Words on Books

Motherhood Cliches: The View from the Summit

Lucy Chambers — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 08:40:55 -0600

I've been thinking alot about figurative language recently. I can't tell you if this is because I'm an editor or because the fifth grade has a laser focus on it this year. At our house we tend to go from one person's project to another's pretty seamlessly. Call it a lack of boundaries.

Our most recent study seems to be cliche. I am a cliche, you are a cliche, he, she, it is...no, that's my other daughter's Latin. Those other numbers and genders are not the cliches, I am.

The multi-tasking mother. You know the one. Carpool, groceries, business meetings, lunches, dog poop, dinner, school meetings, out of town trips: is this week the editorial trip or the choir trip? And who will take care of the puppy while I'm away?

The minivan ads make it all look so beautiful, and at it's core, it is: how fine for a woman to have a strong family life and fulfilling work. And if it's a little chaotic sometimes, well that's where Folger's in your cup can just smooth out all the rough edges.

Last week I went to the Mom 2.0 Summit, a conference of bloggers and marketers, all focused on the power inherent in this mom life, rather than its potential for frazzle. Several of our authors were participating--Joanne Bamberger the wise PunditMom from D.C.; Karen Walrond, author of the blog Chookooloonks and The Beauty of Different; Mimi Vance, whose wonderful Words by the Handful books are coming out later this year; Jennifer Randall, one of the four teachers who have created Answer Keys for parents; Elizabeth Irvine, whose books on wellness are just what I need to pay heed to right now; and conference organizer, Laura Mayes, Kirtsy.com co-founder who is responsible for our amazing Kirtsy Takes a Bow book. That crowd alone was enough to get my teeth off the motherhood cliche bone I've been working and get me on to some more nutritious fare.

Beyond the Bright Sky crowd, the conference was filled with even more women who were putting all the pieces of motherhood--of womanhood--together in ways that worked--for them. Isabel Kallman, the AlphaMom; Tracey Clark, one of the visionary ShutterSisters; Kristen Chase, the Mominatrix; and of course, Jenny the indomitable Bloggess. Nurturing, sexy, sweet, wild, virgin, crone, whore, madonna: everybody was there; everybody was inspiring.

I noticed strong commonalities: motherhood, creative drive, authenticity, But more importantly, I noticed uniqueness. It was visible in the outfilts--everything from flowy maxi skirts to FM gladiator pumps, wicked witch striped leggings to Mad Men cocktail attire. But, more importantly than in the trappings, the spirit of individuality was tangible in the conversations.

The theme of the Mom 2.0 Summit this year was "Defining a Movement." As Katherine Center's powerful video proclaimed: What you're doing matters. I dare any mother to watch it without crying.

And it's hard to think back on my experience last week without some of the same emotion: the Summit (interesting word choice, but the view was indeed clearer) , the photography exhibit at Fotofest, the three day coalition of women refusing to be bound by cliche--no matter how appropriate some aspects of it might be.

Today, I'm a little off my game: the antibiotics haven't kicked in yet, the sink is full of dishes, the email in-box is screaming at me, it's supposed to snow and no one could find her jacket this morning. I'm tempted to say, Calgon, take me away. As if it could. But, instead, I'll take Katherine's words to heart: What you're doing matters.

As for the motherhood cliche? I think I'll throw out the figurative language and write my own definition.

If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands?
~Milton Berle

My Dirty Valentine

Lucy Chambers — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 12:26:15 -0600

Love is the language of poets. It lends itself to figures of speech and flowery language. How do I love thee?

I love thee with similes. I love thee with hyperbole, and I love thee with metaphors. My favorite simile about love the answer to a riddle I learned when I was a very little girl: Love is like a hole.

Q: What gets bigger, the more you give it away?

Happy Valentine's Day, to you, to yours. I hope your day is filled with chocolates, doilies, and delight. And I hope you share the love: leave your favorite book in a coffee shop for the next java junkie, carry someone else's burden for a while, throw out the trash without grinching, be nice when you're feeling crabby. Ask yourself: could I go so far as to let my sister have the caramel-filled chocolate from the Godiva box?

However you answer that question, keep digging at the hole; keep throwing good seeds in. Good things will sprout.

Not just a rose, but a whole rose garden.

That's the dirt on love.

Love is a rose but you better not pick it
Only grows when it's on the vine
Handful of thorns and you'll know you've missed it
Lose your love when you say the word mine

I wanna see what's never been seen
I wanna live that age-old dream
Come on boy let's go together
Let's take the best right now

I wanna go to an old hoedown
Long ago in a western town
Pick me up 'cause my feet are dragging
Give me a lift and I'll hay your wagon

Love is a rose but you better not pick it
Only grows when it's on the vine
Handful of thorns and you'll know you've missed it
Lose your love when you say the word mine
~Neil Young

In Defense of the Throne

Lucy Chambers — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:08:12 -0600

Everyone has a favorite place to read. Mine is a large, overstuffed chintz arm chair in my office. I was looking at a lovely shelter magazine not too long ago that featured style saving tips about how to fix your furniture faux pas, presented in the classic buy/keep/toss format. The most egregious upholstery sin in this article was tacky '80s black chintz. Toss it! With tongs!

Horrors. What not to sit in. Right in my own home. But here's where I'm drawing the line with well meaning decorators: I am not tossing my chair. Although it's faded considerably--not so much that a well placed throw doesn't hide the gray--it is my throne, my prime reading spot. I'm not even reupholstering it. It's a happy chair, a reading chair, an editing chair, a napping chair. If my chair could talk, it would tell tales of books, manuscripts, magazines and dreams from as far back as the '80s, when it's chintz still had a bright sheen, and it was a definite "Buy."

Everyone has a different reading throne. Some people like to read in bed. Others like a park bench on a spring day. I have one daughter who particularly likes to read at the dinner table, a habit that we are trying to discourage without throwing the baby out.

I have one friend who admitted to book club one night that she only read when she was drying her hair-- the only time she got to herself. Of course we were curious. Here's the trick: She shut the toilet seat and opened the book on it. She dried her hair upside down, so she used one hand for the hairdryer and one for fluffing and page turning. Fluff, turn. Fluff, turn. Good volume. Before you criticize her methodology, let me just say: this was one well read woman. Her hair was perfect.

I'd venture to guess that were the Pew folks to take a random sampling of where people read, a high percentage would admit that even if they don't publicly celebrate National Bathroom Reading Week, they have a magazine, a mystery, or some self-help book or another tucked away in their bathroom, for that peaceful moment when they might actually get to read. Or dry their hair.

But who's asking? The written word has the power to transport us to another world. When we return we bring souvenirs, picture postcards and, most importantly, memories of our adventures. Setting off on a mind trip, it doesn't matter if we're sitting on white porcelain or black chintz when we depart.

The reading throne deserves respect.

I once saw a piece of lavatory graffiti I think I'll spend the rest of life pondering. "There are no metaphors," some malcontent had written. Carried to it's ultimate reduction, that assertion means that no word or act can represent anything more than itself. A world without metaphor is a hermetic nightmare, utterly incomprehensible, without possibility of humor or insight. Everything would happen once. No individual or event could be interpreted in the light of another.

There are metaphors, though. language exists, though its connection to reality is an ongoing open question. Literature exists. We are able to entertain narratives about other people's lives, even imaginary people's lives, and recognize elements familiar tot us from our own hopes, fears and dreams. Past ives, imaginary lives, are seen to contain messages for us, metaphorically speaking. Our understanding may draw upon them. This is the importance of fiction, that it offers meaning.

~Robert Stone
from "The Reconquest of Reality" in Writers Workshop in a Book: the Squaw Valley Community of Writers on the Art of Fiction, edited by Alan Cheuse and Lisa Alvarez (Chronicle Books, 2007)

Reading requires task lighting that comes from behind the reader's shoulder. This can be accomplished by placing a floor lamp either at the right or the left of the reading chair. The bottom of the shade should be located at eye level to avoid glare.

