Stop a moment for good thoughts

The other day as I left to deliver some books to the State Park, I was brought up short at the bottom of our drive with this sight. These are pink locust and wild white roses, both indigenous to our Ozarks. Just thought I'd share it with you all on this holiday weekend.

Thank you, all who serve

Good morning, Daddy. I still miss you, after all these years. When you served in the South Pacific during World War II we managed to get through the days missing you. While mother worked at Boeing on those B-29s, the two of us kids went to school and played and helped around the house, and we missed our Dad. I never understood then what it would be like to have you gone forever.

The day the announcement came that the war was over, everyone ran up and down the streets banging on pans and shouting and dancing. As a young child, it was exciting to have a Dad serving in the Navy, but I really didn't understand what war was all about. A while after you came home, you told us later the Kamakazi planes that crashed on the deck of the USS Attu, a flaptop where you were called "Sparky" because you manned the radio. And you made the stories fun for us. We never realized that you might not have come home.

Now, I'm much older, and I see war differently, I see heroes differently. Today is a good time to write down my feelings about the men and women who fight for this country. It's a good day to thank them, each and every one. But on second thought, every day is good for that. Each time we meet a veteran, let's stop and say thank you. It's little enough to do for those who lay their lives on the line to keep us free.

In my family, my Dad, his three brothers and his sister's oldest boy all served in the Navy during that war. His youngest brother died of cancer after being a part of the Atomic bomb tests in the South Pacific, but they all survived the battles, as did many of their cousins. It was a time when the streets were empty of all but a very few men. A time when they carried guns and fought the enemy instead of walking to the movies with their families, or spending a day fishing, or mowing the lawn or sitting down to eat with their wives and children. If we did those things at all, we did them without our husbands, fathers, brothers and uncles.

Most of those men are gone now, the few that remain, they say are of an average age of 80. It was a long time ago, but a time we best not forget. Sometimes it seems we never learn much from our history, for here we are still fighting wars. Wars that aren't romantic like a novel, not fun like a TV show, not exciting like a movie, but rather dangerous and destructive of spirit.

Today, let's stop and remind ourselves of these men and women, those who have gone on and those still living and those on the battle fields. Thank you, and stay safe.

Dealing with rejection

Swinging bridges once helped us all cross rivers and streams. They've been replaced by concrete spans so that we no longer experience the adrenaline rush of crossing wide, rushing rivers while clinging to a single strand of rope. Maybe we all need to experience the hair-raising excitement of crossing to something new and exciting in our lives and hanging on to a swinging, swaying bridge to get there.

Rejection is not a subject that most of us care to discuss, but in trying to present a writer's life honestly on this blog, I felt it's something I should write about.

Over the years I've had a few agents, two of which I parted with on friendly terms, the other was taken from me by his early passing. As the publishing industry has changed, so has my career. It can't be helped sometimes that what we aim for is not what we hit. I still believe in setting goals, acquiring a target and aiming. Sometimes a miss lands us on a better target, sometimes not. So we pick ourselves up and begin over again. Because of some misses, I had come to the conclusion that I didn't want to deal with an agent any longer, which means that most big houses in NY are closed to my submissions. As I grow older and wiser, I think that is probably a good thing. I no longer desire what those houses offer. I don't regret once having had a career in New York. In fact, I look back at the experience with a great deal of fondness. The Nineties were a great time for publishing in New York. But they have passed. I'm excited about what is coming in the future for writers, but making the transition is difficult for us "old broads."

In discussions with other writers, most of us have come to the conclusion that writing what soothes our soul is much more satisfying than writing what someone else is looking for, paying for, publishing. Then, of course, if what adds to that satisfaction is having others read what we write, then it means publication, somewhere, somehow.

