Rollercoaster Ride

I haven’t blogged in quite some time now due to the multitude of distractions that have taken place during the first half of the year. The first half 2010 has been filled with memorable times. Here’s a small sample of the welcome and not so welcome ones:


In January, I volunteered to do a big job for my writing organization, Panhandle Professional writers. I agreed to Chair the Frontiers in writing contest. I am already on the board of directors as the Publicity Chair, which meant that I would be heavily involved with advertising both the conference and the contest anyway. But I agreed to help because I needed the challenge. I was thrilled for the opportunity and I have enjoyed every minute of the process. It was a huge learning process for me as well as a huge task to undertake.

January began with my search for contest judges. Getting judges for the 15 categories—one each for the preliminary round. These judges were to determine which 6 entries were to continue to the next level. The 15 finals judges were then sent the entries and a new judging sheet to determine the top four ranking entries in their respective categories. Then, I had to select one more judge who took the first place winner in all 15 categories and determined which one received the honor of Best of Show.

At first glance, this might sound fairly easy. But it’s not. Professionals willing to read and judge in their prospective genres are not easy to find. Editors and agents for those 15 categories are also not easy to find. These are all very busy people whose time is precious and little. To find 31 individuals willing and generous enough to spare their time is difficult for a writing organization that is also a non-profit group with very little money or other resources to entice these people to work for free for you. I spent a lot of time writing emails, researching potential candidates and speaking with some by phone.

I was thrilled and impressed with the caliber of professionals who lent their time and expertise to our group and gave kind, thoughtful and valuable advice to the more than 150 contestants who entered their work.

Most of the contestants were new to writing and new to contests. The value of receiving this critique and acknowledgment of their efforts by professionals is incalculable for new writers. I know I was once one of them. Since I have not been published for money—ever—their advice is still as valuable to me today.

The awards ceremony for the contest was June 26, 2010, at the Frontiers in Writing conference. I was very excited to be presenting the awards although I do not like to speak in front of crowds. The experience was more than I expected and I enjoyed every minute of it. I was exhausted too.

June turned out to be the busiest month for me. It started with a trip to south Texas to see my beautiful niece get married. It was a lovely wedding and the couple had a picture-perfect ceremony in a garden setting. The event mostly took place in an air-conditioned garden room, but there was a lot of going in and out of the cool building such as the dancing that occurred outside.

You can quote me when I say, the next time I go to Houston it will only be in the dead of winter. I was drenched the entire evening and it did not rain!

The following day, I went with other family members to San Antonio to meet my new daughter-in-law, her family and my son and to spend some time with my two daughters who live in Waco and Austin. Since my son is in the Navy it was the only chance the family had for all of us to get together. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The following week, I attended a week-long, intensive writer’s workshop at West Texas A & M University in Canyon, Texas. I recommend the West Texas Writers’ Academy to anyone who writes. The caliber of instructors is excellent. It was very rewarding, I learned a lot, met some wonderful fellow writers and started a new YA horror novel that I’m very excited about.

The following weekend was the PPW, Frontiers in Writing Conference already discussed above. I recommend our Conferences to all, as well.

But that’s not all that happened.

I was home from the conference long enough to take off my shoes and eat an evening meal with my family before the biggest event of the month decided to happen.

My youngest daughter, due to give birth to her second child on July 29, decided, (or rather the baby did) that it was time to come into the world. So off to the hospital we went at about 8:00 that evening. He was born at 1:27 a.m. the next morning, June 27, 2010. Gavin Malak Dia weighed 5 pounds 4.8 ounces. Now normally that would be a good enough weight to get him going okay in life. But for a 5 week premature infant, it wasn’t enough to get him released to the regular nursery.

So for the past 9 days, my daughter and her three year old daughter, my husband, and I have spent sleepless nights and nervous days going back and forth to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit to see the baby and watch his progress. Today, after a few minor setbacks, he will be coming home. He has gained most of his birth weight back and is progressing at a very normal rate now.

June was a rollercoaster ride for me; filled with frustration, joy, tears and rewards. It will long be the most memorable month in the most memorable half-year of my life. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the year brings me.

I Knew A Little Girl

I knew a little girl one time who loved fairy tales. In the days before DVD or VCR or even cable, her whole year hinged on the one night every year that Cinderella came on TV, watching Leslie Ann Warren shy away from her wicked step-mother and step-sisters, but proudly step up and dance with the prince with such stars in her eyes, wearing such a beautiful gown and, of course, glass slippers. This little girl I knew would wait breathlessly for one other night every year to watch the Wizard of Oz. She dreamed of the beautiful colors in Oz, and Glinda's gown, and, of course, those Ruby Slippers. Heartbeats absolutely suspended to watch these 2 movies - the music, the colors, the costumes, and the stories - and the little girl I knew was starry-eyed for one more year.

