Emilie Richards's Blog, page 79

Do You Have a Technology Addiction?

I spend the summer at Chautauqua Institution.

The official website describes Chautauqua this way: Chautauqua is dedicated to the exploration of the best in human values and the enrichment of life through a program that explores the important religious, social and political issues of our times. Check this link for a more comprehensive background.

Quite a mission, huh? Yesterday I attended a morning lecture by novelist/essayist and playwright Roger Rosenblatt, a dinner picnic for the many fabulous students who will be studying here this summer, and a taping of the PBS program From The Top with Christopher O’Riley and five young musicians who wowed us with their prowess and charm.

That was a slow day.

Since the topic this week is 21st-Century Literacies, Roger Roseblatt’s fine lecture centered on the imagination. At one point he was asked whether he thought the constant availability of tablets and smart phones would have a detrimental effect on imagination. The topic seemed, well, topical to me since a woman in the next row was busy on her iPad reading the Chautauqua newspaper and write-ups of a previous lecture.

Which left me to wonder if she plans to read the synopsis of Roger’s lecture today as our new morning lecturer speaks.

Roger said he doesn’t own a computer. When the woman in front of me put away her iPad, she pulled out her iPhone. No email went unexplored for the rest of the morning.

Is there such a thing as a technology addiction? How convinced are you that you can multi-task and still pay close attention to everything on and off-screen? Studies say we’re fooling ourselves. We can switch our attention from one to the other very quickly, but is that the same? Because no matter how quickly we switch, we’ve still lost something, haven’t we?

When my children were young I wanted them to have different experiences and learn different skills. But I also wanted them to have time to play with  neighborhood friends, to lie on their backs and stare at the clouds. I wanted them to tell me they were bored, because from boredom imagination often takes root. Nothing to do? Make up your own game. Nothing to read? Make up your own story.

Back then social media hadn’t been invented and the internet was a twinkle in Al Gore’s eye. Parents today have new problems to deal with. Still, some deal with technology in ways we might not expect. Take the late Steve Jobs, cofounder and CEO of Apple. When asked how his children liked the iPad, Jobs replied: “They haven’t used it. We limit how much technology our kids use at home.” There was no technology at dinner. Instead the Jobs family ate together, discussing books and history and a variety of other things.

Maybe Jobs, so immersed in cutting edge technology was also more aware of its dangers. Little by little we are training ourselves to be entertained and engaged at all times. Have a few extra minutes? Don’t stare out the window and think about the conversation you just had or heard. Don’t spin out fantasies. Spend them on social media checking out the latest cat video or playing a quick game of Words With Friends.

Are we losing the ability to use our imaginations? And are we still strong enough, like Steve Jobs, to turn off  the iPhone and iPads now and then, even if we might be bored at first, to see where our imaginations lead us?

Here’s the most intriguing question. If we don’t cure our technology addiction, what effect will our constant distraction, our myth of multi-tasking have on both the arts and the sciences? What do you think?

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Sunday Inspiration: Love Finds Us

We can look for love all over this world of ours, but more often than not love finds us when and where we least expect it.

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons that yesterday, the Supreme Court affirmed marriage for everyone.

I give thanks for love wherever and whenever it blooms and to everyone who is swept away by its glorious, transforming power.

I couldn’t begin to express this more eloquently than Justice Kennedy. So I will let him inspire us:

“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”

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The Writing Process 2015: The Dreaded Sagging Middle

These posts are a chance to share my journey through my latest novel, When We Were Sisters, starting at ground zero. Today let’s talk about the dreaded sagging middle.

Just so you know? I have nothing valuable to say about diets, aging or new exercises to tighten your abs. But since I’m in the middle third of my latest novel, I thought I might share a few thoughts about that.

Many authors find that beginning a book is like beginning a love affair. Everything feels fresh and new. Every sentence builds excitement. We fling our arms wide to embrace possibility. We are blind to obvious problems, sure they’ll just melt away.

By the time we end a book we’re exhausted. Not everything worked out the way we hoped. Some of our most promising paths ended in detours and dead ends. Characters we thought we understood revealed surprising new depths. Villains were heroic. Heroes were flawed. Wonderful ideas had to be tucked away for another book.

