How to Postpone Writing

Sharon Wildwind

Ever get one of those months? Maybe the last month in graduate school or the first month after a new baby comes home?

With a writing deadline last week, sandwiched between two art deadlines; shift trades with my job-share partner; an on-again/off-again feeling that I’m coming down with a cold; and a raft of niggling appointments cutting into most days, I feel like Alice’s white rabbit. From the time I get up to the time I go to bed, my most compelling thought is I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date.

I know that my two sets of characters — one in a play and one in a novel — are out there somewhere, though goodness knows what they are doing with their time. I’ve barely spoken to them in the past twelve days. Since they are all relatively new characters I haven’t yet introduced them to one another. At least my two older sets of characters knew one another intimately. When I hit a spell like this they amused themselves with tales of the gosh-awful things I’d asked them to do in their respective series.

Thank goodness I had a writing teacher who insisted that I learn how not to write. He warned me that there would be days, weeks, (hopefully not) months like this, and that it was as important to know how to retain a story in my head as it was to write a story.

Just in case you ever have days, weeks, (hopefully not) months like I’m having right now, here are some tips on how write while, at the same time, postpone writing.

Initially work with a time span of a few hours. Set yourself a task like, this morning instead of writing, I’m going to take a walk and think about writing. This afternoon I’ll write what I thought about. Gradually lengthen the time frame from a few hours to one day, to three days, to five days. That’s about the limit. Most people, even those who practice doing this a lot, start to lose details after several days.

Some people are detail magpies. They collect detail after detail, rearranging them until they built a big picture, like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. Other people like to look at the puzzle box first. They see that one small area contains a black-and-white floor and go looking for all the black-and-white pieces first. Then they look for the red pieces that make up the rose vase on the table, and so on. The first type of learner is specific-to-global and the second is global-to-specific.

Why does this matter? Because specific-to-global learners will remember details easier and global-to-specific learners, will have an easier time remembering overviews such as theme, stakes, and character impressions. So while you’re taking that walk, focus on the easier things to remember.

Since I’m a global-to-specific learner, I find it easier to think about the big picture. That doesn’t mean I won’t notice a perfect park bench for Jason and Tiffany to sit on while having their fight, or that I’ll ignore the juicy dialog I overhear in the coffee shop, but what I’ll try to keep in my head is the bigger picture of where the story is going.

Most of us use different learning techniques in different situations, but some generalizations can be made. In North America approximately 85% of people who have participated in learning-style studies are, like me, mixed visual/kinesthetic learners. That means I learn best through a combination of seeing something and doing something. If someone forced me to sit on my hands, close my eyes, and just listen, chances are I would remember very little. Only about 15% of those tested learned best by just listening.

You’re going to need a small, portable, dedicated place to make notes. If you’re a listening learners, get yourself a recorder. If you’re a see it/touch it learner, buy a small notebook. The key here is that word dedicated. This recorder/notebook is for remembering writing only. The more you dilute this tool with shopping lists, the address of your new dentist, or a note to call Sue, the less effective it will be to helping you remember the story.

For the listening learner, life is simple. Talk anything into the recorder: snippets, key words, lines of dialog, impressions, a description of a woman’s suit that would be ideal for your protagonist, and so on. Sing song snippets. Recite poetry. Create doggerel or limericks. When it comes time to write, sit down, close your eyes and just listen. The sounds should evoke material that can be translated to pen, typewriter, or computer.

For the see it/touch it learners, practice taking notes on the fly, a few key words — Jason-Tiffany-green bench-birch tree-hot day-big argument—will be enough to get the creative memories flowing. Take photos. These days few of us run around without a digital camera. Make small drawings and diagrams. You don’t have to be an artist. Who cares if your bench looks like it’s made from popsicle sticks? You’re going to know that it’s Jason and Tiffany’s bench and that they had a big argument there.

The big pay off in all of this is not only that these techniques come in handy during the months like my July, but that you start to take advantage of the gifts that come along every day, those perfect images, words, and connections you will want to use when you sit down to write.

_____
Quote for the week:
Can anyone remember what we were working on three months ago?
~Hollywood writer, returning to work after the writers’ strike, February 2008

Rooted in The Group

by Julia Buckley

Since 2000 I have been a member of a very supportive and talented writing group. The members have ebbed and flowed over the years, but the group still exists, and the members have gradually become published, one by one.

Next week the group will meet in my back yard. My sons put up a new mini-gazebo (the last was destroyed by a storm) and re-did the Italian lights so that we can stay out there until dark. My husband has promised to make pina coladas, and we have set up the comfortable padded chairs.

Yes, ambiance helps. But once we gather around the table, it will be about the work. Usually we share our latest communications with agents. One of our members just received an offer of representation after many rejections, so this will be something to celebrate! But we will also offer condolences to those who received the all-too-familiar refrains:

--"interesting, but not for me."
--"I'm going to have to pass on this one."
--"An agent really has to fall in love with a work in order to represent it, and that didn't happen here."

That last one, despite its attempt to let one down easy, is particularly hurtful, we all agree.

We'll talk about other things, as well: First, about Kindle and the changing landscape of publishing; perhaps about conferences attended and the quality of information received; perhaps also about opportunities with small presses.

