An Early Morning Visitor

Our Corgi, Dylan, woke us up this morning about 5:30. He was sitting up in his crate, growling low in his throat. At first, I suspected an intruder but the alarm had not gone off, so I realized it couldn't be a person. That left a bird or an animal. My husband was too sleepy to get up, so I did. I let Dylan out of his crate and together we tiptoed out to the family room. I pulled the drape and turned on the patio light. Nothing stirred. Dylan grumbled again. He turned around and went to the front door.

I couldn't open the front door with the alarm on, and I was hesitant to turn it off. So I opened the blinds in the dining room and peered out into the darkness. The wind was blowing, and since our outdoor/indoor thermometer read 29 degrees F., I knew it was bloody cold out there! Besides, I didn't see anything moving. Until...
a rose bush moved ever so slightly. Then I saw a pair of eyes staring steadily into mine. If we had still been on the ranch, I would have thought...Coyote!...or maybe even...Cougar! But no cougars here on the outskirts of our small town. Always coyotes, but...it just didn't seem right.

Dylan growled again. The thick hair on the back of his neck and around his broad chest was sticking straight up. Uh oh. Whatever it was out there, he didn't like it.

It was black as a raven's wing outside. However, my eyes were getting accustomed to the darkness, and the rose bushes were becoming slightly more distinct. I saw the one closest to the front door move again, and when it did, Dylan growled more loudly. He could smell or sense the being out there, even though the door was still closed.

Okay, I had to do something. For one thing, I was freezing, and for another, my curiosity was getting the best of me. So it was either go back to bed and get warm, make Dylan stop growling ( good luck with that), or...turn off the alarm and open the darn door! I chose the latter.

I told Dylan "Quiet!" as I carefully opened the door. His little body quivered against my leg, but he stopped growling. I stood for a moment, with the icy wind whipping my pj's around my legs and wondering how I could be so stupid as to open that door. Then I heard it. A strange little cry, half growl, half scream, muted but coming from under the rose bush. Dylan pushed against my leg, and again growled low in his throat.

The sound came again. Oh, all right! I made Dylan 'stay' and stepped out the door. I crossed the sidewalk to the rose bed, and gently ( and shakily) pushed the leaves aside. There, on his back with his long red bushy tail caught among the heavy thorns of the roses, lay our resident fox. His black eyes stared at me, and he yipped quietly. He was unable to move.

I was shaking with the cold so much I could barely move my hands, but somehow, I managed to pull the largest stems of the rose bushes apart, thoroughly cutting one finger on the nasty thorns in the process. It only took a minute or two, but it seemed like an hour at least. Then, I lifted his tail free. He immediately scampered up and away from the bushes. But then a strange thing happened. He stopped midway down the sidewalk, looked back at the door, and yipped. Dylan made a sound that was almost identical. The fox looked at me, and disappeared into the early morning gloom.

I closed the door, shivered my way into the bathroom to treat my lacerated finger, and finally returned to bed. I was cold as an Artic snow bunny, and when I tried to cuddle up to hubby, he was not too enthusiastic! After a few choice words from him ( not repeatable here) which basically meant, Where have you been, you're turning me into an icicle, I eventually got warm and fell back asleep. The story about the fox would have to keep until breakfast.

Resident fox? Yes, in the community where I live, there has been a family of red foxes living here for about 20 years. Of course, the orignal parents are gone now, but their offspring keep breeding and/or bringing friends and spouses in to their large den, and seem quite content to continue to live here. We seldom see them, but often enough to know that they are still with us. This fox was large, so he was probably one of the papas.

Dylan is a Corgi. Corgis are descended from foxes. I believe the exchange this morning between the fox and Dylan was somehow an acknowledgement on the part of the fox of two things: a kind of 'thank you' for Dylan knowing he was out there and waking me up, and...perhaps...an understanding on both their parts that somewhere along the line, centuries ago, they were related.

A wild and a domesticated animal communicated with one another. Isn't it amazing that civilized peoples of the world fail so badly to communicate with one another?

Christmas Is Coming!

Christmas is coming! Are these words to strike terror in your heart, or do they make your heart sing?

For me, it is a combination of the two. I hate Christmas shopping! Of course, I'm one of the few women I know who hates shopping of any kind for any reason, and having to shop for gifts turns my blood to ice. I use the Internet to shop online as much as possible, but inevitably, children or grandchildren give me their lists with items impossible to find except in...STORES. I don't like crowds, consequently my claustophobia kicks in, especially if I'm waiting in a checker's line with impatient and impolite people pushing and shoving behind me. I don't like finding just exactly what someone asked for, only to discover it is the wrong size, by the wrong singer, or not Blue Ray...whatever that is. So...guess who puts it off as long as possible? You got it! Here it is, December 7th, and I've yet to start. I'll be impossible to live with by Friday.

