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Writing Life

On Between

January 24, 2020 by Cheryl Wilder

male doll sits in rocking chair with a female doll in doll house
It was forever, without reason or / explanation–because it was love.

It’s January 2020 and there’s no shortage of “decade in review” lists. I scanned USA Today‘s 10 Lists over 10 years to get my first taste of the past decade. I’m not quite there yet–the full decade-long look back.

When I turned thirty, it took me until thirty-one to grasp that I was no longer in my twenties. At forty-five, I’m still unsure what it means to be in my forties, though I can say it’s a lot like being a walking, talking hormone carnival (it’s more empowering than it sounds). All to say, I needed the decade to end before I could take a step back and assess.

Reflection began the first week in January when I bought a dining room table. My husband acknowledged that it had been ten years since he and I calculated it would take ten years to pay off our recession debt. All the sudden, the white oval table that seats ten, bought for $180.00 at a consignment store, became the symbol for our accomplishments over the past decade.

In 2011, I published an essay that captured 2010 in the “What It’s Like Living Here” essay series at Numero Cinq. So, I’m starting my reflection with a sentiment I discovered a decade ago: home is the space between two people. I’ve had ten years to live this idea. Ten years for the subject of home–a topic that dominated my writing between 2008 and 2010–to maturate. Ten years to hone my focus as an artist. Last year, I unearthed and organized my old research. I’m equipped and ready for exploration. To begin 2020, I trust the work to lead me.


Excerpt from, “In Its Distance.” Image taken by author. All rights reserved.


Filed Under: On..., Writing Life

On Making

August 30, 2019 by Cheryl Wilder

doll house front door and window with missy piggy on motorcycle and baby chick in doorway
I am soft tissue not load-bearing wall / though we both carry weight / of the not-yet known.

A work of art… is not a living thing… that walks or runs. But the making of a life. That which gives you a reaction. To some it is the wonder of human fingers. To some it is the wonder of the mind. To some it is the wonder of technique. And to some it is how real it is. To some, how transcendent it is. Like the 5th Symphony, it presents itself with a feeling that you know it, if you have heard it once. And you look for it, and though you know it you must hear it again. Though you know it you must see it again. Truly, a work of art is one that tells us that Nature cannot make what human’s can make.

Louis Kahn

To Make

I first heard the above quote in the movie, My Architect: A Son’s Journey. It’s a documentary by Nathaniel Kahn, an illegitimate son of the deceased architect, Louis Kahn. There’s many reasons I recommend watching the movie. But there’s one compelling aspect I want to touch on here: how the movie illustrates the complexities of life as an artist.

There’s failure. The need to make something out of nothing. To find beauty in chaos. More failure and the push to keep going. And yes, achievement. But one of the more complex topics the movie covers is sacrifice. What is the cost to throwing one’s life into creating art?

From the artist’s perspective, what is the cost to not throwing one’s life into creating art? Yet, the artist has to live in the world with everyone else, and to some of those people, the artist has responsibility. So, how does an artist find balance in life, with so many day-to-day factors to consider?

A Work of Art

I don’t have the answer for how to find balance as a working artist. Just like everyone else, artists need to traverse those decisions themselves, based on their personal lives and artistic goals. (If you want strategies, there’s plenty of resources and I am happy to share my own in future posts. Let me know if this appeals to you. For a couple examples on my process and struggle for balance, go here and here.)

What I do know, is that artists need to make things. Whether those things are as small as poems or as large as buildings.

When taking what Kahn says, “A work of art…[is] the making of a life,” it is easy to see how sacrifices are necessary and important. To make a life is no easy feat. What is sacrificed is the hard part. But this is what artists do in the process of making, decide what to keep and what to let go, all for the sake of the work. So how can that skill translate in life?

Again, there is no easy answer to that question. Perhaps the one thing to remember is that the work of art needs space made for it, just like bringing home a newborn baby or puppy. It’s a household affair. Routines will be adjusted, expectations changed. And since artists are the primary caregivers of their work, the capacity to extend themselves will be challenged, until maybe some of them won’t see what’s fallen out of reach.

