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

Goal Tending

By Mary, August 29th, 2011 | 2 Comments

I am not a jock. I can hear my friends and family laughing at this massive understatement, but I make it to underscore that I am the last person one would expect to use a sports metaphor. However, I find myself thinking about the phrase, goal tending, and how it applies to basketball and the life of an artist.

In basketball, goal tending is a foul. Wikipedia defines it as ” the violation of interfering with the ball when it is on its way to the basket and it is (a) in its downward flight, (b) entirely above the rim and has the possibility of entering the basket, and (c) not touching the rim.” It goes on to add that “in both NCAA and NBA basketball, goaltending is also called if the ball has already touched the backboard while it is above the rim in its flight, regardless of whether it is in upward or downward flight.” Clear as mud right?

I remember my first college basketball game. I was a freshman at the University of Kentucky. My date was a member of the UK track and field team so we sat in the athletic section. I watched in amazement as my date transformed from the thoughtful, slightly shy boy I knew into a raving lunatic, swearing at the referee, questioning the parentage of various players on the opposing LSU team. One of the moments I remember most came when the referee called a goaltending foul on UK. I asked my date in confusion, “Why aren’t they supposed to tend to the goal?”  My date gaped at me, clearly wondering how I made it into college with such a fundamental gap in my education. What can I say. I was a basketball virgin.

When it comes to an artistic career, I think goal tending is an absolute necessity. There are fewer clear, defined landmarks for the arts than there might be in another career. It is necessary, therefore, that you not only create your own goals, but defend them from the many distractions and detractors that come with the messy process of living.

I ran across a journal the other day that I kept while participating in a workshop using Julia Cameron’s classic book, The Artist’s Way. For one of the exercises we had to write down at least three secret desires for our work as artists. I wrote out my wishes, thinking that they were far-fetched and unlikely to come true. I wanted to have my own show, I wanted to land a large commission, and I wanted to have my work displayed in a public place. Imagine my surprise when looking through the book three years later, I found that I have fulfilled each of those desires.

Although I had not thought of that exercise in those three years, I believe that the deliberate act of writing them down pointed me in the right direction to succeed. By writing down my desires, I transformed them from wishes into goals and placed them into the back of my mind. My subconscious tended to those goals even when I was not thinking of them with the result that I had a show of my work at Beaumont Inn, I landed a large private commission, and I now have a quilt hanging in a prominent space in the Mercer County Library. Slam dunk! How’s that for a sports metaphor?

 

Comments (2) — Categorized under: Creativity,Mary Alexander,Setting Goals —

Don’t Write What You Know

By Gail, August 5th, 2011 | 2 Comments

Many of the KaBooM members are grateful and faithful participants of the Kentucky Women Writer’s Conference (held this year in Lexington, KY, on Friday, September 16 and Saturday, September 17) .  Every year, the conference serves up inspiring speakers, stellar readings, and an opportunity  to take advantage of top notch writing instruction.  This year, the workshop I’ve registered for is Sallie Bingham’s short story teaching.

My classmates and I have received our first assignment, one I feel led to share with with KaBooM blog readers.  We are to read Bret Anthony Johnston’s essay in the Atlantic Monthly “Don’t Write What You Know.” Anytime a respected fiction instructor turns an old saw on its head, I pay attention.  The graphic that accompanies the piece is wonderful.

Our intrepid writer steps out into a lush, teaming world — the very doorframe drips with gooey reality.  Note that she has her pen poised!

And what a good thing that she comes prepared, because we’ve been given this assignment: “Write a short list of all the subjects you know, but don’t think you know; examples would be writing from the point of view of another gender; writing from the point of view of a much older or younger person; writing about or from the point of view of someone from a different racial or class background.”

So: have you had a long enough summer break?  I know I have.  Travel, visiting family, doing all the things with my offspring that the grind of the school year doesn’t leave time for.  It’s been great.  But it’s time to return to the garden of words.  And I’m off, delving into what I don’t know ….

