Author Archives: writ7707

Writing Practice and Meeting up with your Muse

Writing Leap #73

Hi Writers,

Sometimes a character may feel compelled to do something that he or she thinks is a little crazy. Your readers may not expect this from your character but the unexpected always makes them turn the page faster. The caveat is, however, that “the crazy” probably shouldn’t come out of nowhere and thus make your character unbelievable.

A little “crazy” is one way to add layers to your character and avoid one-dimensionality.

Mike was a regular guy. People liked him. He smiled, said “hello” easily and never got too ruffled when things didn’t go his way. He wasn’t one to get overly excited by, say, a bright blue sky or the flowers in his wife’s garden. Oh, he admired the garden from afar. He just didn’t want to get in there and dig.

What Mike loved was his family and his work. He trained engineers. His young daughter gave him a bunch of zinnias from the garden to put on his desk at work. They were yellow, orange, pink and one big red one. The red one caught his eye right from the beginning. As the zinnias began to wilt he threw them out one by one into the wastebasket. But not the red one. It was as fresh as when his daughter had picked it three months later.

Mike could not get over the tenacity of this flower. He began to talk to the zinnia, privately, in his head. “You are something,” he thought. “What stick-to-it-ness.” And as the weeks went by and the flower stayed red and perky Mike whispered to it, “I love you.”

When the zinnia finally began to wither after four months of red radiance Mike accepted that the flower needed to rest now. This zinnia had almost made it to Christmas!

Mike snuck into the garden making sure nobody spotted him. “This is, of course, totally nuts,” he thought. He buried the red zinnia in a clump of dirt in the corner of the garden that had been put to bed for the winter. After months of loving the red zinnia, putting it to rest in the garden seemed right. He felt good. Really good. He just wouldn’t tell anybody, that’s all.

Happy Writing Everyone!

LINKING THE ARTS

Literature

This is a quote from the 19^th century American poet, Walt Whitman. It’s from the poem “Song of Myself” included in his work “Leaves of Grass.”

 “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.”

I think Walt Whitman explains Mike and perhaps all of us.

The Visual

Three different responses to a red zinnia

Writing Practice and Meeting up with your Muse

Writing Leap #72

Hi Writers,

As writers we are in a unique position to express how we are experiencing events in the current political climate through fiction. Fiction enables us to make our point indirectly through showing rather than telling. Showing is always more powerful and immediate. 

This new edit of my Thanksgiving post from last year sprung from my gut reaction to the current mood concerning women in our country.

The First Thanksgiving

He would eat standing up.  To sit next to an ash-skinned man at a crowded table, maybe have to touch arms, would kill him.

He was fourteen.

He was a ferocious warrior.

And he would stand.

As far away from those moon-colored faces showing all their teeth as he could.

Which wasn’t far.  He felt his father’s eyes flashing fire at him,  

But even if his father suspected his thoughts he would never see them on his son’s face.  The muscles around the young warrior’s eyes and mouth were as still as stone.

His weapon hung loosely at his side begging him to grab it.

Lots of gunfire this morning from this white settlement.  Surely an attempt for a full out attack on his whole tribe.  His blood raged.  He would devour them.  Chop them up like whale meat.  He was well aware of how easy that would be for him.

She brought him a platter of paleface overcooked venison and stupid-looking cranberries.  She was his age, he thought, but mush.  Not hard and magnificent like his mother and his sisters.  

“Seconds?” she asked.  Washed out blue eyes.  Worst of all she had yellow straw for hair.  A freak.

He just stared.

He pinched her breast through her starched apron.  Hard.

Her mouth flew open.

He didn’t have to look at his father to see the gesture of fury directed at him.  It said, “Leave. NOW.”

As he turned to go the young girl took the platter of venison and cranberries and dumped the whole mess on his head. And then she did something surely God would punish her for. She gave him a hard pinch on his behind. He let out a roar, looked at his father and willed himself to stand stark still.

The girl walked back to her mother, sure of step and mouth set. She sat down at her place at the Thanksgiving table and forced herself to breath evenly. In a quiet voice her mother said to her, “Good.”

Last year the young girl fainted. That was last year.

