My Secret Cottage

  • My Secret Cottage

    Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page.

    My Secret Cottage

    By Kathy Guthormsen

    I open the back door to dew sparkling in the morning sun and hints of rainbows shimmering in the lingering mist. They let me catch a fleeting glimpse before their magic fades. Goosebumps raise along my bare arms as I race through the grass and turn to look at my wet footprints. The sun will soon erase this evidence of my footsteps. I won’t be followed as I skip through an imaginary forest to my secret cottage at the far end of an enchanted glade.

    Rabbit hops along next to me hoping for the reward of a carrot. Cat slinks across the trail, hunting. She’d like to catch Rabbit, but he’s bigger than she is. And wilier. I raise my hand to shade my eyes and turn in a circle. Do I hear something stalking me? I look up and see Eagle soaring through the blue watching after me. I wave and continue along my path.

    My secret cottage is just ahead. An abandoned pump house my father moved to our back yard. He made window boxes and added a covered porch. I swept cobwebs and evicted spiders. Dad carried out a child sized table and chairs. I brought toys and plastic dishes. This is my place. Where I hide from pirates and make friends with birds. Where I hold parties for my dolls and my much-loved teddy bear. Where I serve mud soup and rock cookies. Where adult voices are not heard; adult eyes are not allowed.

    My cottage has faded into the mist of memories. The pump house is small, now derelict, with peeling paint and a warped plywood floor. But I can still visit in my dreams.

    Kathy Guthormsen is the creator of “The Story of Jazz and Vihar.”

    Her writing has been published in several The Write Spot anthologies.

    These books are available from your local bookseller and Amazon.

    You can meet Kathy, and possibly Poe and other birds:

    May 21, 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm: Children’s Museum of Sonoma County, 1835 W. Steele Lane, Santa Rosa, CA

    Date to be determined:  Copperfield’s Books, 144 Kentucky St., Petaluma, CA

    Growing up in Skagit Valley, Washington with its verdant farmland gave Kathy an appreciation for the promise and beauty of nature’s bounty. The Cascade and Olympic mountain ranges and old growth forests offered the magic of things unseen and fostered her fertile imagination.

    When she isn’t writing, Kathy volunteers at the Bird Rescue Center in Santa Rosa, California, working with and presenting resident raptors as part of their education and outreach program. Walking around with a hawk or an owl on her fist is one of her favorite pastimes.

    She maintains a blog, Kathy G Space, where she occasionally posts essays, short stories, and fairy tales.

    Marlene C

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  • Tap into your wellspring . . .

    Today’s Guest Bloggers Georgia James and Deborah Parrish write about:

    Tap into Your Wellspring of Inspiration: Get Off Your Butt and Write

    Want to know how to get the writer’s juices flowing? It’s simple—get moving. And your mind, body and spirit will be all the happier for it. Heaven knows our imaginations can sometimes feel a bit stale if we don’t avail ourselves to new or different surroundings and experiences.

    We were reminded of this after reading a recent article in the Press Democrat, The Sonoma County Bucket List: Everything you need to do in Sonoma County before you die (or move away), This fertile material provided us with new fodder on where to write, especially when we want to feel inspired in our own backyard.  

    One of our favorite things to do is to sit in a crowd of people we don’t know and make up stories about them. What’s their backstory? Why are they there, and what brought them there? What are they thinking as they watch the sunset, dance wildly at a music festival, eat a warm piece of berry pie or have chilled wine on a porch swing. Why do they do what they do?

    Another way we spark ideas is to walk or drive through a neighborhood and create a story for the houses that we pass by: who lives there and for how long? What has happened within those walls over the years? How does the house experience the inhabitants (“if walls could talk”)?

    For example, while writing on a pivotal chapter in the second book of our Home Sweet Home trilogy, we realized we were in a rut and needed a change from our writing routine. We took a drive out to Point Reyes in hopes of visiting the lighthouse where we intended to craft a scene in our story. We felt the need to research the location and examine the accuracy of a particular scene.

    We also carry a notebook wherever we go (heck, we have more than one!) Whenever we get an idea or hear something that ignites our imagination, we jot it down. We collect quotes from people around us, things we overhear in public, and thoughts we have while standing in line. Always at our fingertips, this notebook serves as a reference point when we get stuck, one that we can visit over and over.

    Our souls were rejuvenated by the beautiful landscape and we allowed the ocean to evoke a mood in us: how it felt on our skin, the taste of the sea air, the warmth of the mid-day sun, the sound of the seabirds foraging for lunch. Not only did we benefit from being there, but we could visualize our characters in one of the most dramatic plot turns in our novel.

    Ten things to keep you writing your stories while exploring new areas.

    We made an Inspiration List to help us keep our writing fresh and our stories interesting. This list is for our area of Northern California. We encourage you to make a list for your area.

    1. Journal while watching the sunset on the Sonoma Coast.
    2. Take a walk on Heart’s Desire Beach alone or with your dog or a friend. Studies have shown that being near water invigorates us, relieves stress, and increases creativity.
    3. Try a new dish (or eatery). If you’re near the Sonoma Square, check out the Sunflower Cafe and bask in its artistic ambiance. The back patio is a creative wonder that celebrates food as a living art form that creates new memories and reminds us of times past.
    4. Listen to a stranger’s story while sitting on a bench in the Sonoma Plaza.
    5. Take a slow drive or bike ride along Dry Creek Road in Healdsburg.
    6. Take a tour of historic old barns in the back country roads around Sonoma County.
    7. Visit the bees in the Secret Garden at Quarry Hill Botanical Gardens in Glen Ellen.
    8. Watch cows and horses graze or birds fly over the Petaluma hills.
    9. Kayak along Tomales Bay with a stop for a bowl of delicious Clam Chowder at Nick’s Cove to warm up afterwards.
    10. Take a trip to Jenner at the edge of town where the Russian River meets the ocean. There’s magic where the winding, freshwater flows into the raging salty waters of the Pacific Ocean. An overwhelming number of people say that they associate feeling of calm and peace with the color blue and staring at the ocean can alter the frequency of our brain waves and put us into a mild meditative state. The simple act of touching sand on a beach makes one feel grounded in their body and can bring us back to a younger self that built sand castles and hunted for shells.

