To GLOSSARY or Not to GLOSSARY

On a kid-lit chat board a writer asked for input on whether a glossary is advisable when writing fiction set in another time or place.

Good experienced writers chimed in, and most were in favor. I was in the minority.

I have nothing against glossaries. Some of my best friends are… er, working on and with them. Most of us, who spent many years in school reading non fiction, are comfortable with them. A good friend is working on an academic project that will yield the definitive glossary to a fourteenth century poem. Let me tell you, it’s a lot of work. Glossaries have my respect.



Glossaries freed us from having to remember a definition after looking it up in a separate book the first time. There was always the Glossary of Terms, in the trusty back of these textbooks. Isn’t it an advantage if literary fiction for children looks more like a textbook, now with the New Common Core standards for Language Arts curriculums?

But that is my reservation. They give a book a textbook feel. Glossaries interrupt pleasure reading. They should rarely be used in trade fiction.

It’s much more challenging to find a way to make the paragraphs vivid, complete, and comprehendible without the easy and neat use of a glossary.

My fun example:

“She left the Shtetl* and never looked back. Her Bubbe** might cry a bisel,*** but she didn’t give bupkes.****”

*Shtetl= a segregated Jewish quarter, typical of European cities and towns until the mid 20^th C.

**Bubbe= Grandmother
***Bisl= a little bit
****Bupkes= trivial, little, not much (literally Polish for “beans.”)

 

All right, the example is flavorful. The equivalent- “She left her childhood home in the Jewish quarter and never looked back. Her grandma might cry a little, but she didn’t give beans” does not have the exact same feel. But the first isn’t fun to read unless Yiddish is your second language.

 

I had thought about this long and hard when writing The Voice of Thunder, set in another time and place but written for American young readers. I managed to use a little Hebrew and work the English meaning in as seamlessly as I could. I felt I had succeeded when Kirkus referred to the book’s “readable style.” Mazal Tov*- Success!

 

;=) *Mazal Tov= Hebrew for “Congratulations!” (Literally “good luck.”)

 

Love and Kisses

I felt a bit remiss for letting Valentine’s Day pass this year with nary a bloggish mention, when I ran into this-

“People who throw kisses are hopelessly lazy.”

                                                                                       Bob Hope

And it occurred to me that expressions of love on electronic posts are a form of laziness, too. Too easy, too casual, too nothing.

This is my excuse for not posting electronically virtual chocolate wishes.

But even if belated, I had to share this image. This is one way the blogosphere excels. It allows me to  throw some art I love your way. 

Because I *do* love you for bothering to stop by, and you deserve at least this much---

©Shelagh Duffett

Ah, THE ODDS

Or- these L-o-o-ng Odds

Everyone knows that the odds of winning the lottery are almost as small as if you never enter.

The odds of being a working actor are not great, and the odds of earning a living from such are frighteningly closer to winning the lottery. The odds of being a traditionally published writer are better- as much as one percent for those who improve, learn and persist in trying for at least ten years. I heard this figure from someone who may possibly know, and even if the number is off, you get the point.

DD is now embarking on a road where the odds are long. How many of the million plus who try every year actually get to have the life of a classical music performer? The odds are not so good.

As a mother, I feel that it’s all right for me to do something where the odds are long, but not for my precious children. You can bang the rubber bat on my head as many times as you feel you must, but not on my children’s heads. I don’t want them to get hurt.

But DD has the right attitude- she is living this life already, working at it and having a spectacular time. I look at her relishing the process, and think about how I've come to look at what I do.

It’s in the process, babe. The odds can go fly a kite.

Must We All Become Marketers?

A few weeks ago I attended a writers’ presentation where the subject was how to make the most of Author Visits.

Author Visits and Author Events are what published writers are expected to do to promote their work. Whether these are readings in bookstores or libraries, school visits, or (for the A-listers of the major presses) radio-TV interviews, all qualify.

The presenter was a charming and energetic writer of many published picture books. She was informative and funny, a winning combination. But-

She also had a background in marketing.

Her day job, something most writers must have, was in marketing not related to the book business. Her approach to establishing a career in writing showed that special training and attitude I have come to associate with publicists.

It had taken me a few weeks to digest her presentation. I had to absorb not only the details I may possibly be able to implement in my own life, but to accept that when it comes to what the world values, it is not about pure merit.

It is about a certain level of competence combined with spectacular marketing.