Happy Writing and Happy Thanksgiving all you writers out there,

Writing Practice and Meeting up with your Muse

Writing Leap #71

Hi Writers,

Does your character have empathy? Does he or she have to learn, maybe the hard way, what it feels like to walk in another person’s shoes? Or is your character a naturally sensitive soul? Showing empathy or the lack thereof is one way to portray your character’s deepest self.

Here’s my story where a group of children are shocked into understanding what it feels like to be different.

Trick or Treat

The wind was fluttering the red leaves on the big red maple tree in front of mean old Mr. Mooney’s house. Whoosh! The setting sun cast creepy shadows along the walk to his porch. It was Halloween and the shadows were extra creepy, like long arms that could reach out and GRAB YOU!

“Shall we risk it?” asked a small boy in a big Batman cape. “My mom says he’s a witch, only he’s a man.”

“I say let’s do it,” said a pint-sized astronaut, safe behind his helmet.

“You know he has the best candy on the street,” added the cowboy, fingering his toy gun.

They marched up to the porch.

“Can I come too?” said a small girl in a Hillary Clinton mask and a sweatshirt that said, “Girls Rule.” Oh, how she wished her voice didn’t sound so shaky. But she was Hillary Clinton and she was going to ask, even though these boys just today had called her “freak” again.

“No way,” hissed Batman.

“We don’t want you around, freak. Who has one big ear and one little ear?” said the cowboy.

“Yeah, so weird,” said the astronaut.

The front door opened. Mr. Moody! “Come on up here, Miss Hillary Clinton. No, no, you boys just wait out here on the porch.”

“Well, well, Miss Hillary. Shall we give those boys the what-for?” He mumbled a few words and opened the door.

“One of my ears just grew bigger than the other!” said the astronaut.

The cowboy’s hands flew up to his ears. “Mine too!”

“And mine!” said Batman.

“So, you three.” Mr. Moody shot a terrifying look at the boys who were clutching their ears, mouths open. “Your ears are going to stay like that for five days. After that, I just think you might have something to say to Miss Hillary here.”

The boys suffered terrible taunts about one big ear and one little ear. Their friends wouldn’t sit with them at lunch and held their noses when any one of them passed by. Even the teachers snickered about them behind their backs.

Five days passed and the boy’s ears went back to being the same size. “We’re sorry,” they said to the little girl. “It sucks to be different. But we’re your friends now, for always. We want you to be brave.”

The little girl smiled at them and patted her “Girls Rule” sweatshirt. She was never taking it off. She and magical Mr. Moody were now best friends forever.

***

Happy, Spooky Halloween, Writers,

LINKING THE ARTS

Word: The little girl with one ear much bigger than the other wishes in her own way that another word for empathy could be spontaneous kindness, the great equalizer.

Writing Practice and Meeting up with your Muse

Writing Leap #71

WRITERS AND POLLYANNA

 Hi Writers,

Pollyanna is a novel by Eleanor H. Porter written in 1913. It is a classic of children’s literature and there are several sequels. In her books Pollyanna found something to be glad about in every dire, sad, or unpleasant situation. In our modern collective unconscious a “Pollyanna” is for some a “goody two-shoes.” I, for one, do not consider myself to be a “goody two-shoes” by any means but I am immensely grateful for my flourishing, inner Pollyanna.

Think of the “Pollyanna” possibilities for your characters! A young man exasperated with his wife’s sunny disposition, a little girl in a hospital comforted by the “glad game,” or a grandfather who refuses to fill his life with negativity and makes the conscious decision to be content and enjoy his moments.

Here’s my most recent Pollyanna moment.

What to do with my set of totally outdated World Book Encyclopedias from the 1960’s, packed away in eight cardboard boxes? My husband and I simply had to clear out our overflowing closets. Strand second-hand bookstore in New York City didn’t want them. “Too many around,” they said. Ebay was not an option. Too heavy to ship.

Goodwill said they would take them. There may have been another place to bring them. A collector? But we couldn’t find one.

We pulled into the parking lot at a Goodwill Center. I felt horrible. The Goodwill worker ripped open the boxes and dumped the books into big bins. “But they’re supposed to be together!” I said. The worker shrugged.

