Judy Mayhew

Is anybody else as sick of that phrase as I am? It’s all good. I hear it all the time and it’s invariably used to excuse behaviour that is mediocre. No, it’s not all good. Sometimes, it’s not even acceptable.

Case in point: This morning I forgot my canvas carrying bag when I went to the grocery store. I apologized. The clerk smiled. “It’s all good.” For some reason, I cringed. No, it isn’t. Not having the canvas bag, she pulled out a plastic one. Who knows where that was made? No doubt in a third world country in an unsafe building. It’s all good? Think again. Now I’ll spend the day worrying about those unsafe, underpaid workers instead of writing.

I would have been chagrined, but ultimately more satisfied if she’d pushed my groceries aside and told me to go back home and get my canvas bag. It’s unlikely I’d ever forget again. But instead she used plastic and “it was all good,” leading me to believe I can get away with that every time.

But then I got home and looked up “plastic shopping bags” on Wikipedia and found, to my surprise, that they’re not all that bad. They’re bad, but not horrible. And not only that, a lot of them are made in the US.

So now I’ve wasted my morning worrying unnecessarily and checking out Wikipedia. That’s not good. Except that I kind of sound like David Sedaris here, and that would be really good if I could sustain that style.

It’s all good. Seems the only people who don’t throw that phrase around are agents and publishers. They are well aware that it’s not all good. In fact, much of it is crap.

I know for a fact that my writing is not all good, not by a long shot. There are some gems in my notebook and on my computer, too, but you have to know where to look. And you have to know what to overlook.

One thing is sure—I’ll never let any of my characters say: “It’s all good”, partly because I loathe that phrase and partly because it never is.

Nor should it. And the learning is the best part. Dancers never stop taking class. Figure skaters learn new jumps. Musicians jam. So why shouldn’t writers continue to seek out ways to improve? It feels good to write dialogue that sings. To conjure up a character who is more real than anybody you know. To write a story that will blow your friends away.

A couple of weeks ago, I signed up for Sarah Selecky’s online writing course: Story is a State of Mind. Now I’m immersed in freewriting, character and dialogue. Especially dialogue. My head is filled with characters bombarding each other with speech and I’m trying to detect the subtext of their words.

We’ve all experienced subtext—the frown that belies the “It’s nothing” remark, the smirk spotted through the concerned “Gee, that’s too bad” comment.

Of course, subtext can be positive, too. It can be shy or kind, caring or empathetic. We all use subtext all the time, but writing it can be tricky. You really have to pay attention. You have to watch your character’s eyes after her words have left her lips and travelled across the room.

My field trip is to eavesdrop and to write down actual conversation as it happens. To watch body language and tone, listen for pauses, coughs or throat-clearing—anything that might indicate the words being uttered carry more weight than I can know. And then to extrapolate. Using imagination, I can take the words I hear and construct stories. Big, bold stories. Stories about you and stories about me, without ever mentioning our names.

Be careful. Be very careful if you sit beside me at a restaurant.

I’m listening to the Judy Channel – All Repeats All the Time. No dials to turn, no volume to control, the repeats are there in my head  24/7.

I’m working with four earworms right now. They are the background music to my life. Some writers choose a soundtrack to go with their work, but I don’t have to. Mine are already there and they won’t leave.

I am just a poor boy, though my story’s seldom told. You know that one? The Boxer by Paul Simon. That’s the first one I hear each morning. I’ve learned all five verses and all the li-la-lis.

Next up is I Am a Rock, also by Paul Simon. Paul takes up quite a bit of space in my head. I can picture him in there, sitting on a stool, guitar across his knee, singing right into my brain cells.

Then come the lesser, but more annoying, tunes. Neil Young has pushed his way in with After the Goldrush. I only know one line from the second verse: I was lying in a burned out basement with the full moon in my eyes.

It’s worse when I don’t know the lyrics. I sing the line or two I know and then I have to hum. I hum a lot when Neil is on.

Last is Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. I love this song, but cringe every time it comes around on my four-track loop. The only words I know are: Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah.That’s it. I’ve never taken the time to learn the lyrics. Maybe it won’t go away until I have. Meanwhile, I hum.

So. I’ve heard that earworms are highly infectious.That’s why I’m passing them on to you. I can feel my head clearing already. Thank you.

Oh, no! Is that Gordon Lightfoot’s The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald I hear? Help!

I’ve been reading about war lately. Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried has drawn me belatedly into Vietnam in the late sixties, a place I paid little attention to at the time. It seemed like an American problem and I was busy learning how to be a Canadian mother. I didn’t have time for war. As if anybody has time for war.

