I’m back!

I feel like a phoenix – rising from the burnt remains around me. I survived the panic of submitting – there is that “one more time” review of your work before you submit.

I’m glad I did.

I cut two pages of dead weight. Now, to be fair it is also because I was fresh from The Writers Institute in Madison and energized, emboldened and ready for the writing challenges ahead – the editing process on the manuscript I have in draft mode.

If I may seem distant, do not fear, I have fallen into revision mode – a dark and dreary place – a lonely world that a writer will find him or herself in. It’s just not a good time to get the flu. I may crawl out of it…who knows when.

What’s up with my calendar?

Today Facebook reminded me of Kyle and Grace’s birthdays. What would I do without you, Facebook? I’ll send them wishes.

But a reminder flashed across my laptop screen just a minute ago to let me know tomorrow is Thomas Jefferson’s birthday.

Why? He’s not a close friend of mine.

His is not a national holiday. We aren’t scattering colorful eggs on the ground in “difficult” places for small children to discover the wonders of this intelligent man, one of the founders of our country. And maybe there should be. Maybe John Adams, too.

The Fourth of July lost the focus of these men somewhere along the years. Maybe there is a greater emphasis on them on the East coast, but here in the Midwest, we tend to zero in on the brats and burgers, beer and backyard fireworks.

Should we start a Founders’ Day Movement? Hamilton on Parade, anyone?

As I drove to work this morning, I knew I wasn’t finished with this piece.

And isn’t that just like a writer? I have a novel that has actually been dangling in the air of hopelessness for almost twenty years. Once, for a brief time, I pulled it out of a dark corner and breathed some life into it, let it dance for a happy and brief time, then I put it away until I find the right ending for these characters. Some things are seen clearly, while others are murky. You move onto the next project.

Writing in my cocoon, I am warm. I am happy and creative. And as one author said this past weekend, ‘I have the greatest story ever written’ before me. (Insert giggles and snickers here)

When cracking open my cocoon, I break free of my hardened shell to protect me from criticism and the general harshness of the world. I find others like myself going through the trips and falls, the hills and valleys as they too, travel the journey of writing a novel with conscious deliberate thought. They know, understand the ache of the search for just the right word; how best to convey this thought, etc.

It’s why I’ve enjoyed branching out into the non-fiction world of biographies. I’m learning to listen, to see the living character and his story – then tell it. A new challenge! And I’ve made friends along the way with the most amazing 90 plus year old men you’d ever want to meet!

I hope I’m ninety and still shuffling my way to writers group. I don’t ever want to stop learning.

For most of us, writing is a solitary existence.

If a writer chooses to step outside of his or her cocoon, there is the critique or writers group. Since I belong to two groups, I am a big proponent of them. They support you, stretch you, and challenge you. It’s a small group format and much like a family.

So a Writers’ Conference is like a huge family reunion where you know you all have the same tag, you know how you’re all related, but you’ve never met most or all of them.

It’s also about learning the craft. Workshops with topics that make you wish you could clone yourself, and then you realize you’re here with your writers group, you can split up, and share the info later. If you’re also lucky, the handout from the workshop you’re missing is an awesome outline with references you can look up later.

But it’s the pitching to an agent that can get the palms clammy or have you chewing the last of you fingernails. Is your manuscript going to be good enough? Are you pitching it with the right spin?

For the ladies who went with me to the University of Wisconsin – Madison The Writers’ Institute, it was not only fun and informative, but we also pitched our finish manuscripts to agents. All were successful pitches – the agents requested excerpts of our works. Hopefully that will lead to representation!

One of the challenges of the weekend was to attend a workshop we normally wouldn’t. I did most of the weekend. It gave me food for thought (a cliché, I know, but true). Now, I’d like to pay this challenge forward.

My brother, a writer and publish author is a cocooned writer. Before he gets all caps on me, I’ll remind him I love him very much. I feel that as his older sister, I should encourage him to spread his wings and try something new – leave your cocoon and comfort zone. I know you won’t seek out a writers group, but how about coming to The Writers Institute next year?

In our house coffee is king. It rules the roost. It is by all things that keeps our marriage going. No, I am not being over melodramatic – I’m being realistic.

We can consume a pot of coffee by the time we have left the house in the morning. If the coffeemaker isn’t working – I’d better have a functioning one ready by the next morning. Which is why we finally bought a Keurig a few years ago.

The search for the perfect coffee pot and beans became an obsession some years ago when I discovered whole beans and a coffee grinder. Then I learned of coffeemakers that combined the grinder with their drip brewers. Then a company said, ‘let’s store half a pound of beans at the top’. Now, another company said, ‘we’ll see you a half pound and raise you the ability to grind and brew a single cup!’ SOLD!

