Help! Someone Stole Over Two Months!

I could say I was busy, which would be true. I could claim I was kidnapped by space aliens/angels/ornery males, which would almost be true. I could show you my mug shot and swear I've been incarcerated, which would not be true. The absolute truth is less glamorous.

Let's see: I've re-grouted my bathroom floor, chased voles around my borders because they're destroying my plants, watered plants as little as possible to save water, but did have to give the poor guys a drink every now and then due to days upon days of 100-degree weather and absolutely no rain. Zip. Nada.

In my geographical location, we usually get big summer rains off storms that come into the Gulf. But not this year. I didn't expect much out of Hannah, despite her best effort to drown Florida, since Atlantic storms usually get caught in whatever it is that sucks them up the coastline. Being two hundred miles inland means we have to get rain from the other direction. I have been absolutely obsessed with the National Hurricane Center and The Weather Channel. We finally got a couple of inches of rain, but it didn't put a dent in our parched landscape. And I hate seeing the devastation storms inflict on the coastlines. My heart goes out to everyone who took a beating from Hannah, Gustav and Ike.

Of course, the highlight of one of the few systems to come through my neck of the woods was in August when a friend and I decided we needed a couple of days of 'Girl Time'. We took off to the mountains to engage in a little rocking-chair boogie and to check out the Dillard's outlet in Asheville. Rained cats, dogs and hamsters the whole time we were there. Here? One hour and fifteen minutes down the road? Nope. Anyway, we had a grand time...until we started home.

So...we're yakking along, when my phone rings. Son at Clemson University.

"Mom! Where are you?"

"Well, hi, honey. Miss Angie and I have been in the mountains and are on our way home."

"I called to tell you I'm okay."

Mom's thought processes stumble for a moment. "Uh...good."

"You don't know what's going on, do you?"

"I...don't think so."

"A tornado just hit Clemson and it's headed your way. Turn around! Turn around and go back to the mountains!"

As if cued, sirens go off in the bustling metropolis of Campobello, population 10. "Uh...uh...oh."

"I'm in the basement of the Alumni House. They just told us the tornado is heading down I-85 toward you. It's not on the ground right now but it's still there. Turn around!"

So, Mom repeats the weather update to her friend, who sticks her head out of the window to watch the clouds.

"It's not even raining here." But the clouds did have that funky look that precedes spitting out its tongue at the earth. "What did the tornado hit? There?"

"It touched down in (little town near Clemson that Mom can't remember the name and another town nearby, not so little, but Mom can't remember it either) and on campus near the football stadium." (Lord, NOT DEATH VALLEY! Clemson and its devoted alumni would mourn for centuries. Of whom, I, a University of South Carolina grad, would not be one of them. I'm worried about #2 Son and the student body, then in the next instant, have visions of the annual state rivalry shifting in the Gamecocks' favor due to the trauma suffered by Tigers everywhere. Hey! They'd be thinking the same thing if a tornado hit Williams-Brice Stadium.)

Still, I'm not completely uncaring about Tigertown. "Anybody hurt?"

"Not that I know of. It just tore up some trees and dumped them on cars in the parking lot. I think a student apartment complex lost its roof or something, but I heard everybody's okay. And lightning struck an apartment building. It burned to the ground. I don't think anybody was hurt there either. Now! Turn around!" (I'm so touched by this adorable son's concern. The other two males in my household, the one I married and the first one I birthed, didn't know or care where I was. Yeah, they love me too. What are we having for dinner?)

Since it's still pretty quiet and by the time this conversation has taken place, I'm at I-26 and only twenty minutes from home, so we decide to stay the course. #2 Son and I promise to call one another soon and I beat a path for home and the basement. Which we did not need. The storm fizzled out before it reached us. Thank goodness. I want rain, not Dorothy and Toto in my yard. And we did get a couple of inches of wet stuff that night for which I was truly grateful. Then it didn't rain again for two months.

Along with weather-related obsessions and the everyday hamster wheel I run, I have managed to research and write. I'm still plugging away on the first crappy draft...aka, FCD. Each time I review a section I've written to get up to speed, I wish I had been sucked up by a tornado and therefore, unable to continue to insult the literary world. Otherwise, as long as I breathe, I write.