And then, finally, we'll look at the manuscripts in front of us. Next week we're looking at two: a literary mystery (not mine) and a young adult novel. We'll analyze content and react to voice and diction and deconstruct plot.

Like any good critique group, we ALWAYS start with what is good. We aren't afraid, however, to dig into what needs work, and often the second group of comments is far longer than the first. We all know that we can't succeed unless we work and re-work and then work again. One of the former members of our group revised her novel for ten years before she got it published. Once, in a graduate fiction-writing class, she was told to start again with the first sentence and throw everything else away. She did it. We learn these lessons from the members of our group; in some cases they save us the pain of going through something ourselves, and in other cases, it softens the blow to know that they have gone through it, too.

Sometimes we ask ourselves why we do it at all. The failures outweigh the successes, and even the successes have led to extremely hard work and occasional heartbreaks. So why, why, have we been meeting since 2000, and why do we all write?

The answer is--because we want to. We even like it. And when we're inside the writing, it's not about the eventual success or failure, but about the joy of creation. Together, we are able to share something that not everyone has experienced, and so we continue to do it.

Feel free to stop by and join us. We'll be under the shaded tent, bent over stacks of white paper, slightly tipsy from our icy drinks, but focused, focused as ever, on the goal.

Descendant of the Fire Goddess

By Jeanne Matthews 

“Pele” was all things volcanic to the ancient Hawaiians. She was the fire, the lava, the steam, the new-formed land, and a temperamental goddess – hard to predict and hard to appease.  Pele has spawned almost as many myths and legends as the volcanoes have spawned scientific studies. A superstitious belief in the powers of Pele has persisted in spite of the overwhelming dominance of Christianity, and not without some strong circumstantial evidence.

There are five volcanoes on the Big Island of Hawaii. Two are extinct, one is dormant, and two are active.  A sixth “baby” volcano remains 3,000 feet below the surface of the ocean, but it’s growing by leaps and bounds. Volcanologists expect it to poke its head above sea level about a thousand centuries from now.  Mauna Kea is the tallest of the island’s volcanoes. If measured from the sea floor, it would be the tallest mountain in the world, taller than Mt. Everest. And Mauna Loa, which means Long Mountain in the Hawaiian language, dwarfs every other mountain on earth in terms of volume. It is sixty miles long and thirty miles wide and comprises fully half of the land area of the island. At 13, 679 feet, Mauna Loa doesn’t soar above the surrounding terrain like a conical volcano. Hawaiian volcanoes are broad and round like native shields. When they erupt, the lava flows in all directions.

In November of 1880, Mauna Loa burst open and began discharging lava.  There was no great concern during the winter, but over the spring the lava oozed closer and closer to Hilo.  The forests west of town glowed red and the air was thick and acrid with smoke.  By June, the fiery flow had reached the outskirts of town and real estate values plummeted.  On June 26 the flow coursed down from the stream beds above Hilo, gobbling as much as 500 feet of earth each day.  Methane explosions sounded like cannon fire and the heat and glare were intense.  

The Christian inhabitants closed their shops and businesses and thronged the churches to beg the intercession of Jehovah.  The Hawaiian inhabitants sent an urgent message to Princess Luka Ke'elikolani, a descendant of King Kamehameha I and an unreconstructed worshipper of Pele. Princess "Ruth" (as she had been re-christened by the Western missionaries) was 55 years old and tipped the scales at 450 pounds, give or take.  Her nose had been crushed in a pitched battle with her second husband and her voice boomed like thunder.  She wasn't one to be overawed by the U.S. government, or the white man's Jehovah, or Madame Pele's flare-ups.

When she came ashore in Hilo in July, Princess Ruth ordered a batch of red silk handkerchiefs, a large quantity of brandy, two roast pigs, and an unrolled taro leaf and commanded her underlings to conduct her royal personage to the edge of the flow.  The horse selected to pull her carriage wasn’t up to the task and a crew of prisoners had to be released from the Hilo jail to haul her to her destination.
 
When she was satisfied with her vantage point, she disembarked and directed that a luau be held on the spot. Then, chanting a sacred poem and swaying her imposing hips in a hula, she fed the taro leaf and the handkerchiefs into the flames.  When these had been consumed, she smashed a bottle of brandy against the hot lava, sending up a hair-singeing gust of fire.  The Princess and her party drank the rest of the brandy, ate the pigs, and slept all night in the path of Pele's progress.  By morning, the lava had cooled and the goddess had retired to her mountain.

In my new mystery Bet Your Bones, my series sleuth Dinah Pelerin meets a character much like Princess Ruth, a woman named Eleanor Kalolo who regards herself as a direct descendant of the fire goddess.  Eleanor remains a defiant pagan and a bitter critic of American policies that have trampled the rights of Native Hawaiians from the early nineteenth century to the present day.  She resents the annexation of Hawaii by American businessmen, the overthrow of the Hawaiian queen, and the subsequent degradation of Hawaii’s ancient culture and its language and customs.  Ultimately, it is the Hawaiian custom of ho’oponopono, the art of healing through confession of one’s own errors and the forgiveness of others’ mistakes, that becomes the saving grace of both Eleanor and Dinah.