You have to draw the line somewhere.

There's More Than One Way to Sing

Lucy Chambers — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 22:50:19 -0600

When I was a little girl, my brother told me I couldn't carry a tune in a U-Haul. So I hit him.

When I was in my twenties, a good friend told me I was not allowed to sing in front of his child, in case she caught my tune.

When I was a Girl Scout leader in Harlem, I invited some friends to come to my girls' "fly up ceremony." Before these girls became scouts, they had never had the opportunity to swim, to do organized craft projects, or to sing Kum-bay-yah. I taught them every song that had ever moved me in the North Carolina mountains when I was a camper. After the ceremony my friends said, "We can tell you were the one who taught them the songs."

Guess what? I still love to sing. Unapologetically.

When I sing, I get endorphins. If there were a Richter scale of endorphins, and you measured the seismic affect of various things--sex, drugs, rock and roll--it's a no brainer: the music tops the list. There is something about singing your heart out, never mind the tune, that just makes you wiggle and jiggle and tickle inside. It's cathartic: it's spiritual: it's fun.

The good news for me is that I'm not trying to make living from my singing. I'd be pretty thin. I'm a book person. I should still be pretty thin, all things considered, but carbo-lading and Whole Foods' truffled walnuts will get you through the worst of times.

I have an ongoing discussion with a few important people in my life: music or lyrics? Of course, I am a card-carrying member of the lyrics camp. But I think I'm adulterated. I think the music influences my vote more than I'd like to admit.

Sunday was the anniversary of the day the music died. In honor of that, and in honor of all the times I said goodbye to Miss American Pie at my wild French cousins' house and sang along in my notable voice, I just want to say "Let's hear it for the band." It's never just about the lyrics. It's a synergy.

Synergy, synchronicity, serendipity, singing. "S"es abounding in my personal dictionary these days. And the beautiful thing about a dictionary is: you sing it to your own tune. There's no soundtrack. No one's done an orchestration of it. No glee clubs sing it. The words in my heart have a score that only I know.

I keep my tune in a U-Haul. Some--many--have been critical of it. But it keeps my toes tapping.

The beat goes on.

A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.
~A wise person who forgot to get a good IP lawyer

And, two more thoughts on music: if you are a friend of Bright Sky and you know Patrick, you have to check out his band, the Journey Agents. If you are at all funk based. And, if you have your own band and need to book some gigs in Texas, check out Matthew Wettergreen's free ebook. And if you need anyone to edit your songs, remember that there are lots of lyrics people who go both ways.

Words. Music. Wow. La dee da de dee. La dee da de da.

Living on the Edge

Lucy Chambers — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 09:57:51 -0600

I've been contemplating the concept of the edge. The leading edge, the bleeding edge, the edge of darkness. And there's always the possibility of going over the edge--being pushed, losing my grip or aligning too closely with the crowd and rushing off terra firma into the abyss. Like the Gadarene swine.

I'm captivated with the idea of using those doomed piggies as an adjective or a morality metaphor, rather than just as a biblical tale. Ever since I started looking into that trough of meaning, I have found so many circumstances where it fits. "No, you may not have an iphone just because all of your friends have one."

I've been editing our Zen book. It touches on the idea that as cultures spin and change faster and faster, our inner equilibrium--our strong grip on what has value and what matters--is upset. That disequilibrium leads to all kinds of negativity and unrest--personally and culturally. Of course the Abbott explains these concepts far more profoundly than I can, but the book will be out this fall, so no worries; no one will have to rely on me to be their Zen master.

The books I am currently working on create a lens through which I see my own life--shades of meaning. Sometimes I see through a barbecue lens, sometimes a motherhood lens, and sometimes Sam Houston's spectacles. So right now, I'm looking at cultural change through a Zen lens--not just the aspects of change that suggest I need to be social media savvy or get all of our books digitized or answer emails 24/7 from one device or another, but also the ones that make it apparent that I need to master some new definitions about how the world works.

There is rich vocabulary associated with this new world order: explorer, pioneer, settler, squatter, claim-jumper, guru, shaman, messiah, Luddite, philistine, early adapter, hold-out...the list goes on, sounding suspiciously similar to the language in every history text I ever read about any revolution, any era of change.

For so long, cultural change was accompanied by the cry, "Go west!." Once we smacked up against that shining sea that crashes so majestically against the California coast, that cry diverged; with some people looking up, and others looking further in. And whether people identified with the NASA types saying "Go to the Moon!", the psychologists saying ""Go to the couch!" or the Lit majors saying "Look Homeward, Angel!" it was pretty much agreed that there were still new frontiers to conquer and to settle.

Now there's a new cry. I'm not sure just what it is: "Go Digital?" "Go 2.0?" I'm trying to make sense of this new world that has evolved around my ink on paper self, doing a little exploring and trying to figure out what my role is in it. I don't have the full answer yet, but I know it's based on helping people bring their stories into the world; I know it's based on words.

I also know that I'm not on the bleeding edge or even the leading edge of this revolution. But I want to be a part of it. I'm ready to move beyond the inland amber waves of grain and the old gray factories further east, towards an energetic coastline, with a great unknown sea in front of it.

Where am I now on my digital journey? Not in the water, not even on the rocky beach with the crashing waves. I'm still up on the cliffs overlooking this sea change. The powerful possibilities look beautiful from up here. Through my various lenses I can watch the brave explorers map the territory ahead. I have so much respect for them, but explorer is not the best role for me. Watching and learning, I'm preparing for the next leg of the adventure. And as soon as I figure out my best course into this unknown, I'll set out.

In the meantime, I'll try not to get so close to the edge that I lose my balance.

Passionate Living

"Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion." Hegel

by Dwight Edwards

Passion normally arises from two separate but united fronts. One is being on the edge. The other is being in the center. Today we will look at being on the edge. What I mean by this is the high adventure of being on the cutting edge of a new endeavor. Or it can be the excitement of infusing an old endeavor with brand new possibilities.

There is something innately exhilarating about going where no man has gone before, of blazing a brand new path, or risking reputation for the sake of a radically new venture. Ask Galileo, Michelangelo, Edison, Einstein, Gates, and a host of lesser lights about the internal ignition of "on the edge" living. Certainly it will be frightening, certainly it will be risky; but it will also be exhilarating. As Mark Twain put it, "To do something, say something, see something, before anybody else - these are things that confer a pleasure compared with which other pleasures are tame and commonplace, other cheap and trivial." How true!

It is on the edge that life upgrades to the point of true exhilaration. And this exhilaration helps fuel the passion to make something extraordinary of our lives. Hegel is exactly right - "Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion." And passion normally blossoms most bountifully along the ridges of innovation.
Flashpoint: Passion is often found at the edges.
Visit us at HighOctanefortheMind.com
Copyright © 2010 High Octane for the Mind. All Rights Reserved.

FYI: If you like that magical picture of the California coast, you can get a poster of it at All Posters. I might just do that myself.

The Three Princesses of Serendip

Lucy Chambers — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 08:42:37 -0600

syn·chro·nic·i·ty : \ˌsiŋ-krə-ˈni-sə-tē, ˌsin-\ noun : circa 1889
1 : the quality or fact of being synchronous
2 : the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality —used especially in the psychology of C. G. Jung
ser·en·dip·i·ty: \-ˈdi-pə-tē\ : noun
Etymology: from its possession by the heroes of the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip: Date: 1754
: the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for; also : an instance of this

My life is filled with lovely words. These two seem particularly pertinent. Every day it seems some occasion arises--I meet a certain author, or I find a meaningful manuscript--that could not have manifested without one of these magical nouns.

And these happy accidents all seem to be woven together in a larger web of intention. Not like a spider's sticky web trying to trap unsuspecting insects, but like a reassuring net under an acrobat. Or an elaborate rope ladder reaching to unknown places in the clouds.

