Crochet/Cross-stitching a Story

I grew up surrounded by women whose hands were never idle when they watched TV or ‘relaxed.’ My mother was a wonderful knitter and sewer, my best friend’s mom crocheted and embroidered, my grandma did every kind of handwork: knitting, crocheting, embroidery, cutwork, cross-stitch. Needlework was required for the girls in our church starting at the age of twelve. I was pitiful at it, too impatient and then, too ashamed by my finished project, a pitiful mess, from the stamped cross-stitch sampler to the crocheted purse to the knitted covered hanger, to want to ever try again.

Later, when my friends and I started filling hope chests I revisited needlework. I’d learned patience, at least a bit. (I’ve since learned, patience is an ongoing skill a person never completely masters.) It was my brilliant idea that for birthdays and Christmas we’d exchange things for our hope chests, preferably homemade. And it was a great idea, at least, I’ve thought so over the years.

What a wonderful thing that all these years later I still have tea towels and dresser scarves embroidered by childhood friends (some of which I haven’t seen since) as I began married life. I still have stacks of tea towels and pillowcases, so I never truly forget these wonderful friends. And it got us to learn handwork and figure out that hand-made things are the best gifts.

About this same time, I registered for a homemaking arts class for my senior year of high school. At the time I had no idea how much this class would help me find a safe, soft place to land every day in a hellish year. That year was profound for me. I lost my father and spent much of the year lost and adrift. I worried about my mother and found myself helping her make some pretty adult decision. That hour a day of quiet and discovering the importance of being still and doing something physical but intent like handwork centered me, saved me.  

Over the years, I’ve come to depend on handwork to work through problems in my own life or in my writing. More, I’ve come to appreciate how the slow progress of one row of crochet after another, over time, makes a whole afghan. One cross-stitch at a time ends up with a sampler worthy of hanging on my walls. That knowledge helps me face the daunting beginnings of a novel with less fear. I know word upon word makes a sentence, makes a paragraph, makes a chapter. I know little steps matter, maybe, more than big steps, and I’ve learned faith in my own ability to stick with something.

I’ve crochet over ninety afghans for family and friends. I’ve crocheted them one little stitch at a time. I’ve cross-stitched countless samplers, one cross-stitch at a time. I’ve struggled with difficult patterns, unpicked mistakes, changed my mind about color choices. Each stitch has pulled, dragged, helped me through bad times, good times, times of stress, worry and plenty. Each stitch has blessed me ten times over as I’ve learned patience, determination, tenacity, starting over, redoing, perfecting. The exact skills I need for writing. 

Patience in Piecework

“It’s an old-fashioned cure for restlessness, my dear, in case you ever need it. Remember that it has been successful for hundreds of women. I’m no fool, am I? Well, I haven’t traveled without my tapestry since my girlhood, and you should see the splendid suites of furniture covered by my handiwork, testimonials to worries of all sorts. Whenever I have felt nervous, vaguely dissatisfied, irresolute, or frankly wretched, I have sat by myself. Each embroidery contains hundreds of stitches which are cross-stones of sorrow, the death beds of boredom. In many a gaily flowered seat, my happiness lies buried. People spend time and money being exorcised; psychoanalyzed, they call it, seeking relief for body and soul. I think that a good long mechanical task that requires a minimum of attention, and the soothing action of the hand as it dips over and under the canvas, is the very best means of pinning down our weaknesses and chloroforming them. Stitch the horrors down, my dear, and they shan’t return to plaque you; they are killed by the stab of the needle. Of course, during peaceful intervals, I have laid my work away for months, but when I need it, there it is, as convenient as a box of aspirins against a cold.”

—Anne Green, 16 Rue Corta Bert

   I found this quote in an old Peg Bracken book. I didn’t note which one when I copied it down in my writer’s journal and I’ve read them all. (I absolutely love Peg Bracken, even though she was a bit before my time (the 60’s) I was a teenager reading cookbooks/humor/housekeeping books. Needless to say, I was a strange teenager.) The sentiment in the quote spoke to me. More so in recent years, but down through the years the act of handwork or piecework, as they called it, has soothed me, paced me through worrisome nights of childhood illnesses, teen drivers, those many nights of a railroad widow/young mother and later—now, as a patient and a caregiver.

Doilies, afghans, hot pads, tea towels, samplers accent my home. Countless hours of handwork, but somehow, each item is more. A legacy, too, of my life, my mother, her mother, my best friend, Connie’s mother, of that generation and earlier generations. Of time spent in meditation, so to speak.

 I can’t pass by the handiwork at antique shops or fairs. I stop, inspect, marvel, covet. I know the work involved because I’ve done it, but more, I know the soul, hope and sorrow ‘pinned’ to each piece. There is history stitched along with skill and time. I love the vintage look but more, I love the story behind each piece, even without knowing the exact story details.  I know the story of my own handwork, and part of the story behind my mother’s, her mother’s, Connie’s mother.

I didn’t start out loving the hobby. I didn’t have the patience and maybe, that’s the thing with needlework. It takes patience. To learn the skill, execute the patterns, to finish the project. It doesn’t happen overnight but it teaches principles that I’ve used in every part of my life, but never so much as in my writing.

Summer School

Been working like crazy on rewrites/edits for my new/old book, Heart’s High, this summer and it’s been going great. So much better than Ella and the Tie-down Man. The path is clearer, the problems easier to fix and I think the reason is some great help in the way of a learning.

I’m a firm believer of continued learning. I take classes as I go along the writer’s journey and this summer I’ve stumbled on some great help for my writing. Suggestions by other writers on their blogs, in articles, etc. have really given me some valuable resources and learning experiences. I’d say my writing has much improved by just thirty minutes a day reading. A great substitute for workshops or writer’s retreat when those options aren’t possible.

Never say I can’t. Say, I’ll have to do it a little different.

Outlining Your Novel, by K.M. Weiland: Regardless whether you are a pantster or a planner, this is a great book for improving your book’s plot. No do it this way or die. Just good sound advice, no matter how you write best. Her blog is a lot of help, too: Wordplay: Helping Writers Become Authors at www.kmweiland.com

Rivet Your Readers With Deep Point of View, by Jill Elizabeth Nelson: This is a tiny book. Just 61 pages, but packed with the best explanation and illustration of deep point of view, at least for me. For the first time I got it and Nelson gave lists of words to do searches with to help check on whether I stay in deep point of view, too. I like that because as I learn I forget sometimes. Even as I learn to use deep point of view better, it helps to check. We all get sloppy/lazy/forgetful once in a while.

