Color Schemes and Bloggy Gadgets

I've been fiddling with my blog layouts, gizmos and gadgets. I'm a scaredy-cat when it comes to change in my corner of the computer world. I break out in hives when my mouse acts up and suffer paralyzing inertia when my computer has an unexpected break-- ah,shutdown. I have this fear that everything will somehow disappear never to be seen again. Though we all know that things posted to the internet never really disappear.

So, please tell me what you think. Is this easier to read than my white on black? I've feared for some time that my blog's dark background made it hard on the eyes which is a very bad thing in bloggerland but I've hesitated to change it. Then I stumbled upon this post by the estimable Michelle Davidson Argyle, aka Lady Glamis, aka The Innocent Flower, which made it seem easy. By the way Simon Larter's back and has a great guest post on her blog about flash fiction. (Hint... a secret way to trim the fat off the bones of your novel). After you post a comment here and tell me what you think you can go over thata way.

Should I revert back to my old ways or do you like the lighter scheme better? This has been so stressful I have to take a break for a bowl of ice cream. Next thing you know I'll be putting up an actual picture of myself!

Speaker's Corner

Hyde Park,
where anyone can speak their mind.
It’s Sunday so there’s religion—
urgent voices and eyes that would drain you.

At the far edge is a Marxist with a different stick.
His long hair whips across his face
as he extols the virtue of public transportation
Across the green, the park moves with soccer.


I liked the idea of a Speaker's Corner for my Friday Flash entry.
If you or anyone you know has written a Friday Flash 55, go tell the G-Man where you can find more brevity and wit and get feedback from coast to coast.

And then have a great weekend.

Wednesday Uplift --- Eureka!

Nathan Bransford wrote a very interesting post recently on the Dunning-Kruger effect. Do you lack confidence in your writing? It seems that might be a good thing.

This was like an Eureka moment to me. And what an interesting concept. If you’re at the pre-agented stage in the journey to publication, you’re especially susceptible to agonizing self-doubt. If you suffer from lack of confidence in your writing skills (as I believe we all do from time to time), make your way to Mr. Bransford's posthaste.

Lack of confidence can be debilitating, and with each rejection it becomes harder and harder to maintain a decent level of self-esteem without which one cannot gather the courage to forge ahead and resubmit. According to the Dunning-Kruger effect, lack of confidence can actually be an indicator of talent. Likewise, when people are incompetent at something they tend to lack the ability to realize it.

Maybe this theory can also explain the recent actions of certain Republicans in the House and Senate. Maybe it explains why the Texas Board of Education is trying to write Thomas Jefferson out of history. These self-proclaimed historians have traced the idea of "separation of church and state" back to Jefferson and they don’t like separation of church and state, so they would strike him out of American History. What is troubling about this is that the textbook industry contains very few textbook publishers and because of the tremendous purchasing power Texas has, what they want schoolchildren to know can make its way into classrooms around the country. From sea to shining sea, Thomas Jefferson could become but a memory.

But this blog is supposed to be principally devoted to the craft of writing, so back to Nathan. Read his post. I’m calling this the Wednesday Uplift. You might be underrating your abilities. Go see what I mean.

Prolificacy

I would like to thank Sarahjayne Smythe for awarding me the Prolific Blogger Award.
According to Webster, prolific means "marked by abundant inventiveness or productivity."

So what does it mean in blogspeak, this writer in a state of congitation with the contented dog at her feet? According to the inventor, "A Prolific Blogger is one who is intellectually productive...keeping up an active blog that is filled with enjoyable content."

And folks! That ain't easy! Do you see the worry etched into her brow?

I don't think I'm very prolific but I do try to post something meaningful at least two or three times a week. The temptation to put up anything is always whispering in my ear, and I'm constantly swatting it away, so I'm grateful, Sarahjayne, for this acknowledgment.

Check out her blog. She, herself, is an extremely gifted and prolific writer.

Now for the rules. No groaning. This one is easy.

1. Every winner of the Prolific Blogger Award has to pass on this award to at least seven other deserving prolific bloggers.

2. Each Prolific Blogger must link to the blog from which he/she has received the award.

3. Every Prolific Blogger must link back to this post, which explains the origins and motivation for the award.

4. Every Prolific Blogger must visit this post and add his/her name in the Mr. Linky, so that we can get to know the other winners.