We all know the tales of the solitary types, the J.D. Salinger writers, who wouldn't give an interview. They are the outliers times ten. Most writers cannot afford to hide. Salinger couldn't either, until he became The Salinger.

I’m still mulling over how I do or don’t fit in. It’s called finding oneself, and it doesn't end when you leave your teens. All matters of this world are works in progress, or the writers’ acronym: WIP.

I hope your WIP are rolling along. I hope you have the energy to market.

Mixed Legacy

When a famous man died this month, the media referred to his “mixed legacy.”

Got me thinking. Which one of us, when truth is told, will not have a mixed legacy? Except for saints, who among us is all-virtuous? Or all-villainous?

Characters in fiction of yesteryear may carry these distinctions. I couldn’t write or even conjure such characters. I just never met one personally, and I need this personal connection as a hook to hang my characters’ jackets on. 

 Literary clichés aside, I’m already on record for abhorring black and white stances. It is challenging and frustrating at times, with advice to “up the stakes” and make one’s writing less aware of the gray tones mixture that is us.

My challenge, as I revise and work my way to the best stories I can, is to keep them interesting, illuminating, and allow all my characters their right to a mixed legacy.

The Worry-Willies

A dear friend just got some amazing news. Good news. Call it great news.

It didn’t take long to start worrying about everything that could go wrong. I told her she had just let the Worry-Willies in.

I know them well, those pesky worries. I think they are built into our DNA, and my ancestors got a double dose. 

It doesn't help that most of us misinterpret Murphy’s Law (“anything that can go wrong, eventually will”) as a law of physics that will apply to our personal journeys.

FYI- Murphy’s law is not a law, it’s an adage. It’s a cliché. We writers know better than to let clichés in, or do we?

So how to deal with the Worry-Willies? It’s not enough to “just say NO. “ Heavens, that’s another cliché.

In the past I have tackled those with reason. The odds are well in our favor, at least for most positive developments. But if reason were enough, we wouldn't be overwhelmed with worries to begin with, because worrying doesn't usually help matters.

I am open and eager for any and all personal insight, strategies, and wisdom. Goodness, I’ll even take recipes. Call it the Wash Away Worries Forum, and come-on down.

Andy’s Green Underpants

Yet another of the shattering factoids I've run into was that Andy Warhol always wore green underpants.

Who knew?

Who cares?

Obviously Andy did, or he wouldn't have done  it.

This made me think. What undisclosed facts do I store when I create fictional characters?

Some who write have extensive notes on every character, most of which do not make it explicitly to the page. I have never done this.

But there is one bit I do, most of the time. My characters have middle names. These middle names are not usually for the reader. They’re for me. They serve as a sort of secret layer. They tell of the family, or a quirky parent. Except for characters from Israel, where middle names are still uncommon, all my characters have middle names as well as last names.

I started with a factoid, and will leave you with another. Richard Gere’s middle name is Tiffany. See what I mean by evocative? 

Best Advice I Got*

*This week, anyway

           
          “Redeem those gift-cards.”

            Eh?

            It is a known fact that the US retail industry made 6.8 billion dollars last year from gift cards that no one redeemed. In fact, they repeat this feat every year, year after year, and the number of $ is growing.

Post holidays, post birthdays, post whatever it was-

            Redeem. You were meant to. This is commanded spending. Another way to say- it’s the all right kind of spending, because it’s wrong not to.

            Go ahead; don’t leave it in the store. Don’t let those retailers sell it to someone else. That sweater, that book, that whatchamacallit- they are yours already and looking forlorn without you.

            My pep talk for self moments ago. Just wanted to pass it on.

It’s a New Year. Let us make a dent in that 6.8 billion. Let us resolve to get it down to, say, 3.4 billion. We can do this.

RESOLUTIONS

“I think in terms of the day’s resolutions, not the years’.”

Henry Moore

Because it took me a few years to realize how unhelpful New Year’s resolutions were for me, I thought I’d express my gratitude to any and all who happen to read this post by sharing Henry Moore’s hard-earned wisdom.

It’s so tempting, though, to make a resolution to mark the end of something, and the beginning of something else. Because others have said it better, I will sign with yet another quotation. It will have to be my only New Year’s resolution, so as to not betray the first quotation.

“Come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness.”

William Shakespeare

Cheers!

