Emilie Richards's Blog, page 133

Sunday Poetry: A Wrong Number Occurs To You

Welcome to Sunday Poetry.  If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday blogs here.    

What's your part?  Just slow down a little and come along for the read–or sometimes, for the listen. No analysis needed or required. Let the poem sink in and move you wherever it may. If you'd like to tell us what the day's poem means in your life, or what word or phrase you've chosen to reflect on in the coming week, or where those reflections have taken you, we would be honored to have your comment.

I love today's poem, which I happily stumbled on this morning.  People Like Us by Robert Bly has enough powerful and playful images to keep you wondering all week long.  "You can wander into the wrong classroom and hear poems lovingly spoken. . ."  All the amazing serendipities of life laid out in a few exquisite lines.  I'll be thinking about this one for a long time and looking for more of Bly's poetry.  What will you take away from it?  How will it affect your day?

My thanks to The Writer's Almanac for their lovingly selected poems, including this one.

The Write Way: Using Everyday Events in Fiction

I just got off the telephone with Amazon.  My life work this week has been to track down a package I ordered in July.  I had to find out why it arrived in town but was  never delivered to me. 

Unfortunately Amazon and all the carriers involved have kept an excruciatingly painful moment-by-moment account of the package's journey.  Now the package–one of my husband's birthday presents–is on its way to Salt Lake City, while I'm sitting here on the east coast wondering why.  Luckily Amazon responded gallantly and promised to send another by a different carrier, directly to my house tomorrow. 

You've had frustrating moments like this, haven't you?  So have your readers.  So now, as you write your novel or your short story, you ask yourself, "maybe I should include a situation like this one.  After all, everyone will find it as riveting as I do.  They'll identify with my protagonist.  They'll cheer him on and hope his fight with the post office culminates in success."

Or they'll fall asleep before the end of the page.

How many times have you heard "truth is stranger than fiction?"  Okay, sometimes it absolutely is.  But most of the time?  All those events that seem so pivotal in our everyday lives are anything but.  They are ordinary, and in the long run, inconsequential.  Readers are hoping for more, for bigger, better, resounding moments that convey universal truth.  And the foibles of my local post office don't qualify.

But what if instead of a pair of headphones, a letter has been mislaid?  Not just a "how are you, I'm fine" letter, but one that has earthshaking consequences?  A Dear John letter perhaps, that will change the lives of everyone connected to it.  Not earthshaking in that instance, perhaps, but lifeshaking.  Or how about a letter from a mother to a child she gave up at birth, a letter that lays bare his background and all the secrets he never knew?  What if he's been expecting this letter and it never arrives because someone has intercepted it, someone more interesting than a clerk in a mail room.  Someone who has everything invested in making certain this person never learns who he or she really is?

What about a letter with the information for accessing a secret bank account worth millions?  What about a letter that names the man responsible for trying to murder thousands of refugees from a hostile military government?  What about . . .

Fiction is not the recounting of facts.  Fiction is taking facts, gleaning the truly interesting nugget within them, then forging and crafting the nugget into something even more valuable and precious, a gold chain with links, connecting to more links, connecting to more links.

How do you find the nugget?  Look for potential suspense.  Look for a situation that will be larger than life.  Look for some part of the event that could change every life it touches.  In this case, the loss of something promised, in the most ordinary of ways, becomes the beginning of a story.

Dog barking uncontrollably next door?  Why?  Has the owner disappeared?  Where has he gone?  What will you find when you–the author–finally get inside to quiet the dog and realize that. . .

Losing a package isn't fun.  The fun begins when you, the author,imagines a whole new world of possibilities.

What will you realize?  That's the fun part.

Cookbook Hoarders United–CHUsdays have arrived.

Read this blog, then drop everything else, go into your kitchen or wherever you happen to keep your cookbooks, and tell me how many you have.  Next, tell me how many of them you've used in the past year?

Are the numbers staggering?  Do you have cookbooks your mother gave you for Christmas 1957, cookbooks passed to you by your favorite aunt before she retired, cookbooks you purchased to support your local PTA or hospital auxiliary?  How about diet cookbooks, ethnic cookbooks, cake mix cookbooks?   Any kind of specialty cookbooks that seemed like a good idea but never got opened, much less used?

Caught you, didn't I?

