Tag: Books

Storytime: Reading the Waves by Lidia Yuknavitch

Terah Van Dusen2 Comments

I don’t do book reviews or ratings. If I loved a book, you’ll likely hear about it from me eventually. Rarely, my book hype might even venture into some different form, maybe even a story, which is exactly what happened here.

I was mostly finished reading Lidia Yuknavitch’s Reading the Waves when I spontaneously suggested to my family that we scratch our original Mother’s Day brunch plans in Eugene and drive to Heceta Beach instead. Spontaneity–a mother’s antidote to monotony. The decision was a full body knowing. Something you don’t question. Like when the month before Dad died, I suddenly announced that we’d be making an impromptu trip to see him. Quality time with Autumn’s grandpa. An overdue visit. We didn’t know it yet but—that would be our goodbye. Now I try to always follow my intuition.

Before driving forty miles northwest to Heceta Beach, I grabbed Lidia’s book, wrapped it in a silk scarf, and placed it in our picnic basket. Once there, Autumn and I began skipping rocks on the creek that spills into the Pacific. The rocks were black, round and flat. They were the perfect skipping rocks! Steve built a campfire in the sand, and we all ran barefoot on the beach. We explored the grottos underneath the lighthouse, examined the tidal pools for starfish, then sat around the fire making s’mores. Eventually I took out Lidia’s beautiful book to photograph it against the moody backdrop of sky, waves and sea. I figured that later, when I’d finished the remaining few pages, I’d have an image to share alongside my words about how much I loved the book. I took a couple photographs then walked back to the campfire.

Back at the farm, a nearly full flower moon in Scorpio shone through the bedroom window. I opened Reading the Waves, reading only for a page or two before the following words jumped out at me: The historic Cape Creek Bridge arches over the place where a creek and the ocean meet. If you are at the lip of the ocean and the arm of the creek, the bridge feels like it has your back.

At the lip of the ocean and the arm of the creek…In her new book, Lidia had written a whole page about the exact place we’d built our campfire and skipped rocks at the beach. The next day, I wrote her a letter and sent it to her PO box. Something about cosmic nudges, kinship, inner knowing, invisible threads, art, motherhood, and awe. Something about Heceta Beach.

Beautiful coincidences aside, first with The Chronology of Water and now with Reading the Waves, Lidia has breathed life into me through her work. It feels as if by writing her truths, she’s writing my truths, too. There are even parallels within parallels, stacked like little nesting dolls: our connection to Eugene, Oregon; our obsession with the underwater world and how it is one of the only places on earth we feel safe; our complicated family stories; our inherited misfittedness; our need for peace, for space, for quiet. But this isn’t about me, it isn’t personal…It’s just that every time I read a book that resonates with me on that level, it feels that way: personal. It makes me wonder if things aren’t connected on a mostly invisible realm existing just beyond our field of vision. Just beyond our willingness to believe in such magic.

The moment I began Reading the Waves, I got swept away. She writes of geographies lodged in our psyches, in our bones, even in our gait. She reminds me that although certain memories may be unforgettable, we can transform the rough ones into something smoother. Like with all the rocks she collects along the shore, stories too are destined to go through their own metamorphosis. Each one with a different history, color, and composite—best witnessed when illuminated underwater. This book feels to me, at least in part, about all the great loves in her life. About the wild forms intimacy takes. They are Lidia’s love stories, right when I needed them most. This book may feel like a return to The Chronology of Water for fans of Lidia’s early work. (Her unforgettable memoir was adapted into a film directed by Kristen Stewart which recently premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.) You can find Lidia’s latest book, Reading the Waves, at Powells Books and other national and local booksellers. She currently teaches writing workshops on the Oregon coast.

Reading the Waves by Lidia Yuknavitch
Heceta Beach, Oregon, May 2025

Money made publishing “Dreams” possible

Terah Van Dusen1 Comment

Dreams of a Rocking Pony is the first self-published title I feel really good about putting out there and promoting. Not one single typo, cover-to-cover, glossy finish, attractive artwork, “Luminare Press” stamp at the bottom of the first, beautiful blue page. The book makes me feel alive. It makes me feel like me. The me who writes–and publishes–books.

But I can’t really take the credit…money can.