Next up: A fledgling writer attends the local Citizen's Police Academy. That has not started yet. But if all goes well, I'll document this foray into law enforcement--the sanitized version of down-and-dirty police work given to the public. The itinerary looks interesting...except for the part about the entry level agility course. There may not be any pictures of that event.

My, how times flies.

I can't believe I've neglected my blog for...weeks. I've been busy. What else is new? I'm sorry to say I've not been distracted by, you know, really fun stuff. But my outside windows are clean now that the pollen has finished falling and my rugs have been shampooed.

And it was 98 frickin' degrees here today. In barely June. Not August. Not even July. And as dry as my personality at 7 AM. My poor plants. Not that they have much of a chance with the hordes of voles eating everything in sight. Just for spite, I flooded their little rodent holes today while I was washing windows. Then filled them with gravel. Apparently I have cats so I can feed them forty 'leven times a day and scratch their ears while they drool on my knee. Cats meet voles.

I've not even had time to help the local police department like I should. I don't know how they're surviving without me. I salute them for carrying on with great dignity when I'm not plugged in. At the moment I'm doing my part. So far tonight, we've returned a runaway, stopped a few cars, responded to the usual ruckus reports and...called for the coroner, though I got here a little late to know what that was about. I say we, but really, I'm very careful not to impersonate an officer...except when I'm writing. Then I figure it's okay because I'm impersonating a writer too. Therefore, I've appointed myself as The Supreme Auricle. All shall love me and despair.

As far as writing goes, I'm going around in circles about whether I should switch to first-person POV or stay in a close third. I really wanted to do this story in third because I rarely use it. I'm much more comfortable in first, but there are legions of readers who hate first with more passion than I have for hating voles. Despicable little rats that they are! (The voles, not the readers.) Did I mention they ate my limelight hydrangeas? TWICE! Maybe I should write about the destruction of vole holes from my POV and theirs, though I suspect their POV would consist mainly of a lot of munching, snickering and cleaning dirt from under their grubby little claws. Where are those darn cats?

The puff balls aren't any help with choosing POV either. As far as they're concerned, everything is from their POV.

I've been told third is the preferred POV, but I sure do see a lot of first on the shelves. Maybe there's a new trend? Or maybe my source was distracted by voles gnawing off the roots of his plants and gave me erroneous information. I've also noticed a lot of present tense these days. Nah.

Fortunately, I do have a good beta. I think I'll run a chapter of both POVs by her and bleed profusely when I get them back. She's good and just when I think I'm pretty darn good, she uses my plot holes for target practice. Really, I appreciate it. Really, I do. When I stop crying. Then I flood them and stuff them full of gravel.

Charlie 56 needs me. There's an alarm at T.J. Maxx.

What a Girl Does for Fun...and Research

I enjoy researching for a story. Little tidbits of information I'll never use for anything remains with me long after the important stuff is forgotten. Why is that? If it's useful, it's gone faster than good sense, but if it's worthless trivia, it's tattooed on my consciousness like a red heart professing my undying love for Billy Bob. Still, being the eternal optimistic-cynic I am, I keep reading and copying and pasting as if I will actually remember to look at my notes when the time comes to use my pretty flowers I've spent the better part of the week weeding from websites, books and newspapers.

However, every now and then, the best, most wonderful, fun-filled waste of time comes along I can claim as research. This week, I'm digging police scanners. Yes, that's right, my local city police. I found the call...codes? thingies?...for my local public safety departments on a website, copied them to my writing software under the notes tab, and have happily spent HOURS scrolling up and down to figure out what's being said in this foreign tongue. I can sit at my computer, find that Charlie 56 is 10-76, 10-39, 10-15, 66. Translated: Car 56 is en route with lights and sirens to a civil disturbance involving a UFO sighting. Okay, I've not really heard that one, but I'm not giving up.

And for exercise to offset my hours of sedentary aural voyeurism, whenever one the officers reports he's going down my street, I throw off my headphones, jump up, and run to the front of my house where I scurry from window to window like a squirrel harvesting nuts on a tight schedule. I should wave, but they don't know I'm spying on them. If they did, I would probably get my own little stack of codes: 10-96, 15C, 10-95, 70. Mental subject, keeps trying to hug officer and tell him he's better looking than he sounds on the radio, subject in custody, transporting prisoner. I assume the trip would terminate at the county detention center. I fear my male unit would leave me there.

