Book number ONE, Reality and Research

I’m not a joiner by nature, but a few years ago, notice of a new writing group in town caught my attention. I decided to give it a try, though I had no experience; and no confidence in myself as a writer.

We did a lot of fumbling around in the beginning, trying to find what worked, and fell into writing 150 words, on a given topic, sharing our efforts with the group.

I wrote poetry and stories for children, so writing adult fiction was new for me. Soon I was writing short stories, abandoned the 150 word thing, and let my story go where they needed to go, ignoring word count. I discovered the joy of fiction writing and wanted to write more and more, to challenge myself. I wanted to write a book. Imagine that.

It’s been four years since I wrote that first novel and I recently pulled it out of the drawer to give it another look. Amazing what you find to do during a heat wave when you can’t do anything else.

I’ve learned a lot about writing in these intervening years. I’ve read articles and books on writing, and it’s often said, write what you know, and that’s exactly what I had done. As I worked my way through that first book I was amazed at how much of ‘me’ was in those pages. The story was pure fiction, but my female protagonist and I shared many life experiences.

I didn’t do any real research, but kept to what was familiar. The internet gave me a map of the village I had in mind; and a country drive with a friend gave me the visual for my story’s setting.

This is a photo of the house I used in the book for the lawyer's home and office.

I set up a story binder, for all my character notes, maps, floor plans and photos. As I go along I add notes and ideas. Once the book is done, it all goes in a file, just in case.

Apparently I used a technique in that story that a ‘How To’ book, said never try for your first effort. Unfortunately I read that after I wrote the book.

My story was third person, from the female protagonist’s point of view. I felt her back story was important and wanted to give it more impact. I took the reader back, not in a flashback, but in a time shift.

I put this part in italics, gave the date, and wrote it in first person. I wanted the reader to understand what this woman had gone through, and what could be better that reading it from her perspective, as she lived it?

I thought I’d done everything to show the difference between past and present. There was the change to first person, the date, and the damn italics. My first beta reader was confused, thought it was a journal entry. ****

Okay, on second look, I guess that could be the first thought, but who writes dialogue and such description in a journal. I did a rewrite, but was not willing to give up the time shift idea; I kept the italics, the date, and changed it to third person like the rest of the book.

Each time shift was a natural flow from what was happening in the present. Each journey back gave the reader more of the character’s life story until the past and present merged, and the reader was fully aware of why the character felt and behaved as she did.

I think it works, and it must have been clear as, once the changes were made, there was no more question of it being a journal entry.

The value of having good beta readers who will give you honest feedback cannot be measured. That same reader, who thought it was a journal, also told me the ending sucked. Well, he was nicer, said he felt disappointed, wanted more.

I did a rewrite, again, because he was right. I was so anxious to get the book finished, done, over, I rushed the ending. Lesson learned.

I was proud of that first effort, and did submit it to ONE publisher, and received a very nice rejection letter in return. Hence the book in the drawer thing.

Now that I’ve taken time to read it again, I can see how much I’ve learned in the last few years. The writing group evolved into a group of book and short story writers, and we are constantly sharing information, giving feedback and challenging each other to do more than the 150 word prompts.

I completed the edit/rewrite, and think it’s a better read now. I like Katie, the main character; she’s a woman I can respect, we’ve become very good friends

 

 

What does your Bookmark say About You?

Patience is a virtue.

I think people who read find it much easier to be patient, for as long as you have a book, you have something to do while you wait.

I read a lot, and not only do I read, but I reread. If you read a book and enjoyed it, immersed yourself in the characters, their lives, their conflicts, then rereading that story is like a visit with old friends.

When I read a new book by a favourite author, I jump in and read it right to the finish, in a hurry to see how it all ends up. But by doing so, I may lose some of the finer details. So, about 6 months later, I’ll reread that book, at a more leisurely pace, and see the things I may have missed the first time through.