Jeanne Matthews was born and raised in Georgia.  She graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in Journalism and has worked as a copywriter, a high school English and Drama teacher, and a paralegal.  She currently lives in Renton, Washington with her husband, who is a law professor, and a West Highland terrier, who is a prima donna. Visit her website at http://www.jeannemathews.com. 

NICE NEIGHBORS

by Sheila Connolly

I've been playing catch-up this week, since I've just finished the draft of one book, due to my publisher at the end of the month, and I'm waiting for editorial comments on another book, due next week.  So while I wait, I've been clearing off my desk and finalizing some things that have been pending for a while.

One of which is my cemetery plot.  No, I don't have a terminal illness, nor does anyone in my family.  But I have an unusual history with cemeteries: they are my inheritance.  I can prove ownership of at least four plots, all of which have space in them.  In some cases there hasn't been a burial in the plot for decades.

Since the world has a way of surprising you, I thought it made sense to verify what my rights are, in the event something unexpected happens.  After all, your loved ones usually aren't in any condition to make major decisions at difficult times, and they may live far away, which complicates matters.  So if I can make one small part of the process simpler, I'll feel better.

The thing of it is, I'm not talking about any old cemetery; I'm talking about Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts.  All right, most people won't know anything about it, or will confuse it with Washington Irving's story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (that's in a different state).  "My" Sleepy Hollow is famous for other reasons:  it's where all those authors are buried.

My family has a long history with the place.  The plot where I (or whatever is left of me) want to spend eternity was bought when my great-great-great-grandmother Sarah Durant Pratt died in 1893.  She didn't even live in Concord at that time, but that's where she met and married her husband.  She was probably a millworker, and he was a carpenter, later contractor.  They did have one son who lived in Concord in the 1890s (he had his own plot in the same cemetery).

So the family bought the plot for Sarah, and she and later her husband and a couple of her daughters were buried there.  It's a nice plot, right on one of the internal roads, on level ground--easy to get to. Lots of passers-by. But the biggest appeal is that it's right down the hill from Author's Ridge.

There was a cemetery on the site in the eighteenth century, but the better-known section was designed in 1855 by a pair of landscape architects.  Ralph Waldo Emerson spoke at the consecration.  It was one of the earlier "garden cemeteries" (Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA, founded in 1831, was the first, followed closely by Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia).  Such cemeteries were intended as something like recreational sites, where middle-class citizens could pack a picnic lunch and visit to commune with the dead and enjoy the glories of nature.  They were provided with benches and strolling paths, punctuated by burbling fountains.  Maybe now it seems a bit odd to think of cemeteries as places for pleasure, but I've enjoyed more than my fair share.

To return to Sleepy Hollow's Author's Ridge...think back to the heady days of the nineteenth century, when the historic town of Concord was a hotbed of Transcendentalism, led by Emerson (whose house is not far distant from the cemetery).  Picture the marvelous dinners that gathered Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott and others around Emerson's table.  It shouldn't surprise you that they chose to continue their discourse even after death:  they're all buried together in the cemetery.  The Thoreau family, the Alcott family, the Emerson family, as well of Nathaniel Hawthorne, all cheek by jowl at the top of the hill--overlooking "my" plot, passed down to me through generations.

Louisa May Alcott

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Henry David Thoreau

Nathaniel Hawthorne

I first visited the cemetery when I was a teenager, with my mother and grandmother.  My grandmother had presided over the last interment there, in 1935, representing the dwindling family (she had married Sarah's great-grandson).  I have always remembered the visit, most notably Emerson's pink quartz stone.




Fast forward to 2003.  I was housesitting for a college friend in a town near Concord, while my daughter finished high school so we could move to Massachusetts where my husband had a job waiting.  I was unexpectedly unemployed, so I wrote a book.  It was not a wonderful book, but it was good enough to land me my first agent.  In the spring of 2003, before heading back to Pennsylvania to pack up for the move, I stopped by the cemetery to talk to the authors.  I had planned to ask them to help me sell the book.  Instead, what came out of my mouth unexpectedly was, "help me make it good."

I guess it worked.  That book didn't sell, and I fired that first agent, but eight years later I have nine books on the shelves and more coming.  Thank you, Louisa, David, Nathaniel and Ralph.  (BTW, my grandmother was a BIG fan of Emerson.)

All of these writers and thinkers were already installed on top of the ridge when my family bought the cemetery plot.  Did it affect their selection?  I don't know.  But I would be honored to take my place among the Concord titans--which is why I'm paying the back fees this week.


P.S.  If you want one more literary note, Louisa May Alcott wrote a short mystery story in 1867:  "The Mysterious Key and What It Opened." It's widely available as a free download online.

How Publishing Has Changed Since 1928

Elizabeth Zelvin

No, that date is not a typo. A newbie on one of my mystery e-lists mentioned a major publisher she used to work for. I hadn’t heard the name (which I’ll omit) for quite some time, since they don’t publish fiction, but it rang a very loud bell for me. My mother, who was a lawyer, worked for them as a legal editor from 1928 till about 1940 and as a freelance writer and editor from 1954 for another 25 years or so. One of her books, an encyclopedia of real estate appraisal, went into four editions and brought royalties for decades. I said as much on the e-list. This aroused my interest in an aspect of my mother’s life that I hadn’t thought about for ages. First, I did what comes naturally nowadays: I googled my mother and looked up the book on Amazon. Then I made the old-fashioned move: went to my bookshelves and blew the dust off the the books I still have: the 1960 first edition (1,458 pages) and the 1978 third edition (1,283 pages). Could the impulse to blog be far behind?

