About Deborah Auten

This is my year to see if I can add writer to my portfolio.

Working with Your Muse: A Cycle of Creativity

May 15, 2014 By 1 Comment

What is it about the “Muse,” that other great invention of the Greeks, that allows the idea to withstand twenty-two hundred years of human history?

Rene Magritte, The Return

Rene Magritte, The Return

I think it’s because the Muse allows us to make personal both “aha” moments and that otherwise unnameable force which fills our minds and bodies and then flows freely out again to make the work we do sing.

The Muse knows no bounds. The Muse is never blocked. The Muse surprises the hell out of us.

The Muse can also be elusive. Many writers have talked about how to invite the Muse, from scheduling the same times every day to do your work so the Muse knows exactly where and when to find you ready to put in your time. Steven Pressfield in his wonderful book, The War of Art, uses The Invocation of the Muse from Homer’s Odyssey each day before he writes.

For me, my small studio is much like an altar,

studio

filled with things that have personal meaning, from my strange old dolls to cards from my daughter and husband, to stray pebbles and shells.

 

Finding your way, trying ideas from others, hitting upon something that works just for you–is one of the best journeys you’ll ever take.

Part of my own journey was being fortunate enough to be in a workshop with Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes (Women Who Run with the Wolves). She talked of a cycle of manifesting creativity. Here’s a page from my notes:

estes cycle

Here’s the interpretation for the many of you who won’t be able to decipher my writing. At the top is the Zenith, which might happen just as we’ve achieved something good. After that, a post mortem depression can set in which leads to E, for Entropy, losing energy. Next is D, for Death which we can see as La Calavera, the dapper skeleton, the night between two days, part of the Life-Death-Life cycle. In other words, it’s a place where we might despair and feel deadened. The Nadir follows. This is the dark before the dawn, when you question yourself (this is a lousy idea…I can’t do this…). Yet this is when you have the seed of a thought, you’re pregnant and aren’t yet aware of it. After the Nadir is the Quickening–the new idea begins tickling the lining of your brain, the inside of your gut. We nourish it from inside.

To manifest in the world what is inside we Labor. When we get stuck here, it is because we forget our angel of destiny, why we are here in the world. Squint and you can see the Muse as the angel of destiny. Labor with the Angel/Muse, and you dedicate yourself to your Voice. We call the Angel/Muse, the Angel/Muse calls back and we get Energy Rising. You make your string of pearls, one by one. Dr. Estes suggests the prayer to these forces is simple: I will do your work. I am ready and open to do your work.

Dr. Estes went on to say that because we are porous vessels, sometimes those forces don’t always understand human limitations, which can push us into creative fatigue and/or wanting to do too much, to fragment yourself. The key to this is to stay on your unique way, in your unique voice. So I’d add to the above prayer: Help me tell my story in my unique voice.

What ways have you conjured the Muse? How does the Muse work with you?

 

 

Filed Under: All, Blog, Working with your Muse

Writing from the movie in your mind

March 17, 2014 By 1 Comment

You sit down at your computer, and the threads of all those ideas you had just as you drifted off to sleep or were singing in the shower evaporate. A vast white space fills your vision. It’s terrifying, a place of nothingness that you, you and your imagination, must transform into words that will tell your story.

It’s jumping off the white cliffs of Dover, across the face of the moon, or staring for hours at the inside of a gum wrapper, or whatever goblin gets you when it comes time to actually type.

We each have our own peculiar ways to get started. Hemingway’s is great: stop writing in the middle of a scene that’s going well and where it’s clear what will happen next. I’ve also used index cards, like Nabokov, but mostly for ideas and notes for continuity as opposed to entire books and scenes, pulling them out when I’m stuck to get going. I lo-o-ove prompts (in a shameless act of promotion, please see my book, A Writer’s Group Companion: A Twelvemonth of Prompts and Recipes, http://www.amazon.com/Writers-Group-Companion-Deborah-Auten-ebook/dp/B00H6TQP02/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395006754&sr=8-1&keywords=deborah+auten).

movie in your headBut the biggest tool I use is the  book-movie I play in my head. Sometimes I start the movie with a mind’s eye view of the setting, other times with a character or two. I let the scene take shape.  To use an example, one of the two books I’m writing now, my Evie-book, is first person.  Here’s how I begin:

I am Evie, standing in front of a waterfall that hides an opening into a hidden hollow. What am I wearing? Am I chilled or sweaty? Have I been there before? What’s the water doing? How fast does it flow? Do I catch the hint of sunshine on droplets? What color is the rock? Are there smooth pebbles in the stream below? Am I crowded in by trees or in a clearing? What is it about this place that allows Evie to see what others don’t?