Pair this with The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression, by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi: This is great, especially as a way to show emotions. So much more effective than to tell.  So much of our communication is non-verbal or subtext.  There are physical signs, mental responses and internal sensations. What I found in looking these emotions up in this book, whether you use the authors’ suggestions or use them for a jumping off place, is it seemed to help me keep in one character’s point of view. No  matter who’s POV I was in there was either something the character was seeing, feeling or sensing. Together with deeper point of view, it seemed to make my scenes more alive.  And you must take a look at their website: http://thebookshelfmuse.blogspot.com

You have to keep punching, because you’ve always got that puncher’s chance. –Otis Chandler, publisher, Los Angeles Times

Not Do or Do and Finding

Not-To-Do-List:

·       Worry about things I have no control over. Most of the things I worry about never happen, but when I worry about them the stress does.

·       Diet to get ‘skinny’. Instead, I’ll eat and exercise for what’s good for me, makes me feel better.

·       Please everyone. Too damn hard. I’m going to start treating me like my own best friend.

·       Watch make-over segments on TV, wondering if I should die my graying hair or cut said hair.  

·       Worry about my aging looks. I’ve earned every bit of and it ain’t so bad considering.

·       Be unappreciative of my body ever again. It has fought the good fight and (this is especially gratifying to say) won. I never want to take it for granted again.

·       Let ‘mean girls who have turned into mean women’ get to me anymore.

Today:

I’ve been playing Whitney Houston music all morning. It took some doing to find the cassette stored away in old Pepsi wooden crates and a little finger-crossing that the old cassette deck would still work, but after listening to the short stanzas played over and over on the news, I ached to hear the whole experience of her voice. The excavation was worth it.

It was the best way I could think to honor and thank her for what she gave us.

Singing is so connected to a person’s heart, I think. Singing (or listening to someone else) of heartbreak, love, God brings it out into a reality. It is deeper than tears or smiles. We carry music with us throughout our lives. It is connected to our memories, our histories. As Dick Clark says, Music is the soundtrack of our lives, and we each have a personal playlist that introduces the chapters of our life. So when we hear a song we recognize, we hear a memory too.

Finding:

There was an antique show Saturday and, of course, I went. The crowd made the treasure hunt difficult and not as pleasant as I hoped. It was hard to make way through the crush into the booths and once in the booth moving through to look at all the items was more than a little frustrating. Still, for all that, I had fun and found some great things. Notably a wooden desk organizer, perfect next to my printer. As I was cleaning the dust from the wooden shelves, I found a bunch of papers shoved into the back. I love that kind of thing.

I found several staplers and two garden sprayers to add to my collections and the book, Westward by Rail.

Speaking of finding treasures, I’m still going through dejunking and organizing my office, making progress, thinning out old books, I’m no longer using and reassessing  decorating choices. Of course, there are files to go through, copy or get rid of, but with every step I’m improving the function of the room and my work.

Progress is slow, but steady, but I’m not putting it off. I’m moving forward one step at a time.

If you strike a thorn or rose,

Keep a-goin’!

If it hails or if it snows,

Keep a-goin’!

‘Tain’t no use to sit and whine

‘Cause the fish ain’t on you line;

Bait your hook an’ keep in tryin’,

Keep a-goin’!

                   -Frank L. Stanton, Keep a-goin’

Sometimes It's Not the Writing, But the Living

Arrr! It’s National Talk Like a Pirate Day, actually I think it might be International Talk Like a Pirate Day. In any case, we should be practicing our Pirate speak, if for no other reason than it’s supposed to be fun, but why not celebrate?

I’ve been on a vacation, of sorts. It was not restful, it was not perfect. I wouldn’t even say I completely enjoyed it. It was one of those vacations we’ve all had, where everything just goes south. Like seven days of rain on a vacation to the beach, but it’s the good you find. I guess that’s true of life too, isn’t it?

Vehicle trouble, forgotten needed items, a sick grandchild, bee stings and frustrating fishing. That was the bad, but the good outweighed all that. Marvelous sunsets, big, yellow moons in inky skies. You forget how distant and faded the stars have become until you get into the wilderness and see the unlit night. Then you just feel smaller and bigger than yourself.

There was helping two stranded boys on the archery hunt, one of which looked exactly like a fifteen-year-old Ricky Schroder. His companion looked about seventeen. Well, I couldn’t help thinking about my own sons, hoping they would find someone that would help them jump their battery, too, if they were ever in the need. It was so refreshing to see two super polite boys, so worried about worrying their dads. Sometimes we forget how great the younger generation is, but I have had several incidents that just make me have all kinds of faith in putting things in their hands.

There was the wind in the aspen. How I love that sound and the shiver of the leaves. And of course, the food: the best grilled pork chops I’ve had for ages, Catalina chicken, messy and sticky, just as it should be, fried filleted fish for breakfast, plus bacon and egg breakfast cooked by my son, watching my most miracle granddaughter introduced to camping, cold and all, hot chocolate, grilled steak and of course, s’mores.

Discoveries too, that fall begins at the bottom. The grasses have turned golden, the banded-winged grasshoppers make their short bursts of flight with a loud clicking ahead, the wild strawberries are beginning to turn scarlet and the willows, amber. Touches of golden quakies have just begun and when it rains the smell of dry grass and wet pine gives me all the aroma therapy I could ask for. And everyone looks beautiful by campfire.

Shiver me timbers, it sounds a bit like I'm a land lubber now, don't it, me hearties?

Of Gardens and Metaphors

The ragtag garden looks tattered and worn. The delphiniums have turned gray and seedy. Daisies, summer-sweet are fading. I’ve sheared back the shabby spent spring ground cover: rock cress, blue creeping veronica and phlox, but I’ve been a bit slow about the lamb’s ear—there’s a reason. The pale spikes like gray ghosts in the garden keep me company and I like to drag that particular chore out through the whole summer, if possible, just to get a dose of its fruity wonderful scent occasionally.

I spent my gardening time last week spiffing up flower beds from the ravages of time and season. I filled several bags with the garden debris: ground cover cuttings, deadheads and surrendered pansies. Ah, well…my heart always aches when I pull out a dying pansy, but I try to be philosophical about it though. I planted the pansies last fall; they’ve done their job and more.

