A Different Perspective

My family loves Pete the Cat. Especially when he's wearing his cool, blue, magic sunglasses.

He's groovy, he's mellow, and best of all, he reminds us to LOOK AT THING IN A WHOLE NEW WAY.

It had been a while since I'd read this particular book to my daughter, (PETE THE CAT AND HIS MAGIC SUNGLASSES, by Kimberly and James Dean) but a few days ago, she pulled it out of the bookcase and handed it to me.

Boom. Couldn't have had better timing.

We read the book three times in a row because, three years old.

In short, the book is about what happens when Pete has a really bad day. His friend gives him a pair of cool magic sunglasses and - Presto! Suddenly Pete's bad day gets pretty fabulous. He sees the sun shining, hears the birds singing, and realizes life is still good. Are the sunglasses really magic? Or is it just that they help Pete look at the world differently?

As I read, I remembered my friend Cheri, who once told me that if I got stuck on a problem, all I had to do was brush my teeth while standing on the bathtub ledge.

Because, SEE THINGS IN A WHOLE NEW WAY.

Blue sunglasses, toothbrushing from on high, walk on the other side of the street, whatever it takes.

The reason this is so light-bulby to me this week is that I've been stuck. And sometimes, in spite of the obviousness of the solution, I forget to change perspective when this happens. Trying to move with agility and insight through plot points? Plodding character or scene arcs? Sometimes I feel like I'm boxing in a tub of molasses and the harder I punch, the stucker I get.

Often, all it takes is some time away from the work, or even just a good walk or run. I think really well when I am moving.

But when that's not enough, SEE THINGS IN A WHOLE NEW WAY. Maybe it's brushing my teeth on the bathtub ledge. Or with a cat on my head.

But it could also be taking a walk or a run when I am NOT plugged into my music and lost in my own head. Paying attention to the world around me to see who's doing what and why. Taking an hour at Starbucks without burying my head in a book or my phone. Watching faces and interactions. Listening - I mean, really listening - to the conversations around me.

Ok, yeah, invasive, but aren't all authors?

The point is, getting unstuck means getting out of your own head and out of your normal perspective.

How do you get out of ruts?

Inspiration is Everywhere You Let it Be

Taking your kids to a theme park is part of the parental hazing process -- a necessary rite of passage. Which is why this week, my family drove to Carlsbad, California  to see Legoland.

For kids, this is mecca. That is all.

The kiddoes were over-the-moon happy. They cruised around the park, dipping into the millions of Lego stations to build or play, riding rides, and singing "Everything is Awesome" a lot. A WHOLE lot. And it was fun - in its own special way.  I really truly do love to do things that make my children happy. And spend time together.

The thing is, I'm not a huge fan of theme parks -- they're noisy, smelly, overwhelming. Yuck.

It's the classic irony that as you eddy about from one ride or game to another, carried along by the sea of sweating humanity, much of what you hear and see is crying children. And parents hissing terse admonitions: "We came here to have fun!"

Sigh.
Moment of honesty: I said it once too. *Winces in shame*.

So of course this is the last place I would have expected to wheel right up into a moment of inspiration. Because I had thoroughly forgotten that inspiration is everywhere you let it be.

But behold: Rodin's Thinker - made entirely of Legoes:

Tens of thousands of Legoes superglued (Kra-gl-ed, for anyone who's seen the movie). A work of art lovingly rendered and placed in a central location. Where you couldn't miss it, even if you didn't know what it was.

What's inspiring about a Lego Thinker? The example he sets. You can create beauty out of anything -- even thousands of small pieces of knobby plastic. Which is what my brain feels like most days.

Another moment of revelation -- the beach.

I had forgotten how much I love the ocean. We've been in arid Arizona for 18 months now, and the memory of the breeze, the crash, and the smell have been stunned into submission by the mountains and cacti.

But when we finished with Legoland, we went to the beach ...

Aaahhhhhhh.

While my daughter happily played in the sand and my son and husband romped in the waves. I zoned.

I mean, ZONED. I only got about 5 minutes of that, but it was enough.

Inspiration is everywhere you let it be. The sunshine smell of hot sand, the salt-sweet wind. It doesn't have to come accompanied by a middle-of-the-night dream (although sometimes that's fun) and it often doesn't come on call.

But it can come when you look -- I mean really look, and NOTICE THINGS -- all around you. And when  you don't preordain. As in, "Today I will come up with a brand new, amazing plot idea." (Imagine me saying that in a game-show voice).

More like, "Oh, look. It's Rodin's Thinker. Made out of Legoes." (Imagine me saying that in a Reese Witherspoon You've-got-a-baby-in-a-bar voice).

And then, "Oh, wow. It's the Thinker. Made of Legoes. That's totally cool." That one I said in my own voice.

Blooming Cacti

I've been a bad blogger.

Nothing for more than 20 days - completely ignoring the advice I give my blogging Webinar students. (Like the ones I've been creating a brand new class for).

 Yes, I've been developing new classes, and yes, my family and I also went on vacation. So I (kind of) have reasons.

But. Also.

Been kinda -

Yup. Me and kitty, that's us.

Why? Because - editing.

Got two mss I'm trying to polish, and you know how it is ... eyes crossed, slogging through bad writing you were once very hopeful about .....

And it wasn't until I saw this:

And these:

That I began to feel inspired again.

They reminded me: even prickly things bloom.

Spring in southern Arizona (where I live) is not quite as miraculous as it is in other places - where you've survived Snowtopia and feelings of doom that suggest you'll never be warm again. But even here, in the land of the mundane winter, there is beauty when it's over.

Because things here flower too. Not the things I grew up with: we have no lilac, no forsythia, no hydrangea.

What we have is cacti.

Cacti are not particularly lovely. They're spiky, thorny, unfriendly things that don't need a whole lot of water and thus they live a long time and don't care much if someone doesn't love them.

There's a simile there. (My 8yo is studying simile, therefore I am too).

I think my writing is like the cactus. Not the part where it doesn't need TLC  - all writing  needs that!! But, rather, the part where it's unlovely and unremarkable.

BUT THEN. I remember that similes are only perfect for a small moment in time. Because even the cactus BLOOMS. And then it's remarkable. And everyone stops and looks at it and takes pictures and says, "What an amazing thing this is! How lovely and worth my taking a moment to stop and admire."

So if that can be true of the cactus, it can certainly be true of my writing, no?

Do you ever feel like your writing is like a cactus and you're just desperately trying to coax the blooms from the thorns?