Galileo and the Scientific Truth

On this date, February 26, in the year of our Lord 1616, Galileo Galilei was formerly banned by the Roman Catholic Church from teaching or defending the view that the earth orbits the sun.

Now, I am not anti-Catholic (emphatically not) or anti-religious. The church had its reasons, with worry that challenging this dogma would lead to questioning all dogmas, an unstoppable process. Indeed, history showed this fear to be justified, and the loss of dogmatic faith that had already begun then, continues to this day. The church had reasons to fear that the baby will be thrown out with the bathwater, an expression so vivid I’m using it despite it being a cliché.

The thing is, four centuries later and a formal reversal of this ban by the church itself, we still ban thinking that we fear will lead to abuses of the social fabric and result in hurtful conduct. Only now, it is happening in the name of freethinking.

We haven’t changed. We’re still terrified of our own species propensity to abuse one another, and in the name of protecting us from ourselves we fire/take-down/ban/shun uncomfortable ideas.

I know real tolerance and considered debate when I see it. We’re not there yet.

Saluting the brave Galileos out there. You give humanity some hope.

TITLES and Working Titles

In one of the funniest episodes of the TV series Seinfeld, Elaine wants to impress a famous Russian novelist with her inside knowledge. “Did you know that War and Peace was not Tolstoy’s original title? The original was War—WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?”

She was half-right. The working title was The Year 1805.

Stories abound, which I cannot vouch for, that many famous titles almost weren’t.

The Great Gatsby’s working title was The High Bouncing Lover.

To Kill a Mocking Bird’s working title was Atticus.

Of Mice and Men’s working title was Something that Happened.

Titles are an art all its own. If you ever marveled at a beautifully wrapped gift only to find that the content was less impressive, you got a glimpse as to what great titles can do. They are an enticing invitation to look inside without revealing the content. Fiction titles are evocative, not informative.

Titles cannot be copyrighted. They are often the brainchild of the publisher, not the author. Most publishing contracts don’t even give the author the right to veto a title they don’t care for.

For myself, I consider all my titles to be working-titles only. The title serves as a lamppost to remind me where or what or even why I’m telling this story, and sometimes whose story it is. But once the last line of the first draft materializes, all bets are off. I got to the finish line in one piece, and renaming the journey is wide open.

Writerly Routines

Most folks have routines that get them going no matter what sort of work they do.

Most writers I know, or know of, do their creative work in the morning. If writing is in addition to their day job, this means very early morning.

No matter when or what, routines help. It’s unglamorous. Admitting that you don’t write drunk into the wee hours of the night with existential despair as page after page is scrapped because you won’t give up until you have something--- doesn't sound arty.
(Oh-so very unlike Dashiell Hammett, at least as depicted in Lillian Hellman’s Pentimento.)

Most writers have a set routine and write no matter where inspiration chooses to dwell any given day. Most workers go to work no matter how enthusiastic they feel at a particular moment. Same thing.

© Luci Gutierrez for the New Yorker

My morning routine is as uninspiring as it is grounding. With small necessary adjustments, it generally goes something like this:

*Woken up by Nougat, one of my three cats. She thinks she’s an alarm clock.

*Thanking her, and thanking G-d for returning my soul to me. It’s a Jewish prayer that sets the day right.

*Making my bed. The other cats come in to help, with great merriment for all.

*Cleaning litter boxes, changing water bowls, filling the food bowls. Felines have priority because of all their help.

*Making strong tea with foamy milk. Drinking it, doing my best to keep cats off the foam.

*A short meditation. It’s supposed to be quiet time, but the cats determine this as well.

*Turn on the computer. Open WORD.

*I’m ON IT.

Two hours or so later, DH gets up and the rest of the day commences. That means coffee, breakfast, and the busy-busy stuff.

Do you have routines to get going?

The Lunar Year Begins

Living in the San Francisco bay area, the celebrations of the lunar calendar are evident.