 

 

Comments (2) — Categorized under: Uncategorized —

In Praise of Moodling

By Leatha, June 28th, 2011 | 2 Comments

Poem by Snail Light

“Trust the Process,” I tell people all the time, quoting my friend and mentor, George Ella Lyon.  Trust the Process, I copied out and put up by my computer when I began to seriously give myself to writing.  Did I know what it meant?  No – not any more than I knew what it meant to be a mother when I gave birth to my first child more than thirty years ago.

 

Oh, I had inklings (“inklings” – the perfect word, a scribble of knowledge, a sense of what’s needed – ink – but no clear idea of what to do with it!), but I had to be taught by the day-to-day doing and failing and despairing and going on.  Writing has taught me how to write and keeps on showing me the way.

 

Though I had people like George Ella and Brenda Ueland, in her book If You Want to Write, to point me in useful directions, I often resisted what I most needed to hear.  Like this, from Ueland’s book:

 

“So you see the imagination needs moodling,–long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering.  These people who are always briskly doing something and as busy as waltzing mice, they have little, sharp, staccato ideas, such as ‘I see where I can make an annual cut of $3.47 in my meat budget.’ But they have no slow, big ideas.  And the fewer consoling, noble, shining, free, jovial, magnanimous ideas that come, the more nervously and desperately they rush and run from office to office and up and downstairs, thinking by action at last to make life have some warmth and meaning.”  [p.32]

 

Years of being told to “quit that daydreaming” had nearly knocked the moodle impulse out of me.  But on days when I can recapture it, when I can slow myself down, I find that those “slow big ideas” are still there, clothed in images as water clothes itself in towering clouds on summer afternoons.

 

Some of you will resist this mightily (as I did), and your poetry will be as good as it always has been.  That’s about it.  You will get a good idea for a poem or follow an impulse that works itself out quickly in line and with images or sound, and you will be happy with it, and it can probably even get published, and that is that.  “Why moodle?” you’ll ask.  “It seems a waste of time, and I’m not getting any younger.”

 

Let the poem belong only to you for a while.  Or, better yet, put it away after you have drafted it – even if only for a week—and then take it up again.  Meanwhile, let it stay on your mind.  Jot things on the back of old envelopes – notes to the poem, reworkings of lines, a new image or detail.  Bring these to the poem as you’d give a gift to a newborn.  Try them on the poem.

 

Talking and busyness fill our days for the most part.  If, by chance or design, you find some time to simply be with your writing, please do not allow guilt or untimely interruptions to draw you away.  Trust what flows into the work from beneath.  Then go to work with inspired joy and abandon shaping it!

 

Comments (2) — Categorized under: Creativity — Tags: , , , ,

The Power of Story

By Jan, June 21st, 2011 | 3 Comments

It’s a hot Friday afternoon in summer, after five o’clock, and already cars and people have moved away from downtown Lexington. I’m walking uphill toward the Carnegie Center with one of the many writers I’ve worked with during my time at the center.

We blink as our eyeballs adjust to the light, bright after the hour we’ve spent in the StoryCorps recording booth, an Airstream trailer parked next to the old courthouse.

This interview, as much as any other event of the past months, seems a clear dividing moment, marking my Carnegie Center life from the new one I’m going to live, the one I don’t yet know much about.

I have a long history with this particular writer, a Vietnam veteran who first walked into the Carnegie Center in 1993. He wrote his manuscripts on legal pads and never used punctuation; I was a former copyediting instructor who had recently learned how to lay out books using desktop-publishing software. I read literary novels; he preferred westerns. He had done time in reform schools and finished fifth grade; I had a wide-eyed optimism for life, a belief in the opportunities provided by education.

We are twelve days apart in age.

Over the years he’s learned to use a computer, tried voice-activated software, started more books, devised a plan to employ the unemployable, written dozens of letters to celebrities and politicians, found a home.

