Because they can. And I believe in promoting our kids’ natural gifts and talents via the bumper of our motor vehicle.

Not familiar with Slugbug? I have tried three times to write a description that doesn’t put me to sleep, and I can’t do it. So please, just go here so I won’t have to worry that I have put you, lovely reader, to sleep.

You might also remember it by another name: Punchbuggy. That’s what it was called when I played back in the olden days, as Sweetie likes to call my childhood. As in, “Mom? Did you have that chin whisker back in the olden days, too?”

“No, Sweetie,” I say, using my most soothing Soothing Voice. “That’s just something women get when they’re really old.”

And she nods, running her thumb back and forth over the whisker.

My kids, however, have taken Slugbug/Punchbuggy to a whole new level. In fact, my bumper sticker should say: MY KIDS TAKE SLUGBUG TO A WHOLE NEW LEVEL!

Because they have. My kids play it with PT Cruisers, Jeeps, Scions and Mini Coopers. And they don’t just call out, “Slugbug!” They feel compelled to get really detailed and holler, “Slugbug blue old-fashioned convertible with the top down and with a rusty bumper!” Or, “Turquoise PT Cruiser with wood paneling and cool hub caps and a big white dog sticking his head out the window!”

Of course, if there are three people in the car, The Spotter must holler that exact thing three times, giving all three a slug in the arm or the shoulder:

Turquoise PT Cruiser with wood paneling and cool hub caps and a dog sticking his head out the window! Turquoise PT Cruiser with wood paneling and cool hub caps and a dog sticking his head out the window! Turquoise PT Cruiser with wood paneling and cool hub caps and a dog sticking his head out the window!

Well. As someone who’s especially sensitive to sudden, repetitive noise (followed by punching) when she’s depressed, Slugbug is not my current game of choice. And while I certainly cannot blame one certain thing or person or car punching game for my summer malaise, I will say that when, a few weeks back, I decided it would feel really good to “check myself in” somewhere, I knew it had to be a place with little-to-no yelling or punching.

But where does one check oneself in to escape such a thing?

At first, I thought this was my only option:

But that seemed like overkill. Kind of. Plus, I don’t recall that Nurse Ratched was able to quell the yelling and punching.

Then I stumbled, (thank you, God) upon The Whidbey Island Writer’s Refuge.

So I picked the latter option and packed a few belongings, and with Husbandio’s and Grandparentios’ and many amigas’ support, I drove up and over to Whidbey Island where I spent five nights in a little cabin in the woods, calling it my Better Than the Psych Ward Week.

My cell phone didn’t work. There was no TV. No one was yelling, “Black Scion with tinted windows and a California license plate and a mattress strapped to the top!” multiple times.

No one was slugging anyone.

No one was crying because of a slugging.

And in the silence, I read and wrote and slept and went for hikes and ate dinners that consisted of tortilla chips and jar-cheese. I finished Round Two of my novel revisions and got those back to my fab agent. I prayed. I dreamed funny dreams about an ex-beau who broke up with me twice (no, not you, Paul). I did yoga wearing weird outfits. I made applesauce and roasted veggies while listening to the Gypsy Kings. I drank Mike’s Hard Black Cherry Lemonade. I wore no make-up. I shaved no legs. I was basically three whiskers (and a bear) shy of becoming a female Grizzly Adams.

It was fabulous. And so quiet.

But then, of course, I started to miss my children. 

But then, of course, I started to get really lonely.

But then, of course, I started talking to things I don’t normally talk to. The tea kettle, for example, was a chatty kathy of sorts, especially when she’d get all snippy and boily. And I wasn’t afraid to let her know it. Oh, simmer down, Sally. I am trying to write. You think I’m at your every beck and call?

Sally would pout for a moment, then realize I was just kidding, that perhaps she didn’t have to take me so seriously, and I’d pour her water over my tea bag and compliment her on her fine boiling abilities, and we would, once again, be the best of friends.