I am there, I can smell the pine trees, hear the water and the birds, feel the sun on my bare shoulders. I let the movie roll forward, and now I see the flicker of light behind the waterfall. I steeple my hands and walk forward. The curtain of water parts. I walk through the spray and find the passage, let my fingers graze the rough rock walls on both sides of me. I’m scared, I’m excited, I don’t know what’s ahead. There’s the opening. Through it I see…

You get the idea. Inside the movie, I can stop and look around to see what details pop into my particular vision of where I am, where Evie is. I am in Evie, my heart is pumping, my mind is racing, I’m wondering what I’ll find on the other side. What’s my hand doing? What do I smell, touch, taste?

 

(If you want to see the resulting description, click on “Writing/Books” above; the post is “The Evie-Book, an excerpt from the beginning: http://deborahauten.com/the-evie-book-an-excerpt-from-the-beginning/.)

Getting the movie-in-your head to roll smoothly does take some practice, and relies on images you have or can create from experience (or Google street view…). But as fiction writers, we all have the imagination–we just have to nudge it from the verbal to the visual.

A couple of prompts to get you going:

Here’s a prompt my former writing teacher, Jennifer Owings Dewey, used to use in class, and which might be helpful in movie imagination: find an interesting picture (she loved nature shots, but it could be anything that catches your interest). Write a description with a) absolute objective attention to detail followed by b) an imaginative and subjective characterization of the same image, including your emotional response, which could also turn into a story.

And for those days when my characters stare into space, I get the soundtrack going too, a song or tune that comes to epitomize the feel of the book. For the Evie-Book, it’s from the soundtrack of “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”, the instrumental version by John Hartford and Norman Blake of “I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow.”

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: All, Blog

The Evie-Book, an excerpt from the beginning

March 16, 2014 By Leave a Comment

Right now, this work is called the Evie-Book, in part because the title I had for the many years I’ve been writing this book was actually used in a recently published book (which is a lesson to me!).   Below is the beginning of the book.  If you read my new blog post, you might be looking for this:

waterfall doorMaude says her pincherry possum haw jam called me to her, and I believe it did.   I was hungry that day, a runty-stick thin five-year-old-mouth looking for something sweet.  Daddy had just left to go back to the logging camp, which meant my heart was as empty as my stomach.   We were up in the green foothills above our house.  Mama was busy flapping her arms at the ravens so she could get to the wild raspberries first.  Emmie and Ellie, newborn and tiny, nestled together in their double-wove basket under a mountain maple.  Mountains rose up on every side and the trees so tall and thick I might as well have been in a big green room for all the sun poked through.  I sat there, digging my fists into my cheeks, and figured there just wasn’t enough of me for God to hear me asking for solace.

Until, that is, a potent perfume of syrup floated through the air.  The smell of it took me by the nose and pulled me to my feet.  I left Mama behind to go wander in search of what heavenly brew could bouquet the air like that.

It was some powerful odor, Maude’s special pincherry possum haw jam.  I followed it past the Boogles’ old graveyard patch, up a rock chimney, and only stopped when I got to the cataract at the head of Jillie’s Creek.

The smell there was so thick I could taste every sun-warmed berry, heavy with sweet juice I imagined running down my chin.  I squinted at the waterfall to see if instead of water it had begun flowing berry, but it ran clear as always.  Still, I could swear that was where the smell came from.

I waded into the water and stood before the solid cascade of water.  I leaned closer, let my eyes go, like I was falling through the surface of the water and the world and looking back again from outside myself, from the doorway behind the waterfall.

The doorway.

I stretched my hand out, laughing as the water smacked it.  I pushed my whole arm in, both arms, steepled my hands together and opened a tear in the cascade’s veil.  I ducked through, into the space between mountain face and waterfall and stared at the hidden doorway to a passage through rock to light beyond.  It was big enough for a horse.  I was certain because there was a horse dropping in the middle of the entrance.  I was thankful the possum haw pincherry jam smell was as strong as it was.