I'll confess I have all the above.  What's worse?  I can't seem to stop buying them.  Nor can I bear to part with most of them.  Inherited cookbooks?  Ah, the memories of that truly horrifying tuna casserole topped with crushed potato chips that was my mom's specialty.  Can't throw that away.  Or the Indian cookbook with the curry recipe that starts by frying chicken bones after pounding them with a mallet.  (Scrumptious and unrepeated.)  South Beach.  Sugar Busters.  Adele Davis–that one got pitched.  But others?  So, so many others lining my bookshelves and groaning in stacks under my coffee table.

Cooking at home is a great way to save money, to exercise creativity, to try new foods fixed in ways you can control.  Yet most of us are so busy that when we do cook, we fall back on old standbys.

Well, cookbook hoarders, unite!  CHU is here.  (Say it out loud.  Get it?)  Together this next year we're going to open those old cookbooks, choose recipes and make them!  Then we're going to share our reviews, and if we think they're good enough, share our recipes with all proper citations.

Here's all you have to do.

Take the CHU pledge. Each month "try" to make one recipe from a cookbook you haven't used in a year.  Please comment here to let us know you're on board.
Once the dish has faithfully been made, comment here or on any CHU blog with the name of the recipe, your review, and any anecdotes connected with it.  Humor is good, pathos is better. 
If asked and if you feel so inclined,  share the recipe to post here for other CHU members.
Make a conscientious effort to stretch your food horizons and perhaps eat healthier this next year.

I would never have attempted this project without the enthusiasm of my Facebook buddies who suggested I actually follow through with the idea. In exchange for the enthusiasm and commitment of everyone who participates? 

Each month I'll do a random drawing of every cookbook hoarder who's tried a new recipe from a hibernating cookbook (or a new one that hasn't yet been used) that month.  That lucky winner will receive an autographed novel and some small and silly kitchen implement. 
At year's end, we'll have a grand prize drawing of everyone who's participated.  Grand prize to be announced, but you'd better believe there will be cookbooks involved.

We're not going to hold you to too many details.  You used it eleven months ago?  Nobody's counting.  You can choose one unused cookbook and make several recipes.  You can use a different cookbook every month.  The point is to try new things and give old cookbooks some exercise.  And if you can't find something you want to try?

Time to donate that cookbook to your local library sale.

I see lots of potential here.  Have cookbooks you'd like to trade?  Maybe we can arrange that.  Need advice on how to proceed with a complicated recipe?  Just ask.  Someone will know. 

Next week, my first CHU recipe.  What will yours be?  Remember, NO OLD FAVORITES!  Try something new.  That's a requirement.

My Tuesday blogs are now CHUsday blogs.  I'll tell you about my successes and failures, and I hope you'll do the same, so I can publish them here. 

Let the party begin.  Where will you start?  It's summer.  Thinking salads?  Ice cream?  Frosty tropical punch?  Let us know.  Have fun with this, because that's the purpose.  Ya'll cook.  Starting right now!

Sunday Poetry: Who Has Fallen in the Night?

Welcome to Sunday Poetry.  If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday blogs here.    

What's your part?  Just slow down a little and come along for the read–or sometimes, for the listen. No analysis needed or required. Let the poem sink in and move you wherever it may. If you'd like to tell us what the day's poem means in your life, or what word or phrase you've chosen to reflect on in the coming week, or where those reflections have taken you, we would be honored to have your comment. 

Billy Collins is one of my favorite poets, and I found his poem, Obituaries,  both amusing and touching.  I'll admit to reading obituaries with great curiosity and enthusiasm and marveling at the amazing lives even the most "ordinary" people have led.  But, of course, there's more to this poem than that.  "The awful flood of life" is an image to consider this week.  I know I will.  What will you take away?  Will you read the obituaries with a keener eye?

If Fiction is by Definition a Pack of Lies, How Accurate Must I Be?

I love doing research.  One of the joys of writing is my freedom to choose subjects that interest me, then read, surf the Internet and travel to find out everything I need to know.  Okay, sometimes I just want to know things because I do.  I know, as I'm delving deeper and deeper that I will never use the facts I'm uncovering, but I just can't seem to stop.  It's either too much fun or early signs of an obsessive-compulsive disorder.  I'm not taking any bets.

In June I had the pleasure of visiting Asheville, North Carolina for a week.  Asheville is not unfamiliar to me.  As our children were growing up our family spent portions of nearly every summer in Western North Carolina, and a son moved to Asheville the moment he was able, where he worked, completed college and began his own business.  Now he's a tried and true member of the community, with an extra bedroom for his mom when she needs an Asheville fix.  Grown children settling down in beautiful places are one of the childbearing bonuses no one mentions. 

