I reached an old friend to check how she was dealing with Wilma.
Still no power, still no gasoline, which means even people with generators are not out of the woods. Dark as a dungeon at night. The stars are unbelievably bright. Some desperate souls sleep in their cars in line at the gas station. Supermarkets expected to open today. The cat is freaked out and follows her from room to room.
Everyone grilling the evening meal. Smell of steak cooking permeates the cool air. Lots of neighborhood camaraderie. A local restaurant sold pulled pork, rice and beans on the sidewalk. You have to be in before curfew time, but that’s O.K. because it is so friggin’ dark. She gets a few hours for her fridge from the neighbor’s generator. Large iguanas that lived under the roof tiles chased out when the roof tiles flew off have been seen sunning themselves on the roof. No one could believe how big they were. A fox was spotted in the yard. Well, no wonder the cat is freaked out. Hadn’t seen a fox in the neighborhood for eons. Probably washed out of her den.
Screen around pool area mostly in front yard with many roof tiles. The swimming pool is a tank of leaves and branches. A tree went thru front window, but didn’t do much damage. My friend sounded so cheerful and upbeat that it was difficult to comprehend that Wilma was one big-assed storm. Laughing about everything. Good attitude. We laugh that we may not cry.
Another friend had the windows blow out in her high rise condo in Boca. She hated the hurricane shutters and never got them. Hindsight always 20/20. Lots of elderly folks live in the building, but the elevator and hall lights were on a generator, so they coped. Everyone sat out in the hall, made coffee and chatted. The living room was trashed, except a crystal chandelier is till intact. I mourn for her immense rosewood sideboard and hope that it can be refinished. The power is now on, and things are looking up.
Still waiting for hear from another friend in Plantation. The Florida writers checking in on the bulletin boards sound upbeat. Someone remarked that there will be a lot of hurricane mysteries and suspense novels coming out in a year or two. Onward.
Aloha
Grapeshot
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Catch-22
Catch 22:
The big publishing houses won’t look at your novel unless you are represented by an agent.
The small publishing houses are so backed up with submissions they won’t look at your novel until 2007.
Agents are so bombarded that they aren’t likely to look at any query that somebody hasn’t already vetted. Or unless you are recommended by a writer of substance. You receive a form card (not even a letter) untouched by human hand except to shove it into your SASE. They profusely apologize for sending a form letter (oh please!) because they are such busy important people who either a) don’t need new clients or b) are not quite enthused enough by your query because you do not sufficiently enthuse them and you certainly do not sound like the next Dan Brown or whomever.
If you self-publish your work, you will learn the meaning of the phrase, “dis.”
Don’t weep. Don’t vomit. Do what Grapeshot does. Have a nice glass of wine, and keep sending out those goddamn queries. Send out 119. At least. Oh and don’t forget to suck it up. Big time. Keep writing. Keep drinking. Keep sending.
The big publishing houses won’t look at your novel unless you are represented by an agent.
The small publishing houses are so backed up with submissions they won’t look at your novel until 2007.
Agents are so bombarded that they aren’t likely to look at any query that somebody hasn’t already vetted. Or unless you are recommended by a writer of substance. You receive a form card (not even a letter) untouched by human hand except to shove it into your SASE. They profusely apologize for sending a form letter (oh please!) because they are such busy important people who either a) don’t need new clients or b) are not quite enthused enough by your query because you do not sufficiently enthuse them and you certainly do not sound like the next Dan Brown or whomever.
If you self-publish your work, you will learn the meaning of the phrase, “dis.”
Don’t weep. Don’t vomit. Do what Grapeshot does. Have a nice glass of wine, and keep sending out those goddamn queries. Send out 119. At least. Oh and don’t forget to suck it up. Big time. Keep writing. Keep drinking. Keep sending.
Monday, October 24, 2005
My Grandma's Hands
My Grandma's hands never saw nail polish and not much hand cream, maybe a little Jergen's lotion.
They could chop off a chicken's head, put Monday's wash through the wringer, make the flakiest pie crust ever, deft, deft, with only her wedding ring, short plump fingers, working the dough, kneading bread, never using a recipe, washing dishes, cleaning the chicken whose head she chopped off minutes ago, frying the chicken, always deft, pushing the pieces around the big cast iron skillet with the Crisco spattering.
Nothing ever tasted as good as that chicken, fried up brown, so moist and juicy, tasting like how a chicken should taste.
My grandma's hands once ran the sewing machine needle right through her finger on the treadle machine. She never swore, maybe said, "My goodness." Sang hymns in the kitchen while she tidied up and dried the dishes, The Old Rugged Cross, and The Garden. Always went to church.
My grandma's hands diapered four babies, hoed the garden, picked the bugs off the potatoes, made pajamas out of the feed sacks, picked the strawberries, twisted her hankie when she was nervous, always had to be at the station long before the train left, twisting that hankie, clean of course.
My grandma's hands laced up her corset, wiped my tears, put money in the collection plate, ironed the tea towels, set the table. My grandma's hands tied the strings on her sunbonnet, pieced and quilted many quilts, dug in her pocket book to find a quarter for me to buy an ice cream cone.
My grandma's hands turned the pages of her Bible and sometimes the pulp fiction, westerns mostly, she read before taking a well-deserved afternoon rest. My grandma's hands were never idle, never manicured, never pampered, but they were so beautiful.
They could chop off a chicken's head, put Monday's wash through the wringer, make the flakiest pie crust ever, deft, deft, with only her wedding ring, short plump fingers, working the dough, kneading bread, never using a recipe, washing dishes, cleaning the chicken whose head she chopped off minutes ago, frying the chicken, always deft, pushing the pieces around the big cast iron skillet with the Crisco spattering.
Nothing ever tasted as good as that chicken, fried up brown, so moist and juicy, tasting like how a chicken should taste.
My grandma's hands once ran the sewing machine needle right through her finger on the treadle machine. She never swore, maybe said, "My goodness." Sang hymns in the kitchen while she tidied up and dried the dishes, The Old Rugged Cross, and The Garden. Always went to church.
