Inspiration - Van Gogh and Clapton

I'm sitting in my writing chair, tears streaming down my face. It's Vincent Van Gogh's birthday and in reading through the many well-wishes on Twitter, I ran across this clip from a Dr. Who episode. Give it a watch:

By the way, I looked it up and the clip is from Doctor Who, Series 5, Episode 10. This comment on YouTube by an art historian perfectly sums up my reaction:

AJ Vargas

3 weeks ago

I've never seen an episode of Doctor Who, but as an art historian, the thought of this man who was mentally ill, tormented, depressed seeing how revered and loved he is by the entire world will never not make me weep.

It also happens to be Eric Clapton's 76th birthday. Thank you, Mr. Clapton, for making such sweet music. Here he is performing Running on Faith, one of my all-time favorites from his Unplugged MTV sessions:

 

That's all. Just wanted to share. Hope y'all have an inspired day and week. April is around the corner.

Happy Spring!

That Rebel, Olivia J. Herrell, writing as O. J. Barré

O. J. Barré is the author of the Awen trilogy, a pre-apocalyptic urban fantasy set in 2042 Atlanta. Steeped in current, ancient, and future history twists, Book One, Awen Rising debuted July 2019. Book Two, Awen Storm, released May 2020. Book Three, Awen Tide, arrives in Fall 2021. The Awen prequel, The Druids of Marduk, is also available on Amazon.

Don’t Fight the Muse. She Knows What She’s Doing.

What do you do when your muse is silent? Throw a hissy fit? Sulk? Play the blame game? Me too. But instead of working, these anchor me deeper into the depths of despair.

Don’t you love it when your muse is singing? When she rises in the morning, and dances around the room, whispering sweet everythings in your ear? When she sits with you at the keyboard and pours her heart into your prose?

Me too.

via GIPHY

But what about her silence? Those times when she delivers neither inspiration, nor words?

I am learning to love these too.

Why?

Because I have discovered my muse always has a reason.

She knows what she's doing.

When nothing flows - the words, the motivation, the ability to be still and write - it is time. Time to stop tormenting myself. To stop churning and surrender to the wide-open yonder. Let go of the need to push on, and through.

I dislike the term “writer’s block". Always have. Yet many a dry spell has shaped my writing experience, including a year-long "block" in the middle of AWEN RISING. Now I finally understand.


via GIPHY
When I am unable to write, it's because I have nothing to say.

Why?

Because I haven't stopped to listen. Or I am headed down the wrong road. Or there's work to be done before proceeding.

Like researching new settings, names, legends. Or sitting in silence, watching the morning light play on the swift-moving clouds, allowing space for the next thread to appear.

I am learning to trust the muse - because she always knows.

What to do. Where to go. Who to bring along. When to humor wayward characters. How to distinguish the good gals from the bad.

On encountering a deadend while driving, what do you do? Stop, reassess, check the map. Maybe find a new station on the radio. Turn right, left, or flip a U-ey to backtrack.

When hitting a literary wall, we can do the same. Crank the radio. Dance a jig. Run errands. Take a drive. Let the mind wander. Move from the desk to a comfy chair. A cafe. A coffee shop.

I am down to the last scene of AWEN STORM, Book Two of the AWEN trilogy. The main characters are within spitting distance of the final hurrah. And while I’ve known for a long time how this leg will end, and had plans to polish it off this morning, I encountered a wall of resistance.

It sent me out for groceries, in the pre-dawn hour. To Walmart where I loaded up on sugary treats after a brief embargo. McDonald’s for a Egg McMuffin, oh yes I did. Then Winco, because I forgot the crackers.

Back home, I sorted a weeks' worth of clothes and lugged them downstairs. Loaded the washer. Took towels out of the dryer. And in the middle of the laundry room, my muse whispered.

"The ending is already written."

You  mean that cool scene we cut from the prologue of Book One?

"Yessss. That's the one. That's your ending."

OOHHH! WOW! HOLY MOLY!

My muse isn't being mean. She’s not punishing me. And there’s nothing I have done to offend her. She is calling me to listen. To be still and know.

In this case, extra words would be wasted effort.
The ending is done.

So lighten up. Surrender to the silence. Let your mind wander. Let it play. Your muse will whisper, and you will hear. And the silences will grow shorter and shorter. 