I knew a little girl who loved to play with baby dolls. Oh, she had several, but her favorites were the dolls that did nothing but lay on the bed and wait to be picked up and loved. Their bodies were soft, except for plastc arms and legs and head, but they were babies. And she loved every one of them and carried them with her as much as she could.

I knew a little girl who loved to sing and dance and roller skate and hula hoop. Very active was the little girl I knew. Sitting for more than 5 minutes was pure torture. One of her favorite games was to spin around and around until she was dizzy, then try to walk through the house without bumping into anything. Sometimes instead of spinning she would start in her mother's bedroom with a hand held mirror and hold it chest level, turn her head down and try to walk through the house by watching the ceiling in her mirror. She also loved to dig in the sand in the back yard of her house. Her parents periodically bought a load of sand, intending to spruce up the yard, but the little girl I knew was in the sand before any yard work could be done, digging tunnels and holes that became swimming pools.

I knew a little girl who knew how special a princess was as the daughter of a king, and she knew that there were more princesses than anyone knew. There was a princess that lived in the box of cotton swabs in her mother's dresser drawer. If she plucked the cotton off the stick and pulled it and curled it with her finger, then put it back on the tip of the wooden stick, she could talk with the princess. She even saw princesses in the trees. In the world of trees, the grand ladies all had to stand on their heads and the leaves were the beautiful ball gowns.

I knew a little girl who loved to draw and create. Reams of paper in school were used to make dresses for grand ladies that needed something special to wear to the ball. The little girl I knew had boxes of paper dolls and she lovingly drew and colored and cut out each gown for each doll. She gave names to every single one of the paper dolls, and was constantly scouting her mother's magazines for another grand lady to add to the collection.

So what happened to the little girl I knew? She met Prince Charming. But she stopped moving so much, preferring to sit in one spot. Oh, she still loves the fairy tales and stories of princes and princesses, kings and queens. She still loves the Land of Oz and the Ruby Slippers. But this little girl has reached middle age. She is now the grandmother of 2 other little girls and a little boy. But I think the original little girl is still there.

Nandy Ekle

Collection More Than Dust

Wow! I'm so happy. Today I recieved word that I have once again won the Irish Lottery! How could anyone get so lucky?


But seriously, I am sick of junk email. But until my computer gets smart enough to know the difference between what truly is junk and what I really want, I'll have to live with it. So live goes on.

Yesterday, I spent the entire day taking photos of "vintage" stuff I have inherited over the years from family, so that I can get rid of it. There are two main reasons to do this. 1. Lack of space for the stuff I want to keep. 2. Lack of funds. So, I'm not holding my breath for that lottery money to come rolling in.

After taking the pictures, I had to download them off the camera, mess around with them so that they would fit the requirements for eBay and then start loading each item into a program called Turbo Lister. This is supposed to be the fastest way to get stuff on eBay. Wow, I'm so glad I'm doing it that way and not the slow way. As of last night I seven items in the program and eight items left. Of course, the time spent also included, going back and forth to the laundry room to get that done. Stopping to make sure the grandchild and hubby were fed and lots of time researching what some of my items really were and whether or not there was any real money to be had from any of them.

As it turns out, I have one small Haviland Limoge jewelery tray and a piece of pre-1940s carnival glass that might actually bring something if I'm smart about how I list them. I also found that I have a real McCoy cookie jar. It's not one of the ones that is actually worth big money. But I is worth a little to collectors. Other than that, most of my little knick knacks are made in Japan--not occupied Japan which would mean some real money--just Japan pre-WWII and post-ocupation.

A few years ago, I made some good money on eBay, selling some 1950s John Deere toy tractors and other items like that. But I don't think I'll be making a career of selling this way. It's too much work for the money.

The fun part of all of this has been researching what is valuable. Did you know that there are magazines dedicated to almost everything that people collect? It's amazing. From ashtrays to post cards and more. There are corresponding websites for all of this. I actually found a website dedicated to collecting ashtrays used in advertising! Amazing!

I am not immune to this human phenomenon. I have a collection of pigs that ranges from figurines to children's books to socks and slippers. I have a collection of China with painted roses it ranges from antique pieces to miniatures. I also collect witch Barbies. I have Halloween Barbies and, of course, the Wicked Witch of the West Barbie.

But my largest collection has no real focus. I collect books--paperbacks to hardbacks--modern fiction to rare books on just about any subject. They surround me in my office and are stacked in piles by my chair in the living room and in a small bookcase by my bed. They come in electronic form on my mp3 and cd form for my car and computer. So I'm not immune to this strange and addictive pass time. I just have to find other people's weaknesses so that I can make room for my own.

As I travel this new and strange webverse of collecting, just to make room for my expanding collections, I'll update this blog.

In the meantime, tell Nandy and me what you collect.

The Wizard Returns

The earliest memory I have of the Wizard of Oz, I was about four years old, but I know the first time I saw it was earlier than that because my dad talks about me calling it "The Boz." Watching this movie was like sitting in pure magic for the short time it played on TV once a year.

