Middle Passages

In the Still of the Night

2012-02-16T08:19:00.000-05:00

Like many folks, I keep a pencil and paper by the bedside so when story-provoking thoughts come to me at night, I can write cryptic notes. This paper-by-the-bed habit began back in the days when I was a stressed Recruitment Manager. A solution to a problem would occur to me when I was lying there, and I’d stay up for hours, afraid I’d forget the brilliant concept that slid in when my mind was less congested. Once a reminder made it to paper, I could sleep again.

It was easy to keep up the practice when I started writing regularly, so when a good idea formed like a cartoon bubble emanating from my mind at 1:30 or 3:00 or 4:00 a.m., I’d roll over, scratch it down and let it go until the morning.

Lately though, after I write things down, I remain awake. I know. It’s an age thing. But having come to anticipate the insomnia that snaps my turn-on switch when the rest of the world is quiet, rather than sighing in exasperation and yanking at the covers, I tune my thoughts to my current writing project. Each night I probe places where a story line doesn’t flow, or where a character lacks depth. Instead of plumping my pillow, I set myself to imagining layers or creating complexities to improve where important pieces are lacking.

During these pre-dawn hours, it is as if the story recognizes my brain has time, and treats it as a landing pad for creative twists I may not have thought of during the day. Delicious metaphors arrive as if snuck in by welcome burglars. When I finally fall back asleep, it’s with a sense of a midnight triumph.

After nights like this, I wake up tired, but never grouchy. Before day takes over I rip the notes from the pad and head to the computer, accountable to this job as facilitator to the forming story; my obligation to record the action before it drifts from my brain.

I Can Do This (Repeat)

2012-02-13T06:00:00.048-05:00

This post is my entry into the Origins Blogfest, sponsored by Alex J. Cavanaugh, DL Hammons at Cruising Altitude, and Katie Mills aka Creepy Query Girl and Matthew MacNish at The QQQE.

The timing is perfect. This month I celebrated my third anniversary as a blogger. If you've been a Middle Passages reader from the beginning...you know the "inciting incident" that jolted my blog and the writing me, to life. If you don't, then the post below, born from the shock stemming from events that occurred less than 24 hours earlier will explain. The goal of the Origins blogfest is to share where our writing dreams began. It could be anything from how we started making up stories as a child, or wrote for the school newspaper, or even what prompted us to start a blog. I'll say the following, which first ran February 5, 2009, fits the bill.

I Can Do This

Here it is-- my first morning as a member of the vast multitude of the unwashed and unemployed of 2009. OK, I exaggerate; I’m washed, but walking around in twice worn blue jeans. After 23 years with the same employer, close to half of my life, yesterday was the proverbial day of reckoning. No need to bore with the details. Suffice to say, this morning I find myself with a bit of time on my hands.

To no surprise, sleep didn’t come last night, but it wasn’t so much the shock of unemployment that had me tossing from side to side, pulling the blankets up and then kicking them off. The restlessness came from one merry-go-round question that circled endlessly through my brain. What will I do now?

As a Senior Recruitment Manager for a billion dollar retailer, there were parts of my job that I liked. Mentoring my staff, pulling at the hanging threads of complex problems and weaving together solutions, training people, interviewing eager candidates, the relationships developed over years of interaction. But to be honest the true value of my job over the last several years was that it enabled me to enjoy the rest of my life. The salary was necessary, and helpful. I worked six miles from home, could get to my now teenage daughter in less than 15 minutes and they let me. For the most part, other than the last six months or so, I left the work behind on nights and weekends. Deep inside, I knew that there was more in life I could do and there was more I could be, but the ease of the routine of my career enabled me to keep that thought on the back burner. Today though, the pot is slowly heating.

So with some sense of relief, here is where I start my reconstruction, and I have a niggling of a place to begin. For the last year, I have been an avid reader and commenter on a blog of a New York based writer with whom I am acquainted. We have known each other for several years and she has persuaded me in no small way to exploit the contents of that pan resting on the stove. As an English major with a wealth of journalism courses under my belt, I worked that interest into my job, writing memos, training documents, and advertising collateral for the field--but it wasn’t until my acquaintance with the NYC writer developed, and she pointed out that that my writing is a passion, that I began to pursue it more formally. My work friends humored my interest, passing memos by me and joking at my level of editorial detail. However, few of them know of the whopping two essays I’ve had published in the last few years, and none of them know about the black notebook on my bedroom floor filled with final drafts and copious rejection letters.

Truth be told, our family needs a lot more income than my erstwhile writing career will ever earn. So I will go to the outplacement meetings scheduled for me, I’ll rewrite my resume. I’ll do my best in this appalling economy to find a job that supplies an income that will help support a child going to college in two years. But while I am doing that, I will also do this. I’ll document my experiences as a middle aged and unexpectedly unemployed woman. Writing about my reinvention and job search will give purpose to my days, and perhaps direction in my career. Better yet, maybe I’ll be of some help to someone in similar circumstances. God knows I’m not alone, and among other things; this blog is a way to reach out to those who are in this pickle with me.

Last night, as I shifted from side to side under the down comforter, hugging the teddy bear my daughter had sympathetically placed beside me, while agonizing over insurance and 401K’s, I had a moment of peace. I pictured the blog that I read each day, and reflected on my joy in crafting my responses. When I recognized how absorbed I have become in analyzing each word, scrutinizing every sentence, pouring over key phrases to find just the right flow before clicking send, I realized, I can do this. I have something to say too.

Early Delivery II

2012-02-10T15:57:00.004-05:00

When I scheduled an 8:00 a.m. eye doctor’s appointment in the city for this week, I forgot how early I’d have to get up to catch a train. Now that we are “empty-nesters,” I sleep long past my husband, who is out of the house before sunup. But between the late moon filtering its vintage light through our uncovered picture window, and dreams that pried me awake, I climbed out of bed at 5:30 that day. I strolled down the dark driveway to pick up the newspaper about 15 minutes later.

Standing by the street, on a cold but bearable February morning, I remembered a day a year ago, when the weather was more seasonal than now. That was probably the last time I took the same walk in the dark. Later I wrote about the quiet.

This time on that brief trip, once again the soft swish of distant cars on the state road supplied the only noise on a morning when sound arrived packaged in soft wool. I stood in the windless dawn, listening to the absences; the lack of birds, the stillness in the trees, then turned to encounter a fat moon casting a phantom light from above the garage, where it hovered like a ghost to the sunrise that would appear in short minutes.

Swinging the rolled newspaper as I took slow steps up to the house, I drank in slivers of sound, the silver of light, grateful to have stumbled upon this frozen moment—a reminder that sometimes the best there is, ends up being everything that is not.

Hey all, I've just joined the Rach Writes Platform Building Campaign. Although I've never formally joined before, I did participate in some of her prompts and found them fun and wonderful in regard to improving my writing. If you'd like a challenge, check it out here.

Beware the "Quick Fix"

2012-02-07T06:00:00.009-05:00

When we cut down a different street to avoid traffic, a short cut might be a good thing, but as it pertains to writing, we benefit from considering each move—which is something I failed to do last week.

You see, after listening to good advice and allowing it to rest, I let myself print out the first draft of the novel in progress after ignoring it for over a month. In this first “top down” review, I planned to make big-picture notes on flow and consistency. I’d mark where things need to be expanded and where I need to cut, before getting into a chapter-by-chapter examination of the story.

One easy-to-solve flaw I detected, involved a character I first named Stanley, Stan for short. He appears in one chapter, and is mentioned a few times later in the book. Somewhere along the line, I decided I’d prefer to call him Sebastian, nick-named “Sebbie,” and I changed his name.

During last week’s first-ever analysis; I realized I missed changing Stan to Sebbie in several places, so I called on the Microsoft Word Gods to conduct a “Word Find.” When Microsoft informed me I’d missed “Stan” 65 times, I didn’t occur to me that, while an important character, Stan/Sebbie only appeared briefly--so the number Microsoft came up with should have triggered research.

Instead I took a short cut and hit “Find/Replace All.”

