Susan Buffum's Blog: Welcome to My World, page 17
August 29, 2016
On Its Way to the Recyle Bin
I spent part of Saturday and Sunday cleaning out about thirty spiral notebooks full of handwritten material- stories I'd started that never went anywhere, bits and pieces, lists of potential character names including an entire multi-generational family named Grimshaw that was salvaged because I really NEED to do something with that and have a vague idea perking away in the recesses of my imagination.
This is one little piece that I discovered among the pages and pages of written words that actually made it into a short story I believe was titled Artistic Impression.
Enjoy_
The glance of his eye is like a brushstroke across my cheek- light, feathery with just enough pressure to make me aware that he has noticed me. I do not want to appear interested. Rumor has it that his ego is already too large for any one woman to handle and I am, quite frankly, not interested in catering to someone so full of himself that he has no room in his heart or soul to genuinely care about anyone or anything else. I am just here to view his artwork and perhaps to meet him face to face, but only to say hello. I will not extoll the brilliance of his composition, his distinctive style, his skillful technique, nor his flare for the dramatic. I will remain mum in my opinion of the subtleness of his characterization, his ability to capture the serenity of a simple pastoral landscape in such delicate brushstrokes that the paint is like will o' the wisps skimming across the canvas. I will not feed his insatiable appetite for praise and recognition. I will simply say, "Hello, thank you for the unexpected invitation. I am happy to have had an opportunity to view your art in person." And then I will turn and walk away.
The best laid plans, alas, often go awry despite our best intentions.
This is one little piece that I discovered among the pages and pages of written words that actually made it into a short story I believe was titled Artistic Impression.
Enjoy_
The glance of his eye is like a brushstroke across my cheek- light, feathery with just enough pressure to make me aware that he has noticed me. I do not want to appear interested. Rumor has it that his ego is already too large for any one woman to handle and I am, quite frankly, not interested in catering to someone so full of himself that he has no room in his heart or soul to genuinely care about anyone or anything else. I am just here to view his artwork and perhaps to meet him face to face, but only to say hello. I will not extoll the brilliance of his composition, his distinctive style, his skillful technique, nor his flare for the dramatic. I will remain mum in my opinion of the subtleness of his characterization, his ability to capture the serenity of a simple pastoral landscape in such delicate brushstrokes that the paint is like will o' the wisps skimming across the canvas. I will not feed his insatiable appetite for praise and recognition. I will simply say, "Hello, thank you for the unexpected invitation. I am happy to have had an opportunity to view your art in person." And then I will turn and walk away.
The best laid plans, alas, often go awry despite our best intentions.
August 28, 2016
A Surreal Moment
This afternoon Kelly and I went downtown where the Westfield FoodFest was going on. I'd been to the little local bookshop- Bookclub bookstore and more! only yesterday to drop off some books and to buy a copy of The Widow's Walk by Carole Ann Moleti. I had to leave the Moleti book behind to be signed during the author event that morning because I had something to do with my husband. So, we were greeted by Cyndi when we walked in. I picked up my book and said we were going to shop. Kelly walked to the front of the store where the shelf with books by local authors is situated. She found a book she wanted (author with an upcoming event, so I'll try to get back there on the 9th of September and get that signed for her). She's standing there and she says, "Mom, here's your books!" I was at the other end of the shelf looking for the last copy of Mike Walsh's The Wizard's Return that he said might still be there (it was). Mike had emailed me PDF file copies of four of his books to read. So I turned my head and looked and there were copies of my books I'd placed on consignment! Wow! It was one of those dreamlike moments where everything else goes all soft focus around the edges and what you are looking at is spotlighted by a ray of sunlight! Wow! What a feeling!
I picked up a couple reference books and Mike's book and went to pay. I had an extra copy of Black King Takes White Queen in the car (I'd given a copy to Jessica on Saturday). I told Cyndi I'd run out and get it while Kelly paid for her book.
I did that and she commented that I wrote fast. I replied no, I had a huge stockpile of written material that I've been self publishing. Only Life Skills, books three and four in the Talon series, and Black King Takes White Queen are newly written since November 1st last year (Life Skills was last year's NaNo novel). She asked what it was like to finish writing a book and hold it in my hands. I said it was like having a child that is suddenly all grown up, who comes home to be fussed over from time to time but doesn't bring their dirty laundry or devour everything in the refrigerator. She laughed.
I told her I never really consider any book truly finished. I do go back and read my own books over and over again, and always find small things I need to correct or fix. So far no one has ever pointed out any screaming, glaring errors, although I've fixed a few things in timelines since I never use notes or anything. I'm always asking Kelly, "What was the name of that guy in the park?" or whatever.
I suppose that's one of the things I like about self publishing and publish on demand. I can take a book down, fix it and get it back up in two or three days max, whereas with major publishers if you screw up, or if they screw up the publisher is not going to pull thousands of books off the shelf to accommodate your horror at letting that error slip by (and the proofreader and editor never caught it either? Are they doing their jobs?) I like the freedom and control self publishing gives me. I'm not about making a lot of money. I'm all about giving readers the best book I can with a story that grabs them and pulls them through the pages, leaving them panting and grinning at the end, wanting to give me a high five, (or a five star rating! if the experience merits it.)
I picked up a couple reference books and Mike's book and went to pay. I had an extra copy of Black King Takes White Queen in the car (I'd given a copy to Jessica on Saturday). I told Cyndi I'd run out and get it while Kelly paid for her book.
I did that and she commented that I wrote fast. I replied no, I had a huge stockpile of written material that I've been self publishing. Only Life Skills, books three and four in the Talon series, and Black King Takes White Queen are newly written since November 1st last year (Life Skills was last year's NaNo novel). She asked what it was like to finish writing a book and hold it in my hands. I said it was like having a child that is suddenly all grown up, who comes home to be fussed over from time to time but doesn't bring their dirty laundry or devour everything in the refrigerator. She laughed.
I told her I never really consider any book truly finished. I do go back and read my own books over and over again, and always find small things I need to correct or fix. So far no one has ever pointed out any screaming, glaring errors, although I've fixed a few things in timelines since I never use notes or anything. I'm always asking Kelly, "What was the name of that guy in the park?" or whatever.
I suppose that's one of the things I like about self publishing and publish on demand. I can take a book down, fix it and get it back up in two or three days max, whereas with major publishers if you screw up, or if they screw up the publisher is not going to pull thousands of books off the shelf to accommodate your horror at letting that error slip by (and the proofreader and editor never caught it either? Are they doing their jobs?) I like the freedom and control self publishing gives me. I'm not about making a lot of money. I'm all about giving readers the best book I can with a story that grabs them and pulls them through the pages, leaving them panting and grinning at the end, wanting to give me a high five, (or a five star rating! if the experience merits it.)
August 27, 2016
Weeding Out Old Writing
There's been this file carton on a small stool in front of our back bedroom window for years. It's full of spiral bound notebooks all standing on end in which I have written partial stories in the past. These date back to when Kelly was in high school and college.
The box has gotten wet a few times when we've forgotten to shut the window when it's rained. The cats have jumped up onto it and sat on it to look out the window. They've slept on it also so the cover sags, and now the whole box is slightly lopsided.
Today was the day to tackle the box and the notebooks within. A lot of what's in the notebooks is what I call junk writing. Junk writing is when I have some characters but they aren't fully developed and I haven't quite worked out their back stories and the novel/story they're going to be in.
I write a scene or a few scenes and see how it goes, what develops. If it isn't what I want I stop and start again. I have literally written acres of partials and consigned them to file boxes and file cabinets. Now I am weeding them out and they are destined for the recycle bin.
Does it hurt to expend all that creative effort and then one day relegate it to the discard pile, the recycle bin? Yes. But all these partials stories have helped me to hone my skills and learn patience. I suppose I can consider them writing lessons and writing development projects. Some of them I have read and cringed, glad that no one will ever see them!
I can also see how I've grown as a writer. I can hear the voice I currently have emerging from these older beginnings.
It's a nostalgic little journey back to when I was not sure I had the ability to write a whole novel. I have since discovered that I do have that ability!
The other thing I am discovering is that I waited far too long to begin writing on the computer. It was intimidating to me when John first got a computer and told me I could write stories on it. I was leery of it because I was used to having the printed page in the notebook, or fresh from the typewriter. I didn't trust technology. I was afraid of losing all my work. I blazed through three or four typewriters before finally getting sick of all the backspacing corrections and giving the computer Word program a whirl.