Still, endings are fun. Tying up a story is both a sad goodbye and a surge of satisfaction. If we manage both, we’ve probably done our job.

The middle is a different kettle of fish. I don’t use the expression lightly. We’ve caught an entire school of fish (characters, plot threads, subplots, themes, situations) and we’ve thrown them together. Now it’s our job to hook the ones that don’t belong and chuck them back into the ocean, so that the fish we’ve left behind will have room to swim.

Think goldfish, and a very large kettle.

While I’m a fan of outlines, for my last few books my outlines have been loose, to say the least. Instead I’ve made a file I call “Scenes and Revelations” and listed ideas as they occur to me, organizing a bit when I need to. I start with a clear idea of the beginning and ending plus many scenes in the middle. But a sagging middle is all too common in novels. The excitement ends abruptly. The direction is unclear. Readers forget to pick the book up again and move on to another.

So my job now is to keep When We Were Sisters racing right along. I know scenes, but I don’t know exactly what order they’ll appear in. How I’ll weave them all together. How I’ll maintain excitement and conflict so my readers make it to that ending we already discussed.

How I’ll keep the book from being hijacked by pirates.

And yes, it happens. Some beginnings are so much fun, so exciting to write, that by the time we authors get to the middle, we find we have a completely different book in front of us. Pirates crept on board when we weren’t looking, and now it’s our job to tame them so we can sail that ship straight through troubled waters into port with a minimum number of characters walking the plank.

So here’s my plan for today. (I could say I plan to fish or cut bait, but I won’t. I mean, really! Enough!)

Look over my Scenes and Revelations list and make additions.
Attempt to put the list in order.
Add transition scenes where needed.
Imagine each scene and which character each scene matters most to to establish point of view.
Mentally chart each character’s growth to be sure it’s just obvious enough and believable.
Add action whenever possible.
Add emotional drama whenever possible.
Take a long walk and let my  mind spin out scenarios without nagging–avoiding pirates if I can.

Will all that happen today? Not a chance. But I’ll make a start. As the little guy in the cartoon says, today my pirates and I will discuss “a transitional plan.”

I’ll tell you how it goes in the next Writing Process 2015 blog.

Meantime, if you DO have something to say about the other sagging middle? The kind that come from sitting too long at a computer and snacking to encourage your muse? Please enlighten us in your comments.

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Sunday Inspiration: Happy Father’s Day!

To all the dads out there, as well as the moms who had a lot to do with making them dads, Happy Fathers Day! The Dove folks did it again with this touching video of women telling their dads-to-be that they are pregnant. Have your tissues handy, and be sure to share this with your “dad.”

Do you remember sharing the good news with him?

And do check out the photo at the bottom for another side to fatherhood.

 

It’s not always easy being a dad!

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Brainstorming 2015

By now if you’ve followed this blog you’ve probably read about my brainstorming group.

I’ve blogged each year after we complete a session, and the process is well described in previous posts. You’ll also see bios of my group if you click on that link. Aren’t they great?

Serena, Shelley, Casey/Kylie/Connie arrived in Chautauqua, NY at my summer cottage on Sunday. The cottage went through a major renovation two years ago, and with two additional bathrooms, this is now the perfect place to meet.

This year we added an extra day so everyone could settle in, shop for groceries together, and prepare for four days of hard work. And yes, it’s so much harder than I ever expected it to be. At the end of each hour and a half brainstorming session we need a good long break before beginning the day’s final session.

What did I brainstorm in my sessions? First, an idea for my next novel. Yep, even though I’m barely through a third of the present one, I need to be thinking about the next. We call that deadlines. This year I had little more than an opening and some thoughts about the story’s arc. As always the group challenged me and said, and I can almost hear their sweet voices: “You have an opening, doofus. So what happens next?”

Of course, next was where we had all the fun. Perhaps the best part of that session was a fabulous title idea that my publisher will most certainly jettison the moment they hear it–voice of experience here. But for the moment, I am in love with it and I’ll let it help shape my story. As titles often do.

Interesting to me? That night I went to bed thinking: “But no, I can’t write the book that way. I just don’t like that character enough to spend a book with her.” Middle of the night I came up with a better idea. Next morning rejected that as, well, a middle of the night mistake.

This morning I combined that idea with the original and by golly, I think we have a winner. That’s how brainstorming works.

