~ Telling the Truth, Mainly
Author Patricia Deuson will be here tomorrow to talk about her new mystery novel, Superior Longing, which comes out September 15, 2011.
Pat and I have been online friends for several years through the Sisters in Crime Guppies. Tomorrow will be an exciting day for her, and I’m honored she’s sharing that excitement with me and the friends of To Write Is to Write Is to Write.
I hope you’ll visit, read about Superior Longing, and leave Pat a question or comment.
Remembering 9/11, I share this essay by Roger Rosenblatt: “Ground Zero: Build a Monument with Words”
Panic. Away from home. Unable to access Internet from laptop, where e-mail password is stored in browser. Unable to access e-mail from borrowed desktop because e-mail provider will not accept passwords.
Oh, it’s not that bad. I can’t get to my e-mail from the desktop at home either. Should have done something about that ages ago but just let it ride. Will think about it tomorrow.
I’m visiting with my cousin MV. She’s the oldest of seven cousins. I’m the youngest of the bunch.
I must say she has improved with age. She’s not nearly so bossy now that we are both senior citizens.
MV’s first baby was born when I was ten years old. Six weeks later, I spent a week with her family. I wagged Baby around as if he were a doll.
I was very good at it, if I do say so myself, but it has since occurred to me that MV was either very brave or very crazy. I had neither experience nor character references.
Or maybe she was just crazy like a fox. I changed a lot of diapers that week.
The baby is now on his own way to senior citizenhood, as is his little brother, who also survived my handling.
In fact, it won’t be too long before they start getting mail from AARP. I don’t know whether they realize this. I was surprised and a bit insulted when I got my invitation to join up.
Because I’m convinced all seven of us are still as young and cute as we were the Christmas our picture was taken.
After yesterday waiting for the plumber, plus today waiting for the doctor, plus anticipation of tomorrow again waiting for the plumber, I have run out of steam. I therefore turn the blog over to the greatest American poet.
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September’s Baccalaureate
A combination is
Of Crickets—Crows—and Retrospects
And a dissembling Breeze
That hints without assuming–
An Innuendo sear
That makes the Heart put up its Fun
And turn Philosopher.
~ Emily Dickinson
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I just skimmed “A Valentine to Emily Dickinson Fans,” (link below), and found, not a Valentine, but a reference to “America’s greatest female poet,” and, though bone-tired, I must comment. That phrase appears in the introduction to the article, not in the article itself, so I don’t hold the author responsible (unless he says the same thing in his book). But really, we have been over this before. This is 2011, well past the time for praise qualified by gender. Do we see Walt Whitman called “America’s greatest male poet?” Or Shakespeare called “England’s greatest male dramatist?” We do not. If Dickinson is America’s greatest poet, as, of course, she is, say that. If she’s simply a great American poet, say that. If she’s second to Whitman (or whomever) in greatness, say that. But stop using the qualifier. Because I will see it, and I will continue to protest.
*****
Image by HouseOfScandal at en.wikipedia (Transferred from en.wikipedia) [Public domain], from
As part of Rachael Harrie’s Platform-Building Campaign, I’m posting ten random things about myself.
1. Maggie Smith is my favorite actress.
2. I’ve taken lessons in classical voice and bellydancing.
3. I like cold, wet weather.
4. I’ve been driving since I was ten years old.
5. I’ve never seen Fantasia.
6. I found my lost flash drive under the refrigerator. (Cat)
7. I want to visit Machu Picchu.
8. I own a 1942 weapons carrier.
9. I would rather have watermelon than chocolate.
10. I would like to live in England.
The end.
The first Campaign challenge has been announced: flash fiction, 200-word maximum.
Image of Machu Picchu by Allard Schmidt (The Netherlands) (Own work) [Public domain, GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons
***Less than 2 hours left. Read on immediately.***
I never saw a project I wouldn’t raise my hand and volunteer for.
That’s how I became editor of HoTXSinC’s newsletter, HOTSHOTS!
The official story is that Sylvia Dickey Smith forced the job on me. It’s true she gave me several long, hard looks, and we were sitting in church at the time, and that’s a lot of pressure for a sensitive soul such as I to endure.
But Sylvia didn’t make me do anything. The little imp that resides in the back of my mind leaned forward and hissed, “It might be fun.” And I agreed and raised my hand.
I might as well admit I like the job. It’s grown on me.
Volunteering is also how I got into A Round of Words in 80 Days. I’ve forgotten how I found the blog, but the minute I saw it, that imp emerged again, and I signed on to set goals and to post my progress twice a week. Lately, twice has been a relative term—I sometimes get my days mixed up—but I’m still in the fray. Because it looked like fun.
