I admit it...I am an emotional person. I inherited an ease of crying from my father.
What set me off tonight? Writing a little bit in a facebook post about my author friend, Melissa Volker's new book, How the Light Gets In.
I was fortunate enough to have been given the opportunity to beta read this book for Melissa months in advance of its official launch date. I've beta read for her before, but this book hooked me deep and drew me in from the very first page. Having been a shy, socially awkward, anxious kid who was picked on in school the story resonated with me on multiple deep levels that I didn't think still existed, but they are still there, like dark pools waiting to be agitated by a probing finger.
I loved how art is used in this book...as an escape. As a connection. As a message. Being an author and an artist, words and pictures have always captured my attention. Melissa's writing is akin to reading a photographic image. Her prose evokes images in the reader's mind, her words, carefully chosen and arranged on the page, create pictures that accompany the story.
Trying to find the words to scatter rose petals across the cover of this book, to celebrate it's existence in the literary world, to tie balloons to praise and elevate it into its rightful place among literary classics such as The Catcher in the Rye, The Outsiders, A Separate Peace, Flowers for Algernon, Lord of the Flies...all those novels I read in middle school and high school that still reverberate in my mind...that is where How the Light Gets In belongs...it's a book that will endure.
And that is what makes me cry...that someone I personally know has written such a book and still doubts her skill. Melissa! Seriously! Every one of your books that I have read- Delilah of Sunhats and Swans, Hidden, Anabelle Lost, Where We Go, A Life Undone, The Thirteenth Moon, Apocalypse Alice...each has been a beautiful stepping stone leading to this novel.
And, I firmly believe that there's more yet to come, that despite this triumph, there will be others emerging from your pen.
I cry because it is amazing to me to know such an exceptional writer, such a talented and gifted author.
Bravo, Melissa! Bravo!
Monday, October 8, 2018
Thursday, October 4, 2018
Remembering My Mom Tonight
Eighteen years ago tonight, my Mom passed away from multi-organ failure after a long struggle with diabetes. I didn't make it downtown in time to say goodbye. She was gone by the time I reached the house, having been directed to go to the ER and not finding her there. I was disappointed I wasn't there at the end, but I had seen her mid-morning the day before just before she was released from the hospital. I was sitting in the room when her longtime primary care doctor came into the room. It still amazes me that they shook hands and had a brief conversation in which he thanked her for being a wonderful patient and she thanked him for being a good doctor. They said goodbye to one another, he nodded to me and then left the room. Despite morphine induced paranoia and wild rantings and statements, she was lucid right then at that time. She knew I was there. She asked if everything was ready at home, the hospital bed had been delivered, her oxygen was there. I said I was going over to double check, that I'd be sure everything was in place. She then said, I just want to go home and have peace and quiet for 24-hours. No visitors. I kissed her goodbye, told her I'd see her after she was rested, and left. That was the last time I saw her alive.
What I remember most about my mother was her generosity, her perseverance. She loved her family, and she truly cared about all people. Life threw a lot of hardballs at her. Some she dodged, some glanced off her, but some struck her hard enough to knock her on her butt. The thing about her was, she never complained. She got herself back up onto her feet and she kept moving forward.
She lost her own mother when she was only 13 years old. Her father worked in a mill. She had a five year old brother to look after. She finished high school. She went to nursing school. She graduated from Cooley Dickinson School of Nursing and immediately went to work at CHD as a night nursing supervisor. A year later she was married to Dad. The next year my big sister was born. Four years later I was born. Just over a year later my brother came along.
What a lot of people don't know is that my mother suffered at least nine miscarriages. Nine babies-gone. I don't know if there was one before Lynnmarie was born. It's possible. Then there was the four year gap between Lynnmarie and me. I think there must have been a few between us. Siblings lost. My brother came along 14 months after me. By the time she lost the final two, I was old enough to be aware that something was going on. I think I was in kindergarten when she lost her last baby and had a hysterectomy, against the wishes of the Catholic priest who told her that her duty was to have babies. She threw him out of her room after telling him that her duty was to raise the three living children she had at home, they needed their mother. That was when she broke with the Catholic church and we said goodbye to Immaculate Conception.
She stayed home and raised us as she recovered from her multiple surgeries. She had a lot to deal with- Dad finding a decent job after layoffs. He landed at Hamilton Standard when I was little and stayed there for 30 years, retiring a few years after John and I had given them a granddaughter. There were health crises with my sister, my great-grandmother, my brother falling on a glass while running in the hallway and badly cutting his wrist, her gallbladder surgery, Dad's kidney stones...she waded through it with her head up and steered the little ship called Family through rough seas to calm shores.
She went back to work as an RN. She became one of Massachusetts first Nurse Practitioners. She saw her own patients and they loved her. She welcomed all our various friends into our home and made them an extended part of our family. In high school, Lynnmarie, Jeffrey and I often looked at one another wondering just who our friends were coming to visit- us or Mom. Our house was always full of family, friends, cats and kittens, and occasionally a dog. There were always cookies or brownies, sodas in the fridge, games of Parcheesi or Scrabble at the kitchen table, puzzles to build.