Mid-summer gardens wan a bit, mine do, anyway. Most of my flower beds are perennial shade gardens and what does get plenty of sunlight. I make the most of by planting favorite sun-loving perennials. All but the roses are over by August. I should bring in late summer bloomers, but I’m alright with the absence, I have my few annuals and the vegetable garden. And always there is ‘Lady in Red’ salvia that I plant for the humming birds.

What has the condition of my garden got to do with writing? Maybe, nothing, but it got me thinking—about gathering metaphors. It’s a whole lot like gardening and a good place to find metaphors, too. Sometimes the places you look have an abundance of what could be used as a metaphor, sometimes you have to really look and consider before you find something that will work.

I think the more places you visit, the more experience you have, the easier you find them, think of them, use them. Visit your garden or your neighbors, visit a museum or aquarium, zoo. If you’re writing about another time period or place visit someplace that has some connection, however tenuous. Collect paint chips, just for the color names. Pick up magazines about the subject or time period (flea markets are great for this. The magazines are cheap and plentiful and you can just about find them on any subject.) Magazines are amazing for great detail and descriptive words condensed. Look for surprising names, traits—the perfect imagery-metaphors.

This type of research has an added benefit—it’s fun and it fills the well and what’s summer for?

And remember: it's not what you find, but how you use it.

Uintah/Uinta

You learn something every day. Sometimes, though, I wonder if that’s because you do something stupid every day. Not stupid exactly but…And sometimes, it takes so long to find out you’ve been doing something wrong/stupid and then when you do...

Anyway, we’re down at the Forest Service office looking at maps for my husband. He drew out a once in a lifetime big game tag for elk this year. Been trying forever or at least, a long time.

I’m a tree-huger (not my word for it), an animal lover…I love shooting a gun as long as it’s at a non-living target. To explain…I’ve gone deer hunting with my husband, helping him find deer…instead, secretly, I’ve been shooing them away. Hey, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him and I figure I’m evening the odds, such as I can, in favor of the animals. Besides, that’s just what you do when you love someone, right?
I get the whole thought process behind the hunting, and believe me, there are definite sides. Loud-voiced sides and it is an argument that we just don’t really get into in our house. Like the wolf issue. I love the wolf and around here, that’s not a popular position and I even get their (the opposition, not the wolf…although I get their point, too…the wolf, not the opposition. Oh, you know what I’m saying.)point. I don’t necessarily agree, but I get it. Ranchers, hunters…they have a history, livelihood and all that. I get it. There are just some things my husband and I decided not to argue about. We each have our opinions, respect each other’s and support each other’s but don’t agree.

Actually, our whole married life…well, it’s true, opposites often attract. Makes for an interesting life. I digress, as I seem want to do…anyway, as we’re looking at these maps, it hits me…I’ve been typing in Uintah where Uinta should be. Throughout my whole darn book. I knew better. A lapse, I guess, but, dang…why? I’m so careful about that sort of thing. Thank heaven for Replace in Word. I got it all changed throughout my book, in the nick of time, by the way.

I was ranting and raving about it, wondering why, when a friend said… stop beating yourself up. It’s a logical error. You live near Uintah, they sound the same, it’s just a loop hole in your thinking.

Anyone else out there got loop holes in their thinking?

Rejection and Criticism

I’ve had experience with rejection, harsh critiques and lost contests…years and years of it. When I send out a short story, I know odds are it will be rejected. I’ve sold, maybe, ten percent of the short stories I’ve sent out. But I tell myself the market for short stories like I write is small with few chances of success and that’s just the business.

Poetry is just as hard and paying markets are slim. As the economy goes on the way it is publishing house have to be more choosy and getting a book published is ever more competitive. Contest judges try to encourage and help and to do that it means sometimes being tough.

I’ve learned to like tough. Those critics and contests judges are being generous with their precious time and I have to at least listen with my heart open or I lose.

But a writer keeps writing and hoping. That novel is yours, came from your open heart, your one-of-a-kind heart. It feels like sending a child away to college when you sent it out, whether for publication or contest or to a critic partner. Inevitably you will get harsh critiques or rejections. A ‘thanks, but no thanks’, a ‘it didn’t work for them.’

Remember: You will not die. Then, find a way to distance yourself, however long it takes, so you can go back and read suggestions, criticisms, emotionless, if you were lucky enough to get them. Determine to learn something.

First remember, you didn’t write it for them. They didn’t see what you envisioned. Then, remember, critics can be wrong. Look honestly and deeply into your heart and trust your gut, as Obi Won told Luke: feel the force. Only you know what you’re trying to say. Did you say what you wanted to clearly or do they have a point that you can see now that there is distance and the very real thought that someone else actually read it.

I try to remember that my happiness will never depend on being published, neither will my wealth. Writing rarely leads to mansions on a hill and sports cars.
Are the editors/judges/critics saying the same thing about your book? Do they echo what someone else has said? You’ve got to take a second look, then. Or at least look at what they said in common.

Each page we perfect moves us farther along in our journey, giving us miles under our belt. Experience and learned tools. This is good.

No Regrets

Accept the pain, cherish the joys, resolve the regrets; then can come the best benedictions—“If I had my life to live over again, I’d do it all the same.”

The last few weeks, actually, the whole of May had been a series of missteps, oops, weather and disappointments…oh, and doctor appointments, which is kind of like all of those rolled into one. I don’t do doctor appointments well. You’d think I would be so use to them, what with my mother’s long list of appointments and my own while I was sick that I’d take them in stride. You’d think, but, no.

And the weather/gardening has just plain been frustrating, but finally, I have the vegetable garden in and my lettuce, chard and spinach sprouting. That makes me smile and gets me anxious for some fresh produce. Not that I’ve been without completely. I’ve been enjoying my chives and parsley for about a month. The asparagus has been a big disappointment. Only about two feet of my twelve foot row of the vegetable has come up. But then, the weather hasn’t really been very sunny or warm.

I did finally get my annuals planted. I had to do it in bits and pieces, between rain storms and cold. Frankly, not exactly the way I enjoy planting. No marathon day of planting tons of flowers. I’ve had to scale back over the last few years, eliminating many flower beds and pots. While scaling back there was a huge sense of loss and sorrow, but that loss has turned out to be the best thing for me. I think, sometimes, a forced hand is actually wisdom catching up with you.

It seems this month had been particularly difficult in the caregiving area, too. My cold turned everything so topsy-turvy that my poor mother is a bit out of step. I feel bad about it, but I’m doing the best I can and thank goodness, for my husband. There’s road construction near her house and it is bringing another challenge into the mix, for both of us.