The East Asian Lunar New Year celebrations are, or were historically, based on the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar (occurring in late January or early February)

·         Chinese New Year

·         Japanese New Year (prior to 1873)

·         Korean New Year (Seollal)

·         Mongolian New Year (Tsagaan Sar) – may be celebrated a month later

·         Tibetan New Year (Losar) – celebrated a month later

·         Vietnamese New Year (Tết)

Today, February 5^th  2019, is the first day of the Lunar New Year and this time it’s ...

The year of the PIG.

If you are celebrating, many blessing on you. If you’re not, why not?

!Wishing peace and prosperity to all!

Social Media Stress and the Take Down

Apparently, that’s a thing. And it’s not funny.

Social Media Stress, not to be confused with Social Media Phobia, is what happens when you live your real life on social media. It causes some to compare their lives unfavorably to the glowing images streaming through the feed.

But there is a darker more noxious aspect to this stress--     The Take Down.

And so I watched one Facebook friend whom I know in real life disappear from the virtual space because of a barrage of attack-comments, something I later learned is called a “take down” campaign. This particular friendly acquaintance shared many family events and relatives' successful milestones on social media. Something in the life of one of her nearest has rubbed someone wrong, very wrong. Then came the attack dogs, mostly under pseudonyms, and now none of us can see her anymore.

The stress was too much.

The Scarlet Letter, a book taught in English lit classes to the young as a cautionary tale of a society gone hysterically wrong, has had the opposite effect. Young’uns have taken to social media to shame and hang a label when politics or social stance or even a less than thoughtful comment somewhere don’t align with their own. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850’s novel lives on, not as a record of what we don’t do anymore, but as blueprint of how it was done back then before we had better tools.

I’m sad. Especially when the shamers carry the flag of diversity and inclusion. I guess tolerance does not apply to people who don’t think like them. I once knew a vegetarian who said he was ready to kill people who ate meat. No kidding. Totalitarian Liberals fall under the same flag, and with them, we’re all taken down.

This is my plea for real diversity: race, religion, identity, sexual preference, and varied political affiliation. All are welcome in my life.

And if I ever am called on such on social media, I hope I can manage the stress. Probably not. But then, you wouldn’t know because I will cease to be here.

How to Popularize a Blog

Ahm...Not

As one whose blog is not the talk of the town, I am an authority on how not to have a blog that gets attention.

When I began blogging, it was at the urging of the small publisher who contracted my book. I had been following a few blogs, but not faithfully. One of my literate friends huffed that writers who blog are giving away their pearls for free, and another writing friend said it gobbled up precious real writing time. So I dipped my toes in with hesitation and little hope that I could do it right.

I looked at blogs that had many followers, and three things stuck out: they either were –
A. Constantly updated resources of useful information
B. Vociferously political bordering on the trolling side
C. Or they were enormously entertaining.

The resource-rich blogs are still staples of the blogosphere, and require work and dedication, as well as passion for the field they serve as resources for. I had to face that, for me, that sort of time and effort is reserved for writing fiction. What is left at the end of the day is all for family and friends.

A couple of examples of excellent resource blogs:

 the amazing Jane Freidman’s, about the business and the craft of writing —

https://www.janefriedman.com/blog/

And Evelyn Christensen’s, (technically not a blog but a website though a periodical E-zine makes it almost a blog,) about writing for the educational market—

http://www.evelynchristensen.com/markets.html 

[It helps, and gives the blog some gravitas, if the aggregator/editor is an authority in the field. Be it Tech-support, Make-up, travelling or writing.]

The political sorts of blogs are not only unsuitable for me, (I am hopelessly centrist there) but I personally have the impediment of becoming nauseous in their vicinity. This is why I won’t give examples of such, though I doubt you need it.

So that left the enormously entertaining, and there I continue to try with occasional success, (minus the “enormously”) which is where my modest weekly strolls have found me.

The thing is, I have found it pleasant and worthwhile, and that’s the best part of doing anything. That’s a variation of “doing it right,” which is right for me right now.

Heroes— Faux or Fearless

“Courage is not the towering oak 
that sees storms come and go;

It is the fragile blossom 
that opens in the snow.”

