M.K.B. Graham's Blog, page 5

Sisyphus at the summit …

While lunching last week with a fellow writer, I was explaining how starting any project fills me with unspeakable fear. When asked to take on a writing assignment, I generally say “yes.” Based on my 30-plus years of experience, I should be able to handle just about any writing assignment. Operative word: should.

But as soon as I start I’m hit with waves of doubt. No matter how overwhelming they are, however, I’m obligated. I’ve said, “yes,” and I never shirk my responsibilities. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever backed out of a job. It’s the first born in me. Responsibility sits on my shoulders like a granite yoke and nothing but completion of a job can lift it.

So I struggle. I educate myself on the topic. I dig in to research. I set up and complete interviews. All those things begin to built a little confidence — but that voice of doubt still niggles.

When I finally get to the point where my thoughts gel, I get ideas down on paper and I start to see the story taking shape, I begin to feel better — not confident — but better.

Then there comes the point, a tipping point, when I realize, “I’ve got this. I can do this.” It [image error]is a glorious feeling and erases all my fears. I feel like Sisyphus who has finally reached the summit and can now slide happily down the other side.

Writers — to be successful — must have the confidence to write but at the same time, we must balance a kind of emotional vulnerability that gives us perspective and allows us to listen carefully and understand nuances as well as facts. It’s what make us effective writers.

Such vulnerability also lets doubts crawl into our heads. I don’t see someone like Hemingway ever lacking confidence, but who knows? He did drink a lot. On the other hand, Flannery O’Connor was notoriously doubtful of her abilities. How do writers reconcile these two necessary sides of our personalities? Or do we just suffer with this peculiar conflict as part and parcel of our craft?

As I’m describing this, my lunch companion is looking at me amazed. “I can’t believe this! I’m so this way,” he says. I wonder: Is this a universal experience for writers? Or are he and I the only ones?

photo by Brad Beaman via Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/2262887...

 

 

How I learned not to procrastinate …

Once as a teenager, I was on a trip with my dad in Richmond, Virginia. I don’t remember the circumstance, but I do remember the weather. It was raining so hard that people were escaping the deluge in the lobby of the John Marshall Hotel. Shaking his umbrella, a smiling gentleman said to me, “It’s really raining out there, isn’t it?” He was simply being pleasant, but rather than acknowledge his friendliness I snapped something sarcastic[image error] that implied, ‘I can see it’s raining, stupid.’ To this day, I remember the look on his face — complete bewilderment that a friendly remark had been met with such ugliness. After all these years, I wish I could go back and apologize to the man, but I can’t. I simply have to live with the knowledge that I was rude. I regret it.

Some regret in life is unavoidable, but much of it is not. Too often we find ourselves saying, “Oh, I wish I had done such and such — and now my chance is gone.” It might be an opportunity not pounced on, a risk not taken, a trip not traveled, a person not thanked, a task not done, a kindness not acknowledged — or an apology not made. Whatever the failure, it leaves behind a wholly unpleasant feeling.

As a college student, I would regularly put off my least favorite assignments to the last minute — and inevitably I would regret it. For years, I dawdled, delayed,  always excusing myself with a shrug of resignation that I was a hopeless and hard-core procrastinator.

But I learned an amazing lesson in the fall of 2007 that taught me the relationship between regret and procrastination. It was a lesson I took to heart.

Two years prior — after years of promises and procrastinations — I had finally written down the true story of one of my father’s college exploits. For a few months in[image error] 1947, he had been famous. With his exploit, which was published with photos in a national magazine that year, he had unknowingly started a tradition that in 2017 marked its 70th year.

Eventually though, his escapade was forgotten, and I, his daughter, was determined to bring it back and set the record straight.

And I did. At long last, I really did it.

My story was published in Virginia Living magazine, replete with historic pictures and illustrations.

That fall, Daddy and I had so much fun regaling his heart-stopping horseback ride across a football field. He heard from old college friends. He was the talk of cocktail parties, and he even had his historic magazine picture flashed on the Jumbotron at a football game to commemorate the event.

What I had succeeded in doing, however, didn’t sink in fully until two years later when I stood over his grave. I remember thinking how very glad I was that this one time I had not put off the task.

I had not procrastinated. And therefore, I had nothing to regret. I had pulled the rip chord, done the deed, taken the plunge. Few things in my life have ever felt so satisfying. It was joy and accomplishment and satisfaction. It was the opposite of regret — and I was never going back.