So who are my recipients? I'm glad you asked. I've given a great deal of thought to this, and I know some of you are on a blogging hiatus or don't do awards but that doesn't mean I can't tell you what a great blogger I think you are. No pressure from me....just appreciation and a little bit of a shout-out. You are prodigious, not only on your own blog but with the time you spend commenting and supporting other writers. And you are . . .

1. Tricia at Tailspinning
2. Cat at Words From The Woods
3. JonPaul at SkyMeetsGround
4. Jonas at Twilight
5. Jemi at Just Jemi
6. Andrea at A Blurred History
7. Carol at Carol's Prints
8. Wendy at Musings From Down Under
9. Annie at Quiet Commotion
10. Nessa at The Chrysalis Stage

And there are many more writers I've met along the way who are also worthy of this designation, and I could just keep going but for time constraints. It's time to go to work. And you know what they say about that. "It isn't work unless you'd rather be doing something else." And from the minute I arrive to the minute I leave, I'd rather be doing something else. The best thing about "work" is the 60-minute drive during which time I read my manuscript. Of course I read while I drive. Don't you?

One more thing before I let you leave. I have a question for everyone who is in the query process. Do you include a link to your blog under your name at the bottom of your letter? Should we? Is it like dessert? If the agent wants more they can have it?

Have a great week. Me? I'm going to try to live up to my new handle as I finalize my query and the lucky agents to receive it. (I'm working on my confidence). Optimism breeds success. Onwards and upwards.

Taking the tone of the company you keep

We passed three bars before we found one
you could be seen in.
You threw darts that wouldn’t stick
and I looked for songs on the jukebox
that wouldn’t make you want to leave.
Everyone wants to leave the country to turn fifty.
After the train pulled out
I fluffed pillows into the shape of you.


If you write a flash in 55 words (no more and no less) vist the G-Man (Mr-Knowitall, himself) and let him know. If not, visit him anyway and read some others.

What are you doing today? I'm watching for my first robin, planting seeds and query pondering.

TGIF and all that jazz.

Here's to blogging! (raises coffee cup)

P.O.V. (the masterful experiment)

I woke in the middle of the night troubled by the weight of my unsent query letter. Is it specific? Is it succinct? I kicked my way out of bed and settled on the couch with The Sound and the Fury to take my mind off the unsent Memories of Snow. Thus it was that at two in the morning I was trying to get a handle on the confusing dialogue and brilliant but exasperating P.O.V. of the manchild, Benjy. Faulkner's narrative weaves back and forth between decades with no warning. It's no wonder I didn't understand it the first time I tried to read it. But I think I'm finally beginning to appreciate the greatness of this literary masterpiece, the risk of beginning a novel in the P.O.V. of an adult man who is mentally three years of age, and the sheer genius of pulling it off. I'm only now getting the symbolism of Benjy's castration and Caddy's soiled drawers (a symbol of her promiscuity), and the reason behind their brother, Quentin's, obsession with time and eventual suicide.

I was reminded of the recent news out of the state prison in Lucasville, Ohio about a prisoner on death row. His third execution date is set for today. He tried to commit suicide with a drug overdose before the last one, so they had to postpone it until he recovered. I wonder if he broke the hands off his watch and put them in his pocket like Quentin did? He was unconscious for some time and they nursed him back to health so he could be executed properly. He's recovered and they will execute him today by lethal injection. I expect it’s already been done.

One can only take so much Faulker at two in the morning, and I put the paperback, penciled up with dates in the margins to help me follow the shifts in time, aside (it is a tragic story, but at least it is fiction). I leafed through my Eliot Coleman gardening book, The Four Season Harvest. It, too, is wonderfully written with photos to complement the wealth of knowledge this gardener from Maine has accumulated over the years.

Earth is so kind - just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest. -Douglas Jerold

I've been tickling the earth in the green house. I dug up a worm here amongst the argula ***envision picture*** and tucked him back under the soil. Please use your imagination as I live in internet no-man's land and couldn't download my pretty photo.

This morning I was gifted with another sign of spring. I heard them first and dashed to the window for a look. A flock of geese were flying overhead, heading north.

Godspeed.

