Tag: Memoir

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 (Flop) Hop Reminder–Fri 3-15

Terah Van Dusen2 Comments

https://i0.wp.com/www.bilerico.com/images/Blogging_monkey.jpg

A few days ago I invited you to hop on the Blog Hop, though I’ve heard from only a handful of you…a very…small…handful. I imagine that you, like me, are confused. I’m still confused! This is Blog Hop is much more difficult than, say, musical chairs, which is how blogging should be, easy! I mean, we all know monkeys could blog. This Blog Hop is like an f-ing equation–wait so I post now and five people post in seven days and I link back to five people who already posted so that the train has ten people but if you can only find three people then that’s fine but if two people jump off the train than how many pe–…

I’m about to call this Blog Hop the Blog Flop! But rather than give up, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to post my tailored instructions on my blog. My very simple tailored instructions. Instructions for monkey’s if-you-will. There’s no limit to the number of bloggers who can join. If you like the questionnaire, post it on your blog. What you’ll do is copy and paste the questionnaire in a post and invite your readers to do the same. Time-limit-splime-limit.

Ideally what this will do is assist the readers you already have in really getting the low-down on say your memoir or your soon-to-be-released historical fiction while introducing new readers to your major piece of work. If this sounds like a good deal to you, stay tuned for the Blog (Flop) Hop Instructions & Questionnaire which will be posted soon. I’d be pleased if some of my long-term readers could support the momentum of this author-chain my chiming in with a post. Thanks guys 🙂

Bear Mountain

Terah Van Dusen12 Comments

In life, I like hills that are mountains but not so large the average person can’t climb ’em. Mountains not so large they get glaciers and avalanches. Not so high you need special gear. No, in life I like mountains for the Everyday Person. A mountain anyone can get to and d8122de23cc4ad5c30702e910b5a284aenjoy. Mountains with water, because life needs water. And better with water people bottle and call ‘Spring’. In life, I like mountains erupting with life. I like mountains with deer and duck and butterflies and bear. I like mountains with signs. Signs that are brown and green and read ‘Wilderness Area’ or ‘Preserve’. In life, I like places where us animals are free. Flat land is fine and the nose bleeds are few. But in life I like a mountain small enough to climb but large enough to name Bear.

Villains Part II–The Rose Tree

Terah Van Dusen37 Comments

old-door-linda-mcraeOn either side of the front door to the inky, smelly, dilapidated mansion were two hedge plants, taller than a very tall man and as wide as our pick-up. Now, hedge smells a certain way. Hedge smells a helk of a lot better than old folk, chewing tobacco and black coffee in oily mugs. I still lean in and smell a hedge whenever I get the chance, whenever I pass one by. I used to walk out of that smelly house and immediately bury my nose in the hedge.

For me hedge smells like freedom. The way a car radio sounds like freedom. The way my own personal set of apartment keys feels like freedom. The way an attractive man looks like freedom, foolishly. The way a cigarette tastes like freedom. I’d edit the illusions but they are my truths. These are the things in which I have identified freedom. Recognizing their traps and tricks, I have let at least one go. But I shall never let go of the rest.

As soon as the bitter note of hedge would meet my little girl nose I knew I was free. Free until dark. When I had to go back inside.

At first, shell-shocked, I would go as far from the mansion as I could. For a while my little bare legs would take me up creek to a bridge where I’d sit and watch the iridescent water saunter on by me. Hunter Creek. My dad was the first to show me Hunter Creek, of course. My dad showed me enough trails enough times thatart2 I knew how get to my Grandpa John’s house on Fizer Road, about two miles away–both by street and by trail. I also knew how to get to the elementary school and to the mouth of the Klamath River. I could probably get to the Mini-Mart too. I knew the best blackberry patches and where to find a mud bog so thick it could pass for quicksand. I told a couple boys in my first-grade class about the quicksand but they didn’t believe me. Boys were always challenging me. They thought I lied about things. The boys would stare at me for a good long while before excluding me from their games of kickball and football and other boy sports. I was always stuck between the boys and the girls but more drawn to the boy games and the boy talk. The playground attendant would tell me ‘you can’t play football ’cause you’ll scrape up your bare knees even worse. Come over here and play with the girls.’ Later I would stop wearing dresses and only wear jeans and stir-ups. As means to play with the boys.

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Despite all the special places my dad showed me, places he’d gone to “when he was a boy”, I finally found my special place–a rose tree right in front of the mansion. It was a place where me and my best friend and cat, Kitty Rose, could both go. And dummies never saw us there. Hiding in plain sight, she and I, up in The Rose Tree.

