Lea Wait's Blog, page 80

Monarchs & Kingsolver

It’s Monarch time again! The glorious orange and black butterflies have been sighted in Maine, New Hampshire, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. I’ve seen them on our lilacs and milkweeds here in Yarmouth, Maine.

Monarchs are truly amazing creatures. They carry out one of the most incredible cross-continental journeys in the animal kingdom, traveling upwards of 3000 miles from Canada and the northern U.S. down to sacred fir forests in the mountains of Mexico.

The summer breeding range of monarchs is defined by the northern limit of milkweed. We can all help them by planting milkweed. There are over 100 milkweed species native to North America, many of which are used by monarchs. Sadly, monarch migration is declining and the butterflies need protection. Loss of milkweed habitat, drought in California and elsewhere, insecticides and herbicides, and habitat loss in overwintering sites in Mexico from illegal logging contribute to their decline.

Lincoln Brower, professor at Amherst College, led a team of researchers studying the overwintering grounds of monarchs in the mountains of Michoacan, Mexico. I knew Brower when I was at Hampshire College, also in Amherst MA. In the last decades of his life, Brower recorded sharp decline in North American monarchs by 80% attributed to herbicides, logging, and weather events.

Brower advised novelist Barbara Kingsolver on butterfly migration for her 2012 book Flight Behavior, a terrific read I strongly recommend. The story features Dellarobia Turnbow, a young discontented housewife living with her poor family on a farm in Appalachia. Dellarobia’s life suddenly changes when she finds millions of monarch butterflies in the valley behind her home.

For monarchs to overwinter far from the heat of the south is unprecedented. Locals view their arrival as a message from God. Entomologist Ovid Byron, a gifted African-American researcher who comes to investigate, puts the blame on a very different agent: climate change. Byron hires Dellarobia to help him to make sense of the strange apparition on her land. In the process, she acquires a self-confidence she had been denied by her lack of education and begins a new life as an environmental scientist.

I am very impressed with Kingsolver’s skill incorporating details of this insect’s life history into fiction. That’s a real challenge (which, as an ecologist, I can certainly relate to) and Kingsolver is the master.

Why Do I Write About Dysfunctional People?

Vaughn C. Hardacker

On June 4th of this year, I received a phone call from a friend of my younger brother, Dana, informing me that Dana had died at 1:30 a.m. that morning. Four years younger than I am, Dana had been battling kidney disease for the past year and had been undergoing dialysis treatments.

I was the second of my father’s three sons and the first of my mother’s. My father was a merchant seaman and had been married to Agnes Wallace Hardacker.  While my father was away, she gave birth to a child. She named him, Norman, after my father’s father. It was the beginning of a very dysfunctional life. Norman’s mother suffered from tuberculosis and her disease had advanced to the point where after Norman was taken from the delivery room, she would never again be allowed to hold her son.

Norman was then sent to live with our grandmother. In 1945, my father’s ship docked in Cardiff, Wales, UK and he met a young woman named Lorraine Virgin. Two weeks later they married. A decision would later be made to allow my grandparents to adopt Norman. The rationale was that he would serve as a replacement for my namesake, Vaughn, who was killed in the fighting for the hedgerows in France in August 1944. It was a decision that would have long-term repercussions.

My father took his new bride to the United States and left her with his family. He then went back to sea. I was born in Caribou, Maine on July 20, 1947. My

Vaughn C. Hardacker

mother took me to Wales when I was one year old and stayed there for a year. She then returned to the United States. My father, still in the merchant marine, was shipping out of New York and she settled in nearby Jersey City, New Jersey. She was a young woman alone in one of the largest metropolitan areas of the U. S. and found a circle of friends with whom she spent much of her time. The problem was not so much who she spent time with as much as where they spent it. A the corner of the block was Bea and Steve’s Bar. I have no idea how much time she and her toddler son spent there, but I have no memory of the apartment in which we lived. However, to this day seventy-three years later, I can still draw a floor plan of Bea and Steve’s.