We did fun things like go hiking in the fall with a big Thermos of hot chocolate, dressing up as hippies in the early 70's, picking up my Uncle, Aunt and cousin who had also dressed up, then taking Dad's VW microbus up to Mom's father's house. He hated hippies, would squirt dishwashing detergent out the car window at hippie hitchhikers...but he laughed when we all showed up on Halloween to trick him good. He even tried on Mom's wig, Lynnmarie's love beads, and strummed a guitar for a photo we all cherish to this day. On the way home, driving through downtown Northampton, we hung out the windows in out hippie gear tossing full size Hershey bars to people on the sidewalks.
We summered at Hampton Beach in a stone cottage right across the street from North Beach. College roommates and their boyfriends, friends, family...the door was always opening and closing as people came and went...and the dining room table that could seat at east twenty if not more was always crowded, food plentiful (Mom was half Italian and didn't know how to cook small!) People slept everywhere and patiently took turns in the one bathroom in the cottage. Family cats Wiggy and Poohsie vacationed with us.
We never wanted for anything although we were not rich by any means. I got a '62 VW beetle for my 16th birthday. It didn't run, but I didn't care. I hand-painted it enamel Chinese red. Dad got it running. It was a standard I couldn't drive. I hopped it up the street a few times then Dad sold it to a co-worker and I used the money to buy a '73 Ford Pinto, baby blue. It got me to college and back, although it was prone to developing vapor lock abut a mile from home...back in the days before cellphones.
Mom made us all happy. She made us laugh. She liked to have fun. She tried to learn to juggle. She tried roller sating. She water skied when she was young. She wanted to be a helicopter pilot and had met a man where she worked who was going to teach her, but she developed diabetic retinopathy and then double vision so flying was out.
She cherished her one and only grandchild, Kelly. After saying we weren't going to have kids, we decided to give it a try...After getting over the shock of our waking her up on a Saturday morning to tell them they were going to be grandparents, she jumped right into being a Grandma with both feet..basically becoming a big influence in Kelly's life. She was confined to her chair for the last few years of Kelly's life, but devised numerous story-based games to play with her. They had an entire world called the Tweets (long before Twitter), Steven Sparrow, Tweet, Little Tweet...Mom told stories, drew pictures and world built for Kelly, stretching her imagination, opening up vistas in her mind. They played Pet Vet treating every plush animal in the house, Mom writing chart notes and prescriptions Kelly would take to the pharmacy for Grandpa to fill with M&M's and jelly beans.
Mom was in the hospital when Kelly's training wheels came off and she rode a two-wheeler for the first time. We took a picture, printed out an 8X10 that a nurse hung on the bulletin board at the foot of Mom's bed.
She enriched our lives. She let us live our own lives, make our own way in the world. If we made mistakes, we had to deal with them ourselves, but she was always there if we went to her for advice, guidance. She didn't tell us what to do. We had to find our own way out of predicaments, but she was always there for us in the background. None of us ever moved home. None of us ever borrowed substantial amounts of money. I'd borrow maybe two hundred dollars from time to time, but always paid her back. She kept an account book, but more importantly, I kept my own account book of what was owed and made sure I paid her back with interest.
Mom lived life large and as fully as her health allowed. She was full of love and joy. She was generous to everyone. I learned a lot from her and have carried those lessons with me throughout my life. They have been passed down to Kelly. I'm thankful to have had her for my Mom for 42 years. She left a huge hole in my life when she departed, but I've been filling that hole with new friends, new experiences, no ventures. The one thing I am from being my mother's daughter is not one to sit on the sidelines and wait for life to happen. I jump in with both feet and make life happen all around me. That's what fills me with happiness and satisfaction. That's what's led me to writing books and drawing squirrels. This is what's inside of me, my way of expressing it and sharing it.
Thanks, Mom, for letting me be me, for never clipping my wings, for letting me make mistakes and find my own way forward, but for always having my back. Thanks for giving me everything I needed to be happy. When I look in the mirror, I see me, but it reminds me of you.
Love you always, Mom. Eighteen years gone, but you'll never be forgotten because you are still so very much alive in my heart and in my memories.
What I remember most about my mother was her generosity, her perseverance. She loved her family, and she truly cared about all people. Life threw a lot of hardballs at her. Some she dodged, some glanced off her, but some struck her hard enough to knock her on her butt. The thing about her was, she never complained. She got herself back up onto her feet and she kept moving forward.
She lost her own mother when she was only 13 years old. Her father worked in a mill. She had a five year old brother to look after. She finished high school. She went to nursing school. She graduated from Cooley Dickinson School of Nursing and immediately went to work at CHD as a night nursing supervisor. A year later she was married to Dad. The next year my big sister was born. Four years later I was born. Just over a year later my brother came along.
What a lot of people don't know is that my mother suffered at least nine miscarriages. Nine babies-gone. I don't know if there was one before Lynnmarie was born. It's possible. Then there was the four year gap between Lynnmarie and me. I think there must have been a few between us. Siblings lost. My brother came along 14 months after me. By the time she lost the final two, I was old enough to be aware that something was going on. I think I was in kindergarten when she lost her last baby and had a hysterectomy, against the wishes of the Catholic priest who told her that her duty was to have babies. She threw him out of her room after telling him that her duty was to raise the three living children she had at home, they needed their mother. That was when she broke with the Catholic church and we said goodbye to Immaculate Conception.
