Posts
Friday, May 7, 2010
Gone, Baby, Gone
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Tweet'll Dumb
OMG. I've been blogging for a year. Last week, I bought the book Blogging for Dummies because I am a dummy with this social media stuff. Recently, through various channels, it's been brought to my attention that my blog is SEVERELY LACKING.
I had no pictures, so I reluctantly put something in the profile section. With a B.A. in photography and fine art, you'd think I would do better with the visuals. Oddly, I had the idea that a blog principally about writing should involve words more than pictures. Silly me. Being eager to please, I promise to have photos in my future posts.
I'm also deficient when it comes to tags and links. It seems that if I mention and tag people like Sarah Palin, Justin Bieber, and Kate Gosselin, I'll get thousands of hits. I will not do that here--or ever--because I want nothing to to with them. As Michiko Kakutani writes in Texts Without Contexts, her very excellent NY Times article, "funny, snarky, or willfully provocative assertions often gain more traction than earnest, measured ones." (See? I can link if I want to.)
Finally, I've been criticized for posts that are too long, so this one ends with a little ditty suitable for the slightly snarky tone of the day:
I had no pictures, so I reluctantly put something in the profile section. With a B.A. in photography and fine art, you'd think I would do better with the visuals. Oddly, I had the idea that a blog principally about writing should involve words more than pictures. Silly me. Being eager to please, I promise to have photos in my future posts.
I'm also deficient when it comes to tags and links. It seems that if I mention and tag people like Sarah Palin, Justin Bieber, and Kate Gosselin, I'll get thousands of hits. I will not do that here--or ever--because I want nothing to to with them. As Michiko Kakutani writes in Texts Without Contexts, her very excellent NY Times article, "funny, snarky, or willfully provocative assertions often gain more traction than earnest, measured ones." (See? I can link if I want to.)
Finally, I've been criticized for posts that are too long, so this one ends with a little ditty suitable for the slightly snarky tone of the day:
A blog is tough
Enough, I fear,
To fill with words for
An entire year,
But
A tweet'll dumb
Me down, I think,
To writing that would
Really stink.
Enough, I fear,
To fill with words for
An entire year,
But
A tweet'll dumb
Me down, I think,
To writing that would
Really stink.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Mr. Ward's Letter
A couple of months ago, a grade school classmate sent out an email alerting fellow alumni that a former teacher of ours, Mr. Frank Ward, would be celebrating his 90th birthday. We were encouraged to send cards or call him with congratulations. Probably as a way to procrastinate further work on my novel, I went to the store, bought a card, signed my name, and posted it.
Ward was my seventh grade history teacher, but his true claim to fame was as the boys' P.E. teacher and coach extraordinaire. I didn't think he'd actually remember the odd little girl who tried her best to avoid any attention in his class.
Much to my surprise, a couple of weeks ago, I received from Ward a two-page handwritten letter, two photos enclosed. His handwriting, like the man I remember, is still strong, bold, and absolutely unique with quite grand flourishes on capital letters, and swirling tails on "y"s and "g"s. In one of the photos, he is unapologetically holding a mint julep cup, and on the back of said photo, he has written, "This is not medicine...it is a drink."
I've thought about this man and this letter quite a bit in the past few weeks. When was the last time I received a real, honest-to-goodness letter? It must be a decade or more ago. We don't write letters anymore; we email or text or pick up the phone. And that's a damn shame. Aside from the fact that the postal service has been bankrupted by our new techno habits, what will happen to our history? I don't mean the earth shaking global-economy-who's-the-top-dog-now history, but rather the little history of individuals and families. Without those boxes of yellowing, crinkly missives stashed in attics for generations to come, what will our grandchildren and great grandchildren know of our family struggles and triumphs? How will my great grandchildren ever know the bits and pieces of daily life that helped form their grandparents, their own parents, and ultimately they themselves?
Finding a treasure trove of family letters (as I did when clearing out my parents' house) is finding out much about who you are and how you came to be. So with that in mind, I have vowed to begin writing to my middle daughter (the only one who lives out of state). I hope to send a letter at least once a month. I've already told her she is under no obligation to write back (I'm not silly), but I do hope she will keep my letters. I hope I can chronicle just a little bit of our family's life and times here in 2010 and beyond. And maybe she and/or her children will understand that a great teacher can still teach a great lesson even when he is 90 and the student is...well, thinking about grandchildren.