My grandma's hands diapered four babies, hoed the garden, picked the bugs off the potatoes, made pajamas out of the feed sacks, picked the strawberries, twisted her hankie when she was nervous, always had to be at the station long before the train left, twisting that hankie, clean of course.
My grandma's hands laced up her corset, wiped my tears, put money in the collection plate, ironed the tea towels, set the table. My grandma's hands tied the strings on her sunbonnet, pieced and quilted many quilts, dug in her pocket book to find a quarter for me to buy an ice cream cone.
My grandma's hands turned the pages of her Bible and sometimes the pulp fiction, westerns mostly, she read before taking a well-deserved afternoon rest. My grandma's hands were never idle, never manicured, never pampered, but they were so beautiful.
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Once More, With Feeling (and details)
My last post, I was so into the narrative that I forgot to write like a writer. This is a 2nd draft. A blog should “take you there,” even if it makes no pretensions to be literary. So here goes again.
Dreadful to wait for the wrath of a storm like Wilma or Katrina, wondering if the hit will be whammo direct, or if the monster will skitter off to devour other unfortunates. I work with a woman whose aging parents live in Florida in an area where there is still damage from two years ago. They won't leave and there are no shelters. They’re on a canal where a storm surge would bring water into the house. This is scary stuff.
Thursday evening, marching along on the treadmill, I read an article about two companies based in New Orleans and how each handled the issues and problems as a result of Katrina. One had hired an ex-special forces to help the IS staff man the servers. He was as resourceful as Odysseus, and poured kerosene into the generators to keep the power on. They bartered bandwidth and computer help for food and water with other business in their high rise. A vacuum cleaner manufacturer had a totally different approach. They moved the business off site—all the way to Denver, because their backup site in Alabama got hit with the same storm. They actually had UPS tap into their mainframe computer to ship the sales. Each business coped and each will survive. Coping skills that FEMA could have used.
The magazine is Baseline. It’s geared to the high tech industry, but the stories are so informtive that anyone interested in business or technology will find it a good read.
Two days ago, I recalled my grandparent's storm cellar beneath their frame house on the central Kansas plains. In the summer, thunderstorms rolled across the plains with ungodly regularly. And yes, I did see hail the size of baseballs.
My grandfather would get up at night and go outside and look at the southwestern sky. What did he look for? What did he see? Did the roiling clouds speak to him? Lightning would illuminate the forty-thousand-feet wrath-of-God cumulous giants. Were little funnels forming beneath the behemoths? Did the wind have a peculiar moan? I never asked. Never wondered.
Based on what he saw, we would all be herded out of bed and down into the cellar. Or not. We sat on a beat up old couch, staring at the ax and old kerosene lantern and the cinder block walls. Red, orange, yellow, green, white—all the efforts of my grandma’s summer work weighted down the shelves lining those walls. Strawberry jam, apricot jam, peach jam. I can still taste the tart sweetness, mixing with the melting butter on a piece of toast. On another shelf, the red canned tomatoes vied with the apricot, peaches and pears in clear glass canning jars. Green beans, so yummy yet dangerous, with a tendency toward botulism. A summer’s hard work. Leisure only came around after the dinner dishes were washed and dried. What did we talk about? Small town talk. Crops, gardens, gossip, friends, relatives.
Grandpa would leave the cellar to observe the sky again and give the all-clear-go-back-to-bed signal. Or not. How did he always know? Was it spending sixty seasons studying that weather? Sixty seasons on the farm.
He was a great baseball player in his day. I have a great photo of the team. I lived with my grandparents in that tiny Kansas town during the summer when I had my first real job. The house had no air conditioning, not even fans. And Kansas is hot in the summer. I slept upstairs on the big iron bed with my head literally in the window to pick up the slightest breeze. About four in the morning, just when the temperature would be cool enough to sleep, the robins would begin their chirpy endless song, and then all the birds would chime in, an avian chorus expressly designed to awaken the tired sleeper.
I must have spent a whole summer sleep-deprived. Started smoking. Bad. Learned a lot about life. Good. My arches fell because I refused to wear kludgey waitress shoes while I spent all day on my feet on a cement floor. Bad. I had my first crush on a boy. Good. So it goes. You can't tell a fourteen year old anything.
Dreadful to wait for the wrath of a storm like Wilma or Katrina, wondering if the hit will be whammo direct, or if the monster will skitter off to devour other unfortunates. I work with a woman whose aging parents live in Florida in an area where there is still damage from two years ago. They won't leave and there are no shelters. They’re on a canal where a storm surge would bring water into the house. This is scary stuff.
Thursday evening, marching along on the treadmill, I read an article about two companies based in New Orleans and how each handled the issues and problems as a result of Katrina. One had hired an ex-special forces to help the IS staff man the servers. He was as resourceful as Odysseus, and poured kerosene into the generators to keep the power on. They bartered bandwidth and computer help for food and water with other business in their high rise. A vacuum cleaner manufacturer had a totally different approach. They moved the business off site—all the way to Denver, because their backup site in Alabama got hit with the same storm. They actually had UPS tap into their mainframe computer to ship the sales. Each business coped and each will survive. Coping skills that FEMA could have used.
The magazine is Baseline. It’s geared to the high tech industry, but the stories are so informtive that anyone interested in business or technology will find it a good read.
Two days ago, I recalled my grandparent's storm cellar beneath their frame house on the central Kansas plains. In the summer, thunderstorms rolled across the plains with ungodly regularly. And yes, I did see hail the size of baseballs.
My grandfather would get up at night and go outside and look at the southwestern sky. What did he look for? What did he see? Did the roiling clouds speak to him? Lightning would illuminate the forty-thousand-feet wrath-of-God cumulous giants. Were little funnels forming beneath the behemoths? Did the wind have a peculiar moan? I never asked. Never wondered.
