Grammy

My mother's mother was born on this day in 1895, in Ada, Ohio. Her name was Erva Love Hartwell. The middle name of Love was dropped when she got married, at which point she became known as Erva Hartwell Boulon.

At around the age of two or three, she was chosen to be the face for Mellin's Food, a brand of baby food. This is the original ad, not a copy.

Here she is with her dolls when she was about six or seven.

At around nine or so, she and her family moved to Key West, Florida because her father, Frank Hartwell, was a weatherman for the newly formed Federal Weather Bureau. The Bureau now bares the name of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Below is Erva Love in Key West.

In 1909 Frank Hartwell was transfered to the weather station in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Erva Love was about 14. She graduated from Central High School in San Jaun. This beautiful building is now an art school.

Erva Love Hartwell at 19.

She was fun-loving.

This is my favorite picture of her. Imagine how long her hair was when it was unbraided! I don't know how old she was when it was taken, but I estimate somewhere between 18 and 20.

She married Paul Alfred Boulon in Puerto Rico and had four children, my mother being the oldest.

In 1928 they bought Trunk Bay on St. John. In the years that followed the family build a summer home there. I'm not sure if that's her in this picture or our dear family friend Charlotte.

After World War II Grammy ran Trunk Bay as a guest house. She did it without electricity, cooking three meals a day for her guests. John Dos Passos, Dr. Robert Oppenheimer and his wife were among some of her more well-known guests. She gained the reputation for being a superior hostess and an excellent cook. Using local foods, she learned how to prepare them in ways that would please American taste buds. An article was written about her in the cooking section of the New York Times and she wrote a cook-book call My Island Kitchen. I loved having breakfast at her table because she would toast your bread on a charcoal pot set on a small table next to her chair. Below is a postcard of her kitchen.

Here she is on horse-back about 1945 going into Cruz Bay to pick up the mail. There were no vehicles on the island at that time. Everyone rode or walked.

Grammy had a wonderfully loud, uninhibited cackling laugh. Her hair turned silver by the time she was in her forties. She wore it a single braid on the top of her head and dressed up her do with hibiscus. She liked large, avant-garde jewelry. She was a pioneer.

She died on December 27, 1972. We all still miss her.

Among those who share a birthday with her: Henry V, king of England. William Wilkie Collins, writer. Jose Ferrer, actor. Bill Graham, rock promoter (Fillmores East and West who stayed at our guest house at Lille Maho.) Elvis Presley and David Bowie.

Random Thoughts Friday

Oscar Wilde. "One should either be a work of art, or wear one." I first became aware of Oscar Wilde through a book Charlotte had. It was a collection of his fairy tales. I couldn't have been more than 10 or 11 the first time I read was THE HAPPY PRINCE. I cried at the end. I still cry when I read it. I fell in love with all his fairy tales and that book was one of the ones I pulled from Charlotte's shelves on a regular basis. Sometime in my teens I was mesmerized by THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY. But it wasn't until I was adult (20s? 30s?) that I began to learn about the life of this remarkable, brilliant, humorous, and tortured human being.

It has always saddened me that the trauma of being sent to prison silenced him, killed him. He was only 54 when he died, alone and penniless.

“I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”

“Who, being loved, is poor?”

“Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.”

“I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.”

“A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.”

“Nothing is so aggravating than calmness.”

“A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”

"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”

“It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution”

“If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.”

“Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.”

"I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.”

“The heart was made to be broken.”

Random Thoughts Friday

Each Friday I will leave you with some quotes from favorite authors or people I admire.

Jack London. Rather a handsome devil.

The last two paragraphs of CALL OF THE WILD brought tears to my eyes the first time I read them in a Classics Illustrated comic book. I was probably 8 or 9 years old. I was so moved I memorized them. Reading the Classics Illustrated led me to reading the book which led me to reading other books about wolf dogs, other books by Jack London, then other books about the far north, then other adventure novels, then true life survival stories. There were many authors I was influenced by in my childhood, but I always seem to come back to Jack London as being the first where, I guess, I became conscious of the power of words when they are strung together in certain ways. So I give Jack London the credit for inspiring me not only to read more, but to write.

