By the Beautiful Sea

Independence Day week was hot where we live in California's Central Valley. We opted to enjoy cooler weather and different scenery on the coast--an excellent choice. In the lovely villages of Ft. Bragg and Mendocino, we encountered perfect weather, beautiful scenery, and small town Americana. From Mendocino's Volunteer Fire Department doing its annual fund raiser with food for the parade-watchers, to George Washington reading the Declaration of Independence from the steps of the Masonic Hall, to a juvenile gray whale hunting just off-shore at the nearby state park, we spent a refreshing week appreciating the beauty and diversity of our state and nation. In these images, I share some of my favorite memories, hoping you enjoy too.

 Some of the locals posed for us, both in the sea and at the parade in Mendocino.





Everyone flew the flag.

Susan Aylworth is the author of 18 published novels. Her latest is SUNNY'S SUMMER, a novel set in the Sierra foothills near her northern California home which examines the aftermath of the devastating #CampFire. She lives with her husband of 49 years, Roger, and one old, arthritic cat. She loves to hear from readers. Find her at www.susanaylworth.com, @SusanAylworth, susan.aylworth.author@gmail.com, or facebook.com/Susan.Aylworth.Author. Also on Pinterest and Instagram.

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! 

The Freedom to Write

By Karen McCullough

I’m writing this on July 4th, the day the U.S. celebrates as Independence Day, which started me meditating on freedom and what that means to an author. There are so many layers to the topic I barely know where to start, though, just as freedom itself can be a sticky issue involving questions of individual liberty versus responsibility to others.

I suppose on the broadest possible level, my brain can come up with anything at all to write about. And at an only slightly narrower level, legally I can write pretty much anything I want.  I’m fortunate to live in a country where I have broad leeway to do and say what I want with significant legal protections for my right to say things. I know there are places in the world where that isn’t true.

That said, there are still some constraints. Ugly legal consequences are likely to ensue if I decide to write something that slanders or libels others, plagiarizes someone else, or violates trademarks, etc. Those should be repugnant for an ethical author in any case.

The next level would be standards of good taste that one violates at one’s own risk. There are things I simply won’t write about it. I’m not going into detail because others won’t necessarily agree with my limits, and some people can write well about sensitive topics that I wouldn’t dare tackle. This is also a moving target. Fifty years ago four-letter words and anything hotter than a chaste kiss were verboten in romance novels. Now frank language is the norm and details of sex acts are pretty much expected unless the book is characterized as “sweet.”

And then there’s the practical level, the one that comes down to decisions about marketability, viability, and career-building. At its most basic it’s about the realities of the publishing industry today, and this is the one where I struggle. The way things stand today, whether you’re published by a company big or small or even self-publishing, you’re most likely road to success is to find a niche and fill it as best you can.

And that’s something I’ve never been able to do. My restless imagination chases ideas through a number of different genres and subgenres, returning with story ideas that rarely fit well into any single category or series. I’ve been published in mystery, romance, fantasy, romantic suspense, and paranormal. 

I have one mystery series that lost its publisher after the first one when Five Star/Cengage cut its mystery line. The second one had been written and accepted editorially at the time of the purge, and I’ve since self-published it. Harlequin picked it up (as it hard the first one) and will do a mass market paperback for the Worldwide Mystery Library. And I’m now in the process of writing the third in the series. So far sales aren’t blowing the roof off, but I’m just happy that I actually have some.

So I’ve exercised my right to write whatever I want, and the market has exercised its right to shrug and mostly ignore me. That’s the way it goes.

If you'd like to check out all the different books I've published over the years and their assorted genres, come visit my website at http://www.kmccullough.com

Holidays, Choices and Freedom

 by Janis Susan May/Janis Patterson

Okay, today I’m going to be a little serious today, because this is a subject on which I am passionate. Don’t worry – I’ll go back to writing and other frivolities next month.

July 1^st was Canada Day. July 4^th (day before yesterday) was America’s beloved celebration of Independence. July 14^th will be France’s Bastille Day, recognized as the beginning of the Revolution against the tyranny of the Bourbon royal house.

I have always wondered why the celebrations of the freedom and sovereignty of three great nations had to fall in the hottest and most uncomfortable month of the year. Anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere you can pretty much count on July being miserable. However, that’s neither here nor there and completely beyond my pay grade.

We must look beyond the physical discomfort and revel in the ideals behind the celebrations. Oh, I know everyone loves the fireworks and parades and picnics and all the other trappings of the holiday, but let’s be honest – anyone can hold a parade or set up a fireworks show just about any time of the year. What is important is the idea behind these three monumental holidays, and this should be important to everyone no matter their political allegiance. Some things go beyond politics.

Freedom. Or, if you prefer, liberty. The right of the people to rule themselves without bowing to the dictates of a single group or another country. The right of the people to choose their own path. The ideal that every man has – within the limits of fair and equitable laws – the right to live his own life as he sees fit. The right of every man to determine his own destiny by his own work and ability. The right of self-reliance and the right to keep what you earn. The right of the pursuit of happiness.

Sometimes each of these countries has fallen a bit short on each of these rights, none of which are guarantees. Every generation has to win these rights again, for as President Reagan said, “Freedom is always only one generation away from extinction.” (And I’m paraphrasing here, but that’s the gist of his statement.) Someone else said that the Tree of Liberty must be watered with the blood of Patriots. I find that incredibly sad, but it’s also incredibly true.