But that wasn’t all. I talked to the spider babies still ensconced in their egg sacs in the rafters of the screened-in porch.

I talked to the blackberries (before I ate them), the warmest and fattest ones, picked from the brambles that dotted my hiking paths.

I talked to the jar-cheese, Newman’s Own Salsa con Queso, complimenting it on its fabulousness.

I talked to the earnest little nuthatches, so chirpy after the sun elbowed the rain out of the way.

All that talking to kitchen tools, arachnid egg sacs, food and birds, did not happen because I was insane.

Rather, it happened because I was noticing.

It makes me realize how much I don’t notice in my daily life, a tragedy for a writer who relies on her ability to notice things.

When it’s so quiet and there’s no one asking anything of you, when no one’s yelling about cars and then punching you, you have more time and energy to notice things. And when you notice how many perfect and amazing things there are on this planet, spider sacs and jar-cheese to name a few, you want to connect with those perfect things through words. Or in my case, because I was speaking to tea kettles and spider sacs, through monologues.

When I think about it, I’m not surprised that I talked to the tea kettle. Nor that I christened her Sally. After all, fiction writers must animate that which doesn’t exist. We must breathe life into stories and lives and places that exist only in our heads. All this animating and breathing life into things that don’t actually exist requires some dang peace and quiet, so we can notice all the stories that are steaming and boiling right in front of us.

Finally, on the last day, I was ready to come home.

Finally, on the last day, I started missing my kids.

Finally, on the last day, I felt so saddened by the idea of leaving that I got a little teary and panicky.

To calm myself, I breathed life into this story: I will come back here again. I will come back here again. I will come back here again.

And then I went for one last hike, trying to inhale as much solitude as I could, trying to let nature osmosisize right into my skin pores.

Until, ACK! With so much inhaling and osmosis-ing, I nearly stepped on a big old slug, a plump fellow dilly-dallying with impressive slowness right in the middle of the gravel road. Where he could have been killed or worse, licked.

That’s right.

My former classmates from Sleepy Hollow Elementary might recall Fifth Grade Camp where, on a nature hike, we stumbled upon a banana slug of epic proportions. At which point, we were invited to join the Lick a Slug Club, a teacher-sanctioned club sans hazing.

There we were, all twenty-six of us, lining up to lick the back of this poor sot. I was thrilled to be right behind Drew, my crush du jour, because licking the slug right after Drew was basically like French kissing Drew.

Except, as it turned out, right after Drew licked the slug, the slug must have realized he didn’t have to take this anymore. Apparently, just as I bent down to French kiss Drew via a slug’s back, the dear fellow started secreting some weird numbing agent that made my tongue both slimy and numb.

Served us right. Here he was, probably just out running errands for his wife or maybe training for a triathlon. And then, boy howdy!, out of nowhere there’s this mass of eleven-year-old kids queuing up to lick him. That was probably the weirdest day he had ever had. We deserved to be numbed.

So last week in the woods, when I happened upon this plump fellow, probably a banana slug based on his over-ripe banana peel colored skin, I paused to take the time to notice him.

I squatted over him, marveling at how he was, in fact, making forward progress while not appearing to move a muscle. And I decided it wasn’t good form to monologue with a tea kettle but not monologue with a slug, especially in spite of (or maybe because of) the bad blood between me and whichever ancestor had secreted slime on my tongue circa 1982.

So I got my face real close to his.

“Slugbug banana slug,” I whisper-yelled into his ear. “Slugbug banana-colored banana slug, with big Don Knotts antennae, moving very slowly across the road, dragging a piece of twig along with his slimy underside!”

Then, instead of punching him in the arm, I blew him a little kiss, thinking he’d prefer that to getting licked by a strange woman on a lonely gravel road.

And that’s when I missed my kids a lot just a little. Because it’s not quite as much fun to play Slugbug with a slug. It’s a lot quieter, sure, but I get to have more than just monologues with my children. I can make my kids laugh in a way that I can’t make a spider egg sac laugh. My kids can make me laugh far harder than jar-cheese can.