It’s a lesson for all writers. Write the story. Finish the novel. Publish the book. It is rarely what we write that we regret. Most often, it is was we do not get around to writing.

I’ve taken that lesson to heart, and when I published CAIRNAERIE last year, I avoided having to ever say, “I wish I had.”

And that is how I learned not to procrastinate.

The illustration of the hotel lobby is from Kaboompics.com by way of Pexels.com.      The illustration of the cracked “V” is by photographer and graphic designer Tyler Darden. It first appeared in the Oct. 2005 issue of Virginia Living magazine. 

How the many layers …

For every author, there comes that swallow-hard and grit-your-teeth moment when you open a review of your work.

Recently, I was in touch with a reader/reviewer from Ireland who reviewed CAIRNAERIE. Looking over his list of reviewed books, I noticed something that I really liked. His reading choices, like mine, are highly eclectic — and include the classics.

As a high-school student, I didn’t always appreciate the required reading choices my teachers made. Some of them — Catcher in the Rye comes to mind — I didn’t like. But there were other little gems that have stuck with me and remained personal favorites. One is Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser, a picture of turn of the century American life.[image error]

Another is Saroyan’s A Human Comedy, a quick yet amazingly deep read that has a lot to say about life, death and the value of human lives and interactions.

As a writer, the classics fuel my desire for excellence. Authors with styles as different as Theodore Dreiser and William Saroyan show me how the parts of a good, classic book work together, how the many layers of a book are as important as the whole, and how a writer’s overall style emerges. In some ways, these books are my best teachers.

I read classics to learn — as well as for pleasure. Do you have classics that are lifelong favorites?

And if you’re looking for good book recommendations and reviews, I recommend checking out my reviewer’s site. And while you’re there, check out his review of CAIRNAERIE.

Here’s the link: https://ebookwormssite.wordpress.com/2018/03/22/cairnaerie-mk-graham/

 

 

 

To learn what you can teach me …

My niece, a New York City actress with a long list of credentials and accomplishments, never reads her reviews. Many in the theater do not. I read once that the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman never read his own. He believed it would be hard not to fixate on that moment of glory or to rise above a withering critique, making it difficult for him to do his work.

In this respect, actors and writers are similar creatures. They have tender egos yet must be strong enough to survive the Sturm und Drang of their crafts.

Theater critics are notoriously nasty. Literary critics can be the same way. But I’ve found that most who read for pleasure and review books are usually kind and considerate of a writer’s sensibilities.

I wondered why and thought about it for a while. Here’s what I concluded.[image error]

To see a play or a movie, one invests only a few hours at most in the experience. But when one reads a book, particularly a good, involved novel, the reader joins in the experience. As I wrote at the end of CAIRNAERIE: A novel, thus, is art that becomes an adventure where a unique story is discovered—an amalgamation of a writer’s words and a reader’s experience and imagination.

Because readers linger thus, a successful book becomes part of the reader. The reader, properly invited, enters the writer’s world. Children do this better than anyone. Do you remember a book that completely took you in, captured you, and has never let you go? I certainly do. It was Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden. It has never let me go.

In this sense, whether conscious or not, a reader and a writer get to know each other. They join together to create a unique experience. They become, in a way, friends.

While many professional reviewers (read: jaded) can throw out nasty or overly-critical reviews, they are not the same kind of reviewers that ordinary readers are. The “pros” are readers-for-hire, so to speak, and thus have a vested interested in being seriously and sometimes overly critical.

But readers are different, I’ve found. Generally, they are honest but gentle. Perhaps it’s because by “living” a book the way an author intends, readers get a glimpse of the writer’s heart. (And[image error] trust me, every writer’s heart is out there in one way or another.)

As a writer, I must confess a great desire to reach out to everyone who takes the time to review my books and say: “Hey, could we chat over a cup of coffee? I’d love to hear more about your experience reading my book. I’d love to learn what you can teach me.”

But alas, even in this age of social media, we authors are cautioned against contacting reviewers. It’s considered SPAM. And I get that. But it doesn’t stop me from wanting to buy them a cup of coffee and pick their brains.

After all, every reader is a part of my book — and I love that aspect of writing.

Three little related things I so love …

Three things I love: a blank sheet of paper, an early sunny morning, and a blank calendar. All three hold enormous expectation. Great expectations, you might say.