Then, of course, I was kicking myself pretty hard for being so stubborn and scared. I used to hog the main computer, then John bought me a Dell laptop. I wrote on it, but this was years ago and it was rather pokey. Then he gifted me the Dell Netbook I named Mahue. Mahue and I were meant to be. He was the perfect size for my hands. He was small and easy to pack for travel. I had him for five years and typed the letters right off the keys! Mahue was a workhorse, but even workhorses grow weary over time. I had to retire him. Now I work on a bright blue HP Stream that John stripped down for me to make room for novels and stories. Every now and then I have to purge files onto a USB to make room for new stuff, and the letter A is already half gone, but the other letters are holding up well.
Taking a brief respite from writing- going back to weeding through these old partials and decluttering a bit. (But that doesn't mean there aren't characters clamoring in my head to tell their stories...there are. I guess only writers can live in society and say "Oh, the voices in my head are driving me crazy!" and not be put on medication for it!!
The box has gotten wet a few times when we've forgotten to shut the window when it's rained. The cats have jumped up onto it and sat on it to look out the window. They've slept on it also so the cover sags, and now the whole box is slightly lopsided.
Today was the day to tackle the box and the notebooks within. A lot of what's in the notebooks is what I call junk writing. Junk writing is when I have some characters but they aren't fully developed and I haven't quite worked out their back stories and the novel/story they're going to be in.
I write a scene or a few scenes and see how it goes, what develops. If it isn't what I want I stop and start again. I have literally written acres of partials and consigned them to file boxes and file cabinets. Now I am weeding them out and they are destined for the recycle bin.
Does it hurt to expend all that creative effort and then one day relegate it to the discard pile, the recycle bin? Yes. But all these partials stories have helped me to hone my skills and learn patience. I suppose I can consider them writing lessons and writing development projects. Some of them I have read and cringed, glad that no one will ever see them!
I can also see how I've grown as a writer. I can hear the voice I currently have emerging from these older beginnings.
It's a nostalgic little journey back to when I was not sure I had the ability to write a whole novel. I have since discovered that I do have that ability!
The other thing I am discovering is that I waited far too long to begin writing on the computer. It was intimidating to me when John first got a computer and told me I could write stories on it. I was leery of it because I was used to having the printed page in the notebook, or fresh from the typewriter. I didn't trust technology. I was afraid of losing all my work. I blazed through three or four typewriters before finally getting sick of all the backspacing corrections and giving the computer Word program a whirl.
Then, of course, I was kicking myself pretty hard for being so stubborn and scared. I used to hog the main computer, then John bought me a Dell laptop. I wrote on it, but this was years ago and it was rather pokey. Then he gifted me the Dell Netbook I named Mahue. Mahue and I were meant to be. He was the perfect size for my hands. He was small and easy to pack for travel. I had him for five years and typed the letters right off the keys! Mahue was a workhorse, but even workhorses grow weary over time. I had to retire him. Now I work on a bright blue HP Stream that John stripped down for me to make room for novels and stories. Every now and then I have to purge files onto a USB to make room for new stuff, and the letter A is already half gone, but the other letters are holding up well.
Taking a brief respite from writing- going back to weeding through these old partials and decluttering a bit. (But that doesn't mean there aren't characters clamoring in my head to tell their stories...there are. I guess only writers can live in society and say "Oh, the voices in my head are driving me crazy!" and not be put on medication for it!!
August 25, 2016
This Post is a Hug to Someone
Last night I had a very vivid dream about my co-workers, past and present, at the office where I currently work. We were all seated in a rather cramped room, around four rectangular tables that were set up with an opening in the middle. I was sitting at the table with my back to the door. To my right along the wall was a wooden coat cubby with a long shelf above where all our fall-weight jackets were hung on wrought iron hooks. It reminded me of where I hung my coat in elementary school.
There were two blue thigh-length windbreakers spaced well apart on those hooks. The bright blue windbreaker with some yellow writing was nearest me, and I knew it belonged to D. There was a medium blue
jacket further along that I knew belonged to G even though in the eight years I've known him I have never seen him wear a coat, a jacket, a sweater or anything but a dress shirt or a sweatshirt.
G. was sitting to my left about five seats over. D. was sitting at the table vertical to my table, toward the far end, one seat from the end.
I have no clue what we were doing- waiting to eat or having a meeting. There were things on the tables but I really wasn't paying to much attention to that.
G. abruptly stood up, walked behind me and grabbed D.s jacket and walked out of the room. Being the mother hen of the lot of us, I jumped up, grabbed G's jacket and went after him to make the exchange before he got into his car and left. I found myself in a department store.
To the left was a doorway. I walked through it and found myself in a room very similar to my dining room. The table had about four green purses on it. Two were open. The one at the back of the table had some cosmetics in it and other little things. I said, "That one I'm putting together for my sister," because G was standing at this near side of the table tucking a dollar bill back into an open purse that had paper money in it. I didn't know who that belonged to. The other two green purses were closed and under or behind the one that held money.
G picked up a copy of my latest novel, Black King Takes White Queen (there are two copies sitting on my dining room table right now so that's where that image came from, but no green purses!) I said, "You can have that."
G, still holding the book he had been flipping through, was facing me. He paused in flipping pages to raise his head until his eyes met mine. I noticed that he looked unshaven, scruffy, somewhat unkempt and his eyes looked sad. He replied, "I need a hug."
Before I could give him a hug I was woken up by Kelly who had gone into the main bathroom to start getting ready for work at 5:30AM (she had a class in East Hartford to get to for 8AM)
All day I have been haunted by that dream. For seven years I worked for G as a medical secretary and he never had a clue that I was a writer until about 5.5 months before he retired when I won second place for Blackstone's Menagerie in an annual Halloween Story contest. I brought in a manuscript copy printed off the website with the aware noted on it. He saw it lying on the table and read it- not his cup of tea but the look he gave me that day was memorable. He looked at me as if I had developed a new dimension. I was not that one dimensional secretary cleaning up after him, chasing him around the office for signatures and for answers to questions. Then I self published Medea and everyone in the office got a free copy to celebrate that first foray into the world of self publishing.
I shared a couple Irish themed stories (a ghost story and humorous ones) with him that he enjoyed, wrote him a riotous story about a medical secretary that is hauled downtown to be interrogated by the police after a patient she is talking to on the phone suddenly dies and his daughter accuses her of killing him. It combined my criminal justice/law enforcement background with my medical office background, plus was written by me, the now not so secret author in the office. He wrote on the front when he returned the manuscript "U R 2 Funny!", copying a line the secretary's office cohorts texts to her near the end of the story before the secretary heads home after being released.
So- because I have certain dreams that do not dissolve or fade away when I open my eyes in the morning I believe those dreams haunt me and stay with me for a reason.
Therefore, tonight, this blog is a hug to my friend, G. My obligation has been fulfilled.
There were two blue thigh-length windbreakers spaced well apart on those hooks. The bright blue windbreaker with some yellow writing was nearest me, and I knew it belonged to D. There was a medium blue
jacket further along that I knew belonged to G even though in the eight years I've known him I have never seen him wear a coat, a jacket, a sweater or anything but a dress shirt or a sweatshirt.
G. was sitting to my left about five seats over. D. was sitting at the table vertical to my table, toward the far end, one seat from the end.
I have no clue what we were doing- waiting to eat or having a meeting. There were things on the tables but I really wasn't paying to much attention to that.
G. abruptly stood up, walked behind me and grabbed D.s jacket and walked out of the room. Being the mother hen of the lot of us, I jumped up, grabbed G's jacket and went after him to make the exchange before he got into his car and left. I found myself in a department store.
To the left was a doorway. I walked through it and found myself in a room very similar to my dining room. The table had about four green purses on it. Two were open. The one at the back of the table had some cosmetics in it and other little things. I said, "That one I'm putting together for my sister," because G was standing at this near side of the table tucking a dollar bill back into an open purse that had paper money in it. I didn't know who that belonged to. The other two green purses were closed and under or behind the one that held money.
G picked up a copy of my latest novel, Black King Takes White Queen (there are two copies sitting on my dining room table right now so that's where that image came from, but no green purses!) I said, "You can have that."