"In the summers there is one visitor, however, to that valley, of which the Yeehats do not know. It is a great, gloriously coated wolf, like, and yet unlike, all other wolves. He crosses alone from the smiling timber land and comes down into an open space among the trees. Here a yellow stream flows from rotted moose-hide sacks and sinks into the ground, with long grasses growing through it and vegetable mould overrunning it and hiding its yellow from the sun; and here he muses for a time, howling once, long and mournfully, ere he departs.

"But he is not always alone. When the long winter nights come on and the wolves follow their meat into the lower valleys, he may be seen running at the head of the pack through the pale moonlight or glimmering borealis, leaping gigantic above his fellows, his great throat a-bellow as he sings a song of the younger world, which is the song of the pack."

“You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”

“The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

“Darn the wheel of the world! Why must it continually turn over? Where is the reverse gear?”

“Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.”

“One cannot violate the promptings of one's nature without having that nature recoil upon itself.”

“I wrote a thousand words every day”

Rena's Book Blog Tour!

My friend Rena Jones is having a book blog tour to promote her NEW BOOK,

A NEW JOB FOR DILLY which has just hit the shelves. She is also having a contest. So hop on over to Rena's and see what all the excitement is about!

Below is the schedule for her blog tour. HIP, HIP HOORAY!

June 21st – Sherrie Petersen
http://solvangsherrie.blogspot.com/

June 22nd – Beth Reinke
http://bethbencereinke.com/blog/

June 23rd – Elysabeth Eldering
http://jgdsseries.blogspot.com/

June 24th – Sharon Spray
http://mamasharonsays.blogspot.com/

June 25th – Adrienne Saldivar
http://a-saldivar.blogspot.com/

June 26th – Nikki Shoemaker
http://www.pinkpencil.blogspot.com/

June 27th – Vivian Zabel
http://vivianzabel.blogspot.com/

Poems by Rilke

It would be nice to at least be able to read German so I could read his poems in their original form. I wonder what is lost in translation?

Years ago, in my early 20s, I copied several of his poems into a spiral notebook. I did not take note of who the translator was. Something I regret, for in the intervening years I have read other translations of some of the poems I copied and have not liked them quite so well. As an example I have given two versions of one poem. Even the titles are different. The second version is from my notebook.

Entrance

Whoever you are: step out into the evening
out of your living room, where everything is so known;
your house stands as the last thing before great space:
Whoever you are.
With your eyes, which in their fatigue can just barely
free themselves from the worn-out thresholds,very slowly, lift a single black tree
and place it against the sky, slender and alone.
With this you have made the world. And it is large
and like a word that is still ripening in silence.
And, just as your will grasps their meaning,
they in turn will let go, delicately, of your eyes . . .

Initiation

Whoever you are, go out into the evening,
leaving your room, of which you know each bit;
your house is the last before the infinite,
whoever you are.
Then with your eyes that wearily
scare lift themselves from that worn-out door-stone
slowly you raise a shadowy black tree
and fix it on the sky: slender, alone.
And you have made the world (and it shall grow
and ripen as a word, unspoken, still).
When you have grasped its meaning with your will,
then tenderly your eyes will let it go.


Here are two more from my notebook.

Solitude

Solitude is like a rain.
It rises from the sea to meet the evening;
it rises from the dim, far distant plain
toward the sky, as by an old birthright.
And thence falls on the city from the height.

If falls like rain in that gray doubtful hour
when all the streets are turning toward the dawn,
and when those bodies, with all hope foregone
of what they sought, are sorrowfully alone;
and when all men who hate each other, creep
together in on common bed for sleep;

the solitude flows onward with the rivers...