I usually have a book in the car, just in case, and one in the bathroom, most often rereads. I know I can pick up this book at any time, read for a few minutes, and put it down. These books will not suck me into a night of reading that has me at The End when the sun is starting to shine in my window.

Having so many books on the go requires I have numerous bookmarks to mark my place. And when you’re known to be a reader, people give you bookmarks, so I have quite a collection.

I once had a red leather bookmark, a gift, a souvenir, from a friend’s visit to Scotland. It was stamped with a map of the country and a piper in full regalia. I didn’t use it much as it was too thick and long for paperbacks, better for a large hardcover.

I collect angels, and when you’re known to collect something, you get gifts on that theme. I was given a beautiful pewter angel, with blue stones, on a blue satin ribbon. It was too pretty to risk losing I thought, and have it hung on the door of my curio cabinet.

 

 

My granddaughter gave me the book mark that came with her Blueberry Cupcake doll (part of the Strawberry Shortcake line of dolls), another friend gave me a butterfly clip type bookmark. And last Christmas I received a lovely hand made crocheted bookmark.

As I was planning this post, I tried to remember where I put all my arty bookmarks,some things are not so readily found since the move. I’ve collected a few bookmarks just for the inspiration of the art work.

 

 

But, my usual bookmark is a treasured one, a gift from my granddaughter. It came with her school pictures, and I’ve had it since 2007. I’ve lost it a few times, due to my tendency to stick a bookmark in the book I’m reading, rather than setting it on the table.

I would pick up a book to read, yet again, and the bookmark that I’d stuck in the book the last time, and forgotten when I finished the book, would fall into my hands. I’ve taken better care, having lost it a few times, as I love opening a book and seeing her beautiful smiling face. It’s a 2for, in my mind. I get that warm and fuzzy feeling, and can mark my place in good read.

What do you use to mark your place?

Coffee or Tea, Anyone?

It’s been a rough week.

The weather has been hot and humid, not a good combination for those with living with Multiple Sclerosis. I’ve kept a low profile, trying to beat the heat. Pain is not something one usually associates with MS, and I admit most of my pain is arthritic in nature, but the combo this week has laid me low.

So, I’ve read a few books, and watched a lot of television. And I’ve noticed a continuing theme with these fictional characters. Coffee and tea.

I love crime shows and am particularly fond of NCIS. Gibbs is the grey haired leader of a team of federal agents. He is frequently seen holding a cup of coffee, or sending someone out for coffee. As I’ve watched many of these shows in syndication I can remember the ongoing joke about Gibbs drinking his coffee black, and his disgust at the other team members’ choice of fancy lattes.

It’s an ongoing theme, and gives the viewer a sense of familiarity with this taciturn character.

I also read the latest in JD Robb’s ‘In Death’ series. These are a favourite and I’ve read and reread them all. Eve Dallas is a cop in the year 2058. In the first book, “Naked in Death’, Eve meets her future husband, the billionaire, Roarke.

He tries to win her over, not with diamonds and gems, but with coffee. In the future, coffee made from real coffee beans, is a luxury of the rich. Eve is a typical cop, addicted to coffee, but has only tasted the soy based imitation, never the real thing until she meets Roarke.

There is another ongoing theme in this book series. It seems food is, for the most part, man made. The real thing is too expensive or just not available. Eve and her team of cops sometimes meet in her home office where Roarke provides the nourishment. One young cop tasted real bacon for the first time and asked, “Is this real meat, like from a pig?”

In the off shoot to NCIS you have NCIS Los Angeles. They aren’t big coffee drinkers on the West Coast, seems tea is their beverage of choice. Hetty is a tea connassoir, determined to teach her agents the way to brew the perfect cup of tea, from tea leaves, of course. She scoffs at Callen, with his dip-the-tea-bag-in-hot-water method of making tea. “Can’t you taste the paper?” she asks.