G, still holding the book he had been flipping through, was facing me. He paused in flipping pages to raise his head until his eyes met mine. I noticed that he looked unshaven, scruffy, somewhat unkempt and his eyes looked sad. He replied, "I need a hug."
Before I could give him a hug I was woken up by Kelly who had gone into the main bathroom to start getting ready for work at 5:30AM (she had a class in East Hartford to get to for 8AM)
All day I have been haunted by that dream. For seven years I worked for G as a medical secretary and he never had a clue that I was a writer until about 5.5 months before he retired when I won second place for Blackstone's Menagerie in an annual Halloween Story contest. I brought in a manuscript copy printed off the website with the aware noted on it. He saw it lying on the table and read it- not his cup of tea but the look he gave me that day was memorable. He looked at me as if I had developed a new dimension. I was not that one dimensional secretary cleaning up after him, chasing him around the office for signatures and for answers to questions. Then I self published Medea and everyone in the office got a free copy to celebrate that first foray into the world of self publishing.
I shared a couple Irish themed stories (a ghost story and humorous ones) with him that he enjoyed, wrote him a riotous story about a medical secretary that is hauled downtown to be interrogated by the police after a patient she is talking to on the phone suddenly dies and his daughter accuses her of killing him. It combined my criminal justice/law enforcement background with my medical office background, plus was written by me, the now not so secret author in the office. He wrote on the front when he returned the manuscript "U R 2 Funny!", copying a line the secretary's office cohorts texts to her near the end of the story before the secretary heads home after being released.
So- because I have certain dreams that do not dissolve or fade away when I open my eyes in the morning I believe those dreams haunt me and stay with me for a reason.
Therefore, tonight, this blog is a hug to my friend, G. My obligation has been fulfilled.
August 23, 2016
The Hardest Part of My Day Job
Today the doctors, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and I had a luncheon meeting with representatives from the small hospital in town that has merged with the big city hospital nearby and are now merging and blending their separate VNA/Hospice services into one cohesive whole unit that will better service our area, as our local VNA associated with the small hospital did not offer palliative care. As of right now that service is more readily available to our local patients because of this merger.
It was a very informative meeting, but also a very difficult one for me to attend, even though it's my job to connect our patients to VNA, hospice and palliative care providers if it's not done at the hospital discharge level, or release from a skilled nursing facility to home when the patient expresses a wish to die at home.
It was difficult for me because we just lost John's Mom seven months ago and his 94 year old Dad is becoming more frail every day. I still feel, even though John's brother is an MD, that they didn't do all they could have done for Mom. I still feel, nearly 16 years later, that we failed my Mom in that respect also. My Dad was given two weeks to live in early 2011. He spent one week in the hospital then was transferred to a skilled nursing facility. The day before he passed my brother and his best friend visited him. There is a cellphone picture of Dad and my brother both of them smiling, happy as clams (my brother was Dad's only son and had flown home from Nevada when I'd told him "You can come home now and see Dad while he's still here with us, or you can fly home for his funeral next week, it's your choice." He chose wisely and it was a relief to me that at least they got to see one another one last time.) They had a great visit that Saturday afternoon when my brother finally got here after his flight was detoured down south due to a blizzard here and he had to take two hopper flights and ended up in providence RI instead of Windsor Locks, CT. The next day I went to see Dad and he never woke up during the hour and a half I sat with him. The nurse had medicated him due to pain and anxiety and he was resting peacefully. I left him new pictures of Kelly, and the red fox that had been frolicking in the back yard along the woods at lunchtime that day digging up an acorn stash from under the deep snow. I will always associate that red fox jumping and diving so joyfully into the snow with my father's lifelong youthful, playful spirit. I truly believe the fox was in my backyard at that time on that day for a reason. (Dad was gone in the wee hours of Monday morning, the day my brother had to fly back to Nevada.)
Anyway- the meeting was very well presented and informative. I managed to blink away the tears of tenderheartedness five times, and I learned the difference between palliative care and hospice. Palliative care is for patients who have frequent exacerbations of chronic illness but are not in immediate danger of dying. Palliative care brings them comfort, and opens discussions between the patient and the patient's family members about options as end of life approaches as the disease progresses. They provide information for the patient and family member, hold informational meetings, answer questions, have an MD who goes in to be the eyes and ears of the attending physician when the patient is too weak to make it into the office to be seen. The palliative care MD may contact the attending MD and let him know the patient is ready to transition to hospice, or back to regular VNA skilled nursing with eventual discharge from service if they are improving, rallying. Hospice is for terminally ill patients with 3 months or less life expectancy. It can be extended to another three months as long as the patient is not showing signs of improvement. Hospice provides comfort care and places pain medication and anxiety treatment medication in the home which keeps the patient comfortable. Hospice also provides counseling to family members to help them prepare for the impending loss of a loved one, and then bereavement counseling and support for up to 13 months, and sometimes longer after the patient passes. They also hold remembrance services and group events for families who've recently lost loved ones as a support network.
I really didn't fully understand all this until today since I haven't had much exposure to palliative care since our local VNA didn't offer this service. I just occasionally stressed about finding a service that offered palliative care when a patient's family asked for that, but usually by the time they asked the MD had already put the patient on hospice, or the patient passed away overnight before I had a callback from the service I'd contacted.
I like being able to help people. This is just one of the many things I do in my day job as the medical secretary who also does all the prior authorizations for medications, gets the prescriptions and documentation needed to the suppliers for durable medical equipment, hooks patients up with oxygen, CPAP and nebulizer machines and supplies, sets up transportation services to MD appointments, helps patients fill out forms for patient assistance programs when they can't afford their medications, helps patients with disabled placard requests, etc. I also make sure all the various reports and paperwork that gets faxed and brought into the office on a daily basis gets seen and signed and returned in a timely manner. All that plus the VNA connections as well. I am a busy lady at my desk every day.
Most days I come home feeling good about what I do, but there are days when I come home feeling sad- those days when a patient goes on hospice, or dies.
It's never easy to say goodbye.
It was a very informative meeting, but also a very difficult one for me to attend, even though it's my job to connect our patients to VNA, hospice and palliative care providers if it's not done at the hospital discharge level, or release from a skilled nursing facility to home when the patient expresses a wish to die at home.
It was difficult for me because we just lost John's Mom seven months ago and his 94 year old Dad is becoming more frail every day. I still feel, even though John's brother is an MD, that they didn't do all they could have done for Mom. I still feel, nearly 16 years later, that we failed my Mom in that respect also. My Dad was given two weeks to live in early 2011. He spent one week in the hospital then was transferred to a skilled nursing facility. The day before he passed my brother and his best friend visited him. There is a cellphone picture of Dad and my brother both of them smiling, happy as clams (my brother was Dad's only son and had flown home from Nevada when I'd told him "You can come home now and see Dad while he's still here with us, or you can fly home for his funeral next week, it's your choice." He chose wisely and it was a relief to me that at least they got to see one another one last time.) They had a great visit that Saturday afternoon when my brother finally got here after his flight was detoured down south due to a blizzard here and he had to take two hopper flights and ended up in providence RI instead of Windsor Locks, CT. The next day I went to see Dad and he never woke up during the hour and a half I sat with him. The nurse had medicated him due to pain and anxiety and he was resting peacefully. I left him new pictures of Kelly, and the red fox that had been frolicking in the back yard along the woods at lunchtime that day digging up an acorn stash from under the deep snow. I will always associate that red fox jumping and diving so joyfully into the snow with my father's lifelong youthful, playful spirit. I truly believe the fox was in my backyard at that time on that day for a reason. (Dad was gone in the wee hours of Monday morning, the day my brother had to fly back to Nevada.)
Anyway- the meeting was very well presented and informative. I managed to blink away the tears of tenderheartedness five times, and I learned the difference between palliative care and hospice. Palliative care is for patients who have frequent exacerbations of chronic illness but are not in immediate danger of dying. Palliative care brings them comfort, and opens discussions between the patient and the patient's family members about options as end of life approaches as the disease progresses. They provide information for the patient and family member, hold informational meetings, answer questions, have an MD who goes in to be the eyes and ears of the attending physician when the patient is too weak to make it into the office to be seen. The palliative care MD may contact the attending MD and let him know the patient is ready to transition to hospice, or back to regular VNA skilled nursing with eventual discharge from service if they are improving, rallying. Hospice is for terminally ill patients with 3 months or less life expectancy. It can be extended to another three months as long as the patient is not showing signs of improvement. Hospice provides comfort care and places pain medication and anxiety treatment medication in the home which keeps the patient comfortable. Hospice also provides counseling to family members to help them prepare for the impending loss of a loved one, and then bereavement counseling and support for up to 13 months, and sometimes longer after the patient passes. They also hold remembrance services and group events for families who've recently lost loved ones as a support network.