She stayed home and raised us as she recovered from her multiple surgeries. She had a lot to deal with- Dad finding a decent job after layoffs. He landed at Hamilton Standard when I was little and stayed there for 30 years, retiring a few years after John and I had given them a granddaughter. There were health crises with my sister, my great-grandmother, my brother falling on a glass while running in the hallway and badly cutting his wrist, her gallbladder surgery, Dad's kidney stones...she waded through it with her head up and steered the little ship called Family through rough seas to calm shores.
She went back to work as an RN. She became one of Massachusetts first Nurse Practitioners. She saw her own patients and they loved her. She welcomed all our various friends into our home and made them an extended part of our family. In high school, Lynnmarie, Jeffrey and I often looked at one another wondering just who our friends were coming to visit- us or Mom. Our house was always full of family, friends, cats and kittens, and occasionally a dog. There were always cookies or brownies, sodas in the fridge, games of Parcheesi or Scrabble at the kitchen table, puzzles to build.
We did fun things like go hiking in the fall with a big Thermos of hot chocolate, dressing up as hippies in the early 70's, picking up my Uncle, Aunt and cousin who had also dressed up, then taking Dad's VW microbus up to Mom's father's house. He hated hippies, would squirt dishwashing detergent out the car window at hippie hitchhikers...but he laughed when we all showed up on Halloween to trick him good. He even tried on Mom's wig, Lynnmarie's love beads, and strummed a guitar for a photo we all cherish to this day. On the way home, driving through downtown Northampton, we hung out the windows in out hippie gear tossing full size Hershey bars to people on the sidewalks.
We summered at Hampton Beach in a stone cottage right across the street from North Beach. College roommates and their boyfriends, friends, family...the door was always opening and closing as people came and went...and the dining room table that could seat at east twenty if not more was always crowded, food plentiful (Mom was half Italian and didn't know how to cook small!) People slept everywhere and patiently took turns in the one bathroom in the cottage. Family cats Wiggy and Poohsie vacationed with us.
We never wanted for anything although we were not rich by any means. I got a '62 VW beetle for my 16th birthday. It didn't run, but I didn't care. I hand-painted it enamel Chinese red. Dad got it running. It was a standard I couldn't drive. I hopped it up the street a few times then Dad sold it to a co-worker and I used the money to buy a '73 Ford Pinto, baby blue. It got me to college and back, although it was prone to developing vapor lock abut a mile from home...back in the days before cellphones.
Mom made us all happy. She made us laugh. She liked to have fun. She tried to learn to juggle. She tried roller sating. She water skied when she was young. She wanted to be a helicopter pilot and had met a man where she worked who was going to teach her, but she developed diabetic retinopathy and then double vision so flying was out.
She cherished her one and only grandchild, Kelly. After saying we weren't going to have kids, we decided to give it a try...After getting over the shock of our waking her up on a Saturday morning to tell them they were going to be grandparents, she jumped right into being a Grandma with both feet..basically becoming a big influence in Kelly's life. She was confined to her chair for the last few years of Kelly's life, but devised numerous story-based games to play with her. They had an entire world called the Tweets (long before Twitter), Steven Sparrow, Tweet, Little Tweet...Mom told stories, drew pictures and world built for Kelly, stretching her imagination, opening up vistas in her mind. They played Pet Vet treating every plush animal in the house, Mom writing chart notes and prescriptions Kelly would take to the pharmacy for Grandpa to fill with M&M's and jelly beans.
Mom was in the hospital when Kelly's training wheels came off and she rode a two-wheeler for the first time. We took a picture, printed out an 8X10 that a nurse hung on the bulletin board at the foot of Mom's bed.
She enriched our lives. She let us live our own lives, make our own way in the world. If we made mistakes, we had to deal with them ourselves, but she was always there if we went to her for advice, guidance. She didn't tell us what to do. We had to find our own way out of predicaments, but she was always there for us in the background. None of us ever moved home. None of us ever borrowed substantial amounts of money. I'd borrow maybe two hundred dollars from time to time, but always paid her back. She kept an account book, but more importantly, I kept my own account book of what was owed and made sure I paid her back with interest.
Mom lived life large and as fully as her health allowed. She was full of love and joy. She was generous to everyone. I learned a lot from her and have carried those lessons with me throughout my life. They have been passed down to Kelly. I'm thankful to have had her for my Mom for 42 years. She left a huge hole in my life when she departed, but I've been filling that hole with new friends, new experiences, no ventures. The one thing I am from being my mother's daughter is not one to sit on the sidelines and wait for life to happen. I jump in with both feet and make life happen all around me. That's what fills me with happiness and satisfaction. That's what's led me to writing books and drawing squirrels. This is what's inside of me, my way of expressing it and sharing it.
Thanks, Mom, for letting me be me, for never clipping my wings, for letting me make mistakes and find my own way forward, but for always having my back. Thanks for giving me everything I needed to be happy. When I look in the mirror, I see me, but it reminds me of you.
Love you always, Mom. Eighteen years gone, but you'll never be forgotten because you are still so very much alive in my heart and in my memories.