Here's an example, a tale of three sisters: Years ago on a volunteer project I met Lizzie, a notably intelligent, creative and kind young woman. I loved her energy and her ideas, and we became friends. She eventually went off to law school; our opportunities to get together and really visit became rare, but always a pleasure. Then I met her sister, Katherine, who was getting ready to publish her first novel. Katherine was just as wonderful as Lizzie, only different. Both were gifts from the universe.

But there was a third sister. In any fairy tale, things happen in important numbers, three, of course, being one of the biggies. When Shelley, sister #3, moved back to Houston, 1 and 2 asked me if I would talk to her about editing. I wondered if she would be like Lizzie, or like Katherine, and if it would be possible for me to enjoy her as much.

Silly worries, quite unfounded. Number 3--actually the oldest-- is equally delightful, equally unique. A writer, an editor, a linguist and a mom, she was the perfect person to edit a book that had just come in through another serendipitous connection in New Orleans. I was quite excited about the manuscript, but it needed an editor with a certain combination of skills to transform it from an amazing curriculum to an amazing book.

That book, now published as Oobleck, Slime, and Dancing Spaghetti, is filled with at home science experiments based on children's literature. The author, Jennifer Williams, has won the Presidential Award for teaching. It's an inspired, cross-curricular approach to getting children interested in science through literature and Shelley's sensibilities were just what was needed to take it from the academic realm to the bookshelf in the family room. Synchronicity. Serendipity. Or the next logical step in the path. Whatever you call it, the book won a NAPPA award, and we are quite proud of it.

Last weekend, I had an old song on my mind, the theme from the Thomas Crowne Affair. Every time it spun through my head, it took me somewhere: the first time I saw the original movie with my parents; the album I played endlessly, picking up the needle at the end of the song and carefully moving it back to the starting groove; battalions of men in bowlers; Renee Russo and Pierce Brosnan strolling Lexington Avenue. And through it all, russet leaves swirling, back and forth, from endings to beginnings.

Humming that tune, I went to a party where I ran into my old friend Lizzie. I came out of my reverie to realize that she had an autumn leaf tucked in her ponytail, and it was just the color of her hair. A tiny thing, but it spoke volumes. Coincidence. Synchronicity. Serendipity.

Lovely.

Round, like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel.
Never ending or beginning,
On an ever spinning wheel
Like a snowball down a mountain
Or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning
Running rings around the moon

Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on it's face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Like a tunnel that you follow
To a tunnel of it's own
Down a hollow to a cavern
Where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving
In a half forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble
Someone tosses in a stream.

Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on it's face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Keys that jingle in your pocket
Words that jangle your head
Why did summer go so quickly
Was it something that I said
Lovers walking along the shore,
Leave their footprints in the sand
Was the sound of distant drumming
Just the fingers of your hand

Pictures hanging in a hallway
And a fragment of this song
Half remembered names and faces
But to whom do they belong
When you knew that it was over
Were you suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the color of her hair

Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning,
On an ever spinning wheel
As the images unwind
Like the circle that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Pictures hanging in a hallway
And the fragment of this song
Half remembered names and faces
But to whom do they belong
When you knew that it was over
Were you suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the color of her hair

The Windmills of Your Mind
~Alan Bergman

Domestic Conflicts

Lucy Chambers — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 20:51:47 -0600

Some days I feel so at peace with the world, and other days every last thing seems to make me want to put up my dukes against Unfairness, Injustice, or General Wrongheadedness. And once I get riled up, it's amazing how the most random things become evidence of the current conspiracy.

This time, it was aprons that set me off. Aprons seem pretty non-confrontational. In fact, aprons--be they the June Cleaver type or even the racier French maid style-- are the picture of submissive femininity. Not confrontation.

It was the Chronicle Style Section that got me worked up. They did a nice story, dateline Shiner, Texas, about aprons. How they are so simultaneously retro-nouveau-oh-so-chic these days. And they went on to talk about Virginia Helweg, a lovely lady with a large collection. A collection that she just started because she likes aprons, not because anyone else told her that they were cool. Then they brought in the big guns--the Apron Expert, EllynAnne.

What entitles the Apron Expert to her capital letters? Her collection and knowledge, of course, and her published book. This is when my hackles started rising up, like hungry villi after a home-cooked meal. Because experience has predisposed me to think that when the Houston paper mentions a book, quotes an expert, or has something they feel is worth mentioning either above the fold or in the back 40, chances are it's something or somebody from somewhere else.

H'town rocks. My favorite tune to sing or dance to is that this town has got an open, can-do, creative, no-brow, deep-in-the-heart spirit that can't be found anywhere else. It really chaps me when people who say they love this place feel they need to start out with the disclaimer: "well, its so ugly, but..."; or, "well, it's not Aspen, or the East Coast, or Paris/London/Biarritz, but...."

But nothing. It is enough for it to be Houston. And those of us who claim to love it need to embrace it for how it is, not in spite of what it is not. We can admire other towns' windswept beaches, miracle miles and neon lights and remain non-apologetically enthusiastic about what we have right here, right now, in this fun, funky, funny, fab Bayou City.

I'm by no means advocating provincialism, jingoism, or even Houstonism. I'm patently anti-ism. I just think it's time for this awesome town to stop with the Marx Brothers "I'd never be in a club that would have me" attitude. It is time for Houston to say it rocks--in a completely straightforward, unaffected, but powerful way that would be so appropriate to its unique charm. It is time for the Houston paper to stop thinking that all the culture news that's fit to print--be it about aprons or art shows, books or bands--comes from Somewhere Else. We're in the throes of an eat/pray/love/buy local movement, and it's not just a Central Market marketing campaign: Houston is totally worth it.

So why did an innocent, and actually interesting apron article get me up on my Houston soapbox? I felt left out, of course. We have a perfectly darling cookbook author, Marie Hejl, who happens to make beautiful aprons. In fact, Marie was making and selling them on little backwater shows like Martha Stewart long before aprons went mainstream chic. And there was no mention of her beautiful cookbook or her aprons in this article. And it would have been such a good fit. So local. So 2010.

If you build it, they will come. I believe that. If you publish books in Houston--instead of in standard places like New York or Boston or California--they will come. And, they have: the reception our homegrown books have received has been exciting and rewarding, for us at Bright Sky and for our wonderful authors.

But like the girl next door waiting for the phone to ring, I keep opening the hometown news, waiting for them to be excited about the books being published right here--Texas voices, H'town voices, local voices. And every time, it's the book from somewhere else that turns their eye. It's such a Taylor Swift song.

So the apron article just hit a nerve. You want aprons? Cutting edge social media? Nationally renown wellness experts? Baseball heroes? More barbecue than you ever dreamed of? Look no further. It's all in H'town. Right here, right now.

And chances are, if it's here, we're publishing a book about it. We'd be happy to tell you about it, or introduce you to the author, or send you a review copy.

Just give us a call.

Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.
~Malcolm Forbes

All Emails in Time

Lucy Chambers — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:00:05 -0600

I'm desperately trying to manage all my communications resources. When to email, when to call, when to meet, when to tweet, when to blog and when to throw my hands up and sob. And then there's Facebook. Not to mention submissions. I want to be accessible, but I also want to be productive.

Friends have offered lots of well meaning advice: keep your responses short, use different mailboxes, have multiple accounts, have one account, face west and stand on one foot when you are answering emails. Of course, I also have a book about how to handle this quintessentially modern problem. And, of course, I haven't had time to read it yet.

But even when I am in danger of being overwhelmed by emails, I still like them. It's like a Go Fish game. Clicking on that little stamp at the bottom of my screen still conjures faint feelings of this-could-be-the-lottery-winner excitement. Something really wonderful could be just one click away.

