Guest post: Writing as Legacy

I recently had lunch with Donna McCrohan Rosenthal, past president of the California Writers Club (CWC) and also past president of the East Sierra branch of the CWC. She and I have both been at this a long time, both began writing and publishing decades ago. As we chatted, she shared with me a short piece she had written for the SoCal Writers Showcase, an online publication that presents work from members of CWC.

Donna's piece was lovely in its sentiment, and beyond that it honored some of our old friends who have passed away. I asked her if I could share it here, to further bring attention to them and to the Showcase. She graciously agreed. The remainder of this post is what Donna wrote. I couldn't agree with her more:

We decided from Showcase’s inception that we would occasionally include pieces by colleagues I like to think of as “active deceased” – those who live in our hearts and minds, who advanced the mission of the CWC on every level, and so meaningfully whose written words stay with us long after these dear friends have gone.

 

I recently had the privilege of posting San Fernando Branch Monte Swann’s thoroughly engaging “Ars Gratia Artis” about his frequent forays of sneaking onto the MGM lot as a boy, Orange County Branch Jeanette Fratto’s clever and savvy “Night Duty” about an ambivalent detective, and High Desert’s inimitable Bob Isbill’s “The Importance of Volunteerism” which we should all read and take to heart.

Putting Monte, Jeanette, and Bob up on our site, I felt such elation in the fact that writing makes us immortal. Their earthly presence has left us, but their written words never will. I sensed them smiling to see this rebirth of appreciation of their talent as they spin their tales again to entertain more people they hadn’t reached before. What a wonderful thing. A gift that goes on through time.

Don’t we write for permanence? Otherwise, we could just sit someone down and talk.

Showcase can post the active deceased’s legacies. Branch newsletters can reprint them, too, and we can read them at open mic meetings, their inner beauty brightening our camaraderie just like it used to. When their stories survive, they survive in their stories.

But even if you’ve never published anything anywhere, don’t overlook recording family memories and histories. They’ll endure through generations if not through the ages.

Friendship Circle

 

My new desk buddy

I started to say that it all began with Friendship Circle, but it didn’t. Not quite. Well, sort of.

It began when I moved to my current residence in a senior community. Ella, my neighbor, was quick to introduce herself. Having served on the city council and in various volunteer positions in her community, she was cordial and welcoming and diplomatic. Ella invited me to join her for a luncheon hosted by the Friendship Circle group here in the park. I realized too late that this was a potluck, but Ella assured me that as her guest, I wasn’t required to bring anything—actually, no one is required—and that I could consider doing so if I chose to attend again in the future, which I did.

Two of the first people I met that day were Ursula and Bob Thomas. I don’t believe I’ve ever met two kinder people in my life. Maybe. But…. Bob and Ursula are extraordinary people, warm, kind, intelligent, empathetic—and each one has a great sense of humor. While I did not continue being involved with Friendship Circle after the first few months, I have continued my friendship with the Thomases.

Bob and Ursula like to walk early in the morning, as I do, so there are times when we will see each other at 5:30a.m. (yes, it’s still dark), and we’ll stand in the road and have a chat for ten minutes or so. It was during one of these morning chats that they mentioned their daughter, Shanon, had written a picture book for children. The book, complete with cover design and illustrations, was ready for publication, but Shanon wasn’t sure which route in publishing she wanted to pursue. I offered to help her decide, and I encouraged her parents to give her my number.

When Shanon called, I knew right away we were kindred spirits. Like her parents, she is warm and kind and empathetic. She is also very generous; her sole purpose in making her book available to the public is to encourage young readers to be kind, to look for opportunities to show empathy. The book, Clara’s Scarf, is lovely and sweet (and is available on Amazon).

Fast forward several months, and there I am, looking for an illustrator for my Dragon Singer Series. The search was not going well (that may be a profound understatement), and it occurred to me to talk to Shanon about the illustrator she used for Clara’s Scarf.

And that’s how I met (via email) Allie Myers. I know I keep saying this, but it’s like Allie is reading my mind. When I explain roughly what I want on a cover, she asks, “But what are the kids’ personalities like?” And bingo—she produces a sketch that somehow depicts everything I was feeling when I wrote the scene.

I have been grateful for Allie’s amazing artistry, and for my connection to Shanon, and my continuing friendship with Ursula and Bob. (What amazing parents they must have been to produce such a talented and wonderful kid!!) Then last week Shanon happened to be in town, and Ursula called to see if the two of them could stop by. When they did, Shanon gifted me with the sweet little white dragon pictured at the top of this post. He’s my new desk companion. Friendship! What an inspiration!

May the circle be unbroken, and may it continue to expand as those within it reach out a hand to others.

How Books Are Made, Part II

 

In my previous post, I talked about the creativity that goes into the making of a book. But I didn’t talk about the practical side of bringing that creative spark into fruition (if you’ll allow the mixed metaphor there).

It’s one thing to have an idea for a book. It’s an entirely different matter to spend hours at a keyboard (or with pen or pencil and paper), day after day, week after week, month after month until that original idea has been fleshed out into a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end, hopefully containing some tension and conflict throughout, and a resolution that satisfies the reader—plus maybe, just maybe, giving readers something to “take away,” a lesson to ruminate upon or a miniscule bit of wisdom that might, in the tiniest way, influence their choices for the better. One hopes.

When I began the Dragon Singer Series, I was still teaching, so my writing time—after being away from home all day, then returning to walk an anxious, troubled dog, and feed the cats, and eat dinner, and watch the news, and maybe toss in a load of laundry—was limited. In addition to that, I began Fey Girl, the first book, in pencil, writing in a composition book that my granddaughter, Ellie, had given me. I wanted to channel my inner ten-year-old, and I remembered writing some stories in a composition book when I was that age—some of my first! And so I began.