I have been writing poetry, essays, memoir and children’s books for well over a decade. I began writing in high school, and in 2023 I will have been out of high school for 20 years! I have multiple projects just sitting in my writing den collecting dust bunnies. There’s the big project, a memoir, which I have spent most of my creative time on: I’ve workshopped it, critiqued it, hired a professional editor, had my best writing friend beta read it, and I’m critiquing it again, now. It still doesn’t feel perfect, but in August I will be pitching it at a professional writers’ conference. (Fingers and toes all crossed.)

My other projects include: “Do Nothing, Alone,” a children’s book on meditation, “Earthside and Other Everyday Miracles,” a collection of essays, “Mama Bird,” a farm memoir…I also have two other projects that don’t have names, but tons of material has already been written for those books, too.

Dreams isn’t the best representation of my work. (I realize that saying this risks putting you in the position of not wanting to buy the children’s book. But don’t let what I’m about to say stop you, just hear me out.) Dreams is the best representation of my grandmother, the illustrator’s, work. The book also illustrates the level of professionalism that comes from hiring a publisher to print it, and what a little money, used with the right intention, can do.

This experience–publishing Dreams–will probably change my outlook on self-publishing forever. In short, I will never do the formatting, cover design, and publishing work again all on my own. I will only hire professionals from here on out…as long as I can afford to. (And if I can’t afford to, I will save the money until I can!)

My first two self-published titles–Love, Blues, Balance and New Moon, were 100% free and 100% created by me. It was a painstaking process formatting the pages, creating a table-of-contents, and getting it all to line up appropriately formatting-wise on KDP (Amazon’s direct publishing platform). I don’t even think that one of the books has page numbers. It was perfect at the time, however, because it cost me nothing. It was a good experience and I had fun. Especially designing the covers.

But I didn’t LOVE the books. I could see all the little errors.

Fast-forward 5 years and my grandmother and I have just co-created Dreams. (I wrote about that experience here, in my previous blog post.) We joked about having the book published for real and I knew that self-publishing a children’s book myself through KDP was going to be a challenge. Publishing a book with illustrations was next level! I would need some help.

Honestly at first, when I got the price quote, I tabled the idea for many months. The pandemic was dragging on and on and, finally, while taking stock of my life and priorities, I decided that publishing a book with my grandmother was the thing I wanted to do most. My intentions around book publishing came into clearer focus when I received an unexpected financial boost. And yet the entire experience has taught me that I should value my work enough to have it bound professionally, even if I have to save money all year to do it.

Writers write. Book cover designers create book covers. Publishing presses print books. I learned through all of this to let others do what they do best. And then do what you do best. For a long time, I thought I had to become all of those other things…just to bring my words into the light. Now I know better. Now I see the piles of dusty papers in my writer’s den from a new, more optimistic, angle. They will, someday, get published. And I credit this book, Dreams of a Rocking Pony, for teaching me a valuable lesson about writing and publishing: That for 1/3 the price of a used car, I can bind–and sell–a beautiful freaking book.

I Survived My First Camp Out with NaNoWriMo

Terah Van DusenLeave a comment

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Bar graph provided by NaNoWriMo. When you click on the line it tells you how many words were written that day. Notice the spike near the end.

Proof of what a procrastinator I am. Or not. Notice how the bar graph spikes once I learn that can rewrite 10,000 words in a day, instead of just 1-2,000. Plus, pressure. Plus, full days off. Plus, momentum and flow. Plus, I didn’t think I’d be saying it, but I did it!

Sure. Writing a book is hard. Writing a book is hard whether it’s over the course of 2 and a half years or the course of one month. Over the course of a lifetime or a weekend. What’s difficult about it isn’t the number of words. I’d bet there could be a compelling masterpiece that was only 50 pages long. What’s truly difficult about it is the emotional terrain one covers.

I suppose I can only speak for memoirists in these regards; only no, I am certain writing horror stories is draining in it’s own way. All the closing of the blinds, the paranoia, the bumps in the night. When you are writing you are in that place–you are in childhood or jail or both.

