Linda L. Zern's Blog, page 31
May 27, 2014
GOOD ENOUGH FOR A TICKET
We drive our vehicles into the ground, quite literally, into the ground. Sometimes, before the end, it’s possible to see the ground through the floor of the car. It’s our culture. It’s our way. If we lived in a third world country you’d find it charming.
We had a green Dodge caravan that, in the end, would only go in reverse, so we used it to take the garbage out to the curb. Our curb is a bit of a trip.
I can tell you that it takes some planning to get where you’re going when your vehicle only goes backwards. We also used that caravan as a battery charger for an electric horse fence.
When enough stuff falls off our vehicles, we pass the crap-cars down to our children. It’s our culture. It’s our way.
Maren, our youngest daughter, inherited my green Grand-Am. It had a bumper sticker that read, “Proud Parent of an American Soldier,” a driver’s side mirror hanging by wires, and no functioning window on the passenger side. But it still went forward and backward. That car was perfectly fine.
The law enforcement officer that pulled Maren over for speeding agreed.
By the time the good officer got to the car, Maren was hysterical—booger crying, laughing, and possibly braying like a donkey.
He asked for her license and said, “Do you realize you were doing forty-six miles per hour in a thirty-five zone?”
Maren began to yowl.
Shocked, he asked, “Why are you crying?”
She blubbered on and said, “Because (sounds of wailing) my parents (more yowling) are going to kill me.” She handed him her license.
“Why is the car’s side mirror in your front seat?”
“Because my brother ran into a mailbox, ripped it off (wailing sniffles) and my dad tried to epoxy it back on but all he expoxied was his pants, and this car is a piece of junk . . .” She trailed off in a flurry of post nasal dropping.
The officer observed. “Well this piece of junk was good enough to do forty-six in a thirty-five. What’s that under your leg?”
“My cell phone,” she hiccupped.
“Why is it under your leg?”
Her dignity gone, her life a shipwreck on the shoals of emotional despair, she did not have the moxie to lie.
Sniffling, she said, “So I can feel it vibrate when someone calls.”
He started to laugh at her and then walked back to his partner where he related Maren’s sad tale of woe and travail. They started to laugh at her, and then—still laughing—the officer walked back to Maren and said, “Thanks for the laugh. Slow down next time.”
She sailed away, the wind from the broken passenger’s side window drying the tears on her cheek and chin.
We did not kill her. It’s not our culture. It’s not our way.
Linda (Speed Racer) Zern
We had a green Dodge caravan that, in the end, would only go in reverse, so we used it to take the garbage out to the curb. Our curb is a bit of a trip.
I can tell you that it takes some planning to get where you’re going when your vehicle only goes backwards. We also used that caravan as a battery charger for an electric horse fence.
When enough stuff falls off our vehicles, we pass the crap-cars down to our children. It’s our culture. It’s our way.
Maren, our youngest daughter, inherited my green Grand-Am. It had a bumper sticker that read, “Proud Parent of an American Soldier,” a driver’s side mirror hanging by wires, and no functioning window on the passenger side. But it still went forward and backward. That car was perfectly fine.
The law enforcement officer that pulled Maren over for speeding agreed.
By the time the good officer got to the car, Maren was hysterical—booger crying, laughing, and possibly braying like a donkey.
He asked for her license and said, “Do you realize you were doing forty-six miles per hour in a thirty-five zone?”
Maren began to yowl.
Shocked, he asked, “Why are you crying?”
She blubbered on and said, “Because (sounds of wailing) my parents (more yowling) are going to kill me.” She handed him her license.
“Why is the car’s side mirror in your front seat?”
“Because my brother ran into a mailbox, ripped it off (wailing sniffles) and my dad tried to epoxy it back on but all he expoxied was his pants, and this car is a piece of junk . . .” She trailed off in a flurry of post nasal dropping.
The officer observed. “Well this piece of junk was good enough to do forty-six in a thirty-five. What’s that under your leg?”
“My cell phone,” she hiccupped.
“Why is it under your leg?”
Her dignity gone, her life a shipwreck on the shoals of emotional despair, she did not have the moxie to lie.
Sniffling, she said, “So I can feel it vibrate when someone calls.”
He started to laugh at her and then walked back to his partner where he related Maren’s sad tale of woe and travail. They started to laugh at her, and then—still laughing—the officer walked back to Maren and said, “Thanks for the laugh. Slow down next time.”
She sailed away, the wind from the broken passenger’s side window drying the tears on her cheek and chin.
We did not kill her. It’s not our culture. It’s not our way.
Linda (Speed Racer) Zern
May 19, 2014
GETTING PAID
A few people I know are convinced that I am a successful author. It must be that I’m on Facebook a lot and I know how to Twitter (sort of) because by any worldly measure, I’m not.
A successful author, that is.
I’ve never broken even—money wise. I’ve never been on any bestseller lists. I’ve never been on Oprah’s book club. It’s hard to get my English professors to read anything I write over four pages long.
Then again . . . maybe a few people I know are right.
About the success, I mean.
I’ve written a children’s chapter book about fairies, published three, almost four E-Books on Smashwords, written and illustrated an inspirational book about hope and love, and published a chapter book for middle school kids that was a finalist for a cool prize. And as I type this, I have three new manuscripts in the editing pot, bubbling.
But let’s face it, everyone is writing a book these days, including my bug man.
So success? How do you know?
Recently Phoenix (age 6) came to see me, a little girl some might be tempted to label “different.” Her mother, Paulette, has been trying to educate the rest of us about Phoenix’s autism. Her mother is brave and beautiful, so is Phoenix.
