Breathing Space

The final Footlights activity of 2011 is completed. So now I have breathing space, writing time, and inspired panic. I'm not out of ideas, don't have "writer's block." I have so many ideas and projects that I don't know where to begin. So, consequently, I do not begin. Is this procratination?

RADIO TALK

On Tuesday, November 8th, 8:45 am, KFUN/KLVF Radio, Las Vegas, NM, I will appear on Sharon VanderMeer's Writers' Talk Show and discuss writing, researching, Footlights in the Foothills, and new works in progress.

UCLA Extension Writers' Studio Plus

The Studio experience was everything UCLA Extension promised--and more. I enjoyed four intense, full days of total attention to writing, writers, and progress on my novel, Prairie Madness, Conspiracy at Fort Union, New Mexico. The workshop leader, Lisa Cron, really knows her stuff and gets her points across. She provides an excellent and very helpful site: http://www.wiredforstory.com/. And all of us writers were sincerely helpful and interested in each others diverse projects. The UCLA staff was excellent.



After the Studio, I returned with a volume of ideas on structuring the novel's narrative. But, luckily, I received some other writing opportunities. There's always something happening at the City of Las Vegas Museum, and it usually involves writing.



In April, I submitted "Harriet Knickerbocker, The Belle of Las Vegas," a brief (but intensely researched) biographical sketch. Hopefully, it will be published in a new photo-history of Las Vegas, New Mexico.



On May 6th, I presented a talk with slide images--"Cowboy Commerce: The Las Vegas, NM, Cowboys' Reunions"--at the annual conference of the Historical Society of New Mexico. The presentation was based on the Museum exhibit I had curated in October of 2009.



Now, I'm rearranging my files and settin up to get crackin' on Prairie Madness.

Writing

Writing Prairie Madness, Conspiracy at Fort Union was an adventure. I've been writing for many years. My publications have generally focused on literary non-fiction, scholarship, and the fiction of human interactions. Writing an historical novel driven by solving a murder mystery is new territory, and I love it. If you want to spice up your writing experience--try a different genre.

"Everyone knows that a place exists which is not economically or politically indebted to all

the vileness and compromise. That is not obligated to reproduce the system.

That place is writing."

.........Helene Cixous

"I write to understand this moment." [Honor Moore]

Writing helps me understand and sort out my knowledge, feelings, needs, my place in the world, and the needs of others. Writing helps me accept and/or appreciate my inadequacies, meannesses, good deeds, selfishness, and generosity. I thank Honor Moore for saying it best--"I write to understand this moment."