I’ve read the title story of Tim O’Brien’s book twice now. I’ve copied out sections by hand into my lined notebook. With respect. Tim O’Brien has looked straight into my eyes from the pages of his book and asked me: Why? Why didn’t you have time to learn about this before?

I have trouble meeting his eyes. I tell him about the motherhood thing, but it’s not enough. We both know that. I should have paid attention to the larger picture then and I should pay attention now.

When I finished The Things They Carried, I bought Going After Cacciato, his fictional account of the same war. Not the whole war, of course, no-one could make sense of that whole war; but a sometimes hallucinatory tale of a few of the guys who found themselves in the jungle, bewildered, lonely, and undertrained—as if teenagers, college-aged guys! can actually be trained to kill strangers.

Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is also a writer’s book. I’ve seen the title on many of the writing websites I troll through, but scrolled on by when I learned that it was a war story. I wish I’d read it sooner. In fact, he tells the reader How to Tell a True War Story. A true war story never has a moral.

If you’re a writer, it’s pretty much required reading. If you’re not, well, it still is.

I opened the closet door in my guestroom recently—a dangerous undertaking, that.

An antique hanging rack, meant for wall-mounting, caught in the hinge of the bi-fold; a relic from my weaving days. Handwoven scarves and tea towels once floated from its arms. But that was then and this is now.

A native deerskin drum sat on its rim in a cardboard box. Oh, yes—a workshop. A vague thought of early morning drumming, easing my body and soul into the day with a rhythmic beat, until I remembered that I was not of First Nations origin. Nor did I  have good rhythm.

On to a box of plastic jars and labeled paper bags, neatly folded at the top. It took a minute to remember I’d ordered non-toxic natural dyes with a plan to hand-dye bags of raw wool for a custom blanket that I would weave on my eight-harness loom. Never opened.

And then the sewing. Several Rubbermaid tubs filled with notions-physical and notions-mental. Projects planned, projects abandoned and leftover scraps from projects completed, including enough finished quilt blocks for a single bed cover. Someday.

Ah, and the wire! Spool after spool of brightly coloured copper wire, expensive copper wire, the remnants from a handwoven wire vest. An art exhibit—made because I could. And did. The vest itself, unbendable (wearable, but only when standing), now lies flat under the bed. But I am one of the few women in this world who knows how to weave with wire and that makes me proud.

On to bobbins of pure linen, bought for weaving gift-worthy tea towels. And four finished, but unhemmed, tea towels, forgotten—apparently deemed too plain for Christmas gifts. Another in red and yellow stripes, with a treadling error if you look close, and I must have looked close.

Good wool: alpaca, cashmere, merino.

I had to sit down and pat myself on the back. I’ve learned so much over the years. Never mind the unfinished ventures—there were so many more that I finished and used or gave to someone else to use. Many were beautiful; a few hung in galleries.

And this didn’t even count my writing, which started as a hobby, but quickly became a passion. Writing supplies are evenly distributed around the house.

Go ahead–open your closet doors. Indulge in nostalgia!

Charles Dickens didn’t use a computer. Neither did any of the dead poets.

So, I tried out a pen this week. That was unusual as my laptop has become my BFF when it comes to writing. It was just a ballpoint and it was just a shopping list, but the ink slid across the note paper with a mind of its own, delighted in its autonomy. Obviously, it needed my fingers and my thumb to hold it upright, but even so, this implement wanted to move. It had things to say, items to add.

And that was a ballpoint. I wondered what would happen if I stopped in at the stationery store and bought a fountain pen. Where would it take me? What if, instead of taking my laptop to my local café to write, I took a nice fountain pen and a notebook made of recycled paper? Would it write me a short story? Add a few paragraphs to my novel? Or maybe it would be into poetry.

So I did. I bought a cartridge pen with sky blue ink and a medium nib. The pen and I are still getting to know each other. It hasn’t opened up and shared its ideas yet, but that’s okay. I’ll give it some time. I’ll push it around the lined pages of my notebook and let it get comfortable. I’m sure it’ll come through for me.

My plan is to take it to the cafe once a week for my morning writing session. And leave my laptop at home. Yes, I’ll leave my laptop at home. That will be the hard part, but it’s only once a week. I’ll take the pen on Fridays. Without my laptop, as I said. I’m twitching already. But I figure without it, the pen will come to life. Together, on Fridays, we’ll write poems and stories. We’ll journal our secrets. We’ll enter writing contests.

