Unexpected Paths

In Memoriam

2012-02-27T09:22:00.001-05:00

I'm a wannabe journalist, but I was an aviation journalist. The toughest assignment I had was doing interviews and shooting photos in the July heat of Oshkosh, WI. I admired from afar the journalists who went into war zones or areas of conflict, when the war wasn't "official," and worked hard to show the rest of us what was really happening. I knew, intellectually, journalists sometimes got killed in areas of the world where governments don't respect Freedom of the Press. Having someone you admire killed on behalf of truth brings it close to home.

In the 1990's I had two, particular journalist heros--Veronica Guerin, who exposed crime at high levels of Irish society, and Anna Politkovskaya, who wrote first about the Russian debacle in Chechnya then corruption under Vladimir Putin. Both were murdered, Guerin by the mobsters in the Gilligan gang she exposed. No one was ever convicted of her murder, though one Gilligan gang member provided information about the murder in exchange for entering Ireland's Witness Protection Program. The three men arrested--one with a vague Russian State Security link--in connection with Politkovskaya's murder were acquitted.

Washington, DC's Newseum maintains a Journalists Memorial, which contains the name of every reporter killed while pursuing the story anywhere in the world, as well as biographical information on each journalist. The list begins in 1837 with the death of Elijah Parish Lovejoy, who was killed by a pro-slavery mob as he protected the presses for his abolitionist newspaper, The Emancipator Extra.

In the past two weeks, unfortunately, three more journalists will join Lovejoy and 2,083 others on the Journalists Memorial: Anthony Shadid, Marie Colvin, and Remi Ochlik. All three died in Syria, working to show the rest of the world the truth of Bashir Assad's brutal regime.

Shadid, originally from Lebanon, was known and respected for his balanced reporting about the Middle East. He was respected by all religious factions in the area because of his fairness, and the fact he knew what he wrote about. He died from an asthma attack, a death far from ignoble. He knowingly went into an area where he knew medical supplies were limited. Sometimes, the story is important enough.

Colvin, was said to be fearless, and she knew first hand the dangers of telling a story a repressive government didn't want the world to know: David Blundy, who hired her for The Sunday Times, was killed reporting in El Salvador. Colvin's reports from Homs, Syria, were raw and uncompromising. She died, along with Ochlik, at a makeshift press center, which might have been targeted on purpose by Syrian government forces. (Shrapnel cost Colvin her left eye while she reported on conflict in Sri Lanka.)

Ochlik, only 28, wanted to be an archeologist as a child in France, but when his grandfather gave him a camera, he took to it at once. He had a talent for capturing in his photos the emotions of a demonstration, and he was best known for covering the 2004 Presidential elections in Haiti. He returned to Haiti in 2010 to cover the cholera epidemic. Haiti, he said, was his war--"It was where I always dreamt to be, in the action."

When you read or see journalists, pause for a moment and acknowledge that many of them go to places and into situations the rest of us would never have the guts to go. They show us truth.

Friday Flash Fiction - Again?

2012-02-24T06:57:00.000-05:00

Much like when I was a faceless bureaucrat, some weeks are busier than others. This was a busy week. I got two book review assignments, wrote the book reviews, re-wrote a rejected story with a rewrite request, blogged, babysat the grandkids, and attended two political meetings, an author reading, and book club. Add in yoga, t'ai chi, and walking in the park. Whew! That was exhausting. And the week's not over yet. Who says retirement means leisure time?

So, this is how Friday begins--Friday Flash Fiction! Amazing how time flies when you're having fun.

Here is today's inspiration photo from Madison Woods:

And here's a little, dark offering I call--

The Bones' Story

Bones tell a story—if you can read it. A casual stroller sees a scattering of sticks and leaves. A tracker, however, sees beyond the commonplace; so, I knelt by the rock to read the bones’ story.

The first sentence: The bones are small. The implication clenches my stomach, but I read on.

The second sentence: The bones are arranged to taunt. I accept that challenge.

The third sentence: The bones have been here a little while. I’m on the right track. He is not far ahead.

The fourth sentence: The bones are not human. This time.

The End

----------

Okay, that gave me the creeps! For more Friday Flash Fiction, go to Madison Woods' blog and have a read.

Politics Wednesday - No Religious Test

2012-02-22T09:14:00.000-05:00

The right wing nut jobs always fall back on the Constitution to bolster their specious arguments. Some, in fact, consider it handed down from God, though the word "god" appears nowhere in it. You'd think God would have cleared up any future debate about the alleged sanctity of the Constitution by dropping his name a time or two.

Unless you're a constitutional lawyer (like President Obama) or a nerdy political scientist (like Rachel Maddow), you've probably never delved past the Constitution's Preamble ("We the People...") or the Bill of Rights. There is an obscure clause--obscure only the the RWNJ's chose to ignore it--about something called "a religious test." The Founding Fathers, believe it or not, were fed up with Anglicans' having a chokehold on political jobs. Anglicanism was the State religion of England, after all. Virginia's statute on religious freedom, written by Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, was to support Baptist congregations the state's Anglican-laden government had thrown into jail for not being Anglican.

The Founders embraced that Jeffersonian principle of freedom of religion in the First Amendment, but they also wanted to make certain that no single religion would dominate the government they were creating. Tucked away in Article VI, paragraph 3, is this gem:

"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members
of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers,
both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath
or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be
required [emphasis added] as a qualification to any office or public trust
under the United States."

I've blogged about this before, when a poll showed one in five Republicans believed President Obama was a Muslim. Somehow, in their minds, that deemed him ineligible to be President because he wasn't Christian. Certain evangelicals make the same argument today about Willard Romney's Mormonism, but Article VI applies in his case as well. We had the argument fifty years ago when John F. Kennedy, a Catholic, ran for President. The argument then was his top allegiance was to the Pope, not to the Constitution.

The fact that the Founders put the religious test prohibition in the main body of the Constitution testifies to the importance in which they held. They truly envisioned an egalitarian society (for landed, white men, of course; unfortunately, they were men of their time) and wanted to make certain there was no Anglican takeover of the newly minted U.S. Government.

Because the economy is clawing its way from the abyss the Republicans put it in, and on President Obama's watch, the RWNJ's have to disinter the rotting corpse of The Question of the President's Religion. Franklin Graham, an apple that fell miles from the tree, did a rant this week about being born Muslim. If your father is Muslim (the President's father was), when you're born, you're a Muslim. Franklin, who, as a missionary evangelical, preaches the only way you can be saved is by converting to Christianity, apparently feels that's not the case when the son of a Muslim accepts Christ as his personal savior, gets married in a Christian ceremony, and talks about his Christian faith far more often than I like. Franklin must think "Muslim blood" is really powerful, if his God's omnipotence can't overcome it.

And I say, if that's true, if a parent's religion makes you that religion at birth, so what? Much like Romney's Mormonism, a person's religion--or lack thereof--cannot disqualify them from office.

Oh my Holy Lord, you say, that means a Devil Worshiper could become President!

Technically, yes, but Devil Worshipers don't have much interest in politics, I would think. Selling their souls and pleasing their Dark Lord are probably more important to them.

Oh my Holy Lord, you again say, that means a, gasp, atheist could become President!

Indeed. You've already had a couple of those. They're called Deists, the "religion" of many of the Founding Fathers, several of whom became President. Trust me, if you'd called Jefferson a Christian, he would have brought out his copy of "Jefferson's Bible" and showed you where he'd removed all reference to myth. It was a very slim volume.

We have to stop judging people by their religion or their lack of religion. I've known some theists who were the vilest human beings you'd ever not want to meet, and I've known atheists who were the kindest, most "christian" people I've ever known. And vice versa, of course. We need to assess our Presidents and Presidential candidates on their merits, their position on issues, and not how or whom they worship.

Franklin Graham needs to come to grips with the fact he'll never be his father, who is a humble and forgiving man who acknowledged the times he was wrong, like about segregation. Re-bury that question of the President's religion and focus on jobs, the economy, the environment, equal rights--you know, things "We the People" are concerned about.