~ That Rebel, Olivia J. Herrell, writing as O.J. Barré

O.J. Barré is author of the Awen trilogy, a genre-bending fantasy set in 2042. Steeped in current, ancient, and future history twists, the Awen series offers danger, adventure and romance for a cast of modern-day druids, dragons, reptilian beings, and magical animals. Book One, Awen Rising, will be released August 1, 2019. Book Two, Awen Storm, in 2020. And Book Three, Awen Tide, in 2021. A prequel set in Medieval France is also planned.

That Rebel is LIVE (via VLOG), Overcoming Writer's (Or Any) Block

Good morning, All!

Now that I am living in Idaho (and the world is my oyster) I have made several major decisions and life choices that I will be sharing with you. Today I talk about one.

I created a YouTube channel in my author penname, one I will use to VLOG.

A VLOG is a BLOG, only in video version. This is something I have feared, but doing the live workshop with French Press Bookworks and James Stryker finally freed me from that terror.

I don't have to be beautiful. The video doesn't have to be perfect. I don't have to be clever. Or charming. Or anything else.

I just get to be myself.

This past weekend, I recorded my first VLOG. Faced with the prospect of being days behind on my word count for @NaNoWriMo 2016, I realized why.

In order for me to write, the story must first live in my head. Once I see it, I can create it through words. But until then, I'm screwed and can't write a decent sentence. Though I'd been back through my notes, the threads dangled loosely in my mind and refused to come together.*

So here, my friends, is my first VLOG. What I do to overcome writer's block, to release the muse, that genius in my head/soul that grabs the ideas and creates beautiful worlds through words.

But it's also for anyone who has hit a wall and are unable to continue, whatever the issue.

No, it is not perfect. I am still learning. I now know to hold my iPhone sideways in landscape mode so that the image isn't squeezed to the middle of the frame. (If you're viewing it mobile, there's an icon you can press in the lower right corner (on my iPhone, anyway) that will allow the video to fill your whole screen.)

CLICK HERE TO WATCH MY VLOG!

I hope you enjoy! And please subscribe to my YouTube channel, you won't be inundated with spam. I promise.

But you will help me out. And that is greatly appreciated.

That Rebel ~ O.J. Barre'

The Old Man and The Sea

As the last few days of 2013 play out, I find myself looking about for projects left unfinished. There are many. I won't go in to the mile-long list (or maybe I should), but one such was Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man And The Sea.

I began it several months ago, after finding it at Underground Books, a sweet little Used shop in Carrollton. How did an avid reader like me make it five decades without reading it? Who knows.

I was astonished that the paperback was so thin. It weighs in at only one hundred and twenty-seven pages. Yet it landed Hemingway a Pulitzer. And a Nobel Prize.

Read it. You'll understand why. The man's a genius.

Each sparing word is carefully selected and loaded with feeling, every line a feast for the senses. I kept taking it with me to read at lunch. Invariably, after a few paragraphs, or at most a page, I would be in tears, emotion swelling until it couldn't be contained, sometimes slowly and at others lightning-quick.

As you can imagine, I didn't get far reading it that way and so the novella ended up on The Pile. To be honest, and this will sound silly, I was afraid to finish, afraid I wouldn't like what was coming. 

The main character, Santiago, whose name I only remember because it's mentioned again at the end, is a simple man, a fisherman. He is the bravest, most honest and heart-rending character I may've ever met and I'm sure I've not met a real person like him. Unassuming, determined, stoic, strong and maybe just a little bit crazy. Yet not.

And Hemingway? Pure genius.

What is your favorite Hemingway work? Has any book affected you the way The Old Man and The Sea did me?

"The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway's most enduring works. Told in language of great simplicity and power, it is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal -- a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream." ~ Amazon

On Letting Go

The assignment? Write a letter to the girl who torpedoed me last year with her SUV, to write the damn thing and burn it. The order came on Wednesday, yet here I sit, on Saturday night, the task as-yet undone. I've begun it in my head, something like this:

Dear stupid bitch who effed up my life, (not really, that magically appeared when I started typing)

A year has passed since the day you hit me, the trauma that keeps on 'giving'.

I still can't believe you rear-ended me, in my two day-old Benz, nor worse, the insane way that you did it. When I tell the story, I get a dumbfounded look, and the typical reply of:

"You what?"

Eyebrows raised in still-astonished (and disgusted) agreement, I will repeat the bizarre, "I was hit from behind while driving down the road doing the speed limit."

"YOU WERE WHAT?" unfailingly comes the screech.

Yes, really. I was driving the speed limit, minding my own business, happy and satisfied, humming. After five months of arduous searching, I was finally in the perfect car. Then you happened along, barreling down the road (with a child in your belly no less!) not looking at where your 'missile' was headed. You endangered our lives, and for what? Were you texting? Reaching for something? Digging in your purse? 