A Woman's Fate

Even as a king out hunting seized a glass,
something to drink from - any glass, no matter -
and someone after that in a sure place
put the slight thing away, to guard it better:

thus destiny, which also has a thirst,
picked up this woman, drank of her till slated,
an afterward some trivial fellow durst
not put her to her use, for fear she break,

and stuck her in that careful cupboard where
one cherishes all costly things and rare
(or things that people fancy have some worth).

And there she stood, as strange as something loaned
slowly growing merely old and blind,
and was not prized and never rare on earth.

A Random Thought

I must be feeling a bit misanthropic, therefore, I need a little poetry.

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven - by William Butler Yeats

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.


And because it will be a full moon tonight...

To the Moon- by Rainer Maria Rilke

Moon, svelte person,
who makes you pregnant
every month?
And who makes you always
engrossed in your pregnancy
--almost terrestrially?

You attract the blood
of our pubescent virgins.
But what do you mother
twelve times a year?

Shall we raise your light
offspring in ourselves?
Inside me I found a soft
candle decorated with gilt
which I think suits your taste.

Mystery Poet Revealed

I could just give you his name, but I won't.

He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on November 13, 1850. He was a sickly child who spent a good deal of time in bed and was taught by tutors. He wrote stories (dictating them) before he could read, which he didn't learn to do until he was 7 or 8 years old.

He was ill off and on most of his life.

He was suppose to follow in his father's footsteps and become an engineer, but he had no interest in it.

He fell in love with an American divorcee, and though it nearly cost him his life, he followed her all the way to California. He married his soul mate in May of 1880.

For the next 7 years they lived around Europe and he was ill a good deal of the time. Despite this these years produced his most famous and beloved works.

In 1887 he began the journey that would eventually land him on an island in the Samoas.

Surely you know who he is by now....

He died suddenly on December 3, 1894. He was only 44 years old.

On his headstone, is this beautiful verse, which of course, he penned.

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

Robert Louis Stevenson. The poems are from his collection called A Child's Garden of Verses.

Creative Writing - An Update

April being Poetry Month, the creative writing class I'm taking at the university, participated in a poetry slam last week. In preparation our professor showed us a film (video tape, DVD, whatever you want to call it) showing people at poetry slams reciting their poems. It was all very impressive.

Our guest poet was Thom the World Poet also known as Thom Moon 10. Originally from Australia, he travels all over the world reciting his poems and handing out chap books of them for free. If you go to his web-site and email him he will send you a daily poem as he writes at least one a day. He is quite entertaining, humorous and madly in love with poetry. At the beginning of the evening he handed out plastic eggs filled with rice so we could provide rhythm and "applaud" the performers.

Here's a little "poem" about it.

Easter eggs filled with rice
- shaken, not stirred -
applause for the spoken word

Not considering myself a poet and unable to "do" poetry off the top of my head, plus the fact that I didn't have a poem to memorize and recite, I did the next best thing. I hauled out my dusty guitar case and sang an original song.

I did practice for several weeks before the night of the performance. I had to toughen up my finger tips, I have no calluses left! I haven't played or sung in front of any kind of audience in at least 10 years, so it was quite the deal.

I didn't do too badly, considering how rusty I am, and got an enthusiastic round of applause plus a peace sign flashed at me from a long-haired male student.

All of the above is a lead-in to this: One of the reasons I decided to take the class was to stretch my boundaries. This I am doing. What I have discovered, what I didn't realize, is that I have been basically treading water when it comes to my writing. I've been in a comfortable place and have been on cruise control.

But a writer and her writing needs to be fed. I don't know where I'm going. In fact, I don't have any kind of goal in sight. What I know is that I'm beginning to swim slowly in an outward moving spiral. I'm in no hurry. It's not the goal that's important, it's the leisurely swim. Right now the waters are warm and calm and welcoming. No doubt I will encounter stormy seas, but I intend to ride the waves, laughing (or crying) all the way.