I’ve learned to set aside the assumptions I make about people I pass on the street and to be delighted by the surprises in what they have to teach.

We celebrate all these moments in the StoryCorps trailer. In the panel-lined quiet, seated across from one another at a café table, speaking softly into the microphone, we start with our prepared questions, but soon find ourselves moving from interview to conversation, agreeing on the power of the written word to bring human beings together, to show us how similar we are, even in the midst of our differences.

Sealed away in the dim quiet, with late afternoon traffic moving past us just a few feet away, we affirm the value of sharing stories.

 

 

Comments (3) — Categorized under: Jan Isenhour,Uncategorized — Tags: ,

On Setting One’s Intention

By Gail, June 10th, 2011 | Click to Comment

Readers of our anthology When the Bough Breaks know that one of KaBooM’s shared habits at our weekly writer’s meetings is individual goal setting.  As honestly as possible, each of us takes a turn to look back and summarize what we’ve accomplished in the previous week.  Then we take a few moments to review the week ahead, reflecting on the writing tasks to which we’ve committed and the ones that remain as-yet-unrealized dreams.  Finally, we articulate—speaking out loud to each other—how much of that task or goal we think we can, or should, accomplish in the week ahead.

The wisdom of this attention to our intentions becomes immediately obvious when you consider that “everyone knows the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”  Extend that aphorism and it becomes clear that no matter how bright one’s beginning, to accomplish the journey the traveller still make take each one of those thousand steps.    For some of us, each step requires a new commitment, and our KaBooM goal-setting time serves that purpose well.

This need to continually re-set my purpose is reinforced when I practice yoga with my wonderful teachers at the local Y.   There, we begin our classes with a mindful setting of our intention for that day’s practice on our mats by making our commitment physical.  We hold our hands in prayer position and place our thumbs on our foreheads, because that’s where intention starts.  We lower our hands to our hearts, because that’s where an intention begins to live, breathe, and have being.

From Sacred Source Yoga: http://sacredsourceyoga.wordpress.com/photo-gallery/ariele-meditating-in-nytimes/

Finally, our hands come back to our foreheads to “set” that intention.  When I set my goals at KaBooM meetings, I do my best to articulate goals that will live in my heart and prompt steadfast effort so that I have something of substance to report the next time we gather.

When I set my intentions for my writing work, I am taking seriously the dreams of my heart and the yearnings of my creative self.  At the root of the word “intend” is “tendre” which means, in part, to stretch.  There are times when the goals I set for myself feel too difficult, too great a stretch.  Yet by continually setting and re-setting my intention to make that stretch, the creative power available to me is a constant, wondrous surprise.

Comments (0) — Categorized under: Creativity,Gail Koehler — Tags: , , , , , ,

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.

Comments (0) — Categorized under: Lynn Pruett —

Why I Still Write

By Normandi, May 21st, 2011 | 6 Comments

I had an unsettling phone conversation with a family member recently after a literary reading.  I had told him about the event, saying that I thought the 25 or so attendees was a pretty good turn-out. He said, “I don’t know why anyone bothers writing any more. Libraries are dying. Bookstores are going out of business left and right, and print is already dead. Even Kindle has a tiny population. No one care what anyone else thinks anymore. So why do you bother?”

It  annoyed me to consider that maybe he was right. This is a conversation I hear all too often. Even my former colleagues in media are going to online magazines and social media sites for their “messaging.” A blast here, a blast there. Then, I can never seem to find whatever it is they have written. It is too ephemeral.  And for the long haul,  I can’t seem to wrap my mind around the idea of getting a hot cup of cocoa and curling up with a computer screen at night, or taking a blanket out into the shade of my yard and reading random tweets on my i-phone.

If books and magazines are no longer relevant to modern cultulre, is there any reason to write?

