Category: inspiration

May needs to slow down

~ sharon ~ Leave a comment

May is departing in haste this year. At least from my perspective.

I started the month by ending my trek from Malice Domestic in Bethestda, Maryland, to Alabama to visit my son and his family. The trip was generally uneventful, but I’m not a long-distance driver. Oh, I drive long distances, but I break up the trip over multiple days. Fortunately, the weather was generally good for all my spring travels.

I stuck around a week, had lots of fun with kids and grands, and got a Mother’s Day gift a week early when my son took me to Atlanta to see a wonderful production of Wagner’s opera, Siegfried. For those who don’t know the opera, think dark fairy tale with an evil, troll-like blacksmith; a youngish lad destined to become a great warrior who wields the sword of power; a wizard akin to Sauron who ruled Mordor in The Lord of the Rings; the wizard’s wife who is effectively a prisoner of the tower wating for the Fates to release her; and a female warrior who has fallen in battle and who needs her prince (hark back to the young warrior) to come and awaken her so they can fall in love. A perfect story for a kid who grew up watching “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” cartoons on TV.

(Screenshot of IMDb site)

In this production, the sets varied from dark views of what could be the interior of the Death Star in Star Wars complete with heavy steam punk overtones to mountaintop fantasies that only lacked dragons threating, and hosts of fairies circling, the lovers. I enjoyed every minute of the four-hour opera, even when I got caught up in the music and forgot to read the translations of the German. (My German was never good enough to get me through an opera, but I’m afraid it’s so rusty now I hardly picked up a single word.)

Ok, so that was just part of great week with my farflung family.

I’d been putting off so much during the three weeks I was away that I should have jumped in as soon as I go home to try to catch-up but I just vegged the whole weekend and didn’t plunge into my third short story draft for until Monday. Got that done and off to the critique group, then read the newest versions of the other writers’ tales with twists. Right before I dug into 140 pages of another friend’s cozy novel draft. I had critique meetings online for both sets of pages in Thursday.

But in the meantime, I also received the first 120-or-so pages of awards and judges’ commentary for a journalism organization I’m still part of. I have volunteered to proof the monthly newspaper, and the June issue is always devoted to the awards presented at the annual conference. Got those read by Friday, just in time to make my 10 a.m. dentist appointment.

(Sharon’s photo illustration)

The Saturday after I got home, I went up to Madison with my sister and women’s group from an area church. We strolled around the capitol square for the weekly farmer’s market. In addition to some amazing looking vegetables, garden plants, cheeses, and so much more, we got to listen to various protests groups (respectfully placed across the street from the market), and some musicians, including Cover Fire from the 132nd Army Band and the Raging Grannies. After a great early lunch at Barrique’s downtown, we popped into Grace Episcopal Church on the Capitol Square for a free noon concert by the local Ancora String Quartet. And finally, before we headed to the Overture Centure for a performance of Clue, a genuinely funny new comedy, we strolled down the block of crafters and I finally found a UW Wisconsin Terrace Chair to go with my Bucky Badger bobblehead.

(Background petunias by Valeska Huyskens on pexels.com; foreground images by Sharon)

The next week, I finished proofreading the last 287 pages of contest winners (see last week), and on successive days, I made it to my local writing group, my League of Women Voters International Studies discussion, my Shakespeare Society meeting, Temple Beth El’s annual Food O Rama fundraiser (to buy hot dogs, pickles, challah bread and blintzes–yum!), lunch with a writing buddy, and the next day with my daughter and friends, followed by book club. And that week ended with a Saturday drive to Dixon, Illinois, the petunia capiltal of the state and host of the annual Petunia Festival. (Mark your calendar for July 3-6.) I joined a few writing friends and we spent three hours at the library working on writing projects. (Yes! I got a new short story started!) We also looked at their Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan displays, the gorgeous 1899 building. While it resembles some Carnegie libraries, that is probably due to the architectural styles of the day, but Dixon’s benefactor was local resident, O.B. Dodge. His picture hangs above a fireplace on the main floor. We really loved the display of “hidden” book covers showing the first lines of several books. As readers, we thought it was a great way to lure folks to the books. As writers, we were reminded of how important those opening words really are.

(Sharon’s photo)

Sunday, I shopped for our family cookout on Monday, which turned out to be a beautiful, sunny day.. Tuesday, I had an oil change and today I have more errands to run.

But, for those who have yet to celebrate Memorial Day, remember it was originally marked on May 30. So you still have a bit of time.

As for me, I am ready to flip the page to June. And keep working on that new short story.

À bientôt!

In the waning of the year

~ sharon ~ Leave a comment
pexels.com | Tom Fisk

(I wrote this for my turn on my Lake Summerset Writing Gals blog, but it’s doing double duty this month.)

Cold weather tends to put me in mind of warm fires, hot mulled wine and poetry. Sadly, I have no fireplace. (But I can always put that Netflix fireplace video on my TV.) I can manage the wine, or maybe hot chocolate, and I always have poetry.

I still remember the day I discovered Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses in the kids’ section of my hometown library. One of my favorites was “My Shadow.”

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.
– Robert Louis Stevenson

At one point in my life, I memorized “My Shadow” and a few other verses in the book.