My second session? I outlined a series idea, short books I would like to publish independently in both digital and print format. Something very different. Again I told them my idea. Again they said: “You have an idea, doofus. How do you plan to pull that off?” And of course, pulling it off was where we had all the fun.

Speaking of fun? Brainstorming is not just work. Despite wet, cool weather we ate dinner out every night to avoid cooking and cleaning. I’m surprised we weren’t ejected from restaurants–or my front porch, for that matter, for shrieks, laughter and the occasional naughty comment. We played Mexican Train (called Trash Train in my neighborhood), watched Serena’s wonderful TV movie Love Finds You at Sugar Creek–with of Witness fame–then the next night watched Witness to compare. Our final night we watched ghost videos after a trip to nearby Lily Dale, a Spiritualist “camp” which has been in existence nearly as long as Chautauqua Institution where my cottage resides.

Oh, and there was ice cream. Duh! (The fact that you can’t see my ice cream cone is not proof I don’t have one.)

I went into this session exhausted, depleted, and plain run down from deadlines and moving for the summer. I came out renewed, enlightened, and ready to jump back into my book. Really, if I’d gotten nothing else from the sessions, wouldn’t that have been plenty?

Thanks, Brainstormers. You are the best.

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Sunday Inspiration: Are you real?

One of my favorite children’s books is The Velveteen Rabbit by Marjorie Williams. Remember it? One reason I love it is because it speaks to children and adults alike. I find this conversation between the Skin Horse and the Velveteen Rabbit especially inspiring.

“’Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you.’

‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.

‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful.

‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’

‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.’”

I agree with the Skin Horse that becoming real takes time and endurance. It comes from being wounded many times and learning how to heal. It comes from being discouraged and depressed and learning how to recover.

Are you real? Are there times in your life when you feel more real than others?

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Thanks to My Wonderful Readers

Last Tuesday I asked you if you would take a moment to let me know which of the three series I’ve done in the recent past you would most like to see continued.

Quite honestly I expected just a few responses. You’re busy. I understand. You can’t always follow my blog or stop by my website. But instead of a few responses, I got many. Here, on my Facebook Page, and in private email. You are quite simply the best, wonderful readers every one.

If I’d had to predict which series would get the most votes, I would have guessed the Shenandoah Album series. For those of you who are unfamiliar with these novels, at this point there are five. Each one features quilts in some way–although not all the interconnected characters are quilters–and all have a related story from the past as part of the longer contemporary story. They take place in Toms Brook, Virginia, a real town in the lovely Shenandoah Valley.

Since my publisher asked me to move on to other characters I’ve received so many emails asking for more Shenandoah Album novels. So I am not surprised that by a vote of nearly two to one, you chose this series as the one they would most like me to continue.

I was surprised by your second choice. My Ministry is Murder Mysteries got slightly more votes than my Goddesses Anonymous series. Although let’s face it, I created my own method for weighting your answers, and while Shenandoah Album would be an obvious winner by any method, the second two series were very close. Still, I honestly had no idea how many of you read and loved my mysteries. I’ve said here before that writing them was an absolute pleasure and I’d like to write more. So now I have a bigger incentive. Thank you for letting me know!

I was also surprised at how many of you have never read any of the Goddesses series. I think in many ways these are the most like my Shenandoah novels, a close group of diverse women dealing with important issues and deepening friendship as they do. So with book four, The Color of Light, coming out in early August, I hope you’ll give these books a try while they’re still in print. I think you’ll be glad you did.

Finally, even though I didn’t include it, so many of you wrote in the Happiness Key series. See, here’s the thing. . . Happiness Key, well, ended with a bang! No spoilers here, but it seemed to me that the women’s lives had changed so drastically from events in the third book that the series ending was clear.

Not so apparently. And I have always had this niggling feeling that I need to send the neighbors to Australia to check up on Dana. . . So who knows?

What I do know for sure? Each and every one of you who took the time to email or comment is a gem, and you are much appreciated. I have wonderful readers, something I knew already.

Oh, and by the way? I do have a Shenandoah Album project in the works. It’s well underway. It’s not the next full-length novel, but something a little different that I know you’ll enjoy. Can’t say when it will be completed. That depends on the book I’m writing for my publisher. But I really do take your desire for more in that series seriously and always have.  I am listening.