The next time I looked at the draft, I found:

Stand, Stands and Standing morphed to Sebbied, Stebbies, and Sebbieing

Understand and Understanding became UnderSebbied and UnderSebbieing

Distance turned into DisSebbiece, Circumstances to CircumSebbieces and Mustang to MusSebbieng

As I turned pages, I discovered Resistant turned to ResiSebbient, Assistant and Assistance became AssisSebbiet and AssisSebbiece; Instance became InSebbiece and contestant became conteStebbiet. Every time I think I've found them all, I find another word with "Sebbie" instead of "stan" in the middle.

Instead of fixing my mistake, I created a new language.

Ouch.

What shortcuts have backfired on you?

A Picture Unfolds, Part II

2012-02-03T14:31:00.000-05:00

Perhaps last month, you read my post explaining how fellow online writing group member, talented artist and soon to be published novelist Bridget Chicoine asked if she could paint one of my pictures. Bridget’s book, Uncharted: A Story for a Shipwright, which will be published by Rhemalda Publishing in October of 2012, takes place in coastal New England. She was looking for something appropriate to the story to paint. I offered her up some photos and Bridget chose to focus her piece on this dilapidated dinghy tied up in our harbor.

Bridget has finished her painting. If you’d like to see her wonderful interpretation of this simple New England scene, click here.

February and the Insecure Writer

2012-02-01T06:00:00.019-05:00

This is my entry into the monthly Insecure Writers' blog hop. To read posts from other participants, click here: Alex J. Cavanaugh, Insecure Writers Support Group.

Become a better writer by writing. I’ve been practicing this for three years now. I’m committed to improving. That’s why you are getting this “brain dump” of a blog post. I haven’t written anything of substance for a few weeks now, and someway, somehow, I’ve got to keep going, to keep chugging, to force myself to write even when no great inspiration percolates.

Dry spells come to all. I’ve had my share. Enough to know the way to get the word-water running again is to turn on the faucet and keep it on until thoughts work through the clog the way the degreaser powers through a hairball in your drain.

So I’m here, typing the keys, thinking about how the hot bean pad I have on my shoulder is burning my skin but not reducing the stiffness from sleeping wrong the night before last. Thinking about the farm we passed on our way to the mall the other morning, and how the rusted shell of an old tractor parked in front of two grain silos would make a lovely black and white photo if I can get back there again soon.

I’m pondering the “resting” WIP, and trying to figure out how so many writers write new works while editing others. I worry I’ve got too much singular focus to manage that, but if I want to keep writing I need to figure out how…

I’m thinking about my most recent blog post pertaining to a breakfast/lunch joint for South Shore Living and what a blast it was to write. On the other hand, last week's monthly contribution to the local newspaper on behalf of seniors didn’t flow—I’m not surprised because I wrote from an “assignment” frame of mind and not from a place of passion, as the subject matter didn’t touch me.

And lastly, I am thinking about The Artists Way and morning pages and how this spew of words on the page would be acceptable if they were in a notebook no one was going to read, but since they are here out in public, in hindsight, it's a strong possibility I'm going to wish I never clicked “publish.”

If at First you don't Succeed...

2012-01-31T07:26:00.001-05:00

I had it in my head I'd get up for the sunrise this morning. But when I looked out the window, it was black, black, black, and I was pretty sure cloud cover would skunk my chances. I know from experience that January sunrises can be iffy...

Forty-five minutes later, I'm assured I made the right decision, and you get a blogpost rerun from last year. I'd risen in frigid temps on a Friday, to get a cloudy dawn. I posted this the following Monday.

. . . try another sunrise.

Saturday morning at 6:35, a tap, tap tap on the shoulder wakes me. Aware of Friday's sunrise photography attempt, my husband points out the window. The sky glows orange and pink through the trees, but it's a seven minute drive to the harbor. Darn.

Sunday, I don't give it a thought. Today though, since it's MLK Day. . . it isn't necessary to make breakfast or a school lunch. So I get an extra half-hour of sleep and still have enough time to hop into the car to try for these. It is cold as you-know-what out there, but the views are worth the frozen fingertips.

Hope you are having a great week.

An AP English Exercise

2012-01-26T06:00:00.017-05:00

Here goes…

Mr. Collins taught my husband AP English in high school. Hubby describes him as a good but challenging teacher. Many times over the course of our marriage he has referenced the weekly writing assignment from that class. The creative but demanding educator required his students to write a 500 word essay every week, without using the verb “to be.” As a result of this rigorous practice, my husband developed strong writing skills.

Okay, that’s 76 words using one "to be" and I couldn't leave that one out. H~~ow hard could this be? Darn, I mean~~, Let’s keep going shall we?

Although I love writing, and my husband professes to hate it (perhaps a consequence of the year spent with Mr. Collins), I often ask for his advice when drafting formal documents, to help me tone down my verbiage or make my writing clear when it gallops away from me. (My husband kicks butt in grammar and spelling too, but I’ll save that story for another time.)

Through these joint writing ventures, over the years we've been together the “Mr. Collins Effect” has seeped from my husband’s brain to mine, where it coaxes me to employ powerful verbs rather than weaker, less demonstrative examples. “Action” language pulls readers into a story, offers up food for imagination, fodder to entice and engage, with the goal of making the reader's connection to the story more powerful.

Oh my goodness, , ~~I’m only at~~ Only 203 words?

When I began writing here at Middle Passages, I wrote first drafts of every post. Then I edited them multiple times in an attempt to remove any representation of the offending verb. Every time I reviewed a post, I pictured my husband describing Mr. Collins’ assignment, and charged forward brandishing a sword in my effort to cut out the enemy weakening my prose. In truth, sometimes, things read better when I left it in. But I maintained my guard, lest the poison of too much passivity drag down my writing.

Now as I approach my third (gulp) anniversary of blogging and subsequent regular, focused writing, (which also “celebrates” the third anniversary of something else I try to forget), I recognize my early drafts read more powerfully because I have developed the habit of avoiding “that” verb during my first round.

344 words. This exercise ~~is oops~~, kills me!

I appreciate teachers whose lessons continue to give. An eleventh-grade creative writing teacher drove me crazy with her inability to focus, yet she taught me how to consider the world through a poet’s eye—and our daughter’s middle school pre-algebra teacher exhibited such enthusiasm that she continues to earn her best grades in math courses to this day.

401 words. Oh my. And he did this every week???

I wonder if teachers ever consider the residual benefits of the concepts they instill in their students. Imagine if Mr. Collins, standing in front of his class of impatient high school seniors could see into the future and recognize the long reaching ramifications of his hard work. How would he feel to know that even though I attended school in a different part of the state and never met him, I apply his lessons every day? If I knew where to find the long retired educator, I’d thank him, and tell him I channel the homework assignments from his AP English class each time I sit in front of a computer ~~tearing my hair out.~~

There! 512. Exhale, sigh, wipe brow, and thank God ~~I didn't have Mr. Collins for English~~ I only had to do this once.

What do you do to make your writing stronger?

The Winner is...

2012-01-24T06:00:00.009-05:00

Last week, I posted information about a giveaway to thank the blogging world for their support in my quest to improve my writing. Whether you knew it or not, if you commented here on Middle Passages during the first three weeks of January, I entered your name into a drawing to receive a copy of Nicola Morgan’s Write to Be Published. Read more about the book and giveaway here.

Last night, I entered the “contestants” names into a hat and the winner is…

The Empress at: Good Day Regular People.

Your Royal Highness, I extend my humble congratulations. I’ll send you an email, but if you see this first, please send me your address. It will be my pleasure to order and forward you copy of Write to be Published by Nicola Morgan. I hope you find the book as fun and helpful as I did.

Note to the author: If, as a result of this post, Google Alerts sends you my away again, thank you for sharing your experience and wisdom via your outstanding book, and for your comment here last week too. Both provide further evidence that the writing community consists of many caring and thoughtful people, a truth that continues to amaze and delight me.

A Picture Unfolds

2012-01-19T06:00:00.014-05:00

I’m not artistic, though my husband and daughter will tell you I obsess about recording the ever changing landscapes that emerge where we live. These days, I have to force myself to refrain from saying the words: “I wish I had the camera” when they are with me. They are so sick of hearing it; one of them may clock me upside the head.

