Category: About “Heart Wood”

About "Heart Wood"/Children's Health Trends/Climate Change/Dystopic Future/Environmental Activism/Future Health Trends

Can We Raise Healthy Children on an Unhealthy Planet?

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I’ve been thinking about how my medical background influenced the writing of Heart Wood – prompted by a recent invitation to participate on a panel of UC San Francisco Medical Center Alumni Fiction Writers – a Zoom event on March 15, 2022, at 6 pm. (Details are below).

In my eco-novel Heart Wood, I used family women from three centuries to show the steady progression of health concerns over time in the past, present, and future. Like the frog in cold water where the water is heated slowly until the frog boils to death, it’s easy to accommodate to changing health conditions as they slowly creep up on us – until they become alarming problems.

I saved this cartoon from 2012 – little did we know that 10 years later, we’d still be breaking records for the hottest year ever!

One of the benefits of being 76 years old is having the perspective of time. Starting in the 1980s, I worked for 20 years as a traveling school nurse in small rural northern California communities. Although I didn’t have a mule to tote my equipment down canyons and across rivers, my car was always piled high with file boxes and testing equipment. I served five small schools stretched between the Middle and South Yuba Rivers – all previous sites of the Gold Rush era’s practices of washing away hillsides and polluting rivers with heavy metals used to extract gold.

In those 20 years, I observed trends in children’s health. In the 1980s, children’s health problems were mainly allergies to bees and peanuts, vison and hearing problems, head lice, and assorted injuries. Fast forward to the 2000s where we now have an explosion of allergies and intolerances to foods, asthma, diabetes, cancers, attention deficit disorders, autism, anxiety, and suicide. Seeing these dramatic changes over time alarms me.

Imagine Eliza in Heart Wood in the 1800s reading a box of today’s breakfast cereal: “Does NOT contain gluten, GMOs, artificial flavors or colors, preservatives, pesticides, etc.” I’m sure she’d be incredulous that anyone would put those in foods in the first place!

Yet today, we take for granted having a list of what is NOT in our food so we can navigate the food aisle for the best choices, thankful for the growing number of grocery shelves devoted to food intolerances.

Turn up the heat and fast forward to 2075 where Amisha’s food choices consist mainly of colored Pharm.food packets specifically developed for the multitude of intolerances that the corporate-pharmaceutical industry was responsible for creating in the first place.

One of the underlying premises in Heart Wood is that it’s difficult to raise healthy children on an unhealthy planet. It matters to our children’s health that the atmosphere and oceans are infused with plastic nanoparticles, that drinking water is contaminated, that oil spills into the ocean or lakes, that rainforests are cut down, that food ingredients are manipulated. These seemingly small changes accumulate over time into lethal doses. But small positive changes accumulate over time as well. Let’s each now do what we can to care for the earth and our children’s future!

Here’s registration information for the panel discussion I will be on of three UCSF alumni authors of fictional work 
https://ucsf.regfox.com/aacs-spotlight-on-fiction-writers

Tuesday, March 15, 2022. ONLINE   6-7 pm Pacific time

A woman alone in Brooklyn during the 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic. The connection between a small, oak writing desk and three family women whose lives are joined across centuries and generations. A cadre of peers fighting a coup in a dictator-controlled West Africa. These very different scenarios share a surprising link – all are snapshots of published fictional works written by UCSF alumni.

Join us for a panel discussion with three UCSF alumni authors led by moderator Sarah McClung, head of collection development at the UCSF Library. During this conversation, Shirley DicKard, BS ’68, RN; James Gottesman, MD ’70, resident alum; and Larry Hill, MD ’67, will share an exclusive glimpse into their stories’ fictional worlds and what brought them to life. We will also learn directly from these creative minds about whether their experiences at UCSF played a part in the stories, what their writing process was like, and how they navigated the publishing world.

This program is brought to you by the UCSF Office of Alumni Relations and UCSF Archives as part of the virtual event series in which distinguished UCSF alumni authors discuss their recently published books

REGISTER HERE

Purchase Heart Wood:

Locally to support your independent book stores!

On AMAZON (paper, ebook)

Finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award’s Montaigne Medal for the most thought-provoking books that either illuminate, progress, or redirect thought.

