Middle Passages: 2022

Wednesday, December 7, 2022

Back to the Essence - IWSG December 2022

No optional question for me this month, instead, you get a story.

I’ve mentioned earlier that my current writing project is not going fast, or easily, or well.

Now, pack that thought into a cupboard for a bit as I share the following.

As a teen, I spent two summers working and living in a country inn in New Hampshire where I made friendships I still treasure. That first summer, I met “K.” a writer who’d already published a memoir by the time I arrived on the scene. My autographed copy retains pride of place on my bookshelf.

As time went by in those pre-internet, pre-email, pre-just-about-anything-technological years, Christmas communications included long letters. Cards from K. and his wife contained essays he’d written about their young son and how as a dad, he learned life lessons while fielding his inquisitive boy’s direct questions. The stories were always sweet, sometimes whimsical, mostly funny, and if he compiled them into a collection, a suitable title might be, Parenting is Not for Sissies.

Fast forward to few years ago. Our major daily publishes a Sunday magazine section featuring a personal essay on the last page. Ages ago one of my own essays was featured, so each week I read it with interest to gauge the quality of the writing. One Sunday, I was drawn into a lovely piece and before long found the voice so familiar, I stopped mid-read to search for the byline. Sure enough, it was written by K.

Last week, K. emailed me that he would have another essay published in the upcoming Sunday supplement. When the day arrived, I made myself read the news methodically, savoring the anticipation of what I would find at the end. It didn’t disappoint. His essay about overcoming nerves while taking flight beside his son, a newly licensed pilot, made me wince, chuckle, and ponder a universal truth. It never feels like our adult children are grown up until they prove us wrong. I read it again and again.

So where am I going with this?

Well, the thing of it is, I’m not feeling great about my fourth attempt at a publishable novel. For months, I’ve been trudging up a mountain of slog, trying to develop one of my characters which is changing everything I’ve spent the last year-and-a-half writing. For the first time ever, I'm allowing myself to procrastinate (writing blog posts helps with that), and worse, can picture not finishing. But shortly after reading the piece by my old NH friend, I was inspired to sit in front of my computer and bang out my own story, about not hosting Thanksgiving for the first time in thirty years. How the holiday I’d expected to feel strange and altered turned into a memory I will savor.

Like K. I used real life examples and wrote from the heart. For the first time in a while, my fingers flew to catch up with my thoughts and when I was done, I felt that dopamine buzz that let me know I’d done something good.

I walked away from the computer with a six-hundred-word piece and a big fat reminder that what I love about writing is just that. The writing. No matter how unforgiving the slog, they can’t take that away from me.

Wednesday, November 2, 2022

How it is Now - IWSG November 2022.

Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of the amazing and generous Alex Cavanaugh. To find links to other monthly contributors, click here. Thank you to November co-hosts: Diedre Knight, Douglas Thomas Greening, Nick Wilford , and Diane Burton!

The writing hasn’t been kind to me lately. Back in the day when I felt stuck, I took an artist’s date which I learned to do while completing the lessons in The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron. The writer suggests taking regular time-outs from your "art" to pursue an activity that might spur creativity. For me, that usually involved going on a walk with a camera. I’d click images of scenes around the area I love so much, then go home and write about something I'd photographed. Once I wrote a vignette about a house blurred by fog and it ended up inspiring my third novel.

But because of life (and cell phones), I haven’t taken a walk with my actual camera in a long time. When I took it out of the cupboard recently, the last photo on the memory card was from 2019.

A few days later, I took a ride down to the harbor with the camera in the passenger seat, just to see how it felt. In truth, it felt weird. Who uses an actual camera now, anyway? But really the issue was something bigger. I didn’t grow up near the ocean. After almost 40 years of living by the sea, I’m still in awe of my surroundings but as in every other realm of my life these days, there's something missing.

Before two years ago, my walking habit was to keep my eyes open and frame picture after picture trying to capture the essence of what made me feel so joyful. These days though, what used to feel fun is hard work. Nevertheless, as flat as I felt that afternoon at the harbor, I was there. The egrets were, too. My heart wasn't in it much, but it gave me a little peace when I got home and downloaded the pictures to find my eyes still work.