I've improved my odds a little on having a happy surprise in my inbox. Our author, Dwight Edwards, who wrote A Tale of Three Ships, a concise and useful parable about charting your course through life, has an email blast. Every so often--and it seems to always be just when I need it most--a short inspirational story pops up in my mail. Here is today's, just when I am tearing my hair out over time-management questions.

Spending Time Well
"Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for it is the stuff life is made of." Benjamin Franklin

Time. It is the one of the few things we all share in common. And we all do something with it - for better or worse. It strikes me that one of the great difficulties in using our time most effectively is maintaining a proper perspective on its market value. In the push and shove of our daily lives, it becomes desperately easy to lose sight of the preciousness of these things called minutes, hours, and days. Arnold Bennett puts it well,

Time is the inexplicable raw material of everything. With it, all is possible; without it, nothing. The supply of time is truly a daily miracle, an affair genuinely astonishing when one examines it. You wake up in the morning, and lo! your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life! It is yours. It is the most precious of possessions... No one can take it from you. It is not something that can be stolen. And no one receives either more or less than you receive. Moreover, you cannot draw on its future. Impossible to get into debt! You can only waste the passing moment. You cannot waste tomorrow; it is kept for you. You cannot waste the next hour; it is kept for you.

Franklin is right. Time is indeed "the stuff life is made of". We all are entrusted with the same amount. The only question is where and how we will spend it. ~Dwight Edwards

Flashpoint: Well-spent lives are the result of well-utilized time.
Visit Dwight at HighOctanefortheMind.com
Copyright © 2010 High Octane for the Mind. All Rights Reserved.

And with that much needed perspective, I think I'll get off-line and go back to editing.

The clock talked loud. I threw it away, it scared me what it talked.
~Tillie Olsen

Words on Bookstores: The Tattered Cover

Lucy Chambers — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 21:33:19 -0600

I just love holidays. I love any reason to celebrate. One of my all-time favorite books is a children's book by Byrd Baylor called I'm in Charge of Celebrations. It's basically a call to note and celebrate the rich variety of moments that life brings us. It's a testament to both mindfulness and thankfulness, two nesses that make everything better.

So, today is a holiday, and after a quick turn around the lake in Hermann Park, a stroll through the Japanese Garden, and a truly scrumptious picnic, I turned it into a busman's holiday and headed straight for the bookstore. With coffee in hand, I got so lost in the stacks that my family had to call me on the phone to find me. It was heavenly.

But not to get sappy on you: it wasn't perfect. The fly in the ointment of my perfectly lovely holiday is that I wasn't at the bookstore I really wanted to visit. The deep satisfaction of my day was really a classic case of love the one you're with.

The one I really love is in Denver. And I didn't have a plane ticket today. If I could have gone anywhere this afternoon to drink my coffee and get lost in the stacks, I would have gone to The Tattered Cover. If you've been there, you get it. If you haven't, go as soon as you can. And if you, like me, have no plane tickets in your immediate future, check out their blog. You'll get lots of great ideas for things to read, if you're not busy reading manuscripts all the time. Or if you're on holidays.

When it comes to bookstores, I'm a Big Love kind of girl. I'll tell you about the one I've got tucked away in Asheville another time. And there's another I fancy in Austin. But for today, my heart belongs to the Tattered Cover.

Don't worry. I know how people in Colorado feel about Texans, and that's OK. Love conquers all.

I come here with no expectations, only to profess, now I am at the liberty to do so, that my heart is and will always be yours.
~Jane Austen

On Connection: Katherine, Zadie and Me

Lucy Chambers — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 20:18:44 -0600

I went to a marathon watching party this weekend, and I ran into my friend Katherine Center. Not literally, because I was eating donuts, not running. She wasn't running either, she was returning home from a literary event in Dallas, something that sounded sort of like an Iron Chefs for writers, although as she said, "Writers are so sensitive, they couldn't really judge us too harshly." Picture writers in the hands of Simon Cowell.

She said the people who put the event on thought that readings could be a little iffy sometimes, and they wanted to spice up the medium. They had Nerf footballs and stuff. They had a ball, literary-ly.

Katherine's main job is writing books and doing literary stuff. My main job is editing books and doing publishing stuff. Net net, she goes to infinitely more readings than I do, so I hadn't exactly gotten the news that readings could be iffy. I still put them in the category of the word from Mt. Sinai

Here in H'town we have a wonderful reading series put on by Inprint called The Margarett Root Brown Reading series. It brings amazing authors to town. Between my responsibilities at Bright Sky and my responsibilities at home, I don't get to go to these readings as often as my fancy Editorial Director title might insinuate, but when I do go, I am always transported.

I read with great delight in the New York Times that Zadie Smith has a new collection of essays just published. Stop everything and google Amazon. Like Katherine, maybe a little more famous, Zadie Smith is an amazing author. I was first introduced to her at an Inprint reading. She is beautiful--in a completely Beauty of Different way--and smart, and as clever with words as any writer I have ever admired or analyzed for a grade.

Having stumbled into the reading that night at the invitation of a friend, I hadn't done any due diligence on who Zadie Smith was or what she wrote about. I vaguely remembered an unread copy of White Teeth on my shelf. As I listened to her in the velvet-seated darkness of the Wortham, I was blown away by her eloquence and her story's similarity to one of my all-time favorites, E.M. Forster.

Well, go figure. On Beauty, the book from which she read that night, was a reworking of Howard's End. Only so modern and so insightful it made me think that there was no time or space between me and not only Forster, but any great writer I have read. Hearing her read in her sexy Anglo tones from her gorgeous prose was an experience far beyond iffy, by anybody's definition. I've never been able to think of glee clubs the same way since.

So today, when my old friend Zadie popped up on my screen-saving NYT. I was delighted. Her essays sound so fine to me, although of course our Overtly Intellectual Friends to the North had to rake them over the coals. In them, she talks about David Foster Wallace, and Zora Neale Hurston, of course Forster, and so many other people who have given us gifts of prose beyond panel--or New York Times-- judging.

I can't wait to get the book. And when I read it, I'll hear her beautiful voice in my mind. Just like I hear Katherine's lovely voice when we eat donuts and cheer for runners or when I read her books. It will be like Zadie is my friend, too.

Thanks to that iffy, old-school reading.

This is a beautiful novel about soulfulness. That it should be so is a tribute to Hurston's skill. She makes "culture" — that slow and particular and artificial accretion of habit and circumstance — seem as natural and organic and beautiful as the sunrise. She allows me to indulge in what Philip Roth once called "the romance of oneself," a literary value I dislike and yet, confronted with this beguiling book, cannot resist. She makes "black woman-ness" appear a real, tangible quality, an essence I can almost believe I share, however improbably, with millions of complex individuals across centuries and continents and languages and religions...
Almost — but not quite. That is to say, when I'm reading this book, I believe it, with my whole soul. It allows me to say things I wouldn't normally. Things like "She is my sister and I love her."

~Zadie Smith on Their Eyes Were Watching God

What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote.
~E. M. Forster

The River of Books

Lucy Chambers — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:35:24 -0600

We're all searching for something. I know lots of people who are searching for God. Or meaning. or inner-peace. And, recently, I began working on a book by a profoundly wise Buddhist abbot who lived alone in the mountains for three years, searching for the Truth.

Those are all Big Questions. I decided a long time ago that I'd settle for just trying to understand people. Figuring that there was bound to be a book somewhere that would explain these mysterious creatures--including myself--to me, I dove headfirst into reading and eventually washed to shore in publishing.

Being a reader has provided me with thousands of bibles, hundreds of gurus, and an occasional piranha in my search for understanding. Over the years, I've vacillated wildly between fiction and non-fiction, reading about people and hanging out with them, thinking hard and just experiencing, and editing-and-or-teaching and learning from others, published and unpublished.

After all these years on this Amazonian quest, I still can't tell you any more than the original God-is-Love definition I was given when I was four, any more about the meaning of life than Monty Python can, or any sure-fire way to obtain inner-peace 24/7. But my seeking has kept me bobbing down the river with my head generally above water. Most importantly, it's carried me to amazing people, many who seem much closer than I am to having answers to the Biggies. And I enjoy these people tremendously.