My love for this movie has stayed with me my whole life and I have, from time to time, collected Wizard of Oz items, the most recent being Barbies. For my last birthday I received Dorothy and my daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter gave me Glinda, the Good Witch of the North.

My granddaughter, another name for heaven, has been my buddy for the two short years of her life. When we are together she loves for me to read to her, every book our hands can touch, and Nana's heart is thrilled beyond measure to be able to hold her her and read the words that go with the pictures that keep her so enraptured.

During their last visit, my granddaughter found the two dolls, still in their boxes, and lovingly, carefully carried them all over the house talking to them and pushing the buttons to hear them sing. Her mother informed me that she had never seen the movie but was fascinated with Glinda because she wore a beautiful dress.

In a state of shock at the magic she had withheld from her daughter, I grabbed up my baby and sat her on the couch next to me and turned on the DVD player. The familiar black and white story started up, loaded with music and promise of magic. We sat together watching Dorothy's dog jump out of the basket and run home. The tornado carried her house away to the colorful place known as Oz and the amazing adventures that followed.

Then it was over and I felt the same ache as when I was four years old. I looked down at my girl and she looked up at me with eyes the size of saucers.

"Nana, watch it again!" And I fell in love all over again.

Introducing My New Partner Nandy Ekle

Nandy Ekle has just published her first post on this blog.  I intend to change some of the other aspects of this blog to accommodate a partner.  She is also a writer and a grandmother, like me.  This is not her actual name.  I won't reveal her real name until she is ready to do so herself.  She writes short stories and is published online in a several ezines.  Nandy writes suspense and horror mostly, but I am sure she is capable of writing much, much more than this.
Nandy is also ten years younger than me, but I find her to be far wiser.  On top of that she's much prettier than me.  What was I thinking?
Nandy and I will be getting together to figure out new directions for this blog and take it into, I hope, uncharted territories.  At least, they will be uncharted for the two of us.  Niether one of us have much experience in the webispere.  And we intend to enjoy ourselves in this new adventure.

The Cheeriest Part of the Day

I walk in the door after a day of sitting at my desk. It's the end of the month so there was a steady stream of people coming in to make their house payments, and we bantered back and forth in a friendly way while I counted their money and wrote them receipts. When I get home in the evening I go to the gym for a hasty round with the weight machines, then come home and throw something together for dinner.

Now for the absolute best part of the day. I have looked forward to this all day, since getting out of bed at 6:00 in the morning to soak in hot water while I read my current book. I think about this particular hour all day from the time I quickly brush my teeth, put on make up and grab my jewelry. I kiss my husband and run out the door in a race with the traffic and morning clock. Walking in the back door and pouring a cup of coffee I take my seat and go through my routine watching the clock. I know this hour will come and I'm ticking off the minutes with great anticipation. Five more minutes, two more minutes - the clock chimes and I'm out the back door on my way home. Almost there, my favorite hour of the day!

I stack the dishes in the sink and walk back to my bedroom where I close the door, carefully controlling my emotions, the excitement of the bliss I am about to have, the release I have worked for all day and feel that I whole-heartedly deserve. I walk to the bathroom and there I see them with their arms out full of welcome and love: my pajamas hanging on the back of the door. I am almost in tears of happiness to see the comfort of pajamas, and the clothes I am wearing dissolve. I slip into the cloud-like fabric and take a deep breath.

Dear pajamas, sweet pajamas, comfortable pajamas. I love you, loose-fitting, who-cares pajamas. Thank you for being there for me every evening! Honestly, nothing in the world any cheerier than pajamas!

--Nandy Ekle

Spam vs. Spamming

I would rather eat a can of spam, (Blechhh!) than deal with internet and email spamming! It drives me crazy! I have Windows Live for my email. That way, I can look at all three of the email addresses that I work with.

It's really practical to have that many. One is for my private use, for buying things on the internet. One is for friends and fellow writers and family to contact me. And the last one is for the writing contest I'm currently chairing.

I really can't believe it but the one that gets the most spam is the one I use for friends, family and fellow writers. The other two don't get as much.  I'm sure some techno geek could explain why that is.

The way that Windows Live works, is to put the spam in one pile marked "unread emails" and then the another pile for "unread emails from contacts". The second list is just a duplicate of what comes through to my reading list. The first list is EVERYTHING, contacts and junk. I have to go through that and either delete the ones from my contact list, or "block and delete" which puts it in a special list that is supposed to keep it out of my emails all together. I get so much that it takes at least half an hour every day to deal with it.

Of course, I could tighten my email security. But then, emails from people I haven't heard from in a long time and emails from friends who have new addresses might get dumped before they get through. It's a nightmare any way you look at it.

Others I've complained to about this just say, "It's the price of technology and progress." And I would have to say that they're right. So, my gripes about this are useless. But, if spamming, phishing, and junk mail are with us for life in the electronic world; besides the bad spelling involved in some of these practices, and despite the fact that no one writes letters to send through snail mail anymore, why is my physical mailbox so full of stuff I didn't order, stuff that's not bills and stuff that's totally as ineffective and the spam at getting me to buy their junk?