Winner of Visionary Fiction -National Indie Excellence Awards

BLOG:  https://shirleydickard.com/blog/

WEBSITE:  https://shirleydickard.com/

About "Heart Wood"/Brain Implants/Dystopian Fiction/Dystopic Future/Inner Listening/Speculative Fiction/The Future

Elon Musk’s Neurolink: Harbinger of the “Nib”?

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Elon Musk has bold visions for the future of humanity. His inventions include the Tesla electric car, Space X Starship, and Starlink– space-based internet. But when he unveiled the latest developments of his Neuralink – a wireless implant into the brain that could someday let human brains directly interface with digital devices, my skin crawled with goosebumps.

Elon Musk describes his “Neuralink” brain implant

I went back to my early 2016 drafts of Heart Wood – to Amisha’s future world (2070-2090) in which everyone has a “Nib” implanted at birth behind their ear– a miniscule micro-chip that eliminates all need for external electronic devices. It would be like having a continual “Siri,” “Alexa,” or “Google” active in your head, clouding or overriding your personal thoughts, providing you with information and giving directions in anticipation of what you might or should want. With less need for other humans, eye contact and physical touch would wither from disuse.

Amisha was a young child when she was retrofitted with the new, mandatory Nib…

“Amisha hardly remembered the time of silence, before her parents took her to the tall building, the line of other little children, the sharp stab in her neck, the prickles that grew behind her ear beneath her skin, and the new voice she began to hear.” (Heart Wood)

I pondered what to call my imaginary implant. “Chip” was too predictable. My friend Mark Jokerst helped me come up with the word “Nib” (Neural Implant Bot Sensor).  I like that “Nib” also had a brief appearance in the late 1800s as the nib of Eliza’s fountain pen – both communication devices, two centuries apart.

Musk describes his Neuralink as like a Fit Bit in the skull with tiny wires that connect the brain to computers/phone via Bluetooth. To insert, an advanced robot surgically implants the Neuralink (0.9” wide/0.3” tall) and its 1,024 miniscule electrodes into the brain matter. Its battery life lasts all day; you charge it at night. Like your Tesla.

“Amisha nodded to the rain pelting the bedroom window and, with a right-flick of her eyes, queried her Nib: Didn’t it already rain twice this year? Last rain: April 14, 2075. Four point six inches of precip in one hour temporarily raised the Bay five inches. Seawall was moved back two feet. Your closest umbrella stand is corner of Grove and . . . Amisha halted her Nib feed with a left-flick of her eyes.”

 Musk is serious about his invention, predicting it will enable people with spinal cord injuries to control their prosthetic limbs. He goes on to say that future applications will cure blindness, seizures, depression, and other mental health conditions. Eventually, he speculates, you’ll be able to record, replay, and upload your memories. Neuralink may one day upload and download thoughts. People with implants would be capable of telepathy—not just sending and receiving words, but actual concepts and images. “The future’s going to be weird,” Musk said.

“Menting” in Heart Wood is a version of telepathy. Like mental texting.

“Orion!” she called from the bathroom. Of course, he was still gaming. She sent him a mental message but got no response to her ment. Breathe in . . . out . . . in . . . out. She left Orion an urgent ment to contact her. –I.P. hours in thirty minutes, reminded her Nib. A pedi.cab is passing in eight minutes. Amisha dropped a handful of general purpose Pharm.food packages into her aquamarine crocheted bag for her midday food, then checked her route for shootings and outbursts and decided it was safe enough to walk. She needed to clear her head from last night’s dream.”

How close is the Neuralink to reality? With great fanfare, Musk held press conferences on August 28, 2020 to show off the Neuralink implanted into normal-acting pigs, and on April 12, 2021, showing a monkey playing video games with its Neuralink-enhanced brain.  Links to these are below.

As new technologies like Neuralink infuse into our future, I see bioethical red flags being raised regarding privacy invasion, consent, and misapplication by military, political, commercial, and government interests.

But I have an additional concern: that something essential to being human will be lost.

As Amisha grew up, she modified her Nib’s voice:

” …first upgraded as girlfriend Talia, then briefly Jordan, until she got tired of hearing a man’s voice. Eventually she installed a nameless voice, programmed to be both competent and comforting to her. Over the last few months, however, she had detected something new, a murmur so faint she thought at first it was static from her Nib. Now and then, a word would break through, then just as quickly be covered over by a wave of Nib drivel. Something was weaving through her dreams at night like a root tip seeking water, seeking her. She’d wake up shivering.”