The process was interrupted often. Given my schedule (rising at 4:00a.m. to get to the gym before work or to ride my bike to work and arrive at 6:45), I was tired by early evening. Things happened. I had house guests. I came down with pneumonia a few times. I struggled through winter depression.

Finally, in June of 2016, I retired from teaching. In that summer, I sold a house, bought a house, moved 40 miles east—and slept as often as I felt like it. Then, at long last, I joyfully returned to my writing life in earnest.

As soon as Fey Girl was finished, I began writing the second book, making steady progress and finishing it within a year. The third book took less than a year. The fourth, even less than that. While I was working on Book Two, my dear friends John and Lisa Durham introduced me to John’s niece, Annie Katz, a writer and novelist and earth mother who became my best and truest critique partner. We began exchanging projects, giving each other feedback, and engaging in long phone conversations about the best way to publish. She is all about independent publishing. Another friend believes one is not a “professional” writer until one has been published by a traditional publisher. (Well, I’ve done that, so….)

In a nutshell, here’s the difference:

A traditional publisher takes the author’s manuscript and has a team of printing experts design an interior (choosing the type of font, the type of paper—weight and color, the margin size, the spacing between lines, as so forth). Another team of experts designs the cover. (Will the title be larger than the author’s name? Yes, if it’s a first-time author, no, if the author is Stephen King. What will the balance of text-to-graphics be? What colors will work best?) While this process is happening, the publisher may decide—based on “marketability”—to change the book’s title. Or add a subtitle. Or edit—or delete—some of the content. But hey, when the book is finally ready (one to two years after acceptance), it will be released across the country simultaneously, available online but also on bookstore shelves, all at once, all on the same day.

An indie author can’t do this, since the big bookstore chains (well, I guess there’s only one left, isn’t there?) will not carry (unless asked by customers) independent authors on their shelves. Nor do indie authors have the opportunity to list their books in the lovely, slick catalogs that publishers send out to bookstores.

However—independent authors have full control over every aspect of how their books are published, from interior design to cover design, and we even determine the list price.

This is why I made the choice to publish the Dragon Singer Series independently. The more I spoke to Annie Katz and others (including my buddy, writer/actor/director/funny guy Tim Chizmar), the more reluctant I became to give up creative control. I had a vision for these books, and I couldn’t bear the thought of being told, “We’ve decided to add/subtract/edit…” or whatever a marketing department might choose for MY books. (For the purpose of brevity, I will not include all the struggles I had to this end with the publishers of my first and second books. If you’re curious, just ask in the comments below. But… boy howdy….)

Of course, in making that crucial decision to self-publish, this also means that the entire process rests in the hands of the writer (unless one chooses to outsource the work, which is possible, but also expensive).

The only thing I didn’t do was create the illustration and design for the covers. (Thank you, artist-designer Allie Myers!) Everything else—fonts, font size, paper, margins, interior design—that’s all me. And believe me, it’s not a matter of “select all” on MSWord and typing in a few choices. There is a lot to very carefully complete. Plus don’t even get me started on how the format of an “ebook” differs from the format of a paperback. Good grief!

So, yeah, even though the fourth and final book in the Dragon Singer Series was completed months ago, it has taken me quite a number of weeks to find an illustrator and work on the interior design.

Finally, though, the first book is finished, and I am so, so proud of it! Allie’s cover is beautiful, and I am satisfied that my young (and older) readers will feel comfortable with my choices for the interior design—if they’re even paying attention. Maybe they’ll just immerse themselves in the story and keep turning those pretty white pages….

Fey Girl, Book One in the Dragon Singer Series, is set to be released at 12:01a.m. on Tuesday, October 17. Please celebrate with me on that day! If you get crazy (or extraordinarily kind) and decide to read the first book, just know that Allie and I are already working hard to get the second book ready for publication. This one should be easier than the first; I kinda know what I’m doing now. Kinda….

Back cover of Fey Girl

Constants

 

It’s been six weeks since I’ve posted. I’d like to use my typical “off with the fairies” excuse—and in some ways, I think I would be justified—but really, time and creative energy have been sorely depleted.

I know some of you loyal, compassionate readers, if you follow me on Facebook, have been waiting to hear the warm, fuzzy details of my romantic relationship with “that one guy” (or, if you’re Sean Piscioneri, the guy before that guy—sorry—inside joke). Alas, the guy who began as a friend and briefly became “boyfriend” has now agreed that “friend” is the more healthy status for us. We like each other. Always have since we met 27 years ago. We just don’t… see eye to eye on some things. It’s not important what they are.

Among the critical take-aways from that brief experiment, however, is the fact that my mental health can still easily be tipped off balance under certain circumstances. This surprised me. I mean, seriously, when you get to the age of 70, and you’ve spent decades working to shore up your strategies and defenses against panic attacks, you float along through life thinking you’re safe from them. Then out of the blue a trigger is pulled—however gently—and suddenly your heart is racing and that dark shadow is just there, over your right shoulder, looming. Takes your breath away. Like, literally.

So one of my accomplishments this summer was finally—FINALLY, damn it—getting an appointment with a therapist. It took a month, from initial phone request to finally seeing someone (and by “seeing,” I mean staring at a screen image via Zoom), and I had to push hard with follow-up phone calls. But hey, the energy expended was worth it. I like my therapist. More on that in future posts, I promise—not because I really want to talk about my childhood trauma—I don’t—but because I want to do whatever I can to encourage others to seek professional help in being the best version of yourself you can be today. And tomorrow.