Based on what he saw, we would all be herded out of bed and down into the cellar. Or not. We sat on a beat up old couch, staring at the ax and old kerosene lantern and the cinder block walls. Red, orange, yellow, green, white—all the efforts of my grandma’s summer work weighted down the shelves lining those walls. Strawberry jam, apricot jam, peach jam. I can still taste the tart sweetness, mixing with the melting butter on a piece of toast. On another shelf, the red canned tomatoes vied with the apricot, peaches and pears in clear glass canning jars. Green beans, so yummy yet dangerous, with a tendency toward botulism. A summer’s hard work. Leisure only came around after the dinner dishes were washed and dried. What did we talk about? Small town talk. Crops, gardens, gossip, friends, relatives.
Grandpa would leave the cellar to observe the sky again and give the all-clear-go-back-to-bed signal. Or not. How did he always know? Was it spending sixty seasons studying that weather? Sixty seasons on the farm.
He was a great baseball player in his day. I have a great photo of the team. I lived with my grandparents in that tiny Kansas town during the summer when I had my first real job. The house had no air conditioning, not even fans. And Kansas is hot in the summer. I slept upstairs on the big iron bed with my head literally in the window to pick up the slightest breeze. About four in the morning, just when the temperature would be cool enough to sleep, the robins would begin their chirpy endless song, and then all the birds would chime in, an avian chorus expressly designed to awaken the tired sleeper.
I must have spent a whole summer sleep-deprived. Started smoking. Bad. Learned a lot about life. Good. My arches fell because I refused to wear kludgey waitress shoes while I spent all day on my feet on a cement floor. Bad. I had my first crush on a boy. Good. So it goes. You can't tell a fourteen year old anything.
Another Rainy Saturday
Today I planted spring bulbs. Noticed that the toad lilies, which the deer dined on in mid-summer, were blooming. Not as tall as last year, but still pretty. The last flowers to bloom.
I picked chives, parsley, oregano, basil and cilantro. Made a fancy salad just like on the cooking show this afternoon. Red leaf and baby lettuces. A nice oil and vinegar dressing and the herbs. A touch of garlic. The garden’s last offerings. So good.
We fed the cows in the rain. The young calf is getting shaggy hair. She comes to the fence with the others, but doesn’t quite grasp that she should eat our offerings. I tempt her with wilted cilantro, but she only sniffs it. The old calf and the young one hang out together now, having discovered, I guess that they are both calves. Hard to determine what goes on in a cow’s mind.
I am reading a “how to write a mystery” book, and I took some stuff out of my first scene, and moved it further into the narrative. That helped the action move along better. I can really see the difference.
Another rejection for Promiscuous Mode. This time, the agent will only look at writing recommended by someone. Who? Another agent? An editor? I could be the next Dan Brown. Of course, I’m not. Even I know that. But she doesn’t.
This is a crazy business.
It’s difficult (and very bad form) to stand around with your hat in your hand asking established writers to recommend you. Just isn’t done. And everyone is too busy and jealously guarding his/her own career to offer to take a look at your writing. I’ve been networking like mad for 10 years and it hasn’t ever happened. Well, once. But the recommendation was to a religious press that didn’t want sex or bad language. I have some, not much, but enough to make me leery.
Time to cheer on the White Sox. Time to suck it up.
Aloha!
Grapeshot
I picked chives, parsley, oregano, basil and cilantro. Made a fancy salad just like on the cooking show this afternoon. Red leaf and baby lettuces. A nice oil and vinegar dressing and the herbs. A touch of garlic. The garden’s last offerings. So good.
We fed the cows in the rain. The young calf is getting shaggy hair. She comes to the fence with the others, but doesn’t quite grasp that she should eat our offerings. I tempt her with wilted cilantro, but she only sniffs it. The old calf and the young one hang out together now, having discovered, I guess that they are both calves. Hard to determine what goes on in a cow’s mind.
I am reading a “how to write a mystery” book, and I took some stuff out of my first scene, and moved it further into the narrative. That helped the action move along better. I can really see the difference.
Another rejection for Promiscuous Mode. This time, the agent will only look at writing recommended by someone. Who? Another agent? An editor? I could be the next Dan Brown. Of course, I’m not. Even I know that. But she doesn’t.
This is a crazy business.
It’s difficult (and very bad form) to stand around with your hat in your hand asking established writers to recommend you. Just isn’t done. And everyone is too busy and jealously guarding his/her own career to offer to take a look at your writing. I’ve been networking like mad for 10 years and it hasn’t ever happened. Well, once. But the recommendation was to a religious press that didn’t want sex or bad language. I have some, not much, but enough to make me leery.
Time to cheer on the White Sox. Time to suck it up.
Aloha!
Grapeshot
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Waiting for Weather
It must be dreadful to wait for the wrath of a storm like Wilma or Katrina, wondering if the hit will be a direct whammo hit , or will one be spared as the monster skitters off toward other unfortunate souls. . I work with someone whose aging parents live in Florida in an area where there is still damage from two years ago. They won't leave and there are no shelters.
This evening on the treadmill, I read an article about two companies based in New Orleans and how each handled the issues and problems as a result of Katrina. They had totally different methods of dealing with the storm and subsequent damage to business, but each business coped and will survive.
Yesterday I recalled my grandparent's storm cellar in Kansas. In the summer, thunderstorms rolled across the plains with ungodly regularity. My grandfather would get up at night and go outside and look at the sky. Based on what he saw, we would all be herded into the cellar or not. He would also leave the cellar to observe the sky again and give the all-clear-go-back-to-bed signal. How did he know? Was it spending 60 seasons studying that weather?
I lived with my grandparents during the summer when I had my first real job. The house had no air conditioning, not even any fans. I slept upstairs with my head literally in the window to pick up the slightest breeze or bit of cool air. About four in the morning, just when the temperature would be cool enough to sleep, the robins would begin their song, and then all the birds would chime in. I must have spent a summer without sleep. Started smoking. Learned a lot about life. My arches fell because I refused to wear icky white waitress shoes while I spent all day on my feet on a concrete floor. So it goes. You can't tell a fourteen year old anything.