Dana Michael Hardacker

The year 1951 was traumatic for me. I had thus far lived my life as an only child. In Jersey City on June 21, 1951, Dana Michael Hardacker came into the world. I was struggling to adjust to the new arrival when my father returned from sea. Before leaving on that voyage, he had promised my mother that it would be his last. I later learned that when he announced he was shipping out again in a few days, a great argument took place. He had a collection of paperweights that he’d collected from numerous places he’d visited and she knocked him out with one. He had made his last voyage.

I now had two strangers in my life. One I was told was my brother and the other was my father (heretofore I had no idea who he was. I was once told that when my mother and I would walk down the street, I’d ask men we’d pass if they were my father, At this age, I had no knowledge of Norman.

When I was seven, in 1954, we left New Jersey and returned to Maine. It was my first experience with how dysfunctional my family was. I was introduced to my Uncle Norman. I still wonder how Norman felt when he learned that his father was now his brother, his uncles were also brothers, his grandparents were his parents, and his brothers were his nephews. To say the least, my relationship with Norman was very strained and would remain so for the rest of Norman’s life (Norman died a few days before Christmas 2006–three months after I lost my wife of thirty-six years).

The four years difference between Dana and me didn’t seem to be a big deal. When I was in high school he was still in grammar school and we started to drift apart. My high school years were spent in a state of constant warfare with my mother, who was a full-blown alcoholic by this time. I was seventeen when I graduated high school and within days left home. The situation there was so bad that I left Caribou in the passenger seat of a truck headed for Boston to pick up a load of beer–now ain’t that a coincidence? I had one small suitcase with two shirts, two days’ worth of underwear and socks, and the grand sum of $5.00. I hung around the Boston area from June to September working as a laborer for a construction crew. In September the owner offered me the opportunity to stay on and he would teach me the masonry trade. Instead, I left and went to New London, Connecticut.

I ended up in a boarding house where Norman, now out of the navy, was living and working at Electric Boat.  I don’t know which of us was more relieved when in November I decided I wanted no part of submarines and departed from New Jersey.

Over the years, I separated myself from my brothers. I very seldom spoke or visited Norman in Connecticut and Dana who became a career soldier was in Oklahoma (he also suffered from the effects of our mother’s alcoholism and PTSD. This may explain why he was married five times to four different women.) Over the years Dana and I would speak over the phone two or three times a year, I visited him and wife #3 in Oklahoma and quickly realized that he and I had little in common and again, don’t know who was happier when the visit ended.

The week before he died, I spoke with Dana on the phone and when I learned that he was not doing well, I said, “Dana, we need to talk to each other every week. He passed away one week later to the day.

Today, six weeks after his death, I can’t help but wonder if the thought of having to talk to me weekly helped him along. I think about our lives. As stated I don’t know much about Norman’s life, only that the only time his father/brother paid attention to him was when my grandmother called saying that Norman was acting up. Then the old man would play Dad and correct him, usually with a physical reminder. I’ve come to realize that my father’s decision to marry my mother had devastating consequences for Norman. I have no doubt that she influenced my father (who had little if any contact with his oldest son) because she was not about to raise another woman’s kid.

Of the three, I was the wildest and most rebellious. My reputation in Caribou, a small town, was so bad that I had been gone from there for more than five years when I met the woman who would have to deal with me for thirty-six years. The first thing she said when we were introduced was, “I’ve heard about you.” I once met an old girlfriend at her father’s funeral and she saw me in my Marine uniform and asked: Of all branches, the Marines are the last I thought you would join. My reply was, “I guess something inside of me knew that if I was going to get straightened out I needed to get my butt kicked.” She smiled and said, “My father said that about you when we were seeing each other in our junior year.”

I mentioned earlier about my stormy relationship with my mother, it never got better. At her funeral, a childhood friend said, “I’m surprised to see you here.” My reply: “I wanted to make sure they weren’t lying to me.” I hope those of you who have known me for a while may get a better idea of why at times I can be cold, aloof, and unapproachable. It’s nothing you’ve done it’s just my battered self-esteem hiding behind the wall I’ve built around my feelings.

So, to answer the question posed in the title of this blog all I can say is this, I know more about dysfunction than anything else. And, ain’t we always told, “Write what you know“?

 

Weekend Update: July 16-17, 2022

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Vaughn Hardacker (Monday), Charlene D’Avanzo (Tuesday), Kate Flora (Thursday), and a special guest (Friday).

