Beginning a Life at 50

The best laid plans ...

2011-11-14T20:59:00.001-06:00

I had this really good plan. I was humming along this week, what three posts in a week? For me, that is really really good.

Anyway, my plan. I was trying to muster up some courage to post some fiction on the blog, finally prove to you that I really am writing, well I mean writing something other than this blog. I had a story I started a while back. Okay truth, I started a long while back, over a year ago. I started it and was in love with my protagonist. I loved the voice I thought she had.

Another person read what I had started with and felt the voice was too ... I don't know, too southern? Too affected? Whatever. Having little confidence in myself I started to change it. The story itself was there still and I was still writing but with every passing day I felt myself moving further away from where I had meant to go. Changing the voice changed the story, it no longer felt like it made sense and it had gone off on some path I couldn't even explain.

So I put it down. Hating what it had become and not liking it enough to keep working on it. I don't blame the other person. They may have been right, they may have been wrong, but the one thing I'm starting to feel certain about is that I have to trust my own gut. If I think I want to write in a certain voice or style then thats what I should write. If it needs to change when I'm all done and editing so be it, but the voice that was speaking to me I stopped listening to.

Back to my plan. So I asks myself, "self, what fiction you gonna post on your blog, huh?" Oh. That. Yeah, what fiction am I going to post.

I opened up the file folder and pulled out the story from over a year ago. I took only the first page, the first page from the first draft in the original voice I had written it in and I started over. The voice had changed slightly, mellowed some but it started to speak to me again and it felt like I had taken off.

But here's the rub (didn't you know there would be one?). I started thinking it was meant to be a short story, maybe a very short story or flash fiction. That took the pressure off me to feel like it was too big a project to tackle, and a short short story or flash fiction would fit nicely in a blog post. But that dang protagonist won't shut up. She's still yakkin' away at me. I'm way past flash fiction and way past short short story. I'm not sure where it will end. A long short story? A novella? A novel --- well probably not but who knows?

So here I am apologizing once again, no fiction posting this week. If this story keeps moving along and getting longer I'll try and post some other fiction or maybe a piece from the memoir next week. But for now I don't want to tempt the fates, this is just too good, haven't felt this good about writing in a very long time.

Lost in the stacks ...

2011-11-12T21:45:00.000-06:00

Books, books and more books ....

Since cutting down my work schedule and devoting my time to things that make me happy, I have been reading a lot lately. I haven't been sticking to any one genre, I have been all over the map and it has been a blast. In case you are wondering, here's what I've been reading and my recommendations.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I don't usually gravitate towards YA. And I certainly don't gravitate towards sic-fi, fantasy or any of those. Although I have heard raves about the Twilight Series and of course the Harry Potter books, I have read neither. I'm not a snob, the ideas just haven't appealed to me that much. And neither did the story line of The Hunger Games but my daughter (a woman in her mid twenties), raved about this book couldn't wait to read the next two in the series and kept telling me I needed to read it. It was on my Kindle so I started it. Could not put it down. I was drawn in almost immediately, I was impressed by the plot, characters, relationships and language. So it only was right that I too couldn't wait to read the next two in the series and did. Both great like the first. Really, to me these are great books for parents to read with their YA readers, the issues raised, the moral dilemmas faced by the characters, all could be great discussion starters.

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (the second in the Hunger Games trilogy)
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (the third in the series)

Murder on Music Row by Stuart Dill

Hmmm, what to say. Did I like it? Yes. Would I recommend it? Depends. Dill is a Country Music manager, has been for 25 years. To say he knows the music business from the inside is an understatement. The book, Dill's first novel, is good, not the best I've ever read but had enough suspense to keep me reading. I like books that are set in places where I know the geography, the names of towns, and streets and businesses and I know the names of some of the people mentioned. Dill name drops plenty, some of the biggest names in country music but I guess when you have managed some of those same folks you get to to do that. I guess I think that if you don't know or don't like country music or the Nashville area you might not find as much to like in this book as I did. The character development was a little bit weak, the main male character was almost a caricature of the current country music star. A fun and quick read.

Room by Emma Donoghue

I think I've mentioned before that I am often drawn to books by their cover art. Room was one of those and I can't explain exactly why. I also knew it was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for literature. To say it was compelling is just not enough. It was beautiful and heart wrenching, sometimes frightening, and sad. Donoghue captured the thinking of a five year old who has known nothing other than his Ma, the room they live in and the man who comes and brings their food to them. It often reminded me of my previous life in law enforcement and the time spent as a detective in the crimes against persons division. It took me a little time to get used to the language of 5 year old Jack and to understand Ma's motivations for how she responds to him but once I became immersed in their room I wanted to stay with them til the end.

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

This one was recommended by my sister and was on the Kindle (two of my sisters and I share a kindle account so if one of them adds a book it becomes available to me as well -- lucky me!)

It took me a little bit to get into this book and I found myself at times annoyed that I still couldn't see how the title applied or how the stories fit together. Maybe it is that OCD part of me that likes to know how the puzzle pieces fit and to guess ahead at how things will turn out. But once deep into the story, especially of the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup of Jewish families in 1942 France, I was transfixed. I knew nothing of the history (which made me feel a bit ashamed, shouldn't we know these things?), I ached for the children who watched their parents being led away, unaware of the gas chambers that awaited them. But I also became engrossed in Julia's struggle to learn the story and her struggle to find her self in her marriage.

Time of My Life by Allison Winn Scotch

This is a book I bought after I began to follow Allison Winn Scotch on twitter and began to read her blog, about her books and writing. I think she is really funny, someone I'd like as a friend. She has just enough cynicism about relationships and people that I really love. The book is the story of a young woman, married, with money (think almost Stepford like) who gets to go back and relive her life years earlier when a relationship failed. Ahhh, to go back again and relive parts of your life, knowing what you know now .... and a reminder that the grass isn't always greener. It is a quick read but fun and funny in parts. Definite "beach read" material. I'd definitely recommend following Scotch on twitter. She does have a couple other books out and options for film, a name you might hear a lot more in the future.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

I was late to the party on this one, it was all the rage in the bookstores and on Amazon and Goodreads. My sisters recommended it and it was on the Kindle. But I had bought a hardcover copy early, just hadn't picked it up to read it. Another one where I was drawn to the cover art. But, I really didn't know what the story was until much later. I admit, I'm an idiot, shoulda read it the minute I got it, I loved it!! At times it reminded me of To Kill a Mockingbird, maybe mainly because of the setting, the south where time sometimes stands still. But it struck me early on, I was alive during the time the Help takes place, I was young, younger than Skeeter, but this was part of my history, it happened during my lifetime. That kind of scared me, because I grew up in California a world away from Mississippi and I seemed to really have no clue about segregation (no one to segregate where I lived) or what was happening in the day to day lives of many people in the south. I lived in a fairly liberal household so racism wasn't even an issue for us, unless it was an issue my parents were working against politically.

I love the language, the relationships, Skeeter's strength, the strength of the maids ... all of it.

I saw the movie, usually I am disappointed by the film adaptation of a great book (don't even get me started on what Peter Jackson did to The Lovely Bones) but this time I was pleasantly surprised. I wished there had been more sometimes but then I'm not a director or producer making what could be a controversial subject into a mainstream commercial success. Overall I thought it was a good movie, a great movie, not as great as the book but can't have everything.

There was a lawsuit against Stockett, brought by her brother's maid who sued for Stockett using her name (Abilene) and likeness in the book/movie. The suit was dismissed by a judge in Atlanta. To me, this is the kind of book that should be on every high school reading list, teach a little about our country's not so great history.

Cowboy and Wills by Monica Holloway

This is a book I heard about months ago, maybe even a couple years ago, mostly on She Writes. It is a memoir about Monica Holloway and her young son Wills, who was diagnosed on the Autism spectrum when he was only 18 months old. It is also about the relationship Wills formed with his dog, a female golden retriever named Cowboy and how it helped him socialize in ways most never thought possible. It is a great read, funny in parts, very sad in parts but it gives you hope. He is an amazing little boy and I'm a sucker for a cute dog story. Holloway also adds a lot of humor, self deprecating about herself and her own "issues" and the fear and difficulty in raising a special needs child. It is a quick read and if you're a parent you will probably love it. Especially if your child is not anywhere near the autism spectrum, trying to provide structure to an autistic child would be difficult for any parent.

The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan

Another one I've had on my to read list for quite some time, just it didn't make it to the top of the list until I had more time. This is also a memoir from Corrigan who, as a young mother of two small children finds a cancerous lump in her breast. Corrigan comes from a close family from a small town in Pennsylvania, her father her biggest fan and ally. He had already survived prostate cancer when while Corrigan is getting treatment for her breast cancer her father is diagnosed with bladder cancer. The book alternates between reminiscences of Corrigan's childhood and the present day as she and her father face treatment for cancer and Corrigan finds herself in that middle place a child and a parent. I was touched by the story, I loved the relationship between Corrigan and her father and between Corrigan and her husband who could have easily been overwhelmed by the Corrigan family.

Maybe because I just lost my own father to cancer and am somewhat in the middle place to, albeit without having cancer myself that I related to Corrigan's story. I was surprised when I looked on Amazon and found that the book received a lot of 5 star reviews but of the people that didn't like it they were very vocal about calling Corrigan whiny and self-indulgent. I didn't see her that way except to say, aren't we all sometimes? If Corrigan was perfect and not more like the rest of us when your life is in turmoil I don't think it would have been as interesting a story.

The Trust by Sean Keefer

This book I won from my friend Christi Craig who gave it away after interviewing the author on her blog Christi Craig. Keefer is a practicing attorney in South Carolina as is his main character in this, Keefer's debut novel, a legal mystery. That is one of my favorite genre's and I was looking forward to reading it. I really liked it overall but it was lacking in parts. I felt at times that Keefer made the two main female characters in the book too much alike, hard to tell who was who at times, and the dialogue dragged just a little in parts. But I felt it was a great first effort and could see Keefer's style and look forward to his next book.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

This was a book I avoided. I tend to do that often with books that receive a whole lot of hype. I didn't really even look at the premise before dismissing it. It again was one my two sisters reviewed and was on the kindle. I didn't have much intention of reading it until I was at the movies with friends and the trailer for the film came on. One friend said she absolutely loved the book and couldn't wait for the movie. Since we agreed we would see the movie when it came out, I thought I would read the book first. I struggled through about the first 75 pages or so, getting used to the names of people and places was a little tough. The girl originally came across to me as someone from a futuristic novel and this one isn't that. Once I got a bit further into the book I felt like the rough edges of the characters smoothed out some and I could enjoy them all as the story unfolded. About half way through, the book became one I didn't want to put down and I now look forward to the movie. Not sure though if I will read the other two books in the trilogy.

The Bird Sisters by Rebecca Rasmussen

If you read my blog with any regularity you may have heard me mention this book several times before and its author. I am fortunate enough to call Rebecca a friend, although we have only met in person once, at her book signing in Winetka, Il. But once you meet her you can't help but love her. The same is true of the two sisters in Rasmussen't debut novel, Milly and Twiss. As they age and recognize their lives are coming to an end the reader is taken on a journey, memories of their childhood and what brought them to the place they end up, two spinster women, living in the family home together, caring for the occasional injured bird that is brought to them. I loved Rasmussen's use of language and description and I imagined what Spring Green must have looked like many years ago. Rasmussen knows the area well, it is where her father lived as she and her brother were growing up.

Rasmussen's book brought to mind for me The Lovely Bones, not because of the story itself but because of the rich language and description, the setting and how the reader feels invited to come in and sit down in Milly and Twiss' home and listen to their story.

And as usual I was drawn to it's cover art, a beautiful book in every way. For those who would like to read it, it comes out in paperback this month!

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

I was fascinated by Steve Jobs, one of the boy wonders of my generation who changed our lives forever with the products produced by the companies he has run, both Apple and Pixar. Jobs has often been called an innovator and a genius and at least more recently he seemed to have a quality of calm and joy for innovation.

What I found when I started reading the book was someone I would not have recognized and may not have even liked had I met him and certainly had I worked for him. Yes he was a genius but to me it was almost like he was a savant when it came to marketing and a narcissistic prick when it came to everything else.

A couple of other interesting facts, I knew Jobs started the Apple Company in Cupertino, CA which is really close to where I lived growing up. Then I read the first couple chapters of the book and realize he lived REALLY close to where I did, we were practically neighbors. When I mentioned my surprise that I didn't know this fact before I was reminded by one of my sisters that another sister had at one time had a job interview with these two guys who were looking for a secretary or something but she turned it down, thought they were a little creepy ... working out of their garage and all. The two guys, maybe they were a little creepy were Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

I started Isaacson's biography not being sure if I would get through the 600+ page book. I wasn't thrilled with Isaacson's writing style but in hindsight I wonder if that wasn't also because I immediately was turned off by Jobs' personality as Isaacson described it and I wanted to blame Isaacson for that.

The entire story is amazing though and Jobs was a genius in many ways. And although he did a lot of things that made me want to hate him and his evil plan for Apple to take over the world, in the end I liked the guy, flaws and all, and enamored of his vision. It isn't just me, when you read the book, many people in Jobs' life talk about how awful he was to them but they all have a grudging respect for the man for what he accomplished and how he changed our world forever.

You have to give Jobs props though for as narcissistic and as much of a control freak he was, it must have really been a huge thing for him to give complete autonomy to Isaacson to write the biography and not have to sensor anyone or anything.

Jobs may have described it best in his final words on his death bed ... "oh wow, oh wow, oh wow".

So throw in a couple of books about underwater photography, a few diving magazines and training books, and the books I'm reading about writing ... I'm wading through the "to-read" stack.

What are you reading?

Besides writing ... there is this ...

2011-11-11T07:00:00.000-06:00

Although I haven't been writing much, at least not anything I would let another human being read, I have been indulging my other passion ....

The first week of August I went to the Bahamas, lived on a 65 foot sailboat with 22 other divers and a crew of 5 and made 19 dives, learned a little about free-diving, beautiful weather, great friends. Here is a link to a short video my friend Brian Erickson made of our trip, I have the long version which is even better.

Here are some pictures I took above the water ....

A dinner out before boarding the following day for a week at sea.

Our home as we boarded the first day.

It was the opening of Lobster Season!

One of many beautiful sunsets in the Exumas Cays of the Bahamas.

Friends

How can you not want to jump in?

Beautiful.

I thought often of how much Dad would have loved the boat, the diving, the Bahamas, and most of the people I was with. It was a great trip.

After only being home a week I then traveled to California where my children, my sisters, their children and husbands, grandchildren, step children, husbands, boyfriends/girlfriends gathered and spent a day on the San Francisco Bay to scatter dad's ashes. It was chilly but a perfect day on the bay on a boat called Glory Days. On the way out under the Golden Gate we met a Russian Tall Ship coming in, full sail with the crew all on deck, incredible, then just out under the Gate to a spot where we quietly scattered dad's ashes and then were greeted by a pod of dolphins breeching all around the boat. Could not have asked for anything more perfect for dad.

It is just such a beautiful, picturesque bridge ...

A Russian Tall Ship on its way into port, can you see the crew on deck?

The family, saying goodbye to Dad, Grandpa, Great Grandpa, Mitch.

I felt like my life was a little out of control and I wasn't very happy. I decided that there really was little reason that I shouldn't be happy but it was up to me to make the necessary changes in my life. So I decided I would work less, write more, play more. I now work one day a week, except for a couple of times that I have agreed to help out to cover for someone else's absence or need to be gone.

While we were in California for the ash scattering my daughter Cait had a few interviews about jobs. While sitting in the airport to come home she got a call from one and lo and behold she was moving back to California. So the first week in September the two of us took off on a whirlwind cross country drive. She now lives in San Francisco, temporarily at my sister's home and works at a high end hair salon in the Marina district. She is also starting school again this month to complete the additional one hundred hours she has to do to be able to take the state board test in California for her cosmetology license.

A long drive but we finally made it ...

3 days straight in the car but here, my little Cait ... overlooking Donner Lake

In October I took another trip, this time with a small group of only five people to Cozumel, Mexico. Another 20 dives. This time I added in another hobby, underwater photography. I'm not very good at it .... yet, but it sure is fun. Not sure how smart it is that many of my favorite hobbies can be a bit pricey, but oh well, it's only money.

Turtle

One of many beautiful swim-throughs

Splendid Toadfish

Angel Fish

Large Grouper amongst a bait-ball of Sardines

Lobster

That is me behind those Sardines

Green Moray Eel

Since Dad has died I have started to fill my time with what makes me happy. I wish he were here to share some of it. My daughter has started her new adventure in California, I'm hoping she finds happiness there. My son returned from Afghanistan in June. He didn't get to see his Grandpa before he died but my dad did know that Brendan had gotten back to the states safely. And Brendan has gotten married to a lovely young woman named Elizzabeth. They are living in Virginia. So Brendan has found happiness as well.

So my next move is to dive back into the writing, the memoir, this blog, some fiction ... and maybe a move to somewhere tropical as well ... who knows? Oh but first, for New Years I think I am headed to Grand Cayman for another week of diving.

I AM THE 99%

2011-11-08T20:32:00.000-06:00

I have sat quietly on the sidelines as I watched the unfolding of the Occupy Wall Street movement. I at times thought I would want to join them. As the movement and the protests have gone on the mood has changed and it has, at times, seemed to be an unorganized event with no clear mission or message. An ongoing occupation of a park seems to attract some who see it as an opportunity to take advantage of others, behave inappropriately, and commit crimes.

I recently saw a blog post. It was on a friend's Facebook newsfeed, so it showed up in my newsfeed. I clicked on it. I knew, even before I opened it, that I likely wouldn't agree with the blogger, because I was reasonably certain that my Facebook "friend" and I had very differing political views.

I like to believe though that I am smart and open minded. I do not automatically believe something because one political party or another espouses a view. I want to be informed. I do, however, sometimes feel like there is information overload and I no longer know where to turn for a simple, unbiased, explanation of a situation.

The blog post I read was written by a local pastor, Pete Wilson, who said, "I can see why they (the 99%) might be upset, but their tactics, while certainly their right, seem a little off to me. I've never been much of a protestor. I've never carried a sign. I've never participated in a march. I've never been a part of a sit in.'' Wilson then quoted another man (B.W.) who wrote, "Like most protests the Occupy Wall Street folks are better at indetifying something that is wrong than identifying a way forward that is right".

Wilson then went on to say, "And this is why I don't protest. The reality is there are things that need to be changed. Our political system needs change. Our financial system needs change. The Church needs change. But I think all this "protesting" just shows that we would rather point fingers, lash out, and fight, then share blame and own up to how we've contributed to the problems we face."

As I read that last part, about how we don't share blame and own up to how we've contributed to the problems we face I was annoyed. Excuse me, how are any of us really to blame for the financial crisis our country is currently in? How are any of us to blame for the mismanagement of mortgages and money by the banks and mortgage lenders? But I still have a strong belief in the right of free speech, that we all have a right to our opinions, that just because I don't agree doesn't make another person wrong.

And pointing fingers? Heck yes we should all be pointing fingers at the people and institutions that have created this disaster in our financial system. A CEO of a bank that was bailed out and is now accepting large bonuses and has not changed the way that bank does business should be pointed out at every opportunity and his ability to continue to make millions more while the majority of American's suffer for it is unconscionable.