A Garden Moment

For the first time in several years we have garden. Granted, it’s small, but still, it’s a garden. We have harvested two batches of spinach and the snow peas are starting to really show up. The broccolis have heads and the tomatoes are starting to form tiny green fruit. The bush beans have a way to go yet, but no doubt they too will have their day.

Here I am in the garden with Ursa, picking snow peas. It's a wonderful thing. Ursa concurs. I caught her pulling a snow pea off the vine and eating it. I’m sure she has done this on more than one occasion!

We've had bumper crop of yellow irises this year. They came from California, brought to us by my mother. Over the years the original clump has been divided and divided again until now we have them all over the yard. Behind them is another row of snow peas.

This is a Columbine with a happy bee gathering pollen and nectar. I had to wait for her to appear as she completely disappeared into the flower.

And here are Rose Campions. In the back is another clump of yellow irises.

The Flowers

by Rober Louis Stevenson

All the names I know from nurse:

Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse,

Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock,

And the Lady Hollyhock.

Fairy place, fairy things,

Fairy woods where the wild bee wings,

Tiny trees for tiny dames --

These must all be fairy names!

Tiny woods below whose boughs

Shady fairies weave a house;

Tiny tree-tops, rose and thyme,

Where the braver fairies climb!

Fair are grown-up people's trees,

But the fairest woods are these;

Where, if I were not so tall,

I should live for good and all.

Classics Illustrated

I was over at Peta's Journal reading her post of a few days ago, about graphic novels and comics that illustrate fairy tales and fables, etc.



Which got me to remembering all the wonderful Classics Illustrated I read as a kid. (Not to mentions "regular" comics. I'm thankful my parents "let" my sister and me read comics. Reading is reading after all.) Anyway, I wish I still had those Classics Illustrated.


They were a great introduction to classic literature. Early on I mentioned reading Jack London's Call of the Wild, and the influence that had on me.


Here is a list of some of the others I remember reading. I went on to read most of the books these "comics" introduced me to. In some cases I can still see the illustrations in my mind's eye. It was a wonderful thing.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Last of the Mohicans, A Tale of Two Cities, Robinson Crusoe, The Three Musketeers, Hamlet, Huckleberry Finn, Jane Eyre, Man in the Iron Mask, Rip Van Winkle, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Food of the Gods, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Prince and Pauper, The Song of Hiawatha, The Time Machine, Treasure Island, Kidnapped, White Fang


There were many "Classics Illustrated Juniors" too, that illustrated fairy tales, legends and myths, like Rumplestiltskin, The Golden Fleece, Beauty and the Beast, and The Pied Piper, to name a few. And there was a series called "The World Around Us," which introduced me to Vikings, Indians and the Crusades.

Recently, at our little local library, I saw a graphic novel of The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy is illustrated as a girl wearing jeans, living in a modern Kansas city. But (and?) I was pleased to see that the illustrators/authors were true to the original novel. If this is an indication of what is being done today, I say, "Way to go and keep up the good work."

Reading is reading. It's the heart and essence of the story that matters. If you can get a kid to read a classic that's been treated well in this manner, maybe, like me, that kid will go on to one day read the full text. If not, at least they've had a taste and certainly a taste is better than no taste at all.

A Random Thought

So, we’re supposed to “spring forward” sometime tonight or in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

I wish “they’d” make up their friggin’ minds! What time is it? Oh, you want an extra hour of daylight at the end of the day? Well then, get up an hour earlier, cause that’s all we’re doing when we set our clocks an hour ahead, which means, for someone like me who is up between 4 or 5 AM every morning that I’ll now be up between 3 and 4! GAK.

I so don’t like this messing with the clocks. I experience jetlag er…timelag for days. Here it is going on 7 AM and we’ve got this nice sunrise going on but tomorrow morning we’ll be waiting around till like 8 AM before it starts to get light! Jeeze! And then as the months go by I’ll have to be deal with it still being light out when I’m ready to go to bed.