Ward was my seventh grade history teacher, but his true claim to fame was as the boys' P.E. teacher and coach extraordinaire. I didn't think he'd actually remember the odd little girl who tried her best to avoid any attention in his class.
Much to my surprise, a couple of weeks ago, I received from Ward a two-page handwritten letter, two photos enclosed. His handwriting, like the man I remember, is still strong, bold, and absolutely unique with quite grand flourishes on capital letters, and swirling tails on "y"s and "g"s. In one of the photos, he is unapologetically holding a mint julep cup, and on the back of said photo, he has written, "This is not medicine...it is a drink."
I've thought about this man and this letter quite a bit in the past few weeks. When was the last time I received a real, honest-to-goodness letter? It must be a decade or more ago. We don't write letters anymore; we email or text or pick up the phone. And that's a damn shame. Aside from the fact that the postal service has been bankrupted by our new techno habits, what will happen to our history? I don't mean the earth shaking global-economy-who's-the-top-dog-now history, but rather the little history of individuals and families. Without those boxes of yellowing, crinkly missives stashed in attics for generations to come, what will our grandchildren and great grandchildren know of our family struggles and triumphs? How will my great grandchildren ever know the bits and pieces of daily life that helped form their grandparents, their own parents, and ultimately they themselves?
Finding a treasure trove of family letters (as I did when clearing out my parents' house) is finding out much about who you are and how you came to be. So with that in mind, I have vowed to begin writing to my middle daughter (the only one who lives out of state). I hope to send a letter at least once a month. I've already told her she is under no obligation to write back (I'm not silly), but I do hope she will keep my letters. I hope I can chronicle just a little bit of our family's life and times here in 2010 and beyond. And maybe she and/or her children will understand that a great teacher can still teach a great lesson even when he is 90 and the student is...well, thinking about grandchildren.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
The Other Zone
In my last post, I drop-kicked myself from one zone to another. Just after that taunting of the Muse, I started novel #4. Well, it's #4 if I'm counting the one that stinks and will never see the light of day, and the one that has been in rough draft form for 3 years. Beyond the World is finished--sort of. Five of my seven readers have returned the manuscript with some great comments and suggestions, but I'm not quite ready to do the revisions yet.
So what comes to mind to keep my idle little hands out of trouble? Why, another novel, of course! What better thing could I possible do with these interminable winter days than go to Fictionland where it is summer and I can reside in the mind of my protag who is young, thin, fashion-cool, and on the brink of...you guessed it--true love. Of course, she must suffer some evil and injustice first, which wil also be fun. (Have I taken cabin fever to a new level??)
Anyway, I've been trying to crank out 1500 words a day, which has put me just shy of 18,000 words so far. I have the characters, the time line, the main plot and the sub-plots (more or less). What I don't have is a life. Two of my friends have actually left messages asking if I am all right because I haven't returned their calls. I go days without venturing farther than the bottom of the driveway for the newspaper, and it's been over a week since I left this zip code.
Honestly, I don't know if this new story is worth the time and trouble, but it has me in its grip. Cue the voice of Rod Serling, "You are now in the Twilight Zone." Ha! I should be so lucky....
So what comes to mind to keep my idle little hands out of trouble? Why, another novel, of course! What better thing could I possible do with these interminable winter days than go to Fictionland where it is summer and I can reside in the mind of my protag who is young, thin, fashion-cool, and on the brink of...you guessed it--true love. Of course, she must suffer some evil and injustice first, which wil also be fun. (Have I taken cabin fever to a new level??)
Anyway, I've been trying to crank out 1500 words a day, which has put me just shy of 18,000 words so far. I have the characters, the time line, the main plot and the sub-plots (more or less). What I don't have is a life. Two of my friends have actually left messages asking if I am all right because I haven't returned their calls. I go days without venturing farther than the bottom of the driveway for the newspaper, and it's been over a week since I left this zip code.
Honestly, I don't know if this new story is worth the time and trouble, but it has me in its grip. Cue the voice of Rod Serling, "You are now in the Twilight Zone." Ha! I should be so lucky....
Monday, January 25, 2010
The Dead Zone
The start of 2010 has been great: BTW went out to my first "readers" and I have 7 short stories bravely taking their chances as cannon fodder with literary magazine editors. The only trouble is that I'm not currently writing. Ideas flit past and shards of stories litter several spiral notebooks in my office, but nothing is growing. It's a dead zone. The harder I try, the worse it gets. How frustrating it is to have a string of snug winter mornings free of commitments, and.....nothing. Nada. Zip. Brain dead.