I read an article in the Reader’s Digest, My Daughter, Myself, about caring for a disabled child. There was a lot of information about the caregiver. Though this article addressed caring for a disabled adult child, it really doesn’t matter who you are caring for, so much of the difficulty is the same. The writer, Sallie Tisdale, writes that caregiving is not just another job. I tend to look at it that way, as another item in my long list of to dos.

But there is objective burden—the physical labor— and subjective burden—emotional burden (often negative) like stress, tension, worry, guilt.

I’ve written all my life. I let so much of that go when my kids were small. You lose words, plots, ideas in the minefield of motherhood. Interruptions are a way of life and you simply pray you do not lose too much. When the kids grow and leave home you think you can devote yourself to this work of yours that does not let you go. You don’t expect to be faced with another, different role as caregiver.

It’s not as if I didn’t know there was an emotional cost, but seeing the words, reading about this mother struggling to care for her adult child, does put my situation in perspective. There is much to be grateful for.

Sometimes I’ve thought that this is what I should be writing about, though my heart wasn’t in that. This…my life as a writer, and wife, and mother, and daughter, this journey that I’ve found myself on. I wished I kept notes, thoughts, writings about each detail of this journey. It might help someone else going through this. It might help me. To see the struggles, the heartache, the decisions I’ve made that have impacted my writing. All of it.

Because now, if I was to write a memoir, I’m afraid I’d leave out the best and worst and yet….This was much the same decision I made when I was a young mother. I didn’t write my novel waiting in the bleachers while my oldest son played soccer, I didn’t craft poems while my youngest took drum lessons. I didn’t write essays while my middle son added to his insect collection. I helped catch bugs and know how to spread a Monarch’s wings for display. I saw when my oldest son made a goal or lost the game. I know just how long it took my youngest to learn paradiddles.

So, while we sit in the waiting room for another doctor appointment, my mother and I talk. There are hundreds of words I haven’t written, the book I’ve just finished took longer than it should have, I’ve written fewer poems, to be sure. And I pray I’m making the best life and writing life I can, with the fewest regrets.

I’ve written about this before, but when I have a month like May has been I need reminders of why I do what and how I do. I need hope that I’m not going to lose too much.

Hopefully: There is something in us that is wiser than our heads. —Arthur Schopenhauer

Plan B and School Bells

Disappointment, changed plans, frustration. That about describes the last several years. You’d think I would get used to it. It really is the norm, isn’t it? I’ve said it before, life is plan B.

I was all set to trot on over to the hospital today with my mom and get our annual breast exam. Fun times, to be sure, but I really did want it done and over. You know, that checked of the list of things to do. But I’ve been fighting a little cold that just keeps giving and giving. The cold never really put me completely under the weather. I haven’t yet felt really bad, but Saturday and Sunday night I ended up awake most of the night, coughing and sometime around Thursday I lost my voice.

Talk about frustrating. No, I’m not talking. That’s just the problem. Or one of them. I just didn’t want to get around my mom with this cold or anyone up at the hospital that had to be around me. I get into these coughing jags and…I wouldn’t be able to talk to the people helping us anyway. I sound like a sick squeak toy. I can’t help my mom know what’s going on. No, I just cancelled.

I worried about doing that. It will make later this month even crazier and I’m not looking forward to that. The weather is just plain, the pits. I’m so behind in my gardening that…, but you know what? I’m reminded of an epiphany I had many years ago.

I try to accommodate the other guy. I always have. When I was a stay-at-home mom, I adjusted my schedule for everyone else because in my head I always thought: I’m just a mom, this or that person’s time is so much more important. I devalued myself. When I started writing I had to try to learn to put myself and my writing, at least, equal to everyone else.

It has been a tough lesson. I still find myself going back to that other thinking. Only this time it goes like this: I’m just a struggling writer. It’s not like I’m making tons of money here, or anyone’s waiting for me to finish. It’s not like it’s the next greatest novel, I’m writing. It’s….

I have to give myself a good mental shake. Tell myself that what I do and my time is every bit as important as anyone’s.

Ordinarily I would have broken my neck to get me and my mom to the appointment, because I made the appointment, therefore I must drag myself there and not inconvenience anyone. There was just no excuse for being sick on the day this or that was schedule. What is wrong with me…? And on and on…But I learned, in a not so good way, that you just don’t get to schedule sick days. You can say all day long you don’t have time to be sick, but sick has other ideas. And has sway, too.

On another note: Do you know how hard it is to get along without your voice? Every cold or throat problem I have goes straight to my voice. We now have great technology that can take the place of it, but it doesn’t work for every circumstance and I’m not much of a texter. So, I’ve struggled not to talk so not to damage my voice. But…how do you get someone (or your dog and cat) to listen to you when you can’t call their name or get their attention? I’m a writer, I can write notes to my husband, but the dog is not impressed and quite frankly, the cats ignore me. Well, actually, the cats ignore me anyway.

By the way, that old school bell my husband thought I was crazy to buy at the flea market last year ( What in _ _ _ _ are you getting that for) has come in real handy. Bless my heart.

Trying

If you don’t enter the lion’s den, you will never capture the lion. Seung Sahn

Finally, a sunny day with rumors of warmth and sunshine for the whole rest of the week. It feels like a huge weight lifted from my shoulders and mood. It was a long, gray winter and spring. And truthfully, I’m not sure I should believe those rumors either, but I am going to bask in a bit of sunshine.

I’ve made huge progress on Tie-down. After the critiques from the last contest I studied the comments, decided what rang true for me and what didn’t. Then I fixed a few things and started getting it ready to send out. The query letter and synopsis are nearly finished, too, which is the hardest thing to do. I think about the journey the book and I have made and I’m very proud. If nothing else happens but that I get it to the best work I can do and if I’m proud of it, it will be so much more than I thought I could do a few years ago. Tie-down may end up in a box beneath my bed, I don’t know, but I’ll still be proud.

There have been so many times I almost gave up on this, times I actually did: packing it away for over a year, the fear or heart ache of unpacking it again and the faith I had to find to do it, all taught me more than any workshop could.

I remember how overwhelmed I felt when I opened the box with all the research, notes and the manuscript of Tie-down. I stared at the stuffed full box for a long time, searching my heart and I knew I would be overwhelmed. I had to begin with something small and concise, something that went to the heart of my writing and myself.