Personally, I think what is happening in the small publishing business is getting more and more exciting. Small publishers are cropping up like winter wheat through a lacing of snow. Only recently a good friend and her husband started what they thought would be a printing business. That dream soon turned them toward becoming a small publisher. She has already discovered a writer who has been shunned by larger publishers and is very excited to begin planning promotion for this book. Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don't. It isn't a done deal, but it is exciting to see someone looking at work such as this particular manuscript, which I have read and wondered at the publishers who turned it down.

I recently heard from Suzanne Woods Fisher, who began her publishing career with a small publisher and has now attracted the attention of a larger publisher. Watch this spot. I will soon host the announcement of her latest book, Copper Fire, a sequel to Copper Star.

My most recent manuscripts lie unpublished, as I continue to search for a home in this ever changing field. Now, I'll get around to the subject of this blog. Rejection.

A rejection letter from an agent convinced me to stop searching where I am not wanted, nor do I want to be, and begin to look in more suitable places for publication.

Saturday evening I returned from a couple of days attending Ozark Writers League's quarterly meeting in Missouri where I visited with a lot of friends I hadn't seen in at least six months. Because of my husband's recent accident we missed the February get-together. I attended the May meeting eagerly. There are always surprises, good speakers, new friends and old, all writers who understand the life and like to talk about it. Chuck Sasser was one of the speakers and he kept us enthralled, one and all, with his adventures and how he's learned to live the writer's life and earn a living doing so. At times during his talk I felt he was speaking directly to me. Live the life you want to live and become an expert on writing about it.

I have only recently decided to do that when I began my latest manuscript. My adventures and experiences during nine years working for a small, weekly rural newspaper. It's amazing when I look back on it, at the unique, crazy, sometimes dangerous things I did for a story. The more I write about those memories, the more comes back to me that I had all but forgotten. Chuck urged me to continue to write about my expertise because it would bring me more writing opportunities. I can only hope he's right, but I know this one thing. I am having a wonderful time reliving those nine years. To give you an idea of some of the subject matter, the title is tentatively: Tigers and Snakes and Flying Machines.

Oh, yes, I promised you the rejection story. When I returned home and picked up the mail, there was the rejection. This agent had presented herself to us at OWFI with great enthusiasm and invited queries from us, and I was so impressed, I sent her one, despite my earlier vow I wasn't going to go through that experience again. My query letter and synopsis didn't exactly excite her, either. We're probably both the better off for it. Now, it's back to my original intent. Find a home for this book in a small press where, when I call them, they'll know who I am. And care.

Hopefully, this will eventually happen. If not, well, then I've been in this business long enough to know that rejection is just a part of the whole. Without it, we aren't really working writers, for none of the best can say they've never received a rejection, even for the best of their works.

Life is good. I have four books available and out there for folks to buy if they so desire. I have two or three more making the rounds. And along the way I have acquired plenty of rejections. I am a writer.

Voices

It's interesting the subjects I'm asked to speak on when invited to conferences or other writer's meetings. Point of view is right up there because so many novice writers aren't sure what it is or how to handle it. Probably the most difficult subject in this craft is voice. We hear so often that editors reject because the writer doesn't have a distinct voice. Among other things, of course. The top reason for rejection is unsympathetic characters, especially the point of view character (s).

These two subjects are often so closely tied together that it's difficult to separate them. When we speak of voice, is it the voice of our POV character or the voice of the author? Often impossible to distinguish between.

The writer's voice shines through in everything she writes. It comes from her heart, her soul. From the way her father sang to her, the way her mother taught her to cook or ride a horse. The way she and her brother played together or argued and in the end, learned to love each other. That upbringing, be it good or bad, distinguishes a writer's voice from any others'.

We only have to read some of today's best authors to understand what is meant by voice. To my mind, one of the finest writers today is James Lee Burke. Read more than one of his books, and you could pick his writing out of many examples. If you want to know what it's like to live and work in Louisiana, read Burke. He'll put you there, so firmly you almost get lost. His characters are so rich we know them immediately, right down to the villain, who after all, has a good reason for being so mean, so evil.