A few years ago, my husband and I were trying to figure out just what it was we liked about people we liked. How much wood can a wood chuck chuck, anyway? We've both been teachers for many years, so we're familiar with the labels that get put on people and both truly, madly, deeply opposed to labeling. Parenting two strong individuals has brought that resistance even closer to home. But there are times when a handy semaphore is so nice: That movie is so Adam Sandler; he's the Michael Jordan of lacrosse players, I'm so ADD, that dress is so '80s.

When "so cool" came up short, we realized it wasn't that easy. Many of the positive labels that the world wants to put on people have connotations of smugness, clubby-ness and self-satisfaction that left us thinking we'd really rather not hang out with those people, even if they were so cool. And some of the terms we rejected made us realize that we couldn't dislike people for being that way, because, to some degree, we were that way, too. Or perhaps we shouldn't be. Aggh.

It was becoming a ridiculous exercise in splitting hairs, navel-gazing and wasting time when we finally decided that what we really liked were people who didn't take the world's word for anything. People who were willing to make their own decisions about other people. People who were open, people who were seekers--with a small s--and people who didn't perceive their own pursuits to be the be-all-and- end-all of existence. People who understood that life is not a mountain with one summit, but a vast majestic range with many peaks to be bagged by many different explorers.

One of the words we thought might be appropriate was "creative." But there are so many people who would rush to tell you--and to believe--that they are not creative. Or tell you that they would have been creative, but their second grade art teacher told them that their angel looked like a sheep or their English teacher crumpled up their story because the commas were wrong. Even if their creativity is locked so deep in their double helix that they'll never reach it, these people still rock.

We never came up with a good label for this kind of person we like (PWL), and I'm glad. It's a Y-weh kind of thing. That deep curiosity and love that these particular individuals seem to have is a definite divine spark. And the spark that makes these Un-namables so appealing exists not just the ones who are lucky enough to have it close to the surface, or the ones who have worked hard to mine it so we can marvel at the way it refracts life, or even the ones who just make us want to say joie-de-vivre without quotation marks. We can find it in everybody, if we look hard enough.

In pursuit of a concise definition, and the easy label that might emerge from it, I remain in a state of dynamic tension worthy of Charles Atlas. And that's OK. Whatever this je ne sais quoi that I see so frequently in the authors I work with every day, that I sense so strongly in the people I love, and that I catch glimpses of in nearly every one I encounter is--I am grateful for its beckoning glow.

The world out there has been labeled as cold and cruel. Sometimes, when I'm tired, I want to take the easy route and accept that definition. And right when I'm about to give in and say, "Oh, you're right, life sucks and then you die" or dis Raffi or buy a decal that has Calvin peeing on something beautiful or that horrible bunny on it, someone will sparkle or shimmer or downright glow with this quality and I am completely re-energized.

I'll never give up looking for a definition, some terminology, the perfect word to explain PWL. I get a kick out of words. But if I ever find the right label, I know it still won't be all-encompassing enough to describe the wonders that lurk inside all the lovely enigmatic people who are bobbing along beside me on this adventure down the river of books, through the publishing jungle, in the direction of Answers. I just know I like them.

Here's one thing I have learned: truth is stranger than fiction, but fiction can be truer than truth.

If a wood chuck could chuck wood.

In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
From the mountains of faith
To the river so deep
I must be lookin' for something
Something sacred I lost
But the river is wide
And it's too hard to cross
even though I know the river is wide
I walk down every evening and stand on the shore
I try to cross to the opposite side
So I can finally find what I've been looking for
In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
Through the valley of fear
To a river so deep
I've been searching for something
Taken out of my soul
Something I'd never lose
Something somebody stole
I don't know why I go walking at night
But now I'm tired and I don't want to walk anymore
I hope it doesn't take the rest of my life
Until I find what it is I've been looking for
In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
Through the jungle of doubt
To the river so deep
I know I'm searching for something
Something so undefined
That it can only be seen
By the eyes of the blind
In the middle of the night
I’m not sure about a life after this
God knows I've never been a spiritual man
Baptized by the fire, I wade into the river
That is runnin' through the promised land
In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
Through the desert of truth
To the river so deep
We all end in the ocean
We all start in the streams
We're all carried along
By the river of dreams
In the middle of the night

~Billy Joel

Food for Thought on a Cold Winter's Night

Lucy Chambers — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:14:17 -0600

The New Year is such a funny time. Half the people are bragging about how they were the only people they knew who weren't hungover on New Year's Day, and the other half are going on about how clean they have gotten their closets. Whole Foods has a big giveaway featuring Cleanse Kits, which is no where near as exciting as the promos they had going with their Thanksgiving turkeys and holiday roast beefs. And everyone seems to be filled with a New Resolve worthy of a Ben Franklin maxim.

In a highly contrarian way, perhaps linked to the fact that I'm working on a zen book and trying to go to yoga as often as my emails allow, I am resolving not to touch my closet more than necessary, to hold off on Whole Foods' specials until something tasty--like truffled walnuts--gets offered again, and to just enjoy the journey.

Sometimes enjoying the journey means holding off on the purges and the self-improvement. Sometimes it means marshmallows in the hot chocolate and reading magazines instead of manuscripts. And sometimes it means that if we can't take care of ourselves, how can we possibly take care of others?

There is a season for everything. As arctic air blasts around H'town, cutting my palm trees and irises down despite the lacrosse jackets my husband lovingly wrapped around them, I declare that January is not the season of fasting and contrition for holiday sins, it's the season of hunkering down. We don't get winter often here, so like a Leap Day that can only be appreciated every four years, I plan on making the most of it.

Seasons come, and seasons go. And, of course, there is a book for all seasons. Now there is even a cookbook for all seasons, aptly named Seasonal Favorites. Here is the deal:

Seasonal Favorites is a collection of favorite festive foods from the Garden Club of Houston. Organized around the calendar year, it includes standard and more special holidays—like Veteran's Day and Day of the Dead. Anecdotes about special parties with all the details are included in each season, along with seasonal fare, party fare and planting tips. An inclusive way of looking at the year at home with family and friends, it features special recipes handed down for generations and flower arranging and gardening tips that will bring the beauty of the reader's own garden into the home; and it shares successful ideas for throwing warm and wonderful parties with friends and family—without having to hire a caterer.

Chock full of delicious and easy-to-prepare recipes, this inspired little book encourages us to create special times throughout the year by celebrating the cycle of life that is reflected in the garden. Many cookbooks promote holiday food, but most are based on standard holidays and only contain recipes. Seasonal Favorites offers proof that in our busy world, gracious living need not be a lost art.

Whether this collection augments your repertoire of holiday entertaining favorites or begins a new phase in your enjoyment of life, Seasonal Favorites promotes living life in a way that every sense can savor.

I wholeheartedly welcome a new phase of enjoyment into my life. 2009 is so over. To celebrate this official season of hunkering down, we are hitting the kitchen hard at our house. Corn chowder, apple pie, chili, hello dollies, and gallons of hot chocolate to wash it down. Will we run out of inspiration for our cozy comforts? With this little book around, no way.

Come spring, when bright green buds peek out of the branch tips, we'll be ready for a change of season. And perhaps we'll do some penance and some push ups for all these good eats. But for now, it's all about the comforts of the hearth.

There's only one word for this behavior, and it's not self-discipline. Nor is it restraint. Or spartan or belt-tightening or shaping-up or anything with even the vaguest connotation of gymnasium. The radio says this word is officially "out" for 2010. But I'll keep it. In fact, I'm making it my new mantra for January: Chillaxin'.

I hope this new, blue month finds you chillaxin' by the fire, with peace in your heart, pie on your plate, and a cup that runs over with the beverage of your choice.

Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories.
~An Affair to Remember

Good Reads on Writing

Lucy Chambers — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:10:31 -0600

One of my favorite sections of a bookstore is Writing Reference. As much as I like novels, quirky non-fiction, children's books and big pretty picture books, the Writing Reference section holds mysterious sway over me. It gives me that Container Store feeling of infinite possibilities that my friend Laura Mayes defines so well.

Perhaps that is why I am an editor. If I were an adventurer at heart, my favorite section would be the travel section. If I defined myself as a cook, I'd be in the Barnes & Noble armchair with Bobby Flay or some other Iron Chef's book.

But it's thesauruses--dare me to say thesauri--and big dictionaries, Annie Lamott's Bird by Bird, Stephen King's On Writing and of course Natalie Goldberg that send shivers of excitement down my bones. And Writing on Alligators? Delightful.

I actually have two versions of the OED. Although I can't read any of the writing without a powerful magnifying glass, and I spend more time than I'd like to admit Googling definitions of words, one day I'll have a hard core library stand to open them up on. They'll dominate the room, casually turned to some incredible word, fraught with delicious connotations and fascinating history.

I could go on about how cute I think my Chicago Manual is, and how I am not as enamored of Strunk and White as others are. It's interesting that reading about writing isn't really reading, and it certainly isn't writing. But I feel so cozy when I do it. Language creates havens within the narrative, little secret nooks within books.

Like the Know-It-All who read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica in search of facts, I am in search of words and phrases. Not necessarily to use--lots are too flowery or show-offy for everyday use--but to know, to play with, and to examine. Words about words, or words on how writers put words together, or even words on the feelings created by putting words together, the deeper into them I go, the more zenny it becomes.

Editorial thrills. Not blockbuster material in any medium, but powerful enough to warm the cockles of my heart. There are lots of book lovers out there, most far more well-read than I. But when I think about the way I love books--from the fetching little headband on the top to the first cracking spine and the frisson that occurs when an actual printed endpaper apprears, through the design and the content all the way into the deepest recesses of vocabulary choices and grammatical quirks--I realize that this goes perhaps beyond healthy normal bibliophilia.

Book Obsessive? Book Addict? Book Luster? Volume-ivore? Hard-Core Hard-Cover Junkie? I'm sure there's a term for the condition.

And, even better, I'm sure there's a book about it.

A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words.
~Samuel Butler

The Muse in the Bottle: Fact or Fiction?

Lucy Chambers — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:33:03 -0600

The writer's life is an endlessly glamorized affair that is riddled with assumptions of one sort or another. Writers are [choose one of the following] dark, tortured, drunks, inspired, touched by angels, different, geniuses, crazy...you name it.

Spending as much time as I do around writers, I find them to be a charming, sensitive bunch, more driven than most to share their stories, a vulnerability that more cynical types might construe as one (or all) of the above conditions. But beyond that, there are really no one-size-fits-all characteristics of a writer.

Take the idea that all fiction writers are drunks. I know plenty who are sober as church mice. But there are even websites dedicated to promoting the stereotype of the muse in the bottle. Recently, I ran across this quote by Roald Dahl:

It happens to be a fact that nearly every fiction writer in the world drinks more whisky than is good for him. he does it to give himself faith, hope and courage. A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom.

I started wondering if that were true. An expert poll was in order

I called John DeMers, my favorite one-man expert poll. John can opine on many topics, ranging from ballet to barbecue, and he's written at least thirty-eight non-fiction books. This spring, he makes his fiction debut with Marfa Shadows, a gourmet noir mystery set under the mythic West Texas lights.

So John, I say, You're a fiction writer now. What do you think about what Roald says? Does fiction drive writers to drink? Is there anything to this stereotype?

John says, " Well, I never had a chance to drink whiskey with old Roald, or for that matter raise so much as a Shiner Bock or even a girly glass of chardonnay with him. Yet the fellow has a point, which in true storyteller fashion he saves for the big ending. Absolute freedom! Is there anything more glorious - or more frightening? Other than the ones who simply ARE drunks, it's that vision of absolute freedom that drives writers to drink whiskey. The "tyranny of the blank page," some call it. But it's more like the tyranny of the blank life - the fact that we have nothing and are nothing until we make something up. Come to think of it, I'm getting really thirsty now."

A toast to you, John. May you reach the literary heights of Raymond Chandler--without the dive into the bottle. There are so many more interesting aspects to the writer's life.

Like writing.

Letters are like wine; if they are sound they ripen with keeping. A man should lay down letters as he does a cellar of wine.
~Samuel Johnson

Sam Houston: The Texas Firecracker in My Pantry

Lucy Chambers — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:15:30 -0600

We think our generation invented the concepts of social networks, social media. Here's what Wikipedia says a social network is:

A social network is a social structure made of individuals (or organizations) called "nodes," which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.

No mention of computers, wifi, or Twitter here.

It stands to reason that someone as un-modern, as certifiably historical as Sam Houston, would have social networks. And that I can figure out my degrees of separation from him. Turns out, The Raven is only as far removed from me as my pantry.

Here are the nodes:

1. I meet YouData founder Jim Prather at the Mom2.0 Summit here in H'town last winter. He convinces me to sign up for a MeFile. I do. As I start checking in on my MeFile for my personalized offers, I find several goods and services that appeal enough for me to start a PayPal account and buy them. I also find a coupon for some computer glasses from the place where I actually get me glasses, Soper Optical.

2. I go to Soper Optical where I get some new bifocals (the graduated kind that don't make me look a day over 45) and replace the lenses in my old glasses with these cool computer distance lenses that are perfect for reducing eye strain at the computer. Since the editorial life these days seems to happen far more frequently in front of the computer than in cozy armchairs, these glasses have personal relevance. In my enthusiasm, I start talking to John Soper about the wonders of YouData, Mom2.0, and funny connections. It turns out he was at Mom2.0 with his delicious crackers, Texas Firecrackers. Had I seen them?

I had seen them, but I was scared to try them. I thought they might be too hot. So John Soper wraps my glasses carefully and places them in a bag with a sample container of Texas Firecrackers.

3. Texas Firecrackers are so tasty that I have since bought many more containers of them--well compensating my optician for his initial generosity, I hope. Over the holidays, I stocked up on them, just in case company came by and needed a little something with their drink. Without the maddening frenzy of school and work, I had time to study the Texas firecracker container. This is what it says:

The Legend of the Texas Firecracker begins with the Cherokee Indians who had a hot cornbread called tus-ya-ga whcih they introduced to Sam Houston during the time he lived among them. It is said that Gen. Sam fed his army of 910 pioneers these hot crackers before routing the over 2000 troops of Santa Anna in 18 minutes at San Jacinto and winning Texas independence. The name Firecrackers was first coined at the famous Log Cabin Saloon in Spindletop during the oil boom of 1901, where it was not SAturday night unless someone got shot. The hot crackers were a favorite among the mostly Texan crew of the BAttleship TExas during WWII where they earned their current pronunciation "FARRr-Cracker." TExas Firecrackers became the favotie snack of some of the NASA astronauts while living in HOuston, and have been contraband on a few space flights and possibly one trip to the Moon.

We offer you this "Little Taste of Texas" in hopes that you find yourself repeating the words Texans have echoed for years: "They're hot, but darn good, can I have another?"

I'd say that eating these crackers puts me three degrees away from Sam Houston. Or two, if you consider I edited Mary Dodson Wade's Sam Houston: Standing Firm last year. Or one, because I'm a Texan.

1-2-3. It doesn't matter. I love that I've got a little bit of Sam in my pantry, just in case company's coming. And in a state this diverse, that company's bound to be interesting. Social networks, social media, social crackers. Truth or fiction? Don't know, don't care.

This state has a history of being a little spicy.