But I couldn’t not write and I had to finish this book to ever move on to all the other writing still in me. Somehow, I had to find a way to slip into the lion’s den. Poetry helped more than I thought it would. I’m so glad I took the chance that it would and so glad the idea came to me in that moment of despair.

If I hadn’t taken the chance on the poetry helping me write and begin again with Ella and the Tie-down Man, I wouldn’t have entered the Writer’s Digest Poetry Contest either.

Funny how that works, isn’t it?

Winning!

The need for snorkel and webbed feet is nigh. Another rainy, gray day. My garden has been neglected and time pressures seem to close in. The only thing working is my writing and even that schedule has been pushed back.

A result from a writing competition was less than I hoped and yet, I can’t really feel too badly. Some wonderful critic comments brought to light some things with my manuscript I sensed was wrong, yet I still hadn’t completely narrowed it down.

Though I must go back and fine tune, I actually feel more optimistic than I have for a while. This isn’t the first delay on Tie-down. I’ve talked about all the ups and downs, the stops and starts, the derails and mud bogs. This little minor hiccup is nothing.

I rarely enter contests for my novels anymore and never enter writing contest with the goal to win. Winning (Is it me or has Charlie Sheen made that word, not so good?) is relative anyway.

Truth is there are so many entries in these contests that I think you must keep perspective when you do enter. Perspective is a tricky thing. You can have it all day long until you get the bad news. A funk usually follows, no matter how philosophical you are.

I’ve decided that funk is ok, for about a day, then, you just have to look at the comments, if you were lucky enough to get them. I was. Read them through once to take the hit, the second time to soak it up. The third time and after another day has past…that’s when you get the real prize.

That judge who didn’t put you in the winning circle for the contest, did one better. He or she put you on the tract of improvement. That next step to the success. That’s what you’re really after.

I figure, though I’m set back about ten days, I can go back and look at the judges suggestions, take them under advisement and change what ‘I’ think needs changing, improve my novel and then slog forward.

Winning!

Books, Bookstores and Pat Conroy

I’ve truly been blessed lately with some wonderful books. Not so long ago, I was complaining about the condition of my reading material. Oh, I’ll say I still miss having more Western Historical to read, but I’ve found some great books to fill in with. Last week I read an exceptional book: Pat Conroy’s My Reading Life.

The subject fit right into my last blog. Tastes in books are so personal and it was fascinating to hear about another voracious reader and bibliomaniac. It isn’t well enough for me to just read a book. For me, it is a much more tactile than that. Nothing is as compelling as the smell of an old bookstore, heaped with dusty books. Old books are best, with turned down pages and scribbling in the margins, yellowed paper and dark library-colored covers. Then, there are the paperbacks.
I blame my father, I do. He brought home old books he found at Sanders Rare Books in Salt Lake City. Books such as King of the Wind, Old Bones, and all of Thornton Burgess’ books. At the time, I was horse crazy and I never met an animal I didn’t like. Later, it was poetry: Emily Dickerson and Sonnets From the Portuguese, incidentally, one of my most prized books because he died soon after he gave it to me and it was the only book he ever inscribed.

Conroy writes of libraries, bookstores, and books with such love and passion. He writes those emotions beautifully, too, his writing style like blue silk velvet. And while his reading was much more diligent and formidable than mine, the sentiment was so like mine when he spoke of what he read. He talked as if reading was a feast, and it is. The best.

I would say I’m much more inclined to read the popular stuff than the classics, but I read what I read with as much zeal and enjoyment. The only classics I’ve read were assigned in school. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy them; I just had to read them. In my off time, I did a lot of reading, unlike most of my friends, but my reading material was most often genre fiction.

My reading material doesn’t shame me though, because I think there is a lot of great writing in all those ‘dime novels.’ Yet, reading Conroy’s book gave me the desire to read a few classics on my own, with no gun in my ribs.

As I use to tell my boys, I don’t care what you read, just read.

Perfection

I want perfection from myself. I don’t expect it from anyone else, but from me, I want it. I wonder why that is? Especially, with my writing. I want every word perfect.

I’ve been writing all my life with a few breaks of steady writing due to…life. You know, that vast, beautiful wilderness desert of babies, diapers, railroad widowhood and early marriage poverty. I spent hours upon hours relearning typing, learning computers (kids are the best teachers for that and I had to raise them up to the age where I could absorb it by osmosis, time being what it was.) I had so much to learn to right at the level I wanted. I bought and studied the 1983 edition of How to Write a Romance and Get It Published by Kathryn Falk and devoured it cover to cover. I learned formatting and plotting and new computers. I took grammar workshops, struggled with wrestling time to write from all my sweet, loving, needy family members. I cried, fought, struggled and…

I’ve written about ten Western Historicals. Most are complete with only one more pass through needed to be ready for submission. So, why aren’t they out in the world? Why haven’t I been published? Maybe they just don’t cut it? They aren’t perfect and… truth is it’s mostly because I’ve been afraid they are not perfect. The timing was not perfect, for me or the world of publishing.

After all, I can’t begin to compete with the latest writing darling. I’m not the next Lavyrle Spencer, Penelope Williams, Jodi Thomas. The trend is not toward the Western Historicals and has not been for many years, but it is my favorite.

So…the writing wasn’t right. The timing wasn’t right. I wasn’t right. Thank goodness there were writers who didn’t care about all that. Thank goodness, there were writers who put their work out there. Writers like Kaki Warner, Jodi Thomas and Linda Lael Miller.

Perfection paralyzes.

One of the definitions in the Franklin Merriam-Webster Dictionary really struck me: an unsurpassable degree of accuracy or excellence. Unsurpassable. In other words, can’t be done.
What can be done is writing the best book I possibly can, taking a deep breath and sending it out in the world. I can work to improve, but realize I will never be perfect, but I’ll get better. And better is enough. Better is my personal best, at that time. Maybe, it will be enough to be published and maybe not, but it is certain not to be published if I don’t get the things out there.
As I wind down my final edit of Ellie and the Tie-down Man, and I listen to all the sobering news about the industry, I know my chances are slim, but I must try. For nothing more than myself. The goal has always been to get my work good enough to submit.

It’s a lot like fishing. My husband always wants to go fishing. When we do, he starts worrying about catching fish. I tell him, we were going fishing, not catching. That’s what I’m doing here. I’m casting the best bait I can write out there on the water and hope for a bit or two. But in the end it was really about the writing.

Fleeting Glory

Between posting my last blog and now, a mere twenty-two minutes later the rains came. A deluge, really, and the Morning Glory has melted in the rain like fine silk. I'm so glad I savored.

