Rachael Herron

(R.H. Herron)

Rachael

Ep. 034: Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo was named a 2012 Los Angeles Central Library ALOUD Newer Poet and the 2013 Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange poetry winner. Her poetry manuscript, Built with Safe Spaces, is inspired by her grandmother, Los Angeles, and the Arizona borderlands. In August 2011 she volunteered as a desert aid worker with the Tucson-based humanitarian organization, No More Deaths, which informed many of her borderland poems. Her book Posada is available now. In Los Angeles, she is the creator and curator of the quarterly reading series HITCHED and a co-founding member of the literary organization, Women Who Submit.  She is a first generation Chicana born and raised in San Gabriel, California and currently lives in the shadows of Dodger Stadium in historic Solano Canyon. She spends her nights listening for the ghosts and coyotes of Chavez Ravine and her days maneuvering the 110 freeway to teach drama and English to high school students in Arcadia, CA.

Craft Tip: Think about the character’s motivation. What does the character want?

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Ep. 033: Lisa Marie Rollins

Lisa Marie Rollins is poet, playwright, theater director and dramaturg. She was a CALLALOO Journal London Writing Workshop Fellow, is an alumni in Poetry of VONA Writing Workshop and was a Poet in Residence at June Jordan’s Poetry for the People at U.C. Berkeley. Her writing is published in Other Tongues: Mixed-Race Women Speak Out, River, Blood, Corn Literary Journal, Line/Break, As/Us Literary Journal,The Pacific Review and others. Currently, she is finishing her new manuscript of poems, Compass for which she received the 2016 Mary Tanenbaum Literary Award from San Francisco Foundation. She is in development with her new play, Token and was a 2015-16 playwright member of Just Theater Play Lab in Berkeley. She holds graduate degrees from The Claremont Graduate University and UC Berkeley. She is currently a Guest Artist Director at St Mary’s College in Performance Studies, a Resident Artist with Crowded Fire Theater and a Artist-in-Residence at BRAVA Theater for Women in San Francisco.

Referenced: The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises From Poets Who Teach

Find the Untold project here. 

Craft Tip: Write lists. It releases you from having to invent something, but also allows you to generate multiple ideas.

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On Social Activism and Resisting

Hi there, my darlings.

How are you? No, I mean it. How are you?

It’s so rough out there right now.

I woke up on Saturday morning with nothing to do until the evening, when we had tickets to see Ira Glass at City Arts and Lectures. I planned to lounge in bed. I’d cleared work from my plate until Monday, and I was going to have a Day Off. I was counting on pajamas and muffins and knitting and maybe some cleaning out of books.

Instead, I read about the Muslim Ban. I got more and more upset, as you probably did, too.

What has happened in a week and a half? The brand new White House policy advisor, Steve Miller, actually organized white supremacist events at Duke University with Richard Spencer (the Nazi who got punched last week).

Steve Bannon, the ex-Breitbart alt-right (read: Nazi), has the same status of the secretary of state as of this weekend. He has not been vetted. At all. (There’s a theory that says he’s setting us up for an attack by ISIS. No sitting president has ever lost reelection in wartime.) And he’s in the driver’s seat now, not Trump.

There are strong signs that this is a coup.

Read that again. 

There are signs that this is a literal coup, well-planned and orchestrated by Bannon. THIS ARTICLE says more and is scary as hell.

Saturday morning, watching all of it unfold, I felt hopeless.

Furious.

Helpless.

Yes, we should call our representatives and congresspeople, we know that. Calls are worth way more than paper letters, and emails/Tweets/FB messages are all but ineffective. (I didn’t know until this week that if you do write paper letters, send them to their regional, state-level office rather than DC. Good info.)

But my congressperson who’s waffling on voting No on Sessions and Tillerman is Diane Feinstein. None of her offices are answering their phones. At all. You get messages that say the voice mail is full.