I've even found the jail roster. I know people.... Not well. No family or friends. Still, oh my!

I'm having way too much fun.

The sad news is that I'll probably never use a single local call code in my story, but my excuse is that listening gives me, ya know, the flavor of how police operate. Eventually, I might even get back to writing...when I'm over this fixation.

In the meantime, I'm impressed by the professionalism of my local police and how proficient they are juggling a constant stream of calls ranging from ridiculous to tragic. My favorite call so far was last night. A man was exposing himself. Dispatch notified the nearest car. The officer's voice when he replied, "En route", was worth a whole box of doughnuts.

10-4

When Things Get Tough....

I didn't mean to fall off the playing field--as if anyone noticed, but hey, I still like my blog--but sometimes life doesn't just throw curve balls, it throws the whole equipment bag.

My day is usually pretty busy. I'm rarely at a loss for something to do. In fact, I'm normally so far behind, I'm last week. But every now and then, the change in routine is so heartbreaking, the disruption of our regular schedule is nothing.

Last Friday, the father of one of my oldest son's friends, died. He was young. Talented. A photographer who has done family portraits for me. A musician my sons admired and played with. A husband of a beautiful sweet woman whose cancer has come back for the third time. A father to three wonderful children, one of whom, I love like my own son.

Down South, we still cook and clean for the family, fetch, tote and keep a constant stream of iced tea in red plastic cups flowing. I'm sure other parts of the country do this as well, I just happen to know about Southern Traditions.

The wife is originally from New York and her brother came down immediately after the tragic news. Even though we were all strangers to him, he hugged us, consoled us and allowed us to console him. I loved his accent. He never mentioned mine, which I thought was nice. He could have pointed out that the gaggle of Southern females who descended on his sister's house sounded like Steele Magnolias with delusions of commanding armies and principalities. While we pointed to where the vacuum was located, where the broom was and what needed to be swept, where the trash bags were and where to store food brought, he sat with his sister, his arm around her shoulders, and smiled with gratitude at us. What a sweet man. I was so glad he was there to hold his sister up until she could get her balance.

Death is always hard, expected or not. All families have trials and tribulations of Biblical proportions, but I couldn't help feeling that a woman who has survived breast cancer TWICE and was beating it back again did not deserve this additional blow. And the children, all teenage to early twenties, were way too young to lose their dad. I know it happens. I know younger children lose a parent, and far too often, a child will lose both parents. It's still not fair. It's still heartbreaking. I still hate it.

Even when life seems as equitable as a carnival game, there's still good to be found. People rallied to take care of the family. A priest comforted them during the wee hours of Saturday morning. Friends of the children called and came by to offer support. I saw kids I've known since they were born, big hulking males, put their arms around their friend and cry with him. They found things to smile and laugh about...before crying again. I know it was hard on the friends to do this. My son and the son of another good friend were physically ill thinking about having to face up to this. But they did it. It's never easy. What do you say? How do you act? They let their hearts lead them. That's all anyone can do.

The funeral was Tuesday at our downtown Catholic Church. Stained-glass windows, warm wood, sea-foam greens and serene statues have watched over this town for well over a hundred years. Our first Catholic Church. I don't know how many people it officially holds, but on this day, its walls couldn't hold the grief of this town. Every pew was filled. People lined the aisles, filled the narthex and overflowed out onto the sidewalk. Hundreds never got into the church, nor could they hear the service, but they stood under the warm spring sun with heads bowed for an hour while the funeral mass took place. When the family decided to use the chapel, I don't think they ever thought for a second so many people would share their grief. I hope they found some comfort in this. I know I did.

So, let's remember dads today. We'll honor moms too, but for today, let's remember the dads who have already gone and the ones still with us. Let's remember the good dads and yes, even the rotten ones. Like the old saying says: Everyone is a teacher. If you can't serve as a good example, then you'll just have to serve as a terrible warning. Let's embrace what we've learned from both sorts and put into practice being good examples.

I'll remember my friend and remember the good dad.

So I Made a Boo-Boo

Writers are an odd bunch to start with. Fun people, for the most part. Creative, hard-working and sometimes, a tad sensitive, but generally people who are a pleasure to know. I like the writers I know.