I really didn't fully understand all this until today since I haven't had much exposure to palliative care since our local VNA didn't offer this service. I just occasionally stressed about finding a service that offered palliative care when a patient's family asked for that, but usually by the time they asked the MD had already put the patient on hospice, or the patient passed away overnight before I had a callback from the service I'd contacted.
I like being able to help people. This is just one of the many things I do in my day job as the medical secretary who also does all the prior authorizations for medications, gets the prescriptions and documentation needed to the suppliers for durable medical equipment, hooks patients up with oxygen, CPAP and nebulizer machines and supplies, sets up transportation services to MD appointments, helps patients fill out forms for patient assistance programs when they can't afford their medications, helps patients with disabled placard requests, etc. I also make sure all the various reports and paperwork that gets faxed and brought into the office on a daily basis gets seen and signed and returned in a timely manner. All that plus the VNA connections as well. I am a busy lady at my desk every day.
Most days I come home feeling good about what I do, but there are days when I come home feeling sad- those days when a patient goes on hospice, or dies.
It's never easy to say goodbye.
August 21, 2016
A Heart of Stone
About 6 or 7 years ago we had a drought similar to the one we are currently having. I remember the acorns were oval that year. This year they are round, but the brook behind the house is dry like it was that year Kelly and I took out tuxedo cat Diego for a walk in the woods and up the dry brook bed.
I had the 35mm digital camera with me that day as Kelly and I had been photographing the weird acorns and Diego rolling in the leaves.
I snapped a series of photographs as we hiked- the cat, trees, rocks...and an image that included a heart-shaped stone in the brook bed with autumn leaves around it. I shot a couple of other photos and then we climbed out of the brook bed and hiked through the woods to the trail and then home.
I always meant to go back for the heart stone...but it didn't happen. It rained, the brook filled up again.
My husband has been haunted by that photo, knowing how much I wanted that stone.
This afternoon we all put on long pants, long-sleeved shirts and hats, spritzed on the OFF to repel the voracious mosquitoes in the woods, and hiked in the heat and humidity (less so than the past week but still very much plaguing this area). In the past 6-7 years we have had a huge blizzard, strong winds, torrential rain that swept away the railroad tie bridge John had made for us so we could cross the brook. Those ties were heavy, so the water rushing down the brook was powerful. It also washed a lot of debris down the brook until it all jammed up against a fallen tree.
There were new trees that had come down across the brook, a lot of downed branches. I spotted a few of the landmarks photographed years ago, including the image immediately after the heart stone of a fallen tree with huge root ball. We found the fallen tree and searched the brook bed, but came up empty.
It's possibly we were looking too far upstream. If it stays dry and the weather gets cooler soon, we'll give it another try. Tonight I found the series of photographs in the photo files and printed them out in the same order I'd taken them that day beginning on the path in our back yard. I have a series of landmarks again to look for amid all the new woodsy debris down there...we'll see if the heart stone can be located next time.
I did bring home three other vaguely heart-shaped stones, but they weren't the right heart stone.
(They'll be in the rock garden with the piece of shale with the three-toed dinosaur footprint I found in the brook bed one year. Dinosaurs like that roamed this area. There are dinosaur tracks in nearby Holyoke along the Connecticut River and in Granby MA. Millions of years ago this area was covered by a huge lake. I'm sure if I look hard enough I can find more dinosaur tracks and fossils in the shale that makes up this mountains. But first, I need to find my heart of stone.)
I had the 35mm digital camera with me that day as Kelly and I had been photographing the weird acorns and Diego rolling in the leaves.
I snapped a series of photographs as we hiked- the cat, trees, rocks...and an image that included a heart-shaped stone in the brook bed with autumn leaves around it. I shot a couple of other photos and then we climbed out of the brook bed and hiked through the woods to the trail and then home.
I always meant to go back for the heart stone...but it didn't happen. It rained, the brook filled up again.
My husband has been haunted by that photo, knowing how much I wanted that stone.
This afternoon we all put on long pants, long-sleeved shirts and hats, spritzed on the OFF to repel the voracious mosquitoes in the woods, and hiked in the heat and humidity (less so than the past week but still very much plaguing this area). In the past 6-7 years we have had a huge blizzard, strong winds, torrential rain that swept away the railroad tie bridge John had made for us so we could cross the brook. Those ties were heavy, so the water rushing down the brook was powerful. It also washed a lot of debris down the brook until it all jammed up against a fallen tree.
There were new trees that had come down across the brook, a lot of downed branches. I spotted a few of the landmarks photographed years ago, including the image immediately after the heart stone of a fallen tree with huge root ball. We found the fallen tree and searched the brook bed, but came up empty.
It's possibly we were looking too far upstream. If it stays dry and the weather gets cooler soon, we'll give it another try. Tonight I found the series of photographs in the photo files and printed them out in the same order I'd taken them that day beginning on the path in our back yard. I have a series of landmarks again to look for amid all the new woodsy debris down there...we'll see if the heart stone can be located next time.
I did bring home three other vaguely heart-shaped stones, but they weren't the right heart stone.
(They'll be in the rock garden with the piece of shale with the three-toed dinosaur footprint I found in the brook bed one year. Dinosaurs like that roamed this area. There are dinosaur tracks in nearby Holyoke along the Connecticut River and in Granby MA. Millions of years ago this area was covered by a huge lake. I'm sure if I look hard enough I can find more dinosaur tracks and fossils in the shale that makes up this mountains. But first, I need to find my heart of stone.)
August 20, 2016
A Writer's Beginning
I am now in the fortunate position to meet other authors. At least three of these authors I have clicked with and we message, text or email one another fairly regularly. I have a couple writers in my network also I keep in touch with.
I was thinking about how I came to be a writer tonight. First of all, I had a mother who guided all of us and never stifled our creativity. She encouraged us to be ourselves. She tore down hallway walls and had Dad build in bookcases down the length of those halls, filling the shelves with books. When we brought home those scholastic book club flyers from school she always let us pick a couple books apiece, even when Dad was out of work, hospital bills were pouring in, and money was tight. We all got three new books apiece and shared them. My sister is four years older, my brother a year younger. Her books were at an older level but we could read whatever we wanted to. If it was in the bookcase we could take the book and read it. I spent hours sprawled on the green carpet in the hallway reading, the cat curled up beside me. I kept my favorite books on a bookshelf in my room. We all had a bookshelf, and the living room had more bookshelves.
I was a shy little girl. I would freeze up when it came to speaking to people. But I could write from the time I could hold a pencil. Kelly wrote her first story, Harold the Shoe, in first grade. I think I was in first grade when I wrote a story about a lion in a zoo. My desk was full of little stories and then poems. At age thirteen I put together two books of poetry- by this I mean I handwrote poems on lined notebook paper, added little illustrations that I colored with colored pencils, and then tied the pages together with colorful yarn.
In high school I wrote short prose and poetry. I contributed to the high school arts & literary magazine, The Galaxy. I liked to do pen & ink drawings also. This continued through college. I started out as an English major and finished one and a half years before switching colleges and majors, earning a bachelors degree in criminal justice. I worked on the college literary magazine and contributed.
I graduated, got a few different jobs (retail sales, store detective, campus police office, campus police supervisor on the night shift, and then injection mold machine operator at LEGO making toy bricks. I got married. We bought a house. We had Kelly and I became a stay at home Mom for three years.