The voice mail is full! There’s nothing you can do with that! You can keep calling, hoping a live body will answer (in DC, in SF, in LA, in SD, even in Fresno) but no one does.

I felt so hopeless I felt sick.

Then I saw the march planned at SFO. When I saw the FB page, only 9 said they were going. That was okay. I talked to Lala (who couldn’t go–she went on Sunday) about contingencies in case of my arrest. I made a hasty sign.

I went to BART and made my way there to find I wasn’t the only one.

For a while, we stayed on our sides of the street, letting traffic flow.

Then, led by a tiny elderly Asian woman who waited for the cops to get distracted and then stepped into the street. She gave a little “come on” sign with her hands and we all did.

 

It was a loud crowd, the chants never stopping, the mic-checks almost drowned out by the sheer righteous anger that surrounded us.

The ban is not our America.

It’s not what this country was founded on.

It felt good to fight. To resist. To yell as loudly as we could, “No ban! No wall! Sanctuary for all!”

And it’s just the start, my friends. We have at least four years of this to come.

What do we do now to resist?

Protests are important (and let’s face it, they can be soul-mending and even fun).

Calling your elected officials is essential. (We’re finally learning how to use our smart phones to make calls!)

But what else?

This is what I’m doing to make a difference:

Call: On the off-chance you haven’t seen this already, start with 5calls.org. You just put in your zip, and you get info on who to call with what message.

Swing Districts: Control of the House in 2018 depends on a few swing districts, and it’s time to start thinking about that NOW. Go HERE to find out the one closest to you, and then get to work there. (I’m CA Dist 7, see you in Modesto!)

Put “social activism” on your To Do list every day. Cross it off after you’ve made contact with someone. Today I crossed it off after sending a fax to Diane Feinstein (apparently faxes are good for something!) through this site from which you can fax both house and senate.

Arrest: Are you in a place of privilege that you could be arrested if need be? Lala and I are (no kids, no jobs that would punish us for doing so), but we are putting into place to set up care for the animals. (We’ll use IFTTT to send a text blast to the relevant people who have our house keys. A beloved friend who can’t be arrested but wants to help is our bail money. She’s set it aside on purpose, keeping it liquid for this reason, for those she loves.) Related: I’ve been a good girl my whole life. Kept my nose clean. It’s fucking NUTS that this is the conversation we’re having.

Start learning about that same privilege. I can only speak to white women, but start here. Already feel you’re a good intersectional feminist and ally? Level up here.

Get organized, on a grass-roots level. I’m part of a local crafting group, and this was done in the first meeting:

  • Write down the social topics that matter to you (it might be a long list)
  • Have people sign up for those they’re most interested in.
  • Get a leader for each topic.
  • Each leader disseminates that info to the people interested, with news and plans of action.

By dividing, we can conquer. My particular group meets once a week for an hour and a half, in person. Knitting is in our hands and we’re taking action.

Every HOUR it seems like the news gets worse, and we can’t all fight all the things all the time. But we can help each other hit the high points, break through the noise, and take action.

Together.

Don’t despair.

I know that’s hard, but there are more of us, who value the rights all of human beings, than there are of them.

Keep fighting. (And keep talking. Comments open. Polite comments of all types will be kept and cherished. But come into my house with fists swinging, and I’ll delete you right out of my house, and you won’t even get a gluten-free muffin to go.)

And remember to put on your own oxygen mask first. Too much? Step away. Rest. Read something light. Take a bath. Then come back swinging. We’re in this together, petals. We’ve got this.

Writing Rituals: Allowing them to change

Writing Rituals: How to build them and how to let them change.
I got an email earlier this week from someone trying to sell me something that asked me what my writing routine was. The goal of that email (not this blog post!) was to get me to buy a piece of software that would improve my writing rituals. (Before you ask, you don’t need the software, I promise, or I would totally tell you about it.)

But it got me thinking about rituals.

A ritual is a ceremony that is made of actions performed in a prescribed manner.