Phoenix came to my home, bringing her book so that I could sign it: a dog-eared, well-loved copy of The Long-Promised Song, words and pictures by Linda L. Zern—me. It’s a little story about tiny creatures and an impossible friendship. The drawings are charcoal and very simple.
At first she didn’t look at me or say anything. She played with my grandchildren. She sat in the talking tree. She visited the rabbits. She listened while the adults talked.
I signed my name in her book. Mostly, she ignored me.
Before they left, Paulette suggested that we take a picture of Phoenix with her favorite author, Linda L. Zern—me. I sat in front of the fireplace on the cedar chest I’ve had since I was a little girl. Without prompting or prodding, Phoenix jumped up next to me, threw her arm around my shoulders, squeezed me tight, squashed her cheek up against mine, and smiled. I could feel her smiling against my face.
I heard her mother whisper something like, “I can’t believe she’s sitting there like that.”
I held my breath because I knew what she meant. I felt what she meant.
It was as if a baby fawn had wandered into my living room, jumped up on my cedar chest, and allowed me to pet it. I could feel the joy in that moment, the joy in that little girl, and the delight of sharing an idea that began as fragile as a cobweb that grew and then changed and became, finally, someone else’s beloved story.
A successful author? Are you kidding? Have you seen the picture?
Linda (Count Me Blessed) Zern
A successful author, that is.
I’ve never broken even—money wise. I’ve never been on any bestseller lists. I’ve never been on Oprah’s book club. It’s hard to get my English professors to read anything I write over four pages long.
Then again . . . maybe a few people I know are right.
About the success, I mean.
I’ve written a children’s chapter book about fairies, published three, almost four E-Books on Smashwords, written and illustrated an inspirational book about hope and love, and published a chapter book for middle school kids that was a finalist for a cool prize. And as I type this, I have three new manuscripts in the editing pot, bubbling.
But let’s face it, everyone is writing a book these days, including my bug man.
So success? How do you know?
Recently Phoenix (age 6) came to see me, a little girl some might be tempted to label “different.” Her mother, Paulette, has been trying to educate the rest of us about Phoenix’s autism. Her mother is brave and beautiful, so is Phoenix.
Phoenix came to my home, bringing her book so that I could sign it: a dog-eared, well-loved copy of The Long-Promised Song, words and pictures by Linda L. Zern—me. It’s a little story about tiny creatures and an impossible friendship. The drawings are charcoal and very simple.
At first she didn’t look at me or say anything. She played with my grandchildren. She sat in the talking tree. She visited the rabbits. She listened while the adults talked.
I signed my name in her book. Mostly, she ignored me.
Before they left, Paulette suggested that we take a picture of Phoenix with her favorite author, Linda L. Zern—me. I sat in front of the fireplace on the cedar chest I’ve had since I was a little girl. Without prompting or prodding, Phoenix jumped up next to me, threw her arm around my shoulders, squeezed me tight, squashed her cheek up against mine, and smiled. I could feel her smiling against my face.
I heard her mother whisper something like, “I can’t believe she’s sitting there like that.”
I held my breath because I knew what she meant. I felt what she meant.
It was as if a baby fawn had wandered into my living room, jumped up on my cedar chest, and allowed me to pet it. I could feel the joy in that moment, the joy in that little girl, and the delight of sharing an idea that began as fragile as a cobweb that grew and then changed and became, finally, someone else’s beloved story.
A successful author? Are you kidding? Have you seen the picture?
Linda (Count Me Blessed) Zern
May 12, 2014
Bold + Audacious = Bodacious
Having children is considered a punishment by many, a mistake of biology by some or a burden of massive sacrificial torment to still others. Many of these folks developed these viewpoints in their own misspent youth—while stoned—also hungry and . . . sexually chipper or romantically frisky . . . or . . . oh forget it . . . The word is horny. They were high and horny.
Our village considers children a bold blessing with eternal bodacious payoffs.
It’s true there is a price to pay, and we pay it. Happily.
We like to entertain, which means we like to talk endlessly. Food is often present. It’s also true that our conversations have their our own special rhythm because of the presence of a large number of juvenile humans in our midst.
Conversations often follow a certain . . . pattern:
A serious minded soul tried to start a serious minded discussion as we habitually congregate in lawn chairs under the maple tree.
“So, what about this special committee to set to rights the under secretary of the over reach party of the governmental suck ups . . .”
A lawn chair crashed to the ground. Shrieking plus screaming stopped the conversation in its tracks as a random mother jumped to her feet, “Good God! Where did those boys find machetes? Put those down. Immediately.”
The speaker struggled to recover, “Did she say, ‘Machetes?’ Are those machetes? I can’t remember what I was saying.”
After the random mother disarmed the rebels, yet another brave conversationalist made the attempt. “So, I was reading an article about the overrated undertaking of the top notched experts in the field of bio-repulsion and electromagnetic shock futures . . .”
“Oh no! Stop him. Stop him. He’s going to kill the baby,” I screamed.
Several rational, highly educated grownups jumped to their feet while knocking each other out of the way as they shouted, “No. No. Don’t hit the gas. Stay right there. We’re coming. Don’t hit the gas.”
They rushed off in a pack to prevent one soggy bottomed toddler from being mutilated by the spinning wheels of a Fisher Price lime green dune buggy, driven by another toddler sucking a binky.