So imagine how tickled I was when blogging buddy, fellow online writing group member, talented artist and soon to be published novelist Bridget Chicoine asked she could paint one of my pictures. Bridget’s book, Uncharted, A Story for a Shipwright, takes place in coastal New England, and she was looking for something appropriate to the story to paint. She chose my photo of a peeling wooden dory as her next project, and is depicting her progress on her artist blog: JB Chicoine Unsupervised & at Large. If you’d like to watch as this talented woman develops her painting, click on the link. To learn more about Bridget’s writing and Uncharted, click here.

While art doesn’t live in my fingers, I’m grateful it exists in my mind. So as Bridget uses sienna or burnt umber as she layers and shadows her interpretation of my photo, I’ll stick with words in my attempt to sculpt the images that transform the land in front of me.

But as a back up, I'll keep taking pictures.

(This is NOT the picture Bridget is working on. I'll let her reveal that when she's ready.)

Giving Back, or Paying it Forward

2012-01-17T06:00:00.019-05:00

A few more months ago than I care to admit, Claire at Points of Clair-ification held a book give away. I was fortunate to win Write to be Published by Nicola Morgan. Notwithstanding my delight at winning, (Thank you Claire!!!) upon receiving the news, I stood on an anthill of niggling self-doubt. Due to irreconcilable differences, I had shelved a miserable, one-time edited draft of a first ever WIP and had slogged out about 20K into a new project (the first draft of which is now complete). That was the sum and total of my book writing experience. Reading a book with this title seemed presumptuous. Who did I think I was? But then the book arrived in my Post Office box.

The back cover of Write to be Published says: “You want to make a publisher say yes? First understand why they say no; then apply that knowledge to your book.” Whether I’m published tomorrow (yeah, right), in the next five years (in my dreams) or never (nightmares abound), this book is a treasure of lessons about writing, and information relating to how to conduct the business of writing in a manner most likely to result in positive feedback.

Whether you're a novice like me or a ready to be published pro, reading this book is well worth the time. Turning the pages is like sitting in class while an engaging and enthusiastic professor calls all your bluffs and then directs you how to do things the right way. Published over 90 times herself, and the creator of the blog Help! I need a Publisher, it took Morgan something like 20 years achieve publication, so she knows the downsides as well as the up. She's a British author so US readers, make allowances for cultural variances. But no matter where you are from, the entire section called “Written in the Right Way” will resonates with the wisdom she imparts pertaining to what it means, and what it takes, to write “right.”

I could go on and on. But I won’t. Instead, I’m going to go back over the book and highlight everything that resounded in me. Then, to say thank you to everyone who’s been so supportive and encouraging in my quest to improve my writing, I will put names in a hat for anyone who has commented here at Middle Passages in first three weeks of January. That means if you've already commented, or you do so in the next six days, you get one chance. Next week, I'll pull out a winner and send them a copy of Write to be Published, by Nicola Morgan. Hopefully it will be as helpful to someone else as it has been to me.

Knock on Wood

2012-01-12T06:00:00.053-05:00

I am almost afraid to write about this, for fear of jinxing things, but we’ve been having a mild winter. And NO, Snow Gods, there is no need to interpret that as in invitation. It’s just that folks who have been following Middle Passages for a long time may recall I’m not a fan of the season, especially when parked in our family room where the temps, for some reason, hover ten degrees below the rest of the house.

Being of the frugal, New England Yankee sort, we keep our thermostat on a timer. It maintains the heat as low as tolerable during the day (tolerable being a relative term). In previous years, I have transitioned my writing desk at the back of the house to a winter residence in by the laptop in the warmer (again, think relative term here) front living room. In spite of this improvement, to survive over the last two winters, I climbed into a cold-weather writing costume before sitting down at the computer. Let’s just say a scarf, a knit cape, fleece boots and occasionally, a hat were involved.

This year though, I’m still camped out in my cubby in the back corner, and though I won’t call it warm, my daughter’s plaid flannel scarf suffices. I have no complaints. But it struck me recently, as much as I hate to admit it, there are parts of winter I'm missing. Other than a dusting of snow that melted by noontime yesterday, we’ve had none. We have yet to wake up to the cotton quiet of a muted dawn after an overnight storm. The cement meeting pond, on the town common across the street from the building where I now work part-time remains liquid, absent of toddlers pushing around chairs while learning to skate. The thwack of hockey pucks fails to echo down the street from our house, because the rim of ice around the edges of the pond there surrounds black water. The down jacket I inherited from my daughter two years ago hangs on the hook in the closet where it’s been since last March.

I can do without the singe of cold that ices the inside of my nose when the temps drop into the teens, but when the thermometer does register that low, there’s something alive about stepping into breath-gasping air to pick up the paper in the morning. When dressed right, a walk in those temperatures defies something powerful, and celebrates a determination to muscle through, no matter what.

Folks who move out west, or down south after living in New England often say they miss the seasons. When I hear that, I roll my eyes. “Try me,” I say and for the time being, I guess Mother Nature is calling my bluff. I'd be lying if I said it doesn't feel more than a bit off.

But then there's this; at least when unexpected visitors arrive, I don't have to run and hide.

Tap, Tap, Tap

2012-01-10T07:41:00.000-05:00

If you can hear that, it’s me, mentally drumming my fingers. On December 28, I finished the first draft of my current WIP and now seek patience while I listen to the experts. Jodie Renner, an editor I discovered through The Blood Red Pencil recently offered a detailed list on her blog called How to Revise and Polish a Novel.

Knowing I was going to get to that stage soon, I bookmarked her page. She offers a wealth of process thoughts, as well links to posts on point of view, dialogue and style. As per her instructions, I have put my draft away “for at least two weeks.” Technically, two weeks is up on Wednesday, but I'll go longer to ensure when I open the file again, it is reads fresh and new.

This is hard though, since I’m eager to get back at it…to revisit this thing I started writing last winter. Other than presenting early chapters to my writing group, I have not allowed myself to go back and read, for fear of drowning in necessary changes and sputtering to a halt before completing the story at all. And although Jodie says right now I should send it to Beta readers while I’m waiting, I’m not there yet. I know how scattered my writing can be. It wouldn't be fair to do that to anyone. Instead, I'll go through one revision before letting anyone read it…with the exception of the aforementioned writers’ group, whose members have patiently been commenting chapter by chapter. As I complete this first revision, I’ll incorporate their comments.

So in the meantime, the clock ticks slowly and I wait, trying hard not to bite my nails. The upside? I’ve got more time to write blog posts. And, I’m spending my middle-aged, sleepless nights, deciding if I have an idea for the next WIP.

Scene Storming

2012-01-06T06:00:00.013-05:00

When I get really stuck, as I was yesterday, I scene storm. Using a word, or in this case, a set of words, I try to write around them. I’m happy to say, it almost always works.

I pulled today’s inspiration from Dancing with the Gorilla by Darnell Arnoult. Historically, the author has offered weekly scene storming prompts. It’s been a while since she’s updated, but if you go to past posts, you’ll find other suggestions designed to get you writing.

Today’s words were: Head, drive, ridges, reach, body, ground, voice, fog, refugee, sleep and here’s what I came up with:

Fog floated like a trail of refugees, weaving threads through bare fingered bushes. It glided over ridges and congealed in the middle of the winter gray pond. Water lapped a rhythm to the slap of sneakered feet on wet ground. Ducks muttered back-up to her measured breaths, the swish of the borrowed nylon jacket, its wet hood spanking her back.

Alongside the road, strands of bittersweet climbed from beds of composting leaves. Their lethal tendrils wrapped around high limbs, screening the entrance to the woods with a ropy tangle. Years ago, she and Ashley had created forts and shelters behind those thick curtains, unaware the creeping plants shading them from adult eyes pulled at tall branches with a pressure that weakened the trees, before yanking them to their knees.

She hadn’t known when she’d woken from her restless sleep this morning she could still run this far, that she’d reach the bend in the drive marking their childhood shelter. In the beginning, she and Ashley had pulled rusted beach chairs and an old milk crate underneath the gauze of vines. Grandmother’s tattered tablecloths served as capes, sarongs, and the turbans they wrapped around their heads. They were older when Robert arrived in town. Not long after, the hiding place provided an invisible spot to cough down the whiskey he’d pilfered from his father’s stash.