I went on to read the comments. Most were from parishioners I think, regular readers of Wilson's blog who wholeheartedly agreed with his viewpoint and voiced anger and mentioned the "lawlessness" of many of the protestors. And I could understand how many people are now unhappy with the OWS movement, with reports of theft, rape, assault and numerous other crimes at the varying locales. But then one of the commentors (I'll only identify her as L, because i don't know her nor have I asked her permission to quote her or speak on her behalf) on Wilson's blog brought me back to what makes me as well as most people I know part of the 99%. She started by writing, "What about the civil rights movement? MLKjr? Rosa Parks. When anyone with no power is being abused by anyone with all the power you stand up and defend them. Peaceful protests can and do bring change. We just heard on the news last night Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that was 'bailed out' their executives just received 7 figure bonuses. Millions of homes are still in foreclosure court. I bet everyone in church knows someone who is losing their home."

A response to that woman was, "MLK was all about moving forward to something that is right. That was his whole stance -- he pointed out the wrongs and offered solutions."

Another response was, "Sadly, these protests aren't peaceful. It has already been reported that 10 people have been raped at these protests ...." (I only am quoting a short portion of the response).

I began to feel a little angry and a little offended by some of these people. One, because there is crime at the location of the protests does not meant that the protest itself is wrong or at fault. Maybe rather than being concerned with arresting protestors we should work to protect their safety as well and find those who are committing crimes. Painting the protestors with the wide brush that includes criminals is unfair and unneccesarry. Two, to say that the OWS movement is not moving towards "something that is right"? What it isn't right that people should believe that those who caused the most horrendous financial crisis in our country's history should be held accountable and not receive continued wealth while the majority of those they made their money from suffer? What is not right about that?

Others commented after "L", some in support, some complaining about "entitlement" that some believe the protestors think they have, to some of the wealth of the 1%. "L" commented again, "I don't feel entitled. My home is being illegally foreclosed. We are NOT bums working the system, I worked for over 35 years, my husband still works two jobs."

The comments back and forth continued. One commenter in particular struck me as well informed, intelligent and even tempered. I will not restate all that he stated or the other commentors, I urge you to go read the entire post and it's comments yourself here.

I think my real point is, I am one of the 99%. I don't think that those who have worked hard and become millionaires or gazillionaires or whatever should hand over their money to me. I work hard and will make my own thank you. BUT, I do think that if I have to pay taxes on what I earn, we'll just say for the sake of argument, 20%, then why shouldn't they also pay 20% on theirs? If I am held criminally liable for my actions, should not the banks and mortgage companies also? For those that ran the banks that were a huge contributing factor to the housing market collapse and the failure of many banks, how can those people still be enjoying huge bonuses and not repaying the "bailout" money they received?

I also lost a house. I purchased in 2006 just before the housing market collapse. Do I take responsibility for my own poor money management and getting in over my head. I certainly do and beat myself regularly for it believe me. But I trusted people. The mortgage broker who I confided my fears of being in over my head before the sale went through and he assured me I would more than do well with the tax breaks I would receive for buying and with the increased value of my home over the next several years. Hmmmm, I wonder, do you think he already knew the forecast for the housing market? I'm kind of betting yes. As soon as it became undeniable that I was in some real trouble I turned to my lender. I asked for help. Their response, "well if you can just wait til the market turns around then maybe we can talk to you about refinancing". Ummm, if I could have waited til the market turned around I would not have been calling and I would have waited. I didn't just ask once I asked three times for help, I asked different lenders for help but by then the die was cast, everyone knew there wasn't going to be a quick turnaround in fact most thought there might not be a turn around at all. I tried to do a short sale, as requested by my lender. I had interested buyers within a week of listing the house. The mortgage company sat on the offers for months until they all just went away, to go spend their investment money elsewhere. Finally I gave up, I just let the lender have the house back. I bought for $350K, it sold two and half years later in a foreclosure for $200K and my life was forever changed. My credit my never recover either. I'm trying to move myself to living solely on cash, no credit card, no debit cards no nothing.

I don't feel entitled, just as "L" doesn't either. But those of us who feel powerless and believe we are in our current situation due to the greed and dishonesty of a majority of the 1%, see the Occupy Wall Street movement as one of the few ways we have a voice. Who would listen to me by myself? No one.

I have tried to become more informed, reading articles from all sides of the issue. I'm not sure that the park in New York that the occupiers are camping in is the best place for the protest, since the people inconvenienced by the protest are not the 1% but more of the 99%. But I also think that citizens of this country, standing up, or sitting down as another generation did, in order to speak with a voice of many in order to be heard is not a bad thing.

Occupy Wall Street may not be the answer but at least it has forced the entire country to start asking the questions, what are we going to do, continue to allow the 1% to get richer while the 99% continue to suffer?

I don't know the answer to the problem, but I am willing to support those protesting peacefully for a change in our financial system and holding accountable those responsible for the current situation.

I am strongly in favor of criminally prosecuting anyone who is guilty of rape, assault, theft etc., at OWS or anywhere else. I am, however, also strongly in favor of the millions of American's who have been crushed by the wealthy, powerful, bankers and those in the pockets of politicians. I am the 99%.

Okay, I'll get off my soapbox. I try to not get too political on this blog, likely to send people running for the unsubscribe button. But once again, one of the great things about this country is my right to post anything I want.

And as an aside, it is election day today, hope you voted.

A voice from the past ...

2011-11-07T14:28:00.002-06:00

It has been a long time hasn’t it? When I wrote my last post about my dad’s death I thought .... well I don’t know exactly what I thought. Maybe that with his passing I would turn to writing for comfort to help me work through all those feelings of loss.

Instead I froze. And with each passing day the words seemed further away. I have for now quite some time wanted to get back to this, to the writing, to what makes me feel best. But I would open my computer and stare at a blank page. I would write and then realize what I wrote was not what I wanted to say, it was whining and grumpy and not in the least bit creative.

I woke up more than a few nights, in the middle of the night, that place between sleep and waking with some brilliant idea for something to write. Not awake enough, or smart enough to grab a pen and paper and write it down. More often, in that dreamy comfortable place where I longed to go back to sleep to find out where the thought lead. Only to awake the next morning and not be able to recall the idea, or just recall a little shadow of the idea and only find myself constantly frustrated by some thought racing around in my already overcrowded brain but not being able to bring it to the fore.

I miss dad more than I even thought I would. Mom has been gone for fourteen years now and I still every once in a while think how I wish I could call her and ask a question, get her opinion, just talk to her. It doesn’t happen as often now but it still happens. But quite often now I see something ... a book, a movie, a song, a news story, and the first thought is that I want to pick up the phone and chat with dad about it.

I have however been devouring books, trying to reengage my creative mind that seemed to be lying dormant, hiding from the pain of rejection and that infernal internal critic.

I allowed the guilt to overtake me the other day. It was the first of November, you know the beginning of NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days??? No, stop, don’t worry, no need to slap me, I didn’t sign up, I at least knew better than that. But I have seen my writerly friends jumping in head first, damn the guilt, and the internal critics and sometimes even damn the other things on their to-do list, to attempt and to conquer NaNoWriMo.

I will watch from the sidelines this year. Maybe I’ll get something close to a novel, or a short story -- or several, or many blog posts written in the same time, but I won’t advertise it and I won’t beat myself up if I come nowhere close to 50,000 words or a novel. I will enjoy the writing and finding my creative voice again. I can tell it is itching to get out ... by the constant buzz that goes on in my head, the ideas zinging around trying to create the spark.

My father’s death was like a turning point in my life, or should I say another one. I know that his passing will change the way I write some things in the memoir. It still sits there waiting for me to finish revisions. I have a plan with an editor who is waiting for me to be ready to send it to her .. that is down the road a bit. I even had the stupid idea to start completely over and make it fiction, but I’ve gone back and forth on that idea several times now.

I should tell you, not exactly sure where this blog will go. I have missed you all and hope that those who have been patient enough to stick around will continue to do so, will comment and join me on the continuing journey. I know one of my next posts may be a little political, my own comment on the Occupy movement brought on by other comments I read regarding the protests.

As I told someone not long ago, I had an idea to rename this blog “Snippets” because I feel like that is what it will be, snippets of my life (diving, reading, writing -- not necessarily in that order or all at once), snippets of those things that strike me as important enough to bring up, snippets of my writing (maybe), and snippets of some other incredible writing that some people I know and respect are doing.

For now, the name will remain the same. Would love your thoughts and suggestions as we go along, how to make it better or if I have maybe caused you to ruminate on a subject yourself.

Thanks for sticking it out with me. I hope to make the wait worthwhile, sometime in the not too distant future.

Special thanks to consitently make me want to be a writer and a good one at that, and who somehow keep holding me up when I feel like I’m going to fall .... MendiD at First Grade Tales, E. Victoria Flynn at Penny Jar, Christi Craig at Christi Craig Rebecca Rasmussen @ The Bird Sisters, Beth Foulkes Lowe at Pine Meadow Pond and Susan Bearman at Two Kinds of People, and of course my little girl ... Cait Jeffs at Cait's Images.

Dad

2011-07-06T02:04:00.000-05:00

It has been a while now. I’ve waited to write something, until I could write without making it sappy and sugary sweet. Dad was never sappy. In fact, when I was growing up I kind of considered him grouchy, a little cold, way way too logical. Mom was the emotional parent, dad was silent.

Somehow that changed when Mom died. Dad became, reflective, softer, kinda smudgy.

If you are a woman and have born children you probably know that thing that happens. You are one minute writhing in unbearable pain, or so utterly exhausted by the girth of you and the pushing and the desire to have that thing out of you. You scream at your significant other to never touch you again but don’t they dare to leave the room. And then that thing is not a thing but your baby in your arms and suddenly by some miracle you can logically remember the writhing in pain and the pushing and the vitriolic words yelled at anyone who came near, but none of it matters and you look at your child and wonder when you can start all over to have another.

Dad was like that almost. Like some invisible force had suddenly changed his view, his memory of mom and of their relationship. He spoke with softness and sorrow and sweetness of their last kiss that had happened less than 24 hours before and said it was like their first kiss.

Where did that logical, unfeeling man I had grown up with go? I knew he loved me, I was his little girl, his tomboy that he went backpacking with, and fishing. I was the girl he called when he wanted to learn to scuba dive and wanted to have someone take the class with him. But there weren’t hugs and kisses and sweet nicknames.

I often felt I would never measure up, be smart enough, or pretty enough, or succeed enough to make him proud. As I began to work on the memoir I worried if my memories of my childhood would hurt him. I held back and stopped writing more than once, afraid of what his reaction might be if he read those words.

It has been seventeen days.

About thirty days ago things began to change, dad had been doing well but then started to decline, rapidly. My sister and her husband were supposed to take a trip to California, a vacation, maybe to celebrate my sister retiring from her job so that she could work solely as a freelance writer. They would be gone over father’s day weekend. I made plans to go up to Philadelphia, take my daughter and spend the weekend with dad. By Thursday, the 16^th, dad had fallen a couple of times, he wasn’t eating much, he was in pain and only wanted to sleep the days away. Hospice had been called. We started to talk about hiring a private duty nurse to stay with him more often or at least to hire someone to spend more time with him. Lisa and Garrett decided to cancel their trip. I was to arrive on Saturday evening.

Dad never liked Father’s day, it was a holiday made up by Hallmark he used to say.

Friday morning Lisa called, dad was much worse, sleeping almost the entire day, not communicative really, was getting moriphine and anti-anxiety medications. The hospice nurse said she wasn’t sure dad would last through the weekend. Cait and I changed our flight and arrived late Friday night. As we landed in Philly, Lisa called, I told her I was renting a car, Cait and I would go straight to the assisted living facility where dad lived. Lisa and Garrett were finally going home to get some much needed sleep.

We got there after midnight. Dad was in a hospital bed, slack jawed, pale, and gasping for breath. I talked to him, told him we were there. Cait and I took turns sitting by his bed. Cait wondered if he knew we were there, I assured her he did. I don’t know how I know, but I do.

The nurses came in every two hours to give him more moriphine. He had apnea episodes where he would not take a breath, one time for about 20 seconds. It scared me, I held my own breath, not wanting to use up any of the air in the room that he might need. And then he would suddenly gasp and take in another breath. The episodes became more frequent. I napped in a recliner in his room. They came, the nurses like clockwork, they told him they were going to give him some medicine, or they were going to move him. His expression never changed.

Early Saturday morning the hospice nurse told me that the apnea would continue, for longer times until finally he just never gasped for another breath. I called Lisa and told her and Garrett they should come back.

Debbie and Karen arrived a few hours later, along with Lisa’s sons, Josh and Noah. We talked, we sat with dad.

The nurses came and went, it was some of his favorite nurses from the facility. They liked him, they told me so. The hospice nurse checked him again, said she was going to be in the building for a bit if we needed her. Another nurse came in, she checked him too. I was on one side of the bed, she on the other. She looked at me and I knew.

“It’s time isn’t it?” I asked. She said, “Yeah I think so.”

I called everyone else into the room, we all took turns talking to dad, touching him. I leaned over and whispered, “it’s okay dad, we are all here. We love you.”

Shortly after noon on Saturday the 18^th, the day before Father’s Day, my dad took his last breath. It was quiet, I think he knew we were there, I don’t think he felt any pain in those last hours.

And then that thing kicked in again. For all the grouchy dad memories I have had, I now find myself almost unable to remember them. Instead almost everything I do reminds me of something else.

I went scuba diving with friends in Florida the following weekend. And as I dove in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico I suddenly remembered that it was dad that first got me to take Scuba lessons, some 33 years before. And I said to myself, and to my dive buddy, this dive is for dad. He would have loved it and the people I was with and the beauty of the ocean.

I put on a movie the other night, it was “An American in Paris” with Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron. Dad loved that movie. Me too. Gene Kelly is the epitome of handsome classy and boy can he dance. Dad loves dance, of all kinds, Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire kind of dance, Mikhail Baryshnikoff kind of dance, Irish Step Dancing, the Joffrey Ballet, any kind of dance and he passed that along as well.

I looked for a CD to put on and chose Bela Fleck, playing some of the most amazing classical music on the banjo. Dad helped me learn to love classical music, and the banjo and Bela Fleck.

My sisters and I wrote an e-mail to dad’s e-mail list of friends, telling them of his death and the responses began to come in. And almost every one said that Dad always talked about his girls, how proud he was of all his daughters.

The words I longed to hear.

We needed a picture for the obituary we wanted to put in a couple of newspapers in California. As I looked through photos I had I found one of mom and dad at my graduation from the police academy, and one of dad at my swearing in ceremony when I became a Sergeant, and the one of dad as he pinned my Lieutenants badge on me and I wondered why I questioned if I had made him proud.

It’s okay daddy, we are all here and we love you. I remembered that in more recent years there was a nickname. When I would call he would answer the phone I would say “Hi dad, it’s Julie” and he would say, “Little Jules, how are you?”

I’m okay dad. I miss you but I’ll be okay.

For you dad, from your Little Jules.

http://www.mv-voice.com/obituaries/memorials/mitchell-balogh-bain?o=1388

I've said too much ....

2011-05-26T08:48:00.000-05:00

I said the wrong thing, or too much, or at the wrong time ….. again. It seems to be my habit. When I hear someone I care about ask those questions, those unanswerable ones, the why questions, I have a desire to fill in the empty space. I want to help. I want to heal.

I think back to the advice my mom gave me. And then I remember, she didn’t give me any. I can’t remember a single conversation, about boys, sex, my dreams, her dreams, her worries, none of it.

Had she used up all her advice on my older sisters? Or did she just not have any words of wisdom. I want to pass it along to my own children, but there is only silence in my own past. I’m only guessing but I think she likely got little words of wisdom from her own mother either.

Does it say anything about my constant questions about people and how they behave – toward me, or about my inability to understand people, well mostly men.

The words sting, the ones where I’m told I need to stop talking like I know everything. But wait, didn’t you ask a question, my opinion, for advice? I don’t know everything, in fact most times I think I know nothing.

Okay, I’ll stop talking. Please don’t ask me for my advice. I have none.

Wish mom were here so I could ask a few questions.

Where do you turn for wisdom?

When old hurts come back to haunt ...

2011-05-07T01:57:00.000-05:00

What is that saying … the road to hell is paved with good intentions? Okay, so I guess we know where I’m headed. I had all kinds of good intentions, blogging regularly, writing regularly, doing something – anything that was productive. Nope, haven’t done any of it.

I’ll tell you though. One of the reasons I haven’t blogged much is I keep talking myself out of it. I read a lot of blogs, those of people I admire, blogs where I learn cool stuff and blogs particularly of women writers I like. I’m always in awe of them. Their blogs are so smart and well written and so …. I don’t know, grown up? I always think I'll never measure up.

That internal critic I’ve railed about, that keeps me from writing sometimes, that same internal critic is around when I start to write for the blog. There is always a little voice in my ear telling me that my blog is sounding whiny and too self-centered, asking what my blog is really about and why anyone would want to read it.

Well heck, it’s my blog so I guess it can be self centered a little bit. I want my readers to like what I write, for it to get them to thinking, maybe to start a conversation, or maybe just to enjoy my writing, but there is that other saying, you can’t please all the people all the time.

So here goes, self centered and all about me .. but this is kind of for Shirley too, thanks girl for pushing me a little bit, you were right, I needed to write.

I consider myself somewhat of a student of human psychology. I try to figure out what people do and why, what motivates them, particularly what motivates people to do things that are hurtful to someone else. Does the offender think before they act? Do they care if they hurt another person? Do they think they should acknowledge the hurt and apologize? I “studied” human psychology in my career in law enforcement, what would make one person physically hurt another, someone they claim to love, stuff like that.

Now I’m retired and old (er). So now I really do it as it affects me and those around me. This story is going somewhere I promise.

I received an e-mail this evening. It was surprise. In fact, it came to my work e-mail address. I have no clue how the sender even knew my work e-mail address. The sender is someone from my past. I used to think of this person as my very best friend in the world. Someone I could talk to about anything, someone I would do anything for and I thought would do anything for me. Someone I could trust ... with my life.

We’ve had a falling out, me and this someone. Haven’t spoken at all in the last few months and prior to that hardly at all. The reason for no talking? I began to feel like almost everything out of their mouth was a lie, a self-serving- unnecessary-lie. It hurt. I began to wonder if anything we had ever shared had been honest. There were clues that would lead me to believe it hadn’t and that hurt even more.

I did what I usually do, I blamed myself, I wondered what I had done to make this person lie to me. I worried and fretted and almost begged them to remain my friend. Mind you I said, almost. I finally found my voice again and reminded the person and more importantly myself, that I didn’t deserve lies. There was no need for them and they only hurt. I cut off communication. I couldn’t trust the person anymore, I would always question their motives, I would always wonder if when they said they worried about me or cared how I was feeling if it was really true.

So there it was, an e-mail from that person. I opened it and I was immediately transported back to that awful place I spent so many months. That place where I was hurt and lonely and wanted my old friend back. That place where I wanted to wave a magic wand and make the lies all go away, get my life back that had been stolen from me by the lies.

I am really smart and I knew what the best course of action was here. Ignore the e-mail, don’t let anyone have that kind of power and control over me or my emotional state. Don’t believe those words about worrying about me. If they were truly worried or really wanted to find out how I was there would have been more than one e-mail every three months. An e-mail with one line and no follow up. There would have been a phone call.

