I’m Too Old for This Nonsense

Sharon Wildwind

I hang around with older people a lot. Plus, I’m not exactly a spring chicken. It was a natural choice then for me to make the protagonist in my current work in progress a woman in her mid-sixties.

That’s when I realized that a lot of what I knew about aging applied more to older people with health problems. What I needed to develop my character was a better understanding of healthy people in their sixties. The ones who are saging the way I want to. Along the way I found some fascinating research about aging and positive attitudes.

Myths or facts:

A. Allowing for individual differences, well-grounded older people experience less negative feelings the older they get.

B. Negative events don’t bother older people as much because they have learned to roll with the punches.

The answers:

A. In general, that is a fact.

B. It’s a lot more complicated than that.

Let’s focus on B, because—surprise, surprise—this whole idea of aging and positive life outlook is a very complicated issue.

Behavioral scientists have had many theories about why older people, in general, focus more on positive events in their lives:

--A sense that time is running out causes them to focus more on the pleasures of the moment and less on delaying gratification.

--They ignore negative feelings because they find them too hard to deal with, and choose a simpler, happier life.

--They’ve realized that they can’t change the world, so they change their attitude instead.

--They have learned a lot of problem-solving skills, which they use to effectively handle negative emotions.

--Declining mental ability and decreased problem-solving skills lead them to ignore problems. Note that this theory directly contradicts the one just above it. Science is like that.

What’s been added to those theories recently is neuro-imaging, the ability to watch the brain at work through the use of the alphabet soup like MRI, PET, and CT scans. Here are some things that the machines have confirmed and myths they have busted.

Given a choice between remembering positive images and negative images, older people do remember more positive images and fewer negative ones. Younger people remember about 50/50. The older brain, literally, does not see as many negative images, and stress response chemicals, like cortisol, are less activated by the ones they do see.

Older people are more confident than younger people that they can control their emotions. They attribute this to lifelong learning and practice. They choose to focus more on the pleasures of the day, and on gratitude.

Older people plan more, plan better, and make choices in advance to avoid emotional experiences they think might turn out negatively. For example, if they think that someone at a party is going to irritate them, they choose to stay home from that party. This is the classic, “I am too old for this nonsense,” situation.

Older people can intentionally reduce their initial emotional response to an event and can regulate their emotional reactions during an event. The exception to this is being exposed to losses that are more prevalent in old age, for examples movies that feature the loss of loved ones, or paint a negative picture of aging. In those situations, older people have a higher initial emotional response, and feel profoundly sad while watching the movie.

Older adults prefer familiar social partners and situations. They are likely to interact with a small number of people to whom they feel emotionally-close.

Older people are very successful at pre-programming themselves to not let something bother them. They work harder at a balanced emotional life than younger people do. So in essence, they have opted for a more complicated and happier life, rather than a simpler life.

High stress reduces problem-solving. Wanting to maintain a positive attitude can lead to having a positive attitude. I have to admit my reaction to reading these two conclusion was, “They needed research to figure this out?”

Older people are more comfortable than younger people with having mixed emotions and tolerating emotionally-ambivalent situations.

Older adults are poorer at detecting deceit and show less ability to assess a situation when someone has complimented them and made them feel valued. These two things make older people particularly vulnerable to fraud.

When I read that last statement, my writer’s my brain went click. Loose ideas that had been waving in the wind knit themselves into something resembling a plot. All of a sudden I knew why two characters were so angry, and what they intended to do about it. I knew what another character had done to set my sixty-something protagonist on edge, who she blamed, and why she’d gotten things so wrong. I think I can also use that tolerance of ambivalence bit. What's happening to her is not a clear-cut situation and she knows it. What's more she has sympathy for both sides of the question, and that makes it far harder to decide whose side she's on. At least until someone gets killed.

I love it when a plan comes together.

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Quote for the week:

When they tell me I'm too old to do something, I attempt it immediately.