And then as recently as just the other day sometime, a dear friend waxed on about the importance of becoming keen on the contemplation of the careening nexus of the world on the recent educational morass found only . . . when a child’s hysterical wail rang out.
“She’s trying to drink poison!”
Parents scrambled, looking for sources of drinkable poisons and a kid determined to test them out.
I watched the mad rush and smiled at our guest who had yet to close his mouth.
“Around here it’s all kinds of exciting,” I said, shrugging.
“It’s impossible to finish a sentence around you people before someone goes apoplectic.”
“Which makes everything all kinds of exciting. Don’t you agree?”
The sounds of bloody murder and wild hooliganism drowned out his response as a binky sucking toddler roared by in a lime green dune buggy chased by a semi-nude kid swinging a curtain rod.
And that is how our bold + audacious = bodacious village spends its time in the Florida sun under the maple tree. Frankly, I find the rest of the world faintly boring. There’s hardly ever any machete welding five year olds and the grownups NEVER STOP TALKING.
Linda (Drop the Machete) Zern
Our village considers children a bold blessing with eternal bodacious payoffs.
It’s true there is a price to pay, and we pay it. Happily.
We like to entertain, which means we like to talk endlessly. Food is often present. It’s also true that our conversations have their our own special rhythm because of the presence of a large number of juvenile humans in our midst.
Conversations often follow a certain . . . pattern:
A serious minded soul tried to start a serious minded discussion as we habitually congregate in lawn chairs under the maple tree.
“So, what about this special committee to set to rights the under secretary of the over reach party of the governmental suck ups . . .”
A lawn chair crashed to the ground. Shrieking plus screaming stopped the conversation in its tracks as a random mother jumped to her feet, “Good God! Where did those boys find machetes? Put those down. Immediately.”
The speaker struggled to recover, “Did she say, ‘Machetes?’ Are those machetes? I can’t remember what I was saying.”
After the random mother disarmed the rebels, yet another brave conversationalist made the attempt. “So, I was reading an article about the overrated undertaking of the top notched experts in the field of bio-repulsion and electromagnetic shock futures . . .”
“Oh no! Stop him. Stop him. He’s going to kill the baby,” I screamed.
Several rational, highly educated grownups jumped to their feet while knocking each other out of the way as they shouted, “No. No. Don’t hit the gas. Stay right there. We’re coming. Don’t hit the gas.”
They rushed off in a pack to prevent one soggy bottomed toddler from being mutilated by the spinning wheels of a Fisher Price lime green dune buggy, driven by another toddler sucking a binky.
And then as recently as just the other day sometime, a dear friend waxed on about the importance of becoming keen on the contemplation of the careening nexus of the world on the recent educational morass found only . . . when a child’s hysterical wail rang out.
“She’s trying to drink poison!”
Parents scrambled, looking for sources of drinkable poisons and a kid determined to test them out.
I watched the mad rush and smiled at our guest who had yet to close his mouth.
“Around here it’s all kinds of exciting,” I said, shrugging.
“It’s impossible to finish a sentence around you people before someone goes apoplectic.”
“Which makes everything all kinds of exciting. Don’t you agree?”
The sounds of bloody murder and wild hooliganism drowned out his response as a binky sucking toddler roared by in a lime green dune buggy chased by a semi-nude kid swinging a curtain rod.
And that is how our bold + audacious = bodacious village spends its time in the Florida sun under the maple tree. Frankly, I find the rest of the world faintly boring. There’s hardly ever any machete welding five year olds and the grownups NEVER STOP TALKING.
Linda (Drop the Machete) Zern
May 2, 2014
The Strange Case of the Missing Conversation
My husband rattled his keys and checked his back pocket for his wallet.
“Okay, let’s go.”
Surely the shock on my face could be seen from space.
“What are you talking about? Go where?”
My husband made that face he makes when he thinks I’m being obtuse or uppity. He makes that face a lot.
“Sherwood, I’m in my bathrobe. I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about or where you think that we are going,” I yipped.
I was, in fact, standing in my bathrobe—a great fluffy yellow bathrobe affair tied with an old purple poke-a-dot bathrobe belt, because I had lost the best to my present fluffy yellow bathrobe affair and had to go back to the default belt from the purple poke-a-dot bathrobe affair. I happen to know that I looked like an out-of-work circus clown.
“We talked about it.” He was insistent.
The furrows between my eyes became deep-sea trenches.
“We talked about it? In this life? Were my eyes open?”
“Sure, you know, that time when we talked about it?”
“Honey, look at my face. Ignore the fact that I don’t have eyebrows.”
He looked at my face.
“See this?” I said, pointing at my face. “This is shock. I could not be more shocked. Do you think that if we had talked about this I would look this shocked?”
I pointed to my feet.
“See these?” I wiggled my toes in my No-Nonsense socks from Walmart. “These are socks. I’m in my bathrobe and I have no idea what you think we talked about or when. I am not dressed for going to anywhere, nor will I be anytime soon. Keep in mind it takes me twenty minutes to draw on my eyebrows with a crayon.”
For the first time he seemed unsure of our alleged conversation.
“Well . . . maybe . . . you forgot.”
Retying my purple poke-a-dot furry belt, I tipped my eyebrowless furrowed forehead at him.
“Maybe, and maybe you have conversations in your own head that you think I can hear because you’re thinking really loudly.”
His brow furrowed.
The conversation deteriorated from that point.
I appreciate that my husband and I have been cheerfully wedded for more than thirty-plus years. I appreciate that he thinks we have reached a state of sync that means we can read each other’s minds. I appreciate ESP. I just wish that it were real. Well, maybe next year.