There are, however, those few people in my life that seem to suck the brains right out of my head. Did I ignore the e-mail, hell no. I responded. I was pithy and righteously indignant. I asked what this was about. I got in a few really great lines about the hurt and how it was still there and how much the lies have destroyed the trust.

And then I hit the send button. So much for smart. Did it help? No. Did it make me feel better? No. Did it solve anything? Hell no. I spent about a half an hour beating myself up for falling right back into that place, for giving up control. But then Shirley reminded me that no one has control unless I give it to them, that I could take back the control, I could write about it in my blog (which the e-mail sender says they read). So I outed them, I told the whole world (or the six people who will read this blog post) that someone hurt me with their lies. And I took back my life again.

So maybe it wasn’t all bad. Got a blog post out of it and an idea about another one. Would like to know your thoughts …. When you have a relationship with someone (friend, relative, lover, something more than a casual relationship), are there times when lying is a good route? Can the excuse “I didn’t want to hurt you”, really make the lie okay? I’ll let you know what I think in my next blog post, but want to know what other people think.

Balance

2011-04-08T00:58:00.000-05:00

It has been forever, I know. I have been lost. Lost in a sea of worry and work and emotion, all of which have left me frozen. I have, for the past several weeks, a feeling in my soul, a need for balance in my life. Balance between work and play, writing and earning money, love and loss.

This week, however I have found myself overwhelmed, by love and sadness and memories. Right now it is all about recognizing what needs to be done, about doing the right thing out of love.

A friend brought me such peace today with her words. I sat in a car, staring out at the trees that surround the area that was General George Washington’s headquarters at Valley Forge. So much history, a reminder of so many things I don’t know and wish I could now share with dad. He knew this stuff. I read her words and despite my despair I knew them to be true:

"We obviously can't control time and who is ever ready to let go? No one.... but when YOU realize that his strength and courage is alive and well in his daughter you will be able to tell him it's okay to let go and that YOU will be fine. Your parents give you great survival skill. When they leave this physical existance is when we realize the training wheels have been off longer than we thought. The "Just in case I fall who will catch me" fear is just that.... fear. ……… You have been saying goodbye to your Dad for a while now.... the hard one is the last one and it's near impossible not to be selfish with it. It will come and I hope you find the love to say it FOR him so he can watch over you from a better place than from the shell he is trapped in. ….. Make him comfortable and tell him its okay to let go of the bike because you got this.”

So I will spend what time I can, trying to make him comfortable, trying to let that tiny spark of him that is still inside that shell I do not recognize know that it is okay. It may go quickly, it may take time, I have to remember it isn't up to me.

My friend’s other advice to me? To breathe, breathe, breathe. Almost forgot that part. And with each breath I begin to find a center, some balance. No decisions right now, just being in this moment and learning from it. Thank you Dee, Mendi and Shirley, you three have been my strength.

Kept thinking, there must be some music or song that could convey some of what is inside me. Then I realized it would be better to just have some music that is just for dad, so here you go. I love you dad.

Monkey Chatter

2011-01-13T22:45:00.001-06:00

That is what dad is calling the thoughts he has in his racing mind as he lays in the hospital bed drifting in and out of sleep.

Memories of jobs from 40 years ago during his career as an electrical engineer. Talk of Cal Tech and Richard Fineman, his favorite physicist. Recalling his parents who raised him and his sister during the depression.

But the fear is in that monkey chatter as well.

For a man almost 84 who has always been independent and able to care for himself, this is not a fun time. Up until this hospital stay he has lived on his own since my mother’s death thirteen years ago.

A move from the sierra foothills of California to Phildelphia. Closer to a daughter in a town with lots of culture, and sports and family, and great public transportation.

Dad decided for himself that he didn’t need or want to drive anymore. He didn’t like driving, it was stressful and, he began to feel, dangerous.

Before he moved, the lymphoma diagnosis had been made. But it was a very slow growing lymphoma and the treatment was likely worse than the almost non-existent symptoms he had, so there was no treatment, just monitoring.

In the last two months his back pain returned with a vengeance. Along with it came just a general sense of just feeling bad, and then a lack of appetite and who likes to cook when you just aren’t hungry?

But, he’s nearing 84 and the lack of appetite turned into not eating or drinking enough fluids and a major weight loss. The back pain required pain medication, and plenty of it which in turn created its own set of problems. And the previously diagnosed lymphoma turned acute.

The narcotic pain meds meant he could not stay at home alone, they would make even the seasoned addict loopy. Staying with a sister until hospitalization was necessary.

Dad worries about being a burden, about people having to care for him. He feels fear about how his life will look in the immediate future and beyond. There is no explaining that we want to be here with him, that we don’t mind and he shouldn’t either.

But there is still that incessant monkey chatter. Hard to tell if it will be a pleasant memory or reminders of his lack of independence.

He is smart. He knows he needs to have the antibiotics so he doesn’t get pneumonia. He can tell himself that this is temporary.

It hurts to watch him struggle and worry and hate being here.

I want to tell him, rest dad, tomorrow is another day, it will get better. I wish I knew how to make the monkey chatter stop.

Throw Me a Rope

2010-12-30T08:45:00.000-06:00

For a while I thought I was drowning in so much work and busyness that I might never get to write again.

So many apologies for not being here and not posting of late. Who knew I would suddenly be working twelve hour days through most of December. Although I sometimes wonder what I'm doing, (I mean I am retired you know) it has been good; kept me focused on something other than both my kids not being here for Christmas.

My schedule has, however, kept me from the writing desk and I am itching to get back. My characters are swirling in my head, wanting to move along in their story. I also have made a promise to beta read someone else's work and I have only started and must finish soon. And the stack of books in the "to-read" list is like the leaning Tower of Pisa it is growing so tall!

The memoir has been knocking on my brain as well so I am excited to get back to my creative life.

I hope the new year brings me some balance. I will be back here regularly after the 3rd of January. I don't make resolutions, they depress me if I don't keep them, so I won't promise anything but I've missed being here.

Before I go I must thank some women in my life and in my writing life who made 2010 the best. They are all so very creative and nurturing and giving of their talent, time and love. They make me want to be a better writer. So many heartfelt thanks to @PennyJars, @2KoP, @pinemeadowpond, @MendiD, @thebirdsisters, @Christi_Craig, and @charissaweaks, I hope to one day repay your awesomeness.

To all of you may the new year bring you health and happiness and may there be Peace.

Cheers.

A memory brought to the surface ...

2010-12-09T13:52:00.001-06:00

My friend EVF at Penny Jar has been working on memoir, particularly during NaNoWriMo (which she won, by the way). And during that she has often posted and tweeted about sensory memories, like memories brought on by certain smells – your favorite perfume as a teenager, your mothers perfume, your dad’s pipe tobacco, whatever. Anyway, on Facebook this week she linked to a past post on her blog but in leading into it she brought up the old cigarette commercial with the tag line “you’ve come a long way baby”.

Funny, talk about sensory memories; that tag line brought on a flood of memories for me. What were those cigarettes, Virginia Slims (the women’s cigarettes, a comedian once asked if that meant they had little breasts on them)? I used to smoke Virginia Slims, that was ages ago. Mom smoked them too. We shared sometimes. Really long, skinny cigarettes.

That was in the days after her heart attack and bypass surgery when she wasn’t supposed to smoke but she did, sometimes, hiding like a teenager to sneak a puff here and a puff there. When I would come to visit we would go to the grocery store together and she would bum a cigarette from me. Forget that I was enabling her unhealthy habit and she mine.

It felt like payback for all the cigarettes I had stolen from her as a teenager. Back in the day when we still didn't believe that smoking would actually make us die. When I couldn’t buy cigarettes and wanted to look cool smoking. In those days she smoked Kent 100’s. She would light one, then set it in the ashtray where it would burn away and before it was gone, she would forget and light another.

When I couldn’t find her pack of Kent’s there was often in the ashtray cigarettes she had only half smoked before stubbing them out, I would steal the butts to light up secretly. I know, sounds gross now but as a kid wanting to smoke because it was soooo cool …

I quit smoking after mom died, of lung cancer. Now I can’t imagine except the memory of the shared experience with mom, our secret.

Avoidance

2010-12-09T13:15:00.000-06:00

–noun

the act of avoiding or keeping away from: the avoidance ofscandal; the avoidance of one's neighbors.

Law . a making void; annulment.

Origin:
1350–1400; ME < AF; see avoid, -ance

I seem to have been practicing avoidance in regards to this blog post but I must move on.

Okay, here goes, I lost. NaNoWriMo I mean. I know, you knew I would, so did I, I even warned you I would. But then it became a fact.

The reason I didn't post here sooner, like I promised I would, was that I first had to get myself to a place where I could write about it all without adding in the words loser and failure. Whether or not I "won" NaNoWriMo doesn't really make a bit of difference about me, about being a writer, about writing a book. I know that.

It helped me to get started on the fiction and it brought me closer to some of the nicest people on the face of the planet who supported me even though I lost and even though I whined and bitched and moaned and felt sorry for myself and, well yes, had a complete meltdown.

Even knowing all of that, and logically understanding the unimportance of winning NaNo I still felt like a loser and a failure. I watched everyone else I admire and like "win", sail over the 50,000 word mark with days, sometiems weeks, to spare and the closer it got to the end the harder it became to even open my laptop up and stare at the screen.

Okay, I'm over it, kind of. When I am in the mood for some more flogging of my fragile ego and beating myself up I will once again stare at the NaNoWriMo badge and call myself names and try and convince myself I am not a writer.

Then, I will open my laptop and start to punch the keys once again and suddenly I will be writing, pages and pages of shitty first draft stuff and I will turn to those friends once again for a quick, "you're okay Julie, we love you anyway", and all will be right with the world.

But, when November 1 rolls around next year, someone commit me if I say I am going to attempt NaNoWriMo again. By then I hopefully will be smart enough that if I do attempt it I won't tell a single soul.

A most sincere thank you to my twitter and facebook sisterhood of ink women, you are the best, @PennyJars, @pinemeadowpond, @Christi_Craig, @thebirdsisters, @2KoP @charissaweaks, @Ren_Thompson.

What I'm Not Writing & What You Should Read

2010-11-25T18:52:00.000-06:00

I haven’t been here in a while. You know, doing that NaNoWriMo thing. So where am I? I am hopelessly behind.

I have accepted the fact that I will not win (unless I suddenly get really productive in the next five days and write about six thousand words a day), but I am willing myself not to give up. I do not want to be a quitter.

Can you tell, I am in my I hate NaNoWriMo phase, the one where I repeatedly ask myself, what the hell was I thinking?

But, I still love my story and my characters. Well I still really like them at least. I have moments where I think they may be morons but mostly I like them.

Writing is hard. Have I said that before? I mean, I can write and write and write, doesn’t mean what I write is any good. However, writing something that is good, that is well written, that is literary, now that is hard.

More than one someone has told me that when I am feeling stuck to go back to those writers that I love, read their work and see how they did it, how they crafted sentences, paragraphs, chapters. How they moved from one scene to the next.

I used to worry that reading other stuff while I was writing, particularly well known stuff would lead me to copy that style of writing to try to write like that author. It really doesn’t happen like that, I might try to emulate an author’s style, but it will still have my voice.

So I went to the author I most would like to be at this very moment, I mean if I could perform some kind of magic and suddenly be that good. I pulled out my copy of The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. Just holding the book in my hands I was reminded how much I loved it the first time. I refused to go see the movie because I would watch the movie trailers and felt like I could see what director Peter Jackson was doing to tell the story and I didn’t like it.

If you are a reader, I’m sure you know what I mean, you read something that you love, you love the story, the language. Then someone makes a movie based on the book and they change it, they change its very essence. I couldn’t stand the thought of someone changing The Lovely Bones.

So I brought it out again, my intention was to look at it objectively this time, see how Alice Sebold handled scenes and transitions, and dialogue.

I opened the book and within about two paragraphs, I was transported into her story I was awash in her beautiful language and description. I couldn’t tell you how she handled transitions or anything else I was so lost in the story all over again.

Now I have to stop myself from reading because I won’t get six, much less six-thousand words written today if I keep reading.

No, I won’t win NaNoWriMo, but I still have a good start to what I think is a good story. I’m still trying, I will not quit, but I am realistic. I’ll let you know my word total on the 1^st.

Until then, if you want to read some really good stuff I have some suggestions.

First, there is always The Lovely Bones, what amazing book (in my humble opinion).

Other than that there are some pretty awesome blogs I would suggest, they are all great for writers to read but some of them are just great because …. well because they are. You’ll just have to trust me on this one.

So here goes, and these are in no particular order:

1. Stop by Penny Jars. The author, @PennyJars (aka @EVictoriaF) has had the blog for a while but since starting NaNoWriMo has really be concentrating on her memoir. You can read her blog and get glimpses of the memoir that will come out of it. The writing is beautiful, the language will transport you, you will sometimes feel her joy as a child and other times the pain of her childhood but you will come away enriched.

2. Any writer will appreciate Mike & Ollie by Susan Bearman (@2KoP). Susan is also writing a memoir based upon the months her premature babies spent in the neonatal intensive care unit after being born at 24 weeks (that is four months early). Each baby weighed about one and half pounds and every day of their hospital stay Susan kept a journal, documenting their medical condition and care and her feelings. The blog is from those journal entries, which will also be the basis for the memoir. As a writer, I love the blog but as a mother, I am awestruck. Even though I know the outcome before I even started reading (and you will too if you visit the blog), every day I wait excitedly for that days post, hoping her babies have a good day, hoping there is no crisis, hoping that these tiny babies will triumph. You can become a fan on facebook, and find her on twitter @2KoP.

3. I have to admit, I sometimes buy books solely based upon what the cover looks like. It is as if the cover speaks to me. Had I seen The Bird Sisters by Rebecca Rasmussen in the bookstore I would have picked it up. (you will get the chance to do just that in April of 2011 when Crown/Random House releases it). When I read the description, I was hooked. I can’t wait for it to come out. Besides those things, I am also just hooked on Rebecca Rasmussen and her blog (also titled The Bird Sisters) a blog dedicated to artists and writers. If you are a writer or a reader you should go there, a good place to see how writers do what they do, and if you are a reader a great place to find some new reads you may have otherwise missed. I think, like me you’ll come to love Rebecca, her blog and you, like me, will be standing in line to get your copy of The Bird Sisters. Become her fan on facebook or find her on twitter @thebirdsisters.

4. I’m not quite sure I remember how I found Christi Craig but I think it may have been through She Writes. Boy am I glad I did find her. She writes short stories and flash fiction and is working on a novel. If you are a writer, you’ll find valuable information and great writing on her blog and if you are a reader, she can point you to some fabulous authors. She is also just one of the nicest people ever. She seems to know me all too well, if you look at some of her past posts you’ll see, she writes about those things that I often am talking about (ego and that damned internal critic). Her blog is called Writing Under Pressure but she makes it look like she handles it with ease. She is also on twitter @Christi_Craig.

5. For those who know me personally, you may already know one of my dearest friends is @MendiD. She is a first grade teacher in Arizona and has a blog called 1^st Grade Tales. Mendi didn’t start her blog because she wanted to be a writer; she started it because she had some great, sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking stories of everyday life in the first grade classroom. Her blog is a reminder how important good caring teachers are and a reminder how a child’s environment can affect them in school. Last year she had a student that was forever a problem. She called him Mr. Stinky Attitude in her blog. Although he got on every one of her nerves, she persevered and she turned his life around. Despite the gangs and drugs, which surround his life, he found in his first grade teacher someone who cared, who would set limits and boundaries for him and believed in him. She has, this year, a new student working on those nerves but she is persevering again. Fingers crossed for another turn-around. I keep trying to convince her to write children’s books about her experiences. Do you remember those Mercer Mayer Little Critter children’s books? She needs to write some like that about how kid’s behavior can determine how things go in school and in life. I’m just sayin’.

I of course would also recommend a few others, Meg Waite Clayton’s blog 1^st Books, Stories of How Writers Get Started; Lisa Romeo’s blog Lisa Romeo Writes; Laura Munson’s These Here Hills (Laura is the author of the book This is Not the Story You Think It Is ... A Season of Unlikely Happiness); Beth Foulkes Lowe's blog Pine Meadow Pond Journal and of course Susan Bearman’s regular blog (see #2 above) Two Kinds of People.

Okay, now I’m getting back to writing while you enjoy these blogs, and this time I really mean it.

P.S. Hope you all enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday. Peace.

I LOVE, no I HATE, no I LOVE, no I ..... NaNoWriMo

2010-11-11T17:34:00.001-06:00

Here we are, in the midst of week 2 of NaNoWriMo. Unbeknownst to me until this week, week 2 is the cursed week (Week 2 is also apparently cursed for contestants on The Biggest Loser - who knew?). I refuse to do much research on it – no reason to tempt the fates – but as I understand it, if there is a week when most people drop out of NaNoWriMo it is week two. Maybe it is because in week one you just can’t help but be fired up. By week two you can no longer ignore the rest of your life in order to write; you have to shower, some people have jobs to go to and after a week of no sleep in week one you now have to make up for all that has been lost.

I LOVE NaNoWriMo. It has done for me all that I hoped it would. It got me going on a new project, a fiction piece and I have found that, like I have read of other writers, my protagonist is speaking to me and telling me where she wants to go. That is pretty cool. I’ve heard other writers talking about it, about their characters determining what direction the story goes in but I had never experienced it before. Of course kind of hard to have that happen when you are writing memoir, the past is what it is and as much as I might have liked to allow me (the protagonist if you will in the memoir) to go off in any direction, particularly different directions than those I really took, that just isn’t going to happen. NaNo also gave me deadlines, I mean, I know how many words I should be writing every day to stay on target for 50,000 words in 30 days (don’t worry the math has already been done, it is 1,667 per day). Additionally, NaNo, and Twitter as well, have introduced me to some of the coolest writers in the world who are also doing NaNo (or who aren’t or who are NaNoRebels), who send me 140 character missives of support. And that is support no matter if I’m on schedule or not, whether I’m enjoying or hating my writing day.

Wait, did I say I love NaNoWriMo? What I meant to say was I HATE NaNoWriMo. I mean really, 50,000 words in 30 days, whose cockamamie idea was that? So, every day I don’t make the goal number is just another day when I can beat myself up for failing at something I promised, myself and a few others, I would complete. And if I have to read one more 140 character tweet from the folks who already have 46,000 words written and it isn’t even the 15^th of the month I’m gonna scream! What, they have no life? They spend every waking moment writing?

Okay, I’m better now (and so am I). No, I’m not schizophrenic, really. It is a love/hate relationship with NaNoWriMo for almost everyone I talk to who is attempting it. If you know anyone doing it, ask them how many times they have started and not finished, not reached the 50,000-word pinnacle. It is a whole bunch.

Just in the interest of transparency here, I am behind, way behind in word count. I’m hoping to make a bunch of it up tonight and tomorrow night but we’ll see. Good news is I still really love my protagonist in my work in progress (WIP). She is taking me on a journey and I’m letting her lead the way. So, as long as I don’t pull out the dagger to run through my own heart and end it all, whether I reach 50,000 words by November 30^th or not is really beside the point. I have the beginnings of what I think will be a really good story and I just gotta keep plugging away at it.

If you are doing NaNo find me there my name is JulesJeffs, if you are on twitter find me there @julesjeffs (I know, original).