~Pablo Picasso, Spanish artist and painter, 1881-1973

The 100 Greatest: Do You Agree?

by Julia Buckley

I'm not sure what Meta-Filter is, but this website lists its choices for the TOP 100 GREATEST MYSTERIES OF ALL TIME. How many have you read? How many of these titles surprise you?

Now, we're not counting MOVIE versions of the books instead of the books themselves--which makes me have to cross about ten of these off my list. My actual count comes to 37.

Do you feel anyone important was left off this list? Do you feel that any of these books aren't mysteries? For example, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is one of my favorite novels, but I would never classify it as a mystery. Would the same be true of THE GODFATHER?

And if I were to list books that serve as great literature alongside good mystery novels, then I would put CRIME AND PUNISHMENT at the top and the Dorothy Sayers novels close under that. But of course we would all make different lists, and we all have different criteria.

What great authors would go on your own best 100 list who are not listed here?

Granted, it's really hard to narrow down all the great mystery writers into one representative list. But I think this particular list could use some updating.

What changes would you make, mystery readers and writers?

(photo: one of my bookshelves, filled with well-worn favorites. I don't necessarily group things by category, so I do see some mysteries mixed in with literary tomes, including a Mary Stewart novel, Jasper Fforde's first book, three Dorothy Sayers' books in one big volume, a Poe anthology, and a biography of Arthur Conan Doyle (a gift which, alas, I have not yet read). I turned CRIME AND PUNISHMENT facing out, to show my partiality, I suppose. :) Oh, and those books at the bottom, on the shelf you can barely see? Those are the blue leather-look Agatha Christie's , which I collected back in the '80s, a few books at a time, from a used book dealer in my town. I have just about all of her books in that lovely blue binding. )

Why We Write What We Write

Marilyn Levinson (Guest Blogger)


A psychologist would have a field day analyzing why we mystery writers write the books that we do. "Why mysteries?" we're often asked. And often answer, "I love mysteries!

I read Nancy Drew as a child." Of course our early reading choices influence us, along with the fact that we read mysteries for their puzzle element: who committed the crime and why? There's nothing like a mystery's ending for bringing matters full circle. The murderer's exposed, the puzzle's solved, and, in most cases, justice has prevailed.


But it goes deeper than that. Homicide's for real, and writing a mystery means dealing with the shadow side of human nature. After all, we create our murderers and our victims as well as our sleuths. Murderers kill for a variety of reasons. They're driven by lust, hatred, jealousy, and revenge. They knock off blackmailers; they're intent on protecting themselves from prison or public exposure. They kill because they like it. We law-abiding writers would never dream of actually murdering someone. But in our books we get the chance to off as many victims as we like. Amazing how some of them strongly resemble people who have seriously ticked us off. Besides, writing about murder and mayhem gives us a vicarious thrill. More satisfying than watching a fast-moving sport or playing an electronic game.


Then there's our sleuth. My sleuths have a good part of me in their personalities. They're curious. Persistent. They like eating ethnic food and watching foreign movies. Of course, they're bolder, braver, and more aggressive than me. They often respond to an insult with a snappy comeback when the real Marilyn thinks up a retort hours after the fact. Our sleuths go over the top to uncover a murderer. They sneak into buildings, lie to get into offices, break into houses, hide in people's cellars. They collect information and proof any way they can. Often at great risk to life and limb.


We mystery writers have the freedom to choose our settings, subplots, hooks, and themes. As a lover of mystery series, I find the books' setting is as important as the cast of characters. The setting is a character, one that permeates the novel. Right now I'm reading one of Earlene Fowler's Benni Harper Mysteries. What fun it is for a New York gal who's never been on a horse to read about ranch life in California.


I generally set my mysteries on Long Island because that's where I live. You won't find the towns my characters inhabit on any map, but I've an actual village or town in mind as I write. I also love to explore social issues.


A Murderer Among Us takes place in an upscale senior gated community in Suffolk County.