It’s our inner voice that we stand to lose – the source of intuition, nudges, insights, and the unique expression of our spirit.

Technology will integrate deeper into our daily lives: A.I. leads us to our destinations, Google searches distract us down rabbit holes, podcasts fill our quiet moments, and every click adds to our profile. These probably won’t change. For me, the question is how do we keep our inner voice alive and vibrant?   

I wrote Heart Wood in part as a reminder that beneath all the technology, we have our unique, still, small, voice. The small oak desk is a metaphor for what connects us to a deeper, more universal, earth-based wisdom.  We can ignore it or pile our “stuff” on top of it, but when we finally sit quietly with no distractions, our inner voice can be heard.

I feel this is one of the most important things we can share with our children: to make time every day for the bliss of boredom. Just sit quietly, perhaps out in nature. Notice what you see and hear around you. Maybe close your eyes. And as Shima’a said to the future…

Listen to the Silence

Heart Wood – Four Women, for the Earth, for the Future

Winner of the National Indie Excellence Awards for Visionary Fiction.

2021 Finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award’s Montaigne Medal for the most thought-provoking books that either illuminate, progress, or redirect thought.

Finalist – Self Publishing Review and RECOMMENDED by the US Review of Books

Purchase Heart Wood at your local bookstore (support independent bookstores!), here on Amazon, and in Nevada County, California, at JJ Jacksons, Reflections Skin Oasis, SPD, and of course, Harmony Books and The Book Seller.

Please consider leaving a review on Amazon and Goodreads. It’s a great way to support independently-published authors. Thank you!

To read more about Elon Musk’s NEURALINK:

About "Heart Wood"/Book Awards/Eco-Novel

Thought Provoking?

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I received a notice that Heart Wood was a finalist for the 2021 Eric Hoffer Award’s Montaigne Medal. The significance didn’t sink in at first.  Although I had applied for several book awards, the Montaigne Medal was not one of them. As an independently published author, I didn’t have the resources of a publishing house to do the necessary marketing for me, and since it was a busy day, I filed the letter away to re-read later.

When I returned to the letter, I was blown away. The Eric Hoffer Award judges had pulled Heart Wood out of the 2,500 books being considered for other award categories and selected it for their Montaigne Medal as “one of the most thought-provoking books that either illuminate, progress, or redirect thought.”

To me, there’s no greater honor than being recognized for my underlying motive in writing Heart Wood. Thought provoking? Perhaps it was because I posed more questions than answers: What if we ignore the Earth’s cries for help all around us, and continue at the pace we’re going? What if we could lean back into the past or forward into the future and influence thinking and outcomes? What if women led the way with their unique style of working together to make decisions and solve problems? What can we do today that our descendants will thank us for? What if we let the Earth speak first? What can we learn from silence?

When the two winners of the Montaigne Medal were announced mid-May (books from the University of California and the John Hopkins University Presses), it didn’t detract from the honor of having Heart Wood recognized as a thought-provoking book of exceptional merit.

Here’s more about the Eric Hoffer Book awards, from their website: (www.hofferaward.com/home).

“The Eric Hoffer Book Award was founded at the start of the 21st century to honor freethinking writers and independent books of exceptional merit. The commercial environment for today’s writers has all but crushed the circulation of ideas. It seems strange that in the Information Age, many books are blocked from wider circulation, and powerful writing is barred from publication or buried alive on the Internet. Furthermore, many of the top literary prizes will not consider independent books, choosing instead to become the marketing arms of large presses.

“Throughout the centuries, writers such as Emily Dickenson, James Joyce, Walt Whitman, and Virginia Woolf have taken the path of self-publishing, rather than have their ideas forced into a corporate or sociopolitical mold. Today, small and academic presses struggle in this same environment. The Hoffer will continue to be a platform for and the champion of the independent voice. Since its inception, the Hoffer has become one of the largest international book awards for small, academic, and independent presses.”

Heart Wood interweaves the lives of three family women who live in the past, present, and future, yet reach across time to bring a feminine perspective to the environmental issues of their era, including exploration of the long-term impacts of gold mining activity, early California land reclamation practices, the controversy of dams in the 21st century, and the development of new ways of living with minimal water and resources. 