I still want to “win” NaNoWriMo. It is a source of pride, particularly since I told all you people who read my blog, the 12,000+ members of She Writes and anyone else who read my tweets that I was doing it, but not winning doesn’t mean I lost.

If I don’t post on December 1 that I did it, would someone remind me of those words, and come take the dagger from my hand. Thanks. Gotta run, lots of words to write.

The NaNo Debate -- A bit of a Rant

2010-11-04T14:41:00.001-05:00

About the beginning of October, I began to hear the buzz, as writers prepared for NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. (In case you don’t know what it is, it is writing a novel in 30 days, well at least 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days.) I’ve never done it before. A few years ago, just the thought scared me; I didn’t know what 50,000 words even looked like. Last year I was in the midst of the memoir and couldn’t imagine working on something else, I mean really, what would I write? This year I once again told myself and anyone else who initially asked, that I was in the midst of revisions of the Memoir and although I would like to imagine working on something else, I still didn’t have anything to write. As November 1^st approached, the buzz became a loud droning sound as many writers on She Writes as well as women I follow and respect on Twitter talked about starting NaNoWriMo on November 1^st. I wished all of them the best of luck.

I now knew what 50,000 words looked like; it looked like about one quarter of my first draft of my memoir, not so overwhelming within some context.

E. Victoria Flynn (@PennyJars) had weeks before been commenting on being a NaNoRebel and I assumed, without asking mind you, that it meant she was not participating in NaNo. On October 31st she again mentioned NaNo but with a different tone, so I asked her if she was going to do it. She replied she was and asked, “And you?” I originally told her no, then it started to swirl around in my oft-empty head and the little bit of competitiveness in me started to kick in. The whole business starts at 12:01 a.m. on November 1 and I made the decision to join at about 10:30 p.m. on October 31. Maybe not one of my brightest moments. I still had no clue what I would write. I would very much like to blame here my twitter friends who were and are like cheerleaders prodding me on and telling me how “You can do it Julie!” But, I must take responsibility for myself, I’m the one who registered on that site and said I would do it, or at least give it that old college try.

I had looked through some notebooks at notes I had written about ideas for stories and there it was, a voice and character I had only started to think about but already was in love with. On the first, I met with my writing friend Charissa, told her about my idea, and asked her to read my first 500 words. We talked about where I thought it was going. She gave me such positive feedback and lots of ideas about all the different directions I could go in.

So now I am hooked and all signed up for NaNoWriMo and as is my usual way I am already behind in word count. It is good for me though. It gives me deadlines and the competiveness forces me to put butt in chair and try at least to write something.

What has surprised me though is the debate about NaNoWriMo. One of the women on She Writes who I respect and admire wrote an entire post about why it is not for everyone. I’m in complete agreement. It, I am certain, is not for everyone, but not only her post but also many of the following comments seemed so negative. At least to me it felt like many were saying that if you rushed to put 50,000 words down in 30 days you weren’t really writing well, you weren’t honoring the craft of writing and you were, in a sense, taking to the extreme Anne Lamott’s suggestion that it was okay to write “shitty first drafts”. Although many people agree with Lamott that your first draft is just a that, a draft and doesn’t have to be and won’t be publication ready, much of the comment on She Writes and other places, was that to write 50,000 words in 30 days was hurrying so much that crap was too nice a word for whatever was produced. Participants were somehow then making a mockery of real writers.

Today I also read a blog post by Laura Miller on Salon.com. In it, she asks that those of us considering it please just not write that novel. The title to her article is “Better yet, DON’T write that novel Why National Novel Writing Month is a waste of time and energy. Miller thinks we should spend more time reading rather than writing “crap”, and she goes on to write:

"Writing a lot of crap" doesn't sound like a particularly fruitful way to spend an entire month, even if it is November. And from rumblings in the Twitterverse, it's clear that NaNoWriMo winners frequently ignore official advice about the importance of revision; editors and agents are already flinching in anticipation of the slapdash manuscripts they'll shortly receive. "Submitting novels in Nov or Dec?" tweeted one, "Leave NaNoWriMo out of the cover letter ... or make it clear that it was LAST year's NaNo." Another wrote, "Worst queries I ever received as an agent always started with 'I've just finished writing my NaNoWriMo novel and ...'"

As someone who doesn't write novels, but does read rather a lot of them, I share their trepidation. Why does giving yourself permission to write a lot of crap so often seem to segue into the insistence that other people read it? Nothing about NaNoWriMo suggests that it's likely to produce more novels I'd want to read.

Okay, I get that certainly there are plenty of people who aren’t smart enough to realize that the 50,000 words they blurted out during NaNoWriMo are not ready for publication. They are, as they are meant to be, the beginnings, a shitty first draft, the bare bones of the novel that you may then spend the next year editing, revising and rewriting. Those people, who hit the send button for the queries to agents on December 1, are the same people who will send any crappy first draft out to agents and editors without a second thought.

Miller points out that it appears there has been at least one true “hit” that came from a NaNoWriMo participant and that is Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen. I would probably bet that what Sarah Gruen wrote for NaNo is nothing like the finished product that became a New York Times Bestseller, but it was a beginning, an exercise in writing every single day and getting a crappy-bare-bones-first-draft down on paper.

Those who don’t like the idea of NaNo have every right to ignore it. But why do they have to be so negative about those who dare to try? Can’t we all just be a little more supportive of each other for those things we do that scare us, which test our boundaries, which stretch our limits just a bit?

I have no intention or desire to skydive, my sense is, "Why jump out of a perfectly good airplane?" I can, however, still be supportive of someone else who finds it exhilarating, who uses it to face fears or push themselves to do something that scares them a bit, or someone who just enjoys it. Because that skydiver isn’t spending their time doing something I consider more worthwhile or better for the world at large, doesn’t mean I have to put them down for it.

Miller actually, in my mind becomes rather mean-spirited when she writes:

The last thing the world needs is more bad books. But even if every one of these 30-day novelists prudently slipped his or her manuscript into a drawer, all the time, energy and resources that go into the enterprise strike me as misplaced.

Here's why: NaNoWriMo is an event geared entirely toward writers, which means it's largely unnecessary. When I recently stumbled across a list of promotional ideas for bookstores seeking to jump on the bandwagon, true dismay set in. "Write Your Novel Here" was the suggested motto for an in-store NaNoWriMo event. It was yet another depressing sign that the cultural spaces once dedicated to the selfless art of reading are being taken over by the narcissistic commerce of writing.

Rather than squandering our applause on writers -- who, let's face, will keep on pounding the keyboards whether we support them or not -- why not direct more attention, more pep talks, more nonprofit booster groups, more benefit galas and more huzzahs to readers? Why not celebrate them more heartily? They are the bedrock on which any literary culture must be built. After all, there's not much glory in finally writing that novel if it turns out there's no one left to read it.

Wow, sorry I’m not the good person you are Ms. Miller, I’m just a lowly stinkin’ writer. But wait, Ms. Miller, you are a writer too are you not? Do you not write a column for Salon? Why would you so quickly denegrate the profession that earns you your living? Some of us would love to have that ability, to earn our living writing instead of squeezing our writing into the other spaces in our lives while we do something else to support ourselves and our families.

Miller does however offer a suggestion of something to do in place of NaNoWriMo which is called the 10/10/10 challenge in which a couple of women, Melissa Klug and Kalen Landow read ten books in ten categories in ten months, that is 100 books in 10 months. They chose to read books outside their normal tastes to challenge themselves. You can read about their challenge here. I am impressed and would love to take on such a challenge, when I’m done with NaNo. I mean we all agree the way to be a better writer is to be a better reader.

For now, I will continue to try and squeeze out my 50,000 words by the end of the month. I will at least give it my best effort. If I try my best then in my mind I have won. I will not have a finished novel even if I do get 50,000 words written but I will have started and pushed myself beyond my normal limits. If I fail, it does not make me a failure at being a good, intelligent, worthwhile woman and human being. So to all of you who choose not to participate in NaNoWriMo, I hope you have found your own challenge that helps you to grow and reach your dreams. I support you in whatever it is you choose to do. For those of you participating in NaNo, best of luck, I hope you are enjoying it for whatever reasons you choose to do it.

Now, if only I could use the words in this blog post to add to my total word count for NaNo I would be set.

The Craft of Writing -- am I too late?

2010-10-28T14:01:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite blogs to read is Meg Waite Clayton’s 1st Books: Stories of How Writers Get Started. Meg, the author of the national bestseller The Wednesday Sisters, often has guests write a column about how they do what they do, the ups and downs and the trials and tribulations of writing, selling, publishing and promoting their books and all other matters related to writing.

Today’s post was by Catherine Brady the author of three short story collections including Curled in the Bed of Love the winner of the 2002 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. Brady has authored a new book called Story Logic and the Craft of Fiction.

Reading Brady’s post about her process in teaching creative writing to graduate students and what brought her to publishing the latest book, I am filled with regret.

Posts like these make me sorry I gave up on myself and never finished college. I have lots of starts in college, actually very close to having an Associate Degree but have never just knuckled down and gotten it or any degree. Brady’s class actually sounds like fun to me, I mean if you can have fun diagramming sentences.

It has been a very, make that a very very long time since I diagrammed a sentence. Remember, I’m old. I’m not sure I could even do it anymore. These days I write on gut instinct. When someone else, smarter than me, reads my work they will sometimes find some errors but overall I don’t completely butcher the English language, except for those times that I completely butcher the English language.

When hearing about authors that are successful, not just commercially successful, but those that write well, that are considered talented writers, they often talk about learning the craft of writing. I know it is a good thing.

I’m all for learning; think we should keep doing it for as long as we’re able. However, here I reach a conundrum (I’ve always wanted to use that word in a post somewhere).

Conundrum: n.

A riddle in which a fanciful question is answered by a pun.
A paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem; a dilemma

My dilemma? Do I concentrate on going back to school to learn the craft of writing, to re-learn how to diagram a sentence and understand more clearly the rules of English? Is it essential to writing well? Or, should I instead concentrate on what I have started and just continue to write.

Remember, I told you, I’m old. Good lord I could be 100 years old by the time I finish school, if my past record is any indication. By then I may be too old or feeble-minded to write anything at all, much less beautiful prose.

I love the idea of going back to school, making up for the idiocy of my youth and actually trying to learn something. I certainly have the time, but I am not rich and education is not cheap. But, I wonder, will it take away my determination to write fiction, to finish the memoir as I become once more overwhelmed by homework, studying, and reading. If I decide to go back, I don’t want to do so half-way. I want to give it my all. The same I want to give to my writing now.

Is it just the idea of school that I like or could I possibly do both, school and write?

My rant for today: It is mildly annoying to me that I have to wait another 4+ months before Meg’s next book, The Four Ms. Bradwells is released. I hate waiting even though I already think the wait will be worth it.

Learning Lessons Learned

2010-10-24T13:09:00.000-05:00

If it doesn’t serve you and the highest good of all… let it go.

Release the unnecessary…

the unhealthy…

the unproductive.

--Kate McLaughlin

It has been a difficult week for me. Not the writing, although that is almost always difficult in some way, trying to find just the right words and putting them in just the right order.

No, this week it has more to do with lessons I’m trying to learn (or is it re-learn). You would think that at my age, I would have already learned them but I still struggle.

I find myself angry and hurt over other people’s behavior, even when it has little to do with me personally. I feel anger that someone is not behaving in what I would consider the appropriate way given certain circumstances. Hurt that people I care about sometimes seem self centered and concerned only with their own happiness. Maybe it is that I wish others could look inside me and see that I have done what they are doing and it only leads to hurt. But, it is near impossible and not helpful to say you should learn from my past and my mistakes. Everyone has to make their own.

My tongue feels bloody from biting down on it, trying not to react, trying not to interject in something not my business.

I wonder sometimes how my behavior affects others, have I also been so self-serving? Have I been unkind when I could have as easily been caring? I’m certain I have.

Sometimes I want to start over, move somewhere else, live a different life and try to do it differently than I am doing it now, because this one doesn’t seem to be working the way I want it to.

All this anxiety clogs up my brain, keeps me from looking clearly at my revisions, at my writing, at my life.

It feels like it is time for a spring-cleaning, even though it isn’t spring, get rid of the unused, unnecessary, cluttering hurtful things in my life and my head and give myself a clean slate to work with.

Wanted: Writing Partner

2010-10-21T14:43:00.000-05:00

"Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself."
— Franz Kafka

I’m trying to decide the best way to proceed. The revisions continue, I fought through a particularly rough part (honesty about others and myself can sometimes be painful). It is slow going, I get on a roll and do well for a couple of days then get in the dumps and can’t seem to write a single word.

I’m not complaining though. I’m trying to take the bull by the horns, as it were, and figure out how to make myself the most productive I can be. Well at least in terms of my writing. Productivity everywhere else in my life is just too big a job to tackle right now.

When I was first working on the first draft, I was in a writer’s workshop. They were six-week workshops but I went to the same workshop facilitator about three or four times in a row, then I also worked with her privately. It kept me writing. Having that looming deadline within which I had to produce something to read at the following week’s workshop kept me going. Guilt can be a powerful motivator. Again, I as usual want to be the pleaser, didn’t want to be the “one” who showed up unprepared or empty-handed. So I wrote, and revised and wrote some more. It got me a completed first draft.

I didn’t always like the comments about my writing. Other days I didn’t like that there were hardly any comments at all. (Yes, I know, I’m kinda hard to please.) I, in fact, didn’t always “like” all the other members of the workshop. Well I didn’t necessarily know them that well; I just didn’t have much in common with them and couldn’t get into whatever it was they were writing. But, I put forward my best effort to be helpful, constructive, and supportive, whether I liked their writing or not. They may not have “liked” me either, but they were kind, helpful, and respectful of my work.

I haven’t been to a workshop in several months. The facilitator has been busy trying to do silly things, like make a living. (Huh, who would have thought?)

My friend E. Victoria Flynn over at Penny Jars (can I call you that Victoria? I mean we really only know each other virtually), recently wrote about getting together with a couple other women writers to talk about writing, about life about whatever. I was soooo jealous.

Side note: If you get a chance you really shouldn't miss the opportunity to meet EVF and her blog Penny Jars. She is an amazing woman, a great poet and writer and a very cool mom to adorable kids -- in fact she's the kind of mom most kids probably wish they had.

It made me think; maybe I need to find a writing partner. Someone I could bounce ideas off or who will offer an opinion or suggestions. Maybe someone who will just offer a friendly ear, or we can chat over coffee. Maybe someone who will hold me accountable to help keep me writing. Or even someone I could write with, work together on a project?

I have friends (okay one friend) who I turn to often for advice, for help, for support (thank you MendiD). But I am starting to think maybe I need to try and find someone locally; someone that I can meet with in a coffee shop, in person, who will give me “that look” if I get flakey and don’t write or am not honest in what I write. Someone I might see face to face if I am not dependable, someone I couldn’t avoid. Scary thought. It means, at least in the beginning, putting myself out there to a stranger and risking rejection.

Sometimes wish I could just get on a plane, fly to Arizona where I know there is a friendly face, or even to Wisconsin and visit in person that virtual friend for some good coffee and writing support.

I’m kind of tired of the solitariness of writing and feel the need for the warmth of some company.

Recognizing Valor and Praying for Peace

2010-10-07T14:15:00.001-05:00

On Wednesday while sitting at my desk and writing, I would sneak quick looks at Tweetdeck to see what was going on. Just one more way to procrastinate. There was a link to the White House to watch President Obama present the Congressional Medal of Honor (posthumously) to Staff Sergeant Robert J. Miller of the United States Army. What a sobering event. If you have never watched such a ceremony or read about the Congressional Medal of Honor recipients I urge you to do so. In fact I highly recommend a book, Medal of Honor by Allen Mikaelian and Mike Wallace. It provides a fascinating history of the Medal of Honor and some of it's receipients and Wallace provides commentary about the wars the recipients fought in.

One, the CMH is the highest military honor that can be bestowed upon a military member. They aren’t given lightly or very often. In fact, since the first which was awarded in 1863 to a Civil War Private, just under 3,470 have been awarded. Only eight medals of honor have been awarded since the end of the Vietnam War. Unfortunately, far too often, they are given posthumously.

The story of Staff Sgt. Miller was inspiring. It was for actions in Afghanistan in 2008. Here is a link to the full story. I was once again reminded of how long we have already been in Afghanistan at war, and, sadly, how long we will likely still be there.

I wondered about Robert’s parents and siblings, all there for the presentation. In fact one of Robert’s brothers was so inspired by Robert’s actions that he has enlisted in the army and is also attempting to be a Green Beret like his brother.

Miller sounds like an exemplary human being, a great son, a great brother, a wonderful friend and an outstanding soldier, leader and teammate. It must have been gratifying for his parents to hear such high praise for their son, but certainly at what cost. Such a great honor, but like so many other recipients Robert made the ultimate sacrifice.

Possibly this event touched me even more, as my son Brendan is now back in San Diego at Camp Pendleton as he prepares to once again be deployed. He knows he is going to Afghanistan, he isn’t sure where in Afghanistan. He is scheduled to leave about November 11^th, Veteran’s Day. Ironic isn’t it?

I hate it -- the war -- that he is going there. I am proud of him. He too is a great son and brother and I know he is a good leader and a good Marine, recently promoted to Corporal. I just have to try and believe that he will remain safe and return home safely in 8 months with all the members of his company. I don't want him or any of his fellow marines to have to attend such a ceremony.

No matter what you think of the war, the military, the President or anything else, please keep those serving in your thoughts and if prayer is part of your life, this is a good reason for one.

Making a Difference

2010-10-06T16:31:00.000-05:00

Back on August 29^th on She Writes, agent Erin Hosier wrote a blog post titled, What Makes a Great English Teacher?. Erin had recently reconnected with one of her favorite high school English teachers via Facebook and interviewed her in her post.

Later that week, on September 3^rd, She Writes co-founder, Deborah Siegel wrote a post titled Back to School on a Note of Gratitude, in which she decided more than interviewing her favorite English teacher she really wanted to thank her . Deborah wrote a brief but very lovely note to her favorite English teacher, the one who inspired Deborah and as Deborah put it, “propelled her in the direction that led to a PhD in English Lit”, and later to She Writes. Deborah invited other She Writers to shout out to those teachers that inspired and influenced each of us.

I have been considering that post ever since. Yes, I had a few teachers who made a huge difference in my life; a sixth grade teacher who always made me feel that excelling was never something to be ashamed of and encouraged me to read, anything and everything. And my high school Advanced Lit teacher, who inspired me to go beyond the high school reading lists and look for other works that spoke to me.

But what I really have been thinking about is just the general affect a great teacher can have on any one of us and particularly those that are the defining person in one young student’s life.

Why, might you ask, would I think of this? Because one of my closest friends and a fellow She Writer is a first grade teacher. Mendi Davis writes a blog called 1st Grade Tales which documents many of the day to day events in her classroom.

We speak to each other often on the phone. I remember so clearly last year as we would speak and she would tell me of one particular student who she had a love/hate relationship with. Mendi teaches in a school filled with many students from low-income families, in an area plagued by gangs. She has had many students who have stories of one or another family members being in or getting out of jail or prison, parents who have been killed in gang related violence, and for these kids, that is the norm.