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Sunday Inspiration: Leave A Trail

Are you leaving a trail for others to follow?

Or are you happy to follow where others lead, secure in their choices?

This week I’m going to contemplate the difference. Join me?

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Book Series: Beginnings, Endings and a Question

During my thirty year writing career my novels have leaped from bookstore shelf to bookstore shelf.

And yes! Wow. It’s been thirty years this month since my first novels arrived at your local bookstore. Both were romances. My first book was a “sweet” romance, and while I am epubbing some of my early romances now, you won’t find Brendan’s Song among them. It was my practice book. It deserves to lie quietly unread after a long, happy life.

The Unmasking came out the same month, and that one has been reedited and republished as an ebook. Why two in the same month? Both publishers were trying to be first. It was a heady experience to be wanted that badly.

When I say my novels have leapt from shelf to shelf, I’m actually talking about genre and bookstore placement. I began in what we call series romance, each book part of a series of  books with similar parameters faithfully issued each month. Brendan’s Song was a Silhouette Romance, and The Unmasking was a Harlequin Superromance. The first was shorter with no sex but lots of sexual tension. The second was longer, sex allowed and a more involved story required.

Through my first years I wrote for both lines, adding two more lines, as well. The point of series novels of this type? To quickly help each reader find the books she wanted to read without having to thumb through every novel in the romance section. Series romances are still being published and you’ll find them everywhere.

To complicate the meaning of series, within series romance I wrote my own “series,” novels that linked together, like my Tales of the Pacific series which are now available as ebooks.

In later years I also wrote a cozy mystery series. The Ministry is Murder mysteries were published by Berkley, and consisted of five books. Possibly more in the future.

When I stopped writing romance novels  I began writing Women’s Fiction. Novels classified this way are broader stories about the lives of women, their relationships, issues, and place in the world.

Within that genre I’ve written interconnected novels or “series” about families or groups of women who walk through each others stories:

Iron Lace and its sequel, Rising Tides
Whiskey Island and the sequel, The Parting Glass
The Shenandoah Album Novels
The Happiness Key Novels
The Goddesses Anonymous Novels

The Shenandoah Album novels and the Goddesses Anonymous novels are not complete. At least not in my head. But when the time came to write another in each my publisher wanted something different.

So now, in my thirtieth year of publication I’m working on a single title, and there won’t be a sequel. My next book will also be a single.

HOWEVER. . .

With the dawn of independent publishing, I can now write books my readers want but my publisher may not.

And here’s where the QUESTION from my blog title comes in, and it’s a big one for me, so please help.

When the time comes for me to write the novel you most want to read and publish it myself, which series do you most want to see revived or finished?

The Shenandoah Album series
The Goddesses Anonymous series
The Ministry is Murder mysteries.

I really would appreciate your help. Would you go to Amazon or another online bookseller and buy the next book in one of these series if it were available? If you would be interested in more than one, please list in order if you can.

You can email your answer, or you can comment on this blog.  It’s that simple.

I’ll let you know what I learn.  Thank you in advance.

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Sunday Inspiration: The Small, Happy Life

One of life’s great challenges is how to find your own special gift and then share that gift with others.

In a column last week David Brooks wrote about “The Small, Happy Life.”  He asked readers to send essays on what their purpose for living was and how they had discovered it.

To Brooks’ surprise, he learned that many people did not have grand, earth-shaking expectations  but simply wanted to live the small, happy life. They wanted to enjoy life and appreciate their blessings.

Late in life a doctor moved from wanting to save patients’ lives to being present for those who needed her, listening to their concerns and responding with compassion. Another reader said, “I have always admired these goal-oriented, successful, stubborn, determined individuals; they make things happen and the world would be lost without them.” But his own life has revolved around a “small-font purpose,” enjoying his family, friends and job and the everyday satisfaction of being alive.

I do believe the quote on this photo, wherever you are and in whatever you are doing, whether you’re the president or the hardworking street cleaner. Find your gift. Give it away. And what a joy to do so.

What is your purpose, and how do you live it out? Are you living the small, happy life? Has it brought you meaning?

**Today’s post was written by Reverend Michael McGee, Emilie’s husband.

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