---------------

For a good understanding of just what four, key Founding Fathers believed or didn't, read Founding Faith: How Our Founding Fathers Forged a Radical New Approach to Religious Liberty by Steven Waldman. It will change your mind, if it's open, about several Founders and clear the RWNJ mythology away from history.

Having a Life vs. Writing

2012-02-20T12:47:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, here in the Shenandoah Valley, we had one of those picturesque snowfalls. The view of the snow-covered mountains is incredible. I pause every time I walk past the door to the porch just to take it in. Snow also means work--cleaning the driveway, for example. I almost didn't do that. I have a 4WD vehicle, after all. I could just back through the snow and go. One glance at the cleared, pristine driveways of my neighbors changed that. So, at the time I'd normally be sitting down to blog, I was outside shoveling.

That kind of repetitive work frees up my brain to think, so while I shoveled, I pondered a story that got rejected with a vague request for a rewrite and thought over comments from the most recent meeting of my critique group. Before I realized it, half the driveway was clear, and most of the sidewalk. (My house is on a corner lot, so I have twice the sidewalk of everyone else.) The bonus was I also had a clear idea about the rewrite and the critique group comments.

Time to sit down and write.

Well, the rest of the week, however, is full of outside obligations--two meetings about a web site I may become responsible for (not writing related), babysitting, a special reading sponsored by my writing group, SWAG, and my book club, the book for which I haven't finished. I'm looking at the schedule, and I'm not seeing the time to write, edit, or revise, unless, of course, I want to burn the midnight oil, and that's looking more likely. Good thing I don't have a real job anymore.

All this is to say, no matter how much you plan to set aside the time to write--and I established a pretty strict schedule for the new year--real life is always there, commitments you've made and must honor. Well, the grandkids aren't a commitment; they're just plain fun and always adjust my perspective on life. Time spent with them is well-spent and something I look forward to with excitement.

It's important to my writing, though, to have a life. On the Myers-Briggs scale, I'm a very high E, meaning I get energized by external stimuli. If I spend too much time at the computer in the world I've created, I become too insular and nothing works--writing, editing, or revising. It's a balance, almost as precarious as what I had to do when I worked full-time and struggled to be the best at my job at the same time as I struggled to be a good friend and spouse. You're always feeling guilty about one or the other.

Establishing that writing work schedule helped me strike the balance between real life and writing life, but it's done nothing for feeling guilty when I'm writing or when I'm having a life.

How about you? How do you strike the balance between real life obligations and your writing life?

Friday! Flash! Fiction!

2012-02-17T07:00:00.000-05:00

Amazing how Friday Flash Fiction comes around again so quickly. Equally amazing are the inspiration photos Madison Woods comes up with each week. Each one is so evocative, and usually the first emotion I experience upon seeing the photo colors what I'll write. If she ever decides to stop this, I may just have to hunt her down, fall on my knees, and beg her to continue.

Here's today's inspiration photo, which Madison entitled "My Sitting Spot."

And here's my story--probably not the cheeriest one a few days after Valentine's Day, but when the muse says, "This is what you must say," who am I to argue?

Ménage à Trois

The two had sat on the stone so often, it had molded to their shapes. Formed into a seat by millennia of flowing water, the stone waited for the warmth of the two, and it basked in that warmth and mutual laughter.

Then, just the one came. The stone, with an eternity of patience, waited for the doubling of warmth but adjusted when the other never returned. The gurgling of the brook didn’t mask the sound of the one’s weeping.

Finally, no one came. Faced with a forever alone, the stone shattered, and the tumbling water swept it away.

----------

To read more 100-word flash fiction, go to Madison Woods' blog. You'll be amazed how creative people can be in so few words.

Politics Wednesday - Reactionaries

2012-02-15T07:00:00.000-05:00

Reactionary - adjective; of, pertaining to, marked by, or favoring reaction, especially extreme conservatism or rightism in politics; opposing political or social change.
Reactionary - noun; a reactionary person.

That's the modern definition of a reactionary. One of my political science profs was more succinct: progressive = forward thinking; reactionary = backwards thinking.

That "backwards thinking" seems to be part and parcel of being a Republican lately. The Repugs seem to have a disturbing nostalgia for the way things used to be--women not working outside the home, women not being able to use birth control, women not being paid the same as men, women not needing legislation to assure police take their claims of domestic violence seriously, etc.

I hope you've picked up the common theme here. In case you haven't, it's women. Republican men--and some Republican women--in state legislatures across the country have proposed or enacted some of the most backwards laws regarding women's health and a woman's right to decide what she does with her body.

In response to a story about the high number of rapes and sexual assaults of women in the military, Liz Trotta, an "analyst" on Fox News, said that women who go into the military should just expect to be raped. I don't know which is worse--the "lie back and take it" attitude or the assumption that men are just born rapists. My mother said the same thing when I went to work at the FAA, a then male-dominated workplace, but my mother was certifiable.

Rick Santorum, in addition to opposing any form of birth control (So, why is your wife not pregnant again, Rick?), recently said that women working outside the home is harmful to families. He also said that having women in front line positions in the military would mean male soldiers would be distracted by their desire to protect them. If a woman is raped and becomes pregnant, he says, she should just accept God's gift of life. The more outrageous things he says about women and their place in society, the higher he surges in Republican polls.

In my home state of Virginia, the state legislature just passed a law requiring a woman who wants an abortion in the first trimester to get an ultrasound, even if her doctor says she doesn't need it. The theory seems to be if the woman sees a fully formed baby she'll change her mind. The reality is the fetus isn't fully formed in the first trimester--it's so small the ultrasound has to be done trans-vaginally. That means the ultrasound device is inserted in a woman's vagina to obtain the scan of a fetus that is 2.5 inches long and weighs less than an ounce. In case you didn't get it, I'll repeat: Inserted. In. A. Woman's. Vagina. What is it we call penetration of a woman's vagina against her will?

This longing for a world where women were less than equal partners, where constant childbirth brought early death, where domestic violence was considered a "family matter," puzzles me. Why would anyone want to go back to a social, political, and economic era that was thinly disguised patriarchy? Do we have to fight that battle all over again?

If it's because the male ego can't handle women as equals, get over it. This is life now--women get to choose whether to work or stay at home; whether to have a child or use birth control; whether to serve their country or not; whether to have a rapist's baby or not. Get over yourselves and your obsession about controlling women's bodies.

We won't go back to that. We won't be like Callista Gingrich who knows the only reason she's at Newt's side is to stand there and look pretty as she smiles at him and nods. That's her choice; it won't be the choice of women capable of standing on their own two feet.

Sorry, Repug guys, we're not taking off our shoes, bunking in the kitchen, cleaning the house in pearls, or staying pregnant our entire married lives. We will move forward. You can be the reactionaries.

Second Childhood

2012-02-13T07:00:00.000-05:00

When I was a sophomore in high school I joined the school newspaper. My English teacher, who was the faculty advisor, thought it would be a good fit for me. The newspaper was a popular extracurricular activity, and I waited a good part of the school year for my first feature assignment. Writing captions for the sports photos wasn't exactly thrilling, though it taught me about being succinct. (Coincidentally, when I first joined FAA Aviation News magazine as a reporter, my first assignment was writing captions for the photos and illustrations for each article.)

Then, six weeks or so before school ended, we had a new student transfer in. Her father was a State Department employee, and she and her family had been living in Greece in April 1967 when a Greek military junta staged a coup. Apparently, she and her family had had a bit of an adventure escaping. So, the editor said, "You've been bugging me to give you a story. Go interview her."

Yes, the stuff movies are made of--lowly caption writer makes good with her first feature article. Well, it kinda happened that way.

Truth was, I had no clue what I was doing. I was the only person on the paper who hadn't taken the Journalism elective because you had to be a junior or senior to take it. I did, however, read two newspapers at home every day--The Washington Post and the now defunct Evening Star. The high school library had issues of the New York Times and the Boston Globe, usually only a few days old, and I'd spend my free time reading them. I just decided to imitate how reporters wrote stories in those papers.