Tomorrow I'll tell you about the garden and the chicken coop and how I grew up eating the best food in the world. In the meantime, here's a poem about Kansas weather in the summer.
Harvey County, Kansas
1995
Here, where combines shear the wheat,
Flat on the prairie, far from cities,
Seared by seasons, lashed by winds,
Sprouting corn and hay and milo,
Near to meadow larks and creaking windmills
Crossed by gravel roads, under infinite stars,
Here, where cottonwoods shade the creek,
On an evening in mid-August
When the ground radiated green warmth
And the air rested heavy and silent
The sun, in a psychedelic display
Of orange and drama almost tawdry,
Set down a challenge.
The moon, no slouch,
Answered by rising titanic red,
Peering over earth's edge,
First timid, then bold, like a surprise lily.
Rising. Red. Rising.
Signaling a spent earth primed for harvest,
Whispering to the southern wind.
The Kansa were the people of the south wind.
Frolicking across the countryside
The south wind soars to the summons,
Ripples golden corn and sways sun flowers,
Dances through stubble fields and shelter belts.
Stirring dry ghosts, waking old spirits.
Driven by ancient intensity,
Boiling up the thunderheads,
Blasting funnels over the dark plains.
Then, in a damp gust of rain, softly
Sinking like the fireball sun of August,
Fluttering like the feather of a meadowlark,
Vanishing like the
People of the south wind.
This evening on the treadmill, I read an article about two companies based in New Orleans and how each handled the issues and problems as a result of Katrina. They had totally different methods of dealing with the storm and subsequent damage to business, but each business coped and will survive.
Yesterday I recalled my grandparent's storm cellar in Kansas. In the summer, thunderstorms rolled across the plains with ungodly regularity. My grandfather would get up at night and go outside and look at the sky. Based on what he saw, we would all be herded into the cellar or not. He would also leave the cellar to observe the sky again and give the all-clear-go-back-to-bed signal. How did he know? Was it spending 60 seasons studying that weather?
I lived with my grandparents during the summer when I had my first real job. The house had no air conditioning, not even any fans. I slept upstairs with my head literally in the window to pick up the slightest breeze or bit of cool air. About four in the morning, just when the temperature would be cool enough to sleep, the robins would begin their song, and then all the birds would chime in. I must have spent a summer without sleep. Started smoking. Learned a lot about life. My arches fell because I refused to wear icky white waitress shoes while I spent all day on my feet on a concrete floor. So it goes. You can't tell a fourteen year old anything.
Tomorrow I'll tell you about the garden and the chicken coop and how I grew up eating the best food in the world. In the meantime, here's a poem about Kansas weather in the summer.
Harvey County, Kansas
1995
Here, where combines shear the wheat,
Flat on the prairie, far from cities,
Seared by seasons, lashed by winds,
Sprouting corn and hay and milo,
Near to meadow larks and creaking windmills
Crossed by gravel roads, under infinite stars,
Here, where cottonwoods shade the creek,
On an evening in mid-August
When the ground radiated green warmth
And the air rested heavy and silent
The sun, in a psychedelic display
Of orange and drama almost tawdry,
Set down a challenge.
The moon, no slouch,
Answered by rising titanic red,
Peering over earth's edge,
First timid, then bold, like a surprise lily.
Rising. Red. Rising.
Signaling a spent earth primed for harvest,
Whispering to the southern wind.
The Kansa were the people of the south wind.
Frolicking across the countryside
The south wind soars to the summons,
Ripples golden corn and sways sun flowers,
Dances through stubble fields and shelter belts.
Stirring dry ghosts, waking old spirits.
Driven by ancient intensity,
Boiling up the thunderheads,
Blasting funnels over the dark plains.
Then, in a damp gust of rain, softly
Sinking like the fireball sun of August,
Fluttering like the feather of a meadowlark,
Vanishing like the
People of the south wind.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
The Walls Came Tumbling Down
When I quit the working world, I will miss my daily commute. You think I'm crazy, don't you?
I drive a meandering road through the woods, past ancient "burying grounds," along a lake where the colors are screaming "fall", and down a street with character, where the little cottages hunker down, and a new house is getting a fantastic stone wall lining the drive way. The cows look for greener grass (this morning one found it) by the house where fresh eggs are sold on the honor system, and the architecture I pass is a mishmash of cottages, split levels, capes, and two modern cedar homes, along with some old mansions.
Monday and Tuesday a solid but modest brick home was destroyed to make room for a new McMansion. I'm sure the rooms were small, and it probably only had a bath and a half, but it looked warm and sturdy, and now it's not even a pile of rubble, as the bricks are gone and the new construction started immediately. Here today, gone tomorrow.
Grapeshot likes modern architecture, and New England hardly has any. New England likes the cozy cape house and especially the Center Entrance Colonial, that most desirable of domiciles. How grand with its two storey entrance call, the granite kitchen, the upteen baths, the deck where no one ever appears. Bah humbug!
The farmer selling eggs lives in a "real" center entrance colonial with a date on the building. He has a center hall, of only one story, leading off into a series of gloomy parlors, no doubt. The real thing. It looks somewhat cheerless, with that long dark hallway, but it has authenticity.
I pass a Victorian and an Arts and Crafts cottage that are likewise authentic. And some funky old places that would never make House and Garden, but they do have a certain je ne sais quoi.
My grandmother's lived in a simple frame farm house. From the porch with a swing, one stepped into the area between the living and dining rooms. The dining room was larger than the living room, and when we weren't feasting, we sat at the big oval table and played cards and talked, while my grandma enjoyed her rocking chair, weary as she was from cooking for the crowds. In the evening, neighbors and relatives stopped by to "visit." Was this another world or what?
