume that order and stability are always good, in a society or in a universe. The old, the ossified, must always give way to new life and the birth of new things." Passion is infectious and must be used. Listen to the seeds of truth you carry within. Use your love of hiking or cooking or wine or snowboarding or fairy tales to infuse your writing. Use the old wounds or regrets that keep you awake at night, the times when you have forgiven and been forgiven, the worries about the world and its corrupt politics. Use the things you fear most to shape words. Follow your curiosity. Make a list of all your loves, hobbies and interests. Sports, travel, vintage cars, gadgets, genealogy, flowers, and films-- the list is a rich source. Make another list of topics or areas that have always intrigued you, but you havenât had the time to explore. Then imagine the ways the topics can be approached via an essay, article, story or web content. Affiliate with working writers. Itâs important to talk with other writers to share struggles but also the excitement of passions, the joys of a break through, the practical means to finish what you begin. But mostly use your passion for making sense of things and shaping your world into a story of sorts. Everyone has within them a child who is waiting for his or her bedtime story. This child is hungry for the shape of story÷the beginning, middle and end. The summing up of ideas. The morals learned, the hopes shared, the dreams crushed or fulfilled. Passions translated into a story of any genre. I think and write and teach about finding balance in our lives. Balance brings a solidity, a foundation from where we can live our days with sanity and confidence. Balance helps us prioritize. But lately Iâve been thinking that maybe balance is not all itâs cracked up to be. Maybe Dick is right to encourage at least a bit of chaos to shake things up. And if not chaos, the flame of an ignited and renewing passion will do. Its influences are far reaching and magical and true. Know your passions, explore your passions, and invest in your passions÷ they will pay off. ************************************************************************ January, and the old year has dwindled away and the world is sketched in bare black branches and steel-colored skies. There are miracles in nature here in Portland÷roses that bloom softly if not abundantly, pansies and violets that are bright spots of color on my porch. But make no mistake, winter has settled in. As I write this Iâm preparing for a trip to northern Wisconsin. I imagine the winter of my memory will not match what I discover in this Îland of the wind chill factor.â But Iâm going to spend time in a small town where the rivers are frozen, and on a wide, white-shrouded lake lined with evergreens and sweeping stands of birch trees. In winter their white bark gleams against the snow and pale sky. The Ojibwas, natives of this region, called it Grandfather Birch, because in the deadliest cold they could use its bark to start a fire, could always survive if birch grew nearby. January is a sleepy, quiet month across the land, a time to catch our breath after the holidays, hunker down for the coldest time of year. In the stillness of January I imagine my ancestorsâ presence humming in the winter quiet, reminding us that our influence can last many generations. *************************************************************************** Writing Prompts Write a story or anecdote about something, perhaps an object, that freezes unexpectedly and the chilling consequences that follow. Write a story about a person who is a terrible cook and how his or her dinner guests cope with the resulting culinary disasters. Write about life-changing news that arrives in the middle of the night. Write about an eccentric teacher or professor. Write about someone who has an irrational fear of an animal. Write about a mysterious neighbor who is rarely seen. Write about someone turning down a marriage proposal. Write about a disastrous holiday, vacation or trip. Write about a ground-breaking product or invention that exists only in your imagination. Write about a person who is afraid of love or intimacy. Write a story where you imagine the adult life of a person from your childhood who was a bully, an enemy, a rival. Write about a charming or delightful person (or character) who is essentially incapable of making wise decisions. Write about a personâs encounter with a poisonous plant in the wild. Write about a family who moves into a haunted house, slowly escalating their understanding of the ghostly presence and his/her history. Write about attending the funeral or wake of someone who died tragically. Write about buying a lemon, as in defective product or car. **************************************************************************** Inspiration ãBe a scribe! Your body will be sleek, you hand will be soft·.You are one who sits grandly in your house; your servants answer speedily; beer is poured copiously, all who see you rejoice in good cheer. Happy is the heart of him who writes; he is young each day.ä Ptahotpe, 2350 BC ãEditing is like reading about sex instead of doing it.ä Sol Stein ãWhat I adore is professionalism. Iâm bored by writers who can write only when itâs raining.ä Noel Coward ãI want to write about people I love, and put them into a fictional world spun out of my own mind, not the world we actually have, because the world we actually have does not meet my standards. Okay, so I should revise my standards; I'm out of step. I should yield to reality. I have never yielded to reality. That's what SF is all about. If you wish to yield to reality, go read Philip Roth; read the New York literary establishment mainstream bestselling writers·.This is why I love SF. I love to read it; I love to write it. The SF writer sees not just possibilities but wild possibilities. It's not just 'What if' - it's 'My God; what if' - in frenzy and hysteria. The Martians are always coming." Philip K. Dick ãItâs bizarre to me that people think Iâm Îprolificâ and that I must use every spare minute of my time when in fact·I spend most of my time looking out the window. (I recommend it.)ä Joyce Carol Oates ãThe problem with most beginning writers is that they donât understand they are entering a field that is truly brain surgery; they are working on the brains of thousands of people they donât know. Thatâs not easy. Writing fiction and narrative nonfiction is a complex craft.ä Sol Stein © Jessica P. Morrell No portion of this newsletter may be reprinted without permission.