DEADLINES SET BY OTHERS

 

One of the pitfalls of staying in school for many years is the dependence on deadlines set by others.

 

What, you might be saying, is wrong with that? It’s a preparation for work life in general and makes John and Jill good boys and girls. Right?

 

But here’s my take. It also creates a dependence on others to get things done.

I know writers who sign up for writing challenges and join groups that insist on certain timed output. I know musicians who need competitions to get them going on learning new repertoire and practice . I know painters who need a set exhibit date to complete a set number of new works, etc.

 

Without this external pacing, many people just fall apart and lose the map. The trail becomes blurry and a sense of being lost takes over only to deepen unless they latch on to yet another organizer who gives them deadlines once again.

 

I have come to see it differently. It took reaching my late twenties before I got that monkey off my back. I learned what pace works for me and why only this way of working sets me free.

 

Sure, I meet deadlines all the time. But I don’t need them to create.

 

You won’t find me anywhere near NaNoWriMo or the 12 by12 challenge and their ilk. Maybe because I didn’t stay in school as long as many I know, I don’t need this sort of assigned homework. Life tells me when I’m needed, and I tell my days what I need from them in return.

WE ALL NEED A HORSE SOMETIMES

 

I had a friend who was prone to bouts of depression. She was one of the most talented and brave people I have ever known. Still, waves of self-doubt and despair would sweep over her now and then. Modern medicine’s pharmaceutical solutions only made these waves deeper and fiercer.

 

In the depth of one of these episodes, she had a vivid dream. In it, she rode a horse and her spirit soared. She woke up and remembered that as a child she not only rode horses regularly, but had lessons in dressage, and it always centered her spiritually. Those were happy times, and she had somehow forgotten all about them.

 

My friend bought a horse. Her horse was housed in a saddlery nearby. He was an older horse who had been neglected.  Dressage was no longer on her horse’s menu. But my friend went on to ride him and even knitted him a special blanket. Caring for him, brushing him, and going on country trails together healed them both.

 

I’m no horse woman, but my friend’s healing informed me also. There are times when what is needed is remembrance of simpler happier times, and revival of what made them so. For me it’s a good cup of coffee with a loved one. My father used to take me to European style cafes that proliferated in West Jerusalem, and we’d sit and talk. We could do this at home, but it was not the same.

This ritual is my horse.

There’s the tale of the knight who comes to the rescue on a white horse. Some say the Messiah will be riding a white horse to the gates of Jerusalem. We all need a horse now and then.

DECENCY is about SHOWING UP

 

I’ve heard the saying, “Love shows up.”

I’m going to lower the bar here and not address love, but just elemental decency between people.

 

Some time ago, our hot water heater broke. In the dead of winter, we only had cold water until this could be remedied, which took a few days. I, in need of a shower, asked the next-door neighbor if it would be possible to shower at their house. Neighbor said, “Sure.”

A few hours later, I called to ask if it was convenient right then. Next-door neighbor got the message (message apps tell you this) and read it (message apps tell you that, also) and then, to be sure it wasn’t a single miscommunication I sent a text on another app we had communicated on as well when neighbor needed something from us.

 

And…

 

I was ghosted. Not a “not right now,” or “I’m not home,” (neighbor was home, as they are next door, so we can see them) or even “my shower is in bad shape,” though next-door neighbor has at least two full bathrooms.

 

I thought about the countless times this neighbor has asked us for help, assistance, tools to borrow, jobs neighbor had difficulty with and more. A hundred times would be an underestimate. We always helped promptly. It’s not that we are exceptionally good people, we just practice being decent. Until then, we had never asked Neighbor for anything.

 

I was ghosted by a neighbor whom I can plainly see from my window. To this day, not a mention of this, and I’m not bringing it up. Neighbor has shown what sort of neighbor and human they are.

 

I thought about another friend from long ago who opted to ghost, then showed up years later as if nothing had happened.

 

I think basic decency itself should propel anyone not to do this. Any reply, even one that says “I need space” or “I’m sorry but I’m in a funk” or “this isn’t working for me”--- ANYTHING, while not a happy response and requires a version of showing up, is more decent.

 

Time passed, and I remained polite with Neighbor. When next neighbor asked for something, I said, “Yes,” and did it. But my smile is gone.

 

Show up, people. Show up. Don’t leave anybody in your life high and dry.

