Tuesday, December 27, 2011

To Write a Classic

Over the years, (oh God I’m actually old enough to say ‘over the years'), I’ve written about the movie IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, don’t worry this is not a belated Christmas post. Anyway, that movie has been in my mind because of the season so I thought I’d write about it again because for me, many years ago, watching it was life changing. Whether you think Capra’s flick is over the top and sentimental means little because the core of the movie, that each one of us has worth and impact on others, is eye opening.

I remember the moment in my life, almost 1am, watching the movie by myself, decades ago, when the scene, Clarence takes George to the graveyard and shows him his brother Harry’s grave.

“My brother saved 2000 men on that transport,” George shouts at Clarence.
“Every man on that transport died because you weren’t there to save Harry,” Clarence shouts back.

I literally gasped because of the power behind the meaning. Turn left, turn right, pull someone back up on the curb as a semi speeds by, hit the brakes instead of running the red light as a schoolbus full of kids crosses the intersection, or save your nine year old brother from drowning; you just might save thousands.

It’s hard to imagine the impact we have on others. For writers we sometimes are able, through feedback and comments from readers, realize the impact of our words, because someone tells us, “What you wrote changed my life.”

I had someone tell me that once, it involved a father and a son and a reconciliation spurred by something I wrote. Words written with no more thought than, it’s suited the essay and I knew it would be published, changed those men and how they related to each other. I’m proud of that, I mean, I’m really proud of that.

A few years back one of my pieces was published on Christmas Day and soon after, I heard from friends who said their priest read from it during mass. A PRIEST and I’m not even catholic. I thought about all those sleepy people sitting in their pews aching for the perfect Christmas words to set right, or enhance their lives, and then the priest reads my words. WOW. Actually most of the folks were probably hoping for the mass to be done so they could go back home and doze on the couch.

I know, as should every writer, that our words have power. So…after I watched the movie, again this year, I thought about attempting to write something as important as IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE. That story is based on the short story, THE GREATEST GIFT, written by Philip Van Doren Stern, which last year, I found and read. Needless to say, but I will anyway, I liked the movie better.

To write something as moving and as powerful seems like an impossible task but I am going to try. I have come up with an idea and have started the project. I am writing what I want to read, what I wish someone had already written, because at one time in my life I needed someone to say the words I'm writing, to me. I have lived what I am writing about; it changed my life, and my perspective on it might just help alter someone else’s.

Once the story is finished I am wondering where to gently place it. For that, I wait. When the time comes I will know.

For George, his story illustrates how the simplest of acts has profound meaning. In my story, believing in the divinely-absurd creates a path through unfathomable loss.

Happy New Year to all. May we all find meaning in our actions.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Query Quick Pick

Okay, so I purchase a lottery ticket, ‘quick pick’ of course. I figure, let the computer do the deed. If I pick the numbers, no way would the balls get sucked up into the slot in my favor, right?

So I walk away from the store, dreaming of what I would do with my winnings. Would it change my life? Maybe, if the winnings were big enough, sure. So I go on my way with the glimmer of financial success percolating to the surface every now and then, giving me a sense that everything will be alright…not if, but when I win.
That’s the part about lottery tickets that’s so nice. The anticipation that maybe life will get a little more comfortable, that we could relax and not have to work so hard.

The anticipation is what I live for because the outcome of being the winner is so far off, I am convinced all I have is the dream, but wait.
I do have some control, I can change my numbers, I can stack the deck because I keep on, keeping on. (If you can call two bucks a week keeping on.)

So I got to thinking, playing the lottery is like querying but with more control because I get to pick the 'write' numbers.
Yeah, I love the lottery...of words.

Hey, anybody got a dollar I can borrow?

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Retail Rant Day Two

My retail rant continues.
Here’s a question for you…are you one of the patrons who might spend over a hundred dollars on non-essential goods and then when asked to donate one-dollar to a charity, you answer no?
“I’ve already donated,” they say. Oh really, so you donated a dollar and you can’t donate another, which feeds families or helps fight cancer. After purchasing an end table, a chair, three towels and bath salts you can’t come up with less than one-tenth of one percent for charity?
Everybody is collecting for charity this time of year and yes many are generous but the ones which act as if giving a buck is tantamount to organ donation ticks me off.
That table they bought, the chair, towels and bath salts…bad karma I say. If you buy and don’t donate, bad karma will follow your purchase.
So how about the customer buying a necessity like food, should they give? Well, if you’re buying diapers, milk, bread, hamburger helper, condoms and toilet paper, I’m thinking maybe you can’t actually afford to give more than once, but if your cart is loaded with four bags of chips, three bottles of soda, two magazines, and grapes at $3.99 a pound than shoot the partridge in the pear tree and donate a buck.
And the bitch of it all…any of us, from Mercedes drivers to Cruise goers, any of us could have the tables turned and we’re left standing at the door of the Food Bank. Think about that. Drop some corn flakes in the food donation box today, it’ll make you feel better and the karma in your own cart won’t give you indigestion, it will make you glow.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Retail Rant