Savor More than Writing

October and my Heavenly Blue Morning Glory is only now coming into its own. The cool spring and early summer delayed my Blue. Though all Morning Glories love heat and need nighttime temperatures of fifty degrees or more, Heavenly Blue and the Moonflower seem to be the sticklers. My Grandpa Ott Morning Glory thrives, cropping up just about anywhere. The purple flower vines through the tomatoes, up the old metal baby crib headboard leaning against the retaining wall and through the Rose of Sharon. I love its’ serendipitous nature. I do, but at times, it’s too much.

I was afraid I wouldn’t get even one start of my Heavenly Blue coming and until just a few weeks ago, I was certain the vine by the shed door would turn out to be another Grandpa Ott. Oh, I planted Heavenly Blue seed there, but far too often, I’ve ended up with dark purple flowers where I envisioned sky blue. And there really is nothing to compare the impact of those satin-blue palm-sized blossoms—like pieces of sky twining on the shed trellis.

The blooms are so fleeting. Each bloom only lasts a day and the plant flowers so late I always feel the need to capture the glory with a camera. I gaze at the silky flowers as storm winds toss their edges, knowing the coming rain will be their ruin.

I’ve tried to preserve the blossoms by pressing them in my flower press, but the results are disappointing. I’ve tried to plant seed indoors so the starts are ahead of the game by the time the night temperatures are to their liking. That, too, has had mixed results.

The Morning Glory show is so welcome, so worth the wait. The rest of the garden looks tattered and shabby. Mildew has muted the zinnias. Petunias are tired. The vegetable garden has wound down which makes for some interesting vegetable heavy meals. I don’t mind, at all. Well, a bit, as I’m an elk-hunting widow this week and I can’t possible eat all the vegetables the garden is still producing. Fall lettuce is coming on, late radishes and green onions make for a great salad when I add homegrown grape tomatoes and olives.

Zucchini is wonderful sautéed with garlic and olive oil. Broccoli is at its’ best, steamed with brown butter sauce drizzled on it. And my favorite lunches is tomato salad made with sliced grape tomatoes, sliced string cheese, green onions with Italian dressing and French bread. Sometimes, I add sliced olives to the salad and toast a slice of French bread under the broiler with any cheese I have on hand on the top. A simple feast that eaten at my desk as I take advantage of the quiet. I hope to get tons of writing done.

Yet, this morning Heavenly Blue Morning Glory pulled me outside, whispering of poems and coming rain. Worse, whispering of coming winter. So, I savored.

Retreat, Recharge, Relax

I’m back from a retreat, of sorts. A short four-day camping/fishing trip to the high Uintahs. Autumn was but a whisper, as we entered the mountains. Minor splashes of pale tangerine and amber among the willows marking the creek, hints of straw yellow scattered through the aspens, wine red and crimson in the maples. When we were there in June, the snow still capped the high peaks, but it was long gone and vegetation looked dry, but wild asters bloomed pale lavender and the wild roses sported poppy-colored hips as big as my thumb.

It had been a particular tough month and I looked forward to a rest, but I wanted to do some writing work of some kind. My thought was to work on hunting for poems. The camping trips feed the poetry and I needed a break from editing. I didn’t spend much time with that, but I came home feeling a bit rested, with photos and ideas. I consider that a success, given how I work a nd how this last few years have gone.

I do a lot of what I call paper thinking. Writing down doodle words, hunting up words that relate to a poem idea, or even a scene, that I’m not getting crisp enough. The paper thinking helps me. Gets my mind loosened up, my mind wandering, or maybe, analyzing. I’ve done this from the beginning, as a eight-year-old. Yet, all these years later, I forget and start writing like a person walking up hill with all the determination of a angry bear.

I have to remember to stop pushing so hard. Hanna Nyala said it best in Leave No Trace: Keep your nose over your toes. Don’t get your head to far out in front. It puts you out of balance and wears you down. But when I’m focused on the finish I tend to do that, forgetting to enjoy the work (‘cause I do). I forget and get too hard on myself.

I did a little paper thinking while there, along with extra sleep, a break from caring for an elderly parent, photos of wonderful scenery. Although with all the photos I took, I got nothing of the autumn color. Instead, I ended up with a lot of pictures of sunsets. The skies were overwhelming and for some reason spoke to me this trip. It seems so cliche, but I'm trying to trust that I have a reason that I needed pictures of skies at sunset.

We spent several hours one evening on a knoll in the middle of the forest, listening for elk. We were a bit too early in the season, but the silent hours, wind in the aspen (we could hear it coming from three canyons over), the distant thunder, the short bursts of rain fed me just what I needed.

We travel a seventeen-mile dirt (washboard) road to get to the campground. This year we were surprised. The first half of the road had been blacktopped. It made for a smoother, faster drive in. The downside may be more people in the campgrounds, less wildlife. We have enjoyed solitary camping in previous years. We’re not unfriendly, but we do like getting away.

I'm glad to be back and back to writing. I think I needed the break. I think I need to get back to work.

Write What You Know

One of the first instructions given to writers is to write what you know. Most of us know much more than we think. This is what I know:

I’ve spent the last two years thinking about my experiences. About what I’ve done, what I’ve learned. About my teachers.

I took my first writing class in the sixth grade from Mrs. Mildon. She taught me how to see things, she taught me empathy, she taught me another way to read and though I already loved books and reading, she taught me another dimension of reading. How to study a book. She taught courage and how to stand up to things that knock you down.

She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1963, in the middle of the school year. We had to cut the writing class short, but she kept on teaching for several years, missing few days, despite the cruelty of treatment back then. Teaching meant everything to her and she showed me just how to honor what you love.

She taught the students in her creative writing class many basic writing skills but first and foremost, she taught us to be true. True to our writing.

Her words:
· Beauty and sharpness of expression, yes, but sincerity first.
· We work for sincere, meaningful descriptive writing
· And her most repeated: Give your words wings—but remember: “I’ll never write a line I have not heard in my own heart. —Rostand

Reading and writing are cornerstones of who I am. My most lasting memories are of my parents reading to me—at bedtime, while braiding my hair, at lunchtime.

I talked early (according to my sister, I never shut up). Words are a security blanket comforting, real, understood. If I want to learn how to do something, I need the written instructions sets it in my head best.