I hope each and every one of you had or will have a simply splendid holiday, with friends and food and fireworks and all good things, but I also hope than during this day of celebration and all the days that follow you remember the reason for celebrating. And give a moment of thought to those who died to preserve your freedom to go your own way and make your own choices.

If I can leave you with one thought, it would be (as so many truths are) from Benjamin Franklin. It comes from a letter he wrote to the Pennsylvania Assembly; many versions of the words exist, but the thought is always the same : “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

Even as you celebrate, make your choices well.

Thankful

In two days, Americans all over the world will be celebrating Thanksgiving—a time to gather together with family and friends to acknowledge and give thanks for our great good fortune. This celebration is founded in the tradition of bountiful harvest festivals in earliest societies and formalized within the world’s many faiths to give thanks to their respective Devine Being for the blessings we receive.

We all have people and events in our lives for which we are thankful.

Americans, generally, have an optimistic attitude and a positive vision for ourselves and for our country. Even faced with threats from within and without, we believe we will prevail as a nation.

The writers who contribute to this blog are of that ilk, positive, optimistic, forward-thinking: however you want to label the attitude that leads us to write the happy or hopeful ending, despite the state of the world.

Call us unrealistic but, as so many before us have taught us, “Attitude is Everything.” And the “Power of Positive Thinking” is undeniably more successful than the doom and gloom that has destroyed so many people and nations before us.

Can I be less brave than the characters I create? In my novels, whether I write under my real name or my pen name, Lily Dewaruile, my characters have three goals: to defeat evil, to find a place they can call home and, because I write Romance, find the love for which they are willing to face evil at the cost of losing everything else.

Their bravery is measured by how willing they are to be bold in the face of evil despite their fear of losing their lives or their chance of losing the home they have won, not by their cavalier heroism from a position of strength.

Can I be less brave than all the men and women who have faced evil in the past to ensure that I can call my country home?

This year, I have had the privilege of attending the swearing in of new citizens to the United States. Each of the many thousands who swore an oath to their new country was required to learn basic facts about the way their new country is governed. How many of us can correctly answer any of the 100 questions that new citizens must?

Because we are free, we are at liberty to be complacent about matters that, in too many other countries, mean life or death. Do we have to recite passages from the Constitution or die? Must we kowtow to tyrants or die? Do we have to adhere to any religion or creed or die?  Are we forced to share the opinions of our leaders or die?  

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful that I was born an American and that members of my family have chosen to take the oath of citizenship of this great and beautiful country.

At all of the swearing in ceremonies I attended this year, one of the new citizens has sung The Star-Spangled Banner and a recording of Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA was played. I share this link (skip the ad!) because I am proud to be an American and I will “gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today.”


Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

A Child's Hallowe'en in San Francisco

'Arawn' - Ruler of Annwn
(the Underworld), illustration
 by Ioan Einion, © Alys Einion, Y Lolfa

All Hallows' Eve has been celebrated across the Christian World since the formation of a structured church. Calan Gaeaf (Kal-ahn GEYE-ahv), as it is known in Wales celebrating the start of winter, has been a festival since earliest pagan Celtic times. In Ireland, the festival is known as Samhain (SOW-en), celebrating the decay of life and is derived from an ancient cult of the dead.

Hallowe’en as we know it today, did not exist in America, or for that matter anywhere in the world, until the great influx of Irish immigrants in the 19th Century. This day of ghouls and goblins would not exist now if not for Irish children extorting food and money from their neighbors at the behest of their parents, with threats of tricks if the better-off neighbors refused to submit to giving treats.

Although the Irish were Roman Catholic, the religious holiday melded with the pagan to facilitate the youthful blackmailers’ chicanery.

During my childhood, Hallowe’en was a children’s event, anticipated throughout the early Fall with intricate plans for costumes. Gypsy or witch, princess or fairy were the choices we girls preferred. Boys chose Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula or headless ghosts.

From the moment the sun dropped below Twin Peaks, we were out in packs of threes, fives or tens running from one house to the next, ringing every doorbell. I lived in the Haight-Ashbury and our territory for our night of extortion was as far as we could go without getting lost.

Ceridwen, the Witch,
illustration by Ioan Einion,
© Alys Einion, Y Lolfa 

If we breached the entry of an apartment complex, we had access to every resident. Once in a while, there was a party going on at which we caught glimpses of Hallowe’en Future: adults behaving like … us! The only difference was that the adults were not subject to extreme sugar highs – theirs was a high of a different kind.

The total world domination of Hallowe’en as experienced in the USA was not achieved until the appearance of the film, E. T. Phone Home, in which the opening scene was the epitome of my childhood escapades. Even then, fully three decades passed before “Trick or Treat” on October 31st became the norm in the six countries of Britain, five of which are Celtic.

We cannot go back to the innocent times of our childhood. In this city, Hallowe’en is not an event in which children can participate with any sense of the safety, excitement and freedom that I and my fellow witches and monsters enjoyed. Adults have reclaimed the ancient cult of the dead and any aspect of the religious meaning is subsumed by Bacchanalian excesses.