When I was planning my newest series my brainstorming buddies, aware of my connection to the city, suggested Asheville as the setting.  I knew they were right.  Asheville is picturesque, multicultural, and unique.  The things I didn't know could be discovered, plus I have my son and old friends who will be only too glad to answer questions.  So in June, I set out to see if my optimism was founded.  Would I be able to do a credible job of representing the area?

Authors are faced with many tasks when they begin a story.  One of them is how true to life they'll need to be.  Here's an example: The first scene of my novel takes place in a park on a playground.  I wrote the scene before I made my trip last week.  I described a typical park, with just enough detail that I thought I'd be safe.  But no matter how hard I looked, I couldn't find all the elements I'd used in just one park.  The elements were there, but split between two parks I visited.  So, do I name a real park to give the scene more authenticity while simultaneously setting myself up for emails that say: "There is no Blankety-Blank in Doo-Dah Park?"  Or do I simply name a section of the city and hope nobody's that picky?  This is fiction, after all, and my merger of two will not defund the city's parks and recreation department.

Or how about discovering that Trust and Luck, two nearby townships with names that fascinated me the moment I heard them, aren't laid out exactly the way I envisioned them.  Can I move actual townships?  Just a little?  Redesign roads leading off them?  Expand their boundaries?  What must I be true to?  What can I fudge?

These questions will haunt me as I write.  But they are small problems compared to the big one that makes most authors break out in a cold sweat in the middle of the night.  What about all the things I think I know that I really don't?  All the mistakes waiting around the corner because I've never thought about them?  Those blithe convictions that are teetering on a mountain ledge as I'm leaning over to erroneously name distant peaks, none the wiser?

I do love research.  I do love Asheville.  I do love fiction.  I'll throw all that in the cast iron kettle of my imagination and stir and stir.  The result?  A pack of lies or a sterling depiction?  We shall see.

Treasure Beach: Chapter Six, Part Four

Summer isn't "over" for us, thank goodness, but it's nearly over for Olivia and the women of Happiness Key, whose lives will be forever changed in Sunset Bridge , available now at your favorite bookstore.  Meantime, Treasure Beach  ends today.  If you haven't been reading along, visit this page for enlightenment and instructions.   And don't worry, you don't have to finish Treasure Beach to enjoy Sunset Bridge .  The stories aren't directly related, even though the characters are the same.

Finally, please don't forget to visit quilter Pat Sloan's website to sew along on the charming Happiness Key quilt that goes along with the series.

Do you prefer to read  in one big gulp?  Every month I've included a complete chapter pdf on the last Tuesday.  If you're new and you've missed those chapters?  Here are links:  Chapter One.  Chapter Two.  Chapter Three.  Chapter Four.  Chapter Five.  And today the final  Chapter Six. 

I've really enjoyed sharing this novella with you, and I hope you've enjoyed reading along with me.  Stay tuned for more novellas down the road, and be sure to come back in August to see what's new at Southern Exposure.  I'm "cooking" up a brand-new scheme and I hope you'll join in.

Treasure Beach: Chapter Six, Part Four

The door opened again and Janya, wearing something gauzy white and summery, came into the living room carrying a casserole dish. They caught her up on the conversation as she went into the kitchen to put the casserole in Wanda's oven.

"I went back to Randall's," Janya said when they finished, "but the manager had no one else for our list, although I could see he was trying."

The door opened yet a third time, and Alice came in, with Olivia, in yellow shorts and a striped T-shirt just behind her. "I bought rolls. I was . . . baking today."

"And what did you bring?" Wanda asked Olivia.

She paused a moment, then she gave them a big grin. "Apologies," she said.

"Why?" The women's voices were almost a chorus.

"I'm not going to be here. I'm going to a sleep over at a friend's house."

Wanda felt a profound sense of relief that started in her heart but progressed immediately to her aching feet, because they really, really hadn't wanted to go trekking all over Palmetto Grove on another wild goose chase.

She didn't let on, though. "And here we were going to talk about what to do next. You know, to figure out who put that message in the bottle."

Olivia looked surprised, then she seemed to shake it off. "Oh, that. Right. Well, I've decided you were all, you know, right about the bottle and all. It's got to be a joke, doesn't it? I kind of got carried away, I guess. But it meant a lot, all of you trying to help me."

