A Serious and Smiling Writer

It’s not possible to talk for long with Heidi Willis without realizing she is a serious woman: serious about her life, about her faith and about her art. That seriousness underlies a ready smile and a sparkling wit. Heidi is devoted to her family of husband Todd and their three children and practices a deep and quiet faith that is evident in her writing and in her conversation.  On her Facebook information page, she quoted a sentence from Esther,

Maybe you were put here in this place for such a time as this. (Esther 4:13)

Heidi is passionate about writing. But she keeps it in perspective. Again from Facebook:

 

A writer. A photographer. A multi-media business owner and creator. And, unbelievably, I've been able to make money at all of them. But mostly, a mom. Which, while I won't earn a cent doing it, is the most important thing I will ever do.

Her Facebook site is a treasure trove of observations, insights, up to the minute reports on the happenings of the day and exchanges with friends. Her blog (http://heidiwillis.blogspot.com/) and website (http://www.heidi-willis.com/index.html) offer the same depth and sense of energy. She writes about not wanting to write, but write she does and the results are worth anyone’s time and effort to read.

Tempering all that seriousness is a wry sense of humor, evident from the opening sentences of her first book, Some Kind of Normal,  a book with the serious theme of a family struggling with the sudden onset of type I diabetes in their daughter. The narrator opens the book by worrying that she is slowly killing her family with breakfast:

I ain’t one to bash being healthy, but it sure takes the fun out of living. My motivation to be the perfect mom starts about six a.m. when I swing my legs over the bed and ends fifteen minutes later when I stumble into the kitchen to make coffee and figure out what I can cook for breakfast that won’t kill no one. 

That’s the voice of Babs Babcock, central character of the novel and mother to the stricken girl. Heidi has the character and her voice and tone pitch perfect. To my mind, Babs is a ready successor to Huckleberry Finn, a distinctive character a who engages our sympathy and trust.  We grow to love her and her family in the course of the novel. I hope sincerely there will be more stories about Babs and her friends and neighbors

.

My advice is to get the book, read it, read Heidi’s website and blog and wait with anticipation more stories and writing from this serious and smiling woman.

Heidi  Willis (nee VanBrokehoven)  graduated from Penn State with degrees in Education and Communications. She is currently  an MFA candidate at Pacific University in Oregon.

Her poetry has been published in Ignite Your Faith (formerly Campus Life Magazine) and her debut novel,  Some Kind of Normal, was published by NorLights Press in 2009.

She also takes amazingly beautiful photographs. Indeed she has been put here in this place for a time such as this, and we are all better off for all that.

Neighborhood HR Lady Comes to Town

Courtesy of my Neighborhood HR Lady Daughter from an actual Facebook thread (names hidden):

Today's advice from your neighborhood HR lady: if you have a phone interview with another company, and you can't take it during non-business hours or from your office, the company stairwell probably isn't your next best option.

Commentator #1: You heard me? I mean, what an idiot!!!

Neighborhood HR Lady: It  is like a total echo chamber in the stairwell. I just don't get it.

Commentator #2: Maybe they were just looking to add some natural reverb to their interview voice.

Dan Verner:  Maybe they were joining an a capella group. Some of them practice in stairwells!

Commentator #3: Is the next best option the toilet? I really need to know.

Commentator #4: I had somebody leave a business application and resume on a company network printer. And when I found it, and dropped it off on their desk, they claimed a privacy violation. (Which, btw, it isn't.)

#1: Of course they would claim that where you work. No one ever think *they* could be wrong.

Dan Verner: Bathrooms are good to sing in. Same principle.

Neighborhood HR Lady: I would argue that using autotune in one's car would produce the desired reverb AND allow for privacy. The next best options might include your vehicle, outside of the building (not by the entrance), booking a conference room, or going to Starbucks. Not the toilet.

Commentator #5: On our team folks just take the interview in the office they share with someone else :)

Neighborhood HR Lady: Well, you are in Quality Assurance. Maybe they just want their colleague to assure the quality of their interview? Okay, then, better options include a dive bar, a brothel, the emergency room waiting room, or the Cry Room of your local church.

Commentator #2: Where is this brothel you speak of? Er, so I can avoid it!!

Neighborhood HR Lady: Looks like you'll have to go 44 miles away and to another state to "avoid" said brothel. And actually, there is nothing more to this other than me politely asking the person to move so I could use the stairs for their intended purpose, which was to get to the free cheesecake on the 4th floor.

Commentator #6: Whoa. How do you get the emails about cheesecake on the 4th floor? Who do I need to ask?

Neighborhood HR Lady: I think one of the nurses told me actually.

Dan Verner: This is another classic thread, HR Lady. Will you be visting FB again soon with your magic  carpet bag, flying above the city with your little pink parasol while charming chimney sweeps sing and dance on the roofs, at the same time contracting odious diseases from unprotected exposure to coal dust?

Neighborhood HR Lady: Say wha’?

Dan Verner: Sorry, wrong story.

HR Lady will be back the next time someone commits an interesting crime against compliance.

Dan Verner: Neighborhood HR Lady, would you write a regular column? So many of us have pressing HR questions only you should answer. Example: should I use my new press pass for good or for evil?