Wednesday, October 5, 2022

Ye Old Red Pen - IWSG October 2022

I am always impressed when someone tells me they write their first drafts longhand. Imagine a 19^th century author composing a manuscript with a quill pen, tying up the draft with string to deliver to a publisher (my imagination at work here). It’s more than I can fathom. Even ball-point pen on a lined legal pad feels daunting to me. Without the arrival of the personal computer, I’m confident I would not be a writer. My practice goes something like this. Stare into space for a while. Write a sentence. Write a paragraph. Decide the paragraph doesn’t say what I want it to. Delete most of it. Start again. In longhand, my drafts would be page after page of scratch outs.

That said, there’s nothing like printing out a draft and editing by hand. For the past year-and-a-half, I’ve been revising the first novel I ever tried to write. All those years ago I stopped working on it because the thing was such a complete mess, it was beyond my skills to fix it. I’m a better writer now. I pulled it out a few months after my husband died because the gosh-awful draft required focus. Focus provides distraction. Distraction helped me cope.

Now, I’ve gone through two revisions based on a fair bit of critiquing, which has helped improve the story to a point where I kind-of-sort-of thought maybe it was getting somewhere. With that in mind, I printed it out to read it from a different perspective.

Ugh.

Can you spell o-v-e-r-w-h-e-l-m-e-d? I'm only eighty pages in, and the majority of them look like this.

Have you ever drafted out a story longhand?

Do you print your stories out to edit them?

Wednesday, September 7, 2022

Nope, Nope, Nope, and I Wish

Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of the amazing and generous Alex Cavanaugh. Thank you to September co-hosts: Kim Lajevardi, Cathrina Constantine, Natalie Aguirre, Olga Godim, Michelle Wallace, and Louise - Fundy Blue! To find links to other monthly contributors, click here.

This month’s optional question: What genre would be the worst one for you to tackle and why?

In real life as well as fiction, I stay away from anything that might lead to a sleepless night, which means no horror for me. I write because I love getting lost in other worlds (and words), not to increase my heart rate. Somewhere on this blog I wrote about a summer roommate who wouldn’t leave me alone until I agreed to read Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. About a third of the way through, I tossed the book across the room. It sat in the corner until we weren’t roommates anymore. As with my reading, so goes my writing.

As for other genres, well, erotica is out, I don’t feel like I have the voice in my head for YA and, being the ultimate panster, it’s unlikely I could write a mystery because that would require making a plan. (In high school I wrote my papers before the required outline since it was the only way I could figure out what to write.) Other than moon-to-earth big picture, I don’t have much of a clue as to where my stories are going until they get there. Once they do, I spend eons editing the the heck out of them, paring them to final form. Not the most efficient way to write, but here we are…

In that regard, I have the utmost admiration for authors of historical fiction. Most recently, I read The Rose Code, by Kate Quinn, whose story portrays British civilians trained to break German military codes during the war. If I dove into something that complex, I doubt I’d resurface from the research, never mind demonstrate the skill to write about it. It takes a lot of organization and confidence to embark on a story with such depth.

Sometimes, I wish my wiring worked that way.

What would be the most difficult kind of story for you to write?

Wednesday, August 3, 2022

Giving What They Want/Getting What I Want - IWSG August 2022

August optional question: When you set out to write a story, do you try to be more original, or do you try give readers what they want?

Confession? I set out to write a story, all I want to do is get something readable onto the page!

That said, it seems to me anyone who writes in a specific genre is trying to give a reader what they want. I write women’s fiction so in each of my stories the main character is a woman who has encountered some significant life-challenge she needs to overcome. That’s what my readers should want to read. To keep them immersed, though, the details need to be unique and compelling.

Recently, I was reading The Last Thing He Told Me, by Laura Dave, and something completely unexpected happened in the action. “Oh. My. God." I said. Apparently my exclamation was on the energetic side because my daughter poked her head in from the other room.

“What’s wrong?”

“Sorry. It's all good. I’m reading and the story surprised me.”

My daughter may have rolled her eyes, but I thought, Holy Moly, that's some writing!

On a non-IWSG-related topic, my neighbors took down a bunch of dead hemlocks on their side of the property line and I'm tickled beyond belief. Now, rather than scraggily bushes, there's a clear view of summer sunsets. I haven’t included many of pictures here lately, but the other day I took about fifty shots as a storm started to muscle in. Unbeknownst to me, my daughter took a picture of her own.

Here's what I got.

Do you have a view of summer sunsets? What do you consider when you begin to write a story?

Wednesday, July 6, 2022

Tap, Tap, Tap - IWSG July 2022

July optional question: If you could live in any book world, which one would you choose?

