The Greatest Awards

One of those odd facts that chimed my bells this morning was  that at the 1900 Paris Olympics winners were awarded paintings instead of medals.

This got me thinking of what award I would most like, were I to win one for, er, anything.

A box of chocolates for best dessert at a party? Hardly.

A gold necklace for best-dressed at a garden party? Nah. And I’m not a fashionista or someone you’d find at a garden without my weeding gloves.

A certificate of merit for a well-written book?

 Wait a minute- it’s called a fan letter. I just got one of these. They are *THE BEST.*

So enjoy the chocolates, paintings, and medals. A reader’s appreciation is the best award for me.

And if you don’t mind, I’ll borrow the necklace now and then.

Dedication

I marvel at the persistence required to write. To complete a manuscript. To revise and revise. To submit and re-submit.

All this, against the odds it will be picked up for publication. Then the odds that if it is, the book will succeed in the market place.

 I think about dedication.

The most worthwhile moments of my life involved dedication. I am not speaking of the most fun moments, or the most memorable. I am speaking of what turned out to have long lasting value.

I read that J. S. Bach once walked four hundred and twenty miles to see a performance by a composer he idolized, Buxtehude. What dedication.

 

 

Was it a great performance? I don’t know. But the act of seeking it tells of the dedication that makes someone like Bach.

 

 

Kvetching about Kvetching

Years ago I gave my mother a hand-painted mug that said NO KVETCHING.

My mother is no longer with us, but the mug is on our kitchen counter.

No Kvetching. What was I thinking?!?

At a recent writerly event, a marketing-type admonished the audience not to be negative in public. Chin up, life is wonderful and I’m doing wonderfully wonderful. This is what you’re to put out. Save the complaining for private conversations not taped by the FBI, and the angst, for your dark fiction. If you don’t write dark fiction, put it in your diary. But make sure the diary is one of those with a lock on it.

And here I was, with my kvetchy and angsty BLOG. Really.

What agent will want to work with that girl? Which crazy editor will ever take on a back ‘n forth with this complaining camper? And where are the readers who will invest twelve minutes or twelve dollars on a negative nagging ninny?

Confession: at the end of the day, in the deep recesses of my soul, I am a “G-d’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world” person. But that’s at the end of the day, and at the end of my stories. During the day is kvetching-time.

My ancestors were not of the "if you can't say something nice, say nothing at all" school. Rather, my grandma told me that if someone only ever says nice things, their credibility should be suspect. With this legacy, you can understand the tradition of Kvetch.
If I can’t offer authenticity in my blog, I really don’t know why anyone would read it. Wait, is anyone out there?

Go ahead, kvetch to me, honey. You’ll feel better, I will feel better, and in the end it’ll work out just as it should.

 

VOICE, or- Why Can’t We Hear It?

There are many articles on Voice in writing. PhD and graduate theses written on this subject define and analyze. Editors often say they look for “strong and distinctive voice.” Voice trumps everything: misspelling, typos, even a plot that isn’t all there. These can be fixed in revision. Characters can be made deeper and more complex. Descriptions can be added. A writer can change all the passive construction this one just heaped on here.

But not a lack of this thing we call, here I’ll shout it, VOICE.

 

The other night I heard my late grandmother’s voice saying, in her distinct Yiddish accent, “Vat is dis ting they call voice? Vy dey fuss so much about it? Can you tell it to me plain?”

And still half asleep, I thought I had one of those perfect illuminative distillations. I heard myself answer her.

“Voice is the personality of the narration.”

Nice going, I thought. Gotta write it down somewhere. Wake up and  find your pencil.

But grandmother was not so impressed. “Vat poisonality? You have poisonality, maydaleh. Dis narr—vat you call it, it is not a poisonality.”

So I’m still in search for a clear and simple way to say it. No highfaluting verbiage. Writing about writing can get fancy.

But at least I heard my grandma’s voice.

Change

Our next-to last presidential campaign featured the winning slogan, CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN. I wasn’t sure then what it meant.  All I know is that while change is inevitable, I have a hard time with it.