I sat down with my classmate, as nervous as I was, I think, and somehow we managed to do an interview. I spent hours and hours writing and rewriting, tweaking and revising--and remember this was in the day of the manual typewriter. My family got tired of hearing the clack, clack, click of the keys.

Yet, I didn't think I'd done enough to be worthy of a front-page story. I figured the editor--a senior who tried to emulate editors he'd seen in movies, except he couldn't smoke or drink in school--would cut it to a few inches and hide it on an inside page somewhere. With a feigned nonchalance, I'd decided I wasn't even going to look at the paper when it came out, but that didn't last very long.

There it was, on the front page, above the fold--newspaper folks will get that--with my byline and everything. To illustrate it, the editor had taken the student's picture and somehow gotten a wire photo of a menacing Greek Army tank. Well, I thought, I'll get some shred of respect in this place at last. I should have remembered this was high school. The subject of my interview had people clustering around her and her locker between classes, and I was still the girl who belonged to the science club and had her nose in a book.

I continued to write features for the high school and, later, college newspapers. I tried to get summer jobs at our local newspaper, The Fauquier Democrat, to no avail--I wasn't majoring in journalism. Though the Democrat editor deemed my clippings "good," he didn't even have time or money for a caption writer. So much for that dream.

After an abortive attempt at teaching and a stint as a copy editor for the safety publications of a consortium of aviation insurance companies, I became a reporter on a government aviation safety magazine. I worked on and off for the magazine for almost half my time as a government employee. Once I "passed" the caption writing test, I interviewed some of the most interesting people in aviation at the time, as well as individuals of general historical interest, like Chuck Yeager and Jackie Cochran. I went on to become the magazine's editor, only doing the occasional feature and a regular opinion piece.

The dream of working on a local newspaper I had long since put behind me. I retired as soon as I was able to concentrate on writing fiction. For two years that's been my focus--classes to hone my craft, attending writer conferences, submitting stories to magazines while I worked on my novel. Then, out of the blue came an opportunity to write occasional features for the Staunton News Leader, my new hometown's paper.

When my first article came out yesterday in the Living@Home section of the paper, I was as nervous as I had been decades before, and there it was. First page of the section. Above the fold. With a byline. I was a kid again, remembering the first time I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.

TGIFriday Flash Fiction!

2012-02-10T07:00:00.000-05:00

When I was a working slob, as opposed to a retired, writing slob, my colleagues and I awaited each Friday with the anticipation of a lifer being being pardoned and put back into society. Friday meant two days of not working. Well, there was always house cleaning and laundry doing, but we were slaves to the desk no more. For two whole days!

Friday now holds a different anticipation for me. On Wednesday, Madison Woods posts the inspiration photo for the Friday Fictioneers' 100-word flash fiction challenge. That means we have a whole day to ponder the photo and come up with something brilliant to say in 100 words. Friday means publishing the snippet, then checking back throughout the day to not only read others' stories but to bask in the glowing comments other Friday Fictioneers have left about yours.

Friday is still a day to look forward to, but for entirely different and much more fun reasons.

Here's today's inspiration photo:

And here's a little story I call "Luchrupán."

“All right, me boy-o Declan, what’re we going to do now?”

“Seamus, sure, and I don’t know.”

“Well, you did this, so you’d best be figuring something out.”

“Why is this my fault?”

“You’re the one who lived up to the stereotype and sat on the mushroom. Poor thing. Look at it, there, all broken.”

“‘Twasn’t I, Seamus. Some other wee folk it was.”

“Declan, you need to face facts. Your shroom-sitting days are done, lad.”

“What is it you’re trying to say, Seamus?”

“Well, Declan, you see, I’ve been meaning to tell ya, you’re not exactly wee folk anymore.”

------------

For more 100-word flash fiction, go to Madison Woods' blog and spend a fun few minutes reading short, short, short stories.

Politics Wednesday

2012-02-08T07:50:00.000-05:00

I find it amusing that when it comes to prayer in school, right-wingers have no problem in taking down the wall between church and state. Almost to a man the current candidates for the Republican nomination have decried the fact that children can't pray in school. Trust me, kids pray in school, especially on exam day; rather, an authority figure isn't leading them in a specific prayer from a specific religion.

Yet, when it comes to an Affordable Care Act requirement that employers pay for birth control, suddenly the same right-wing talking heads flaunt the First Amendment and Separation of Church and State when it comes to Catholic employers. They want the separation there, but not when it comes to school prayer or teaching creationism in science class.

Trust me, this sudden righteous indignation about the Catholic Church's having to go against it's principles, is pandering. It isn't sincere. That, and the Repugs needed an issue when the current economic news was so positive for President Obama. They have to make it look like the President is forcing the Catholic Church to his will.

Really?

Here's the deal, the Church is whining loudly about this because it turns the light of truth away from the big problem with the Catholic Church hierarchy--that it either turned its collective head away or, by inaction, condoned the systematic buggering of children by priests who, lured by the false promise that god will take all afflictions away, had free rein to traumatize children then stand on the altar and decry homosexuality, pre-marital sex, and birth control in hypocritical homilies.

I'm a former Catholic--not lapsed, not non-practicing, not fallen. I left the Church because I realized it never really welcomed me. I was a woman who advocated a woman's right to control her own body. No matter what I had accomplished in my career or personal life, no priest could acknowledge that I lived and worked by my own rules, not his, not god's, and that no job I had was more important than being a wife and a mother. And what would he, alleged unmarried celibate, know about it?

The Catholic Church needs to drop preaching against birth control. Given the small size of Catholic families today, Catholics are using birth control, and it's not the rhythm method, which had conditional approval from the Church. More than half the Catholics polled about the Affordable Care Act's provision for employers' providing coverage for birth control concurred with it. The sanctimonious talking heads, however, see an opportunity to attack the President couched in the cloak of religion.

The Catholic Church took too long to "sorta" allow the use of condoms to prevent AIDS, confining their use to sex workers but not their clients when they go home to have sex with a spouse. It's nuts, and if the Church wants to be a viable force in the world, it needs to accept current reality, not a medieval one.

And there are other religions--notably many evangelical or fundamentalist protestant ones--who don't believe in birth control. Why aren't the Repugs displaying indignation on their behalf? Well, Catholics are a large group in the U.S., and some Repug strategist somewhere has cynically pointed out that maybe, if they can turn that Catholic bloc against the President, they might get the flip-flopper elected.

If anything, Catholics are realists, which is why they use birth control and why they ignore the Church's dictum that sex is only for the purpose of reproduction--otherwise why haven't Newt and Callista had a bunch of kids? By her own testimony in Newt's divorce proceedings, they began an affair in 1993, when Callista was 27, and she had no children. They married when she was 34, and they've had no children. The Gingrich's have obviously used birth control--or they're following Church dicta and not having sex. Yeah, right. I'll concede that perhaps either she or Newt has a physical problem that prevents conception, but, again, sex without the intent of reproduction is a "sin."

Are you beginning to see why I left the Catholic Church?

So, whenever Newt--or any other Catholic--decries President Obama for interfering with the Church's teachings, can he or they do so without being a hypocrite?

I doubt it.

Reading and Writing

2012-02-06T08:33:00.000-05:00

No, this isn't a rant about the importance of the three R's--reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic--but a chat about the connection between writing and reading. They go hand in hand, and some of the most helpful advice any writer can hear is, "If you want to write, read." I'll add, "Read. A lot."

Of course, you say, my shelves are lined with writing self-help books, and I've read them all.

I'm not knocking any of these books. In fact, one of my bookshelves groans with the weight of them. What I mean is, if you write fiction, read fiction. Let's go a little deeper. If you want to write romance, read romance; if you want to write science fiction, read science fiction, etc.

In an on-line forum I belong to, someone recently posted, "I've decided I want to write science fiction!!! How do I go about that?" I responded that the aspiring writer should read Asimov, Pohl, Dick, Bester, LeGuin, Butler, Atwood, and so on. "No, no. I don't want to read science fiction! I want to write it."

