Largo

(We had to do an exercise for the Granby Library Thursday Morning Writer's Group on music, and the one I wrote brought back such a powerful memory, I decided to post it.)

I disliked my third grade teacher, Mrs. Wolfe.  She didn’t like me, either.  I spent a good deal of time shut in the cloakroom or with my head on my desk during recess or held after school, all of which were standard punishments for an unruly eight-year-old in the school year of 1963-64.

But it wasn’t all bad.

We had Music every day. Mrs. Wolfe had a series of 45’s, each with samples of well-known themes from some important work of classical music.  Every week we heard five selections, and on Friday, there would be a quiz.  The quiz was simple; she played that week’s music selections and we would write down the name of the piece and its composer.  By age eight, I could spell “Mussorgsky” and “Tchaikovsky.”

I loved Music. I loved it even more than Reading, Writing, Vocabulary and Penmanship, which, until third grade, had been my favorite subjects. Mrs. Wolfe would close her eyes when the first notes of a sonata or an aria or a movement from a symphony would lift up to the high ceiling and swirl around against the walls and windows to finally swoop and skim along the boards of the old wood floor. When the listening part was over, she’d have us write out the name of the piece and the composer.  We did this every day.

Tuesday through Thursday, she would carefully raise and lower the needle on the record player, thereby changing the order of the music.  In this manner, we learned themes from the work of Bizet, Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, Liszt, Bach, Haydn, Verdi, Copeland … and so many more.

One winter Monday, Mrs. Wolfe put the needle on the 45.  It crackled for a few seconds and then reality, as I knew it, was suspended; time and chalk dust and Presidents Washington and Lincoln and the Palmer handwriting strip and the blackboard and the American flag and the other children and Mrs. Wolfe … all of it folded in upon itself and in my line of sight the bare trees and the house-crowded horizon beyond the chain link fence beckoned— “Come away … this is not your true home ...” and my heart tightened with yearning and an unearthly feeling of loneliness.

But it was the beauty, the unutterable beauty, of Antonin Dvorak’s Largo from Symphony No. 9 that made me cry.

And when the last strains of the three minute sample faded and the feel of the tears on my cheek and the salt in the corner of my mouth brought me back—embarrassed, Mrs. Wolfe was just opening her eyes.

Eyes that were filled with tears.

Dvorak

 

Gale!

'Twas a dark and stormy night (for real)
And the wind was blowin' a gale (honest!)
And the Captain said to the First Mate (that's me ...)
Wife, are ye spinnin' a tale?
And this is the tale she told ... (to be continued on publication of first novel.)

So, I was actually working on my WIP (Lena Ladimer Chronicles: Bury the Dead) as the gale kicked up.  One minute, it's merely windy and the next- WOMPH!  The winds threw sheets of rain at the poor little cottage, and the ancient wooden structure creaked and moaned in protest. It was incomprehensible to me that electric service prevailed under the circumstances, but the lights merely flickered every now and then and I worked for quite a while. It turned out that this was a small gale with prevailing winds at 60 kilometers an hour.  A lot for our teeny cottage, though.

After a while, I began to feel small and exposed, sitting at my table in front of double windows with nature snarling and smacking to get in, armed with buckets of rain and sea.  Also, I was stuck. And fatigued.

It was a good time to go curl up in a blanket in a pool of light in the back corner of the cottage with Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel.  The protagonist, whose point of view is the lens through which the story is told, is Thomas Cromwell, and he is rendered a sympathetic but complicated character. In the last book, Wolf Hall, St. Thomas More (one of my favorite saints) comes across as a religious prig who likes to torture heretics, but the writing is transportive.  The writing is so good, in fact, that truth leaks out all over the place and Cromwell finds himself perpetually haunted by More, though this is not the premise of the book.  Ms. Mantel has done what most writers of historical fiction have failed to do; she has mustered the universality of human nature and the particulars of that period of history to give life and breath to her characters. Her fiction is far from dry and lacks none of the grittiness that comes across as anachronism and ideological cant (think Ken Follett, Phillipa Gregory, or the writers of HBO's The Tudors) that is the currency of some best-selling authors of the genre.

Alrighty, then.  Off to the Souris Visitor Centre to post this blog entry.  The quicker we get there, the quicker we get back for a blustery walk along the cape in bright sunshine.

Gale coming in (and we thought it was clearing!)

The morning after, seas are still pretty high.

At least the beach furniture was not taken by Davy Jones.  We are going to have to dig it out, though!

Lost in the WIP

For the first time in my writing life, I've been able to get lost in my work in progress. It drives home the fact that time is a gift, a gift that is finite and easily squandered. I know this is an enduring topic for me, but it's something I struggle with as I enter this new phase of my life.  Kids are grown and health of mind and body is a day-by-day proposition, a thing to be grateful for. I walked through the pioneer cemetery at St. Margarets a couple of days ago, and the average age of death back in the 1870's was late forties.  Ten years younger than I am now.

So how did I make the transition from my usual anxieties to getting lost in my work? How did this finally happen for me?

