Remembering Dad on His Day

I got my love of books from my dad.  My father, John Taglieri, grew up in an Italian immigrant family during the depression, the youngest child in a family of ten.  His dad, Roger, owned a barber shop on Chicago’s south side.  His mom, Assunta, cared for the large brood.  As the baby of the family, Dad was his mamma’s boy.  Dad loved to read and he loved adventure books most of all.  Tarzan, Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, and his favorite, Jack London’s The Call of the Wild.  He spent his summer evenings reading on the porch until it was too dark to see.

Some of my earliest memories are of Dad tucking me into bed, then sitting at my bedside to tell me bedtime stories.  The Three Bears, Hansel and Gretel, The Three Little Pigs, Cinderella.  I couldn’t sleep unless Dad told me a fairy tale.  Lying in the dark, listening to his soft voice charged my imagination and made me love fairy tales and fantasy.  Dad often told me stories about his life too.  About the hardships of growing up in a large family during the depression.  About being picked on by his older brothers.  He told about serving in the Army Air Force in the Pacific during World War II.  He told his stories over and over until I knew them all by heart.

I grew up and started writing stories of my own.   I wrote my fantasy trilogy and let Dad read the first two books.  It meant so much to me when he told he liked them.  Every daughter wants her father to be proud of her.  I was reworking the third book of the trilogy when Dad started fading.  On a snowy midnight, the second day of March, 2007, at the age of 86, Dad passed away, with the extended family who loved him gathered all around.  I held his hand and whispered good-bye.  I think about him all the time and often wish I had the chance to hear more about his life.  I wish I could ask his opinions about the events of the day or hear one of those old army stories one more time.  And I regret that he never got to see how my trilogy ended.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad.

The Hunger Games

Husband and I saw THE HUNGER GAMES movie last weekend.  No, I won't be writing a  review.  I'm not the arbiter of What is Good and What is Bad. Being a writer myself, I don't like to pronounce judgements on a work of art that someone just poured her heart, soul and guts into. Although, on the other hand, I don't mind telling you my opinion if I feel strongly about something.

And, yes, I do have a very strong opinion about THE HUNGER GAMES:  I absolutely love it. 

That movie was awesome.  Not perfect.  Some of those shaky cam close ups made me dizzy.  But the film stayed mostly true to the original story and presented the novel pretty much the way I had imagined it.  The actors, sets and costumes were great.  HUNGER GAMES is the biggest YA book to come along since TWILIGHT and HARRY POTTER so I'm happy to see it turned into an intelligent, well produced film.

What I really love about HUNGER GAMES, both the movie and the book, is its strong female lead: Katniss Everdeen.  She's a rich, multidimensional character.  She kills people when she has to. She falls in love when she needs to. She questions the world she lives in. She survives. Writer Suzanne Collins allows Katniss to be who she is. She didn't follow the same old precepts about girls that we've been taught to expect. Yet, she didn't shy away from giving Katniss a nurturing side.

I write YA novels that feature strong female lead characters so it's wonderful to see something like HUNGER GAMES be so successful.  And it's a good sign that so many recent movies have featured assertive girls: WINTER'S BONE, TRUE GRIT. (Another of my favorite novels.)  Maybe mainstream media will loosen up a little and realize that girls in stories can have more than just two dimensions. They can have longings and desires and flaws and goals of their own.  They're not just eye candy for the boys.  And power shopping isn't their only ability. 

I haven't read TWILIGHT yet, but it's on my list. Now I'm thinking I'd better get to it. TWILIGHT has its many fans, but it has its detractors too.  Mostly they complain that Bella's character isn't a strong, independent individual.  I'm curious to see which side I'll come down on.  Although to be fair, I'm not that interested in vampire stories so TWILIGHT has a mark against it already. 

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.