Progress my rear.  It's just one more way of annoying people.

I'm Chopped Liver

My husband came home on Friday from a three week trip down state. He travels for a living so this wasn’t an unusual event. It’s always good to have him back home.


We watch our three year old grand daughter in the evenings and on weekends while our daughter works. She goes to school during the day and Alana, our grand daughter, stays at daycare.

The first time we watched the girl was Saturday night while mom worked.

Alana walked in the front door, saw her pawpaw, as she calls him and never even said hello to me.

Not long after she arrived I asked her if she needed to go to the bathroom. Potty training is still an issue with her. When she gets distracted while playing with her pawpaw, she sometimes forgets.

She said, “Yes, I need to go.”

So I said, “Well, lets go and take care of it.”

She shook her head and said, “No, pawpaw.”

And that was the theme for the rest of the evening. If it was time to eat, pawpaw had to fix her plate. Time to on her pajamas for bed, pawpaw had to help. Time to read a book for bedtime, pawpaw. And so went the evening.

I would have a terrible complex about this except for one thing. It gives me unfettered opportunities to go into my office and write.

When her grandfather is out of town, I have to get moving early in the morning to get any writing done. Or I have to wait for her to take a nap. That doesn’t happen often. She’s not much of a napper. And forget doing anything other than a little lite housework or cooking a meal. She demands all of my attention.

So I really don’t mind much that I become “chopped liver” when my husband is home. But don’t let him know that. I like to really pour on the guilt when he’s with her.

Sometimes it gets me a dinner and a movie!

A Change in the Direction of This Blog

I started out with the well-meaning intent of posting blogs about writing.  From time to time I will still do that, but through the use of guest bloggers.
From now on, my attention will turn to writing more about what is relavent, or humorous about my own life.  There's not that much humor in it.  I'm old, broke, and struggling to sell my work.  But I have a few things to say about life in general and the people I meet.  So, I will concentrate on doing that instead.  I think it will be more productive in the long run and a lot more fun for me.  I hope you feel the same way.

The Day the Muse Died

I sat in front of my new computer and searched for my story files. They had suddenly disappeared from their usual location. Even worse, Facebook kept distracting me. The lure of pointless conversation and humor shared with friends tantalized my fingers and I gave in. Two hours later, my files mysteriously showed up.

I started reading the last chapter I finished and my stomach growled. It was after one in the afternoon and I hadn’t eaten anything since eight that morning. I rushed into the kitchen, dragged the peanut butter and bread out and opened the drawer for a knife. I had to wash one.

Time slipped by and I eventually had the sandwich eaten. It was two o’clock and still nothing of significance had gotten written.

Something smelled. I checked the trash. Yuck! So I carried it out, dodging piles of snow, mud and pit bull bombs. Had to pull my shoes off at the back door. Burr, it’s cold out there.

I dashed back into my office, tripped and fell. How did the printer cord get in the middle of the office floor? Nevermind. I didn’t have a minute to loose, I had to write.

As I picked myself up off the floor I heard a tiny moan. Glancing beneath me, I saw her. It was my muse and she was squished flat. Poor little underfed thing. I tried to revive her but there wasn’t much hope. Suddenly, her tiny body burst into flames and I grabbed my water glass and put her out. None of this had happened before, although she did go on strike once and I had to promise her a new crown and some puffy slippers before she would come back to work. But I had never fallen on her before.

“How do you revive a squished muse?” I asked myself.

I thought and thought. Snapping my fingers I ran to the medicine cabinet where I had stashed a small bottle of fairy dust for just such emergencies. I pulled the stopper out and tripped again. This time it was the dog. He was standing over the body of my muse, licking her. Oh, gross!

When I fell, fairy dust went everywhere. Ooooo, the colors! I shook my head and applied a pinch to her forehead. The dog sneezed. He’s allergic to everything. I heard the muse sneeze too and she shook her head.

“What hit me?” the tiny muse asked. As she raised her itty bitty flat hand to her brow, she puffed up again, just like new.

“I fell on you,” I said. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

She stood on wobbly legs, placed her hands on her hips and glared up at me. “You know, if you’d feed me better, I wouldn’t be so easy to squish.” she yelled. “Now move your fat behind into that chair and get to work!”

She pointed a finger at me and I felt an electric shock bite into my ankle. “And don’t sprinkle that nasty fairy dust on me again! It makes my nose itch!”

I need a new muse.