WRITING as a WORK of LOVE

 

Some years back, one of the members of my critique group quit. She not only quit our group; she quit writing.

 

Her parting words to us were unambiguous. “Never have I spent so many hours for so little monetary compensation. Time to do something where I reap the righteous rewards for my labor.”

 

On the one hand, there’s no denying that even at minimum wage, almost all writers would reap better monetary rewards spending work hours doing something else.

 

On the other hand, SAY WHAT???

 

Mind you, this member was an energetic and insightful feedback giver, and her writing was also lively and polished. I thought highly of her as a group member and felt that if she persisted, she was more likely to be published than most of us.

But she looked at it differently. She looked at writing and writing related (like being in a critique group) as hours spent at a job. In her fortunate case, financial hardship was not in the mix.

 

She had had better paying jobs before, so she was moving on.

 

Of course, this was our loss. She was a valued colleague. But I felt it was primarily her loss because she had missed the whole sailboat that is the creative life.

 

Living in creativity is not about financial compensation. If it were, humanity’s art makers would instantly shrink to one thousandth the current participants.

 

People who create, whether stories, music, paintings or recipes— are wedded to being more fully alive. That’s the real deal, or the “compensation.” Being paid is nice and, for the few who get to buy mansions from creative work, it’s very nice. But, for most who create, it's about getting to live in our mansions of vivid and rich imaginations.

 

This is a work of love, and if it isn’t, indeed one is better finding out what else is there that could be.

WHAT MAKES A STORY?

 

Most people know how to give an account of happenings. “This happened, and then that, and after that then this.”

 

These are accounts, not stories.

 

Unfortunately, some writing advice completely misses the point. I’ve heard some variations of asking and answering “…and then, and then…” offered as process to constructing stories from writing coaches and blog posts about writing. It’s understandable, because this is the way young children tell stories. It’s basic to telling imaginative narratives.

 

But, as any listener or reader knows, these aren’t stories. They are accounts.

 

I like pithy definitions. I love Jonathan Blum’s description.

A story: mapping the process of meaningful change.

 

Every word in this six-word definition is relevant and essential.

Without mapping, it’s a meditation, not a story.

Without process, it’s a static photograph, not a story.

Without meaningful, it’s an empty collection of words.

Without change, it is just the same as nothing worth telling happened.

 

We are accustomed to happy or positive changes, because kidlit is wedded to such. But many stories for adults map meaningful demises. (Anna Karenina, anyone?) Either way, change is a must for a story not to be merely an account.

©Chris Brecheen

When Seeking Agent Representation* for Picture Book Writers

 

*Disclosure: I never sought representation for my picture book texts because very few agents are open to such. Both my previous agents did represent my picture books but took me as a client for my Middle Grade novels.

 

The conventional wisdom on agent-seeking is that if you approach such for picture books, it is better to have at least three manuscripts polished and ready to go.

 

Why?

 

In one way, this is counter intuitive. Every manuscript is its own animal, and a great highly marketable one is just that. Writers who seek agent representation with longer works are not expected to have more than that one ready for presentation.

 

In another way, picture book texts require less time (though no less creative spark and skill) to pen, revise, re-revise, and polish, and agents are not interested in investing energy in a relationship with a one-shot wonder.

 

Put another way, Agent might be saying to Writer, “If we’re to become working partners, you better show me that you can do this again and again (and again) because, unlike novels, it’s possible to write twelve picture book texts in one year. I don’t deal with slouches.”

Or something to that effect.

 

Just another of the publishing world’s peculiarities.

The Matter of WORD COUNT

 

Beginning and naïve writers pay little attention to word counts. My first efforts had one 4,000-word story which I thought was a picture book text.

 

Near beginners wake up to the bean counting that exists among publishing and marketing professionals. Word counts become a near obsession, despite most publishing professionals stating that these numbers are not hard and fast rules and a story need be what it need be. Once writers discover the word count parameters, these become a religion. I confess to the same.

 

But if you are going to treat word counts as guides, you must know that in writing for younger readers, the ordinary counts of the publishing world don’t count. Kidlit has its own.

Example:

• Novella: A fictional work that's between 17,500 and 40,000 words long.

In kidlit, these counts would overlap chapter books and novels for middle grade readers.

• Novelette: A fictional work that's between 7,500 and 17,500 words long 

In kidlit, these counts are squarely in the chapter book category.

