Emilie Richards's Blog, page 36

Sunday Inspiration: John Steinbeck

Wherever I travel I like to visit places that honor and memorialize my fellow authors since I find the lives of most writers inspirational and motivational.

While visiting the Monterey, California area for two weeks, Proman and I drove to nearby Salinas to explore the National Steinbeck Center which portrays the life and creativity of John Steinbeck. Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and he was one of the most prominent authors in American history.

In The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, and Cannery Row and many of his other books he brought to life the struggles of the working man and woman. I find his writing as relevant today as when he wrote in the 1940s and 50s.

The above quote is actually from one of Steinbeck’s non fiction books. Here are some of my favorite photos from the exhibits. Have you read any of his books? Do you have a favorite?

 

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Novelists On The Road

Good morning from Monterey County, California.

Novelists on the road or on vacation are a different breed. For fun come join me on my two week stay at my son’s home where Proman and I are dog sitting.

We decided that since this area is so rich in possibilities, we would take them one at a time. So we’re doing an adventure a day. That works perfectly for me, since in between that gives me time to fantasize about book possibilities. Yep, novelists on the road don’t exactly leave their professions behind, even though I did leave my computer behind and am writing this on my iPad. In fact the longer I travel, the more I feel like writing.

Have you ever done a food tour? This is rapidly becoming my favorite way to see a city. I did one in Puerto Rico and now this one in Monterey. As we ate our way through town, we stopped at the Monterey Museum where we were met by a young man pedaling coffee—and yes, I spelled it correctly because this is a mobile Nitro Coffee stand. While we sipped and listened to him describe the way the coffee is made, I wondered how many different places he visits in a day. What does he see? He has a unique vantage point on life in Monterey—as does our food tour guide. Wouldn’t they make interesting amateur sleuths? They show up at their favorite restaurant and…

Monterey County is the only place I remember visiting that gives a twelve degree range when predicting temperatures for the day. That’s because you can leave your house where the sun is shining and descend into fog and cool weather. So far we’ve visited Carmel Village, Carmel-By-The-Sea, Garland Ranch, Fort Ord National Museum, and The Farm in Salinas. We’re learning to layer since the weather is unpredictable. Every place was fascinating, but the Hobbit Houses of Carmel-By-The-Sea were the best photo opp by far.

While there I stumbled on an exhibit of original drawings/paintings by Dr. Seuss. What fun to see.

I wondered how it would be to live in a town like this one. Since it’s definitely a tourist town, no stories here about people trying to hide away, but what a great setting for a family working together to keep an old, established business alive as a wicked town council member does everything possible to end it. Of course there would be family strife and secrets, and the eventual solidarity needed to overcome adversity. I see a romance, maybe an older couple for a change? Kept apart for years by family loyalties and disloyalties?

And then there’s the fantastic Greek restaurant with the warmest, friendliest people serving, cooking and  yes, dancing with their customers between tables to bouzouki music. I think that one’s a keeper. Stay tuned.

Today we’re visiting the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I have an idea already. A sweet little fish with memory loss wants to reunite with her parents and ends up in a place very much like that one.  But darn, Pixar beat me to it. The Marine Life Institute in Finding Dory is based on the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Maybe I’ll just enjoy today.

We’ll see.

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Sunday Inspiration: To make a difference

Thanks to Charter for Compassion for this week’s inspiration.

 

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Westward Ho!

One of the best parts of having four children—and there were many best parts—is visiting them as adults. So that’s what I’ll be doing for the new few weeks, first in California and then Hawaii. And no, none of them has yet had the good sense to relocate to our fiftieth state, but after California, it’s only a hop, skip and jump for a quick getaway, right? Okay, maybe not, but definitely closer to California than to Florida or New York.

So off we’ll go. The first time we visited our oldest son I came away with enough research and ideas to write The Swallow’s Nest. This time I’ll just be recharging. We’ll be house and dog sitting, and since Monterey County is dog friendly, Dash will be doing lots of sightseeing along with us. Dash is a “double merle” Australian shepherd, which means both parents were merles. Breeders should know better since the pups are often born with problems, but Dash is one of the luckier whose problems are manageable. We are lucky to have this little guy in our family.