Letting Go

Yesterday morning, the youngest of our adopted kittens decided to sneak out and explore the great big world out there. Only four-months old and almost, but not quite, done with the vaccinations he’d need to be an outdoor feline fellow, his first outdoor adventure was scheduled for the beginning of March.

Little Sokolov had other ideas. A half-day later, with the sun going down and the temperature dropping, I notified the microchip company that he was officially lost. I notified the neighbors, and the original shelter he came from. I cried inside, stroked his brother and older sister who looked for him everywhere. DD and I walked the neighborhood, and I made a poster ready to be put up the nearby streets the next morning. 

As I was falling asleep, well past midnight, I thought about how I’d have to let go of this little guy. I thought about the work that kept me busy that day, revising (again, yup) my latest MG novel, and how I was not ready to let go of either and send them to the cold reality out there. I thought about DD, getting ready for auditions that will set her out into that same world of cold shoulders, indifference, and possible bruising encounters. I thought about DS, and how hard it was the first few weeks after he moved into his own place, only two miles away.

That’s a lot of letting go, and letting go- I must learn to do.

As the two kitties left behind snuggled up on top of me, they refused to give up the prime space on my chest and squeezed themselves against each other in a way I had never seen them do before. I made the conscious effort to breath as deeply as I could, (a real feat when you have fourteen pounds of cat on your chest) and said, repeatedly, “Thank you for the time we had together. Now go out and do wonderful things.”

I realized I was talking to little Sokolov, to DD, and to my novel, all at once.

I fell asleep as calm as a cucumber, if I could ever figure out this bizarre expression.

At three forty three in the morning, Sokolov marched in and plopped himself on top of the kitty-pile. Maybe he was not ready to let go. Maybe I am not, either. But if our time here is a journey worth having, I think I've seen a hint of a mile-post down the road.

And after posting here, I’m bouncing my fingers straight to the microchip company’s site to give the good news. He’s ba-a-a-ack!

The Night Before Christmas

I didn't grow up in Christmas Country, or, as my grandmother put it, with Christmas-People. But I have no issue whatsoever with being wished a Merry Christmas, because if you want to include me in your holiday and wish me well, my heart is gladdened.

“Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.”

Mary Ellen Chase

My wish to all is that on this Christmas Eve, and all the eves to follow, your children are tucked in a warm bed, and all feel safe and loved.

Full Moon

Full moon tonight.

So?

Confession: I’m not one for astrology or star alignment studies. If these interest you, I mean no offense, nor do I know much about it. I just don’t get the attraction to explore and classify in this way.

But the phases of the moon are a different matter. The Jewish calendar is a modified lunar calendar, and our holidays revolves around it. The full moon and the new moon tell of what part of the month we’re in. The part of the month tells of the next holiday. Most Jewish holidays fall on a full moon.

Realizing it’s tonight, brought back the last full moon at our home, about a month ago, and the howling and powerful gusty night we had.

We lost power a bit after nine PM. In the pitch dark, it dawned on me that the only ones home, beside myself, were two new kittens and one older cat we had just adopted. DD was babysitting a few houses down, and DH had gone to a local board meeting. The challenge for me was not only to find candles, but to find places to put them where the cats would not knock them down. I managed three such places.

I called DD to see if she was alright with the two three-year-olds in her charge. They were more than fine. The little girls each own an IPad, and they were streaming a children’s movie. The little ones, just like my kittens, were anything but sleepy. Not the darkness, but the powerful gusts kept everyone enervated, for good (the kids) and for bad (me and the older of our cats, who mewed and ran all over the place for hours.)

When the grandparents returned, DH returned also because the meeting was canceled. He went with a flashlight to walk DD back. She promptly went to sleep, while her mother (me) couldn't sleep all night. Not only was the house rattling, but things were slamming against it, two widows popped open from the pressure, and our car alarm (as well as other alarms) kept going off because of things slamming against it.

But it was my husband who reminded me that we didn't need the candles after all. He opened all the curtains, and the light of the full moon came flooding in.

By the time the windstorm was over, there were a few deaths and a lot of debris all over town. Just one house-length up our street a tall pine tree was down, blocking most of the Avenue. As our utilities are underground, this had nothing to do with the outage we had. But driving around it was impossible. I had to walk to the other side of the street to retrieve our garbage containers. 

It’s nothing when compared to the disaster in the Philippines, but it was as strong a wind as I’d want to experience for a long time. I have been in one hurricane in New York, (turned out not to be much) and one in Florida, (they know how to handle those there) but this was the most whoosh-wow wind-storm I recall, even counting these.