Whatever you were doing, girl, damn you. Just. Damn you. You certainly damned me.

Do you understand that what you did was careless? It was dangerous, and negligent, and all sorts of stupid. You hurt me, and likely hurt you and your unborn baby. Does your jaw and face ache so deeply that you can't eat or think? Do you hobble from hip pain? Do your hands go numb when you're driving?

Do you think about the woman (ME!) that you hurt?

A less-enlightened me would say: I hate you and wish you harm. Yet how can I despise you, without despising me? I can't and I don't, though my body still carries the pain, and the poker-hot sear of anger.

I only hope that you learned a lesson and will never again endanger another life. This is my prayer. For you. And for me. May we be healed of any and all injuries - physical, mental, emotional and spiritual - that were sustained as a result of that ill-fated whack/attack.

Finally, may this letter mark the turning point from which I/we walk forward free: of restriction and pain, anger and blame, invisibility and unimportance and any remnants left nagging or undone.

Bygones.

And so it is. It is done. Thank you, God.

I will burn this letter, yes. But not in to obscurity. In to infamy. On my blog. For the record. For prosperity. But most of all, for the healing. Mine. Hers. And anyone else's who might happen along here and need it.

Let it go, dear body. Let the bitter, venomous outrage drain away, Master psyche. Let it go. To nothingness. And beyond. Let it go. It is gone.

In place is the memory of calm. And reason. And the deep, strong will to heal.

~ Olivia J. Herrell

I Believe I Can Fly

Click on over and tell me what you think:

My 2011 Goals, The Short List

Really.

"I believe I can fly,

I believe I can touch the sky..." ~ R. Kelly


Sunset Day Four, Great Southern Snowstorm 2011

Thank you all for supporting my dreams

and for sharing your own with me.

You give me the strength to carry on
and the inspiration to believe.

~ Olivia J. Herrell

Inspiration Arises with Quiet

Some day soon this will be the view from my porch

Federal Debt and oil prices are rocketing through the roof again and, while this pisses me off, something more basic is plaguing me today. Once more I'm giving away my quiet time.

Last March I posted about this very thing and just rereading the article quiets me. So I'm sharing with you. Maybe you'll get your own little piece of zen and a resolve to reclaim your quiet time.

In the Quiet of Morning

I realized this morning that I am a little off-kilter. Well, maybe a lot. The realization has been sitting there, staring me in the face. Guess I've been too 'busy' to let it in.

I finally tore myself away from the computer and sat on the steps in the sun. It's still chilly here in North Georgia, 31 degrees when I went out. I put on my Koolaburras, grabbed a throw to wrap around my legs and donned my uberheavy Brian Head sweatshirt. I took my breakfast with me, a handful of raw walnuts, a plum and the last inch of green tea in my cup.


This is what has been missing in my life. Sitting. Being quiet. First thing. To start my day. This is what feeds me. CLICK to read the rest of the article.

You can also see that, while the writing has vastly improved in the last 10 months, the voice remains the same. At least that's my take. What's yours?

Do you treat yourself to quiet time? Is it sacred?

~ Olivia J. Herrell

Genre Hopping Crazy Lady?

"Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart - Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens." ~ Carl Gustav Jung

RaShelle at A No. 2 pencil stat! asked the question, "Where do you draw your inspiration?".

In Bridge Across Forever, Richard Bach (one of my favorite authors) shares the following :

What was the question? ...Oh. Where do I get my crazy ideas? Answer: sleep-fairy, walk-fairy, shower-fairy. Book-fairy. And in these last few years, from my wife. Now when I have questions I ask her and she tells me the answer. If you haven't already, I'd suggest you want to find your soulmate, as soon as you can. Next question?

I've always loved this answer, because it's pretty much true for me, too. (The fairy part, not the soulmate part, I'm mateless at the moment.) I just have to pay attention and listen.

The title for my current wip, Churches, Chickens and ChiChi's came to me while driving, from the car fairy, one word at a time. The day the third word fell in to place, I was driving home from a seminar and by the time I reached the house, I had the premise, the main character, several of the supporting characters and much of the storyline. Thank you, car fairy!

I'm now a third of the way through the first draft of that novel, a southern women's fiction with a big smattering of romance and some rauch. As I've mentioned a time or two, I don't multitask well, so when the idea for a new novel, in a totally different genre starting niggling at me a few days ago (during meditation), I told the meditation fairy, "thank you for sharing" and wrote the idea down for later. Later being when I'm done with this first draft.