Another good thing about having four children? Three of them have dogs, even though we no longer do. So we now get our dog fix without vet bills. My son and daughter-in-law also keep bees. I don’t think we’ll be doing any serious cuddling there.

What I will be doing is relaxing. Our summer’s been packed with good things, but my husband and I are both ready for some quiet time. I’ll check in when I can, probably with photos. Meantime I hope that your summer has also been busy, productive and most of all happy.

While I’m relaxing and maybe thinking about my next book, what will you be doing? I hope it’s something wonderful, too.

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Sunday Inspiration: Where the Spirit Meets the Bone

This was part of a prayer in a worship service this morning at Chautauqua Institution. I wanted to share it with you since, if you’re like me, you may find it easy to dismiss unpleasant people as simply unpleasant and therefore not worth our time or concern.

In the words of American poet Stanley Miller Williams:

“Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don’t want it. What seems conceit, bad manners, or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard,  no eyes have seen. You do not know what wars are going on down there, where the spirit meets the bone.”

Where the spirit meets the bone. What a wonderful image.

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Sunday Inspiration: Enormous Peril

This week I was fortunate to hear one of our nation’s leading environmental activists speak here at Chautauqua Institution, and he scared the wits out of me — but he also gave me hope.

Bill McKibben is the founder of 350.org, an international organization that encourages the use of renewable energy and divestment from the fossil fuel industry. He reminded us of that the world’s current state is one of “enormous peril, with precious, little time to solve it…but if we really wanted to make that all-out push, there is no practical or technological reason that we couldn’t, in relatively short order, replace the coal, gas and oil that currently powers our world, with the sun and the wind that wash across this planet every day…We are called upon to act with all that we have. It is the fight of our time — and we need you.”

Why is this “inspirational?” Because we still have time to make a difference. We can and should act in whatever ways we believe are most helpful. But let’s do it ASAP.

Amen Bill!

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Woodstock and Stone County: Fifty Years Ago Today

Preparing to leave on our great adventure.

This morning Alexa informed me that today is the fiftieth anniversary of Woodstock. As Newsweek puts it: “The three-day festival was host to performers such as Jimi Hendrix, Santana, Ravi Shankar, Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead, and is considered the pinnacle of the “summer of love” culture of the late 1960s.”

I find it funny that Alexa explained this to me. Alexa, for the uninitiated, is an Amazon device that talks to you like an old friend. I can ask Alexa questions. I can discover the day’s weather, the news headlines, play games and at night she will lull me to sleep with playlists of relaxing music. I am embarrassed to say we have some version of Alexa in almost every room of our house, including the Facebook Portal version, which adds visuals and also allows us to use Alexa when we’re not using it to contact family and see them as we converse.

No complaints about our views.

So why did I find it particularly funny that Alexa told me about Woodstock? Because fifty years ago today I didn’t even know Woodstock was happening. In fact I knew very little that was happening anywhere except in the small Ozark community where I was serving in VISTA (Volunteers in Service To America.) I was living on a dirt road in what, for that area, was the lap of luxury.  A friendly local farmer had given us the house to live in since he wasn’t using it. Our house had running water and an indoor toilet, that second benefit something our closest neighbors didn’t have until later.

The house didn’t have a telephone, television or radio reception, and our county didn’t have a daily newspaper. It goes without saying there was no internet, no cell phones, no fax machines. A local family had rigged up their own phone system which consisted of old-time wall phones and lines running over ground from relative to relative. Years passed before that part of Stone County finally got regular phone service. We were long gone by then.

How much better is life now that I know within seconds what’s happening all over the globe? When we walked on the moon—another recent fifty year anniversary—I only heard about it later. Some of the people we knew thought we were hysterically funny because we actually believed the moon shot had happened.

While, of course, I do and did believe that historic event took place, that was the first time the concept of fake news entered my life. It’s easy, I learned, if you’re always on the outside, to feel like everything inside the mainstream is either suspicious or false. If you don’t yet have a telephone because technology hasn’t yet stretched across streams and mountains, why would you believe that a man had just landed on the moon?

We made friends quickly.

Like most people of my generation who didn’t make it to Woodstock, I’m always nostalgic when I hear about it. Who doesn’t wish they’d heard Janice, and Jimi and Ravi in person that weekend? But when I think back to where I was instead and all the things I learned, I’m not sorry I missed it. Life on that dirt road in Stone County has changed immeasurably in the intervening years. But the lessons I was taught by the good people who tolerated my bumbling efforts to help, lessons about faith and beauty, and helping neighbors, will stay with me forever.