Heart Wood readers have this to say:

   “I am thinking that the ultimate review of a book is one that says the reader has been rationing the daily reading of said book. Well into your book, I started rationing the number of chapters I could read at a time.  I have now progressed to rationing the days that I could read it, because I really DO NOT want it to end. It is truly wonderful, and my friends that I have given copies feel exactly the same. Thank you SO MUCH for being so spot on about where we are and expressing it so well.  Let’s just hope we are in a better position to turn things around.” -Marcia P.

Just finished Heartwood and it has now taken its ”proper”  place in my den between Gary Snyder’s This Present Moment and Steve Sanfield’s The Right Place. Proper because the best of the Sierra should be able to rub dust jackets if not elbows. Loved it – thanks for the gift of this wonderful book. -Al D.

Heart Wood – Four Women, for the Earth, for the Future is published independently through Sierra Muses Press, a small collective of four local women writers. It can be purchased at local bookstores, on Amazon, or directly from the author (autographed) by emailing: heartwoodnovel@gmail.com.

You can follow my blog at: https://shirleydickard.com/blog/

About "Heart Wood"/Dystopian Fiction/Dystopic Future/Speculative Fiction/The Future

Three Books that Shaped “the Future” in Heart Wood

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I’m often asked, “what influenced your creation of a dystopic future in Heart Wood ?” Although I’ve read speculative novels by amazing authors (think Margaret Atwood), my answer is always the same:

The three dystopic novels forever branded into my memory are:

“Earth Abides,” “The Great Bay,” and “Feed“

Each novel influenced how I wove the 2075 journey of great-granddaughter Amisha into my vision of the future. Coincidentally, two of the authors described a great pandemic that wiped out most of mankind – a premise that now gives me chills. That wasn’t the premise of Heart Wood, although I did mention “the flu” as something Amisha often endured as a child.  In Heart Wood though, there’s a sense of something else….

“EARTH ABIDES” by George Stewart. Written in 1949, Stewart details the earth’s transition and rebuilding after a virus wipes out most of civilization. Saved by the venom of a rattlesnake bite, the character Ish survives the virus and wanders through Northern California in what civilization has left behind. In vivid detail, Stewart describes the waves of transition the earth experiences, now freed from mankind’s influence. This book helped me let go of what I assumed is vital for the future. “Men go and come, but earth abides.” (Ecclesiastes, 1, 4)

“THE GREAT BAY” by Dale Pendell. Written in 2010, the late Pendell who lived in Nevada County, details the Great Collapse in California from 2021 to 16,000 years later. This takes place after a global pandemic in 2021 kills most of mankind – more than 200 million die in the U.S. in the first month alone. Chillingly prophetic!  Pendell moves forward decades and centuries at a time with detailed stories of survivors and maps that show the steady filling in of Central California to form a “Great Bay.”

“FEED” by M.T. Anderson. Another prescient book written in 2002. Although this Young Adult novel was written before smart phones (introduced in 2007), Anderson absolutely nailed how insidiously this communication technology would infiltrate and control our lives. Like the Nib in Heart Wood, almost everyone has a chip implanted in their brain that connects them to “The Feed.”  I listened to this as an audio book first and was hooked.

About Heart Wood – From Sandra Rockman, Theater Director

“Wow! What a feat! A really good read, mammoth detail and impressive imaginings with the Nibs, etc. Although sobering to read right now in the midst of the pandemic and the election – such an important story and sensibility. Thank you for all your work on it. The world needs this book right now.“

Heart Wood – Four Women, for the Earth, for the Future

The perfect gift for holiday giving; the perfect read for the times we’re in.

You can purchase your copy of Heart Wood at all local bookstores.

HERE: To locate your local independent bookstore. (Available at The Book Seller and Harmony Books in Nevada County) And HERE for Amazon (ebook and paperback)

Visit me at: www.shirleydickard.com

If you enjoyed Heart Wood, please consider giving a review on Amazon or Goodreads. It’s one of the best ways to support me and all indie authors. Thank you!

About "Heart Wood"/Despair/Strategies for Stress/Walking

Strategies for surviving crazy, uncertain times

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Expand…Contract…Expand…Contract…that’s my experience of the yo-yo ride of these past few years. One moment I feel expanded and happy, then I check the news and become contracted and anxious. I think the terms expand and contract aptly describe how my body and mind have responded to what’s happening in so many arenas at once: divisive politics/2020 elections, changing climate/extreme weather events, social justice/Black Lives Matter, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Friends have their own descriptions for this: like being on a roller coaster, flung between hope and despair, up and down, empowered or immobilized.