Upstairs were three bedrooms, no baths and a store room that smelled of cedar. There was an old Victrola and a cedar chest. I found a World War Two songbook and a book called The Kinsey Report. Don't know whose that was, maybe my uncle's. It was certainly an educational book. I haven't been in that house for years, but I recall every detail, from the hair brushes and container of face powder (her only cosmetic) on my Grandma's dresser to the old treadle sewing machine.
The cellar had a tornado room (this was central Kansas), with thick cinderblock walls, an ancient kerosene lantern, an ax and an old couch. My grandma kept the food she put up for the winter on shelves in the storm cellar. Homemade catsup, picalilly, peaches, pears, and a gazillion jars of tomatoes. Apricot, strawberry and peach jam. I can taste it still.
In her plain spotless house, my grandmother was happy to have an electric stove and a new refrigerator (no more icebox)! In those days, even the town banker did not live in an opulent manner. I think it was considered bad form. No McMansions then , only dreams of a ranch house with three bedrooms, and maybe an extra bath. Come to think of it, a house like the brick one they tore down this week.
It is good to get out and about in the world and look around. The football dads still congregate for practice. I think there are games, now, and winners and losers.
I received a (for a change) a nice rejection letter last week, and learned that my books didn't win any contests. I committed some tactical errors there. Sent the book to England that had a really bad English bloke in it, and sent the cosy to the noir contest. Oh well. Doesn't seem to matter much. I think I am feeling too nostalgic to suck it up.
This will never do.
Grapeshot
I drive a meandering road through the woods, past ancient "burying grounds," along a lake where the colors are screaming "fall", and down a street with character, where the little cottages hunker down, and a new house is getting a fantastic stone wall lining the drive way. The cows look for greener grass (this morning one found it) by the house where fresh eggs are sold on the honor system, and the architecture I pass is a mishmash of cottages, split levels, capes, and two modern cedar homes, along with some old mansions.
Monday and Tuesday a solid but modest brick home was destroyed to make room for a new McMansion. I'm sure the rooms were small, and it probably only had a bath and a half, but it looked warm and sturdy, and now it's not even a pile of rubble, as the bricks are gone and the new construction started immediately. Here today, gone tomorrow.
Grapeshot likes modern architecture, and New England hardly has any. New England likes the cozy cape house and especially the Center Entrance Colonial, that most desirable of domiciles. How grand with its two storey entrance call, the granite kitchen, the upteen baths, the deck where no one ever appears. Bah humbug!
The farmer selling eggs lives in a "real" center entrance colonial with a date on the building. He has a center hall, of only one story, leading off into a series of gloomy parlors, no doubt. The real thing. It looks somewhat cheerless, with that long dark hallway, but it has authenticity.
I pass a Victorian and an Arts and Crafts cottage that are likewise authentic. And some funky old places that would never make House and Garden, but they do have a certain je ne sais quoi.
My grandmother's lived in a simple frame farm house. From the porch with a swing, one stepped into the area between the living and dining rooms. The dining room was larger than the living room, and when we weren't feasting, we sat at the big oval table and played cards and talked, while my grandma enjoyed her rocking chair, weary as she was from cooking for the crowds. In the evening, neighbors and relatives stopped by to "visit." Was this another world or what?
Upstairs were three bedrooms, no baths and a store room that smelled of cedar. There was an old Victrola and a cedar chest. I found a World War Two songbook and a book called The Kinsey Report. Don't know whose that was, maybe my uncle's. It was certainly an educational book. I haven't been in that house for years, but I recall every detail, from the hair brushes and container of face powder (her only cosmetic) on my Grandma's dresser to the old treadle sewing machine.
The cellar had a tornado room (this was central Kansas), with thick cinderblock walls, an ancient kerosene lantern, an ax and an old couch. My grandma kept the food she put up for the winter on shelves in the storm cellar. Homemade catsup, picalilly, peaches, pears, and a gazillion jars of tomatoes. Apricot, strawberry and peach jam. I can taste it still.
In her plain spotless house, my grandmother was happy to have an electric stove and a new refrigerator (no more icebox)! In those days, even the town banker did not live in an opulent manner. I think it was considered bad form. No McMansions then , only dreams of a ranch house with three bedrooms, and maybe an extra bath. Come to think of it, a house like the brick one they tore down this week.
It is good to get out and about in the world and look around. The football dads still congregate for practice. I think there are games, now, and winners and losers.
I received a (for a change) a nice rejection letter last week, and learned that my books didn't win any contests. I committed some tactical errors there. Sent the book to England that had a really bad English bloke in it, and sent the cosy to the noir contest. Oh well. Doesn't seem to matter much. I think I am feeling too nostalgic to suck it up.
This will never do.
Grapeshot
Monday, October 17, 2005
Did you say dinner?
Grillades a la Mexicaine. My take on a Gourmet recipe. On the right is Mexican rice. Green stuff is cilantro. My mom's pottery pumpkin is in the background, filled with water-logged geraniums, sedum, nasturtiums and begonias. The grillades are pork and beef in a spicy tomato pepper sauce with lots of herbs, onion and garlic. Just the ticket on a cool fall weekend.
Friday, October 14, 2005
The Rains Came
The rains came, and they haven't gone away. Seven days and seven nights. Soon we'll all have webbed feet. The stagnant slough behind our house is a little river, just like in the spring. My poor begonia is still a mass of yellow blossoms, but a soggy, shivering mass. It's too web to plant the bulbs I bought.
When a task was difficult, my Dad always said, "it's too wet to plough."
It really is too wet to plough. And the chickens are coming home to roost. Wait til the cows come home. What is going to happen to these colorful old expressions when everyone has left the farm except agribusiness? This is a mournful thought. When my mom would exclaim, "I went to bed with the chickens, " she meant early. How many people even know, never mind care that chickens roost when the sun goes down? At least the ones that aren't herded together cheek by jowl in horrible chicken houses where they can't get out and eat bugs and peck in the dirt.