And oh, lordy, do I love a ritual.

I have so many rituals in my life. A sampling:

  • The way I push the dogs out of my office every morning to lay out my yoga mat and move my body around for thirty minutes.
  • The way I heat my oatmeal for four minutes exactly, and then add the frozen blueberries so I get an infusion of insta-cool which means I can get to the eating part of my day faster.
  • The way I polish my glasses when thinking about emotion, as if that would make it easier for me to see.

I like rituals with everything, everywhere.

When I’m in a strange city, I set up a routine on the very first day. I unpack my clothes, putting them into drawers and setting my paperwork in order on whatever desk I have nearby. I find a new “favorite” cafe and go back often. I used to bring a scented candle when I traveled until I almost started my agent’s apartment on fire (true story) and now I don’t bring extra flames with me. I even unpack in a tent.

And I really love my writing routine, which is always changing.

I know that’s contrary to the usual advice of “always play the same music” or “always have the same scent in the air.” Shouldn’t writing rituals be rules that you’ve set yourself and that you follow, hard and fast?

Look. Life isn’t static. It’s always, always changing. If I’d made myself stick to the same cafe where I used to get excellent work done, I’d be there right now, hating the smell of onions (they added cooked food to the menu) and distracted by the woman talking to herself while wearing intricately crafted items made from foil (bless her, but I can’t tune her out even with white noise turned up to 11).

If I’d made myself stick to writing at 4am, I’d BE VERY SAD AND TIRED.

If I’d made myself stick to writing when the mood struck, I’d have no books written at all.

Old writing rituals die. New ones rise to take their place. That’s natural.

I’ve recently learned that the best routine for me in writing is putting my feet up. Who knew? It seems, for me, that sitting with feet down means email and tasks. Feet up (or standing) means making new words. (You can’t really do the feet-up thing if you’re in a cafe or you turn into one of THOSE people, like the people who Skype without headphones in public.)

My routine, though solid and predictable on a daily basis, changes over the long term. It’s always moving, always a work in progress.

That’s okay. That’s good. That’s life.

I will admit that a few things always remain, though, and I’ll list them here in case they’re of use to you:

  • I use Write or Die to catch my first drafts. No jump-scares, no kamikaze mode, I just have the screen go to red when I’m not writing, and I get a puppy image when I’m done.
  • I use Post-its like some people put parmesan on pasta — everywhere, with gusto.
  • I write in silence at home, and with white noise when I’m out. (Years ago, I used to write with music, but I can hear the rhythm of my words better with no melody.)
  • I use Sharpwriter pencils. Always Sharpwriter. Plain, cheap, basic, reliable. (Like me!)
  • Scent is helpful for me, so I burn incense or put a pan of cinnamon/clove water on a low burner (CAUTION: FLAMES!). It’s not so much what it smells like as the fact that the air just smells nice.

Don’t worry if you’re still finding your way into your perfect writing routine. If it’s changing, that’s good.

Play.

Explore.

Experiment.

I’d love to know your writing rituals. Leave a comment!

Ep. 032: Honorée Corder


Honorée Corder is the author of 20 books, including You Must Write a Book, and Prosperity for Writers. She is also Hal Elrod’s business partner in The Miracle Morning book series. Honorée coaches business professionals, writers, and aspiring non-fiction authors who want to publish their books to bestseller status, create a platform, and develop multiple streams of income.

Craft Tip: Always be bettering your craft. Always be learning.

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Take a Novel Writing Class at Berkeley (online) With Me!

Next week, on February 2, 2017, my class Developing the Novel starts at UC Berkeley Extension!

Explore the craft of longer fiction and how to meet its creative challenges. Each session includes a lecture on craft, supported by discussion of assigned readings and exercises to unlock the potential of your ideas. Learn how to develop characters, language, voice, pace, tone, theme and setting, and participate in a group critique of student work. Enrollment is limited.

– SIGN UP HERE –