Some More Sleight of Doing Stuff by Tom Allston (Guest Blogger)

Got an anecdote concerning a long-ago best friend. This was in San Angelo. Marshall was Godzilla's nephew: six-five, two-fifty, mostly muscle. Lifetime arm-wrestling champ of Tom Green County. People used to wonder why "the brawn" and "the brain" ran together. I still do. Maybe it was a kind of gestalt. Who knows?
I'll admit, the guy could be amusing. He had a histrionic, over-the-top way of telling a tale. Highly entertaining.
He was also canny, and really quick on the uptake. The latter talent served his coffee-shop performances well, and more than once made for a jaw-dropping display. Those came in handy in a milieu of rough types of humans.
Gotta back up just a little. Wife #1 had trained in ballet. This provided me with a couple of techniques: how to give a damned effective rubdown (which dancers need after a performance or practice) and the secret of aiding a lift or toss. Without that, male dancers, although deceptively strong, couldn't do the stuff they typically do. In case you didn't know, professional wrestlers use this lift technique.
It works like this: When someone lifts you high in the air--or tosses you across a ring--you assist the movement by springing off the balls of your feet. This overcomes the inertia of rest, and helps start the lift or throw. It's seldom noticed.
My femme and I found it handy for getting her onto a car of high brick wall to warch parades or riots, etc. Years later, Marshall immediately saw the value of the maneuver.
Now, when you run with roustabouts and bull-haulers, you occasionally face a testosterone-goaded threat situation. This usually involved several toughs who were well into their cups. They's start by picking on the smaller guy--me.
"You got a problem with my little buddy?" Mashall would ask calmly, grabbing the back of my belt. I'd bounce upward, he'd heft, and I'd wind up on his shoulder.
"You gotta go through me," he'd conclude. At that point, the threat usually evaporated.
Once, we even got to perform the bit in reverse. I'd been roughnecking for most of a year, and could lift a V-8 short block. But I have an odd musculature: It doesn't gain bulk, it just gets harder and harder. My 180 pounds still looked like 150 or so.
We were on our way into the coffee shop when somebody in a gang of six or seven mouthed a generalized challenge. The opportunity flashed like a stroke of light.
"Hey, don't pick on my big buddy," I said. A glance upward showed that Doc Savage glint in Marshall's eye. I grabbed his belt, he sprang and I heaved with all my might.
With 250 pounds of him suddenly balanced on my right shoulder, I added, "You'll have to deal with both of us."
The attack squad disappeared so fast, I wondered if they'd been real. Marshall's guffaws threw us badly off kilter, and I almost collapsed before he could dismount.
Why bring this up, other than an ego-eruption? Okay, guilty as charged, there. Sue me. More to the point, I see it as a real-life example of the fact that things aren't always as they seem. And that's a reality that makes mystery stories and literary twists believable.
But writers, especially during the painful birthing phase, often misuse or abuse the twist and diversion process. A common beginner's error is to use the technique clumsily. I've damn sure done that: I once got a rejection letter that gently pointed out the editor could see the twist coming a mile away. This often happens because the writer hasn't read broadly enough in the genre being attempted. He just doesn't know how much ground has already been covered.
Bear in mind that the essentials of mystery writing and "twist" tales are almost diametrically opposite. Mystery readers want to match wits with the writer (and by extension the protagonist), while the reader of a twist-ending story wants to be caught, figuratively speaking, with his drawers around his ankles. So a mystery needs clues planted along the way to hint at the solution, whereas a twist should be a complete surprise.
But both must logically follow. They can, even should, be sprinkled with McGuffins ("red herrings") to mislead the unwary, but the ending has to make sense, and must not result from some agency the reader has no way of knowing.
That, in my observation, is a common fatal error of beginners. It's akin to deus ex machina--"machinery of the gods"--in which a higher power finally steps in to set things right. Accepted, even expected, in the drama and comedy of Classic Greece, it just doesn't cut it now.
For reference, some erstwhile masters of the twist were H.H. Munro (Saki), O. Henry and Guy de Maupassant. No doubt there are contemporary writers skilled in the genre, too, but my own reading isn't broad enough to name them.
The names Doyle and Poe loom large in the history of mystery, although both, in my opinion, at times used the device of withheld information. Poe was known to effectively apply a twist to his story endings, too. Again, I'm not that familiar with current mystery writing--but that's why God made best-seller lists.
Another point is that combination writing can be doubly effective. In science fiction and fantasy (I am kinda familiar with these), a novel often is also a mystery. Not uncommonly, comedy is incorporated into both genres, and currently, there are some fantasy-humor-detective series. Threefers: The reader's cup runneth amok.
I can't stress too strongly that breadth of reading is invaluable as a preparation for and strengthening of writing. I know that when I shit and fall back in it, literarily (?) speaking, it's because I've missed some background that I should have been familiar with.
A penultimate note: I see stuff from beginning writers who obviously have as their main influence the output of Hollywood and its ceteras. I think that's a bad idea.
For starters, movies are usually derivative, and a writer should be able to come up with something that's fresh. And too often, film and reality can't be crowbarred into the same thought. If you need proof, just ask a cop, musician or teacher what they think of movies depicting their profession. Any professional. Any movie. Exceptions are scarce as condoms in a nunnery.
Another putrid influence is computer games. That "move along, kill something, move along, kill something," form is already showing up in beginners' writing.
Too bad, so sad.