Which reminds me of this poem by Robert Louis Stevenson

Bed In Summer

In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people’s feet
Still going past me on the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

The only good thing about it is now there will be a one hour difference between where I live and where my sister lives instead of two. So when I call her at seven PM my time it will be eight PM her time instead of nine.

A New Year Memory

Here we go again. Another “New Year” is about to descend.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it in your heart that every day is the best day of your life.” That quote is suspiciously similar to this one; “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”

New Year’s resolutions are fine, but I/we should be looking at each day as a new beginning. Each day is the beginning of a “New Week,” or a “New Month.” Time, anyway, is…illusory. It doesn’t really exist. It’s all in our minds. But I am, like everyone else, a victim of it.

Can you tell? I’ve never been a big New Years person. I think it all goes back to a New Years party my family went to when I was nine, in 1960. This picture shows my mother on the left and our good friend Nora. My sister is smiling big in the back-ground wearing the lei. She was 13 soon to be 14, as tall as any adult. The picture was taken right at mid-night. Everyone is happy and smiling and toasting and kissing and…where am I?

I remember being excited, wanting to help ring in the New Year. It was a big deal. 1960, turn of a decade. Everything, I thought, would be new and different once January 1st showed its face. I think it was the first time I became aware of the change of the year and what that “meant.”

I hung on as long as I could. Probably sometime between 9 and 10 pm I got sleepy. Certainly I was not used to staying up much past 8:30 or 9 o’clock. I was taken to a bed-room. I remember specifically telling my sister and my mother, “Wake me up at mid-night.”

Of course it didn’t happen. By the time mid-night rolled around the party was in full swing. The adults had been drinking and dancing, laughing and talking and Bish was forgotten. Her request was forgotten. I don’t remember getting home. But I do remember the next day I was terribly disappointed that I’d missed The Big Event.

It was supposed to be a new day, a new year. But the business of being a family and doing chores, of eating and washing dishes, making the beds, sweeping the floor, all the mundane things of life, were going on just like they had the day before and the day before that. Nothing had changed.

So what, I wondered, was “new” about it? I came to this resounding conclusion. Nothing. It’s just another day.

Because of that observation I’ve never gotten excited about New Years. Except for 2000. Just how often does a person get to ring in not only a new century but a new millennia? Well, not often. And I had a good time with my husband and friends. We fired off fire-works and scared the donkeys, but that’s a whole nuther story.

I didn’t stay upset with Mom or my sister for not waking me up. And I remember that dress Mom wore. It was white with gold-thread accents. It was probably silk, looked kind of like a sari. I thought she was beautiful. She was. She still is.

Happy New Year.

Jack London

“To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it’s about, but the music of the words.” Truman Capote

This quote, which I came across the other day, got me to thinking about favorite authors.

I was first introduced to Jack London through a Classics Illustrated of Call of the Wild. I was probably 8 or 9 years old. After reading it I wanted to read more dog stories. My mother got me books like Kazan the Wolf Dog and Baree, Son of Kazan by James Oliver Curwood, and the Silver Chief (dog of the north) series by Jack O’Brien. She also got me White Fang and Call of the Wild.

I think Jack London was one of the first authors whose books I actually looked for. I loved the adventure and the far away places he took me. As a teen I read, collections of his short stories, The Sea Wolf, Burning Daylight, Smoke Bellew, Martin Eden, and The Cruise of the Snark, to name a few.

Somewhere in one of his books I read the word “bucolic” for the first time. It’s a word that doesn’t sound at all like what it means. It sounds like it has something to do with being colicky, being sick. It didn’t make sense to me, how it was used in the sentence. Of course the word sent me to the dictionary. I was amazed to discover its true meaning. I love that it relates to a peaceful, pastoral scene.

One of my favorite quotes of his is, “You can’t wait for inspiration you have to go after it with a club.” I think it says something about him as a writer. Perhaps writing or ideas didn’t come easily for him (he was accused of plagiarism) or maybe he “knew” he didn’t have long to live and that he had to attack his stories, capture and subdue them, and get them down on paper as soon as possible.