Today, while sitting for meditation, lo and behold, instead of giving me more insight on where to take my current wip, little niggle insisted on being heard and handed me the premise, the main character, several of the supporting characters and much of the storyline for Novel Two. And it's SciFi. Go figure. Thank you, meditation fairy!

Which brings me to a post by Roland Yeomans at Writing in the Crosshairs a week or so ago. He said he writes in the genres that most influenced him as a child and asked what books we had read back then and whether we find that same corollary in our own writing.

At first, I had a hard time remembering what I'd read (after all, that was a long time ago and I was an avid reader from the time I first started putting sentences together). But his question engaged my rememberer, and I realized that my reads were all over the place. I genre-hopped like crazy. If it looked interesting, I would read it, even when the subject matter was way over my head.

But I was pretty sure I had not read any southern women's fiction or 'romance' back then (though every good novel has a smattering of romance).

Now I get it. Heaven help us. I started out reading all over the place so it's not unlikely that I would write all over the place. The trick will be to have some common thread because I'm pretty sure agents and publishers frown on genre-hopping.

Does Roland's theory hold true for you in your writing? Any words of wisdom out there for a genre-hopping crazy lady?

In the Quiet of Morning

I realized this morning that I am a little off-kilter. Well, maybe a lot. The realization has been sitting there, staring me in the face. Guess I've been too 'busy' to let it in.

I finally tore myself away from the computer this morning and sat on the steps in the sun. It's still chilly here in North Georgia, 31 degrees when I went out. I put on my Koolaburras, grabbed a throw to wrap around my legs and donned my uberheavy Brian Head sweatshirt. I took my breakfast with me, a handful of raw walnuts, a plum and the last inch of green tea in my cup.

This is what has been missing in my life. Sitting. Being quiet. First thing. To start my day. This is what feeds me.

Lately, I seem to get out of bed, make my tea, then sit down at the computer. I first check Intellicast for the weather. Then off to Facebook, reading messages and comments,perusing friend updates. Since my friends are on both coasts, and cover three time zones, this takes awhile. I read a few articles, watch a video or two, pick up news, giggles and inspiration along the way. I comment, when so moved.

Eventually, I make my way to email, which is pretty sparse these days. I haven't seen patients in almost three months, so nothing from them. And, oh, how I miss those emails from my sweetheart. Guess those things fall by the wayside when you live together.

A week ago I added Twitter. And now, post-Twitter, there have been days I've been sucked in to the computer from early morning until mid-afternoon.

No wonder I'm off kilter! My morning ritual has gone bye-bye. There has been no sitting in silence savoring my tea, no listening to my muse. No journaling. No introspection. No inner thought food.

Yes, I've been learning Twitter, which is intimidating and mysterious. I'm now aware that it is a great tool for getting my writing seen; by magazines, news services, agents, other writers, and publishers, just to name a few. I get to follow William Shatner, who signs his tweets 'Bill'. I've made many contacts, including Deep South Magazine and Hello North Georgia, and a few of my blogposts were tweeted by WNEG.

Yesterday, after facebook and twitter and emails, I spent the afternoon painting my new office, slathering great gobs of dark, olive green paint over yuckey comet green walls. Alone for four hours, in that quiet old building, I had plenty of time to think. But there was too much noise in my head, all those twitters, and messages and that weird dream that needed analyzing. Turns out that dream just pointed me back to this same thing:

After 19 years of quiet morning time, I need it as much as I need food. It feeds my spirit. This is the time when I replenish. Am inspired. Commune with nature. Talk to God. This is where I find my center and anchor in. This is the place from whence miracles spring. My morning quiet time.

In the noisy clamoring of cyberspace, I'd forgotten. I used to tell folks that I get up by 7, but I don't do people until 10. I've been breaking my own rule. Just because they're in the computer and not standing in front of me, they're still people.

Oh. Yeah.

BTW, I miss you...

The Bridge Builder

~by Will Allen Dromgoole

A pilgrim, going a lone highway,
Came at evening, cold and gray,

To a chasm, deep and vast and wide.

The old man crossed in the twilight dim.
The chasm held no fears for him.
But he paused when he reached the other side
And built a bridge to span the tide.

"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim near,

"Why waste your time in building here?
Your journey ends with the close of day,
You never again will pass this way.

You've crossed the chasm deep and wide.

Why build ye here at eventide?"
The pilgrim raised his old grey head,

"My friend, in the path I've come," he said,

"There followeth after me today
A fair-haired youth who must pass this way.
The chasm which held no fear for me
To the fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim.
My friend, I am building this bridge for him."