She beamed another sunny smile. "Jessie's mom is coming to get me in a little while. So I have to finish getting ready. Will you save me a piece of pie? Nana will keep it for me."

"You know it," Wanda said.

Olivia waved goodbye and the door slammed behind her.

"Well," Tracy finally said, breaking the silence. "Is that the same girl who was living here last week?"

"She went to a . . . barbecue," Alice said. "For school. Sunday. She came back. . . feeling better." She looked mystified.

"We'd have to be dumber than a bucket of rocks not to see what's happened," Wanda said.

Janya took Alice's rolls and went to put them in the oven, too. "What?" she asked from the kitchen.

Wanda waited until she returned. "It's us," she said, without a trace of modesty. "We made all the difference by paying attention to what was important to her, just the way Tracy said. That's the thing she needed, just a little shot of neighborly love, and now she's fine again."

She didn't add that telling Olivia a piece of the truth about Lizzie had probably started the process. That was something the others didn't need to know, but now, she was awfully glad she'd done it.

"It is good to see her smile again," Janya said. "Whatever we did to help."

Tracy chimed in. "It definitely is. Whatever we did."

"It's nice to know she can let go of something and move on." Wanda checked her watch. "So, if we go out right now we can watch the sun set, then come back inside and eat. What do you say? I've got a bottle of wine chilling in my fridge. Somebody grab the wine glasses off my kitchen counter. We'll drink a toast to raising that girl. It's going to be some ride. Take it from someone who knows."

***

Author note: The Treasure Beach "novellini" will remain on my blog through the end of the year, then I plan to publish it at Amazon and B&N for those who've asked to have it available in ebook form.  

Sunday Poetry: The Dracena That's Outgrown It's Pot

Welcome to Sunday Poetry.  If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday blogs here.    

What's your part?  Just slow down a little and come along for the read–or sometimes, for the listen. No analysis needed or required. Let the poem sink in and move you wherever it may. If you'd like to tell us what the day's poem means in your life, or what word or phrase you've chosen to reflect on in the coming week, or where those reflections have taken you, we would be honored to have your comment. 

Daily Life, by Susan Wood, so beautifully captures the perils of giving in to the mundane and of being easily overcome by the ordinary. Haven't we all had days when "a parrot of irritation" sits on our shoulder?

Poets.org is a wonderful site to browse, since the poetry is there because of the generosity of the poets and their publishers, and biographies of the poets themselves are included.  Stay awhile once you arrive, and enjoy.

How can we transform our perception of our daily life, our daily struggles into something "like a bird slowly unfolding its wings?"  Something I'll ponder.

Say Goodbye and Good Luck to the Good Folks at Borders

 I remember what life was like in the western suburbs of Cuyahoga County before Borders moved in.  At the time we had only one bookstore within a ten mile radius.  That shopworn independent had been there for years.  The inside was, at best, disheveled; the stock was low, and the people behind the counter never wanted to chat. 

There was also that "little room" in the back where children weren't welcome. All I took away from reluctant trips to the store was a memory of that "little room," which I dusted off years later and used as a plot point in Blessed is the Busybody.  Hey, who wants to leave a bookstore empty-handed?

Then,  just three miles away, Borders moved in.  Big, beautiful, bold Borders Books. 

Fairyland.

I remember the first time I walked inside my brand new store.  There were books everywhere.  Sales personnel who'd been selected and trained to find just the right books for every customer.  Music, coffee, comfortable places to sit while I decided which books to buy.

I remember the first author book signing I did there.  The CRM (Community Relations Manager) was a fabulous guy who adored books, theater and making a splash.  My book, a romance, was set in Scotland.  Jonathan had a bagpiper stand by the door and pipe readers inside.  Be still my heart. 

My Borders store was always filled with quiet music, with readings and fabulous entertainment.  It was also packed with customers.  Once I looked up to see every single space at the front counter manned by a clerk, at least eight of them, with lines of six or more at each register, and everybody's arms overflowing with books.

The decline of my Borders was subtle.  First events were cut, then community relations managers were given pink slips.  My store was no longer a happening  place.   Staff was cut to the bone.  Signings were no longer promoted with enthusiasm.  No one seemed to know where books had been stored or how to set up a table when it was my turn to sign.  The booksellers who were left were overworked, harried and underpaid.  Naturally, enthusiasm dwindled.  Borders was saving money, I was told.  I wondered for what.