I closed my eyes. My father, passed away a long time now, had given me those books. A glad, deep feeling of love dashed into my memory and my heart. A Pollyanna moment, triggered by sounds of the cartons ripping. I remembered and felt how generous and loving my father could be. I felt that love rush up again and I was enveloped in a warm, safe Daddy cocoon. Lucky me to feel it so immediately once more.

The memory segued into a moment when I was two. My father, who later built a successful business, was a salesman on the road at the time. It seems he skipped lunch to buy me a teddy bear, having enough money for only one or the other. I imagine his expression was the same excited one as when, many years later, he brought me Supplements to that 1965 edition of The World Book.

Plop. Into the dumpster bins. Thank you Pollyanna for turning this unpleasantness into sweet, deeply felt memories.

Happy Writing Everyone,

LINKING THE ARTS

Art

A statue of Pollyanna in Littleton, New Hampshire in honor of Eleanor H. Porter who lived there.

I really love Pollyanna.

Words: Optimism and Pessimism and all the gray shades in between can figure in the core of your characters.

Writing Practice and Meeting up with your Muse

Writing Leap #70

Hi Writers,

You know how the flash of a memory can suddenly bloom in your heart, full of feeling and clear visual details? These beams from the past can illuminate rich, loamy soil for story-growing. Another source of inspiration!

For me, the moment comes unbidded, unlike moments I may search to remember. That’s the beauty of a memory beam. It’s our muse whispering in our ears from deep down. I’ve found the moment usually carries a lot of emotion. I’m there. I feel it in my pulse.

I’ve even wondered if these memory flashes appear to writers for a reason. To push us to write? To understand? Or for me, this time, to relive a loving closeness between me and my then six-year-old son, G.J., thirty-three years later.

G.J. and Mama in Vermont. As it Really Happened and Brought Back by a Memory Beam

The long farm table in the small country dining room was set at one end for just four people; G.J., me and the husband and wife proprietors of a small inn near Sugarbush, Vermont. We were the only guests, there to ski.

Was that LASAGNA I smelled coming from the kitchen?! I looked at the wife as she brought in the warm fragrant dish and set it down in front of G.J. “Your Mom told me this was your favorite, favorite thing to eat. I made it special for you.”

I looked up at her sweet face. “How kind and wonderful. Thank you,” I said softly. The atmosphere called for softness. G.J.’s big brown eyes grew wide and his smile was sunshine on his adorable face. (I’m allowed this. I’m his mother.)

“Wow,” He said. “That’s a lot of Lasagna! Thanks!”

And later, “She doesn’t even know me and she made me Lasagna.”

After a day of skiing we tromp back into the Inn covered with snow. We had left a copy of “Charlotte’s Web,” a book we are reading together on the night table. The husband says, “I saw your book, G.J. Hope you don’t mind that I read it. One of my favorites from when I was your age.”

This tickles G.J. who was feeling so good about his runs down the mountain. He was a great little skier, advanced for his age, and I was hoping he believed me when I praised him and that he really felt it. Like most children, he had a little shy streak. I looked at him taking off his boots. I felt our special time together.

At some point the doorbell rings at the Inn and the couple greet friends. “Evening Brother John. Evening Sister Mary. Come in!”

Perhaps they were Quakers. I don’t know. But they created an environment where G.J. and I were so happy. I love thinking of them. I cherish the memory of our trip to Vermont, just G.J. and Mama. Thank you, my muse, for bringing it back in such a gush.

So Writers. If you like, create a story around a spontaneous memory. As it happened or as inspiration for your fiction. You never know when a memory beam will light up an idea. Here’s to your very own muse,

LINKING THE ARTS

Books:  Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

Sharing a book with a child is an act of love.

Word: Kindness. As shown by the gentle innkeepers in Vermont. The spontaneous whoosh that flows out golden and can make a child feel much loved.

Writing Practice and Meeting up with your Muse

Writing Leap #69

Hi Writers,

WRITING ABOUT CHILDREN

Writing fiction can be a heart-expanding journey. With all characters that we create, we succeed most when we are able to inhabit their internal world. With children we are challenged to hop back into their experience and bring them to life as they really are, not seen through the eyes and pen of our adult selves. Fictional children, to come across as authentic, require that we go right to a most sacred part of ourselves, our empathy, our ability to feel another person deep down. If we can become our fictional child, without looking down on her because she is shorter, that child will come alive in our stories.