Today I navigated Kanan pass from the Ventura Highway to the Pacific Coast Highway, passing through canyons, past vineyards through three tunnels and lots of curves. After cresting the Santa Monica Mountains just past Backbone Trail, the ocean lay before me, her vista bared, in all her winter glory. This time of year, the ever-present marine layer is stripped away, revealing a startling, 160 degree view of the ocean.

This, by far, is my favorite route to the PCH.

I was sulking. And why not. I'm not immune and I certainly have it in me. I had just gotten off the phone after a conversation in which I was apparently the only conversant. The other party had not even done me the courtesy of listening to my side of the story. And I had rendered such  a passionate discourse. It had something to do with rebels.

Rebels come in all shapes and forms. Farley's Free Dictionary says to rebel is to dissent from an accepted moral code or convention of behaviour, dress, etc. I am a chiropractor by trade, but I choose not to wear a white coat in my practice. I also get to pick my hours and, because I don't like alarm clocks, I see my first patient at 10:00 a.m. I often, however, stay late for the after-work crowd. And work on Saturdays, for others. For this, I am a rebel. My work fits me.

An alternative definition for rebel is: to express opposition through action or words; "dissent to the laws of the country". And, another: to break with established customs. I am aware that my individual efforts, coupled with yours, will have a positive impact on our world. So I'm choosing to grow my own vegetables. This spring, I will do just that. That's one less bag of fertilizer, one less tree to make the bag, one less truck to get it to market, less gas consumed. I will pick it at the peak of perfection, plus have the pleasure of tending it and watching it grow.

In my opinion, rebels are not just insurgents, are not all organizing the overthrow of a country, a government, a regime. A rebel turns the spigot off while brushing his teeth, watches BBC because it's news and not commentary. A rebel reaches out her hand to her fellows because she can. Encourages. Cheers. Allows. Gives her time.

A rebel builds bridges. Even when the bridge is just a hand.

There are giants who walk among us. And giants tend to be rebels. Even when they don't think so.

Grief and October

It's October and the chill of fall has arrived in Southern California. I turned the heat on a few days ago. Some people have a problem with that and agonize over when to light the furnace. Me? I just crank the thermostat to whatever temp I need to be comfortable.

Now, having said that, I will qualify that statement with: If it's cold outside, I wear sweats and Koolaburra's (handmade boots that are identical to Uggs, only they're still made in Australia vs. China) in the house. In the summer when it's hot, I wear shorts and a tank top. So, even though I use my heat and A/C, I do it as green-ly as possible.

Black Betty's top is up and I'm putting up with the whistle. If my window is open a crack it's better, but then I have the window noise and the cold. Whatever.

October is not my favorite month of the year. I'm sure October could care less.

My mother died in October. Three years ago. Interestingly enough, I can't remember now what day. I thought it was the 9th/10th (she died around 12:45 a.m. so I overlap the days in my mind). But, it may've been the 8th/9th.

For the last couple of weeks of September, during the time when she would've been in the hospital, then rehab, then back in the hospital...the time leading up to her death...I relive (and, thus, process) some of the pain that I was too numb to feel.

I can try to ignore it. Pretend it's not there. Stay really busy and look the other way.

But, eventually, those coping mechanisms fail. And I am face-to-face with the reality of my feelings. I am alone with the gut-wrenching knowledge that my Mama, my magnetic north for 50 years, is gone. And, I relive, in spurts and fits and isolated snapshot memories, her last days on earth.

I am not maudlin. Nor morbid. Just grieving. This is my process.

For those who are grieving, no matter how long since your loved-one passed, your process is your process. No one else can put a time-frame on it. They can expect you to be 'healed' or 'cured' of your depression and sadness right away.

But, the reality is, it takes what it takes.

Grief is not bad. Grief is normal. Grief is even beautiful. Allowing our grief honors the one we lost. And it honors our own Self.

So sit in a movie theater or in front of the TV and bawl at a sad movie. Or in front of the computer screen and watch the video about the dog named Baxter who, in his old-age and approaching his own death, brings love and comfort to the dying as an end-of-life therapy.

Honor your grief. Take a day off. Or longer. Claim this time for your own.

My work schedule is light this week. This worries me a bit because slow work means less money coming in. But, I am being cared for. This I know.

Just so you know, I really am okay. In fact, I'm great. Don't be sad for me. I found AA again. Not that it was lost. :) The rooms are still there. As Always.

Thank you all for being a part of my process. Thank you for being part of my recovery.