Frontier Vacation

I'm on vacation with my family right now, in the temperate rain forest of the Alaskan frontier. We're visiting my aunt and uncle and witnessing their day-to-day lives, learning about their plumbing and electrical systems (there are 2 and 3, respectively) and gaining a greater appreciation for indoor plumbing and hot showers (we have hot showers here, but they require more effort than the one we're used to). It's a fabulous vacation from society, and a great place to learn about supporting oneself via gardening, fishing and trapping (crabs) and relying less on stores and other people.

My aunt's place is comprised of several buildings: the Main Lodge where eating and sleeping takes place, the Powder Room, the Commissary where the refrigerator and some equipment is stored, the Workshop where my uncle does his woodworking and the Power Shed where the battery bank and freezer are situated. There's also a garden of generous proportion ready to provide enough vegetables to feed all of us, and enough to can and prepare for the coming winter.

Did I mention the meals? We've enjoyed gourmet meals for dinner every evening: marinated salmon cooked on the grill; halibut served with cream sauce; tossed salads, garden potatoes, brown rice, homemade biscuits and jam, French toast. The offerings here rival any self-respecting high-end restaurant and at least 75% of the ingredients for each meal originated on the property or in the sea out front.

Since we arrived three days ago my husband has fished twice and brought home enough fish to see them through a month of winter meals. What a fabulous, mentally restful and physically tiring retreat!  I haven't been here in 29 years--hopefully I'll return before another 29 pass.

Mid-Year Resolutions

The challenge of maintaining a blog seems to be overwhelming--why else would I keep neglecting it for random stretches of time? A mid-year resolution might be prudent, might renew my dedication and commitment and provide motivation to continue posting blog entries. I hereby resolve to post something coherent, a minimum of one paragraph (don't want to get carried away and fail right out of the gate) at least once a week.

At the moment I'm mired in a new job and still covering the old one; the new one is a traditionally male job, and I'm the first female at my company, aged 70 years (the company, not me) to hold this position. There are many extra challenges for a woman holding a "man's" job, and there are many graces.  It seems bizarre and amazing that I now have a job requiring a shower at the end of the day rather than the beginning, and a job that involves math, design, working with the public and working alone.

I'm also dreaming of writing my third book rather than working on it because all of my mental energy has been directed into my job. We leave  Saturday morning for Alaska, spending the first week with my Aunt in the wilderness, and I'm planning to finish the book there, situated on her beach watching the tide come in and go out. My second book should hit the Amazon shelves within a day or two of this post.

Please stay tuned for my next post, in which I will reveal the new job and the progress of my writing project.

Saturday Book Signing

 Stop by Saturday between noon and 3pm at Safe Harbor Books in Cedarville, MI.

 I'll have several copies of my book available as well as some of my signature bookmarks, designed to go with the book but fun and useful even on their own.

Writing vs. Revising

I recently discovered, or maybe admitted is a better word, that I enjoy revising more than I enjoy the initial writing. If the entire act of writing, beginning with an idea and ending with a book or at least a booklength manuscript, can be distilled into basic steps, mine would be:

1. Brainstorm.  This is great fun! I use a Levenger notebook with the Circa discs so I can easily rearrange my notes, and I write down the overall aim of the piece as well as the general order in which I will proceed, ending up with a fairly loose outline/bullet list for each chapter. Some pages contain notes in mind-map web formations, some contain unrelated phrases, some have tables or charts sketched as I consider, with each book, including graphs or charts but so far I haven't done so. (I'm thinking maybe I'll incorporate graphs and charts in book #3, which is wavering between steps one and three right now.)

2. Create a cover.  More fun, and artistically stretching as I can barely jot my name in a legible manner. I usually manage to doodle something usable, then re-create it on Publisher. I might start writing the cover copy at this point, but I might wait until the book is more focused.

3. Write the first few chapters. The number of chapters written in this step depends on the overall length of the book, the logical places to take a break, my momentum, and my non-writing schedule (all the tasks I must do each day, such as work at my full-time job and keep track of my child and spend time with my husband and help run his business). When I get stuck, I go back to the notebook and re-read my brainstorm notes, adding to them as much as possible so I feel like I'm really working on something. I've read many books on this subject and most authors tell aspiring writers to write a minimum number of words per day (2000 is a common amount; the last book I read, Making a Literary Life by Carolyn See, suggests 1000 per day) but I've concluded this regimen doesn't work for me. However, I don't make a living from my writing! If I did, I'd probably  have to strap myself in and crank out a few grand per day.

4. Revise the first few chapters. I can't help myself, I've got to revise as I go! I try to force myself to wait until I'm finished writing the entire first draft but my revision tendencies are clearly stronger than my inital writing tendencies so I give in and revise at whim. As I'm revising, I keep my brainstorm notebook close by and jot down all the new ideas for future chapters. This is how and when foreshadowing of future events can be inserted, creating a more even and natural flow in the final copy.

5. Write the next few chapters.

6. Revise the next few chapters. Revisit the cover, consider the cover copy and make sure everything promised on the cover is contained in the book and the most important things in the book are included on the back cover.

Keep repeating steps five and six until the work is done.