In high school, I read a book called Celia Garth by Gwen Bristow, the fictional story of a young woman in Charleston during the American Revolution. It left me with a yearning to visit the South Carolina low country. Over the years since, I’ve read so many southern authors, Pat Conroy, Cormac McCarthy, Anne Rivers Siddons, Dorothea Benton Frank. If a book had the potential to mention a low country sunset, I was all in.

By the time my daughter moved to Charleston for a period and the chance came to visit, I could name the places I wanted to see –Trad Street, Rainbow Row, the Battery, Fort Sumpter, Sullivan’s Island, Folly Beach. She ended moving back there for a few years and through subsequent visits, I became familiar with the area. How I loved driving Route 17 from Charleston to Savannah and seeing kids casting shrimp nets by the side of the road, or slow trawlers waddling out to sea. I witnessed sunsets over winding creeks that were so beautiful they made me want to cry— it was all there— everything I read about in those books I so enjoyed.

But would I want to live there? Well, no, but not because the location doesn’t speak to me. It’s just that I lean equally toward books that feature New England. Perhaps it’s the familiarity that draws me in. I feel blessed to live less than an hour from a metropolitan city, but also close to lobster boats, farmers, apple orchards and tumbled stone walls, plus so much history almost everywhere we walk we mark famous footsteps. Case in point, two participants of the Boston Tea Party are buried in my town cemetery.

The other morning, I sat at my computer drafting this piece and looked out the window to see a truck from the local dairy farm delivering fresh milk in glass bottles to my neighbors. Where else does this happen anymore? When I read books that take place in this world, it’s like my oldest best friend, coming to visit.

So, to answer this month’s question, I can only say this. I'll always welcome an opportunity to visit the low country, but as Dorothy said so famously as she tapped her ruby slippers, “There’s no place like home.”

If you could live in any book world, where would you live?

Wednesday, June 1, 2022

Faith as a Writer

June’s optional question: When the going gets tough writing the story, how do you keep yourself writing to the end? If you have not started the writing yet, why do you think that is and what do you think could help you find your groove and start?

The title of my very first blog post was “I Can Do This.” All these years later that theme continues to resonate through my writing life. Joyce Carol Oates wrote a book called Faith of a Writer. In truth, it’s not my favorite book on craft, but the title has always resonated with me. Faith in my writing allows me to slog through many a story-struggle because once I get something down, I know the result can be edited. So many initial and fairly awful attempts end up deleted or changed beyond recognition, but as long as there is something to work with, I know forward progress is possible. Case in point, my current novel was inspired by a small glass bottle we dug up from our backyard. That bottle has long disappeared from the story, but a draft novel resulted from that initial passage.

Sometimes, when the effort feels notably painful, rather than decide I can’t write, I give myself permission to think. Recently my writing group suggested one of my characters wasn’t giving my story complexity. I agreed but didn’t know how to give it to her. I spent many middle-of-the-night-I-can’t-sleep-hours pondering her—letting her drift around my mind until she obliged me by fleshing herself out. Once I make the changes those think-sessions suggested, she’ll be less wallpaper paste and become more of the pattern itself.

And finally, on pieces like this blog post when often I have no idea what I want to say, I start by writing stream of conscious. Most of that ends up as a pile of discarded word glop—which happened to the entire paragraph with which I initially started today’s post. But once I get something down, a nugget appears that informs me of the direction in which I need to go, and I follow its lead. The fun part is more often than not, I end up in a totally different place than where I thought I would land.

It’s a little like sculpting. I chisel away, cutting, pasting and editing, knowing the right words will emerge as long as I trust they are there.

How do you keep writing when the going gets tough?

Wednesday, May 4, 2022

Back to Earth - IWSG May 2022

Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of the amazing and generous Alex Cavanaugh. Thank you to the May co-hosts: Kim Elliott, Melissa Maygrove, Chemist Ken, Lee Lowery, and Nancy Gideon! To find links to all IWSG contributors, click here.

This month’s question: It's the best of times; it's the worst of times. What are your writer highs? And what are your writer lows?

A few years ago, I signed up for Grub Street’s Muse in the Marketplace. Generally, I’m reluctant to attend conferences because when I arrive, my “I’m-nothing-but-a-fake” demon inflates inside me, but somehow that year I beat down my fear. I even signed up for a critique session which involved sending sample pages to an agent prior to the event.