Gravity

Many of my blogging friends are writing about love scenes and here I am, writing about dust. I wouldn't blame you if you hit exit. Get me the hell out of here! But I wish you'd stay. Sometimes I don't feel like writing about love. Oh, I like nothing better than a good love scene, the warm calloused hand sliding over the knee, under the skirt, oh, God! don't stop! and I like writing them as much as reading them. It gives me that funny feeling in the groin just thinking about it, but sometimes I have to write about what makes me sick.

Hospitals make me sick. The sterile maze of hallway, doors opened to bare backs on beds, the indignity of disease, how it diminishes and reduces one to zero. The gift shops all have the same trinkets and flowers and get-well balloons. Get well. Get well. But what if they won't let you go home? Then how do you get well? I suppose it's the smell that starts the quiver in my belly, the oh-I'm-going-to-be-sick twinge in my gut. I'm not much use in a hospital, other than to sneak in cookies and date bread (real food) books and newspapers, but even when you pull the curtain you can still hear the roommate groaning. I can't adjust a pillow without glancing at the monitor and staring at the squiggly life lines and all those fluctuating numbers, and I think I have a heart problem or a lung disorder or what if that little bump on my ankle that when rubbed sends tingles into my toes is not benign? What if it gets bigger? Why can't I make an appointment? I so admire nurses and caretakers and doctors and everyone who works in a hospital. My sister held hearts in the operating room, the warm center of gravity in the palms of her hands without moving for however long it took to disconnect and reconnect and suction and suture. She retired early but not without varicose veins. All that standing. I stand most of the day too, but I could never do what she did.


The door swings empty. Dust settles.
Flesh accommodates.
Even a feather obeys gravity.
The old lady stumbles but she recovers.
I hurt therefore I am.

When you crossed the hospital lobby
Did you think to escape
With only shaking hands?
Pick up your feet.

Make a wrong turn and you could come up missing,
Walking back at yourself with the look of another.
in elongated mirrors hung in corners.
Don’t breathe.

Grandma couldn’t without the ventilator,
hissing and pumping a nasal gurgle.
(Did I dream that noise?)
The incident, unforeseen, took her down
one day before she was to come home,
one from which she could not recover.

It’s raining again at the window bed,
Steady as the pocket watch ticking
from where no one can see it.
It paces us through gathering events.
In a place like this . . . the only time I ever saw
my father down.

Out of time. And when was it ours?
Sometimes we can’t go home but would it matter
if we don’t recover?
We get along. Dust settles.

Finding Truth in a Tree

She put her arms around it, listening
to the leaves shuffling their cards.
The bark was rough
like the bristle of her lover,
the resonance of his voice.
But she only smelled the rot of the wood—
the bowels of her longevity
and nothing more.
The tree was dying
and no longer spoke to her.



If you write a Flash 55 visit the G-Man to let him know. You'll get feedback from the most gracious host from coast to coast and from his followers as well.

Thanks to all of you who visit my blog. Even if you don't comment I feel you right . . . here, like Men who Stare at Goats.

Character Flaw

I was stopped at a traffic light on the airport-access road when I noticed her sitting on the curb with her head in her hands. She was dressed in jeans and a baby blue sweatshirt. She didn't bother to stick out a thumb. Nobody picks up hitchhikers anymore. I looked for a stranded car. Nothing. A companion walking the berm. No one. What was her story? Was she running away? Miss a flight? Did she need a ride? If not, why was she sitting on the curb? And if so, why didn’t she act like it? She carried nothing, not even a purse.

She was as out of place as the wheelbarrow I once spotted in the middle of a wintering field with snow on the horizon and the crops in the barn. Nothing except in things. Left in the center of a fifty-acre field, a quarter of a mile from a house or an outbuilding. What happened to call the owner out of the field with such urgency he left his conveyance behind? Why can't I get that image out of my mind?

The light turned green and I accelerated with the rest of the traffic, behaving as expected, like a good citizen. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw her stand and stretch. Hands in pockets, going nowhere.

Inside at the checkpoint I was checking IDs. The man standing in front of me was shaking so badly he couldn't get his wallet out of his pocket. I waited. He was thin with long blonde hair and an angular face. Shaking. He pulled it free and I checked his license. I let him leave it inside the clear sleeve of his wallet. I could see what I needed to see. He wasn't expired. I followed him down the line and watched him try to take his shoes off. Painful. I pointed him to a chair. He declined. The cops would think him under the influence, or an addict. What's an addict but a person in pain? Maybe his blood sugar was low. That was it. He was hypoglycemic (the disorder of the hour), hair lank and hands shaking, a mess, but he had a plane to catch.