For me, there still is.  Of course, whether we use Facebook, Twitter, a blog, a journal, a manuscript, or face to face conversation, we still frame our thoughts through language. Words are how we come to understand each other—the basis of communication.  More importantly, however, I suggest that writing is how we communicate with ourselves.

I like what American journalist and news broadcaster Edward P. Morgan said about the importance of books. “A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face. It is one of the few havens remaining where a man’s mind can get both provocation and privacy.”  That a broadcast journalist emphasized the importance of the book carries a lot of weight for me.

Writing for print is not a waste of time. It allows one to contemplate and frame an idea, to develop it from multiple perspectives, to cultivate meaning as well as to cultivate an audience. We can rehearse a message, revise, and sculpt it until it says what we want it to say—and, surprisingly, it will sometimes say what WE most need to hear.  Novelist E.M. Forester has been oft quoted as saying, “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?”

In addition, I  believe the words we choose to use, ultimately, create the world we live in.  It takes time to craft a piece of good writing, and that requires a certain amount of energy, The energy that we put into writing a book blossoms to life inside the mind of the reader. The more time we take to sculpt a piece of writing,  the greater its potential impact. A book is not ephemeral. It takes a long time to make, and it is an investment of the time and energy of the writer. A book is a gift to its readers of the living spirit of its creator. Many times I have read a novel and thought to myself, “My God, I wish I’d written that.”

I can’t say that I’ve ever thought, “OMG. I wish I’d tweeted that.”

Comments (6) — Categorized under: Normandi Ellis —

The Power of the Pen

By Mary, May 16th, 2011 | 2 Comments

I love my computer. It simplifies the physical process of writing for me. Editing is easier. How did we ever compose without cut and paste? Spell check, for all of its faults(and they are many), catches errors that the eye might overlook. The computer makes writing faster so that when I type, I can keep up with the racing thoughts that sometimes accompany creative energy. I find it easier to get my thoughts out when I’m not distracted by the feel of the pen in my hand, the drag of the ink across paper, or the shape of the letters.  As arthritis gradually eats away at my knuckles, typing is also less painful than writing by hand. Yet, even though the benefits are many, I still feel the need for hand writing. Why do I bother with hand writing anything when it’s so much more convenient to tap out a quick email and hit send?

Have you ever wondered why legal documents require a hand written signature? The answer is obvious; our signature is unique. Nobody else can sign our name the exact same way we sign it. Even talented forgers make tiny errors that enable experts to detect the difference between a real signature and a forgery. The same thing can be said for all of our hand writing. Dr. Rosemary Sassoon, the creator of the Sassoon series of typefaces, said, “Handwriting is an imprint of the self on the page.” Our handwriting is imbued with our personality in a way that a typed page can never capture.  I can look at something scribbled on the back of an old picture and know if it was written by my mother, my father, or my grandmother. I have letters from my grandmother that show the passage of time by the way her script began to waver as she aged but even wavering, it is still undeniably my grandmother’s handwriting. My father often typed his letters; as a businessman, he had ready access to a typewriter. But he always signed them in pen and ink and I still get a warm feeling when I come across an old letter with his signature at the bottom. The hand written signature connects me to my father in a visceral way that the typed pages don’t. I can see my father’s hand swooping, forming the “d” for David and final swoop on the end that crossed the “t” in Harter with the tail of the “r.” It’s unmistakably my father’s hand.

Recently,  I received a short, hand written note from a woman I have never met. This woman had seen a piece of my art work that is hanging in the public library in Harrodsburg, Ky. She was inspired to write to me to tell me how much she loved my work and she offered me some hollyhock seeds for my garden, the hollyhock being the subject of my quilted work. I was so touched by the note that I immediately called to tell her. I told her that not only did I appreciate her compliment to my work, I appreciated that she had taken the time to write.  She laughed and said, “That’s what we old women do!” I told her that it was more than that. She gave me something to save; something to read again when I’m feeling particularly discouraged about my work. I hope that writing by hand is not a dying art. I hope it’s something that we all will continue to do, not just “we old women.”  I can’t picture a stack of emails being saved with quite the same reverence as a bundle of love letters tied with blue ribbon. I hope that the hollyhocks will bloom next summer in my garden and remind me of the kindness of a stranger and the power of the pen.