Well, I'm on Prince Edward Island and it's Semptember.  It's really quiet.  I'm at the cottage with my husband and he has his golf clubs and for rainy days, a volume of Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch mysteries. If he were a large cat, he'd be purring with contentment.  I'm only cooking for two, and I'm only doing half the cooking, at that.

In addition:
No internet.
If I want internet, I have to drive eleven miles and park myself in the Souris PEI Visitor's Centre.  When I'm there, I do "internetty" stuff (like posting this blog post which I composed in Notepad back at the cottage.)  I check my Facebook account (yes, I know ... after all my whining about Facebook, I reopened my account. More on that in a later post.) And I google stuff that happened to come up in the course of working on my WIP.

No NetFlix.
This is self-explanatory.

Incredible views from every window.
You'd think this would be distracting, but it's like balm to the mind and soul.  Tortured syntax unravels, clunky phrasing smooths itself out, writer's block tumbles like a house of cards.  God's handiwork is such an incredible and powerful example of cohesiveness, unity and meaning.  Oh, and did I mention beauty? Creation is God's utterance.  His only begotten Son is Word; it hit me like a ton of bricks that writing is the act by which we take dictation, pulling all manner of logos from that which surrounds us, creating stories from the rush and tumble of words.  God utters.  We write.

The Writing Corner

Long walks.
As the adage goes, "move a muscle, change a thought." When the phlegm of inactivity begins to settle, this writer often finds it in her brain.  There is nothing in this world to soothe the lymphatic system, the circulatory system and the central nervous system like a good tramp along the beach or up and down the dirt roads and grass paths that are such a part of this shoreline.

Bob Freeman, golfer and reader of mysteries and historical fiction and walking companion..

View from Route 16

Left off of Route 16 down to the cottage.

And finally, the WIP becomes the focus AND the distraction.
I don't think I've ever been in a position to be distracted by my own work when I can actually drop everything to do something about it. So much of my life is about returning phone calls, meeting obligations, trying to solve problems that require things I do not have, like money or a plane ticket.  When I say "drop everything" here, I'm talking about putting down a dish in mid-rinse or abandoning a pillow in mid-plump.

I may not be able to bring the ocean and the lovely isolation home with me, but I am getting as much done as I can, hoping that with every keystroke, I am internalizing the memory, the feeling of getting lost in the WIP.

I Must Write

Well, Mrs. "I Can't Write Anymore" is off on another vacation to Canada ... to write.  My husband and I leave tomorrow at the crack of dawn in order to get off I-95 seven hours up the road at Bangor in time for huge lobster rolls held together with warm butter rather than mayonnaise. If anyone enters the municipality of Brewer, ME on Route 9, you are just a dang fool if you don't stop at the Eagle's Nest.

So, I'm done whining, carping and avoiding work.  Husband will be hitting the links and I will be by myself at the cottage.  I won't have internet, either. I have my own computer (no WIP on a stick this time) with all the research and character development I've done over the last four years (read: discarded prologues, annoying [for the reader] forays into world building, and info dumping on a grand scale—all this stuff is now called research and character development.)

The reality is this: I am delighted to be going on a trip with my husband of 31 years.  The last time we went away by ourselves for an actual vacation was July of 1981. We are leaving behind grown-ups and a bevy of terrific friends and neighbors who will keep an eye peeled on the homestead.


And even though I gave this post a melodramatic title, I really want to write and the stars are lining up for me to do just that.

It's just grand.

Lunch for September 1, only we will have drawn butter instead of mayo.

I Can't Write Anymore

I wrote my first query letter today for the WriteOnCon online writer's convention. It was a horrible experience and I never want to write another word again.

It wasn't the critique suggestions, they were terrific.  It was my own experience of writing.

I cannot be succinct.  I just can't.

Okay, that last paragraph was pretty succinct.  So I can do it if I really need to.

So, here's the query letter with the first edits suggested by one of the incredibly generous participants of WriteOnCon (and FYI .. in real life one should never query a WIP, but they let you do it on WriteOnCon as long as you put WIP or Work In Progress in the subject line of your thread):

Dear Ninja Agent,

When an international cyber-attack disrupts power and communication, bookish 13-year-old Lena Ladimer decides to chronicle the events in her own small rural neighborhood in Gibeon, Connecticut.  Armed with her great-grandfather’s 1947 Thin Paper Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, paper and pencils, she tries to distance herself from events by writing about them.  She begins to be drawn into the community as they work together to cope with the outages, but everything changes when her father is killed.

Lena decides to set off to New Reading to exact revenge on her dad’s killer.  She enlists the help of her best friend, neighbor Gus Lennon and two others, but does not reveal the real reason for the twenty-mile journey.  Instead, she tells them she wants to make sure her father has been properly buried. They all have their own reasons for wanting to go, and when the others finally find out Lena’s intentions, a startling connection to her father’s killer is revealed.

The real trouble, though, is brewing back in Gibeon as the unsuspecting neighbors welcome a stranger who seems willing and able to help them. Lena and Gus realize that help is the last thing on her mind when they discover that she has instructions to do whatever it takes to destroy their community—and they will do whatever it takes to save it

Lena Ladimer Chronicles: Bury the Dead is a 15,000/50,000 word work in progress.