While the gated community I live in isn't only for seniors or especially upscale, I sure know how heated a board meeting can get. How news spreads among residents like wildfire. My sleuth, Lydia Krause, is an attractive, vibrant 58-year-old woman who has recently sold her company and home to embark on a new life. Lydia's actively involved in her daughters' and granddaughters' lives and problems. At the same time, she solves murders, forges new friendships, and falls in love. I've chosen an older sleuth because I'm older and know that we senior citizens lead full and active lives.


The setting for my mystery, Giving Up the Ghost, which comes out in April, is a sleepy village above Long Island Sound.

Gabbie Meyerson has come to Chrissom Harbor in midwinter to teach English at the local high school. She discovers she's sharing a cottage with the ghost of Cameron Leeds--the sexy, wheeler-dealer romeo who used to live there. Cam implores Gabbie to find his murderer. She soon discovers that while the villagers love to gossip about Cam's various affairs, they don't take kindly to her insinuations that his death was no accident.


I made Gabbie an English teacher because many years ago I taught high school Spanish. Gabbie has to contend with two bullies who torment one of her students. I've always been concerned about the problem of bullies in school. So many of their victims are afraid to speak up, especially if the administration is weak. The bullies in my mystery are taken care of. It’s one of the perks we mystery writers have when dealing with unsavory characters.

Marilyn Levinson is a former Spanish teacher and the author of several books for children. Suspense Magazine awarded her first mystery, A Murderer Among Us, a Best Indie of 2011. Her website is at www.marilynlevinson.com.

JEOPARDY

by Sheila Connolly

I'm going to take the online Jeopardy test next week. For the third time.

The first time I was actually called for the second, live round—and never heard from them after it. (Was it something I said? I didn't say? Did I smile too much? Not enough?) The second time I took the test I was suffering from brain freeze, and couldn't manage to answer questions that I knew I knew the answer for. Curiously, a lot of the questions come from recent shows, so if you watch the show regularly, as I do, you know you've already heard the answer—as long as you can find it in the increasingly crowded database that is your mind.

I know I'm not alone in my addiction to the show. Jeopardy has been syndicated since 1984, and now averages nine million daily viewers; its website receives nearly 400,000 visitors each month.

My husband and I have been watching Jeopardy most of our lives together. When our daughter was young (and she's only a year younger than the show), we would watch it over dinner. Bad for the digestion, maybe, but we liked to think that she was learning something. Since she graduated from a renowned college with a comparative literature degree, maybe it worked (or maybe it's all in the genes?). Now she knows as many of the answers as we do.

But lately I've noticed a few things about the show. For one thing, the contestants seem to be getting younger (seen any septuagenarians on there lately? Well, except for host Alex Trebek, born in 1940), and there are some new categories that refer to contemporary music or video games, where I'll admit I know next to nothing, unless the answer is "who is Lady Gaga?" because she is impossible to not know. But what troubles me most is that in some ways the questions are not getting younger. There is still a bias toward classic literature, nineteenth century poetry, popular phrases from bygone days, ancient history or even 20th century events. An answer will appear, and all three contestants will freeze like deer in the headlights, obviously at a loss. I will be yelling the answer at them (yes, I know they can't hear me), and then the buzzer will sound and Alex, with infinite kindness and a touch of pity, will gently point out their stupidity.

And then I realize that the contestants likely weren't even born when some of those clues were current, or at least still taught in school. And that makes me feel old. Never mind that that kind of information does no more than clutter my overloaded brain (with the exception of geography, which continues to elude me unless I've physically visited the place in question; oh, and US Presidents—I just can't keep them straight); there is no way younger contestants can memorize all the slang expressions and headline news of half a century or more ago.

I remember years ago reading some of the Golden Age English mysteries, featuring bright young things from Oxford and Cambridge, and marveling at the depth and breadth of their education. If those novels are to be believed, those students could call up verbatim citations at the drop of the hat—in three languages, including ancient Greek. Did such paragons ever exist? But now I feel that I stand in the same position vis a vis the current crop of Jeopardy contestants, whose education is sometimes deficient—not their intelligence, but their knowledge.