Then, just minutes ago, I clicked over to Totsymae‘s blog, and what did I find? A paragraph about, and a link to, Third Writers’ Platform-Building Campaign.
According to Totsymae, if I join, I might get some notoriety.
Notoriety has never been at the top of my list, but ever since I saw that movie, Cary Grant has been. If there’s even a chance that someone Cary Grant-ish might happen by, I’m in with all four feet.
Further, says Totsymae, “You’ll also get a chance to meet like-minded folk, and that’s always fun, interesting or tiresome, depending on how you feel about yourself and which sides you’re liking or disliking on a given day.”
Note the word fun. I was on it like a duck on a Junebug.
(Not that I didn’t see interesting or tiresome, which I take to mean I might have to settle for Claude Rains, but that’s okay, because I think he’s cute, too.)
Anyway—even though I don’t really approve of the word platform as it applies to writers, platform being something of which there are three in The Scarlett Letter—I’m doing the same old thing, voluntarily latching on to one more project.
Blogging about the Third Writers’ Platform-Building Campaign is step #3 in the latching-on process. Including a link is step #3.1.
In step #3.2, I’m supposed to encourage my followers to join the Campaign. So consider yourself encouraged. But that’s all. I’m not going to force anybody.
This could be fun, interesting, or tiresome, or you might come out on October 1 with who-knows-what kind of reputation.
But you will build your platform on a strictly voluntary basis.
A friend pointed out to me this morning that I made a mistake in a recent post.
A mistake?
Moi?
Oh, yeah. Writing about The Help, I got the author’s name wrong. She’s Kathryn Stockett (not Karen).
Names are important. That’s an error I really didn’t want hanging around on the web for the rest of the millennium.
So many thanks to my friend for bringing it to my attention.
Said friend, whose name is Nita Lou Bryant, and I have been reading each other’s stuff, off and on, for six years now. We met in a workshop sponsored by the Writers’ League of Texas. Nita’s writing has won several awards, including the WLT Novel Manuscript Contest and the Mozelle Memoir Contest. Her work has also been published in the Austin American-Statesman.
Now Nita is exploring other aspects of her creativity at Sedbi Design Studio. Among her creations so far are scarves, camisoles, purses, pillows, wall hangings, Fabricollages, Fabricards, even a Fabrimandala. Her portfolio appears on video at her website.
But for a closer look—and for the adventures behind the art—visit her blog, Studio Nita Lou.
Because Nita still makes fine art with words.
A pleasing development: Story Circle Network has awarded a star to To write is to write is to write.
Story Circle Network is a nonprofit organization “dedicated to helping women share the stories of their lives and to raising public awareness of the importance of women’s personal histories.” It sponsors publications, workshops, writing contests, reading circles, writing circles, and other programs, many of them online. There are SCN chapters worldwide.
Membership is open to all women who have stories to share. No writing experience is necessary–just the desire to record life experience and to read about the experiences of others.
Over one hundred SCN members are bloggers. For a list and links, click here.
We write to make
suffering endurable,
evil intelligible,
justice desirable
and
love possible.
My Crock-pot and I have just produced an absolute travesty of a pot roast.
No details. The experience is still too painful to discuss.
The short story course I’m taking online began today with a lecture regarding structure, followed by a brief exercise. So far, instructor Kaye George has managed to tear me away from Hamlet and set me on the road to genre fiction. Thank goodness.
Since yesterday’s post, I’ve been thinking more about retro words and phrases that must be saved. One that comes to mind is dreckly.
When my mother said, “Stay right here. I’ll be back dreckly,” my six-year-old cousin, a California native, asked me how long that would be. I was six as well, and I’d never thought about it. We worked out that dreckly probably meant ten minutes.
I thought we were the only ones who said dreckly, so at the age of thirteen, I was surprised to discover Scarlett O’Hara saying it. Margaret Mitchell, or perhaps her editor, spelled it terreckly, I believe.
That was about the time I realized the word was a mangled version of directly. Quite an epiphany.
I count myself fortunate to have lived among people whose language strayed outside the bounds of Merriam-Webster. I also appreciate having known people whose lives reached so far back in time.
Ethel Waller, my father’s aunt, once traveled with Cousin Tom McKenzie from Fentress to Fort Stockton, 365 miles, riding on a buckboard. That fact has always fascinated me, not just because of the means of transportation and the distance covered, but because someone I knew made that trip.