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

Many of us had a wonderful time last weekend at Books in Boothbay:

Sandra Neily here: I so enjoyed Books in Boothbay this year (reorganized into AM and PM sessions). It’s not often we get to have in-person sales with browsing readers. (I have found that saying my female narrator has hot flashes and arthritis issues as she tap dances through murders in the Maine woods … helps women reach for “Deadly Trespass. “).

Fellow author (and mastermind of this blog) Kate Flora suggested I share this amazing Getting Published chart with you. After library appearances, I often send it out to those who want to understand various publishing paths.  Do sign up for Jane Friedman’s newsletter if you are any kind of writer or would-be writer. She’s been my guide for many, many years.

 

Matt Cost here: I had a great time connecting with fellow Maine authors and readers at Books in Boothbay last Saturday. What a fantastic writing community Maine is!

On Saturday, July 16th, I will be doing a talk comparing the latest books in my two mystery series at the Boothbay Harbor Memorial Library at 1:00 PM. The focus will be on Mainely Angst, the fourth book in my Mainely Mystery series set in Brunswick, and Mouse Trap, the third book in my Port Essex/Clay Wolfe series based loosely on Boothbay Harbor.

On Wednesday, July 20,, I will be doing a talk comparing the latest books in my two mystery series at the Readfield Community Library at 6:30 PM. The focus will be on Mainely Angst, the fourth book in my Mainely Mystery series set in Brunswick, and Mouse Trap, the third book in my Port Essex/Clay Wolfe series based loosely on Boothbay Harbor.

I am excited to announce the re-release of my historical, At Every Hazard; Joshua Chamberlain and the Civil War, by Encircle Publications on August 10th. Here is the brand spanking new cover.

The Biddeford Library is hosting a craft talk with author Karen Odden on Monday, July 18th. Check out the details on the library website.

An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business, along with the very popular “Making a Mystery” with audience participation, and “Casting Call: How We Staff Our Mysteries.” We also do programs on Zoom. Contact Kate Flora

 

 

Some of my Favorite Quotes to do with Writers and Writing

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here. This time around I was drawing a blank for a blog topic until it occurred to me that it has been a while since I offered anything in the way of writing advice. I thought about that for a bit. Sadly, nothing relevant came to  mind, but I did remember one or two comments related to writers and writing that I’ve heard over the way too many years I’ve been in this crazy business. I share them here, together with a few I hunted up to go with the theme of this essay.

“Talent never pays.”
Carolyn Marino, editor, c. 1988, when I naïvely offered to pay for my own lunch. Sadly, I’m not sure this is still true. Certainly fewer editors take their midlist authors out for meals these days.

“I made it up.”
Charlaine Harris, author of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, in answer to a question about where she found “all that information about vampires.”

“[The author is] just churning them out for the money.”
Way too many anonymous reviewers, none of whom, obviously, understand that most writers are barely paid enough of an advance for their work to keep them in office supplies.

“A ‘nice’ deal is $1000 to $49.000.”
Sisters in Crime clarifies this in their regular listing of deals signed by members. The amount is what the publisher agreed to pay the writer as an advance. Very few writers ever get to the next level (“very nice” is $50,000 to $99,000; a “major” deal is $500,000 and up). I speak from experience. The largest advance I ever received was $30,000. The majority of my advances were between $4000 and $8000 per book. Things have not improved much for most writers since the 1990s.

“Keep your butt in the chair, and your hands on the keyboard.” (and variations of the same advice)
Almost any successful author to newbie writers looking for shortcuts.

“Never start a book with the weather.”
Elmore Leonard, but he added qualifiers to that statement.

“It was a dark and stormy night.”
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)—the first paragraph of this novel is so melodramatic and wordy that the opening sentence has become a cliché. That said, it has also been successfully used for effect, most notably as the first sentence in Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time (1962) and by Charles Schulz in It Was A Dark And Stormy Night, Snoopy (1971).

“The night was . . . moist.”
Billy Crystal’s character in Throw Momma from the Train as he tries desperately to come up with an opening for his novel.