The airport is a bad place to be sick in. Strangers watch, afraid to extend a hand. Everyone's afraid they'll catch something. A cold, an addiction, bad luck, sudden hair loss. I talked to a man at the MSU Organic Conference who fed his chickens a bad batch of Purina chicken feed full of GMO corn and they all lost their feathers. Every last chicken lost every last feather.

Sometimes I want to lock myself in the women's bathroom and stay there until The World leaves.

But back to my traveler. Was there a connection between him and Baby Blue? Only in the interlocking circles of my mind. I didn't stop to help her because to do so would've made me late. (Like the circles of Dante’s Inferno, this was bad. This was probably number four or five.) But what's more important than getting to work on time? Nothing in the beaten-down soul of the American worker. We're all energizer wind-ups.

I didn't help her, but I could help him. I picked up his shoes and set them on the x-ray belt. From a co-worker’s reaction, you would've thought I'd picked up a cow patty and threw it at her like a Frisbee. What? Oh, I'd forgotten to don my smurf gloves. I despise those nasty blue gloves made in some slum factory in Asia we have to wear. You ever notice all those bottles of hand sanitizer sitting around airport checkpoints? Yeah, everyone is obsessed with GERMS. Squirt squirt squirt. Hand sanitizer does not take the place of washing with soap and water and I don't think I'll come down with Rocky Mountain Fever or some other exotic disease because I picked up a man's shoes.

I ate dirt when I was five and probably a little cow patty too. I would've helped him take those shoes off and put them back on if he'd wanted me to. People don't always want help. Is it easier to extend a hand than to take it? I never do enough. But I swear I’ll do better the next time I see someone sitting on the side of the road.

God Move Over

In between editing my novel and reading my latest issue of Poets and Writers and exploring online literary magazines and soaking up content (this week's favorites are Scarab , the world's only mobile literary magazine created just for the iPhone and iPod touch, Pure Francis, a little gem out of Chicago, and Bloody Bridge Review, a shameless plug, I know,) I've been paying frequent visits to my greenhouse to check on my fledgling attempts at growing spinach and arugula in February. Oh...but now it's March and the sun is higher and the snow is melting and we have to open the doors when the sun is shining because it otherwise gets too hot. And while writing is my first love, everybody needs to eat (even writers) and people deserve access to safe food free of GMO contamination.


I attended the Michigan Organic Conference at MSU this past weekend which elevated my blood pressure along with my resolve to do more to spread information on the rampant contamination of our food systems. Genetically modified organisms (God Move Over, some call it) have been brought to us by Monsanto, the same company who brought us DDT and Agent Orange and then lied about their safety. Those involved in seed production say Monsanto is buying up seed companies with the intent of owning all of them. If you control seed, you control food, and if you control food you control people.

High fructose corn syrup, which is in everything from cereal to ketchup, is 100% derived from genetically modified corn. GMO foods have been proven by scientific study to accelerate aging, affect fertility, cause immune system problems and allergies, and a 50% increase in breast cancer. Oh, and if that weren't enough? They can turn our intestinal tracks into little pesticide factories, yet these studies have been swept under the carpet by the strong arm of Monsanto political influence. They have a lot of money and they don't care about your intestines.

Now you might not want to think about such things because your head is full of your WIP. You’re more absorbed in keeping a handle on your wayward protagonist than what you’re about to put in your mouth but I know I want to live long enough to add more accomplishments to my literary arsenal (it took me six years to write one novel!). I don’t need any of the aforementioned health problems to add to the other obstacles we writers experience.

So what's this all about? Can we get GMO foods out of our grocery stores the way the Europeans and the Japanease did? I believe we can through activism. We can’t wait for our govt. to act, because they won't. But all we need is 5% of the population to denounce GMO to make it financially burdensome for the likes of Kraft, Nestle, Kellogg, etc. to continue to use it in their products. If you can't buy organic try to at least avoid GMO foods, processed foods and fast food. Make your voice heard. Ask questions. Be diligent. That 5% is you.

