Writers in the Storm

By Charlotte Carter

Athletes are an interesting breed. As a youngster I used to play baseball in a nearby vacant lot and football in the street with the neighbor boys. In school, I was on intramural teams. I was a tomboy but not an athlete.

My daughter came along. She was (still is when she has the time and energy) an athlete. She played soccer and ran track. (Jumping over hurdles is hazardous to one’s knees, she discovered.) She wanted to win, but for her it was more important that she ran ‘her personal best’ at a meet.

My granddaughter is a whole different story. She is a COMPETITIVE ATHLETE. She wants to win! She trains hard. Overcomes injuries. The closer a game, the harder she plays. TO WIN!

I have a lot of writer friends. I’ve concluded they fall into similar patterns. There are those who play at the intramural level. They write but may or may not complete a book. They adore attending workshops.

The next group are journeyman writers. They write and regularly sell. They strive to make the book they are writing just a little bit better than the last book they wrote. They’re orphaned by editors leaving the publishing house, yet they struggle on, change publishers, reinvent themselves. They are Writers.

The COMPETITIVE WRITER is a whole different creature. They are driven! If they make the NY Times list at #56, they angst over moving up two numbers or even staying on the list with their next book. Fear of failure nips at their heels with every success.

In general, I think all people are like these athletes and writers. They go through life at a jog, never training hard enough to achieve their personal best.

Or they strive and work and don’t give up when the going gets tough. (I confess I fall into this category.)

And then come the COMPETITORS in their chosen field. Through both talent and hard work, they reach great heights and achieve success.

There is no right or wrong in this. It just is.

Where do you fit on the competitiveness scale?

Books that leave you smiling
from Love Inspired
Big Sky Reunion, 4/19/2011
Big Sky Family, 11/2011
www.CharlotteCarter.com

Part 2 in a series. Click here for Part 1.

Luxury Tented Camps

All my childhood vacations were tent camping and I looked forward to the excitement of outdoor living for a week.  The summer before my senior year I told my parents that would be the last camping trip I ever took.  After watching all the work my mother did on those vacations, I made my husband promise never to ask me to go camping.

When I planned this safari, I thought, I’ve paid beaucoup bucks to stay in a tent? The juxtaposition of luxury with tent has to be something of an oxymoron.

Permanent tented camps have a raised foundation, plumbing, electricity and hardwood floors with real doors.  My tent had a huge bathroom with two sinks, a “water closet” big enough to put a twin bed in and an even larger shower.  The back of the tent unzipped to an open air porch with a round double futon and a table with two chairs. The electrified fence crackled nearby.  Of course, the fence wasn’t on all day and a tree near our tent connected with a tree on the other side of the fence.

Before dinner I washed a few things and set them outside on the chairs.  After dinner I decided it was too cold and I was too tired to bring in my probably still-wet clothes.  I turned out the light and settled in with my hot water bottle only to hear the patter of not-so-little feet.

I jumped up, couldn’t find the light switch, but ran to the zipper to the porch.  It pulled down easily and I stepped outside, grabbed my clothes and popped back into the tent, zipping it up fast so nothing would follow me inside.

Whew!  Did I just run outside knowing there were wild animals really close?  Good thing there was no light.  But none of those professional photographers (a whole ‘nuther story) on the trip was going to get a picture of my clothes on a baboon!

Three days later, after six hours on the road, I knew we were approaching our second tented camp in the Serengeti because it was close to sunset.  I saw a group of tents in the distance.  Looked pretty much like the tents my dad had pitched every summer.   I’m dreading having to walk to an outhouse—hopefully only once—during the night.

As we got closer, I choked out to the driver, “Is that our camp ahead?”  “Oh, no.  That’s a private party.  Our camp is up on those rocks.”

On the rocks?  Yep, it was. The only canvas was the outside walls and the roof.  And it came with our own butler!  Oh, yeah.  I could get used to this.

Every night during the sunset cocktail hour, the manager of the camp asked us what time we wanted our wake-up call and what we’d like “on the tray.”  If you have to get up at 5:15 a.m. for a game drive, how civilized to be greeted with a tray with a thermos of coffee, warm milk, hot chocolate and freshly made breakfast pastries.  And while we were on the game drive, the butler did our laundry.  It was perfect. Too bad we were only there two nights.

Of course, there was the need for an askari to escort you in the dark.  But never fear, even though there was no phone in the room, the askari sat on a rock all night, positioned to watch over three tents.  If an animal tried to get into our tent or if we had any emergency I just needed to stick out the flashlight and flash it three times into the sky.  The askari would come at a run.  One couple flashed their light when a one-ton cape buffalo leaned against their tent.

I’m still saying prayers of gratitude that I didn’t have to stick my arm out into the night.  One dash in my nightgown was plenty of exposure, thank-you very much.  Oh, and damp clothes dry fairly fast with your body heat—even at 5:30 a.m.

Next week: The game drive experience or “Why I was moved to sing the Indiana Jones theme-song.”

