Life's changes

There are times in life when we feel as if the world is a sunny garden, planted for our enjoyment, and we will flourish, no matter what. Our possibilities are endless. Then something shifts to rock our world, and we must adjust. How we do so depends on our inner resources to cope. We may process and move on or we may peacefully accept the circumstances we are given. 

Change is never easy, yet life without change is stagnant and unproductive. Perhaps it's when a major event nudges us from our comfort zone that we search our innermost selves and find what we need. Looking through my poetry, I found a few poems that, though written some time ago, strike a resonate chord when I feel I'm facing an hour of decision or when I hear of a major life-changing event in someone's life. 

(Iris, by Stan Hill, Photographer) 

I'll share three of them: "Time," "Life," and "Death," which could also be titled "Accepting Mortality." (Scroll down for all three.)

Be sure to join me on the 8th of July for a conversation with Janet Riehl, author of “Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry and Music,” about how she coped with a traumatic life-changing experience.

Time

 

When all is said and all is done

and when the race is over,

Will we be happy that we’ve run?

Will we wish to do it over?

 

Time marches on without a care

about what we are doing.

It bothers not with when or where

or what trouble is ensuing.

 

We may be bored; we may be stressed.

We may be steeped in sorrow

But time keeps plodding as if pressed

to reach the next tomorrow.

 

If in the end we have regret

for the things we didn’t do

we’ll be reminded if we forget

that there’s no use to rue

 

the time that’s gone will not return

and useless are excuses.

For if nothing else we learn,

know time bears no abuses.

 

Every second, minute, hour

is the same to every man.

It is within each person’s power

to do with as she can.

Life

Life is too short to be little

Life is too dear to deny

Life is too precious to squander

By living an emotional lie.

Follow your heart, find your center

Leave conformity and pretense alone

Be only  yourself when you enter

Live a life that is truly your own.

Be not afraid of your feelings

It’s really okay to cry

Express the indignation inside you

Be honest with life ‘til you die. 

Don’t assume to make other’s decisions

Nor let others make choices for you.

Do what for you is important

And unto thine own self be true.

Death

A woman died today.

Suddenly

unexpectedly

without notice.

A man lost his wife today

Suddenly

unexpectedly

without notice.

Parents lost their only daughter today

Suddenly

unexpectedly

without notice.

It challenges my belief

About mind

Over matter

Willful control.

I thought the mind

Always leads

Body follows.

Not so.

It makes death sadder

that I know

it can happen

against one’s will. 

I’m sad for the woman

Who died

her husband

and parents

I feel my own mortality

For a moment

disappointed

betrayed.

My belief, though juvenile

and subconscious

was pervasive

my own. 

Of Death Do We Speak? Helping children cope with death of a loved one.

My paternal grandfather died when I was eight years old. I cried as I watched my parents and two older siblings drive away to attend the funeral.  I was not allowed to go to the funeral. I guess my parents felt I was too young and it would be too hard on me. Or maybe they were just so steeped in their own grief to think of my need for closure. I loved grandpa. I did not want to be left out of anything that involved him. And I knew I would never see him again.

Grandpa's death was never talked about in my presence. Maybe no one talked about it. I think in those days, people, at least in our family, hid their grief. If anyone cried, they did it privately. Death, like sex, was a subject children should never hear or speak of. So what did I do with my grief at age eight? I guess I stuffed it somewhere deep down and out of sight, adding death to the many mysterious evils that I was to fear, but not to question. 

I think—hope—it is generally different today. Children who experience the death of a peer,  a parent, or anyone close to them are often taken to a therapist for grief counseling. And therapists often use books or stories to help children better understand the feelings they are experiencing. When children read of a character with whom they relate and see that character experience the same feelings they suffer, they can better accept that they are not alone, and that their feelings and reactions are not wrong. 

Because death is natural, inevitable, and universal, it has found it's way into many of the children's novels I have written. It is my belief that children who have suffered or will suffer the death of a beloved person or pet will be better prepared for sorrow that threatens to overwhelm them by reading about a character who is going through the same grief. 

Janet Burroway, in her book, Writing Fiction, wrote, "Literature offers feelings for which we don't have to pay." Kids will find it easier to articulate their own feelings when they can relate them to those of a character in a book. 

