KaBooM WritersKaBooM Writers

Welcome to the online presence of KaBooM, a writing group that has sustained the creative lives of a diverse group of women for over a decade. We hope that getting to know us will inspire you, too!Welcome to the online presence of KaBooM, a writing group that has sustained the creative lives of a diverse group of women for over a decade. We hope that getting to know us will inspire you, too!

Welcome to the online presence of KaBooM, a writing group that has sustained the creative lives of a diverse group of women for over a decade. We hope that getting to know us will inspire you, too!

The KaBooM Writers Notebook: Our Blog

Kayaking and Writing

By Lynn, May 31st, 2011 | Click to Comment

Now begins an extended metaphor. Yesterday I went on a 12 mile kayaking trip, where I stopped at the halfway point for lunch at the canoe shop. I left my kayak on the rocky landing point in the only spot available, which is the protocol. Other kayakers who conclude their trip must bring the boats up the hill and return them.  I was enjoying my lunch on a deck above the launch and keeping an eye on my kayak as there was much traffic below.  At one point a young couple barged into my kayak. The woman was clearly miffed by the obstacle in her way and roughly knocked into my boat, which sent my paddle into the river.  Her companion retrieved it and kindly moved my kayak higher on the beach.  I was glad I had not called down to the woman because the problem was solved.

Next came a young family of four in a red raft. The father and the children scrambled out and went up the steps. The mother, who was very large, had a hard time getting out of the raft. She had to crawl from it to the slope. There she held onto my kayak for support and managed to crawl and lean on it until she called to her husband to come and assist her.

I saw that the young woman who annoyed me actually was the agent for moving my kayak up the hill so that it was the exact support the next woman needed it in her own ascent.  If I had interfered,  likely my kayak would not have been in the right spot to be of aid.

This scene made me think about the often a mysterious and slippery path to publication.  Having a story or poem published, or a book accepted, is not a given. Even if a writer does all the proscribed tasks, reads all the good books, earns an MFA, submits first to small magazines and then more prestigious ones, queries agents, attends conferences, does the hard hard work of revision, patiently sends out finished poems and waits for chunks of a year for that small slip of paper saying no or a two line letter saying Yes! . . . even if a writer does all those things, there is no guarantee of publication and a career that grows in an organic or logical way. Some writers find early success and grow up in print, with mixed results. Others toil many years before finding the right publication, the right agent,and  the right editor.  The interactions of the women and the kayak suggests that there is a path that one doesn’t control.  Sometimes the “I” and the normal impulse (“That’s my kayak, leave it alone!”) is not the most knowing of how things should go.  Again, I come back to understandding that doing the writing is what I can control.  What happens when it floats off into the world is not.

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Patience and the Tiger

By Lynn, April 5th, 2011 | 2 Comments

Patience and the Tiger

Weigh, hey, year three is it of this novel? It’s draft number three at any rate. Writing a novel takes endurance and faith and the patience to tolerate so many days that look the same: the screen ahead, the softening hips below, the sun rarely shining, the rain coming too often, the snow a bore. Writing a novel is like rowing toward the horizon. No matter how many times you crank the oars, nor how many months you have been at this labor, the horizon is still far away, and the shore has disappeared. There is nothing to do but keep on going.

Now, as a somewhat creative person, I like to make things. But the course of writing a novel requires so much patience that I find myself turning to other enterprises in order to feed my need for quicker gratification. (note: eating is not advised as a means of instant gratification. A novelist spends entire seasons in a chair, and blooms but not in a flattering way.)

This winter I tried drawing and painting to satisfy this need. As you can see from the photo I posted, I am quite an amateur with  visual composition. However, the delight I got from using color to make forms on a page was exciting and soothing. It quieted the internal, impatient tiger wanting to be finished with this novel right now. It kept my tiger distracted, purring as if my the brush strokes were petting its fur. If you are at sea with a novel, it helps to have a tiger on board, as Yann Martel illustrated so well in Life of Pi.

Today we are roaring across the waves and my little creative self has had some play and is quite happy to be in the boat, and the tiger has begun to eat up all the chocolates and the ladies in the painting are losing it, but that is the way of writing a novel.

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Contrary Needs

By Lynn, January 10th, 2011 | Click to Comment

As a writer, I have two strong and contrary needs, one for solitude and one for community. I once spent a month at a retreat where there were specific rules about community and solitude. Writers and artists breakfasted together and shared the evening meal, but between the hours of 10 am and 4 pm there was to be no conversation. These rules demonstrated the perfect understanding of the contrary needs of the actively creative person.

I don’t live in such a place now.

In solitude, the need I’d say I prefer to gratify more, I write with delight and anguish in private. It’s delicious to be alone with the imagination in a protected space where anything is possible. But, if the post man always finds me in my pajamas, or my children do after they’ve been at school all day, then I have some ‘splainin’ to do. Is this normal? Am I normal?

