A Few Words ...

…Can make a difference.

After working for days on the next book in my In Maine project, I returned to Pavane for Miss Marcher to make a Dramatis Personae to remind me of all the characters that may turn up as I write That Kentucky Boy.

In that prcess, I reread the entire novel and, seeing and unabashedly enjoying the story, I found errors and omissions that needed attention.

That led to the necessity of a 3^rd edition of the novel in print and digital.

This edition is available now in digital format at: Amazon as well as the many Amazon sites worldwide; KOBO; Barnes&Noble; and in print on: amazon.com/ and amazon.co.uk.

And now on Smashwords and its many retail partners, including iBookstore and libraries. 

Ask your librarian to order Pavane for Miss Marcher, 3^rd Edition as an ebook through a library distributor such as Library Direct, Baker & Taylor's Axis360, Gardners, OverDrive, Bibliotheca, Odilo, and The Palace Project.

 

Mothers & Persistence

Many years ago, my mother travelled with a group from her church to England. On this trip, she visited the birthplace of John Wesley, the founder of the Wesleyan denomination of the Protestant Methodist Church. When she returned, she gave me a few packets of seeds from the shop associated with the site.

Although I was still a student, I had a small garden in my rented suburban house, in which I grew a few flowers, the proverbial and ubiquitous tomatoes as well as a six-foot by ten-foot lawn. I made every effort to plant and grow the seeds but without success. Instead, in an attempt at atonement, I wrote a short story, “John Wesley’s Hollyhocks,” and included it in my Master of Arts Degree thesis in Creative Writing. The opening paragraph begins:

Mrs. Fortinbrough approached the ground, all her weight braced heavily against the brick border of the flowerbed and, stroking the fine, new shoots, raised her face to the window. The girl let the curtain fall back over the window and disappeared. Her daughter was no more interested in this season’s hollyhocks than she was interested in going to church….

This is a story about the relationship between an adolescent daughter and her mother. As we can all imagine and is indicated by the closure of the curtain, the relationship is strained at this stage. Happily, my actual relationship with my mother, though frequently contentious—as is any interpersonal interaction—was healthy and positive. Her passing has not lessened my love for and dependence on her wisdom.

This year, for the first time in nearly thirty years, I have a garden which has eventually proved to be responsive to hollyhock propagation. When I first planted the seeds, directly into the soil in the spring of 2018 with absolutely no response, the letdown was palpable. The soil in these high desert plains is river-bottom clay—as hard as rock when it’s dry. This spring, I started hollyhocks and delphinium among other varieties in the proper potting soil in seedling pots.

I then prepared an area of the garden with compost and other organic material. When I transplanted the seedlings, I had to protect the young plants from the wild rabbits with plastic collars. Once the hollyhocks began to grow above where the bunnies could reach the leaves, the plants flourished.

In many ways, I equate gardening with writing. Persistence is the key to success. As Steven Pressfield remarks in his writers’ guide, The War of Art, procrastination is a form of resistance. Persistence and perseverance get results, just as Mrs. Fortinbrough will get results with her daughter:

…Just as the hollyhocks had needed her care and discipline, so did the daughter. It was not too late for her roots to be tapped and the plant to grow straight again….

Freedom

This is my first post for some time and I am out of sync with any schedule but I wanted to take the opportunity of the 4th of July this year to write on Classic and Cozy Books about this seven-letter word, F-R-E-E-D-O-M.

There are many catchphrases that sum up what we think of our freedoms in America:

• "Land of the Free Because of the Brave" is one of my favorites. 
• "Freedom is not free" is another.
• "The high cost of freedom" another.

We often take these freedoms and rights (which are "self-evident") for granted and allow them to be eroded. As writers, we are the vanguard of the freedom of expression. When our freedom to create is undermined, we are the first to be silenced. 

At our own peril, we forget that the "Pen is mightier than the sword." 

Consider the fate of writers, artists and journalists on April 25, 1915 in Constantinople. 

Consider the years the Russian author, Alekzandr Solzhenitsyn, devoted to criticism of the USSR and communism, later credited with the destruction of the Soviet Empire.

Whether we write fiction or non-fiction, entertainment or education, our freedom to create is always under threat because that freedom is a threat to anyone who wishes to impose their ideas or beliefs with no regard for differences of opinion. 

This 4th of July, we will be celebrating our declaration of independence from a tyrannical, undemocratic government. At the same time, we can also celebrate our personal declaration of independence from artistic/creative censorship. 

Happy Independence Day! 

As the Year Turns

 A new year, another year, the future which will soon become the present, approaches.

Our thoughts invariably turn to ways in which we can improve: Our New Year’s Resolutions.

Just as invariably, we set goals, make promises, put our ambitions in writing, create word pictures of our dreams.

The result is, the experts say, a recipe for underachievement, if not downright failure.

Why do we do it, set ourselves up to be unsuccessful?

We don’t intend to make a lackluster attempt. We intend to improve. We intend to right the unsuccesses of the past. We intend to move forward—dragging our unfulfilled resolutions behind us, our baggage of misery.

What if we approached January 1^st with unresolving those burdens? What if we unresolved to dwell on the past, unresolved to remember our mistakes, unresolved to embrace what we dislike about ourselves?

We might start our Unresolutions with casting out all that has plagued us, kept us underwater, forced us to think less of ourselves.

