Sorry

I've been sick since Tuesday and wouldn't go out if it weren't for the chance to meet Susan Carroll, my editor. She'll be part of a panel on publishing at the MWC.

I've been reminded that I will soon be published.

It still doesn't feel real ... or maybe it's the pain in my head.

Review for A New American Field Guide & Song Book

The first paragraph of the Liner Notes for A New American Field Guide & Song Book sports a hefty list of all those that poet and writer Ryan Collins owes a debt of gratitude to, from William Melvin Hicks to Titus Andronicus. It’s an impressive cross section of everything that goes into the great American melting pot of culture by one means or another. Collins needs to thank the many because he has used the few pages of this book to stir that melting pot into a caldron of changed-up images and mixed-up meanings. He did his best to redefine the new in “New American.”

My personal favorite snapshot of a routine American mindset: “We set ourselves into a world like precious gems, when we are more cubic zirconia, oriental emeralds, New American rubies.”

Collins often berates, but also cautions and cajoles us with sage advice: “Your body is your best protest & your words are not ash until you burn them—”

Ryan Collins uses A New American Field Guide & Song Book to give us a survival guide to the crazy mash-up of our modern lives. He presents us wonderers with directions, while he admonishes us with: “You are only lost if you don’t follow the maps I sent, if you refuse to unfold the crane’s paper wings.”

To Collins’ Liner Notes list I would like to add a credit line for the lyrics of “Upside Down.” That tune started playing in my head while I was reading and it wouldn’t go away.  I couldn’t remember the words exactly, but “Upside down. You turn me. Inside out and round about,” were close enough. At the time, I didn’t think of them as a corruption of memory, just an extra clue to help me find my way.

Review of A Bizarre Sentence

I bought a copy of A Bizarre Sentence by Trisha Georgiou as a Christmas gift. Before wrapping it, I carefully scanned it to find the poems Georgiou talked about at her launch party. I especially wanted to see the “visual” poem about world peace written in many languages, including two forms of Greek: Classical and modern. I also wanted to read the poem about the cover photo. The incongruous words on the wrecked sports stadium’s door handle sent the poet off in search of other bizarre bits of sentences, and provided an inspired theme for this collection.

I found “The Towers Are Falling Down” a poignant reminder of a horrible day. Georgiou was able to get a call through to a friend in New York City. While we watched the televised coverage over and over, her friend looked out a fifteenth floor window to see debris flying by. It’s a powerful image for a poem.

“Energy Works” described the core of our being in scientific terms: DNA, nucleotides, inherited traits, patterns from our ancestors and added, “Now, imagine letting it all go… Your mind can choose…” A sentiment I can appreciate.

The most fun poem I found on my quick read was “Midterm Elections.” Iowa has the joy of hearing from many candidates early and often, so the chances of coming across the bizarre wording of ill formed sentences are extremely high. The sad thing—the real quotes used in this poem don’t sound all that different from what I’m hearing for the present round of politicking. Georgiou expertly captured the essence of the whole campaign process and conveyed the bizarreness in a few well chosen words.    

I had to handle the book carefully, it still had to be a nice looking present, so I couldn’t read everything as carefully as I would have liked, but I was impressed with the variety and quality of a strong collection of poetry. Trisha Georgiou has a winner here—a gift for us all.  

http://918studiopress.com/review-of-a-bizarre-sentence-by-mary-davidsaver/

Colon Count

Of all the things to worry about, I recently spent a fair amount of time on a Sunday afternoon worrying about how many colons I had in my manuscript. I was nudged into this situation by an editor who acknowledged a personal dislike for that particular punctuation mark. I was told it interrupted the flow of the narrative. Something that is important to consider. So, I did. I considered it. I went through everything hunting out these nefarious blemishes.

                                                                           

The hunt didn’t take too much time thanks to the “Find…” feature under the Edit menu in Microsoft Word. (Yes, it recognized the one tiny punctuation mark of a colon.) The hard part was deciding which ones to keep and which ones really could be let go, replaced by an em dash, another selection of words, or whatnot.

I had decided before hand I was not about to banish them all. They are quite essential for making lists. Lists are useful as a concise means of describing things. Would William Strunk, Jr., The Elements of Style, approve? I’d say yes. I believe his philosophy tended towards the concise and brief. No padding allowed. That was also the philosophy of my high school English teacher.

So, a couple of fruitful hours after I started, I had my mission accomplished.

In the future, I will take heed of what my editors suggest, but in the end I will make my own decisions. I will have to take the risk and responsibility for my actions. As I was reminded—make a decision and then be consistent.

This is from a recent Washington Post article by Ron Charles on Harper Lee.

