In Touch with the Spirits

Yes, it is only a week until Halloween. I attended Bouchercon and have had a continuing stream of guests since then. Hence there has been no entries to my blog.

The mystery conference was thought provoking and fun. The company who came were even more enjoyable. Many of them were friends of many years, one we've known since our college years, and the reunions were special. It always amazes me how you can pick up where you left off with long time friends, even if you haven't been together for years. Such were the visits with these people.

Now I am back to writing, full of stories in need of telling. The spirits of the muses are presenting themselves in large numbers. You'd think it was All Hallows Eve today.

STRING WEAVERS, which has been with a publisher for nearly five months for review, was recently rejected. Perhaps it is time to retire this book, but before I do, I am sending it to a writing competition in Alabama.

I continue to work on a new mystery in the Rorschach series. I hope to pitch it at the Northwest Carolina Writers' Conference in November.


I continue to be hopeful.

Getting ready for Bouchercon

I am so excited about going to St. Louis for Bouchercon, a mystery readers/writers' conference, next week. I love hearing other writers discuss their books and the writing process, but I also like being able to meet and discuss the publishing process with agents and editors. I am going with three other writers and we will discuss our books as we travel. It is an energizing time. I'll come back ready to write more and better.
In that vein, I have been rereading DON'T MURDER YOUR MYSTERY by Chris Roerden. It is the quintessential writer's Bible on how to write better. The wonderful thing about Chris's book is that it gives good examples to model. The right way to write becomes embedded in your subconscious. This is a great teaching technique and Chris uses it with acumen. 

End of the Month/End of the Summer

I know that summer officially ends on September 21 or there about, but really it ends the day after Labor Day. Labor Day is a week from today so we are unofficially at the end of summer. It has been a busy one, a good one. We attended a sweet wedding in Birmingham, I traveled and was with friends and all four of our children, not all at once. Mandy and Lucy and Jack came to see us as did James and Rawlins. The only more a mom could ask for would have been visits from Katie and Kenn.
The garden is getting tired of producing and Ken and I are both tired of picking and canning and freezing, but the harvest has been bountiful and we will be so grateful come winter.
I am making progress in Righteous Acts and have entered String Weavers in a competition. The winner gets a publication contract. Persistence pays, so I am told, in publishing. I am persistent and I work at improving everyday.
I am glad to have this blog to talk to. It clears the mind and gets me ready for the day to come. Off to exercise, meditate, pray for our world, and write. Oh, and I have a friend coming for lunch, a treat.

Harvest Bounty

Ken's garden has produced far more than we can use. He has enjoyed giving away the extra, to our children, to our neighbors, to the church, and to the food pantry in the county. That is wonderful! I am glad his labors have brought him such pleasure and pride. However, I have not been such a willing participant in using the bounty. I have canned and frozen my part and I'll enjoy it next winter, but I want to be writing. I want to dance and sew and organize and visit and entertain company. This is what I am supposed to be doing. This is living my life, not living Ken's which is what I have done all our married life, except for a few brief years in Dothan and a year or two before we moved here. It is frustrating to have to bump against his expectations for me, frustrating for him and for me. I am a pleaser, but the time has come to please God and me, not necessarily anyone else. Back to rereading DON'T MURDER YOUR MYSTERY and rewriting RIGHTEOUS ACTS.

Time for Guests

Summer is time for company in the mountains. This summer has been especially hot everywhere, even here, but here we still have cool nights and the occasional cool day to make the heat dome tolerable. Because of this and a backlog of people who have been meaning and wanting to visit, we have been and will continue to enjoy lots of guests. I love it!

Living Your Life

A friend said to me, "I just want you to live your life." Wasn't I? I got up every morning, took care of my family, taught school, took care of my family, graded papers, sometimes emailed friends, and started all over again the next day. Wasn't that my life?

In KING OF LIES by John Hart, Work discovers that he has been living the life his father wanted him to live, down to who he married, not just what he did. Sometimes now I feel like I am not living my life. I am not sure about the days when I took care of my family, taught school, and sometimes communicated with friends, but now I understand what my friend who wanted me to live my life was saying.

I canned 21 quarts of beans yesterday and cleaned and broke a bushel before I canned them. I will be grateful for all those beans next winter, but I am not sure that spending a whole day doing them is how I was supposed to spend my time.