I would often think, I could never do it. I doubt I would have the patience she does. But as she told me last year about this student, one she affectionately calls in her blog Mr. Stinky Attitude, no matter how much he tried her patience with his bad attitude or his dysfunctional family there was always something there. It became apparent that his attitude got worse at times when he was most seeking some boundaries in his life, rules that he could follow, consequences for bad behavior. And it appears, she was the one person who consistently provided those things for him.

By the end of the school year last year, Mendi was exhausted, wanting only to be done with Mr. Stinky Attitude in her classroom. He had tried every last bit of her patience and gotten on every last nerve.

Mendi is not one to toot her own horn or to take credit for even things she clearly could take credit for. So I’ll toot her horn for her.This year, Mr. Stinky Attitude has had what one might call a miraculous turn-around. He is generally happy to be at school, particularly happy to run and give his favorite teacher, Mrs. Davis a hug and to show her how well he is doing in school, to show her his good grades and good marks for his behavior.

This year as well, Mendi has a new student to try her patience. This student it appears has some major issues which often manifest themselves in fits of blood curdling screaming for hours, crawling under his desk and throwing tantrums until he finally falls asleep due to sheer exhaustion. The “educational system” isn’t helping him much and his mother who appears to be in denial about the seriousness of his problems looks to be using the school as a babysitter for her son. This little boy is already nearing that last nerve of Mendi’s.

I want to remind her though, to keep on doing what she does, what few others can do. She is making the difference in a child’s life. She is the stability in that one little boy’s life, she is the one that will be there for him if he can find a way to succeed in a mainstream classroom, but she will also be the one who expect great things from him, that gives him boundaries and consequences.

I imagine that some day, when asked about any teacher that made a difference in his life, Mr. Stinky Attitude will gratefully point to Mrs. Davis and say, “she did because she refused to let me be just a product of my environment. She allowed me to realize that if I recognized the boundaries and believed in myself and worked most on being a good human being, anything is possible”.

So, instead of recognizing just my favorite English teacher, or my favorite teacher of any subject, I would more like to recognize those teachers that do the impossible, day in and day out, teaching children that others have already given up on, giving some kids from hopeless situations some real hope in their lives and making a difference in the lives of children.

I urge you to visit Mendi’s blog and see how things are going this week in first grade.

"One hundred years from now, It will not matter what kind of car I drove, What kind of house I lived in, Or how much money I had in the bank, But the world may be a better place because I made a difference in a child's life." ... Unknown Author

Note: Just before publishing this post I went over the Mendi's blog for a quick glance, usually I read her posts about 20 minutes after she publishes them. Funny, there right at the top was her most recent post which I had not yet read. It is all about Mr. Stinky Attitude and how she spent some time with him this past weekend. Some things just happen for a reason, no explanation.

Maybe that Internal Critic Wasn't Completely Wrong

2010-09-26T11:14:00.002-05:00

Good writing is rewriting ...

Truman Capote

I have often written about my internal critic, that voice inside my head that tells me my writing is crap, that tries to convince me to give up, that tells me I will never succeed.

Most experts and experienced writers tell you to ignore that critic, make it go away. They even suggest making deals with the bugger, telling it to go away until after the first few drafts. I struggle with it. I can at times let it overwhelm me with fear and negativity.

I’m wondering now if I shouldn’t embrace my internal critic and start listening. No, I’m not thinking my writing is crap, well not today at least. But I have to admit there has been something bothering me for quite some time as I work on revisions of the first draft, or rather, don’t work on revisions of the first draft.

I have felt stuck, as I said, lots of fear, anxiety and generally feeling rather lost. But, I am starting to name what is bothering me. I have been reading more, particularly since giving up one of my part time jobs. A couple of books just for the fun of it (confession: I love Kathy Reichs’ books and devour them as soon as they are released). I also have been reading a couple of memoirs. I am in the midst of “Lit” by Mary Karr and recently raced through “Mennonite in a Little Black Dress” by Rhoda Janzen, which made me laugh aloud at times.

What I have realized is that I have not been honest, with myself or with my writing. I am a pleaser, have been for a long time. Want to fix things for other people, want everyone to be happy and particularly want people to like me and not be mad at me. So, I wrote my first draft, constantly editing myself so as not to piss anyone off. It stifles the writing, it makes the story flat and like I’m reporting it instead of living it.

I may be starting anew, writing honestly. I’m going to be making some people mad probably. I hope my family will understand that what I write is my story, my memories and my feelings, it is never meant as a judgment of them. There are others, people I long considered my friends in law enforcement who aren’t going to like what I write (and I don’t mean just because they don’t like my style of writing). I have to remind myself that my real friends, the people who should and do matter the most will understand and will support me in telling my story honestly.

Maybe I have reached this point partly because I have begun to examine what it really means when you talk about friends, who are friends and who are acquaintances? That, however, is another post for another day.

While my internal critic cannot keep me from writing, I think that maybe it was keeping me from being satisfied with not telling the story from my heart.

Starting over is not what I had in mind when I started the revision process, but then being content with something not good enough is not what I had in mind either.

September 11

2010-09-11T09:39:00.000-05:00

I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when the planes hit the twin towers in New York on September 11, 2001. Like those who remember exactly where they were and what they were doing on November 22, 1963, or December 7, 1941. Like many people I know and love, for me today is a day of remembrance and reflection.

I heard about the first plane hitting one of the twin towers and then watched on TV as the second hit. I was standing in the booking room of the Placer County Jail, only three months or so after I was promoted to Lieutenant.

Even now, in remembering that moment, that day, that time I get that same feeling …. and this is what I miss most about my career in law enforcement. The moment -- the images that are burned most clearly in my memory is of emergency workers as they ran towards the disaster while thousands fled in panic. It is that “family” that I miss and those “brothers and sisters” that I never knew that I mourn.

All I really wanted to do that day was to be there, to help, to join that law enforcement family as they grieved the loss of their brethren and continued to work tirelessly to help survivors. I felt helpless as I watched on TV from 3000 miles away.

With deepest gratitude to those who made the ultimate sacrifice.

All gave some …. Some gave all.

Frozen by .....?

2010-09-02T14:13:00.000-05:00

I love comments from people on this blog. My last post about not winning the writing contest (I will not call myself a loser) garnered some of my favorite. Some of those comments are from people I don’t even really know except for virtually through She Writes. @Word Actress (Mary Kennedy Eastham) is one of those. But, her words touched me. I sometimes need someone to give me some clear direction and she did.

Unfortunately, I feel frozen. Is this what writers block really is? I don’t think so. I think this is just plain old fear. Someone suggested I work on my short stories and let the memoir sit for a bit after not winning the contest. Others suggest climbing right back on the horse and moving on with the memoir. I can’t seem to do either one.

I sit here wanting to know what needs to be done to the memoir. I have read excerpts from almost all of the finalist (the last three will be posted tomorrow). There are some incredible works out there and I can see why they were picked. But, I don’t know how to learn from that, how to turn some of that into figuring out what didn’t work about mine. Is the writing just not good enough? Is the story not that interesting to those “in the know” about publishing? Do I need to start from scratch? I want to ask those that read the excerpt for the contest. Although, obviously, it wouldn’t do much good. They looked at 300 entries and have their own work and careers and I’m not paying them so I don’t think they would sit down and give me a critique of my entry. But, it is what I want most of all.

This isn’t just about being published. If that were my only goal, I would have likely tried to write something more commercial. I write truly for me. But, I also would like to see it out in the world, my story, my memoir. How do you learn whether it is something that will ever be good enough, or whether it was just not what they were looking for this time?

I am trying not to turn my not being chosen into a personal beating. I am still struggling with understanding. I want to move on, whether it be to keep working on the memoir or work on my fiction but I feel like I can’t until I learn something from the loss.

I am struck immediately in reading the finalists entries, particularly their cover letters that I didn’t get that part. I asked questions and researched what the cover letter was supposed to look like but mine looked nothing like any of theirs. All the ones I have read from the finalists looked like the blurb on the back of the book.

I don’t like being frozen. I know I have to do something, the memoir, my fiction, something … but it is like I don’t want to be doing it if I am just really doing it wrong.

This is a common issue for me. I want to learn and I am willing to try to fail, but if I fail, I would like some help in learning why I failed so I don’t fail again. Where do I get that?

Oh and if I didn’t already, thank you so much to @Word Actress, @coffeelvnmom, @BurgMa, @Kathy Johnson and of course @ mendid. Your words were wonderful and encouraging and truly make me want to continue and succeed, and certainly helped me feel better. Just maybe, @Word Actress is right; I should just enter the memoir in another contest and see what happens.

A Kick to the Gut

2010-08-27T22:51:00.000-05:00

Hi. Yes it's me. Sorry, I know, no good excuse. Well, maybe a good excuse but sounds pretty lame right now. I would have brought a note to excuse my absence but unfortunately mom's not around any more and that would have to be a hell of a note.

So let's see, last time we talked I had entered the She Writes Passion Project writing contest with a portion of the memoir. Although I spent the last month or so telling my self there was no way in hell I could win, I was secretly fantasizing about winning anyway. You know, planning how great it would be when an editor and an agent told me how great my memoir was and with their help it would be even greater.

What else was I doing for the last month? Working. All the time. I mean really, seven days a week. Why? I have no clue at this point. The whole plan was that I would work part time, make enough extra money to pay for some fun, like travel and scuba diving, but leave plenty of time for writing. Instead I found myself working every single day and although I made notes in my notebook while at work when ideas would come to me, by the time I got home I was so exhausted I couldn't even think much less write.

Today I gave written notice at one of my part time jobs (Home Depot) to quit. Just can't keep doing this. So hopefully I will now get back to the writing.

Anyway, back to the Passion Project Writing Contest. On the 24th they announced the finalists -- 18 of the 300 or so entrants were named finalists that will then be reviewed by a panel for selection of "the one". I was not one of the 18. I cried, just a little. I kicked myself for even hoping, my critic came back full throttle and reminded me I had no chance and I was an idiot for trying. It was a bit like a kick to the gut, took the air out of me for a few moments.

I wanted very much to congratulate the winners but I couldn't find it in me to do so. I was hurt and pouting and throwing my own very quiet and personal pity party. With the decision today to hand in my notice I was starting to come back to reality, just gotta get back to the writing, keep plugging away at it, work more on the short stories I had started. I felt bad about being such a sore loser. I really am happy for those who won, I just couldn't find a way to say so without also saying or thinking something snarky.

Then this evening, the people who thought up this passion project idea posted an excerpt from three of the eighteen finalists submissions and an excerpt from their submission cover letter. It was suddenly amazingly clear why I did not win. Wow, there is some pretty great writing there and that is only the first three (they are posting excerpts from the winners in alphabetical order and will post another three tomorrow and another three the day after and so on until the grand prize winner is announced next week).

I suddenly felt very small and inconsequential. I wanted to quietly take back my entry and rewrite my entire first draft and my submission letter as well. Is mine really that bad? Probably not, I'm being a bit dramatic again, but I can only hope to write as well as some of these women.

So, here we are .... again. I'm back and hopefully on the road to a more reasonable schedule and more writing and more blogging. Hoping you all will forgive me for my absence. Send good positive energy my way and if you have any creativity you can spare I can always use some extra. And watch out because there are some amazing non-fiction stories from some women I have gotten to know and whether they are eventually chosen the winner or not, I have complete confidence that all of them will be published and you will be hearing of them. And maybe me too one day, after some rewriting and revision.

Wait ...but ..... let me explain!!!

2010-07-16T11:22:00.000-05:00

I love criticism just so long as it's unqualified praise.

~Noel Coward

How do you take criticism? Do you seek constructive criticism and if so where do you go to get it? How are you at giving criticism, particularly to someone you know and are friends with?

All these questions are at the forefront of my thinking as I struggle through revisions on the memoir and work on my short stories. I have let a few select people read the memoir in its current form. And while they have it I worry, and fret, and worry some more. What if they don't like it? Will they be honest if they hate it and think it stupid? And what will I do about it?

My editor, Sally is also my friend and mentor. I know in my head that her suggestions about revision are in my best interest. Doesn't seem to change my reaction much. I know this about myself, someone criticizes, even constructively and my first instinct is to get defensive, to try to explain what they clearly aren't getting. I often have to let her comments sit for a while, to let them settle until there is less emotional attachment to them, then I usually find she's right. I have at times argued for my point and at times she has decided I'm right, or at least I'm not so wrong that it is worth the argument, but usually she's right, thats why she's the editor.

I recently sent off the first 100 or so pages to a friend to read. I trust her, I know she is well read, I know she is smart and I know she cares about my feelings. Her initial reaction to the first few pages was positive. I was feeling great. Then I didn't hear anything else, for days and days. I began to panic. Did she hate it and now was too afraid to tell me? Should I ask? Should I just let it all go? I asked. She has a life, she's busy, she has kids ... okay so I was being a little nuts about it. Now I worry that I have made her a little nervous to give constructive criticism for fear I'll really go off the deep end. Don't worry my friend, I'll try to keep my neurosis in check.

There is the flip side to that coin as well. When you have a friend, how do you try to point someone towards help without hurting his or her feelings? If you know someone could use an editor, or a creative writing coach, or a class, how do you say it without making that seeming condescending or rude?

Where does the responsibility lie? When have you pushed too hard and butted into something not your business?

How do you handle criticism, both giving and receiving?

I'm with Mr. Coward on this one; criticize away as long as it is unqualified praise. Just kidding ... kind of.

My Fantasy Five -- Harper Lee is one of them ...

2010-07-13T00:54:00.000-05:00

I know I’m not alone in this but To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my all time favorite books and movies. Unusual kind of, usually if I really like the book I don’t like the movie that much and vice-versa But I love them both when it comes to TKAM. I have been reading a lot of blogs and other articles about the anniversary and about the book and movie. Most of the comments on these blogs are of the adoring fan type, how much they loved the book, how it affected the reader as a child growing up in the south, or in the north, what it taught them about racism in America. And then there have been the other type, those who complain that the book hardly showed the true face of racism, that it didn’t have enough of an effect on the American culture, that it didn’t change anything. Some people even get really angry and rude and make personal attacks against other commenters.

Harper Lee, the author of TKAM has said almost nothing about it; she lives in seclusion in her hometown. I quite some time ago read a book called Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee by Charles Shields. Shields wrote the biography without the support or assistance of Nelle Harper Lee, but he wrote it based upon his interviews with family and friends including Truman Capote. Capote and Lee had grown up together in Monroeville Alabama and many believe that the character of Dill Harris in TKAM is fashioned after Capote. The two remained friends for many years, Capote was one who encouraged Lee to write. Lee also worked as Capote’s research assistant for In Cold Blood, although he did very little to acknowledge her help on the book.

Reading all the comments, thinking about the book and about Shields’ book as well I began to think, if there were one person I would like to just sit down and talk to, about her life, about writing, about all of it, it is Harper Lee. The woman fascinates me. I wonder if for her, as she wrote the book, if she realized the long-term affect it would have on people, or how people would use her book as a hallmark of the state of racism in this country. Or, did she really write a fictionalized account of what was really a memoir. Lee’s father, like Scout’s father was a small town southern lawyer and many believe Atticus is based upon her father. Was she trying to make a statement about racism or was she trying to write about her life and those core values her own father instilled in her about right and wrong.

One of NPR’s most e-mailed stories over this last week was one about To Kill a Mockingbird and the 50^th anniversary. There was a serious argument between about three of the commenters about the book and racism. One commenter wrote:

I still contend that a fictionalized account, if it makes people start the discussion, or think about things in a new way, is better than never raising the consciousness at all. We've a long way to go, and I'm in favor of things that move the conversation along-even if it doesn't happen at the pace at which I think it needs to do.

No matter what Harper Lee’s intent might have been, we can be thankful that she at least continues to make people start the discussion or think about things in a new way.

I would like to read the book again, with my over 50 year old eyes and my over 50 year old experiences. I still wonder what a second book from Lee would have been like. Or did she write the perfect first book?

But as I thought about it, I thought of a few others I would love to sit and talk to, to talk about writing, and success and failures and life in general. Carson McCullers and Flannery O’Connor come to mind immediately, can you imagine sitting at that table? Wow. I began to ask myself, are there any contemporary writers that I would also invite to my imaginary round table? Absolutely, Anne Lamott and Alice Sebold.

So whom would you love to sit and talk to if you could pick any five people? Are there people who have influenced your own writing (if you write) or your way of thinking? I’d love to hear other people’s “fantasy 5”.

Knowing Where I Want to Go

2010-07-03T15:38:00.000-05:00

No, I did not fall off the planet, nor was I swept away by floodwaters. I have, however, been somewhat overwhelmed by my circumstances, work and the usual worry about things over which I have no control.

I have been reassessing, how much do I want to work, getting back to my writing and what space and time will I carve out for that. I have found that if I step away from writing for too long, as I did after the flood, that internal critic whom I felt I had finally at least temporarily banned from my head came barging in once more.

The impetus for the return of the beast was the She Writes 1 year birthday celebration. Although She Writes was founded in New York City, it now boasts an online community of nearly 10,000 women writers from all over the United States and 30 countries. That is close to 1,000 new members a month, which is incredible. I am the administrator of the bloggers group, which now has over 1200 bloggers, that is a whole bunch of blogs. On June 29, She Writes turned one.

Anyway, to celebrate the birthday Kamy Wicoff and Deborah Siegel, the co-founders of She Writes asked members to hold celebrations in cities around the world. There were at least 17 separate birthday celebrations including one here in Nashville. Amazingly, we had almost 45 women join us at Davis Kidd Booksellers. Most of these women were not She Writes members, well at least not when they decided to join us, many have since become members.

As part of the celebration, Sally Schloss who is my mentor and editor and who organized the event asked several writers to read a short selection from their work. She read a portion of a short story herself. She had nine different readers and all, but one, were already published. The one unpublished reader? Me. Sally asked me to read from my memoir, even though it is still just a polished first draft.

Sally and I met about a week before the event to discuss the agenda etc., and to discuss what portion of the memoir I would read. She suggested a portion and I decided to go home, look at it and then possibly look at other sections as well then decide what to read.

And therein was that small opening which my internal critic busted through. I literally read the memoir and decided that maybe I hated it, that it wasn’t worthy of being read, that I was setting myself up to be embarrassed and ridiculed. Yes, I know, really rather dramatic but that critic does that to me.

Unwilling, however to fail at this assignment, I just finally gave up trying to find the perfect passage, or re-write the perfect passage and went with the section that Sally had first suggested. It was my first public appearance as “an author”. I did not mumble, I did not stutter, I did not speak in foreign tongues. In fact, I read eight pages clearly and with conviction. I was scared to death but tried not to let others see my fear.

See ... look at me, I'm reading!

Moreover, when I was done I was still whole, I had not died, and I had not heard any loud sighs of impatience or snickering at the writing. In fact, I received several really wonderful compliments on my work, from published authors, wonderful writers who know this stuff. I received comments from several people who said they couldn’t wait to read the entire memoir.

Take that damn critic!

I also had started, in the past several months, two short stories. I have only a beginning and not really a clue where they are going. I wrote them and put them away as I worked on the memoir. I pulled them out again recently as I contemplated attending another writer’s workshop. Much to my surprise, I loved what I had written; I was actually kind of proud of myself. I had, before then, doubted myself thinking I would re-read them and realize they would be awful. But no, they weren’t awful, at least not to me.