Disclaimer

Louis Kahn died in 1974, and therefore, used the accepted terminology of “man” to represent humankind. I’ve taken the liberty to change “man” to “human” in his quote to reflect updated terminology, without changing his sentiment.


Quote and photo by author. All rights reserved.


Filed Under: Architecture, On..., Writing Life

On Dreams

June 28, 2018 by Cheryl Wilder

woman walking along down road in mountainsIt’s half way through 2018. A lot has shifted since setting goals for this year.

The main thing that’s shifted is my professional focus.

Come September, instead of growing my web design business, I will focus on writing and building my writing career. It’s interesting that even as I wrote that last sentence, it felt right to talk of a web design business but not of a writing career. What is it that makes me feel more assured in tacking words like “business” and “career” onto a profession that is more culturally aligned to those descriptors? Is it too presumptuous to want a writing career? What is a writing career anyway?

I’m figuring out what a writing career is to me.

I’ve spent a lot of time on the craft of writing. I’ve spent less time on the business of writing. In college there was no course available (that I knew of) on how to be an artist who makes a living in the world. I’ve learned all I know from my former boss, Architect Ligon Flynn, and my friend, Karin Wiberg of Clear Sight Books (who is also an amazing poet). I’ve filled in the gaps with research, and brainstorming with friends and fellow writers, Suzanne Farrell Smith and Claire Guyton.

New Events Page

In light of my new trajectory, I’ve created an Events page. Not so much putting the cart before the horse–I have three events scheduled through the rest of 2018. I’ve gotta start somewhere, right?

The main reason I created the Events page, is to put into motion this thing that I want to accomplish: public speaking. Whether it is a poetry reading, presenting at a Meetup Group, sitting on a conference panel, or, (as it so happens) giving a sermon, my next professional phase involves speaking in public.

One day I will be facilitating workshops, and speaking at a local TEDx Raleigh or TEDx Greensboro conference. Maybe I end up on the large TEDx stage. Who knows. I’ve accepted over this last while that I have a lot to say. Some of it will be really hard to talk about at first. But all of it is necessary. At least to me. And that’s all anyone has to go on.

Privacy Policy Update

On May 25, 2018 the European Union (EU) put into effect the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for all individuals within the EU and the European Economic Area (EEA). The primary goal of the GDPR is, according to Wikipedia, “to give control to citizens and residents over their personal data and to simplify the regulatory environment for international business by unifying the regulation within the EU.”

To comply with the GDPR, I have a added a Privacy Policy.

If you ever want to opt out of receiving blog posts, just click “Unsubscribe” in the email. I would never sell or give anyone your name or information for any purpose without your consent.

If you’re not signed up and want to, the signup form is below. I’d love to share with you.

Thank You

Thank you for sticking with me as I figure this whole writing career out. The image quotes were a much needed start in putting this blog together. They won’t go away altogether, but there will be more writing involved.

It’s both invigorating and unsettling to have so much experience and expertise under my belt, and still feel like I’m just beginning. Maybe this is what the elders mean when they say they feel younger than their years. As long as we have things to look forward to, goals to accomplish, or dreams to strive for, we get new beginnings. And what is more youthful than new beginnings?


Quote by author. All right reserved.


Filed Under: On..., Win at Life, Writing Life

On Resolve

January 5, 2018 by Cheryl Wilder

on resolve new year's resolution
To help my four-year-old boys’ learn how to make a resolution, I purchased, “Squirrel’s New Year’s Resolution,” by Pat Miller. The core message is summed up when Bear, the librarian at Lonewood Library, explains a New Year’s Resolution to Squirrel. “A resolution is a promise you make to yourself to be better or to help others,” he says. “When we begin a new year we make a fresh start.” This year, the boys have resolved to carry groceries into the house. A solid first resolution.

In 2018, I will transition from being a stay-at-home-mom working part-time to a mother of school-aged children working…well, that is what I get to figure out. It’s not the first time I have realigned my goals with the entry of a child into school. My eldest is now twenty. Fifteen years ago, as he went into kindergarten, I attended classes at the community college, putting myself on a direct path toward what I dreamed of doing as work: writing.