Here’s to conversations that happen in real time and with audible words.
Linda (Read My Lips—Out Loud) Zern
“Okay, let’s go.”
Surely the shock on my face could be seen from space.
“What are you talking about? Go where?”
My husband made that face he makes when he thinks I’m being obtuse or uppity. He makes that face a lot.
“Sherwood, I’m in my bathrobe. I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about or where you think that we are going,” I yipped.
I was, in fact, standing in my bathrobe—a great fluffy yellow bathrobe affair tied with an old purple poke-a-dot bathrobe belt, because I had lost the best to my present fluffy yellow bathrobe affair and had to go back to the default belt from the purple poke-a-dot bathrobe affair. I happen to know that I looked like an out-of-work circus clown.
“We talked about it.” He was insistent.
The furrows between my eyes became deep-sea trenches.
“We talked about it? In this life? Were my eyes open?”
“Sure, you know, that time when we talked about it?”
“Honey, look at my face. Ignore the fact that I don’t have eyebrows.”
He looked at my face.
“See this?” I said, pointing at my face. “This is shock. I could not be more shocked. Do you think that if we had talked about this I would look this shocked?”
I pointed to my feet.
“See these?” I wiggled my toes in my No-Nonsense socks from Walmart. “These are socks. I’m in my bathrobe and I have no idea what you think we talked about or when. I am not dressed for going to anywhere, nor will I be anytime soon. Keep in mind it takes me twenty minutes to draw on my eyebrows with a crayon.”
For the first time he seemed unsure of our alleged conversation.
“Well . . . maybe . . . you forgot.”
Retying my purple poke-a-dot furry belt, I tipped my eyebrowless furrowed forehead at him.
“Maybe, and maybe you have conversations in your own head that you think I can hear because you’re thinking really loudly.”
His brow furrowed.
The conversation deteriorated from that point.
I appreciate that my husband and I have been cheerfully wedded for more than thirty-plus years. I appreciate that he thinks we have reached a state of sync that means we can read each other’s minds. I appreciate ESP. I just wish that it were real. Well, maybe next year.
Here’s to conversations that happen in real time and with audible words.
Linda (Read My Lips—Out Loud) Zern
April 30, 2014
Barefoot and With Child
My first Mother’s Day was a celebration of sleeping baby atop Poop Mountain.
Sherwood worked graveyard shift. He offered to “watch” the napping baby while I went to church. He didn’t mention that he would be napping while watching.
It’s a little reported but true fact that napping babies wake up. Napping husbands who work the graveyard shift not so much.
Our eight month old woke up. His father did not. Our eight month old, unable to rouse his father, entertained himself by sketching, smearing, wiping, trailing, painting, and possibly ingesting through his ear-holes—poop, his own. I came home from church to a Mother’s Day tribute of poop-encrusted child, napping—once again—on an artful poop mound. The nursery smelled like a scene from the movie Slumdog Millionaire.
I cried.
Three more children quickly followed. They also tended to poop. I cried a couple more times—off and on. They cried.
Then they laughed and brought me wads of flowers ripped from the ground, trailing roots and dirt. I taught them to read the great books of their people, and sacrifice for the good of others, and dance the dance of duty versus personal fulfillment. Mostly, I raised them not so much to kiss me but to kiss their children.
For this, I am accused by my silly, short-sighted, materialistic society to be a do-nothing, stay-at-home mom. I have nine grandchildren and if each of those children have spouses and produce four children . . . well, you do the math.
That first kid, the poop artist, he grew up and went to the Amazon as a warrior. Then he went to Greece, and Spain, and Iraq, and Afghanistan and Texas as another kind of warrior.
This Mother’s Day he sent me a zombie novel, a rifle, and a note:
"To the greatest survivor I have the honor of knowing. In this text lies a story of great adventure. Happy Mother's Day.
From: Your Son--Stay Alert, Stay Alive!
And I earned every word! By the way, I finished a five hundred page zombie novel in three and a half days and harvested a butt load of green beans from my garden, and pressure washed a chicken coop, and reached the twenty-five thousand word mark on a new book and . . . . try to keep up . . . would ya’.
Linda (Barefoot and With Child) Zern
Sherwood worked graveyard shift. He offered to “watch” the napping baby while I went to church. He didn’t mention that he would be napping while watching.
It’s a little reported but true fact that napping babies wake up. Napping husbands who work the graveyard shift not so much.
Our eight month old woke up. His father did not. Our eight month old, unable to rouse his father, entertained himself by sketching, smearing, wiping, trailing, painting, and possibly ingesting through his ear-holes—poop, his own. I came home from church to a Mother’s Day tribute of poop-encrusted child, napping—once again—on an artful poop mound. The nursery smelled like a scene from the movie Slumdog Millionaire.
I cried.
Three more children quickly followed. They also tended to poop. I cried a couple more times—off and on. They cried.
Then they laughed and brought me wads of flowers ripped from the ground, trailing roots and dirt. I taught them to read the great books of their people, and sacrifice for the good of others, and dance the dance of duty versus personal fulfillment. Mostly, I raised them not so much to kiss me but to kiss their children.
For this, I am accused by my silly, short-sighted, materialistic society to be a do-nothing, stay-at-home mom. I have nine grandchildren and if each of those children have spouses and produce four children . . . well, you do the math.
That first kid, the poop artist, he grew up and went to the Amazon as a warrior. Then he went to Greece, and Spain, and Iraq, and Afghanistan and Texas as another kind of warrior.