I dearly love the state of Texas, but I consider that to be a harmless perversion on my part and only discuss it with consenting adults.
~Molly Ivins

FYI: The last time I got any free Firecrackers was about a year ago. And I only see John Soper when I need new glasses. But I do see his nephew eating hamburgers at the Avalon sometimes. full disclosure.

Back to Work!

Lucy Chambers — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 12:51:21 -0600

The party's over.

The Christmas tree is toast, the menorah is carefully laid away, and the New Year's confetti is deep in the dustbuster.

There's only one word for this state of affairs: Fiesta depression.

Thinking about putting my nose back on the old grindstone and being more productive than celebratory is a little scary. What if I can't get organized? What if it all seems overwhelming? What if I've forgotten how to do it?

Here is a poem that I have loved for many years. It reminds me that as blue and unproductive as I feel when my human self doesn't quite fit into my glorious aspirations, it could be worse.

After all this holiday indulgence, lots of things don't quite fit. But, come tomorrow morning, I resolve to get off my shingle, and get back to the business of making books.

The Old Sailor
by A.A. Milne

There was once an old sailor my grandfather knew
Who had so many things which he wanted to do
That, whenever he thought it was time to begin,
He couldn't because of the state he was in.

He was shipwrecked, and lived on a island for weeks,
And he wanted a hat, and he wanted some breeks;
And he wanted some nets, or a line and some hooks
For the turtles and things which you read of in books.

And, thinking of this, he remembered a thing
Which he wanted (for water) and that was a spring;
And he thought that to talk to he'd look for, and keep
(If he found it) a goat, or some chickens and sheep.

Then, because of the weather, he wanted a hut
With a door (to come in by) which opened and shut
(With a jerk, which was useful if snakes were about),
And a very strong lock to keep savages out.

He began on the fish-hooks, and when he'd begun
He decided he couldn't because of the sun.
So he knew what he ought to begin with, and that
Was to find, or to make, a large sun-stopping hat.

He was making the hat with some leaves from a tree,
When he thought, "I'm as hot as a body can be,
And I've nothing to take for my terrible thirst;
So I'll look for a spring, and I'll look for it first."
Then he thought as he started, "Oh, dear and oh, dear!
I'll be lonely tomorrow with nobody here!"
So he made in his note-book a couple of notes:
"I must first find some chickens" and "No, I mean goats."

He had just seen a goat (which he knew by the shape)
When he thought, "But I must have boat for escape.
But a boat means a sail, which means needles and thread;
So I'd better sit down and make needles instead."

He began on a needle, but thought as he worked,
That, if this was an island where savages lurked,
Sitting safe in his hut he'd have nothing to fear,
Whereas now they might suddenly breathe in his ear!

So he thought of his hut ... and he thought of his boat,
And his hat and his breeks, and his chickens and goat,
And the hooks (for his food) and the spring (for his thirst) ...
But he never could think which he ought to do first.

And so in the end he did nothing at all,
But basked on the shingle wrapped up in a shawl.
And I think it was dreadful the way he behaved -
He did nothing but bask until he was saved!

Let the New Year begin in earnest.

Tomorrow.

Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.
~Ovid

Pooh 2 U 2

Lucy Chambers — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 22:06:44 -0600

Gertrude Stein said, "We are always the same age inside." I know exactly what she means. My mother once told me that no matter how wrinkled she got, when she looked in the mirror, she saw her five-year-old self peering out. It's like in the movie "All of Me." We are all Edwina, being moved from body to older body, always basically the same person. Back in bowl!

One of the things the five-year old in me has always loved is Winnie the Pooh. I had a beautiful map of the Hundred Aker Wood on my bedroom wall, right next to an illuminated prayer that read, "From Ghoulies and Ghosties, Long-Leggity Beasties/ And Things That Go Bump in the Night/ Good Lord Deliver Us." The illustrations around the prayer looked like Hieronymus Bosch bad dreams so looked to my friends from the Hundred Aker Wood to make things seem somehow more friendly.

Pooh seems to have made quite an impression on others, as well. Since his creation, he has appeared in many forms. In eighth grade, while I was studying Latin, he showed up published in that archaic language: Winnie Ille Pooh,. We put on a play about him, with Circulum Circum Togam (Ring Around the Collar) as our sponsor moment and some self-translated rendition of "Jane You Ignorant Slut" as the great crescendo of our cleverness.

As I matured, a little at least, I found him again, this time in the Tao of Pooh. Here Pooh offered wisdom--or at least pointed out his understanding that had always been there. I read to my children from my old edition of The House at Pooh Corner. As they got older, we watched "The Blustery Day" and all the cartoons that had been exciting television specials back in the day.

Now, Pooh, ever adaptable, is moving into social media. Today I found a lesson in blogging a la my old friend Edward Bear, and I had to smile. He was right on the mark as usual, with wisdom like “You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.” In the six points offered here, Pooh shows he's quite social media savvy!

We all resist change. It's hard and scary. But we can't avoid it. Christopher Robin is a girl now, and I'm not even sure who owns the e-rights to the old classic. But hunny is still hunny, and a good story with great characters has a truth that transcends any medium. Or gender, it seems.

Publishing could go to school on Pooh. Arguments and anxiety swirl about rights, formats, publication and distribution systems. The times they are a-changin'. But our need for transcendent stories, from the time we are little bitty, doesn't change. And as fun as it is to tweet out our whereabouts, our activities, our products and our links to the world, as storytelling people, we are hardwired to spin tales and share them. We need to have faith in this and keep writing--no matter what jar finally holds the hunny.

I can't tell you where Pooh will show up next, just as I can't tell you where publishing is going, if we will have phosphorescent walls instead of light bulbs in 2012 or if there is a future in hardcover books. But I can tell you one thing I've known is true for a long time. Ecce Eduardus Ursus.

Here is Edward Bear.

Be the change you want to see in the world.
Mahatma Gandhi

How to Hold Your Head Up When Guy Kawasaki Says You Suck

Lucy Chambers — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 20:05:16 -0600

Guy Kawasaki told me I sucked over the holidays. OK, he didn't say it directly to me, and I am only 50% guilty of what I was accused of, but when internationally acclaimed rogue marketers point out things that you're doing that don't quite hit the mark, you've gotta listen. More than when E.F. Hutton talks.

As the new decade dawns--the decade in which I will turn 50, send my children to college and see Bright Sky Press turn into a wonder of modern publishing love and joy, God willing--I have to say that I am open for inspiration and improvement. On every level. I'll start with the basics: mental, physical, spiritual, and social remedial.

With nothing but holiday obligations on my mind, I was randomly trolling Twitter, and I saw an entry: 10 Reasons Your Blog Might Suck. Holy Kaw. Being old enough to know better than to blog, but young enough to still want to, I of course clicked on the proffered tr.im.

Guy--or more specifically, the blogging tutorial that he shouted out--pretty much had my number. I was guilty of 5 out of 10 heinous blogging crimes, offenses unknown to the universe at Y2K.

So my New Year's Resolution, as it pertains to Words on Books, is to not suck quite so much. And to change my ways quickly, because I hate it when my daughters use that word. They say it's innocuous, but like limbs to a Victorian, it's still pretty racy to me. So, I'm aiming to fix the problem before I have to label it again and answer to a bunch of opinionated tweens.

But what do you call Blog Goals? Globs? What ever you name them, a rose by any other name would still have thorns. In 2010 look for more frequent posts--every day, except for when my human weakness and general over-committed, over-idealistic and under-realistic life gets in the way; shorter posts--except when my inability to edit myself and lack of knowledge of when to shut up prevents conciseness; and less about me--except I don't get out much so this is my world and welcome to it.

Hopefully if I can at least strive towards these Globs, next year when I randomly come across Guy's insouciantly tossed off judgment, I can say, "I pity the fool."

Not now. Not 2009. But a new year, a whole--as said daughters say--frickin' new decade awaits, and I have no where to go but up. Especially with a gang as inspirational, quirky and fun as the Bright Sky Press Extended Family. The Bizpuff, we'll call them.