This week away reminds me of that concept of seasons, that there is a time for everything. A time to be silent and a time to speak. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to tear down and a time to build. A time for enduring loud, punching car games, a time for solitude in the woods. A time to talk to tea kettles and slugs and NOT be accused of insanity because, ha ha!, no one’s around to hear.

If I can have these small slices of quiet and peace amid this much longer, louder, more punchy season of Buddy’s and Sweetie’s childhood, then maybe that’s enough to sustain me. Maybe.

Now that I’m back home, I miss my Better Than the Psych Ward friends a little terribly. I miss my sassy Sally. My wee spider friends, too. The chirpy birds. My slug boyfriend. Of course, I miss the jar-cheese. Jar-cheese really does have a decent sense of humor. I miss the quiet most of all. The peace to notice all the less punchy, less yelly aspects of life.

But I’ll be back when I need another week to recharge, when I feel like I can’t really do my job(s) well anymore. When I feel like I need to remember to notice all the things that are too quiet to garner my attention over the sounds of my children, two creatures whom I love a lot with a love so big it roars in my head and my heart. A lovely sound, Love. So noisy in my heart and my brain and in every breath.

You see, I also had to finish preparing for my second of eight classes for my “Fan Your Creative Flames” writing course, held last night. Blame my first ‘zig’ in the road  on my ‘technology-dependent’ career. It used to be that a stone table and chisel or a quill and pigeon blood was all a writer needed. But not any more. Now, computers and printers are required and are great—when they work.

Yesterday was one of those days when they didn’t work. Trying to fix my printer ate up three hours of my dedicated writing time. The solution? E-mailing my docs to the nearest Kinko’s , and driving through   rush-hour traffic to pick them up.

Then I decided headed to my brother’s café (Brown’s Coffee Café) in Shoreline, where the class is held after the shop closes. Surely, I’d get something written before the class! But again technology forced me to ‘zag’ when a “Login failed” message popped up before my computer screen went black. When attempts to reboot didn’t work, I drove home hoping that my genius husband would be there to solve my technical woes.

He wasn’t.

Instead, my genius daughter (and personal hero), Kate, fixed it!  Back to the café, only to encounter the next ‘zig’—a PowerPoint presentation that froze with every slide.

It was a great class, despite the tech issues, but I was starting to get a bit paranoid! And by the time the class was over, bed was beckoning. As it turned out, however, my rocky road to the end of the day was about to take me over a cliff.

Olive, one of my students, stayed behind to help me pack up and somehow, I managed to lock us into the hallway of the building with no escape and no phone! Visions of a cold night on the hard floor with banks of fluorescent lights glaring at us left me a bit shaky. Luckily, Olive (my other hero) is much better prepared for disaster than I. She had her cell phone in her hip pocket and I called my brother Neal, who thankfully listened to my message even though he didn’t recognize the number.

Things improved markedly after that. Neal rescued us and we headed to the North City Bistro, where owners Larry and Pat provided us with a delicious bottle of Pinot Grigio. I finally arrived home about midnight only to discover I had a huge ink spot on my lips that no one had mentioned.  Like I said, it was one of those days.

The Writer’s Refuge Secret Sauce

The sloughing got tough for a few hours and I almost gave up and went out. But with a fire popping in the wood stove, I had no desire to go out. That feeling of safety, tranquility and comfort fed my desire to stay put and write. But it’s solitude that is the magic ingredient in the Writer’s Refuge secret sauce.

Rocked in the bosom of nature

Nature abounds out here. Being plunked down in the middle of it, with time for silent reflection, has renewed my ability to focus. And I’ve been forced to pay attention to an uncomfortable realization: at home, I shoehorn my writing into my daily schedule. It is not, no matter how I kid myself, the priority of my daily life. Writing is my personal ‘favorite thing to do.’ And as such why don’t I do it first, instead of putting chores and other obligations ahead of it? Okay—enough ‘confession time.’  Anybody else out there who wants to make writing a real priority? I recommend solitude! (I recommend The Writer’s Refuge!)