In spite of high anxiety, the day was a success, the workshops outstanding and in my mind, my agent one-on-one went worlds better than expected. The woman I’d been partnered with seemed engaged. She offered me sound advice and even appeared regretful when our time was up. All I’d wanted that day was to sit with a professional and acquit myself competently, so when she asked me to send her partial of the book I was querying, I didn’t so much walk out of that meeting, I sailed. It was enough of a rush to have enjoyed the conference, but piquing an agent’s interest in my novel? That wasn’t just frosting on the proverbial cake, it was ice cream, homemade fudge sauce and a massive dollop of whipped cream, too. I sent my submission lickety split.

But that’s all she wrote—pun very much intended—because I received no follow up—no request to read more, no “Thanks, but no thanks.” Nothing. Zip.

Now in case you’re wondering, by that point I’d written three books and queried two. I’d received partial requests, full requests, every manner of form rejection and was no stranger to dead air. But that day, I let my guard down. I left the conference over the moon. My husband took me out to dinner that night and I couldn’t stop talking. I was so proud of myself for conquering my fears, and while I wasn’t expecting a book deal out of it, I was convinced the agent was enthusiastic. I thought at least I’d get a helpful letter telling me why she was rejecting my novel. But instead, I got nada. I emailed after a couple of months, crossing my fingers that the lack of communication was an oversight, but received no reply to my email either.

I get it. Agents drown in volume. One needs to be a great writer with a unique concept with the best query, and it needs to land in front of the right person at the perfect time. I can’t imagine all the queries agents (or their assistants and interns) have to wade through. But darn it. That meeting filled me with hope. These days, the cynic in me figures I was naïve—that requesting a partial was that agent’s personal code for “no interest.” It was easier than saying “no” face-to-face to an eager author wanna-be.

So, there it is, a best and worst tied together. Nothing earth shattering. I keep writing. Periodically I rouse myself to query some more. But this month’s question triggered the memory of that happy day I blasted off like a skyrocket, only to drift to earth a few months later—wondering how I’d managed to fool myself into believing my agent meeting had been a success.

Wednesday, April 6, 2022

Audio for Anxiety - IWSG April 2022

Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of the amazing and generous Alex Cavanaugh. To find links to all IWSG contributors, click here. Thank you to April co-hosts: Joylene Nowell Butler, Jemima Pett, Patricia Josephine, Louise - Fundy Blue, and Kim Lajevardi!

Optional question: Have any of your books been made into audio books? If so, what is the main challenge in producing an audiobook?

I can't answer the question, but I can speak about audio books.

While I'm fine driving locally, I’ve never been the most comfortable highway driver. For that reason, I was most often a passenger while my late husband and I listened to books when we took road trips and invariably my mind would drift. Before I knew it I’d wake up having missed Lord knows how much. But these days, I am the driver and audio books have begun to save me.

During my husband’s illness--I supposed as a way to pretend we had some control--we kept our lives as normal as possible. We didn’t share what we were going through with others and few people knew he was sick. Unfortunately for me, bottled-up stress manifested itself in a panic attack that occurred long before he died, on a day I was driving alone on the highway. Imagine unexpected dizziness, clammy hands and paralyzing fear of fainting while traveling 65 MPH down a four-lane highway. After the first awful one, they became self-induced. What if I have a panic attack? I’d think anytime I was alone on the highway. Too often, the thought triggered the symptoms.

Now, as I recreate my life, letting this issue rule me could mean never leaving my area, which is not acceptable. At first, I pondered taking a driving course, but Covid (or more likely fear) dissuaded me. I utilized alternate means of transportation or found back-road options to get where I needed to go, until an invitation to my sister’s surprise birthday party arrived last fall. Getting there meant all highway driving. Neither public transportation nor the word “no” were an option. Enter Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone on audio. It's a story I know so well, if I missed a line it wouldn't matter but one I love enough it could divert my thoughts from that damaging and self-fulfilling, What if?

Ever a hero, once again Harry saved the day. With the book keeping me company, I made it to the party and home without issue. Even better, the trip helped me see it's in my power to drive where I need to. I'm not all the way there yet, but thanks to Harry, I’ve taken a few trips, sometimes with an audio book and notably last weekend because I forgot to download one, my longest trip without.

So, while I have not had an opportunity to turn a book into an audio book, audio books have offered a turning point for me.

What has your experience been with audio books? What type of methods would you suggest to calm a reluctant highway driver?

Wednesday, March 2, 2022

CONFLICT[ED] - IWSG March 2022

It's IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of the amazing and generous Alex Cavanaugh. Thank you to this month’s co-hosts: Janet Alcorn, Pat Garcia, Natalie Aguirre, and Shannon Lawrence. To find links to other IWSG contributors, click here.

