From Walking on Air to the Mundane

Life is really full of exciting moments if you think about it.  Getting the contract was a big exciting moment.  This evening my daughter came in from watering our plants, and announced, "We must have a hundred tomatoes."  Then she conceded it was more like fifty tomatoes and fifty blooms.  Still, that's a lot.  We'll have tomatoes to share when they ripen.  Nothing like the year I did my first big garden .  I've always had flower beds and stuck a few tomato plants or squash plants here and there.  But the year my grandson was born, I finally decided to make use of my overly generous back yard and put in a 25 X40 foot garden.  We had corn, cucumbers, black-eyed peas, squash, bell peppers, sweet potatoes, and 48 tomato plants!  I had no idea they would produce so profusely!  For a while we were giving them to neighbors and co-workers in big, brown grocery bags.  We put up jars and jars of salsa.  Finally, at the end of the season, we were just chucking the surplus into the compost bin since friends were pleading, "No, thank you!"  This year Kristin and I are doing the flower bed method.  Even so, with only three Early Girls, two Marglobes, and what we thought was a Sweet 100 cherry tomato, but turned out to be a Pear tomato, we have more than enough.  We don't know if the Pear tomato is going to be yellow, orange, or red, but it's an heirloom variety that dates from the 1700s.  Kristin still wants a Sweet 100, but I'm looking forward to the Pear tomatoes.  Through the years, both my mom and I have grown antique roses and old varieties of iris and hollyhocks.  I've always intended to grow heirloom veggies, and this is my first year at it.  Although the Marglobe only dates back to 1917, it is still considered an heirloom.  If you love gardening, a tomato can be almost as exciting as a book contract.

A Great Day!

I've been dragging my feet about this for a month, and finally decided to take a leap.  Something special happened on May 10, and for a reason I'm not sure of, I've been dragging my feet about sharing it.  I wasn't sure if it was okay, or I was afraid to jinx the "good luck" - I'm not sure.  As a trained archaeologist, I shouldn't be superstitious, but I'll admit when the chips are down I knock on wood with the best of them.  At any rate, I received (and signed and returned) a contract for my novel Ghost Walk from 4RV Publishing.  I've sent them all the requisite material, photos, bio, etc., and now I'm waiting to be contacted by the editor assigned to me so we can begin the process of copy editing, and then - publication!!!  This is exciting, and I'm looking for the day I can say, "My book is for sale at . . . "

A Good Day

I consider it a good day when I can add a word to my vocabulary or a heretofore unknown (by me) fact to my knowledge base.  This is probably a silly notion, but today a simple article struck three notes in my brain.  While I love reading and writing fiction, I'm most likely to arrive at an epiphany through non-fiction.  For example, few things from fiction have left the impression on me that reading of Watson & Crick's discoveries of RNA and DNA did in the early sixties.

Today I opened the June issue of Nat Geo and discovered an interesting paragraph:
"Few objects seem as familiar as the sun - there it is up in the sky every sunny day - yet few are so strange. Look through a solar telescope, and the quotidian yellow disc is transformed into a dynamic wonderland, where planet-size prominences rise into black space like glowing jellyfish, only to loop and slither back hours or days later, as if enthralled by some unseen force."

First of all, thanks to my friend Ben, quotidian already existed in my vocabulary, a recent addition.  Second, while I didn't take Physics before the fourth state of matter was promulgated, I don't recall it being touched on in my very elemental physics class.  If I read about it when I read Asimov on Quantum Physics, it didn't stick with me, so I did add something knew to my knowledge base today.

Lastly, as writer, I couldn't help noticing two things about the paragraph.  One, for an introduction to a scientific article, it's incredibly poetic. Two, in light of recent discussions on our writing list about lengthy sentences, it is a very long sentence.  I've looked at it several times, several ways, and I see no way in which it would be improved by any abridgement.

A Week Away

My friend, Cindy remarked that daily blogging is not a sustainable hobby, and I must agree with her.  While I have the legit excuse of having been down with the flu, to be perfectly honest, I wouldn't have been blogging anyway.  Just didn't have anything to say.

I did finish the Zane Grey memoir about five days ago.  I have to be perfectly honest about it.  He spent two thirds of the book laying background, and, sad to say, much of his prose needed some serious de-purpling, especially as he built up the romance between the heroine and her future husband.  To be totally honest, I wouldn't have kept reading but for two things, my interest in writing a historical memoir because of my own book, and the fact that the foreword promised Betty Zane would perform an act of heroism that would contribute to the winning of the last battle of the American Revolution.  The last nine chapters were exciting, full of action, and very well written.  Betty Zane did indeed live up to her advance publicity.

I'm now slogging through Bluefeather Fellini.  If it doesn't get better soon, I won't finish it.

Right now I have a more important writing problem.  I'm twelve chapters into the sequel to my first novel, and not at all in control of the situation.  I've accused my characters of not liking the plot I constructed.  A very good critique from a friend whose writing I respect brought me up short and made me face the fact that I'm the one who doesn't like the plot.  So now I've got to decide, introduce the action of the original plot about six chapters earlier than planned, or write a new plot. Decisions, decisions, decisions!