This morning I am delighting in all three. After years of meetings, assignments, appointments, obligations, I’m facing that blank calendar with the excitement of filling it with things I like to do.

Like lunching with friends. Writing with abandon (and no deadline). Thinking. Relishing long stretches of uninterrupted time to get jobs done that I have long postposed. Ordering priorities.

[image error]

Life and all it entails rarely gifts one with such blank spaces. Oh, they are there, but I — a firstborn — am quite good at putting them off to make sure I accomplish the “musts.” The “musts” have always come before the “want tos” and as one who prioritizes to a fault, I usually let the “musts” regularly shove the “want tos” way down my list.

Psychology tells us what gives us the strength to postpone life’s pleasures — the “want tos.” Simple trust. In a 2013 study, the theory was put to test. The researchers concluded:

Delaying gratification is hard, yet predictive of important life outcomes, such as academic achievement and physical health. Prominent theories focus on the role of self-control, hypersensitivity to immediate rewards, and the cost of time spent waiting. However, delaying gratification may also require trust in people delivering future rewards as promised.*

For me, having a strong father — who I can report without equivocation never let me down — established a fundamental trust that extended far beyond my nuclear family. Add to that a mother whose most frequent statement was one of keen optimism, I was imbued with an indestructible sense of hope.

Hope. That’s it. That’s all. And that’s critical. [image error]

Hope turns these three little related things I so love — blank calendars, sunny mornings and blank pages — into happy and grand expectations. My frame of mind proves that.

Now I intend to fill each with purpose and dogged determination — which is something else my father gave me.

*https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...

 

The gift of life interrupted …

I remember when my children were little and one would fall ill to a fever, a cold, a tummy ache. I would put everything aside and tend to my patient. I loved showering them with special care: checking temperatures, serving popsicles, reading favorite books like Frog and Toad are Friends, or just rocking a somnolent child.[image error]

I would drop everything and concentrate on what I knew was most important. As much as I did not like my children to be sick, I did love those times when I could give them my full attention and an extra measure of TLC. During those days, it was easy to postpone all my other demands.

Most of life, however, isn’t so clear cut. Our lives are filled to the brim with activities and obligations. Knowing what to do first is often a challenge. I have — more times that I like to admit — wandered around my house wondering what task to attack next.

But sometimes life is clear — and you know exactly what your top priority is.

For me, the past seven months have been that way as I helped care for my mother who was slipping away from us. It was a hard time and a sweet time, a time to measure what was important and to focus on what really mattered. It was a time to put everything else aside, including writing.

Caring for a parent with increasing needs can be exhausting — and it was, at times —mentally and physically. But it forced my sister, my brother and me to delay our personal goals and readjust our days and priorities. It was a realignment that was clear and purposeful.

Now Mom is gone. And just as when my children grew healthy and strong again, I can[image error] resume the pursuit of my own goals and dreams. I will get back to writing, to editing the next book, to plotting another — and I will get back to a host of other projects I had put on hold.

As I move forward, it is with no regrets and no angst over the time lost. Quite the opposite. Instead my future looms with sweet memories to ponder, with new ideas to savor and, like a good writer, with new stories to record. These past seven months, when my priorities shifted, when something greater than my own ambition called, were a gift — the gift of life interrupted.

And I will be forever grateful for the interruption.

To write 1004 …

I am rarely lost for words to write, but this morning I am. Almost.

I’ve hit a milestone, and I’m pretty excited about it. I’m also wary of tooting my own horn. No one likes braggarts, but here I am about to be one because I feel like I owe it to those who’ve read CAIRNAERIE to let them know that they have lots of company.

Yep. They have helped me cross the 1000-books-sold line in just 38 weeks.

[image error]When I started writing this book, I tried hard not to imagine what it would feel like to actually publish it. I didn’t want to get ahead of myself because there was a lot of work ahead of me — and because a very wise man once told me, “Don’t speculate.” All speculation does is raise one’s expectations and, ultimately, it can lead to disappointment. Most of life’s “what ifs” are better left unasked — unless you’re plotting a novel, of course. Otherwise, speculation is emotionally draining and useless.

So, as hard as it was, I never let myself dream. (Ok, I did dream a little when I hit the publish button — but not too much.) Lots of life’s dreams don’t come true, and disappointment is a bitter pill. Instead, I simply hoped to recoup some of my publishing cost, which was modest.