Thursday, September 27, 2018
Upcoming Events
Here is my schedule of upcoming events:
Saturday, October 13th Noon to 6PM PumpkinFest in downtown Westfield, MA on Elm Street. I will be among the artists and authors along the block of Elm Street extending from Fast Feet on the corner of School Street up to the empty lot where Newbury's used to be. I'll have copies of The Hanging Man and Other Stories and The Clockmaker's Son with me, plus framed black squirrel pen & ink drawings I'm doing for the event.
Saturday, October 20th 3PM-5PM WhipCity Wordsmiths Meeting at Blue Umbrella Books, 2 Main Street, Westfield, MA across from the gazebo. The monthly social and support group meeting for writers and authors at all levels of the craft. A lively monthly gathering of local authors and writers and those interested in pursuing various forms of writing. Open to the public.
Saturday, October 27th, 6PM-8PM Ghost Stories Live! at Blue Umbrella Books, 2 Main Street, Westfield, MA. Russell Atwood hosts this annual event at his book shop. I'll be writing a new ghost story that I'll read at this event.
November 1-30th NaNoWriMo, Western MA group. I'll be writing a new novel in 30 days or less during the month of November. Kelly is an ML again this year. She'll be hosting a few Write-Ins during November I hope to be able to attend, otherwise, I'll be writing at the kitchen table every night after work and on weekends during the month of November!
Saturday, November 17th at the Agawam Congregational Church, Holiday Bazaar 9AM-2PM. Main Street, Agawam, MA. I'll have a table at which I'll be selling copies of my three Holiday novellas and four Christmas story collections- A Major Production, The Red Velvet Suit, The Winter Solstice Ball, Christmases Past, Christmas Present, Christmas Inspirations, and Christmas with the Family.
Saturday November 24th Shop Small Saturday at Blue Umbrella Books, 2 Main Street, Westfield, MA. I'll have a table and be selling holiday books and a few other books during Shop Small Saturday.
In between all these events I'll be going to the High Kings concert at the Calvin in Northampton this Saturday, and sneaking in a 5-day vacation, the first in two years, at some point before Christmas arrives!!
Saturday, October 13th Noon to 6PM PumpkinFest in downtown Westfield, MA on Elm Street. I will be among the artists and authors along the block of Elm Street extending from Fast Feet on the corner of School Street up to the empty lot where Newbury's used to be. I'll have copies of The Hanging Man and Other Stories and The Clockmaker's Son with me, plus framed black squirrel pen & ink drawings I'm doing for the event.
Saturday, October 20th 3PM-5PM WhipCity Wordsmiths Meeting at Blue Umbrella Books, 2 Main Street, Westfield, MA across from the gazebo. The monthly social and support group meeting for writers and authors at all levels of the craft. A lively monthly gathering of local authors and writers and those interested in pursuing various forms of writing. Open to the public.
Saturday, October 27th, 6PM-8PM Ghost Stories Live! at Blue Umbrella Books, 2 Main Street, Westfield, MA. Russell Atwood hosts this annual event at his book shop. I'll be writing a new ghost story that I'll read at this event.
November 1-30th NaNoWriMo, Western MA group. I'll be writing a new novel in 30 days or less during the month of November. Kelly is an ML again this year. She'll be hosting a few Write-Ins during November I hope to be able to attend, otherwise, I'll be writing at the kitchen table every night after work and on weekends during the month of November!
Saturday, November 17th at the Agawam Congregational Church, Holiday Bazaar 9AM-2PM. Main Street, Agawam, MA. I'll have a table at which I'll be selling copies of my three Holiday novellas and four Christmas story collections- A Major Production, The Red Velvet Suit, The Winter Solstice Ball, Christmases Past, Christmas Present, Christmas Inspirations, and Christmas with the Family.
Saturday November 24th Shop Small Saturday at Blue Umbrella Books, 2 Main Street, Westfield, MA. I'll have a table and be selling holiday books and a few other books during Shop Small Saturday.
In between all these events I'll be going to the High Kings concert at the Calvin in Northampton this Saturday, and sneaking in a 5-day vacation, the first in two years, at some point before Christmas arrives!!
New Book Available & Art
The Worth of a Woman is available on Amazon.
I am still not happy with Memento Mori: Garnet & Quella, so am rereading all the various versions and gleaning the good parts from each one. When finished, I'll attempt the first n this new ghost series once again. I know what I want to do, but it all hasn't clicked together yet.
NaNoWriMo is coming up during the month of November. I plan on writing the third in the Romney & Ivy series that began with Black King Takes White Queen, then continued in Black Knight, White Rook. I've started this novel twice, so will dig out those two beginnings and decide where their story goes next before the start of NaNo on the 1st of November.
In the meantime, I am doing a bunch of pen & ink black squirrel drawings for PumpkinFest here in Westfield. I'll have a table on Elm Street with some copies of The Clockmaker's Son and The Hanging Man and Other Stories, plus a number of 5x7 drawings. In 2000 I drew the original silhouette that was on all the trademarked The Black Squirrel merchandise sold atConner's Inc on Elm Street (currently the site of Rosewood. I did some pen & ink renderings of black squirrels back then, then didn't do any drawing to speak of for 18 years. It's been fun and relaxing to get out the dip pens and ink bottles and draw squirrels again.
Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out if I like KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). CreateSpace is no more. They have fewer book cover styles to choose from. It's a little more expensive. Books go right to Amazon and Kindle with no extra steps, but shipping is way more expensive, and copies a bit more expensive. I might have to look into another way of publishing in the near future.
I am still not happy with Memento Mori: Garnet & Quella, so am rereading all the various versions and gleaning the good parts from each one. When finished, I'll attempt the first n this new ghost series once again. I know what I want to do, but it all hasn't clicked together yet.
NaNoWriMo is coming up during the month of November. I plan on writing the third in the Romney & Ivy series that began with Black King Takes White Queen, then continued in Black Knight, White Rook. I've started this novel twice, so will dig out those two beginnings and decide where their story goes next before the start of NaNo on the 1st of November.
In the meantime, I am doing a bunch of pen & ink black squirrel drawings for PumpkinFest here in Westfield. I'll have a table on Elm Street with some copies of The Clockmaker's Son and The Hanging Man and Other Stories, plus a number of 5x7 drawings. In 2000 I drew the original silhouette that was on all the trademarked The Black Squirrel merchandise sold atConner's Inc on Elm Street (currently the site of Rosewood. I did some pen & ink renderings of black squirrels back then, then didn't do any drawing to speak of for 18 years. It's been fun and relaxing to get out the dip pens and ink bottles and draw squirrels again.
Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out if I like KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). CreateSpace is no more. They have fewer book cover styles to choose from. It's a little more expensive. Books go right to Amazon and Kindle with no extra steps, but shipping is way more expensive, and copies a bit more expensive. I might have to look into another way of publishing in the near future.
Saturday, September 15, 2018
A Wonderful Afternoon with the WhipCity Wordsmiths
It's amazing how one's author/writer/creativity battery can be fully recharged by attending a gathering of local authors/writers. It's an indescribable (you'd think as an author and wordsmith that I'd have all sorts of adjectives to string together here) feeling to sit among ones peers and just absorb their energy and enthusiasm.
The WhipCity Wordsmiths, the authors/writers social & support group that Kelly and I founded in June 2017 that officially launched in September 2017, met today after a two month summer break. Ten members attended with others sending regrets and hopes to be in attendance in October. Three of today's group were new members attending for the first time who were warmly welcomed and jumped right in with both feet, participating in discussions, offering advice and making suggestions.
Artworks of Westfield President Bill Westerlind, a member since the group's founding, was in attendance today. He spoke about his experience as a book reviewer on goodreads. He also talked about the upcoming PumpkinFest in Westfield on October 13th, how Artworks was offering display and sales space to authors and artists along Elm Street during the event. Rhonda and I will be there. Kelly, Sandy, Connie, Sonia, and I did PumpkinFest last year and had a blast! Bill also briefly mentioned the annual Artworks hosted Articulture event which makes space available for authors. A number of Wordsmiths have participated in that event. This past April all 10 authors who signed up were WhipCity Wordsmiths (Susan, Kelly, Melissa, Lindsay, Kate, Carol, Judith, Sandy, Rhonda, and Ayden). We have a talented pool of authors in the group, and some talented up and coming authors as well.
Two hours flew by this afternoon. It would have been easy to pass another hour with these people, but some had traveled a distance to attend and had to get home as the dinner hour drew near.
I can come feeling energized and ready to write. I have been feeling discouraged because the novel I've been trying to write has had numerous false starts. I really need to write an outline as there are subtle layers to the story and they have to be laid just so. That's what's been disappointing and frustrating me. I feel able to attack that chore now.
The battery is charged! Ready, set, write!!!
(I wasn't very enthusiastic about starting a writer's group when asked to do so...but once I decided I didn't want an ordinary write to prompts and gently critique one another's writing type of group, I wanted something more dynamic where all members could participate or take over the entire meeting if they wanted to, I felt better about it. It took several months to feel comfortable with one another, but by November of 2017 the group got rolling in the right direction and it has taken on a force of its own. Today, I can say that I'm happy and satisfied with the direction this group is going in...and I hope it continues with each new member who joins us.)
The WhipCity Wordsmiths, the authors/writers social & support group that Kelly and I founded in June 2017 that officially launched in September 2017, met today after a two month summer break. Ten members attended with others sending regrets and hopes to be in attendance in October. Three of today's group were new members attending for the first time who were warmly welcomed and jumped right in with both feet, participating in discussions, offering advice and making suggestions.
Artworks of Westfield President Bill Westerlind, a member since the group's founding, was in attendance today. He spoke about his experience as a book reviewer on goodreads. He also talked about the upcoming PumpkinFest in Westfield on October 13th, how Artworks was offering display and sales space to authors and artists along Elm Street during the event. Rhonda and I will be there. Kelly, Sandy, Connie, Sonia, and I did PumpkinFest last year and had a blast! Bill also briefly mentioned the annual Artworks hosted Articulture event which makes space available for authors. A number of Wordsmiths have participated in that event. This past April all 10 authors who signed up were WhipCity Wordsmiths (Susan, Kelly, Melissa, Lindsay, Kate, Carol, Judith, Sandy, Rhonda, and Ayden). We have a talented pool of authors in the group, and some talented up and coming authors as well.