Keep reading this space for the next time the Neighborhood HR Lady  comes to town And remember her motto: “I’ll send you the personal effects from your desk by courier when you are terminated for odd behavior.”

Some Random Jottings

I know, every post could have the title of this one, but I do have a collection of random subjects to write about, so today is as good a time as any.

Lions and Tigers and...Panthers? 

My dad's financial guy extraordinaire, Mike Washer, was telling me that my dad told him that years ago there was a park ranger at Manassas Battlefield Park (about six miles from where we live) who was tired of deer overrunning the place and got some panthers to let loose and control the deer population. Since then there have been panther sightings  around the area, including the Battlefield, Haymarket and Prince William Hospital. If you see a large black kitty cat, do not approach him/her/it. Raise your hands high above your head, back away slowly and intone "Nice kitty, kitty" in a low voice. Be careful. It's a jungle out there....

Smarty Pants and Other Similar Appellations

I am indebted to Chorale soprano extraordinaire Marcy Pratt for this linguistic invention. Here's the actual Facebook back-and-forth that we had about a new "pants" expression that Marcy used:


Marcy: Jessica Chastain played the blonde heroine of the Help (not the snotty pants [role]). :)
 
Dan: I love the idea of a "snotty pants" role. It's just intuitively understandable. We had a security guy at school we called "Mr. Grouchy Pants." Because he was. 

Marcy: Yes, funny to think about now that you mention - "I'd like to audition for the Snotty pants role, please?" :)

Dan: I see it as a role type, kinda like an ingenue role or a best buddy role. "She was best know for playing Snotty Pants roles in a variety of films that spanned decades..."

A few days later, this series:

Dan: Look, Marcy, it's Miss Snotty Pants' sister! She has written a book! 

Bossypants

www.amazon.com

Marcy: GREAT book, by the way! :) LOVE Tina Fey!

Then, recently I found this passage in an article about a change in editorial leadership at the New Yorker magazine:
 

In the 1960s, [humorist]Dorothy Parker criticized the magazine's utter lack of humor, and [William] Shawn himself later expressed some regret that he hadn't had many humorists on staff, but in 1975, New York Times book critic John Leonard said, "Shawn changed The New Yorker from a smarty-pants parish tip sheet into a journal that altered our experience instead of just posturing in front of it."

Of course, we're all familiar with the smarty pants appellation which I've been called a time or two myself (justly, I might add). There is also prissy pants which perhaps was heard most famously in a South Park episode (Biscuit City Advisory: If you are offended at all by tasteless and vulgar humor DO NOT check out South Park. I do not watch the thing: I just heard about "Polly Prissypants.") when Cartman was playing with his dolls, including Polly Prissypants. Prissy means exaggeratedly proper, excessively fastidious and easily disgusted so apply that to "pants" and there you have it. 

If anyone knows of any other "pants" expressions please comment on Facebook or on this post. And congratulations to Marcy for a great new addition to popular culture. 

Who Knew? EZ Pass, i Phones and Automatic Backup

OK, so I'm not an Early Adopter when it comes to technology. We still have VCR's and had the original NuTone intercom/radio that came with the house in 1967 when it was built, right up until we remodeled the kitchen about three years ago. So we just got EZ Passes for the cars. Incredible! When we drove to New Jersey to catch the Jersey Transit to Manhattan, we used the pass for tolls. Worked like a charm and saved us probably 15 minutes in travel time. We don't use toll roads much but when we do, it's EZ Pass all the way. Who knew?

And then daughter Amy's bf Chris #2 (Macgee) gave me his iPhone 3 when he upgraded to a 4. It's an incredible piece of technology and came in very handy when we were in New York for determining things like which way to go when we came out of the subway and the location of nearby restaurants. I can also check email on texts on the fly. Who knew these things were so useful?

And then there is my newest friend, Automatic Backup. Blogspot, which I'm using this very second, backs up my work every a couple of minutes or so. This has saved me hours of work when the power goes off or I hit an unknown combination of keys and lock the computer up or clear the post I'm working on. Who knew how useful this was?

The Good Gray Poet

In honor of our trip this past week to New York City, this week's poem is by Walt Whitman, who lived in Brooklyn where he edited The Brooklyn Eagle as a young man. It wasn't until he moved to Camden, NJ that he acquired the persona of "The Good Gray Poet" although his sometimes explicit verse made him a controversial figure during his time. When the book was first published, Whitman was fired from his job at the Department of the Interior after Secretary of the Interior James Harlan read it and said he found it very offensive. Poet John Greenleaf Whittier was said to have thrown his 1855 edition into the fire. Thomas Wentworth Higginson (Emily Dickinson's editor) wrote, "It is no discredit to Walt Whitman that he wrote 'Leaves of Grass,' only that he did not burn it afterwards."

Some scholars believe Whitman's signature long-line free verse form was influenced by his habitual wandering of the long north-south avenues of Manhattan where he saw the world come to him. He writes about the island and the people he encountered in his forays in this poem.