We might then be better equipped to release the angels of inspiration, creativity, love, generosity, hope, thoughtfulness and faith. Especially, faith in ourselves to accomplish all that of which we have been created to be capable.

Very best and warmest wishes to all for AD2019.

Inspiration II

 I had been tempted to leave this a blank page to emphasize the dearth of this essential element in a writer’s repertoire in my own circumstances.

 

Then, lo and behold, this magical ingredient returned and I had a thought for a sequel to my American historical, Pavane for Miss Marcher.

Inspiration struck just as I was having a conversation about a mug that my son sent me as a birthday present which reads “Please do not annoy the writer, she may put you in a book and kill you.” The conversation happened to be about a distant cousin-in-law and I commented that, many years after this CIL had annoyed other members of my family with her “I’m so far superior to you” attitude, I had taken a tiny bit of revenge by casting her attitude as the reason the parents of my character, North (in Pavane for Miss Marcher), refused to attend his wedding.

What has that to do with Inspiration, you may wonder.

North is a veteran of the American Civil War. He and his brother-in-law, Aurelius, have been on my mind since, as secondary characters, they made their presence known — in the proverbial ‘pantser’ form of writing — by appearing as the story unfolded.

Following this conversation, I sat quietly for a moment. A progression of images appeared as the tissue of an idea for North’s story unfolded. Except that his tale will have a happy ending, where it goes from this inspired moment is a mystery.

And I like it that way.

Lazy Fingers & Cognitive Assumptions

Every writer faces the task of proofreading at every stage of the writing process. We sometimes do this onerous task at the end of a writing session or we wait until the entire work in progress is commented to paper or even to the last minute before the novel is published.

Competent typists are usually accurate to within a very small percentage point. Two-finger typists, commonly called the “hunt and peck” variety can actually be better at accuracy but much slower. Whichever we are, we occasionally make assumptions about the manual aspects of producing a written work.

Last year, I happily published my seventeenth novel of twenty written works with my name on the cover. While considering a new cover and further research into that period of American history, I reviewed a small section of the novel and—shock horror—even after careful and intense proofreading of the “Advanced Reader’s Copy,” I discovered a typographical error.

Not much further along, I found another error—the “My brain thought this word but my fingers typed that one” kind. During proofreading, the brain often wins the argument, making the assumption that the word typed was the word thought.

With more than one such error, I began at the beginning of the novel, making note of the errors in pencil and marking the pages with strips of multi-colored plastic stickies (my stash of these useful writers’ tools are well-used).

The whole process of re-proofing an already published novel taught me yet another lesson: Proofread more than once and proofread backwards. If you’re self-publishing, asking a friend or paying a professional editor are options. Even so, there will be the occasional missing letter, word or punctuation mark.

In that instance, take the philosophical approach: No one is perfect.

The Best or the Worst: Our Choice

A little over eleven years ago, the film, Bobby, was released in Europe—my home at the time. Media interest in his contribution to history had been awakened and I, as the resident American, had been invited to give an interview with Wedi Saith (=After Seven, a Welsh language television program) about my experiences on the day that Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy (RFK) was assassinated.

This gave me an opportunity and a very good reason to research his life so that I had something of value to contribute to the interview.

What I learned was amazing—if what had been written about him was true—and bewildering. Sirhan B. Sirhan was a Palestinian Christian who became fixated on Robert Kennedy before the Six Day War in June 1967. What about Kennedy then triggered his hatred?

RFK was a powerfully motivated man from his earliest days in government in the 1950s. His contribution was already huge before he was murdered: civil and human rights, anti-Apartheid, fighting organized crime and rogue unions. He would have worked to end America's involvement in the Vietnam War much sooner than Nixon—a good 5 years before.

There was no evidence that RFK supported Israel in the Six Day War, but that is the reason Sirhan B. Sirhan gave for his action.

Yet, RFK most likely would have put human rights at the center of the foreign policy of the United States and this may likely have made a significant difference to developments in the Middle East.

How much different would the world be if not for a 24-year-old obsessive? This question rings as true today as it did in 2007.

How much of our personal interests are given as excuses for our obsessions? How deeply do any of us delve into the “bigger picture” to look beyond personal opinion, our particular world view, to consider the exponential ramifications of our actions?

Very few of us will have the impact on the course of history of either Bobby or Sirhan but we sometimes act as though we do. If we have a purpose at all, I believe our greatest contributions are in our personal relationships and especially those with our offspring.

The psychologist, Brenda Wade, when asked what parents should tell their children about tragedies and crises in the world, said to the effect, “Why should your children know anything about these matters?” She enjoined parents not to allow their children to watch the nightly news.

In today’s atmosphere, some parents think nothing of exposing their small children to violence and mayhem for the sake of their own jaded  beliefs.

Childhood should be a time of innocence, wonder and limitless possibilities. When we teach our children to hate and fear and judge, we limit their potential to live fully, grow to their greatest expectations and contribute to the best we all can be.

Each new generation can be the greatest or we can spoil their chances with our own blighted vision. If we do that, are we not fulfilling our worst fears for the future?

Writers have always had a role to play, as story-tellers and myth-creators, to enlighten and clarify, not always to expose the worst in us, but to bring a greater vision forward, to stand for the best and the true—the bigger true than the squalid, narrow “real” of the evening news.

In memory of Mollie Tibbets, Kate Steinle and too many others.