Some of the worst writers also have a voice, usually one we hate. Like they tend to be repetitive, boring, too sarcastic, etc. Personally, I hate the voice of Robin Cook. His stories translate well to movies, if you like medical suspense, but the repetitive nature of his writing is lost when we get to the story in a visual art like movies. This is, of course, my humble opinion, and not meant to be taken as criticism.

If you want to try to develop a voice of your very own, learn to tell your stories to a recorder. Get dramatic and tell them as if you had an audience. Use the voices of each character as well as the narrator (who should always be your POV character.) Remember when you were a kid and you sat around at night telling each other ghost stories? Remember how you acted out the story. Do that. Then listen to your story, write it down from the words you put on tape. Think how it makes you feel, add your emotions, your five senses, your compassion, allow yourself to laugh out loud and cry. Go overboard if you want, you can always take out the overabundance of purple prose if necessary.

There are so many different ways to phrase every sentence you write. Write with a rhythm so that the words sing. Remember that singers and dancers practice endlessly until they get each movement, each tone just right. Be prepared to do that with your writing. Rewrite every sentence until it works, until you feel it deep down inside.

Read your favorite writers and see how differently they might write the same description or scene. Learn to spot a writer's voice in what you read and you'll be able to improve your own voice until it becomes as distinct as you yourself are.

Then, one day, someone will say to you, "I love your voice," and all that work will be worth it.

Conferencing

We writers are often told how important networking is to our budding career. I couldn’t agree more. Most of my sales have been acquired through networking, either at conferences or meetings of writers' organizations. Success most often comes because of who we know, but we can only get to know contacts by getting out there and meeting them.

Each year I try to attend at least three conferences. Many attend more, some less. Whatever you can afford to do, money and time wise, then do it. In addition, I always try to speak at a few gatherings to make new friends or touch base with old ones.

Last weekend I attended Oklahoma Writers Federation, Inc. (OWFI) in Oklahoma City. As I wrote earlier, this is a conference I’ve attended for about 13 years, only missing a couple of times. At OWFI this year I also obtained an appointment to speak with an editor from St. Martin’s Press. Besides that meeting, I was also contacted by a local television station for an interview. In addition, I attended several very informative sessions and met up with some old friends. Most important of all, I learned some things I didn’t know.

For instance: publishing isn’t dead, it’s only evolving into something different. If we don’t adapt, we’ll be left behind. More and more small publishers are producing award winning books. Authors are learning to promote their own work by using the Internet to its best advantage. Small children going to school today will be tomorrow’s readers, not of books as we know them, but of e-books they’ll carry around by the dozens stored in a small reader in their backpack (if there is such a thing by then.)

If you can’t imagine this, then think of the monks who with painstaking concentration recorded words onto scrolls. Do you think for one minute they could have imagined books printed as they are today. Or that they believed for one minute one day books would be written simply by sitting down at a keyboard watching our words appear on a screen. We must admit to the possibilities of progress before we can hope to keep up and succeed.

Long gone are the days when a starving writer sat in his garret all alone scribbling words onto brown wrapping paper using the stub of a pencil. Those odd and elusive writers shunned company, sat alone for hours waiting for the muse to visit. Suffered, tore at their hair, moaned and wailed. I’ve often wondered if such stories aren’t the figment of some later author’s vivid imagination. We read how some more talented authors became alcoholics, drug addicts or went insane.

I’ll have to admit, there are days when I’m tempted to fall victim to all three. Days when nothing goes right, when every word only comes with a great deal of struggle, the weeks and months when rejections fill the mailbox, the years when books that should make the NYT best seller list don’t. Let’s face it, even today the profession is only for the strong of heart, mind and soul. For those of us too stubborn to give up in the face of adversity.

If you’re struggling to become successful as a writer, then get out there and find a conference to attend, or a writer’s group to join. If you’re already successful, don’t sit at home either. Remain fresh and up to date on what’s going on in your profession. Go to a conference, join a group, share your knowledge with “newbies.” Believe me, it will refresh your imagination.