Waving a roll of zebra wrapping paper over her head, as if it were a Starwars Light-sword, the well-coiffed matron in hot pink and lime green spoke with authority.
“I need more than one roll of this God-damned paper. What do you expect me to do with only one roll? Someone find me another one…now.”
Welcome to where I work, ‘retail-hell’.
On the verge of telling Ms. I-have-nothing-else-to-worry-about-but-paper what she could do with her one roll of God-awful-ugly Christmas wrap I decided to go back to my department and make pretty with the dishes. That’s what I do, make pretty, with anything that has to do with table-top and kitchen.
I used to like my job but not anymore…something changed this year.
The American buying public has become demanding, arrogant, rude and above all, they are slobs. I watch as they destroy packaging, man-handle the merchandise and then purchase an unopened pristine box of whatever they cannot live without.
My department has a large display of boxed glasses. Every Monday morning one of my first tasks is to recover that area. Wine glasses are lined up on the shelves, removed from their boxes and compared. The customers do not put back what they take out. Cleaning up after customers is part of my job but I can’t help but think, that these adults were not taught to clean up after themselves, or they are just plain lazy. I bet they don’t make their beds and their underwear is left in a circle on the bathroom floor where they step out of them. (I found a pair of clean white granny panties on the floor in the cookware aisle once.) Their kitchen sinks are full of dishes too. I shudder to think when the last time was they changed their sheets.
I used to like the public; I don’t anymore probably because I’ve been in retail too long and because this economy’s spenders take way to seriously, image over practability.
Where I work there is no recession.
By the cart load folks are purchasing that which is about what looks good, and impresses, because where I work not a damn thing is needed. The 99% are camping out trying to make a statement, unemployment is at an all-time high, people are living in cars, children are going to bed hungry and we are at war, but where I work the well-coiffed matron does not have to walk around with a roll of zebra wrapping paper up her ass because a dedicated employee, who dismisses being treated like shit because she needs her job, found a second one.
Just one more satisfied customer. Ain’t retail at holiday time grand?
(It took me two years to realize that the granny underpants in the cookware aisle must have been stuck inside a ladies slacks from the dryer because how else could someone drop their drawers and walk away commando. This enlightenment came directly after I removed a sock from inside my pants leg on the way to work one morning.)

Monday, November 28, 2011

poo poo week

I haven’t written in a week, because I haven’t slept in a week.

Got another head cold, sinus infection, can’t smell and can’t taste. Ear infections, can’t hear, have to turn the TV up so loud my husband is pissed; so much for concern on his part. Nasal sprays, antibiotics, compresses, hot showers, works for minutes than back to shit.

Coughing fits, sore throat, can’t talk…husband loves that. After a 4am trek to the emergency room I took today off and finally slept on the couch during, Parenthood and Prancer.

Somewhere in all of this I served a Thanksgiving meal to the hoard and made turkey soup which I am taking intravenously.

I must be feeling better because now I am able to write while holding a fudge-cycle.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Editors

I just read, Betsy Lerner’s Forest for the Trees.

I should have paid more attention to sentence diagramming, punctuation and spelling. If I had, those shortcomings would not have held me back from that which I love to do, write.

Thank God, for pencils with erasers, the delete key, copy and paste, spell-check, editors and possibilities.

Just because I cannot walk does not mean I cannot run.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Dreams

If you have come this far, to this blog, obviously from another blog based on writing, than you are an amazing writer in the process of researching and learning your craft. If you have come this far then you are curious to see just who Wry Wryter is. If you have come this far, I welcome you and wish you the best of outcomes for your dreams, writing and otherwise.

I have always dreamed, but every once in a while I wonder if dreaming sets us up for disappointment; because hello…not all dreams will come true. Whoa… (Cliché alert)… back up the truck...all of mine have…almost.

Some dreams I did not let clutter my future-wants because they were so far off my heart-grid, why bother. Like the getting married dream and having children. That would never happen for me so I didn’t bother to want it because why be heartbroken over something so unlikely to happen… but it did.

Cars, houses, jobs, accomplishments, yup, I spent nights lying awake, praying and promising in the hopes that ‘the-big-guy’ would help out and he did, always. Though I may not have liked the answer to my prayers, at that moment, time and experience has shown me ‘he’ was right. I wonder if he is a she, or maybe some little green guy with a lot of cosmic power, whatever.

So…if you have come this far you most likely have dreams about writing and so do I. We are a member of a struggling group of humans whose purpose is to communicate to other humans, our thoughts, ideas, and stories. If you have come this far let me know what your dreams are. Really, I’d like to know. I won’t tell anyone… lest I jinx your ‘future-want’.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Mother nature is pissed at us

Up here in the wilds of Connecticut we have had a hell of a time as of late.
I have power, my rooms, my shower, my heart and my home are open to friends and family who need a place to warm-up, get clean and sleep a restful night.
I don't charge much, just a smile and a place in your home when I need it.

Who would have thought that the beauty of autumn leaves could become so deadly when sprinkled with snow...lots of snow.

Be thankful, you folks with running furnaces and water, I am.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Pride in Completion

Finished the final project for my memoir class; damn it’s good. Am I being cocky, hell ya. It feels right.
Like Lawrence Block said, “make every word count”. I did.

It’s a wonderful feeling when I write something I am truly proud of. That is not to say I’m not proud of everything, I am, but truly, deeply, (using every ly word I can think of) satisfied, elevates it in my mind and heart.
It’s one of those pieces…even if no one likes it…I do…even if no one wants to publish it…so what…even if I were never able to write again…it would be a piece-perfect as a last.

