Thoughts on Dialogue--in Writing and Life

I’ve started a blog for Deverell, the werecat of my latest project. You can read his blog here: Werecat Conversations.

Meanwhile...I’ve been thinking about dialogue and how important it is—both in the stories we tell if we are writers and in our own lives.

In real life, as in stories, often relationships fall apart because people don’t talk to each other. They may either avoid controversy or they may talk (or shout!) AT each other. And neither approach works very well.

The key, of course, is HOW people talk with each other. Do they listen? Do they HEAR? Do they listen with a focus of wanting to understand or with a focus of needing to prove they are right?

Which kind of characters would you rather read about? Which kind of character would you rather be? Because we are all the characters of our own life stories.

Some relationships can’t be salvaged. Sometimes there are irreconcilable issues. And others can be.

I found myself thinking this week WHAT IF:

What if we began ALL dialogue with an appreciation for whatever good the other person brings into our lives?

What if we all listened to each other with respect?

What if we had compassion for each other’s fears?

What if we looked for ways to heal each other’s fears instead of using them against each other?

What if all we had compassion for everyone?

Can you imagine a world in which we all could honestly talk about our hopes and fears and know that we would be treated with kindness and respect? Can you imagine helping to create that kind of world by the way in which you live your life and interact with others?

Note: I am NOT saying take on anyone else's problems! Nor am I saying we need to share the other person's fears or see the world the same way. There is a difference between really listening and in believing we must fix whatever we see or hear. What I am saying is that I believe that if we change the quality of our dialogue with others, we change not only the experience of our own lives but we have the chance to help change the world as well.

Maybe that’s why I write. Because I do want to help create that kind of world. And so I create characters who try.

As you go through the week ahead, maybe think about dialogue and the power it has both in our lives and in our stories. Oh, and check out Deverell’s blog at Werecat Conversations.

April

Seeing the Sights

Isn’t it funny how we often don’t get around to visiting places near us unless or until someone visits us and we’re showing them around? It was that way when I was growing up, too--we only saw the local sights when visitors came from out of town. These days, every time my daughter comes to visit me, as she did for a week, I end up discovering places in and around Austin that I didn’t know about.

There’s Mt. Bonnell with a gorgeous view of the city. There’s Zilker Botanical Gardens that somehow I hadn’t gotten around to seeing before. There’s Mozart Café right on the water. And of course there’s South Congress where I found a print for my wall and we wandered in and out of all sorts of wonderful shops.

It was fun having my daughter here and satisfying to know she was here to work on Challenge X which is a program for college students to work on alternative energy cars. She sees making the world a better place as part of her mission and I’m glad for that. I truly think she will.

I can’t wait to see what she and I discover together the next time she makes it to Texas. I also find myself thinking that maybe I won’t wait for her next visit to see what new discoveries I can make on my own. After all, I went across country on my own. There's no reason I should lose my sense of adventure just because I'm now staying in one place.

April

Fixing the #^&$*^(%$^#%$#@ Toilet

Okay, I’m a writer not a plumber. But writing paying what it does, I’ve learned to do a lot of things. This week I learned to change the guts of a toilet.

Now it shouldn’t be that hard. There are directions right on the box of replacement parts. Only....only the directions assume a certain amount of knowledge—like how to get off a stubborn plastic nut.

I mean, I know how to deal with a stubborn metal one. I know the stuff you squirt on to loosen things up. But this blasted thing was plastic!

I ended up going out and getting a new and better wrench. Came back and pretty much demolished the plastic sucker. Good thing a new one was included with the new parts. And I listened to the directions that said to hand tighten only! It’s a good bet whoever worked on this toilet last used a wrench to tighten the nut instead.

It was annoying and ended up costing much more than I wanted but at least it’s fixed. Just in time for my daughter to visit for a week. Plus, if I’m going to hold more classes here, I sure as heck need to have a working guest toilet! (This one broke during the break at my last workshop here.)

Anyway, now I have another new skill. And maybe even some ideas for a scene in a story—if I turn my hand to a contemporary romance!

Hope all of you are having a great week and luck with any challenges coming up in your lives right now!

April

Intuition

Now let me say first that I grew up in a family that valued science and rational thinking. So did my ex-husband and most of the people I’ve known over the years. A few years ago, though, I started listening to that inner voice that is generally called intuition. Maybe it’s the subconscious synthesizing information I didn’t know I had. Maybe it’s something more profound than that. I’m not sure if the explanation matters. I only know that it’s been an interesting experience.