Khrushev remarked, "that's like leaving the goat to mind the cabbage." What a good image! Writer's always look for the right word, the image that makes everything true. It could be an old stone barn covered with ivy or a squirrel scampering across the road. Something that brings you to the place and puts you there. Solidly.
The rain is general over Boston. It never rains but it pours.
Damply,
Grapeshot
When a task was difficult, my Dad always said, "it's too wet to plough."
It really is too wet to plough. And the chickens are coming home to roost. Wait til the cows come home. What is going to happen to these colorful old expressions when everyone has left the farm except agribusiness? This is a mournful thought. When my mom would exclaim, "I went to bed with the chickens, " she meant early. How many people even know, never mind care that chickens roost when the sun goes down? At least the ones that aren't herded together cheek by jowl in horrible chicken houses where they can't get out and eat bugs and peck in the dirt.
Khrushev remarked, "that's like leaving the goat to mind the cabbage." What a good image! Writer's always look for the right word, the image that makes everything true. It could be an old stone barn covered with ivy or a squirrel scampering across the road. Something that brings you to the place and puts you there. Solidly.
The rain is general over Boston. It never rains but it pours.
Damply,
Grapeshot
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Finally Feedback
A few days ago I heard from a small publishing house who had agreed to take a look at World Of Mirrors, and they turned it down. From our meager email correspondence, I had a feeling they were good folks, so I wrote back and asked for a short answer on why they had decided not to publish. Today I received a courteous answer.
The editors thought the novel needed drastic cuts (about 25%) because there was too much food and too much scenery. Oddly enough, this was a conclusion I had reached on my own, maybe not to the extent of 25%, but I knew it needed a haircut, and I also had decided to take it out of the series and make it a standalone. Ditch the husband, the boss, and some of the other "stuff." The publishers did like the writing, and they even liked the "stuff" too but thought it slowed the pace down. This is the kind of feedback I have been hankering for, let's see, twelve months now.
Come Jan 1, when I have an extra ten hours a day, the World of Mirrors will go on a diet with the rest of us. My thoughts are that this shouldn't take more than a few weeks to do the first chopping, then look at the word count, re-read the manuscript and ask: does it need yet more? There's some fun stuff I will be loathe to cut, not beautiful words, but the character's being a little silly, if you will. So there is plenty of food for thought. Food that won't pack on the pounds.
Now if it would only be that easy drop 25% off the bathroom scale.
Note: no way do food and scenery do not comprise 25% of the book, but it must seem like they do. Obviously slowing down the action. Who knew?
In the meantime, there's Festival Madness to push along. It hasn't had time to bloat yet, but the time at Burning Man had its own silliness. The next scene will be difficult--introducing four new characters at a meeting. Not sure that's the way to do it. We'll see what happens. It's easy if painful to trash a scene. Now a whole manuscript, that's another thing. But we all know writer's must be into pain or they wouldn't be writers, right. Maybe they would be in marketing.
Grapeshot
No longer glowering
The editors thought the novel needed drastic cuts (about 25%) because there was too much food and too much scenery. Oddly enough, this was a conclusion I had reached on my own, maybe not to the extent of 25%, but I knew it needed a haircut, and I also had decided to take it out of the series and make it a standalone. Ditch the husband, the boss, and some of the other "stuff." The publishers did like the writing, and they even liked the "stuff" too but thought it slowed the pace down. This is the kind of feedback I have been hankering for, let's see, twelve months now.
Come Jan 1, when I have an extra ten hours a day, the World of Mirrors will go on a diet with the rest of us. My thoughts are that this shouldn't take more than a few weeks to do the first chopping, then look at the word count, re-read the manuscript and ask: does it need yet more? There's some fun stuff I will be loathe to cut, not beautiful words, but the character's being a little silly, if you will. So there is plenty of food for thought. Food that won't pack on the pounds.
Now if it would only be that easy drop 25% off the bathroom scale.
Note: no way do food and scenery do not comprise 25% of the book, but it must seem like they do. Obviously slowing down the action. Who knew?
In the meantime, there's Festival Madness to push along. It hasn't had time to bloat yet, but the time at Burning Man had its own silliness. The next scene will be difficult--introducing four new characters at a meeting. Not sure that's the way to do it. We'll see what happens. It's easy if painful to trash a scene. Now a whole manuscript, that's another thing. But we all know writer's must be into pain or they wouldn't be writers, right. Maybe they would be in marketing.
Grapeshot
No longer glowering
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Bookangst R.I.P.
In my "favorites" file, I have a list of blogs, which grows at a steady rate. From time to time I check them out, as I did last night, too tired to write, not wanting to climb into bed at 8:30 p.m. When I think of how I used to sneer at and berate my parents for their early to bed ways. God, they were night owls compared to me! The shame of it all.
Anyway, I went to a blog called Bookangst, where I had visited many times and always noticed that the blogger, an editor, took a chapter of someone's novel apart. Having just got yet another rejection, I thought it might be kind of cool to have an editor look at the first chapter in exchange for only the humiliation of having it critiqued in front of God and everyone, fearing the editor might say this is the worst first chapter in the history of writing and how could anyone sleep at night after writing all those bad sentences?
So I wrote a chripy little note and emailed the first chapter of World of Mirrors. Didn't hear from the editor today. Went out to the blog a few minutes ago. Puzzlement. Looked different. Shit. I looked at the date of the last post and it was MONTHS AGO. Jul7 17th. Hello! Not only that but the little blurb about send me your chapter and I'll critique it if you let me do it online was now gone. Since last night. As was the contact info. Then I noticed that the last post was really kind of bitter. A last, last post. Now I am feeling not only like an unobservant idiot, but an insensitive unobservant idiot. I mean, how much worse can it get? A day late and a dollar short and shit for brains.
Since I've had this cold, I've felt really thick-headed. Couldn't remember Williams Sonoma, could remember somebody's name at work (nor she mine, come to think of it). Couldn't remember how to auto insert a product into a catalog. Didn't really care, either, and my manager knows I don't really care. Feel like an ass morning, noon and night.