 

 

 

 

Comments (2) — Categorized under: Creativity,Mary Alexander — Tags: , ,

A Sanctuary for the Literary Life

By Susan, May 12th, 2011 | 5 Comments

Our group recently took a field trip to the newly renovated Mercer County Public Library in Harrodsburg. It features the work of regional artists, and we were particularly eager to see Mary’s latest quilt of hollyhocks displayed prominently behind the main desk.

To our delight we found the library both inviting and inspiring. It’s a sanctuary for exploring and enjoying the written word, in a setting steeped in local history, culture, and art. The work of local painters and artisans is on display, and the glass wall of the local history room is etched with an 18th century map of Mercer County. In the children’s area, little ones can climb on a limb or sit inside the trunk of a spreading Osage Orange tree, modeled on a long-beloved specimen in nearby Old Fort Harrod.

In the entrance to the library is a beautiful and dramatic iron sculptural screen, fifteen feet tall, made by Erika Strecker and Tony Higdon. Antique farming tools make up the elements of the screen, many of which were donated for the project by local farm families.

This work of art is a celebration of Mercer County, the rural landscape and culture, the labor and ingenuity of farmers. To walk into the library is to experience an affirmation of the place where it is located, as well as the value of literacy.

Mary's quilt is visible through the screen at the library entrance

This unique library, reflective of the people it serves, reminded me of the individuality of the connections between writers and readers. As writers, it is a privilege when people take up our work and read, allowing it to become some small part of their own story. Likewise, as readers, it is a gift to have access to a world of books that engage, challenge, and entertain us.

A setting like this one speaks of the value of books and the nourishment to be found in a literary life. Good books are hard-wrought, but they make possible the intimate communion between reader and writer—one that changes the world, one person at a time.

I’m grateful for libraries, and for the readers, writers, and librarians who make them great.

 

Comments (5) — Categorized under: Susan Christerson Brown — Tags: , , ,

National Poetry Month—there’s one week left!

By Gail, April 22nd, 2011 | 1 Comment

If I were a poet, celebrations of  National Poetry month would likely include the writing of some really great poetry.  Since I am not a poet, every year I use the celebration as an excuse to write some really bad poetry.  This may seem an odd way to celebrate the art of making, of poesis, but because these scribbles require attention, they produce increased respect for craft.  By treating the writing of poetry like inquisitive play, I’m given a gift: every happy failure committed to paper causes my appreciation for the really good stuff to go up like a bottle rocket.  So even the playful writing of bad poetry feels like one “right” response to the month’s intention.

One way to think of poetry is it’s a making that captures in literary form what might otherwise run down the drain with the dishwater.  Moments.  Images.  A glance.  New ways of seeing something familiar.  Considering that a miniature form might suit my non-poetic soul, this year I turned again to Gail Sher in her lovely book  One Continuous Mistake: Four Nobel Truths for Writers and her suggestion to write a haiku a day.  She suggested six months.  Fearing such a commitment too deep for a dabbler, I tried six days, and even in that brief span found myself growing more aware and open to fresh perceptions.

Sher’s introduction “Guidelines for Beginning Writers of Haiku” is elegant, simple, inviting.  She sketches the three levels on which a haiku works, and suggests a writer capture the “instantaneous now.“  Ah, I thought.  This is welcome discipline in the midst of my “too-much-to-do-in-too-little-time” daily race.Today I noticed the rain puddling—intense colors in the gray light—and a swelling gratitude for reminders to breathe deeply, settle, aim for clarity.

Which poems have you tried writing, or carried with you, to celebrate the month?

Comments (1) — Categorized under: Creativity,Gail Koehler — Tags: , , , , , , ,
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