Characters in my books who, each in his or her way, have each dealt with loss of a loved one through death are Danny in Danny's Dragon whose father is a casualty of the Iraq war, Kyleah in Kyleah's Tree whose mother died, and her father, and brother, with whom she is separated. Miranda, who lives with her grandparents in Miranda and Starlight, knows nothing of her father until she gets a letter from him and an explanation of the accident that resulted in his missing at sea and presumed death in Starlight's Courage. In Starlight Comes Home Miranda loses a mentor who is like a grandfather to her. Kids and adults alike like these books for the emotions, happy and sad, that they experience when reading them.

For other books, both fiction and non-fiction, written to help kids deal with death, I Googled "books to help children cope with death." One site that gives a nice list of books, most of which I confess I have not read, is:  http://www.leeanne.com/grief/

Although I still encounter parents, librarians, and teachers who would "protect" children from "sad" topics in books, I also find that kids like to have their emotions touched, and their favorite books are the ones in which the characters feel deeply about life's problems that they may also face.

Kyleah's Tree is a finalist

Kyleah Ralston's mother has died. She doesn't know where her father and brother are or even if they are still alive. She joins her friend Benjamin to leave the foster home in Kansas where they both live. Though she seeks to find her lost brother, it is her true self she is looking for—and finds, through the many hair raising adventures they encounter from Kansas to Canada.  

Kyleah's Tree, by Janet Muirhead Hill has been selected as one of three finalists in the fiction category for the Parmly Billings High Plains Book Award. Read on for the entire press release:

2009 High Plains Book Award Committee Announces Finalists

Thirteen books have been selected as finalists for the 2009 Parmly Billings Library High Plains Book Awards. All finalist books were published for the first time in 2008 and written by a regional author or writing team, or are literary works which examine and reflect life on the High Plains region.  The High Plains region includes Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, North Dakota and South Dakota and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.  Nominations were received from 20 publishers and several individuals in the U.S. and Canada. 

 

The finalists have been selected in five categories : Best Novel; Best Nonfiction; Best First Book; Best Poetry and Zonta Best Woman Writer.  The Best Poetry award has been added this year.  A five hundred dollar cash prize is awarded in each category. The finalist books are: 

 

Fiction

Kyleah's Tree, Janet Muirhead Hill, Raven Publishing; So Brave, Young, and Handsome, Leif Enger, Grove/Atlantic; Another Man's Moccasins, Craig Johnson, Viking/Penguin

 

Nonfiction

In Contemporary Rhythm, Peter H. Hassrick and Elizabeth J. Cunningham, University of Oklahoma Press; The Wide Open, Ed. by Annick Smith/Susan O'Connor, University of Nebraska Press; Legacy of Stone, Margaret Hryniuk, Frank Korvemaker and Larry Easton, Coteau Books

 

Poetry

Made Flesh, Craig Arnold, Ausable Press; Prairie Kaddish, Isa Milman, Coteau Books; The Baseball Field at Night, Patricia Goedicke, Lost Horse Press

 

First Book

Horses That Buck, Margot Kahn, University of Oklahoma Press; Sherlock Holmes: The Montana Chronicles, John Fitzpatrick, Riverbend Publishing; Wind River Country, Bayard Fox and Claude Poulet, Fremont County Publishing

 

 

 

Zonta Best Woman Writer

 

The Wide Open, Edited by Annick Smith and Susan O'Connor, University of Oklahoma Press; Road Map to Holland, Jennifer Graf Groneberg, New American Library/Penguin; Horses That Buck, Margot Kahn, University of Oklahoma Press

 

More than 40 local volunteers read and evaluated the nominated entries.  The top three books in each category will be sent to regional judges for final selection as award winners.  Judges are published authors in the various genres with strong ties to the High Plains region. 

“We are hoping bookstores and libraries will publicize the nominees and finalists so the public will have an opportunity to read this interesting array of books,” said Parmly Billings Library Director Bill Cochran.

Winners in each category will be announced at the High Plains Book Awards Banquet on Friday, October 2, 2009 in Billings, MT.  The event is the kickoff for the 7^th annual High Plains BookFest. For more information go to: http://highplainsbookawards.org

 

END.

Chautautqua, an assembly for sharing

It has been a great pleasure to participate in the relaxed atmosphere at the Elling House in Virginia City, Montana each third Saturday evening of the month from January through April. Music, poetry, essays, humor and drama are presented by anyone who wishes to participate. And we never ceased to be amazed at the quality and quantity of talent in our area. Laughter, camaraderie, and mutual support and encouragement are all part of the evening that begins with a potluck dinner.