This Mother’s Day he sent me a zombie novel, a rifle, and a note:
"To the greatest survivor I have the honor of knowing. In this text lies a story of great adventure. Happy Mother's Day.
From: Your Son--Stay Alert, Stay Alive!
And I earned every word! By the way, I finished a five hundred page zombie novel in three and a half days and harvested a butt load of green beans from my garden, and pressure washed a chicken coop, and reached the twenty-five thousand word mark on a new book and . . . . try to keep up . . . would ya’.
Linda (Barefoot and With Child) Zern
April 22, 2014
A is for Ameliorate
WRITING MY WAY THROUGH THE DICTIONARY WEEK ONE: A is for Ameliorate
I don’t know anyone who isn’t writing a book, who isn’t thinking about writing a book, who hasn’t already written a book, or having written a book isn’t now planning to write My Book, Part Two—Cash, Check, or Charge. All of which is wildly exciting—also bewildering. It’s a brave new book-writing world. Guttenberg would be proud—also bewildered, I bet.
I’ve written a book—of course. It’s a middle grade, soft cover, work of historical fiction called MOONCALF. It’s literature. It contains no sex, drugs, wizards, or rock and roll. I made $1.68 cents in royalties last month, and I’m competing with 700,000 other titles in my category on Amazon. I have eighteen EXCELLENT reviews on Amazon and only one of them is my mother.
The problem with everyone, including my poet house painter, writing a book is not the competition it’s the sheer mathematical mass of the competition. It’s like being one oat in a silo of oats or a jet liner at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. Tricky. Very tricky to get noticed.
A writer friend of mine suggested paying for and participating in a Book Blast to ameliorate the trickiness of being one book in the flood of one million plus titles published each year.
I did this and wrote the check. Please don’t ask me what a Book Blast is, because I still don’t know. I think it’s when your book title gets tweeted by a trillion people hoping to win a free _________________ (fill in the blank.)
It was fun. I got lots of strangers wanting to be my tweety friends and email pals.
I also got promptly hacked, causing my new email, tweety friends to send me messages alerting me to the hackage. They were very nice about the hundreds of posts advertising weight loss products that appeared to be coming from my fat bottom. They said, “Hey, you’ve been hacked. Fix that would you.” It wasn’t a request.
My book, MOONCALF, was not mentioned.
And so I ameliorated—a word meaning to make better or improve--the problem of someone pretending to be me by changing all my passwords, ninety percent of which I’ve promptly forgotten.
No worries. I press on. My next book Beyond the Strandline is a young adult romantic action adventure that will fit nicely into the already over crowded young adult romantic action adventure genre.
To ameliorate the potential of being crushed under the endless weight of vampires and death game players, I plan to keep my characters naked for the entire book as they fly from spot to spot while hanging from their own personal drones.
No I don’t. Someone’s probably already written that book.
Linda (Better Now?) Zern
I don’t know anyone who isn’t writing a book, who isn’t thinking about writing a book, who hasn’t already written a book, or having written a book isn’t now planning to write My Book, Part Two—Cash, Check, or Charge. All of which is wildly exciting—also bewildering. It’s a brave new book-writing world. Guttenberg would be proud—also bewildered, I bet.
I’ve written a book—of course. It’s a middle grade, soft cover, work of historical fiction called MOONCALF. It’s literature. It contains no sex, drugs, wizards, or rock and roll. I made $1.68 cents in royalties last month, and I’m competing with 700,000 other titles in my category on Amazon. I have eighteen EXCELLENT reviews on Amazon and only one of them is my mother.
The problem with everyone, including my poet house painter, writing a book is not the competition it’s the sheer mathematical mass of the competition. It’s like being one oat in a silo of oats or a jet liner at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. Tricky. Very tricky to get noticed.
A writer friend of mine suggested paying for and participating in a Book Blast to ameliorate the trickiness of being one book in the flood of one million plus titles published each year.
I did this and wrote the check. Please don’t ask me what a Book Blast is, because I still don’t know. I think it’s when your book title gets tweeted by a trillion people hoping to win a free _________________ (fill in the blank.)
It was fun. I got lots of strangers wanting to be my tweety friends and email pals.
I also got promptly hacked, causing my new email, tweety friends to send me messages alerting me to the hackage. They were very nice about the hundreds of posts advertising weight loss products that appeared to be coming from my fat bottom. They said, “Hey, you’ve been hacked. Fix that would you.” It wasn’t a request.
My book, MOONCALF, was not mentioned.
And so I ameliorated—a word meaning to make better or improve--the problem of someone pretending to be me by changing all my passwords, ninety percent of which I’ve promptly forgotten.
No worries. I press on. My next book Beyond the Strandline is a young adult romantic action adventure that will fit nicely into the already over crowded young adult romantic action adventure genre.
To ameliorate the potential of being crushed under the endless weight of vampires and death game players, I plan to keep my characters naked for the entire book as they fly from spot to spot while hanging from their own personal drones.
No I don’t. Someone’s probably already written that book.
Linda (Better Now?) Zern
April 17, 2014
Writing My Way Through the Dictionary
Editing Essentials is a core English class at Rollins College taught by Dr. Lezlie Laws. It’s a tough class that makes people cry and say bad words. I think it made me bust out one of my fillings, but I can’t prove that.
Dr. Laws has the knowing of a lot of things about words and dashes and nouns and grammar and where all that stuff should go in a sentence. It’s a great big grammar laden world out there, and she loves it and she makes her classes love it too . . . mostly . . . well, the ones who don’t hiss out gypsy curses under their breath. She also loves her dog, yoga, protein, and happy creativity. About the time you think that the dentist will not be able to save your fillings, she likes to give her students a pep talk or two. Thank God.