On the show The Mentalist, Patrick Jane is a consultant to the CBI, the California Bureau of Investigation. He is constantly seen with a cup of tea, (see, it is a West Coast thing), and often asks if he can make a cup of tea while the police are interviewing witnesses or suspects. And of course, while making that tea, he snoops around and finds important information needed to solve the crime.

I have another favourite series, the Maggie O’Dell books by Alex Kava. Maggie is a profiler with the FBI. She drinks neither coffee nor tea, but is addicted, in the same fashion as coffee drinkers are addicted to their brew, to Diet Pepsi.

It’s an ongoing theme again, where others keep a supply, or get one for her instead of the usual hot, caffeinated beverages more frequently supplied.

I like these ongoing themes. They offer insight into the characters, give the characters an opportunity for more personal interaction, and often, add a touch of humour in a story line that is serious and deadly.

Personal touches can make a character more memorable, after all, look what the martini, shaken not stirred, did for James Bond.

 

Have a good week everyone.

My Car is Making a Strange Noise

My car is making a strange noise.

It’s old, like me, so I understand its need to whine and groan at times, but this sound makes me think there’s a construction crew in the engine running a buzz saw and, well, that’s new and a little disconcerting.

I have a great fear that one of these times the car is going to let me down but good, and I’ll be without transportation, or paying a repair bill that will end up costing me more than the car is worth.

I don’t want my car to have any more problems. I had planned for the car to run as long as I was still driving, and that we would end our driving relationship together. And damn it, I’m not ready yet to give up my independence.

I’ve heard this car noise before, in my friend’s car, and they’re both older than me and mine. She told me it was dampness, moisture that collects because we live by the lake and we don’t drive every day. It only happens in reverse, and only the first time I back out of my parking spot. And circumstances being what they are, I’m driving even less than before.

I was told once that my kind of driving is really hard on a vehicle, especially in winter. Because I usually drive locally, just running errands, with a lot of stops-starts, the engine never gets a chance to really warm up.

I was told to take it for the occasional drive on the highway, where we would be out longer and get up to a greater speed. So now I’m thinking, these monthly lunches I do out of town, once with my friend and then with my brother, are therapeutic, for me and the car.

Which leads me to another issue, modern rock music. When I’m listening to music in the car and some song comes on with that repetitive sound in the background, that mechanical, techo-rock sound, I think it’s the car.

I turn the radio down and listen, and no noise, thank goodness, so it’s just the music. I have done this so many times now that if the car could talk it would chastise me for having so little faith.

Women need a reliable vehicle. Being stranded somewhere, alone, is a scary thing. Let me tell you about being stranded, at least I wasn’t alone, and it wasn’t my car.

I was out on a country day trip with a friend, in her brand new car. I mean really brand new, less than fifty kilometres new. We were travelling along when we noticed a strange noise from the rear of the car, on the passenger side, and pulled over to the side of the road to investigate.

We were on a fairly well travelled country road, but it was raining and traffic was sparse. I got out of the car, seemed logical as the noise was on my side, and discovered we had a flat tire.

A flat tire! It was a brand new car. So, there we sat, on a country road, surrounded by farmland, not a house in sight. My friend turned to me. “Do you have your cell phone?”

“I don’t have a cell phone,” I told her. “Don’t you have one?”

So there we were, two middle aged women, neither who had embraced the new technology, both wondering what we were going to do next.

But, I watch television…I’d seen all those car commercials about accidents and the OnStar people responding to the emergency. And, I saw the red OnStar button above the rear view mirror.

We laughed about the whole situation, the lack of cell phones, the isolation, the rain, and decided, what the hell, and pushed the button.

Well, what do you know, it worked. A very nice woman answered our…summons, call, I don’t know what you would call it, and listened to our plight. “Where are you?” she asked.

We knew vaguely where we were, but it wasn’t exact enough for her. ”Do you see a cross road, or any signs?”