Another cliché, change is the only thing you can count on, is the solace I give myself as I struggle with small changes to my routine.

The big ones seem to take care of themselves, maybe because others come to our aid as they recognize the challenges of loss, moving, and financial set-backs. Happy but monumental changes get celebrated with communal support, be they the birth of a child, marriage, or a new job. There is an expectation, from self and others, that these adjustments call for circling the wagons. There’s a self allowance for turbulence, and chocolate.

It’s the little changes that are the bane of my existential struggle.

Like when my favorite brand of cereal is no more. Who’s going to cry with me about that? Our next door neighbors, who haven’t lived in the house for years, finally sold it. New neighbors = change. So? Windows 8 isn’t behaving like windows 7; it’s supposed to be much better. So why, with every use, am I feeling worse?

Yup, it looks like summer is over. My least favorite season, but still, why did it have to change???

 





Dog Days of Summer? More Like Mad Dogs

From the middle of June and to the end of August, I take a break from first-drafting new stories. What starts out as a joyous way to re-charge the creative batteries, begins to feel downright depressing by the end of summer. I feel hollow, empty and positively lethargic.

Enter The Mad Baker.

 Mornings begin with muffins. Banana muffins make a nice breakfast, don’t you think? And such a clever way to use rotting fruit, too. So do buckwheat, or oatmeal or whole grain with soy grits muffins. A healthy breakfast never hurt anyone. It may have saved the world from a few over-grouchy nit-pickers, and it certainly saves the Mad Baker from feeling another pointless day has begun.

Mid-mornings call for a re-charge, so a nice batch of scones will do. Scones are always nice and easy to make, and the Mad Baker scours the pantry for imaginative add-ons to the basic and boring plain scone recipe. Chopped dried apricots make a nice addition. So do raisins, currants or prunes. So what if it’s past breakfast time. Prunes are good anytime. So what if they are really old, from three years ago. Old prunes are good anytime. Scones done. Come and get it while they’re hot!

Post-lunch doldrums bring the real breads out. Homemade egg bread?  Rye with corn? Middle Eastern Pita? Who can resist right-out-of-the-oven bread? Family, it’s now or never.

And pre-dinner calls for cake. Because five o’clock tea needs cake. It demands it. And it better have chocolate in it, somewhere.

Pots and pans clean now, drying on the dish rack. The Mad Baker feels productive and vindicated. Family is satiated. The freezer is a bit fuller, too. She made double of everything, because you never know.

And it all begins again, furiously, the very next day. Those Mad August Baker days.

Family members, at first delighted, begin to protest. Good is one thing. But a freezer with no room and expanding waistlines are another.

Family can hardly wait for September, when The Mad Writer returns.

Been Done Before?...

What should a writer do when they find published books a bit too much like their WIP? (=work in progress)

And then on a kid-lit chat board they find others whose WIP sounds eerily similar?

A writer has three choices. Probably more, but this is what occurs to my still shocked pea-brain.

The first is to surmise that others have a portal into writer’s brain, and are borrowing (polite for stealing) freely from said brain.

The second is to conclude that one’s brain is too limited to call itself a writer’s brain, only capable of derivative thinking and subliminal channeling of others. Quit now, before you do more damage.

The third is to soldier on and tell the story only this writer can tell. Because similar in some ways is not = the same. Because all stories have been told, but not in all ways. Because, dagnabbit, only you can do what you do the way you do it.

I’d opt for reason #3 every time.

When I worked with antique textiles, collectors valued and paid a premium for examples that, while following the norm for their type, had something unique about them. The use of an uncommon dye or insertion of an unusual design element made the example fetch many times the price of the more typical.

{Which is the rare one? White ground Yomud Asmalyks are less common}

This is how to think of creating stories: they have many things in common. It is our job to think of the few twists and turns that haven’t been set to print before. Just enough not to betray the classics, but to open other entrances to their domains.

On the Perils of Learning How to Use NT*…

…*NT= New Technology= new to me=my new cellphone.