I slipped into the opening.   The waterfall dwindled to a faint splash.  I kept to one side, my hand on solid wall, my flyaway hair catching on stone clefts as I walked through.  I blinked in the bright sun as I came through the other side, into a hollow snug as a grass-lined bucket.  To one side a house stood, grey as the bare rocks that lined the hollow. I raised my nose toward it, but by now the smell had fingers which pulled me on, sideways from the house.  I walked past a fresh dug planting bed and a broken down shed, towards the south side of the hollow.  Two boulders had fallen together, leaving a triangle of a doorway.  A triangle of a door, carved all over in vines and birds, stood open between them.  That door was a marvel to be sure, but I was more interested in what was beyond.

 

I stood on the threshold and peered in.  The ceiling of the room in the side of the mountain hung thick with bundles of every forest green you could think of.  Shelves held row upon row of ruby preserves.  Tansy and sassafras hung to dry.  Mulberries soaked in a glass bowl next to a basket of greens.  Hickory bark lay chopped and stacked on a brown stained cutting stone. And in the middle of the rock floor, sunlight gleamed through a smokehole onto a cauldron of wild pincherry possum haw jam simmering over an open fire.

I walked right in and settled down next to the pot, my eyes fixed on that bubbling red goo.  I sucked the flavor into my nose, my guts rumbling louder than the crackling flames.

“You found the door?  Under the waterfall?”

A tall thin woman came out of the shadows.  The wonder in her voice made me tear my eyes from the pot.

“Yes’m.”

She quirked a corner of her mouth up.  “I’m no ‘m.  I’m Maude.  Maude Ambrose.”

“Evie Rowan Ellis.”

She reached out her hand to me, her elbows sticking through the sleeves of her wineberry-colored dress.

“Pleased to meet you, Evie.  I didn’t think anyone knew about the way in here.”

“I just sort of looked, m-Maude, and—I saw it.”

Maude nodded.  “That’s how it should be.”

Her hair flashed red in the stray rays of the sun.  One side of her mouth crooked up and she tucked a stray strand of amber hair back behind her ear.  I swung my eyes and nose back toward the jam pot.

“I come to visit your preserves…Maude.”  Mama taught me to always be polite to old folks.  Maude looked to be close to thirty years gone.

She squatted across the boiling jam pot and handed me a spoon carved from some dark wood.  I dipped it in the simmering sauce.  I blew hard, because Mama always said to.  The nectarean syrup eased down my throat like a good tune.

“Thank you kindly, ma’am,” I said.  I thought of Mama and the little ones, who hadn’t never had any pincherry possum haw jam as good as this one.  I pulled my pearly white clam shell polished with beeswax out of my pocket.

“Ma’am, I hate to be a trouble, but could I have just three more spoonfuls of the best pincherry possum haw jam that ever cooked this side of paradise for Mama, Emmie, and Ellie?”

I remember Maude looking at me with eyes wide and blue, as though a robin had poked its beak in the window to thank her for the millet that winter.

“You have Amazing Grace in you Miss Evie,” said Maude.

I’ve been looking for Grace ever since.

Filed Under: Uncategorized, Writing, Writing/Books

Dream Photo by Deborah Auten

February 3, 2014 By Leave a Comment

bridge 

diamond 

dream 

 

Filed Under: Photographs

The Great Diamond Heist Birthday Party Game

February 3, 2014 By Leave a Comment

This birthday party game for 10 to 12 year olds.
A large diamond ring has been stolen! Who took it?

Download the Game Rules
game-cover

Download the Clues
clues-cover

Filed Under: Delightful Things

“Dulcey Talks to God” by Deborah Auten

July 13, 2013 By

more-bridges-2007-cover“Dulcey Talks to God” is a short story, published in More Bridges: The 2007 San Francisco Writers Conference Anthology.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“You don’t talk to nobody.  You get in the store, get the bottle, you drive back here.”

“Yes’m.”

“You don’t talk to nobody.  I don’t want no trouble.”

“No’m. Can I–”

“Shut up.”

“Yes’m.”