A community of writers validates this private self. It  offers the opportunity to talk with people who know the vocabulary, practice the struggle, and read books in a similar way. They understand a publication in a small magazine with a readership of less than a thousand is a coup, an occasion for a hand spring when it arrives at the door, much to the befuddlement of the post man.

It is fun to socialize and to feel a part of a community of like minded souls. Hearing a good reading, discussing a problem of construction, or a brand new excellent book or a bad one, links to the happiness inside: I am a member of a tribe. I belong here.

Sometimes this sense of belonging is too seductive, drawing the writer into on-line discussions or too many post-workshop get-togethers and the private life of writing suffers.

When I have over-indulged in community, I long for solitude and return to my desk, dreading meetings, feeling akin to Charles Dickens, who once said, that knowledge of an impending appointment can ruin an entire writing day. I feel that way, too, if my writing must be curbed for a meeting, even if I likely can’t sit for five hours in my chair until the appointed time. It’s the idea of interruption that adds anxiety to the act of writing in solitude.
Yet, in this 21st century in America, I appreciate the opportunity for both privacy and community. It seems a fortune to be able to reconcile the contrary needs. Thank you, fellow writers, for claiming this strange compulsion for self-expression and for insisting its needs be met.

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Eat Pray Love Kvetch Appreciate Understand

By Lynn, August 30th, 2010 | Click to Comment

As we gathered after a summer hiatus, we discovered each of us had read Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love, or seen the movie, or done both. A lively discussion followed. We examined a number of points of view, ours and those of other public commentators.

One writer was disappointed that the movie glossed over the story of Gilbert’s purchase of a home for Wayan, an ostracized divorced mother in Bali.  I agreed that the story was amazing but then I found myself irritated with Gilbert for what I thought was self-aggrandization.  We examined the idea that often what bothers us about another is a problem we have with ourselves.  I chewed on that notion after I left.

For me it seemed a self-congratulatory tale, a do-gooder seeking praise. But it wasn’t really. It was a story of one woman shepherding resources at her disposal to improve another woman’s daily life.  That Gilbert claimed the good work was what irritated me.

Why?  Because I have been taught that modesty is a woman’s way.  Other people may praise you, but you must not toot your own horn.  It felt like Gilbert had gotten away with something that she, as a woman, should not.  The irony is that I often write about the curious tendency of women to censor the behavior of other women–and here I was doing just that.

I appreciate now that Gilbert was showing women how to claim actions.  As women we must. Too many works by women, artistic, social, political, and religious, have gone unnoticed, sometimes due to modesty, sometimes due to malicious intent.   I am glad to have been brought to this understanding and am glad to toss away a fossilized belief.  Let’s allow for self-celebration.  Let’s claim what we do.

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Hungry for Good Writing

By Gail, July 12th, 2010 | Click to Comment

Homegrown Authors! KaBooM at the Lexington Farmer's Market: photo by Susan C. Brown

This past Saturday members of KaBooM were at Lexington’s Downtown Farmer’s Market at a booth cosponsored by the Morris Book Shop and the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning called “Homegrown Authors.” The event turned out to be one of the most successful sales days ever for our group; you might want to check out the Morris Book Shop site for details on more selected Saturdays this summer when you can meet area authors and buy signed copies of their books.

But as Jan said in her immediate previous post, these days are not only about selling the book. Continuing her theme, I’d like to reflect on what I learned from our time at the book table on Saturday: many of the folks we met at the Farmer’s Market are hungry not only for fresh, locally grown produce.

They are hungry for good writing.

We set up the sewing frame to let people know that the object we were selling was hand-sewn, and a number stopped to have conversations about book binding and the beauty of hand crafts.

Sewing Frame entices passersby to see hand sewn signatures: photo by Susan C. Brown

But an even larger number of passersby were fascinated by the content of When the Bough Breaks.  One person who read through the table of contents was completely stopped by the title of Lynn’s short story.   “Heartichoke!” she called out: “Oh, isn’t that just perfect, that’s exactly what it’s like!”  She bought three copies.

A retired English teacher stopped to tell us of his frustration that high school students are not guaranteed opportunities to do their own writing in English classes.  We showed him the structure of our book: the brief essays after each entry that reflect on the creative process and the role the group plays in our continually developing craft; followed by individual writing prompts—“Try this”—to encourage written responses.  At that, he was sold, too.

And a number of folks were simply pleased as punch that this joint venture meant they could buy literature with their produce: “that’s fantastic,” they said.

We couldn’t agree more.

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How Bullriding Is Not Like Judging a Literary Contest

By Lynn, June 18th, 2010 | 1 Comment

This week I attended a bullriding contest and I judged a literary contest. I observed some differences between the competitions. In bullriding, it’s the rider, the clock, and the bull. The rider who stays on the longest wins.   That is the simple method of determining the winner, without consideration for style, or conflicts overcome, or originality in setting or situation. The story is always the same. The bull wins.