Two hours flew by this afternoon. It would have been easy to pass another hour with these people, but some had traveled a distance to attend and had to get home as the dinner hour drew near.
I can come feeling energized and ready to write. I have been feeling discouraged because the novel I've been trying to write has had numerous false starts. I really need to write an outline as there are subtle layers to the story and they have to be laid just so. That's what's been disappointing and frustrating me. I feel able to attack that chore now.
The battery is charged! Ready, set, write!!!
(I wasn't very enthusiastic about starting a writer's group when asked to do so...but once I decided I didn't want an ordinary write to prompts and gently critique one another's writing type of group, I wanted something more dynamic where all members could participate or take over the entire meeting if they wanted to, I felt better about it. It took several months to feel comfortable with one another, but by November of 2017 the group got rolling in the right direction and it has taken on a force of its own. Today, I can say that I'm happy and satisfied with the direction this group is going in...and I hope it continues with each new member who joins us.)
Friday, September 14, 2018
A Quiet Launch For The Worth of a Woman
The Worth of a Woman, my new, soon to-be-released novel (it should be on Amazon early this coming week) is getting only a quiet launch. This novel is different from anything that I've previously written.
This book makes me uncomfortable and uneasy.
This book has subject matter in it that is graphic and brutal. The language is realistic and foul.
This book is way outside my comfort zone.
This book made me cry the first three times I read it. I wanted to change the ending, but knew I couldn't.
Its origin was a dream segment that haunted me after I woke up. It was partially written in a week. I walked away from it and worked on another novel because it was upsetting me. About a month later I resolved to finish it. It took about another week to finish writing it.
This is the novel I wrote the last chapter of at breakfast before going to work and literally sobbed. I was still crying when I got to work (my coworkers thought someone had died...well, someone had, but it was not a real person, not to them anyway) and had a difficult time pulling myself out of the abyss. It took me a few days before I could write the necessary epilogue. I cried as I wrote that, too, but it wasn't as emotionally wrenching as the last numbered chapter had been. Then, I ignored it again for a couple of weeks not wanting to put myself through the emotional wringer again. Finally, I proofread it, made some changes, got a printed proof, read that, made additional changes, redesigned the cover, and ordered a second proof. I finished going through it one more time today, changing a few more things, replacing words, tightening it up some.
Tonight, I uploaded the new word file, happy as I could be that when all my CreateSpace books were moved all in one fell swoop to Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) that the book went with the 47 others and was waiting there to be finished. I wasn't satisfied with the back cover text, but couldn't change the cover at this point in the process. It is what it is right now. I'll have to design a whole new cover for the ereader version because I don't think it will grab the already existing cover (I never saved it anywhere)- I need to explore KDP a little more. It's all new to me, different from CreateSpace in a number of ways.
I wrote outside the box, and now I want to crawl back into it. I wrote outside my comfort zone and left myself scrambling to get back inside that zone.
In conclusion, if you're easily offended, have delicate sensibilities, cannot abide violence, vulgar language, and graphic, disturbing sexual situations then leave this book off your must read list. All I can say is that, like those other 47 books I've written, this story moves fast, hits hard, and will not leave you feeling very good.
So, that's that.
This book makes me uncomfortable and uneasy.
This book has subject matter in it that is graphic and brutal. The language is realistic and foul.
This book is way outside my comfort zone.
This book made me cry the first three times I read it. I wanted to change the ending, but knew I couldn't.
Its origin was a dream segment that haunted me after I woke up. It was partially written in a week. I walked away from it and worked on another novel because it was upsetting me. About a month later I resolved to finish it. It took about another week to finish writing it.
This is the novel I wrote the last chapter of at breakfast before going to work and literally sobbed. I was still crying when I got to work (my coworkers thought someone had died...well, someone had, but it was not a real person, not to them anyway) and had a difficult time pulling myself out of the abyss. It took me a few days before I could write the necessary epilogue. I cried as I wrote that, too, but it wasn't as emotionally wrenching as the last numbered chapter had been. Then, I ignored it again for a couple of weeks not wanting to put myself through the emotional wringer again. Finally, I proofread it, made some changes, got a printed proof, read that, made additional changes, redesigned the cover, and ordered a second proof. I finished going through it one more time today, changing a few more things, replacing words, tightening it up some.
Tonight, I uploaded the new word file, happy as I could be that when all my CreateSpace books were moved all in one fell swoop to Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) that the book went with the 47 others and was waiting there to be finished. I wasn't satisfied with the back cover text, but couldn't change the cover at this point in the process. It is what it is right now. I'll have to design a whole new cover for the ereader version because I don't think it will grab the already existing cover (I never saved it anywhere)- I need to explore KDP a little more. It's all new to me, different from CreateSpace in a number of ways.
I wrote outside the box, and now I want to crawl back into it. I wrote outside my comfort zone and left myself scrambling to get back inside that zone.
In conclusion, if you're easily offended, have delicate sensibilities, cannot abide violence, vulgar language, and graphic, disturbing sexual situations then leave this book off your must read list. All I can say is that, like those other 47 books I've written, this story moves fast, hits hard, and will not leave you feeling very good.