A project of love; a near flawless child.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Before and After

I am tackling another full draft rewrite, twelve or thirteen I think, I’ve lost count. After over a month away from my novel I am able to read best, as a reader, rather than a writer.
That I thought it was READY is kind of embarrassing because I am making it better.
I am finding, changing, adding and subtracting but, Gee, I still really like it. The characters are like family members…ah…better than some family members, more interesting anyway. It’s like visiting an old friend who like me, loves a before and after make-over.
Now the dress fits better, the hair is perfect and the shoes are comfortable.
I’m waiting for the limo. Actually, I’ll call for it when I’m done.
I am hoping, getting ready for the big dance, isn’t all my date gets to do.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Life in a Year

Tomorrow my first born is twenty-seven years old. How the hell did this happen so fast?
It seems like a year ago she graduated from college and six months ago she graduated high school.
Only a few months back she got her driver’s license and a month ago she rode the big yellow bus for the first time.
Last week she mastered riding a two wheeler and few days ago she had just learned to walk.
Yesterday she was spitting up on my shoulder.
Minutes ago I told my husband, with fear and trepidation, “Honey, I’m pregnant, again. This one we will not lose. This one will make it…and she did. This one brought us out of darkness and continues to, each and every day of her life.

Our first born will be married soon and it is within me to know, because it is her dream, a life in a year will begin for her in a wink.
Happy birthday sweetheart…you were born seconds ago.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Another October Birthday

I am married to an old man.
Today is a monumental birthday for my husband, one which should be celebrated as:
“Wow, you old bastard, you made it over another hill.”

He’s lived two years beyond the’ age of tragedy’ of his own father. Though he has more than two decades to actually outlive what his dad became, it is my prayer that these years will be filled with the cognition of a wonderful life.

How old is my husband? I can’t say because to state the number reveals how old I am.
Poor guy he’s married to an older woman.

Monday, October 3, 2011

How Old Am I ?

Went to a funeral yesterday; the old guy who passed away was eighty-nine or ninety, not sure. Does it matter what your actual age is when the numbers get that high?
As a baby…oh sonny is 8 days old.
The baby 18 months.
Guess what, little man is 3 years old.
Our teenager is sweet 16.
Hey the kid is twenty-something.
Then its:
I’m over 30, or approaching 40 and Jesus Christ when did 50 hit?
OMG I’m going to be 60.
Wait a minute, am I 64 or 65, and when does Social Security kick in?
My ass hurts so I must be …what the hell am I 71, 72 does it matter?
Hey, she’s in her 80’s, he’s 90 I think.
Wow …can you imagine what he has seen in his 100 years. He looks like crap, can’t see, can’t hear, can’t shit, but WOW he’s over a hundred.
After living as long as I have, I have come to the conclusion that it’s not long enough, yet. I am not ready for a dirt nap.

If I die today this post will go viral and I will be a famous ‘dead’ blogger.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

The negative aspects of Negativity

Bookends did a blog Friday about negativity; got me thinking.

I once worked with a guy who was the most negative human being I have ever met, besides my heartbroken self years ago, when I had to buy food with rolls of pennies, anyway, every time this guy spouted even the slightest negative remark it was as if he had sprayed all of us with a contagion.

It was easy to understand why he was so down on everything…I mean the guy was miserable, overweight, unhealthy, not particularly attractive, and he was rotting from loneliness. BUT this man’s childhood was one of great opportunity. His family owned a huge sailboat and he and his siblings spent their entire childhoods traveling around the world on that boat. He had stories to tell about Africa, the Panama Canal and almost every continent and shoreline there is.From that childhood he emerged, not as a well-traveled and world educated young man, but as a miserable whiner who sought to take all who were around him into the depths of his own despair.

After a particularly difficult day at work, which he colored as unbearable, I explained to him that…

WE LIVE THE LIVES WE WANT TO LIVE.

If we are miserable it is because we want to be miserable. Lonely, we are choosing it. Happy, friendly, positive people are happy, friendly and positive because that’s how they want to live their lives. He said if he was choosing the life he was leading, than he must have been crazy…duh…but actually, not crazy just stuck.

After a couple of years he left. Is he happy now, no not really, am I and my co-workers, yes, most of the time? What I learned by observing negativity is to not get caught up in its whirlpool of dragging observers under.

I am living the life I want to live, it’s not bad. Could it be better, sure, could it be worse, hell yes.

Well, with a smile on my face I will go back to rolling coins again, quarters this time. I need to put gas in my twelve year old minivan. I got wheels, I got gas money. Life is pretty damn good.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

The Memoir

Am in the midst of a class on memoir writing.

Revisiting GIFTS IN WHITE PAPER, my memoir about the one hundred and twenty-five love letters I found that my parents wrote to each other while separated by WWII.

My pitch: I met my parents for the first time after they died. I'm dipping my heart back in. What a wonderful story theirs is to tell.

I'm about half way there, not ready to exhale yet, and I'm getting help from two of the best writers and editors that exist. Feels good to back to first person.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Ahoy

OMG
Go to youtube, Boatlift.
A side of 9/11 I heard about but didn't know about. It's only 12 minutes long. It should be a movie.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Laptopin' again

Feels good to be laptopin’.

Okay so the storm is gone, the lights are back on in Connecticut and I can flush without hauling water. Life is pretty much back to normal which means things aren’t normal at all. I’m being screwed at work, so what else is new.
I shouted at a gaggle of electric linemen in some big-ass green trucks from Quebec yesterday.

“Thank you,” I shouted. “Canada rocks,” I said. They waved and cheered; made me feel good.

“Oh Can-a-da…” I love their anthem, it’s so cool but I like ours better, bombs bursting, flags still flying. Believe me…dawns early light…it comes damn early when you have no eee…leck…ticity, especially after going to bed with half-dead D-cells and a book with a #10 cordia font or whatever the hell it was; Christ it was small in the dark.

Anyway, I finished the book, The Help. Stockett’s story as a first time fiction writer getting rejected 60 times is beyond inspirational, that chick is crazy focused.

