Back to Writing

It's finally over.  My son got married last week and he and his new bride flew off to Cancun for their honeymoon.  My mom and her sister, who'd been staying with us for the last two weeks, left yesterday and are safely back home in Chicago.  At last my life can get back to what passes for normal.  Finally, I might have a little time to pay attention to my writing.

August turned out to be a pretty intense month.   Besides the wedding preparations and the out of town visitors, my daughter and her fiance moved into their new condo.  It was non-stop planning, shopping, visiting and grooming. Meanwhile, I missed out on a bunch of wonderful events for writers this month.  The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Conference (SCBWI) took place, practically in my backyard, but I was too busy with family obligations to attend.  And Writeon.com, a fantastic on line conference for children's writers rolled out last week without me. 

Worst of all, my writing has been on hold for most of the summer.  I'm really starting to feel it.  If you're a creative person, you know what I'm talking about. It's this restless, uneasy feeling I get when I haven't written for a while. Something's not right.  I can't hold still.  I want to eat something but nothing sounds good. I want to read but I can't concentrate.  There's nothing good on television and I've already see all the movies I'm the least bit interested in.  I'm suffering from writer's withdrawal.  All I really want to do is get back on the keyboard and pour my heart into a story.  It's the only thing that will make me feel whole again. 

Well, the weekend's here.  It's my time now.  I'm finally here in my office, sitting at the computer.  I can open up the file that holds my latest work in progress, and (gigantic sigh of relief) write.

Except, now my stomach's growling and I just realized I never had lunch.

And my son and daughter-in-law got back from their honeymoon last night and pretty soon I have to go over to their apartment  and watch them open their presents. And my daughter just called and she wants me to come over and help with the unpacking.

It's always something. 

Super 8

When I was a kid my grandfather saved up his S&H Green Stamps to buy a Super 8 camera. With this new toy, and a smelly cigar clamped in the side of his mouth, Grandpa became our family documentarian.  Because of his efforts, I have a box of films in my closet that tell the story of our Italian immigrant family.  Each of the tiny plastic reels stored in that box provides a brief, tantalizing peek into the past.

The earliest movies in the box are 8 mm, taken in Brooklyn, New York in the 1950’s.  There’s my mom and her sister, newly arrived from Italy, walking down the street in their red lipstick and pill box hats.  In the mid 50’s, the family moved to Chicago and Grandpa’s camera continued to roll.  Thanks to him, me and my cousins can see our childhoods captured in two-to-three minute flickering image segments.  In reel after reel, we grow from toddlers to teenagers.  Whenever Grandpa turned on the movielight, I was there, jumping up and down in front of the camera, waving my arms. 

Grandpa wasn’t willy-nilly about what he shot.  Film was expensive. It cost money to have it developed.  He only rolled the camera when something was important.  Birthdays, Christmases, First Communions, trips to Brookfield Zoo, fishing on Lake Michigan.  He’d roll just long enough to capture a few moments of us decorating the tree or blowing out the candles or eating.  Lots of eating.  And there was no instant gratification.  You had to wait a week until Grandpa picked up the film from the drug store before you could see what you looked like and remember how it was. 

A few times a year, when the family was together, my dad would get out the projector and unfold the movie screen. We’d wait impatiently while he spooled the celluloid film through the spindles. Then we’d sit together in the dark, with the click of the projector providing the soundtrack, and relive these precious memories over and over.  The jerky images would remind us of things we used to do and of the people we used to be.  The films were always too short and they always left us wanting more.  

By the time I had my own family, video tape had come along. We bought a camera so we could take pictures of our babies. But video isn’t the same.  Video is cheap.  You turn the camera on and you let it roll.  There’s sound so you hear the background noise and people yelling at the camera. You end up with hours and hours of footage.  It’s no longer just quick peeks into rare moments from the past, but family life lived in real time. Unless you make the effort to edit it all down and get rid of the boring stuff, it’s impossible to sit through. We don’t have family viewings the way we used to.  Video doesn’t have the same impact because there’s too much of it.  With digital cameras, it’s even worse.  Every device can take pictures. Everyone is a documentarian. 

The digital age brings this same cheapness and expendability to the exchange of ideas. YouTube is filled with people creating their own statements, spouting their opinions. Music can be downloaded for free.  Anyone can have a blog like this one and say what they want.  We have Kindle and Nook and e-books.  At 99 cents per book, you can easily buy as many books as you want and carry them everywhere you go. 