The Rose Tree had a trunk about as big a’ round as my dad and branches as thick as necks. The bark was smooth and dusty. Until I met The Rose Tree I thought roses only grew on bushes. I also thought ‘every rose had it’s thorn’ that’s because I heard the song ‘Every Rose Has It’s Thorn’. So when we first started goin’ up there I would be weary, always looking for thorns. But there just weren’t any. Talk about magic.

I’d watch the old folk walk by, Kitty Rose and I perched at the top of The Rose Tree. The villains would mutter to themselves and look out to the fields, the hillside, the barn. They were looking for something, and I always wondered what. I knew it wasn’t me ’cause I didn’t matter til bedtime.

Conference Notes: Kick Start Your Writing in 2013

Terah Van DusenLeave a comment

“Kick Start Your Writing in 2013” presented at Making it in Changing Times by Polly Campbell a.k.a ‘the guru’ (that’s what I’ve dubbed Polly due to her amazing zen-like approach to the writing process!)

“The energy a writer creates actually changes the world, in a small way, but yes.” – Polly Campbell

 

3-Part Writing Process:

 

The Passion:

  • Passion is the thing that gets you moving
  • In this stage, there is no mastery–and that’s OK
  • This piece must be present!

 

The Plan:

  • Create a damn LIFESTYLE of writing
  • Specific actions such as:
    -I will write one page per day
    -I will write in the morning
    -I will network once per day
  • You’ll always get an outcome if you have specific actions!

 
The Persistence:

  • Area wherein the failures and challenges rear their ugly heads
  • You’ve got to get over the humps!
  • This section looks like this:
    -25 query letters to the same guy
    -Cold calling
    -Public speaking
  • Persistence is the only way it happens

 

Powerful Polly Campbell Quotes to Live By:

“Everything is not going to just work out for you. It never does, that just isn’t how life is.” (Tell me about it.)

“Go for good, not great.”

“Ask yourself questions. Then search for the answers.”

“Watch the language you use with yourself. Keep it positive!”

 

 

Villains

Terah Van Dusen4 Comments

It was a big house but it was ugly. The house had inky-colored energy and smelled like old-people ass and chewing tobacco. True stench is thick. When you breathed you swallowed the stench. I had a bunch of male cousins growing up and my one cousin “John Boy” burped and I said “That smells so bad I can taste it!” He asked me, “Can you taste my farts too?” Boys were so gross. At six I didn’t know anyone who smelt worse than my boy cousins or my great grandparents. Fact I still don’t.

I had a special place. In Requa, I spent most my time outside, which nobody seemed to mind. Just had to be in by dark. Ish. I searched high and low for my special place. I knew my bedroom couldn’t be my special place since it was haunted. The inky-colored energy repelled me from that place. Rumor had it a woman slowly died of cancer in there. It was a bedroom Dad and I shared. We both had our own twin bed like we were brother and sister and we shared an old wooden dresser, other than that there was nothing in there. No toys. No photos. At night I would make my dad face me and watch for ghosts behind me. And I would face him and watch for ghosts behind him. Problem was my dad would fall quickly into slumber, tired from work at the road department. “Dad! Dad!” I would say, frightened white. “You’re not watching!”

There were a couple of rooms in the big, cold, inky, smelly, sad-memory-house that I wouldn’t even go in. One room had paintings of great aunt’s of mine that I didn’t really know. The one who lived on the hill behind us and talked to herself and the one who pulled her hair out piece-by-piece and the one who got away and never looked back. The eyeballs of the women in the paintings would follow me. Already an introvert, I didn’t want to be around anybody–even if they were just faces of paint. Hell, the paintings had more personality than the real women did. They smiled more.

Two other rooms had things in them that belonged to my great grandfather–I can’t even type his name out. Wayne. There. I did it. The room had Wayne’s things–rocks, stalactites, harmonicas, old newspapers, all disgusting things that I didn’t want to be around. Things I liked fine on their own but with his prints on them made me head in another direction. If only I could run in the opposite direction of him when I saw him. But I was raised up not to be rude. To respect your elders.

I didn’t want to be rude.
I didn’t want to be rude.

I tried to make the upstairs bathroom my special place but great grandma Faith had a big problem with that. I think she was worried I might drown in there, in the deep clawfoot tub. Drown like my father did. Before he came back to life. I didn’t realize the root of her concern until now. Tragedy upon tragedy.