I am so thankful that fifty years ago today I was exactly where I was meant to be.

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Sunday Inspiration: “Writing opened that door…”

 

Young funny man in glasses writing on typewriter

“Writing opened that door…to the divine, to some connection to the universe, to things that be… Writing makes me think, and thinking makes me write; and there is a circularity to that, to dive deeper into questions, into yourself, into your soul, into your mind and heart.” -Richard Blanco

I’m not a big poetry fan, but I’ve stumbled across some poems and poets that have blown me away. Richard Blanco is one of my favorite poets because he speaks from that deep place that connects to my spirit. Richard was interviewed here at Chautauqua the other day by Krista Tippet, the host of On Being, a popular Public Radio program. He told us that he was made in Cuba, assembled in Spain and imported to the United States. He lives in Miami now where he writes his poetry, much of which reflects the rich culture of that city. And did I mention that Richard was the inaugural poet for President Obama’s second inauguration?

If you want to know more about Richard and his poetry, you can find it here.

 

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New Covers: Are We Having Fun Yet?

Two weeks ago I told you about the new/old series I will be re-releasing soon.

My Homecoming series, Runaway, The Way Back Home, and Fugitive, was first published in 1990. Even if I had the rights to the cover art (I don’t) I wouldn’t use it. They need fresh, contemporary and new covers that better express the stories inside.

Well, saying that was so easy. I just wish that coming up with covers was half as simple.

I work with a talented artist, but while she does the hard part, I have to explain the basics of what I’d like to see in order for her to start. The problem? I don’t know.

Take the first book, for instance, because from that book we’ll develop the entire series “look.” Runaway is the story of a woman searching for her runaway teenage sister. The book opens in a sleazy bar in New Orleans, and big sis is dressed as if she plans to sell her favors on the local street corner. She’s not planning to do so, but she wants to fit in so that other runaways will talk to her and maybe, just maybe, she’ll find her sister.

So here are the problems:

If we use a picture of a teenager running away—I found a great one of a teen boarding a Greyhound—the cover seems to say “young adult novel.” I”m not writing YA, so that’s the wrong message.
If we use a lady of the night (does that sound familiar?) this appears to be a book about prostitution. It’s not. So that’s the wrong message.
If we show a New Orleans landscape and nothing else, then the book appears to be what? General fiction? A travel guide? I have no idea.  But both are the wrong message.

Cover designers have lots of commercial photography to choose from. All the sites, Shutterstock, Deposit Photos, iStock Photo, etc. have great search engines. So we can scour the sites for evocative photos using elements that might work. I must have looked at a thousand photos so far. Of course changes will be made to whatever we use. But this is the first step. Sadly, so far, it hasn’t led anywhere we want to go.

You can see why we’re stuck. Too many possibilities and none of them quite right. I have no doubt Karri will come up with a wonderful cover, but I wish I could be more help. Do you have any ideas? If you were going to design this cover, what would you like to see on it? What would best portray the story inside? What would make you open the book?

Here’s an article that lists all the elements we have to watch for. Think you’re up to the task?

Let me know. I’ll pass along your ideas.

****

In the meantime… drum roll…

Congratulations to Darla, who commented on last week’s post. Darla will receive an autographed copy of A Family of Strangers, and everybody else receives my fondest thanks for playing along with the giveaway.

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Sunday Inspiration: The most influential person in your life

“Marie Kondo tells us to ask of an object, ‘Does it bring me joy?’ If yes, then keep it; if no, give it to Goodwill. We need to apply that to our hearts. Is that anger bringing you any joy? No? Then let it go. The most influential person in your life is the one you refuse to forgive.” -Rev. Susan Sparks

I had the great pleasure of hearing Rev. Susan Sparks of the Madison Avenue Baptist Church speak this week at Chautauqua Institution. She’s such a gifted and inspirational speaker, not afraid to tell her own stories, and not afraid to use humor to make her point. I found this quote to share with you. I’ll be following her sermons by podcast from her church in New York City, so expect to hear more.

Who is the most influential person in your life? The one you’ve refused to forgive? Is it time?

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