As you can see I barely reached my goal today. I ended at 50, 817 words but three days ago I was way down at 27,000. I cannot explain it but: magic. And those other things I mentioned above and the fact that, yeah, I’m not a quitter. I am not bragging but when things matter to me, they matter to me. If they matter enough to me they will happen. Years ago, I am unsure if I would have accomplished this. Not out of lack of talent or drive but out of FEAR. This time, FEAR almost stopped me dead in my tracks too. Save the fact that I have learned that FEAR has a bigger bark than bite. Little by little, bit by bit, bird by bird–that’s how I navigated the first 28 days of NaNoWriMo. Then I panicked, was provided the luxury of two days off of work, and busted the shit out.

It may sound difficult but I basically kicked it into high gear seeing that I wasn’t going to make my deadline on time at the rate that I was going.

Wanting to be a WINNER I rolled up my sleeves and dug in deeper. This determination, paired with the grace of my story loosening its grip on my heart (the material was highly emotional in the first part of my memoir, then lessened as I got closer to my 50,000 word goal) gave me the boost I needed to reach my goal today.

Fact: my memoir is a lot longer than 50,000 words, so my work is not over.

Fact: because of NaNoWriMo, I have a kick-ass third draft of my memoir (well, almost).

Thanks, NaNoWriMo.

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NaNoWriMo 17

Terah Van Dusen2 Comments

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NaNoWriMo.

At first, all the letters just ran together, they didn’t make sense. I fumbled on the pronunciation when speaking with my grandmother on the phone. “Anyway,” I told her. “It’s a good thing. The idea is you write a novel in a month.”

I was at Target, talking on my cellphone while browsing the “school supplies” section. I absentmindedly placed a white wire wastebasket in the cart. It was a good deal. $5. Then I took it out–nobody as broke as me needs to be spending money on something as trashy as a wastebasket. But I could just picture crumpling a piece of writing paper into a ball, tossing it into the cute wire wastebasket. Real “writerly”. But I already had a system for recycling paper–a medium-sized Priority box at the foot of my oak dresser. The paper goes in there, uncrumpled, and becomes firestarter. Quick. Easy. Cheap. Not glamorous but not frivolous either.

NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month. Nah – noh – rye – moh.

I’d never set big writing goals for November, though I had heard of NaNoWriMo. My novel (my memoir) was written first over many, many years of recounting and recording painful and joyous events from childhood–scene by scene. Then in 2016 I spent one full summer preparing the manuscript for submission to a Portland editor (getting it into chapters). I got the manuscript there within the deadline, but it became apparent that the manuscript still needed a LOT of work! Especially the ending.

I took a few days off-the-grid in January 2017 to work on it. It felt like my coffee had barely cooled before I already had to pack up and go. I didn’t get a lot done. I had barely “tapped into the mindset” before I was thrust back into reality: moving, since my partner bought a home, starting a farm and small business, taking care of myself, working and earning money, and um, using Social Media. You know, RL stuff.

I guess NaNoWriMo kind of takes all of those excuses and RL factors and throws them to the wind. Like a 48-hour film contest or something. You get a lot done in a small (ish) amount of time. In essence: you fucking hustle. Boundaries are set. Word counts are recorded and, importantly, we writers are all in this together. Social Media outlets like Instagram unite NaNoWriMo participants unlike any other previous club. Local libraries support the cause by hosting weekly groups for local writers participating in NaNoWriMo.

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At Target I settled on one large Sketch Pad. Sleek with a black cover, wide blank white pages that opened nicely and stayed down on their own. Some journals are made for looks with cheap paper or kitschy covers. Not this one. I put two in the basket, but at $8.99 a pop, I put one back.

I started really thinking about NaNoWriMo: would I start a new novel? I have a fresh idea rolling around in my head. Do you have to be just starting out with your book? In a lot of ways I am. I have “only” been working on my book for a decade. Some people spend twice that. I can’t see the end in sight: I should probably work on this one then. Wouldn’t you say it has the most potential? Hell, if I am about to write a book in a month it better be the one I’ve been writing for the past 10 years.

Step One: Google NaNoWriMo, again. See that local literary group Wordcrafters is hosting a free event at the Springfield Downtown Public Library Saturday’s through November 1-3 p.m. Record in weekly planner. Write with finest print.

Step Two: Email Wordcrafters to confirm event and “network.” Also this helps make the dream more likely to become reality. Establish accountability, in essence.