• Short story: A fictional work that's usually less than 10,000 words long, but can be over 1,000 words 

In kidlit, these counts overlap easy readers to chapter books.

• Flash fiction: A short story that's 500 words or less

In kidlit, these are picture book texts. *

 

*I love thinking of picture book texts as flash fiction. It’s a remarkable storytelling category either way.

 

After many years of writing, I find word counts to be an accounting of sorts for a day’s work. My output is around a thousand words a day, give or take. This says little about the stories and what they “should be” word count-wise. It’s an account between me and myself regarding the fulfillment of my writing abilities. It tells me I’m doing my job, even if no one else cares.

 

And since I mentioned novellas* in this post, where have they gone? Publishing’s stepchild is overdue for TLC and attention, in my unhumble opinion.

A post about this can be read here.

 

Back to counting the total words of manuscripts, I’m less fussy now. At my age and many years of writing, I see fussing for what it is. It’s a replacement for taking care of the real deal: a great story, which can’t be quantified.

AI HERE, THERE, and EVERYWHERE

 

If you use text-to-voice to proofread your writing, you’re listening to a creature of AI. I’m on record that I use this feature when going over my stories in WORD. (I should use it for emails, although, to my detriment, I usually fire them off quickly without doing so.) It’s a fine way to catch some typos, akin to the advice to read aloud your own chapters and catch repeat words, typos and echoes.

The mechanical voice is far better at this function because unlike the author or even the author’s human friends, it won’t read aloud what it thinks is likely there, per human logic.  Instead, the machine will sound what is, in fact, there on the screen.

Oops.

 

Then there are the internet searches. The largest search engine (rhymes with poodle) now brings AI results to the top of the first page. DH admonished me to not look at the AI findings and scroll past them. I refuse to ignore the tool because it is usually sound. Usually is the operative word. There are glitches here and there, so looking further should be good practice.

 

AI tools are also fun, as in fun and games. They play with us, creating images and editing photos, not to mention drive digital games.

 

Here is what they don’t do, nor replace. The human touch is unique in finding the road not taken, and AI never seems to. Whatever you do, don’t let it write your stories because you will never get anything surprising or genuinely out of the box.

 

AI is all about formulas, algorithms, and what was done before. Not just the tried and true, but the tried-and-true numerous times. Its best surprise is, like the old Holiday Inn commercials, no surprise.

 

As good (and improving) as AI tools are, perfection still eludes them. Case in point: the AI “natural voice” reader keeps reading every “oh” in my manuscripts as “OH!” (a la “wow!”), even when it’s the sighing kind. “Oh, this is sad,” comes off as either alarming or a cry of joy. The lovely female voice I use is as dumb as a doorbell which, come to think of doorbells, always sound like they mean to be punctuated by an exclamation.

 

Oh, well.

ARGUABLY THE GREATEST PRESIDENT

 

We know Abraham Lincoln saved the union of states, but at a great cost to his mental health and eventual physical demise. Lincoln suffered from clinical depression aggravated by the enormous cost of the war between the states. He was murdered shortly after victory, and never got to know how grateful most of us are to this day for keeping us “one nation, indivisible.”

 

We know about Lincoln’s childhood in a log cabin, and about the tragic loss of his beloved son Willie to typhoid fever while living in the White House. (The Lincolns lost another son twelve years earlier to tuberculosis.) These losses took their toll on Mary Todd Lincoln, and all in all made for very hard presidential years for Abe.

 

Here’s what I didn’t know until just before I blogged about it six years ago here. Abraham Lincoln was a bonified inventor. Almost on this date, May 22^nd in the year 1849, future U.S. president Abraham Lincoln was granted a patent for a boat-lifting device; he was the only U.S. president to have a patent. 

 

We’ve heard that a rising tide lifts all boats.  Now we know Lincoln did, both figuratively and in practice.

The Matter of the AUTHOR NOTE

 

I’m fond of reading Author Notes at the end of novels, but I may be in a minority.

 

To be clear, I understand the reluctance many feel about this matter. I want to be succinct and say that, for me, an Author Note is satisfying to read only if it’s short and personal. Like a cherry on the slice of cake I just managed to finish.

An added zing, a finishing touch. An Author Note needs to work like a decorative bow tied to a well wrapped gift.

 

A good post on this can be found here.

 

For fiction, it’s important not to slip into lecture mode. I’m afraid the tendency to explain, self-analyze, and even apologize— is what many authors pass for their final note. I plead guilty myself.