 

Another satisfying accomplishment of the summer was writing 31 poems in the month of August and sending them out to strangers on postcards. This was not a zany idea of my own. Rather, it was part of the annual “Poetry Postcard Fest” sponsored by Cascadia Poetic Labs, the mission statement of which states: “Empowering people to practice poetry & deepen connections to place, self & the present moment.” (Gotta love the alliteration!) The cool thing about signing up for the PPF is that you also (potentially) receive 31 postcards. So far, I’ve gotten about 20 postcards, mostly handmade and decorated with creative artwork, in addition to the poetic offerings. It definitely put some pep in my step on my daily walk to fetch the mail.

I didn’t expect to write any particularly whiz bang poetry. Just as in the year I participated in NaNoWriMo, I signed up for the PPF simply to challenge myself, to impose the discipline of working on poems in addition to my other writing. (Once upon a time, I did call myself a poet, because I have had a few poems published. But that was years ago.)

Surprisingly, though, I was quite satisfied with several of the 31 poems I wrote, and so, for the first time in decades, I think I’ll send some out, just to see what happens. Stay tuned.

As you can imagine, I needed inspiration for those poems. I also needed time alone to process pre and post panic attack, so off to the woods I went, hiking every few days with Miss Maya Angelou Murphy, who continues to let her guard down with me. Nature is an inspiration in and of itself, so I was pleased to capture some photos reflecting my awe.

And, of course, I spent time with my emotional support pals, Sgt. Thomas Tibbs and Jenny the Cat. The Dog Who Hated Being Touched has now become The Dog Who Loves to Be Loved On—brushed, petted, scratched, massaged, whatever. Whenever the world becomes “too full of weeping,” as Yeats described it, I can sit down next to Thom, give him head rubbies and ear scratches, and tell him all about it for as long as it takes for my blood pressure to drop to normal again.

 

Don’t get me started on Jenny’s antics for comic relief. This cat… oh my dragons…. If I had let her, she would have stayed outside on the patio for the duration of Tropical Storm Hilary as it blew through our town with crazy wind and sideways rain. As it was, she stayed out, curled in a corner of the blanket on the patio swing, until I finally made her come in when debris began flying around the yard. And let me tell you, she let me know how unhappy she was about having to do so. She always lets me know exactly how she’s feeling about my unilateral decisions. That’s where dogs and cats are different; dogs say “Okay!” and cats say “Who said so?”

 

Speaking of cats… and dogs… and dragons: I also spent the summer—as promised—working with artist/illustrator Allie Myers on the cover of Fey Girl, the first book in my Dragon Singer series of middle grade fantasy novels. Allie is beyond amazing—I feel at times she is somehow “seeing” what is in my head—and she has just informed me (as in, this morning!) that the front illustration for the cover is complete. And, oh my dragons, it is exactly—no, it is better than what I had imagined in my head. I will be sharing that in a separate post, along with more information about the series. Since the back cover and spine are simple, the cover should be ready in another two weeks, which means the book could be released as early as late October, early November—just in time for Christmas. Again, stay tuned. I am so, so excited about these books, and I can’t wait for all four in the series to be out in the world.

If you’re still reading, thank you. Let me sign off here with one of the poems from this month’s Fest that I particularly liked, once I was satisfied with the final draft.

 

Constants

S. Kay Murphy

I wake up moody, musing

On the problems of yesterday.

In the still-dark, I take the dogs

Out to the yard, looking up,

As always, to find my constants.

There is Taurus, stretched across

The sky, the Seven Sisters,

Whispering secrets, and proud

Orion, on his back in August,

Perpetually sighting his arrow

Nonetheless, unconcerned

For the tilt of the Earth

Today, tomorrow, or yesterday.

Pivoting

 

I was 23 years old when I wrote my first book, 25 by the time it was released across the country by a national book publisher. Ah, the good old days! Back then, I wrote first drafts in longhand, then typed them on an IBM Selectric typewriter, edited each page, and typed a final draft, so that everything I wrote was replicated at least twice, sometimes three times.

The submission process back then was similar in some ways to what it is now. Despite what we might see in the movies (proud, independent women marching into editors’ offices and plunking down weighty manuscripts with entreaties that the work be considered), the whole deal begins with a simple letter, dubbed a “query” letter, because it’s basically a question: “Hey there, I wrote this book about this person/thing/idea. Care to read it?”

Pre-computer age, these letters were sent off via USPS in great numbers with, of course, a self-addressed, stamped envelope (the sacred SASE) enclosed for the reply. Then the waiting began. Weeks, often months, sometimes years later (or never), a response would finally arrive: “We regret to inform you” or “Thanks for your recent query letter regarding blah blah blah book. However….” Or (blessedly) “Hello, Kay! I was intrigued by your idea for a book about prepared childbirth. Please send me a proposal.”

The proposal is somewhat like a very lengthy query. In it, the writer is once again asking that the work be considered, but the first three chapters or fifty pages are included, plus an outline of the entire book, plus, in recent years, the author’s marketing strategy, and the author’s bio including previous publishing credits.

Once the proposal (typed and retyped on that trusty machine) was packaged up and sent out (again via USPS, again with a SASE tucked inside), the waiting would begin again… weeks… months… years. No exaggeration. No kidding.

Of course, if one desired to be published by one of The Big Five New York Publishers, one submitted queries to an agent, not the publishers themselves, as the Big Five will not take unsolicited mail from the likes of us lowly urchins pecking away at keyboards for fun or for a living. Ahem.