Guest Bloggers

From time to time I will be inviting guest bloggers to post to my sight. They will discuss aspects of writing from their own viewpoints.
The upcoming blog post is one of those guests.
Tom Allston is a member of my critique group and a multi-published writer. In his career, he has been published in short stories and is a retired journalist. His other professional credits include, musician, teacher of music and English, oil-field roughneck, advertising writer, and photographer. I'm sure there are other professional credits I am missing. In his lifetime he has gained knowledge and experience in the martial arts, motorcycles, religion and many other areas of interest. He is currently writing a post-apocalyptic novel and has also written numerous sword and sorcery novels and short stories and the list goes on.
In our group, we consider him to be our expert in grammar and style. He is the most efficient and effective among us as an editor. (Although there are several other group members who can at least equal his talent.)
He will probably be the most frequent contributor to my blogs simply because he happens to be the most prolific writer in the group. He often brings two or more pieces at a time for us to critique.
I hope you enjoy his contributions.

The Daily Challenge

Yesterday and today, I've spent hours in front of the computer trying to figure out what happens next. The whole time I was working on it and coming up dry, one of my characters was screaming at me about some comuppance she needed to get out of the way. Even though I knew it didn't come until later on in the story.
I finally gave in and let it happen. It took me less than an hour to work out the whole scene. It flowed from my fingers like water, while the rest of the story was flowing more like molasses on a cold winter day. When I was finished, I was able to go back and start filling in the blanks of what should come before that scene. After about seven pages, I ran dry again. So I went and took a look at the later scene I had finished. Low and behold, what happened after that started spilling out.
I've always struggled to write a book in the order it would happen in. But this is the second time that this sort of thing has happened to me. The last time, it took me two months of work and countless pages to catch up to where my character had led me. And the story flowed seamlessly between the two section.
I guess the moral is: Write what your characters are insisting you get down now. They may not feel like talking about it later. Never lose track of the storyline, but let them out to play at whatever point they want to. You can always fill in later.
The whole thing made me feel a little psycho at first, but I sure felt better when it was over!

Heroes and Villains

I was thinking about story and characters today, as I sat on my front porch feeding the neighborhood squirrels. There’s the fat one. My husband calls him “Buddy” because he’s so friendly. Buddy has no fear of humans. He’ll come to the edge of the porch, stand up and wait for us to throw him a peanut, then either eat it right there or run off under the shade of a tree to enjoy his treat, before coming straight back for the next one. He will also come onto the porch when the front door is open and look in, waiting for us to feed him.
There’s the greedy one. When I’ve fed Buddy, ‘Greedy’ will come out and watch. I can throw a peanut straight out to him, and he’ll ignore it to chase Buddy for his.
Then, there’s the timid one. It took him a while to get used to taking peanuts from us. We’d throw one down to him in the yard, he’d take it, then run and hide while he ate it. We’d throw next peanut a little closer to the porch. “Timid” would stand there wringing his tiny paws and staring at the peanut for several moments before he would venture the few inches closer to get it.
Now, Timid comes into the garden near the porch to get his treats, but he never approaches as close as Buddy does. The biggest motivation for him probably was the blue jay that often stole peanuts while Timid stood contemplating the risk of getting closer.
Things have changed over time. Now, Greedy comes, almost as close as Buddy does and no longer chases him. We have three squirrels hooked on peanuts and a following of blue jays that await their own treats. It’s costing us a bag or two of raw, in-the-shell peanuts a week, but we have fun. And it makes me think about writing.
Okay, everything makes me think about writing. The squirrels prompted me to think of how important character is to a story
No matter what kind of story you write, it’s usually driven by character. From Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea to Stephen King’s The Stand, the character, his choices and the changes that take place in his basic personality are what drives the story to a satisfying conclusion—or doesn’t
Of course, a story must have other elements. A good character without a good story to tell adds up to very little. Story without conflict usually equals zero. However you begin a piece of writing, whether you start with a good story idea or a good character, other elements have to be there to drive the story along.
What makes a good character? The answer is implicit in one succinct phrase: Heroes have flaws, and villains have reasons.
It took me a long time to realize what that means. Heroes are normal human beings thrust into a situation in which they must act. Villains are not necessarily all bad. They might be basically good people, even heroes in any other set of circumstances. But whatever the case, they have a reason to do what they do. A story’s villain can be driven by greed, revenge, lost love, . . . the list goes on and on.
A really good villain must have qualities the reader can identify with, just as the hero must have flaws the reader can identify with. The villain’s reasons lead to his downfall. Overcoming at least one of his flaws makes the hero a hero and a sympathetic character.
I don’t necessarily sympathize with the squirrels and blue jays I feed in the front yard, but they do set me to wondering about what motivates them to choose bravery over fear to gain the treasure of the peanut they seek.
There are many other aspects of character, but the subject is too big to tackle in one blog and there is only so much inspiration hungry squirrels can evoke, even in me. The rest of the subject will have to wait for another blog on another day.