My grandfather knew an old man who, when he was a boy, saw General Robert E. Lee sitting astride Traveler. Dad told me that when I was ten. He didn’t have to emphasize its importance. We were Southerners. Knowing someone who knew someone who saw Robert E. Lee was a very big deal. Having that connection to Traveler was an even bigger deal.
Years ago I heard a scrap of a program on NPR about—I’ve forgotten exactly how it was, but it went something like this: Alice Roosevelt Longworth employed a gardener whose father knew George Washington.
That’s not even six degrees of separation. And consider the span. Washington was born in 1731. Alice Longworth died in 1980.
Taking my cue from Mrs. Longworth, I worked out how far and wide I could range. It’s a fun game to play.
My grandfather, Frank Waller, knew someone who saw, or for my purposes, knew, Robert E. Lee. General Lee married Anna Mary Custis, who was great-granddaughter to Martha Washington, who was married to George, who knew John Adams, who was married to Abigail Adams…
I could go in another direction, to Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson, perhaps, and come out who knows where, but Abigail Adams makes a fine journey’s end. (If only the Founding Fathers had listened to her.)
On the other side of my family—my grandmother, Mary Veazey Barrow, was kissed by President William McKinley (that’s another story), and President McKinley knew Theodore Roosevelt, and Theodore Roosevelt was uncle to Eleanor Roosevelt (another sensible woman), and Eleanor (aside from being married to Franklin) knew Winston Churchill, and Winston Churchill knew King George VI, who knew King George V, who knew Queen Victoria, who knighted Sir Arthur Sullivan (although she was probably not amused), who knew William Gilbert.
As in the previous case, if I were to branch off in other directions, I could bring in Lawrence of Arabia, Disraeli, Tsar Nicholas II, Rasputin…
But if I have my druthers, I’ll stick with Gilbert. Not a charming man, I’ve read…
To sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock,
In a pestilential prison, with a life-long lock,
Awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp shock,
From a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block!
But he had a way with words.
I have no business being awake this late—early, rather—because Wednesday will be a most taxing day: Kaye George, author of Choke: An Imogene Duckworthy Mystery, will teach me everything I need to know about writing the short story.
Actually, it’s going to take her four days to teach me. Kaye knows a lot, and I’m a bit slow on the uptake. Combined, those conditions require extra time.
The only reason I’m still awake is that on the way home from Austin Mystery Writers critique group, I shopped for groceries. Then, after putting them away, I had to sit down and cool off before preparing for bed. Showering while you’re still sweating like a mule is not productive.
(I apologize for the indelicacy of the previous remark, but when the thermometer reads 90 degrees after midnight, there’s no sense in mincing words.)
And then I checked my e-mail, and the rest is history.
Anyway, before I retire, I want to mention that yesterday, The Daily Post listed “Ten Important Things I’ve Learned about Blogging.” It’s a good list, and I’m especially taken with #6: “Bring back retro phrases like hanky-panky.
I’m going to bring back three retro phrases right now:
ice box
car house
light bread
I consider those three even more important than mulomedic (see Endangered and Underused Words), because people I loved said them, and now no one I know says them at all.
I don’t remember anyone in my old circle saying much about hanky-panky, but my mother occasionally referred to necking.
How much help I can give that phrase is debatable. It’s kind of specialized.
I will, however, do my best.
A further note on light bread: When I was a child, Mrs. Baird’s bread wasn’t available where my family lived, but it was sold sixty miles away, in San Antonio, where my grandmother lived. My father, a bread connoisseur, occasionally mentioned to my mother, “the bread your mama buys.” He always sounded slightly wistful. We had to do with Rainbow or Butterkrust, good enough bread, but no match for Mrs. Baird’s. The links below to two articles about Mrs. Baird’s bread appear here as a nod to that pleasant memory.
Image by Ddgonzal (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Kate Shrewsday blogs at http://kateshrewsday.wordpress.com. She has recently become part of the UK’s Huffington Post blogging team.
Her posts are interesting, entertaining, thought-provoking, always witty. She ranges widely in choice of topic: family, pets, art, science, history, philosophy, sports, vacuum cleaners.
Kate’s special talent is the ability to make connections: What does Greek mythology have to do with quantum physics? Read “The Pandora/Shrodinger Paradigm” and find out.
While you’re there, rummage around. Take particular care to read the posts about her dog, Macaulay, who looks just like my Tramp.
Furthermore—and this is important—seek her out on Huffington Post UK. Here’s a link to her page: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kate-shrewsday
And after reading, take time to comment, or like, or tweet, or something.