He’d come upon them unexpectedly that first time, in unlaced canvas high-tops covered in mud, his gold and white striped shirt ripped at the shoulder. She and Ashley had been talking, giggling really, about how Thomas Rodomont had kissed Ashley the day before, when something in the woods behind them cracked. Ashley had screamed, her voice a bird cry on a still night when she’d seen Robert, his angled body slouching against a fat oak behind them, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his cut-off shorts.

He’d given them a long stare. Then he’d run his fingers through his mop of hair, cocked his head, pushed off his resting place and sauntered toward them.

Happy Weekend All!

January and the Insecure Writer

2012-01-04T06:00:00.003-05:00

This is January's post for Alex Cavanaugh's Insecure Writers Support Group. Click on the link to find other participants.

I have always been a late bloomer, one to consider things, to analyze the ramifications before moving forward. ~~(I wish this trait had resulted in the practice of thinking before I speak, but that’s a whole ‘nother topic, as they say.)~~ This quality has resulted in a long life of waiting before I act –and you know what they say about “she who hesitates.”

Anyway, experiences in more recent history delivered the message that chasing after what I want feels a lot better than delaying—which is why I dared myself to write Novel #1, the first draft of which I completed early in 2011. I went through one re-write before abandoning it. I didn’t know how to make it any better than it was, and trust me, it wasn’t good.

Novel two was born, no word of a lie, when the first sentence came to me in the middle of one sleepless night. I wrote it down and let it sit on my desk for several months until I was ready to write the story it belonged to. During the time I was writing it, I took a fiction writing workshop and joined two writing groups, where I have learned more about conflict and back story, character building, dialogue and story arcs. As a result, well, I have a little hope for it this second work

In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott says, “For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts." The insecure writer in me is well aware that my own first draft is a piece of mud covered dung. I have a goal now, one that looms large and scary, of editing the heck out of it and then letting some folks I trust read it and critique it.

For the year ahead, I’m wishing for the vision to see what is broken, the openness to listen, the strength to respond to difficult criticism, and the skill to make my story cohesive and readable.

Then we’ll see if there is a query letter in my future.

I guess my practice of taking things slow hasn’t changed much after all.

Gifts of Stone

2012-01-03T06:00:00.030-05:00

It’s been too long since my husband and I have walked in the woods behind the house. So on a sunny, snow-free holiday noontime, before settling in front of the fire and football, we pulled on our heavy boots and hiked through rugged land, now dotted with hanging branches and broken trees, evidence of one hurricane and the many wind storms that have battered the land over the last years.

When our daughter was young, she and her next-door cousins ran through trails, vaulted over ledges; settled into a fort they claimed under the brush by the wetlands, played on a plank balanced over sawed-off tree stumps. Sunday, we stepped over rotting tree limbs, under branches holding via tenuous strips of bark, beside trunks leaning at impossible angles.

Picking our way through the woods, we explored the uneven paths tumbling down to the swamp, then climbed up to the yard of around-the-corner-neighbors whose property provided the destination at the end of many hikes during our girl’s childhood, a country lot accommodating chickens and goats, a multi-tiered tree-house, raspberry bushes from which they invited us to pick. I can’t remember the last time we were there.

As we stepped onto their land on Sunday, I realized that sometime, when we weren’t paying attention, life altered directions. As a result of that turn on the map, we missed something true and clear. Over the years that we’ve not been climbing through the back woods, our neighbors have been busy, clearing their property, creating adornments from the granite that sprouts from our earth as easily as any flower.

On their lot, towers of stones stand in careful compositions, each labeled with a specific designation. Stepping from one to another we found “Serendipity,” “Perseverance,” and “Hope.” Two small rock statues, marking the entrance to a path through thick myrtle have been dubbed “Love” and “Light.” Tucked into slight spaces we found “Power” and “Creator,” and “Fertility.” Three statues situated on a slight ledge held no identification tags; in my mind I dubbed them “Protectors.”

Wandering through their green velvet acre, we marveled at our good timing. How meaningful to come across this treasure of composition and peace on the first day of a new year. It was, in my mind, a captivating beginning, a moment of depth that grounded us in all that we need to value. Circling the land, I opened myself to the strength of stone, to the message of balance and patience—and a new-found clarity that when life makes it challenging to maintain either, “Contentment” and Understanding” are only a walk-through-the-woods away.

Winding Down

2011-12-31T06:00:00.058-05:00

Always in December, I rediscover the whimsy of colored lights blooming on the tiny pines in our backyard, the majesty of the staid white lights adorning the spotlighted bushes in front. This year, I dragged my husband not once, but twice through a neighborhood of McMansions a few miles away, whose owners compete, embellishing their yards with glittering swarms of lights— blinking bangles of bracelets and necklaces, entire collections wrapped around every branch of every tree. It's the season of decoration. I love the white crocheted angels we tucked away for safety seven years ago when the kitty arrived and rediscovered this year—and the antique music box unpacked from its nest of tissue and placed at the center of the table.

The Christmas season delivers such a sense of wonder that a pit of loss expands in my gut when I think of packing up the nutcrackers gracing our mantel, of pulling the bows off the drooping Christmas tree before tossing it out the back door, of driving up to a house lit by a single lamp post.

But yesterday provided a reminder...

Though a high pressure system painted the sky blue, the wind howled through the trees, brooming the bare lawn with a litter of pine branches. When you live by the shore, wind brings a show. So yanking on hats and scarves and pulling out two cameras, my husband and I drove down to the harbor and tiptoed up a private drive to the porch of a stone and brick boathouse.

There we watched seagulls chase a late afternoon lobster boat to his mooring, while waiting for a setting sun to reflect pink on the clouds in the eastern sky. Sheltered from the chillling gusts, we hoped to capture an extraordinary moment on an ordinary winter day.

In the end though, an off-shore breeze limited the ocean’s drama, and the wind drove the clouds away. Disappointed, we turned back toward the car and discovered a subtle show taking place behind us—the backlit legs of the boarded-up yacht club, peeling aqua paint flaking from an abandoned wooden dinghy.

Clicking away, we recalled the blessings these quiet adornments offer year round—a silent beauty always available—one that never has the need to compete.

Wishing you all a New Year filled with beauty.

Merry Christmas to All

2011-12-23T13:22:00.000-05:00

Wishing you Peace, Joy and Prosperity.

All the best,

Liza

Deja Vu Blog Fest

2011-12-16T06:00:00.039-05:00

DL Hammons had this great idea, and, together with Creepy Query Girl, Nicole Ducleroir, and Lydia Kang, is sponsoring the Deja Vu Blogfest. The guidelines require re-running a favorite blogs post so it gets some more "air time." You'll find one of my favorites below:

Check out the other participants and have a great weekend!

A Hunger for Words

“The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.” Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way.

Saturday my husband, daughter and I drove to Rhode Island on a preliminary college reconnaissance mission. After strolling through curving asphalt paths past the red-brick buildings at University #2, we took a detour through Providence, up through Federal Hill to a specialty Italian Food Emporium that I visited seven years ago, but have not been to since.

We had no plan to purchase, only to wander around the large central glass case where soft lights shined on home-made Italian delicacies, layered lasagnas, breaded eggplants, stuffed green artichokes, bracciole and hard sticks of imported pepperoni. My mouth salivated at the bins of briny olives, wedges of salty Parmigiano Reggiano, meaty slabs of prosciutto, expensive green olive oils, and balsamic vinegars that pour like syrup. We inhaled the scent of garlic and stared at the side wall-freezers stacked with frozen flavored raviolis—butternut squash, lobster, mushroom and cheese.

Around us, clerks spoke in Italian accented English, and in the corners, white haired men sat at marble tables, black button-up shirts opened at the neck as they sipped red wine and a yellow drink I took for Limoncello. Any temptation we had to open our wallet faded at the line of customers stacked two deep in front of a smiling cashier. We left, after savoring the complimentary pizzelle slathered with Nutella a cheerful clerk offered us, wishing for five more circuits through the store, a bottomless purse, and a walk-in freezer back home in which to store the delicacies. Can you believe that we only went to look?