I began with little things. Things that didn’t seem to matter much. And I’d let my intuition guide me. Interesting things started happening. It got even more interesting when I was going across country not sure where I’d end up. Intuition led me to an apartment with a landlady whose daughter had taken a workshop from me at an RWA conference a couple of years earlier. When I was house hunting in Texas, intuition guided me to the house I ended up buying.

I’ve come to trust that intuition though I’ll admit there are times I’m reluctant to tell people that’s how I’m doing things. Maybe it’s that my subconscious filters information more efficiently than my conscious mind. As I said, I doubt it matters what the explanation is—experiment has shown me it works.

So I’m curious. How many of you out there also listen to your intuition? Do you have any stories about it that you’d like to share?

Hoping your intuition is guiding you as usefully as mine is guiding me.

April

Intuition

Now let me say first that I grew up in a family that valued science and rational thinking. So did my ex-husband and most of the people I’ve known over the years. A few years ago, though, I started listening to that inner voice that is generally called intuition. Maybe it’s the subconscious synthesizing information I didn’t know I had. Maybe it’s something more profound than that. I’m not sure if the explanation matters. I only know that it’s been an interesting experience.

I began with little things. Things that didn’t seem to matter much. And I’d let my intuition guide me. Interesting things started happening. It got even more interesting when I was going across country not sure where I’d end up. Intuition led me to an apartment with a landlady whose daughter had taken a workshop from me at an RWA conference a couple of years earlier. When I was house hunting in Texas, intuition guided me to the house I ended up buying.

I’ve come to trust that intuition though I’ll admit there are times I’m reluctant to tell people that’s how I’m doing things. Maybe it’s that my subconscious filters information more efficiently than my conscious mind. As I said, I doubt it matters what the explanation is—experiment has shown me it works.

So I’m curious. How many of you out there also listen to your intuition? Do you have any stories about it that you’d like to share?

Hoping your intuition is guiding you as usefully as mine is guiding me.

April

Ice Storms

I’m sitting here on the third day of ice storms in Austin, TX. Now ice storms are no fun anywhere. One of the worst winters in New Jersey was the year we had ice storms every week for a month. Our poor collie didn’t want to go outside because the backyard sloped downhill and once down to where he could do what he needed to do, it was very hard for him to get back up the ice to come inside.

In Austin, however, the situation is worse. Houses aren’t designed the same way as in the northeast and many of the highways have overpasses that freeze over quickly in cold weather. Nor do cities here stockpile the quantities of salt that northern cities do.

I’m impressed with how few accidents there have been given the conditions and pleased that people are sensibly staying home. I’m not even walking to the end of the block to where the mailboxes are to check my mail until the ice melts off the sidewalks and streets so I can get there and back without falling!

The good thing is that there’s lots of time to write since I have no where to go and nothing else that must be done. I stocked up at the grocery store in advance and even got fresh batteries for the flashlight—which so far I haven’t needed.

I find myself spinning stories in my head about how different people might handle situations like this. As I say in my workshops, it isn’t the circumstances of a person’s life that matters nearly so much as what they do with those circumstances. And how a person (or character in a novel) acts and reacts tells a great deal about their personality.

This has been a strange winter all across the country. I hope everyone everywhere is keeping safe and warm and that all you writers are finding time and ways to write.

April

Lost in the Story

I just realized that I’m a few days overdue to post. That’s what happens when a writer gets caught up in the words—either reading or writing them. I was doing both. I was reading a manuscript and marveling at all the ways words can come together to create a story—the ways that work and the ones that don’t and why.

I was also working on notes for my next project—a sequel to the one that one the Paranormal category of the PASIC contest. I want to send that first manuscript out, you see, and can’t unless I have the bones of the next story worked out so that I can properly set things up in this one. So many possibilities! So many wonderful, fun possibilities!

Shall I focus on an older sister and her unrequited passion for a “normal” human when she knows what life has been like for her mother? Or should I write the story of the eldest brother—the one who has heretofore shouldered all the responsibility in the family protecting his siblings? Or should I choose one of the younger ones, off to London for the very first time? Decisions, decisions, decisions....

What a joy it is to be able to go into the worlds of my characters! What fun to be able to set them at odds with one another and see the ways they change and grow as they figure their way out of one challenge after another. What satisfaction to know that in the worlds I create things always work out in the end and men and women come together in ways that empower BOTH of them and diminish neither.

So if I’m late occasionally with my blog posts, you’ll know that odds are it’s because I’ve once again gotten lost in the world of my stories!

Have a great week everyone,
April