As I grow older, I realize how precious every minute is. I ask for Guidance every morning and yesterday all day I felt the pull of my computer to get back to writing. When I feel pulls from elsewhere, I am not living my life. People are imprisoned by many things and in many ways. Mostly we imprison ourselves with false beliefs or anachronistic assumptions. Today I write and visit with friends and have my hair cut. I think that will be living my life.

Waiting

In writing there is much "waiting to hear." I am in one of those periods. My manuscript for STRING WEAVERS is with a publishing company that publishes Young Adult novels. I think SW is a good Young Adult crossover, which means its audience is teens to adults. My husband, one of my toughest critics, thinks it fits well there and he doesn't even like most novels, being a biography man. I hope the publisher, who has read it before and asked for changes in the point of view, will want it for the company's line of teen books. If not, maybe it will be my "book under my bed" for awhile. I am discouraged about selling it as an adult book and I think it fits better as a crossover.

I have begun outlining Book II in the series, WHITE HAIR. In it Michael meets an ancient Cherokee who becomes his mentor teaching him lessons on how to be a man. There are elements of WWII history and the part the Cherokee played as Wind Talkers in both WWI and WWII. The conflict comes when Michael discovers that some poachers that he and White Hair meet have ties to Hitler's anthropologists who were sent to learn the Indian tribes' languages between wars.

Also, I continue to work on RIGHTEOUS ACTS. During my trip to Birmingham and my walks around Mountain Brook I clarified in my own mind the part Jill's inner conflicts will play in the story. Stay tuned for more.

Writing group

I've been traveling. This past week I went to Birmingham, Alabama to visit my eldest child, my son, and to see as many friends as I could fit into a week. That turned out to be a lot. I had a wonderful time.

One of the people I saw was a friend who I met through Sisters in Crime, the Birmingham Chapter. We decided to exchange some of our writing by email for edit. I respect her opinion and her expertise at editing, so I am excited about this partnership. We ate lunch with another friend who is a school librarian. The two of them make a great pair. They both are avid readers so we had much to say about our reading list this summer.

When I arrived home, one of my classmates in Vicki Lane's "2nd 40" class wrote and told me she also wants to be in a writing group with me. I am thrilled. I like her writing style also and she made some very valid comments to me about my writing during class.

I feel grateful to have so much help ahead.

Working on the Plot

It is not the plot of a book that makes me tremble. I have the plot from beginning to end in my head long before I even put it to paper as an outline. However, the execution of the plot, fleshing it out literally, so that the players are real and reacting as humans act, not as players, is what causes me to stay up late at night writing and rewriting. Fortunately, when I get beyond my panic, I love going with the flow. In fact, I don't want anything or anybody to dam up the flow. I'm in the fear phase right now, but I feel my self-confidence reemerging. Look out Righteous Acts. Your creator likes your characters and is ready to make them real for everyone else.

New Friend

A new puppy found Ken yesterday. He was weeding in the front flower bed and up our hill came a tan and white terrier. He decided our side porch was home and promptly took up residence. Late last night we did the unthinkable and fed him. He is well trained except he jumps. He sits on command, fetches, and Ken has shown dominance so now a good "shush" stops his scratching at the doors. We have to find him a new home. As much as Ken might like another dog, Izzie will feel rejected and we all three move too slowly for this dog. If you know of someone who loves dogs and wants a new one(probably 4 months old by his teeth), just respond to this blog.

Best Seafood North and West of the Gulf and the Atlantic

If you're ever in the vicinity of Birmingham, Alabama you must not miss dinner at the Pita Stop which now has two locations. We were so homesick for their seafood we went twice in two days this weekend. You can't miss the Amberjack. However, my favorite is the Seafood Kabob with chunks of grouper, shrimp and scallops. Everything there is marinaded in the Pita Stop's special Mediterranean marinade. My mouth is still watering and I can't wait to get back for another big helping. Yum!

Travel

Because I got to do so little of it for so many years, I love to travel. The same old byways are just as fascinating to me on the one hundredth trip as they were the first time I traveled along them. We made a familiar trek today to Birmingham for a wedding. It was a wonderful day on roads well traveled.

weather

I must be getting old. Here I am writing about the weather again. Well, it has changed so much in two days. Last weekend it was very hot. We were glad to have sandals and short pants. Today I have my shawl around me and socks on. This temperature is to my liking as is summer hot, but it is the back and forth adjustments that require a lot of my body.