I’m shopping for an agent for my first novel and already a quarter-way through my next book. Does that mean I consider number one totally complete….naw…they never are, even when they are.

Oh, The Help, read it, with the lights on at a reasonable hour. Now that I’m thinking about this I realize I should have read some King or Koontz in the dark. Scary shit that. I’ll wait until the next hurricane. Gotta’ find me some new D-cells first.

Friday, August 26, 2011

The calm before the...

I hear that low barometric pressure is good for the writing mind. It helps produce waves of inspiration and blows clear that which blocks the creative mind with extraneous stink-pile. It also floods us with ideas and topples doubt. I am hoping that I don’t lose the power of my abilities, lest my ideas rest in the dark too long.
Sincerely,
Irene
PS Cold showers and not being able to flush suck.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Just beyond my grasp

I am off to stack plates on shelves when all I want to do is tap keys. It’s better than digging ditches, I guess, and better than cleaning grease-vats or changing shitty sheets and much better than the unemployment line. With dismay I recall a forty year ago brass ring handed to me which I tossed to the future thinking it would land in my hand again someday. I’m still waiting. Actually, not waiting, reaching. I can see it…it is just beyond my fingertips…almost…

Monday, August 22, 2011

The next book

Sent my first-reader a copy of the short story I am using as the back bone of my next novel. She said it blew her away, that she loved it.
Now I have to feed it. That’s a lot of kibble, 10,000 X 10. I’ll have it done by January.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Same-old, same-old

I took a vacation this week, from my job, from writing, from doing all the same-old, same-old, day after day. I ate different foods and drank different drinks. What I have found is that, though different is good and needed when same-old, same-old becomes the norm, new is only best for purses and shoes without holes.
It feels good to be back in my familiar, it feels good to place my fingers on keys other than those which start my car and open my door. Computer keys are my voice, from my brain to yours.
Hello.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

First the tide rushes in and then the sea is very still.

Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, can play Ebb Tide on the piano better than I play it.

It was a song written in the fifty’s. The best instrumental was done by Santo and Johnny, two guitar brothers during the same era, absolutely awesome. Sinatra sang it, Ella too and so did the Righteous Brothers. But my rendition on the piano beats them all. Why?

The summer I was fifteen my family moved to a new home, in a new town, far away from the few friends I had, which were also new; we had moved from our old town 900 miles away from my old friends. With no one to hang out with, both my parents worked, not that I wanted to spend my summer as my mother’s best friend, I hung out with our piano.

For eight hours a day I played the huge black instrument in our dining room, by ear. An image of me banging on the keyboard with the side of my head, just popped into my mind, no, my ears are fine. For hours on end I sounded out musical phrases until I could play the songs I heard on the radio. When I was little I had taken a few piano lessons, and my mother played beautifully, so I could read the basics of notes. I envied that she could read the ‘sheets’ so well, but not enough for me to study and actually practice songs I disliked, and thought were boring. Though she could read notes, which looked like chicken tick tac toe to me, her actual playing lacked something. I think it was emotion. She played it, like she read it. She expressed it, like the song writer wrote it. Not me. I played it, like I heard it, and performed it, like I felt it.

In one of her music books I found Ebb Tide broken down to its basic, and began to play. I added in keyboard runs, sounding like waves, and a masterpiece was born. All day long, day after day, I practiced. Even now, when I sit down at a piano, the first thing I play is Ebb Tide. It still sounds pretty good too.

It takes a special kind of talent to sound out music and to play it well. It takes dedication to the art form, deep emotional feelings of expression, and a long hot summer of doing nothing but banging on keys.

That’s how I write, by ear.

I know the basics of English grammar and sentence structure. I know what nouns, verbs and adjectives are; beyond that I’m crippled. I remember that you are not supposed to end a sentence with the word from. I just did. That beginning a sentence with ‘that’ is wrong is a rule I occasionally break. And, beginning a sentence with ‘and’ again a no-no, I find a terrific way to get across an additional point. I can’t spell worth a shit, my computer points out quite often just how serious my spelling disability is. And, my use of comma’s, or lack of them, sucketh.

But, (another rule broken by starting a sentence with ‘but’), having said all that, I’ve written some pretty amazing stuff. Well over sixty of my essays have been published by very patient editors who have been able to ‘listen’ to what I have written, and not how awkwardly I have written it. Many of my pieces have gone out over the wire service. Pretty good for a kid who, during the same year as a college freshman, flunked English 101 but got A plus in English Composition and Creative Writing.

Now that I’m querying agents, because my second book is complete, I’m finding the same kind of structural bias I found when my high school music teacher dismissed my rendition of Ebb Tide, the kids went crazy when I played it, because “… I set a bad example”, she said. I wasn’t ‘studied’ enough. The ones, who just sat and listened, enjoyed. That to me was what playing the piano was about.

But, one spectacular song does not a repertoire make.

Side note: I spent fifteen minutes trying to figure out how to spell repertoire on the computer. No luck. Fifteen seconds in my Webster’s Desk Dictionary from high school, found it; doesn’t say much for computer programs or my electronic methods.

In the process of playing the piano I learned to read music but my heart is into a different kind of keyboard now. My hunt and peck for words has become a speed-dial race for written expression that I am extremely proud of. (Never end a sentence with ‘of’ either). I think they are called prepositions.