DD & DS informed me that a text message is much preferred to that old fashioned thing, a voice phone call. If I wanted to get a prompt response from a progeny not in a state of annoyance, texting was key.

I learned to text. It was rough. It was tough. But I got it down, with all the annoyance on my end, not progenies’.

Problem was I learned on that now-ancient keyboard, the sort where letters are bunched in threes and fours, and too many back-erasing clicks will send the text to Draft, if I’m lucky. I learned and perfected my texting on an outmoded, passé, obsolete device. If I complained about their texting preference, the reply invariably referred me to getting a new full-keyboard phone. Really, Mom!

So I did. And pro-geniuses were right. The typing of texts is now a breeze.

But it isn't only a full keyboard. It’s also a touch-screen. Very slick, ey? But I’m not used to it. In the process of re-leaning, I have at times done the wrong thing with this over-eager screen. My mere whiff of a stroke executes a command before I even have a chance to think of what I would care to ask it to do.

That’s where I was yesterday, attempting a text to DD to come out of the house and help bring some groceries in from the car. {I was parked at the curb, rest assured. Driving and texting is a never, not-ever, won’t-do-it.}

 Instead of texting, it called, and her voice said, “What…” to which I hastily said, “I didn't mean to call you. Come out and help me.” Then I hung up.

She didn't.  I considered whether my faux-pas, calling instead of texting, was the reason. So I took the groceries in myself. I figured I’ll raise the issue with DD when I have sufficiently recovered my strength, and my frustration with her was reduced to a manageable level. Then, hours later, I asked her about it.

“Oh, I would have come, but you never called me,” she said. Uh-oh.

I checked my new and improved device, and lo, the phone call was made to a dear friend I have not spoken to in a few months. A big Oopsy, because all she heard was my statement that I did not mean to call, but was in dire straits. She was next on my Contact list, and that touch screen… you get it. My fingers are just too thick or dumb for it.

Learning-learning-learning---

Is the Cuckoo Calling, or Was It the Kookiness of Us?

Apparently the book scans sale numbers for The Cuckoo’s Calling were all of five hundred sales in the U.S.A. despite very strong reviews. The international numbers were 1,500 total. It would not have even gone to paperback from this major publisher. A smaller publisher would have viewed the 1,500 number less critically, but this is one of the now Big Five.

 J. K. Rowling protested that she was in no way behind this revelation, exposing this Robert Galbraith debut as her own, admittedly a debut for her in the genre of detective novels. I have good reason to think her publisher, however, most likely was behind the revelation. She may not need the money, (though her ego is another factor) but Little Brown & Company would not, ever, pass an opportunity for mega-sales when it is just right there for the taking.

 I doubt that without the pen-name-then-revelation strategy the sales (now) or the reviews (then) would have been as good as they are. So it is very possible this was a plan from the get-go. Someone will no doubt write a book (or two or three) about this when some who colluded will talk about it. 

I find that in the kid-lit community, those who adore her Harry Potter books and idolize Rowling, believe her official pronouncements of innocence, and of seeking liberation from her brand name, while the rest find it depressing that it is so advantageous to be a brand-name when it comes to sales, even of a well-reviewed book.

 To end on an upbeat note, I’ll start with the bad news we garner from this affair:

 First, The thinking of a writer as a brand. (“They can only write XYZ)

Second, the holding a debut to a different standard when reviewing. (As if the debut author has not been writing for ions before they got a book accepted for publication; they are not new to writing, only publishing.)

Finally, the mega-sales, (it’s No #1 or close to now)  all because of the writer’s name and the story-behind-the-story.

Three times questionable thinking…. When will we ever learn? Never. 

But I find a bright spot in this sort of exposé.  I am chuckling, and dreaming up possibilities.  A talented author got to write what she wanted to write, and the world has one more good detective story. This is a two times cause for celebration.

Summer Visions

©Shelagh Duffett

Y’all know by now that I am a fan of Shelagh Duffett’s folk art. She was DS’s discovery on EBay,  and continues to set my mind and heart in the right place, years later.

Aside from her vibrant unequivocal use of color, Ms. Duffett likes symmetry, and her art has the feeling of life set straight. Things in place. Everything makes sense.