― Alice Mackenzie Swaim

Not only the news, but also all fiction (save some literary strains) focuses on active heroism. Rescue someone from a fire, face a serial killer, stand up to a bully and punch ‘em back, and a story worth the readers’ time is also deemed worth telling.

Thus, we lose the heroes of everyday that are all around us. Those who carry on while others give them nary a glance, those who continue to think independently in times and places where pressure to conform is overwhelming. As they remain authentic, they do not convert this independence to a ruckus riot.

And most of all, those who retain their creativity and humanity while humbly considering others’ feedback, but not breaking under the weight of negation.

So many of the people in my life are heroes. I salute them. Maybe we should write more stories about them. The quiet blossoms in the snow.

Placebo as the Real Deal

PLACEBO:

Noun: placebo; plural noun: placebos

1.     A harmless pill, medicine, or procedure prescribed more for the psychological benefit to the patient than for any physiological effect.

"His Aunt Beatrice had been kept alive on sympathy and placebos for thirty years"

2.     A substance that has no therapeutic effect, used as a control in testing new drugs.

3.     A measure designed merely to calm or please someone.
 {{From the Latin meaning "I shall please"}

I have a friend who is a retired physician. She insists that most doctors don’t know much most of the time. But she also says that appearing to be in the know and having a Ms./Mr. Fix-it demeanor is half of the treatment right there.

This didn’t make me happy to hear. We pay a lot of good money for what might be a fifty percent pretend.

In an article in the New York Times Magazine (November 10, 2018) the question as to whether placebo is part of the cure seems to be settled. The power of the mind was scientifically vindicated, sending the western scientific method into uncharted territory.

Seems to me this pertains to the rest of our endeavors. It tells me that if I think I can, I am already halfway there. In certain instances, I am all the way there.

So marching on, and encouraging ‘y’all to believe. Not in fairies, but in the power of the tales they tell.

Greeting a NEW YEAR

To the purely rational mind, January first is just another day. This year it is a Tuesday. Another Tuesday.

But the change of a digit on the year-counter has an almost magical effect on the parts of us that are not purely rational.

A new year, and a parade of new hopes and dreams.

Some take stock in the year that just ended, achievements and regrets. I find myself doing that on the Jewish New Year, (Rosh Hashanah) as the ten days that follow it are meant to be days of reflection culminating in atonement. The secular New Year (Gregorian counter) is a time for renewed oomph and hope. No resolutions, just a vow to march on with stars in my eyes.

On January first, the verses of Thomas Hardy’s (1840-1928) Song of Hope are singing in my ears:

O sweet To-morrow! - 
After to-day 
There will away 
This sense of sorrow. 
Then let us borrow 
Hope, for a gleaming 
Soon will be streaming, 
Dimmed by no gray - 
No gray! 

While the winds wing us 
Sighs from The Gone, 
Nearer to dawn 
Minute-beats bring us; 
When there will sing us 
Larks of a glory 
Waiting our story 
Further anon - 
Anon! 

Doff the black token, 
Don the red shoon, 
Right and retune 
Viol-strings broken; 
Null the words spoken 
In speeches of rueing, 
The night cloud is hueing, 
To-morrow shines soon - 
Shines soon!

Happy New Year!

Christmas Weather

In some places it is---

In some it is---

{Hello, Down under^}

And where I am it is always---

{Even the lights dolphin ^ agrees it's springing spring}

I feel thankful for my Christian friends for sharing their lights with us

Merry Christmas

Interesting...?

There are words that have changed meaning over the generations. Think how cool went from “of or at fairly low temperature” to an expression of admiration and approval, sometime in the 1950s, and to this day. Think of how bad became someone who is super cool in the 1980s.

Words are the writers’ basic tools. So we have to know them and their ever-evolving meaning. Some are obvious when they morph, such as the above. A teen’s comment to another that “you’re so bad” is a statement of praise. Got it. But then there are the super subtle nuanced meanings that require a good ear.

One of these that have perplexed me is the evolution of the word interesting.

When I was growing up, and in the circles I inhabited, this was as high a praise you can bestow on a person or a thing. Aside from the obvious virtues of a principled character, intelligence and a good heart, being interesting is as good as it gets. But when DD became a tween, I discovered it has another meaning.