Of course I longed to buy things at the store in Providence, but rationalized not doing so by labeling it a big-picture visit. We would have relished the Nicoise olives I wanted to buy, the quarter pound of textured cheese I imagined ordering, the anticipation of dinner as we plunged lobster ravioli into boiling salted water—we would have savored it all—but then—it would have been gone—a short term extravagance, swallowed and then forgotten.

Instead I left empty-handed but dreaming about the store offerings, which I subsequently cataloged to use at my own discretion. Now that the images and smells from Saturday reside in my memory, I can pull them out when I want to serve them in a story, as an appetizer or a dinner, arranged on a bright blue terracotta platter beside a stem of plump red grapes and a sweating bottle of chilled white wine. I can slice hard sausage and place it in layers on a decorative plate along with ripe tomatoes and dripping mozzarella, dribbling the whole thing with aged balsamic. I can serve steaming artichoke hearts and lemon aioli beside plump stuffed mushrooms, using an ornate silver spoon—or slather garlic infused white bean puree onto toasted ciabatta bread, sprinkling the tops with chopped green parsley.

I can eat until my stomach protests, or graze, an olive here, a sliver of cheese there, a dip of bread into a simmering pink vodka sauce. The feast can arrive at midnight, or three in the morning or for breakfast, and I can offer it to friends or eat it all by myself, licking my fingers one by one when finished. In brief, I can dish up whatever I want, when I want, with whom I want, and however I choose to design the layout of the luxurious repast, well, it all came to me for free.

Measuring Up

2011-12-13T06:00:00.001-05:00

I have been writing. Just not...here. To read the most recent hunger-inspiring essay on South Shore Living, click here. How bad is this? I forgot to check and see if it was posted...and it was...two weeks ago.

Other than that it's been a goal of 1,000 words a day on the old WIP. If you add the limited time I've spent writing on weekends to the weekday mornings I exceed my goal, perhaps, like the title in the piece above, I might be measuring up too.

Serendipity

2011-12-06T06:00:00.010-05:00

As I walked toward the town Christmas Festival this weekend, an event I’ve attended with my daughter for the last 10+ years, a fire truck drove by, its siren blaring and horn honking. Santa rode shot gun in the passenger seat on his way to our town common. There he disembarked, waving a white-gloved hand to the line of toddlers staring in awe. I paused; a lump of memory squeezing my throat, as he crouched in front of a tiny boy, then crossed the frozen grass to mount his red sleigh.

Over all her Santa-believing Christmases, we never took our daughter to the mall to meet St. Nick, preferring this open air, non-commercial event instead. Each year, surrounded by the white-steepled churches and antique homes, she’d clamber up to sit beside Mr. Claus and have her picture snapped. Not for us the crush of crowded shopping centers, holding coats and hands of sweaty children for eternal minutes, while standing in long, snaking lines. We may have stamped cold feet, but we never waited long. After the photo-opp, we’d wander through the festival venues, before retreating to the Second Parish Church where we’d pick up the Polaroid picture of our girl sitting beside Santa, elves had fashioned into an tinsel-covered ornament.

When her Santa years ended, she and I continued to attend the Festival together, stopping first at the Episcopal Church for their used book sale, before trotting down to the congregational church for bowls of homemade clam chowder. At a table in the back room, we’d crumble our crackers into the thickened soup and slurp its salty goodness.

This year, after purchasing five books, I headed down for chowder, but with my festival partner off at college, I didn’t have the heart to eat there alone. I purchased a pint to go, crossed the common to the community center where the Greek Orthodox Church was selling Baklava, spending my last $3.00 on a piece to share with my non-chowder-eating-husband. Then I headed home. In all, it was a lovely day, except for the undercurrent of missing my regular companion.

Here is where karma pops in. Our daughter’s name is not uncommon, though its spelling is. Living with my own misspelled and mispronounced appellation, I should have suggested we think a little harder before we named her, but that’s hindsight. As a result, she too has experienced a lifetime of misspellings. She, her dad and I lift our eyebrows on the rare occasions we encounter someone who spells it the same.

So Saturday, after I arrived home, still thinking about her, I dug a spoon into my cooling broth and perused one of the books I’d purchased at the book sale. Two sentences into it, the main character’s name jumped out at me—my daughter’s name, spelled correctly. Imagine that. There I was strolling around alone at that festival, and she was with me all along.

No doubt I'm going to like that book.

A Dose of Inspiration

2011-11-29T06:00:00.021-05:00

Once in a while you do something for the fun of it, and the rewards are greater than expected. The gentlemen referenced below attend the Monday breakfast for seniors at which I volunteer. Each of these men are engaged and eager and live lives replete with laughter. The three youngest asked me to write the story in honor of the their 96-year-old golfing buddy. The story received good placement in the "Citizen's News" in our local newspaper which catapulted the four subjects "over the moon." As for me, well, this was one of the most enjoyable and inspiring pieces I've had the fortune to write over the past two years.

If I every feel tired, or heaven forbid, too old, I'm going to remember the fun I had interviewing these men and writing their story. Then I'm going to go out and do something I love.

(Click on the article to get a larger view.)

So Much More than Turkey...

2011-11-24T06:46:00.000-05:00

This is a repeat of a post I wrote last year, a few days before Thanksgiving.. The count is 29 for today, our Coast Guard nephew having been transferred. Other than that, little has changed for which I am entirely grateful. Happy Thanksgiving.

I love this week. Really I do. We’ve been putting on Thanksgiving for so long that we know how to manage it—even when we goof and realize that the head count of 29 is really 30. We know what to prep ahead of time, how to spread four—no, make that five tables through the dining room and living room—oops, six if you count the little table we put up for the two youngest boys. We know that people will bring extra and that there will be more than enough food, even for teenagers who go back for plates piled with seconds. We know that though the bar has to be set up in the garage, adults will gather on the old rug we spread on the cement floor in front of the table and ignore the tools and shovels lining the walls—while the teens will find a haven in the basement. We know at meal time, as the hosts, my husband and I will have to situate ourselves on the kitchen-side of the table because otherwise, we’d never get out.

I love prepping good food for our family; apple pies, pecan pies, mashed potatoes, gravy and green beans. I love that now that we must have two turkeys, I can try new stuffing recipes, knowing that Mom-in-law will bring her family favorite so I’m not even messing up tradition. I love that our brother-in-law will bring squash and sweet potatoes and creamed onions and that his quiet assurance will keep me calm during that critical and crazy half-hour before we get the food on the table (well, on the counter—with 30 people, we HAVE to serve buffet style.)

Most of all, I love the tickle of anticipation, today, tomorrow, on Wednesday and especially those quiet few minutes— just before everyone arrives; when the house is dusted and vacuumed, the pictures and mirrors shine, the tables are set, the do-ahead things are resting on the counter and the three of us look at each other—excited for the festivities to begin, knowing that not only will we be celebrating with a huge family—on Thanksgiving we'll be surrounded by our friends.

Wishing you a joyful, happy Thanksgiving.

A Need

2011-11-16T06:00:00.002-05:00

I don't do this often. In regards to blogging, in some strange way, even though it's all out there, I tend to keep things close to the vest. I write, I read blogs, I follow, I comment, but I'm not into the big splash of contests and awards and prizes. Not that I mind those who are, it's just not me. So as you read this, please know that I'm writing these words because in this case, I embrace the assistance this social networking or what ever it is, can offer.

Over the two years plus since I started Middle Passages, I've "met" so many people I admire, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that some are more special than others. We all click with different people. In my case, Carolina Valdez Miller has been a regular champion. She's an astounding writer who has offered me such insight and encouragement. She sits at the top of the list of people I'd like to emulate--in my writing sure, and now in a more giving manner.

I'm not going to say much more. Instead, I'm going ask you to click here so you may read Carol's words yourself. If you can help--wonderful. If not, you'll find some amazing and passionate writing, and your day will be better for it.

Embers

2011-11-14T06:00:00.089-05:00

My insides tend to drop a little when summer comes to an end. It’s a symptom of living in New England. I know what’s coming. Fall arrives and dread ensues. This year though, we’ve had a warm autumn, so my seasonal adjustment occurred later than usual. I threw on my lined jacket for the first time last week; grateful for the leather gloves stuffed in the pockets from last spring.