With half a hundred of books on writing, writing courses, writing groups and being published many, many, many times, I have expanded well beyond Ebb Tide. I have made the leap from ‘published’ essays to ‘never been published’ fiction, and am hoping that somewhere I will find a patient agent who will see past my technical failings, into actual expression. The problem is that in an industry in flux, as much as traditional publishing is today, can they afford to take on such a neophyte as I? Many say absolutely not.

Copy has to be as pristine and as a clean as a virgins past.

So, what to do? Learn.

My Strunk and White, ’79 edition is my music book now. It is Beethoven’s ninth, on paper, to me; I struggle, I’ll get it eventually. I just hope the audience gets to hear it, before I get so old my fingers curl, and my mind goes out with the tide. Gee, I wish I hadn’t sold the old piano. I’m in the mood for some Ebb Tide.

Friday, July 29, 2011

So this is how I did it.

So how does a book get started?
That’s a stupid question so I shall rephrase…how did my book, Reference to the Unspoken come about?
After I finished To Walk Among Strangers and began the querying process, I learned two things.
1. Wow, I could finish a book and be proud of the work I completed.
2. I can’t spell for crap.
3. (I’m adding a 3rd), I will not commit to another book because it takes too much time.

So, I discovered short stories. I love writing them. With over thirty written, and with a central theme I consider quite clever, I finished and began the query process again. Trying to get short stories published is about as easy as sending a newborn back where it came from. So what, I write them because they are fun.

At my laptop one day I started another short story and wrote the words, “I am beige.” Three innocuous words that on the surface say very little but when you think about them they describe a lot. From those words Reference to the Unspoken emerged and at 70,000 words and complete, has a cast of characters as full of fun and family secrets as my own. To say I love my characters is to say, well, I love my characters; I know it’s a very cliché kind of writery phrase, but did I say I like my characters?.

When I began the querying process, yet again, I thought my lead paragraph was brilliant and posted it here along with the entire query. Then I read an agent’s post which said never post your query on your blog because it will bite you in the behind. Not sure why the agent said that but I took it down and posted only the first paragraph, the brilliant one.
Then I read an agent’s blog, (I read too many agent blogs), which said to never lead a query off with a concept of thought or analogy. I’m supposed to grab the agent by their ‘I-wana’-read-your-book-balls’. In one paragraph I am supposed to describe, and entice the agent to love my be-zillion words; a query is a writer-to-agent-foreplay maneuver. So I took down my brilliant paragraph, which I am reposting now. Sorry experts but it best explains the backbone of the book.

Reference to the Unspoken is about elephants. Not about the ones which roam the African veld or performers the likes of Sara Gruen’s Rosie, but about the huge beast in the middle of the room about which no one speaks. It is also about the elephant which quietly dozes in the corner. That one has been around so long people often forget it is there.

I mean really, what is wrong with that? The writing is okay. Sure it says nothing specific but it lets the reader know that my book is about the baggage we all have and are mute about.

From the first three words of chapter 1, ‘I am beige’, the reader learns about Lillian, a never married, childless, college professor, who considers her life at almost-forty a cruel joke. At her nieces wedding she meets Royce, a recovering alcoholic and single-father who reeks of Jack Daniels. They don’t get along right away, ah…predictable, but when they begin to discover their feelings things get interesting. Enter the elephants.

There is a tragic reason Lillian is still single. Her elephant in the room is the one dozing in the corner and Royce’s is the huge beast in the middle of the room everyone dances around. As I added family members, ex-wives, and children, and break your heart incidents, my so called romance novel began to take on a much more serious tone. (It does have amusing parts too.) I’ve been told it is NOT a romance novel but contemporary fiction, which is okay with me because I didn’t want to write pure romance anyway. I’m not criticizing the genre it’s just that my characters say fuck too much.

Dig deep my writing teachers always said, go beyond where other writers may not seek to explore, so I dug, with shovel and pick-ax into incest and marital rape, as exculpatory regarding secondary characters, and realized mid-point in the story that every single family has secrets. If you don’t think yours does then you are the one they are keeping the secrets from.

And then the OMG WOW moment, the surprise of all surprises I cannot even hint at or the WOW is lost. (No spoilers here.) My God I cannot believe I came up with what I came up with. I love it. I love where it goes. I am proud, can you tell.

So, the book I said I would never write, because it takes too long to write a book, I wrote. It’s done, finished, edited ad infinitum. I went to Staples and had three copies printed, (258 pages each), and 3-hole punched. (I wanted them bound but their binding machine was broken so I bought three binders); they sort of look like books but really like huge homework assignments. 80 bucks later I handed over the copies to members of my writing group who graciously offered to read them.

Okay so I have to get over the idea that these people are blowing smoke of my dress. One of our group teaches writing at the college level, is published, honest and tough. She said she couldn’t put it down and she used the word phenomenal. I will not go into what others have said because repeating accolades is boring to the reader because, I know what you are thinking, ‘hey they are your friends, hey, they know you, they don’t want to embarrass you, or themselves, by telling you the last nine months of effort is a stink-pile’. But one of the people, I had a 4th copy, mine, who read it IS beyond honest and doesn’t give a shit how much time I spent or whether I am embarrassed…she loved it too.

Fourteen queries so far, two partials and yes a few rejections but what I find interesting is that they rejected my query, not the book. (It’s only been 3 weeks.) I find it amusing that even though I am a published essayist, well over 50 tear-sheets to prove it, my query sucketh. I'm on my hundreth version.