At any rate, I assume there will be no major change in Jeopardy clues before next week's test, so perhaps my older wisdom (and mental trunk full of trivia) will prevail. Wish me luck!

Succumbing to Kindle

Elizabeth Zelvin

I hope I won’t regret admitting publicly that I got a Kindle for Christmas. Or was it Chanukah? As a reader, I look forward to traveling without pounds of books in my backpack or luggage and never running out of reading matter. As a writer, I feel more ambivalent. Amazon’s world-changing e-reader has permanently debased the price of books (and therefore author earnings) and cut radically into the business of the independent booksellers and librarians who are the best friends of midlist writers like me. On the other hand, it provides opportunities that didn’t exist before to share my work with readers, and affordably, at that. I don’t want to add to the millions of words on the subject of the changing publishing industry that are already floating around the Internet. Instead, let’s talk about me as a reader with my first electronic reading device.


Can the reader be separated from the writer who inhabits the same brain and body? Maybe not. My very first download was my own story, “Navidad,” currently enjoying new life as an e-story on Untreed Reads, after originally appearing in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. As I write this, it occurs to me that if I actually read the thing, I’ll have a better idea of how this e-publisher presents its material. I’ve only thought of this because I noticed flaws in the formatting of the first e-book I did read: Agatha Christie’s The Mysterious Affair at Styles, the very first Hercule Poirot mystery.


I know that HarperCollins plans to publish new editions of all 80 of Agatha Christie’s mysteries. Now, there would be a grand project for a Kindle reader, if it’s not prohibitively expensive. (I can’t imagine going out and buying 80 new print novels that I’ve already read, not to mention giving them shelf space. Can you?) But what’s available now for free or close to it consists of two novels, the first Poirot and the first Tommy and Tuppence, The Secret Adversary, which I also downloaded.


The Christies were not the first. My first visit to the Kindle store (which was not involved in the acquisition of my own short story) took me to two longtime favorite authors of whom I’ve read most but not quite everything in my lifetime: in order of acquisition, Louisa May Alcott and Jane Austen. My hardcover copies of Little Women (“special contents of this edition,” presumably the foreword and full-color illustrations, copyright 1946) and Jo’s Boys (Goldsmith Publishing Company, Chicago, no copyright information whatever) are falling apart. The spine of Little Women flaps precariously; the brittle brown pages of Jo’s Boys flake off as I turn them, trying to find a date. I still re-read them, and yes, I still cry every single time Beth dies. Um, is crying on a Kindle as bad as spilling coffee on a computer keyboard? If so, I might be in trouble.


I know I have my Pride and Prejudice somewhere, though I haven’t opened it in a while. It’s a trade paperback I got for an English lit class in college, which means it’s close to fifty years old. I don’t really need to re-read it to remember more than enough to enjoy P.D. James’s Death Comes to Pemberley. Yep, I treated myself to a $12.99 current read I might otherwise have reserved at the library. P.D. James is not one of the hundreds of mystery authors I know personally, so I won’t pretend I would have bought the hardcover. But I certainly wouldn’t have failed to read it, no matter what. Anyhow, as Amazon assiduously tells readers, “This price was set by the publishers.” And there I go down the primrose path, buying books again.




























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Insomnia

Sandra Parshall

I can’t sleep.

Night after night, I either can’t get to sleep or can’t stay asleep. The only member of the household who feels good about this is Emma, who takes being a nocturnal feline seriously and appreciates company while she’s busy being a cat. Our other cat, an Abyssinian named Gabriel, is zonked out by midnight and doesn’t stir until the alarm goes off, if then.

I want to be more like Gabriel and less like Emma.

It’s not that I can’t sleep at all. Put me in a darkened movie theater and I will promptly fall asleep, regardless of how much I want to see the film. I fall asleep during my favorite TV shows. If I stopped typing right now and closed my eyes, I know I would fall asleep at the computer.