On the other hand, I love Christmas! I love the decorations, the pagentry, the enticing smells coming from all the kitchens in the homes I visit. I love decorating our house: my husband made a 1/2 life size Nativity set, with angels, the three Wise Men, two camels, Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, and the Manger. It sits on our front lawn from the first weekend in December until the weekend after New Year's. We have lights shining on it, and a blue light spotlighting Mary and Joseph as they knee beside the cradle holding the Baby.

Every year I spend almost a week baking for my family and friends ( no writing !). I paint a gift card individualized for each person, line a Christmas basket with festive paper and ribbons, and pack each one with cookies and candy. On the ranch, my husband and I would load up the saddle bags and ride our horses to each of the neighboring ranches to deliver our goodies. Now, we walk or drive to our friends' homes. I miss riding the horses. I miss seeing them with their bridles decorated with miniature battery-run lights, and the Santa hats I made for them perched between their ears. I miss the not-so-happy looks they would give me as I put their hats on, but they never shook them off. Ah well...that was a different life.

Do you remember in the late '90s and early 2000's that Target had a large stuffed and dressed snowman that was their Christmas "symbol?" I have six of those 'Snowden's' as they were called. My daughter-in-law told me about them and she and I competed to see who could buy them all the quickest! She won...she has 7 of them, I only have 6. But these 6 come out every year, and grace the beam above the built-in console in our dining room. On the console sit 3 of my 16 Santas. These are 3 large Santas that were handmade by artisans who lived in small towns along the Ohio River, where my husband and I traveled down on a barge about 10 years ago.

My other 13 Santas sit in various places in the living room, family room and dining room. Joining them are 3 Christmas dogs, one reindeer, two moose ( meese?), a giraffe, 1 small talking Tigger, 1 very large, silent Tigger, and 8 "teddy" bears of different sizes and colors. All represent Christmas in some foreign country, by the way they are dressed.

The sounds of Christmas come from the many DVDs we have of carols and music from Christian nations around the world. We seldom have anything else going on during the day except for the music filling our home and our hearts. In the evening, we try to watch as many of the Christmas specials as possible on TV. Our hearts are full, and sometimes, so are our eyes, at the beauty, the graciousness, and the words that invoke all that Christmas, and the birth of Jesus Christ, is supposed to mean.

Perhaps, in today's world, it is politically correct to say "Happy Holidays," but I celebrate all that Christmas has ever meant, long before politics got involved. So I will continue to say Merry Christmas, and hope sincerely that all to whom I say that, truly have a happy and merry Christmas.

NaNo Is Over For Me

I finished my NaNo novel last night. 50,630 words about an eleven year old precocious girl who creates more mischief than even she ever dreamed of! But it isn't a story I'm really happy about, in its present form. I think once I go back and start the editing and revision process, it will come together better and I will be more satisfied. The last 5 or 6 days of the story were real work. I felt like I was batting my head against a stone wall, and was just writing to get those 50,000 words in, so I could say I was a winner. That's not how I want to write.

I've said I won't do it again. At the moment, I'm definitely not planning on doing it again. I'm wondering if I have the wrong idea about this whole NaNo thing? I know that the initial idea is to get people off their duff, and get them to writing. I know that you're supposed to use the 30 days and the 50,000 words to at least get the bare bones, the skeleton of the story down, and that supposedly, it is something you wouldn't have done if it hadn't been for NaNo.

Is that true? That's not a rhetorical question...is it true? Is it true, that IF we are writers, we actually need something like the NaNo challenge to get us up off our respective duffs and writing? I'm sorry, but I don't believe that. If a person is a writer...really, truly committed to writing with the thought and hope of publishing...then why do we need something like this to get us motivated?

It's true that for me, I had this idea about Lily Leticia rolling around in my mind for over a year. It's true that so far, I had not written one word about her. ( Other than her name, that is.) But...I've been busy with finishing my ICL course and my novel. Then busy with final editings and getting the novel off to a publisher. But once that was done, I would have started on her story. Instead, I chose to wait until now, and do it for the NaNo challenge.