Real life is messy, and we try to arrange it to make sense. We do it when we read or write academic papers. We do it when we explain anything and everything. Some of us do it when we clean and tidy our homes, (“speak for yourself…” well, not me) and I do it in my fiction writing.

But it’s summer. I’m trying to relax a bit and allow some fraying. I put my feet up, and let a day set for paying the bills go by, without. I get dinner on the table somewhat behind schedule, and the pasta is more than a little Al Mushy. My family eats it anyway.

It’s summer. It’s OK.

Fact, Fiction, and Conspiracy Theories

Summertime-- and the living is easy. I spent a whole afternoon watching a series on YouTube, from Israeli television, about various conspiracies. I was familiar with some of the theories. Once I started, it was addictive. I, too, love a good story that ties all seemingly disparate ends together.

The problem with most conspiracy theories is that the facts are super shaky. That’s what makes them  theories, and really, not much more. Real conspiracies have always existed. But without clear verifiable facts it is not healthy to accept these theories.

A conspiracy theory usually follows the same Arab world logic regarding the Jews being behind 9/11: it looks at the results, who benefited, and concludes this was the culprit.

This I know: some people who are smart are also smart enough to know that when you unleash something, you cannot predict the results. Smart people are always very cautious for this reason.

The need to make sense of everything is behind these theories. That is what we humans always do. But the variables are too many, and it is humbling to accept that what should make sense doesn't always.

 It is pleasurable to spend hours making connections using what seems like logic, but no real facts to back it. When facts are missing or contradictory, one can always hide behind the conspiracy of the major news sources to hide things. 
Some people seek comfort by not thinking about things, others by making everything fit a neat package. They delude themselves that they are the chosen ones, willing to live without the lulling comforts the rest of humanity is slumbering and snoring to. 
But the conspiracy addicts are not different in the seeking of comfort. The impulse to have everything fit is their comfort zone.

I live with my ignorance and uncertainty, sometime better than other times. But I am certain, nay, very certain, that there is no Jewish Cabal, mafia, or conspiracy. Two Jews=three opinions is a whole lot closer to the truth. We don’t agree about much, and we are an argumentative people. Also “stiff necked,” as the Torah says.

 The communists killed more of each other than anybody else. The KGB was less efficient than we feared, not more. The Israeli Mossad has had more failures than successes. Do I have facts? Every firsthand-knowledge I happened to bump into in my short life (sometimes second hand) confirmed this.

 I know conspiracy addicts are not convince-able.  Gray is not very sexy; black & white is much more interesting. I know this as a storyteller too. Gray is a hard sell.

P. D. James explained the success of her detective stories as the need to have life's puzzles fit; all the pieces in place. It’s fiction, but the need to apply this to real life makes some cross the line.

I work on this in fiction.

Another REVISION? Or- You’re Kidding, Right?

Synopsis done. Two revisions by self, and two after Beta readers had a go at it. I should be getting into submission mode. 
But I’m not submitting, or submitting to the next phase, quite yet.

No, I don’t have the jitters. Well, maybe I do, but they mix with excitement of sending my new baby out into the world. I've submitted plenty before, and it was a good feeling. It freed me to work on something new.

Rather, it’s something else. I reflect on the feedback I got to my published MG, The Voice of Thunder, and realize that what readers noted they liked most were sections added in later revisions, both before and after acquisition.

A bit of distance is golden.

It’s going to sit in a virtual drawer for a bit. Then I’ll read my WIP as a reader. Experience tells me I will make changes, and they will be good ones. No matter how twitchy my fingers are to click the key over Send, (in the old days , only a few months ago, it was the tongue licking the envelope and the sound of that envelope sliding through the mailbox slot) regardless of how good it would feel to get it out already, this baby deserves another waltz with me.

The Eleventh Commandment: CATEGORIZE

I forgot the movie, but in it there’s a scene in which a character orders their coffee at one of the franchises that invented their own lingo: “May I have a half-caf, venti, soy, blended, triple-shot Ristretto, skinny no-whip Machiatto?” 
The person at the counter nods and says, “Coming right up!”