I continued to write. I drew pictures for her. When she was four I wrote stories for her, and Monsters No More was published in a children's anthology of teaching and healing stories (it was a story about a Mom teaching her child how to cope with the monsters in her closet and under her bed by using her super power of imagination). I wrote an article about how our adopted cat left our house on East Mountain and hiked (in 6 days) all the way back to my Mom and Dad's house where he'd been a stray hanging around in their yard. He had to cross the Westfield River to get there. It was a total of about 8 miles. He vanished on a Thursday evening after John had fed him a huge piece of meatloaf, and turned up downtown on Wednesday at lunch time, which was when I would take Kelly down to have lunch with her grandparents. My sister found him in the yard waiting for us by my truck! We brought him home, had him neutered and enjoyed the pleasure of his companionship for ten years. He was Kelly's best bud growing up. Then I co-authored an article about how I helped a friend in New Mexico win a family member's antique Steiff teddy bear in an ebay auction when all the relative's household goods went to auction because she'd left no will. Darcy didn't have an ebay account, so I stayed up until two AM and placed the winning bid for the bear her aunt had promised her. We both wrote our stories and wove them into a coherent text about how two friends living practically across country from one another worked together to get the bear into the hands of the person it had been promised to. It was published in the UK in a teddy bear collector's magazine.
I wrote all sorts of stories for Kelly when she was growing up, and continued to read to here every night until she was in sixth grade. I read books above her age and reading level because she was ready for them. I had read to her from the time she was a tiny baby. I'd sit in the white wicker rocker in her room feeding her a bottle by nightlight and show her pictures in picture books, and read her simple stories like Goodnight, Moon and The Runaway Bunny. I never parked her in front of the television. We colored, cut up paper and did projects, listened to music from a variety of cultures (she still listens to Irish music and Zuchero, an Italian singer/musician who sings in English and Italian). And we read. I never denied her books. Her TV viewing was controlled by me. I let her rest and watch Winnie The Pooh videos mid-afternoon when she was little. She never developed a TV habit, even though her father has the TV on from the time he gets home to the time he goes to bed. She and I sit in the kitchen and do our own thing to this day.
I noticed, as she was growing up, that she had a vocabulary that was lightyears ahead of her peers. At two she nearly fell on the back cement stairs which are part of the walkway, managed to catch her balance and said, "That could have been a catastrophe!" At three she and her Grandpa were marching around the dining room table in Greek fisherman hats and she called to me, "Mom! We're having a procession!" Children have hungry brains that absorb everything they see, hear and experience like thirsty sponges. The best time to feed those hungry brains is when they are young.
My daughter grew up reading everything I've written (even stuff that was not meant for her eyes when she'd sneak into the filing cabinet and my notebooks when she was home alone- but it was nothing too terrible, and it wasn't the liquor cabinet so I can't really complain!) She is an avid reader to this day, and she writes. She has two novels written and some partials.
I never wrote a novel until 2011. I wrote a lot of short stories, novelettes and novellas. I didn't think I had it in me to write a full novel. It's Kelly who encouraged me to dig deeper and do it. She was doing the NaNoWriMo challenge in November with her roommate and told me about it, telling me I had to do it with her in 2012. I thought about it, and then for the heck of it decided to write a novel in March of 2012 just to see if I could do it. It took me 23 days to write the novel, leaving me seven days to proofread and edit it. I was pleased with myself, and she was proud of me and liked the novel (The Victoria Wayfarer Investigation-a Ghost Chasers novel) My NaNo novels have been Talon:An Intimate Familiarity, Medea, The Fairlawn Investigation-A Ghost Chasers novel, actually the first in the series because I had started a story with the characters years ago and Kelly kept hounding me to finish it, so I made it my novel and got it done for her), and Life Skills. Talon:An Intimate Familiarity and The Subtlety of Light & Shadow were my 2013 and 2015 Golden Heart entries in the annual Romance Writers of America contest. I am not a true romance writer although my novels have elements of romance in them. Talon did better than I expected while Subtlety of Light & Shadow earned a 7.63 out of 10, with one judge rating a 10 all around, but high and low scores were dropped and the other three scores added and divided by three to get the final score. I was still very pleased by that.
During this time I began writing articles for the Massachusetts State Button Society Bulletin, and took over as editor in 2007. I put together the entire 42-page magazine every year through 2016 with just Kelly's help editing photos and managing the advertising. The local Crescent Button Club, of which I am a member, contributed the bulk of the articles for each issue. I wrote articles and filler pieces. For ten years it was a labor of love from December 30th throughl the end of March. The magazine was made available at the April MSBS button show each year with paid dues. I created eye-catching covers, all the inside pages including a list of Officers & Directors, Clubs and contact info, show schedules, table of content, the Northeast Regional Button Association page advertising their annual show, theme and schedule, the membership list, directions to the venues, etc, plus edit and arrange all the articles and photos to make every page appealing. I am a master with Microsoft Publisher now! I reluctantly resigned as editor this past spring with the current issue for a number of reasons. No one stepped up to take on the task, which was disheartening, but many state button bulletins are disappearing as button societies turn to publishing articles on websites and blogs. Kelly manages the Massachusetts Button Society blog and facebook pages and will post articles there as they are submitted. So far no one has submitted anything, but that's not surprising since trying to get contributions was like pulling teeth- and that was my biggest frustration! The club and I just burned out after ten years of doing it all!
I got into self publishing because in 2014 Medea was my winning NaNo novel. One of the winner's goodies was two free copies of my novel from CreateSpace. I ignore winners goodies, but they extended the deadline to use them to May 30th of 2015. So I figured, why not get a free paperback copy of my novel. I went in and did it on my own- totally clueless about the whole process. I just followed the steps and got my two free books.
They were really bad because there were no headers, footers, page numbers, copyright info, or an author's bio or anything- just the text copy and a title page I created as a first page.
Kelly rolled her eyes. We went back in and she said, "You know you need to put in this and this and this....and you can change the font type and the colors and it'll look a lot better!" My head was spinning. She redid the book for me and it was much better- it's still the current version although I need to fix a few things I've noticed in the story that no one else who've read it have pointed out yet, but it glares in my mind!
After that first self published book I decided to self publish the backlog of stories and novels in binders in the dining room to get the binders out of there. Books are easier to shelf than binders. I put together my annual Christmas stories (27 written, 24 are now in three volumes, the other three are in the novels that are tied to them- Talon:The Familiarity of It All, The Archetypes-Shockwaves and Life Skills). Then I put together my annual Halloween stories into three volumes. Then I started doing the novels.
When I do something, I just do it. I kind of flooded Amazon with quite a few books. I did goodreads giveaways and developed a following. I have a local following. For a year I worked quietly on my own just getting my books done, getting them registered with the Library of Congress (I'm well known at the post office here in town and in Southampton now). I put together a Cozy Winter's Night gift basket with my Christmas story books and other items like a fleece throw, hot cocoa and tea mixes, cookies, sweets, a pretty mug, etc for their Friends of the Southwick Library basket raffle. I was invited to the Articulture event here in town in April of 2016. I did a book signing at the Agawam Public Library's READLocal event. I have an upcoming book signing at the bookclub bookstore & more store here in town in October and have attended a number of author events there, meeting some great writers and authors, adding their books to my library. I have a speaker engagement booked for February 1st 2017, and was just contacted by a woman I met last year via email when she contacted me about a small photo on my charmstring museum blog site. She recognized Miss Jennie Moxley and had Jennie's story for me. She just emailed me this week to ask me if I'd be interested in co-authoring an article on Miss Jennie for the National Button Society Bulletin. Being a button collector since 2003) which is how I stumbled upon the little carte de visite of Miss Jennie in the first place, I readily agreed to work with her. She identifies people in old photos and dates them for historical purposes.
A year ago I was quietly self publishing books and not making a big deal of it- just sharing them with my circle of family, friends and acquaintances. Now I am involved in the arts & cultural group here in town, doing book signings, chatting with other authors who message me and email me out of the blue, and stressing about public appearances because I am not a great speaker by any means. I am a writer. But, I guess I'll manage.
I'm very fortunate to have the support and encouragement of a great group of people in my home town and beyond (as far south as Mississippi, west as New Mexico and north as Vermont.)
So, this, in a nutshell, is how I started as a writer.
I was thinking about how I came to be a writer tonight. First of all, I had a mother who guided all of us and never stifled our creativity. She encouraged us to be ourselves. She tore down hallway walls and had Dad build in bookcases down the length of those halls, filling the shelves with books. When we brought home those scholastic book club flyers from school she always let us pick a couple books apiece, even when Dad was out of work, hospital bills were pouring in, and money was tight. We all got three new books apiece and shared them. My sister is four years older, my brother a year younger. Her books were at an older level but we could read whatever we wanted to. If it was in the bookcase we could take the book and read it. I spent hours sprawled on the green carpet in the hallway reading, the cat curled up beside me. I kept my favorite books on a bookshelf in my room. We all had a bookshelf, and the living room had more bookshelves.
