article about me in Ottawa This Week

This past Friday Ottawa This Week (West Edition) included an article about me by Kristy Wallace. The website is www.yourottawaregion.com

A friend sent me a poem

My old friend and editor, Valerie Simmons, sent me this poem, which was read at the funeral of her cousin's wife.

Death is Nothing at All

by Canon Henry Scott-Holland, 1847-1918

Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other
That we are still.
Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed
At the little jokes we always enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effort,
Without the ghost of a shadow in it.

Life means all that it ever meant,
It is the same as it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
What is death but a negligible accident?
Why should I be out of mind
Because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you for an interval
Somewhere very near
Just around the corner.

All is well.
Nothing is past; nothing is lost.
One brief moment and all will be as it was before.
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again.

Tips on Writing Fiction

Recently, while browsing for writers' markets, I came upon a two part article in The Guardian entitled "Ten Rules for Writing Fiction" See http://www.guardian/. co.uk/books/2010/feb/20 The authors/compilers asked fourteen established authors, including Canada's Margaret Atwood, to provide ten tips (commandments?) for aspiring novelists.

Among the gems were:
"Try to leave out the parts that readers tend to skip." (Elmore Leonard);
"Do change your mind. Good ideas are often murdered by better ones." (Roddy Doyle);
"Have more than one idea on the go at any time." (Geoff Dyer). Dyer also says to beware of cliches "of response as well as expression... There are cliches of observation and of thought - even of conception. Many novels... are cliches of form which conform to cliches of expectation."

(My apologies for not knowing how to put the accent on the e in cliche.)

Other bits of advice I liked:

"Marry someone you love and who thinks your being a writer is a good idea. Don't have children." (Richard Ford).

I didn't agree with "always write in the third person", but all of the advice is worth mulling over.

The only tips I might add are:

. Be selective when it comes to showing your works in progress to other people.

. Learn to work on your own. Avoid other writers and writers' organizations if you sense that they are picking your brain, sucking up your time and disparaging your work in the guise of constructive criticism.

. Learn from reading fiction that is like yours only better. Sample books on the craft of writing.

a fan letter I can't write

When I can't sleep, I often get up and read short stories by a famous Canadian author. An hour later I have put aside whatever concern had prevented sleep and go back to bed feeling that all is right with the world.

Sometimes I think I should write to the author and tell her how much her work means to me, but so far I've rejected the impulse.

"Dear Famous Author: I can't tell you how much your books mean to me. When I can't sleep I read one of your stories and soon I can't keep my eyes open and am ready for dreamland."

Now, that's hardly flattering. It's true yet it isn't. It creates the wrong impression, because the author's work is fascinating. I see myself in many of her characters and read to see how the character comes to terms with a situation/ predicament/issue, or rethinks it, endures it, lets time solve it, or triumphs over it. I'm left with the feeling that my own dilemmas are normal, typical, solvable, not always my fault, and best of all, interesting. I go back to bed feeling affirmed.

Walt Whitman said it well

Like many Canadians, I watched Jack Layton's funeral this past Saturday, and the words that were spoken and sung certainly resonated with me.

Yes, the funeral was a celebration of life, but in spite of the uplifting songs and brilliant eulogies I wept all through the telecast.

I kept thinking about two poems written by the American poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892), whom I studies in American literature classes. Both are about the death of Abraham Lincoln. One is "Captain, my Captain." The other, longer one is called "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed." Whitman lived and worked in Washington D.C. during the American Civil War and frequently saw Lincoln coming and going in the course of his duties. He loved Lincoln, and although perhaps his poems are a bit over the top by present-day standards, I will quote a section from
"When Lilacs..." that reminds me of this past week:

"..... with the silent sea of faces and the unbard heads,
With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin and the sombre faces,
With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong and solemn...
.....
"Here, coffin that slowly passes,
I give you my sprig of lilac."

Humid Day for a Poet

Humid Day for a Poet

(c) Ruth Latta, 2010, 2011

I picture Pablo Neruda in several settings.

First, in bed with a woman
in a room overlooking the sea.
Filmy curtains billow in the windows
as the waves crash
and the tides ebb and flow
and he says her skin is as pink
as dawn in Santiago.

I picture Pablo at a picnic,
perhaps at the Arboretum,
with embroidered cloths spread on the grass,
where pot-luck provides a loaves and fishes miracle
and people sprawl under the trees
and the notes of a guitar
inspire him to write another ode.

I see him at a podium in Sweden
accepting the noblest prize of all.
You can Google the photo.

No one wants to picture a poet
growing grey, with flesh like jello,
perspiring at her dining room table,
tuning out the twinges of conscience and arthritis.

Should she turn on the air-conditioner
or, for the sake of the environment,
sweat?

Blue lines from the paper smear her hands,
paper sticks to her fingers
and a hot affectionate long-haired cat
tries to take her pen,
as she yearns to be the woman by the sea
or a poet like Pablo.

I Love "Paris"

I loved the new Woody Allen movie, "Midnight in Paris."

A California screenwriter gets the opportunity to go to Paris with his fiancee and his inlaws-to-be, who are Tea Party enthusiasts travelling on business. The screenwriter, played by Owen Wilson, is a would-be novelist with a work in progress, and is thrilled to see the city where great expatriate American writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and more, lived in the 1920s. Unfortunately, his visit starts out disappointingly. At a restaurant his girlfriend spots a couple she knows. The husband is an old boyfriend of hers, and also a tiresome know-it-all. The fiancee prefers spending time with this couple to being alone with her fiance/screenwriter/novelist.

Late one night she goes dancing with her friends. The screenwriter, who doesn't want to come along, gets lost walking back to their hotel. He sits on some steps to rest, bells ring twelve times, and a vintage car comes around the corner. The door opens, and... you really ought to see the movie.

"Midnight in Paris" deserves an Oscar but probably won't get one. There are several factors against it. Many of the jokes are subtle - but not the barb about generic, bland Hollywood romantic comedies. America's love-hate relationship with France may stand in the movie's way. As well, the nostalgic elements may not go over in a society where everyone prizes the new. Also, the references to literature, art and music may not appeal.

Owen Wilson is excellent in the type of role that Woody Allen used to play in his own movies when he was younger. Alison Pill looks like the photos of Zelda Fitzgerald from that era; Kathy Bates is a wonderful Gertrude Stein, and Corly Stoll is a funny caricature of Hemingway.

Fiction writers will be delighted with the way Woody Allen takes the elements involved in writing a work of the imagination and pushes them to an extreme. What are these elements? Well, authors enter the imaginary worlds that they are creating and are caught up in them. In some instances they seem as real as ordinary life. In the imaginary milieu, characters grapple with the author's concerns, reshaped, reframed and transformed. Often, within the world of the imagination, an author may become aware of buried issues in his own life and may figure out a new course of action, not only for the characters, but for himself. Serious writers of fiction admire great writers who have gone before, but, while the styles and themes of these "greats" may influence them, they strive to create something new.

In "Midnight in Paris," Woody Allen conveys a moral: that each historical epoch has its own problems, and that, in whatever time and place you are living, you should be true to yourself and pursue your dreams.