Ozarks Writers League (OWL) meets quarterly near Branson, Missouri. Next meeting is May 17. Guest speakers are Marta Ferguson, owner of Wordhound Writing and Editing Services, LLC; Charles (Chuck) Sasser, author of more than 50 published books and adventurer, extraordinaire. At $25 a year, this is a bargain. See the website for more information:

Ozark Creative Writers 40th Annual conference is held in Eureka Springs, Arkansas on the second weekend of October each year. A New York editor and an agent will be on hand, plus several other great guests, like Max McCoy, Mike Blakely and Phillip Finch. See the website for more information:

Women Writing the West 14th Annual conference to be held in San Antonio, TX October 24-26 at the Omni Hotel. Editors and agents, pre conference tours and workshops by talented writers of the west. See the website for more information:

Next year check out OWFI's website.

There are a multitude of conferences out there. Google for them and attend at least one this year.

Conference reminder of tragedy

Thursday I’m headed for the first big conference of the year (for me) in Oklahoma City. The first time I attended this conference held by Oklahoma Writers Federation, Inc., was in 1995, the year of the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building. Many of us discussed whether we ought to go or not. After all, this was the first terrorist attack on U.S. soil, or so said CNN. Perhaps the terrorists were lying in wait to strike again in the Heartland of our country.

Then one of the most published members of our writers group, and the only one who had previously attended OWFI said, “That might be, but I doubt that planting a bomb where writers are gathered would put across the point these @*&%$ are trying to make. Let’s go and show them how strong Americans can be.”

We’d heard it was a great conference, many New York editors and agents would be there, as well as best selling authors. The workshops advertised were many and the subjects interesting. And so we gathered together in enough vehicles to transport the eight or nine of us who wanted to attend.
Once we were all settled in our rooms, those of us on the side of the Embassy Suites which faced the city, discovered we could see the damaged nine-story building from our balconies. It was quite sobering. We’d gathered to network, visit with other authors, learn more about our craft and generally have a good time, and out there within visual distance, the scattered rubble of a terrifying attack on our way of life.

It was hard to forget that 168 people had died nearby, that had we been here on April 19, we would’ve heard the blast, felt it in the soles of our feet and in our hearts. Been traumatized by such an event. At the opening ceremonies of the conference, a few minutes of silence were observed for those who had been killed.

Then, as resilient human beings, we continued with our business. But all of us sensed that life in this country might never be quite the same. That we were living during a time that could well mark a change in the way we felt about our country. It was most certainly a time to stand up and be counted. To wave the American flag and renew our patriotism.

Other tragedies have occurred in the 13 years since the Oklahoma City bombing. But with each event we, as people and as a country, have proven our strength to endure. As writers, it’s our duty to support patriotism and those who would defend our way of life, even when we might not like the way things are going for us at the moment. Our duty to speak out for what is right and good and enduring, and never back down.

Oddly, I don’t recall who conducted those workshops, what editors and agents might have been there, or what in particular I learned about my craft. I do remember vividly skirting the remnants of the Murrah building that evening to go to supper at the Brickyard. And the friends I made that year remain in my mind and heart as well. Many of them I continue to see once a year, when several of us drive to Oklahoma City for this conference that has become a must. Each time we drive by the monument that now stands where the bombs once exploded, we again pay homage to those who died on that dreadful, dark day in our history. None of us will forget the day that forever changed the way Americans think about our way of life and how fragile a thing Freedom can be. And how it doesn’t come without consequences and loss of life.

Because We Write Things Happen

Recently I received a phone call from a gentleman with Creative Motion Media. He'd seen something I wrote that was published online on the Arkansas Encyclopedia, and wanted to interview me for a project on Arkansas History. He was interested in our small town and its history of having at one time voted for and acquired a petticoat government.

In Arkansas eighth graders are required to study six weeks of Arkansas History and his project is aimed at teaching this history at a level these students will enjoy, rather than dull facts and dates they'll never remember. He felt I might have a few of those stories at my fingertips about our petticoat government, since I'd written an entry for the encyclopedia on the mayor and leader of that government, Maud Duncan.