So far, I’ve landed on two approaches for living within these polarities – for staying healthy and sane, yet aware enough to take action if needed:

Spend more time WALKING in nature

Limit how much CONTRACTION time I allow in my life

This excerpt from Heart Wood describes the first fairly well. Overwhelmed by what’s happening to the planet, Harmony takes off to walk by the river.

Harmony

2009, Luna Valley, Northern California

 A whole morning spent scanning through email alerts and reading Dora’s endless summaries of county supervisors’ meetings gives me little more than a headache. Time to escape to my favorite place—the river. Like a homing pigeon, my old yellow Volvo glides down the switchbacks of the narrow mountain road until I enter the Third River canyon. Here the road parallels the shallow, trout-filled water—shallower than normal for spring runoff, I notice. Should I be concerned? I hang right into the parking area, where I can pick up the river trail.     

Sandals off, hiking boots on, I find the dusty trail head and start walking. The first part is rocky and unstable, but I know it will smooth out around the bend and I’ll soon strike a cadence.     

My boots pick up a deep, thudding rhythm alongside the steady flow of the wild-rushing river. Each step drops me deeper into the mindless presence I came here for. My forehead smooths, my jaw loosens, my breath deepens. River’s good medicine.

Heart Wood Page 233

EXPANSION is bouyant. My chest feels light, my heart open. I notice little details around me – like the colors, smells, sounds of the approaching autumn. Small things lift my spirits: playing with the dog, an unexpected phone call from a friend, a news story of youth tackling an environmental problem. I feel optimistic. I’d like to stay in expansion forever, but as I move through the day, I know that contraction may be next.

CONTRACTION weighs heavy, making it difficult to think or move. My shoulders curve inward, it’s harder to breathe. Feelings of panic and hopelessness build as I lay awake wondering how our country and democracy are going to survive. Will we have to accommodate to more erratic hurricanes, wildfires, floods, and drought? Will we ever return to hugging our family and friends, listening to live music, going to school and work, taking vacations? What kind of world will our grandchildren live in?

WHEN I’M FEELING THIS CONTRACTED, I try to avoid the news, but it’s too easy to pick up my phone and take a quick peek at what’s happened since the last time I checked, which is sometimes only a half-hour before. At least I have some control. In Heart Wood’s future world, newsfeed from the Nib implanted behind Amisha’s ear can’t be turned off. We’re not there….yet.

MY SECOND APPROACH to surviving these times is first, to recognize when I’m beginning to feel contracted, then to consciously limit those experiences. Like the thermostat in my house, I can adjust my exposure up or down as I need. If I’m cold, I turn up the heat; too warm, I turn it down.

I’M LEARNING TO GAUGE which news source I can handle at the moment by whether its style leaves me feeling expanded or contracted. Same with conversations with similar-minded friends. It’s satisfying to vent about what’s happening, but afterwards, how do I feel? Distress may motivate me to take positive action, but not if I’m worn down by it. I’m learning I can change the topic or change the channel.

BACK TO WALKING. Even if you don’t have the natural world right outside your door, trust me, the simple act of walking is good medicine. You can start small, add city blocks and minutes as you can, pay attention to what you’re feeling, and appreciate where bits of green nature show up.  It’s good for the heart and spirit, and it’s free.

ON MY DAILY WALKS, like Harmony in Heart Wood, I may start out walking fast, eyes narrowed straight ahead, mind turbulent with worrisome thoughts. Then something happens. After 15-20 minutes, my pace slows, my senses expand. I see that dogwood leaves are blushing red, feel acorns crunch beneath my shoes, and smell the clear air after months of wildfire smoke. I stop thinking. When I return to the house, I feel calmer, more resilient. And more ready for the next wave

I really wasn’t prepared for how many readers returned to buy extra copies of my eco-novel for giving to friends and family. Now is the perfect time to order Heart Wood for the upcoming holidays!

Purchase your copy of Heart Wood:

HERE: To support your local independent bookstore!