I was a shy little girl. I would freeze up when it came to speaking to people. But I could write from the time I could hold a pencil. Kelly wrote her first story, Harold the Shoe, in first grade. I think I was in first grade when I wrote a story about a lion in a zoo. My desk was full of little stories and then poems. At age thirteen I put together two books of poetry- by this I mean I handwrote poems on lined notebook paper, added little illustrations that I colored with colored pencils, and then tied the pages together with colorful yarn.
In high school I wrote short prose and poetry. I contributed to the high school arts & literary magazine, The Galaxy. I liked to do pen & ink drawings also. This continued through college. I started out as an English major and finished one and a half years before switching colleges and majors, earning a bachelors degree in criminal justice. I worked on the college literary magazine and contributed.
I graduated, got a few different jobs (retail sales, store detective, campus police office, campus police supervisor on the night shift, and then injection mold machine operator at LEGO making toy bricks. I got married. We bought a house. We had Kelly and I became a stay at home Mom for three years.
I continued to write. I drew pictures for her. When she was four I wrote stories for her, and Monsters No More was published in a children's anthology of teaching and healing stories (it was a story about a Mom teaching her child how to cope with the monsters in her closet and under her bed by using her super power of imagination). I wrote an article about how our adopted cat left our house on East Mountain and hiked (in 6 days) all the way back to my Mom and Dad's house where he'd been a stray hanging around in their yard. He had to cross the Westfield River to get there. It was a total of about 8 miles. He vanished on a Thursday evening after John had fed him a huge piece of meatloaf, and turned up downtown on Wednesday at lunch time, which was when I would take Kelly down to have lunch with her grandparents. My sister found him in the yard waiting for us by my truck! We brought him home, had him neutered and enjoyed the pleasure of his companionship for ten years. He was Kelly's best bud growing up. Then I co-authored an article about how I helped a friend in New Mexico win a family member's antique Steiff teddy bear in an ebay auction when all the relative's household goods went to auction because she'd left no will. Darcy didn't have an ebay account, so I stayed up until two AM and placed the winning bid for the bear her aunt had promised her. We both wrote our stories and wove them into a coherent text about how two friends living practically across country from one another worked together to get the bear into the hands of the person it had been promised to. It was published in the UK in a teddy bear collector's magazine.
I wrote all sorts of stories for Kelly when she was growing up, and continued to read to here every night until she was in sixth grade. I read books above her age and reading level because she was ready for them. I had read to her from the time she was a tiny baby. I'd sit in the white wicker rocker in her room feeding her a bottle by nightlight and show her pictures in picture books, and read her simple stories like Goodnight, Moon and The Runaway Bunny. I never parked her in front of the television. We colored, cut up paper and did projects, listened to music from a variety of cultures (she still listens to Irish music and Zuchero, an Italian singer/musician who sings in English and Italian). And we read. I never denied her books. Her TV viewing was controlled by me. I let her rest and watch Winnie The Pooh videos mid-afternoon when she was little. She never developed a TV habit, even though her father has the TV on from the time he gets home to the time he goes to bed. She and I sit in the kitchen and do our own thing to this day.
I noticed, as she was growing up, that she had a vocabulary that was lightyears ahead of her peers. At two she nearly fell on the back cement stairs which are part of the walkway, managed to catch her balance and said, "That could have been a catastrophe!" At three she and her Grandpa were marching around the dining room table in Greek fisherman hats and she called to me, "Mom! We're having a procession!" Children have hungry brains that absorb everything they see, hear and experience like thirsty sponges. The best time to feed those hungry brains is when they are young.
My daughter grew up reading everything I've written (even stuff that was not meant for her eyes when she'd sneak into the filing cabinet and my notebooks when she was home alone- but it was nothing too terrible, and it wasn't the liquor cabinet so I can't really complain!) She is an avid reader to this day, and she writes. She has two novels written and some partials.
I never wrote a novel until 2011. I wrote a lot of short stories, novelettes and novellas. I didn't think I had it in me to write a full novel. It's Kelly who encouraged me to dig deeper and do it. She was doing the NaNoWriMo challenge in November with her roommate and told me about it, telling me I had to do it with her in 2012. I thought about it, and then for the heck of it decided to write a novel in March of 2012 just to see if I could do it. It took me 23 days to write the novel, leaving me seven days to proofread and edit it. I was pleased with myself, and she was proud of me and liked the novel (The Victoria Wayfarer Investigation-a Ghost Chasers novel) My NaNo novels have been Talon:An Intimate Familiarity, Medea, The Fairlawn Investigation-A Ghost Chasers novel, actually the first in the series because I had started a story with the characters years ago and Kelly kept hounding me to finish it, so I made it my novel and got it done for her), and Life Skills. Talon:An Intimate Familiarity and The Subtlety of Light & Shadow were my 2013 and 2015 Golden Heart entries in the annual Romance Writers of America contest. I am not a true romance writer although my novels have elements of romance in them. Talon did better than I expected while Subtlety of Light & Shadow earned a 7.63 out of 10, with one judge rating a 10 all around, but high and low scores were dropped and the other three scores added and divided by three to get the final score. I was still very pleased by that.
During this time I began writing articles for the Massachusetts State Button Society Bulletin, and took over as editor in 2007. I put together the entire 42-page magazine every year through 2016 with just Kelly's help editing photos and managing the advertising. The local Crescent Button Club, of which I am a member, contributed the bulk of the articles for each issue. I wrote articles and filler pieces. For ten years it was a labor of love from December 30th throughl the end of March. The magazine was made available at the April MSBS button show each year with paid dues. I created eye-catching covers, all the inside pages including a list of Officers & Directors, Clubs and contact info, show schedules, table of content, the Northeast Regional Button Association page advertising their annual show, theme and schedule, the membership list, directions to the venues, etc, plus edit and arrange all the articles and photos to make every page appealing. I am a master with Microsoft Publisher now! I reluctantly resigned as editor this past spring with the current issue for a number of reasons. No one stepped up to take on the task, which was disheartening, but many state button bulletins are disappearing as button societies turn to publishing articles on websites and blogs. Kelly manages the Massachusetts Button Society blog and facebook pages and will post articles there as they are submitted. So far no one has submitted anything, but that's not surprising since trying to get contributions was like pulling teeth- and that was my biggest frustration! The club and I just burned out after ten years of doing it all!
I got into self publishing because in 2014 Medea was my winning NaNo novel. One of the winner's goodies was two free copies of my novel from CreateSpace. I ignore winners goodies, but they extended the deadline to use them to May 30th of 2015. So I figured, why not get a free paperback copy of my novel. I went in and did it on my own- totally clueless about the whole process. I just followed the steps and got my two free books.
They were really bad because there were no headers, footers, page numbers, copyright info, or an author's bio or anything- just the text copy and a title page I created as a first page.
Kelly rolled her eyes. We went back in and she said, "You know you need to put in this and this and this....and you can change the font type and the colors and it'll look a lot better!" My head was spinning. She redid the book for me and it was much better- it's still the current version although I need to fix a few things I've noticed in the story that no one else who've read it have pointed out yet, but it glares in my mind!
After that first self published book I decided to self publish the backlog of stories and novels in binders in the dining room to get the binders out of there. Books are easier to shelf than binders. I put together my annual Christmas stories (27 written, 24 are now in three volumes, the other three are in the novels that are tied to them- Talon:The Familiarity of It All, The Archetypes-Shockwaves and Life Skills). Then I put together my annual Halloween stories into three volumes. Then I started doing the novels.
When I do something, I just do it. I kind of flooded Amazon with quite a few books. I did goodreads giveaways and developed a following. I have a local following. For a year I worked quietly on my own just getting my books done, getting them registered with the Library of Congress (I'm well known at the post office here in town and in Southampton now). I put together a Cozy Winter's Night gift basket with my Christmas story books and other items like a fleece throw, hot cocoa and tea mixes, cookies, sweets, a pretty mug, etc for their Friends of the Southwick Library basket raffle. I was invited to the Articulture event here in town in April of 2016. I did a book signing at the Agawam Public Library's READLocal event. I have an upcoming book signing at the bookclub bookstore & more store here in town in October and have attended a number of author events there, meeting some great writers and authors, adding their books to my library. I have a speaker engagement booked for February 1st 2017, and was just contacted by a woman I met last year via email when she contacted me about a small photo on my charmstring museum blog site. She recognized Miss Jennie Moxley and had Jennie's story for me. She just emailed me this week to ask me if I'd be interested in co-authoring an article on Miss Jennie for the National Button Society Bulletin. Being a button collector since 2003) which is how I stumbled upon the little carte de visite of Miss Jennie in the first place, I readily agreed to work with her. She identifies people in old photos and dates them for historical purposes.
