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!

Poems and Books

My love affair with books began early. Sometimes I wonder if I was born loving books and the written word. In any case, I don’t think I could have escaped it in my family. My parents valued books. I don’t remember a time my mother and father weren’t reading books, magazines and the paper. Poems were, more often than not, our bedtime stories.

I learned very young that there was a world in books, a world where I not only belonged, but thrived. I was lucky enough to have teachers who not only taught the value of reading, but books. I remember the excitement of a new text book and how my teachers guided us through the first opening of those books. Carefully opening the front cover, turning a few pages and sliding my hand over the crisp page, the smell of new and ink and paper, repeating the action until the whole book had been seasoned for use.

I’ve never gotten over that experience. I love new books and find myself repeating the same careful ritual. You can’t do that with a Kindle or Nook. That’s not to say I don’t use those devices, just that the experience is…different. Still pleasing, but doesn’t quite touch the same memory buttons.

Books are very tactile for me. There is something tangible and real to the feel of a book in hand. Books are my obsession. I can’t pass a bookstore without taking, at least, one peek inside and then, like a drug, I end up buying and using. I love to read the blurbs and the first page to see if it interests me. I love the idea of being told a story. Frankly, it’s the same as finding a story in my writing. I can’t walk by old books at antique stores or flea markets, either.

Oh, now, there’s obsession. I could, if left on my own, riffle through every old box of books I see at the outdoor flea market here, spend hours in ideal book leafing, smelling, searching. The very best books are the ones I find that a previous reader wrote in the margins. Then, I have two stories in one book.

I’m so amazed at what I find, being sold for a song. I tote home (to my husband’s dismay) worn musty books to treasure. At his expected question, why? I answer with my thin, shabby answers: It’s Bambi, I loved it as a girl and now I have a copy. I’ve wanted to find this, I grew up on it. It goes with one I found last year and I must have the whole set.

I got the affliction from my father and I blame him, too. What can my husband say? He knows the soft achy part of my heart that’s missed my father, too long. There was always a second hand book place on my bed. Some book I fell in love with from the library, a poem book he thought I’d love. He haunted used book stores on his lunch hours.

When I was crazy about Rod McKuen and everything he wrote, he brought home Sonnets from the Portuguese and Emily Dickinson Love Poems. I never figured out if he was trying to pull me away from what he considered bad choices with ‘newfangled thinking or poetry style. He was from the school of Victorian poetry and did not appreciate free verse too much.

Whereas, though I studied and wrote traditional poetry, I embraced free verse, simply loved it. Even now that is my favorite, especially free verse that rhymes in unexpected places and ways.

Which brings me to a reminder: It is poetry month and Thursday is Poem in your Pocket Day. Celebrate National Poem in Your Pocket Day if you celebrate National Poetry Month no other way. Pick a poem, pocket it and carry it around with you all day, reread it or share it with others. Put a poem somewhere to be found.

Better yet, celebrate the month, buy a poem book and open it carefully, smell the newness, turn a few pages, slid your hand over the page crease, season that book, then enjoy

I’ve mentioned several times that I’ve been reading Writer’s Digest for years. Since the 1960’s, actually. Back then, my dad bought them for me, setting them on the bed before I got home from school. Sometimes though, he would take me to a tiny magazine and book store on Washington Blvd called Shirley’s, so I could browse.


I still remember the rows of magazines and books, the candy and gum tucked into cubbies in front of the cash register and the gold ornate cash register. I bought Writer’s Digest, the Writer and Seventeen magazine (Hey, I was a bit of a blue stocking, but I liked to be in style while I was doing it. Actually, I think my middle son pegged me right when he called me eccentric, but as a teen I don’t think that was the word used to describe me. Unique? Bohemian? Hippy?) along with a pack of Doublemint gum.


I’m a gum chewer, especially when I’m nervous, so as a teen I was always chewing gum. I still chew it when I’m driving or trying to pass on the candy, cookies, etc. That’s my diet-The Gum Diet.


It works, mostly, when there isn’t a chocolate chip cookie calling my name. So, as I was saying, I’ve been reading Writer’s Digest forever. There has always been something between the covers that speaks to me, helps me with some writing problem I’m struggling with. I’ve torn out articles for all these years and still have many of my favorites. A great many are being reprinted in the archived articles, too.


And I love old things, even, old magazines. If I find an old magazine at an antique store, from the period I’m writing about, I buy it and call it, research. Magazines are so revealing to time periods, clothing styles and descriptions, prices, attitudes and beliefs. Imagine how I felt when rifling through a stack of magazines at a recent antique fair finding an old May 1978 Writer’s Digest. I had to buy it. Then, with one thing and another, tucked it into my magazine rack in my office and forgot about it.