Yet here I am, having sold 1004 books. I am as surprised as anyone. That’s not supposed to happen to self-published writers. It wasn’t supposed to happen to me, but it has.

I won’t speculate if this is the beginning of something bigger or an end to something great. Time and my stats will tell me that. In the meantime, I’ll just wait and watch and work on other projects.

As I ponder this milestone, I am exceedingly grateful to all those book lovers who have taken the time to read, rate, and review CAIRNAERIE. If there were ever a perfect time to write thank you notes, then it is now.

I would like to write 1004.

Photo from Pexels.com

 

Be like Muffin …

The early morning before sunrise is magical.

When I was a teenager, my dad would tap on our bedroom doors to awaken my sister and me early every morning. We were going running. We would roll out of bed in the dark, pull on shirts and pants, tie our shoes and meet him downstairs. To this day, I never venture outside in the pre-dawn without thinking of him, of having that same sensation that I had then before the day had begun, before the rest of the world had stirred. It is infused in me like the smell of cinnamon or autumn leaves.

[image error]An early morning in Virginia captured by  Maryanne Orsine Brown; used with permission.

Margaret Wise Brown, universally known for her children’s classic Goodnight Moon, wrote another book that is less known but equally wonderful. In The Quiet Noisy Book,* Brown describes in exquisite detail the sounds of the world awakening. It is a study in quiet observation.[image error]

In the book, we meet Muffin, “the little dog who heard everything.” Muffin hears a tiny sound and wonders what it could be. What follows is an adventure in discovery.

What I have always loved about Brown’s book is that it is a reminder not to miss what lies underneath all the cluttered noises of the day. In our modern world, we are assaulted with sounds and motion every waking moment. Restaurants play music for their guests. Doctors’ offices run televisions to entertain waiting patients. Gas pumps, elevators, lobbies, retail stores. Everywhere. Every inch of space and air is crowded with sounds and sights that are designed to grab our attention. And sadly, they succeed.

Silence and quiet are moments disappearing from our lives.

When the noise is absent, far too many of us reach for our earbuds or televisions or the screens on our phones and laptops. We drown out and cover up the tiny sounds, the lovely details, the quiet conversations with all their depths and nuances — all the extraordinary observations of the world around us. We miss too many.

For a writer, the ability to collect details and then to translate them into words on a page is a delicate and remarkable talent. To do it well, like Brown, is a gift. Every writer should seek to cultivate the art because it is these details often overwhelmed by the cacophonies in our lives that help make the difference between ordinary and extraordinary writing.

So as a writer, while the early mornings remind me of a sweet time in my life, they also prompt me to be like Muffin — to listen carefully to the day wakening and to pay close attention to all the subtlety it holds.

The Quiet Noisy Book was illustrated by Brown’s frequent collaborator, children’s book illustrator Leonard Weisgard. Originally published in 1950, the book was reissued in 1993 by HarperCollins.

 

 

 

Hello, Mr. Goodreads …

My friend, Andrea, suggested I join Goodreads. I knew something about the book site but not much. Given that it’s all about books, though, I took her advice and checked it out.

Now I’m a huge fan.

Goodreads was intimidating at first—the way just about any social media platform can be—to me at least, as a non-millennial. But I was determined to figure it out,  so I grit my teeth and waded in.

I am finding my way around the Goodreads universe. In fact, it’s becoming an adventure in discovery.

What is most intimidating about it is the sheer volume of material and opportunities. As an author, I’ve managed to set up my profile and add my book, which in a few short weeks has garnered more than a few ratings and some lovely reviews. I’ve managed to link it to my Facebook page and make a friend who like me shares a name with a famous person—which is another post for another day.

Much of what I have accomplished on Goodreads came about with the very quick and able help of a Goodreads expert named Vernice. She not only answered my questions, but she handled an item I couldn’t figure out. She also made me feel as if I were being invited to join a very nice club with very nice people. (Note to social media: Any platform with good customer service is one I can recommend.)

As a reader, I’ve taken absolute delight in sharing with the Goodreads world some of the books I have loved. Anyone who knows me knows I can go on and on—and on and on and on—about books that I love. (Those who know me best are nodding and smiling.)

What’s clear to me is that I still have a lot to learn about Goodreads, but I am determined to stay at it.