Step Three: Pace excitedly a bit. Make coffee and decide today I will “prepare my life for NaNoWriMo”. Pick up a few items around the house, because the dog chewed them up and has strewn them about–mostly gnawed on pieces of kindling. Add wood to the fire. Sip coffee. Plot inside mind. Decide I will sweep,  then clean my office. First, I eat a banana.

Step Four: Start a blog post to share rare enthusiastic rush of inspiration. Write because it is what I do and cannot be contained. (Also: then worry that said writing is getting in the way of “real” writing.)

Step Five: Get an email from Wordcrafters: No need to register. See you on Saturday! Decide it is time to sweep the floor.

Step Six: Music. Coffee. Radio. Broom. Paper. Office supplies. Could leap like a leprechaun today “feeling like a writer.” It is my first day alone in over a week and my last day off before going back to work. I am amazed every time I get a rush of fresh energy and doubly amazed at all that can be accomplished, reset, and improved over the span of one “Sunday”.

Step 7: More coffee. I’m taking advantage of this whole cool-weather thing.

Step 8: Dust desk with damp, then dry, cloth. Shuffle things around until they look feng-shui’d, American-girl style.

Step 9: Face, with a deep optimistic breath, the “memoir section” of my office. Note at least 11 unrelated items encroaching on the scene: local newspapers, greeting cards, and “watercolor pens”. Weed out unrelated materials. Dust again. Lightly finger manuscript for good luck. Smile at the fortune of having an office.

Step 10: Register for NaNoWriMo on NaNoWriMo.org. Complete profile, book title & description, and select a writing “region”. Select Eugene/Lane County, Oregon for my Home Region and San Francisco/Bay Area and Portland, Oregon for my other regions. Review this article written by a more experience NaNoWriMo’er to insure that I know what I am doing. Set aside 4 blank notebooks, The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr, a decent ball point pen, a chipped empty vase from Mexico, vessel up; and sit back in my fuzzy slippers, grateful for the permission and support of writers from all over the world who are joining together in their own living rooms and offices to make magic and make words, sentences and waves.

For more information on NaNoWriMo, just Google it. If you want to support my cause, kindly ignore me for the next 31 days. Sending Corn Nuts or Jelly Belly’s is okay too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love Blues Balance

Terah Van Dusen6 Comments

Twelve cups of coffee later and I have (finally!) completed my book of poems Love Blues Balance. A project I have been compiling for weeks now has a cover and 108 pages of material. Just awaiting approval from Createspace and then I will a) order a copy for myself and b) order copies to distribute. A special thanks to friend and photographer Kirsten Lara Valenzuela who provided the lovely cover image you see here.

Can’t wait for distribution! Stay tuned!  ❤

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Blog (Flop) Hop Simple Instructions & Questionnaire

Terah Van DusenLeave a comment

-3-Step Instructions-

 

1. Copy and paste the following Blog Hop Blogger Questionnaire into a post
(Post Friday or within one week)

2. In the post, invite your readers and fellow bloggers join the Blog Hop to promote their work by completing the questionnaire in a post of their own

3. Add your own flair to the post–images, links, etc. Have fun with it!

 

 
-Blog Hop Blogger Questionnaire–

 

1: What is the working title of your book?

2: Where did the idea come from for the book?

3: What genre does your book come under?

4: Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

5: What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

6: Is your book self-published, published by an independent publisher, or represented by an agency?

7: How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

8: What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

9: Who or what inspired you to write this book?

10: What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

 

Stay tuned for my Blog Hop Blogger Questionnaire which will debut on Friday!

Blog Hop!

Terah Van Dusen10 Comments

I’m participating in The Next Big Thing Blog Hop–it’s a way to connect writers and readers and raise awareness about newly released or upcoming books or e-books. Lennon Sundance, who is basically the most bold, daring blogger I know invited me to join–so thank you Lennon! I’m pumped.

I have one week to locate 5 other participants and to complete a fun questionnaire (it’s already done! That’s how fun it is!) focusing on a work of my choice. In this case I will promote my e-book Poems by a Horny Small-Town Gal. As far as locating folks for the Blog Hop goes–I was wondering, would you be interested in participating in the Blog Hop? Oh come on, don’t be shy! Just answer ‘yes’ or ‘sure’ or ‘oh what the hell’ in the comment space and I will email you further instructions 🙂

Making it in Changing Times Conference Notes

Terah Van Dusen12 Comments

I made my way up to Portland (soon I won’t have to travel so far, yay!) on January 26th for a writers conference, Making it in Changing Times.