 

A good Author Note does one simple thing: it ties the fictional story to the author’s life experience in a way that enriches the story for the reader. Too many authors write these notes to make up for what they perceive will be criticism or in response to Beta readers’ feedback. An Author Note shouldn’t be a defense of one’s work, nor added material that should have been woven into the story itself.  Again, I plead guilty to these faux pas.

 

While Author Notes can enrich a novel, I find them a burden when tacked to picture book texts. Writers who have polished their skills writing for the educational market are prone to add Author Notes to trade picture books, sometimes longer than the story texts. Thus, a fictional tale becomes a mini textbook. Publishers seem to love this, because it makes these picture books marketable in both the trade and the educational markets.

 

I’m not a publisher. As a reader, I never liked fiction laden with footnotes, and these Author Notes (as well as “Side Bars”) sink fun fiction faster than I can say PLEASE DON’T.

For the third time, I plead guilty to this, also.

 

So, my take on Author Notes is keep it interesting and above all—

keep it short.

SELF-DOUBT and GUILT

 

Self-doubt is not only an important part of an artist’s toolkit; it’s an essential aspect of being a good person, striving to do better. I think guilt serves a similar function.

 

Where both get a bad rap is when they exceed the boundaries of righting function and become wrecking balls. Being wrecked with self-doubt or wrecked by guilt deserves the boot.

Not helpful, get outta here, you’re only doing damage.

 

This post on the usefulness of self-doubt got me thinking. I was amid second drafting a novel and experiencing something I hadn’t before at that stage. I was liking my first draft.

It read well. How can this be? First drafts are not supposed to read this well. Have I lost my whatever it is that makes writers able to improve on what is, let’s face it, only the first draft?

 

 I was having self-doubts about not having self-doubts.

 

No worries. About a third way in, my first draft showed itself to be a mess in need of urgent triage and surgical repair. I was back to normal self-doubting me, and both breathing and heart rate stabilized.

 

Self-examination, acknowledging wrongs, attempting repairs and trying to do better are great tools. Just don’t let them go amok, because then they think they are the boss and will, if you let them, kill you.

 

Everything in moderation, Maimonides said. This eight-hundred- and fifty-year-old advice has aged well.

HOW TO BECOME KNOWN AS THE DORMOUSE

 

Some years ago, our family were on our way home after a beautiful winter hike. We had climbed mountains to view the ocean and passed countless cows grazing on our way down. The cold air outside had chilled us to the bone, and now the heater in the family car warmed us.

 

The drive was long, and night had fallen. My husband was driving, and I was in the passenger seat, while our two children sat in the back. The conversation was lively, but at a certain point our daughter dozed off in her car seat. It was more than her then-three-year-old body could manage to remain awake. Her older brother and her parents continued to speak, noting her soft sleeping breaths.

 

At some point, even we had rested our conversation, when out of her slumber our daughter’s sleepy voice interrupted the silence.

“Would you pet a cat that had no tail?” she said.

It was a non sequitur to beat all non sequiturs.

“The Dormouse has spoken,” my husband said.

 

 The Dormouse is a character in "A Mad Tea-Party", Chapter VII [1] from the 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. The Dormouse sat between the March Hare and the Mad Hatter. They were using him as a cushion while he slept when Alice arrives at the start of the chapter. The Dormouse is always falling asleep during the scene, waking up every so often, to insert some unrelated comment and doze off again.

 

After that day, our daughter began to call herself Dormouse, and she and her brother developed this alternate identity further, making up stories that bore little resemblance to Alice’s tea party associate or to nature’s dormice. Our resident dormouse kept this alter ego for some years before it, too, dissipated into the family lore of yore.  

 

But so many years later, I woke up thinking about the question posted long ago in the dark car.

 
“Would you pet a cat that had no tail?” never got an answer back when.

Today, it seems to me the question deserved a reply. The way I understand it, it has a deep meaning. It’s another way of asking, “could you love and care for someone who isn’t perfect?”

 

Dear Dormouse, it was a perfect question perfectly asked. We got sidetracked but your question deserved an answer.

My belated answer is YES, ten times yes. I’d pet a cat that had no tail. Would you?

THE STORY of SOKOLOV’s FAREWELL

 

It’s been almost a month since Sokolov died.