Well, I’m going through my files, magazines, books, and eliminating what I’m finished with or no longer need and came across the tattered Writer’s Digest. I spent an hour thumbing through it and reading several articles. How much has changed, how much hasn’t.


From the magazine: Quote: I have never thought of myself as a good writer. Anyone who wants reassurance of that should read one of my first drafts. But I’m one of the world’s great rewriters. —James Michener


Stamps were 13¢


Writer’s Bookshelf: Letters of E. B. White, edited by Dorothy L. Guth (Harper & Row), The Typwriter Guerrillas, by John C. Behrens (Nelson-Hall)


Lawrence Block wrote the Fiction column. It’s full of useful advice that still works.


Art Spikol wrote the Nonfiction column. Part of his article was telling the reader how to figure out word count an article, which cassette mini-recorder to buy, (the new Sony TC-56, $160-$175) and a discussion about using Mrs., Ms. or whether to reveal your gender when writing an editor.


Ads: Smith-Corona offering Correction Cartridge typing, The Institute of Children’s Literature was looking for people who want to earn money writing children’s stories, Vera Henry was one of 33 Writer’s Digest School instructors, you could save 10% on ribbons for IBM and other typewriters.


The Markets: Magazines: Cycle Times, Family Life Today, Southern Outdoors. Books: Aero Publishing, Avon Books, Harper and Row.


The back page announced: We type manuscripts, beneath some 35 addresses of typists for hire.


The trip back in time put a smile on my face and gave me a moment of reflection, too. The process hasn’t changed, not really. Back then, writers were looking for help getting an agent, finding ideas and inspiration, research advice and how-to books. Just like I am now.


The internet, writer’s magazines and writer’s workshops are full of talk about how difficult it is to get published these days, but getting that book from idea to novel is so much easier than it was. We have the help of the computer to get the writing down, edited and word count, we have the internet to keep us in touch with other writers so we are not so isolated (this is the double edge of too much temptation to waste valuable time, but in this case, dial back your attitude to 1978 for x-amount of hours. Use interruptions wisely, like wishes)


Writer’s Digest helps me, even 33 years later.

April is Poetry Month. Celebrate!

April is Poetry Month. Celebrate! Hey, it’s April. That means it’s Poetry Month. Isn’t that as good as a field of crocuses? Read a poem every day. It’s amazing what it can do for your writing, your mood and your soul.

Check out Academy of American Poets. Sign up for their Poem-a-Day. You can do that just for April is you want. And there’s an app for that. Check it all out here.

For today, the first day of Poem-A-Day. I got The Fish by Elizabeth Bishop and in the mail yesterday I received the National Poetry Month Poster. I hung it in my office to inspire me.

To Celebrate write just one haiku a day. Here's mine:
Wooden time-worn fence
turned silver.
Spring begins its echo.

Spring is really struggling to break through around here. I could let it pull me down—the snowy, gray days. By now, I’m just sick of the gray, blah days more than anything and the cold. Worse are those days when it’s impossible to walk outside. This spring has actually been worse for that than the whole of this winter.

The snow is a relief, in a way, at least compared to those sunless days and this morning, it was accompanied with thunder and lightning. Now, that’s more like it. As long as we have to suffer the snow, let’s have a little drama. Snowdrops, after struggling mightily the last few years have multiplied and made their show a few weeks ago, but they’re hanging in there. Kind of like scouts for the crocus, just now trying to brave the snow and wind.

At the start of last week my tiny mini Japanese iris made their quiet appearance, and as luck would have it, I actually got to catch them at their best. They are the sweetest flower, but so fleeting. I love the dark purple with their dots of yellow. More often than not though, I miss them. They are so early in the year I’m not even walking around my yard looking for spring yet, but this year, I picked a few and they lasted in my office several days.

The garlic is up. I’ve worried over them all winter. We tried a different location this year, of course, and I wasn’t at all certain they’d like it. This will be the third year I’ve planted garlic. Last year was such a success and a hoot. I planted Elephant garlic, the bulbs as big as softballs, but so easy to use I really wanted to plant more, but I also planted two other varieties—54 bulbs, in all.

But it’s the pansies and violas that lift my heart and mood. They make me smile. All winter long if the snow melts off of the lilac or Japanese maple garden, they’re ready and willing. They thrive with adversity. All I have to do is pinch off the snow-burned leaves or blooms and they send out new, eager sun-facing blossoms.

Last fall I picked the simple violas I remember from my childhood to plant there. We called them Johnny Jump-ups when we were kids, those common little purple and yellow blossoms.