So, hello, Mr. Goodreads. Nice to meet you. And thanks, Andrea and Vernice!

 

Thank you, Southwest Times …

I’ll soon be off to my favorite place on earth — Southwest Virginia — to speak to a book club. Today, I’m especially grateful to writer Brooke J. Wood and The Southwest Times for running a great story about my book and the event. With Brooke’s permission, I’m reprinting it here:

Writer pens novel about historic Dublin manor

 

By BROOKE J. WOOD  (brooke@southwesttimes.com)

Martha Kent Bell Graham got to know Rockwood Manor through her father’s stories and her own childhood visits to the historic Dublin home.   

Graham is the great-great-granddaughter of Rockwood’s builder, Francis Bell, and she confesses to a lifelong fascination with the house where her grandfather grew up and her father frequented.   She turned those childhood memories into her first novel, “Cairnaerie,” a work of historical fiction set at Rockwood.

[image error]photo courtesy of The Southwest Times

“Because my grandparents lived in Radford and Dublin, I spent time in [two] places. I was the sibling who most often stayed at Innisfree, my father’s home, which is on Kent Farm Road just beyond Rockwood. That’s where I observed a lot about farm life, much of which informed my novel,” Graham explains.

She says she visited Rockwood to see her great uncle, Sam,  his wife, Virginia Byrd, and her great-aunt, Sadie.  

“I was always awestruck by Rockwood’s size and grandeur. The star in the foyer and the winding staircase were favorite attractions for me. I also have great memories of going to church at New Dublin Presbyterian and especially of how people gathered and talked on the lawn after the Sunday service,” she recalls.

The 1920s eugenics movement (improving human population through controlled breeding) plays a significant role in “Cairnaerie,”  a novel in which the female protagonist marries a “forbidden man,” which leads to her father’s decision to hide her away in his mountain estate, a setting inspired by Rockwood Manor. After years of solitude her history professor helps her escape, and her family’s long-kept secret is exposed.

“Much of what I know about Rockwood also came from my parents,” Graham shares. “My dad had many stories about his adventures at Rockwood growing up, including dances that his then-bachelor uncle Sam let him host while he was in college.

“He would rent a juke box, or something similar, throw up the windows that open from the floor and dance in and out onto the porch. Also, while helping my mother as she wrote a history of the Bell family that contains a chapter on Rockwood, I became more and more curious about it.”

Graham says that Rockwood has always “held for me a very strong sense of family. In fact, I tend to identify family with place. I think that comes through in “Cairnaerie.” Although I’ve spent most of my life in the Shenandoah Valley, southwestern Virginia will always be ‘home’ for me.”

She was born in Radford and lived in Marion until she was 7. Then her family moved to Harrisonburg. She returned to the area for eight years while studying at Virginia Tech.

In the third grade, Graham wrote a play, which her teacher helped her polish and then organize the class to perform. “I was the playwright and the star —  and I was hooked on writing.”

After graduating from Tech, her first job was in the university’s office of public relations as an editorial assistant and then as a staff writer.  She eventually became the associate editor of “Virginia Tech” magazine.  After her husband, Mark, finished graduate school at Tech, they moved to Harrisonburg, where she worked for James Madison University  in various writing and editing capacities.  She and her husband own a house at Claytor Lake, a place she refers to as her “favorite spot on earth.”

And her connection to Pulaski County’s history extends beyond Pulaski’s Route 100 corridor: “My maternal grandmother’s family home was in Draper. We called it ‘the country.’ I spent time there, too, and clearly remember the Draper Mercantile when it was the original mercantile.”

The Merc is currently carrying “Cairnaerie.”

While Graham loves to write, she admits to also loving research.

“As a political science major, I loved writing research papers. So, for me, researching and writing historical fiction is right in my wheelhouse. It’s kind of the best of both worlds; I can dig and explore things and I can use my imagination.

“Eugenics has always interested me –  one of many issues that time has changed our perception of. I was especially fascinated by higher education’s nearly universal embrace of it in the 1920s. It also fit nicely into the subplot for the novel.”

Graham will be discussing her book, released in March through Amazon’s Create Space publishing format, on Sept. 26 at Rockwood Manor. The event is sponsored by Literati, the book club of Christ Episcopal Church. It’s open to the public, but reservations are requested and may be made by emailing  rochelle0545@gmail.com no later than  Sept. 22.

Published by the Southwest Times on September 13, 2017