I have come to the conclusion that writing a book and getting it published is like losing weight. Once you make up your mind to do it, it is easy. Maintaining the weight loss is like getting your book published; remain focused, don’t get discouraged and stay on track. Yup it’s exactly like losing weight. Did I mention that two years ago I lost 92 lbs. ? I went from a size 22 to an 8 and yes I have maintained the loss of every frigging ounce. But that’s another story.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

The 'not-nicers'

Been reading some interesting stuff about e-publishing and self-e-publishing over on BookEnds the last couple of days; learned a few things too. Actually I’m more confused than enlightened.
Give an asshole a keyboard and an enter key and they can be pretty ‘not-nice’. I wanted to say fucking-mean but I’m a lady…no I’m not…they are ‘fucking-not-nice’.
So who do I believe, Jessica or the nay-sayers?
Duh !
I still want the book on the shelf. Again today I was told, “Your book is amazing.” I’m beginning to think maybe it actually is.
Next post?
I think I’m going to post about my book, how I came up with the idea and what it’s about. Not a query, not a synopsis, they are evil, just me talking about it. Right now my brain is fried. Stand by.
Am I ready for 'not-nicers' with a keyboard? Hell yes I am.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Dream Jobs

My daughter has found her dream job and is moving out. Happiness for getting her life started does not express the pride and jubilation I feel for her. So having said that, I got to wondering, what about my ‘dream’ job.
A lifetime ago it was my dream to be an artist, watercolor was my medium, and then a book offer, handed to me through no effort of my own, opened up possibilities so far off my grid, I reinvented myself. Well…I screwed that one up, too young…too soon…too stupid.
So I wrote music and what a kick it was to hear a band play what I had written. Then my future morphed into business, I was going to be a mogul. Then at the less than tender age of past-thirty, I married, had babies and set way back on the shelf, actually it was the top shelf of a hall closet, my typewriter dreams. Until nap time became my time to write.
The typewriter became a word processor, (published essay), became a computer, (published more essays), became another computer, (life took over), and a laptop. This laptop and the new dream of writing fiction has opened up the idea that a twenty year hiatus from clamoring to be published has provided me with wisdom; yes I have something valuable to say and just enough doubt to wonder if anybody is listening.
I took writing classes, joined a writer’s group and have for the first time realized, maybe; just maybe, I can finally get my life started too. My dream?
Ah…it’s the pleasure of doing what I just did in 272 words.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

My poor, poor little query.

What do you do when the query you’ve been sending out is crap? Rewrite, resend, jump?
I read on an agents blog once, that a mentor of the agent once told her and I shall paraphrase, “the writing of the book will never be better than the query.”
Really? I mean really?
My nine-hundred and ninety-ninth time I have rewritten my query has made it a confusing conglomeration of thoughts I assumed the agent would get.
Oh mercy.
I’ve started over, again. I’ve simplified.
Oh well.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

The Book Is Finished

My readers love it.
From their mouths to God's ear, or at least an agents.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

The Short End Of The Table

What does it mean to sit at the short end of the table?
Depends on the table.

At a meeting the short-end sitter runs the show, barks orders, assigns the guidelines, and signatures the deals. The face of the company, the voice of the workers, smiles confidence and winks authority. The chairman would not be sitting at the short end if it were not for the mail-room-clerks, secretaries and operators of all things inconsequentially important. Memos of power are delivered by little people. Sitting at the sides the others bask in the glow of power or dress green in envy. In business the seat at the short end is a tenuous one unless, of coarse, toady’s bolster position and protect the leader.

At home, sitting at the short end of the table is the head of the household, the money maker, rule setter, the bill payer and enforcer of all things family. Usually it is the husband, father, the alpha-male, who covets throne sitting, but wait. Sometimes he is cleverly placed at the short end by the real pack-leader, the one who convinces him his place within the society of family is at the head but that is not so. She, who sits at the long side has room to spread her wings in protection of operation within the fold. She lets him think he is the God but she knows the difference between reality and idealism. His position is moot, hers is of purpose, because she realizes tables have two short ends and the other one is hers no matter where she sits.

Monday, June 13, 2011

The Birth Day

If my mother was still alive she would have been 90 today. Born on Friday the 13th, how perfect. She was one tough broad and a card carrying bitch. I miss her like hell. Happy birthday mom, wherever you are, I know it sure ain't heaven. Not because you didn't deserve eternity on a cloud, you did, it's because you stopped believing. I still do.
When I go I hope I can find your address.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Today Is A Good Day

I'm putting off paying my bills, cleaning the kitchen and doing the laundry. We have dog hair tumbleweeds rolling down the stairs as I sit here writing. I have plenty of K-kups, ink for the printer and a new ream of paper. Power is on, ain't life grand.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

So What Would I Be Doing?

My horoscope was interesting yesterday, it said, and I quote, “… this is a great time to be moving forward on a writing project.” I felt like the star-guru had somehow reached inside my computer and figured out I write. Can they do that? Ah, yeah. Well, who cares, I wrote, a lot.
Today I e-sent, snail-sent, and am building a fire to smoke-signal my way to continued publication. I have so many projects percolating and plates spinning in the air that I wonder, what would I be doing if I didn’t write?
Laundry.
If I didn’t spend my evenings at the keyboard where would I be?
On the couch watching my husband have his nightly affair with Judge Judy. (Maybe I should play dress-up in a black robe and a little white lace collar.)
If my head didn’t continually spin with plots, characters and words counts what would I be thinking about?
The bills that are due.
First thing in the morning, if I didn’t figure out how I’m going to fit writing in that day, what would I be figuring out?
How to get to work on time.
At night just before I fall asleep the last thing on my mind is where I’m at in a story and where I should be, so if I weren’t musing what would I be doing?
Praying.
Ah, ha. That’s it.
All the other moments when the actual thinking of writing, and doing of writing, is somehow pushed to second place, what will I be doing?
Praying and promising God…just let this novel be the one and I’ll become a nun. I already have the black robe and the white collar, oh wait…I’m not Catholic.
Amen

Friday, May 20, 2011

To Sweep or Not To Sweep

I have a weekend, this weekend, that is a two day vacation from entertaining. In the last six months I have hosted many, many, more many, and even more, many, holiday, family, friend, happy, sad, joyous and really joyous gatherings ranging from twenty to eighty-five people in my home. In all cases I did most, if not all the cooking, except for desserts. I don’t make desserts I just eat ‘em.