I washed my hands of it.

You get your best writing instruction on technique, mechanics, and what people want to read by reading what you want to write. And I have to caveat that--read good, established writers of the fiction you want to write. I'll suggest, for now, in the fledgling state of your writing in a genre, read traditionally published writers. There are exceptions to this, of course, but if all you read is unedited indie fiction, it will only reinforce negative writing habits. I've posted about this before, so I won't repeat my indie-writers-must-proofread-and-get-an-editor riff.

Reading what you want to write can be instructive in another way. You can learn the valuable lesson that a particular genre is not for you. For example, I love mysteries of all kinds--from Agatha Christie to Janet Evanovich--but I'm not sure I could write one that wouldn't be a re-hash of something a better mystery writer than I has already done. The same with sci-fi. That was what I wanted to write when I first set pen to notebook to write stories about Mr. Spock and Captain Kirk when I was a freshman in high school.

The sad truth was, and is, sci-fi is not my forte. Granted, my short story published in eFiction Magazine last year had a sci-fi background. "Without Form or Substance" is about a young professor who finds her dream job, only to discover it involves time travel. I found, because this was a character piece, I didn't need to go into the scientific details of time travel, which I doubt I could pull off. I learned that from reading Octavia Butler and Ursula LeGuin, among others.

Of all the reading I've done in my life, it was the characters who stood out most for me or, rather, the way the particular writer developed and wrote a character. Most of what I read is character-driven, and as a result, my strength is in the characters I've developed. I wouldn't have learned how to make them "real" people if I hadn't read great, character-driven works by authors across many genres.

Balancing reading and writing can be a chore, though. If I want to devote the time I need to writing, I can't read all day long, which I can do at the drop of a hat. I've shifted the brunt of my reading to the weekends, though I still read a little in the evenings or when I need a break from staring at the blank computer screen. When I'm reading something I enjoy, which engrosses me, it's the hardest thing to set it aside. I'm currently reading And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life by Charles J. Shields. Not only is this a book about a writer, it's a page-turner, and I regret every time I have to close the book and move on to something else I'm supposed to do.

Shields' biography of Vonnegut is instructive on many levels. Not only do you see the mechanics of how to construct and research a biography, but you also get a glimpse into the life of a writer and how he wrote, what inspired him, and his struggle both to be published and to be accepted by other writers. I'll give no more details than that because I want to review this book later.

I've found, for me, that when I hit a brick wall with something I'm writing, the best thing I can do is put it away. Then, I pick up a book and read.

What about you? What writers and what books have taught you how to write?

If It's Friday, It Must Be Flash Fiction Time!

2012-02-03T07:00:00.000-05:00

Believe it or not, these 100-word stories are challenging. You try telling a story in 100 words or less. Today's inspiration photo evoked about three different attempts--the apocalyptic one, the funny one, and the straight-up literary one. Which one to choose? Why, the right one, of course. ;-)

Here's the inspiration photo from Madison Woods:

And here's a 100-word story:

Extinction Level Event

The smoke from the fire made the sky seem to boil. I wondered if some mammalian precursor had watched the sky burn after that Everest-sized asteroid hit the Yucatan and killed all the dinosaurs. Would its tiny, pre-mammal brain have processed the implications, that wiping the dinosaurs from the earth would give rise to something else, to us?

I’d contemplated this long enough. I could see the first tongues of flame cresting the mountain. Behind me was the house my grandfather built with his own hands. Stay and fight, or go and save myself?

I took the coward’s way.

----------

For more stories from other Friday Fictioneers, go to Madison Woods' blog.

Politics Wednesday 5

2012-02-01T08:10:00.000-05:00

In 1984 my mother got the news no woman wants to learn. She had breast cancer, the first woman in generations of my family to have the disease. Being the person I am, I set out to research the subject as much as I could since her diagnosis had a distinct effect on my future.

What I discovered was that medical research funds from the public sector for breast cancer research were minimal at best--lung cancer and heart disease got the brunt of those meagre dollars. Soon, however, there was an organization, which raised money privately for breast cancer research--the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Its "Race for the Cure" events across the country raised millions.

When Linda Daschle became the FAA's first female assistant administrator, she created a team of FAA women to run/walk in the annual Washington, DC, Race for the Cure. I was an eager participant. Well aware of my ambivalent relationship with my mother--who died six weeks after being diagnosed--I donned my race number and a placard with her name on it--I was racing in her memory. It was something I could do for her and not face her criticism.

Over the years, then, I donated, generously, to the Susan G. Komen Foundation and participated in several, additional Races for the Cure.

No more. Susan G. Komen Foundation announced this week its grants to Planned Parenthood to enable that organization to screen poor women for breast cancer for free were cut off. Their excuse? Right-wing nut-job pressure because Planned Parenthood does abortions. Of course, they didn't say that--the announcement was couched in PR-speak.

Susan G. Komen Foundation has a policy not to partner with organizations "under investigation." That's a recent change, by the way. Republican Congressman Jeff Stearns from Florida has initiated a Congressional investigation to determine if Planned Parenthood used public funds for abortions, which is prohibited by law. Planned Parenthood's accounting shows that's not the case, but the investigation proceeds--slowly.

But the truth is obvious--right-wing nut-jobs are so concerned about controlling women's bodies and so dispassionate they will force an organization that did so much good to take an action that puts women in jeopardy. RWNJ's don't care about women; they especially don't care about poor women. If you didn't know that before, know it now.

Planned Parenthood's focus has always been pregnancy prevention, family planning, and health screening for women who can't afford to go to a doctor. Performing abortions has always been a small, a very small, portion of their services. No matter to the RWNJ's--one abortion is one too many for them, so they work to shut down an organization poor women depend on for health services beyond birth control and family planning.

I've written to Susan G. Komen Foundation directly and explained exactly why they'll no longer be getting any money or any support from me. I've signed an on-line petition denouncing the Foundation's ill-considered decision. They've put money from rightwing organizations before the health of women. That's unconscionable.

Credo Action has the on-line petition I signed. I'm sure there'll be others. Make sure the Susan G. Komen Foundation gets the message they made a bad choice. Contact Rep. Jeff Stearns and explain the concept of "unintended consequences" to him.

Settings

2012-01-30T09:06:00.000-05:00

One of the things you learn in any fiction writing class is the importance of setting--a reader needs to be able to "see" where you've located your story. Sometimes writers can focus on the plot and the characters to the exclusion of setting. Sometimes setting can be just as important as memorable characters or a finely detailed plot.

When your work is a novel, unless it stays in one place for the length of it--like Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians or Murder on the Orient Express--you have to do some research if you've never been there. That's a key component of the writing, because a reader might have been there and can spot the errors.

When John Updike got the idea for The Witches of Eastwick he had the perfect small town in mind--Wickford, RI. However, when he went to the town to research and people got wind of the plot--three witches in the 1970's who take petty, and not so petty, revenge on neighbors--they threatened law suits if he used the name of the town. Updike let them think they won. The book's title is The Witches of Eastwick, but if you read the description of Eastwick in the first few pages you recognize Wickford right away. And it was the perfect setting for this quirky novel about the devil coming to earth. (What would have been the difference had the Wickfordians not been such typical New England prigs? Maybe it would have been a tourist destination--it's a quintessential New England town--instead of a town you drive through to get to the Newport beaches.)

I grew up in a rural area near a small town, so those are settings I'm comfortable with. I can tell from a story if someone has only seen a picture of a farm or gone to one. I spent a lot of my life in a large urban area and worked in the Nation's Capital for the most part. I've spent a great deal of time in New York City, so I get the urban setting and am also comfortable setting a story in busy cities. I also like the juxtaposition of city and country--it's something that's never quite been overcome by urbanization.