To me, it's a little like climbing Mt. Everest...a lifetime accomplishment that very few people in the world ever do. But once you've done it, why do it again, when there are so many other formidable mountains in the world to conquer? Once you have accomplished the challenge of NaNo, why do it again? Do you have to wait another year to commit yourself to writing again? Aren't there enough challenges in life and in writing to arouse your creative spirit and to dislodge those ideas hidden in the nooks and crannies of your brain?

If we, as writers, are determined to perfect our craft so that we will be proud of our stories and articles and novels...proud enough to made the decision to mail them off to publishers, and spend the agonizing time it takes to get a response...then why do we need to have a gauntlet thrown down in front of us to go ahead and write?

Don't misunderstand me: I'm not putting down NaNo, the people who created it or the people who participate. I'm just wondering if it is necessary. To do something different for a change? Okay, I'll buy that. To see if I can really, honestly write? Uh uh, don't think so. Thirty days to write 50,000 or more words means to put down anything, anywhere, even if the plot goes off in ten different directions, you've got twenty characters who don't, can't or won't interact, and you have no idea how what you're writing is going to be resolved. I can't find the learning curve in this. I don't see how this is going to help me be a better writer. A faster writer, oh yeah. A better one? Oh, no.

But...this is just me. And I'm sure that the writers who participate in NaNo year after year will fervently disagree with me on all counts. And that's okay, too !

For me, I think this one time is enough. I proved I can do it. I met the challenge head on, and won. Am I proud of the story I wrote? No. Will I be proud after all the changes, editing, revisions, eliminations and modifications? Maybe. I hope so. But you know what? I can easily envision several more months of work on it than I would have had, had I written it the way I normally do. So was it worth it? That remains to be seen.

BUT ! My husband bought me a dozen beautiful red roses yesterday just for finishing. Now...THAT was worth it !!!

The Journey

Today I was thinking about writing ( yes, thinking about it, not doing it), and my mind drifted back to the very first time I wrote anything. I realized that this journey I am on today began many years ago.

I was 10 years old and had three beautiful little kittens, Trouble, Mischief, and Good Boy. You guessed it, Trouble and Mischief were little girls ! One day I sat down and wrote a poem about them. It was out of the blue. I loved to read, but had never written anything except my assignments in school. My mother was a children's book editor for a large newspaper, so she took my poem in and it was promptly published.

The second time was when I was 12. I was training a young mare for a horse show, and one day when I went out to the barn, she had suddenly gone blind. My vet said there was nothing they could do for her. Being the stubborn and persistent person I am, I refused to give up on her, and continued to train her using voice as well as foot and rein signals. I entered her in the horse show without telling the officials she was blind. We won the two classes she was in, and it was only then that they found out about her blindness. My story was written up in the newspapers, and so I wrote my own story about my mare and training her, and submitted it to a Children's Digest magazine. ( Not the same one as today, the old one went defunct many years ago.) It was published and I received a whole $10 for it!

Other than school, I didn't write anything else until my second go-round in college, after I was married and had children. I took a cultural anthropology course, and for my final grade, wrote a short book of Haiku poetry. The college published it for their library, but I didn't get any money for it. Again, that was it for a long time.

When we lived on the ranch, I wrote articles for the Appaloosa club newsletter, and other little tidbits of horse "stuff," but that was all...until one night shortly before Christmas, 1996. My husband and I were both on our computers; he was doing some business and I was goofing around. I pulled up a blank page in Word, and for no reason that I can explain, even now, began to write a Christmas story about a Cockatoo and the Star of the East over Bethlehem, on the night of Christ's birth.

That story began a whole series of stories about animals, parrots, and Great Father ( my euphanism for God, Christ, Buddha, Jehovah, or whatever deity one may believe in). I wrote about Christmas, Halloween, the Fourth of July, 9/11, and several others. But I've never tried to get them published.

In 2006, my daughter sent me several books for Christmas, all of them about writing for children...and getting published. In her letter, she basically said, "Mom, get off your butt and start writing for real." I read all the books, got excited about the idea of writing for children, but...really didn't know how to start. Then one day, there appeared in my mailbox the advertisement for the Institute of Children's Literature...complete with the test to fill out. I answered the questions, returned it, was accepted in July of 2006, and to be completely cliche-ish, the rest is history.

A long journey. An interesting though choppy journey. And I'm only midway through. I've published some, but have just recently submitted my first novel, so I don't know yet where that path is going to lead.