My mother graduated from law school in 1924, determined to have a career and having turned down a proposal from my dad. (The most honest lawyer ever born, he made the mistake of telling her he’d never be rich.) By 1928, she’d ascertained that it was close to impossible for a woman to get a job as a lawyer. She found an alternative niche in the legal department of the aforementioned publisher, where she and a law school friend pioneered not only as the first women, but also as the first Jewish editors ever hired in that department. They were responsible for several fat volumes fetchingly entitled Corporate Minutes, Meetings, and Resolutions. These sat on our bookshelves throughout my childhood, and I was never once tempted to open one.

Back in 1928, employees were not allowed to leave their desks, even to go to the bathroom, much less take a coffee break whenever they wanted or indulge in idle chatter when they were supposed to be working. On the other hand, benefits included profit sharing, and my mother sold her nest egg of the company’s stocks decades later at an impressive profit.

In 1935, my mother finally said yes to my dad, who’d remained a faithful swain, and a few years later quit her job to have children. But being a homemaker alone was not enough for her. In the mid-Fifties, when I was ten, she went back to the same publisher, working from home as a freelance writer and editor. This is how I learned my editing skills at my mother’s knee. For the Real Estate Encyclopedia, published in 1960, my mother solicited contributions from experts on various kinds of real estate, a topic she knew nothing about.

So far, not so different from what the editor of a contributed work of professional nonfiction would do. (I did it myself with a 1997 book on gender and addictions—a field in which I was myself a professional—communicating with my co-editor in Israel by fax, a heady new technology at the time.) But here are some aspects of publishing that I remember, now gone with the wind.

One, my mother rigorously outlined every chapter, asking the contributing authors to give precisely the information she wanted in the book.

Two, after receiving the chapters and tearing her hair over real estate appraisers’ lack of writing skills and ability to ignore her outline, she rewrote every single chapter herself. (I just opened my copy of the Encyclopedia of Real Estate Appraising, Third Edition, probably for the first time ever, and the prose is smooth as silk.)

Three, the publisher paid her an additional sum to do her own index. And that index was exhaustive. No omissions were tolerated. It was perfect. At ten, I became my mother’s apprentice, laying, yep, index cards out on the dining room table, alphabetizing them by the topics, subtopics, and sub-subtopics typed on my mother’s old Royal. No typos or errors in alphabetization ever slipped through.

What else would never happen today? The publisher reimbursed her for every penny she spent on postage, although bulky manuscripts and then galleys—the old long kind—and page proofs went back and forth several times from as far away as Hawaii, which did not become a state until 1959. I also remember her cutting and pasting layouts, using scissors and glue on the proofs. They probably paid her extra for that too. It was all in her contract.

My mother died in 1999 at the age of 96, and she was still dickering with her publisher, trying to get them to do another edition. In fact, changes in publishing and technology made her book obsolete, along with the information explosion. She really needed a staff of researchers, which an academic or an expert in a big firm would have had access to. The publisher wanted to do a “looseleaf” reference work, to which rapidly changing information could be added a lot more quickly. And once the Internet took off, it was all over.

On Amazon, I discovered that the 1978 edition of my mother’s book can still be found from third-party sellers: one new for $194.98 and one used for $11.09. It rates five stars, based on one review from a guy who said it was “the book I was looking for” and that he’d be interested in other editions. I’ve tracked down his email address and hope to find out why. Meanwhile, the book ranks 1,487,986 on Amazon—not so bad for a hardcover published more than thirty years ago.

A New Voice: Bernadette Pajer

Interviewed by Sandra Parshall


Bernadette Pajer's first novel, A Spark of Death, has just been published by Poisoned Pen Press.

Tell us a little about A Spark of Death.

A Spark of Death is an historical mystery set in 1901 Seattle. The sleuth is Benjamin Bradshaw, a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington. A widower with an eight-year-old son, his carefully controlled life is shattered when he finds a colleague dead in the engineering laboratory, and as the only suspect, he sets out to find the killer.

How would you describe Professor Bradshaw? What kind of man is he?

He's a highly intelligent and deeply emotional man who protects himself by being withdrawn and avoiding society. He tends toward obsession when ideas strike. He's a practical hands-on inventor, loves the precision and absoluteness of math but finds more abstract theory challenging (this makes him an excellent teacher because he finds graspable descriptions for both himself and his students). Behind his dour exterior lurks the heart of a poet, touched by beauty, haunted by his past, and devoted to his small family.

An electrical engineering professor is an unusual choice for a hero, and electrical forensics is a previously unexplored area in mystery novels. Why did you choose this protagonist and this specialty? Do you have a background in electrical engineering?