So, that's that.
Sunday, September 9, 2018
Button Collector
I've probably mentioned this before, but am going to write a little bit about it again today. I'm a button collector. I started collecting antique and vintage clothing buttons in 2003 after deciding hatpins were not my thing, although I appreciate them and still have a few in the china cabinet in the dining room.
I knew absolutely nothing about buttons other than when my French Canadian great-grandmother moved in with my family in the 1960's in an apartment attached to our house, she brought along a wicker basket full of buttons. It was one of those 1920s/30s baskets with the Chinese coins and beads on the lid. When I visited her I'd lie on the floor after taking the button basket out of the closet and dump all the buttons out onto the rug, then sort them by color or shape, or by metal and plastic. We raided her button basket for buttons to use as replacement game pieces, to sew on Barbie doll and baby doll clothes, and to replace buttons on our play clothes that had gotten lost.
That was the extent of my exposure to buttons until 2003. I don't know what made me think of buttons when my friend Darlene and I were looking for something small and easy to store to collect. We found the local button club, Crescent Club, by means of a Google search, and discovered the Massachusetts State Button Society. I contacted the secretary of he Crescent Club to ask about the club. Within a day Darlene and I were invited to a member's home for their monthly meeting. The topic that day was Sporting & Hunt Buttons. Honestly, neither one of us had never even heard of those kinds of buttons! But we sat around Martha's dining room table admiring the brass and white metal (and possibly gilt and silver) buttons with stags, deer, rabbits, foxes, boars, hunting dogs, pheasants, etc embossed on them. The watchcase gilt buttons were breathtaking!
Buttons, we discovered weren't cheap to collect, but some kinds were affordable, such as black glass and some clear and colored glass, plastics, metals, wood, and leather buttons. At one of the next few meetings I saw my first charmstring and from that developed a passion for collecting them to the point where I now own 99 of them. I'm shooting for 100. Many of them can be viewed at a blog Kelly created for displaying our collection: charmstringmuseum.blogspot.com She and I have been too busy to post updates recently (well, for maybe 3 years now) but hope to do so in the near future.
Anyway- we began attending Massachusetts State Button Society shows (held four times a year) and collecting buttons. Soon, buttons were taking over my house, and part of Darlene's collection was also stored in my basement! Small buttons, when mounted on 9x12" cards and slipped into protective sleeves and stored in file box cartons take up a sizeable chunk of space! John converted the walkout basement bedroom to a hobby room for me, but although my button collection is still there, all Kelly's stuff from college and things she's been collecting for her own house are blocking access to the boxes of buttons. The room is still fairly full of buttons of all kinds.
We've met some amazing women and even a handful of men who collect. Our late friend Pauline's house was like a button museum with custom crafted slide drawer cabinets that displayed a portion of her fabulous collection! Her enclosed porch held the rest of her collection in tall lateral file cabinets, cartons, shelves, bins, etc. There was always new buttons to look at and admire when we visited, and she generously gave us duplicates of buttons she had and occasionally let us chose others from cards she'd won in various auctions because she wanted one button from the cards for her collection and didn't care about the others!
Yesterday, Kelly and I went to the button show in Three Rivers after missing shows since last fall due to health reasons and trolley museum schedule conflicts. There are fewer members attending shows these days, fewer dealers showing buttons, but we each found buttons for our collections. I found two camel buttons I didn't already have (I have four or five cards of camel buttons- so finding ones I don't have is a rare event!) I also found two skull buttons I didn't have for my skull button card. Who would ever think there were so many skull and skeleton buttons around? But- you can find just abut any subject matter on a button from apples to zebras. I have butterflies, roosters, mermaids, bells, the Eiffel Tower, Charlie Chaplin, Sarah Bernhardt, cats, dogs, foxes, deer, just to name a few subjects on buttons. You can find other famous people, scenes, buildings, plant life, and birds on buttons, You can also find storybook characters, mythology characters and subjects, Aesop's fable images, and opera subjects. Then there are glass buttons made using a multitude of techniques. Kelly has been assembling a charmstring of all swirlback glass buttons from the mid to late 1800's. It now contains over 1,000 buttons and they're all different!
I was editor of the Massachusetts State Button Society Bulletin from 2007 through 2016, the last year it was produced. When I resigned as editor of the then annual 42-page Bulletin, no one else had the motivation to continue with the magazine. It was a labor of love that Kelly (photo editor and contributing writer) and I (editor and contributing writer) did each spring. I miss putting it together, but no longer have the time to do it now that I'm busy writing my own books and working full time.
I still have a passion for buttons and probably always will. My mission is to preserve the charmstrings (one dates back to 1874) for as long as I can before they fall into the hands of dealers who disassemble them to sell the buttons individually- some are quite valuable, but to me the intact strings are even more valuable because you can get a sense of a family's history from studying the types of buttons on each string- such as what branch of the military they served in, political affiliations, a sense of economics if the buttons are ordinary or extraordinary, and also by the various mementoes found on the strings like rings, love tokens, medals, broken bits of jewelry, doll tea set spoons, etc.