He packed a lot of living and adventure into his short life. As a teen he pirated oysters, sailed the Pacific and hoboed around the U. S. At 19 he returned home from his travels to finish high school. He went to college but couldn’t finish because he didn’t have enough money. At 21 he went up to the Yukon during the gold rush. He got sick with scurvy. He lost his front teeth and the disease left scars of his face. But it was his northern adventures that made him the author he became.

He was a Socialist, an advocate of women’s suffrage (he created some of the strongest, most independent, and well-educated female characters in American fiction,) and was against cruelty to animals.

When you think about it, when I think about it, it’s amazing that he wrote and published over 50 volumes of novels, short stories, political essays and even a few plays, in just eleven years.

Jack London died of renal failure at the age of 40 on November 22, 1916.

Below are the last two paragraphs of Call of the Wild. I remember crying the first time I read them. I was probably 12 or 13. I was so moved I memorized them. Buck mourns the loss of his human friend, and yet is gloriously free and happy. They still make me cry. The “music of the words” sings in my ears.

“In the summers there is one visitor, however, to that valley, of which the Yeehats do not know. It is a great, gloriously coated wolf, like, and yet unlike, all other wolves. He crosses alone from the smiling timber land and comes down into an open space among the trees. Here a yellow stream flows from rotted moose-hide sacks and sinks into the ground, with long grasses growing through it and vegetable mold overrunning it and hiding its yellow from the sun; and here he muses for a time, howling once, long and mournfully, ere he departs.
“But he is not always alone. When the long winter nights come on and the wolves follow their meat into the lower valleys, he may be seen running at the head of the pack through the pale moonlight or glimmering borealis, leaping gigantic above his fellows, his great throat a-bellow as he sings a song of the younger world, which is the song of the pack.”

Honorable Mention

Just when I thought I was coming back down to earth, I had to go read Jane Yolen's journal. She talked a little about the workshop. But, what blew me away, is that she mentions me...little old moi! I am/my story is one of the "standouts."

Just when I thought I was coming back down to earth...my head has been totally re-inflated and I'm floating in the stratosphere. :O

Jane Yolen Workshop, continued

Day three- November 11th

Sunday was our day to have individual time with Jane. Each of us got fifteen minutes alone with her. During that time we could ask her any question we wanted or discuss her critique of the story we sent ahead of the workshop.

During the time each of us "disappeared" to be with Jane, the rest of us continued critiquing each others' work. By this time I was much more relaxed. I chose to read a story I haven't shared with anyone except my husband. It's a story I'm rather fond of, but one I've never bothered to submit because...I didn't think it was something a publisher would be interested it. But I thought, "What the heck? Why not see what these ladies think?"

My story called, "Not Even the Dragon," is your basic sort of fairy tale - princess, tower, dragon and prince - with a surprise ending. All of them liked it, said they could identify with it, and thought it would be something many, many children could identify with as well. Again, it is not picture book ready. I need to work on it, set up a dummy, edit it down, all in the hopes that I can then "see" it in PB format. But there's potential and I was given suggestions of where to submit it.

My time with Jane arrived. She looks right into your eyes when she's talking to you, letting you know you've got her full attention. I wish I'd had more questions to ask her. I'm sure there are question I don't know to ask. But Jane did quickly and easily answer the ones I had, and she said that in the publishing business one simply has to take one step at a time. That you learn as you go.

I was the second to last to meet with her. After the last of our illustrious group saw her, lunch was served. Baked potatoes (with all the toppings) chili, and salad.

After lunch Jane went through the SCBWI list of agents and made what comments she could about them. Then she autographed books for us. The picture above is her signing her book Take Joy for me. After that we went wild taking pictures. The whole week-end the weather was perfect. No matter where we gathered, indoors or out, it was hard to believe it was November.