I know it sounds cliché, but I don't feel I chose Bradshaw's profession. The idea of him came fully formed, as characters sometimes do. There he was, in my head, in my heart, this wounded, dour Professor, thrilled with electricity and its promising future. Since I am not an electrical engineer, I knew I had a lot of research and much studying to do. I should have been daunted, but I was determined to bring Bradshaw alive on the page and willing to do the work. Almost the instant the manuscript sold, I went in search of an engineer to check the technical portions, and I found Bill Beaty, a research engineer at the UW. He generously and enthusiastically read the entire manuscript and provided valuable suggestions. I was pleased that I'd gotten most everything right, and Bill helped me fine tune the detail to a level that would satisfy even an electrical engineer (such as using the term "electric discharge" in some places rather than "electricity.")

Moving Bradshaw into electrical forensics as the series progresses was my idea (and Bradshaw is cooperating), because I wanted to give him a legitimate reason for being involved in future investigations. Like Brother Cadfael in Ellis Peters' series, Bradshaw's ability to solve puzzling crimes will bring murder often to his doorstep.

Why did you decide to set your story in early 20th century Seattle? What does the historical setting offer you as a storyteller that you might not have in a modern setting?

Distance. Seriously. I like that filter of time. It frees me to write honestly of subjects I wouldn't feel comfortable addressing in a contemporary setting. I'm a bit of an odd duck for a writer – I don't like to journal or keep a diary. When I try to write about here and now, I censor too much, am too aware of an audience. I wrote a contemporary mystery a couple years or ago. My agent was going to send it out to make the rounds, but I decided at the last minute to shelve it for awhile. I don't know whether aspects of that story are too honest, or not honest enough.  Probably some of each. But I knew it, and I, weren't ready yet. But my historical with Bradshaw was ready, and my wonderful, supportive agent resubmitted A Spark of Death, and this time it sold.

Is this the first novel you’ve written, or do you have others stuck in a drawer, the way many writers do? Tell us about your development as a writer.

Oh, goodness. Well, I dug into my old files and here's the scoop. I submitted my first manuscript to an agent in, gulp, 1988. A contemporary romance, the typical first-novel coming of age sort of thing. The agent said I wrote “with warmth if not yet with sufficient discipline,” which was generous of her. I had no idea, really, what I was doing. She kindly put me in the care of a new agent, and I thought I would soon be published. Hah!

Another ten manuscripts (three never left home) and at least sixty-three rejections later, I was still unsold. I was writing historical romance by then, and some time-travel romance, and the editors were saying very nice things, and I was feeling confident in my work. I'd gotten a few revision letters, and worked once with an editor for a year on a proposal she ultimately didn't buy. I went through a bit of a crisis at that point, both professionally and personally. Besides pursuing writing, I was pursuing motherhood, and not succeeding there either. I decided to make a fresh start with everything. I left the literary agency I'd been with all those years with thanks for all the support they'd given me, and took some time to rediscover my joy of reading and writing.

That's when I wrote A Spark of Death, with Professor Bradshaw, who I'd first written about years before. It felt like coming home. I loved being in his world, doing the research, exploring old Seattle, learning about life and love and electricity through him. By now my craft was solid (although one never stops learning), and I believed whole-heartedly in the manuscript. I found a new agent, Jill Grosjean, who luckily felt the same way. It took about ten years, two revisions, an interim manuscript (that contemporary never sent out), and 22 rejections before I finally got a yes. There's more to that story, but this answer is long enough. Oh, and in that time, I returned to college and got my degree, and most wonderful of all, my son was born.

What draws you to crime fiction, as opposed to mainstream or literary writing?

It took me years to figure out, but this is where my voice belongs. I enjoy reading literary works, but I don't have a literary voice. I'm a commercial fiction writer. I love a good story, I love escaping into another world, and I like a happy or at least satisfying ending where the good guy wins and I get a sense of closure. I like to read books where every word serves a purpose, either to move the plot forward, heighten tension, or ground me in the setting, and I try to write in that same way.                     

What writers have influenced you and served as role models? Whose books do you rush to read as soon as they’re published?

Dick Francis for his tight writing, P.D. James for her depth of characters and detailed settings, Ruth Rendell for her haunting emotions, and some of the classics like Josephine Tey, Agatha Christie, and Dorothy Sayers for their clever plots and distinct voice. I'm not a rush-out-to read sort of person, and I'm as happy discovering a book at the library that was published twenty years ago as I am seeing a favorite author's new title released. So many books, so little time!

Has anything about the publishing process surprised you? Do you feel ready to become a published author?

I feel like Dorothy walking out of her house into Munchkinland. For so many years, I was in that black-and-white world on the other side of the publishing door. And then it opened, and nothing's been quite the same since. Well, I still have laundry and dishes to do – why don't publishing contracts come with housekeeping clauses? 

I've been surprised at how time-consuming promotion is. Website maintenance, writing blog posts, contacting bookstores, joining writing and reading groups and interacting with them. I must confess I waste a fair amount of time searching the Internet to see where my book pops up (after decades of reaching for this goal, I figure I'm entitled to a little self-indulgence). The first time I saw my title and name online, you should have heard my squeals. That's when it felt most real. I had an ISBN!

A year ago, when the manuscript sold, I didn't feel ready for the public aspect of being a published author. Good thing it takes so long to get a book out! I've learned so much since then, and while I'm nervous about beginning my tour, I'm also eager. This is my dream come true!