I've done some world travel--a modest amount--to England, Scotland, and other places in Europe. I can insert any place I've visited in a story with ease. Some of my work is based in Eastern Europe, and that's an issue. I've never been there, and, frankly, unless you're a high-paid, commercial novelist, extensive travel to research your settings can be beyond the budget.

Atlases can give you maps and facts and figures--all good, of course--but Google Earth can put you there. Its "Street Views" options can put you in the city or town or countryside you want to write about. It's still not as good as being there, but it can give you a starting point. The next point is finding someone familiar with the area to give you the personal touch or cultural memes for a setting. I had a friend who had traveled extensively with USAID, and he was always able to give me a good read-over for settings.

Some writers overcome the setting issues by creating completely fictional ones. Whether in fantasy, other genre, or literary fiction, that can eliminate any setting errors or hard feelings from the locals. For his collection of linked short stories, In an Uncharted Country, Clifford Garstang created Rugglesville, VA. For her first book of linked short stories, Thrown Out, and an upcoming series of novels, Jennie Coughlin created Exeter, MA. Both constructs are real; you can "see" yourself in either place. They feel real. Even in fantasy or science fiction, if you create your own world, people still have to be able to "walk" through it. It's not enough to say "we're on a spaceship" or "we're in a fairy land." The writer has to give the setting depth.

Which do you prefer--setting your work in known locales, or do you create your own world?

Friday Flash Fiction--and Some Good News

2012-01-27T06:51:00.000-05:00

Writing can be the strangest occupation ever, especially when you're dealing with a prompt--a word or a picture--someone else provides. Since I've been participating in Madison Woods' Friday Fictioneers' 100-word flash fiction, I've been amazed how one picture can evoke so many different responses. One person always goes for the romantic, another fantasy, and I'm the quirky one. That's a nice word for it.

Many times I get the Friday Flash Fiction inspiration picture on Wednesday and think, how will I ever come up with something for this? Then, it just comes to me. I've always been more of a seat-of-the-pants writer--whatever pops into my head goes down on paper (or on the screen). I'm not a methodical outliner or plotter. I get an idea and ride it to whatever conclusion comes to mind. That's the way I write. I don't recommend it for the faint-hearted because sometimes even I don't know where the story's going. Like today.

Here's the inspiration photo:

And here's my 100-word story:

The Mess

The inspector thought, How could this happen? There are procedures in place. I’ve talked myself blue in the face about the importance of following procedures. One little slip and look what you have. A mess. This isn’t going on my record. I’ll make sure of that.

The security guard thought, Man, why now? A completely dull day, then fifteen minutes away from shift end, this happens. Everybody else will be at the bar, watching the game and the babes, and where am I? Cleaning up this mess.

The boy thought, I really didn’t mean to do that. Please let me go.

-----------

To read other Friday Fictioneers' stories, take a look at Madison Woods' blog.

----------

And some really great news. My short story, "Trophies," about a marriage saved by a near suicide and an unexpected death, will appear in the February Romance Issue of eFiction Magazine. I got the acceptance yesterday, and I've been giddy ever since. A great start to the new year!

This story was the first one I wrote using a creativity prompt called Rory's Story Cubes. Check them out.

Politics Wednesday 4

2012-01-25T07:00:00.000-05:00

This is probably going to come off as a movie review, but I'll try to bring it around to politics.

I go to movies to escape reality, not to ponder the vagaries of life. The occasional thought-provoking indie movie is great, but most of the time I'm interested in action--car chases, shoot-outs, and a good looking actor who takes his shirt, or more, off. Hey, I may be old, but I'm not dead.

Anyone who's gone to a movie with me knows if there's anything aviation-related in the movie and it's not correct, I'll bitch and moan throughout the showing. It's like listening to physicists' complaining about how Star Trek gets it wrong.

And if the movie is about an era in history I'm familiar with, that's just another possible nit for me to pick.

So, the George Lucas film "Red Tails" is about the human condition, about aviators, and about World War II. A potential strike-out, right?

I left this movie feeling so up-lifted after all the snide, coded racial baiting done by Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum for the past few weeks. Here was a positive story about the Tuskegee Airmen--African American men who flew bomber cover in an all-African American aviation unit and how they did it so well, despite the prejudice of the Army and their opponents. Yes, the movie is hokey in places, and I didn't see the need for the love story, except to add a little pathos at the end.

A lot of the flying sequences are computer-generated because there are just not that many WWII vintage airplanes available to portray a large bomber group and its fighter escort accurately. But the CG is seamless in its integration with real flying scenes. All the maneuvers are doable, i.e., airplanes aren't made to do things they can't do without pulling the wings off. This is not to say a little dramatic license hasn't been taken, because it has, but the important thing is the story of these men. That is correct.

I had the honor and the privilege of working with several of the Tuskegee Airmen, as they ended their careers in the Federal Aviation Administration and I began mine. It was a rare event for them to call attention to themselves. As one of them told me when I interviewed him for a story for the magazine I worked on, "We just did our job." Another told me, "Being in America at that time meant we weren't the freest of the free, but it would have been a lot worse under the Nazis, so there was no question but that we would fight for our country."

They always had a good snippet of career advice for me since they had navigated being black men in an agency of mostly white men. I was a woman in a then mostly male agency. Work hard, do your best, and no one can deny your skill. That echoed exactly what my own father had told me, and I owe my career to him and them.

I remember in particular Mr. Weathers, who would stop in the hallway or in the cafeteria to ask me how it was going or if I needed anything from him for an article I was writing. I wonder how he would react to hearing Gingrich's comments about food stamps and welfare. Mr. Weathers was actually Lt. Col. Luke Weathers, Jr., and he probably would have fixed an officer's no-nonsense glare on the 4F reject from Georgia, and that's all he'd need to do.

But that won't happen. Mr. Weathers, like so many WWII veterans black or white, was buried last week in Arlington National Cemetery, with the dwindling number of Tuskegee Airmen in attendance. Mr. Weathers was the epitome of someone who was judged by the content of his character and not the color of his skin. Someone like Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum will never understand that. Never.

"Red Tails" was a movie the Tuskegee Airmen had long waited to see made. Yes, if you go see it, you'll get George Lucas' Hollywood-ized version of history. In this case, that's not a bad thing.

Why Bother?

2012-01-23T10:43:00.000-05:00

The picture has nothing to do with today's topic. Rather, this is the fourth day in a row of drizzle, freezing or otherwise, and overcast skies here in the Valley, so I needed a reminder that the sun is out there. Somewhere.

I ran into a member of my writers group at lunch over the weekend. He was deep into reading a book on ancient history as research for what he writes. He was so engrossed in the book, I stopped by his table to ask if the book were good.

"Oh, yeah," he said. "It's so good, I wonder why I bother to write."

I've had those moments, and you have, too. You know it. You come across a line or a passage in a book, or you close a book upon completion, and your shake your head and murmur, "Why do I bother?" Somehow, those rare occasions weigh on your writing psyche more than all the common occurrences of reading something trite or mundane and knowing you can do better. Well, we know good writing when we see it, and, as writers, we have to stop and appreciate the good, even while acknowledging the bad.

When I'm in the process of editing or revising, I'll come across something I've written that's so good, I actually wonder if I wrote it. Of course I did, but it resonates with me the same way as a passage from Faulkner or King or Vonnegut or Atwood or some other famous author I admire.

Now, I'm not saying my words are gold because, believe me, I've come across some real stinkers in my own work--including a story that won the competition to be included in the college literary magazine. When I do, I cringe, but I immediately start to see how I can make it better.

Like any other organism or system in our bodies, our writing grows and evolves. In five more years I'll be a much improved writer than I am now--and I'm far improved over the writer I was ten or even five years ago. The only way to improve is to write--and write some more. And listen to the feedback without being defensive. That's hard, I know, but it's all part of that growth.

Even then, I'm sure I'll come across a passage in something by King or Vonnegut or Faulkner or Atwood, and I'll think to myself, "Why do I bother?" But it won't stop me.

Who's the author who makes you want to close the laptop forever?