While waiting for him under the big oak tree near the railroad tracks in our small town, I thought about how these instances have come to pass. About how, for the past twenty years, everything I've done has brought about something else of interest or excitement or joy. That, to me, is really what it means to be a writer. What happens to us because we write.

In thinking back, I tie each event to the last and the next and wonder what my life would have been like without this obsession I have to write.

Untrained and unschooled in the process, I fell into it because I could do nothing else. I call my need to do so an obsession because there seems no other word that quite fits. Yet I know it was not a demon obsession, but perhaps a walk with the angels, that sent me blindly and with faith into a career for which I had no training.

I recently read somewhere that too many women are writing today, and I felt an urge to shout at that particular author, call her a fool or worse. We don't write to become her competitors, but rather because we have an overflowing heart and mind filled with words that must come out, words that form something important, something valuable, something that must be read, if only by a few.

At a recent workshop, I gave my students all the good and bad news about writing, and when I finished, one young girl with a terrific talent for writing for children, cried out, "I might as well be at a baseball game."

Quickly, I spoke, so as not to put out any flickering flames of desire. Don't give up the urge to write. It's not what awaits you in the publishing field, but what satisfaction you receive from having put your words on paper, from having read them aloud to your children, for sharing them. We do what we must, and what we must do is share our thoughts. Create. Write.

Recently, Publishers Weekly said, "Three thousand books are published daily in the U.S." That should encourage all who feel that ultimately they must be published. Many of us are also content to find all kinds of niches where our words can be written down, where other eyes will find them, minds and hearts devour their hidden meanings. Or where we can share our knowledge with the spoken word, as I did with the young man who filmed me for his project. Telling him (and of course the students of Arkansas) my stories enriched my soul. Added another event to the many that have come about . . . because I write.

Spring brings out Five Senses

Saturday I spent the day teaching writers at an all day workshop on a mountaintop south of my home. The redbuds and service berry trees were in full bloom, presenting red and white clouds over our Ozarks. A cool spring has held back the dogwood blooms, but they will soon pop out to finish the show with a flourish as graceful as drifts of snow over the leafless trees. And I thought, as I climbed from the car to go inside, what a delightful locale to teach the use of the five senses in our writing.

If we are truly to make our characters come alive, they must be as real as we ourselves. They must enjoy every sight, smell, touch, taste and sound of the world around them. So many writers leave out the senses, or they include only one. They see everything, but do not hear or smell it, or they smell the fragrance of the magnolia without telling it how the waxy leaves feel to the touch, or how the trees appear, their huge thick leaves a dark green against the blue of a winter sky.

As my fledglings read what they had produced in the first hour of the class, we talked about the five senses and how important they are in internalization, in point of view, in description. How without them, the writing lies flat as a board on a table. How, if we took away one of our own senses and tried to get through a day, it would be oh, so boring.

I tried to imagine the loss of sight as I stood outside gazing out across the Ozark peaks, dotted with red and white patches. Or taking a deep breath of the clean, mountain air, I wondered if I would appreciate what I saw half so much if I could not smell.

One of my greatest pleasures is walking barefoot through spring grasses, bending to touch the tiny spring beauties blooming in the pale green blades that poke up through the moist earth. Or kicking my way through the fall of colorful leaves, not barefoot this time, and listening to their chatter.

What a dull place would be a black and white, soundless world that felt smooth and uninterrupted, void of taste or smell.

While they began to speak of how to add these senses here and there like a sprinkling of salt so as not to overdo, we talked of what I call the sixth sense: emotion. Without that to add to the mix, that world would indeed be dull. Even the emotions of sorrow and anger have their place in spicing up our days.

While characters remain the most important of our creations as we write our stories, to think of those people without their "six" senses, is to write about dreary, dull and uneventful lives.

Here's a link for you to take a look at.