Dulcey took the keys from the hand of the glow-in-the-dark Jesus statue on the shelf by the front door.  Twelve dollars and eighteen cents was in her pocket.  Mama knew exactly how much the bottle would cost.  She opened the door and then shut it quick behind her so the rain wouldn’t come in the front door.  Her shirt was plastered to her before she went two steps.

The door screeched as she slid onto what was left of the front seat of the Chevy.  She stuck the key in and jerked twice right, once left, the only way the engine would turn over and quick-jumped the clutch so the engine caught before it died, and so the mud wouldn’t swamp the wheels.

“God,” Dulcey whispered as she swung onto the road.  The only time Dulcey could talk to God alone was when Mama let her drive the car, like when it was raining real bad. Otherwise, Mama was always there.  When Mama was there, she was the only one who got to talk to God, though mostly it was Mama telling God what to do.

“God,” Dulcey said a little louder.  She chewed her lip and ground the car into third gear.  When you didn’t have the chance to talk to someone that often, it was hard to know what to say.

“God,” Dulcey began again.  She couldn’t ask for God to smite Mama, though Mama demanded that kind of thing of God all the time.  Smiting wasn’t seemly, especially when you were talking about your own mother.  She rolled her tongue against the inside of her lip.  Maybe she shouldn’t have started the conversation if she didn’t plan it out ahead of time.  What if God got tired of waiting on the other end of the line and hung up on her?  She gripped the steering wheel hard as the bad wheel slid off the edge of the wet asphalt.  The Praying Jesus Hands hanging from the rearview mirror rocked back and forth.

Dulcey smiled.  Everything did happen for a purpose.  The skid made the Praying Jesus Hands swing into view and that reminded her of what those TV preachers always said, “Lay it in the lap of the Lord.”

Well, that was a start.

“God, I don’t know what to do.”  She waited a moment, in case God was ready to tell her exactly what to do without needing further explanation.

“God, I’m twenty-three years old today.  It’s my birthday.  Now, I’m not asking for a present or anything, Mama gave me a pair of socks.  But I’m twenty-three and time just seems to be running on, but nothing changes.”

Talking out loud helped some.  Dulcey liked being able to string more than two sentences together without interruption.  Her shoulders eased.  The car stayed on the road, and Dulcey figured it was a sign to go on.

“I’m not one of your better creations, God, I know that.  I’m lacking.  But you know that cause Mama tells you so every day.  My knees are sore from the kneeling, but I’m not complaining, God.  I just want to talk to you myself.”

The rain was beating so hard on the windshield she could hardly hear herself, let alone any other voice.  Was she getting through?  The liquor store was only a block away now.

“God!”  She yelled.  “Are you there?  That’s all I want to know, are you there?”

“Youwn.”

A crackling noise filled the car.  Dulcey glanced at the radio. It hadn’t worked in years.  It was black, as always, not a flicker of light.

“God?”  Dulcey cried again.  Is that you? Are you finally talking to me?

“Ye -sssss.”

The green light of the radio face flickered.  There was no burning bush, but God had fixed the radio so he could talk to her.  God was talking to her.

“Oh, God, it’s so good to hear your voice!  I knew you were there, I knew–”

Dulcey shut her mouth. She was going on like Mama always said she did, not giving God a chance to get a word in edgewise.

“Sto -o”

“What god?” Dulcey whispered.

“Op.”

Dulcey pulled over to the side of the road.  The rain was a curtain between her and the road, the rain was a blanket between her and the cold, the rain was God falling all around her.

“Tell me, God, please tell me, what should I do?  I wish I could leave, I wish I could.  But I can’t, I can’t barely take care of Mama, let alone myself, I can’t. I can’t!”

“Mworrrrr.”

“God?” Dulcey called.

“Mwoorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.”

God was growling at her.

“Are you mad at me, God?”

A noise came from the dashboard, scratching, digging, hissing, like the claws of Satan were trying to get her.  Growls thundered so fearsome and strong Dulcey cowered, her head on the steering wheel.

“God, oh God, oh God, oh God,” Dulcey sobbed.  “I’m sorry, God, I didn’t mean to bother you, I-”

Amber eyes flashed from the well of driver’s side, amber eyes in tawny fur – wet, bedraggled, muddied fur.

