Writers are always looking for inspiration, that spark, that idea that gets words on the page. It could be the search for an intriguing character the reader will either love or hate, or both. It could be a setting that stirs the imagination. But it’s not always about inspiration for the perfect written word. Sometimes we need a whole lot of inspiration just to write the words, to sit our butt in our chair and start typing. We question whether or not we have the talent, the right, to call ourselves writers. We begin to wonder if there aren’t better ways we could be spending our time, like scrubbing the bathroom grout with a toothbrush. For this kind of inspiration we turn to other writers.

That’s why I urge other writers, particularly those new to the process, to join a critique group. It helps tremendously to be able to talk to people who know exactly what I’m going through, the questions, the doubts, the struggles. And it never hurts to hear that something I’ve been working long hours on to perfect has hit the spot.

I also own a number of how-to books by famous authors: “Make Your Words Work” by Gary Provost, “On Writing” by Stephen King, “Writing from the Inner Self” by Elaine Farris Hughes, “Object Lessons” by Eavan Boland, “bird by bird” by Anne Lamott, and “write naked” by Jennifer Probst. Some of these I haven’t even gotten around to opening yet, but they’re all sitting here giving off good energy as I type.

And when I feel like there’s nothing but garbage spilling from my fingers and onto the page I remember these famous quotes:

“You might not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.” Jodi Picoult

“Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it’s the only way you can do anything really good.” William Faulkner

“It is perfectly okay to write garbage – as long as you edit brilliantly.” C.J. Cherryh

“Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” E.L. Doctorow

If you’re happy telling people you’re an aspiring writer, then go ahead and continue to explain to anyone who will listen how you have an idea for a fabulous novel that would be a guaranteed best seller…if only you had the time to sit down and write it. If you want to call yourself a writer, then you must sit down and write. Your first draft may well be garbage; that’s basically the definition of a first draft. What matters is what you do with it. Do you put it in a drawer and feel content in the mere accomplishment of finishing it? (Okay, if that’s enough for you.) Do you rush it off to e-book so you can share it with the world? (Please, no!) Or do you now take a deep breath and go back to the beginning to delete, add, rewrite? That one’s my choice. Get it down and don’t look back until after I type the words “The End”. It’s just that sometimes I need a little nudge, a reminder why I’m doing this and what I need to do to get it done. And from what I hear from published writers, even the famous ones, sometimes they need a little inspiration, too.

If there’s one thing I need as a writer it’s patience. There’s a lot of waiting in this business. You send out a query and you wait. If they ask for a partial you hurry and send it and then you wait. If they then want a full manuscript you send that and…you guessed it…you wait. And you wait and you wait and you wait. Sometimes you get a quick “no thank you” response, but even with a rejection you often have to wait, possibly months.

Right now I’m waiting to hear back from an agent on my novel, Mary Bishop. She’s very busy. I know this because she’s currently not accepting unsolicited submissions. (Mine was requested.) I’m trying to be patient but it’s not easy. A whirlwind of questions keep playing through my mind: Did she receive it? Maybe she didn’t see it in her no doubt overloaded email. When do I decide she isn’t interested? Is it ok to write a quick follow-up email? What if she was considering asking for more and now I just annoyed her by pushing so she says no thank you?

We live in a world of instant gratification so none of us like to wait. If you finish reading your current book after store hours you can get another with just a click of an electronic button on your e-reader. If you decide you want to watch a movie but don’t want to go out in the rain, or maybe there’s nothing of interest playing at the local Cineplex, there’s always Netflix or Hulu or one of the many other movie-streaming sites. You can get almost anything with a click of a button.

Add to that the issue of self-worth. We all think we’re special. After all, our parents say so, our teachers, the media. Psychologists everywhere espouse the importance of making everyone feel equally talented, equally important. Everybody wins; nobody loses. Your children play sports? Rest assured they will come home with a trophy at the end of the season…even if their team finishes dead last and your kid couldn’t catch, kick, or hit a ball if their life depended on it. Afraid that college course is a little too hard and your child won’t pass after all the money you spent on tuition? Afraid a failing grade will make your child feel bad? Don’t worry. Some college professors no longer give grades.