What I can’t do is sleep reliably when and where I’m supposed to. Before you rush to suggest counting sheep, drinking milk, etc., let me tell you that I’ve tried everything. I still can’t sleep.

I’m determined to fix this, and I’m attacking the problem the way I approach most situations that need to be changed: I’m researching the heck out of it.

One comforting thing I’ve discovered – although I realize it shouldn’t please me – is that I am far from alone. We have an epidemic of insomnia in the U.S. An estimated 23 percent of workers suffer from it, and the economic toll in lost productivity is in the billions. 

What causes it? According to the National Institutes of Health, we are afflicted with two distinct varieties of sleeplessness: secondary, due to medical problems, medications, and other physical causes; and primary, due to – who knows? I think I have the “who knows?” variety, which means the prospect of relief is not good.

But wait. The February issue of Psychology Today reports on new research into the role that light plays in human wake/sleep cycles. Not just any light, but blue light, part of the visible spectrum of solar rays. During the day, blue light suppresses the release of melatonin, the hormone that puts us to sleep after the sun goes down. If we don’t get enough sun during the day, our natural circadian rhythm is disrupted. The artificial light in the home and workplace is no substitute for natural light.

In short, if you don’t get outdoors in the natural light for at least part of the day, you may not be able to sleep when you go to bed. Furthermore, light rays emitted by TV sets mimic blue light, so if you watch television late at night before retiring, your body will be confused about what time it is.

Epidemiologist Ronald Kessler of Harvard Medical School recommends that employers who want to increase productivity provide workers with a sunshine break every day. That goes for those of us who work at home too. Facing a big window while we work can help. (I face a wall while I’m writing, with the window behind me.) While we’re soaking up the sun’s rays, we should take our sunglasses off, because they can block blue light.

Help is available from another quarter: the light boxes and lamps made for people with seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a type of cyclical depression caused by lack of sunlight, also work for insomniacs. I’ve just ordered a blue light lamp for my desk. I’ve also promised myself that I will get more natural light, not just during warm weather when I love being outdoors, but during the short, cold days of winter as well.

I look forward to getting a good night’s sleep soon. Emma, you’re on your own.

True Leaves

Sharon Wildwind

I had a wonderful high school biology teacher. I guess I should say I had a wonderful botany teacher.

Miss R. wasn’t keen on things with legs, tails, beaks, wings, etc., but she had an abiding fascination with plants, and a none too shabby ability to draw them.

Hers was a big corner classroom with two walls of windows and two walls of blackboards. This was in the day when black boards were really black and overhead projectors were that newfangled gadget in the corner of the classroom.

Every Monday morning, immense colored chalk drawings of plant life cycles filled every inch of blackboard space. Rumor was that Miss R. went to church Sunday morning, had lunch with her sister, and then spent Sunday afternoon drawing. Looking at the delicate shadings and riot of colors, I believed it.

If you didn’t have a Miss R. in your life, here are the basics. Plants are classified as monocotyledons (one grass-like seed leaf), dicotyledons (two seed leaves) or gymnosperms (like evergreen trees), which are the free thinkers of the plant world and might have anything from zero to eight seed leaves. The root part of a seed is particularly sensitive to gravity. It grows down. The shoot and seed leaves crave light. They grow up. This happens even if they are planted inches deep. They still shoot straight up, aiming for that unseen light as fast as possible.

Growing in the dark has the charming name skotomorphogenesis, which is a spelling bee tie-breaker if I’ve every heard one. Growth takes place without sunlight, without chlorophyll, and depends solely on the energy stored in the seed.

Hitting light is the game-changer. The growth pattern changes to photomorphogenesis, which means that the plant starts making its own food from sunlight. The seed leaves shoot chlorophyll down into the plant, strengthening the root and the stem and out of that energy infusion the first true leaves are born. Seed leaves are usually round green things or long green things, but its in the first true leaves that you get an idea of what the adult plant will look like.