A year ago I was quietly self publishing books and not making a big deal of it- just sharing them with my circle of family, friends and acquaintances. Now I am involved in the arts & cultural group here in town, doing book signings, chatting with other authors who message me and email me out of the blue, and stressing about public appearances because I am not a great speaker by any means. I am a writer. But, I guess I'll manage.
I'm very fortunate to have the support and encouragement of a great group of people in my home town and beyond (as far south as Mississippi, west as New Mexico and north as Vermont.)
So, this, in a nutshell, is how I started as a writer.
August 18, 2016
Maple Root Pig
When I'm outside I tend to be a cloud watcher. I usually have some sort of camera with me and now have hundreds of pictures of clouds, cloud formations, and things I see in clouds (an Old English sheepdog puppy, a black faced sheep, dragon, thumb prints, a rooster, etc).
On Wednesday I was walking with a friend on Locust Street in Holyoke, MA past the home of a late button collector friend who passed away about three and a half years ago. We'd been to her house many times for meetings, to visit, and to meet to hike down to watch the St. Patrick's Day parade. We've parked along the street in front of her home and walked by on the way to meetings at the Holyoke Health Center where we 'rent' a conference room (they would let us have the room one Wednesday morning a month for free but we insist on paying them $40 to use the space per meeting- which they use to buy something for the residents there- our donations have bought a large flat screen TV and paid for entertainment events- so it works out well!)
Anyway, Betty and I were walking past Martha's former home (new owners bought it last year) and I was looking at a tunnel beneath the roots on the tree belt between the sidewalk and curb. Betty was looking at the tree roots that had tunneled beneath the sideway and popped up here and there in the front lawn. She said, "Oh, look! A fairy ring!: Yes, a root had grown in a perfect circle near the inside edge of the sidewalk. Cool.
Then she goes, "Look! A pig! It's a pig!" I looked and sure enough there was what looed like a flattened (although somewhat two dimensional) sleeping pig formed by another root! I had to dig out my cellphone and get a couple shots of that! (I put it on facebook as a What Do You See In This Picture? post. Most people saw the pig. My friend Patty saw a troll- close!) Jut to the other side of the pig was another circular formation, this one looking like a spiral.
We didn't want to linger any longer in front of the house, plus I had to get home to eat lunch and go to work, but next month I'm sure she and I will be checking out those crazy tree root formations in that front yard again as we walk past on the way to button club!
So- now I guess I won't always walk around cloud gazing...I'll have to look down and see what's there that will also amaze and delight me!
They saw everything can be found in nature and I'm starting to believe that!
On Wednesday I was walking with a friend on Locust Street in Holyoke, MA past the home of a late button collector friend who passed away about three and a half years ago. We'd been to her house many times for meetings, to visit, and to meet to hike down to watch the St. Patrick's Day parade. We've parked along the street in front of her home and walked by on the way to meetings at the Holyoke Health Center where we 'rent' a conference room (they would let us have the room one Wednesday morning a month for free but we insist on paying them $40 to use the space per meeting- which they use to buy something for the residents there- our donations have bought a large flat screen TV and paid for entertainment events- so it works out well!)
Anyway, Betty and I were walking past Martha's former home (new owners bought it last year) and I was looking at a tunnel beneath the roots on the tree belt between the sidewalk and curb. Betty was looking at the tree roots that had tunneled beneath the sideway and popped up here and there in the front lawn. She said, "Oh, look! A fairy ring!: Yes, a root had grown in a perfect circle near the inside edge of the sidewalk. Cool.
Then she goes, "Look! A pig! It's a pig!" I looked and sure enough there was what looed like a flattened (although somewhat two dimensional) sleeping pig formed by another root! I had to dig out my cellphone and get a couple shots of that! (I put it on facebook as a What Do You See In This Picture? post. Most people saw the pig. My friend Patty saw a troll- close!) Jut to the other side of the pig was another circular formation, this one looking like a spiral.
We didn't want to linger any longer in front of the house, plus I had to get home to eat lunch and go to work, but next month I'm sure she and I will be checking out those crazy tree root formations in that front yard again as we walk past on the way to button club!
So- now I guess I won't always walk around cloud gazing...I'll have to look down and see what's there that will also amaze and delight me!
They saw everything can be found in nature and I'm starting to believe that!
August 16, 2016
Toast & Tea and An Amusing Moment
I haven't been feeling well for a week- struggling through a rheumatoid arthritis flare which has made me wicked dizzy this time around!
I saw my rheumatologist this morning and was started on a low dose prednisone (because I'm allergic to it at higher doses). Took my first prescribed dose at 1:30PM and by 4:30PM I had noticed I was less dizzy.
So, I'm just taking it easy tonight with toast and tea while going through email, writing my blogs, and accepting an invitation to speak about how I became interested in writing (when wasn't I interested? I swear my teething ring was a pencil when I was a baby!)
My husband was funny tonight. When I got home from work I noticed the red light indicating a message on the answering machine. I said, "Is that a reminder about my doctor's appointment tomorrow morning?" He rolled his eyes and said, "No, that was someone looking for you to make an appearance." I honestly didn't know what he was talking about- an appearance? In court? I couldn't think of anyone who would want me to be a witness! Usually they deliver a subpoena, not summons you by phone (leaving a message at that!) "What do you mean? Was it like the fake IRS calls?" I asked. "Just listen to it," he replied from the couch, a wry twist to the corner of his mouth. I listened to the message- an invitation to speak at the Women's Club about my writing and my books. Oh, right. When I first get home from work I'm still in medical secretary mode but am already morphing into house manager/wife/mother mode. Writer mode materializes after dinner.
We are so not used to this, him and I. To him I am just his wife and best friend for the past three decades or so. (He hasn't even read any of my books! I'm not lying about that either. I'm not James Patterson, Lee Child, or Clive Cussler so he's not interested. ) To me I am just me, the same person I've always been.
To have someone call the house looking for the author/writer is still a new and somewhat surreal thing to us. (At least he wasn't irritated about it like he is with spammers, telemarketers, phishers, charities, politicians...NoMoreRobo is now his best friend- our phone is a lot quieter since he discovered this gem- one ring and those robo-calls are GONE! It does let your appointment reminders and legit callers through. We've had it like a watchdog on our phone for about a week now and LOVE it!)
So- toast, tea and a laugh about not quite understanding what he was telling me when I got home tonight! It's been a better Tuesday than last Tuesday was, that's for sure!
I saw my rheumatologist this morning and was started on a low dose prednisone (because I'm allergic to it at higher doses). Took my first prescribed dose at 1:30PM and by 4:30PM I had noticed I was less dizzy.
So, I'm just taking it easy tonight with toast and tea while going through email, writing my blogs, and accepting an invitation to speak about how I became interested in writing (when wasn't I interested? I swear my teething ring was a pencil when I was a baby!)
My husband was funny tonight. When I got home from work I noticed the red light indicating a message on the answering machine. I said, "Is that a reminder about my doctor's appointment tomorrow morning?" He rolled his eyes and said, "No, that was someone looking for you to make an appearance." I honestly didn't know what he was talking about- an appearance? In court? I couldn't think of anyone who would want me to be a witness! Usually they deliver a subpoena, not summons you by phone (leaving a message at that!) "What do you mean? Was it like the fake IRS calls?" I asked. "Just listen to it," he replied from the couch, a wry twist to the corner of his mouth. I listened to the message- an invitation to speak at the Women's Club about my writing and my books. Oh, right. When I first get home from work I'm still in medical secretary mode but am already morphing into house manager/wife/mother mode. Writer mode materializes after dinner.
We are so not used to this, him and I. To him I am just his wife and best friend for the past three decades or so. (He hasn't even read any of my books! I'm not lying about that either. I'm not James Patterson, Lee Child, or Clive Cussler so he's not interested. ) To me I am just me, the same person I've always been.