So here's to good eating and writing well.

First,

you lose the impatience of youth,
linger over emerging bulbs
And let the phone ring.

Mirror mirror on the wall,
from the first step out of bed
to grinding the next day's coffee,
I am my mother after all.

I rub the bump I’ve developed in my palm
And gauge the knob on my wrist.



The idea behind this Friday writing game, called 55 Fiction Fridays, or 55 Friday, is to write a complete story in 55 words. If you can do it, don't forget to let the G-Man know. I'm amassing a number of these nuggets and who knows....I might find another story idea buried in the rubble. Give it a try, those of you out there who say you can't do it. The story is right outside your window (or in the palm of your hand).

T! G! I! F!

Flash 55 Friday

THE DETOUR

Signs led us off the road we knew
and pot holes sprang up like curious prairie dogs.
Shacks and crooked trailers dotted the road
and the car quieted.
Our children in the back were suddenly paying attention.
We’d crossed a border without guards
and entered a country where people sit on porches
and don’t wave.


If you can tell a story in 55 words let the G-Man know. He's the F-55 moderator, and you can check out the history of Flash 55 from his website and challenge yourself.

Vancouver, Rejuvenate Me!

I wanted to take a few minutes to say how much I’m enjoying the Olympics. By every measure, the Vancouver games have so far been a success. Everyone I know is watching. I think Vancouver has done an outstanding job, from the opening ceremony, to dealing with a record warm February. Speaking from an American viewpoint, it is so refreshing to watch skating and hockey in beautiful arenas minus the obnoxious advertising banners that litter the walls of ours. It’s so refreshing to watch sports without being subjected to an advertising backdrop that covers every available surface on which the eye might light. Commercialization comes at us here in America from 360 degrees. And in sports, it feels like 380. It has even infiltrated our college venues. We’ve become desensitized to the point where we don’t really see it anymore. This past week has made me realize just how pervasive it is.

This is the reason soccer will never be big here in the States. They would have to interrupt the game every ten minutes for a TV timeout. They already do that in football, which changes the pace and flow of the game. But enough of that.

A note on the symbol used to depict the Vancouver Olympics, a colorful humanoid with arms spread wide (or, a pile of rocks). For centuries the Inuit have stacked rocks—sometimes into human forms—to create inukshuk, which act as guideposts for people traversing the vast tundra. The inukshuk now represents friendship.
Notice the mouth in this image, open in a smile of welcome. I love that little detail the artists added. Well done!


The beauty of Vancouver and Whistler is breathtaking and when they take us inside the artfully decorated skating arenas, I think I speak for many when I say I feel like singing along to Oh Canada. Speaking of that, has anyone else noticed how the Canadians belt out the words to their national anthem with gusto and enthusiasm? Not just the athletics, but those in the crowd? The Americans chew gum and grin, some mouth a few of the words but none full-out sing. Is it that they don’t know the words? Can't reach the high notes? I know our anthem is difficult to sing, but no one is holding a microphone to their lips so it doesn’t matter if they don’t reach the high notes in stride. At the same time,however, I loved Bode Miller’s big smile when he won the gold.

I know what we’re doing tonight, watching the Russians play the Canadians in hockey. I won't say who I'm rooting for, but the kitchen will be clean and the lights will be off at puck time. To all my Canadian friends, this is a heartfelt congratulations for what I know will be a resoundingly successful Olympics. Not only do you have health care, but you know how to put on a show.

Flash Fiction Friday

REGRETS

The road to the lake is as flat as an ironing board. We rode his motorcycle to a ramshackle bar on the water. On the ride home the asphalt shimmered and I used the backrest. He left me on the bike to take a leak behind an abandoned farmhouse and then never called me again.

Now . . . this is what might have happened, and what I wish I’d written:

The road to the lake is as flat as an ironing board. We rode his motorcycle to the sand’s edge and drank beer from his saddlebag. On the ride home bugs caught in my hair and summer rushed past. He pulled off the highway to pee in the ditch and grasshoppers jumped over his boots.

I won't post the history of Flash-55 because I did that last week but if you can say it in 55 words please let the G-Man know.

Happy TGIF to y'all!!