Toni James and the Elling House Arts and Humanities Center hosts four Chautauqua assemblies each year, offering the unique opportunity for authors, artists and musicians to perform for a receptive crowd of people who love good food, great music, and original literary and dramatic presentations. 

A Chautauqua, according to Wikipedia began as an adult education movement in the United States and was highly popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  Chautauqua assemblies spread throughout rural America until the mid 1920's, bringing entertainment and culture to communities. Speakers, teachers, musicians, entertainers, preachers, and specialists of the day participated. President Theodore Roosevelt is quoted as saying that the Chautauqua is "the most American thing in America." 

The final Chautauqua assembly for this year at the Elling House will be held this Saturday evening, April 18 at 6:30 p.m. beginning with the potluck, followed by entertainment at 7:30. 

Residents and visitors of Virginia City and many surrounding towns are very grateful for the efforts of Toni James and the Elling House Board for bringing this delightful tradition back to life in Montana.  

The photographs on this page are by Stan Hill, Back Acre Productions. The first picture is of the Elling House, then Toni James, our host, Janet Zimmerman, the MC of the evening of the March 21 Chautauqua, Janet Muirhead Hill, reading on February 21, and two of the many talented musicians, Caleb Harbor and Jeff MacDonald. 

Developing creative writing habits

In March, I completed another enjoyable workshop with six talented authors in Ennis, Montana. It was the first five-day writing workshop and included  four more lessons in the workbook. A daily schedule of lessons will soon be posted on our website. You can e-mail author@janetmuirheadhill.com and request a workshop schedule, a list of lessons covered, a registration form, and/or more information. 

As always, we began "true fiction" writing through free-form writing exercises, with each lesson building on the one before it. Those who've participated in the three-day workshop may wonder what has been added. The three-day workshop consisted of fifteen lessons. We now have nineteen lessons in the five-day class, with lesson nineteen, Publishing Options, taking a large portion of day five. I also added lessons on setting, writing background and development, and I divided one lesson and expanded it into two; one on dispelling self-doubts, and one on developing good writing habits. The lesson on writing habits takes up the first hour of day-five. 

As in every workshop I've presented, I learn along with my students. I also learn from research and study I put into each lesson. In particular, the lesson on writing habits has helped me strengthen my own habits with good results. I just finished the first draft of the adult novel I began 3 or 4 years ago, and had put aside to work on a trilogy of children's books. Now I have developed the habit that will help me rewrite and polish this first rough draft systematically. 

I think the part of the 18th lesson that has helped me the most is the emphasis on the word "habit." We all know what habits are. Our life is ordered (or disordered) by them. We have long-established habits that compel us to a certain ritual of behavior each day. Whether it's rising at a certain time each morning, proceeding to the next step which for some is making the coffee or getting in the shower or letting out the dog or jumping on the treadmill or heading out the door in your jogging clothes,  journal writing or daily devotions, we repeat the same pattern each morning, and it's hard—almost impossible—to veer from it. Why? Because it's a habit. It's ingrained. 

Why not add one more habit to your ritual? Schedule a writing time each day wherever it fits into your already established ritual. Anne Lamott in her book, Bird by Bird, said, "So much of writing is sitting down and doing it every day, and so much of it is about getting into the custom of taking in everything that comes along, seeing it all as grist for the mill." 

From this I realize there are two parts to developing a writing habit. One is to sit down and do it every day. The other is to be open to ideas and inspiration all day long. Not all of my writing is done while sitting in front of my computer monitor each morning. Even more of it is done earlier while soaking in my morning bath with a freshly brewed cup of coffee, where I habitually solve a daily cryptogram, which is usually a profundity from some past poet or philosopher. Then I read something inspiring, currently an essay from another writer in the book, A Cup of Comfort for Writers, edited by Colleen Sell. And lastly, totally relaxed by this time, I let my mind fill with ideas for my book or whatever else comes. I have note paper and pencil handy to write down the ideas that the muse introduces. Then when I approach the computer, I use all the available time, typing madly as the muse continues, through the characters, to show my fingers where to go. 