The day was coming to a close. We were all tired from our brains being over stimulated, from excitement, from lack of sleep. We had shared both written and personal stories, we had shared a lot of laughter and, at least for me, experienced an unexpected camaraderie. I have been writing in a vacuum for many years, but now I'd made contact with people who might become part of a net-work. I didn't feel so alone. Most importantly, I didn't feel so insecure about my writing ability. I learned many things, but two things cling to me like black dog fur on a white sweater. 1.) I know more than I thought I did. 2.) I'm ignorant about many things. But that's life. We learn as we go.

As I gathered my things, Jane was there to say good-bye. I don't know what it was, maybe it was still feeling awed to be in her presence, maybe it was my old shy introvertedness rearing its head, but I stuck out my hand to shake hers. Immediately I felt like idiot as Jane opened her arms, reached up and hugged me.

"Thank you," was all I could say.

I was out the door, I was in my car, I was driving away. The week-end was over.

(and for some reason this blog is not allowing spaces between paragraphs!)

Jane Yolen Workshop, continued

Day Two - November 10th

Saturday's activities began at 8:30 AM, and got down to the business of critiquing almost immediately. A story was read and those who had a comment would make it. Jane was the last to speak. Her ability to critique, to pin-point a specific problem, to make a helpful suggestion is nothing short of genius.

One by one women read their pieces; PB stories or a chapter from a WIP. A few women had Jane read their stories. After three pieces were read and critiqued we'd take a small break.

As I listened to the stories I once again had a fit of doubt. I was hearing some fabulous stories and excellent writing. I was convinced I was out of my league. Again I shuffled through my papers trying to decide which one to read. I was heartened to find the lady I was sitting next to was experiencing the same thing. She leaned over and whispered, that the story she wanted to read was one of her favorites but she don't think it was publishable. She also said she was nervous about reading it.

All too soon she was reading her story. It was hilariously funny! We all agreed it would make a wonderful PB. She was relieved.

And now it was my turn. By this time I knew that none of my stories are anywhere near PB quality. But there was nothing to do except plunge in. I decided to read one of my retold Anansi stories and explained a little bit about the trickster spider.

Being from the Caribbean I've heard Anansi stories. And I have this wonderful old book of Jamaican tales written in Calypso. They are difficult to read and even harder to translate. Because they have a great deal to do with food and its acquisition, one of the problems with the original stories (in this day of PCness) is that the majority of them are violent, bloody and cannibalistic.

I decided to read my little story called "Why Dogs Beg." And I decided to read the conversational parts in Calypso. What was I thinking! My hands were shaking, I'm sure my voice was quivering. But like the woman next to me I was surprised and delighted at how well the story was received. Jane's only comment was that she thought it ended a bit to quickly and she gave me an easy solution to the problem. She also had a publishing suggestion for me.

I had passed through my initiation. I was finally beginning to feel that I might fit in, that I might be among peers. I even began to feel that maybe, just maybe, I might actually be a fairly decent writer.

Somewhere in the middle of our readings lunch was delivered; a boxed lunch containing huge deli sandwiches with pickles, potato chips and a cookie.

After all the stories were read Jane talked about publishers. She went through the list provided by SCBWI and told us what she knew or didn't know about the editors. She warned us it's all terribly arbitrary and subjective. An editor could be having a bad hair day or have gotten out on the wrong side of the bed or may be sick or be having personal problems the day he/she reads your story and summarily rejects it, even if its a wonderful story and worthy of publication. She said editors don't seem to understand how time can affect a writer. By the time they get around to you and your story for editing and/or revisions, you have moved on to something else and it can be quite difficult to get back into the mood to work on the piece they accepted 2 or more years before.

Dinner was served. Linguine and Alfredo sauce, salad, rolls, chicken pieces to go on top of the salad, cheese cake for dessert. At the dinner table we shared stories about our lives, our background, our interests. We were a diverse and eclectic group of individuals, and yet there were things that overlapped. Some of us liked to bird watch and go barefoot. Some of us had lived in the tropics, though in parts of the globe. Some of us had grown up in musical homes. And that got me to talking about my father.