“Interesting,” she’d say, when she meant, “I don’t care for it but I won’t say that outright.” It is said in a different tone, one that suggests ambivalence. It got so I would follow these statements with a question, “do you mean it’s riveting or that it’s odd in a way you don’t really care for?”

Eventually I just asked,” do you mean ‘interesting!’ or ‘interesting... L’?”

I thought it was a generational thing, or possibly a cultural difference, as I grew up in another country. But recently I got some feedback on a manuscript that began with “Interesting.” After the period came a qualifying sentence that suggested the critic didn’t want to make an outright negative statement, but they were not favorably inclined.

So this other meaning of interesting has crossed over to my generation.

I find the subtleties of language, well, interesting.

Dream, and Dream Some More

My late father was a holocaust survivor who lost every member of his family. He lived this dark nightmare in his teens, and came out of it not only a physical survivor, but also a person capable of deep love for humanity.

When my stepmother asked him how he survived, she was not asking about factual practical details. She was asking about his psyche, which was exceptional in endurance and creativity.

“I dreamed,” he said. “I’m still a dreamer.” I imagine that wherever he is now, he's surely dreaming.

I realize that I’m his daughter in this sense. I have not had to endure the horrors of his youth, but I have had challenging times. From an early age, I, too, dreamed.

When I was in kindergarten, I imagined that I had a real Mickey Mouse for a special friend. My secret pet lived under my bed, where no one else ever saw him. When everyone went to bed, Mickey and I would talk for hours, and he even gave good advice, that mouse.

I continue to dream. Only now, it’s a focused engagement that winds up in the form of manuscripts for young readers. This is part of why first drafting a story is my mental and emotional salvation. The rest of the work is dues I pay for spending so many hours dreaming.

When friends tell me they can’t write fiction, I know they are not focused dreamers. Or perhaps they don’t realize that when they use their imagination to solve problems, there is focused dreaming going on, which they could use in serving a story.

To all you dreamers~~~

Broken Tradition

Third night of Hanukkah, and our yearly holiday party is still not on.

For many years we had a few families get together to light the Hanukkiya, the holiday menorah. I fried latkes and together we sang. Then we ate. The children played Pin the Candle on the Menorah, (yes, that Donkey’s tail had a Jewish version at our house) and spun the dreidel earning unshelled walnuts.

The children grew taller, we grew older, and the parties kept coming regularly on the first Saturday night of Hanukkah.

Ten year ago, my party supplies were ready. Invitations to the party sent, and we were all set. Less than a week before the party my mother died.

I just couldn’t have a party that year. The next year, on the very same date, my father died. No party.

It has stayed broken. Some traditions, once interrupted, just don’t make it back.
Mr. Monk, the feline guardian of the candles^, disappeared right after Hanukkah last year,

But we have the memories, and the stories are for as long as we remember to tell them. Like the story of that time long ago, when the Maccabees fought back and retook the temple and in the holy of holies the light of the Menorah shone again.

May your holiday lights shine bright

NaNoWriMo* Part 2

*I explained this in an old post, here

As the month of November comes to its inevitable conclusion, all across this land writers either pat their own backs because they made it or wail that they did not reach the goal of fifty-thousand words in thirty days. The latter is more common, as it turns out.

I hope that if you participated you made your goal. I hope that if you didn’t make it, it was worth doing anyway.

But I must say I don’t get it.

Writing by the word count is something I finally understood as helpful to pacing in a novel. Butt-in-chair is also something I understand. Sometimes it’s just like that. You have to sit and do it, muse missing. Writing every day is what many think is the only way to do it if you are serious.

But writing with the crowd?

For me, the very notion that I am part of millions doing the same thing at the same time is an anathema. I have no illusions that when I sit down and conjure a story I am doing something no one has ever done before. But, at the same time,I tell myself I’m doing something of singular value. If I don’t do it, it won’t be done.

I also found the value of the self-discipline. "Self" here stands for creating in a pace and a manner assigned to oneself. I struggled with this issue until my late twenties. I had no problem meeting others’ deadlines. But I rarely managed to finish anything that no one was waiting for and that was self-assigned.