The published ones are often kind enough to share their experiences, offer a helping hand by blogging about their process or holding writer workshops. I've run across none who don't want to see other writers succeed. By far, the majority want to pay forward. That way, there's more for them to read. I, for one, am very glad they're readers as well as authors.

The unpublished writers I know like to share what they've learned. There are a million light-bulb moments when a vague nuance suddenly clicks and becomes a bold understanding. What made it click for you, might be just the very thing I needed to read or hear to make my own unique little light glow.

Then there's the sensitive part. Writing is gratifying in many ways, but nothing is more exciting than finding out others share your enthusiasm for your work. They enjoyed it! However, even the most thick-skinned writers cringe when the response is well...not enthusiastic. The truth is, we need to hear it. Most of the time. Some people just like wielding an axe. Let's weed them out now. What we do with genuine feedback is up to us and depends on our vision for the story. Many writers have stayed their ground when told to remove a subplot or a character or a scene and have been rewarded greatly for maintaining their vision. More often than not, there is a problem when someone trusted points it out. Personally, I want to know. Then I can assess how important...or not...that road bump is on my story map. Maybe I can smooth it out or maybe it just plain needs to go. If killing it makes the story better, I don't care how much I love that scene where Mary Sue gets her first kiss, it's gotta go. Maybe it'll work in another story, for another character. Or maybe it will languish forever on my hard drive with only the rare visit from its adoring creator. I know about it even if the reader never does.

When learning the ropes, writers make a lot of false starts and wrong turns. Experienced writers toss out chapters, pages, characters, whatever isn't working. So what? I hope I learned something from my mistakes. I also hope I won't repeat them, but I won't swear they won't sneak back in when I'm away from my computer refilling my tea glass. I do, however, promise to try to invent new ones, something that will take me one step closer to writing a sound story readers will like.

Learning the craft and learning the publishing business takes time. It's okay to make a few boo-boos along the way. No one was harmed in the making of a writer. Annoyed, maybe, when you do something really stupid. Embarrassed even. Still, the end results will be worth it if we don't let the failures paralyze us.

Janet Reid, an agent with FinePrint Literary Management, wrote an excellent post on her blog today regarding making mistakes. Don't let them paralyze you. Don't stop taking the next step. I felt much better after she told me it was okay to do dumb things. Just don't do it again. Okay. I'll try.

http://jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/

Really, I need to be more interesting.

For someone who can yak more than prudent and churn out in authorly fashion more baloney than Oscar Meyer, I sure am at a loss about what to write about on this blog. I mean, who wants to hear about all the junk I found while cleaning out the cabinet under my cook top? If I had stumbled across a forgotten Picasso or a stack of rare Confederate bills, that might have been worth a good story. Alas, poor me, I found only powdery fiber pills, a collection of half-burned candles, three large boxes of wooden matches (gas stove, still works when the power takes a hike) and some really nasty shelf liner hidden behind my spatulas. And some other stuff, equally not worth mentioning. My days are way too exciting.

I did read a good book recently. It's not a new release, but I just got around to it. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. (I just realized there is no underline button up yonder on my tool bar. Must be one of those Html things. Let's just skip that and go for italics. Who knows what I might end up with if I start playing with codes.)

Extremely interesting read. It's non-fiction about the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and a serial killer who made the most of the crowds and confusion. A friend recommended this book when I visited the lovely Windy City several years ago and we went to the Field Museum. Jackie Kennedy's dress exhibit was there at the time and it was really cool. I picked out a couple of outfits I would wear even today. However, Jackie's pillboxes have nothing to do with the book except by proximity of the exhibit (Field Museum) to the area where the fair was held. But it was still cool and that's where I heard about the book for the first time.

Anyway....

The book is well written and reads like a riveting novel...albeit with little or no dialogue. Mr. Larson has a firm grip on 'the cliff hanger'. "I'll read just to the end of this chapter" often turned into two or three chapters before I had to stop and let the dogs out, then in, then out again.

