I'm Alive!

At last I have conquered the cold! Well, not for everyone and not even permanently for me, just this last bout of it. After two weeks of sniffling, hacking, and swearing, (Yes, swearing. I'm not sick often, so I'm never able to accept the indignity of it happening to me) I was finally able to breathe all night without the aid of OTC drugs. Gone is the lack of energy and drugged out feeling that makes me want to curl up on the couch and whimper. I'm alive. The sun is shining. Life is great.

Now if only my husband felt the same way. Unfortunately I gave the dreaded germs to him. The good news is he is a much better patient than me. In fact, Al is the perfect patient for someone like me who has only minimal pampering or nursing instincts. He just wants to be left alone to sleep.  I can do that. My idea of nursing is making sure he takes pills and periodically checking to see if he's still living. Hand holding, sponging the brow with a cool cloth and soothing words are just not in my repertoire.

My husband and I just returned from traveling back to Nauvoo, Illinois. As a Mormon, Nauvoo is a part of my family history. I have relatives who were sealed in the Nauvoo temple, and ancestors who were born at Winter Quarters after the Saints were driven from their homes in Nauvoo. The highlight of the trip for me was being able to attend a session in the newly rebuilt temple. One of the temple workers told me how the church obtained the original building plans. When the missionaries in California knocked on a door, a man told them he wasn't interested in their message, but that the church might be interested in something that he had. He was a descendant of the architect and had a copy of the plans. The new temple was then constructed as close to the original plans as possible. I also took a tour of the Joseph Smith mansion now owned by the reorganized church and visited Carthage Jail where Joseph Smith was killed.

On our way back we stopped in Hannibal, Missouri, home of Mark Twain, for lunch. It always amazes me how towns capitalize on one person. They had a square set up with Becky Thatcher's home and the fence Tom Sawyer conned his friends into painting. Excuse me? Did the tourists understand that these places didn't ever exist except in Samuel Clement's mind? His boyhood home might have been authentic, but I wasn't curious enough to pay for a ticket.

I love the adventure of traveling and seeing new places, but I'm always glad to come home and sleep in my own bed.

The Art of Writing

Writing is an art form just as unique and individual as painting.  It takes skill, imagination and the talent to create a little bit of magic. Whether it's the language of  a lyrical poem that lifts the soul and in some way makes the world less frightening, the fast action of a spy thriller that pushes back the boredom of everyday life, or a tender love story that touches the heart, if the magic is there, it transforms the reader in some way.

Just like painting, it requires a certain amount of skill. Even with the most vivid imagination, if your words fail to paint the pictures in your head, there's no magic. Still, like any other art form, writing isn't as simple as constructing the perfect sentence or following a set of instructions. You can't  insert tab A in to slot B and come out with a best seller. Call it magic or talent, some part of what you write has to connect and resonate with the reader, expanding their understanding of themselves or the world around them. In its own way its more complicated than rocket science.

Experts like publishers and agents can't explain it, any more than an art expert can tell you how to create a masterpiece.  All they can do is give you examples of what works for them. It's as individual as taste.

Weaving magic is hard work, often painful, but ultimately satisfying.

I'm an Author

My first royalty check from Amazon arrived yesterday. Granted it won't buy that Caribbean cruise that my husband sings about when he sees me writing, his way of encouraging me to write that blockbuster that will make us rich beyond our wildest dreams.  I keep telling him that's unrealistic, but I appreciate his faith in me. About the only thing I could buy with this check is dinner for two at McDonald's, but then that's not the point, which is that people actually paid money to read what I wrote.

I'm very grateful to the friends and relatives who put out their hard earned cash, some of whom had already read it for free.

I love to read.  I never thought I could actually write a book. Unlike a lot of writers who have felt compelled to write their whole lives, I took up writing later in life as a hobby. I don't do handicrafts because I suck at all of them. Even after extensive instruction, my finished product always looked like a kindergarten project and did nothing for my ego. My mother has a beautiful voice and paints. Sadly she refused to pass any of those talents on to me.  She also kept the boobs and gave me a big butt, but that's another story.

Having failed at all the regular hobbies, I decided to try writing.  Why not? it couldn't be any worse than the sweater I tried knit. To my surprise, I enjoyed the process and finished a book. Even more astonishing to me, people outside my immediate family asked to read it and when finished said they couldn't wait for the sequel.

While my writing may never lead to an interview on the Today Show, I'm proud of what I've written and to be able to say, "I sold a book!"