My Critique Group

My blog is dedicated to writers and encouragement and a place for me to write about things that I might not normally write about. It is a celebration of friendship and dedication to the art of writing.
I have been in the same critique group for about fifteen years. Another member has been in the group for almost as long as I have.
Across that decade-and-a-half, we’ve seen a lot of people come and go. At times we had so many members we couldn’t get through all our work in one night. Then there have been times we have had so few that we turned to our friends who taught writing classes for aspiring writers to “audition” as new members.
Currently we number eight--all dedicated to their art and all very good at what they do. Only two of us have ever been published in more than really small-time forms. One is a retired journalist and the other is a multi-talented writer who has published three Western Historical books since he has been in our group. All of us have the potential for publication, and I think all will eventually be published. It comes to all of us if we work hard enough and stick with it long enough.
Were it not for this group, I would have given up long ago. We are really tough on each other. One of our mentors calls us (to my chagrin) hard core, ruthless, no-holds-barred. That has scared off a lot of people, but I don’t mind. Writing for publication is hard. Persistence is the key. I don’t want to be working around people who are not interested in getting published and willing to hang in there, sometimes by the tips of their ragged, bitten fingernails, to succeed.
I believe that it is never too late to get published. Agatha Christie was nearly forty when she was published for the first time. Grandma Moses was in her eighties when she started painting. Painting and writing may sound like apples and oranges, but they are both creative forms of expression and their creators are at the whim of not only public opinion but also of critics and publishers. And both fields are very difficult to break into.
I once heard it said that you could not be a good writer until you reached at least forty. Several of the best-selling writers of today were in their mid-thirties when they first got published. Perhaps they had already lived a lot of life before that. And I’ve known many people much younger than that who are marvelous writers. But I do think that there is a lot to be said for having lived a certain amount of life all the same before you can write from a base of knowledge and from a larger wealth of emotion.
Life has given me many ups and downs since I started with this group. My children have grown up and either gotten married, had children or joined the Navy and left the nest. Many of the other writers in my group have been through similar experiences in that time.
I’d have to say that we are close in a way that I can’t be close to other people in my life. We share something that cannot be explained outside the realm of the creative world. But we have been able to maintain our objectivity when it comes to our individual work. It is separate from the friendships that I share with these people. We don’t write with the thought of how will so-and-so like this bit or will I be rejected by what’s-her-lips for this. We write what we feel, what we have to write. We write what’s in our hearts and our souls and we take the knocks that the others in the group dish out to us. We know that while they may not love every word that we write or even understand why we feel we have to write what we do, when they take it apart and put it back together, their goal is to make a stronger piece of work.
Sometimes we go away upset that they didn’t understand what we did with a piece. Later, when we’ve had a chance to look at it through more objective eyes, sometimes we decide they were right. Sometimes it still seems they just didn’t get it. But the diversity of our styles of writing, our personal experiences and knowledge can come together with the perfect formula. We have to remain objective, we have to keep each other honest about our work, and we can force each other to produce something better and better all the time.
I could go on for ages about my critique group and the friendships that have been forged there. But it wouldn’t mean much to anyone but us.