I appreciate that this accessibility gives individual authors the ability to self publish their work. Writers can control the distribution and keep a greater portion of the profits. Digital publishing opens doors into innovative formats and interactivity.  I understand that e-books are our future.  But with everyone self-publishing and with so much material out there, the value of individual books and ideas are sure to suffer.  I hate to see that happen to the stories I love. 

    

What do you think? Does your family have home video nights?  Do you think the digital age will be a boom or bust for the written word?

What Makes Nations Flourish?

It’s an appropriate question to consider today, the 235^th birthday of the United States of America.  We’ve spread our ideals and culture around the world.   We’ve created prosperity for our citizens.   

Is it wealth or the force of arms that makes our nation flourish?  Is it the prestige and success of its sons and daughters?

I think what makes our nation flourish is our ability to come together. In the past, we rallied in the face of war and national disasters.  We pooled our resources to build cities and to achieve far reaching goals, to preserve our national resources, to educate our children and give comfort to frail and weak.  We flourished because we had high ideals and we never questioned our ability to achieve them.

What makes a nation great?

In a speech on the eve of World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt defined the ideals of democratic nations and called them the Four Freedoms:  Freedom of Speech.  Freedom of Religion.  Freedom from Want. Freedom from Fear.  For the decades that followed, we worked toward granting these freedoms to all of our citizens and made great progress toward that goal. We haven’t always lived up to these high standards, but we’ve moved forward and strived to do better.

If the nation is to be great, each of us must participate.  That means going to town council meetings.  It means running for office, or supporting a candidate, or at the very least, making our opinions known at the ballot box.  It means we’ll have to watch a few less football games or a few less episodes of Jersey Shore, or go on a few less picnics with our families.  If we truly want to be the great nation the Founding Fathers and Mothers conceived for us, we must take the time and do the work.

Our American ideals of liberty and justice are the envy of the world.  But for our nation to flourish, these ideals must be lived every day.  We can’t just drop them by the wayside when they conflict with our desires of the moment.  Our ideals aren’t just beautiful words we say on national holidays, they aren’t just the lyrics to songs we sing while we're setting off fireworks. Our ideals must be the way we conduct our lives. Only a nation that lives by its principles can truly be great.

There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.  ~William J. Clinton

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves. ~ D H Lawrence

 No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck. ~ Fredrick Douglass

Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong. ~ James Bryce

Our country, right or wrong. When right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right. ~ Carl Schurz

This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else. ~ Clarence Darrow

America is a passionate idea or it is nothing. America is a human brotherhood or it is chaos. ~ Max Lerner

Just Plain Hungry

On the Beach in Santa Barbara

A Walk in the Burbs

My suburban neighborhood may not seem like the most exciting place to take a walk. The route I like best takes me down a quiet street lined with tidy houses, trimmed lawns and colorful flowers beds.

Mr. Long Tail gets some sun

The intersecting cross streets are named after colleges: Harvard, Cambridge, Stanford, Cornell. I nod hello to neighbors out walking dogs or pushing strollers. Most people are listening to music or talking on cell phones, but not me. When I walk, there’s usually a character from one of my novels keeping me company.

We have intense conversations, work through plot twists, invent back story. It’s all good, unless someone sees my lips moving.

I can’t help it. Walking is great for coming up with new ideas. While the left side of your brain, the critical side, is distracted with keeping your feet moving, the right side, the creative side, has the freedom to imagine new ideas and soar. (Showering works great too. While your hands are busy soaping up your body parts, your mind is free. I’ve gotten some of my best ideas while standing under running water.)

Dharma keeping the neighborhood safe

This morning it may have seemed like I was walking though a commonplace suburban landscape, scooting from tree to tree to take advantage of the shade, feet smacking the sidewalk in mindless cadenced repetition. Really I was with Glendin spying on her odd Jeliken neighbors from the bushes, or with Noni in the Gray City, dodging Corporate Security Rattletraps, or fighting off a viciwolf attack with Taela in the Darkling Forest.

Contest Time! Birthday Blowout First Page Contest

Being the industrious, ambitious writer that I am, I've decided to enter yet another contest put on by the wonderful Shelley Watters of the Is It Hot In Here Or Is It This Book? Blog. No, gentle readers, I didn't win the last one. But in the spirit of never-say-die, I am ready for another go.

The Birthday Blowout First Page Contest is being judged by Victoria Marini of Gelfman Schneider Literary Agency. This time the contest is only open to writers of YA or Middle Grade Fiction, and (yay for me!) I happen to write YA and Middle Grade Fiction. (It's also open to writers of memoir, pop-culture non-fiction, and women’s commercial fiction, but never mind that) The lucky winner will receive a full request from Victoria (which will include at least a partial critique). She will also request partials for the runners up that she selects.