Yes, I could self-publish my book. I could upload it onto Amazon…and then wait. Wait for all the orders to come pouring in, or not. A lot of people do that. I’ve read some very good self-published books. But I’ve also read even more bad ones. I’d hate to find myself in the latter group because I didn’t have the patience to wait for an agent or editor to give me a thumbs up, and questioned the intelligence of those who gave me a thumbs down.

So I’ll keep waiting. And if this agent isn’t interested, or doesn’t reply in a reasonable amount of time, I’ll just move on to the next person on my list. In the meantime, I’ll keep working on my next book. I have to believe someone will eventually recognize my greatness. They can’t possibly all be clueless.

When we think “setting” in a story, we think in broad pictures like woods or ocean shore. We think events, like a wedding or a battlefield; or a geographical location as large as a particular country…or planet if your thing is Sci-Fi. But setting is so much more than that.

Over Christmas I was discussing my book with a friend who had recently read it for me. One of his comments was how much food played a role in Mary Bishop’s story. I had never thought about it before, but he was right. Food is always there. It doesn’t matter if you’re happy or sad or angry, alone or in a group, celebrating or merely breaking your fast with friends. What’s a movie without popcorn?

Food can be used to put your characters in a more vivid place for your readers. Consider: The scene is a high-end restaurant. Soft music is playing, people are talking, candlelight flickers against the spotless crystal glassware. The waiter walks over and places two dinners on the table. He has to use a towel so he doesn’t burn his hands on the heated plates. One is a steak dinner, meat the perfect shade of red inside, its juices mixing with the steamed vegetables and potato. The other is chicken with wild rice and overtop is drizzled an amazing reduction. Your mouth waters. Are you one of the happy two sitting at the table, toasting the occasion, laughing, cutting into your dinner and smiling your approval with that first perfect bite; or are you standing on the other side of the glass window looking in, cold, only a few coins left in your pocket, unable to even buy a cup of coffee to get warm? Same scene, but two very different settings.

When Mary Bishop is faced with her first Christmas alone after her husband’s death, she remembers holidays in the past. She thinks about her mother’s Christmas feast back in Virginia, before the Civil War stripped them of so much and left them hungry. Two very different Christmas’ and food plays as big a part in that setting as the people. When Mary’s reunited with an old friend and wakes one morning to find her house in northern Wisconsin filled with the smells of fresh biscuits in the oven and sausage gravy on the stove she’s taken back to “home”. For Mary’s friend Sarah, it’s Mary’s homemade jam that takes her back to their southern roots.

Whether it’s the visual, the taste, or the smell, food helps define setting. Now, unless you’re writing a book specifically about food, or a character obsessed with food, I wouldn’t suggest putting it in every scene. But consider it where it will sharpen your scene with detail.

May 2018 hold everything you desire and more. See you next year!

 

We could easily change the words to a popular Christmas song and for many it would be a more truthful description of the holiday season. I know I can get overwhelmed by all the preparations: cards, gifts, baking, decorating, and multiple trips to stand in line at the post office or the grocery baking aisle. Fighting for a parking space at the mall! Every year I tell myself I’m going to worry less, do less, sit back and enjoy more. Every year I fail; except for this year. There are a number of reasons for this.

First, I retired from my day job the end of August. This means no more commute times, no more long hours in a busy-at-the-end-of-the-year real estate office. I couldn’t have done half of what I did this year if I still had that on my plate. Not only would I have had less time to squeeze it all in, but the time I would have wouldn’t be very productive if I was stressing out…or just plain too tired. And to keep the Christmas spirit going while I went about my preparations, I turned on Christmas music or one of the wonderful Hallmark Christmas romance movies.

Second, I gave myself permission not to worry about my writing until after Christmas (except for this blog). Do I feel guilty about this? Sometimes. Do I miss it? Absolutely. But it’s about setting priorities. Christmas only comes once a year and stepping back a little to enjoy it doesn’t only make me happy, but it makes my family happy. Isn’t that part of what being a wife/mother/daughter is about? It is for me. I expect I’ll be able to return to my novel after Christmas with a renewed energy and no regrets over what I just gave up.

Whatever you choose to do in celebration of the season, I ask that you do it with joy in your heart and no regrets.