I’ve had at least a few Johnny Jump-ups in my backyard every year, for much the same reason as my mother. A friend of my youngest son brought me a two-inch plant many, many years ago on Mother’s Day. They were giving the plants to the mother’s at church, but I wasn’t there. He thought I ought to have one.

Though I’m usually compulsive about dead-heading, I make sure I never pinch back all the seed-pods on these. I’ve put chicken noodle soup in the crockpot and last fall, I decided nothing would bring a smile faster than seeing Johnnie-Jump-Ups blooming in the front gardens.

Today as I watch fat, lazy snowflakes fall, smell the aroma of chicken broth and thyme, I’m so glad I filled my garden with those brave, sturdy flowers. They set a great example. The chicken soup won’t hurt, either.

Life knocks a man down and he gits up and it knocks him down agin….

What’s he to do when he gits knocked down? Why, take it for his share and go on. —

The Yearling, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, 1939

Nothing is Wasted

It’s easy, after all, not to be a writer.
Most people aren’t writers, and
very little harm comes to them.
-Julian Barnes

As you know, I’ve been editing. Not just my novel but my house. Particularly, my office. It’s been an enlightening, sad, frustrating work. Suffice to say, while I was working on getting better, a lot of things were forgotten, set aside, pushed aside, stuffed somewhere to deal with later and stacked.

As I mentioned before, in fact I’m afraid I’ve mentioned it ad nauseaum, one of the worst problems when my disease was raging was exhaustion, along with swollen, painful joints. I could barely tolerate food, which didn’t help my energy level, but does take off the weight. I don’t recommend that diet.

Getting dressed, taking care of my pets and plants (my babies) was as far as my energy went and because of the drugs I was on, my mind, once I was on the road to recovery, just didn’t track well. (You would not believe where I found what and some of my notes from that time…Yikes!)

Anyway, it’s taken two years to get to where I could—slowly—get through the tons of neglected papers and magazines. Then, there was all the short-circuited work I did before the illness. That was the tough part. To see work I had ready or almost ready to go out into the world is mentally discouraging. I know how hard it was to steal, squeeze, squirrel away the time to do the work and to see the plans I had ended prematurely, just felt like the last straw. Sometimes, it seemed such a waste.

But nothing is a waste. I truly believe that, but the purpose might have to change. It might end up being a learning piece of work, instead of a winning or earning thing, but my time will not be wasted. I will not let it. And it is up to me. First of all and most important, when I did the work I was doing something I love. That won’t change, no matter the outcome. Secondly, it may well still be used or turned into something else. That’s up to me, too.

That’s what happened with an essay I wrote before my illness. It was an essay very close to my heart, about an incident with my father. I submitted it to a few places with no success, but in my heart I knew it was meant for something, yet, my heart was so tied up in it. Still, I just felt it was good and needed to be out in the world, but I never got the chance to resubmit.

When I finally started writing again, the essay haunted me. I really needed to send it out, but just didn’t feel I could edit and improve it, yet. Then I started the poetry workshops. The subject of the essay was perfect for one of the assignments. I worked this new angle, with new perspective, new form, new frame of mine. Vintage Dust was written.

One could say, my goodness, it only got 15th place, but I say someone else related to it, took meaning from it. Who knows how many others tried and didn’t get 15th place. I imagine if my father knew (and I think he does) he’d be proud of me and proud to be a part of my tiny success, too.

Color me, Pink

I’ve spent the last 18 hours

doing the Snoopy dance.

First, I was able to work for a while in the yard. The sun, so warm I didn’t need my garden jacket. I feel much like a bear, coming out of the cave after a long hibernation.

And then, I was informed yesterday that I won 15th place in the 6th annual Writer’s Digest Poetry Awards for Vintage Dust. At first I thought, 15th? Then I got thinking that there were a lot of entries that didn’t win. I would be tickled, if not pink, purple, and not so much pat myself on the back but say to me, good job.

So I e-mailed a copy to Writer’s Digest, as they told me to do, so they could publish it in the Competition Collection, which is better than the letter, certificate and $50 in Writer Digest Books. When I checked back later to see if I sent it correctly, (I’m notorious at doing dumb things when I e-mail) there was another e-mail informing me, I also, won 4th place for Spider Silk.

Well, tickle me pink, all right. Fourth, almost in the running. A$25 dollar check, the Poet Market 2011 and another poem published. Even, my name in the July/Aug Writer’s Digest.

Be it jewel or toy,
Not the prize gives the joy,
But the striving to win the prize.
Pisistratus Caxton, The Boatman