So writers. Create a child and have a wonderful time, “scoring that home run with the older kids.”

Here’s mine.

Emma snuggled in between her Grammy and Grandpa. It was a magical time to be out, really late, like 10 o’clock. Nice music floated out of the gazebo in front of them and the summer moon looked pretty in the dark sky.

Emma clutched her doll, Arabella Ann and gave her a quick kiss. She looked over at Daddy’s sad face. Tears flooded Emma’s eyes again and the ache came back. She held Arabella Ann even tighter against her chest. Where was Mommy? Why had she left? She’s been gone since Tuesday. That’s three whole days. Emma let herself sink into Grammy’s arms and felt herself shaking. “Shhhh, my darling,” Grammy whispered. Her voice cracked and Emma heard the pain. “We just don’t know why she went away.”

Emma’s eyes followed a couple dancing on the grass. She got off Grammy’s lap and walked with Arabella Ann over to the gazebo and the music. Clutching her doll close, she began to dance and twirl around and around and around.  She stopped twirling. “I’m your Mommy, Arabella Ann, and I will take care of you forever and ever and not leave. Even if you are a bad girl. Well, I’ll be mad if you are bad, but only for twenty minutes and then I will hug and kiss you and make you birthday cakes even when it’s not your birthday.” Emma ran back to Grammy’s lap and held on to her hard. She and Arabella Ann fell asleep.

May your muse be bright,

LINKING THE ARTS

Arabella Ann

Books

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Harry Potter has grown up. We struggle along with Albus, his youngest son, who hates being a wizard like his famous father. We become Albus, fighting to discover who he is and we feel a personal thrill when he triumphs.

Writing Practice and Meeting up with your Muse

Writing Leap #68

Hi Writers,

Delve into how your character relates to the natural world and see how you can evoke deeper aspects of his personality. Maybe he’s an obsessive recycler, a passion that comes from his relationship with his mother who refused to recycle anything. Or maybe your character scoffs at the idea of global warming because she’s a very conservative thinker. As with other grand issues like religion, love relationships, power struggles, your character’s take on the environment can reveal much about how he maneuvers through your story.

Here’s mine.

Gilly was happy to be an assistant counselor at Junior Environmentalists Camp for a hundred reasons. She loved that the campers and staff picked their way through the woods like she did, breathing in the oxygen offered by the trees, breathing out carbon dioxide to send back to them. She loved using electric lights and computers sparingly. She loved teaching her little campers not to pick the wildflowers. “Enjoy them where they grow! Aren’t they beautiful?” She was part of a huge commitment to revere the environment and the feeling of belonging to this little community assured her that she measured up, that she was on the right side of things and that consequently she was an appealing person.

Gilly also loved Jake, a fellow counselor. They shared the same birthday, July 29, when they both turned fifteen. They gave each other “Surviving in the Wilderness” manuals for presents. They had both read The Legacy of Luna, The Story of a Tree, a Woman and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods.

But Gilly had a shameful secret that burned in her stomach and chest. She was terrified of bugs. She couldn’t help it and she was in constant fear that some one would find out. One day in the woods with Jake and their campers she felt something crawling up her leg. Ugh! Involuntarily she slapped off a large, green, pokey thing, Ugh, and then squished it with her sneaker. She looked down. It squirmed. Then it didn’t. Dead.

“Oh,” she said. She felt her mortification pop out all over her. “I don’t know why I did that, I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“That was bad, Gilly,” Jake said backing away from her. “What did that bug ever do to you?”

He turned his back and walked away. The campers followed him. First they looked at Gilly in disbelief, then, Gilly could sense it, with disdain.

She was a fraud. For sure Jake thought so now. She had no business being in this camp. She was shallow compared to every other person here. Gilly flushed red and wished she could melt right into the leafy path and disappear.

End

Note: I could never just leave this story here. I would have Gilly find her gumption and most of all her sense of self-worth some other way and she would triumph inside herself!