A very happy holiday to all my friends in the blogosphere!

I’ve been trying to decide which holiday special/movie is my favorite, but the list is so long. There’s “It’s A Wonderful Life”, in black and white, of course. “A Christmas Carol”, again in black and white, starring Alastair Sim. Also, “White Christmas”, “Holiday Inn”, “A Christmas Story”, “Christmas Vacation”, and who doesn’t love “Christmas With The Kranks” and “Elf”. This doesn’t begin to list them all, but at the top there really is just one for me–“A Charlie Brown Christmas”. No other can melt my heart with just the opening notes like that one can.

“A Charlie Brown Christmas” debuted on December 9, 1965. I was in first grade. The Peanuts cartoon strip had been fast-growing in popularity through the 1950s and 1960s when Coca-Cola commissioned Charles M. Schultz to create a half-hour Christmas special. This was a low-budget deal unlike any other project for television. The script was written over weeks and the animation completed in just six short months. Actual children were hired to do the voice-overs and, instead of the standard laugh track of the time, jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi was hired to write the sound-track. This unorthodox approach led the producers and network to predict it would be a disaster. Instead, it achieved high ratings and critical acclaim and would go on to win both an Emmy and a Peabody award. It has broadcast at least once every Christmas season since, the sound-track has sold millions of copies, and if you want to watch it more often, and not just during the holiday season, you can buy the DVD for your personal viewing pleasure.

Charles M. Schultz always knew growing up that he wanted to be a cartoonist. He was born in Minneapolis on November 26, 1922, and lived in St Paul with his German father (a barber) and Norwegian mother. Growing up, Charles was fascinated by cartoons and spent Sundays with his father reading the funnies in the local newspaper. When he was a senior in high school his mother encouraged him to complete a correspondence course in cartoon drawing through the Federal School of Applied Cartooning (now the Art Instruction Schools).

After a stint in the Army during WWII, he returned home to teach art at his alma mater and to publish the occasional single-panel cartoon in The Saturday Evening Post. For three years he had a weekly panel in the St Paul Pioneer Press. His first Peanuts cartoon appeared on October 2, 1950. He was 27 years old and it would be seen in seven newspapers nationwide. By the time he retired in December 1999, his strip would be syndicated in 2,600 newspapers world-wide and he had books published in 25 languages. Charles M Schultz died from complications of colon cancer on February 12, 2000, in Santa Rosa, California.

Charles M. Schultz had a dream. He wanted to be a professional cartoonist. He pursued that dream and look where it got him. I don’t believe there’s a single person in this world who doesn’t know who he is, who doesn’t recognize the characters of Charlie Brown and his little sister Sally, Lucy and Linus VanPelt, Peppermint Patty, Pig Pen, Schroeder, Marcy, and, of course, Snoopy (a/k/a The Red Baron) and his little yellow-feathered side-kick, Woodstock. We can all learn a lesson from him…believe in yourself, work hard, and anything can happen.

I’ve been busy decorating our home for Christmas and found myself wondering: why do we kiss beneath the mistletoe? When you think about it, it is a rather odd custom. Why mistletoe? Mistletoe is a parasitic plant that steals nutrients from the host and can harm some trees. Why not a more cheery and aromatic choice like a pine bough? So I went to my favorite source for “the history of…”, www.history.com, and this is what I found.

Like so many customs, the power of mistletoe goes back thousands of years to a time when it was used to cure anything from menstrual cramps to spleen disorders. Roman naturalist, Pliny the Elder, touted it as a balm against epilepsy, ulcers, and poisons. Mistletoe and romance goes back to the Celtic Druids of the 1^st Century AD. Because mistletoe stays green year round the Druids believed it to be a symbol of vitality and used the plant to restore fertility in both humans and animals.

Mistletoe also played a role in Norse mythology. The god Odin’s son, Baldur, was prophesied to die. His mother, Frigg, the goddess of love, secured an oath from all the animals and plants not to harm her son. But she neglected the lowly mistletoe. The god Loki fashioned an arrow from the plant and used it to kill Baldur. An alternate ending to the story has the gods resurrecting Baldur. Overjoyed, Frigg then declared mistletoe to be a symbol of love and promised to kiss all who passed beneath it.