In a recent pep talk, Dr. Laws shared the thought that we should, once in a while, read a page or two of the dictionary for inspiration and ideas.
Love it. The idea. Not the dictionary.
So in the spirit of creativity and dictionary inspiration, I’ve decided to write my way through The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Or as the introduction to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, “Good Usage, Bad Usage, and Usage” by Morris Bishop relates, “Much of our formless, secret thought is, to be sure, idiotic.”
Inspiring? Right?
One essay a week, based on a word from the twenty-six letters of the English language chosen at random from the dictionary . . . unless it’s a really stupid word and then I get to call “do over” one time or maybe twice. And from that word I will take my formless, secret, idiotic thoughts and craft them into an essay of dazzling wit—also grammar and dashes.
What? It could be fun, also funambulist, a word meaning one who performs on a tightrope or a slack rope and isn’t that a great way to describe trying express yourself anytime anywhere?
Linda (Tightrope Walker) Zern
Dr. Laws has the knowing of a lot of things about words and dashes and nouns and grammar and where all that stuff should go in a sentence. It’s a great big grammar laden world out there, and she loves it and she makes her classes love it too . . . mostly . . . well, the ones who don’t hiss out gypsy curses under their breath. She also loves her dog, yoga, protein, and happy creativity. About the time you think that the dentist will not be able to save your fillings, she likes to give her students a pep talk or two. Thank God.
In a recent pep talk, Dr. Laws shared the thought that we should, once in a while, read a page or two of the dictionary for inspiration and ideas.
Love it. The idea. Not the dictionary.
So in the spirit of creativity and dictionary inspiration, I’ve decided to write my way through The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Or as the introduction to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, “Good Usage, Bad Usage, and Usage” by Morris Bishop relates, “Much of our formless, secret thought is, to be sure, idiotic.”
Inspiring? Right?
One essay a week, based on a word from the twenty-six letters of the English language chosen at random from the dictionary . . . unless it’s a really stupid word and then I get to call “do over” one time or maybe twice. And from that word I will take my formless, secret, idiotic thoughts and craft them into an essay of dazzling wit—also grammar and dashes.
What? It could be fun, also funambulist, a word meaning one who performs on a tightrope or a slack rope and isn’t that a great way to describe trying express yourself anytime anywhere?
Linda (Tightrope Walker) Zern
April 13, 2014
Better Than a Toddler
Our one-year old granddaughter tried drinking water out of a plastic bottle for the first time by wrapping her lips around the opening, throwing her head back like a college student on spring break, and chugging harder then a drunken sailor. Water exploded over her head. Forgetting to un-tip the bottle as she pulled it away from her mouth, water gushed down her chin to cascade like a waterfall over her dress until it soaked her socks.
“Hey, I drink water just like that!”
It’s always exhilarating when you recognize yourself in the rising generation.
“I know, and it’s horrible.”
My husband sounded forlorn and a little sad as he stumbled away from our extremely damp granddaughter. Avoiding direct eye contact he seemed less than impressed with my connection to our posterity.
Grabbing a bottle of water that advertised being pumped from the bowels of a fresh water spring located under Mount Olympus and decanted into a plastic bottle designed by a computer, I threw my head back and guzzled, throat convulsing. Water squirted from my nose.
“Linda, do you have to drink water out of a bottle like that?” He grimaced, looking away.
“Like what?” I swiped the back of my hand across my dripping chin.
“Like you’ll never get another drop of water again for as long as you live—and eternity—like the water bottling industry has just announced that all the water in the world has been teleported to the moon. Seriously, it drives me crazy.”
Tipping the bottle back, I gulped until the sides of the bottle collapsed.
“Like that. Good grief, woman, take a breath,” he said, clawing at his own throat. “ Why do you throw your head back like that? You drink like you can’t trust gravity to work. Just let the natural elements of the universe help you.”
I let my head drop forward as I gasped for the universal element of oxygen. I had a cramp in my neck.
“I don’t throw my head back.”
He smirked. “You throw your head back, wrap your lips around the entire bottle opening, and squeeze the water into your mouth like you’ve just dragged yourself across Death Valley.”
He picked up a bottle of spring water pumped from the original Fountain of Youth with minerals added for flavor. He prepared to demonstrate.
“Here! Let me show you how to do it properly.”
Then Sherwood Zern, husband, lover, and friend, put his lips daintily to the rim of the bottle, gently flipped his wrist and sipped water while keeping his little finger extended.
I thought he looked like a sissy llama at the watering trough at the zoo, but I had to admit he had a definite flare that I quite possibly—lacked.
The problem now is that I’m so self-conscious about the way I drink water from a bottle, I have to hide in the corner at the gym so that all the other sweaty, thirsty water drinkers won’t mock and point. It’s like finding out you can’t dance after a lifetime of dancing in public—a lot—and it makes me wonder what else I can’t do better than a toddler.
Linda (Bottoms All The Way Up) Zern
“Hey, I drink water just like that!”
It’s always exhilarating when you recognize yourself in the rising generation.
“I know, and it’s horrible.”
My husband sounded forlorn and a little sad as he stumbled away from our extremely damp granddaughter. Avoiding direct eye contact he seemed less than impressed with my connection to our posterity.
Grabbing a bottle of water that advertised being pumped from the bowels of a fresh water spring located under Mount Olympus and decanted into a plastic bottle designed by a computer, I threw my head back and guzzled, throat convulsing. Water squirted from my nose.