Nowadays—O joy!—we live in the whizbang era. I can write queries on my laptop, send them out to writer friends for feedback, make changes rapidly, and email them out—for FREE! No stamps, no SASE, no waiting! Well, okay, still waiting… weeks, months, years for a reply. But at least no waiting for the mail to arrive at its destination.

[Side note here about the whizbang era: I once sent a short piece to the Home Forum editor of the Christian Science Monitor (a publication which pays very nicely) to whom I had submitted successfully in the past. I sent this new essay at 5:30a.m., via email. By the time I got to my day job at 7:00a.m. and turned on my computer, the editor had responded with a short email in reply: “Hi Kay, I read your piece over my first cup of coffee this morning and loved it. It’ll be in our October 30^th issue. A check is on its way to you. Thanks for thinking of us.” Holy hot damn. That’ll make your day, won’t it?]

I digress.

One more note about querying publishers or agents: In modern times, this can also be done by (a) spending $250-$500 or so to attend a writers conference and “pitching” one’s idea directly to an agent or publisher face-to-face (known as offering the “elevator pitch”—in other words, if you encountered said person in an elevator, how might you quickly describe your story idea in a way that grabbed the listener’s interest enough to be offered a read—or (b) participating in “pitch wars” on Twitter, during which one tweets out (in 280 characters or less—that’s characters, not words) a synopsis of one’s book idea—for all the world (and hopefully an agent) to see.

I love writers conferences, but can no longer afford them. I am reluctant to share my story ideas with the masses before they are in print, especially in today’s world of I-saw-it-online-so-it-must-be-fair-game-to-copy, so neither of those options will work for me.

All of the above is a verbose, reminiscent preface to make this short announcement (mostly as a follow-up to my post of 27 February of this year): After a good deal of rumination, two brief forays into the modern publishing world (during which I was told the first book in my middle-grade series is “too long” for that age group and also four books in the series is “too many” for a small press), and a couple of great conversations with two writer friends, I have decided that my series will be published “independently” (as we now say to avoid the sad and defeatist label of “self-published”).

What this means for me:

No waiting.

The first book will be released as soon as I can get it formatted and have a cover design professionally created. Booyah.

I have total control over the creative content; I will not need to change the titles of the books in the series (to suit the marketing department of any potential publisher) or the characters’ names, nor will I have to cut the book length from 70,000 to 50,000 because “children don’t want to read long books,” as the industry believes. (I keep suggesting the so-called experts ask kids, but no one is listening to me. Again, I’m just the urchin pecking away….)

It also means that there will be a handful of fellow writers who will shake their heads and cluck their tongues in an exercise of group schadenfreude because “poor Kay couldn’t get her kids’ books published so she did it herself.”

Sigh. It used to bother me that I didn’t get respect among my writer friends. But seriously, if they’ve read my work (and many of them haven’t), and they don’t think I’m “good enough” by now, I can’t help them with that. They are not the readers I’m concerned with, anyway. The ten-year-olds who read this series can let me know if they like the books or not. And I’m pretty sure they will (like them, I mean—but also let me know—because that’s how ten-year-olds roll).

So: Those of you who are mentioned in the books or have become characters in one form or another, you won’t have long to see yourselves in print. Wondering if that’s you? Stay tuned….

AI? Pffffffttttt....

 

"Let sleeping dragons lie," by Eirescei, can be found on DeviantArt.com. (Used with permission.)

I’ve heard a lot of talk recently about AI (Artificial Intelligence) and how new apps recently released can write English papers and even books. “It’s the way of the future!” is what we’re hearing proclaimed, with some suggesting that “anyone” will be able to write a book simply by telling the AI software what they want. Yeah. Right. Just as we were told twenty years ago that books would soon be obsolete because we’d all have Kindles (or similar digital readers), which would do away with paper books forever.

Yeah. Good thing I didn’t hold my breath for that to happen.

If you’re a writer who is sweating this stuff, please stop. Your craft is safe. Trust me. If it helps, consider what I wrote some years ago as a submission to a “Flash” contest for nonfiction. Maybe it will help. Here ya go:

(Prompt: Write 250 words on why writing is a mystery.)

Why is writing a mystery to me? Because when Shakespeare wanted Hamlet to express the depth of his depression, he could have written his line as, “Man, I’m just so sad about it all.” Instead, he wrote, “O God, God, how weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of the world.” And when Milton described the domain of Satan as “darkness visible,” he reached for a phrase that had never been used before… and it worked for generations to come, as did Frost’s choice of the road “less traveled by” and Whitman’s cry of “O Captain, my Captain!” Writing is a mystery to me because we cannot resolve scientifically—even with all our super-technology—why one particular word order is more pleasing, more poignant, more profound than another. Nor can a machine, given every dictionary entry known to the language, replicate the creativity, the subtle dance with words that a writer produces with a simple pen and paper. Writing is a mystery to be because a craftsman with words can so set the stage that two words may bring us to tears… or to our knees:

“Hey, Boo.”

“Jesus wept.”

Writing is a mystery to me because when I write, I become enthralled, and when I emerge, finally, there lies my soul upon the paper—for all the world to see.

Rising with the Day

 

Bread is such an amazing food, isn’t it? Take a handful of ingredients—salt, sugar, flour, water, yeast—maybe some olive oil and rosemary—combine it, then watch as it does its magic.

I woke to snowfall on Thursday. We’ve been expecting this storm, here in Calimesa, hoping for snow because we rarely get real snow. When I opened the door to take the dogs out at 4:00a.m., big, fluffy flakes were falling. Did the dogs mind? Not a wit. They had to pee! Out into the yard they raced, returning to me on the patio ten minutes later, their coats dusted with flakes that were already melting.

It rained and snowed on and off all day—a good day to hunker down and produce some good work.