 

Mannahatta

by Walt Whitman

I WAS asking for something specific and perfect for my city,
Whereupon, lo! upsprang the aboriginal name!
Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly, musical, self-sufficient;
I see that the word of my city is that word up there,
Because I see that word nested in nests of water-bays, superb, with tall and wonderful
spires,
Rich, hemm’d thick all around with sailships and steamships—an island sixteen
miles
long, solid-founded,
Numberless crowded streets—high growths of iron, slender, strong, light, splendidly
uprising toward clear skies;
Tide swift and ample, well-loved by me, toward sundown,
The flowing sea-currents, the little islands, larger adjoining islands, the heights, the
villas,
The countless masts, the white shore-steamers, the lighters, the ferry-boats, the black
sea-steamers well-model’d;
The down-town streets, the jobbers’ houses of business—the houses of business of
the
ship-merchants, and money-brokers—the river-streets;
Immigrants arriving, fifteen or twenty thousand in a week;
The carts hauling goods—the manly race of drivers of horses—the brown-faced
sailors;
The summer air, the bright sun shining, and the sailing clouds aloft;
The winter snows, the sleigh-bells—the broken ice in the river, passing along, up or
down,
with the flood tide or ebb-tide;
The mechanics of the city, the masters, well-form’d, beautiful-faced, looking you
straight
in the eyes;
Trottoirs throng’d—vehicles—Broadway—the women—the shops and
shows,
The parades, processions, bugles playing, flags flying, drums beating;
A million people—manners free and superb—open voices—hospitality—the
most
courageous and friendly young men;
The free city! no slaves! no owners of slaves!
The beautiful city, the city of hurried and sparkling waters! the city of spires and
masts!
The city nested in bays! my city!
The city of such women, I am mad to be with them! I will return after death to be with
them!
The city of such young men, I swear I cannot live happy, without I often go talk, walk,
eat,
drink, sleep, with them!

Write On!

I want to devote Thursdays to advice for writers, so to kick it off, here's a post by Elizabeth Hagen, the pastor of Washington Plaza Baptist Church, on Lake Anne in Reston, VA, used with her permission. Elizabeth's blog is called Preacher on the Plaza and is worth reading, with wonderful insights, trenchant commentary and a warm inclusive tone. It's also well-written. You can check it out at http://preacherontheplaza.wordpress.com/.

In a recent post, Elizabeth wrote, 

Recently I have found myself being asked more about writing. Such as: “How do I find time to do so much of it?”  ”How do I decide what to write about?” “Why write a blog when you don’t know if anyone out there is really reading?”
I giggle a little to think that someone would ask me such questions because only in the past six months have I been able to confidently say that I am a writer as much as I am a pastor among other things.  Yet, the truth of the matter is that I’ve been steady at the discipline of blogging since 2006– back before it was  cool– and have loved every minute of it.  If you want to make me smile, let’s have a conversation about writing.
If you want to know why I blog, check out the “About Elizabeth page.”  For the rest, here’s my in the process of learning list for today:
1. You must write and write a lot to get better at it. Sounds un-profound, but it’s true. There is no magic formula to being a writer.  As much as you might have a natural inclination for words, you have to learn the craft. Blessed be the friends who read you stuff even when it is bad and don’t tell you how bad it really is– these are the people you need in your life cheering you on believing in the fact that it will get better. They’ll be plenty of editors or critical blog commenters who will tell you the truth!
2. If you are going to be a writer, you need to know when is your time of day when ideas come. For me this is annoyingly the moment I put my head on my pillow at night. I lay there and my head floods with topics for new blogs or ideas for how I want to arrange the chapters of my upcoming book project. I try to fight it, telling myself to forget until morning. But, usually such a declaration doesn’t work. So, I say, if creativity calls, run with it. (Just don’t publish a blog after 11 pm. Most I know are usually sorry for this in the am).
3. Write with heart. Again, not profound. But often, I’ve found readers forgiving me for a multitude of grammar sins if they know I believe and am passionate about what I am trying to say.  Especially in persuasive writing (which is what I mostly do– sermons and op ed type pieces), readers need to know you personally care about what you describe. There’s nothing worse to read, I think, than a journalistic type writer trying to give you the facts and then expecting you to care when you have no idea if the writer cares first! Caring of course don’t have to explicit. People know if you do or don’t implicitly.
4. Make friends with other writers.  Non-writers just don’t see prose they way a writer does.  My mom or my husband, for example, will read my stuff and will often comments in helpful ways, but their feedback is never as a good as that of my writing friends. Fellow writers will tell me that I had “a nice turn of phrase” or “this theme connection really made the essay work” or “I didn’t start liking you as a character until half way through the chapter.” Other writers speak your langauge and so you always need to stick close to them.
5. Do not be afraid of the delete button. In the beginning of my weekly writing career, especially with sermons, I was really anxious about cutting large chunks of the piece out.  I had worked so hard! It was so sad to see a paragraph go that I would cut and paste it into another word document hoping to come back to it later. The funny thing is that I NEVER would need it.  Sometimes the delete button can be your writing project’s very best friend. Though a tear may be shed, the best thing is to just go with it. Tear the band-aid quickly though and you’ll feel better for it.
And, most of all read about writing. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott is one of my favorites.