To anyone who managed to stay out of those cafés, the above is a foreign language.

Publishing queries have their own lingo. It’s meant to be informative, but making sure it is can be daunting.

When writing a query, a pitch, or a synopsis, a writer must convey what sort of story they are offering. Is it a picture book (PB)? A chapter book (CB)? A novel for middle grades (MG)? A novel for young adults (YA)? A novel for older readers, like the twenty-somethings, now called the New Adults (NA)? Just a plain old novel for folks at the age of legal consent?

Not done yet, a writer must convey the genre. Is it a concept book (think colors and shapes, or  ABC and 1-2-3) or a story picture book? Is the chapter book part of a series? Is the MG, YA or NA novel a realistic, contemporary, historical, fantasy, magical, ghost, thriller, romance, humorous, psychological, or a mystery?

Actually, my current WIP (=work in progress) is all of the above. (Well, minus the romance. Sorry, it is a middle grade, after all.) 
I can just see this Dear Editor/Agent letter: "I am offering my scintillating can’t-put-it-down magical-realism contemporary ghost/psychological thriller with an historically nuanced mystery….”

I don’t think so.

I’m trying to box this thing, and make a box as nicely wrapped as possible. This, while making it a see-through wrapping.

Now you understand the challenge.

I think I need a Venti soy full-caf thing, a little crutch to get through this wrapping business.

~What’s Right with Writing SYNOPSES~

Synopses are summaries of books, written in third person present tense. Most writers don’t like writing them, because how can we, for all the gold in the vault of the Central Bank, put our whole novel into one or two pages? We feel, nay- we think, this is barbarous.

But writing a synopsis is a must. Agents and editors require it. Many will not even look at a sample of inspired writing unless the synopsis passes muster.

Let’s be positive here. This is what I find to be helpful about doing this dastardly deed.

First, it will expose a flawed or nonexistent plot like no other writing or reading exercise will. Better than a much more wounding or expensive critique from another. As a writer distills her plot, she also sees it from a bird’s eye view.

Second, it will reveal themes the writer hadn't realized were there. This is part of the great joy of self-discovery, which is a part of the raison d'être for writing, pardon my French.

Third, it will require a focus of the mind, which is also part of the joy of writing.

Fourth, it will leave a writer feeling virtuous for having gotten through something necessary but unpleasant.

I can’t think of a fifth. Can you?

Can you tell what I’m struggling with today? Hint…^

Writing in Summer

When my kids were smaller, I ran Camp Mama every summer. Summers became the time I did not write any first drafts. Their school vacation was my on-the-job-times-two.

DD *just* graduated from HS, and I am adjusting to the fact that I won't "need" to have a summer break. The thing is, as they got older and I did not need to chase after them, I could have written in summer. But my writing-rhythm got used to the revving-up the engine in August, getting going in September, being productive until late May, unwinding in June, and re-charging the batteries in July.
 

Someone said, “If it works, don’t fix it.”
 

I think I’ll keep my summer break. At least this one, my last before I move on to the next stage of my life. Get ready for some empty-nester posts.

Childhood Baggage

When Jeannette Walls finally told her beau that if he knew the true story of her childhood he would not want to be with her anymore, she told of the shame she carried about such severe parental dysfunction she could not bare to reveal it.

But her soon-to-be husband’s reaction made bearing-all more than bearable.

“This,” he said, “would make a great book.”

The Glass Castle went on to sell millions of copies, and Jeannette went on to literary fame. If ever there was a Cinderella story, this has to be it.

I wonder sometimes if those who were blessed with wholesome childhoods could become great writers. What do they have to pass on? That if you eat your peas and mind your manners all shall be well? Great stories, after all, are about overcoming challenges. Who better to conjure tales of woe and redemption than those who lived them?

Few have lived the horrendous abuse and neglect Ms. Wells endured, and fewer who had managed to rise up the social ladder as she had, long before her memoir was published. But in our way many of us have a story to tell; variations on the theme.