“Linda, do you have to drink water out of a bottle like that?” He grimaced, looking away.
“Like what?” I swiped the back of my hand across my dripping chin.
“Like you’ll never get another drop of water again for as long as you live—and eternity—like the water bottling industry has just announced that all the water in the world has been teleported to the moon. Seriously, it drives me crazy.”
Tipping the bottle back, I gulped until the sides of the bottle collapsed.
“Like that. Good grief, woman, take a breath,” he said, clawing at his own throat. “ Why do you throw your head back like that? You drink like you can’t trust gravity to work. Just let the natural elements of the universe help you.”
I let my head drop forward as I gasped for the universal element of oxygen. I had a cramp in my neck.
“I don’t throw my head back.”
He smirked. “You throw your head back, wrap your lips around the entire bottle opening, and squeeze the water into your mouth like you’ve just dragged yourself across Death Valley.”
He picked up a bottle of spring water pumped from the original Fountain of Youth with minerals added for flavor. He prepared to demonstrate.
“Here! Let me show you how to do it properly.”
Then Sherwood Zern, husband, lover, and friend, put his lips daintily to the rim of the bottle, gently flipped his wrist and sipped water while keeping his little finger extended.
I thought he looked like a sissy llama at the watering trough at the zoo, but I had to admit he had a definite flare that I quite possibly—lacked.
The problem now is that I’m so self-conscious about the way I drink water from a bottle, I have to hide in the corner at the gym so that all the other sweaty, thirsty water drinkers won’t mock and point. It’s like finding out you can’t dance after a lifetime of dancing in public—a lot—and it makes me wonder what else I can’t do better than a toddler.
Linda (Bottoms All The Way Up) Zern
April 7, 2014
Halfway to Tech Dead
Last night in my English Literature course, the girl next to me pulled one of those amazing I-gadgets out of her book bag. She began to tap away on her high tech marvel while simultaneously checking in on Kim Kardasian’s Twitter update and downloading a sales flyer for knock-off designer shoes.
I looked down at my workspace. Out of my ten-year old book bag, I had pulled a clipboard with a legal pad and an assortment of pens, highlighters, and a Sharpie marker (I love them.). I might as well have pulled out a dried piece of animal hide and an inkpot. I stacked my textbooks in a pleasing configuration while simultaneously counting my writing instruments.
Several young folks flipped open their amazing computering machines while simultaneously looking for an outlet. Power cords began to creep and crawl over every available service seeking the mother ship of power sources. A scuffle broke out over the last plug. A couple of the students posted an update on Facebook about the viscous lack of cheap, available electricity created by magic solar panels, attached to windmills, powered by Keebler elves.
On the way to school, I was informed via my car radio that studies show that Facebook users over fifty years old have a harder time adjusting to changes on the social networking site than the average two-year old. I scoffed. Then I scorned. Then I yelled at the radio.
“It isn’t that I can’t figure out the new face of Facebook. It’s that I don’t want to. I don’t have time to figure out the new Facebook, because I’m halfway to dead. My time is precious.” I balled up my fist and shook it at the invisible radio waves floating around in space.
In the car next to me, a teenager type flipped open a cell phone with her chin, punched in a series of numbers with her nose, and then weaved into my lane of traffic.
“Hey!” I yelled. “Go kill someone your own age. I’m ALREADY halfway to dead.”
Later, in my Major English Writings night class our professor informed us that in her day classes it was becoming harder and harder for her to find students who had heard of the book of Genesis in the Bible, let alone anyone who had read it. For a minute I felt smug. Then I felt sad. Then I wondered if for all our technological advances we are becoming a people without a culture or a past or an identity.
And here I sit halfway to dead and me without an I-phone or I-pod or I-chip in my brain . . . and my husband stole my Kindle. All I have is fifty years worth of everything I’ve read, experienced, lived, learned, touched, done, and loved—way too much to Tweet.
Linda (No-Tweet) Zern
I looked down at my workspace. Out of my ten-year old book bag, I had pulled a clipboard with a legal pad and an assortment of pens, highlighters, and a Sharpie marker (I love them.). I might as well have pulled out a dried piece of animal hide and an inkpot. I stacked my textbooks in a pleasing configuration while simultaneously counting my writing instruments.
Several young folks flipped open their amazing computering machines while simultaneously looking for an outlet. Power cords began to creep and crawl over every available service seeking the mother ship of power sources. A scuffle broke out over the last plug. A couple of the students posted an update on Facebook about the viscous lack of cheap, available electricity created by magic solar panels, attached to windmills, powered by Keebler elves.
On the way to school, I was informed via my car radio that studies show that Facebook users over fifty years old have a harder time adjusting to changes on the social networking site than the average two-year old. I scoffed. Then I scorned. Then I yelled at the radio.
“It isn’t that I can’t figure out the new face of Facebook. It’s that I don’t want to. I don’t have time to figure out the new Facebook, because I’m halfway to dead. My time is precious.” I balled up my fist and shook it at the invisible radio waves floating around in space.
In the car next to me, a teenager type flipped open a cell phone with her chin, punched in a series of numbers with her nose, and then weaved into my lane of traffic.
“Hey!” I yelled. “Go kill someone your own age. I’m ALREADY halfway to dead.”
Later, in my Major English Writings night class our professor informed us that in her day classes it was becoming harder and harder for her to find students who had heard of the book of Genesis in the Bible, let alone anyone who had read it. For a minute I felt smug. Then I felt sad. Then I wondered if for all our technological advances we are becoming a people without a culture or a past or an identity.