7. Re-read the brainstorm notebook. Check everything off as you go, or just draw a diagonal line through each page if the entire page is either a) already included in the book or b) unusable.

8. Revise the entire book! Yes, revision isn't over! It's possible to revise until your eyes fall out, but it's not necessary. I generally revise (as in, re-read with a highlighter, post-it notes and a pen in hand) two or three times immediately after finishing writing the book, then I have someone else read it over and give me some feedback. I have four people who usually read my work before it goes anywhere else, and while they're doing that, I'm relaxing with the brainstorm notebook, in case any other little ideas spring forth. I'll frequently have about 27 new things to add to the book by the time I get it back from my readers.

9.Take a break. Take as long a break as possible, at least two weeks, up to several months. Let the book get dark and dusty.

10. Revise one last time. Read it with fresh eyes and incorporate the pertinent feedback and any other brainstorming notes generated during the respite. Enjoy the satisfaction of a finished job. Pat yourself on the back. Pour yourself a glass of wine. Read a book, written by someone else, and notice that yours is just as good (maybe better).

Common Titles

When my first book, Bookworms Anonymous, hit the shelves (the Amazonian shelves, anyway) I immediately established a Google Alert so every time the phrase Bookworms Anonymous hits the internet, I am notified.

It's amazing how many people use the same phrase. Usually the Alerts point me to a book club's website or chat room, where I peruse entries from various bibliophiles such as myself waxing digitally about the latest, greatest book they've read. Today I was lucky enough to stumble upon a blog  (http://adprincess-hn.blogspot.com/ ) written with style and panache, with today's entry titled Bookworms Anonymous. The author lives in London, a city on my short list of vacation destinations, so the blog is all the more intriguing. And she has a job at Christie's! So cool.

So set up your Google Alerts--enjoy the notifications about everything interesting, or everything containing your name and watch the world expand and shrink at the same time.

Janet Burroway

I recently attended a writer's conference in Madison, Wisconsin where I was lucky enough to hear Janet Burroway speak. I'd never heard of her before, but loved the way she talked about writing and the struggle to actually sit down and start writing. She gave all of us permission to write to our lowest standard, which is better than writing nothing at all.

Of course I bought two of her books on break. Of course I had her sign them. And she doesn't merely scrawl her name across the page or write a stock phrase wishing the reader well. She opens the book to a random page, selects a phrase wherever her finger lands, and inscribes that particular phrase to the reader. She said it's like a horoscope. Nifty!  One nice thing about this method, besides giving the purchaser a personalized inscription, is the time it takes. It's nice to spend three or four minutes chatting with the author rather than being rushed off, pushed aside for the next reader in line.

So far I've read one,  Bridge of Sand, and loved it. It's going around Bookworms Anonymous right now, and I'm confident everyone will enjoy it. Ms. Burroway is most well known for her text book, Writing Fiction, which is the preeminent text used in Universities across the United States, but this latest novel is a well-crafted story. As a reader I enjoyed it, as a writer I learned a thing or two.

Mobile Home

I once lived in a car. I was only 17, so there were no worries about personal safety or suspicious shadows because I was still immortal. Sleeping while sitting up in the driver's bucket seat of a 1977 Ford Pinto caused no physical repercussions as I leapt out the door every morning, fresh faced and full of energy, performing an abbreviated personal cleansing ritual before working all day as a waitress in a busy medium-priced restaurant. My tips amounted to $100/day, but I was reluctant to spend any of it on lodging. Who  needed a bed when I had a perfectly fine and comfortable Pinto, and generous friends whose showers I could use? Life was simple then.

When I mention living in the car to my children (this happens only rarely and after I've had a couple beers) in an attempt to illustrate how rough I had it, the kids are always skeptical. "I doubt it, Mother. You can't even sleep in a tent, let alone a car." It's true. I can no longer sleep in a tent or on a blow-up mattress. If I sit for too long on any kind of chair, hard or soft, reclining or straight-backed, my back and legs stiffen up and require an embarrassing sequence of Yoga moves to loosen sufficiently to walk like someone my age (40) rather than an octogenarian.

Maybe living in the car caused my muscles to begin petrifying prematurely. Sometimes I blame the car-living for my restlessness--I have never, before or since, been able to literally wake up and drive. One time I was reading by the dome light and fell asleep and had to push start the car the next morning, popping the clutch just before the on ramp (did I mention I lived in the car at a rest stop along the freeway?). It was quite invigorating to jump out of the car and immediately perform intense calisthenics and strength training. Again, I was 17. I remember all of these events clearly but can't imagine feeling energetic after sleeping in a car.

Everyone's question, upon hearing of my car-capades, is: How long did you do that?

This is where the story disappoints. I should have stuck it out, stayed in the car longer. Think of the adventure--the stories I would tell! I could have slept the whole summer in that Pinto, relying on my little battery-powered alarm clock (this was in pre-cell phone 1987) to stir my brain every morning. And the creepy shadows? I barely  noticed them.

So how long was it? "One week," is my standard answer, unless someone probes or expresses doubt, at which time I confess "five days". Five measely days I now look upon sometimes as high adventure, sometimes as teenage folly from which I was lucky to escape unscathed.