Something clicked though, at 4:17 pm on Saturday afternoon, at which point the house smelled like cinnamon and cloves from the pumpkin bread I’d baked to freeze for Thanksgiving. My hands were stiff from Murphy-Oil-Soaping the kitchen cupboards. Beef stew simmered on the stove top. My husband entered the kitchen after a day of raking, carrying in the aroma of fresh air and pine, mulched needles and composting leaves. He crumpled paper, laid kindling and lit a match. A puff of smoke billowed from the fireplace before the draft inhaled the smoke upward.

At that exact moment, like a picture in time lapse photography, I transitioned from summer to fall, from afternoons plowing through glimmering water on a following sea, to bone deep warmth delivered by seasoned logs popping on a cast-iron grate.

It’s so hard to relinquish summer. It takes me weeks to let it go, to settle into long hours cooking in the kitchen, afternoon sunsets, earthy red wines alongside dishes of thickened stew. The missing piece though, arrives with fire—hot embers wrapping me in cashmere heat, offering me permission to tuck myself inside.

11/11/11

2011-11-11T14:59:00.001-05:00

Thank you to all who served and to those who continue to do so.

The One I Didn't Expect

2011-11-09T06:00:00.017-05:00

I have mixed feelings about the new part-time job I’ve taken. I loved the quality product offered at the specialty food and cheese shop where I worked for the last fourteen months. But an opportunity developed and for reasons with which I shan't bore you, I've moved on. The upshot is that instead of working 2-3 full (and I do mean full) days per week, I’m working four short days and even though daylight savings deserted us on Sunday, I get home before dark.

Which means there was still plenty of light on Tuesday when I walked to the bedroom, sloughed off the professional clothes I haven’t worn in over two years, pulled on my blue jeans and sat down to finish a freelance-writing-related invoice. Then, I looked out the window.

The sun was burning through the trees behind our house, and on a hunch, I grabbed the camera, climbed into the car and drove to the pond, 300 yards down the street. As I suspected, the sun mirrored itself on the motionless water. I forget you lose all subtlety when you take pictures directly into the sun though. Standing on tiptoe to try to reach above the reeds cluttering my view, I clicked the shutter 16 times, hoping to capture the sunset sinking below the horizon, while it flamed into the pond below.

I only turned away from the sunset once. Gosh, I’m glad I did.

The Write Shot

2011-11-07T06:00:00.012-05:00

Sometimes I contemplate what life was like in the dinosaur days, you know, before digital camera. Before I say anything further, let me assure you that I know old fashioned film photography still results in the best photos. If you question me on that, click here.

Anyway, though I remain an amateur photographer, I have loved taking shots of the world around me since receiving my first Instamatic camera before leaving for college. Back then though, photography involved heartbreak. I’d buy film, use it all up, mail it off to an out-of-state developing lab and tap my fingers waiting for my pictures to arrive home a week later. Opening the envelope, I’d swallow disappointment at blurry shots, photos that were too dark or over exposed--pictures nowhere near as beautiful as the vision recorded by my eyes.

My now-husband gave me my first 35MM camera for my 25^th birthday. With it came the ability to focus, take close ups, telephoto pictures and filtered shots. My sister still tells the story about how when tailgating at a football game, I artfully arranged a glass of wine and an apple in different corners of our red-checked picnic blanket, forbidding anyone to eat until I Iined up a perfect shot. The resulting picture came out expensive and ordinary.

With digital photography though, I've discovered the freedom to take shot after shot, to experiment with settings and apertures, to crawl in the grass to freeze a view from a different perspective, without worrying about expensive film. The best thing though, is the computer age has offered the additional luxury of editing packages offering darkroom capabilities at the click of a mouse.

Downloading pictures to the computer, I shave off unimportant aspects and highlight what I want, changing the perspective and focus along the way.

Even when a picture come out a lesser quality, I play with it and improve it, and know in the end, I have an opportunity highlight the ordinary, to make it sing.

It strikes me the whole process is an awful lot like writing, don't you think?

Insecure Writer's Support Group - November

2011-11-02T06:00:00.009-04:00

This is my monthly post for Alex Cananugh’s InsecureWriter’s Support Group.

Over the twenty-plus years I worked in HR for a national retail chain, I never knew what I wanted to do when I grew up. Over the course of that career, I performed as a high-functioning “square peg in a round hole.” Since the job paid well and the location and challenge level enabled me to be an available mom for our growing daughter, I stuck to it. When the business began to struggle and layoffs occurred, I thought, “If I go, I don’t know what I’ll do next, but I won’t do this.” Of course, I said those things thinking: “It will never happen to me.”

Until it did.

Most Middle Passages readers know that the day after my job disappeared, words welled up inside me, and a blog was born. Two months later, I’d scored a personal essay relating to my layoff in the Boston Globe Magazine. I’d been published in a niche magazine a few times prior, and won a monthly writing contest on WritersDigest.com. But an essay in The Globe fulfilled a long-held dream, and for the first time in my life, I thought, “Good gosh, maybe I really am a writer.”

Working with my outplacement coordinator, I sculpted a freelance writing business, then took a part-time job to help tide over the uneven nature of the freelance beast, and continued my own writing. Through the encouragement of The Artist’s Way, I challenged myself to write a book. I “finished” that one, if you call getting the story down on paper and muscling through one revision “finished.” A print out sits in a folder on my desk in my living room under a pile of books. Last winter, I started writing another one and currently hover at about 50,000 words and change.

Here is my insecurity. I’m starting a new part-time job on Monday, which is a marginal economic improvement over my current situation. Until the layoff, I was a significant contributor financially to the bottom line. For the last 2.5 years though, I’ve been a drag on our resources and yet for the first time ever, I’m doing what I know I want to do. I’ve earned a few more publishing credits. The writing friends I’ve made on line and in person support and challenge me and my husband stands beside me. But guilt wheedles its way in and tweaks down deep. Our daughter has just started college. My lack of earnings impacts not only our present circumstances, but our future retirement, yet, when I contemplate going back full-time to the business world, nausea ensues.

What if my focus on writing is nothing more than a big excuse to avoid doing what I should be doing? Sometimes I’m afraid the word after my name shouldn’t be writer. It should be fraud.

"Perfect Day" Encore

2011-11-01T06:00:00.036-04:00

I am resurrecting this post to participate in Where Sky Meets Ground NaNoWriMo Video Songfest. No Nano for me, but good music is always a good cause! For those of you taking time away from your 50K to read this...best wishes!

As a three-year-old, our daughter watched the same Peter Rabbit videos every weekend when she was home from daycare, before her nap, while resting on a sheepskin rug my sister sent years ago from Australia. The stories were as naive as they have always been, a silly goose who trusts a fox to watch her eggs, a disobedient rabbit who escapes from a farmer’s garden.

The graphics were simple, yet unlike many of the videos and books that our girl demanded to “Do again! Do again!” they never bored me. Rather than gnashing my teeth after the thousandth viewing, I sat mesmerized, addicted to the haunting, ethereal introductory music which stroked like light fingers on cool skin. Each time we watched one, I waited impatiently for the closing credits, which included the same song. No one was allowed to speak while it was playing.

Like all things toddler, we grew out of this video habit. We put the tapes aside and forgot about them until last fall when I was cleaning out cupboards and discovered one tucked in back. Waving it above my head, I literally jumped up and down before turning to face my wide-eyed husband. “Remember how much I loved the song from this? Thank goodness we still have a VCR. I can hear it one more time.” Popping it in, the music began and I froze, head cocked, inhaling the sound of the piano, the flute, the crystal-voiced performer. Sitting as still as I could, I let the music bleed through me. When it was done, I moaned to my husband. “I hate to get rid of this. This song is one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard.”

The good news is that one person in our house had his brain turned on that day. “Find the name of the artist in the credits and see if you can download the song from ITunes,” my husband suggested.

Oh how I love that man.

The artist is Miriam Stockley, the Song is "Perfect Day" and when it came on my play list as we ate dinner Saturday night, I paused, as I always do, while the lyrics and voice seeped like a slow brook way down to my center, to puddle at the heart of all I love, at the core of my softening soul.