“Why!” Dulcey raised her head.  The cat shook itself and leapt onto Dulcey’s lap, pushing its nose on her cheeks.  “Cat, you are soaking!  How’d you get here?  You musta crawled in the engine to get outa the rain, poor thing.  Let’s get you warm.”

Dulcey bundled the cat under her t-shirt.  The cat purred.   Dulcey looked at the dark screen of the radio.  God must have had to go talk to someone else, he wasn’t there anymore.  “God, I got to go now too, got to get this poor little cat outta the rain,” she said, then added, “I appreciate you trying to get through to me, though, I do.”Thanks for trying to get through to me, though.”

She started the car again and drove slow so as not to worry the cat until she pulled into the liquor store parking lot.  She pushed open the car door and got out, holding the cat tight against her stomach to keep it out of the rain until she got inside.

“Honey, what you got there?  The woman behind the counter said.

Don’t talk to nobody, her mother’s voice said.

Dulcey ducked her head.

“Why it’s a cat,” the woman said, “Poor thing, looks cold and wet.  Wait a minute.” She pulled a towel from the side of the bar.  “Here you go, honey.”

Dulcey took the towel from the lady.

“Thank you.” she said.

Don’t talk to nobody!  Her mother screamed in her head.

Dulcey started brushing the cat’s fur with her fingers.  The cat purred louder.

“He yours?” the woman asked.

Dulcey shook her head no.

“Looks like he is now,” the woman laughed, “Look at him.  Why, he knows who’ll take care of him.  You doing a good job, honey.  I never heard so loud a purr.  You take him home now.  He won’t eat much.”

Dulcey looked up.  Take him home?  Mama would kill the cat if Dulcey took him home.  The cat blinked at her.  Mwwor, it said in God’s voice.

“You take care of him now.”

Dulcey looked the lady right in the eye.  “Thank you,” she said slowly. “I will.  I’ll take care of him.”

“Did you want something, honey?” the woman asked.

“No,” Dulcey said, twelve dollars and eighteen cents of liquor-turned-into-gas money burning in her pocket, “I don’t.  Unless I can get a cup of water for the road?”

“Sure, honey,” the woman said, “You got a long way to go?”

“Yes’m,” Dulcey said.

The woman looked at the cat and then back at Dulcey.

“You going to be OK?”

“Yes’m.”

Filed Under: Writing/Books Tagged With:

What Keeps Me Sane

July 1, 2013 By 1 Comment

What keeps me saneThe name says it all:  we’re an eclectic group of writers who meet weekly who are lucky enough to live in the arts‑nurturing environment of Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Members write the gamut, fiction to poetry to nonfiction, but what ties us together is the commitment to our writing and supporting each other.

Our format is simple:  someone brings a prompt each week, we discuss it, and write for anywhere from forty‑five minutes to an hour or more, depending on the number of people there.  We try to leave enough time for each person to read what they’ve written, with comments by the group following.  Some writers’ groups have rules about critiquing; some even refuse to allow much discussion.  Since we began as a “class,” we not only allow but encourage comments, but there are two precepts.

First, the discussion should begin with a positive.  Second, the criticism should be constructive.

There’s a third we try to live by as well, and I use the word “try” deliberately.  We try not to interfere with the story itself too much.  Sometimes we get excited and ideas come bubbling up ‑ and some of us enjoy that process while others don’t.   Most of us have been in the group long enough that we tend to know who is tolerant of what! And when someone new joins, we try to make a safe place where we can learn about each other.  To be as long‑term as we are, and we’ve weathered some ups and downs, respect for each person is paramount.

What underlies everything is that this is not just a cut‑and‑dry, read‑what‑you‑got and isn’t‑that‑nice sort of group.  We support each other through the thick and thin not only of the writing life, but of life itself.  We’ve had one member die; a few, sorely missed, have moved away.  We’ve been through weddings and divorce, court cases, cancer, birth (children and grandchildren), and not least, the despair of everyday wear and tear on our souls.

I have been in this group since its inception – it began in January of 1999 as a seven week class.   Even when life ovewhelms me, when I wonder what the hell I’m doing/have done/will do, I know I will sit down in the quiet of Catherine’s living room and for the space of two hours, I will get to write in the embrace of this amazing soup of women.

Filed Under: All, Blog Tagged With: , , ,