Calmer full moon tonight, please.

© Shelagh Duffet

You Can’t Chew With Someone Else’s Teeth

Writers and actors always attempt this impossibility- chewing with someone else’s teeth. We know it as speaking for another character. But there was a poignant reason this Yiddish saying came to my mind yesterday afternoon.

I was running an errand and passed the large beggar-lady who is perennially parked, in her wheel chair, on the corner of College and Ashby Avenue.  I had dropped coins in her cup in the past, though I usually just walk on by. I pass that corner a lot, and I can become oblivious to the fixtures that are always there. Life’s busy-busy-busy, y’know?

The Beggar-lady is always carefully covered with a thick blanket, and while I can’t see her disability, she is clearly down on her luck. She isn't starving, because her abundant body testifies shortage of food is not  the most immediate problem. But her distorted features, her one permanently sewn-shut eye, suggest struggles few will know outside of fiction.

‘Tis the season, and more passers-by were dropping coins and bills in her cup. But I could hear she was trying to make them slow down, and was asking for something. No one stopped long enough to listen. Busy-Busy. The beggar-lady didn't help her cause by starting every approach with an “Excuse me Sir, Ma’am, can I trouble you for something?” and no one seemed to stay long enough to hear what that something was.

Not sure why I slowed down then. Maybe because our Hanukkah has passed, and the others’ Christmas is a couple of weeks away and, well, maybe I just didn't feel that busy. But when the beggar-lady put this to me, I stopped before plopping a quarter her way.

“Can I trouble you for some milk and stale bread?” she said. “I’ll pay you, it’s just that they won’t let me in the store.” She offered me a few dollars, but I waved them off.

I told her I would go to the grocery-store half a block away and be right back. The whole way there, I wondered why she asked for stale bread. I bought a pint of milk and the best fresh bread they had, and came right back. The beggar lady blessed me, and when she smiled I saw she was missing a few teeth.

I began walking away, pondering all the while what a person with missing teeth would have done with stale hard bread. It even occurred to me that the use of the word “stale” was kind of odd. Not “day-old,” or plain “old.” She said “stale.” Funny.

Then I looked back. From underneath her blanket, the beggar lady pulled out a miniature dog. She carefully tore the very fresh bread I had just bought, dipped a piece in the milk, and offered it to her dog.

You really, truly, can’t chew with someone else’s teeth. That’s what I've been thinking about.

On Miracles

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.
~Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

This is what occurred to me the other day, when I thought about the oil that lasted eight times longer than the mavens said it would.

Our very being is miraculous. If the holiday lights remind us of the beauty of life, the miracle of existing, and having the awareness to marvel at it all- the celebration is on.

Happy Hanukkah, one and all!

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

We adopted three cats from a local shelter, and the quest for their names was in full swing. The shelter gave them perfectly good names, but we had to re-name them. It was as if they needed to be “re-born” at their new home, and heaven help them forget who they were before, and, please, may they remember who they are now.

You can tell from my tone that I would have left their shelter-names in place, though two were kittens who will likely accept their new identities. The older cat had a name before she was found, but no one knows what it was. So everyone gets a new start at the Breens.

The discussion for who should be called what was rather revealing of the humans who dwell here. Considering that the older female wound up as Clara Schumann and one of the youngsters is now Sokolov, named after the great pianist Grigory Sokolov, you get a pretty good idea about this musical home. The felines, by the way, show little attraction to the piano when it is played, which it is, for hours, every day. But one can always hope.

The third cat got away from the classical scene with the name Monk. Our favorite television show’s detective is nothing like his name’s sake. Kitten Monk is the most social and gregarious of the bunch.

I read that William E. Boeing, who founded United Airlines, named his pet Pekingese General Motors. I don’t do revenge-naming, but I applaud a good one. Our little Monk almost seems like a sarcastic naming, but it was shortened from his shelter name, Monkey, which was a far better fit for this guy.

I’m only glad my brood does not get to name my fictional characters. I follow the Old Testament and name for qualities or themes. The Hebrew Bible has the resonance of a fable because every single name is symbolically meaningful in the original. It’s lost in translation, where, for example, the name “Ruth” no longer sounds like “companion/friend,” an allusion to her being the first convert who expressed loyalty to her adoptive family. How many would name their girls Leah if they heard the meaning, “weary/tired?” The biblical matriarch was just that. With eleven kids and being almost blind, who can blame her?