Friday Flash Fiction--and Writing Work Schedule Update

2012-01-20T07:31:00.000-05:00

It's Friday Fictioneers time! Our usual host, Madison Woods, is on vacation--one where she managed to get engaged! How romantic is that?

Here is today's inspiration photo:

And here's my 100-word flash fiction:

Awakening

He opened his eyes and saw a few figures, high above him, interspersed around a balcony, distant enough he couldn’t distinguish gender, close enough he could see an oddness about them.

The buttresses of the building soared far over his head but were not lost in the dark, like cathedrals, but were stark and white, blinding him. He shaded his eyes but could not bring the figures into focus.

He heard their murmurings, lilting up as if they all asked a question, but he couldn’t understand.

After a deep breath, he shouted, “Where am I?”

Their answer made him scream.

-------------
Writer Work Schedule Update

I'm pretty pleased with myself that I've stuck to the writing work schedule I established late last year in my blog post, Resolved--to Write. The weekends, which were to be dedicated to reading works to review or for pleasure, have suffered the most. The first weekend I was at the height of a cold and spent both days in bed. Yes, I know you can read in bed, but the coughing and wheezing made that a task.

In what I called Submission Friday, I'm two for three. The first Submission Friday I submitted two book reviews (both accepted by the way), but the second Friday I didn't have anything ready to submit. I had two stories in an on-line workshop I belong to and hadn't received any comments on either. That, and I was still feeling wheezy. Today, I've submitted a story called "Trophies" about a marriage on the rocks and how it gets turned around to eFiction for consideration for its February romance issue. (Fingers crossed.)

All three Wednesdays have featured a post I call "Politics Wednesday." I confess, the writing posts get more views, but I can't give up political commentary. I just have to speak out, and it's an election year. Those give us political junkies meaning, after all.

I've finished what I hope is the last major revision of book one of my trilogy, A Perfect Hatred. I plan to spend the next couple of months querying agents with that version. Major butterflies even thinking about it. I've also finished proofreading the re-type of my print collection of short stories, Rarely Well Behaved, so it can become an eBook, entitled Rarely Well Behaved Redux.

I've worked on editing several existing short stories, but the big fall-down with the writing work schedule is that every Thursday I was supposed to work on something new. That hasn't been done. Not that I haven't been inspired; rather, I think I may have been a bit ambitious in setting up this schedule. I'm not giving up on it yet. The first month of it still has a week and a half to go.

Overall, I'm pleased that I've increased my focus, and I'm satisfied with the productivity so far.

Politics Wednesday 3

2012-01-18T07:30:00.004-05:00

Several years ago I was mentoring a new manager in my division. Her secretary was my former secretary, and where I had no issues with the secretary's work ethic or performance, this new manager did. So, I got them both in my office one morning to do some mediation.

Normally, I wouldn't mention gender and/or race, but in this instance it was important. The new manager was a white female, born and raised in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan who admitted she didn't see a person of color until she went to college. The secretary was an African-American woman, born and raised in the District of Columbia. She was the mother of two boys, both of whom had the same father, the man to whom she was married.

We started off with the typical mediation scenario, and we were making some progress toward improved communication. Then, the new manager decided she'd make an attempt to find common ground with the secretary.

"My family was on welfare and got food stamps, too," she said, "and my sister has children out of wedlock."

It truly wasn't said with malice, but it was ill-spoken. After figuratively peeling the secretary off the ceiling--from which she had loudly proclaimed, "My family has never been on welfare, I've never had food stamps, and I'm married, and my mother and grandmother were married!"--I dismissed the secretary and tried to explain to the new manager what she had said was inappropriate. I asked her why she said it.

"Well," she said, "I just assumed..." And we all know "assume" makes an ass of you and me.

This event was in the 1990's, a decade past the welfare-queen lies of Ronald Reagan, but this woman, much like Newt Gingrich today, didn't bother to check the facts.

Most of the people on welfare and food stamps are white because, well, more people in America are white. (Not for long, but that's another story.) That's the same reason most out-of-wedlock births are by white women. Yet, the Republicans have perpetuated the myth that black people are only interested in lining up for handouts from the government--your taxpayer dollars--that they don't know how to work and don't want to work, that they have no concept of a traditional family. The saddest thing is, some people still believe that.

Because of the ruined economy given us by the Republicans and their pro-rich people policies, we have a high unemployment rate and, as a result, more people than ever on food stamps. When you have a family to feed, you get over what everyone has told you is a stigma, and you're grateful for the means to put food on the table.

Yet, Gingrich turns that statistic around to say, "Obama has put more people on food stamps than any other President in American History." Wink, wink. You know what he means--black president, increase in food stamp recipients... Wink, wink. The South Carolinians in the debate audience Monday night got it. Gingrich received a standing ovation for his blatant racism. And he did it on purpose. He knew his audience. He knew he could get away with it, and he did.

The manager I was mentoring I can excuse--she was ignorant. Gingrich's cynical play to the people who refuse to acknowledge the Civil War is over is unforgivable. Without ever resorting to typical racist language, Gingrich has shown us his true color--and it's lily white.

Gingrich sees himself as a focal point in history--his words, not mine. He has done nothing to earn that distinction. Like the crass racism he exploits, he needs to be but a footnote to history. And a small one, at that.

Deciding Not To Review

2012-01-16T12:53:00.000-05:00

Because I've given the author of a book I was supposed to review the option of my not reviewing it, I won't be mentioning the book or the author in this post.

I've always been a bit quixotic--I voted for George McGovern in 1972, after all. Lately, I feel as if I'm single-handedly tilting at the windmill of "not self-publishing before you proofread." I don't want to be like some writers and disdain other writers who have "indie published," or self-published, if you will. If a writer comes to the decision that self-publishing is for him or her, I respect that decision, and I try not to be judgemental about it. My collection of short stories, Rarely Well-Behaved, technically, was self-published. I won the contract in a short story contest, so I like to think that the merit of the story got the contract. Even up against a submission deadline, I read each story over and over, trying to make the manuscript as perfect as possible. Of course, after the book came out, I found typos.

In a post earlier this month--"Put That First Draft Aside"--I wrote about what I think is the major pitfall of self-publishing, that you can write something and publish it almost immediately. Some indie writers want to skip the editor for fear that will change their work too much. The least you could do, then, as an indie author is not skip the proofreading. If you do it yourself, you have to put the work aside so it's not so fresh you don't spot obvious errors. The best proofreading is done by someone who has never seen the work before.

The book I was to review, requested by the author as a result of a guest blog-post I did, is a perfect example of lack of proofreading. The mistakes are all what I call elementary school grammar goofs, i.e., they are diversions from basic, not advanced, grammatical norms. Enclosing dialogue in quotation marks, comma usage, and subject-verb agreement are examples. In the first two paragraphs of this book, I found eleven punctuation, grammar, and usage errors, including using the word "hallow" when it was supposed to be "hollow." Throughout the work, quotation marks are missing, as are dialogue tags, commas, and contractions, among others. When I read a sentence about a bodily function that was anatomically impossible, I gave up and e-mailed the author to explain why I couldn't finish the book and didn't want to review it.

Sounds like a cop-out, I know, but I was pretty frank, and detailed, in the e-mail; merely, I didn't want to blast the book in a review, which, as an honest reviewer, I would have had to do. I could have done that, and the author would have received a nasty surprise. I'd rather explain, privately, why I couldn't do the review, and treat the book as if I'd never read it.

All of which is a shame, because I could see glimmers of a thoughtful story. It's too bad the barbed wire tangle of basic, grammatical goofs hid it.

Indie authors, I cannot say this enough: You can't do a brain dump and immediately slap it up on Amazon or Smashwords and call yourself a professional writer. Writing is writing and rewriting and revising and rewriting and proofreading, then rewriting and revising all over again. Tedious, yes. Instant gratification, no, but with writing, that's a good thing.

Second Post of the Day--Friday Flash Fiction

2012-01-13T09:40:00.000-05:00

You didn't think I'd forget Friday Fictioneers, did you?