I sent them both to Sally to get a professional opinion of the story starts and to see if she thought I should work on them in workshop or let them be. She told me she worried that if I concentrated on short stories I would somehow not get the memoir done and she may be right. I may have used working on something else as a convenient excuse not to finish the memoir. I mean, if it isn’t finished I can’t fail at getting it published can I? – Don’t answer that.

But, I heard from Sally after she read the beginnings and she gave me the loveliest compliment I could ever get. Her words were, “you need to finish the memoir so you can write fiction”.

I am now even more certain that I need and want to be careful how much time I work. I need to reprioritize and probably simplify my life somewhat so that I work less and write more. I still plan to help Cait with her photography business but I know there are ways to be more frugal to cut back here and there so that I don’t feel I have to work so much and I get back to doing what I love, writing.

So as I settle into my new apartment and sit at my desk that sits in my bay window of my room I feel content that I am back on the right track. She Writes is holding a contest for non-fiction writers that I plan to enter with my memoir. It is time to get those revisions done and see if I can get it out into the world. Then to move on to some fiction writing, I’m excited.

No, this isn't actually my desk or my bay window, someday maybe but you get the idea ...

Moving Ahead

2010-05-29T02:00:00.002-05:00

Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.

~John Lennon

If anyone had asked me a two months ago what my plans were I would have told them, work less, write more, hope to go diving more. If they had asked me again a month ago I would have told them, I have decided to invest in my daughter and her future. I still planned to work less, write more and go diving.

Note: See samples of Caits recent portrait photography at the bottom of this post.

Cait has loved photography since she was about 13 and her grandpa gave her a camera. She went on vacation and took some photos with the point and shoot APS camera he gave her. She came back with pictures that showed that she had a natural eye for a good photo. Those pictures are still displayed at her grandpa’s house, one of the New York skyline that includes the twin towers, the other of an amazing sunset outside the house of a relative in the Florida panhandle.

When I take pictures, it is just luck when I get a good one and to get that one good one I probably take about 100.Thank goodness for digital cameras. I can see a scene and think it would be a beautiful photo but can’t seem to capture it correctly; it never looks like what I hoped it would. Cait on the other hand can take a picture and it seems to be framed just right, have just the right elements in it.

In high school, she started more seriously thinking about photography as a career, she took a photo class and then went to the Academy of Art in San Francisco for college. Although she was still great at photography, she was not thrilled with the rest of what she was doing at AoA. She finally left after a semester. She continued to take photographs, many of which I have had hanging in my house.

Cait moved to Nashville in 2007, and worked in both retail and office jobs to make a living. It isn’t always easy; the cost of living is certainly cheaper here than California but the pay is significantly lower as well. She still took photographs, beautiful ones and started to think about what she really wanted to do with her life.

A few months ago her circumstances changed and she had a chance to make a decision about what she would do next. She wanted to give photography as a career a serious try. We talked about what it would take to do so, could she or should she work at a part time job and do photography on the side, or should she try and just make a business go? We agreed that the latter was a better option for now.

We had considered the idea of she, her boyfriend Kyle, and I all sharing a house together, to allow them to keep pursuing their creative endeavors and to allow me to have people I love around me more. We had not made any final decisions.

Then, as John Lennon said, life happened while I was busy making those other plans … the flood hit. It somewhat forced us to make decisions a bit quicker. Cait and a friend own the house I had been living in. It is currently uninhabitable. When Cait moved out, I had moved in to help the two of them keep the house, as neither could afford it on their own. The housing market was still in its downturn and they could not sell for what they owed. My living there seemed like a viable solution, at least short term. Since the flood, they learned that they only qualified for loans from FEMA, and neither Cait nor her friend, my former housemate, could afford the house payment, a loan payment and rent for somewhere to live. They have decided they will have to give up the house. Maybe this is the part where you have to think; when one door closes, another one opens.

So, this is a part of my investment in Cait’s business. To allow her to continue to focus full time on her photography, allow Kyle to continue to focus more on his music and to allow me to focus on my writing. Cait, Kyle, and I have decided to share an apartment, although one bigger than the one bedroom they currently live in and have graciously allowed me to camp out in for now. It was that or have her mom be homeless.

So I’m working a little more than I had planned, part time at Home Depot and part time at the dive shop. The decision feels right; it feels like a good short-term sacrifice for me to in the end make all three of us more successful in our creative lives.

My investment is to support Cait financially while she makes her photography business, Caits Images, a success. And I have no doubt it will be. She has already done several photo shoots; portraits, family portraits, photo sessions of musicians (including of course Kyle), and kids. She has worked in both the Nashville area and in Southern Illinois/St. Louis area where Kyle’s family lives.

It is incredible to watch your little girl take on all the things that go with starting a business, put herself and her artwork out there for the world. She is in so many ways so much braver than I am. She has her moments of self-doubt but that is the other part of my investment in her business, trying to remind her how talented she is, keep her spirits up when it is tough to find new customers and build a portfolio and a reputation, and if it helps to talk through potential business decisions and plans.

She has hired a designer who is helping design a logo, she started her website/blog, she has started a relationship with several professional labs for printing, she is advertising, and she is studying the details of starting a small business and succeeding as a professional photographer. She is happier and healthier than I have seen her in a very long time. She works very hard for very little financial reward at this point but I’m certain that will change.

Take a few moments to visit Cait’s site, look at more of her pictures, she loves to get comments and feedback, and be sure to get in touch if you’re looking for a photographer. You can also check out Kyle’s music, here. And if you like what you hear you can download some of his music from iTunes.

Kyle and Cait have also been collaborating some. Cait has taken photos to be used as album art for Kyle and the image below is a poster that the two of them designed and using photos Cait took of Kyle and Lisa Auge for an upcoming show in Nashville. If you live in the Nashville area, consider coming out and giving a listen.

The Upside of Disaster

2010-05-23T21:48:00.001-05:00

There is one it turns out, an upside I mean.

It is deliberate and random acts of kindness. I have witnessed in the past three weeks true generosity and caring. The kind without an ulterior motive attached.

In the days following the flood, when we were finally able to return to the house and the neighborhood, people who had before only been geographically close to one another, living on the same street, in the same subdivision suddenly had something bigger in common, loss, survival, hope. We gathered as we surveyed the damage, offered solace and understanding, sometimes advice or information if we had it.

While laboring to begin separating out the belongings that could be salvaged and those that had been ruined by the flood waters, as people began to tear out carpeting, tile, linoleum, hardwood, carpet pad, trim, sheetrock, insulation, an “army” of fellow Nashvillians descended.

These were not people I knew before, in fact, I still don’t know them now, I don’t know their names or where they lived or why they chose to come to our neighborhood. But, they came, on that first day we were there, on a flatbed truck stacked with supplies, bottled drinking water, bleach, paper towels, cleaning supplies, information about where you could get clothing if you needed it, more food, and maybe most importantly a kind word and maybe just a little bit of hope.

They drove by and would ask if we needed anything, no cost, no sales pitch for any organization, business or church, just supplies for those beginning the clean up.

A few hours later as I threw away all those books that had been on the bottom shelf of the book shelf, now soaked through with water, the pages stuck together and the ink bleeding from the covers I heard a voice outside the living room window. A woman said to me, “Excuse me.” I turned around to see two women standing in the front yard, one wearing a “uniform” from Domino's Pizza. Each woman held a stack of pizza boxes. The one said, “Would you like a pizza?” “No thank you, I said, we ate, but thank you.” She said, “Would you like one for later?” “No, but thank you so much.” Again, there wasn’t any self-promotion with the offer, clearly just a local business doing what they could to help those affected.

As the days went on and the clean up continued, so did the offers of help, supplies, and food. The Metro Police Department took up position at either end of the street, discouraging any ne’er do wells who might think of taking advantage and stealing from those whose homes were now vacant, and providing security for a now ghost-town of a neighborhood.

The Red Cross arrived every evening, workers visiting the houses, where people worked to clean up and salvage belongings, to offer assistance and information. They were watching for the signs of post-traumatic stress. They also brought along with workers, hot meals for anyone who wanted one.

Complete strangers would walk up; wearing work gloves and ask if we needed help moving heavy items. When told no they would smile and move on to the next house. Another day, two young girls walked up and offered bottles of some type of mold removal stuff they had gone and purchased from the Home Depot. I don’t know for certain but I’m pretty sure those kind of things aren’t cheap but these girls were offering them to anyone who needed them – people, young, old, well-off, struggling, it didn’t matter – they were just reaching out to their fellow Nashvillians, doing what they could.

Those random acts didn’t account for the hundreds who volunteered their time, effort, and money at the Red Cross, at Second Harvest Food Bank, or at Hands on Nashville. Nor did it count the ones who went to the other neighborhoods and business to lend their time, morale, muscles, support.

But, that was not all. As I’ve mentioned, I work part time at Home Depot. I can’t speak for other Home Depots, only the one I work at, but you couldn’t find a nicer group of people who immediately came to the aid of those in need. I saw it first on Sunday, May 2^nd while I was at work it thundered and the rain and the lightning continued. A woman called the store; she was at her home and didn’t know how to stop the flooding. Her neighbor had apparently put in some concrete that actually served to direct the water right towards her house. I watched as two employees, took it upon themselves to get some equipment from tool rental and some supplies including sand and plastic and drove to the woman’s house to erect a sandbag wall to stave off the water. These employees did it on their own, and were supported in doing so by store management, on store time. They helped not a customer but a neighbor who needed help.

After the flood and my evacuation, I was supposed to work that Monday but called out explaining that I had been evacuated and had no clothes or anything to wear to work. I was scheduled off Tuesday and Wednesday. I obviously didn’t suffer as terribly as others did but despite that, the entire ordeal seemed to knock me on my ass, both physically and emotionally. I got a call Tuesday evening from a fellow H.D. employee, one I had only met once or twice and really didn’t know. She said that everyone at the store had heard I had been flooded, were worried, and wanted to know that I was all right and if I needed anything.

When I returned to work again on Thursday, almost every employee, most of whom I really didn’t know since I had only worked there a couple of months, came to me, asked me how I was and what they could do to help or what did I need. To a person they all said all I need do was call if and when I needed help. I didn’t know these people but they treated me like a friend.

The store manager came up to me that first day and asked, “What are you doing here?” I answered, “Uh, working?” afraid that somehow in the days since the flood I had somehow lost my job. He asked, “Didn’t you get flooded out? Why are you here? What do you need? As soon as you’re ready you just let us know and we’ll be there, whatever you need.”

I can’t even tell you how close I was to crying. Nashville was my adopted home but these people acted as if I was family.

A day later the manager came to me, brought me a form, and told me to fill it out. It asked what store and department I worked in, what my home address was and what disaster had affected me. I filled out the form and returned it to him. Two hours later, he came to me with an e-mail with a confirmation number allowing me to go to Western Union and get cash – a grant from Home Depot available to employees in time of emergency.

My job there is part time, to allow me money for fun stuff, travel, diving etc. It is not my sole means of support as it is for many employees. I am a new employee, yet without a second thought they allowed me to take advantage of the grant, it came at such a perfect time. They allowed me to adjust my schedule to make it easier for me to continue the clean up, meet with FEMA and try to put my life back in some kind of order.

Retail jobs are retail jobs, no matter where you go. But, I will forever be a huge fan of Home Depot for taking care of their employees, even the brand new ones.

Really, it is also the very small acts of kindness that touched me most. This may sound silly to some but it to me was the epitome of what things are like here after the flood. Those first few days the mail was not being delivered, the mail trucks couldn’t get in either. I went to the post office because I was expecting something rather important in the mail. I waited in line and when I got to the window, I asked the woman if they were holding the mail from the Pennington Bend area. She said yes, and that I could just come pick my mail up there until they started delivery again. I gave her my driver’s license; she went in the back and retrieved my mail. I told her that if possible, I would prefer to just pick up my mail, I could no longer stay at the house and the post office was closer to where I was staying. She said no problem and I put a hold on my mail.

Since that day, I have returned to the post office probably every three days or so to pick up mail. And every time I am there no matter where I am in line, that same woman sees me and says, “Oh Ms. Jeffs, I’ll go get your mail.”

There is something about that act, remembering my name, not making me wait in line every time. Behaving as if it is the one small thing she can do for a flood victim to make their recovery easier.

Maybe it is like this anywhere there is a natural disaster. I don’t know, this is the first and hopefully the last time I’ll be in this position. But, it seems somehow unique to this area, this up side of the disaster this real sense that it is just so true … We Are Nashville.

The Big Flood in Three Acts -- Act III

2010-05-17T21:36:00.001-05:00

Act III

Monday the 3rd of May. The sun is shining it looks like a gorgeous day. Late last night my housemate arrived at my daughter’s apartment building with my dog. She had snuck into the neighborhood last night, and had to swim in the rising floodwaters to get to the house and rescue the dogs. I was thrilled to have Bodhi with me but in reality it was a stupid thing to do, extremely dangerous and lacking common sense, she and the dogs could have been killed. But, her dogs are like her children and she could not bear the idea of them being left there alone. I get that but still…

My daughter and I returned to the neighborhood to see what it looked like. We had to park near where I had climbed aboard the evacuation bus, and walk back in. The water had continued to rise throughout the night. It is running swiftly through the entire neighborhood, like a river. The street is blocked off, and so we stand in the yard of an elderly woman that lives around the corner from our street. The police are talking to the woman as she sits on her porch. The only thing I hear her say is “I’m not going anywhere”. Other police officers are there and still others arrive on boats having rescued more people who stayed the night before. We strain to try to see at least the back of the house. From where we are we can see the water is now about half way up the 6-foot fence in the back yard. We still have no real idea of what the condition of the house is.

Throughout the day, we continue to hear that the worst is still yet to come. They are planning to do releases of water from the lakes due to pressure on the dams, to avoid a dam failure, which would be catastrophic. The releases would be made into the Cumberland, which would only would mean the water would continue to rise. We go back again Monday afternoon to check again and we are told that they have already released water from the dams. No one is sure when the water in the neighborhood will begin to recede and we might get back in.

For this neighborhood, it is catastrophic. The neighborhood was not in the flood plain and so homeowners were either denied the opportunity to buy flood insurance or told they didn’t need it, as the area had not flooded in the last 100 years. Moreover, our neighborhood is not the worst hit in the Nashville area. In some areas two story homes were flooded up to the roof eaves. Everything those people owned was gone.

For some perspective, the average annual rainfall for the Nashville area is 48+ inches. The wettest month of the year on average is May where the average rainfall for the month is 5 inches. In the first two days of the month, we got between 13 and 16 inches of rain. I will compare that to Sacramento, California, which is the area I moved to Tennessee from. There the average rainfall for the year is approximately 20 inches with the wettest month being January with an average rainfall of slightly over four inches.

Tuesday May 4th. My daughter and I went back and checked again, still the water was too high and moving too quickly to allow residents back in. The smell is getting overwhelming. Hearing reports that anyone who has been in the floodwater should go get a tetanus shot if they hadn’t had one recently. Tuesday afternoon I went back again. This time I got to talk to the elderly woman whose property many of us were gathering on to try and get a glimpse of our homes.

This woman was a true gem. The nicest lady in the world. So concerned about the girl she saw who Sunday night had gone back in to get her dogs. I told the woman that was my housemate and she was so relieved to know she was alright, she had been so worried for her. She was truly concerned for everyone who had been displaced. I mentioned to her that I heard her tell the police she wasn’t leaving. She laughed and said her daughter in-law had arrived and the police, not knowing she was related, said to her, don’t even try to talk the old lady into leaving, she’s not going anywhere. The water had risen to where it was now beginning to crest the woman’s driveway. I spoke to another young woman who was asking about my house, about my belongings and about being evacuated. I must be losing my touch or at least my cop spidey-sense. After talking to her for a few minutes, I realized she was a reporter and her cameraman suddenly appeared, popping up behind me.

When the reporter was done talking to me she said to me, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so calm after going through something like this.” I took that as a good sign; maybe I was far too boring to put on TV.

Well, no such luck, I was on the evening news. As I told my housemate, I didn’t say anything too stupid but it wasn’t the first time I had felt like I made a fool of myself on TV. And no, if you are wondering, I will not be posting that video here.

Wednesday the 5th we were finally allowed back in. We still had to walk through water almost knee high to get onto our street but the yards were no longer flooded. The weather now for three days has been beautiful, temperatures near 80 degrees. Everyone in the area was in need of sun and warmth, but homes that have been flooded and then have sat closed up for several days in heat really take on a terrible smell. All we could really do was look around and try to assess the damage. I’m not sure; I think we had somewhere between 12 and 18 inches of water in the house, but it looked like it may have settled at around 8 inches before receding.

Amazingly it appears we never did lose power as by the time we got back in on Wednesday the power was still on, the refrigerator still cold and clocks still working. Don’t ask me how or why the power company didn’t shut off power at least until the water receded.

The carpets were still soaked and there was a very thin coating of mud on everything that had been on or near the floor. Nothing much we could do right then. Thursday, Friday and Saturday we began the process of cleaning up and salvaging what we could. The city allowed us to just throw everything we were disposing of out onto our front walkways and lawns and they would have a company come around and pick it up. Each day the area looked more and more like a war zone with every house having a growing pile of carpeting, furniture, sheetrock, molding and various appliances and other trash.

We began by ripping out the carpeting and padding throughout the house. Then we started taking out all the sheetrock – from the floor up four feet. What was left by Monday evening was a shell with studs showing at the bottom of existing walls and concrete floors.

My housemate has already found a new apartment to rent. I am still staying with my daughter and her boyfriend until we make other arrangements. I feel so very fortunate that I get along so well with them both and they have both been so gracious in letting me stay, with my dog.

My daughter and her friend owned the house. When my daughter moved out in July of 2009 neither she nor her friend could afford the house payment alone and as we all know, the housing market was in the toilet so they could not sell. I decided to move in to help them out and let them keep the house. Of course, they were among the thousands of homeowners who did not have flood insurance. They have applied for federal aid through FEMA but still don’t know what if anything they may qualify for. It is very likely that they will be unable to do anything other than let the bank foreclose. My housemate, my daughter’s friend, has already decided to move on; she has no interest in trying to fix the house. Neither of them could afford, even with a zero or low interest loan, to make a house payment and a loan payment for repairs while also renting somewhere to live – all on a gamble that the value of the house may someday return to allow them to sell for what they owe.

I am still so grateful that neither I nor my housemate nor our pets were injured. Many others in the Nashville area were not so lucky. It is so sad to see the dreams of my daughter be dashed but we will survive and we will recover, it just may take a little time.

Photo Credits: All photos by Caitlin Jeffs at Caits Images

We Are Nashville Flood Relief Poster by Ty Mattson at Mattson Creative Not:e: Ty Mattson has offered to let anyone use this artwork for T-Shirts or other fundraising efforts as long as 100% of the proceeds go to the charity orgnizations involved with Flood Relief in Nashville. An amazing thing for any artist to do. Check out the link to his blog.

The Big Flood in Three Acts - Act II

2010-05-16T22:12:00.013-05:00

Act II

Note: I wanted to add pictures about this night but obviously I didn’t take any during my evactuation. But I would ask that you at least watch the video at the end of this post to get a feel for what things looked like in the cold light of day. Thanks.

Sunday night, May 2^nd about 9 p.m. The power has remained on the entire night, the rain stopped about 6 p.m. or so. I’m working on my computer and expecting my housemate home at any time. My dog as well as my housemate’s two little dogs are quietly sleeping.