I had no idea the first Ferris Wheel debuted at this Exposition. And it was nothing like the one at the Piedmont Interstate Fair. This sucker was big. Huge! The rim arced at 264 feet into the air, as high as the tallest skyscraper in Chicago at the time. 28,416 pounds of bolts held it together. Thirty-six cars carried the passengers. One car weighed thirteen tons, for a combined weight near one-million pounds. And that did not include the additional 200,000 pounds of passengers when filled to capacity. For just one turn, the wheel took twenty minutes. That baby hummed and when a sudden storm blew in off the lake bringing a tornado to the Midway, the wheel did not shift more than one-half inch. That's impressive. They just don't make 'em like that anymore.

Shredded Wheat was also introduced to the world for the first time at the Fair. Alternating current electricity was chosen for use and that choice influenced how electricity would grow across America. Go General Electric. A new tasty treat was unveiled: Cracker Jack. The fair saw the likes of Buffalo Bill who made enough money from his Wild West Show concession to found a town in Wyoming. Bill pulled in a cool million bucks that by today's standards would translate into around 30 million dollars. Other notable names to pass through the fair are too many to list, but a few are Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Clarence Darrow, George Westinghouse, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Philip Armour and Marshall Field.

The fair was an architectual and landscaping wonder. Daniel Burnham (the Flatiron Building and Union Station) directed the efforts of America's brightest imagineers. (Some say Walt Disney's father was so intrigued by the fair that he talked of it often. Walt obviously listened and a mouse and a magic kingdom was born.) Frederick Law Olmsted worked his own magic to transform a swamp into a lush landscape.

The Chicago World's Fair was a thread that connected far more of America's history and culture than I realized. Even the sinking of the Titanic years later held a strong but terminal thread to the fair. While Burnham sailed on The Olympic, The Titanic's sister ship, another of the fair's architects, Frank Millet, sailed on the Titanic. Mr. Millet went down with her.

So where does the serial killer fit in? In 1886, a handsome man by the name of Herman Mudgett made his way to Chicago from New Hampshire by means both fraudulent and murderous. That same year, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle revealed his new detective to the world, and Mudgett assumed the name of Holmes. The bustle of the fair year was perfect for a man who was the definition of psychopath. And Holmes was very very good at it. Fifty years after Holmes commited his atrosities, Dr. Hervey Cleckley wrote about psychopaths in The Mask of Sanity. He said: "a subtly constructed reflex machine which can mimic the human personality perfectly....So perfect is his reproduction of a whole and normal man that no one who examines him in a clinical setting can point out in scientific or objective terms why, or how, he is not real." (pg. 88 of The Devil in the White City. Hardcover edition. 2003) Like I said, Holmes was very good at being a psychopath.

Chicago, while building the fair and during its run, brought a host of young women to the city for work. Most of these young women came from small towns and had never been on their own. They were perfect fruit for the slick, handsome, Ted Bundy-ish Holmes to pick. No one knows for certain how many victims he claimed. Speculations ran into the hundreds, but Holmes, who was not a reliable source, claimed much less. No matter the exact count, Holmes murdered dozens of innocent people in horrendous ways.

When I visited Chicago and my friend told me briefly about the Exposition and about Holmes, I thought the book sounded interesting, but it took me three years to actually get it and read it. I don't think I could have enjoyed it more fresh from my trip than I did several years removed, but I could have gotten in a few more reads through it. Great book. Great author. Read it.

Why is IT?

I hate It. It does bad things to a writer. It allows, no compels, you to go back and reread what you wrote the day before--just to get you up to speed--then It slaps you with an unwanted crit. "By the way," It says, "you're a crappy writer." Oh no! I can fix it. Really. Just hold on a sec.

Let's be clear: It, the internal editor, is not your friend when you're deep into the First Crappy Draft. FCD for short. When It takes a swipe at my previous day's work, I can't help myself; I start deleting words, rewriting sentences, rearranging everything not nailed down, and well, today's work ends up being a rushed two paragraphs that on the scale of 1 to 10 rates a -2. Tomorrow, It will be beside herself with cruel glee. She's just trying to be helpful, ya know.

Get thee behind me, It!

I've got the cage. I've got the muzzle. I've got the tranquilizer. Unfortunately, some days, I forget to use them.

It, for all her annoying intrusions, has her usefulness. Later, when I'm done with the FCD, I can release the ruthless It to gnaw her way through the adjectives, adverbs, ragged plot and inconsistent characterizations. And I, the author, can take a break...for a few hours. It likes prompt revisions.