When I was in high school, John Lennon’s poem, “The Toy Boy” appeared in McCall’s Magazine. I cut out the page, memorized the poem, and took it on the road as my entry for our forensics club in the poetry category. (Back then forensics meant speech team, not CSI.) I think it’s still in my filing cabinet, but I haven’t looked for it in years. I did manage to find a post of the original image on Pinterest. I printed a copy and it’s hanging on the wall near my computer.

I just discovered “December” by Joseph D. Herron. I don’t know much about the author, but it felt right for the snowless chills we’ve had lately. The poem is included at one of my favorite websites — DiscoverPoetry.com. Another site I like is PoetryFoundation.org, which publishes Poetry Magazine. Both sites feature a poem each day; you can subscribe for free to have them emailed to you.

(Illustration by Sharon P. Lynn)

A third favorite poetry site is the Haiku Society of America. I love haiku, a traditional Japanese form of poetry. Like English sonnets, haiku has a specific format: seventeen syllables in three lines of five, seven and five. I was taught that the original haikus, before they even had that name, were supposed to be about nature. Today, at least in English, that rule has been abandoned. I’ve also seen variations on the seventeen-syllable format.

My first writing successes came in the newspaper business. But my first printed work that wasn’t nonfiction was poetry. I submitted several to my college literary magazine. A long-ish free verse took first place one year. A few of my haikus were also selected for publication there and in other small-circulation volumes.

I’ve never entirely abandoned my interest. I think my “old-year’s resolution” will be to read at least one poem a day before I start my own writing. I think it inspires me to write with all my senses. Maybe it will inspire others, too.

Back in class

~ sharon ~ 2 Comments

The Sisters in Crime Guppy Chapter offers a variety of classes to its members every year. I just finished one about story structure last week that has not only helped me chart a path for my revision of a NaNoWriMo draft, it also led to a breakthrough on a plot hole. The former is due to James M. “Jim” Jackson who has developed another great Guppy class. The latter is thanks to my writing pal, Llewella Forgie, who spent some time brainstorming with me at the end of a writing session.

The class also left me with a notebook of great lectures, homework assignments and miscellany that Jim recommended along the way.

I also bought a couple of the books he talked about that I thought deserved my additional attention. And I decided I needed to reconsider a few characters. So I bought books about that, too.

The week before the two-week class started, I was lamenting to a few of my local writing group gals that I thought I had the wrong plot for the characters. I was considering scrapping the whole book and giving the plot elements to a completely different main character in another book, also a NaNo draft. (I have about a dozen drafts in various stages from participating in National Novel Writing Month.) The gals can vouch for the dismay I was feeling at the time.

Then I took the class. Talk about eye-opening. I tend to operate by “feel” when I throw my first drafts together. Some might consider what I do an elaborate outline rather than a draft. I firmly believe that you can’t fix what isn’t already on the page, so I do consider the NaNo stories to be my first drafts. But, unlike some, I have no illusions that they’re ready for prime time. They are, in fact, big messes. The goal of NaNo is crank out 50,000 words in 30 days. Sometimes pantsers like me run cold during the month. But, as one of my NaNo buddies says, if you get stuck, bring in the ninjas. Well, my NaNo drafts are full of “ninjas.”

And cleaning up the ninjas is what I’ve been trying to do with my drafts for the last few years. In each case, I think I have decent main plots, and I liked my characters when they came out of my head. Making them presentable has been my challenge.

Going through the class assignments — they were pretty involved — also convinced me I didn’t like what I’d done to one of my characters. I thought changing her would add drama to the story, but it just made me dislike her. I plan to go back to her original personality and make other adjustments to the plot. Hence the splurging on books about characters.

I still don’t have a finished novel, but thanks to classes, friends and bit of persistence, I hope to have one soon.

A bientôt!

Ah, summer

~ sharon ~ Leave a comment
(pexels.com fotios)

Sweltering, according to a dictionary, is “uncomfortably hot.” And that’s all the description we needed to describe days when all you had to do to work up a sweat was sit still.

In my experience, the worst days of summer arrive when the corn is high and the earth’s respiration goes straight from the fields to the clouds.

I’m grateful the month started out below average in my part of the Midwest. My sisters gathered for our “weekend” together, visiting each other and relatives from both our parents’ families.

Cool temperatures prevailed in the weeks that followed. I, for one, enjoyed the respite from typical summer temperatures.

My mind gets sluggish in heat. I’m much happier in winter when I can pile on blankets and sweaters and sip hot cocoa and lots of tea. In summer, I try to drink lots of cool water, but even in AC, ice melts pretty fast at my house.

My three sisters are much more outdoorsy than I am — to their credit and their health. They all kayak and hike and pickleball. They never lost the art of play. I guess I was always the serious kid. I liked some sports, including swimming, but one after another, they slipped from my routine after my jobs grew more distant and my commute locked me in my car from forty to one hundred twenty miles daily. The girl who loved to ride her bike to a park with a book, find a shady spot and read easily switched her loyalty to audio books.

Today, I just hope to keep my electrical use to a minimum until sunset. Then I may walk out to check the mail and run the washer. And I need to put “new clothesline” on my shopping list. No reason to run the dryer if I don’t have to.

I find the idea of understanding meterological terms and measures much more fascinating than living through them. I’m still grappling with dew points versus humidity as a way to measure relative air comfort, but I keep trying.

And I understand sweltering just fine.

À bientôt!