HERE: Amazon (ebook and paperback)

About "Heart Wood"/Dams/Environmental Concerns/Right Action/Sierra Nevada/Student Activism/The Future

Dams: A 19th Century Solution to a 21st Century Problem That Won’t Go Away

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Dams have been in the news and on my radar again. Just as I’m revising the chapter in my book about fighting a dam back in 1990 (yes, the novel’s still in progress, but I’m pedaling faster now that I’m working with a writing coach!), here in Northern California the Oroville Dam spillway break caused the evacuation of 200,000 people in the Yuba-Sutter lowlands,  and a new dam is being proposed on the Bear River in Nevada County. 284

I totally emphasize with all that would be impacted by the Centennial Dam that Nevada Irrigation District (NID) is currently proposing for the Bear River west of Colfax (Nevada and Placer Counties). Back in 1999, the Moonshine Road area of Camptonville was faced with the prospect of a dam on the Middle Yuba River. Without benefit of today’s social media, our very small community of 600 people organized, educated, then partnered with SYRCL to form our own MYRACL (Middle Yuba River Area Citizens League). Eventually, the Yuba County Water Agency took the Freeman’s Crossing Dam off the list of options for flood control. But in the current political culture of abrupt reversals, no one can afford to be complacent. Thankfully today, myriads of new organizations have joined SYRCL to focus on protecting our rivers and environment. Folks are better connected, informed, and proactive.

If you want to become informed about the Centennial Dam proposal and learn how to impact the process, here’s some links to check out. Citizens have until April 10th to give public comment to the Army Corps of Engineers, so do it soon!

www.SaveBearRiver.com, and SYRCL’s http://yubariver.org/get-involved/

Now back to my writing. Dams provide the dramatic backdrop for my present-time character, Harmony, a back-to-the-lander religiously devoted to saving the planet.  Based on the true events  in Camptonville, Harmony  was part of a group that struggled to ward off a dam that would have inundated over a third of the families in her small, rural, community.

But in the end, it was the children who saved the river.

Excerpt from The Desk:   (Note: “The Desk” was the former working title for “Heart Wood” before 2020)

       Back then, the prospect of this dam hung like a shroud over our school kids. In classrooms, bathrooms, lunchrooms, and recess, all they could talk about was that half of their friends would be flooded out; families would be forced to leave; the school would have to shut down.

      Mrs. Watson, the fifth grade teacher, understood that the best antidote for anxiety was action. She assigned her ten-year old students the project of creating a plan. What did they want to happen?  Who could they approach?  What would they say? Soon parents and school staff got on board and helped the class get on the Supervisor’s Agenda. TV and news media were alerted, and at ten am, the school bus dropped twenty children into a throng of reporters and cameras in front of the county government center.

   

CV Students Oppose Dam 1999
Grass Valley Union Reprint, April 28, 1999

  Once inside the Supervisors Chambers and called to speak, students displayed their six-foot, hand-drawn poster depicting how the dam would destroy their community. One-by one, four students stood at the microphone and read the speech they had practiced in class. How, they asked, could the Supervisors purposely wipe out one of its own communities?

     Towering above them from their elevated desk, the five Supervisors leaned back in their seats, taking in the children, cameras, reporters, then back to the children. The Chairman thanked the students politely and announced they would make their final decision by the end of the afternoon, then added he wished he could to bring his own constituents to the school to learn how to make a good presentation! 

     The next day the school’s hallways were plastered with news coverage of the childrens’ appeal….the children who saved their community from being flooded.

Flash forward to 2,020. Having once defeated this dam that would have flooded her home, Harmony is now faced with the revival of the 19th century solution to the 21st century problem of droughts, decreasing water supply, and increasing demand. What is now different in this (hopefully)  fictional account is that by 2,020, the environmental regulatory process has since been dismantled. No more red tape, pesky regulations, meddling oversight, or tedious public input. Developers are freed at last to finally get things done!

May I repeat how you can impact our future right now?

Check out: www.SaveBearRiver.com and SYRCL’s http://yubariver.org/get-involved/    The public has until April 10th to comment on NID’s plans to construct Centennial Dam – a new reservoir on the Bear River between the existing Rollins and Combie Reservoirs. It’s up to us citizens to take notice and take action.