We know Kate is an extraordinary writer. We should let HP know that we know it.
Here are links to other of Kate’s posts I’ve enjoyed, including several about Macaulay.
FTC Disclaimer: This post appears as a favor to my readers. Kate had no idea I was posting it, and she may not know to this very day. Consequently, nothing she has said or done, or could say or do, has influenced what I have written. Inclusion of this disclaimer may not be necessary here—that rule may apply only to reviews of books and not of blogs—to stay on the good side of the Federal Trade Commission, I’ll gladly write the extra paragraph.
| Allegory of Vanity–Pandora media file is in the public domain in the United States. This applies to U.S. works where the copyright has expired, often because its first publication occurred prior to January 1, 1923. See this page for further explanation.
|
A writer friend e-mailed that her novel has been rejected for publication.
The editor declining the manuscript wrote a personal letter explaining the reason for rejection. The editor also encouraged the writer to query again when her next manuscript is complete.
That’s a good rejection. Not so good as the one quoted above, but better than a standard form letter—”Your manuscript does not suit our needs at this time”—which leaves the writer without a clue.
Is it the quality of the writing? The subject? A poorly developed plot? Too much graphic violence? Not enough graphic violence? Overuse of dialect? A boring first line? A typo on page 3?
Or that the manuscript really didn’t suit the publisher’s needs at that time?
The truth may hurt, but it at least leaves you knowing where you stand. And possibly the direction in which you should go.
I’ve heard that in the context of submission and publication, rejection isn’t an appropriate term. Editors who reject manuscripts are really bowing out and allowing other editors the opportunity to accept.
To me, that’s a bit like calling a scheduled test date Opportunity Day. But whatever works…
I haven’t received many rejections, not because my submissions for publication are universally accepted, but because I haven’t done much submitting. There are several reasons for that, among them that I haven’t written much short fiction and I haven’t completed a novel, so I’ve had little to submit. I’m working to rectify that.
If I’m successful, by this time next year, I’ll have rejection slips all over the place.
Every writer—and that includes all of us, not just those who’ve been published—has read about authors who have received negative word from editors before finally reaching print. Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time was turned down by twenty-six publishers. J. K. Rowling received a dozen rejections for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies was rejected twenty times.
Sometimes, editors’ comments stray into the personal.
On Rudyard Kipling: “I’m sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.”
On William Faulkner’s Sanctuary: “Good God, I can’t publish this.”
The Help, Kathryn Stockett’s bestselling novel, was rejected sixty times before a publisher picked it up. Acceptance came after five years of writing and three and a half years of rejection. The movie adaptation of the book is slated for release this week.
“…I can’t tell you how to succeed,” says Stockett to others aspiring to see their works in print. “But,” she continues,
I can tell you how not to: Give in to the shame of being rejected and put your manuscript—or painting, song, voice, dance moves, [insert passion here]—in the coffin that is your bedside drawer and close it for good. I guarantee you that it won’t take you anywhere. Or you could do what this writer did: Give in to your obsession instead.
Stockett racked up rejections because she was industrious enough, and brave enough, to put her work out there.
Instead of invoking the Muse, I’m going to start invoking Stockett. First thing tomorrow, I’ll print out her picture, clip it, and tape it to my monitor. When I’m working–or not–hers is the face I need to see; hers is the voice I need to hear.
She sights a Bird – she chuckles –
She flattens – then she crawls –
She runs without the look of feet –
Her eyes increase to Balls –
Her Jaws stir – twitching – hungry –
Her Teeth can hardly stand –
She leaps, but Robin leaped the first –
Ah, Pussy, of the Sand –
The Hopes so juicy ripening –
You almost bathed your Tongue –
When Bliss disclosed a hundred Toes –
And fled with every one –
~ Emily Dickinson
*****
A fellow blogger introduced me to this poem. I would link to her blog but haven’t been able to find the post again. When I do, I’ll share.
On Sunday, I wrote on assignment: 100 words.
The assignment was extraordinary because someone asked me to write it.
People don’t often ask me to write. I usually ask myself, and then I either grant or refuse my own request.
If I want me to write a blog post, I write it.
If I want me to write something requiring effort, I make a list of all the housework I need to do, and then I sit down and start an old P. D. James mystery on Netflix and immerse myself in e-mail.
Or I take Ernest to the vet.
Never mind. That was last week. Monday has arrived, and with it new resolve.
Today: Draft new Molly scenes and send to critique group.
I’d like to add a sunny little punch line here. If one occurs to me later, I’ll add it.
Image by Dmgerman at en.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons
M. K. Waller 