I hear what sounds like someone talking outside my bedroom window in the front yard. I can’t really make out what is being said and I’m trying to figure out if it is my neighbors, are they just talking? Are they fighting with each other? It sounds weird, like the sound is different than it should be. It is a man’s voice I hear but certainly not one I recognize and I still can’t figure out what he is saying.

I went to the front door and open it to see who is talking outside and make sure everything is okay. It is not only my general nosiness about what my neighbors are up to but I got that same feeling that I used to get while working as a cop, something seems not quite right and I want to find out what is going on.

I look out to see a man walking down the middle of my street. I was right, something is not quite right …. the street is flooded and the man is walking in thigh-high water. Well, how the hell did that happen and why was I so clueless? It is a surreal scene, the water flooding the street is what made the conversation and everything else sound so strange, voices sounded different, they didn’t echo off the houses in the neighborhood in the same way.

Other than the stranger walking down the street I didn’t see anything else out of the ordinary which made the whole thing so out of the ordinary. I can hardly believe we still have power.

I go back inside and call my housemate telling her not to try and come home, she wouldn’t make it anyway. I then call my daughter and tell her that our neighborhood is now flooding. She asks what I plan to do. There is nothing I can do at this point but wait and see what happens next. If the water continues to rise I will at some point I guess have to call 911 and try and get someone to come rescue me from my house.

About 10 p.m. as I am outside once more checking on the water level I see two men heading my way through the neighbor’s front yard, both shining flashlights in my direction.

One of the men says to me, “You ready to go?”

“Am I being evacuated?” I ask.

“Yep, are you ready?”

What I want to say is something snarky like, “Mister, do I look ready? I’m in sweats and a t-shirt and no shoes.” Instead I just say, “Uh, no. What about my dogs, I have three dogs?”

He tells me, “You’ll have to leave them, we need to go.”

“I have to go in and put some clothes on.”

I think he’s a little exasperated with me and says, “Just go put some shoes on”.

Now I’m the one exasperated, a little notice would have been nice. I tell my evacuator that he needs to give me a few minutes, to get shoes, to calm the dogs and get what I need to take. He agrees and moves on to the next house and begins banging on their door.

Okay, before anyone gets ready to string me up at the very thought of abandoning my pets … first, I saw the water outside; there is no way in the world I could manage myself plus three dogs trying to get out. Second, I was in law enforcement; I know what it is like when you are trying to evacuate an entire neighborhood quickly and safely. The last thing you need is everyone on the street wanting to bring their animals and needing help in doing so, can you imagine the dog fights with all the freaked out animals trying to get out? I believed that the dogs would actually probably be better off in the house. I still didn’t think the house would go under and figured if water came in the house at all, the animals could probably get up on couches and beds and remain dry and safe.

So I changed my clothes, put my sweats and some clean undergarments in my backpack, grabbed a toothbrush and loaded up my computer, my electrical cord to charge my computer, my phone and phone charger and my wallet and checkbook. I then gave the dogs each a couple dog treats and some fresh water and stepped outside and locked the door behind me. No, I didn’t think enough to grab my passport, my retired law enforcement ID or probably 50 other things I probably should have thought about saving. But my concern at the time was my computer with the entire manuscript for my memoir on it. Yes I have a back-up copy, on a flash drive but at the moment I can't tell you where that flash drive is.

Six of us were grouped together and told to each grab on to the rope one of the rescuers was holding, a way to stay together. Not really sure what would have happened if one of us had fallen, dragged the other 5 with them? We stepped into the street, into the cold water which was now waist high.

It was so odd to me that the water could be so deep in the middle of the street only 20 yards from my front door yet my yard was not flooded, water was nowhere near the front of my house.

Water is a very powerful thing and can sweep you off your feet in seconds. I could feel the current around my calves. I was more worried though about some of the people around me, people of all ages and physical abilities.

We finally got to the end of the street and out of the water. They directed us to walk down the street to a where the flashing lights were, what turned out to be the emergency services command center for the neighborhood evacuation. It was between a quarter and a half a mile, but in soaking wet cold clothes it seemed much further. We got to the command center and waited by the side of the road as the group of people grew. Couples with young babies, small children, several people with their little tiny dogs. I felt bad that my dogs remained alone in the house while other people brought theirs. I was certain though that it was like anything else; most people probably didn’t ask if they could bring their dogs and if they did ask and were told no they probably just brought them anyway.

A couple buses arrived, we piled on and were driven to a nearby high school which was now an evacuation center. No cot in a high school gymnasium for me. I was a lucky one. My daughter and her boyfriend arrived to pick me up and take me to their apartment.

The Big Flood in Three Acts

2010-05-14T00:57:00.000-05:00

Act I

"Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink."

~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I have a habit of checking the weather forecast at night before going to bed, to decide what I need to wear to work. Saturday May 1 was supposed to be in the 70’s but with rain and thundershowers. The weather forecasters got it right. It rained, there was thunder and lightning and as I checked the weather throughout the day there were severe storm warnings.

I’m fairly new to Tennessee or anywhere else with tornadoes as part of their weather picture. Standing in a huge warehouse home improvement store added to some of my unease, didn’t sound like a good plan to me to be standing amongst the hammers, saws, power tools and large pieces of lumber flying around. Visions of that witch on her bicycle come to mind.

Customers were coming in for things like sump pumps (whatever a sump pump is), wet/dry vacs, sand and bags, large drainage pipes. But, there weren’t that many customers; most were likely home riding out the storm. The manager asked if anyone wanted to leave early, a chance for him to cut hours and save the store money. No one had to ask me twice and so I left.

I was scheduled to work Sunday as well. The rain and thundershowers continued, the weather reports continued to talk about severe thunderstorms, possible high winds and possible flooding. I am never quite sure the difference between the severe weather watch and the severe weather warning. I’ve become kind of complacent, believing that usually the warnings are overkill, I wait until I hear the tornado siren.

Again, I got to leave work early, business was slow and again it was almost all supplies to either clean up or redirect water.

I’ve been in severe weather before including localized flooding and really thought that was what was happening here. The weather reports remained the same although the severe weather warnings were starting to add up.

As I got off of the parkway and turned onto the street to head to my house, I was suddenly forced to pull into a gas station to avoid a huge amount of water in the middle of the road. In the middle of the water was a car, a sedan up to the windows in water and the driver climbing out the driver’s door window. I turned around and headed to a back road that would lead to home. As I rounded a corner, I saw another driver coming the other way, we slowed and I asked if the road was clear. He told me yes but that there were a couple of areas where the water was covering the road, to just go slowly.

I made it home without much problem. My housemate was planning on going out. She normally drives a small Ford Focus; I drive a Toyota 4 WD pick-up. I told her to take my truck, that there was likely too much chance that her car wouldn’t make it through some of the streets that were beginning to flood. She left and I sat down to write. I checked the weather reports again; the rain was forecast to stop by about 8 p.m.

At only 6 p.m. the rain had stopped and the skies were beginning to clear somewhat. It looked like the worst might be over. My house is about ½ mile from a park that overlooks the Cumberland River. I decided a walk to the park was in order, give my dog some much-needed exercise (we won’t mention the much-needed exercise for me) and check out what the river looked like.

About half way down my street is a walkway that leads to some steps that lead to what is a big field behind my house. It is almost like a big bowl, from the bottom of our fence in our back yard it is probably another six feet down to the deepest part of the field. It is about ¾ of the size of a football field. I walked down the pathway and was shocked to see the field filled with water. Only three of the steps leading down into the field were still out of the water. But that still left the water a couple feet below the bottom of our back fence. This just seemed to be collected water, not from a flooded stream or river and since the rain had stopped I thought it likely had gotten as high as it was going to.

As I got to the park the atmosphere was interesting. I had never seen so many people and cars were streaming both in and out. I wasn’t the only one who thought checking out the river was a good idea. At the entrance to the park, the road was slightly flooded and the dog and I had to walk through about 6 inches of water. No biggie, the “puddle” was only about eight feet wide, easy enough to wade through.

The river was high. What was usually a grassy hill that slopes steeply about 20 feet down to a chain link fence atop a concrete wall was now a hill of only about 5 feet and the chain link fence and concrete wall were under water.

I walked home. I talked briefly to my housemate; she asked if I thought there was a danger of our neighborhood flooding. I assured here it wasn’t likely the water would have to come up a lot higher to flood the park then a whole lot higher than that to reach our neighborhood. Where she was there was no danger of flooding and so I returned home and went back to my writing.

Storm schmorm …. mostly a lot of hoo hah for nothin’ …. or so I thought ….

To be continued …

Read, read, read.

2010-04-25T18:33:00.000-05:00

"Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the most. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out the window. -- William Faulkner

I love to write. I love being a writer. There is a school of thought that in order to be a better writer, one must read, and read a lot. I have recently felt like I had no time to read, I was having enough trouble just finding the time to try to work on the revisions of the book (or was that just a good excuse).

Over the last couple of weeks, however, I have read, quite a bit actually. My to-read stack was growing, threatening to spill over and bury me under the masses of books I keep buying and meaning to get to next. I had told myself that I would finally read some of the books by women who are also members of She Writes, as well as some by other favorite authors.

For those of you that write, I wonder, have you ever had that feeling while reading, that thought, “oh my god, I could never write this well, or this smart, funny or heart wrenching a story?” I have, in fact more than a few times recently.

Part of that I am certain is just my own insecurities finding new excuses to think about giving up before having to measure up.

I find it amazing though, that at those exact same moments that the thought that I cannot do it flits through my brain and settles somewhere in amongst the gray matter, there is also an adrenaline rush, a quickening of my heart as I know I want nothing else than to sit down and write. There is a slight tickling at the back of my brain, tiny sparks and glimpses of a story, a plot, a place, a character flash into the front of my brain, for just that second and I can’t wait to put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard.

So what have I been reading? I started on the plane ride to Philadelphia with Meg Waite Clayton's “The Wednesday Sisters”. Meg is a fellow She Writer and I had read a short synopsis of her book about five female friends who as neighbors meet each other at a local park where they all take their young children and through the years form not only a great friendship but also an amazing writing group. I didn’t realize until I started reading that the book takes place in the San Francisco Bay Area, specifically Palo Alto and the surrounding areas mostly during the 60’s and 70’s. I grew up in Mountain View during the 60’s and 70’s so there was so much in the book that I could relate to, I could see and hear the Bay Area of my childhood and teenaged years.

I love that, being able to picture the scene because I know where it really is. Moreover, I love when a story that takes me away also talks about one of my favorite subjects the craft of writing.

The book was beautiful, funny, sad, joyful and hopeful. I highly recommend it.

Last year I had read a book by Michelle Richmond called “Year of Fog”. I was spellbound when I read it. It is the story of the abduction of a 6-year-old girl in San Francisco while in the care of her father’s girlfriend. Again, many of the places in the book were places I had been or seen. Add to that the story that dealt with a crime, with memory, with relationships during tragedy … definitely right up my alley. It became one of my favorite books.

While in Philadelphia last week, I read another of Richmond’s books “Dream of the Blue Room”. This one was completely different than Year of Fog but I still found myself drawn in by Richmond’s writing, her characters and of course the story of a young girl’s murder and her best friend’s journey to fulfill a promise to the girl’s mother. I don’t want to give too much away but be prepared for a beautiful journey to China and a trip down the Yangtze River if you read this one.

I finished this evening a third of Richmond’s books, this one “No One You Know”. Again set mostly in San Francisco, this one is the story of two sisters, one of which is murdered. No one is ever arrested for her murder but a former English professor of the surviving sister writes a book about the case, a non-fiction true crime book. He names the alleged murderer, at least whom he believes murdered the girl based upon mostly circumstantial evidence. The purported murderer is never arrested or charged but his life is forever ruined after being named a murderer by the author. I was already a Richmond fan but there were things about this one that really hit home for me.

Not only was the story riveting but also this book struck some chords with me with some similarities to some incidents that I write about in my own memoir. Not the same incidents of course, but similarities in what can happen when a person or group of people decide that they know how a crime was committed, or who committed it and then look for evidence to support their beliefs, to the exclusion of any other evidence. Things are reported as fact and in many cases become fact, at least in most people’s minds.

Maybe I am biased, I like Richmond’s writing voice and have enjoyed every one of her books immensely. Nevertheless, anyone who is a fan of crime mysteries and good stories about people and relationships should check out Michelle Richmond’s books.

I sit with my fingers poised over the keyboard, excited to be writing, wanting to capture those flashes of character, dialogue, setting, that have been peppering my brain. As I sit though I hear that voice, the one that is certain I could never tell a story so well, or give voice to a character and richness to a setting like all those authors do.

I guess I’ll never know until I try.

Writers: A Strange Bunch

2010-04-21T00:23:00.000-05:00

We writer types are a strange bunch some times. Writing itself is a solitary affair, one we make more so as we find our quiet place and don’t let anyone see what we’ve written; keep it hidden until we think it is perfect. At least perfect enough to be let out into the world.

I am always looking for validation for my writing. It took me such a long time to call myself a writer, even when I was doing almost nothing but writing my book I was embarrassed to take on the title. Now I find that many people no longer ask about the progress of the book. It could be for many reasons … they no longer believe I’m writing one or they become tired of hearing me say “I’m working on revisions”. I used to think the same way, I mean I wondered, how long could a few revisions really take. Believe me it can take a long time.

I find myself uncomfortable with bringing the subject up myself of my writing, fearing that it just seems too silly and self absorbed. Maybe that is why I find such solace in the She Writes community. There are 8,000 other women who know how it feels, who will ask about my writing because they know about the need to feel acknowledged.

I was just in Philadelphia for several days, there to attend my nephew’s wedding, which was lovely. One of the days, I went to the Borders downtown and although I was there to buy books for other people, I found myself drawn almost magnetically to the section of books about writing. There was a woman standing there, certainly a stranger to me. As I walked up and began to scan the titles, she looked at me and said, “Are you a writer?” I immediately answered “Yes.” There was no fear that she would question me, she didn’t know me.

This woman then began to tell me that she had been working on a memoir for quite a long time but it had become too painful, she was stuck and needed to put it down and write something else. This stranger and I had a conversation as if we were longtime friends, having this writing thing in common, both understanding about being stuck, about the painful parts of writing your story.

She finally said she had to go. I told her about She Writes and the support she might find there. She told me how happy she was to have talked to me, wished me luck on my own memoir and she left. I realized in looking back at it that she hardly even looked at the books in the store, she really was there looking for someone to recognize her, to acknowledge what she was doing, to look at her as a writer.

I imagine her now, going home to put the memoir in a drawer for a bit and let it rest and begin to work on some other writing, feeling at least a little bit better having met someone else she could relate to, who gave her “permission” to set the memoir aside and write whatever she felt like writing.

I never got her name but I am grateful to her, she also recognized me as a writer and I didn’t have to ask her to do so. She didn’t look at me with that roll of the eyes when I explained that I was in the revision process, she understood it.

Maybe we will find each other again one day, if not in person than in each other’s writing. I have some revisions to go do.

No Whining

2010-04-19T14:58:00.001-05:00

Sometimes I guess I need to be reminded that maybe I have absolutely nothing to whine about in my life. This time the reminder came from one of my favorite blogs that I follow called The Fabulous Geezer Sisters www.geezersisters.com written by Ruth Pennebaker. Ruth, who hails from Texas but is currently living in New York, wrote that while out walking she was trying to see the world "with new eyes". Her desire was brought on by an essay she had read which she linked to in her blog.

The essay is one written by a woman, Marie Pechet, who is 47 years old living in Cambridge Massachussets with her husband and two young sons. Marie was diagnosed with colorectal cancer when her boys were 1 and 4 years old. She basically put her life on hold for a year while she underwent surgery and chemotherapy. It appeared they had stopped the cancer and she went on with her life. When her boys were the 3 and 7 years old the cancer returned. Her article is about finding moments of joy and to savor her life with her boys. I urge you to read her article at http://commonhealth.wbur.org/guest-contributor/2010/04/a-mother-savors-life-while-battling-cancer/.

If this article doesn't make you stop and admire Ms. Pechet and recognize all those little joys that we ignore and forget, I dont' know what will.

I also urge you to visit Ruth's blog if you can. Although this post was on the somewhat serious side, Ruth has an incredible voice and wit, she will likely make you laugh, at her and yourself. After reading this post, look through Ruth's archives and see if you don't find her absolutely fabulous.

Feels like full time work ....

2010-04-09T00:16:00.001-05:00

Wow. I've written before about my desire to get a part time job to supplement my retirement income, to pay for the fun stuff I like to do. You know, like pay for those jaunts to tropical climes for sun,warmth, diving and relaxing.

I guess one should be careful what they wish for. I got the part time job at Home Depot. I had told them when I interviewed that I really wanted between 20 and 30 hours per week. My availability was really wide open though, that's what happens when you have no life.

Home Depot, being a typical corporation with thousands of employees has decided that open availability means as many hours as they can have me work without paying any overtime. Therefore my part time job is feeling an awful lot like a full time job. And not to seem ungrateful but they really don't pay that well.

My first paycheck was for only about 21 hours, some of my training time. I almost laughed when I opened the check. But again, this is extra money. I truly don't know how people are able to live on that kind of wage, I think it would be impossible. I applaud those who find a way to make it work and do so with little or no complaints. So it does seem stupid that I am complaining but I am exhausted.

It isn't like I "do" that much while I'm there, I"m a cashier, but by the end of 9 hours I am completely wiped out.

Having said all that, the writing as been pretty sporadic. A little here, a little there, concentrating mostly on the revisioins, clearly not writing a lot on my blog.

I had the last two days off. One might assume I would knuckle down and write a blog post or two, get lots done on the memoir. Nope, I spent time instead doing some things I just can't seem to find time for these days, including some shopping, errands, and time for me. Also, I got to spend a little bit of time with my daughter Caitlin. She is a photographer. She is working on trying to make photography her career.

I am only her mom, so you won't be surprised that I think her photography is incredible. She has always been good I think, she has an eye for a good photo, for good composition etc. I am excited for her that she is really putting some effort into her photography and maybe working it into a job that will support her.

She is working on building her portfolio. She has taken some photos of friends and family, she started a blog, and she is now advertising that she is going to do some portraits for people for free in order to build her portfolio. She put an ad on craigslist and has already had several responses, it looks like things are definitely headed in the right direction.

I have wanted some pictures of myself for a while, I was using the same old photo for all the social networking sites I am part of and wanted something different. But, I hate having my picture taken. I am very self conscious, usually end up with a forced smile or an odd look on my face. So Kate decided to take some photos of me. I was more than pleasantly surprised, I think they turned out really good. Everything she is shooting these days is in natural light, she just upgraded her camera but again, I see what she does with just one camera, one lens and natural light and very little or no editing afterwards. I think she has a very bright future ahead of her.

Added bonus, I think I might have a picture that can be my book jacket photo ... now all I have to do is get the book finished and published that can go inside that jacket.

Here are a few examples of the pics Kate took of me. You can see more of her pictures of me and the others she has taken recently by visiting her blog at Snapshots and Photographs
.

I'm thinking of making myself a little less "available" for work and getting back to my writing, including this blog. In the meantime, if you are looking for a photographer, I know a good one. And ignoring my writing to spend a little bit of time with my daughter was worth it.

Some Good Stuff .... Some Not So Good Stuff

2010-03-14T00:53:00.000-06:00

Before I “spring forward”, I’ll get a bit caught up on what has been happening.