Query Critique Contest

Elana Johnson is running a contest this week for a query critique. If your query is ready and your ms. is shiny as a new quarter enter her contest. Yes....you really can win a query critique from a top literay agent.

Plugs and Bloopers, Dancing with Myself

Some of the worst mistakes of my life have been haircuts. - Jim Morrison


Because I've been accused of being self-deprecating, I'll throw modesty to the wind and tell you I have a short piece up at the Bloody Bridge Review. I'm pretty happy to share the company of the writers they've featured thus far.

While at it, I'd like to plug LBJ, a literary journal from the University of Nevada that encourages environmental literature. They're currently considering poems, fiction and creative nonfiction on an avian theme for upcoming issues.

Another one of my favorites is the New Ohio Review Follow the link for Stephen Dunn's A Discreet Charm and you won't be sorry.

let’s drink to an evening as solemn
as Eugene Debs demanding fair wages—
his smile the bent arrow only the best men
can point at themselves.

Their reading period is September through May and they're running an awesome contest.

Inspired by Monkeybicycle, I've been experimenting with the one-sentence story. For every one I write, I throw one away.

While the teacher was at the beer garden they tied her in her chair and when he returned smelling of his lunch, she was punished for being lazy.

Should I throw it away? Should I write of funny things or of what the full moon suggested to me? Should I write of his flat stomach or her naked back, bent by disease for which there is no cure? What would your rather read about?

I have a suggested lyric for the albino Muslim rapper:
no . . . I don't
. . . changed my mind

I'm taking President's Day off to write and I'm not telling anyone. A day for writing, browsing my blogger friends and literary journals, corn chowder, music and dancing with myself.

Flash Friday Photograph

Because Friday is the day for other things, like Happy Hour, it's a good day for shorts. I was inspired to participate in Flash 55 Photograph by C.M. Jackson. This particular Flash Friday idea was started several years ago by Susie the Boss. Check out her link for the reasons behind why and to read the most amazing flash ever by Ernest Hemingway.

Finally, if you can say it in 55 words, let the G-Man know.

My 55-word photograph:


MAKING ROOM AT THE BEDSIDE

We'd gone home for sleep when the phone rang, calling us back. The monitor was turned off, and the machine that had heaved oxygen into her lungs lifting her shoulders and chest off the mattress was gone. The sheet was tucked under her chin, and her mouth was closed. She’d waited until we were gone.

Fred Bear

How do I describe the big lake to you in the face of a hard north wind that waters my eyes and takes my breath away? How can I even begin to show you what I see? OK, I’ll try, because it’s worth trying. And please forgive me if my efforts fall short, for even a picture doesn't capture the feel of a place-the magnetic pull, for instance, at a certain location by the Dead Sea called Jericho, or the aura of the Grand Canyon at sunset. I can look at pictures in the National Geographic where the best are published, but will I feel the depth of the gorge in the pit of my stomach?

Lake Huron is a shimmering mirage, a frozen landscape of jagged ridges and valleys—waves caught in the freeze-frame of February. At first glance it appears solid, like a snow-covered field, but then the undulating movement of the surface in sync with the swells below it, captures the eye. Like the sands of Dune, the whole thing is heaving with the power of what lies beneath. It mesmerizes like the head of a cobra. I cup my mittened hands around my eyes to block the wind and stare. Further out, in open water, jagged ice floes peak the horizon like sailboats. This monster of a lake with the reach of an ocean has always amazed me.

One lone ice fisherman walks the bank with his backpack and his pail and walking stick. He tramps carefully in cleated boots. He is prepared, bundled up like a Sherpa guide. I am not. I don’t have my camera (so you’ll never believe this), I don’t have my long underwear, and I don’t have my boots. What I am is crazy, and what I have is a new haircut with caramel highlights still damp from the salon, hidden by the scarf wound tight around my head for this impromptu walk on the breakwater. When I realized I was only three miles from the lake, I knew I would keep going. How does anyone turn their back on this water? I’ve never been able to figure that out. I’ve never been able to do it.

I wrap my scarf over my mouth and walk along the railing of the breakwater to where the sand turns to ice, afraid to go further, afraid I’ll slip or my scarf will blow away and I’ll be tempted to chase it, afraid I’ll fall off the edge onto the shifting ice.