So after breakfast, I started some bread rising. The night before, in anticipation of the storm, I’d plucked some sprigs of rosemary from my back yard shrub, washed it, and minced the leaves. (The entire house smelled like fresh rosemary, and I remember catching a whiff of the scent as I went to bed.) I added salt, sugar, water, flour, yeast, and some olive oil, stirred, mixed, and kneaded until a dough was formed. (When people ask if I have a bread maker, I always answer in the affirmative as I hold up my two hands. I’ve been making bread this way for 50 years. No reason to change it up now.)

With the dough in the bowl, rising nicely, I opened my laptop. I know I don’t talk about it much—I consider it bad form to do so—but since I retired, I’ve been working on a series of children’s books. (Not a Young Adult novel, as I’ve done before, but a Middle-Grade series, for kids 10-12.) The idea came to me years ago, when I lived in Mt Baldy. I intended to write one fun book. Then I heard a fellow writer talk about the advantage of writing a series—in order to sell more books.

Huh, I thought. I could make it a trilogy. (Which is how it started, but well into the second book, I knew there had to be four, as it follows the seasons.)

But finding the time to write it was nearly impossible while I was still working. (Though I did write the first 30 pages and hand them off to one of my favorite brilliant ten-year-olds, Matthew Confer, who read it and gave me the best feedback I’ve ever gotten from a first reader. Matthew is 19 and in his second year of college now.)

One week before our rainy snowstorm, I finished the last chapter of the fourth book. All that was left to write was a short epilogue. But some things happened… some good, some bad… and I didn’t get back to it until Wednesday night. After I chopped up all that aromatic rosemary, I wrote the first half of the epilogue.

On Thursday, while the bread was rising, the house now filling with the scent of yeasty dough, I put some soft music on for the fur kids, then, as I mentioned, opened the laptop. And cried. And wrote the final words of the book. And cried some more.

It may seem like a tired trope of egocentric writers, so forgive me if that’s the case, but I absolutely love my characters. Writing fiction is damn hard—you have to create lives and back stories and scenarios out of thin air—truly like pulling a rabbit out of a hat where none existed previously. But a decade ago, when I had the idea, one snowy, wintry night in Baldy while I lay in bed in the loft with my tiny cat, Sugar Plum, curled beside me, I began to tell her a story. A story about a cat… and a dragon. And in the years that passed, the story took shape in my head. And I knew exactly how it would end. Ten years and four books later, that story ended exactly as I had envisioned it.

To celebrate, I took a long nap. When I got up, I shaped my lovely mound of dough into four smaller mounds, let them rise one more time, and then put them in the oven.

Imagine the joy in my house: The quiet snow falling… the scent of fresh baked bread… the satisfaction of seeing a vision come to fruition….

Storytelling is much like making bread. You only need a handful of ingredients—a few characters, a setting, a bit of conflict to get the story churning—and, with patience, you can produce something wonderful. Something magical.

Now the hardest part of all begins: Finding just the right publisher to get these books out into the world for kids just like me who love to read books with cats, dogs, dragons, and a wee bit of fantasy.

While we wait, here's a tiny sample from Book One, just to give you a taste: (FYI: I have this section printed and thumbtacked to my writing board.)

"Little one." The dragon stopped, turned, and spread her enormous wings to embrace the small girl who had halted in the middle of the path. Softly, she continued. "Here is my blessing of peace to your heart. It matters not whether this person at this time chooses or does not choose you. Let that be the furthest from your mind. It has been asked of you to sing. This is a sacred gift. You honor us all--your ancestry and yourself--when you do so. At the time given, let go of 'what if' and celebrate what is."

Tiki Man: Interview with an Author

 

When I read (which is constantly), I wear two hats, that of reader and that of writer. As the former, I want to be immersed in the story. As the latter, I’m interested in how other writers work their craftsmanship. Recently, I read a novel that impressed me as much for the way the plot was presented as it did for the character development. Both were stellar. I loved the writing so much, in fact, that I reached out to the author, Thomas M. Atkinson, on Twitter and—what do you know?—he was gracious enough to respond and even more gracious to agree to an interview. Below are my questions and his answers regarding how he constructed Tiki Man, his second novel.

Why did you make the decision to offer very little exposition at the front of the novel, parsing it out in small pieces as the story unfolds?

Well, as with the narrative voice, and the tense, I am trying (I think successfully since it hasn’t been an issue), to craft a more honest story, right? Because while Tiki Man is a story, it is actually Pere telling the reader a story, which is a huge distinction. The opening chapter is, without giving too much away, Pere telling the reader how he dealt with a problem that came up, and how he came to be taking care of Tammy. Now the reader’s takeaway is probably much different than Pere’s takeaway, but even Pere recognizes that how he handled it wasn’t the best way. But what Pere knows, that the reader has to suss out, is how much of his response was self-serving, that while he might have been perfectly justified in his response, that response was also an excuse for getting back to a very dark place, (but a very dark place where he was at home). In other news, I think that makes it both a more interesting read and a harder sell (because it isn’t what agents and editors are used to seeing).

Is Pere’s character based on someone you know?

He’s a composite of a lot of guys I’ve known (with a generous helping of Me). A lot of people have a hard enough time just getting themselves through life, and while they might be totally at sea when put in charge of a small person, it’s not for lack of trying.

Tell us about your process. Do you write every day?  How is your first draft composed? Longhand? Computer? Typewriter? Do you have a daily word count or a specific time frame?