Yes, once again I feel the need to apologize for lack of consistent blog posts. But, I have a good excuse, kind of …. I got a job! I got a job at Home Depot as a cashier. No, not my plans for a second career, but a way to make a little bit of money for the fun stuff I want to do and to be out amongst the living where I might meet new friends, have adult conversation and not only be talking to my dogs.

The book. I got it back from my Editor. It was hard, harder than I had hoped to see all those marks all over the page. I had to take about a week to digest what she had written and all the changes she had suggested. It took some time. What I had to really do was to get my ego out of the way, and then it got a little easier.

So now I am revising – that is a slow process. But worth it, I’m sure.

I have decided that my timing for when I get this book done and hopefully published may be rather fortuitous. I have recently learned of several incidents that have occurred in the county where I worked in law enforcement. They are all related, in some fashion, to ethical behavior and ethical leadership or lack thereof in law enforcement agencies. And although my memoir is about me, my life and my career, it also has a lot to do with those very same issues. So I am hopeful, that my memoir may find an audience hungry to understand what happens in law enforcement and how some people deal with it.

I have been contemplating the idea for this blog post for a few days now. I've decided to go for it. I certainly am not an expert on relationships but I'm really finding myself more and more disheartened.

I know of several people who are in the midst of divorce or break up of what they thought was a serious relationship, and what they believed was a relationship worth saving. I know, that is nothing new, happens every day.

I am finding that the older I get, the less I understand and have patience for people who hurt each other, knowingly and for no other real reason it seems than they can. Divorce is never fun, nor is it easy, but it also doesn’t have to be this ugly. In a couple of instances, both partners agreed they needed to work on their marriage; there were problems. But in both cases, one partner has made the unilateral decision to be done and has acted in ways that preclude it ever getting fixed. Okay, that happens, and although sad, a fact of life.

What I don’t understand though is when the partner who has made the decision and who has behaved in ways that forever ruin the chances of reconciliation that same partner is doing everything in their power to “ruin” the other, both emotionally and financially. The other partner? They just want it to end so that they can move on.

Don’t get me wrong, no one should stay in a relationship where they are abused, physically or emotionally. I saw plenty of relationships where it was imperative that it end, for the health and safety of all involved. No one party is ever the only one at fault when a relationship fails. But, if your relationship fails, then get out; try to do so with some dignity and respect for both people.

But these relationships I’m talking about now are not abusive relationships. They are marriages that ran into trouble, they are ending now by mutual consent and still one partner insists on dragging the process out, on holding onto or taking property just so the other won’t have it. They are trying to drag the name and reputation of the other through the mud. Do these people really think they “win” by doing so?

In another instance, not a marriage, but a serious longstanding relationship one partner chose to behave in a way that ruined the relationship, forever. Not because it was a troubled relationship to begin with but it appears, because he could. He seemed to think that it was all about him and what he wanted and made him happy. I unfortunately think this is becoming more and more common.

All these instances are beginning to make me wonder. Is this how we as humans are evolving? Is this the behaviors we are teaching our kids, that it is okay to lie if it makes your life easier? Are we teaching them that it is okay to hurt another person just because you can, so you can feel superior or so you can try to make yourself and others believe you are somehow a victim? It makes me sad and tired. It also makes me less optimistic that I will ever again have a strong loving relationship with someone because people aren’t willing to do the work involved in building a healthy and happy relationship.

I know, I sound naïve and I’m not. I just find that I have less and less tolerance for people who lie, who treat others badly and particularly when they do so to people they claimed to have loved. You want out of your relationship or your marriage? Okay, go. You don’t need to leave your ex destitute financially or emotionally, because even though you might think so now, it really won’t make you feel better in the end. In trying, you are only prolonging the fight and if you want out so badly why would you want to do that? You want out, go and start your life again and let your ex do the same. Truly, in all the effort you put in to making your ex feel miserable you are only making yourself miserable too.

Okay, I’ll get off my soapbox. To my friends who are enduring it, I am sorry for you. I hope that the fight ends soon so that you can grieve then begin to heal.

Don’t forget to set your clocks ahead an hour. Best thing – we are only a week away from Spring, yippppeeee!!!

Citius Altius Fortius

2010-03-02T13:11:00.001-06:00

The Olympic motto. Translation: Swifter, Higher, Stronger.

I’m usually more of a summer Olympics kind of gal. It just seems there are so many more sports that I enjoy watching. I like the winter Olympics too. I’ve long been a fan of ice-skating. But I was often bored with cross-country skiing, the biathalon, the Nordic combined, I mean really, in what reality should ski jumping and cross country skiing be combined? I’m still trying to figure out how those who decide these things can figure that Women’s Softball should not be an Olympic sport but Curling should. Really?

Okay, I’ll admit it; I watched far more curling than any human really should. I’m not even sure why but I watched anyway.

This year I watched a lot of the Olympics. I cringe usually when they give “the medal count”. I’m not trying to be unpatriotic, I love it when one of our athletes does particularly well, wins a medal and I can even get a little choked up to watch the athlete as our national anthem is played while they receive their gold medal. But, is who has the most medals really the most important?

However, I also love to see an amazing performance, no matter what country they are from. You just can’t deny, that little girl from South Korea who won the Women’s Figure Skating gold medal was incredible, and as they talked about the pressure on her to win and her own journaling and comments about how she was afraid that her countrymen would turn on her were she not to win. Wow.

And the sheer courage of Joannie Rochette to skate at all, much less so well after her mother’s sudden death?

Moreover, I really love it when some athlete wins a medal for their country for the first time in history, like those American boys who won in Nordic Combined, or that first South Korean medal ever in figure skating, how amazing for the athlete and their country.

What I was most struck by this year though was really what I considered the Olympic spirit. It is a competition, I get that, but I watched American athletes handle their victories, and their defeats, with more humility and grace than ever before.

There were a couple of instances that made me swell a little with pride. I watched Evan Lysacek skate in both his short and long program. I heard interviews with Evgeni Plushenko as he repeatedly declared that you can’t win gold without a quadruple jump in your program. At least one shouldn’t, according to Plushenko. Well, it seems that performing a routine flawlessly, with grace and beauty and artistry, even without a quadruple is more deserving of the gold than not. But, really, what was best was listening to Lysacek during the interviews.

Now I’m a Bob Costas fan and as a host, he does better than many, but I wanted to reach through the TV and smack him when he kept trying to goad Lysacek into saying something bad about Plushenko, or argue with Plushenko. Instead, Lysacek spoke of how he skated his absolute best, how Plushenko was amazing and skated his best and how what Plushenko did (returning after a 3-year absence from the sport) was incredible. Lysacek never said a bad word about anyone or anything. In the end, Lysacek just showed what it means to win with humility and respect for his fellow competitors.

Then there was Bode Miller. I remember him four years ago; many considered his lack of medals then a failure. C’mon folks he was in the Olympics! A disappointment I’ll agree, probably mostly to him. But even back then, I felt like his attitude was … kind of snarky.

This year however, even Bode Miller showed maturity and humility as he medaled not once but three times in these games.

Really though, how can you not love these Winter Olympics when you have those gleeful snowboarders and skiers.

Then there is Apolo Anton Ohno. Short track speed skating, fast, chaotic and when perfect … graceful. I watched all of Ohno’s races. He reveled in his accomplishments, the most decorated winter Olympian in U.S. history. Although he obviously trained and tried his hardest for gold medals in all his events, there was no disappointment in silver or bronze.

I watched the race in which his competitor apparently either pushed him or at least put his hand on Ohno causing Apolo to lose all his speed. When interviewed, Ohno didn’t even realize it, and when he did there were not recriminations for his opponent, nor did he whine about what coulda, woulda, or shoulda happened. He was pleased with his performance.

When in a later race Ohno was disqualified for much the same behavior (putting his hand on the hip of an opponent), I held my breath as Ohno described how he felt he shouldn’t have been disqualified. I waited for the whining, or the complaining about the judges who make decisions. I was a little disappointed that Ohno didn’t admit he had done very similarly to an opponent what one had done to him in an earlier race. (Some argue that the difference between the two incidents is that when Ohno touched his opponent, his opponent fell and in the earlier instance, Ohno did not.) But, in the end, despite his disappointment in not being in the finals he showed grace in admitting that such was the nature of short track speed skating and he had given it his all. Isn’t that all that anyone can ask?

A friend suggested I become a fan of Ohno’s on Facebook during these games and I did. I also then began to follow him on Twitter. Why, you might ask. Because Apolo’s attitude, his joy in competing, his general just great outlook on his sport, his life and his future are infectious. Just look at his smile. How can you not like that?

In my opinion, Apolo Anton Ohno, Evan Lysacek, Joannie Rochette, Shaun White, Marai Nagasu, Yu-Na Kim and countless other athletes reminded us what the Olympics are really supposed to be about.

What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger

2010-02-24T17:27:00.001-06:00

"Details make stories human, and the more human a story can be, the better."
"The first draft of anything is sh*t." Ernest Hemingway

I could likely make Ernie proud.

I didn’t die from the red marks and crossed out words in my manuscript when I got it back from my editor. It did hurt a bit, but that was only because I was taking it too personally.

This morning I started working on revision.

This is much harder than one would imagine. Do you know when you live, work or spend a lot of time in a place, it is so familiar to you. Pick a place like that and describe it. Do you ever find that in describing it, you assume that others can see the picture that is in your own head?

I worked in the jail for over 6 years in my career. I can close my eyes and see what the inside of the jail looks like, what the different tanks, dorms and cells look like, what it smells like, what it sounds like. There are now reality shows on television about jail, I think one is called “Lockup”. As I write about events that happened in the jail and I use terms like “I told the inmates to ‘lockdown’”, I for some reason assume that most other people will know what that means. As I describe officers going into a tank to confront a group of inmates I begin to assume that others can picture it in their own head as I can picture it in mine.

I am once again in the process of learning how to “show, not tell”. I am trying to follow the advice of another writer who said to me, “Writing so vividly that the imagination can form the pictures for your reader is an aquired art, practice practice practice”.

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. ~Anton Chekhov

Digging Out

2010-02-23T01:25:00.000-06:00

I’m baaaaack. Sorry for the rather long intermission.

After a couple of flight delays, a whole bunch of snow and some serious snow plowing by the folks at the Philadelphia airport I finally made it home . But that was a week and a half ago and I'm just now getting back to this blog.

I have been in a funk. Can’t necessarily explain why but I just felt like I was in quicksand. And like digging out from the snow, I needed to dig out from whatever was weighing me down. Some of it may have had to do with the fact that this week I will be receiving my manuscript back from my editor. It seems to be yet another of those watershed moments.

Have you ever been waiting for news, like an evaluation or a report card? You sit and think about how you would like it all to turn out. I did that, I was hoping for high marks.

In reality, I had worked for some months now on convincing myself that there would definitely be some changes necessary once the editor read the manuscript, but, she had been hearing it section by section over the past several months in our writer’s workshop and her comments had been positive.

So I had worked at convincing myself that any editing she did would be relatively minor.

I know now that isn’t necessarily true. Many writers spend years writing their books …. YEARS! Who was I to think that after spending what almost a year writing mine that this first time the editor read it through as one whole manuscript it would be done? Well that is not real life.

I have spent the last several days preparing myself for what is bound to be a whole lot of revisions and rewrites. When will it finally be done? I have no clue. The thought of it taking another year, or two, or whatever it takes is hard for me. I like instant gratification. More than instant gratification, I want it to be good; I want it to be right.

I am taking a deep breath, trying to keep a positive attitude, reminding myself that whatever suggestions my editor makes and corrections she suggests are in my best interest, not a personal attack on me.

I will admit the thought of giving up crossed my mind when I started to consider another year or however long it would take me to get it right. But I have come this far, I know it can be good, and I know that I will be thanking my editor when it is accepted for publication. (Did you notice I said when, not if?)

I think the weather had something to do with me starting to feel better. Yesterday was in the mid 60’s here, sunny and beautiful. I cannot wait for spring! Today the rain and overcast returned and it is supposed to get cold again. Let’s hope it doesn’t last long, I could use at least a week of sunny warm weather.

However, the thing that turned me around the most was a wonderful conversation with my daughter, wasn’t anything specifically she said, just helped me to talk about what was on my mind and let it go.

So I’m back at it, don’t be surprised if there are several blog posts in a rather short amount of time, need to catch up, you know.

So should we start a pool on how long it will take me to get this manuscript thing actually done and ready to send to an agent? (Be nice!)

Finding a Story while Helping Dad Move

2010-02-04T10:42:00.004-06:00

I’m in Philadelphia right now, helping to take care of my sister’s house and dog while she and her husband vacation in Belize, but also to help my father move into an apartment here.

My father is 82, will be 83 in a couple of months. He is in good shape, sharp mentally and relatively healthy, thank goodness. He lived in the San Francisco Bay Area until my mother passed away 12 years ago, and then moved to the Sierra Foothills, close to where I lived. As one or another issue arose – a hospital visit, surgery, a little more than minor illnesses – I became happier that he lived close, that I could help him out and help see that all the questions were answered by doctors and maybe help to act somewhat as an advocate for him.

Then a year and a half ago I moved from California to Nashville, leaving the closest daughter more than three hours away from dad. With a lot of input from all of his four daughters and some grandkids etc., dad decided to move to be closer to one of us. That gave him the choice of San Francisco CA, Orange County CA, Philadelphia PA, or Nashville TN.

I know that we are luckier than many folks. I have seen many people my age who are forced to take away their parents cars and keys because they no longer can manage driving on their own. For many seniors the car is their last bit of true independence and for many families it truly becomes a fight, and not a pretty one.

My dad decided on his own that he no longer felt that comfortable driving and in fact, it at times made him nervous to drive. He decided he wanted to move somewhere that he no longer had to own a car. Okay that took Orange County and Nashville out of the picture. (Although my daughter and I told him, we would happily drive him where he needed to go if he wanted to move to Nashville … he didn’t think that was the answer).

So … we looked at apartments in San Francisco. Dad loves San Francisco, the city itself, the restaurants, the culture, great public transportation and one of his four favorite daughters lives there. But, San Francisco is expensive, really expensive and finding a place that fit all his needs was not as easy as we had once thought.

Dad decided Philadelphia was the place for him and he sold his house, packed up and flew east. He stayed with one of his other four favorite daughters for a time, about an hour outside of the city and found an apartment in a high rise close to what is known as Center City.

Philadelphia also has great public transportation, wonderful cultural attractions, outstanding restaurants and even sports teams that actually win championships. Huh, go figure.

This week we are making all the preparations for his move into the apartment and for his belongings to arrive on the eighth. While there, we have visited a little restaurant that appears to be fairly well known and is on the same property as his apartment. There are often residents of the complex there, and many of them are rather elderly as there are lots of seniors in these apartments.

I have read and people have told me, when you are thinking about characters for your writing, take notice of people around you, eavesdrop a little, you will find bits and pieces of conversations, style of speech, accents, all of which may later be true inspiration for a story, for a character, or for a setting.

Yesterday, while in this little restaurant I decided, if I truly want to write books, I should hang out in this restaurant every day. I was trying not to eavesdrop but they were sitting pretty close to us and you know how some people get when they start to lose a little bit of their hearing … the talk pretty darn loud.

So here are these three ladies sitting together. Probably all in their late 70’s maybe early 80’s. All looking’ pretty good. Although they were clearly of my dad’s generation, there was a sense about them that could transport you to another place and time, you could imagine these gals in their younger days, I would bet some real firecrackers at times.

One was wearing the obligatory purple velour workout suit. Another was wearing slacks and a beautiful sweater, make-up and hair perfectly done, even wearing stockings and heels.

The other was wearing a black dress and a hat and had quite a lot of makeup on. She had plenty of face make-up, rouge, lipstick that was a bit outside the contour of her own lips and eye make-up that included eyeliner on both the upper lid as well as the lower lash line. A little over the top. She was the one who dominated most of the conversation. Kind of made me think of Bette Davis in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" without the homicidal crazy part.

“You would not believe what I did last night, I amazed even myself, it was unbelievable.”

“What did you do?”

“I took that Yoga class. You should try it. When it started there were about twenty people they were all standing on one leg, you try that, go ahead stand up, try and stand on one leg, I couldn’t do it either but everyone else in there was standing on one leg.”

“Oh, I couldn’t do that.”

“I know, I didn’t think I could either but when it was over I felt like I was 15 again! Limber, flexible, you know, like I was 15 again! Then we went out for a lovely dinner. And we had a great time and closed the place down. You should try it you end up feeling like you are 15 again!”

“I don’t want to do Yoga. I saw Miriam yesterday. You know Miriam, the gray haired lady? She made a comment about your makeup.”

“I think my makeup looks good!”

“I do too, I told her …”

“My makeup looks good I think I look good! It makes my eyes look bigger.”

“Would you shut up, I know I think it looks good too, I told her I thought you looked very pretty but would you get rid of that black spot?”

“What black spot?”

“Right there on your forehead.”

“I need a mirror, see this mirror, it is a great mirror, you know where I got it? I got it at the dollar store for two dollars?”

Then the waitress breaks in and says, “The dollar store for two dollars, they ripped you off!” and walks away chuckling.

“And what about how Miriam looks?”

“I agree, she doesn’t look that good.”

“Her makeup doesn’t look very good.”

“I know, that is what I just said, she doesn’t look that good.”

Now you know why I could have sat there all day listening to these ladies gab. Although it did bring to mind the song from the musical “The Music Man” when the ladies sing, “Pick-a-little, talk-a-little, pick, pick, pick, talk, talk, pick-a-little more …..”

I finally had to pull myself away as our waitress came up, “Anything else I can get you hon? No? Okay sweetie, no dessert? Okay, here’s your check”.

I know there are characters or a story in there somewhere.

I also realized dad, who is in relatively good shape compared to lots of people around there, and probably some even younger than him, may be fighting the ladies off with a stick!

Making Progress

2010-01-30T15:32:00.000-06:00

Felt like I should let you know how I'm doing since I made myself accountable to all of you for getting down to the business of writing.

So far, so good. Sometimes sure seems like 7:00 a.m. comes early, especially for a retired person. (In reality, retired has little to do with it, lazy may be a better description.) But I have been writing, a few new ideas for stories or what may later become more than just a story ... who knows.

One other thing I did was I entered a contest. It is called the "Dear Lucky Agent" contest and it is sponsored by the Guide to Literary Agents. The contest entry deadline is end of tomorrow but if anyone else is interested in entering here is the link: http://www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog/Dear+Lucky+Agent+Contest+Memoir+And+Narrative+Nonfiction.aspx

I should find out in a couple of weeks how I did, had to submit the first 200 words of my manuscript. You would be surprised how few words that is in relation to the entire manuscript. Keeping my fingers crossed. The prize for this contest? If I win, an agent will read and critique the first 25 pages of my manuscript. That may not seem like much for a 200+ page manuscript but to have a professional agent look at it is huge. You never know what might come of it all.

In the meantime I am spending some time in Philadelphia, my father just moved here from California and is moving in to an apartment close to downtown on the 8th so I thought maybe I could help some.

Any good luck you want to send my way would be most appreciated.

It is cold here in Philly, a balmy 18 degrees today, but then back in Nashville they have snow .... about 4-6 inches of the stuff. Maybe I picked a good time to be away.