In a literary contest, there are many variables, the most crucial being the judge’s sense of what is the most valuable characteristic of a written piece. After years of judging, teaching, and writing, I’ve decided that structure matters very much. Is it a story, first of all? Does it satisfy the requirement that there is a conflict that has been dealt with? I read first, not in an analytical way, but for pleasure. One of the pleasures of reading a good story is the sense of satisfaction and completeness a reader feels when the story ends, as in the stories by Kim Edwards, Michael Knight, Charles Baxter, and Barbara Fisher. This understanding is felt or known, but the reader may not immediately be able to articulate why the story has created such satisfaction. Then, if one is a judge, one can return to the story and see how and why she felt that the story was successful. I start with that response to a story. Then I consider voice, vision, and acumen with language. Once, in the past, I liked the third place story best, because of its language and imagination and voice, but I did not choose it as the “best” because its structure was more flimsy than the winner’s was.

I find that a number of stories show tremendous promise but have been sent out before they are completely finished. That is the most common reason why a story does not win. It needs a few more turns on the spit, for more fat to drip out, more flavor to be tendered in.

Bullriders rarely go into the ring until they are ready. There’s too much at stake. For writers, submitting to subjective judges, it’s harder to know about  a story’s readiness. So I suggest that writers master structure as a necessary skill. If you do so, you will go far in your quest for the prize.

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Passion and Fellowship

By Lynn, April 20th, 2010 | 1 Comment

We ate cupcakes at our meeting today, heavy delicious cupcakes, each sporting a butter cream hat that doubled its size. Sweet, overwhelming indulgence. We were celebrating the reading of a member’s novel manuscript.

To write a whole novel is an astonishing act of perseverance and passion. That accomplishment deserves oversized cupcakes laden with butter cream and studded with high quality chocolate bits. My goodness! We indulged in reading gorgeous writing about Wyoming, an anti-dote to Annie Proulx’s eccentric wire-flogged people. We licked our fingers and sang praises, brightened by the sugar high. The book was very good.

The happily sated feeling reminded me of the conference of the Kentucky State Poetry Society we attended on Saturday. The upper room in the Kentucky Fudge Company in Harrodsburg was full of sunbeams, people who’d spent the whole day engaged in reading and writing poetry. Whenever two are gathered in the name of poesy, fellowship happens. Love comes down as a scorcher and blazes across the blank page. Something new is made. In communion. In sharing. In getting outside of the lonely mire of self-ness. Hallelujah for the community of passionate poets, for writers who dare to share their nascent forms of future literature, for that courage, for their discoveries, and for those who listen.

I am an introvert, a writer who gets snarly when interrupted, as my family can attest. They knock on the door and quickly pocket their fists to better to keep their fingers intact. Yet I have come to appreciate what the society of writers does for writing. As one poet said on Saturday, she had felt “different” all her life because of her love of language, until she met the poets in Harrodsburg. Others who knew the magic of creating experience out of words recognized her as kin. To that poet, to the society of poets, to kaboom, to all the books in utero, the poems, essays, plays, and stories yet to be published, I raise a cupcake of appreciation and take the biggest bite imaginable.

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Reading Out Loud

By Lynn, December 14th, 2009 | 1 Comment

On December 6, we presented When The Bough Breaks to the public with a reading and a celebration at the Carnegie Center. I had forgotten in the midst of publishing, sewing, and marketing the book how wonderful the written work is. Each of us read five minutes and each of us made the work new again.

Words weigh more when read out loud. When reading silently to yourself from the page, you hear your own voice, your own incantations and prejudices. But when the author reads, you hear her intent, her emphases and pauses and, hence, her meanings, as her voice feels its way from word to word, stone to stone through rapids, over falls, along placid streams, into reflecting pools.

It felt as if I was hearing these poems and stories and essays for the first time. So, it seems, we begin again. I left that celebration brimming with good cheer. What a joy again to be part of this enterprise. What gladness at our individual and collaborative triumph. What gratitude for the reading public who appreciate this book, this venture, this claim.
Lynn

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Critique in a Fishbowl

By Lynn, September 15th, 2009 | 3 Comments

On Saturday, September 12, Kaboom gave a presentation at the Kentucky Women Writers Conference.  We held a meeting as if the audience was not there.  As usual, we began with goal-setting.  As usual, Leatha arrived late, and as usual, we kept on going.  Each of us stated a writing goal for this week.  Goal-setting makes us accountable to the group.

We moved on to a live critique of four pages from “Blue Hen,” a chapter in my novel-in-progress.  The first round robin elicited such praise that I felt almost embarrassed, as if my fellow writers were exaggerating the good points for the audience. But because they explained how the piece worked and pointed out particular passages of support, I felt encouraged and pleased that my intent had been realized.  Then, of course, came the harder parts, the places where rhythm contradicted sense, where details were left out, where (strange) questions were raised.  (This is often my favorite part of hearing criticism because it makes me go back to the words and discover what other meanings lay hidden as I wrote but rose up bright and blinding for a reader.) (Read more…)

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