First of all, no one should take anything I say about process as a recommendation or endorsement of my process. I don’t write every day, because I would write a lot of crap and then I'd get used to writing crap and then…. I write on the computer even though I suck at the actual typing part of it (I took “Touch Typing” in night school my senior year of undergrad. I took it pass/fail and only had to type 24 words a minute to get a D. The best I ever did was 23, but since the teacher was worried she might have to see me again, she passed me.) I don’t do drafts. As a matter of fact, my process might best be described as semi-benign mental illness. I think about what I want to write about. I obsess about it. I dream about it. And just when it is starting to become dangerous, I try to get it all down on paper. And what I get down is pretty much fully formed and while it needs some corrections, of course, it doesn’t need revision.

Who or what are you reading most often, and why?

News and nonfiction. Every couple of years I will go back and read all 20 books of the Master & Commander series by Patrick O’Brian. And I like to revisit William Gibson (Count Zero has one of the best opening pages ever) and Samuel Delaney (Nova). I try to avoid literary fiction because I’ve spent a long damn time honing my voice and I am primitively superstitious of any bleed-through from another author.

For Tiki Man, did you have an agent? Or did you work directly with your publisher? And how did you happen to choose Regal House? (I know I’m turning that trope around; we’re led to believe that authors, like ladies at the dance, must wait to be chosen.)

An agent?!? You’re funny. An agent once told me that publishers and readers aren’t interested in poor people with problems, so I threw my hands up, “Counts me out!” Regal House is one of the few publishers that doesn’t require an agent. They read the first 20 pages, asked for the entire manuscript and things happened very quickly after that. As I’d long suspected, what it actually took was for someone to read it. 

How important are reviews on Amazon and Goodreads? Do they matter at all?

I think they are very important. It’s hard to say if they affect sales, but I think they are enormously helpful in terms of what your readers are taking away from your book (and if it’s what you intended), which I think writers should care about.

How available are you for speaking engagements, talks at libraries, and the like?

I will pester anyone at anytime. I’ve done a number of book clubs, both in-person and remote, for Tiki Man and they’ve been fun for everyone. At the first one, somebody brought candy cigarettes so everyone in the club could play “Bitches,” a game the neighbor girls play in Chapter 1. It was awesome. Next week I’m doing a presentation on “Dancing Turtle,” my short story and its journey from prize-winning story to prize-winning play (I’m also a playwright.) This might sound dumb, but I am really excited about it because after I read the story, the intern company of Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati is going to do a staged reading of the play, so the audience can see the changes, the problems, the solutions – it’s something I’d like to see!

Subconscious as Superhero

These are my fleshed out notes from a talk I presented to the High Desert branch of the California Writers Club on September 14, 2019.

This talk is the result of a long email exchange between author Michael Welker and myself. Michael wrote Blockbuster Blueprint, and if you write fiction, it's a how-to book you definitely need to have on your shelf. Michael is also a former student of mine. He's one of those whiz kids who knows so much about everything it's hard for him to focus on the one thing that he wants to pursue that will change the world in a positive way. He's currently living in Japan and working for Universal Studios, but his plan is to retire when he's forty.

Anyway, Michael and I have kept up a regular email correspondence since he graduated high school in 2003. At some point a few years back, we were both chastising ourselves for not spending more time on our professional writing, and we asked each other why. At the time, Michael happened to be studying neuroscience. Not in college. Just recreationally. Because he was interested. When I was in college, I majored in literature but I minored in psychology. So, between the two of us in our email discussions, we came across some steps that have worked for us to enlist our subconscious minds in making us more productive as writers.

Three years ago, I was so happy to be able to start saying I was "retired." Until I got to thinking: No, I'm not. I'm not retired; I've just transitioned to my dream job, which is writing full time. From home. In my pajamas. You are not retired, either, if you're writing.

I want to change your brain about that.

Of those of you who are... self-employed as a writer... How many of you are writing 1,000 words a day?

Why not? Go ahead, think for a minute of all the reasons you're not writing a thousand words a day.

I want to change your brain a bit.

More specifically:

Help you change the story you've been telling yourself so you can be more productive in your writing.

This time, I'm hoping you'll be able to include your own personal superpower in that story.

What I say today will sound a bit like New Age-y Hocus Pocus. It's not. It's based on neuroscience, which is the science of how your brain works.

I just ask that you listen and keep an open mind.

Having said that, let me say this:

The Buddha said: Our lives are shaped by our minds; you become what you think.

Have you ever written the beginning of a story or the first chapter (or three) of a book but then stopped and never finished.

What did you tell yourself when you didn't finish? 'When I get time, I'll get back to that.' 'When I figure out what happens next, I'll get back to that.' 'When I edit what I've already written and I'm satisfied with that, I'll get back to that.'

Sound familiar?

My personal favorite is: "When I get time...." I've been keeping a personal journal since college. Some years ago, I spent the summer re-reading my journals back for ten years. And let me tell you, I had ten years' worth of long, repetitive journal entries--written out in cursive--wherein I complained vociferously about not having enough time to write. Seriously. See where this is going? 'I would write that novel if I only had time to write'—I WROTE REPEATEDLY FOR TEN YEARS.

Why is this?

Our subconscious minds are protecting us, sometimes in a gentle sweet way, and sometimes viciously.

My current dog, Thomas, is a cattle dog mix. If we are hiking, and he senses something that he perceives as potentially dangerous, he leaves my side and walks directly crosswise to my path, attempting to gently turn me away from danger.  This is quite different from the behavior of a dog I once had and loved dearly. Alex Haley was a Rottie-Chow mix who was, most of the time, a huge, lovable, shaggy puppy. Unless a stranger came around, at which point he would bark! bark! bark! to try to keep me protected from the danger he perceived.

To both dogs, this was just doing their job as loyal canines, but in different ways.