We are expecting storms again this afternoon. They are moving in from Tennessee as the last ones did. As long as we avoid hail I can enjoy the lightning and thunder. Hail will destroy Ken's crops and batter our vehicles. I have never experienced this many storms with hail in them in my lifetime.

Family

I love my children. This weekend two of our children and their significant others are going to be here in the mountains with us. We have looked forward to this for a month. The first son arrived late last night. The second one arrives tomorrow night. They are both here to see one another, but one is going to a wedding also. This is a weekend to celebrate. We'll miss the girls and their loves and the grandchildren, but there'll be other opportunities for that reunion. They are together in Chapel Hill where they live.

Writing a mystery

I love a good mystery. I want a provocative element in the book, a complex set of characters that are all important to the plot, and a fast moving plot. That is a tall order if you are writing one. Today I am going to edit Righteous Acts to see if I can make the 13 chapters I've written have all of those things. Other than that it is wash day Monday and clear the guest room Monday and Tuesday. We are having company this week and I am thrilled. In my next life I'll be a bed and breakfast owner perhaps.

The Business of Writing

It sounds so romantic, sitting in your ivory tower at your cleared desk with you computer and all those creative thoughts. Well, it isn't romantic, but it is fulfilling even though you're in a closet that is your office with a mess on your desk next to your computer. You still have all those creative thoughts that you had in the car on the expressway or while you washed the dishes or walked to get the mail. They itch to leave your fingers as they hop across the keyboard of your Apple. And when the day is finished you feel like you've let go of ideas and people and places that needed to be out and about so they could meet the world around you.
I spent several days editing the first book and writing the second one. I don't think the first book will ever be finished until it is published. The second one is coming along much faster. I think I've learned somethings about putting words on paper that say what I mean. Now for two days I've been researching agencies that might connect with my first book and therefore be willing to represent me to publishers. Lots of them are not a good fit and though that is discouraging it is good to find that out and not waste their time or mine. One or two do. Today I submitted to one of them. They had a form to fill out. I filled it out and then the mayhem began. Technology and I don't get along when I am tired and by the time I got ready to hit submit I was apparently too tired. I punched submit and found that most of the form went to the agency blank. So tried again, only to clear it accidentally before I punch submit this time, luckily. Finally, I filled the form out, maybe not as well as I did the first time, but at least completely, and hit submit. I got a confirmation and it made it. The discouraging thing is that if they don't think I am right for them I won't know it until I wait and wait and wait and just am left to assume it wasn't a good fit. That is the way the business of writing goes these days because electronic submissions, though usually time saving, are so abundant that agencies don't have time to reply to all of them and still sell the books of those they can reply to.
If anything I'm persistent. I'll keep sending out my queries and I'll continue to polish and polish it, but I'll spend more time now on my mystery at least until I've gotten emails back from those submissions that said they'd get back to me.

Lighter and Brighter

After all that reading about death, I am ready to be out in the sun. It is a bit too hot to head out after 9 or 10, but 6:30 or 7 in the morning is just about right. The dog and I watch the sun come up over the mountain to the side of our house as Ken heads out with his tools to plant more tomatoes. We've had so much rain that Ken has had to replant. We are hoping we'll have the right amount of rain to keep everything growing. The strawberries from Ken's garden this year were heavenly. We are looking forward to the tomatoes and watermelons now.
Unfortunately, I have a brown thumb so I leave the planting to Ken. I'll help with the harvest and canning which is a joint effort. In the meantime a new mystery is brewing inside my brain and I have to get it on the small screen.

Death

Death is a common thread. THE BOOK THIEF is told by death. It is a beautifully written book that, like THE HUNGER GAMES, is very provocative. I just read both. After reading HUNGER GAMES, I don't think I want to see the movie. Children killing children in order to survive is not a redeeming theme. Young people are fascinated with war and death because they have not, for the most part, at least in America, been part of senseless death. Now nature is bringing that guest who snatches up our souls and children are not so fascinated. It is too real. It is too arbitrary. Even when Death is expected one never can know when it will arrive.