“It was March and drizzling.”
Kathy Lynn Emerson, opening line of The Mystery of Hilliard’s Castle (1985)

 

That’s it. That’s all I’ve got this time around. Feel free to share any quotes you like about writers or writing in the comments section. You never know what may prove inspiring!

Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett has had sixty-four books traditionally published and has self published others, including several children’s books. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. Her most recent publications are The Valentine Veilleux Mysteries (a collection of three short stories and a novella, written as Kaitlyn) and I Kill People for a Living: A Collection of Essays by a Writer of Cozy Mysteries (written as Kathy). She maintains websites at www.KaitlynDunnett.com and www.KathyLynnEmerson.com.

 

Into the Wilderness… Sort of

1972 Camping at the Grand Canyon

On our honeymoon, starting 50 years ago this month (yes, 50!), my husband and I camped in our VW van named Lurch across the country for six weeks. Climbing the Rockies, our VW did indeed lurch and complain, but made it. For this major anniversary, we decided to do something more than our usual dinner out, to recreate the honeymoon in an “old people” and shorter way.

We live in the Midcoast area of Maine, on a tidal river and near the ocean. It’s hilly but has no real mountains. For this gal who grew up in West Virginia, that occasionally makes me homesick. When we were still teaching, for Columbus Day weekend we used to go Lurch camping with previous dogs to various mountainous parts of western and northern Maine, a foliage trip. After the VW rusted out, we continued the outings, but rented cabins instead. But we never had time then to go as far north as Mount Katahdin.

So last weekend, we rented a cabin at Mount Chase Lodge on Upper Shin Pond. (Thanks to Mike and Lindsay for a great stay and delicious dinners overlooking the pond.) Except for a few small towns and businesses catering to hikers, ATV riders, and boaters, Katahdin Woods & Waters and the adjacent Baxter State Park are wilderness.

Our cabin at Mt. Chase Lodge. Grill is there to keep the dog on the deck.

So we explored parts of the recently designated Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument next to Baxter State Park, location of Mount Katahdin. We’d be near the mountain, but at this stage of our lives, including senior dog Sasha, we weren’t about to climb any part of it. My husband and some buddies did so years ago, and his tale of the rugged ascent—and descent (in the rain)—made me vow the extent of my hiking would be something like Beech Hill in Rockport. The almost four-hour drive, partly on I-95, took us into the mountains of northern Maine.

Map of Katahdin Woods & Waters National Monument in dark green

We parked on Ash Hill in Patten to eat our packed lunch and take photos of Mount Katahdin in the distance. Brief commercial for Mount Katahdin: The name is derived from an Abenaki Indian word meaning “main mountain.” This, the highest point in Maine at 5,268 feet, consists of various rugged summits, and marks the northern end of the Appalachian Trail. Main mountain indeed, its impressive height and breadth dominate the landscape.

Mt. Katahdin in distance

Then we visited the Patten Lumbermen’s Museum. The friendly manager showed us a

Patten Lumbermen’s Museum

video of the way logging northern Maine was done as recently as 1976—without machinery. In the winters, men lived in logging camps and felled and sawed trees with hand saws. Logs were hauled by teams of draft horses and then floated down the Penobscot River when the ice thawed. A harsh life for cents a day, paid at the end of the season. You can imagine how some of these men released from the harshness of a Maine winter in the woods spent their wages. Telling the story of logging were several buildings containing horse-drawn logging sleds and tools for cutting and hauling lumber. My husband was fascinated by the tools, primitive tractors, and the Lombard log hauler, a giant machine powered by steam and later gasoline. Alas, I failed to photograph the various tools and machinery. But here are more of the lumbermen themselves.

Maine logging camp

Loggers on the river

But on to our cabin in the woods and KW&W. On Saturday and Sunday, we drove to trailheads and walked some trails. I can’t say it was actual hiking because it was mostly flat

Easy hike with Sasha

or easy hills. But my Fitbit told me it was worthwhile steps! Sasha would’ve kept going  despite her age, but we saw her flagging that first day and left her at the cabin the second. She’s sweet but too heavy to carry. The views were lovely, as were those at the pond and the lodge. We picnicked along one of the many streams. Back at Mount Chase Lodge, we launched one of their several canoes and paddled Upper Shin Pond.

 

I’ll leave you with more photos. They tell the story better than words.