“Great writers of the world: When you hear a Fly buzz and the Stillness in the Room is like the Stillness in the Air Between the Heaves of Storm, please contact a librarian immediately.

We’ll thank you forever.”

I see it as proof: Don’t be afraid of a few colons.

Symbols

I came face-to-face with a powerful symbol on Dec. 23, 2010. This would have been shortly after my first experience with NaNoWriMo, where I had written 50,000 words—but had no novel.

I was up before 7 am and standing by my kitchen sink. In our Bishop Hill house this window faced south, so the sun was rising to my left and was partly blocked by the garage. It took a good bit of time for me to notice the brightly glowing clouds floating my way. It took a little more time to realize what I was seeing was definitely a cross made out of contrails. More time to think of how unusual it was to see only sections of contrails in this configuration. Still more time before the internal voice yelled, “Idiot—Take a photo! This is big.”

I got a series of photos before the cross drifted off towards Galva. (See Toward/Towards an Ending, April 24, 2015.)

Later on, I began to contemplate the meaning of this symbol. I was facing a new year filled with big changes for me: downsizing 24 years of my life, selling a home, leaving a very small community for a large city, and trying to move an elderly mother closer. All the kinds of things that raise one’s blood pressure and anxiety level.

I needed a positive symbol and latched onto this one. “Everything will work out and be FINE,” I told myself. “The cross shows me this.”

Some things worked out better than others during the next year. We got moved. We sold the house. The downsizing went well, but is still a bit of an ongoing process for me. I gradually got used to the big city. The hitch was my mom. She wasn’t about to move—and didn’t.

The point I want to make … don’t place too much faith in your interpretation of symbols. You may want them to mean one thing so much that you jump to conclusions. Life will continue in its own direction, at its own pace. We try our best to keep up.

How does this relate to my novel?

I’m using those cross photos in the book cover design and the headers for my author pages. Who knows, perhaps even a T-shirt. That will be their proper place.

Rules

I’ve been classifying my novel as a cozy mystery for a while now. (See Cozy is the Word, July 25, 2014.) But sometimes I wonder just what it is I’ve got going on here.

Part of the story has a coming-of-age angle for the protagonist.

She’s only twenty-two and not a fully-formed grown-up, so that makes it a New Adult novel.

Setting the scenes in Bishop Hill creates a small town atmosphere and a reflection on some of the changes they face.

Historical? Sort of … through flash backs to 1915. But they only show up for a few key moments.

Romance? Again—kinda, sorta. I like a certain level of flirty give-and-take between couples or, rather, potential couples, but not much more than that.

Do I have one direction—the kind of direction for a strong cozy mystery genre piece?

I’m not sure … but I’m worrying that it’s maybe not.

I want all those things in my novel—to make it complex and interesting. Does that mean it’s more a work of general fiction with dashes of all those other things? Don’t know yet. It might be something that comes out in the reviews.

So, for now, the trick is making it all those bits and pieces come together as an interesting whole, to create the thing I’ve wanted most from the beginning: a good read.

Steal Like an Artist

I have to admit that I had a hard time getting into reading The Round House by Louise Erdrich. It’s not Tony Hillerman’s world of the southwestern reservations. North Dakota isn’t all that far from Iowa so the descriptions of the landscape didn’t feel foreign, yet they didn’t feel really familiar either. The POV is from a 13-year-old-boy and his take on the tragedy that befalls his mother, his father, and the friends and family who gather around him for support. After reading a few chapters I just hadn’t begun to connect, to care too much.

It took awhile for me to realize the key to the style of writing—first person, past tense, but without quotation marks for dialog. This is the way of a journalist reporting on a story, someone standing back in time and space, and perhaps trying to maintain a neutral opinion. I got that, but still I wasn’t too engaged as a reader. I just had to get through it before my February book club meeting.

For me, the hook came in chapter 5. The nicely detailed description of the priest: …blah, blah, blah … fox-red hair. That was electric. I never would’ve thought of that phrase. There it was—perfect in every sense. For me anyway. For right now.

I so want to use that. Fit it into one of my stories.

Would that be right? Would it be fair?

Yes, if done correctly.

I read a small book that explained how to Steal Like an Artist (a real book by Austin Kleon). You take a bit here and a little something there, some more stuff from other places—lots of other places—mix them all together to get something that you can call your own. That’s OK. That’s not out-and-out plagiarism. That’s using your education.

So, yeah, I’m so going to use fox-red somewhere, somehow. And now you’ll know where that little bit came from.

Oh, I forgot to mention the lip pointing—what a cool visual.

And … who knows what else.

Louise Erdrich deserves her awards for this one.