Now Borders is closing.  With it, go so many booklovers.  The employees who hung in there, worked and cared about their jobs.  The readers who went back time and time again to buy books, even when the magic began to die.  The authors who now have one less venue for their work. 

The analysts will point to this and that as the problem.  I'm sure they're right.  Bad decisions about Internet marketing. Competition. Rapid expansion. A scary economy. The list goes on. 

There's no question this is a difficult time to sell anything.  But I wonder.  Had corporate left their board rooms, had they been there the night my store was filled with music and customers toting armloads of books, if they'd sat down for a latte and a long, look at what was happening when creative, enthusiastic people ran the show, might they have made better decisions?  Might they have hired more CRMs?  Hired and trained more, not fewer, booklovers as staff?  Turned up the music and let the joy continue?

I guess we'll never know.

Treasure Beach: Chapter Six, Part Three

Summer isn't "over" for us, thank goodness, but it's nearly over for Olivia and the women of Happiness Key, whose lives will be forever changed in Sunset Bridge , available now at your favorite bookstore. 

Meantime, Treasure Beach (the free prequel to Sunset Bridge) ends this month.  If you haven't been reading along, visit this page for enlightenment and instructions.  It's not too late to catch up.  And don't worry, you don't have to finish Treasure Beach to enjoy Sunset Bridge .  The stories aren't directly related, even though the characters are the same.

Finally, please don't forget to visit quilter Pat Sloan's website to sew along on the charming Happiness Key quilt that goes along with the series.

Treasure Beach: Chapter Six, Part Three

Wanda couldn't wait for Maggie to move to Palmetto Grove Key. She and Maggie had baked pies together since Maggie was old enough to stand on a stool to reach the kitchen counter. The teenagers who were coming mornings were a help, but she was still doing the hardest parts herself.

Even though Sunday was her real day off, she'd gone into the shop yesterday to scrub the place top to bottom. And today, instead of just making sure things were set for the week, she had assembled and frozen dozens of pie crusts and made filling from bushels of apples and peaches to bake tomorrow. Now she was home, feet up, and not looking forward to putting her shoes on again. That was too bad, though. Because it was her turn to host the weekly dinner for her neighbors, and even though she had broken down and bought most of it ready-made at the grocery store, she still had to get it to the table.

She had just gotten to her feet when Tracy opened the front door. "Need some help?"

Wanda groaned.

"One of those days, huh? I had one, too. Mondays are always grim. I'll set the table. We can just eat pie." Tracy sounded hopeful.

"Day comes when I just serve pie–"

"We'd all be thrilled," Tracy finished. "Not that you're not a good cook otherwise."

"Well, don't get too worried. I bought rotisserie chicken and potato salad at Publix, and Janya's bringing some kind of eggplant with a cupboard full of spices on it."

"Yum. I've got chips and salsa, the real stuff one of the cooking classes made at the center today."

Wanda was feeling better just thinking about eating. "I brought home a French silk pie. Olivia loves it."

"I guess we'd better plan what we're going to do about her. I don't know how else to track that note."

"Kenny just laughed when I asked him to talk to the folks at Walmart. He's not getting a bit of this pie tonight, on account of laughing at me."

"I did check the other two shops on the way home from work," Tracy said, "and they didn't have any paper that looked like that note."

Sunday Poetry: We are the flower

Welcome to Sunday Poetry.  If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday blogs here.    

What's your part?  Just slow down a little and come along for the read–or sometimes, for the listen. No analysis needed or required. Let the poem sink in and move you wherever it may. If you'd like to tell us what the day's poem means in your life, or what word or phrase you've chosen to reflect on in the coming week, or where those reflections have taken you, we would be honored to have your comment. 

Today's poem is by Emily Dickinson and in public domain so I can share it directly with you.  I loved the imagery, death being cast as night with all it's possibilities.  I found this on Writer's Almanac, as I often find our poems, and the title is in lower case letters, as you see it here.  What if anything moves you about this poem and makes you consider your life or days?

The daisy follows soft the sun

The daisy follows soft the sun,

And when his golden walk is done,

Sits shyly at his feet.

He, waking, finds the flower near.

"Wherefore, marauder, art thou here?"

"Because, sir, love is sweet!"

We are the flower, Thou the sun!

Forgive us, if as days decline,

We nearer steal to Thee, —

Enamoured of the parting west,

The peace, the flight, the amethyst,

Night's possibility!