    Georgia and Deborah will be the Writers Forum presenters on Thursday, May 16, 6:30 pm at Copperfield’s in Petaluma. They will talk about: How to Write With Your Senses and Ignite your Words onto the Page.

    Colleen Bingham, owner of Poppy Botanicals, will be joining us with her handmade organic products that will captivate your senses and help you focus on letting them tell the story.

    Georgia James is a hopeless romantic and wine country enthusiast. Formerly, a senior executive in the entertainment industry, she turned to writing over a decade ago, and has never looked back. She splits her time between Sonoma, California, and Chicago, Illinois with her husband, two grown sons, one dog, and three cats. James holds a BA in Spanish literature. Home Sweet Sonoma is her first novel.

    Deborah Parrish began writing romance novels on her mother’s old green Smith Corona typewriter at the age of 11. Her heart’s calling was put on hold to raise her daughter, who’s become a successful business woman in her own right. After three decades of masquerading as a financial executive, Deborah’s lifelong dream was reawakened and realized with her first published novel, Home Sweet Sonoma. With her musician husband at her side, she lives in coastal West Marin surrounded by nature’s bounty. When she’s not busy dreaming up a steamy love story, she’s capturing joy-filled moments through her lens as a lifestyle photographer.

    Deborah and Georgia had a blast writing Home Sweet Sonoma, convinced they couldn’t have done it without each other’s encouragement. Having been friends for 20 years, their passion for good love stories finally showed up on the page. Home Sweet Sonoma is really about their shared love affair with romance and the little things in life that truly matter, like small towns, wine and song, pies (lots of pie), sunsets, walks in the park, kissing and of course, the behind-the-curtain passion that is the juice of life.



    Marlene C

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  • Movie Quotes . . . Prompt #290

    Movies! Do you love ’em or are you meh about ’em?  Do you get “lost in books?” Can you get the same kind of Calgon-take-me-away lost in movies?

    jean-hegland-and-movie-posterJean Hegland is a gifted writer. Her novel, Into The Forest, has been made into a movie and is now at theatres and will soon be available on DVD. I wouldn’t normally go to see this type of movie, but the opportunity came up to view Into The Forest, the movie, with Jean answering questions after the viewing. Thank you to independent bookstore Copperfield’s Books for sponsoring the viewing. And thank you to Jean for writing an amazing and memorable story. Thanks, also, to Ellen Page, who saw the possibility of the type of movie this could be. See it, if you can, even if, like me, you have to close your eyes during some scenes. The cinematography, the acting, the dialogue, the story line = all amazing and unforgettable.

    At the time of this posting, there are no authorized quotes from Into the Forest. Hmmm. . . guess you have to read the book and/or see the movie.

    Today’s writing prompts are lines from movies. Choose one and just write.

    ~ “Men like my father cannot die. They are with me still, real in memory as they were in flesh, loving and beloved forever.” How Green Was My Valley

    ~“My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”Princess Bride

    ~ Write about a time you had a close call.  In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, there’s a scene where Butch and Sundance chase up a mountain to avoid the relentless posse, only to find themselves at a dead end. The only way, says Butch, is to jump a hundred feet or so to the fast-moving stream below. But Sundance won’t hear of it.

    Butch: “ It’s the only way. Otherwise we’re dead.”

    They argue about it for a while until Sundance admits the real reason he doesn’t want to jump.

    Sundance: “I can’t swim.”

    Butch, “You stupid fool, the fall’ll probably kill you.”

    ~  Gene Wilder agreed to play Willy Wonka under one condition: that his character make a wildly grand entrance:

    “When I make my first entrance, I’d like to come out of the door carrying a cane and then walk toward the crowd with a limp. After the crowd sees Wonka, they whisper and then become deathly quiet.

    As I walk toward them, my cane sinks into one of the cobblestones I’m walking on and stands straight up, by itself; but I keep on walking, until I realize that I no longer have my cane. I start to fall forward, and just before I hit the ground, I do a beautiful forward somersault and bounce back up, to great applause. ”

    His reason for wanting to include the dramatic entrance: “Because from that time on, no one will know if I’m lying or telling the truth. ”

    If you have seen Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory, with Gene Wilder:  Do you think his entrance worked?  Did it help or hinder his character’s believability? Did the entrance affect you?

    A scene from Willy Wonka:

    Computer Operator: “We’re about to witness the greatest miracle of the machine age. Based on the revolutionary Computonian Law of Probability, this machine will tell us the precise location of the 3 remaining golden tickets. ”

    Computer Operator pushes button on the machine.  Computer prints out a response:  “I won’t tell. That would be cheating. ”

    Computer operator pushes button on the machine again. “Iam now telling the computer that if it will tell me the correct answer, I will gladly share with it the grand prize. ”

    The  machine prints out another response. “What would a computer do with a lifetime supply of chocolate? ”

    Operator sighs: “I am now telling the computer exactly what he can do with the lifetime supply of chocolate. ”

    Marlene C