Synchronous signs

As I look out the window to the left of the writing desk, I see the top half of some very tall trees that grow in the ravine that semicircles the property. There’s a patch of grass between the cabin and the slope and for the last few days, I’ve watch a brown rabbit nibble away at fresh shoots of grass. I’ll have more to say about this rabbit in subsequent posts. There was also a perfect nest that fell from a tree into the path where I couldn’t miss it. I’ve been contemplating that empty nest for the past few days as well. I take all these signs from nature as messages for serious consideration. Sometimes it takes me a while to figure out what the cosmos is saying to me, but synchronous signs always carry a message that I try to listen to. Here, in the quiet of the forest it is so much easier to pay attention—to be open and at one with the Whole.

Last night as I slept out on the porch (thanks, Petra), I watched the quarter moon travel across the sky. I drank in its milky light, and cocooned by cool air, I fell asleep with a smile on my face. I’ve tucked as much of this peace tranquility as I can inside my pockets for my return home and I’m really looking forward to teaching my writing class tonight.

Good-bye, dear Foxglove. I will miss you, until next time. Yes, there will be a next time and I hope it’s soon.

The fire is blazing in the wood stove and I’m listening to my beloved Lesley Gore wail, “It’s my party!” on You Tube and thinking about how I didn’t work on my book today. My inner critic is telling me that I came to the Writer’s Refuge to do just that. I’m soothing the old gal and telling her that it’s quite okay. This is MY writing retreat and I’ll write what I want to—even if it isn’t what I had planned on doing.

A worthy change of writing plans

Foxglove cabin was a bit chilly when my cell phone alarm went off at 4:45 a.m. But it didn’t take long to warm it up with a fire in the wood stove.  Then I put the coffee on speed (French) press!

Despite my self-made promise to launch into my book, I was plagued by some SEO problems I hadn’t yet solved for Petra Martin, creator of this wonderful place. As a huge fan of her Writer’s Refuge on Whidbey Island, I’m helping her come up with a Search Engine Optimization plan and a Content Strategy, so that writers like me can find out about the great opportunity for a writing vacation or getaway. As far as I’m concerned, the Writer’s Refuge is the place to come for creative solitude and I want the world to know it! (Random thought: if the world is coming to The Writer’s Refuge—I better book MY time now!)

How do writers search for a writing cabin or cottage?

While I am a practiced content strategist, SEO is a well that I’ve never dove into very deeply before. My dive mistress on this journey is Marianne Sweeny of Daedalus Information Systems. Just take a look at her website and you’ll see she is the real deal when it comes to Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, User Experience Design and Information Architecture.  Marianne has graciously been guiding me through the discovery phase, where we’re determining the core metadata list, looking at the page code (her specialty—not mine!), linking and social network strategies and the possibility of paid search.

Given that Marianne was making the trip to Whidbey today to meet with Petra and me, I spent some morning time working on refining our core metadata list (the list of terms or keywords that people use to find what they’re looking for).

How did your find the Writer’s Refuge? Let me know. I love ethnographic research!

After that work was done and before I left to pick Marianne up at the Clinton ferry dock, I spent time adding slides to the course I’m teaching on Thursday (June 9^th) for beginning writers. It’s after hours at my brother Neal’s coffee shop, Browns Coffee Café in Shoreline.

It’s 8 p.m. now. The birds are singing their good-night songs.  I’ll probably try to write SOMETHING—a paragraph, a page —for my book before turning off the lights. I like to keep my promises to myself—and to my characters. They probably had things to say today that I didn’t take the time to listen to. My bad. But there is always tomorrow.

Night, all!

Oh, what a beautiful morning!

This morning serenading birds served as my alarm clock, awakening me to the buttery dawn. I walked outside in my bare feet and breathed the cool moist air. Then coffee made in the French press pot, a bowl of hot quinoa cereal, and I settled in to a day of creativity.