Education

I was a middle school math teacher in another life. I loved teaching, but I was not paid commensurate to my expertise or experience. I spent over 100 hours a year at my own expense and usually on my own time in inservice programs even though I'd taught off and on for 30 years, had a master's degree, and was only required to spend 20 hours a year. That is how much I wanted to know so I could help prepare students for the 21st century.
The fight to underfund the schools further and to undo the tenure laws infuriates me. Tenure was instituted over a century ago in order to protect teachers from the political fickleness of school boards and parents. The situation has not changed. Often school boards are made up of people other than educators who don't understand the standardized tests used to judge the efficacy of a child's education. I'll leave the discussion of those tests to another day. It deserves a further discussion.
Despite my expertise, desire for excellence in teaching in my classroom, and my concern for each individual student, I was often pressured by parents to give their children a particular grade. Note the word "give." The child did not deserve a good grade because of hard work toward improvement or meeting the state curriculum standards if they did not get what most parents believe is a good grade of A or B. If they improved, they received consideration in the grade for their hardwork and improvement  or if they simply met the state curriculum standards with or without improvement, they received the grade that demonstrated their mastery. Without tenure I am sure I would have been either transferred or fired because I had so many influential parents who had misplaced concern over a grade.
If schools are not adequately funded, then well motivated and educated teachers are going to other professions that pay a living wage. They are the backbone of your child's education. Materials for the students and the teachers to use are the building blocks.
Also an administrator who understands excellence in teaching in every subject is essential. There is a reason they are called principals; they are the principal teacher. If they are supported by their superintendent and school board, the administrators have the tools in every state to challenge a teacher's tenure. The law can exist and poor teachers can be dismissed.
I don't plan to use my blog as a soap box, but I am watching the news and see our country undoing a hundred and fifty years of building  public school systems that attempt to serve every child. I agree that there are bad teachers in those systems. I agree that not every child can be served in an excellent way as the systems are run today. But don't throw out one of the few protections good teachers have to continue to use their expertise to bring children to their potential.
What do I think should be done? Fund teacher education at the state level and institute challenging end testing to eliminate teachers who are not adequately prepared. Fund teacher internship programs that match teachers of excellence with non-tenured teachers, but give those expert teachers a stipend for all the extra work involved in teaching another teacher. Most importantly hire excellent administrators who know what to look for in new hires and who will be able to support their best teachers and cull their weakest ones. Lastly, don't depend on standardized tests to tell you if your child is succeeding. Instead, pull up your state's standards on-line. Inquire about how they are being instituted instead of your child's grade. Every teacher should be able to answer that question and show you which standard is being met by lessons and projects.

Sweetheart roses

There is a beautiful sweetheart rose bush planted near our driveway. The flowers are delicate pink and have the most delicious fragrance you can imagine a rose can have. When we moved and uprooted it to bring it to the mountains, I talked to it every morning. I said you can bloom where we have planted you and I'll work at blooming, too. Well, it has done grandly, putting forth a luxurious amount of blossoms from late April to early November every year. I'm not sure I've done as well, but I am still here and still working at emulating our rose bush.

Strawberries

I love strawberries and this year we have a bumper crop. The ones from the lower field are particularly sweet and they will  only produce a little while longer. The ones from the upper garden plot are ever bearing so we'll have them all summer and fall. They are good but not as good as the others. However, the many baskets we bring up daily are beginning to wear heavy on me when I have editing to do. I want to freeze and preserve as many berries as I can. We also like to share our bounty, but even with all that there are a lot of berries to care for. I wish I was motivated to edit when the snow is on the ground instead of when the berries are on the plants. The snow and cold seem to slow down my brain as well as make movement off the hill impossible. Spring energizes me but not enough to get everything I want to do done.

Rain

Rain has come to mean many things to me. Here in the mountains it is what makes the earth rich, swells the creeks, and grows the spring plants---if you can get them in the ground. That is a difficulty with rain; it makes the earth soggy and a tractor sinks in soggy ground.

Our strawberries were planted last fall and this spring they have given to us abundantly because of the rain. Last Friday I picked 12 lbs. to take to our children in the eastern part of the state. Last night Ken picked two more baskets. Rain brings food from our land.

Rain also means I work inside the house which moves the writing moves along in the daytime, not just at night. It makes my cubby hole of an office a place to feel snug and warm because with the rain this spring comes unseasonal cold. The high today will be 56. It is mid-May.

So rain makes my world fertile this spring.

Meanwhile my heart goes out to the many people from Missouri to Louisiana to Tennessee(let's not forget Nashville) who find the rain life changing. It has no enchantment and is destructive in the worst ways. And then there is Texas which longs for rain, is thirsty for it, prays to God to give it for the land, for the animals, for the people. May we all have the right amount of rain the rest of the year.