I realllllly wanted my special place to be upstairs, because the villains couldn’t climb the stairs. But it was really just too inky up there. Downstairs wasn’t an option. Downstairs was a quiet battleground. Even when Dad came home from work I wasn’t safe cause the villains were that good. They were sneaky and I didn’t want to be rude.

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?

Neurotic Fan Part I

Terah Van Dusen4 Comments

I missed out on the free stuffed animal cause I wanted a beer and the line for beer was zilch and the line for a free stuffed animal was around the block and down the hall.

I was disappointed.

I thought I was part of a bite-size group of people and after the show we’d all sit around in someone’s cramped apartment drinking straight whiskey and maybe doing a little coke.

I thought I’d get to talk up my book and maybe Chuck Palahniuk and Lidia would ask me to join their writers’ group.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve got no experience–all that matters is you’ve passion, and you do, I can see it in you they’d say as I’d shoot back the whiskey hollering Fuck yeah I do! sticking out my tongue and shaking my head back and forth. We’d all cheer and laugh. There aren’t enough writers out there, Chuck would tell me.

I thought I’d be the only girl in a black kimono and that Lidia might point me out to the audience, telling everyone what a good writer I was and some hot guy would spot me and think I was super sexy. Then he’d approach me and we’d fall in love and we’d both be writers and we’d make writer love.

It didn’t matter that I was already in love, and with a writer. Things could always get better.

You already know how this ends: in near full disappointment.

After standing in line with fifty-billion fucking college kids watching them text and say Like and grab eachother’s asses we filed inside where I slipped away to the WOW Hall’s basement bar missing my chance at a free stuffed animal (free to the first 100 people).

It was so quiet down there the bartender had her back to me and was on her knees stocking the cooler. I cleared my throat, ordered a Sierra Nevada, and sat in the corner and read Dora.

I knew Lidia was upstairs signing books for all the, like, college kids and I tried to summon her downstairs with my mind. Cause down in the dark basement bar was where Lidia should be. And, you know if it were twenty years ago it’s where she woulda been. But it wasn’t twenty years ago.

That was a long time ago.

Arizona

Terah Van Dusen6 Comments

Up at the house on the Winchuck River one night it was decided I’d be moving with Peggy to Arizona. We’d leave in two weeks. I told my Dad over the phone and he sounded a bit wounded but he assured me it would only be temporary until he and Lisa found a house. I’m not leaving you. You left me. Remember that, Dad I thought but didn’t say.

Peggy and I went down to the DHS office in Crescent City, met with a social worker named Pam, signed a couple papers and it was a done deal. There was no inspecting Peggy’s house, calling references, or privately interviewing me. You just looked at Peggy and knew she was the real deal. There was virtually nothing wrong with her. She was my perfect temporary guardian. She was my perfect permanent guardian but nobody wanted to go there yet. And I mean nobody. Not Peggy nor me. They talked like it would just be for the school year, but Arizona was hundreds if not thousands of miles away and as soon as we headed south I knew, I just knew the miles were coming between me and my old life. And a good part of me was really, really happy about that. The other part tried to remember landmarks for my runaway escape. Ch-yeah, ’cause that had gone so well the first time..

After a couple days of driving we ended up in Arizona. Peggy recalls what I said when we got there: “Where’s the water? No, seriously, where’s the water?” I found out the water came from faucets and deep underground, not pouring from the mountains like it did back home. We stopped off at an outlet mall outside of Phoenix and Peggy bought me some Levi’s, t-shirts, and a couple of new bras. We drove for another five hours south and finally ended up in what looked like the middle of nowhere. You could look in every direction, north, east, south, west but there was nothing there, just the horizon. We ended up in Sunsites, Arizona. Peggy owned a funny-looking little eggshell-colored house on Geneva Street. Geneva Street had a ton of funny-looking little eggshell-colored houses that Peggy called “stucco”. Stucco was this certain texture the paint had. The houses were boxy and had red-tiled roofs. Don’t get me wrong, they were nice.

School would start in three days. I would be taking the school bus to another town (El-fucking-Frida), where the high school was. Sunsites was initially supposed to be a retirement-only community but they ultimately couldn’t afford to keep the young folk out so it was ninety-percent retirement and ten-percent everything else. There was a ghost town a mile away. The nearest grocery store was thirty miles north. There was no mayor. There was a golf course which was a big deal. Tombstone was over a hill to the west and Mexico was forty minutes south.