Duck and 4 ducklings on Upper Shin Pond

Pic from our canoe ride on Upper Shin Pond

Mount Chase Lodge taken from the pond

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hiking with mountain view

 

 

 

 

 

 

Writing Architecture

My son started shooting a commercial for Maine Cabin Masters today, which made me think about writing about architecture. Needless to say, I really enjoy writing about it.

What is it about architecture that I, and so many other people, love so much? I can’t get enough of all the real estate reality shows, especially the ones listing pricey properties in New York and Los Angeles. I find that they are very instructive when writing about the rich and famous. When walking through the streets of Manhattan, I have tendency to stare up at all the expensive condos and wonder what they might look like inside.

When writing about homes and various buildings in my novels, I have a tendency to over do it when describing them. Finding the right balance between description and action seems a difficult balancing act for me, because I really enjoy all the specific details of these fascinating structures. I often wonder if people want more description or less when it comes to the homes my characters live in. What suffices? A few lines? A paragraph? Maybe more description of a particular house might be necessary if the home is integral to the plot. Anymore than a paragraph seems excessive to me.

We have some wonderful homes and buildings in Maine. In my current novel, the opening scene takes place in the Custom House located in the Old Port. If you haven’t been inside, it’s a stunning building with a long and rich past. It’s built like a fortress, but the inside has the most amazing details that beg for explanation. I wanted so badly to describe every aspect of it in my novel, especially the part of it once being a jail, that I initially overwrote the scene. But for the sake of relevancy, decided to use restraint when I went back and edited it.

I also used a pricey, waterfront home in Cape Elizabeth that’s been for sale for a long time. I always drive past it slowly, admiring it, wishing I had the money to buy it out from the owner. But six mil for a house, I cannot afford. It’s amazing how many details one can get from online real estate companies. Virtual tours allow the viewer to walk through every room and see every specific detail, from custom molding to built-in bookshelves. You can even go out on the back patio of this house and see the ocean below. As a writer, I find these sites invaluable as writing tools. Not only that, but these sites give very description details about the character of the house, the style, and all the special details built into it.

Much of another novel takes place in West Hollywood, California, and in the house of a famous actress. Again, the real estate sites proved invaluable to me, as did Google Maps, which allowed me to see all the commercial buildings located along the major arteries. Another tool I used was YouTube. I don’t know how many videos I watched of people cruising through the West Hollywood hills and past all the expensive homes hidden up there and overlooking downtown LA. It gave me a better feel for the geography of the area when it came to writing about it.

I love writing about architecture. Hope you like reading about it, too. Too much of a heavy hand can take away from the mystery and plot. Not enough and the reader is left wanting. Give me some feedback about how much detail you think is necessary when reading a thriller novel with descriptive passages about architecture and characters’ homes. Any input would help.

Have a great week!

Every Picture Tells a Story

We moved into our current house in Farmington three years ago just about this time. When I was packing up the last house (in three weeks!), I came across a bulletin board that had been tucked in a closet. I hadn’t seen it for years, and it was like finding a long-lost treasure. I was so excited I even took a photograph. On it was the curled-up sonogram of my grandson (he’s 12 ½ now), other family pictures (that adorable baby is almost 15), several contest award certificates from when I was pre-published, illustrations meant to capture my characters, etc. The bulletin board used to hang over my desk, and I’d stare at it when I got stuck.

Well, I’m stuck now, and that corkboard is in the garage behind the freezer. It’s pretty inaccessible unless I decide to somehow wedge myself between the wall and the loft stairs without decapitating myself. Everything on it is old news now, though—the books inspired by it have long been published, and I’ve forgotten half the plots, LOL.

But I’m still a visual person, and have a Pinterest account. It’s a very handy way to save images, and I’ve organized them for my three most recent book series. (I also keep recipes too, though I confess I hardly ever cook any of them). I have a collection for the new series I’m working on, and I think I need to scroll through it a couple of times to jog myself out of the half-way mark of the current WIP.

I’ve always loved beginnings—so exciting! Everything’s new and sparkly!—and sometimes I write endings way before I get to them organically. At present I am in the dreaded “mucky middle” of Book #2 of the Lady May Mysteries (move over, Lady Adelaide) and have seemingly been here forever. There is no last page in sight.