Just Realized It's Friday the 13th.

I don't have triskaidekaphobia, and one of the things I supposedly learned when I became a scientist was to not be superstitious.  But aren't we all superstitious to some degree? Haven't you ever "knocked on wood" without thinking about the superstition behind it, or crossed your fingers at a crucial moment? When the chips are down, when humanity fails us, in a crisis, aren't we likely to haul out anything that might ameliorate the situation.  I remember seeing people carry rabbit's feet in my childhood, and many barn doors had a horseshoe on them.

In this age of technology, have you never kicked or thumped a mechanical object that is on the fritz, as a last, desperate measure?  And been surprised when it works.  I once had a highly trained computer tech tell me, "When all else fails, turn the damn thing off and let all the electricity drain off for at least a minute."  Well, I don't believe for a minute that electricity is going anywhere, but 9 times out of 10, it works!

When people name their children, whether after a rich uncle in hopes of being remembered in the will, or because the baby name book says a name means something special, isn't superstition at work? Superstition takes many forms in many cultures.  The old Germans used to say never throw your hair out the window when you clean your hairbrush, because if a bird found it and used it to build a nest you would get headaches.  When a traditional Navajo walks over the track of a rattlesnake, they shuffle their feet to avoid offending the snake.  Many modern athletes are addicted to lucky hats or lucky shirts  or repetitive behaviors they believe gave them luck in the past.


In past decades, there were only a few choice spots one could go to gamble in the U.S., notably Las Vegas and Atlantic City.  In recent years Native American casinos have burgeoned in every state.  Gamblers are indeed a superstitious lot, so there must be a concomitant rise in superstitious behavior.


If I had a point when I started this ramble, I don't remember what it is now.  I suppose what I meant to say was, so we're all a little superstitious, and some of us are very superstitious.  Where's the harm?  If it makes life flow more smoothly, practice whatever little trick works for you.  Happy Friday the 13th!

 

Spring Is Here ?

To quote the Cowardly Lion (the movie version, not Baum's) "Unusual weather we're havin', ain't it?"  After a number of record high days in the 80s in March and early April, the Midwest was plunged into a cold snap last night.  I rarely watch the weather, but I'm glad I did this time.  I had 11 tomato plants, 2 cucumber vines and a wisteria bush I had planned to get into the ground.  Today I'd be looking at their black, withered little corpses, because we hit 33 last night, what used to be called a "killing frost."   Hmmm, I think I just found the title of my next book!

 Interesting how weather can be benign one moment and very malign in the next.  Today was not only benign, it was downright beneficent.  Clear sunny skies, birds hopping about flirting, flitting, and nest building.  And flowers - everywhere, flowering shrubs and trees like azalea, forsythia, pear and quince.  And those other harbingers of spring nodding in the breeze, tulips, grape hyacinths, and daffodils.  Roses and Iris budding and blooming in many colors.  It was a great day to be out and about.  And tomorrow my plants will go in the ground in hopes of a free watering from the promised weekend rains.

 

 

Day Three - what shall I write about!?!

I can see why blogging is the perfect exercise for a writer.  You must write, even if you have nothing to say!  April 11 is sort of a nemesis day for me.  Fifty-one years ago it was one of the worst days of my life.  I've never celebrated it, tried hard to forget it.  Today I had brief hopes something good would happen to turn it into a day I would remember with happiness.  My house was shown for the second time since I put it on the market.

Last time the house was shown, back in January I think, I was so excited I almost started packing for Oklahoma.  The let down when no offer came was heart wrenching.  I know it's a lousy market, but my hopes were sky high.  This time I refuse to have any expectations.  It was discombobulating enough when the call came at noon, "Can we show your house at three?"  Daughter and I cleaned house like a couple of whirlwinds, no small feat since I'm recovering from back surgery and she had a crick in her neck!  We barely got out the door before they showed up.  Now the waiting begins.

I have a like situation in my writing.  Nothing is going right.  With my first novel, I simply wrote it.  I did the synopsis and outline afterward, because I had to have them to submit to a publisher.  This time, I decided to do it right.  At least outline the plot first.  Apparently the drawback to having created good, strong characters is that if they don't like your damn plot they're not going to go along with it!  I'm mired down in three chapters that are going absolutely nowhere.  These characters are dragging their feet, lollygagging about the house, refusing to jump in and get down to the business of putting themselves in harm's way.  

So, what to do? Do I jump ahead and write the chapter that forces the action to begin?  Do I dump those three chapters and try a new tack?  Do I rewrite the plot and hope it will make my stubborn characters happy?  Or do I do what every writer eventually does?  Procrastinate!  Procrastinate until the jello in my head turns to concrete?  Procrastinate until something happens, good or bad?  Of course, all this insanity is taking place in my head, so sooner or later (probably later, knowing me) I will have to face the situation and wrestle it into something manageable. 

Happy writing, out there!