Since then, I have received undergraduate and graduate degrees, published a poetry chapbook, as well as, several poems, essays and articles in various journals. All of this work was accomplished first as a single mother, then during the recession when my family (my eldest son and new husband) had to relocate for income, the birth and rearing of twin boys, and the care giving of my mother before her death in 2016.

I’ve also reconnected with family members, bonded new friendships, established a balanced diet and exercise routine, started a web development business, exorcised personal demons, became more engaged in my community, bought a house, and reared a child out of the nest and onto the path of his own artistic pursuits. For the past eleven years, I’ve enjoyed ever-strengthening, never-a-dull-moment, love and support between my husband and me.

What’s next?

2018 New Year’s Resolution

This year I resolve to write a personal and professional mission statement to define who I am, who I want to be, and what I want to accomplish. And then, I live up to that mission.

Learning From My Previous Self

Developing a mission statement and business plan is not altogether new. Five years ago, two writer friends, Claire Guyton and Suzanne Farrell Smith, and I, decided to compose our own Writing Life Business Plans. Each following year we reevaluate and refine our goals.

The deep thinking involved, in creating and revising my plan, kept me connected to writing when two babies took all my brain power and energy. Not to say I hadn’t previously maintained tenacity toward my writing goals during busy times. But nothing kept me more focused (except the community of Claire and Suzanne) then taking the time to figure out where I was as a writer, where I wanted to go, and what I needed to do to get there.

Now I’m on the precipice of the boys’ enrollment in school. Not only will I have more time, I have five years of meticulous preparation under my belt.

My resolution is a natural extension of the Writing Life Business Plan. I don’t bring in enough income from my writing life (yet) to justify not having a second career. Luckily I enjoy web design, so the new mission includes my entrepreneurial pursuits as well. Work I hope to integrate more with my writing goals, creating something altogether new and unexpected.

My plan also addresses what kind of citizen I want to be in my community. Where are my talents and skills needed most?

The personal mission statement? It asks me to look closely at my moral foundation–the precursor to all of it.

Work More and Better

From my first blog post back in 2014: “I resolve to continue integrating my work with my art and my everyday life… I vow to do this year after year after year, turning my lifetime into a series of fulfilling days.”

My days are more integrated, and have become more fulfilling. But I’m not finished. Quite the contrary. 2018 is another year where I begin again, and one of the giants’ shoulders I stand on this time, are my own.


Quote and photo by author. All rights reserved.


Filed Under: New Year - New You, On..., Writing Life

Bowing Out (for now)

September 8, 2014 by Cheryl Wilder

After reading the article “‘Platforms’ are Overrated” by Stephanie Bane in Creative Nonfiction, I have decided to focus on finishing my memoir. Obviously I’m not ready for a blog anyway, with three posts in nine months. Next time I am back to this space it will be to talk about mistakes, shame, perseverance and repairing a clean, broken-slate identity.

This also stems to other social media, namely FB. I’ve become more voyeur than participant and that is largely due to my time constraints of parenting one-year-old twins and an eleventh grader. Eeking out moments to do what I love is not easy but imperative to both my heart and long-term sanity. I will remain a voyeur and check-in to make sure I don’t miss too much of my friends’ awesomeness. It’s just time that shit gets real. As the eleventh grader would say, Peace out.


Filed Under: Writing Life

Writing Process Blog Tour

March 10, 2014 by Cheryl Wilder

This leg of the Writing Process Blog Tour has hit North Carolina via my beautiful friend and writer, Suzanne Farrell Smith. Suzanne’s essays weave sentiment with science, humility with sin, and humor with heartache. She’s a master seamstress with words and one of the hardest working writers I know. To learn about her process, check it out here.