To have someone call the house looking for the author/writer is still a new and somewhat surreal thing to us. (At least he wasn't irritated about it like he is with spammers, telemarketers, phishers, charities, politicians...NoMoreRobo is now his best friend- our phone is a lot quieter since he discovered this gem- one ring and those robo-calls are GONE! It does let your appointment reminders and legit callers through. We've had it like a watchdog on our phone for about a week now and LOVE it!)
So- toast, tea and a laugh about not quite understanding what he was telling me when I got home tonight! It's been a better Tuesday than last Tuesday was, that's for sure!
August 14, 2016
Full Immersion Writing
I am a full immersion writer.
When I was a little girl I loved going to places like Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, MA, the Shelburne Museum in (South?) Burlington VT, Hancock Shaker Village in the Berkshires of MA and Storrrowtown Village in West Springfield, MA. I particularly liked to watch them dip candles. Each dipping added a wax layer to the wick. It was like magic watching the candles form. (Okay, I'm not all that far from Yankee Candle in Deerfield, MA where they dip candles, but I can't go there because I am allergic to the scented candles! Life is not fair sometimes!)
That's my writing technique. I have an inquisitive mind. I want to know as much as I can about my characters' world. I do not want stick figure people staggering around in sketchy settings. I want full-bodied people with foibles and flaws interacting with like people in settings that are so real that the reader feels as if he or she has walked into that house, has passed through that town in their travels, has visited that diner or park. I want my readers to know what makes my characters tick, what they wear, what their favorite possession is, what kind of car they drive, what foods they like to eat, and why they do the things they do.
I don't just spatter words on a page- I paint scenes, portraits, settings and try to make them come alive in the reader's mind so that they feel they are as familiar with the characters and locations as I am.
My characters may seem perfect at first glance, but they are not perfect. They make mistakes. They fill up with self doubt, they lack self confidence, they are sometimes arrogant and cruel, they are sometimes too kind and easily hurt- they laugh and cry and try to do their best to live their lives to the best of their abilities.
I want my books to be a full immersion experience into the world I've created for the reader to visit.
I read a lot and it irritates me when I finish a book and feel cheated by how pared down and over-edited it is. I cannot connect to the characters because there is nothing there to connect to. I cannot connect to the setting or locale for the same reason.
I put quite a lot into every novel (and into my short stories too, evidently, since people ask what happens next and are disappointed that there isn't more). I give readers an experience (I hope!) and not just brain lint.
One of my favorite books is The Poison Tree by Erin Kelly. Reading that novel I felt connected to her characters. That house was so well-described that I felt as if I had been there listening to records and dancing in the garden. The characters are very well drawn and therefore I connected to them. I laughed, I worried and I cried my way through that book.
Another writer who I consider a full immersion author is J.K. Rowling with her Harry Potter novels.
Do I need to mention Stephen King?
I do not write cozies or easy readers for busy adults. If you read one of my books you have to commit to the experience. A lot of my followers tell me, "I couldn't put the book down." And a few readers have told me, "I was like reading a Hallmark movie (those were comments after reading Yuletide Stories, Always Christmas in My Heart and Together for the Holidays- my holiday stories).
I write to give the reader an experience, not a simple diversion.
I'm always on the lookout for writers who do the same- immerse the reader in the world where their characters interact. It makes me sad when a book is touted as a great book, hits the bestseller lists and I open it and there is nothing much between the covers.
I am a fan of Bronte, Austen, Dickens, Dumas, Poe, and Shirley Jackson. I read Darynda Jones, Linda Castillo, Stefanie Pintoff, Jonathan L. Howard, Alan Bradley,Amanda Stevens, Claude Izner, C. S. Harris (Sebastian St. Cyr), Kevin Hearne, Tessa Harris, Charles Palliser, and Christine Trent. For fun I read Victoria Thompson's gaslight mysteries. I have to admit, I'm a sucker for books with circus settings and LOVED The Night Circus (I gave it to Kelly to read years ago and she still hasn't read it! Makes me wonder if I was given the wrong baby when we left the hospital back in June 1991- although she loves to read and her piles of books to read are higher than mine!)
In conclusion- if you pick up one of my books be prepared to be dipped like a candle, layer by layer, into the world in which the characters interact and the story unfolds. When you reach the end and close the back cover you're going to feel you know the people who live between the covers, you're going to feel as if you've been a part of their lives.
And you're probably going to wonder what happens to them next.
That's what sequels are for.
When I was a little girl I loved going to places like Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, MA, the Shelburne Museum in (South?) Burlington VT, Hancock Shaker Village in the Berkshires of MA and Storrrowtown Village in West Springfield, MA. I particularly liked to watch them dip candles. Each dipping added a wax layer to the wick. It was like magic watching the candles form. (Okay, I'm not all that far from Yankee Candle in Deerfield, MA where they dip candles, but I can't go there because I am allergic to the scented candles! Life is not fair sometimes!)
That's my writing technique. I have an inquisitive mind. I want to know as much as I can about my characters' world. I do not want stick figure people staggering around in sketchy settings. I want full-bodied people with foibles and flaws interacting with like people in settings that are so real that the reader feels as if he or she has walked into that house, has passed through that town in their travels, has visited that diner or park. I want my readers to know what makes my characters tick, what they wear, what their favorite possession is, what kind of car they drive, what foods they like to eat, and why they do the things they do.
I don't just spatter words on a page- I paint scenes, portraits, settings and try to make them come alive in the reader's mind so that they feel they are as familiar with the characters and locations as I am.
My characters may seem perfect at first glance, but they are not perfect. They make mistakes. They fill up with self doubt, they lack self confidence, they are sometimes arrogant and cruel, they are sometimes too kind and easily hurt- they laugh and cry and try to do their best to live their lives to the best of their abilities.
I want my books to be a full immersion experience into the world I've created for the reader to visit.
I read a lot and it irritates me when I finish a book and feel cheated by how pared down and over-edited it is. I cannot connect to the characters because there is nothing there to connect to. I cannot connect to the setting or locale for the same reason.
I put quite a lot into every novel (and into my short stories too, evidently, since people ask what happens next and are disappointed that there isn't more). I give readers an experience (I hope!) and not just brain lint.
One of my favorite books is The Poison Tree by Erin Kelly. Reading that novel I felt connected to her characters. That house was so well-described that I felt as if I had been there listening to records and dancing in the garden. The characters are very well drawn and therefore I connected to them. I laughed, I worried and I cried my way through that book.
Another writer who I consider a full immersion author is J.K. Rowling with her Harry Potter novels.
Do I need to mention Stephen King?
I do not write cozies or easy readers for busy adults. If you read one of my books you have to commit to the experience. A lot of my followers tell me, "I couldn't put the book down." And a few readers have told me, "I was like reading a Hallmark movie (those were comments after reading Yuletide Stories, Always Christmas in My Heart and Together for the Holidays- my holiday stories).
I write to give the reader an experience, not a simple diversion.
I'm always on the lookout for writers who do the same- immerse the reader in the world where their characters interact. It makes me sad when a book is touted as a great book, hits the bestseller lists and I open it and there is nothing much between the covers.
I am a fan of Bronte, Austen, Dickens, Dumas, Poe, and Shirley Jackson. I read Darynda Jones, Linda Castillo, Stefanie Pintoff, Jonathan L. Howard, Alan Bradley,Amanda Stevens, Claude Izner, C. S. Harris (Sebastian St. Cyr), Kevin Hearne, Tessa Harris, Charles Palliser, and Christine Trent. For fun I read Victoria Thompson's gaslight mysteries. I have to admit, I'm a sucker for books with circus settings and LOVED The Night Circus (I gave it to Kelly to read years ago and she still hasn't read it! Makes me wonder if I was given the wrong baby when we left the hospital back in June 1991- although she loves to read and her piles of books to read are higher than mine!)
In conclusion- if you pick up one of my books be prepared to be dipped like a candle, layer by layer, into the world in which the characters interact and the story unfolds. When you reach the end and close the back cover you're going to feel you know the people who live between the covers, you're going to feel as if you've been a part of their lives.
And you're probably going to wonder what happens to them next.
That's what sequels are for.
Welcome to My World
Here I will write a little bit about my writing, how I write, how I create characters and environments...and maybe some little glimpses into my real life because writers and authors are real people af
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