He is Fred Bear. It says so on the back window of the pickup truck I parked alongside. Just drill that hole his bumper sticker encourages his fellow fishermen. With the bad economy, ice fishing is on the uprise. It doesn’t cost anything and you can bring dinner home. I like a man bullish on winter, one who can bring dinner home. There are only the two of us out here. If I get in trouble, will he save me? If I get frostbit, will he unthaw me?

I start back for the car. I can’t keep up with him. I walk past park benches and frozen fountains. I walk past the restaurant that used to be the summer hot spot. The view was destroyed when they built the marina and extended the breakwater and now it’s shuttered, like the dancehall and the roller rink. Only the lake is still the same.

I walk past his truck with the bumper stick innuendo and hop in my little Ford and turn on the heat. I shake out my hair and laugh. The damp tendrils on my neck are frozen stiff. Oh, Fred, if I had my long underwear on I’d go out with you and help drill that hole.

The Winter Submission Season

"So what are you doing with yourself nowadays?"

Do you dread that question as much as I do?

or...

“Whatever happened to your “book”?

I especially love that one as the room goes quiet and everyone turns to listen.

"It isn't a book!" I want to shout. "It's a manuscript!"

Two different animals, as an agent at the Columbus Writers Conference pointed out to me several years ago in a breakout session. “Your manuscript isn't a book,” she said, “until it has a Library of Congress ISBN number.”

That's an important distinction and one I've never forgotten.

But what I wanted to tell you is that I've just found a way to answer these innocent questions truthfully without sloaching into a corner. Thanks to a wonderful article by Cecilia Ward Jones, The Art of Perseverance, in the current issue Poets and Writers, I know now to proudly say, “I'm editing my novel. Yes, the one you read (insert appropriate number) __years ago.”

I must say, the weight of expectation shifted when I read the story of her writing experience, one so similar to my own. Not everyone goes to college right out of high school, making the seamless transistion to an MFA program and publication of their first novel before they're thirty. Most aren't even lucky enough to do it before they're forty. It's OK to have gotten married and had children first. It's OK to realize accidently that what you've really wanted to do all along was write. And it is especially OK to spend years editing a novel.

At the same time, however, it is not OK to cower in a room with the door closed, past the time when your manuscript is ready, mindlessly editing for the sake of editing, afraid to put yourself out there and move onto the next step, afraid to hit send. So how do we know when our manuscripts are ready? How do we make the distinction between jumping the gun and procrastinating our life away? I suspect that when you reach the point where you're only making minor changes, you're close, and when you’re satisfied that it's as good as you can get it, send out a round of queries,then immediately start a new writing project. I’m convinced it’s the only way to survive the inevitable rejections that will start pouring in, because they will.

I know. I've been there. I queried before I was ready and paid the price. Unable to make the distinction, I ignored the don't rush advice from those I should've listened to.

But I persevered. I survived a move, a broken computer and lost pages. I survived rejection and discovered the pleasure of editing. Cutting and polishing a manuscript is addictive. Reducing that word count instead of increasing it is highly addictive. As Andrea Cremer wisely advised, you have to take word count literally . . . make sure that every . . . word . . . counts.

And one day you and I will get “the call”. One day you won’t see the hated “however” in the first sentence of an agent’s reply. I’m convinced of that as well. For myself and for all of you who refuse to give up.

In the meantime I’ve rediscovered I can write short stories. Even Flash Fiction. I’ve dug out a few rough drafts from college. They don't pass the cringe test but they contain ideas. And that’s a start. An idea that becomes character, conflict, and resolution.

There are dozens of literary magazines and university presses out there calling for submission of poems and short stories. Some even pay you. Winter is the season to submit. There’s even a call for submission of one-sentence stories from Monkeybicycle. (Wrap your head around that one.) I gained confidence after having a short story accepted by Bloody Bridge Review for a February issue. (They’re a new online journal seeking submissions.) So while I’m editing my manuscript, I’m going to start submitting shorts like crazy. And poems. Like crazy! Tis the season.

One final note, don’t forget about Simon and Carolina's contest. Rules. Prizes. You have until the 31st (midnight tomorrow!!)to polish those thousand words and the prizes are tight. Don’t be square and miss out.

One final note as I say goodbye to January, I’ve noticed a lot of bloggers have been listing five things that make them happy. I like to be different.