My day to post, March 10th, came after a weekend of surprise for my 40th birthday: a delectable lunch with my husband at a french restaurant, a party with loved ones and a night off from my seven month old twins. My last night out on the town was in December 2012! Needless to say, I was going to finish this post over the weekend, but here I am the evening of the 10th, by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin, getting my thoughts together to make the deadline. Like I mentioned to a friend a couple weeks ago, I’m doing everything by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin these days. Two babies. Need I say more.
backs of twin babies sitting in diapers
No matter, however busy I am with the boys, keeping my fingers wet with words is a priority. Alas, a glimpse into my process:

What am I working on?
I just finished taking my full-length poetry manuscript and cutting it down into a chapbook. It reads so much tighter and I love it. I have two essays I am working on and I always write poems, or ideas for poems, or revise poems. A couple years ago I started a memoir and after one hundred pages I put it down not knowing where to take it. That looms over my head all the time. Started another new project but that is all I’m going to say about it for now. I’d like to see if it takes flight or not first.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?
No matter what the subject matter, my writing finds a way to connect the everyday task to the cosmos. Poet Richard Jackson mentioned this when he introduced me at my graduate reading from Vermont College of Fine Arts, saying my work reminded him of what Gaston Bachelard calls ‘Intimate Immensity,’ a term found in The Poetics of Space. Here’s Bachelard: “Immensity is within ourselves. It is attached to a sort of expansion of being that life curbs and caution arrests, but which starts again when we are alone. As soon as we become motionless, we are elsewhere; we are dreaming in a world that is immense. Indeed, immensity is the movement of motionless man. It is one of the dynamic characteristics of quiet daydreaming.” Another aspect of my writing was pointed out by my wonderful friend and writer, Claire Guyton, after she read some of my poems: “forcing cliches into freshness is one of your specialties.” I can summarize by saying, I like to refurbish the old into something new and turn the ordinary extraordinary.

Why do I write what I do?
I write poems because I think in interwoven phrases and images. I studied the lyric poem because I wanted to say the most with the least amount of words. Most of my early writing is based on personal experience because I love deciphering the human condition and for me the best way of beginning was to decipher the only human whose brain and emotions I could easily get to. I have since branched out and I love the themes of home and architecture and family and silence and how all those things help me connect to something larger, something beyond my self. As a child I was told that simplicity is beauty and I believe that is what’s behind my desire to unearth the extraordinary in the ordinary. I don’t believe one needs to travel far to experience profundity. I started writing essays to further my exploration. I began writing because I wanted to communicate; I wanted to learn to convey exactly what I was feeling and thinking. I write because it is the most efficient path I’ve found to honesty.

How does my writing process work?
In the morning I write best yet my schedule has changed over the years due to babies and jobs and happenstance that I have taught myself to dip in and out of writing throughout the day. I listen to Philip Glass when I am deep thinking and to Charlie Parker when I am whimsical. The rest of the time I listen to silence. I prefer to have a window for gazing. Place is important so I return to my desk every time I write. I find comfort in having a permanent space for my writing and I require comfort. Ideation happens everywhere but deep writing is only accomplished in my writing space. Attire for my most emotionally difficult material is a bathrobe. For everything else, attire is optional.

Sometimes an image or idea explodes and I freewrite until I have squeezed all I can out if it but most often a piece emerges after long thought-out musings that rattle around in my head. I try to complete pieces on recent experiences but I am unable to so I work through my feelings, place memories on the page and then allow time for the world to influence them. I walk away, sometimes for months or years. I have let pieces sit as long as a decade. There are always open-ended pieces that I dip into for revision, each piece influencing the other. Then comes the time where I am so close to finishing I drop everything else and focus on one piece at a time.

Here is where the tour feeds back on itself. Instead of continuing to a new blog, I leave you with a list of brilliant writers and bloggers who shared (or will be sharing) their process. Enjoy.

Suzanne Farrell Smith
Claire Guyton
Natalia Sarkissian
Diane Lefer
Laurie Cannady
Jeanne Gassman
Jennifer Haugen Koski
James Pounds
Elizabeth Gaucher
Benjamin Woodard
Giano Cromley
Stephanie Friedman


Filed Under: Writing Life, Writing Process Tagged With: claire guyton, diane lefer, elizabeth gaucher, gaston bachelard, giano cromley, james pounds, jeanne gassman, jennifer haugen koski, natalia sarkissian, richard jackson, stephanie friedman, suzanne farrell smith

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"The future way of life consists in the recovery of the intimacy of life."
—Sigfried Giedion, art and architecture historian

Cheryl Wilder, a middle-aged woman with short brown hair, wearing a black puffy jacket, holding a pen on a cold day at the Sonoma Coast in CA

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