Here's the inspiration photo. I'll admit nothing came to me right away, then, duh, it was obvious.

And here's the story.

Nut Case

Perfect disguise, they told me. No one will ever notice you, they said.

And I bought it. I put the cynicism aside and went along with our astro-geeks' plan for observing the bipedal, indigenous life on the exo-planet they found. Their arguments were convincing, I'll admit, but I should have listened to the little voice in my head that said, "What? Are they nuts?" Uh, no pun intended.

I mean, I understand you can't land the mothership in someone's backyard and do the "Take me to your leader" thing. I get that.

But why didn't they notice the damned squirrels?

Want more 100-word fiction? Go to Madison Woods' blog and have fun reading them.

I ♥ My Writers Group

2012-01-13T08:00:00.017-05:00

I've written before about my great writers group--SWAG, Staunton/Waynesboro/Augusta Group of Writers--about how supportive everyone is, and how I've made lifelong friends from being a part of it. Wednesday evening was our monthly social hour and open mic night. This was also the first meeting after we got a nice spread in the Living section of our local Sunday paper. We had a full house of readers and listeners--and lots of first-time-at-SWAG readers. It was probably the best night we've had with lots of thoughtful work and lots of laughs.

Why are open mic nights important? I'll admit when SWAG's founder, Cliff Garstang, suggested last year that we start doing readings--out loud, in front of people--I was nervous. That's a tough thing to do, to stand up amid acquaintances and a few strangers and read what you've written. And that first time last April, my knees were shaking, and my throat was dry. Afterwards, I remember wishing I'd had a writers group ten years ago when my collection of short stories came out. I did three readings and book signings back then, without a clue as to what I was supposed to do, and the feedback I got was that I read too fast for people to understand what I was saying. At SWAG, I've learned to slow down and get across what it is I'm trying to say, and that's an experience I wouldn't have had without SWAG.

So, doing open mic readings among friends can help build your confidence for when you're on that book tour you dream about being on one day.

The other good thing about open mic is you pay a good deal of attention to the exact piece you're going to read. We get five minutes, so the passage has to be tight, succinct, which means, beforehand, you'll do some needed editing and revising you might not normally do. That's always a good thing.

And here's the best part--it's great when open mic is over and someone in the audience comes up to you and tells you he or she enjoyed what you read and begins to ask questions about your work. You feel like an honest-to-God writer when that happens. It's great.

Building confidence, honing your editing skills, and boosting your writer ego--that's what you get from a writers group. Find one. Join one.

Politics Wednesday 2

2012-01-11T08:53:00.000-05:00

Yet another serendipitous day for political blogging--the morning after New Hampshire.

This "first in the nation" primary has always had a dampening effect on the momentum of a presumed front-runner--Johnson in 1968, Muskie in 1972, and, most recently--until yesterday, that is--Barack Obama in 2008. In the days before the primary, Obama had what appeared to be a solid lead; then, Hillary Clinton showed the rest of the world what I knew all along--she's a human being. I'll disclaim here and tell you I was a Clinton supporter right up until Obama won the nomination, and then I was an Obama supporter, and you won't find a more stolid one than I. I fully understood what Obama's election meant to African Americans: It was how I would have felt about Hillary Clinton's election.

But I digress.

Last night's NH primary seemed like a step closer to a coronation--the Republicans like those, I think because they haven't given up visions of empires and emperors. In fact, I can see Romney as Napoleon, impatiently snatching the crown from the cardinal and placing it on his own head. Actually, he's done it already. He's been running for President for the best part of eight years, and he figures he deserves the nomination. He's earned it with that square jaw and photogenic family, not one of whom has served his or her country in any way except as campaign props.

That Ron Paul polled in the 20th Percentile in the "Live Free or Die" state shouldn't surprise anyone.

The tiny ray of hope for the Republican Party was Jon Huntsman, who surged to a decent third-place showing. I thought his put-down of Romney's sneering disrespect of Huntsman's service as Ambassador to China was perfect--"I will always put my country first." What a breath of fresh air in a party whose "leaders" put their wallets or their presumed social and political status first.

Santorum and Perry are off the radar, unless the uber-conservative South Carolinian and Floridian voters can give them a little altitude. Gingrich is in limbo, teetering between falling off the radar and presenting a serious challenge to Romney in the South. Wherever he ends up, I'm sure Callista will be standing there, hair and make-up perfect, that eerie smile fixed on her face.

The predominant thread among pundits--and in the exit poll results from NH--is that Romney is the "most electable," the one who can beat President Obama. But here's a photo I found yesterday on AddictingInfo.org that tells me the President may be harder to beat than the Repubs think. Can you imagine Mitt Romney in this picture?

Dr. Frankenstein, I Presume

2012-01-09T10:07:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I had a long talk about writing--its joys and frustrations--with another local writer friend of mine. She was talking about a character she created and a certain aspect of his life and how she didn't set out to write him that way, that it was just "there."

"He told you who he was," I said. (No, I'm not usually that profound.)

I've had this conversation with other writers or heard or read other writers who say the same thing--a character you create somehow becomes his or her own entity and proceeds to tell you, "I'd really do it this way. No, no, no, I'd never say/do/believe/want that." That character leads you down plot paths you never anticipated, but that's the way it's supposed to be. Merely, our constipated brains need the liberation provided by creating a fictional character who is our alter ego.

My main character--an Englishwoman who is a spy--gets to say things I'd never say, and I'm known for being outspoken. When your character can let loose with something society and propriety require you to keep quiet about, that alleviates a lot of pent-up frustration and keeps it from exploding at an inappropriate time. See, having your characters talk to you can be a good thing.

How do you know they're speaking to you? When you've written something you think is the way you want the story to go, but then you're pulled back to the keyboard and end up rewriting or revising or tossing out words until that story has set off in a different direction, and it's for the good--that's when your characters tapped you on the shoulder and said, "I think you need to reconsider."

I struggled for a long time to find the ending for my trilogy about a domestic terrorism event, and it just didn't come. Oh, the various attempts were good endings, but none of them was The Ending, the way the series was supposed to conclude. Then, the death of the person on whom one of the characters in the trilogy is based gave me that ending. It was as if the fictional character finally got through to me and said, "You've been avoiding the reality that this was the only way it could end." And he was right.

We think we create our characters from whole cloth, but the truth is we take pieces--the good and the bad--from every person we've ever known or loved or disliked. We stitch them together and give them our own life-force, and they are as real to us as any flesh and blood person. They have to be. Otherwise, a reader would never be interested. They come from within us. They're our "children." We speak to other writers of them as if they were real and sitting around the table with us. We defend them and their actions to members of our critique groups/agents/editors. We think of them at odd times. We anticipate getting back to the story so we can see them again. We see something happen and know how our characters would react to it. They are our waking and sleeping companions, often our best friends and harshest writing critics. We are the ones who shout in triumph, as they rise from the laboratory tables in our minds, "It's alive! It's alive!"

How about it? Do your characters speak to you? If so, leave a comment and tell me about a time when they did.

----------

Writing Work Schedule Update:

Things are actually still going according to schedule, even with having had a nasty cold last week. On "Submission Friday" I send in two book reviews and two author interviews to a fiction magazine. This week, on the Editing/Revising days, I'll concentrate on proofreading and finalizing the re-typed (and edited) manuscript of my collection of short stories, Rarely Well Behaved, which I'm re-releasing as an
e-book this spring--or earlier.

Two for One!

2012-01-06T11:29:00.000-05:00

Aren't you lucky? Today, you not only get a 100-word flash fiction, but, at no extra charge, you get a little writing lore as well.

Yeah, I wouldn't do well writing for infomercials, would I?

Here's today's Friday Fictioneers inspirational photo:

And here's a piece I call, "Winter Wonderland."

I wasn’t sure if it were safe to go out yet, but the dog, cooped up for so many days, was insistent. I tried to keep him close, but dogs wander. Still, I understood. Cabin fever had grasped me, too.

The blanket of snow seemed muted beneath the still-gray sky but was so beautiful compared to the four walls where we’d hunkered down. There were no tracks except ours.