Happy summer writing everyone. A perfect time to find your muse outdoors somewhere.

LINKING THE ARTS

Julia Butterfly Hill lived on a platform in a redwood tree for 738 days to protest the clearcutting of a grove of giant redwood trees in California. And then she wrote about it.

Writing Practice and Meeting up with your MUSE

Writing Leap #67

Hi Writers,

WRITERS AND FAMILY MEMORIES

One place our muse seems to like hanging out is anywhere she can hear family stories. A casual comment about an ancestor heard around the dinner table sets her imagination flying.

We can pluck these stories and hazy memories and let them creep into our writing. We can use them for writing practice, just to try and make beautiful sentences, fictionalize them or create a longer piece.

Little snippets of writing practice every day can teach us what writing is all about—even when we are already writers. Especially when we are already writers. It’s writing for the joy of it. It’s sinking so deep into the moment and swimming around in our unique selves to bring up words that only we can put together in quite this way. It’s when one o’clock becomes three o’clock in five seconds.

Here’s my ancestor, fictionalized

The idea of buildings that scraped the sky and New York, America, made seventeen-year-old  Eva’s heart flutter. It was 1909 and of course her parents were not about to let her embark on such a journey on a ship stuffed with who knows what kind of people with possible diseases. She could just stay right here in Ukraine on the farm with her nine brothers and sisters.

“But Mama, Papa, please! I have an idea. I’ll marry the pig farmer (so old and smelly) like you want me to. I will. And he can take me to New York!”

So Eva and her smelly husband boarded the ship and sailed for America. Eva couldn’t stand him. His beard was scraggly, like a drenched squirrel’s tail, but she had skyscrapers and the Statue of Liberty on her mind. With the flaming torch.

When Eva and her scraggly-bearded husband walked down the plank at Ellis Island and their immigration papers were in order, she took a sharp turn to the left and he took a sharp turn to the right. They never saw each other again. Eva went to distant relatives in upstate New York.

A month later Eva said to Harry, her handsome young man from Kiev, brought up in a monastery, “Yes, Harry, I’ll marry you! We’ll live in New York City. Next to the Flatiron Building on Fifth Avenue.”

She wasn’t at all troubled by the fact that she was already married. So what! It’s America!   

Happy family-memory-exploring, writers! And give yourself the gift of daily writing practice. Just snippets. That’s enough.

Cynthia

LINKING THE ARTS

Eva and Harry in love in America

Eva crossing the Atlantic with smelly husband

Wonderful word: dreams, as in follow them one way or another. Like Eva, don’t let them slip away.

Writing Practice and Keeping up with your Muse

Writing Leap #66

Hi Writers and Readers,

As writers we read for many different reasons. One is the delight of peeking into moments we may never experience. Here are such moments shared by my now daughter-in-law, Margaret Wetzler–with Prince! 

I WAS PRINCE’S PRIVATE CHEF

© Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images

By Margaret Wetzler

As seen in foodandwine.com

As told to Gabrielle Langholtz

Once he wanted a chocolate fountain but when I asked where to put it, he looked at me, waited a beat, and said, “I do the music.”

         I was barely out of cooking school when I heard that Prince was looking for a private chef.

         It was 2008 and I had moved to LA right after graduation with dreams of breaking into food TV. Then Andy, a friend of a friend who occasionally cooked for Prince, told me the singer sought someone 24-7. Until cooking school, I’d lived on take-out. Now I had about three weeks of real-world experience under my belt. I was like, “No way.”

         “You should do it!” Andy said. “I bet you could split it with someone. Just try out!”

         That week, Prince was hosting an after-Oscars party and Andy roped me in. A pescetarian at the time, Prince loved Asian flavors and, since I’d tested recipes for Williams-Sonoma Food Made Fast: Asian (by Farina Kingsley, my teacher and mentor) I wrote a quick menu. The party started at midnight and music blasted down the hallway into the kitchen. Stevie Wonder was there. I cooked potstickers for hours on end. Salma Hayek ate a Vietnamese summer roll right off my cutting board. I thought, “Maybe I can do this…” At 4:30 AM, I met with Prince’s assistant in his giant office. I told her I’d never been a private chef but that I’d love to try. She said they’d call me.