I like words straightforward and simple. I like them turned on their ear and played with. I love playing word games. I love rolling words on my tongue just to try out their music. Words have lead me to and through many things. It is how I see the world. It’s how I navigate the potholes of my life.

I always thought I was destined to be a writer and have thought so since I first took up a pencil. Self-published (I was ahead of my time), at seven. I sold short stories, mostly western historical, (horses played a prominent role, of course), to my mother for a nickel. (A Butterfinger cost a nickel. See where I was going with my pricing? As you can see, I’m also an avid chocolaholic.) I tried selling stories door to door. That didn’t go over very well, but I could always count on my mom to buy my latest work.

More recently, I’ve had short stories and essays published in national magazines, wrote an inspirational column for URWA for four years, won several poetry contests. I also have a drawer full of unpublished work. Tons of poems, short stories, essays, plus nine novels. I admit, some probably shouldn’t see the light of day but some should.

I’m owned by two cats (Zoie and Maddie Rose) and master to no one but my dog. (and L.E. ( my dog) might dispute that) As of this moment, I have been owned by eleven cats and have owned nine dogs.

I’ve waited up all night, heart in my throat for a new teenager driver to come home and held many a dinner for a hard-working husband. I’ve been a grieving daughter, an angry wife, a frustrated mother.

I’ve been a baby, a fey child, a tomboy, a little sister, a daughter, a girlfriend. I was a daddy’s girl, a rebellious daughter, a flower child, a straight-A student. A high school newspaper reporter and a poet. I’ve been an introvert, an awkward daughter-in-law with her foot in her mouth. A carhop, a pet-shop worker, a dog groomer, a dog obedience instructor, a bookkeeper, a bride and pregnant.

I’ve been a vegetable gardener, flower gardener, home-canner, seamstress, crocheter, knitter, quilter, cross-stitcher, decorator. A movie-theater custodian, a PTA mom and the proud mother of graduates, grooms, and adult children. I’ve been a soccer mom, a t-ball mom, a neighborhood chauffeur and a salesperson. A supply clerk, building contractor, designer, cook, columnist, member of the RWA and URWA, grandma and the primary-care giver to an elder breast cancer survivor. And a friend to many, I hope.

I’ve survived childhood, the 60’s, Mr. Hansen’s current events class, dating, marriage, motherhood, sister-in-laws, mother-in-laws, daughter-in-laws, grandparenting, aging, illness, more than one recession, lost jobs, lost hope, downturns, upturns and everything in between. Survived three broken arms (not my own), chicken pox, measles (both kinds), mastitis, gout, anemia, rickets and MPGN. Survived childbirth, a D and C, a hysterectomy, a colonoscopy, an upper GI, a CAT scan, a cystoscope and a kidney biopsy. Car accidents, a broken tailbone, heartache, headache, laughter, tears, and despair. I’ve done emergency care for cuts, rebar speared through a child’s leg, more than one head trauma, blood infections, HS purpura, a Woolly monkey, and a hit-and-run cat. Lived through countless sleepless nights, police calls, loneliness, blame, abandonment, over-whelming chaos and peace.

I’ve been animal-crazy, horse-crazy, boy-crazy, baby-crazy, Beatles-crazy (watched ‘Help’ nine times in one day), Neil Diamond-crazy, Kojak-crazy (don’t ask), Magnum PI-crazy. And just plain crazy.

Been too thin, too fat, on a diet, off a diet, healthy, sick, and just right.

I’ve worn sun-dresses, poodle skirts, love beads, bell bottoms. Maternity smocks, pantsuits and holey Levis. Mommy jeans, mini-skirts, granny skirts, straight leg, peg leg, flare leg, tapered leg. Round toe, square toe, pointed toe. I’ve had curls, braids, ironed waist-long hair, bleached-out hair, ratted hair, neck-length hair, perms, balding hair and graying hair.

I’ve killed and dressed chicken, ducks and doves, helped cut up deer, elk and bear, watched cockfights, dogfights, girl fights and caught craw daddies, minnows, trout and worms. I’ve shot a rifle, revolver, Saturday Night Special, muzzleloader, slingshot, bow and arrow and the bull.

I’ve saved a hummingbird, a life, pennies, S & H green stamps, Gold Strike stamps, coupons, memories, books and I hope, my friends, and myself. I’ve fried and eaten grasshoppers; dug a hole to China (didn’t make it), raised puppies, guppies, angelfish, cat-faced spiders, ants and boys. Rode horses, been thrown. Got back on. Rescued ducks, dogs, cats, lost horses and lost wallets. Moved a mountain of mud with a shovel, a heart to tears, and three children out of the house.

I’ve been to court, to prison, to a mental hospital, seen the original Beach Boys in concert, hiked the high Uintahs, lived in small town USA all my life. I’ve shucked corn, snipped beans, dug potatoes, and picked peaches, raspberries, strawberries and a husband. I’ve cut asparagus, firewood, a path through a forest and a rug. I’ve made my own ice cream, root beer, pickles, Levi’s, sweaters, rugs, quilts, afghans, samplers, rules and way.

I’ve collected bugs, antiques, precious moments (figurines and minutes), old bottles, galvanized watering cans, aluminum cans (since the 70’s), newspapers, thimbles, all things Gone With The Wind, Rod McKuen poems, stamps, pictures, poems, ink bottles, paper weights, pens, blank notebooks, books, quotes, skeleton keys, milk glass salt and pepper shakers and random thoughts.

I’ve been loved, hated, praised, criticized, spit on, thrown up on, ignored, groped, pinched, broke, fixed, dropped, picked up, kissed, slapped, spoiled, scolded, heart-broke, adrift, depressed, exalted, forsaken and happy.

I’ve planted, sowed, buried, raked, mowed, leveled, tilled, shoveled, hoed, tamped. I’ve turned, fed and talked dirt.

I’ve loved and cared for fish, piranha, horses, dogs, cats, raccoons, skunks, squirrels, chipmunk, rabbits, chickens, ducks, tortoise, snakes, iguana, ant farms, sea monkeys, caterpillar, babies, friends, father, mother, grandmother, Woolly monkeys, squirrel monkeys, Capuchin monkeys, canaries, pigeons, parrots, mice, hamsters and tarantula’s. I’ve been dog bit, snake bit, horse bit, love bit, tick bit.

I’ve watched a man walk on the moon, the Challenger crash, 9/11, the Twin Towers fall, peace riots, race riots, my kids grow into adults right under my nose, pets live and die, money come and go.