I focus, and find my way to characters’ names. Names can be trendy, and accrue connotations over the years. I think and feel my way to a name, and know when I've got it. When the name is right, the character begins to speak.

Monk, Sokolov and Clara Schumann are too busy chasing a string to be talking much.

Who Is Smart?

Where did I leave my favorite pen?

For as long as I can remember I had a tendency to put things someplace, then forget where. Having made this statement, you’d be smart to wonder if I can be trusted to remember whether I have always been this way, or it is a sign of my all-around feeble mind.

I also remember being thought of as smart. But why? Says who? My report card?

I read that squirrels can remember up to ten thousand hiding places where they squirreled away their nuts. Squirrels are more then smart. By this measure they are brilliant.

I pity the researchers who sat and counted ten thousand different nut-hiding places. I wonder how smart they had to be to know the places were all distinct. They had to be smart at counting, that’s for sure.

I’d settle for finding my pen.

And the Medal Goes to…

Medals are funny things.

I know, I know. You’re thinking medals can be many things: heavy, beautiful, or pointless. But funny?

Today they struck me as funny. I read that between 1928 and 1948 twelve Olympic medals were awarded for… Town Planning. I need to investigate that one. Did they run a race?

Maybe I’m a bit giddy because my novel for middle grades recently won a medal. No, not the Nobel or the Newbery. Here it is:

A Moonbeam Bronze medal is lovely. You can see my book, THE VOICE OF THUNDER, beaming back at it, can’t you?

Actually, the book doesn't care, and I can’t see its author walking around wearing a medal. It didn't make a good book better, nor is it likely to improve sales. But the day I got the notice was a nice day.

Bet those town planners liked getting theirs, too. I hope they thought it was a wee bit funny, too. If we can’t laugh at the way we make and give value, we’ll take ourselves entirely too seriously.

Giving Value

I must have inherited my parents’ dislike of “so what” purposeless or banal writing. A story, a blog post, heavens- even a comment on another’s blog post from me- must have some point. That hard-to-define thing called value.

It was easier for King Edward the VII, who was reputed to weigh his house guests after house parties at his Sandrigham estate. His majesty wanted to make sure they had eaten well. It also helped that he was a royal highness, because none of my house-guests would be so obliging.

But how to evaluate value? How do you know if what you put out there, whether a poem or a pie, has a point and a purpose? Is it entirely subjective? Completely personal?

I don’t know how to answer this in a way that won’t embarrass me tomorrow. I only know that I try to do it. And that value is, to me, some gained wisdom.

Edward the VII had one answer that could be literally weighed and measured. I’m always looking for mine.

Your Heroic Life

A dear friend, whom I've known since seventh grade, lamented at her lack of worldly achievements while her friends were reaping the rewards of lives dedicated to public service and career building.

I gasped inwardly, because this friend has led a heroic life, incomparable to anyone I know. I told her so, and she found the word heroic funny.

I told her I would make a list for her, and it would contain only a fraction of her real achievements, because there are many, and more that I don’t even know.

In the seventh grade she was plucked from her life, her country, her language, and her family moved to Israel. She was placed in a Hebrew-only regular school where we met. She managed to make friends (while limping linguistically) and graduate at the top of our class. If only this had been her achievement, it would have been enough. But there’s more.

Her senior year of high school her only brother, two years older and in the army, was killed on the first day of the Yom Kippur War. Her family was never the same; she became the best daughter her bereaved parents could have, filling the place of two when now there was only one. To this day she is the keeper of her brother’s memory, doing what their parents would if they could. If this were all, it would have been enough. But there’s more.

She married young and had three children. One of her children is autistic. Not “on the spectrum,” as many who are mildly socially impaired and receive this diagnosis, but think back a few years when the diagnosis was given to what we now think of as severe impairment. She kept her child at home and cared for her child. Beautifully, patiently, conscientiously. She does to this day. If this were all, it would have been enough. But there’s more.

Both her parents succumbed to senile dementia and for years before their death she cared for them as well, now that they had no other children. If that were all, it would have been more than enough.

And she did all this while building her marriage and filling it with love, devotion, and admiration for her husband. I know few couples who have the bond and mutual respect these two have. This, too, would have been enough.