Thank you, Ninja Agent, for taking the time to read my query and for your involvement in WriteOnCon.com.  Attention from an industry professional is thrilling and appreciated!

Best Regards,

Me

I choose not to put the original on this post.  It's on the YA thread over on WriteOnCom.

Too bad they don't have a genre called "Pseudo Literary Blather."  The Ninja Agents would be all over me like a cheap suit.

Who ever knew you could floss with a laptop?

 

WIP On a Stick

I wrote on vacation.

My goal was to write 10,000 words, but then beautiful weather happened.  And a boat (with a tube to be dragged in!)  Amazing beach conditions (read: no jellyfish!) And lots of people I haven't seen in years.  And the ever-hopeful (but false) notion that I can beat my sister in a Quiddler tournament.  And a hilarious game called Hedbandz.  Reading had to be done: Moon Over Manifest and half of Bring Up the Bodies. Oh, and my sister's dog needed to be walked on the beach while she did most of the cooking.  All that hake and all those mussels, steamers, oysters and scallops needed to be eaten.  Downton Abbey, Season Three needed to be watched (hated the ending and I don't care if it's a spoiler alert for the four people on the planet who haven't seen it yet) and lots of sleeping and napping had to be attended to.

So you see, I was busy.

But I was also profoundly glad my sister brought her laptop and I brought my WIP on a stick. I did manage 3,000 words, and the story is falling into place in a way I would not have imagined.  All the dead ends, discarded prologues and stripped out exposition have only served to enrich the world I'm building in my own mind.  None of the writing I've done over the last four years has gone to waste— just as in life, no experience goes to waste. I've lived with this story for so long now that I feel like I'm writing from my own experiences within the story. I don't know if I can explain it any better than that. It's probably what most writers can attest to ... it just took me a long while to get there.

Also, my sister turned out to be a wonderful critiquer. "Rosemary, you can read what you have to me ONCE.  I'll tell you what I think."  And she did.  She's an avid reader and everything she had to say was right on.

Today is a glorious day in New England.  Intensely blue sky, comfortable temperature and breezes ... much more like a summer day on Prince Edward Island than a summer day here in the Connecticut river valley. Early August is often brutal with lots of humidity and heat. Sometimes even the violent late-afternoon thunderstorms can do little to mitigate the misery.  But not today. It is truly lovely. I am headed over to the Ethel Walker School in Simsbury to see Marcie ride her sister Annie's horse in a Daniel Stewart riding clinic.  I can't imagine a nicer way to spend an afternoon.

Except for maybe whipping out my WIP on a stick, firing up the laptop and writing out on the porch.

What makes a Boston Whaler even more awesome? A tube and tow rope!

Writer's retreat as seen from the boat. Also the home of the North Shore Quiddler Tournament.

Crowded beach day.  There are approximately 10 or 11 people wandering around.

My front yard. Sunsets are time consuming, as well.

Ray Bradbury: "You only fail if you stop writing."

I am not a multi-tasker.  I cannot do one or two or several things at once with any degree of comfort or grace. And that's what I've been doing over the last few weeks. Lots of stuff I had to do and lots of stuff I probably shouldn't have done.

My problem is this: I do not respect the awesome constraints of time, and I never have.  I tend to be tardy (although I have worked on that since tardiness is a sin against the virtue of justice ... it denies the victims of my tardiness something they should have—their time.) I never allot enough time for the things I decide to do. I waste time watching television (go-to rationalization on this one: story research.) And I do not spend enough time taking real care of myself— doing things like sleeping, eating healthy food, and exercising.

I have been a big spender.  A big spender of seconds, minutes, hours and even days.  And because I've come late to the writer's life, I'm having a hard time taking the time to not "stop writing."

Over the last few months, I've realized it's more than just acquiring good, disciplined habits.  At this very moment, I feel pressure to finish this blog post and get going with the "real" stuff I have to do. Shop for birthday presents, pack for a trip, figure out what to make for dinner and bring some stuff to Goodwill.

The way I'm wired to cope with day-to-day life is still very much to "stop writing."

The wiring is changing, little by slowly.  I'm leaving for a vacation on Saturday, and I'm bringing an old lap-top with me that will work just fine as a typewriter.  I have my "WIP on a STICK," Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies, G.K. Chesterton's St. Francis of Assisi, Jesse Kellerman's Potboiler, Jim Butcher's Ghost Story and Claire Vanderpool's Moon Over Manifest (because reading is the very best motivation to write.) There is not much of anything to "overspend" time on where I'm going.  I will be surrounded by beauty, and beauty is something that almost seems to restore time.

My only sadness is that I won't be able to vote in the fabulous WRiTE CLUB contest while I'm gone, nor will I be able to read the blog posts of Faith Hough, Vijaya Bodach, D.L. Hammon, Lynn Guelzow, Gordon Freeman, Marc Barnes, Heather King or the many, many guest writers on Writer Unboxed.

But I will come back with over ten thousand new words of my WIP and I will not fail.

I only fail if I stop writing.

Where I will be writing for the next two weeks.