I give you five things I wish I had, from the absurd to the just-out-of-reach.

A lemon tree
A parachute
A widow’s walk
An agent
A telescope

What are yours? And where are you submitting??

The Art of Doing Nothing

We had to put our dog to sleep last week. I wasn’t going to write about it but then I thought about how she liked to sleep curled up beside my chair with her nose on the heat register, content to be doing nothing, which brought to mind a book my son gave me one Christmas called The Art of Doing Nothing which inspired a long forgotten poem in which I mention this same little dog when she was still a puppy and I thought about another writing room and another time . . . and so it goes.


Sunny was twelve but still spry until the week after Christmas when her belly suddenly bloated and overnight she could scarcely walk. It seemed her legs would no longer support her stomach. After a couple days of this we thought she was constipated (too many Christmas treats?)and our local pet store said to give her pumpkin, and if she wasn’t better in a couple of days to call the vet. We gave her pumpkin. She ate it; she would eat anything.

She had lost weight but with her long hair we didn't notice it(we never cut her hair in the winter) until she got into a briar patch and had burrs from behind her ears to between her toes, and we had to take her to the groomer and they ended up shaving her to get them out, and we were like....My God! You can see her backbone! But this was two weeks before Christmas and with the chaos of the approaching festivities we neglected to do anything about Sunny because she was acting the same. We put her sweater on and forgot about the weight loss.

So we went with the pumpkin experiment, but she didn’t get better. She used to bound up and down the porch steps, but now she could only manage the down. When she finished her business she just stood there looking up with her mournful little shih tzu eyes. So there we were, carrying her inside and out, up and down, like a puppy.

My laptop sits on a table beside that heat register I told you about (her favorite place), but now she wouldn't get out of bed. I put a fried egg in her dish. She ignored it. Yeah. A very bad sign from a dog who used to eat everything.

The next morning, she lost control of her bladder, legs splayed in a widening pool of discolored urine. I looked down at her in horror. My husband called the vet and put on his coat. He told me to take a picture.
The prognosis? Possible kidney failure or a tumor or any number of other age-related ailments. The cost? $120.00 for a diagnostic blood test and $80.00 for an X-ray, and this just to find out what was wrong. Surgery, recovery . . . who knows? The vet said she could still die in six months. Our other option was $58.00 for euthanasia and $120.00 for cremation if we wanted the ashes. If not, they would do a “group” cremation for $50.00.

“My God!” my daughter said. “That would be like Auschwitz!”

The kids didn’t want her cremated. They want her buried on the farm with a marker.

My husband carried her home in a bag while I was at work. But we had a problem. The ground is frozen.

This dilemma made me think of the burial-delayed funerals in the U.P. They have a no-shovel season from November 15th to March 1st. Digging into the ground would be like trying to penetrate 8 inches of concrete. Cemeteries have thinly-walled buildings that rely on Mother Nature not refrigeration to keep the corpses cool. The caskets are tagged and slid into storage racks until spring. They’re used to this up there. There’s a large Finnish-American population in the U.P. Back in the old country, bodies were stored in the church’s bell tower until the funeral.

We don’t have a bell tower but we have mounds of rich, organic compost, freshly spread from the barnyard, snow covered but not yet frozen. So as of now she’s nestled under a mound of compost,
and next summer she’ll be spread around the farm. Is that so bad? Do the kids know this? No. They want her buried with her blanket and stuffed animal and a cross over her head, or a marker on which could be inscribed: Here lies Sunny, a good dog. She never peed on the floor until the day she died. She liked carrots and biscuits, eggs and pumpkin. She liked people.

I've subjected you to the tale of her passing, so I may as well subject you to the poem as well.


THE ART OF DOING NOTHING

The mercury outside my window
is covered with ice.
Even the inside of the window is frosted.
I scrape it off with my nail—
it falls into the sink.

The furnace drones without pause
and my summersick dog lies on the register.
A draft runs through the house.
It sets chimes ringing and makes her nervous.

I inventory things not to do.
It’s in a book—The Art of Doing Nothing.
Meditate and you can see things that aren’t there . . .
brandied cakes and a bottle of wine
set out on the sideboard as if for a friend.

I look behind doors and pause at the stairs
Come full circle to see myself sitting there—
in the old winged-back chair.
It’s a special friend.