Miss R., seeds and the various morphogenesis have been on my mind recently because I’m in transition from my seed leaves to my true leaves.

I’ve been serious about getting published for a little over a decade. When I started, I was like that plant buried inches deep in the soil. I had a sense where the light might be, but couldn't see it. With the help of a lot of wonderful writers, I managed to aim in the true direction and reach the surface.

Five books published, one more almost here, a seventh being written and dabbling in play writing isn’t a bad tally for my first decade. I’m on the Web, maybe not exactly where I want to be, but I’m there. I teach an occasional class and do a lot of other things related to writing. So you might justifiably think that I’m far past that seed leaf reaching for the light stage. I’m not sure you’d be right.

Shortly now I’ll retire from my day job and, I hope, have more time and energy to focus on writing. I’ve always anticipated that transition as a real marker in my career, a lot like those seed leaves shooting chlorophyll down into the root and expecting the plant to begin making its own food.

I wonder if the plant, like me, gets nervous at this stage? After all, we’ve both had a good ride nibbling off the energy stored in the seed. Can I make it on my own, spread my true leaves, and grow at an even faster rate?

I’m betting that I can. And I can't wait to see what my adult leaves will look like.

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I don’t start a piece knowing exactly what effect it's going to have. There is a seed of an idea that I could never articulate, right at the beginning of the piece, literally like one cell.

~Siobhan Davies, dancer and founder of the Siobhan Davies Dance Company

The Benefit (and Deconstruction) of Failure

by Julia Buckley

I recently watched this clip of J.K. Rowling's 2008 Harvard commencement address. She called it "The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination." I thought it was a stunning address, and that the seemingly shy Rowling was actually quite a forceful speaker when she warmed to her theme.

In addition to that inspirational speech, I am often inspired by my senior students' college essays, which they bring to me for editorial help. One young woman, in a recent essay, suggested (with sincerity, I think) that failure was more important to her than was success; her assertion was that she learned more from failure, and that ultimately it was a more valuable experience.

This wise interpretation of life's setbacks, both by Rowling and my student, had me thinking of the various setbacks I've suffered in life. For a writer, every setback, every perceived "failure," is a slap to the ego, or so I have always seen it--and I assume that other writers might be tempted to view it in the same way.

But if I apply Jacques Derrida's notion of Deconstruction, then I can look at success and failure as binary oppositions, with success being the privileged term. However, my students' interpretation of the two make failure the privileged term, and suggests that through failure, one learns, grows, and ultimately finds benefit, so that failure itself guarantees a level of success.

However, deconstruction also asserts that language is ambiguous, uncertain, ever-changing, and that existence has no center. Derrida would suggest, I believe, that the undecidability of any text, including the one I just created above, implies a multiplicity of meanings, and therefore ultimately has no meaning, or at least not one ultimate meaning.

Writing (and the complex universe of publishing) can render anyone existential, and ultimately we all have to make our own decisions about the notions of success or failure, but these two works--a great writer's speech and a young woman's tentative paper--have me feeling optimistic about my own perceived defeats.

A philosophical challenge for the day. :)

(photo: my son at Lake Michigan, 2011).

Pilot Down, Presumed Dead

This guest blog was written by Colorado writer Mark Stevens, whose book BURIED BY THE ROAN is now available; it provides a suspenseful mystery while examining the greed that still endangers the American west. See more about Stevens and his writing here.

PILOT DOWN, PRESUMED DEAD

by Mark Stevens

Yeah, I know, what a title. I was nine or ten. I can practically see the precise shelf in the library where I found this book in Lincoln, Massachusetts. (And, yeah, I know: lucky me—raised in such a cool spot, among readers and thinkers.)