         A few afternoons later my phone rang at 3:30 PM. Prince wanted me to do a tryout. In two hours. And serve three courses.

        I ran to buy ingredients—including salmon filets and a bottle of Soy Vey marinade, which I stealthily poured into an unmarked glass bottle so it looked homemade—and raced back to Prince’s. He, his manager, and his girlfriend sat at the kitchen counter to watch me cook, while Prince explained that his next record deal ought to be better than Madonna’s. Inside my head I was like, “Don’t listen! Don’t look at them! Don’t fuck up! Just make it taste good!”

I cooked teriyaki salmon like I used to make for myself all the time (with that Soy Vey assist!) with grilled asparagus on the side, plus a hot-and-sour soup that I’d literally never made before and a coconut sorbet with fresh mango for dessert.  It was terrifying.

Prince had guests about every other night— Orlando Bloom, Cornel West, Kristin Chenoweth. He kept a floor-to-ceiling stack of Jehovah’s Witness Bibles and gave one to every guest.

The assistant had warned me that Prince eats like a bird, but he finished everything and asked for seconds. I drove home so proud. Even if I didn’t get the job I’d have a story to tell my grandkids someday.

A few days later I was en route to a wedding in Vegas when Prince’s assistant called and said, “You got the job but you can’t split it, he only wants you. You have to be on call 24-7. Oh and by the way – he’s nocturnal. And you start tonight. Ryan Seacrest is coming to dinner.”

         I turned around, missed my friend’s wedding, threw my suitcase into my apartment, grabbed my chef’s jacket, and ran to Whole Foods with no idea what to make.

        An hour later I was back in Prince’s kitchen cooking miso-glazed sea bass over a “noodle pillow” – something I had made exactly once before, back in cooking school. But I stupidly made the noodle pillows first and they’d gone completely chewy by the time I served the dish. It was an epic failure. I served it to Prince and Ryan Seacrest myself, trying not to sweat, carrying it down a long hallway to a very formal dining room. For dessert I made ice cream with a sugar crisp, the kind you liquefy and then pour onto a Silpat baking mat to cool. But I made it too thick and watched Ryan get his teeth stuck in it. I thought I’d be fired on my first night.

Instead, Prince’s assistant texted me a little while later that “P” was downstairs (practicing on the full, in-house stage) and wanted a cappuccino. I had never made one in my life and had to call someone to talk me through how to use the machine. I carried it down to him, the cup trembling on the saucer. He was riffing on the guitar, alone in the dark, but paused to thank me. I went back to the kitchen to clean up. When I thought he was done, I looked around the corner and saw him strutting down the candle-lit hallway to bed, in white boots with clear high heels studded with flashing red lights.

For the next three months I was always on call. Every day I’d wake up, watch TV and wait. They’d call around 3 or 4 and say, “He’s hungry.” But about once a week they’d call and say, “He’s going out.” When the phone rang, my heart would pound.

        I never knew what to cook. I kept a list of ideas but would inevitably call friends in a panic for advice. It was like being on Chopped every single day.

         The assistants—one of whom wore a three-piece suit even when doing the laundry—made me bring all my own pots and pans (back at my apartment I had exactly one knife, one pot and one cutting board). They said they could only afford to hire a dishwasher when there were more than six guests.

They had told me not to speak to Prince unless spoken to, and at first I felt like I couldn’t even look at him, but over time he made me feel comfortable. Prince was very private, mysterious and eccentric but very polite and kind. He introduced every single guest to me, even though he didn’t know my last name, where I was from or if I had a boyfriend.

         Prince had guests about every other night— Orlando Bloom, Cornel West, Kristin Chenoweth. He kept a floor-to-ceiling stack of Jehovah’s Witness Bibles and gave one to every guest.

         One time he decided to throw a late-night party for every A-list celebrity in town—and only gave me two days’ notice.  Another time he asked for a birthday cake—at 11 PM (I bought it at the grocery store). He liked to eat healthfully but then he’d ask for quiche and a milkshake. Once he wanted a chocolate fountain but when I asked where to put it, he looked at me, waited a beat, and said, “I do the music.”