It seems to follow the capriciousness of the Muse that whenever there is a quiet spell, she is supremely bored. What she doesn't know is that I can see her quite clearly. Today, she is a lithesome 1920s femme fatale. She wears a tastefully sequined mauve dress; her dark hair is bobbed and wrapped in a feathered turban. She glares at me, her crimson moue tightening slightly, reflecting her disdain. The grasping efforts of mortals are so very vulgar. Raising the foot-long onyx cigarette holder which she has delicately pinched in her right hand, she taps a bit of scornful ash on my desk and stalks off to find a more fun party in someone else's head.
It seems to follow the capriciousness of the Muse that whenever there is a quiet spell, she is supremely bored. What she doesn't know is that I can see her quite clearly. Today, she is a lithesome 1920s femme fatale. She wears a tastefully sequined mauve dress; her dark hair is bobbed and wrapped in a feathered turban. She glares at me, her crimson moue tightening slightly, reflecting her disdain. The grasping efforts of mortals are so very vulgar. Raising the foot-long onyx cigarette holder which she has delicately pinched in her right hand, she taps a bit of scornful ash on my desk and stalks off to find a more fun party in someone else's head.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Happy New Year
So how did it get to be six days into 2010 and 34 days since my last post??
The short answer is that for all of December I was doing a mad dash to finish my novel, Beyond the World. I had set a deadline for myself--the end of the year--and I scrambled to the final line a little past ten on the morning of New Year's Eve.
BTW is technically my third attempt at a novel, but it is the only one I have taken far enough to send out to a group of "readers." The seven people who have volunteered for this task have my deepest gratitude (and sympathy). If/when the story gets published, I'll treat them all to a champagne dinner at a suitably la-di-dah restaurant.
However, there is still work to be done. I'm counting on those--dare I say it? magnificent 7 readers--to find all the errors and problems to which, after 18 months, I am blind: gaps in the story, dropped subplots, pesky details like arbitrary name changes, blue eyes suddenly being green, spelling errors, etc.
Once the manuscript is "perfect," I need a synopsis. That means taking 60,000 words and reducing them to 250. No prob.
Then, I need a query letter so compelling that any agent will immediately sweep everything else off her desk to give my manuscript her full attention. Right.
After that is done, I have to determine where to send the query. A quick Google search tells me there are roughly 4600 literary agents lurking about. That ought to make it easy.
With a "perfect manuscript," a dynamic query letter, and a scintillating synopsis, how can I miss? The odds against me feel overwhelming, and it would be way easy to shove the thing in a drawer.
But along with a champagne dinner, I'd really like to give my "magnificent seven" acknowledgment of their support in a published book.
The short answer is that for all of December I was doing a mad dash to finish my novel, Beyond the World. I had set a deadline for myself--the end of the year--and I scrambled to the final line a little past ten on the morning of New Year's Eve.
BTW is technically my third attempt at a novel, but it is the only one I have taken far enough to send out to a group of "readers." The seven people who have volunteered for this task have my deepest gratitude (and sympathy). If/when the story gets published, I'll treat them all to a champagne dinner at a suitably la-di-dah restaurant.
However, there is still work to be done. I'm counting on those--dare I say it? magnificent 7 readers--to find all the errors and problems to which, after 18 months, I am blind: gaps in the story, dropped subplots, pesky details like arbitrary name changes, blue eyes suddenly being green, spelling errors, etc.
Once the manuscript is "perfect," I need a synopsis. That means taking 60,000 words and reducing them to 250. No prob.
Then, I need a query letter so compelling that any agent will immediately sweep everything else off her desk to give my manuscript her full attention. Right.
After that is done, I have to determine where to send the query. A quick Google search tells me there are roughly 4600 literary agents lurking about. That ought to make it easy.
With a "perfect manuscript," a dynamic query letter, and a scintillating synopsis, how can I miss? The odds against me feel overwhelming, and it would be way easy to shove the thing in a drawer.