So with apologies for repeating myself, here again for your perusal are the first 250 words of my novel.

Title: DARKLING
Genre: YA Fantasy
Word Count: 68,000
email: worddance8@aol.com

CHAPTER ONE
THE RENEGADE

The heavy stoneware crock slipped from Taela’s grasp, and smashed to the dirt floor. She jumped back as shards of pottery and summerbeans scattered at her feet. She bent to clean the mess and heard footsteps approach from the other side of the weathered door. Cursing herself for her carelessness, she ducked behind a barrel.

Blood rushed in Taela’s ears. Ribbons of moonlight shone through the slats of the storage shed illuminating the casks, barrels and crates stacked around her. The sour smell of vinegar soaking the dirt overpowered the scents of aging wood and hay.

The wooden handle turned and the door inched open. Taela hunched in the shadows, holding her breath. A young woman wearing a white nightdress entered, flickering candlelight illuminating her face. Selita. Long brown hair hung loose around her shoulders and she carried a wooden spoon as if it were a club. Misshapen shadows cast by the candlelight danced on the opposite wall.

Taela shifted to ease a cramp and her boot scuffed the hard-packed dirt. Selita turned toward the sound. “Who’s there? Show yourself or I’ll let in the dogs.” She was bluffing. The dogs weren’t anywhere near or their yapping would have given Taela away. Selita took another step toward her hiding place.

Taela cursed under her breath. She'd almost gotten away with it. Conceding defeat, she stood. “Selita, it’s me.”

Her cousin shrieked, then laughed. “Taela, you nearly startled me to death! I thought you were a Terrinian raider.”

Taking Time to Breathe

Every writer needs time to think and create. With daily obligations and the family breathing down my neck, life gets crazy stressful and that kind of space isn’t easy to come by. This weekend, I made time to step back and take a breath.

Since I was trying to stay away from the computer and give my carpal tunnel a rest, I gathered up a few books, grabbed a pad of paper and headed to the park. It was crowded with Memorial Day weekend picnickers, but I found a spot in a relatively quiet area, sat under a tree and did a little brainstorming. For a while, I laid on my back in the grass and just watched the wind moving though the branches, noticing how the air currents would sometimes shake only the upper most branches, then dip down to ruffle the ones underneath.

It was a much needed break. Did make time for yourself this weekend?

Made of Awesome Contest

OK, here is the inaugural post of my writing blog. I created this page a while ago, but never got around to launching it. Now I have an excuse. I'm entering the "Made of Awesome Contest," on the IS IT HOT IN HERE, OR IS IT THIS BOOK blog by Shelly Watters. The idea is to post the first page of my novel so that it can be critiqued by the other entrants. Agent Judith Engracia of Liza Dawson and Associates will select the winner, who will receive a ten page critique.

Looking forward to hearing what you think of my page. (Sometimes I think it's the most rewritten page in the history of books.) Thanks in advance!

And so, here it is:

Title: Darkling
Genre: YA Fantasy
Word Count: 68,000

CHAPTER ONE
THE RENEGADE

The heavy stoneware crock slipped from Taela’s grasp, and smashed to the dirt floor. She jumped back as shards of pottery and summerbeans scattered at her feet. She bent to clean the mess and heard footsteps approach from the other side of the weathered door. Cursing herself for her carelessness, she ducked behind a barrel.

Blood rushed in Taela’s ears. Ribbons of moonlight shone through the slats of the storage shed illuminating the casks, barrels and crates stacked around her. The sour smell of vinegar soaking the dirt overpowered the scents of aging wood and hay.

The wooden handle turned and the door inched open. Taela hunched in the shadows, holding her breath. A young woman wearing a white nightdress entered, flickering candlelight illuminating her face. Selita. Long brown hair hung loose around her shoulders and she carried a wooden spoon as if it were a club. Misshapen shadows cast by the candlelight danced on the opposite wall.

Taela shifted to ease a cramp and her boot scuffed the hard-packed dirt. Selita turned toward the sound. “Who’s there? Show yourself or I’ll let in the dogs.” She was bluffing. The dogs weren’t anywhere near or their yapping would have given Taela away. Selita took another step toward her hiding place.

Taela cursed under her breath. Conceding defeat, she stood. “Selita, it’s me.”

Selita shrieked, then laughed as she recognized her. “Taela, you nearly startled me to death! I thought you were a Terrinian raider.”