I'm glad an underdog won the Booker prize. I hope the Bookangst blogger starts to feel better. Now I'm going to pay my bills and email a fellow writer the Tor chicklit guidelines, which my books don't really fall into what with a slutty adulterous character and a barrel full of other bad apples. God, they such fun to write about. But maybe not sympaticshe (sp?) from a chicklit stand point. I mean, who would want to end up a slutty adulterous character? Not the gentle reader, surely. Not Oprah's readers, who want to be uplifted. Wonder how they like Faulkner? Why am I so nasty tonight?
Maybe I won't suck it up. Maybe I will glower. Yes.
Grapeshot
Glowering
Anyway, I went to a blog called Bookangst, where I had visited many times and always noticed that the blogger, an editor, took a chapter of someone's novel apart. Having just got yet another rejection, I thought it might be kind of cool to have an editor look at the first chapter in exchange for only the humiliation of having it critiqued in front of God and everyone, fearing the editor might say this is the worst first chapter in the history of writing and how could anyone sleep at night after writing all those bad sentences?
So I wrote a chripy little note and emailed the first chapter of World of Mirrors. Didn't hear from the editor today. Went out to the blog a few minutes ago. Puzzlement. Looked different. Shit. I looked at the date of the last post and it was MONTHS AGO. Jul7 17th. Hello! Not only that but the little blurb about send me your chapter and I'll critique it if you let me do it online was now gone. Since last night. As was the contact info. Then I noticed that the last post was really kind of bitter. A last, last post. Now I am feeling not only like an unobservant idiot, but an insensitive unobservant idiot. I mean, how much worse can it get? A day late and a dollar short and shit for brains.
Since I've had this cold, I've felt really thick-headed. Couldn't remember Williams Sonoma, could remember somebody's name at work (nor she mine, come to think of it). Couldn't remember how to auto insert a product into a catalog. Didn't really care, either, and my manager knows I don't really care. Feel like an ass morning, noon and night.
I'm glad an underdog won the Booker prize. I hope the Bookangst blogger starts to feel better. Now I'm going to pay my bills and email a fellow writer the Tor chicklit guidelines, which my books don't really fall into what with a slutty adulterous character and a barrel full of other bad apples. God, they such fun to write about. But maybe not sympaticshe (sp?) from a chicklit stand point. I mean, who would want to end up a slutty adulterous character? Not the gentle reader, surely. Not Oprah's readers, who want to be uplifted. Wonder how they like Faulkner? Why am I so nasty tonight?
Maybe I won't suck it up. Maybe I will glower. Yes.
Grapeshot
Glowering
Monday, October 10, 2005
Advice from the Booker Prize Winner
Speaking last night at the Guildhall, Banville said winning was "a great surprise, a great pleasure". He said his advice to other authors was "just hang around and it will come. I hung around for many years and it did come." He thanked his editor, agent and publisher for sticking with him when he wrote what he described as "many unsaleable books over the years".
Read the whole post: http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/front/2005/1011/849553040HM1BOOKERPRIZE.html
I had wanted Zadie Smith to win, but she's hardly been hanging around any time at all.
Think I'll go hang around for a while. Hmmm. Wonder if hanging around is the same as sucking it up? Do you suppose? Guess that's what I'll do.
For another view on the subject of blogging and writing and googling yourself, that vainest of pasttimes, take a look at :http://bookangst.blogspot.com/
Read the whole post: http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/front/2005/1011/849553040HM1BOOKERPRIZE.html
I had wanted Zadie Smith to win, but she's hardly been hanging around any time at all.
Think I'll go hang around for a while. Hmmm. Wonder if hanging around is the same as sucking it up? Do you suppose? Guess that's what I'll do.
For another view on the subject of blogging and writing and googling yourself, that vainest of pasttimes, take a look at :http://bookangst.blogspot.com/
No Exercise No Diet But 19 Pages
Last week I was under the weather. Missed work for the first time since November 2001, when I had shingles.
Last week I didn't walk or lift weights or even think about exercise. No food obsessions, either, namely because I wasn't all that hungry and so a salad for lunch for filling enough, ditto yogurt for breakfast.
I wrote fifteen pages! Added to the four from the week before, Festival Madness has a real beginning. Amazing when one's focus changes purely to writing what one can do. I am so psyched! And add two pages for work on the short story, which is turning out to be as weird as everything else. Add five agents queried. Well, make that four. When I was filling in the spread sheet where I keep track of this stuff, one of the names self-filled. Turned out I had queried that agent in May. Never heard from him. Looked at the nice neat envelope, already sealed and stuffed with SASE and a two page synopsis as well as the World's 2nd best query letter and thought what the hell? Maybe it will sound better the second time, maybe there will be a jolt of recognition. Maybe he will say, "Yes! I want this novel!"
Any then again, maybe it will be deja vu all over again. The small press turned down World of Mirrors, along with everyone else. A year's effort and not one nibble! I am thinking of changing the character's names and some of the information and taking it out of the Emma Lee Davis Cybersleuth Series so that I make it a little darker and untangle the main character from some of her baggage. But would it still be a dramedy, which is Hollywoodese for part drama, part comedy?
Saturday we watched Muriel's Wedding again, a dramedy and a good one, but not a great one. Fed the cows in the rain. The flies are gone. The baby is growing shaggy fur. Ma still tries to hog the food.
I cooked two recipes from the New York Times, (Chili Shrimp and Escarole Bean Soup) one from Williams Sonoma(Cherry Pancakes) and something known in New England as American Chop Suey, which had the virtue of being very cheap, very filling and very fast with respect to preparation.
American Chop Suey
Brown a pound of ground beef.
Cook 1/2 pound of macaroni. Don't foget to salt the water.
You will also need about 3 cups of Italian red sauce. I buy whatever is on sale.