It and I have this real love/hate thing going. Today, we're in hate.

Dreams

I read where Stephenie Meyer said her teenage vampire story Twilight originated in a dream. I wish my dreams would download something more interesting than the typical school-anxiety dreams my subconscious dumps out. It's been a while since I had to get to class or had a test to take, but I still have dreams where I realize I've come to the end of the semester and I have a final in a class I had no idea I was taking or one I hadn't bothered to attend. The classrooms are always dark, murky and the students--the ones who actually went to class--are all hunched over their desks acing the test I'm doomed to fail.

Since I tend to dream in vivid symbolism, I've taught myself to look for the hidden meanings. How accurate those interpretations are is up for grabs, but hey, it's my dream and my interpretation.

Last night I had one of those school horror dreams. I added an element I usually have in other anxiety dreams: not being able to dial a phone number. Yeah, not quite as scary as having Cujo snarling at your heels, but it's annoying when my fingers take on a life of their own and punch little keypads not included in the phone number.

In last night's episode, I was in college and it was not the University of South Carolina, the only university I've ever attended. And graduated, I might add. I always wonder when I read in announcements that someone 'attended' the University of So and So if that means they went a couple of semesters then dropped out. Shouldn't it say they graduated from the University of Diploma? But I digress.

Anyway, I had a roommate, a woman I've never seen before in my life. I didn't even know her name. She told me where our dorm room was located, but I had no idea where the building was and couldn't find it. We also had a class together and naturally, I had no idea what was going on there either. The bulk of the dream was about doing a project that I, of course, was clueless about, but I was trying. I needed to call her and when I got the student directory, all the phone numbers began with a different prefix, unlike the 777 I was used to back in the day at Carolina. Confused the heck out of me.

Finally, I found hers, which must have been quite a chore since I didn't know her name, and tried to punch the numbers into my cellphone. If the number was 5, I punched 3. Over and over, I mis-dialed the dang number. By the time I woke up, I was so frustrated, I flung the covers off and barely avoided dumping a sleeping cat onto a lounging dog on the floor. They quickly forgave me by yowling and howling for immediate attention to their bowls.

What does it mean when you can't find your dorm, can't dial a number, can't remember your roommate's name or can't comprehend your assignment? I'm one very confused person? Sounds good to me.

On a deeper level, I think I'm having anxiety over characters, plots and the fear I don't know what I'm doing. Alas, 'tis partially true. I am a novice novel writer, not a newbie to writing, but I am an unpublished one. Well, except for a couple of poems. Big frickin' deal.

The dream is already fading. When I first woke, I had a better recall of the exact events in my dream and I thought it was pretty clear I was subconsciously obsessing about my writing. Now that the details are fading, I retain less evidence. You'll have to take my word for it.

I love writing. I'd do it even if I'm never published, which is a distinct possibility. It is for every aspiring author. We all can see our names on jacket covers, but the stuff between the covers can be a major problem. Sure, we have a story. Unfortunately, that's not good enough. We might love it, but that's not enough either. Writing is a craft as surely as building handmade heirloom chairs. It takes practice, study, more study, research, more research, and a lot of patience with 'self, the impatient storyteller' as we learn to navigate plot, character, voice, tone, pacing, themes, and any other little nuances that make a story good to someone besides your best friend.

I take comfort in knowing great writers agonize over their stories, worry their stories and they aren't good enough. Not that I have any illusions of greatness--just a daydream of being good--but if the 'greats' worry, then maybe a little anxiety is good. Maybe it keeps us reaching for a phrase that's a little better, then a lot better. Maybe it keeps us focused. Maybe it pushes us higher and higher and we become clearer and clearer. Our plots get tighter. Maybe anxiety just gives us nightmares. I should ask Stephen King. His nightmares fill the space between the covers with glorious stories. Maybe I'm hanging out with a dud Sandman. I need to borrow his and Stephenie Meyer's.

In the meantime, I'll keep dreaming.

What's a nice girl doing....

Learning Blogger's ropes. That's what.

So, here I am.

New to Blogger. So far, I like this place.

However, after messing around with gmail in an attempt to remember my password, I seem to have used up all my words for tonight. It's late and I'm nodding off. We'll consider this a test post and try to do better when the neurons are once again firing.

That's the best I can do. Later.