 

I want to say “left us” or “crossed the rainbow bridge” or some such, because the word “die” doesn’t seem to suit him. He’d been sick for three years and there were many times when I thought he would not last long. But, like the phoenix, he rose up and bounced back to life. We began to think—hope— he would live forever. Maybe our inclination to deny death was doing a job on us.

 

But— no, he didn’t.

 

In late February, he began his final descent and this time he did not relent and turn back. He stopped eating despite medication that had worked before to stimulate his appetite. He stopped drinking. He became as light as a feather. The vet said he was in complete liver failure.

 

We made the decision to let him go at home, in peace, on his own schedule. This cat, who came to us as a feral rescue, who feared any person that was not us (with the vet being one of his greatest fears) was going to live to the last surrounded by people and cats he loved and in the home he felt safe.

 

His final descent lasted four weeks. He was stoic, affectionate, and maintained himself in a position where he could always see us and his favorite feline friends. Sokolov, who ran into hiding at the slightest suggestion of an approaching stranger, didn’t hide at all at the end. He chose to be close and look at us as his body was evaporating.

I won’t deny that letting him die at home was hard on us. I wouldn’t necessarily make that choice for our other cats. But I knew that for this shy cat who loved us more fiercely than others, this is how it had to be.

 

The last looks we exchanged were on the morning of March 28^th. I was typing and turned to say something to him. He was a foot away, sitting on my bed. He looked serene and blinked slowly. I kept typing. When next I turned to exchange looks, he was lying sprawled on his side. I kept staring to see if he was breathing. He did, one more time.

 

He is buried among the weeds in the backyard, very close to where this photo was taken a few years ago.

THE EYE of AI

 

If you ever purchased from the giants of the Internet retailers, you have run into an AI summary of the reviews the product has accumulated. For the most part, I have found these mechanical summaries to reflect the gist of the individual reviews by verified purchasers.

 

It’s an odd thing for a writer whose books are also sold there to see artificial intelligence’s summation. But I’m not complaining because AI is programmed to give priority to the positive. After all, these are selling sites. I don’t know how many reviews are required to trigger Ms. AI, but it must be more than twenty. I asked, and AI gave a vague answer that didn’t include a number.

 

But did you know there are AI tools that review/give feedback to private images and works of art (not for sale) you are curious about? 

I didn’t, until my post of an embroidery (one I designed and made some years ago) on a chat board for crafts-- elicited one of the people on the board to use this tool and let me know what AI had to say about my one-of-a-kind work.

 

I had mentioned the center is the Hebrew word that begins the Bible, aptly saying “In the beginning.” (BERESHEET / בּראשׁית in Hebrew.)

This is what my colleague on the board posted right after:

“I know little about embroidery but Microsoft's AI Copilot could read it easily.

 It also said "The embroidery surrounding the text is beautifully intricate, featuring colorful geometric patterns that might resemble trees or plants. A meaningful and artistic piece!"

 It always feels weird getting compliments from a machine though, doesn't it? :D

 I think it looks great too!”

 

I haven’t used this tool yet for any of my other works, but I think I might on a day when I’m feeling blue. Even an AI pick-me-up is better than nothing.

JUMPSTARTING TODAY’S WRITING SECTION

 

When writing anything other than a blog post or a short picture book text, as the saying goes— it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

 

Beginnings are easier for me, because they come in as a sort of voice with sentences formed that have wind beneath their wings. Watching a helicopter lift off would be a good analogy to the experience.

 

Endings have their own energy. Everything that came before is adding up, and the reflection of the opening hovers over-- projecting the outline of the runway to landing.

 

It’s the long middle that looms over like a gray cloud every time. The feeling that I have no idea where to go and my mind feels empty. How will I get through today's section? I have nothing.

 

A few years ago, when I knew I’d be writing middle grade novels not as a one-off fluke (my first) but every year after that, I devised a technique that works for me during those seemingly endless middle of the story writing sessions.

 

I end each writing session with an evocative sentence. One that charms me. One that hopefully intrigues a reader. One that does the job the very next morning when I sit down feeling I have nothing to say.

 

The same words writers conjure to draw the reader in serve to pull this writer into the next chapter, and off we go.

 

I resolved never to end a day’s session in a static place, and this helped me get to the finish line one section at a time.