Visit Bernadette’s website at http://www.bernadettepajer.com.

Canada Day All Summer Long

Sharon Wildwind

I grew up knowing two invincible rules about summer: never wear navy blue shoes between Memorial Day and Labor Day and, even though they were illegal, always shoot off firecrackers on July 4th.

July 4th is such a tidy holiday. Watch a parade. Have a barbecue. Wave the flag. Listen to political speeches and John Phillip Sousa music. Ooh and ahh over the fireworks, and bang (okay, pun intended) back to the lazy, hazy days of summer.

It’s not that simple in Canada. Yes, we have Canada Day on July 1 where we watch parades, have barbecues, wave the flag, listen to political speeches, and ooh and ahh over fireworks. The music is likely to be a little more eclectic: bagpipes anywhere a police band marches in a parade, Trinidadian steel drums in Toronto, fiddle music in Quebec and the Maritimes, and traditional South Asian music in Vancouver.

As a country we also have a sense that between Victoria Day and Labor Day, multiple pageants have to unfold before we have truly celebrated who we are as a country.

Victoria Day is the official start of summer in Canada. For those of you not familiar with Canadian holidays, Victoria day is the last Monday before May 24 because Queen Victoria was born May 24, 1818 and we’re celebrating her birthday. To celebrate the “auld queen” (and the arrival of summer, finally, finally, finally) people
• have elaborate teas, which is why this is one of my favorite Canadian holidays
• close the ski resorts, and yes, this year there was skiing in Banff right up to closure day
• open cottages and tourist attractions for the summer
• plant gardens

If you’ve got any sense about gardening in Calgary, you know that rule about never planting until after Victoria Day is as invincible as the navy shoe rule. I offer these two photographs of my balcony several years ago as all the explanation needed.

The first one was taken the day before Victoria Day; the second one was taken the day after Victoria Day





Most years the weather change isn’t that dramatic, but those late May frosts can sure sneak up on plants at night. Yes, on Victoria Day we celebrate the contributions that British-oriented culture brought to Canada, but we’re also celebrating hope. This year might just be the year that the weather cooperates, the September frosts arrive late in the month, and the garden flourishes. It’s that hope that fills gardening departments to the brim with both plants and hopeful gardeners.

Treaty Day is a movable holiday celebrated in different parts of Canada on different days. In western Canada it’s usually in June. Treaty Day commemorates several treaties signed between 1871 and 1876 by Aboriginal peoples and the newly formed Government of Canada.

By invitation, I’ve attended two Treaty Days. Two Royal Canadian Mounted Police, in full red serge uniforms, sat at a card table set up on the reserve. Everyone from the oldest resident to babes in arms formed a long line and came to the table one-by-one to have their names checked and be handed their traditional $5 payment. The kids immediately took off for the convenience store to buy candy, chips, and pop. Later that evening there was a huge meal and a dance.

As an outsider I was uncomfortable with the whole idea. What was going on here? Why were these people allowing this hollow reminder of something that happened two centuries ago to continue? But everyone else seemed to have a good time. It was a day full of jokes, laughter, good food, and music. I still haven’t “gotten” Treaty Day in the same way that a First Nations person understands it, but maybe it has something to do with home comings, promise-keeping, and recognizing that a contract is a contract.

Quebecers, who enjoy being different, don’t wait until July 1 to celebrate. They celebrate St. Jean Baptiste Day on June 24. Depending on the political climate, it’s a day to declare either joyously or in rage that French culture is here to stay in North America. Fortunately, the past few years have been more joyous than raging and the bonfires have burned brightly along the St. Lawrence River, accompanied by music, dancing, parades, fireworks, and bells ringing forth from the churches.

As a woman who comes from bilingual Louisiana and has a foot in both cultures and languages, I understand the joy and the rage. Both say that French culture is here to stay in North America and we intend to honor what made us who we are. Come to think of it, maybe there’s something of that in the Treaty Day celebrations. And in the ethnic—for lack of a better word—celebrations that have proliferated in the past few years.

There was a Greek festival in Calgary last weekend and a Turkish Festival happens this coming weekend. Before summer ends, people will have celebrated being Canadian-African, -Caribbean, -Chinese, -Hispanic, -French, -Latino, -Nigerian, -Mexican, -Scottish, -Tibetan, and -Ukrainian. For those who still need more celebrations, there are summer events revolving around Calgary history, classical guitar, cooking, dragon boats, folk music, garage bands, international blues, reggae, Shakespeare in the park, street theater, and a finale GlobalFest celebration of multi-culturalism and diversity, just in case anyone was missed along the way. And I bet you thought that Calgary just had the Stampede.

By the time we get around to the actual Canada Day on July 1, we’re already looking over our shoulders. Six weeks have passed since that last great snow storm before Victoria Day. If we’re really lucky, we’ll have twelve more weeks until the first frost, but we all know that it could come as early as the long weekend in August. All too soon; all way, way too soon the leaves will start to turn colors and it will be time to take down those gardens and batten the hatches for fall and winter.



But for now, let summer roll. Celebrate, celebrate, dance to the music.

What are We Celebrating Again?

by Julia Buckley
According to the list of 4th of July facts here, 1/4 of Americans answering a Marist poll did not know the name of the country from which we won our independence on July 4th.