Your subconscious does the same. It protects you.

In psychology, this is called a defense mechanism, and this concept has been around a long time. When your subconscious wants to protect you from something that will cause you anxiety, it throws up a defense mechanism.

I don't want to spend time explaining defense mechanisms if you're unfamiliar, and I'm not an expert on them anyway, I just find them fascinating. With a simple online search, you can find out a lot more about them.

Relevant to our purposes today: Your subconscious is either your villain or your super-hero. When you begin a project or have an idea but don't follow through, most likely it is your subconscious stopping you from this anxiety-producing activity, either in a gentle way—"Here, why don't you click over here and scroll through Facebook while that idea gels some more"—or in a more direct way by barking at you—"Why waste your time on that? No one's going to read it anyway. Remember what happened the last time you finished something and sent it out? Nothing. Nothing happened. And nothing will happen again. So why don't you grab a beer and turn on Dancing with the Stars?"

It's not the writing itself that produces anxiety—it's the potential finished product that scares us into stopping (or not starting at all).

When I wrote the prologue to Tainted Legacy, it was one of the scariest writing projects I ever undertook. That memoir is about my mother and her childhood and her beloved grandmother--who was, of course, accused of multiple murders--and my relationship with my mother had always been tenuous. What if I hurt her deeply? I put off starting for months--telling myself I didn't have time. And then one day I had to have work done on my truck, and I had to wait for it, so I grabbed a notebook and simply began writing the book. I wrote for over an hour without stopping. My hands never stopped shaking. But I knew better than to put that notebook away when I got home. I kept going. Three months later, the book was finished.

As for those people who say, "I don't care if it gets published, I'm just writing for myself, so I don't worry about that," okay, that's fine. But if you're saying that, you should know that it's probably "denial," a clearly defined defense mechanism. It protects you from ever having to suffer rejection.

Writers write to be read. That's the truth. You know why? Because we're sublimating.

Sublimation is a very positive, very effective defense mechanism. Writers take all the experiences that have caused them pain or anger or grief and they turn those feelings into poems and stories and novels and memoirs. It's very powerful.

So we need to write, and we need to write every day, and don't get me started on having the discipline to put your posterior in a chair every day because that's a whole other talk but trust me, you just have to.

Think about this:

If you write a thousand words a day, in 60 days, you'll have a novel.

Catherine Ryan Hyde, author of Pay it Forward and a gazillion other novels, manages to write two books a year and still have time to ride her horse every afternoon. She's 64. By the way, she started writing full time in 1980. Pay It Forward, her first real commercial success, was published in 1999.

Author Douglas Clegg said: "I believe the great American novel will be written by someone who writes." Not the smartest, most educated person with an MFA from the best program, but simply the person who writes and writes and writes.

Consider that young Southern woman who wrote that one bestseller. You know, Nell Lee. We know her better by her middle name, Harper. Talk about the great American novel! To Kill a Mockingbird is still in print, sixty years after its debut.

How do we do that?

Harness your superhero. Make your subconscious work for you. It's that easy. You become what you think.

1. Decide that you're going to have a time and place to write—uninterrupted—every day (or six days a week or whatever).

Be reasonable but also be resolute.

Also be goal oriented. (A word of advice: Never use time as a goal. Use a tangible accomplishment: One page a day. (It's how a young lawyer named John Grisham wrote his first novel, A Time to Kill.) Five hundred words. A thousand words. Three paragraphs.

2. Show up. This used to be the hardest one for me until I heard Harry Cauley speak. Harry said something I immediately wrote down and I'll never forget it: Writing is one of the loneliest professions there is. No kidding. I'm older and single. My kids are busy living their best lives, and my grandkids are working or in college or both. I spend a lot of time alone. Sometimes the only people I talk to for days have fur on them. Scrolling through Facebook makes me feel less alone in the world. It is also a bottomless rabbit hole, a giant time-eater that calls to me early in the morning. After all, who doesn't want to look at photos of a friend's new puppy? Or kitten? Or grandchild? Or their breakfast plate?

3. Be aware that your subconscious is going to block you at every turn—because it's protecting you from anxiety—because WHAT IF you sit down and there are no words or what you write is terrible or what you write is wonderful but you can't figure out where to send it to get it published or you do send it out and it gets rejected? Huh? What if that happens?

4. Take a few really deep breaths.

5. Narrow your focus; you're not sitting in the writer's seat to consider what may happen in the future with this particular piece of writing. You're sitting there to express your true identity, to be your most authentic self. Be present in the moment and let that sink in.

Just as a side note here, I highly recommend ten minutes or so of meditation. Not the sort in which you attempt to reach Nirvana or 'clear your mind of all thoughts.' Writers are intelligent, curious, creative people; our minds are constantly awhirl with thoughts and questions and ideas. Meditation in the sense of allowing your brain to begin ignoring all outside distractions and focusing on the task at hand. What do you want to write today? Focus simply on that and nothing else in your meditation. Keep breathing.

Did you know that when you are fully immersed in writing you are in what's called a "trance state"? You may think of it as being "in the zone," and you may have had one of those experiences in which you begin writing and everything else fades away and you look up some time later and realize you've been writing for three hours and you've missed lunch. The quickest way to enter a trance state (no, you don't have to wait around for it to happen) is to meditate.

6. Give yourself a mantra and say it aloud or write it down. My favorite: I'm just going to write one sentence, and I'm perfectly capable of writing a decent sentence. A neural pathway opens in your brain every time you speak an affirmation aloud. (Now there's some New Age-y hocus pocus for you.)