So HNY, 2 U and yrs. Thanks for your interest in the Press this past year, and hopefully, you Guys will find it easier to be interested in 2010. I'm making it a core value this year.

Here are some thoughts from Sam T. Chambers and Dr. Bob Rotella, authors of our book Head Case Lacrosse Goalie on making your core values your lifestyle, to help you with your own goals this year:

"Other people can derail you from your quest for success--sometimes they don't mean to get in your way, and sometimes they do. If you have a non-negotiable set of core values in place, choices are easier to make.

Core values are the ways you have decided to live your life to reach your dream. Your core values are as unique as your dream and the map you create to reach it. Core values can be any promise you make yourself [substitute your real grown up values for the youth lacrosse emphasis here] I will practice ground balls twenty minutes every day; I will get eight hours of sleep every night; I will learn from players that I respect by making time to watch them on television, read about them in the newspaper and go to their games whenever possible...the possibilities are endless. Non-negotiable means you are doing it--no matter what. You won't let people talk you out of it....

Your core values give you the mental strength to be in charge of the way you live your life, instead of letting your friends, TV or the Internet tell you who to be."

It's settled. Non-negotiable. In 2010, I will not suck at blogging.

And I will watch my mouth.

You are never to old to set a new goal or to dream a new dream.
~C.S. Lewis.

full disclosure:. Aforementioned Sam T. Chambers the famous youth lacrosse coach is my husband. I think he's really cute, but that is not why we published his book or why I mention it here. It just seemed pretty pertinent to setting goals for the New Year. He is not paying me or getting anything for this mention, so no worries.

Unleashing the Authentic Power of Christmas

Lucy Chambers — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 20:42:57 -0600

When I was little, I would wait until everyone had gone to bed, sneak into the living room and plug in the Christmas tree lights. In the dark, I lay underneath the tree and looked up through the branches. The pockets of piney darkness illuminated by the conical colored lights were doorways that promised entry to the same places my books did--lands beyond reality, havens where life seemed more perfect than reality--Willy Wonka's factory, Pippi's porch, the Country Bunny's house. The North Pole.

Now, between emails and edits, trips to Fedex and the dumpster, I'm scrambling to get the last presents to put under the tree. I'm trying hard to savor the season, to find time to lie under the proverbial tree. But it doesn't seem to be happening. Not if I'm going to get my work done and provide the kind of Christmas I remember.

Wrapping up the old year and trying to celebrate the present, I find myself pinning hopes on 2010 and the new decade's much needed personal and professional resolutions. 2009 has been "interesting times" for book publishing. A year ago, we were all generally worried about the economy and whistling in the dark that the Kindle wouldn't really affect the loyalties of true book buyers. Now we find ourselves in a world that has been shaken to the core. What is a book, how do we make it, and how do we sell it? Basically, who are we? What relevance do we have in a digital world? These are hard questions, and they'll take more than just a new marketing plan to solve; they demand a whole new paradigm, if not some out-and-out magic.

Rounding a corner of this magnitude demands taking stock: of my job, my calling, my company, my industry. Even in this digital era, I find myself turning to books for answers. And journaling, even more old-school, seems a good place to get a grip.

We have just published a book called Journaling Through: Unleashing the Power of the Authentic Self. The author, Angela Caughlin, leads readers through the brain science behind journaling with intention and shows how it can unleash seven powerful benefits--health, awareness, connection, focus, creativity, authenticity, and vision. Like the pockets of light just behind our favorite ornaments on the Christmas tree, our memories--and especially the stories we don't quite remember--hold the power to change our lives in wonderful ways.

I'm too big to lie under the tree these days. But stopping to contemplate the magic hidden in its branches, I realize that whatever challenges and opportunities this new decade brings, the strength that I will need to handle them is already some where in me, just as generations of love and tradition are tucked in those fragrant branches.

If Santa Claus brings gifts to tired old editor moms on Christmas, perhaps he will tuck a new fountain pen in my stocking. And if he does, I will use it to start unleashing the power of the stories within me. I'm enough of a believer--in journaling and in Angela's knowledge, among other things--to trust that it will help me find the vision, focus, creativity and other qualities the new decade demands. At home and at work.

As August tells Lily in The Secret Life of Bees, "There is nothing perfect. There is only life." The stories we tell, the ornaments we choose for our trees, however funky or chipped, celebrate our lives. In this holiday season, and in the New Year, let's take time to reflect on the stories that we've collected over the years, share them, and gather the strength that is hidden within them.

There's still powerful magic just beyond the lights.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.
~Charles Dana

The Thomas Nast illustration above is available from The Philadelphia Print Shop.

More the Merrier in the Authenti-City

Lucy Chambers — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 20:37:13 -0600

My mother made a mean shrimp creole. Whenever she fixed it, even though shrimp were pretty dear, she made about twice as much as our family could eat. She swore that there were a few neighbors on our block who had an antenna for shrimp creole, and if she cooked it, they would come.

She was right. It was eerie. And when these men showed up, on the pretense of dropping in to have a drink, she'd fix them a plate, they'd pull up a chair, and we'd all tuck in. It was a cardinal sin at our house not to have enough food when guests were present. And the guests' responsibility was to be good company. Most of our guest more than lived up to their part of the bargain.

Coming from this perspective, it's been interesting to read about the furor the Party Crashers have created. Mind you, I'm not saying that crashing a party is acceptable--far from it--but it is the second level commentary, the Opinions that have popped up after everyone realized that the First Socializers were safe and had nothing but their protocol violated, that interests me most.

The New York Times published an article explaining in earnestness that the most serious thing that was broached was the Social Code of our nation's capitol. I read it with great curiosity--as a book editor, how people work fascinates me, and anything that promises insight on this Enigma of Enigmas makes good mental cud.

Here's the deal: in Washington, New York and LA--those bastions of culture, if not hospitality--the social currencies are, as you would expect, power, money and beauty. People make their social decisions based on who has the most currency of the realm: in the latter two, they flock to have photo ops with others who will increase their currency, but in D.C., however, real power lies behind the throne, so photo ops--Power Wall decor--have to be carefully curated.

Fascinating. It got me wondering about my own town. What's the driving force behind socializing in Houston? In Texas in general? Texas has its share of power, money and beauty, but somehow it all seems to mix up in a big chili pot of hospitality. Sure there are cronies, selective groups who gather, interest driven affairs, but if you follow Paper City or the star section in the Chronicle very long, one thing starts to jump out: These folks are all mingling.

The art people, the smart people, the philanthropic, the young and the old, conservative people and liberal people are all out their rubbing elbows. From hIgh brow to hoi polloi, you'll find all sorts at the Diverse Works gala, the Orange Show's Art Car Parade and in venues from the streets of Houston to the country clubs supporting the Pink Ribbons Project, or raising big funds for the American Cancer Society in their jeans. And they truly have hearts as big as the Ritz.

So what's the social currency here? Is it a can-do currency? Is it a wildcatter thing? Or is it broad horizons that make drawing-room games seem somewhat effete and lifeless, if amusing on the surface? Big-time socializing here may draw in power, but, like the Grinch realized about Christmas, it seems to be about something more.

What if Mr.and Mrs.Salahi had come to Houston? Would Leon Hale be in a frenzy? Would the Chronicle's newest style watchers analyze them? Or would we just shake their hands, introduce ourselves and offer them a plate of shrimp or roast beast?

What brings you here? What's your story? How can you help? This town has some money, but it's not just a money city; it has some power, but it's not about suits or spooks. And, no doubt it has it's share of beautiful people, but it's not particularly superficial. Houston has it's own unique currency, an H-town flavor, and an energetic spirit that makes it hard to categorize. With an authenticity that's hard to match, it's a great place to hang your hat. Whether you live here, or you're just paying a social call, all are welcome.

It's hard to crash an open house.

Personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures.
~F. Scott Fitzgerald