The dog bounded toward the road. I slogged after him, my cries loud in the still air, echoing off the trees.

You don’t go far from home in a nuclear winter.

----------

Yes, I'd gone a few days without any apocalyptic writing. ;-) Now, here's your bonus--a brief discussion about a writing tool I can't be without.

Even after teaching English, being a journalist and an editor, and writing since I was ten, there are certain aspects of English grammar where I still falter. Lie versus Lay. Which versus That. Those are my particular downfalls. I'll write them one way, decide they're wrong, write them the other way, then discover I was right the first time.

Who wants to go pull the dusty, old English Grammar Reference off the shelf? Not I. I use a small tome that has been on or near my myriad writing desks for the past forty years--The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr., and E.B. White, or as it's colloquially called "Strunk and White."

"Make every word tell," was Cornell English professor William Strunk, Jr.'s advice to his students, one of whom was E. B. White, of Charlotte's Web fame. Strunk wrote the first The Elements of Style in 1918 and made it obligatory for his students. It wasn't until after Strunk's death that E.B. White, writing in The New Yorker, told the world about the "forty-three page summation of the case for cleanliness, accuracy, and brevity in the use of English." White was asked to edit a re-issuance of the volume to bring it into modern usage. That was about sixty years ago, and this "little book," as White called it, is still an indispensable aid to writers from high schoolers toiling over term papers to the rest of us who hope to be considered accomplished.

My well-thumbed copy, which helped me write features and editorials as a reporter and countless government reports, is still packed away with my work "stuff," so I had to replace it with this fairly fresh copy (right). Strunk and White pares down the sometimes vague structures of English grammar to the basics of language usage and composition.

It has almost doubled in size from the forty-three page volume White extolled in The New Yorker and now has a glossary and an index. It's original outline remains much the same as Strunk's version from the early part of the previous century: Elementary Rules of Usage, Elementary Principles of Composition, A Few Matters of Form, Words and Expressions Commonly Misused (my personal favorite), and An Approach to Style. (I love the perfection of those section titles.)

Strunk and White is great for writers who hate grammar--notice they don't use the word--because it has condensed the whole, arcane grammatical schema into a pocket-sized reference. You could call it "Style Basics" and be accurate, but "The Elements of Style" is just, well, stylish.

My new copy cost me ten dollars in a book store, but consider it an investment. Big box and independent book stores will order you a copy upon request. You can get a used copy from Amazon for as little as seven dollars or from free to $2.99 in the Kindle Store--though the Kindle version is the original Strunk work. Go for the Strunk and White version. If you're a Nook person, the price and the version is the same. A used copy from Barnes and Noble can be as low as three dollars.

Considering the state of some of the indie published books I've been reading to review, every person who calls him- or herself a writer should own one of these and use it. Then, you won't be disingenuous when you call yourself an author.

I have no financial interest in The Elements of Style or with its publishers. It's just a darned good writing book.

Politics Wednesday

2012-01-04T10:11:00.000-05:00

It was coincidence that my writing work plan sets Wednesday as politics blogging day, and the first such blog of 2012 comes the morning after the Iowa Caucuses. Coincidental but serendipitous. That throwback to the days of smoke-filled rooms, the caucus, left plenty to talk about.

First, Willard M. Romney got a win he can't really puff his chest up about, and he appeared to be somewhat muted on the Wednesday morning gabfests. I believe that eight-vote margin is one of the smallest in election history, especially for a national office. The other bad news Romney has to take away from this is that, after essentially four years of campaigning, he won the same percentage of Iowa Caucus votes as he did in 2008. On paper, it's a victory, but it must leave the taste of ash in Romney's mouth.

Though he came in second, Rick Santorum is the real winner. He did in a few weeks what Romney took four years to accomplish--get twenty-five percent of the votes. A month ago, Santorum was in the low double digits, and he gained a lot of ground and even led by more than 100 votes on occasion throughout the evening. Of course, he gained that ground by appealing to the basest instincts of the white voter--by fronting that stereotype that black people don't want to work and by doing his best imitation of Tim Tebow without bending a knee.

Ron Paul. What more can be said about him? He wants you to have the right to drink raw milk if you want. I grew up on a farm. I've drunk raw milk, and, Mr. Paul, you don't want to know the crap (literally) that's in raw milk. Paul wants to withdraw within our borders, have no foreign entanglements, and let everyone within those borders fend for themselves. He's no fan of Lincoln because Lincoln got us into an unnecessary war. WTF? I say that a lot about Ron Paul. Yes, he's grandfatherly. Yes, he sounds like the eccentric uncle who only comes to visit on holidays and upsets everyone, but one-fifth of the Iowa voters like his vision for America. And that's scary.

And, can you imagine, Newt Gingrich got relegated to a somewhat distant fourth place? How dare they? How dare they ignore someone of his self-declared intellect? But you just wait. He's not going negative. He's just going to tell the truth. (Cheers and applause) His truth, of course, which is somewhat detached from our everyday reality. As a former federal employee, I remember Newt's fit of pique when he and other members of Congress had to exit Air Force One from the rear stairs--he shut the government down because President Clinton wouldn't acknowledge Gingrich's odd notion he was the co-President, not Hillary. His suck-up to Santorum and his "watch out, I'm coming to get you" riff to Romney was pure, nasty Newt.

The Village of Texas is getting its other idiot back. How nice for them. It's hard to believe there is actually a Texas politician who can make W look like a Rhodes Scholar, but, good old Rick, he proved there was. Perry brought nothing original to this campaign, and it serves no point to waste any more blog space on him.

I wonder how Michelle Bachmann feels this morning after all that praying for a miracle from the entity she knows makes miracles. I guess she didn't pray hard enough because the miracle didn't happen. She essentially came in dead last, since Huntsman, Cain, Roehmer, and "No Preference" together garnered less than one percent of the votes, and none of them campaigned in Iowa. As of this writing, she has canceled her trip to South Carolina for that upcoming primary and will hold a press conference later today. At least I won't have to listen to her carping about being disrespected because she was a woman. The hypocrisy of someone who has done all she could to reverse or disdain the accomplishments of the women's movement who then uses sexism as an excuse for her personal shortcomings just astounds me. I hope she's back in Minnesota for good.

The real winner in my opinion--and others more knowledgeable than I agree--is, ultimately, President Obama. Many people think Romney is the "most electable" Republican choice when paired against the President. I think the square jaw and the whitener-enhanced smile only go so far, especially for someone whose profession was to shut down companies and move jobs overseas, for which he received tremendous remuneration. When it comes down to the person who represents my values, it's President Obama. Mind you, I'd like to have a talk with him about a few things, but the hope and the change still do it for me.

Here's the most telling thing. If you haven't noticed, none of the candidates refer to the President by his title--it's Obama or Barack Obama. Now, trust me, I had trouble uttering the words "President" and "Bush" together, but I always tried to say "The President." (Or President Shrub when I was really pissed.) This refusal to acknowledge the President's status is indicative of a privileged (because they're white) section of society--they just can't wrap their heads around the reality of someone in the White House who is not white.

What I took away from the Iowa spectacle was a post-caucus interview with a white man in his fifties. When asked why he voted for Romney, he said, "He's the best one to beat [slight hesitation and the beginning of a sneer] Mister Obama."

That says it all. Unfortunately.

-----------
Writing Work Schedule update:

Monday afternoon:

Edited the review for Linkage: The Narrows of Time Series (Volume 1) and sent interview questions to the author
Drafted a review of Loki and Sigyn: A Love Story

Tuesday:

Morning: edited a short story called "The Drink" and sent it to an on-line critique group I'm in (got very constructive comments so far)
Afternoon: pulled out my 2009 NaNoWriMo manuscript and reviewed it to see if, with a few name changes, it could be a good candidate for a Kindle Publication

Wednesday:

Morning: Blog on politics (see above)
To do for the afternoon: work on editing/revising a novel (depends on how tired and sore I am from coughing)