Then I found a way, and I’ve been fortunate ever since. Thank you, the great guardian of creativity, for this gift.

If National Writing Month is your thing, I raise a toast to you for the fine effort. I hope the result is just as fine. But if you failed to meet this goal please consider that your way of creating may not fit with this painting party, and keep looking for how *you* work best to do your best work.

Remember to BRE---ATHE~~~

When I was a wee one, one of my teachers used to say, and often, “Remember to breathe.”

This struck me as funny. Who forgets to breathe?

I grew up, and with more breathing lessons under my belt, I understood better what she meant.

Many eastern meditation techniques involve focus on one’s breath. But this expression in western context means do something that takes you off the treadmill and allows your mind to clear before you get on again.

Feeling creatively stuck?

Breathe.

Got bad news?

Breathe.

A dear one is in crisis?

Breathe. Help them. Then breathe again.

For some, to breathe means eating chocolate or sipping a glass of Merlot. (And I do mean sipping, not to be confused with gulping.) For others, to breathe means making contact with a close friend and talking.

For me, it has come to mean go for a walk. Not just a leisurely stroll, but one that involves some hill climbing, which necessitates deep breathing. Yup.

The air quality where I live has been seriously unhealthy for almost two weeks. Devastating fires burning almost two hundred miles away have ushered a layer of dense smoke that wouldn’t quit.

Folks are warned to stay indoors and whatever they do, not do anything that requires physical exertion. In other words: Do Not Breathe.

Under such cautions, I re-discovered my childhood “breathing” activity. I didn’t even know back then that it was a form of breathing.

I lie down and read a great book.

I’m getting some fantastic reading done, and my soul is full of oxygen. On this Thanksgiving week, I am thankful for all the wonderful writers who ever lived and the publishing professionals who had the insight to usher their works into the world so we can breathe.

Remember to breathe, everyone.

This Date in History

~November 13~

Indulge me as I reminisce, combining world history with personal.

The year was 2015, and it was Friday. DS had just moved to Paris, France, to attend graduate school. With the help of a Parisian friend, we found him a small studio on an eighth-floor walkup, something a twenty-year-old can manage even if we wouldn’t want to. It was in a central and hipsterish arrondissement #2, on the right bank of the Seine River, next door to a lovely park and a famous patisserie.

I had a weekly skyping “date” with him, which he had set, every Friday at six in the evening, (for him) nine in the morning. (For me.)

We had just spoken, and all was well.

And then it wasn’t.

In a matter of a few hours, terrorist attacked Paris in various locations and when it was over, more than a hundred and thirty people were dead and a hundred more left in critical condition. Two of the attacks were very close to DS’s location, one only blocks away.

Our Parisian friend was able to call him and find him at home. He was not following the news, so she was his source of warning to stay put and not go out to a café or a stroll, something most young folks living where he was would consider a most natural thing on a pleasant night.

I was reminded of my growing up years in Israel, with traumatized American relatives calling every time Jerusalem managed to make the news. Often these relatives were the ones to let us know what had happened before we knew.

I’d be tempted to say that Paris changed forever, but it’s my understanding that it hasn’t. Like Israel, or New York City after 9/11, the city rebounded, and thus the terrorists lost.

And something else came back to my consciousness. It takes very few people making bad choices to wreak havoc, and very many people making good choices to fix it.

When storytellers construct stories, we usually weigh the protagonists and antagonists evenly, at least numerically. My limited experience in real life reveals otherwise.

Which means we, the many, must work harder if we are to make up for destructive impulses of humankind.

Back to Writing with a Toddler...

...Only this one is feline.

When my kids were little, writing with them present was impossible. First drafting, at least, is something I must do without distractions.

To all who have done it with babies on their knee, my virtual hat is off to you.

When they got older and I was more experienced, I still wrote first drafts when they were at school. One of my kiddos, in particular, had the habit of bursting in with frequent non-emergencies, and for me— managing to stay in “the zone” was not doable.