As I told a few stories about the remarkable man he was I realized it was his birthday. On Saturday November 10th he would have been 91 years old. He was being remembered by me on his birthday to a group of writers. Even now, as I write this, four days later, a few tears leak out of my eyes. Eighteen years after his death, I still miss him. But for a moment, around the dinner table he was, in a very real way, right there with me.

Stay tuned for day three.

Jane Yolen Workshop

What an honor to be a part of this workshop. There were a total of 15 of us, all women, all children's writers, all published.

November 9, Day One
Meet and greet began around 5 PM. At dinner we introduced ourselves and told a bit about our writing back ground. I discovered I was with a group of high-powered authors. Suddenly I felt out of my league, like I had jumped into the deep end of the pool after just learning how to tread water. But it was too late to do anything but go on. Besides I really didn't want to be anywhere else.




Dinner was a yummy chicken stew with salad, rolls and brownies for dessert.

After dinner Jane spoke to us about writing (what else?) Her motto is BIC, Butt in Chair. A writer must write every day or the writing muscle will wither and atrophy.

On the process of writing:
First there is uncovering, which is the inkling of a story idea, a thought tickling your brain. Second there is discovery, the process of developing the story, characters, plot, of doing research, etc. Some writers, she said, can get lost in this process. Third is recovery, which is the actual writing and revision of the story.

She then went on to explain about outer and inner landscape. A story's outer landscape can be as much of a character as the people in your story. Your story characters live, work, play, run, walk, cry etc, within a landscape that affects and effects them. The outer landscape is a component of the character's inner landscape, which is his/hers psychological motivations. Outer landscape tells something about the character of your story and provides mood. An example is, if the Hound of the Baskervilles had taken place in a meadow it would not have provided the same atmosphere of terror. How a character interacts with the landscape is part of the story and helps provide your character with his/her inner landscape.

Next Jane went on to talk to us about contracts. There are several things to look for.
1. Rising royalties. Starting at the usual 10%, if your books sell more than say, twenty thousand or go into reprints your royalties should rise to 12% and then 15%. A publisher should reward an author for being successful.
2. Ask for more than the usual 10 books they ofter. Ask for 20, 25, 30. All they can do is say no.
3. If you and the publisher think the book is going to be important i.e. an award winner negotiate for more money. The amount is contingent of the type of award.

Next she went on to talk about agents. Jane said in this day and age with the complications of rights, the legalese of contracts and the difficulty of getting a publisher to look at your work, that having an agent has become a necessity. She told us if we didn't have an agent to continue submitting our work, but to also submit to agents. She said a lone author cannot get the kind of contract from a publisher that an agent can.

If you get an agent be sure to have an escape clause in your contract. If you and the agent are not a proper fit you should be able to give the agent a six week to three month notice that you want to part company. Make sure you get all your material back and have a list of the places the agent submitted your work.

No legitimate agent will ask money from you. They don't get paid until the publisher pays them.

Lastly she talked about critiquing. Always start by saying something nice about a person's work. Without rewriting the piece, try to give specific suggestions. "This doesn't work for me because..." "Why does this take place is such a short amount of time, it seems rushed to me..." "The ending seems abrupt, I think if you added just one or two more sentences..."

By the time she finished and had answered our questions we were all pretty tired, especially Jane who had crossed a time zone. We said good-night and went to our respective beds to sleep.

Except I didn't sleep well. I was too excited, eager and nervous. Why? because the next day I was going to be sharing a story with the whole group and they were going to critique it. I brought several stories with me. But which one was I going to read? Periodically I woke during the night, would turn on the light, read my selection and try to decided. Finally around 4:30 AM I gave up trying to sleep. I got a cup of coffee, wrote in my journal and finally made up my mind.

Stay tuned for more.