Mistletoe continued to be linked to fertility and vitality well into the Middle Ages. By the 18^th Century it had become a part of Christmas celebrations. Scholars can’t agree on a reason for this jump from sacred healing herb to holiday decoration, but it’s believed the tradition of kissing beneath the mistletoe began with the English servants and then spread to the middle class. (Perhaps they were familiar with the Norse myth of Baldur and his mother Frigg; although that seems unlikely based on the limited education of the serving class.) Custom had it that men were allowed to kiss any woman caught standing beneath the mistletoe and refusing that kiss meant bad luck. A second version of the custom had the kissing couple pluck a single berry from the sprig for each kiss. They were to stop kissing when all the berries were gone.

I went to Wisconsin DNR’s website to see if mistletoe grows here in Wisconsin. Unfortunately, the traditional “kissing” mistletoe with its large leaves and big white or red berries is not native to our state. You can, however, find the eastern dwarf mistletoe, a small and not very showy shrub not at all what you think of when you think mistletoe. It grows to a height of only a couple centimeters, making it the state’s tiniest shrub, and grows predominantly in the swamps of northern Wisconsin. You can learn more about it at http://dnr.wi.gov/wnrmag/2009/12/mistletoe.htm.

 

If you’ve been watching the news this week, and even if you haven’t, you’ve no doubt heard the announcement that Prince Harry is engaged. Rakishly handsome, a member of the British armed forces, a champion for numerous charities, and the fantasy love of so many young women around the world. It is an American, Meghan Markle, who ultimately won the heart of the red-haired royal.

Disney has made a fortune on the fascination of young girls with princes; just spend a day at either Disneyland or Disney World and you’ll find yourself surrounded by little girls dressed like their favorite Princess, willing to wait in long lines to say hello and have her picture taken with her Princess of choice. And this fascination doesn’t end with little girls. It’s a common plot in romance novels; a young woman meets her Prince Charming, who turns out to be a real prince, and falls in love. Have you watched the Hallmark movie channel?

Many of us, and I include myself, are obsessed with the British royal family. One of my favorite stops on a trip to London was Buckingham Palace. I watched the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, and would later set my alarm for hours earlier than normal to watch her funeral. She was beautiful, kind, humble, and her death was devastating. When their son William married Kate Middleton I was again glued to the television. Each photograph of a royal baby is more enchanting than the last. And now we will have a new princess to watch.

While Meghan Markle won’t actually be a princess, and with a husband who is currently fifth in line for the throne she will never be queen, she will still receive all the attention and fascination that comes with her upcoming marriage.

Not so many years ago, she would never have been an acceptable choice for a royal. (Harry had to receive his grandmother the Queen’s approval to marry.) Consider the case of Harry’s great-great uncle, King Edward VIII. He was forced to choose between the throne and his love, the American divorcee Wallis Simpson. Yes, he was King and Harry is not, will not, be King, but the circumstances are not all that different. Meghan Markle is also an American and a divorcee. On top of that, she is an actress, Catholic, and biracial. The royal family has come a long way under Queen Elizabeth II’s rule.

Many of these changes have been forced upon her as what society now accepts as the norm have changed. Three of the Queen’s four children are divorced. Prince Charles, next in line to the throne, is not only divorced himself, but married a divorcee.

Don’t think she has thrown all the rules out the window. The etiquette of how to dress based on age, marital status, time of day, formal or non-formal, where you will be seen and with whom, are numerous. It was recently questioned why Miss Markle is always seen with nude nail polish…the Queen believes colored nail polish to be “vulgar”. Skirts are required to be hemmed below the knee and blue jeans are too casual. Perhaps this is why they have personal servants to help them dress. How else would they keep track of all the rules?

The nuptials are planned for May 2018. I don’t know the date yet but plan on watching. Harry’s bride should be another bright light in the royal household.  A California girl, she once said she “lives by the ethos that most things can be cured with either [sic] yoga, the beach, or a few avocados.” Let’s just hope the grammar issue with that statement was an error on the part of the journalist and not the bride-to-be.

 

From my house to all my family and friends, all the people I’m most grateful for. You’ve made me who I am, and who I will be, and for that I give thanks. Jane