One day I thought I could try a new restaurant for lunch before he needed me, but my phone rang at 11 AM. It was the assistant saying, “P wants to host a traditional English tea party—in an hour.” Scrambling, I ordered everything from scones to cucumber sandwiches to go, and raced back to serve it as if I’d made it all myself.

But Prince also loved to relax, like anybody. He asked for that salmon teriyaki nearly once a week. I know he made himself scrambled eggs for breakfast because the pan would be waiting in the sink when I showed up. One night I made fill-your-own soft tacos, which he and his girlfriend ate in front of the huge TV watching American Idol and basketball, right in the open room where I cooked. They sprawled on the couch next to a beautiful, aerodynamic white piano with just two legs. It was surreal.

And of the 75 three-course dinners I made, he returned exactly one dish: a five-spice soup. Since I’d omitted the chicken stock to make the recipe meat-free, I doubled the amount of onion (I’d read somewhere this can enhance flavor). But the result was horribly bitter. There was nothing I could do to fix it but he had guests, and I needed three courses. Minutes later he carried his full bowl back into the kitchen, put it on the counter and simply said, “No.”

         But more often, he expressed gratitude. One night I made mung-bean crepes stuffed with vegetables, followed by fish over black rice. He came back to the kitchen and said, “This is so beautiful. All my guests are very happy.”

My only break was the three days he played Coachella. When he got back to the house afterwards, he said, “Where were you? I thought you’d be backstage.”I explained that his assistants had said I couldn’t come, and he said, “We’ll fix that.”

         He led me downstairs to the private theater and together the two of us watched the playback of the whole show. He told me what an idiot the sound guy was, and how the police told him to stop but he played five more songs anyway.

After three months, I asked the assistant for two days off, even if they weren’t next to each other, but she said that wasn’t possible. I knew if I kept it up I would never go on another date or even have a drink with a friend, so I quit. I needed a life.

         Prince loved soy candles burning all evening on every surface, so on my last night, I bought him one and wrote a note saying, “I know you love these, and I wanted you to know how much I enjoyed my experience, and how much I learned from you.”

         He opened it while getting a private pedicure and his girlfriend came out and said Prince liked my gift and wanted to invite me to Bible study.

         It was tempting to have an excuse to see him again, but I said, “I’m not religious. I’m sorry but thank you for the invite.”

         To this day my friends still sing to me: “I just want your extra time and your qu-qu-qu-qu-qu- quiche.”

***

 Margaret Wetzler never returned to private cheffing. Today she is Vice President of Marketing at chef Michel Nischan’s non-profit, Wholesome Wave.

Happy Writing and Happy Reading Everyone,

And Happy Cooking?

Writing Practice and Meeting up with your MUSE

Writing Leap #65

Hi Writers,

Have you ever seen a little baby flip from deep wails of despair to a sunshine grin and happy gurgles in less than two seconds? I feel that way sometimes when I’m in the middle of a writing project. I wake up at dawn with a queasy feeling in my stomach. I turn over and moan, “I am afraid of my book.” It’s so unsettling and perfect terrain for the inner critic to dismiss everything I’ve written so far. Then, a few scribbles in my notebook on my night table, fresh thoughts, hooray! And I’m all excited again. I clutch the notebook page and dash for my computer.

I am illustrating my picture book-in-progress with an artist friend. I have an official art background. But I have been creating with words not paintbrushes for a long time. My studio is my writing studio, not my art studio. My desk, my computer and my books dominate the space. Except—-I have a long white table along one wall of my studio covered with drawing pads, pastels, drawing pencils, snippets of wallpaper, tissue and rubber cement for collage. I sneak in small art projects from time to time. But illustrating my picture book is not a small art project. It’s a big art project.

Now I’ve been waking up terrified of my illustrations as well as my writing. But just like babies I can go from “Help!” to “This is me. This is what I was born to do,” in two seconds. I don’t know what part of my heaven is better. The part with the beautiful sentences or the part with the beautiful colors.

Am I the only one who feels this way? Frightened/Elated?

Let’s treat our muse with lots of love and gratitude.

Happy Writing Everyone,

Henry Miller’s landscape

H.G. Welles’ Self-Portrait