But, no- there’s more. While at it, she completed advance degrees and went to work in a skilled and specialized field. She did this a bit later than others, for all the reasons I already listed. So now she is not the person running the place but the one who actually does the work…

This is for you, my dear friend.

The Congressional Medal of Honor is but a small token for your heroism. I’d give it to you in spades.

 The rest of us may choose to remember that, when we count our medals and trophies, we can choose not to look at the empty mantle. Let's not discount the real deal.

Call Me Irresistible

I've read that the author of Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie, kept ordering Brussels sprouts but never ate them. His explanation was that he found saying the words irresistible. 

The vegetable was eminently resistible, but the words were just too tempting not to say. Again and again. And again.

My late mother, a talented writer, lamented that she couldn't resist the word nifty. She found it not very nifty to have this nifty word in every other sentence.

My second editor for The Voice of Thunder noted that I have overused the word now. Now then, why now here and now there when we know this happened long ago and the tense is past? Now go and slash ‘em now-words wherever you can. She was right.

They’re known as tick words. Most of us mortals have them. You don’t have to be a writer to notice this in yourself.

But writers must pay heed. Resist, and order something else. Maybe something you’d like to eat.

Unsung Heroes in Publishing

When I look at a book cover, I see the author’s name. When they are not the same person, I see the author and the illustrator’s names. On the spine I glimpse the publishing house’s name. Somewhere inside the cover there may be a few more bits about the book.

Here’s what’s missing: the editors.

I've thought about this before. Unless authors choose to thank editors in the acknowledgment page, their names are never known, like ghost writers.

Anyone fortunate to work with a good editor, as I have been a few times, knows how important they are to the process. Anthologies give editors credit for choosing the pieces that make the book. Is the role of the editor any less when working with a single author?

I can just hear the sighs now. A reader doesn't care who edited, the sighers say. Only other writers may care. Well, this is probably so. Readers probably don’t care who wrote it, only if they like it. Readers may not care, but publishers could still make such acknowledgements de rigueor. This post by the writer Avi made me want to write today’s post here.

The slew of secret writer-props may include their secret agent, secret beta readers, secret critique partners and more. It’s gracious to thank them, but it is not part of the format. A writer may choose not to. Think about this- Tolstoy’s long suffering wife wrote out the drafts of War and Peace in longhand for him six or seven times, but who’s counting? That’s War and Peace, folks, not a short poem. I didn't call her l-o-n-g-suffering for nothing.

But did he thank her? I will here: thank you, Sophia Tolstaya. 

Whether or whom to thank is an author’s choice. But I wonder if it isn't time to make the editors names part of the copyright page.

Who For?

James Joyce’s wife, Nora Barnacle, once asked him, “Why don’t you write books people can read?”

Now if your name is Nora Barnacle, (can you beat that?) I suppose you can say anything.

But this brought up a question anyone who does anything will eventually post to self: who are you doing it for?

Clearly, James’ audience wasn't Nora.

My late father said to me, more than once, “why do you write for younger readers? When will you write for real people?”

I know. You’re shaking your head. Kids are real people, you’re thinking. My father knew that. But he wanted me, I’m guessing now, to write for older folks. Such as himself.

I don’t like to answer for others. But at some point it’s good to ask oneself who you are reaching out to when you imagine a reader.

It’s easy for me, almost too easy. I write for the child I was, and still am. 

Time and Social Media

Imagine having a full-time job reading tweets. Well, there are such jobs.

I read that the CIA reads five million tweets a day. By the time I’m done typing this, it’s probably a whole lot more.

Disclosure: I’m not a tweeter, or a twit, as DH likes to call it.

I blog here, and have a Facebook account I should be more attentive to. I have a homemade un-jazzy website, and adore Verla Kay’s BlueBoard, the best hangout place for us Kid-lit(t)ers, a.k.a. those who write for children.

I have “Internet presence” though not quite “a platform,” phrases bandied about in Marketing 101 courses. This is all good, and I should strive to make it better. Maybe join the tweeters, and give the CIA more work.

Here’s the sacred line I will not cross: the real communication work, for me, is writing stories. It comes before the rest. What’s more, real life is when I de-couple from the keyboard and make dinner for my family, or walk with a friend.

Real life and real work come first.

So if you are reading this to take a coffee break with me, I love you for stopping by, and I hope the coffee’s good, too. Just don’t, please, use it as a way to do less of the rest. 

And the CIA? I think they have enough to do.