Editeyes

Since it is not always possible to secure a wonderful retreat at some place like Norcroft or Soapstone (one place I’ve been, the other I’ve applied to), I often make my own writing retreats. That means securing a place of seclusion to write for at least 3 days and preferably 5-10. I’ve rented cabins, stayed in hotel rooms, and housesat for friends in order to secure the necessary seclusion.

This past week, I rented a cabin in the High Sierra for 5 days to work on the Right Sisters. I packed food, my lap top, a few sweatshirts for cooler nights and left home for the cabin. This retreat did not turn out to be the Walden adventure I envisioned when planning it, i.e quiet all but wind in the pines, musky scent of hot decaying forest earth, simple living in a sparsely furnished Forest Service cabin.

Instead I faced

• a generator that ran 24 hours a day blocking the noises of nature (necessary for electricity);
• the pungent odor of a skunk wafting intermittently through the cabin floor from an abandoned nest under the cabin;
• a floor so slanted that my computer tilted on the little kitchen table where I sat to work;
• a noisy critter that visited every night biting into anything edible that I left out (see banana picture) and waking me 4-5 times a night with his raucous presence.

The good news is that despite the sensual assaults and strange discomforts, I got tons of work done. Perhaps it is true that a little suffering is good for the work.

Still I recommend a little more investigation regarding the space you choose to stay when making your own writing retreat! Anyone have suggestions for us writers looking to retreat?

Tags: From Whence We See, Writing First by ph
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I recently completed Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time by Greg Mortensen and David Oliver Relin.  The book describes Mortensen’s gifts of time, energy, and devotion when building schools in the remote regions of Northern Pakistan.  Interestingly, Mortensen did not start out with the intention to promote peace, but the notion evolved as he came to know and understand the people of Pakistan and witness his own country’s overt errors resulting from a lack of understanding.

What really intrigued me, however, is the co-author David Oliver Relin. Relin’s picture appears in the book and one assumes he is the narrator of the story since Mortensen is spoken of in third person. I think it is interesting that no mention is made of when Relin enters the scene and actually begins to witness the things that are written. Certainly much of the early story is written as it was told to him. Then at some point he met Mortensen and was invited to collaborate on the book or maybe he offered to collaborate. I wonder about the decision to make him the narrator of the story rather than write the narrative in first person since both men’s names are listed as author. It’s a journalistic approach for sure and perhaps a good one, but I kept waiting for Relin to arrive in the story so apparent were his sensibilities in the tale.

As I prepare to write a non-fiction book, one in which I will relate the stories of 10 women inventors, I’m very conscious of point of view. I generally find first person point of view more compelling, but that wasn’t so with Three Cups of Tea.

So the question is: How did Relin accomplish a profound level of intimacy and a compelling degree of potency when employing a third person perspective? Was it the story itself? Or was it protagonist Mortensen’s strength of character? I’m sure it was both of these. But I also think it was more . . . something in the way Relin manages the material. A closer look is in order.

What does it take to make compelling storytelling from third person point of view?

Tags: From Whence We See by ph
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I’m getting tired of receiving political email, usually messages that have been forwarded hundreds of times. I’m sick of reading blog posts that slander or at least underline the foibles of McCain and Palin. But yesterday I got an email message–it was another forward– that brought me up short and made me think about perspective and point of view.

Early on as writers, we learn to consider the importance and relevance of point of view in writing. Here are segments of the email message that made me shiver, that frightened me and forced me to recognize how deeply entrenched our country is in a racist point of view.

What if things were switched around? Consider the following:

What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?

What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?

What if McCain had only married once and Obama was a divorcee?

What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?

What if Cindy McCain had graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five? (The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)

Why aren’t people talking about John Sydney McCain if they are saying Barack Hussein Obama?

What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing three planes?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes, and minimizes the positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.

Education isn’t everything, but I think it should be a part of one’s perspective when evaluating candidates for the most important position in the country. Consider the disparate educational backgrounds of the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates:

Barack Obama:
Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

John McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism

There is no minimizing the power of point of view when one considers how much harder a bi-racial man has to work to reach the same heights as a white man or a white woman.

Tags: From Whence We See, Going Public by ph
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