 

If your artwork seems to move in starts and stops, perhaps try this way. It takes self-discipline to halt the vehicle just as it moves into a higher gear. But then, it takes self-discipline to write a long story, paint an oil painting, or compose a symphony.

 

It’s all good. Happy navigating the middles to you.

FOOLED YOU!

 

*You’d think that if you opened the link to this post, you’d find yet another high falutin speech on writing, cats, or living life. Fooled you 😏

 

*You’d think you can trust this blog to at least have the presentation of sanity and balance in matters public and private. Fooled you 😜

 

*You would’ve thought that your kindness in at least checking in to see “what she’s up to now” would be treated with the respect and gratitude you deserve. Fooled you 😦

 

Because this is silly day, and not only you, but yours truly get NO RESPECT on the day the fools rule

Now go get some toilet paper to wrap your home, school, or the next-door fool

Don’t be best, be cool 😎

PLOT, Stick to the PLOT

 

There is a ubiquitous how-to writing suggestion to cut any of the text which isn’t serving the plot. This includes description of landscape, weather, and general sideshows.

 

Writers of yore had no such compunctions, and leisurely took us to places where we stopped and smelled the roses before resuming the characters’ journeys to their resolutions. Poor Tolstoy would have been eviscerated by contemporary editors for the almost novella-length chapters that veered off the plot. I know, I read War and Peace, the whole thing.

 

Today, we are told we don’t have the time. Readers don’t have the patience. No one can stand still and wait for the narration when it takes the slightest rest.

 

I had an editor tell me that a half-page section of dialogue, while hilarious, didn’t advance the action. When I suggested it served both as more character revelation and also for comic relief, the editor’s response was that readers, especially young ones, don’t have the time for that. Cut, cut, CUT.

And, for that matter, also cut the view of the countryside as seen by the main character from the moving train window. Never mind that the train is moving fast. The plot is what must move here, so unless there’s a killer on the train who’s looking for our hero, we don’t need to see or hear our hero’s thoughts on the train. Move, move, MOVE.

 

I humbly suggest we should strike a middle ground here. Resting places in novels are precious spaces, and I intend to keep them, because as a reader I need them just as much as the fictional characters do.

THE PITFALLS of BEING PLUGGED IN

 

Where I live, the neighbors and the local news are rife with daily reports of break-ins, car “smash-and-grabs," phone and laptop thefts.

WATCH OUT! 😦

 

Speaking of phones and laptops, the local news and video sharing sites are full of warnings about how hackers have gotten into them, stolen our data, and are running wild with our accounts.

WATCH OUT! 😧

 

And while we have hackers taking space on our frontal lobes, apparently our government is not immune to them. Our electric grids, defense apparatus and voting rolls, not to speak of the social security numbers of all of us, have been infiltrated by hostile entities.

WATCH OUT! 😨

 

As if this isn’t enough and you may be thinking that you can always leave your country for a better protected one, from all directions the media is blasting that our whole planet is close to dying because we will toast on account of Global Warming, something we are told is happening ever faster than anyone predicted.

WATCH OUT! 😱

 

Wait a minute--- I have a better suggestion. Stop watching. At least pull the plug on media that is dependent on us staying plugged in and is counting on the fear factor to keep us there.

 

This isn’t a call to put one’s head in the sand. I sure don’t. But I suggest that taking breaks from being plugged in is a cure that most are long overdue.

 

I take regular internet/computer/phone breaks. Not long ones, just enough to look around, appreciate my reality and good fortune of being alive, and restore healthy breathing.

 

I come up for air now and then. It makes a better and even more alert me, more able to cope with all the above.

MARCH 11TH IN HISTORY

 

1861 Confederate states adopt new constitution

In Montgomery, Alabama, delegates from South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas adopt the Permanent Constitution of the Confederate States of America.

 

When grumblings about “we need Civil war” enter your sphere, please re-consider. We came too close to duplicate the fractious abyss that is Europe, and because the Union prevailed, we remained a large continent where citizens move freely between territories and states. It seems normal to Americans, but it is not the norm as far as the rest of the world is concerned.

 

The reference link concludes with—

Although Britain and France both briefly considered entering the Civil War on the side of the South, the Confederate States of America, which survived until April 1865, never won foreign recognition as an independent government.

Phew, that was close. Too close. A hundred and sixty-four years of endless “hot” wars between states were averted, but not before a tenth of Americans paid with their lives.