~Fae

Writers In The Storm is delighted to welcome guest blogger, Tara Taylor Quinn! She's at the Romantic Times Conference in Los Angeles, California this week and she's blog-hopping as part of the It Happened On Maple Street International Blog Tour. We're so excited she was able to pop in to see all of us.

Tara will be giving away a copy of It Happened on Maple Street to one of the commenters on this blog. Writers In the Storm will throw all the names into a hat at our critique meeting on April 14^th and pick a single lucky winner, to be announced by Monday, April 18th.

Writers In The Storm – what a great place to stop.  After a week on the road, I kind of feel like a writer in the storm – or one who has what it takes to weather the storm.

I don’t always make it through the storm without getting soaked, but I’ve learned a few things along the way about staying dry when the rain is pouring down.  I shared some of them this week on the road and thought I’d bring one of them along here as well.

If I had to put my life’s dictate into one sentence, it would be this:  Live life from the inside out.  This takes courage.  And work.  But I believe that the time and work are worth the outcome.  Living life from the inside out is essential to deepest happiness.  The painful part is going inside, to those deepest places we mostly like to avoid and find out who is in there.  What does she really want out of life?  What makes her happiest?  Or most unhappy?

Not an easy task.  Most particularly if what we find there isn’t congruent with our lives.  Most times, what we find isn’t completely congruent.  How could it be if we spend our lives avoiding that deep place?  It’s been neglected.  We haven’t tended to that vulnerable being in there, other than to brush it aside because it had demands that were too difficult for us to meet.

Take time to get to know your inner self.  Ask the tough questions.  Listen for the answers.  Just doing that much will help.  Once you’ve been self honest, you start to make little choices every day that are more in keeping with the person you need to be to be completely happy.

Maybe you just tend to one little thing.  You like the smell of roses.  They bring back a memory of something that happened when you were a child – they give the essence of a perfect moment to your deepest self.  And so you find a rose scented candle – or rose scented air freshener.  A rose scented cachet for your purse.  If none of that is feasible, you find a picture of a beautiful rose and put it where you can see it.  It’s a small thing, but the sight of a rose, or the smell of a rose, in the middle of a storm, can change the entire experience.

Sometimes, what we find deep inside prompts bigger change.  But rest assured, if that’s the case, the change was necessary.  It might be painful in the moment – might be uncomfortable, or even frightening – but in the long wrong, if we live true to our inner self, life will be filled with sunshine mixed only with the occasional spring shower.

I was speaking with a woman who has written several books and known a measure of success.  She was trying to get another book out and it wasn’t working.  She’d written the book of her heart.  Was it time to walk away from writing?  I had one question.  Do you want to write?  Do you need to write?  Does writing make you happy?  Are you a writer?

I don’t know the answers to those questions for her.  She might be a writer who is facing the ‘seven year itch’.  She’d been successful, what if she kept writing and met with failure?  What if she put out a book that didn’t sell?  What if she couldn’t find another story as good as the last?  What if she let her fears stifle who and what she really needed to do, to be, to be happy?  What if the practicality of publishing in a changing world played with her mind and she allowed those fears to rule her life’s decisions, instead of letting the more quiet person inside of her be in charge?

Or she might be a person who is not a writer, but who had a story to tell, that she told, but some other path to take as a career choice – as a life choice.

What I do know is that if she looks inside herself, if she asks the tough questions and listens to small voice inside of her, she’ll find her answers.  And the more choices she makes that are congruent to the person inside of her, the person she is, deep down inside, the less she’ll find herself fighting off the downpours, hiding from the thunder, being burned by the lightening.

Life isn’t easy.  It isn’t meant to be.  But it certainly can be happy.  Filled with joy more than sorrow.  It’s up to us to find our joy.

But lets start small.  I have a list of little things that make me happy.  I’ll share, if you will…

Some of mine are:  Diet Coke, the smell of roses, pictures of my daughter, petting my dogs, the twinkle in my husband’s eyes, road trips with him, M&M’s.

What are some of yours?

~~~~~

This post is brought to you as part of the It Happened On Maple Street International Blog Tour.  For a complete tour schedule visit www.tarataylorquinn.com.  All blog commenters are added to the weekly basket list.  Gift Basket given each week to one randomly drawn name on the list.

If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence, or if you suspect someone is, please contact www.thehotline.org, or call, toll free, 24/7, 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) or 1-800-787-3224 (TTY).  The call can be anonymous and is always confidential.  There is not one second of life that is worth wasting.

Next tour stop, Tuesday, April 12, 2011. Click here for the Maple Street Cyber Blog Party.

To get your copy of It Happened On Maple Street, visit your favorite bookseller, or www.maplestreetbook.com. Remember, if you comment on this blog, you get a chance to win your copy RIGHT HERE.

Don’t miss The Chapman Files!  Still available at Amazon.

Beginning April 1, 2001, It Happened On Maple Street is available on Kindle and Nook, too!