What Happened to April?

I have been away from my blog but not my computer totally. In early April my daughter and her children and I went to Williamsburg, one of my favorite places in all the world. This daughter also loves the city as did my grandchildren by the time we left. Then came a trip with friends to the beach. In between I continued to read plays for SART, critiqued my classmates' manuscripts, and worked on the edits for my own two manuscripts. It has all been a whirlwind of fun. I am back at home and ready to write with a new mystery taking shape that is set in Williamsburg.

Changing a Protagonist's Profession

Jill Franklin, my protagonist in the Rorschach mystery series, has gone through a series of changes. She has remained about the same age, but she has added a child, left the police department, taught school and now works as a substitute teacher and a real estate assistant in order to be at home most afternoons with her little girl while helping to pay for her son's college as her husband begins a new business. She has also added a psychological disorder that complicates her life, and she is now even more of a busy housewife than before. But she is not unlike many women who are holding down more than one job and caring for their families because they have no alternative. Jill no longer has a singular career as a policewoman and new problems with the plot arise for me as a writer. Since I have lived her varied careers, though not all at once as she is doing, except that of a police detective, not having her "on the force" and privy to police files has made it difficult for me to have her gain access to the information she will need to solve the crime. I think I have found a vehicle, however. Stay tuned to see if it works.

Continuing Ed

For me continuing ed on a daily basis means I read. I am reading ALABAMA MOON. It is the first book in a very long time that has caused me to cry. The story is compelling. The writing is strong and the main character, Moon, is so lovable that you feel every moment with him and through him. This is considered a Young Adult book, but I'd recommend it as a plain old good read.

Clearing the Way

I have a terrible time working in the middle of a mess in my house. I made my Sunday list and this time put clearing and cleaning at the top. That is what I have done today. No one except me would notice that the house is cleaner because it still has a way to go after my being out of town last week and then overly busy after I returned, but I can tell and it lightens the load on my shoulders considerably. Tonight I can concentrate on writing and I will.

First Ten Pages

In the first page of any book there should be a hook, some means of bringing the reader into the story and keeping them there. My hook was in the first paragraph, but it was not the first sentence. The class and Vicki encouraged me to rearrange and put the hook up front. Their suggestion works much better than mine. This is why I love writers' groups if the groups are honest and are strong readers. Readers know what they like and what pulls them into a story. That is why writers must read, read, read.
I worked on the first ten pages as well as the hook last night. They flow now and I am excited about getting back to writing tonight.

Reading plays for SART

Southeastern Appalachian Repertory Theater in Mars Hill, North Carolina sponsors a ScriptFEST each year. Playwrights from all over the country submit plays and they are read by a variety of people. Each is rated on various criteria. I was a reader two years ago, but since I was traveling out of the country, I didn't read last year. I am going to read this year, however. I picked up my first two plays today and am excited about reading them.
In January four of the top contenders from last year were produced as readers' theater where the actors sit in front of the audience and read the scripts aloud. The four plays were varied and interesting. This was open to the public and turned out to be a fun activity for a snowy January weekend.
I'll let you know as the summer progresses how my reading is coming and will update you on the finalists next fall as they are chosen and the winner when it is produced as a stage play.

Editing books

I am back in school taking a course with Vicki Lane at UNCA. My classmates are talented writers. We edit one another's manuscripts and share our changes during class then send the edited manuscripts to the writer of the manuscript at the end of class. Vicki does a line edit and her comments initiate the contributions of others.
I have been working on Righteous Acts for years. That is the manuscript I have chosen to work on. It has morphed into a mystery about a modern woman who wears many monikers, mother, wife, realtor's assistant, and substitute teacher. When I began Righteous Acts, the protagonist, Jill, was a police detective, but I felt like I could be more true to the character if I stayed within my realm of experience, though I may eventually elect to go to a citizen's police academy so that I can double check my facts about police investigations.
My critique night was last Wednesday. The class was very helpful. I had hit a wall in my writing. I knew what I wanted and needed to say, but I needed a different vehicle to say it. The other writers and Vicki identified it for me. Now I am back writing with new resolve. I appreciate all the thought and time they gave to me.
I also received a request by a publisher to resubmit String Weavers when I correct a point of view problem. After I correct my RA twenty pages while the critique notes are fresh, I'll fix the SW manuscript.
I do best when I have too much to do. I think this spring I'll do very well!