 

Especially because if this, if you’re tempted to go yell at or slap someone for advocating war, consider baking them a pie or inviting them over for tea and cookies. Resolve not to allow conflict into the conversation.

^ Me, wearing a Peace Corps T-shirt, inviting you for coffee^

 

Blessed are the peacemakers.

INTUITION is not a FEELING

 

A few months ago, I read an excellent post about intuition and its place in the writing process. See it here.

 

It wasn’t news to me that good writing is intuitive even as it uses the cloak of logical and systematic exposition.

 

The most precious nugget the post gave me is the articulation that intuition shouldn’t be confused with a feeling or an emotion.

 

Instead, think of intuition as the mind processing information so fast and connecting the dots before we have the words, or articulation, to explain it rationally.  

 

Intuition is an awareness of a high order. Creating without it yields something akin to assembly manuals of the sort that come with various gizmos. That’s “technical writing,” and writers of poetry or prose aren’t doing that.

 

Good writing connects the dots before we have the words to name them.

More CAT INDULGENCES

 

Once every few months, I just feel compelled to share snippets of the joy that are my cats.

 

No, I’m not a “childless cat lady,” but a child-full one. 😸 

 

No, I’m not a “crazy cat woman,” but a sane one. 😹

 

What I am is an unapologetic feline fancier. 😻

 

These marvels of nature are graceful beauties who do us a favor by allowing us near them.

 

Lucky plucky me, I have three such wonders close by.

 

Here, have some:

{{{TO MY FABOULOUS FANCY FELINE FRIENDS 🍻}}}

🙏Please think good thoughts for Sokolov, 🙏

🙏our black cat, who is very ill 🙏

P.S. Edited to add: Our Sokolov, the furry black cat, passed away March 28th, 2025 😿

The Advantage of the KNOW-NOTHINGS

 

Conventional wisdom, CW for short, is that there are the right times and the wrong times to query agents and editors. The month of December, especially the week between Christmas and New Year’s, is the very wrong time.

 

I got the attention of my second agent, a consummate experienced professional, during that very “wrong” time. Before being agented, I got a request for the full manuscript of my eventually acquired and published novel during that (very) wrong time, also.

 

I wasn’t breaking the rules, I just didn’t know them.

 

I also got the best job I ever had back in my pre-motherhood life by breaking a few rules because I didn’t know them. Not going into details here, but trust me. I learned later that, innocently, I stepped over a few faux-pax.

 

I write this as a reminder to self and also a public service to share, so that fear of standing out mustn’t paralyze, and could also be recognized as a possible advantage.

 

The same goes for writing and constructing stories. Distinctiveness for its own sake is a vice when it’s a pathology. But innocence of conventions is not, and it’s more than all right.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Thomas Edison

 

Thomas Edison should be the lodestar to every person who ever heard the victimization narrative and fell for it.

Don’t.

Just don’t buy it. Because if you do, you will have victimized yourself times ten.

 

 

Thomas Edison was almost deaf.

He had only a few months of formal schooling.

He started working at age 12.

He was viewed as “odd.”

He didn’t come from any ruling elite or so-called “right families.”

 

 

He went on to be the holder of (arguably) more patents than anyone, and we owe him much of what is fueling the engines of modern technology, not least of which is what is driving this blog I am typing on right now.

 

Which is a good reason to celebrate his birthday, February 11^th, not with gratitude for Edison's inventions but as a reminder not to focus on the obstacles life deals us. Instead, let's celebrate the amazing opportunities that being alive presents.

POINT OF VIEW (aka POV)

 

The voice of a story comes to me in the form of a line. For me, it’s usually the first sentence/paragraph.

 

This line also contains the point of view. I don’t recall ever “choosing” it, it chose itself.

 

This post explains how pivotal the POV is to the rest of the story. It is more important than plot points or list of characters or even theme. The first two evolve and change as one drafts and later revises, the last emerges on its own if the story is worth its salt and pepper.

 

But the POV determines almost everything, and if (unlike me) you aren’t seeing it clearly and wonder whose it is, consider how much difference it would make if the narrative thread is seen from, say, Aunt Olga’s vantage point or Cousin Vladimir’s. It makes all the difference.

 

There is also the so-called omniscient POV, less humbly called G-d’s. I don’t write this all-seeing POV because 1. I don’t know how to do it justice, and 2. The remove feel of it doesn’t drive my writerly engine.