I suppose it can't be avoided--that gradual evolution of a great event into something (for some) of no importance at all. But for me it also raises questions about one of America's greatest rights: the right to an education. Like everything that is free, knowledge can be taken for granted. My teacher colleagues who have taught in far-off lands could not believe how grateful those students were for education; how rooms full of 60 and 70 students would sit in absolute silence, hanging on every word out of their instructor's mouth, because this was their only chance at education.

And while many American students (including mine) are respectful of both education and teachers, I'm sure all teachers, at one point or another, have experienced one of THOSE classes--the ones with students who mock the very idea of education, reading, homework--and who take for granted the very gifts which America has guaranteed them.

Why would they do it? For one, they are assaulted by media images of young people who are oversexed and undereducated. They are fed the visual rhetoric that teen moms and porn stars are the new American heroes, and that fame is necessary for self-esteem ("fame" being a nebulous term which includes being on television for any reason). They are given this shallow, un-nourishing diet of pap, and if they are not given the analytical tools, they will think that this is the world and that these people are what they themselves should be.

"Reality" tv is nothing like reality, and an uncareful viewer might not see the neediness, the narcissism, the affectation and posturing. And unless that viewer occasionally read a book, he or she might not realize how poorly these television stars speak and think.

Remember this footage of poor Miss Teen South Carolina?



Not only can she not explain why Americans can't recognize their own country on a world map, but she can't string together a coherent sentence. But somewhere along the line she was swayed by the visual rhetoric of pretty hair and make-up, of fakery and feigned composure, and by the idea that if it looks good, it must be good.

She's not the only one. Check out this blog, which reveals that more American teens can name the Three Stooges than can name the three branches of government.

No, I'm not trying to depress people on the 4th of July. I am suggesting, though, that the date will cease to have any meaning unless we continue to invest it with some, and to demand more from our cultural representatives in all forms of media.

Let's celebrate America by asking Americans to think--something our founding fathers did very well.

What Fourth of July means to the Deadly Daughters

Elizabeth Zelvin

This is the holiday that has my husband flipping over hamburgers and hot dogs, an annual event. (He grills, but usually prefers a good steak or such elevated fare as jumbo shrimp and alder-smoked salmon.) For me, the essential element of the holiday is fireworks, the more spectacular the better. I like to sit as close to the source as possible so that the bursts blossom right over my head and I can feel the bass thumps in my chest. Do I wax patriotic? No, I’m too much of a historical relativist. After researching my book about what really happened when Columbus “discovered” America, I’m keenly aware of the ambiguities in any such event, the American Revolution included. But overall, I’m glad it happened—and bring on those fireworks!

Julia Buckley

For me, the 4th of July used to look like this:




These are scanned right out of my family scrapbook (which I abruptly stopped doing about five years ago because it was SO time consuming. My sons will think that one day I just stopped loving them. :)

Yes, the 4th was once about face paint and patio-chalk-flags and excited little boys. I remember one magical fourth, on the evening of which we went to the biggest town park with our blanket and some provisions and waited, with what seemed the entire village, for the fireworks to start. One of my college friends had joined us, the new godmother of my youngest son, and 11-month-old Graham seemed to sense their bond, because he spent the evening crawling on her and occasionally biting her toes.

The fireflies were out, and my older son (the one in the pictures) skipped around and thought everything was SO exciting!

Now they are 16 and almost 13, and seemingly young existentialists. The most exciting thing in life these days is the never-ending array of video games that they have in their collection, and it is indeed hard to pry them away.

But they still love the fireworks, Liz--just like you and every good American. :)

Jeri Westerson

When I was a kid, it was all about the fireworks. But less about big park displays and more about our neighbors getting together with those streetside stands of purchased fireworks: sparklers, Whistling Petes, those whirly things that spun on the ground. We'd pool our resources and have a safe and sane fireworks show all our own.

We can't buy those anymore as they have been outlawed in many California counties so we have to travel to outlying cities to seek out those city park fireworks displays. I like putting together gourmet picnic baskets of wonderful little salads and grilled chicken on skewers, cheeses and fruit. Wine. You also don't get embarrassed about being a little extra patriotic and get the opportunity to just reflect on the past and what brought us to today, appreciating the freedoms we have that even some of the freest democratic countries don't quite enjoy.

Sheila Connolly

I lived in the Philadelphia area for twenty years total, at various times in my life, including elementary school.  Yet somehow my suburban Quaker school never offered us a tour of Independence Hall, although I have a dim memory of sitting in a bus and watching the Liberty Bell go by.

When as an adult I worked in Center City, within walking distance of the site, did I ever do the tour thing?  No.  Maybe I'm a history snob and prefer obscure places to tourist Meccas.  It took a visit from out-of-state relatives to force me into the building.

We all probably know the bare bones of the story--representatives of the colonies locked together in a room, the windows closed so no one could eavesdrop on them as they hammered out the Declaration of Independence.  One wonders if they were allowed to remove coats (probably wool) and wigs, and roll up their shirtsleeves, to get the job done.  Let me tell you, it gets hot in Philadelphia in July!