Did it take me a day to read? A week? I don’t remember. But it was utter, pure adventure. Man versus nature wasn’t a theme I understood or grasped at the time, but Pilot Down, Presumed Dead took this suburban kid to the edge of the survival and let me worry and fret as Steve Ferris scrambled to survive. When I read this book—-by the way, thank you Marjorie Phleger—-I was completely transported. I think it was the first time I recognized that fiction had the power to pull you into the moment of someone else’s life so completely you really don’t even know you’re reading.

That’s magic. Pure freaking magic. And, like a lot of “first time” things, I recall it vividly.
When I found a copy of Pilot Down a few years back, I brought it on a trip and my daughter read it in just a few beach sittings (that’s her in the photo).

To this day, this is my favorite theme.

Loners in the wild, out on the edge.

To Build A Fire, by Jack London. Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe. Into the Wild and Into Thin Air, both by Jon Krakauer. Touching the Void, by Joe Simpson. Blind Descent, by Nevada Barr. (Anna Pigeon’s hairy, tight trek down the caves of Carlsbad Cavern is an absolute classic loner tale. I read an interview with Nevada Barr and she said she has claustrophobia. I think that comes through.)

Into the Silence by Wade Davis, about the attempts by the British and specifically George Mallory to summit Mt. Everest in the early 1920’s (a mind-blowing account). River of Doubt, by Candice Millard. And, recently, Hell is Empty by Craig Johnson, a brilliant genre-bending “mystery” that involves climbing a gnarly Wyoming mountain in a howling winter storm with the irascible Walt Longmire (and a paperback copy of Dante’s Inferno in his back pocket). Delicious stuff—thriller, suspense, mystery and literature all bound up in a tasty meatball of fiction.

I know that’s a mixed list—fiction and non.

Doesn’t matter to me; just take me away via Magic Book Transporter Beam and I will follow.
Non-fiction, of course, is a matter of researching the details, getting the story arc right and re-telling the struggle. I’m not saying one is harder than the other. It’s not. They are different beasts. But to create a fictional setting and insert a character we care about into the fray against Mother Nature and all she can hurl at our hero is, to me, art. I don’t necessarily want to make the actual journey, of course, just soak it in via words.

I know the P.O.V. in The Call of The Wild is half St. Bernard and half sheepdog, but I think Buck nails the feeling any reader gets when you come across a story you just have to devour:

“Deep in the forest a call was sounding, and as often as he heard this call, mysteriously thrilling and luring, he felt compelled to turn his back upon the fire and the beaten earth around it, and to plunge into the forest, and on and on, he knew not where or why; nor did he wonder where or why, the call sounding imperiously, deep in the forest.”

R.L.Stevenson and the Key to Happiness

The great Robert Louis Stevenson compiled this list of things that were (to him) the key to happiness. It's ironic to me that RLS, ill for much of his life and often suffering, wrote so many things that were positive, including one of my favorites, A Child's Garden of Verses.

How To Be Happy

By Robert Louis Stevenson

1. Make up your mind to be happy. Learn to find pleasure in simple things.

2. Make the best of your circumstances. No one has everything, and everyone has something of sorrow intermingled with gladness of life. The trick is to make the laughter outweigh the tears.

3. Don't take yourself too seriously. Don't think that somehow you should be protected from misfortune that befalls other people.

4. You can't please everybody. Don't let criticism worry you.

5. Don't let your neighbor set your standards. Be yourself.

6. Do the things you enjoy doing, but stay out of debt.

7. Never borrow trouble. Imaginary things are harder to bear than real ones.

8. Since hate poisons the soul, do not cherish jealousy, enmity, grudges. Avoid people who make you unhappy.

9. Have many interests. If you can't travel, read about new places.

10. Don't hold postmortems. Don't spend your time brooding over sorrow or mistakes. Don't be one who never gets over things.

11. Do what you can for those less fortunate than yourself.

12. Keep busy at something. A busy person never has time to be unhappy.

(cited from True Wealth, ed. Gary Morris).

Top picture: (a nighttime blizzard in the mighty winter of 2011; bottom photo: Wikipedia).