But along with a champagne dinner, I'd really like to give my "magnificent seven" acknowledgment of their support in a published book.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Diversions
I should be working on my novel. Beyond the World (technically my 3rd attempt at a novel) is almost finished. Rough estimate: I've got another 10-15 hours of work before I'm ready to give copies to my circle of first readers. A couple of weeks ago at OCWW, the award winning author E.E. Knight critiqued the first 30 pages and was very complimentary, which is a terrific confidence boost. So am I working on the last details? No. I'm goofing around with blogging. In the wee hours of the other night, instead of figuring out the final confrontation between my two main characters, I was tossing around ideas for blog posts. Actually, between 4:20 and 4:27 in the morning, I was hit with a basketful of ideas. If the Muse wants to play games by insisting that I write about this stuff, I won't risk offending by ignoring them.
Among the thoughts that I can still remember are these:
1) Over the Rainbow, Over the Threshold
Because I miss painting and color, I'd like to explore the similarities and differences in visual art and writing. The whole threshold motif is for my written expression (thus Liminalesque), but how do I get color, or at least a sense of color, in my writing? Who are the best writers of color? Dickens was good, but so often bleak. Cather took the detail to minutia. Anyone out there have any ideas?
2) The Firmament
There's some interesting writing in the Book of Common Prayer. How about this for a lead in: "Our days are like the grass,/ we flourish like a flower of the field;/ When the wind goes over it, it is gone,/ and its place shall know it no more." I'm rarely bored in church because under the guise of being pious, I'm searching for new story ideas. Some of them could be lulus.
3) Choir Diaries
Speaking of church, for several years I kept a diary of my experiences in choir, including our trips to sing in English cathedrals. Given the current popularity of memoir stuff, I know I have some good material, and someday, I will put together a book. In the meantime, a blog or two might be fun, as long as I leave out the bad stuff. For now.
3) It's All in the Name
Enough goody-two-shoes-choir-girl crap. I share with friends (who wish to remain anonymous) a little game. We make up nicknames for people we encounter. These are not names to be used in public, and for obvious reasons, I will only divulge the most innocent as examples. "Al Po." First name is Al, last name begins with P-O. "Mr. Lister." This is the most anal person I've ever met--lists everything, including what he eats for breakfast. "Old Yeller." This is the guy who screams at his kids on the soccer field. "Hair Pie." Don't ask.
I bet a blog on this could elicit some great comments, and some ideas for fictional (yeah, right) characters. Who doesn't have a secret nickname for the boss, teacher, student or client of peculiar attributes?
From this point, my sleep-deprived ruminations got a little fuzzier. The Muse, bored again with my mortal limitations, drifted away. Days later, I'm left sifting through the debris like the host of a wild party, clearing up half-empty glasses and dirty plates, hoping to find a scrap of something useful.
Among the thoughts that I can still remember are these:
1) Over the Rainbow, Over the Threshold
Because I miss painting and color, I'd like to explore the similarities and differences in visual art and writing. The whole threshold motif is for my written expression (thus Liminalesque), but how do I get color, or at least a sense of color, in my writing? Who are the best writers of color? Dickens was good, but so often bleak. Cather took the detail to minutia. Anyone out there have any ideas?
2) The Firmament
There's some interesting writing in the Book of Common Prayer. How about this for a lead in: "Our days are like the grass,/ we flourish like a flower of the field;/ When the wind goes over it, it is gone,/ and its place shall know it no more." I'm rarely bored in church because under the guise of being pious, I'm searching for new story ideas. Some of them could be lulus.
3) Choir Diaries
Speaking of church, for several years I kept a diary of my experiences in choir, including our trips to sing in English cathedrals. Given the current popularity of memoir stuff, I know I have some good material, and someday, I will put together a book. In the meantime, a blog or two might be fun, as long as I leave out the bad stuff. For now.
3) It's All in the Name
Enough goody-two-shoes-choir-girl crap. I share with friends (who wish to remain anonymous) a little game. We make up nicknames for people we encounter. These are not names to be used in public, and for obvious reasons, I will only divulge the most innocent as examples. "Al Po." First name is Al, last name begins with P-O. "Mr. Lister." This is the most anal person I've ever met--lists everything, including what he eats for breakfast. "Old Yeller." This is the guy who screams at his kids on the soccer field. "Hair Pie." Don't ask.
I bet a blog on this could elicit some great comments, and some ideas for fictional (yeah, right) characters. Who doesn't have a secret nickname for the boss, teacher, student or client of peculiar attributes?
From this point, my sleep-deprived ruminations got a little fuzzier. The Muse, bored again with my mortal limitations, drifted away. Days later, I'm left sifting through the debris like the host of a wild party, clearing up half-empty glasses and dirty plates, hoping to find a scrap of something useful.
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