So when at long last I saw that chamber, I was struck almost viscerally by how small it was.  Crammed together, hot, tired, and in equal parts frustrated, exhausted and exhilarated, a small group of men drafted a single document that changed the history of the world. Being in that space made them human for me.

If you're ever in Philadelphia, it's worth the visit.


Postscript:  I'm a member of the DAR, which celebrates the role that our Revolutionary War ancestors played in the founding of the country.  So far I can list thirteen of mine who participated in some way, and mainly they're in Massachusetts, where I now live.  I visit them regularly.  Here is one of my ancestors, alongside his brother.  The house they were raised in was the inspiration for the Orchard Mystery series.

Sandra Parshall

For me July 4 means the height of the blooming season for the hundreds of daylily plants in my garden -- a glorious sight, prettier than any fireworks display. At least it used to mean that, until the deer in the nearby woods discovered how delicious daylily buds are (they're sweet and tender and are used in some Asian stir-fry recipes). For the past few years we've waged a battle throughout June to protect the precious buds that should burst into gorgeous bloom around the 4th of July. And we've been losing. But this year things are looking up. We've been extra diligent in applying revolting repellent spray, and although we've lost some buds to the deer, the plants have plenty left. Some have already survived to the point of blooming, and others are fattening up, waiting their turn. The countdown begins. What will I find when I walk through the garden on July 4 -- the sad snipped-off stalks that once held flower buds, or a riot of colorful blossoms? Will this be the Independence Day we liberate our garden from the tyranny of the deer?

STUFF

by Sheila Connolly

I was planning to write a post about how we accumulate Things in the course of our lives, and then become stymied with what to do with them all.  Then a couple of weeks ago I came upon an article in the New York Times Sunday magazine written by Carina Chocano ('Underneath Every Hoarder Is a Normal Person Waiting to Be Dug out'), and she said many interesting things about hoarding, its history, and our cultural fascination with it.  Plus she said them well, and I'm not going to repeat all her points here.  However, I think she missed two important aspects of Keeping Things.

I live in an 1870 Victorian house, that most people would consider large--you know, twin parlors with sliding doors, nine-foot ceilings, spacious entrance hall with sweeping mahogany staircase.  There's one problem, though:  a dearth of closets.

Or, I should say, a conspicuous absence of clothing closets.  On the ground floor there is a walk-through butler's pantry with a china closet, and in the dining room there is another china closet with a glass front--I guess that was for the "good" stuff.  There is a pantry closet in the kitchen, and I think there was once a second, long since converted into a powder room. 

But clothes?  Ha!  Coat closet?  Nope, only two rows of wall hooks by the back door.  Bedrooms?  One has no closet at all.  Two have very shallow closets flanking the chimney flue (lined with hooks, but not deep enough for a modern hanger), and the last has both a closet and a linen closet.

To put it simply, the storage in this house is lousy.  Or at least, the easily accessed storage.  We have a full basement--damp.  We also have a full attic--which is either freezing or broiling, may have a mold problem, and is not easy to access, especially carrying anything larger than a breadbox. 

I have a lot of stuff, and I've filled every closet, and a lot of the attic.  In my own defense, let me say that it is not stuff that I acquired; mainly I inherited it.  My grandmother, a fiercely independent woman, lived for the last twenty-plus years of her life in an exquisite studio apartment facing Park Avenue in New York.  Everything she owned was encompassed in that room, plus a walk-in closet and a storage closet on another floor.  She chose carefully and cherished each item she kept.

My mother shared her mother's taste, and kept many of the things that my grandmother relinquished.  One of the first purchases my mother made when she married was a matched pair of glass-fronted corner cupboards, to display "nice" pieces.  I still have them (yes, they're full).


And I inherited all of it.  When my mother died, my sister and I divvied up what we wanted, and sold the rest.  There were still two trucks' worth that we carted away.  The furniture was nicer than anything I had managed to acquire by then, so I was happy to have that.  But it's all the other stufff...and I find it almost physically painful to part with something that carries memories.

Someday my daughter (our only child) will inherit most of this stuff.  Much of it won't mean anything to her, since she doesn't have the memories that I do.  How do I pass those on?  What about the collection of demitasse coffee cups that my grandfather--who I never met--collected and enjoyed, as my mother told me on more than on occasion, cradling the cup in her hand?  What about the pink jade Buddha with a removable fan?  I remember playing "hide the fan" in my grandmother's apartment in the 1950s (we always found it, as you can see).  None of these will mean anything to my daughter.  But how can I get rid of them?  I haven't come up with any answers yet, but I pity my daughter in advance.

The other topic that Chocana didn't address is collecting books.  I've always loved books.  I truly believed that our local library was giving me books to keep (so I hid them under my bed).  My grandmother and my mother read books, usually hardcovers.  I had the full set of Nancy Drew before I was ten.  I started on science fiction in college, then shifted to mysteries, and never looked back--and all this was long before I ever thought about writing myself.  My husband and I collected mysteries when we were first married, and inherited more from his father.

So I have thousands of books, and those are only the ones I chose to keep.  I'll admit up front:  there's not enough time left to me to reread all of them, especially if I want to keep reading new books as they come out, and now I have to read the ones that my many writer friends are producing.  And yet...it's painful to part with a book that I love.

How do you handle it?