Long ago, a writing friend asked me to read part of a novel she was working on and asked if the POV was omniscient.

“Actually, it isn’t. It’s ‘head hopping’,” I said.

Head hopping is moving from different characters inner most awareness without so much as taking a breath, which causes a jumble and disjointed state in a reader. Omniscience requires some remove. A lot of novice writers confuse the two.

My friend resolved to pick one character’s vantage point and stick with it.

 

When writing in first person, it’s clear whose POV it is. When writing in third person, it’s important not to stray from what the character could know or see or even overhear. If more than one POV is needed, there are good novels that alternate different chapters clearly marked for changing the POV. A classic example of multiple POV is The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg.

 

I will continue to let my stories choose, because it works for the way I work.

POV^

Need a Break from DYSFUNCTION?

 

A few months ago, I realized that between the news (wars, crimes, the latest pathogens and some petty pointless bit—ing about others), and the sort of movies and TV shows I was watching, which were mostly about dysfunction (wars, crime stories, pandemics and plenty bi---ing), it was taking a negative toll on my psyche.

 

Sure, it was compelling, and it is an aspect of the human story. But I needed some medicine to balance this out.

 

And so, I have been making the effort to pay attention to basically good people doing or trying to do good things. Flawed people, (is there any other kind?) but decent and with a conscience that is alive and serves to guide.

 

I like THIS IS US (now all seasons streaming on Netflix) and novels like ASK AGAIN, YES by Mary Beth Keane. If you have recommendations for some such, I am as wide open as ever.

 

Let the light of humanity pour in~

©Art by Shelagh Duffett

EVOCATIVE

 

The very word, “evocative,” is evocative.

 

The dictionary definition, “Serving to bring to mind. Making you remember or imagine something,” brings up feelings of hazy memories one can’t quite place or anchor.

 

Good poetry is supremely evocative. Good prose is subtly so. Good music evokes on the most sensual level, as do smells and even certain qualities of light.

 

I was mulling over a Leonard Cohen song, AVALANCHE, whose words I find evocative. But— blimey— if I know what they mean. I just know that the many attempts to analyze it fall flat. From the literal to the highfalutin theses I read, none touch what this song evokes in me, which is dread and impending doom.

 

This is but one example. I find James Joyce’s Ulysses evocative, but also unreadable. I wonder if, on some level, he meant it to be. A sort of hiding in plain sight.

 

I’m not this sort of writer, but I am intrigued by evocative writing.   

“IF YOU COULD MEET ANYONE FROM HISTORY…”

 

There’s a well-known trope/parlor game/interview question that asks which long-dead persons you’d like to meet, have dinner with, interview, etc.

 

It’s fun to think about, and the answer supposedly reveals something pertinent about us.

 

About a month ago, someone put this question to me and I realized my older answers didn’t hold for me anymore. My old answers were Shakespeare (did he really author what is attributed to him?), Jesus (what was the historic flesh-and-blood person really like?), and Abraham (Is he in fact one actual person, or a myth?).

 

But I realized that Shakespeare would almost certainly be a disappointment. The works are far greater than the author, as is almost always the case. Jesus of Nazareth is also far greater as spiritual residues present to this day. As to Abraham, I would likely not like him at all and he not like me. Anyone who would sacrifice his beloved son Isaac and lie to his boy while climbing to the place of the intended killing (all to prove his complete obedience to G-d) is the sort of fanatic I avoid like the plague today.

 

Then, they came to me like figures emerging out of a thick fog. The people I would most like to meet and spend a day with, the people I would like to get to know and be known by, are my father’s mother and father. They perished in the Holocaust and the Nazis wouldn’t allow my father, still a boy himself, to keep even the locket he wore with his mother’s photograph.

 

What I know of them are the memories of a boy. When I asked my late father to describe them physically, he gave such a vague description that I couldn’t conjure their faces. Years later, when my father returned for a visit to Poland and found a neighbor he remembered from his childhood still living in the old building, the neighbor angrily snapped at him saying, “What Jews? There were never any Jews here.” He had hoped someone had photos of his family, but instead found complete erasure.  

 

If you believe in the afterlife, you might be telling me that I will meet my grandparents some day. You might be telling me that they are watching over me right now. I won’t argue. It’s a mystery, as far as I’m concerned.

 

But today I would choose to meet them while I’m still part of this world of action, because I sense it would inform the rest of my time here in a meaningful way.