It helps to be prepared for the presentation of ideas from the muse as you go about your daily living, seeing it all, as Lamott says, as grist for the mill. Keep pocket-sized notebooks or index cards and a pencil with you to jot down interesting conversations, descriptions of buildings, rooms, landscapes, or anything else that comes to mind that may later be adapted to your book, short story, poem or essay.  

We will each develop and integrate our unique writing habits into our daily lives in a way that works. Now that I'm experiencing "the habit" more compulsively, I can recommend that every writer work to develop one, if you haven't already done so. 

How is this done? The first step is to make the decision, firmly, to write each day and to set the time and space for doing so. The next step is to force yourself to do it consistently for as long as it takes for it to become a habit, a part of your daily ritual you would not think of skipping. Some say that takes fourteen times, some say twenty-one, others a month. Like everything else in life, however, first of all, it takes the desire. If you really want to write, it will be easier, and a productive writing habit will be formed in no time. 

Compelling Fiction Comes from the Heart, not the Head

Are you intimate with the characters in the novel you are reading? Do their problems become yours as you are reading? Are their emotions, happy, sad, frightened, or angry, real to you? Felt by you? Then you are reading a book written by an author who tells his or her story from the heart, not from the head. The author became one with the characters, felt the emotion, and suffered or rejoiced with the characters as the story progressed. 

Regardless of who we are and what we write, we are bound to put some of ourselves into our writing. Each experience is unique and our passions and our idiosyncrasies help to flavor our work. Writers, don’t be afraid to give your characters some of your own passions, phobias, and emotional upheavals. It will give your writing passion as well as encouragement to those readers who carry the same troubling baggage you do.

The purpose of "true fiction" is to express and show emotion with which readers can relate, to allow the reader to experience the emotion vicariously. It should also have the potential for positive influence. Literature influences people. It is up to the "true fiction" writer to use that power for the reader’s good. There is nothing wrong with fiction that is written solely to entertain. But the purpose of "true fiction" is to touch the readers’ emotions; to help them feel what they may be afraid to feel in real life.

 “People recognize that it feels good to feel and that not to feel is unhealthy.… Literature offers feelings for which we don’t have to pay.” (Janet Burroway,  Writing Fiction, A guide to Narrative Craft) 

“Don’t be afraid to ask of your writing, ‘Who will this art help? What baby is it squashing?.…Ideals expressed in art can effect behavior in the world, at least in some people some of the time.… I have said that wherever possible, moral art holds up models of decent behavior; for example, characters in fiction, drama, and film whose basic goodness and struggle against confusion, error, and evil—in themselves and in others—give firm intellectual and emotional support to our own struggle.” (John Gardner, On Moral Fiction )

Publishing truth about child sexual abuse

My main purpose in writing "Kyleah's Tree," besides furnishing an exciting reading adventure, was to attempt to dispel the beauty myth that is so pervasive among today's youth. Too many kids believe that you have to be beautiful to fit in. If they don't see their own beauty through the eyes of their peers, their self-esteem plummets. What I hope for kids to get from this book is that today's fashions and popular standards of beauty do not measure a person's true worth. I wrote this book in the hope that it would build self-esteem in an indirect way. 

As is always the case in my middle-grade novels, other important themes and issues that kids face, usually as a result of the main theme, arise. For Kyleah, other issues that resulted from her loneliness and lack of self-esteem included running away from her foster home—and wishing she had stayed— and exploitation and abuse by adults she met along the way. 

Some adults are uncomfortable with the sexual abuse scene in the story, even though Kyleah escaped before the perpetrator got any farther than touching her breast. I felt it was important to have that much, but not necessary to let it go any further in order to send the message to young readers. It is not okay for anyone to violate your space or touch your body. It is okay to run and it is okay to tell. It would be helpful if this incident about Kyleah could initiate a conversation between parents and children. Below is a quote from the Mennonite Central Committee on prevention of child sexual abuse. 

One of the greatest gifts parents can give their children is to have open, honest and age appropriate conversations with children about their bodies and sexual development. This is a proven effective form of preventing child abuse.

There have been many books written for the express purpose of educating children for their protection against sexual abuse. Many are listed on the link above. More can be found at Notes from the Windowsill. 

I know what happens to kids whose parents are too afraid or too embarrassed to discuss sexual predation with their children or to let them read about it. Those are the kids with the biggest chance of becoming victims. Children who know what to watch out for and how to respond are far less likely to be victimized or to keep the perpetrator's secret.