Sheila and Me

I decided that I needed to start writing a blog because everyone said it is the right thing for a writer to do. I could see the point. I’ve been told for years that journaling helps a writer come up with ideas for stories, and it’s a way to practice my craft on a daily basis, even when the ideas aren’t flowing.
But I had a few stumbling blocks. First, I was never one to keep a diary. I was always afraid that my mother or sister would read what I had written, and it didn’t matter which one of those two it was, I would be in deep doodoo when it got out. What was written in the diary could be true or false; either way, those two had a habit of ganging up on me and getting me into big trouble with Daddy.
Second, I had no idea what I would blog about. There are just some things that you don’t want people to read, no matter how therapeutic, mind-bending, idea-producing or revolutionary the words might be. So I went ahead and created the blog, thinking, “Now I have to write something.”
The blog page was still blank for two months until I first posted the piece about my critique group.
Not long after I designed the page, a high school friend passed away. It made me very sad. It also made me think about my own mortality in a way I never had before. We are still relatively young, my high school classmates and I. I thought that maybe I would write about that. But I really didn’t know if I wanted to start off my page on such a sad note.
I read a lot. I mean I really read a lot! I almost always have a book going in the bedroom, one in the living room for when the others in the house are watching something on TV that doesn’t interest me. And I listen to a book on CD or MP3 when I’m doing the household chores or the gardening. And when I’m not doing that, I’m either writing on a book or short story or reading pages for my critique group. So, like I said, I read a lot.
But I never got around to reading Marley and Me. So, I rented the movie the other night and watched it all alone. My husband was out of town and all the kids are out of the house now. It was sweet and funny and frankly, if that dog had been mine, he would have been given away to someone with a big ranch before he turned a year old.
By the time the movie was over, I was thinking of another dog. One who had become as much a member of the family as any child.
She was a found dog. As I grew up, my dad and sister and I were always dragging home strays and finding new homes for them—much to my mother’s constant annoyance.
My sister found this one in front of the grocery store in Canyon. She was a pup, three or four months old, with a rope around her neck that was about to choke her. She had chewed through it and was dragging it along behind her. She was covered in fleas and ticks and looked like she was starving. My sister took the dog home, cleaned her up, fed her and showed her to my kids.
That’s all it took. She was ours from that day forward--a grateful, happy found puppy.
According to our veterinarian, she was part red heeler and part dingo. You could tell that when she howled at the moon. It didn’t sound like a coyote but neither did it sound like any other dog I’d ever heard. She was obviously what is known as a cow dog, as in “Hank the.” Since she had dingo in her, we named her Sheila, the Aussie slang for female.
As the kids grew up, we both kept a watchful eye out for them. She wasn’t in any way like Marley. She was easy to train and tolerant of the children. She was energetic, attentive and loved to run and play. The kids taught her to play soccer. She would “kick” the ball with her nose and head it too. Her worst habit was herding the children. If they were outside playing and one wanted to come in, she wouldn’t let them. I guess that instinct was part of her breeding. They all had to come in together or stay outside together. So, most of the time the kids would holler for Mom to come and rescue them. I never had to worry about someone taking the kids as long as Sheila was on duty.
She walked the fence line every time she was outside and guarded the front door or the doors to the children’s bedrooms when she was inside. When the kids were at school she was by my side the whole day. She would lay under my feet while I was at the computer, or on the kitchen floor while I did dishes and prepared meals and as near to me as I would let her while I sat in my favorite chair and read.
While she was not like Marley, there were still certain “incidents” that were frustrating and funny at the same time. There was the Chicken Breast incident. My son had set a plate on the coffee table that held a single cold, bone-in chicken breast for an after-school snack. The phone rang and he left it there only to return within less than a minute when one of the girls got the phone. The chicken breast was gone and Sheila stood beside the table looking innocent. We knew where the food had gone, but there was no evidence at all. She had inhaled the meat, bones and all and was none the worse for it.
Then there was the “Peanut Butter Sandwich” incident. I had gone back to work. I made myself a sandwich and packed in a fold-over plastic bag and set it down by the door on top of my purse and briefcase. I went down the hall, forgetting that Sheila was in the house, to call the kids to get in the car. When I turned and went back into the living room, Sheila stood by a suspiciously empty plastic bag. She wasn’t even licking peanut butter off the roof of her mouth! And on top of that, when I examined the bag, there were absolutely no signs of tooth marks or dog slobber. If nothing else, she was slick!
We learned never to leave food within her reach.
Sheila and I also had differing opinions on child rearing and punishment techniques. Hers was to growl and sometimes sit on them until they behaved. Mine, on occasions when I felt it was necessary, was to spank. I learned the first time I attempted this method with her watching, wouldn’t work. She grabbed me by the “offending” hand with her teeth and growled. She NEVER ever bit me, but I could see in her eyes, that if I hadn’t stopped, she would have. So when a spanking was called for, Sheila was banished temporarily to the backyard.
She lived to be 17 years old. By that time, she could barely see or hear and had trouble getting to her feet after she lay down. But she hung on until “her” last child, my son, graduated from high school.
Then for weeks she would look at me every morning as if she were saying, “I’m ready, now. Let me go.” I tried to ignore that look even though I was amazed that I hadn’t found her dead yet. I couldn’t imagine the pain she was in. We couldn’t give her medicine for her arthritis because it affected her kidneys, which were beginning to fail. There had already been winter days when my son had to carry her outside to do her business and then carry her back in. But I knew I couldn’t continue to ignore those pleading looks.
When the time came, we bundled her up in the blanket she’d slept on since she couldn’t get up on the bed anymore. My husband took her to the car and drove us to the veterinarian who had cared for her all her life. My son met us there and carried her inside. The doctor had helped us arrange for burial at a local pet cemetery, something I was very surprised that I wanted to do. I had never buried a pet before and I’d had many. Most of them, I had let our vet dispose of.
As our vet administered the injection, my husband and son and I stood by her side, petting her, talking to her and trying to ease her way to whatever is beyond for such loving animals.
Marley and Me made me realize just how precious she had been in our lives. And even though I said at the beginning of the movie that I probably would have gotten rid of Marley, the truth was, I probably would have done the same thing that family did and just loved him and tolerated him.
After the movie was over, I called my married daughter. We talked for a while about Sheila and what she had meant to us and cried a little. It’s good to cry now and then. Sheila will always be the best nanny dog I ever had. I will miss her as much as any friend.
My husband made a marker for her grave. It says simply: Sheila, Loving Companion and Protector 1989-2006.
I don’t really consider this a sad blog, although it makes me long for her companionship again. It is a celebration of a precious pet who brought love, laughter and joy to my family.