There was a side road back a ways, so I got out of the car again, and walked back along the road, in the pouring rain (woe is me, eh?) until I could read the road sign. Once we gave our new friend the information, she knew exactly where we were. Then the issue became where did she send help from, as we were at a half way point between two towns.

Long story short, we had the tire inflated by a tow truck sent to help, made it to the closest town, and spent the afternoon waiting for her car to get a new set of tires, as the one that had gone flat was shredded to pieces, a factory defect.

We never did get to our destination, which had been some unique shops in town, so all the day cost me was a soaking and lunch. It was much more expensive and troublesome for my friend.

Old and used doesn’t have to mean unreliable. Old and used just needs some regular maintenance and care. And isn’t it fortunate that we now have a mechanic in the family, so my wheels get some personal attention, and I can maintain my faith a little bit longer..

Maybe we’ll make it to the end together after all.

My Better Home and Garden

So, it’s been about three weeks since I moved into my new space and it’s definitely feeling like home.

I had coffee out on the patio at the front of my place the other morning, and enjoyed the warmth of the sun, the birds in the trees and the little chipmunk that was racing across the lawn.

It felt good. My potted planters were a colourful touch, a dash of red and green against the white brick. The garden along the wall needs some attention, but all in due time, as I’ll need some help there. Oh, but the planning.

I got onto Pinterest, and put small gardens in the search and yes, there went the morning. Amazing the number of gardens using rocks. I love a garden with the look of a dry creek bed, the layers of rock, the gentle curve that mimics a meandering brook.

I had such a garden once, complete with an arced bridge to go over it, joining the patio with the lawn. I have to laugh, as the bridge was grudgingly built, without an ounce of grace

I had a vision, something that I’d never seen done in that area, and one I had to convince my husband was going to be beautiful. The convincing was kind of sneaky on my part. I would do as much of the work as I could, and in order to get it finished, my husband had to finally give in and help, once I had the job near to completion.

Yet he didn’t see the need for the bridge, which I thought was crucial to the design. I tried to build the bridge myself, which was no easy task as I was useless with electrical tools, and was trying to hand saw and hammer the thing together.

The old boy just had to show me how it was done. He bought the wood, cut the curved side pieces and, voila, I had my arched oriental style bridge over my dry creek bed. It really was beautiful, and he had no problem taking credit when the garden was complimented.

I tried it again at another house, this time I had an arbour, with handmade stepping stones, and a small dry creek area that was more functional that decorative, as it handled the run off.

Run off seems to be a good spot to place a dry creek type garden, and tried it once more. This time I got fancy. I had a 24 inch circle of concrete, and I painted it to look like a pond, complete with a couple of Koi fish and lily pads.

I must have put a dozen coats of sealer on that thing to weather proof it. On a flat section of the garden, where the dry creek bed ran to the back of the property, I laid it down and arranged the rocks and plants around it…like a real pond.

It was a surprise, a bit of whimsy, in an otherwise normal garden. I wish I had picture to remember it.

I don’t have enough space for a dry creek bed type garden. But I noticed all those paths, in the picture gallery on Pinterest, that had the spaces between plain patio slabs filled with river rock, even glass stones for colour. My mind was racing with ideas.

At my back door is a neglected bit of space where I was going to put my bird feeders. It has proven to be too close to the window and too open for the birds I’d hoped to attract. But wouldn’t a bench be pretty there, with a big pot of flowers on one end that I could see from my window.

A nice spot to sit in an evening and watch the sun go down. Patio stones, joined with areas of rock, and maybe I could use the existing bricks for a pretty edging, yes, I can see it might work.

Not everyone can see the finished result as I can, or understands why I try to create something a little different. It’s the artist in me that wants to put my own touch to things.

After all, it’s the little touches that make a house a home.

It’s quiet now, the sun has set in a splendid show of colour, and the court is dark except for the one light post. It’s a perfect evening I’m thinking, as I sit here, with my feet up and write.

I wish everyone the same peace and contentment as I feel right now.