The empty nest brought three new felines. I missed my kids’ interruptions most of the time, so the cats took over. But the cats respected writing time. They had their things to do, and we all got our work done.

Until now. Enter our newest resident, Miss Nougat.

It’s quieter than ever, with my kids off to peruse their lives far away, and I miss them terribly. But I should be relishing the freedom to first draft with guaranteed quiet.

Nougat has other ideas.

She talks all the time. Not typical meows of her species, but short and long sentences, punctuated with exclamations and question marks. I swear, her vocabulary is very rich.

She also insists I pay attention, resorting to performing tricks, playing ball games, attacking the furniture and if that doesn’t get me to stop what I’m doing and join her, she resorts to folding her ear back so I can gape incredulously.

How is one supposed to write a first draft that isn’t punctuated by #@!~*&^%.......?

G-d love her, every bit. And help me.

J

That’s about where we are. All suggestions welcome.

Personal Process

A few months ago a writer on a kid-lit chat board asked how others approach revising a novel. She’s written many picture book texts, but this was her first novel. After completing the first draft, she was stymied as to the next step. “What do you do?” she asked.

Some responded with links to sites that gave directions, while others made specific suggestions. I realized that I could only speak of the way I work. After all, practice helps, and by now I have some. I haven’t published a lot, but I have written and revised a few middle grade novels, and am now working on a new story.

I copy my response here, because it says all I have to offer and because, as I said, I’m busy first drafting. A good excuse for taking the easy way on this blog today.

So here is my process, which may be of some interest, even as every person must forge their own.

It is personal, and it takes some experience to find how you work best. If you are experienced in Picture Book writing and revising, you might take some of what you have learned about your process to a novel. The only difference is the time invested in each draft and thus, proportionally, the time between revisions.


Speaking for myself, the first draft is a plow forward. I'm a combination planner and a bit of a panster, too. (This means I have a very thin outline before I even start, but the fleshing out is done by the seat of my pants, as the saying goes.) First drafting is the reason I am a writer, and for me the rest is the necessary work to make it better. As others said, some love one part and not the other. It's a somewhat different set of problem solving.


I don't even go near a novel for a minimum of two weeks between drafts. Two months is better. By "drafts” I am not referring to tweaks and repairing an inconsistency here and there. I mean substantial changes and meeting the phrasing with fresh eyes, more like a reader than a writer.

The first two real drafts are done with me alone. No one even hears what it's about. I have a lot to work out before I feel "I've got something there." 

Third draft comes after my first beta reader reads and gives developmental comments, points out inconsistencies, (thank you, you know who you are!) and catches typos. I go over the feedback carefully. Sometimes other matters arise for me while doing this.

When done, a full re-read after another break, and then a second beta reader. I look for a reader who might be different from the first in many ways, (mostly in their taste in books and their sensitivities) and when their feedback returns I mull over it in a similar way.

Another break, another read-through, and then I have my own checklist to make sure I have asked myself  if I am clear about the theme, foreshadowing, character development/change, Main Character solving the problem (or coming to terms with it) and so on.
Another read-through, mysteriously catching *even more* typos...

...and then it goes  on submission. When I had an agent, this was the point where I shared it with her, and her feedback made me revise again.  Another revision, sometimes two, before it went out. Subsequent editor's interest means more revising, and the happiest of all are revisions after contract.


As to the mechanics of "how," you really only have your reading ways and your reading eyes. It will not be different from the way you have worked on shorter picture book texts. One writer mentioned she makes a hard copy printed like a book. This is a good technique for many. Not what I use, but I know it helps. Another mentioned reading the text aloud, or having someone else read it back to you. There are some techniques for line editing, also. 


But never feel you must write many drafts, (Stephen King does only three, but to say he's experienced is an understatement) or that what someone else says is a must really is for your way of working. Some writers are very clean grammatically and phasing-wise, and some (like me) can never get rid of all the typos no matter how many times we go over the words.

While first drafting, I refuse to think of all the work to come. I suppose that if I did I might not have the strength to start. I’m glad I wrote this^ months ago, before I put my writing vehicle back in gear.

What's your way?