Well, almost! I admit that I had more than my novel-in-progress to be creative about. I brought a few other ‘must do’ projects’ with me. Why is it that other projects come first, even in my precious ‘away’ time to write? Does that happen to you too? Is it self-sabotage or is it real life, when the call of creativity takes a back seat to reality? Fiddle-dee-dee! Like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, I’ll think about that tomorrow. (At least today I balanced these two opposing forces!)

Tick-tock, tick-tock

I kept myself on a strictly timed schedule. Two hours to do this—two hours to do that—then a lovely lunch (if I do say so myself), a walk down a quiet country lane and back inside the well-appointed cabin to ‘my’ desk. I plunged into my book right away and spent several hours soaking in my characters, plot problems and ever-shortening list of tasks I have to complete before my novel is done.

By the time I stopped, I felt all pruney and happy from being immersed in my fantasy world so deeply, for so long.

I can’t wait for tomorrow! I’ll attempt to get up at my usual 4:45 a.m. and launch into writing several pages that I outlined today so that I can accomplish my page count goal for my stay at The Writer’s Refuge. Wish me luck. I’ll tell you how it goes, if you want to tune back in!

Happy writing to you, too.

Writing and parenting. Is it possible to do both?

This blog is inspired by a lovely young woman I met at a recent screenplay reading. An actress and a writer, as well as the mother of two young children, she seemed to be searching for a recipe to help balance her creative desires with her maternal instincts and responsibilities.

I recognized the battle-weary expression on her face. As a society, we do little to help women grapple with this dilemma, although to be fair, there are lots of men out there who face the same issues. We all have our day jobs, some of us have family obligations and if we’re also blessed with creative urges, we suddenly find these different ‘selves’ competing for a finite pot of time.

Many years ago, as a young mother, my creative hormones spilled over and I had to write! I couldn’t help myself. Not knowing how to get started, I took a class from a wonderful woman named (Roberta) Jean Bryant who had written a book called, “Anybody Can Write.”

For my first assignment, I wrote an essay about Jean. With her permission, I interviewed some of her former students, one of whom was a Hugo Prize winning author with five (yes, FIVE) children. When I asked her how she found the time to write with that many kids (feeling like an instant failure because I could barely write with two), she described how she made her children a part of her writing life. She plopped her typewriter (I told you it was a long time ago) down on the dining room table and pecked away at her story while chaos reigned around her. When she was ready, she would read her work to her children and get their opinions. When she had to focus on a passage or a page, she asked her kids to cope for themselves by pretending she was on a visit to another country.

My essay went on to win a minor prize at a long ago Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association competition. Although the prize money came in handy, the real reward for me was this woman’s wisdom. (Note to new writers: keep copies of all your work—I didn’t keep copies of mine, so I can’t mention her by name!) I did everything she did—including telling the children that I was going to France (my daughter’s choice of country) when I needed them to be quiet.

As a writer of children and young adult stories and scripts, it was perhaps easier to share my work with them than if I had written in another genre. I shared it with their friends, too,by reading my screenplays in my children’s classes and asking them to draw pictures of their favorite scenes. I still have a box of their drawings. (But not my essay? Hmmm).

Looking back, I’m proud of my ‘holistic’ approach to my ‘writing life.’ Instead of dividing my life into segments, I lived it, for better or worse, as a whole. My children, all grown up now, still read my work and have developed creative interests of their own. And yes, I still write in the midst of chaos. Although, now it’s my grandchildren (three of them!) making the noise in our multigenerational household. When I do have to escape, I have my own room under the stairs with a sign, courtesy of my husband, Tom, which reads, “Entering France—Passport required.”

This was my way of making it work (and it’s still a work in progress). Obviously, it’s not for everyone.  But if you want to write, I encourage you to keep searching for a meaningful way to fold writing into your life. Let me know what works for you. Maybe it will work for someone else, too.

To get an updated version of Jean’s book, see the sidebar.