I’ve fought global warming, gas shortages (more than once,) empty pockets and depression. Boycotted meat prices, the Vietnam War, and apartheid. I remember jacks, jump rope, Drive-in movies, I Love Lucy, the Mouseketeers, Spin and Marty, That Girl, Bewitched, pony-tail Barbie, Betsy McCall dolls, American Bandstand, leather jackets, duck tails, party lines, hula-hoops, mustang 64 ½ , a robin’s egg blue pink polka-dot beetle (it was the 60s), vinyl records, ’45’s, swine flu(twice), skate keys, skateboards(the first time around), Look and Life magazine, racial riots, Elvis and the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show, the assignations of the Kennedy’s and Martin Luther King.

I’ve read, watched, wept, written, succeeded, failed, failed again, failed big, tried, given up, started over, started over again. I’ve fed the hungry, helped the illiterate, housed the homeless, been robbed, been helped. I’ve lived, thought I’d die. I am, in some way, like all of you.
These are the things I know. These are the things I write about. Make your own list. Update it as you go. It makes you think. It makes you sad, glad, mad and proud.

And remember this: Through it all, two things never failed me—reading and writing.

In other words—words.

Seasoning

I’m not sure why, but this pass through my novel has opened my eyes. Maybe, it was the long break between the last edit and this one. Maybe, that time gave me a better distance. I don’t know. It only seems I have a better grasp on what story I’m trying to tell.

It would be such a blessing if the two years I’ve spent not working on my novels, gave me something. I felt I lost so much. Time, mostly. It haunts me. Though I wasn’t working on my novel writing, I wasn’t idle. I read, a ton.

I took my trusty Writer’s Digest and the Writer with me to every damned doctors’ appointment. It was a way to cope with the whole situation. A situation I just hated. Oh, anyone would, but I have this terrible anxiety around doctors. I think it stems from childhood and when my Uncle Bruce (MD) visited. My family acted like the KING was coming.

Anyway, I kept my nose in the magazine and tried to concentrate only on the articles, instead of the worry that didn’t help at all anyway. Sometimes—often, I came away not remembering one darn word, but sometimes there was this glimmer of insight. I think it was because I was trying so hard to focus.

Truthfully, I had a whole lot less focus what with everything that was going on at the time. As I said many times (too many, in my opinion) my mind wasn’t working well, especially while I was sickest or on the biggest doses of the prednisone. And I wonder (hope), too, if the whole journey gave me a different perspective.

Perspective is good. Looking back can give insight. And certainly, when you go through something you learn what is most important. People tend to forget that too fast. But trouble makes you grow, and growing seems to me to be all good for a writer.

When I could write again, I spent a lot of time floundering. I tried to write a memoir about the illness. I was just too close and too grateful to be getting better. Going back over it seemed counter to my determination to take Christopher Reeves’ advice: Go forward. Maybe that time for that memoir will come, but it isn’t yet.

I worked on poetry, did a few workshops I’d been wanting to do. I think some of my best poetry came out of that, but that wasn’t all I gained. I think the time working on poetry gave my writing something that had been lacking for some time. A depth and a way of looking at each word. I got invaluable, insightful critiques from my instructor, too. Something I don’t have enough access to.

I have always gone back to poetry when I struggle with my writing. It has always helped. This time, I was more open to each lesson. A perfect case of: When the student is ready, the teacher will come. What’s more, each critique helped me analyze all my writing in a different way. That’s good for all my writing.

I have a theory: God or the Universe (or whatever you believe in,) gives you what you need. It’s the figuring out what that lesson is, that’s toughest.

Puts me in mind of a quote I’ve saved from years ago (I’m a quote collector, much like an inkbottle, paperweight, vase, pen collector) A ship is safe in the harbor, but that’s not what ships are built for.

The ocean is a big dangerous place and, for certain, even if nothing bad happens, there is going to be some wear and tear. That ship won’t be as spiffy when it gets back from across the sea, as it was when it left. It will have tales to tell. It has been seasoned. It will never be pristine again, but it will be experienced.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’d rather ride in a ship that’s crossed the ocean and come back safe, than a ship that’s stayed in the harbor.

Setting Again:

I’m just back from a much-needed vacation, doing nothing much more than eating, napping, reading, shooting (yep, shooting) and enjoying nature. As I’ve been in the frame of mind of setting, here I was in a setting that…forms a great deal of warp and weave to the tapestry of my life. Our family has been vacationing to the Uintah Mountains since before it was a family. This place is part of my husband’s family history. Not so much mine, but I was introduced with complete awareness to the importance of that, (Maybe, not complete) and, after some difficulty (on my part mostly) I have come to love the area.

(This is Smitty's Basin where an old sawmill use to be.)

It didn’t come over night, though. That love. First, I am a secret obsessive compulsive. Secret because I try to hide and fight the worst of it. Second, after the first two introductions: I got carsick driving over the seventeen-mile dirt road. (At that time, most likely more than seventeen… I never got carsick except when my father drove), I fell off my horse when it jumped an unexpected ravine ( yes, I got back on. I had to. The poor horse looked embarrassed for me), I didn’t go back until I brought with me, my first and second born. Now, being obsessive compulsive and an overprotective mom to boot, the place felt like the farthest wilderness. What the hell was I doing there?

Rough terrain, dark forests, a night sky so deep with stars so bright, elk, deer, bear and…WOODTICKS. The Amazon. Foreign, frightening. I was way out of my comfort zone. I was an alien in a strange world. I wanted nothing more than to go home. I was Dorothy and there was no fake wizard, no balloon.

And… I had history with WOODTICKS.

Setting, the way character reacts to setting and emotion.

My shooting started out as research. As a writer of western historical, I wanted to learn a little about shooting a pistol. I had passed a NRA class many years before. I knew how to shoot a rifle, could look up what I needed as far as parts of a revolver, the mechanics and such, but I wanted to know how hard it was to be accurate, what it felt like to hold the pistol in an outstretched arm and sight down the shorter barrel.

I love to shoot as long as it’s a paper target or soda can. I love the smell of gunpowder, the smoke rising from the barrel, the ricocheting sound off canyon walls, the kick of a gun.

I love fishing. I’m just not all that fond of catching. But I had three boys and learned to help them take fish off the hook, fill a bobber with water from the lake, catch and release, restring a fishing pole, untangle a line, retie on a proper fly. Yes, sometime, in some story I write I will use every bit of it.

Aren’t we lucky, us writers? No better way to stay curious and young.

(The big fish is mine.)