The point of all this, I guess, is that we all start somewhere, and maybe that first start doesn't mean anything...or ...we don't know that it means anything. It's a long journey, no matter where or when we start, and we should never dismiss those first feeble, unknowledgeable efforts. Because who knows where they might lead? Mine have led me here...to a place of friends, experiences, learned lessons, and Hope for the future. A place that years ago, I had no idea I would be in. A place I am very thankful for, even if I should never have that book published, because of the people I've met and the things I've learned along the way.

When did your journey begin, and where has it taken you?

Thoughts and Themes

It's been a week since I wrote anything here, mostly because I've been so wrapped up in my NaNo story that I haven't taken the time to do anything else. I'm up over 41,000 words, which is great, because now I can take the time Wednesday to cook for Thursday and not feel bad about it.

But that's the only good thing about this story! At least, at the moment. I realized today, as I was rereading what I had written...I know, I know, you're not supposed to do that, and now I wish I hadn't...anyway, I realized that I don't have one cohesive story, I have two not-so-cohesive stories!

Oh yes, Lily Leticia has gone off on a tangent, and I'm not sure how to get her back on track. It is the tangent that made me think I have two stories. Actually, I know I have two stories, but the trick now is to get them back together to be one...for the moment, anyway. My husband said, "Why bother? No one will be reading it until you've edited and revised, so who will know?" Always the logical one. The point is: I will know!

So, once I do get through this, instead of making Lily Leticia the MC of a full-length novel, I think I will be able to do two short-chapter books instead. I've never written a short-chapter book, so this will be a good learning experience for me.

As I was rereading this morning, it occurred to me that I didn't really know what the theme of this story is. So I got to thinking about themes, which are almost as much a bugaboo for me as outlines are.
Do you write around a theme? I don't. I suppose I could if someone said you have to have your theme first. But I've always "just written," and then have occasionally been surprised at the end when I realized what the theme of the story actually was.

When I wrote The Year of the Scream, my theme was relationships. But I didn't start out with that in mind. I was about 1/4 of the way through the novel when I was pleasantly surprised to see that my story DID have a theme, and I already knew what it was!

With Lily Leticia, I'm almost through and I still don't know what the theme is. Theme is only one element of the story, but it works together ( or should) with both the plot and the structure. They should be interrelated in such a way that they reflect back on one another. Hmm...

A writer friend once asked me if a theme wasn't the same thing as a moral and I said I didn't think so. When we write for children, we should never try to preach or to moralize the story to them. If kids realize that there is a "moral" or a "lesson" to something they are reading for fun, the book or magazine story will simply end up in the trash.

Remember the story "Charlotte's Web?" Here the theme is the power of loyalty and friendship...the loyalty and friendship Charlotte the spider shows to Wilbur the pig, and how she saves him from being slaughtered. How about "Where the Wild Things Are?" You cannot forget Max, and his anger towards his mother when she calls him a "wild thing" after he has been so mischievious. His anger and how he handles it, by playing it out in his fantasy, is the theme.

The important thing to remember about themes is that you don't want to "tell" what they are; you want to "show" them in the behavior of your characters. How the characters act, react, and interact with one another and with their circumstances in the story should be how your reader will learn about the theme.

Good questions to ask yourself about your story are these: what is the child who reads this going to learn without knowing that she/he is learning? What is she/he going to take away from the story when she puts it back on the shelf? If you can answer those questions honestly and cogently, you know that your story has a theme...and more importantly, YOU know what that theme is !

In the meantime...I'm still asking myself those same questions...but I'm not getting any answers right now!

Multi-tasking

My husband asked me yesterday how my NaNo novel was coming along, and I told him it was frustrating because I wasn't supposed to 'multi-task.' He thought I had lost my mind, and asked me how I could multi-task when I am writing. So that made me think about that term and how it applies...or if it really did...to writing. My decision was that yes, it does apply.

Let's think about that for a moment. The term means to do more than one thing at a time, right? Well, isn't that what you are doing, however unconsciously it might be, when you are writing? You start with a plot. Or more correctly, perhaps, you start with an idea for a plot. You throw that idea around for awhile and then you start to write. Do you only write the plot for hours on end? Of course not!

What comes after the plot? Usually, characters, right? So now you have to work on developing characterization, and fitting those characters into your plot. Sometimes they all work right in, but more often you have to change someone or even delete someone, because that character simply isn't going to work...at least, not at the moment.

Then there is dialogue. Your characters talk, don't they? So you have to give them dialogue. But wait! That's not as easy as it sounds! You have to give them each a voice, too. You can't have MC Jane Doe sounding exactly the same as Joe Blow, the secondary MC. Now you are getting into really sticky wickets. The voice has to be individual, it has to fit the character, it has to blend into the dialogue precisely, and of course, all this has to be worked into the plot. WHEW! That was hard work!