Words and music and art--sometimes they tickle like a hot breath at the back of your neck or cause you to shiver like a kiss on the ear. But we are luckiest when they are arranged in an ultimate combination, the one that seems to speak to us alone, the one that stops us cold.

If you'd like to see the clip from the beginning of the Peter Rabbit videos we watched with our daughter all those years ago, including a repeat of the song, click here.

Do you have a song, a poem, a picture that touches you this way? If so, care to share?

Weekend Winds

2011-10-31T07:48:00.000-04:00

(To give you some perspective, this is a picture I posted to Middle Passages two weeks ago, on a mildly windy day in mid October.)

Yesterday on the way to complete some weekend errands, my husband and I took a detour to the water. It’s sort of a tradition, I guess, when you live by the coast, to do an ocean drive-by when there’s been inclement weather. So, we buckled ourselves into the car and made the trip across town under the partial sun that had erased most of the remnants of Saturday’s storm.

It doesn’t matter how many times we’ve seen it. When we turned the corner over Cunningham Bridge and saw the ocean spewing and sloshing as if deep down, some middle earth agitator had gone mad, we both yelled: “Oh my!”

Our car made tracks in the sheet of sand glazing the beach parking lot. Pulling up to the sea wall, we stared as the normally placid waters of Massachusetts bay rose up, heaving and spewing; regurgitating itself over the exposed granite ledges.

But, when the white foam of a monster wave crashed over Minot Lighthouse a mile out, we drove back home and got the cameras.

The Breakfast Cronicles

2011-10-29T06:00:00.023-04:00

Those living in close proximity to the Massachusetts South Shore might be interested in visiting the locations I've written about in my two most recent South Shore Living posts, below. For you readers from far away...well, there nothing wrong with living...or eating, vicariously, right?

Rainy Day Diner

Over and Easy

Happy weekend to all. And if you are so inclined, I'd love to hear about your favorite breakfast haunts!

October Sky

2011-10-24T07:58:00.003-04:00

It was 60 degrees and partly cloudy when my husband asked if I wanted to take a last ride in our dinghy before he rolled it out behind the shed and covered it for the winter. Sigh. I’m a fair-weather boater. When I get cold, I tend to stay that way for a long, long time so late October is well past my season. I love the little boat though, so I hemmed and hawed, and finally agreed, pulling on a hooded sweatshirt and packing my windbreaker and a fleece.

We trailed the boat one town over to Hingham Harbor, which is about five times the size of ours. Depending on the channel you use, it leads out to Massachusetts Bay or to Boston Harbor and is pocked with small islands. Its waters wend around World’s End, a park I’ve written about before, presenting stunning views of glacial drumlins mounding up through the trails. I’ve never toured the harbor by boat.

And, yea, I got cold and the water got choppy, and we had to cut our scenic trip short when the wind blew up swells too great for the twelve-foot Meggie Lou. But before that happened, we motored past the high tide line marking granite islands, and within a few yards of a pack of cormorants preening their feathers and hanging their wings to dry. We churned through the afternoon sparkle on the water, envying the lobster boat far ahead cutting through washing-machine waves with ease. We toyed with following him, but steady rollers began to lift our engine out of the water, making forward momentum impossible, which meant it was time to come about.

When we turned, we had a long trip back. I pulled my hood over my baseball cap and held it closed with my hands. With the wind at our back, I watched the October sky unfurl in length like lead-colored batting, and stitch itself to the corners of our patch-worked autumn earth.

Behind, but Forward

2011-10-20T06:00:00.076-04:00

Pounding rain has coincided with a day off from scheduled work. The bones are stiff from yesterday's eight-and-a-half-hour marathon at the cheese shop, and six hours of sitting at the computer today. It's all good though, because I just found a forgotten bag of potato chips, stashed in the top cupboard. Before seeking out refreshments, I put good effort in on a personal essay I hope to send out soon, and then after some well-overdue commenting on several blogs, forced myself to complete about 500 words on the old WIP. (As an aside, I have a difficult time using that term…I don’t take myself seriously enough as a writer. Anyone else have that little problem?).

Anywhoo, now it is time to write a blog post and as usual lately, I’m stymied. So, if you don’t mind, this is going to be an amalgamation.

For starters, I have been so behind on blog writing and reading, I missed out on Alex Cavanaugh’s and Matthew McNish’s Pay it Forward Blog Fest. The purpose was to recommend three bloggers so others will find them. Alex is one of the most generous, giving and forward thinking writers I’ve had the fortune to “meet,” and while I’m five days late, the idea was so thoughtful I wanted to participate. As for Matthew, well, I hope someday I’ll have a query he will critique. In the meantime, if you have one you’d like to submit, check out his site.

So, in spite of the fact I’m trailing the proverbial pack, I’d like to recommend two bloggers that I’ve discovered recently. To that end, please check out Mainewords. Marcy not only offers to critique the first page of your manuscript, her blog also includes stunning photos along with her prose. Speaking of photos, Missing Moments, a blog I found a few months ago, is filled with such amazing pictures, I sigh when I see them, and envy her photography skills.

Number three is a blogger I’ve known for a while, but please have a look at Anne Gallagher’s new site: Anne Gallagher, Regency Romance Writer . Anne's site is a perfect representation of her work, AND features a stunning masthead painted by Bridget Chicoine, a writer, artist, blogger I’ve been a fan of since my early days online. You can find Bridget’s painting site here, and her writing site here.

And lastly today, for those of you in revision hell…err, heaven, click here to read The Geyser 5-Step Approach to Revision by Brian Klems at Writer’s Digest. I can’t wait to get to a point where I can use his advice.

Warming up While the Season Cools Down

2011-10-18T06:00:00.004-04:00

As I write this, it is 63 degrees in my house. The thermometer in the back yard reads 71. The sun is too low in the sky to get over the trees and our home stays in a perpetual state of shade. I am sorry to say, we are preparing for winter.

The boats have been pulled, we’ve begun yanking down the storm windows and the two cords of wood we ordered fill the cutout in the driveway. Being frugal Yankees though, we can’t even consider turning on the heat yet. It’s the time of year we wear our sweaters inside, taking them off when we leave the house, donning them again when we return.

Experience has taught me well. The best way to get rid of the chill is to get out from under the trees and today, when I returned home to a cold house after the Monday a.m. volunteer stint, I chose not to stay. Instead I grabbed the camera.

In the car, the sun heated the air while a cracked window delivered a sharp freshness I drew deep into my lungs. The fleece jacket on the seat beside me remained untouched while a trip around town to capture some October images delivered its own, internal warmth.

The Burn

2011-10-17T06:00:00.000-04:00

This is a rerun from last year. I was pondering a post along the same vein, and then decided this one says it all. To give you some sense of the changes going on here...the first picture is taken from the same spot as the photo in the Middle Passages masthead...just a few months later.

On the shore, the term “mild” holds great meaning. It’s a matter of degree, but all influences touch us less. Except for occasional Nor’easters that barrel up the coast, our winters are softer. We get less snow; the ocean temperatures stop the air from becoming quite as cold. In the summer, heat waves stifle, but the sea offers a puff of air, a hint of dampness, a reduction in the swelter, noticed primarily by those who travel here from interior places.

Our autumns are calm too, sometimes in weather, always in color. Fall by the ocean rolls in with a serene glide that quilts us in shades more muted then those found in the mountain country up north. Weeks after the first flames whip through the sugar maples of Vermont and New Hampshire, we wait to reach peak color. When it appears, it’s hung by a more reserved artist, one who uses soft brush strokes to paint from a pallet of gold and fawn.

Skeins of subtle crimson wind through trees standing next to their still-green peers. Marsh grasses fade from emerald to taupe. We wait, for the splash, the celebration, an explosion of color to emerge, and then remember it doesn’t happen here. Instead, the colors leak in, seeping under a crack in the door, in slow burning embers we fail to recognize until the end of the party—when the pale sun butters a few remaining hickory leaves and our restrained burn looses its fuel. Coals diminish, cinders shift and before long, all that remains is a pile of glowing ashes. Rubbing our arms we look to the empty-fingered trees pointing to a smoke colored sky, and realize that before we got a chance to enjoy it, the heat drained from our smoldering autumn fire.