Mix all together in a large casserole. Add a little parmesan cheese. Top with sliced fresh tomatoes and a few (if you like) chopped ripe or stuffed olives. Sprinkle with more cheese. Bake for about 30 minutes covered, and 20 minutes with the lid off at around 325 degrees.
Serve with bread sticks and a green salad.
Or garlic bread if you aren't always watching your weight. I hope you use real butter and fresh garlic and a decent bread and toast it under the broiler with just a sprinkle of paprika.
Life is good.
Last week I didn't walk or lift weights or even think about exercise. No food obsessions, either, namely because I wasn't all that hungry and so a salad for lunch for filling enough, ditto yogurt for breakfast.
I wrote fifteen pages! Added to the four from the week before, Festival Madness has a real beginning. Amazing when one's focus changes purely to writing what one can do. I am so psyched! And add two pages for work on the short story, which is turning out to be as weird as everything else. Add five agents queried. Well, make that four. When I was filling in the spread sheet where I keep track of this stuff, one of the names self-filled. Turned out I had queried that agent in May. Never heard from him. Looked at the nice neat envelope, already sealed and stuffed with SASE and a two page synopsis as well as the World's 2nd best query letter and thought what the hell? Maybe it will sound better the second time, maybe there will be a jolt of recognition. Maybe he will say, "Yes! I want this novel!"
Any then again, maybe it will be deja vu all over again. The small press turned down World of Mirrors, along with everyone else. A year's effort and not one nibble! I am thinking of changing the character's names and some of the information and taking it out of the Emma Lee Davis Cybersleuth Series so that I make it a little darker and untangle the main character from some of her baggage. But would it still be a dramedy, which is Hollywoodese for part drama, part comedy?
Saturday we watched Muriel's Wedding again, a dramedy and a good one, but not a great one. Fed the cows in the rain. The flies are gone. The baby is growing shaggy fur. Ma still tries to hog the food.
I cooked two recipes from the New York Times, (Chili Shrimp and Escarole Bean Soup) one from Williams Sonoma(Cherry Pancakes) and something known in New England as American Chop Suey, which had the virtue of being very cheap, very filling and very fast with respect to preparation.
American Chop Suey
Brown a pound of ground beef.
Cook 1/2 pound of macaroni. Don't foget to salt the water.
You will also need about 3 cups of Italian red sauce. I buy whatever is on sale.
Mix all together in a large casserole. Add a little parmesan cheese. Top with sliced fresh tomatoes and a few (if you like) chopped ripe or stuffed olives. Sprinkle with more cheese. Bake for about 30 minutes covered, and 20 minutes with the lid off at around 325 degrees.
Serve with bread sticks and a green salad.
Or garlic bread if you aren't always watching your weight. I hope you use real butter and fresh garlic and a decent bread and toast it under the broiler with just a sprinkle of paprika.
Life is good.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Some Thoughts on the Common Cold
Suck it up while you cough it up, blow your nose, sneeze, ache, and feel generally miserable. Tylenol Code Tablets (plug!) help some. Quite a lot actually.
Thisbe, the younger, fatter, more sensitive cat has adopted me, and was supremely solitious during the two days when I was really sick. It's odd how animals know when you are under the weather. Thisbe wouldn't leave my side and slept by the bed or next to the computer screen (as close as she could get). I wasn't too sick to write, and ground out ten pages which are the beginning of the new book, my having written the middle already. I wrote a couple more pages of my short story. Sorted out all the rejections and filed them neatly. Researched agents to send the newer book to.
A number of agents didn't bother to reply to the query. Which means the 37 cent SASE is wasted, and the effort of writing a professional letter vetted by 8 different writers is wasted. What a way to run a business! One starts to feel about as popular as a telemarketer. Of course sometimes when the reply is a card without even a signature, one often thinks that someone's office assistant with the IQ of an eggplant has been told to "get these goddamn queries out of the office. What do people think we're running, a literary agencey?"
Anyhow. The novel in question is with a publisher who will at least (I hope) read it, and maybe even like it, who knows? It's political and historical and quirky and salacious and totally unlike anything I've ever read. That's probably the problem. Dunno. The only really good guy is a North Vietnamese guest worker. The other characters have various degrees of badness from very bad to not quite so bad. I like to write about the sinners, not the saints.
So, this weekend I'll send out maybe 25 queries in hopes that 18 or so will be answered, and maybe someone will even want to look at the book, but I am not counting on that. There will be massive opportunities to suck it up. Hey! I'm pretty good at that.
Achooo!
Grapeshot
Thisbe, the younger, fatter, more sensitive cat has adopted me, and was supremely solitious during the two days when I was really sick. It's odd how animals know when you are under the weather. Thisbe wouldn't leave my side and slept by the bed or next to the computer screen (as close as she could get). I wasn't too sick to write, and ground out ten pages which are the beginning of the new book, my having written the middle already. I wrote a couple more pages of my short story. Sorted out all the rejections and filed them neatly. Researched agents to send the newer book to.
A number of agents didn't bother to reply to the query. Which means the 37 cent SASE is wasted, and the effort of writing a professional letter vetted by 8 different writers is wasted. What a way to run a business! One starts to feel about as popular as a telemarketer. Of course sometimes when the reply is a card without even a signature, one often thinks that someone's office assistant with the IQ of an eggplant has been told to "get these goddamn queries out of the office. What do people think we're running, a literary agencey?"
Anyhow. The novel in question is with a publisher who will at least (I hope) read it, and maybe even like it, who knows? It's political and historical and quirky and salacious and totally unlike anything I've ever read. That's probably the problem. Dunno. The only really good guy is a North Vietnamese guest worker. The other characters have various degrees of badness from very bad to not quite so bad. I like to write about the sinners, not the saints.
So, this weekend I'll send out maybe 25 queries in hopes that 18 or so will be answered, and maybe someone will even want to look at the book, but I am not counting on that. There will be massive opportunities to suck it up. Hey! I'm pretty good at that.
Achooo!
Grapeshot
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