That I am tired of keeping the bathrooms spotless is like saying, can’t I just go one day without a shower. Sweeping up the tumble weeds of dog hair has become a chore so heinous that I am ready to shave the dog. Thank God Harley is housebroken or I’d have to cork his…eww…not really.

Anyway, I’m sleeping in tomorrow. I’m not sweeping, vacuuming, scrubbing, cooking or showering…eww…not really.

I’ll sweep, I can’t stand the dog hair.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

BUG BOY

A woman I work with introduced me to her husband. He is some kind of big-wig at a big pharmaceutical company. His hobby, or actually his passion, cockroaches. Yup, creepy, crawly, cockroaches. Why anyone would be interested in roaches is a mystery to me but the guy is crazy about them. And he’s written a book and he‘s not sure how to approach the whole publishing thing. He didn't ask my advice but I gave him some anyway. This is what I told the bug-nerd, his wife’s description not mine.

It’s all in the proposal.

When I told him he didn’t have to finish his book before he started to query, and get paid to complete it, the bug-nerd got excited. Yes bug-nerds do get excited. I gave him a book on writing proposals. Thinking Like Your Editor, by Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato. (To borrow only.) The book was recommended to me by Ellen Fitzpatrick, historian, college professor, TV commentator, all-around-amazing-woman and author, most recently of Letters To Jackie. After discussing with her a project I was working on regarding 125 discovered letters after the deaths of my parents, her sage words:

It’s all in the proposal.

I also told bug boy to NOT query his dream agents or dream publishers first time out. Send to the back-ups first, sort of like testing a new dish on friends before serving it to the soon to be in-laws. Because his book is almost finished, his credentials impeccable, and his passion great I think the guy has a chance AND I haven’t read a word.

It’s all in the proposal.

My one concern, who is his audience?
My nerd-friend travels to schools demonstrating dissections and discussing stuff I deem disgusting. Academics seem to eat this stuff up…ugh…just the thought. So he does have an audience, textbook, not huge but in need. Just think about it. If a professor requires a book for class…well, built in readership. How about a bunch of professors in a bunch of schools and my nerd friend is right there ready to demo his bug stuff. A slam dunk. (Had to insert a basketball analogy, it’s March madness, go UCONN women.) But like I said…

It’s all in the proposal.

Oh wait, I forgot, it’s all in the writing too.

Monday, March 14, 2011

GOD TIPPED HIS HAT

My husband called, God just ‘winked’ at him.

As an independent contractor, and a member of a veterans association, my husband often volunteers his skills and time for the organization. He is not a veteran but his father was and because he is the child of a vet he was able to join.

My husband donated his labor to build new cabinets behind the bar...lord knows he’s pounded down more than his share at that watering hole...anyway, today as he and some other volunteer members installed the beautiful wall of cabinets he built something amazing happened.
As they removed the old cabinets and were cleaning up the ’stuff ’ that falls behind and under such places a newspaper clipping was found. It was his father’s obituary. He passed away years ago.

I believe in the mystery of such things. My father-in-law was saying hello and thanks for the job well done. God had tipped his hat in greeting. What a great way to start the day.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Words

Words are wonderful, they make you show your teeth or cause your eyes to leak, they fill your heart or empty your soul.
God…I love what I do.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Query Letters, ugh !

Our ‘Inspired Writers Group’ has an interesting project for the next meeting, the query letter.
E-gads, the horror of the query letter.
I’ve written dozens, actually the same one dozens of times.(Ah, only kidding, I change the titles.)I’m not an expert because they sure haven’t gotten me any book deals.
So, is it the book or the letter?
Hmmm interesting thought.
Like American Idol, is it the try-out or the singing? So what if you suck while doing the acappella thing in front of the judges but your voice is really great. Do they hear the voice or latch onto the sucky part? Part of me says you are not going to Hollywood because there are lots of good singers that don’t screw up the try out, and part of me says give the bitch another chance.
It’s the package I guess…good try-out, good voice, good song…Hollywood all the way.
So, good query, good voice, (yes writing has a voice), and good story, the whole package. I get it.
Funny thing though, I don’t watch American idol anymore because I’m writing all the time. I’m working on my try-out and my song.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Two short stories, two points of view, which is better?