To be accurate, I probably have about 25,000 words to go to write The End, so maybe I’m 2/3 of the way through. I have only recently decided who the killer is. As you can tell, I am not a plotter. I wish I was. How envious I am of those writers who have sticky notes and, yes, bulletin boards that outline every chapter. My brain absolutely refuses to work that way (actually, my brain is absolutely refusing to work, period), and it is quite a nuisance. Sometimes I am shocked to realize I’ve managed to write 20+ books in such a haphazard manner, not to mention that I still can’t type with all my fingers.

Here’s what’s caught my eye: (780) Pinterest Check out a young Gary Cooper. Swoon. Do you use Pinterest, mood boards, or have bits of paper all over your desk?

For more about Maggie and her books, please visit www.maggierobinson.net

Weekend Update: July 9-10, 2022

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Maggie Robinson (Monday), Joe Souza (Tuesday), Susan Vaughan (Thursday), and Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Friday).

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

From Kathy/Kaitlyn: I’ve been doing some updating of my page here at MCW and of my webpages. For the latest, take a look at https://mainecrimewriters.com/kaitlyn-dunnettkathy-lynn-emerson/ or just click on my name in the sidebar. You can find more news and miscellaneous information about my books at http://www.kathylynnemerson.com and http://www.kaitlyndunnett.com

If you’re reading this early enough, come find some of us, and many other wonderful Maine authors, at Books in Boothbay, at the Railway Museum starting at 9:00 a.m. It’s a great way to support authors and gather books for your vacation reading or for gifts.

At last! The results of our “Where Would You Put the Body” contest. Always an impossible task to choose the winners. The minds of the photographers who enter this contest are truly evil indeed.

The winner? Bruce Harris for this:

First runner up? Doris Ray, who put the body in the chimney of Beech Hill Cottage.

 And second runner up? Well, many of our entrants understood that with lobster bait in short supply, it’s a perfect place to put a body. The judges think this one wins for artistic merit. 

Thanks, everyone to entered. We wish we could award prizes to all of you for your creativity. Judging this year was difficult yet a lot of fun.

Winners, please send your snail mail addresses to writingaboutcrime@gmail.com.

An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business, along with the very popular “Making a Mystery” with audience participation, and “Casting Call: How We Staff Our Mysteries.” We also do programs on Zoom. Contact Kate Flora

POLLEN OR NO POLLEN – WE MUST GO ON

by Jule Selbo

How do you write when the season is against you? When it has decided to perform its yearly duty: blow around some haploid male genetic material from one plant to the stigma of another, hoping to get lucky and cross-pollinate. A pretty random sperm delivery system – but it has worked for  –  forever? And, okay. Fine. We need it. But, does it also have to draw and quarter very necessary brain cell I have to continue on its business? Does it have to expel aggressive particles with scratchy, knobby nodules that get into tender, moist sinuses, under eyelids, unprotected eye sockets, down my epiglottis and trachea?

Even as I’m writing this, I’m thinking of the writer Dennis Potter The Singing Detective (and more), and his battle with debilitating psoriatic arthropathy and how he kept writing through the itch and pain; the photo here shows the lead character in the Singing Detective TV series (suffering from psoriatic arthropathy)

I now think I’m being a big baby…

But I started my wail, so I’ll continue.

How do you write through monstrous headaches, monstrous clear mucus that erupts like a volcano or becomes a never-ending waterfall of nasal drips?

Rhinitis. I get why it’s called that (‘Rhino’ being Greek for ‘concerning the nose’ – it’s how rhinoceros got their name (for the large horn on their nose). Sometimes, in pollen season, I can feel like my nose is the size of a rhino’s.

I wake up stuffy and slow-minded, I shuffle instead of prance in the morning light. Feels like a 5-martini hangover (well, maybe it does, I’ve never had five in one sitting).

Sometimes I dream of a sympathetic guillotine that could neatly, quickly, severe my head. But I don’t relish that permanence. So I imagine a Dr. Frankenstein puppeteer who can, hourly, unhook my head, put it in a deep freeze to cool and clear, then re-attach it so I can get on with my daily grind.

