Summer is almost over. Perhaps it is over. It doesn’t feel over in my new home town. But the kids are back in school.

I miss school. I miss it very much. I miss having a teacher tell me “Good job!” when I turn in my homework. I miss the motivation that comes from know that someone notices how I am doing.

But I’m a grown up now. I dragged out the whole school thing almost as long as I possibly could. It’s time now for me to kick my own butt.

I have done a huge project, getting my book published. But I am realizing, that is only half the work. Just because I wrote it does not mean people will read it. I need to get it into their hands.

Which takes a whole new set of skills and experiences that I simply do not have.

I am going to have to learn them. It’s harder than I realized.

And the fact of the matter is, no one is going to really care if I don’t succeed. That means it’s very easy for me to not do it. I could procrastinate and take forever and ever and never quite do it.

I want to do it. But this is harder than I thought. It’s taking some real effort.

and a lot of it is just mental work. It’s scary. And it doesn’t seem like it should be.

But I really feel liek I’m swimming with sharks. Even if they are only in my mind….

..or just finished reading…

*Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami
*Pay it Forward
*The Language of Archetypes
*Until I find You
*Liza of Lambeth
*Anne Frank
*Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I wish I could slow down a little and savor some more. It seems difficult to do, as if I am very behind on my reading and the books are all so interesting.

Perhaps I will re-read when I am old.

But the most fascinating thing for me was—and is, still—that there were words, lined up to say one thing and another, but one’s response was not exactly to the words, and what they appeared to be saying, but to something enormous and living beyond that, which the words exactly entailed.

-Deborah Eisenberg

I have thought this for a long time. I’ve thought that words are the stones that mark out the outlines of greater thoughts and ideas—even another world. They are so very little in themselves, these poor words. But they have such power at times, when wielded.

Books, poems, they have a use. They are particular and different than other ways of conveying ideas. Music has it’s own, movies have their own, conversation, theater, photographs—they have their own particular strength and logic. Each has a cause and effect.

But words as so dear to my heart. Words on a page or spoken out loud move me like nothing else.

Even talking to myself, I am in awe so very often of what words can give me.

I think of Archimedes “Give me a place to stand and I will move the earth.”

He was speaking of the mechanical tool, the lever. Words to me are the lever of the soul. Give me a way to string the words and who can’t I move?

At least that is the possibility.

Previously, I wrote about a writing group that I am starting.

It’s the 3rd Tuesday of the month, and the first meeting was in July. But no one came.

I was sad, but I decided it was up to me to do a better job of advertising. I researched it, put up a few more flyers and also called the local paper to have them put it on their calendar of events. I put it on Inland Empire Craig’s list, and I even guilted my neighbor into coming.

My very nice neighbor Sue said she would come. She said she’d never written before, but apparently she felt sorry for me and agreed to come. I felt slightly guilty about guilting an uninterested person into coming, but I really didn’t want to have another no show class.

August meeing came. And so did three other people. And if you count neighbor Sue, four! It was fabulous. And as it turned out, Sue’s interest wasn’t purely pity after all. She has some great projects in mind. And so did Julie, and Marie and Ella.

What a great time!

I am proud, and very pleased that I persevered in spite of initial disinterest.

Now I too am inspired by the class, and I am getting my promotional kit together. Miriam needs to get out into the world and meet people!