Well, at least we’ll fill the pages. Good enough for Dickens, good enough for me. At least once a week.

and that’s all what I yam.

So, no more resolutions. No more promises to be a better person, to eat less, exercise more or anything of the sort. I’ve done all that in previous years, and if I may say so, done it reasonably well.

But I’ve finally resolved to accept myself as I am. What you see (or read) is what you get. I’m as good as I’m ever likely to be.

However, I do have one goal and that is to finish my WIP—that’s work-in-progress to those of you who are not writers. I finished my first draft recently and have been rereading, revising, reducing, reusing and recycling. I’ve moved scenes around, added scenes, deleted a couple of characters and generally, I hope, improved the beast.

But it’s not over yet. Next, my trusty critique partner will have a look at it and, hopefully, offer constructive comments.

The routine is this: write, revise, write, revise, write, revise. Got it? Of course you do.

And eventually, surely, another book will take form. A book worthy of publication. That’s how it works, right?

Right? It worked last time. I hope it will work again.

YES? YES, of course. Who doesn’t have a poet on their gift list? Or someone who appreciates poetry?

Here’s the perfect gift for your poet: YES, a film by Sally Potter.

Sally Potter’s reaction to 9/11 was to write a love story between an Irish-American woman and a Lebanese man, responding to worldly tensions by focusing on one man and one woman.

All of the dialogue and interior monologue is written in rhyming verse. YES, in rhyming verse. The result is enchanting, breathtaking!

The first time you watch this film—and you will, watch it, you’ll finagle an invitation by your poet and you can offer to bring the popcorn—you’ll strain to take in every word. Some of the dialogue is spoken gently, rapidly, so I suggest you spring for YES – Screenplay and Notes by Sally Potter, as well. You can peek through the screenplay before you wrap it up for your poet.

And once you’ve both seen the film and read the screenplay, you’ll watch it again, for the thrill of the chemistry between Joan Allen and Simon Abkarian, and for the pleasure of hearing, once again, the rhyming dialogue.

There, that was easy. You didn’t even leave your desk. And you’ve guaranteed a wonderful evening for you and your poet.

YES, of course you’re welcome!

I’m reading Eating Dirt by Charlotte Gill, a twenty-year tree-planting veteran. Sometimes a book comes along and I’m so impressed with the writing, with the actual use of words, that I have to go back and reread each page.

Yesterday I randomly chose ten pages and listed the words I liked in a brand new notebook, words like: scrounging, wizened, scarified, smear, tactical, blitzes. I came up with three pages of words in just ten pages of the book. I know most of these words—I didn’t have to open the dictionary—but I seldom use them in speech or in writing. And here are more: alluring, cleaved, juxtaposed, unadorned, ensconced, gurgles, unswerving. All of these words have guts.

I often hesitate before using words that call attention to themselves, words like: rudimentary, merciless, juddered or woeful.

I went back to my own writing and realized that my vocabulary could use a little more vitality. It’s easy to become timid, sitting alone at a keyboard. I don’t want to offend anybody. I don’t want my reader to come across an unfamiliar word and stop reading.

And yet, as a reader, I like to be challenged. I want the author to have a good command of the English language. And I want her to bring me up to her level.

So. There will be some revisions. Or maybe some amendments, some rectifications, a reassessment, a reappraisal, or at the very least, a second look.

I’ve also subscribed to Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day. It can’t hurt.

Today’s word: dissemble. Use it or lose it.

Way back on June 17th of this year, I started posting a poem each day because I wanted to become familiar with some good poets before heading off to a Poetry Retreat with Richard Osler on October 17th.

That’s over four months – over one hundred and twenty poems!

I’m back from the Retreat now and I loved it. Richard is a great facilitator and a treasure trove of all things poetry. There were in-class exercises, daily assignments, group study sessions, and lots of time left over to enjoy the grounds of the beautiful Honeymoon Bay Lodge near Lake Cowichan on Vancouver Island, not to mention the wonderful food.

The participants ranged from beginners to published poets. All were warm and welcoming.

As well as coming back with three poems of my own, one of which I never thought I could write, I also have a long list of poets to research and enjoy.

Have you seen the movie “Yes”? The screenplay by Sally Potter is written in rhyming couplets. We were treated to a clip of the movie one evening during the retreat.

Would I recommend the Retreat? You bet I would. Richard will hold another one in March of next year. You can contact him through his website and you can tell him I sent you.

Meanwhile, I’ve decided to continue posting a poem each day. I’m not likely to run out, and it’s too much fun to quit.