But wait! You've only done all this for your MC! What about your secondary MC, and then all the other minor characters that have suddenly appeared to take part in the plot? Each of them speaks, right? So each of them has to have dialogue...AND...and an individual voice. The voice has to fit the character, and it has to fit...well, you know. Okay, so you've got all that down pretty well, and you're beginning to feel good about how this is going, right?

But wait! What about point of view? How is this novel going to be told? Is it going to be 1st person, told through the eyes of the MC? Or maybe 3rd person, told by a narrator. Hmm...well, let's try for 1st person, so the reader can be really involved with the MC. Uh oh, that's not enough, however. What about the tense? Past tense, present tense? Present tense is interesting, but...it's fairly hard to do. So, let's decide upon 1st person, past tense. Oh boy, this whole thing is getting more complicated, but I think I'm through the roughest part, right?

But wait! You're not through! There is still the descriptive narration and the pacing of the entire novel. Remember what you first learned as a writer? SHOW DON'T TELL! Uh huh, now you're catching on! Now is the time to set that in motion, to put action into place along with some descriptive narration. Oh, and don't forget the pacing. You don't want your story to drag, but you can't rush through it, either, because then it is going to leave your reader very dissatisfied...to say nothing of your editor. Okay, so now you've worked on all of this, and you think, 'Now I can take a deep breath.'

But wait! No, now is not the time to take a deep breath. Because now you have the structure of your novel to work on...you know, those pesky little things like spelling, grammar, and punctuation? Have you checked words like there and their and the similar ones to make sure you've spelled them correctly in the correct places ? Do you know when to use lay and lie so you don't get them confused?
Are all of your commas in the right place in your sentences? Have you gone through and removed the majority of your 'just's' and 'then's' or 'right then's' ? What about your sentence structures, are all of them complete sentences, without 'dangling participles' ?

NOW you can take a deep breath! Except...you've done all of the above...but...this was just the first chapter!

I think you can safely say, as writers we probably know considerably more about "multi-tasking" than the av - er - age bear, right ? !

(PS: I hope you all know about "Yogi Bear" who is smarter than the av-er-age bear! )

This and That

I've been so involved with my NaNo story I haven't even thought about blogging. I am at 19,000 + words, so I'm over the daily quota for Wednesday and almost to Thursday's quota. Guess that's a good thing, as I'm trying to get ahead and stay there so I can take the day before Thanksgiving off for baking, and Thanksgiving Day for eating!

The story is coming along, although I already know that I'm going to have a lot of revisions to do. I have gone back and read what I started out with, and have created a problem that has had no resolution or follow up. It's just hanging there, swaying in the breeze. Lily Leticia may like it, since she created it and has had no consequences resulting, but that is definitely not going to last...at least, not past December 1st!

The story has a lot of dialogue but not much action. I don't like that. But, revisions are not a part of the NaNo project, so fixing it is going to have to wait.

Speaking of dialogue, do you like to write it? Some of my writer friends say they hate it. They can come up with all kinds of actions, problematic situations, and concise and realistic conclusions, but their characters' dialogues "stink." I like to write it. I have fun making sure that my character's actions and body language fit her or his dialogue. Did you know that body language is as important in a story as it is in real life? Did you know that body language can speak volumes in a story just as it does in real life?

For example, suppose you have a teen girlfriend/boyfriend situation.
The boy is explaining why he can't drive the girl home from school as he always does. The scene goes something like this:

Hunter: "I'm sorry, Lauren, but I have to go to the library and do some serious studying for my history test tomorrow. I gotta spend a couple hours there, so you'll have to walk home today."

Sounds okay, right? Except for the body language: Hunter has his hands in his pockets, and Lauren sees his fingers moving around like little mice caught in a trap. She looks at him, but he avoids her eyes, looking down at the ground or out towards the football field...anywhere but at her.

Does that sound like someone telling the truth? Hmmm...I don't think so. Let's go on:

Lauren: "Oh...well, that's okay. I'll walk home with Ashley. Study hard, I don't want you to fail your test."

Think she believes him? Let's look at her body language:
Lauren holds her arms crossed against her chest. Her lips stretch into a tight smile that doesn't reach her eyes, which have narrowed slightly.

Does that sound like she believes this boy who has driven her home every day for the last 4 months...even when she knew he had to study for tests or had a homework project to work on? You figure it out !

Be sure that your dialogue and your character's body language match! Your story will be much more believable and realistic for it.