Lidia Yuknavitch was the keynote speaker and the event was organized by Jessica Morrell author of Writing Out The Storm, a book Lidia held close to her chest and kept on her bedstand during the FIRST days, weeks, and months of her writing career. She credits the book for motivating her to write. Jessica Morrell is to Lidia what Natalie Goldberg is to me.

The event was SPECTACULAR. I was high the entire time. On writing, folks, on writing. During the session I thought of you guys: my blogging community. My writing tribe. My stranger-angels.

I took notes of course, with the intent of sharing them on my blog. With you. Because you are where I am–scratching and clawing your way into the writing world. Some of you are further along than others. For some of you this information will be premature, for others it will be old news. But I hope for at least one of you, it is just perfect useful.

Over the next few days, I will post 4 conference “notes”:

1. “An Editor’s Wishlist” by Jessica Morrell
2. “Kick Start Your Writing in 2013” by Polly Campell
3. “The Worth of Risk” by Lidia Yuknavitch
4. “Signs You’re Telling Not Showing” by Jessica Morrell

Do you know these authors? What books, conferences, and authors have inspired you? Please share your thoughts, we’re all in this together. I’ve never heard of an artist being “over inspired”, have you? For me, I can’t get enough inspiration. But like love, the timing has to be just right…if you don’t get anything from these notes right off–come back. It’s good stuff.

Neurotic Fan Part II–Am I Invisible?

Terah Van Dusen4 Comments

I shuffle upstairs in my long black kimono, the show starting soon.

I go to the bathroom to piss out my beer and stand in line, nobody talking to me and me talking to nobody. I think of what a little city Eugene is. People say it’s a real friendly city. I’m not entirely convinced. I remember bathrooms down on the border of Mexico and how they came practically stocked with cocaine and how that really brought the women together, really opened up the lines of communication, har har.

Eugene needs more drugs, for sure. Women here care about health and spirituality and jogging. Fucking. Jogging.

I emerge from the bathroom stall and am the only person left. Good. I wash my hands and check myself out in the mirror, remembering the young girl who didn’t check my ID. Bitch.

Then I hear a stall door open and close. And though I didn’t know it yet– I hear the sigh of Chelsea Cain’s pre-show nervousness or boredom, I don’t know, but it was a sigh…a famous-author-sigh and Famous. Authors. Are. People. Too.

“Oh. Hi!”

I perk right up as Chelsea Cain emerges in her pink lipstick, short nighty and fuzzy bunny slippers.

“Hi!” She smiles her bright, gorgeous smile.

“I like your nightgown. Very vintage.” I smile back. Again.

“Oh, thank you.”

“Well, have fun!” I wave while leaving the bathroom.

I look for Lidia but she’s hiding (she does that) and I think, gosh, I hope Chelsea knows I know who she is. All I did was talk about her clothes. I could’ve mentioned her books.

But the truth is, I hadn’t yet read her. But I liked her–just for being her–she was perky and charismatic, I knew that. A week later I would read her memoir Dharma Girl, which wasn’t a struggle, not at all, it was very well-written and introspective but lacking a little spice and danger.

Reading Dharma Girl after reading The Chronology of Water reminded me of when I replaced methamphetamine with cocaine (we’re talking daily use here). So mellow it was hardly even potent. But it’s all relative–if I did cocaine now I’d be swimming the clouds. Back-strokes n’ shit.

I’m sure, no I’m certain Chelsea Cain’s murder mystery shit is potent as hell.

So I look for Lidia and she’s still nowhere to be found. I get in line for a stuffed animal and I’m the only one there and there’s an empty box behind the deserted foldy-table.

Oh well.

I join the fifty-thousand fucking horny college kids with their iPhones and now their huge cheetah and lion stuffed animals that they’re literally making hump eachother.

I sit on the floor cross-legged with my faint close-lipped smile that says I’m approachable and someone elbows me in the mouth and a round girl in front of me scootches back to make room for her friend, a sexy blonde in a black kimono and they snap a picture together and they’re so close I could lick the backs of their heads. I shift uncomfortably and think Am I invisible? Like, really. No, seriously..am I invisible?