An Afternoon Walk



Behind a stand of sugar maples, the sun balanced on the horizon like a brillant beach ball poised to slip over the edge. Shimmering through the trembling red and orange leaves, the late afternoon sunlight made the trees look as if they were ablaze. It had been a cliché of a day, the kind New England is famous for. So exquisite was the flawless visual snapshot before me, I wondered how much I was going to have to pay for such an unforgettably perfect moment.
Rimming the dirt road where I stood was a single line of gravestones, each standing sentinel, as the first in their row, each row dozens deep. They looked like soldiers standing at attention. I tried to count them but they disappeared beyond the slope of the land like a floating flock of seabirds drifting down and out of site into a trough between two waves. On the far side, toward the bay, hundreds rose up out of the trough and floated as far back as the civil war. That was the old part of the graveyard where the forgotten are remembered during the special days which honor duty and death as if they are brothers.
I wasn’t looking for any particular stone or a familiar name, I was just walking along the rows of lives now gone. As I approached the down slope I noticed a car parked by the side of the road. Scanning the sea of stones I didn’t see anyone standing head bent visiting a lost loved one. Of late it is young wives I often see pouring out their hearts to futures lost from war. But because I saw no one I assumed the visitor was like me, walking and taking in the solitude but in another part of the hallowed place.
Drifting off the road I wandered among the stones to avoid the car just in case someone was inside. Once I came upon a couple in a red Toyota enjoying each other in what they thought was privacy among thousands gone. A live person walking by their car window caused quite a reaction when I glanced their way. So I dodged the car and wandered deeper among the dead.
The rhythm of my walking was interrupted by my weaving among the stones, the sound of my steps muffled by the soft lawn. It was as if the world had gone silent in prayer.
Like a whisper, a heartbroken voice floated up from the depths of stillness; it was weeping. In a cemetery the sound of loss and loneliness, as an accompaniment to pain and suffering lives in every breeze. When I walk there I contemplate often the tears shed which I imagine replenish the earth. But this time the sound of crying was real, the sadness tangible. I thought, how senseless, another young wife or another mother anguished by tragedy. A few steps further; I saw someone lying on the grass, embracing the ground above a grave. It was a man. Leaning against the cold headboard of polished granite a picture of an old woman. Slowly I backed away and hurried from a moment meant not to be shared.
That I imagined the sound of weeping as that of someone young and someone female puzzled me. An old man sobs for a past connection gone, a young woman weeps for one never made; their tears come from a different kind of loss but emanate from the same kind of sadness and bewilderment.
As I hurried back to where I had begun my walk I felt embarrassed because I had intruded. Slowly disappointment and betrayal tragically burrowed into my own heart because I knew I would not walk in that cemetery again and I would not tell my mother how I came upon my father weeping for another women and a future lost to circumstance.



An Afternoon Walk
By
Carolynn Pianta


Behind a stand of sugar maples, the sun balanced on the horizon like a brillant beach ball poised to slip over the edge. Shimmering through the trembling red and orange leaves, the late afternoon sunlight made the trees look as if they were ablaze. It had been a cliché of a day, the kind New England is famous for. So exquisite was the flawless visual snapshot Anne wondered how much she was going to have to pay for such an unforgettably perfect moment.
Rimming the dirt road where she stood was a single line of gravestones, each standing sentinel, as the first in their row, each row dozens deep. They looked like soldiers standing at attention. Anne tried to count them but they disappeared beyond the slope of the land like a floating flock of seabirds drifting down and out of site into a trough between two waves. On the far side, toward the bay, hundreds rose up out of the trough and floated as far back as the civil war. That was the old part of the graveyard where the forgotten are remembered during the special days which honor duty and death as if they are brothers.
Anne wasn’t looking for any particular stone or a familiar name, she was just walking along the rows of lives now gone. As she approached the down slope she noticed a car parked by the side of the road. Scanning the sea of stones she didn’t see anyone standing head bent visiting a lost loved one. Of late Anne noticed young wives often pouring out their hearts to futures lost from war. But because she saw no one and assumed the visitor was like her, walking and taking in the solitude but in another part of the hallowed place.
Drifting off the road Anne wandered among the stones to avoid the car just in case someone was inside. Once she came upon a couple in a red Toyota enjoying each other in what they thought was privacy among thousands gone. A live person walking by their car window caused quite a reaction when she glanced their way. So she dodged the car and wandered deeper among the dead.
The rhythm of her walking was interrupted by her weaving among the stones, the sound of her steps muffled by the soft lawn. It was as if the world had gone silent in prayer.
Like a whisper, a heartbroken voice floated up from the depths of stillness; it was weeping. In a cemetery the sound of loss and loneliness, as an accompaniment to pain and suffering lives in every breeze. When she walked there Anne contemplated often the tears shed which she imagined replenished the earth. But this time the sound of crying was real, the sadness tangible. She thought, how senseless, another young wife or another mother anguished by tragedy. A few steps further; she saw someone lying on the grass, embracing the ground above a grave. It was a man. Leaning against the cold headboard of polished granite a picture of an old woman. Slowly Anne backed away and hurried from a moment meant not to be shared.
That she imagined the sound of weeping as that of someone young and someone female puzzled her. An old man sobs for a past connection gone, a young woman weeps for one never made; their tears come from a different kind of loss but emanate from the same kind of sadness and bewilderment.
As Anne hurried back to where she had begun her walk she felt embarrassed because she had intruded. Slowly disappointment and betrayal tragically burrowed into her own heart because she knew she would not walk in that cemetery again and she would not tell her mother how she came upon her father weeping for another women and a future lost to circumstance.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Our world fell apart

More than a month since adding to this blog, much has happened.
Christmas, awesome as usual, New Years Eve, quiet and very nice, and then our world fell apart, for a bit.
Frankie died.
My wonderful mother-in-law, 93 and with a quality of life most dream about quickly slid away from us and into another world, one I hope is better then this one...which is a lot to hope for because this world has been very kind to us.
We have had great challenges and loses over the years but the death of Frankie is a silencing of wisdom. I will miss her terribly, we all will. I have lived side by side with her for over thirty years and in all that time we have never had a cross word. Amazing really. Good bye sweet friend…see you again someday.