About "Heart Wood"/California History/Creative Writing/Personal Writing Retreat/The Camptonville Courier

Back to Blogging

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5 am at desk

Well, folks, after taking a year and a half off, I’m back. I don’t promise to blog on a regular basis, but I do promise to write as I’m inspired.  I don’t know how daily bloggers have the time!  Time?  Isn’t that supposed to come with retirement?  Hardly. My days are filled with more than ever – but at least I’m doing what I love – writing about the history and landscape of women, California, and  the future we’re shaping  – all part of my novel – The Desk.  (Note: “The Desk” was the former working title for “Heart Wood” before 2020)

In my last blog (April 2014 – really?!) I had just taken on the editorship of our community’s small newspaper – The Camptonville Courier – rescuing it from near drowning. Nineteen issues later, it’s again thriving.

In spite of being distracted by running a newspaper (which I love), I’ve made decent progress on my novel this year. I’m semi-disciplined to rise before dawn and with a steaming cup of coffee, write for a few hours. The darkness keeps the real world out, and I can float back into Great-Grandmother’s world of 1850-1915, or forward to the future world of Great-Granddaughter, Amisha, end of this century and into the 2100’s, or stay right in the present and witness the slow deterioration of our planet.

Like the racing tortoise, (slowly, but Shirley), I’ve been steadily working on this book for over six years now.  As I look back at 2014, I’m amazed at some of my accomplishments.

First, the novel is now fully fleshed out, thanks to a few personal writing retreats at Skyline Harvest Retreat Center.  Having days alone with few interruptions enables me to immerse myself in the other worlds I’m creating.  There’s an unseen energy at Skyline that beckons me into a much deeper place.

I’ve made a few historical site visits.  Woodland, Yolo County, is where my Great-Grandmother lived and worked. I drove past where the family farm used to be (now a trailer, rusted cars and barking dogs), and left a bouquet of lavender on her grave in the Woodland cemetery. This summer I followed traces of her little-known life in the Nevada Desert before California – but that’s another blog!

I’m now standing at a new plateau in writing this novel, getting ready to interweave the three women’s stories with the legacy they inherited with the desk. Time to get out the cork board and move those 3X5 cards around.

© All materials copyright Shirley DicKard, 2015, except as otherwise noted.

About "Heart Wood"/Inner Listening/Magical Realism/Publishing

Coming Up for Air

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spiral_fire

“Watch out for potholes in the river bottom – step in one and you’re gone forever.” My mother’s words warned us children as we waded  in the swift currents of the American River on a hot Sacramento day, but she could have been warning me about my recent life.

Taking on the Editorship of the Camptonville Courier has been like slipping into a pothole and I’m only just now coming up for air. For the past three months I’ve been navigating the unfamiliar world of publishing, where I’ve been pushed up a steep learning curve, challenged to learn a foreign vocabulary, and driven on by unrelenting deadlines.

Three editions later, I emerge from my hole and look around at my “normal life.” Though I vowed I wouldn’t sacrifice writing on my novel or practicing the cello, that’s exactly what happened. So yesterday, when I realized that I had actually written, practiced, and planted seeds in my vegetable garden, I felt a surge of hope. It’s said recovery sometimes sneaks up on you!

The uncanny thing is that this experience has found a way into my writing. At times, I don’t know whether I’m writing a novel, or the novel is writing my life.

Here’s a scene from The Desk, touched with magical realism as the present-time character, Christie is unknowingly nudged by the apparitions of her great-grandmother and great-granddaughter conversing at her bedside as she sleeps.  (Note: “The Desk” was the former working title for “Heart Wood” before 2020, and “Christie” is now “Harmony.”)

“Everything has the same urgency to her,”  says the short, plump one with the stiff lace collar that prickles her neck. “She’s paralyzed by her despair for the future and damming up her own power.”

“And thinks she can avoid it by saying she’s retired. Now where the hell did she get that idea?” The tall one flicks her long sandy-colored braid over her shoulder and crosses her arms in disgust.

“She doesn’t know the desk’s power.”

“Maybe the desk needs a little help?”

“Should we?”

“A little nudge?”

“No, I’m thinking something bigger.”

*  *  *  

The night is deep and dark when I awake making plans – not in my usual sleepless pattern where thoughts wiz across my mind like neutrinos in a vacuum chamber. These particular thoughts are organized, concrete. I observe them, allowing each one to pass by as in meditation, waiting for them to dissipate as they usually do so I can return to sleep.

But they don’t. My eyes dart back and forth as I listen intently to what seems to be outlandish plans to run the community newspaper.   In one swift move, I am out of bed and seated at my desk, taking notes.

© All materials copyright Shirley DicKard, 2014, except as otherwise noted.