Love and Marriage

Most of us get married somewhere in our twenty's when we don't have enough experience to pick a career let alone a lifetime companion. We aren't even fully formed ourselves. In my twenty's I didn't know a thing about love.  My parents adored each other and I assumed that's all it took. You fell in love, got married and the happily ever after thing just happened. Somehow your heart would simply pick out the right person.

Obviously, that's not true.  So how in the world did I manage at twenty to pick the perfect man for me? I can look back and know it wasn't a decision based on logic. I'm impulsive and Al's idea of acting on impulse is having less than two days to prepare. In high school I dreaded sitting through history. He loved it. I don't carry cash because I can't hold on to it.  Al panics when our checking account slips below his comfort zone. (It's a good thing I kept the checkbook during the lean years when a good month meant I had enough money left to buy milk and bread the week before pay day.) I'm an optimist, always sure everything will turn out perfectly.  Al plans for the worst. We don't watch the same TV shows and we're not even the same religion. Yet somehow we compliment each other and it works.

We've been married forever, or at least longer than we were single, and every day with him is better than yesterday. Best of all, he makes me feel loved and wanted and even at times beautiful. Trust me, that's a challenge. I have a heartless mirror that shows me every every extra pound and wrinkle. Not that we haven't had our problems.  You can't be that different and expect not to argue, sometimes at the top of our lungs. Actually I'm the only one who yells. Al just walks away until he calms down.  I used to resent it, wanting to fight it out and then kiss and make up. Now I appreciate the control it takes to walk away when you're that angry, rather than lash out and hurt someone with words or actions that no amount of kissing can erase.

In the beginning love meant physical attraction, wanting to spend time together and having fun, now it means being terrified of having to live even one day without him. My mother once told me the most important thing in a marriage was respect.  She said love comes and goes, but if you have respect you'll always have something to build on. She's a smart woman.

Trash or Treasure

I saw an advertisement for a ghostwriter for several erotica stories.  What?  He can't write his own sex scenes? If I understand it correctly, erotica is all about graphic sex and not much else.  So if this guy needs a ghost writer who is willing to write the sex part, what exactly is he writing?

I admit I don't understand the erotica thing anyway.  Heaven know it sells, but then there's always been a good market for pornography. What I don't get is why a professional writer would consider turning out this trash. Money, of course, probably a great deal of it. However, the fact that most of these writers use a pen name rather than their real name tells me how proud they are of their work.  It's not like it requires a large vocabulary and I doubt the reader cares about whether you've used the correct syntax, as long as you've thrown vulgarity and swear words in every other sentence, and what they read makes them doubt the quality of their own love life. It's not hard to appeal to our baser instincts.

So much of what we read, see on TV, and listen to on the radio is about sex. Not love, not finding someone to share your life with, just sex.  A very popular song with teenagers today is about drinking too much, dancing on tables, skinny dipping and then having sex with people they don't know, and doing it again every Friday night while making it all sound like great fun. No mention of the possibility of AIDS, STD, or even pregnancy and a hundred other possibilities. TV programs and movies have people ripping each other's clothes off after the first date.  That's lust, not love and not the basis of a lasting relationship.

Then I watched the 25th anniversary concert of Les Miserables.  What a wonderful story about love and sacrifice, no swear words or sex scenes.  In fact, the most moving part is about the unselfish love of a father for his adopted daughter.  To say the music is incredible would be an understatement.  It fills you with joy and a desire to be a better person. To me, that's what literature, music, and art should do.

I have no illusions about my ability to write a classic, but I want to be proud of what I do write, stories where good prevails over evil, and the reader comes away feeling good about themselves and life in general.

The Story's the Thing

I've been reading all about the rules a writer needs to follow in order to get published.  While I don't doubt that these things are important, without a great story and interesting characters, none of it will matter. 

Writing is a form of creation and shouldn't be stifled by rules. When I dither over the perfect sentence, I sometimes lose the excitement of allowing my imagination to soar. I've discovered that getting the plot down on paper while it's still fresh in my mind is more important than worrying about whether I've used active verbs, avoided adverbs, or even written in complete sentences. All that can be fixed in editing. Is the story so compelling that the reader must find out what happens next?  Are my characters interesting?  Most important how do I feel about what I've written?  It's my creation and whether an agent or publisher thinks it's worthy of publication shouldn't negate the satisfaction I feel when I read it.