March Question: Have you ever been conflicted about writing a story or adding a scene to a story? How did you decide to write it or not?

A long time ago, a writing instructor said, “Think about the worst possible thing you can do to your characters and make it happen.” With that in mind, I figured out I needed to kill off the character in the novel I was working on who was the single force mending a family wrought with discord. Decision made, I procrastinated for two weeks. I loved him. I couldn’t imagine writing the scene—but the story was a lot of bla, bla, bla if he didn’t go, so eventually, I pulled up my big-girl writer pants and got on with it, bawling away while I typed.

Nowadays, I make bad things happen, but not always bad enough. Someone from my writing group recently described a couple of chapters I read as “pleasant,” an exceptional example of what my father used to call, “damning, with faint praise.” Time to ratchet up the conflict, Liza. But how much?

I’m currently reading a novel recommended by a friend about couple in a struggling relationship who agree to live on a sailboat with their young kids for a year. Think, four people confined to a miniscule space, away from all the comforts they’ve known. Everything about the trip has been more expensive than planned. Unbeknownst to the wife, they are underwater financially. They’ve lost their satellite phone overboard, are out of cash and almost out of food when their engine quits. Anchored off a group of islands near South America, they don’t speak the local dialect. The husband has to leave his family on the boat while he travels for several days to get parts, and his wife isn’t an experienced sailor. All I can hear is, dun, dun, dun…

Here's the deal. This author has mastered conflict and suspense. The writing is excellent and the storyline is gripping. But, I keep putting the book down because I’m too worried about what’s coming next. Things keep getting worse. I know it’s NOT going to end well and it’s causing me so much anxiety I’m not sure I’ll finish. I have enough to be anxious about in real life.

Hence, my dilemma: how do I find a middle ground between writing a book that’s so stressful a sissy reader like me puts it aside, and writing a story that’s merely “pleasant?”

Somehow, I’ve got to find it.

How do you deal with writing conflict?

Wednesday, February 2, 2022

In Gratitude to A. and J.

It's IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of the amazing and generous Alex Cavanaugh. Thank you to co-hosts for the February 2 posting of the IWSG: Joylene Nowell Butler, Jacqui Murray, Sandra Cox, and Lee Lowery.

This month’s optional question: Is there someone who supported or influenced you that perhaps isn't around anymore? Anyone you miss?

In a previous life, years into a business relationship with an outside recruitment professional I learned he had been diagnosed with OCD. This explained a lot of things, especially his habit of calling me at the same time every Thursday morning regardless of whether or not we had business to discuss. It was all good. Through those weekly calls we became friends.

In those days, I was a wistful wannabe writer so when he told me his MFA and published author daughter had challenged herself to write 750 words a day via a blog, I became a regular reader. At the time, I was a long-term HR manager and the work was, well—fine. The job was close to home, paid well, and the company was flexible when demands arose related to raising my then-teenage daughter. And, while I did wonder if there could be more to my [work] life, nothing motivated me to think about change—until I started reading that blog.

The author wrote with a luminescence and clarity that more than once brought me to tears. Her posts about family, motherhood, parents, and grandparents, writing and volunteering touched on truths inside me I had yet to admit. I began arriving early to work each morning to read the newest post, commenting on some of them—editing my own thoughts to make sure they read just right. It's no exaggeration to say her words reached into my heart, forced me to FEEL and stirred the writer in me.

Then one afternoon, in a company-wide expense reduction, the job I would have never left on my own left me. I woke the next day unemployed but with a singular recognition that my next phase had to be more than a 40+ hour work week that was simply “fine.” Inspired by my recruiter-friend’s daughter, I created Middle Passages to hold myself accountable to a regular writing schedule. Every word I’ve written since, for this blog or anywhere else traveled a direct path from those days when I couldn’t wait to fire up my computer to read what she had to say.

A year or so after I started Middle Passages, the writer’s blog went dark. Absent Thursday morning phone calls from her dad (which I confess, still happened long after my employment change), I only know she encountered heartbreaking life challenges. I’m afraid she may no longer be writing. The thought touches me beyond loss.

So, this post is a tribute to the woman whose words centered me with a focus I had no idea I was lacking. I write now knowing it’s the one thing that makes me feel whole and accomplished and connected to my core—and with eternal gratitude that so many years ago she triggered my introduction to the me I was always supposed to be.

Middle Passages