Fiction, more than memoir, allows us to really go there. If you write fiction, I’d encourage you to eschew the protective instinct and let your characters experience that which you know so well: the helplessness, the deep sorrow, the profound self-doubts. Let them make their way out of the darkness.

These make great books.

Use it. It’s called making lemonade.

HOUSES

So many of my stories began with a house. I see a house in real life or in my mind, and the house won't let go. What happened here? Who lived here, loved here, left here?

Sometimes the house remains visible in the final draft, and sometimes it is only perceptible to me. But the house was the genesis and the anchor to the tale. A sacred or cursed space, left with only residues waiting to be set free.

It is the storytellers’ duty, as I see it, to flesh it out and make the house’s story be known.

If this sounds too lofty, and no doubt it is when the result is a humorous three-hundred-word toddler book, than so it is. It’s a quirk of mine that I take this storytelling thing seriously. The reader shouldn't, but this writer must.

And so it is with my published novel for middle grades, The Voice of Thunder. A house stands at the core of what is happening, a silent testimony to how we got here.

The house is less obvious in my picture storybook, There’s a Turkey at the Door. You’ll have to trust me, the house is there. It is about home, feeling at home, and going home. The telling made the illustrator focus on the characters and not the house, bless her. It's what was needed. But my writerly mind was guided by the house.

And so it is at the heart of the novel for middle grades I am working on now. But here I will give no details. Like the wonderful and much-lauded writer Avi, I’m of the school that the more you talk about your work-in-progress, the less you need to write it. You’ll have to believe that the house is there.

For some the setting is a valley, a meadow, a beach. For many it is the belly of a bustling city. For the introvert that I am, everything starts inside. Inside the house, that is.

OVERCROWDED

Or-

A Little Goes a Long Way

About a year ago a friend asked for my feedback on a new story she wrote. Writers do this with each other, and the luckiest of us have beta-readers who are not writers also.

I think highly of this friend’s storytelling abilities. An afternoon with her is a magical ride on a roller-coaster of laughter punctuated by vistas that leave me feeling I have just seen something deeply beautiful, that thing called wisdom.

I was eager to read her written story. She warned me ahead of time that she was “not a writer” and that she “ran out of steam writing it down” and thus it might be “too short.” With this introduction I was even more eager to do all I can to boost her writing confidence.  

But right off the bat this tale-telling was a mess. The first page of a six-page story contained the introduction of not one-two-three-four-five characters, mentioned by name. There were nine (I counted) energetic beings fluttering about saying this and that to each other. Or maybe they were talking to themselves? Who could hear anything with all that noise?

.

It occurred to me that one of the things we do when we write is to discipline and structure. A great storyteller does this also, but in a more casual way. If you tell a story orally and mention a whole host of cousins and their best friends, then never get back to them, it is atmospheric and gives a sense of a large gathering. If you write of a myriad of cousins and their friends, whether you get back to them or not, it is an overcrowded mess.

I made the same mistake with my written stories in my earlier writing, though nine characters on the first page was not a record I achieved.

Too many ingredients don’t make a better dish.

I read her story to the end. There was a story there. That was the good news. Good storytellers know what a story is and what it isn’t. But it needed some real work, beginning with a clean up of the overcrowded entryway.

I felt like the parent who came home to her teen’s rumpus party, and had to yell, “Party’s over!” and disperse the crowd.

Luckily my friend is as wise as she is earnest in trying to figure out the best way to discipline the tale. She not only did a face-palm and exclaimed that my observation was spot-on. The second draft looked nothing like the first. My friend is on her way to surpass anything I've ever done in writing.

This post is a happy-ending story

Positivisms

Sometimes it’s what’s needed.

The griping and groaning of winter must give way to spring, better late than never.

So-

Here’s a mini pep talk. Feel free to re-read as often as you like.

Sending a

^Bear Hug^

‘Cause you’re the-

^Cat’s Meow^

Delightful as a –

^Barrel of Monkeys^

As deeply---

^Wise as an Owl^

And for sticking with this post to the end-

^As patient as a Hen-bird^

*Welcome Spring*