Catching Up

2011-10-11T09:39:00.000-04:00

The eighteen-year-old in our family, currently residing one state north, was home this weekend for the first time since starting college. As the two of us sat with windows rolled down at the beach, sipping our favorite coffee, she informed me I’ve been slacking in my blogger duties. “I keep checking Mom, but there is never anything new.” I hung my head. I’ve joined two writing groups, one local and one online, each of which require reading and critiquing, and I’ve given myself a writing goal that means putting Middle Passages on the back burner, for now. There is writing going on, behind the scenes, and lot of everyday living, but not so much happening here. Sometimes, you can’t do it all.

But then, you get a warm long weekend in October when the sky is so clear the land has sharp edges. The points on the oak leaves are visible and the outlines of the houses lining the harbor are etched in fine pen and ink. You walk a barrier beach, picking up flat stones and skimming them across a mild chop toward the sailboats still moored against a backdrop of yellowing trees, and take a trip in the dinghy through late season rollers—toward a lobster boat hauling its traps, out by the rocks. On the shore, sea grass turns from blonde to brown to rust, and all this provides fodder for a blog post, especially because you happened to remember a camera.

It is What it is

2011-10-04T09:35:00.002-04:00

It is 9:00. I have 45 minutes before I need to conduct a quick errand, then point the car north for the six mile ride to work. I tossed in bed early this morning, desperate for a blog post topic. Instead of ideas though, the water-torture drip of the gutter, draining from our 3:00 a.m. thunderstorm wormed its way in. Plunk, pelt, plunk, pelt. If only words would land in such a steady rhythm.

Sometimes, I when sit down, stuck, forcing myself to type, unexpected thoughts begin to drizzle, trickling at first, like the tiny brook flowing through our gutter, then flooding like a storm surge. Today, it is just this, a paragraph squeezed out like the last of the toothpaste, hardly enough to cover the brush.

This is my little contribution to Alex Cavanaugh's monthly Insecure Writers's blogfest. Click here to read more.

Sandburg says it Best

2011-09-28T06:00:00.002-04:00

I suppose we all read this one, at some time during our school years. There is something to be said though, for rising at 6:30 a.m. and living it.

Fog

Carl Sandburg - 1878-1967

The fog comes

on little cat feet

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

until it moves on.

One for the Ages

2011-09-20T09:19:00.001-04:00

When I accepted my part-time job at the gourmet food/cheese shop, the hours conflicted with days I volunteered for our town’s Counsel on Elder Affairs. Instead of serving lunch on Wednesdays, plus baking for, setting up and cleaning at a weekly senior breakfast, my schedule allowed for me to set up for the breakfast before rushing off to the paying job. I lost out on the lunch totally. Last week though, my days at the shop changed and for the first time in over a year, I wasn't there on a Wednesday. I spend the morning on LCS Writes work, and when I looked up at 11:00, I realized there was plenty of time to see if they needed me at the center.

Volunteering with senior citizens offers profound reward. The work is simple, the remuneration complex. Seniors’ eyes glow when they see our “younger” faces. They openly express their gratitude for the simple tasks we perform, serving lunch, cleaning up, engaging in a little lighthearted banter.

I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t have my favorites and when I poked my head around the corner on Wednesday and S___’s eyes lit up, it was a reminder of the value of connecting with other humans, regardless of age. M_____ held my hand as I teased her about the bandage on her head and we laughed when I reminded her that the last time I saw her she had a bruise there too. Of course we weren’t making fun of her falls, only acknowledging that limitations occur and, as my father used to say; “Getting old ain’t for sissies.” As the wrinkled faces of the friends I’ve come to know nodded and waved, there was also an awareness of open spaces. Regular seats had new occupants, or worse, remained empty, which made me consider the warmth from the hug S____ gave me a while longer— kind of like the lollypop I snagged from the counter in the Elder Affairs office; a sweetness savored long after the last dish was cleared.

Field Trip

2011-09-12T09:28:00.000-04:00

Less than two hours away from us, a small Rhode Island town hosts stone-lined roads, squaring off blocks of rolling green fields dappled with bulky hay bales. Over the floss of corn stalks crowding Route 77, strips of sea lay under a cloudless horizon. For thirty years I’ve wanted to visit Little Compton. Yesterday, my husband and I did.

I wondered how different it could be from my own New England fishing village and the answer to that is “very.” Where we drive up and down twisted roads that run into and emerge from pine needle shadows, Little Compton’s lined drives point straight to the distance; their inclines, gradual. In spite of twisted oaks guarding the road, the land lays unabashed like a fertile woman, welcoming all the light the sun can muster.

Farm stands dot the main road, and after purchasing last-of-the-season peaches and passing on the temptation to pick apples, we finally stopped for butter pecan ice cream in Tiverton Four Corners. As we peered toward the windows of an art center, then stopped for tastes at an immaculate cheese shop, something became clear. Our Sunday had began early in the morning with a service of remembrance. It finished with a reminder of all that remains.

Oh, and Anne Gallagher, at Piedmont Writer, these pictures are for you.

No Words, Just Prayers

2011-09-11T06:00:00.003-04:00

Gerry's Legacy

2011-09-08T17:28:00.001-04:00

Rachael Harrie has posted the first campaigner challenge. Write a short story/flash fiction story in 200 words or less, excluding the title. It can be in any format, including a poem. Begin the story with the words, “The door swung open” These four words will be included in the word count. If you want to give yourself an added challenge (optional), use the same beginning words and end with the words: "the door swung shut." (also included in the word count)

For those who want an even greater challenge, make your story 200 words EXACTLY!

Gerry's Legacy

The door swung open. “Oh Lord,” she cried. Water percolated at the base of the granite steps. In the twenty years they’d lived in the Lodge House the river never swelled beyond its banks, but four days after this tropical storm began, the stream morphed into a running quagmire of trash and debris. Tree branches swirled in the eddies, a license plate stuck to particle-board floated like a directionless raft.

The memory of Gerard King, the “Paul Revere” of Exeter, exhorting citizens to approve a tax increase to retro-fit the dam, circled in her brain like the plastic milk jug floating by her front door. With his pony-tailed hair down to his waist, torn shirt and leather moccasins, he’d stand up at the mike every year, hollering, “No, the river hasn’t overflowed in over 30 years, but it is only going to take once. That berm was built before World War II.” Each time, engineers in their navy rep ties pulled out analyses of weight-to-water ratios, convincing townsfolk the berm was safe.

As she looked across the raging torrent to the cemetery where Gerard was buried last week, a rumbling vibration shook the house. Behind her the door swung closed.

If you like my post, click here to vote. I am #329.

The Truth of "Time"

2011-09-07T06:00:00.031-04:00

This post is my contribution to Alex Cavanaugh’s “Insecure Writers Support Group.” For More information and to find other bloggers who are participating, clickhere.

28,717.

That number represents the word count on my current project as of 9:00 yesterday morning. Last week sometime, I forced myself to sit down and log 1000 words. Other than that, it remained in an untouched folder on my flash drive for close to a month. During that time I wrote blog posts here, and for a regional magazine, and completed bi-monthly public relations articles for the local newspaper I’m being paid to write. So I can’t cop to “writer’s block.” But when it was time to sit down and move forward with the story I’ve been working on since this winter, I veered away from the computer.

This year spring arrived, then summer, delivering a basketful of emotional produce related to endings and beginnings associated with our eighteen year-old only child. I felt the need to work my way through all that fruit, to juggle a few oranges and to chew on the ripe plums at the bottom of the pile before I could focus on my story again. So I gave myself a "pass." With the arrival of Labor Day, the summer milestones were all crossed off.

Time to get back to the thing, right?

Yet, here I am, writing this post on writing insecurities, instead of, well, writing.

So many times writers are asked: “How do you make the time to write?” I have a theory and it is pretty simple. There is always time to write, we simply have to make a choice to find it. Over the last few months, I’ve chosen not to. Now I’m worried. The distractions are over, and if I mean it, it’s time to call my own bluff.

PS…There’s hope. Word count as of 3:00 p.m. Tuesday: 30,057.