It was a fun day yesterday hunting for new buttons for my collection. I even brought home a graveyard scene studio button made by our Crescent Club President, Lorna! Looking forward to the November button show, the last one of the year, also n Three Rivers, MA.
Playing with buttons today!
I knew absolutely nothing about buttons other than when my French Canadian great-grandmother moved in with my family in the 1960's in an apartment attached to our house, she brought along a wicker basket full of buttons. It was one of those 1920s/30s baskets with the Chinese coins and beads on the lid. When I visited her I'd lie on the floor after taking the button basket out of the closet and dump all the buttons out onto the rug, then sort them by color or shape, or by metal and plastic. We raided her button basket for buttons to use as replacement game pieces, to sew on Barbie doll and baby doll clothes, and to replace buttons on our play clothes that had gotten lost.
That was the extent of my exposure to buttons until 2003. I don't know what made me think of buttons when my friend Darlene and I were looking for something small and easy to store to collect. We found the local button club, Crescent Club, by means of a Google search, and discovered the Massachusetts State Button Society. I contacted the secretary of he Crescent Club to ask about the club. Within a day Darlene and I were invited to a member's home for their monthly meeting. The topic that day was Sporting & Hunt Buttons. Honestly, neither one of us had never even heard of those kinds of buttons! But we sat around Martha's dining room table admiring the brass and white metal (and possibly gilt and silver) buttons with stags, deer, rabbits, foxes, boars, hunting dogs, pheasants, etc embossed on them. The watchcase gilt buttons were breathtaking!
Buttons, we discovered weren't cheap to collect, but some kinds were affordable, such as black glass and some clear and colored glass, plastics, metals, wood, and leather buttons. At one of the next few meetings I saw my first charmstring and from that developed a passion for collecting them to the point where I now own 99 of them. I'm shooting for 100. Many of them can be viewed at a blog Kelly created for displaying our collection: charmstringmuseum.blogspot.com She and I have been too busy to post updates recently (well, for maybe 3 years now) but hope to do so in the near future.
Anyway- we began attending Massachusetts State Button Society shows (held four times a year) and collecting buttons. Soon, buttons were taking over my house, and part of Darlene's collection was also stored in my basement! Small buttons, when mounted on 9x12" cards and slipped into protective sleeves and stored in file box cartons take up a sizeable chunk of space! John converted the walkout basement bedroom to a hobby room for me, but although my button collection is still there, all Kelly's stuff from college and things she's been collecting for her own house are blocking access to the boxes of buttons. The room is still fairly full of buttons of all kinds.
We've met some amazing women and even a handful of men who collect. Our late friend Pauline's house was like a button museum with custom crafted slide drawer cabinets that displayed a portion of her fabulous collection! Her enclosed porch held the rest of her collection in tall lateral file cabinets, cartons, shelves, bins, etc. There was always new buttons to look at and admire when we visited, and she generously gave us duplicates of buttons she had and occasionally let us chose others from cards she'd won in various auctions because she wanted one button from the cards for her collection and didn't care about the others!
Yesterday, Kelly and I went to the button show in Three Rivers after missing shows since last fall due to health reasons and trolley museum schedule conflicts. There are fewer members attending shows these days, fewer dealers showing buttons, but we each found buttons for our collections. I found two camel buttons I didn't already have (I have four or five cards of camel buttons- so finding ones I don't have is a rare event!) I also found two skull buttons I didn't have for my skull button card. Who would ever think there were so many skull and skeleton buttons around? But- you can find just abut any subject matter on a button from apples to zebras. I have butterflies, roosters, mermaids, bells, the Eiffel Tower, Charlie Chaplin, Sarah Bernhardt, cats, dogs, foxes, deer, just to name a few subjects on buttons. You can find other famous people, scenes, buildings, plant life, and birds on buttons, You can also find storybook characters, mythology characters and subjects, Aesop's fable images, and opera subjects. Then there are glass buttons made using a multitude of techniques. Kelly has been assembling a charmstring of all swirlback glass buttons from the mid to late 1800's. It now contains over 1,000 buttons and they're all different!
I was editor of the Massachusetts State Button Society Bulletin from 2007 through 2016, the last year it was produced. When I resigned as editor of the then annual 42-page Bulletin, no one else had the motivation to continue with the magazine. It was a labor of love that Kelly (photo editor and contributing writer) and I (editor and contributing writer) did each spring. I miss putting it together, but no longer have the time to do it now that I'm busy writing my own books and working full time.
I still have a passion for buttons and probably always will. My mission is to preserve the charmstrings (one dates back to 1874) for as long as I can before they fall into the hands of dealers who disassemble them to sell the buttons individually- some are quite valuable, but to me the intact strings are even more valuable because you can get a sense of a family's history from studying the types of buttons on each string- such as what branch of the military they served in, political affiliations, a sense of economics if the buttons are ordinary or extraordinary, and also by the various mementoes found on the strings like rings, love tokens, medals, broken bits of jewelry, doll tea set spoons, etc.
It was a fun day yesterday hunting for new buttons for my collection. I even brought home a graveyard scene studio button made by our Crescent Club President, Lorna! Looking forward to the November button show, the last one of the year, also n Three Rivers, MA.
Playing with buttons today!
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