And here I sit halfway to dead and me without an I-phone or I-pod or I-chip in my brain . . . and my husband stole my Kindle. All I have is fifty years worth of everything I’ve read, experienced, lived, learned, touched, done, and loved—way too much to Tweet.
Linda (No-Tweet) Zern
April 2, 2014
D is for Disclaimer
Once in a while, in the interest of pure, clean, sparkly honesty, I like to post a bit of a disclaimer, concerning my essay writing. NOTE: Don’t let the word essay make you itchy. Essay is a fancy word for bit of news or gossip or story that I might tell you “over the back fence,” as if we shared an actual fence and you were in the backyard while I was in the backyard and our kids were playing together under the clothesline.
Social media is the new back fence where it’s possible to “chew the fat” with one or a viral number of your closest most intimate friends. “Chewing the fat” is the act of having a chatty, amiable conversation with someone, preferably over the back fence.
So here’s the 411 (an expression meaning information or knowledge):
MARRIAGE DEAL: I’m married to Superman. Enough said.
FAMILY DEAL: Superman and I have four grown, married children, ranging in age from “no way I have a kid that old” to “no way my baby is that old.” We also have ten grandchildren ranging in age from “when did Zoe Baye start her own duct tape pillow business” to “quick catch Scout Harper she’s making a break for the door.”
LIFESTYLE SETUP: Superman and I live on six acres in a part of Florida known as rural. We have some horses, a couple of dogs, a bunch of bunnies, a coop full of chickens, and a pregnant goat. We spend our time driving to the feed store to purchase groceries for one and all.
SOURCES FOR ESSAY TOPICS: All of the above.
DAYTIME ACTIVITIES: Mowing, burning, chopping, edging, planting, tending, pruning, grooming, riding, shoveling, digging, mulching, weeding, picking, growing . . . oh, and I also write stuff: essays, E-books, manuscripts, chapter books, illustrated books and stories, short and otherwise.
NIGHT TIME ACTIVITIES: Listening to coyotes howl and doing homework.
IMPORTANT TO KNOW: I exaggerate for fun and laughs. Hyperbole is my middle name.
BLESSINGS: Folks who have read my writing and responded, so that I don’t feel like I’m talking to myself over the back fence while chewing the fat.
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY: Don’t pick my pocket, and I won’t pick yours. Period.
IN THE BEGINNING: My essays started as little stories that I told my mother, while sitting on her side porch, at the end of the day. I’d share this or that little thing that my kids had done or said, and I found that I enjoyed the telling more if I could make her laugh. Laughing at the mania and mess and mayhem put a fine bit of ending punctuation on another challenging stay-at-home, homeschooling kind of day.
Then Al Gore invented the Internet, and I took to the virtual super highway like a cheetah chasing warthogs—kind of. Mostly, I just stumbled around social media trying to remember clever passwords designed to thwart the efforts of hacker chicks in Beijing. Sigh.
I still like making people laugh, and cry, and think though, especially over the back fence while our kids and grandkids play under the clothesline.
Linda (L is for Laugh) Zern
Social media is the new back fence where it’s possible to “chew the fat” with one or a viral number of your closest most intimate friends. “Chewing the fat” is the act of having a chatty, amiable conversation with someone, preferably over the back fence.
So here’s the 411 (an expression meaning information or knowledge):
MARRIAGE DEAL: I’m married to Superman. Enough said.
FAMILY DEAL: Superman and I have four grown, married children, ranging in age from “no way I have a kid that old” to “no way my baby is that old.” We also have ten grandchildren ranging in age from “when did Zoe Baye start her own duct tape pillow business” to “quick catch Scout Harper she’s making a break for the door.”
LIFESTYLE SETUP: Superman and I live on six acres in a part of Florida known as rural. We have some horses, a couple of dogs, a bunch of bunnies, a coop full of chickens, and a pregnant goat. We spend our time driving to the feed store to purchase groceries for one and all.
SOURCES FOR ESSAY TOPICS: All of the above.
DAYTIME ACTIVITIES: Mowing, burning, chopping, edging, planting, tending, pruning, grooming, riding, shoveling, digging, mulching, weeding, picking, growing . . . oh, and I also write stuff: essays, E-books, manuscripts, chapter books, illustrated books and stories, short and otherwise.
NIGHT TIME ACTIVITIES: Listening to coyotes howl and doing homework.
IMPORTANT TO KNOW: I exaggerate for fun and laughs. Hyperbole is my middle name.
BLESSINGS: Folks who have read my writing and responded, so that I don’t feel like I’m talking to myself over the back fence while chewing the fat.
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY: Don’t pick my pocket, and I won’t pick yours. Period.
IN THE BEGINNING: My essays started as little stories that I told my mother, while sitting on her side porch, at the end of the day. I’d share this or that little thing that my kids had done or said, and I found that I enjoyed the telling more if I could make her laugh. Laughing at the mania and mess and mayhem put a fine bit of ending punctuation on another challenging stay-at-home, homeschooling kind of day.
Then Al Gore invented the Internet, and I took to the virtual super highway like a cheetah chasing warthogs—kind of. Mostly, I just stumbled around social media trying to remember clever passwords designed to thwart the efforts of hacker chicks in Beijing. Sigh.
I still like making people laugh, and cry, and think though, especially over the back fence while our kids and grandkids play under the clothesline.
Linda (L is for Laugh) Zern