We sometimes call this self-hypnosis or the power of positive thinking: Repeating aloud the sentence "I am a non-smoker" is how one of my husband's quit smoking when all else failed. True story.

Use whatever works, and, again, be mindful of those subconscious messages. As soon as they pop up—"Why are you wasting your time?"—smack them back down with a positive affirmation: "My writing is an important part of who I am."

That's a great mantra! If you say it every day, it will become embedded in your subconscious mind.

What's the story you've been telling yourself? That you're not good enough? You are. That you don't have time? You do. That it won't be perfect? It won't be. It doesn't have to be perfect. To Kill a Mockingbird is not a flawless novel. But it's beautiful and powerful and still in print after sixty years.

Our lives are shaped by our minds. We become what we think. Change the story you've been telling yourself. Unleash that superhero and feel the power!

Tardy

It has been well over a month since I told my cousin I would post something new to the blog, "probably today." I know you've been waiting, checking periodically. So has that one guy, who disagrees with most everything I say and believe but still reads the blog religiously. Go figure.

Anyway, I meant to write that day after we talked, dear Cousin-Who-Shall-Remain-Nameless-At-His-Own-Request (just so you know that, yes, I mean you). But that day became busy. And then... a friend died suddenly, a friend I went to high school with who was younger than I am. I will write about Dennis in an upcoming post.

And then another friend died who was also someone who read my blog regularly--from the time I began writing it years ago. I will also write about Barb in an upcoming post. Everyone should know who Barb was in the world... and to me.

And Sgt. Thomas Tibbs, an introvert's best friend and hiking partner, has been sick. We negotiate this dark path periodically; he stops eating, becomes lethargic, and I enter a sort of fugue state, unable to fully engage with the world or my work until he finally perks up again, decides to get happy, eats all his food, wags his tail, and makes me cry with joy that he will be around "just a little longer," as I beg him to be. These episodes seem to be brought on by severe stress. For several consecutive days last week, the neighbors were having a patio cover ripped out and rebuilt. It was loud. It was scary. There were strange voices right outside our windows. Poor Thom. But he's baaaack as of last night! Eating his food, rolling over for belly rubs, rudely sniffing at Purrl's bottom (which she will tolerate but New Cat Jenny will not).

New Cat Jenny, as I write this, lies curled in a kitchen chair below the window through which the hummingbird feeder is visible. This is our routine: We wake early, everyone is fed (including the birds outside, for crying out loud), Thomas and I walk (if he's feeling up to it), I eat breakfast, then I park myself here at the kitchen table with the laptop. Jenny curls into 'her' chair, gives herself a thorough bathing, then goes to sleep for an hour or two while I write.

And yes, surprisingly, I've been writing, trying to average a thousand words a day on the second book in my middle-grade urban fantasy series. In recent days, the writing has been tough--only because I've had to give a ten-year-old boy a concussion, send him to the hospital, and have his beloved dog seized and placed in quarantine by animal control. I know. It hurts just hearing the summary, doesn't it? And you haven't even met Nathan yet. But every story--even if it's for middle-school kids--has to have conflict. No worries; bad boys got us into these troubles. A good boy will get us out.

When I finish writing for the day, if I haven't already walked Thomas and the weather is nice but not too hot and he's feeling good about life and not to terribly frightened, we take a long hike out in the countryside, where I take deep breaths, smell the wildflowers, enjoy the sun on my face, and remember good friends.

Cheers to them! And to you, my dear reader, for caring enough to appreciate the words and pictures humbly offered here. Let's chat again soon!

Life

Oh, gosh, hello!

I see I've been absent from the blog for a month! Wow, time really does seem to travel at the speed of the Parker Solar Probe.

A number of exciting and wonderful and touching things have happened in my life, and I want to share all of them with you so that you can share in the fun and good times, but it will take a few blog posts to do them justice, so look for me to be a bit more regular in posting once a week—at least for a while. I have quite a few writing projects to work on, and sometimes they get in the way of the blog—and since those projects earn dog food money and this one does not, you know where my time needs to be spent. But I'll try to squeeze it all in.

Speaking of buying dog food....

This girl came into our lives this week. Her name is June. Isn't she lovely? I will tell her story soon. Right now she is learning to live with a cat. ("Mom lady! Mom lady! What is that creature?!? What is that creature??")

And I bought a car. Finally. Good ol' Cloud (my 2003 Ford Ranger) is still with us, even with 181,000 miles on her. My insurance rep from Hartford asked, "Will you be keeping the Ranger on your policy?"

"Yes," I said, "as long as my dog still needs it."

After researching vehicles for months, I bought a Subaru Crosstrek. "Sky" has already been to San Diego, Utah, and the Central Coast. Love this car.

I made the trip to Utah to visit Best Friends AnimalSanctuary. Blog post to follow.

The second biggest change in my life (after June's arrival), would be The Granddaughter moving out. The college girl is now safely installed in her dorm at Cal Poly, Pomona, and has already been attending classes. I am so, so proud of this girl, and equally proud of Ellie, The Oldest Granddaughter, who is back at University of Alaska for another year, now a pre-med major.

And what is The Grandson up to, you ask? He had his first real job this summer, working on the lake in Lake Arrowhead. He was quickly promoted (as I knew he would be) and absolutely loved being outside to work with boats, boaters and lake-goers. He may or may not have saved some money. He does have a girlfriend, though, so....

On this beautiful Sunday morning, I took my two good dogs into the hills south of town and watched as June galloped up and down the trail, thrilled to be out in the fresh air. Sgt. Thomas Tibbs trotted faithfully along at my side. He is a sedate old man now, and more precious to me as each day goes by.

Thanks for reading this far! Catch me here again next Sunday! I promise!