I cut off the fantasies to deal with reality. I determine to not let inanimate particles sideline me. I have a deadline. And not making a deadline (for me) can bring on a critical condition much worse than an allergy attack.

But how to push forward?

Maureen Milliken’s observations on writing, in her June 29, 2022 post, mentioned the help of story prompts. She noted that if a roomful of (let’s say) twenty writers are given the same prompt, there would be twenty very different responses, story ideas, and/or characters built. She noted how prompts can be like the jolt of a cattle prod and can get our fingers flying.

I’ll add another possibility. If there’s no one providing that prompt (or you’re not feeling self-motivated to make up one for yourself, here’s my trick – and the history of it.

It was a pivotal day for me, thirty some years ago. I was a newbie playwright, right out of graduate school, and having my first play produced off-off Broadway in NYC. The play had caught the eye of a producer who was (then) married to Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Marsha Norman (‘Night Mother, Getting Out, The Secret Garden etc.).

I was invited to a cocktail party with other struggling playwrights at their oh-so-upscale condo near Lincoln Center, one of those renovated, highly-coveted artists’ lofts with huge back windows that let in northern light and overlook an expansive (rare for NYC) garden. The building sported a maroon-ish black, jagged brick exterior, a marble lobby, and a burly but elegantly mustached doorman in a black suit with gold epaulets on his shoulders. He watched me sign in – that was a prerequisite to being allowed to the step towards the gleaming, gold elevator. His appraisal was felt, I could almost read his thoughts: “hey kid, you’re not wearing Gucci or Prada – so what right do you have to enter this domain?” (Reminder: this was all from an insecure 24-year-old’s point of view.)

Inside the condo’s cherry-wood paneled living room, Marsha sat like an unhappy queen, clearly not in the mood to be inconvenienced by her schmoozy, hardworking partner’s desire to throw a little party to support up-and-coming writers whose plays he might produce one day. Maybe she’d had a bad writing day, maybe she and her hubby had argued, maybe the guest list was not up to her standard, maybe she had just met with her divorce attorney that day (the divorce came pretty soon after), but for whatever reason, she was very unsocial, bordering on very unfriendly.

Another neophyte, who was only trying to make conversation with the woman whose career we all admired, asked how she dealt with writer’s block – or writer’s doldrums – not being able to get started on any particular day. Marsha sniffed and sneered, nearly gave us an eye-roll, but she deigned to answer. “Read. Read. Read,” she said. “And then, at some point, find a scrap of dialogue or a sentence you particularly like in the book or playscript you’re reading – get off your ass, and type it onto your blank page. Then rewrite it in your voice. And somehow make it work in your story. Use it as a jumpstart… and then just get over yourself and get on with it.”

The unhappy, unfriendly lady unwittingly had given me a great gift. From that day on, if I was stuck on my latest play (that was my focus then but I continued to use it as I moved into different modes) and was close to dumping it into the trash, I would grab a script from off my desk, and read.

It worked like this: let’s say I happened to pick up Tennessee Williams’ famous (infamous for its time) Streetcar Named Desire and his lionized line “Whoever you are – I have always depended on the kindness of strangers…” popped out at me. I might get up off my reading chair, head to my computer and – thinking about my own play and its story, begin to type: “Never trust a stranger, who knows if he might be a friend or foe?” And once I put those words into one of my character’s mouth – possible responses and maybe even a plot twist or character quirk would start to intrigue me.

Maybe there’s something to be said for the reading of great writing that, through a weird osmosis, gets another writer energized to get back to the keyboard. But soon, for me, the base writing didn’t necessary have to rise to laudatory levels – there was inspiration everywhere – the other day, sitting behind home plate at Hadlock Stadium, watching the Sea Dogs play the Flying Squirrels, I was reading about fuzzy “Nutzy” and his female pal “Nutahsa”, the visiting team’s mascots. Their history fascinated me and inspired a character nugget for my latest villain (he’s not going to put away acorns for the winter but…)

Inspirations:

 

Sure, truth be told, the new sentence or idea might not (often didn’t) end up in the final product, but it got me out of a procrastination/self-loathing/ laziness/blahs and back into a few hours of joyous writing.

Any other tips out there?

Salmon and Peas

I’m writing this on the Fourth of July, a day to think about both the founding and current state of our nation.

Dinner will be salmon and peas, a culinary tradition I’ve adopted in adulthood. When I was a child, the holiday repast involved hotdogs and hamburgers, potato salad and ice cream. But these days we eat more fish than meat, and we have made it our ritual to eat salmon, new potatoes and peas on Independence Day, as the early settlers of New England did.

Eating local was the only option in the early days of this country. After a winter of root vegetables and dried, salt-cured meat, a Fourth of July meal of fresh fish with just-picked peas and newly dug potatoes must have been a celebration indeed. At that time, the summer salmon migration upriver from the Atlantic Ocean provided an abundance of protein-rich fish, so it’s no surprise salmon on the Fourth became a traditional meal throughout the region.

The habitat for Atlantic salmon was undermined beginning in the middle of the eighteenth century when industrialization led to rivers across New England being dammed to provide power to the mills along their banks. It either didn’t occur to the dam builders that the river-spanning monoliths would harm the native fish population or they didn’t care, but blocking the rivers prevented sea-run salmon from reaching their spawning grounds.

In addition, until implementation of the Clean Water Act, industrial pollution degraded the water quality to the point that the populations of wild salmon and many other fish species pretty much collapsed. In 2022, Maine is the only state that still has a population of Wild Atlantic salmon, but its endangered status puts it off limits to both the commercial and recreational fishery.

However, as the cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead is reported to have said, “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” In recent decades, small groups of committed citizens have dedicated themselves to dam removal and the restoration of water quality in Maine’s rivers, a fact that gives me hope in these days when it is in short supply.

The Presumpscot runs through my community of Westbrook, and it’s a different river today than it was in the mid-1990s, when a concerted restoration effort began. The Friends of the Presumpscot River, the Coastal Conservation Association, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the Conservation Law Foundation, as well as government entities such as the Army Corps of Engineers, the Maine Department of Marine Resources and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service have collaborated since that time on reviving the Presumpscot and its wild salmon fishery. The story of their work is captured in this article: https://www.fws.gov/story/rallying-round-presumpscot

Appreciation for the river—its history, its natural resource values and its future potential—informs the common commitment of those who are involved in this important work. To me, the mix of volunteer and governmental organizations on this list is particularly powerful. Since the 1970s, enormous strides have been made to clean up our water and air, and the most far-reaching and enduring results have been when governmental agencies have coordinated and worked cooperatively with groups of citizen volunteers dedicated to protecting and preserving treasured places and precious water bodies.

Last week the US Supreme Court showed itself to be out of step with this thinking.  In West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, a 6- 3 court ruled the EPA does not have authority to regulate power plant emissions. The case was about clean air, but the ruling will almost certainly have implications on clean water efforts and many other environmental initiatives. Unless Congress acts, the EPA’s role and resources will be curtailed.

What can you do if you want to be sure not only you but future generations will be able to access Maine rivers for fishing, boating, hiking, birdwatching or any other environmentally sustaining purpose?

Join and support volunteer organizations in your area dedicated to the health and vitality of Maine’s rivers. For those who live near the Presumpscot River, information about educational programs and volunteer opportunities can be found here: https://www.presumpscotriver.org/Contact your Congressional representatives about the value of Maine rivers and the need to protect them with laws that specifically grant to regulatory agencies the authority to implement environmentally positive policies such as emissions controls and dam removal. If you need some talking points, check out this video: https://www.presumpscotriver.org/blog/2018/5/6/tales-of-the-presumpscot-healthy-rivers-healthy-oceansAsk my blogmates Richard Cass and Sandra Neily for their ideas about effective action.  Dick is a lifelong fly fisherman and Sandy knows about Maine Rivers that I ever will.  I’m sure they have plenty of suggestions.Register to vote. If you’re registered already, encourage those in your life who are not registered to do so.Vote like the quality of your life depends on it. Because it does.

Brenda Buchanan brings years of experience as a journalist and a lawyer to her crime fiction. She has published three books featuring Joe Gale, a newspaper reporter who covers the crime and courts beat. She is now hard at work on new projects. FMI, go to http://brendabuchananwrites.com