Ahhh! Such sweet harmony in our house these days! Not to mention that wonderful aroma…

Now, it does not escape me, dear readers that my husband still claims ignorance about technology and therefore can’t use the new coffeepot (or the previous two). For him in his increasing years, (hey, I call ‘em like I see ‘em) his ignorance is bliss and in truth he is technologically challenged – just asked our son. This is the other reason the Keurig becomes indispensible. He can make his own coffee went the pot goes dry.

I am still the one who makes the coffee every morning and that is why I stake claim for us being married for thirty five years this November. It is due to the perfection, the holiness of our morning coffee and the time we spend at the start of our day sipping our brew and watching the news.

Our new coffee pot, a Breville, has the bells and whistles as I call them, but when I actually got to grind the travel mug size of coffee right into mug and rush off to writers group last week, I caught myself doing a little jig on the way to car.

With all this talk of coffee, I think it’s time for a cup…

Sleep.

It’s a beautiful thing when you can get it.

I chase it. I plead for it. I dream of it. Occasionally, I actually get it.

When I can get a solid FULL night of sleep, I feel the sleep gods have blessed me; the fairies of a fair night’s slumber have sprinkled their dust upon my face to grant me hours of blissful rest.

And then the neighbors start their cars. At four-ish in the morning.

First, let me say, my neighbors are lovely people – until they start their noisy cars and trucks at God-awful early hours. Everyday – even weekends. They are spaced with such military precision, a sleep study should investigate it for its impact on the unsuspecting sleeping victim.

Example:

4:14 a.m.: A motor vehicle in need of a muffle (or is in possession of a glasspack) is started and my sleep is violently interrupted. Now, it’s winter and the vehicle (and by default, its driver) is compelled to warm up for 20 minutes or more beneath my bedroom window.

4:33 a.m.: I have finally drifted back to sleep and am back to my dream.

4:34 a.m.: I am woken by the first vehicle revving up again before it backs out of the drive. And just to make sure the family knows he’s leaving, he taps on the horn – twice.

4:59 a.m.: Car #2 starts up and its not an SUV like the first (it doesn’t sound as big – it could be that glass pack). It also is loud and beneath my bedroom window. Waking me, AGAIN!

5:24 a.m.: Driver #2 taps the horn twice as he (or she) backs out of the drive, jerking me from my dozing state – AGAIN!

5:25 a.m.: My bladder is now awake. The dog, Wrigley is now awake and expects to be scratched back into oblivious sleep (stand in line, bitch!).

5:45 a.m.: I can no longer ignore my bladder – I have tossed and turned like I am the princess and the pea for the last fifteen minutes. I have lost the battle. I get up and head for the bathroom.

5:50 a.m.: My alarm goes off.

Just once, I’d love to turn the tables. Is that bad?

via Daily Prompt: Parlay

Round and round and round you go, or maybe it’s the three overturned cups the street con is shuffling about in such a manner to confuse you. You’ve been standing still the whole time.

Parlay! Place your bets! Which one of the cups is the shiny ball under? If you were to actually put money down, you’d probably lose it.

These days, if you’re watching the news – and yes, I’m referring to real news reporting speculation flamed by being irresponsibly reported by other news (because there is no proof to support it), you’re spinning like a top.

It is like a rabid dog chasing his own tail. While we are watching the show, we are missing something important – because we have been misdirected – and in the end we will have lost our faith in humanity and our governing systems.

A price too great to place a bet on.

Don’t blink.

I love my Mac.

For the PC users among you, Mac has a feature called dashboard, and on it a widget called stickies. My dashboard is a virtual rainbow of digital stickies with plots, characters and places to investigate for settings.

Many times, like when those characters cross my path (like the grocery store) or you find yourself in a situation. It winds up on a sticky waiting to be used.

The lovely thing about where I live is that I sit almost an equal distance from Chicago as I do to Milwaukee. Wisconsin’s state line is just a twenty minute drive, and the hamlets just across the border are a priceless resource for settings and if you watch your surroundings long enough and turn the imagination up a bit, you’ve got a story.

One fall weekend we had a gift certificate to stay at a gasthaus in one of those hamlets. It was built to look like a German/Swiss chalet and was decorated like one inside as well with genuine knick-knacks and furnishings. The gentleman who ran the b&b was a widower who built the place with is wife. It was still raw for him. We met another couple checking in and had dinner with them in town. A younger couple joined us much later, when I was about ready for bed. However, I stayed up later because I watched the dynamics of this young family and the more I observed, the more I questioned. When one of the children crawled into my lap and I read him a book on my iPad, more thoughts zoomed through my mind.

I didn’t sleep much that night because I wondered why two young children under the age of four wanted nothing to do with their mother? Because she wasn’t their mother? My ideas went down on the stickies. The plot will slowly appear. Someday. I saw that for a reason.

With spring coming, I checking my maps (yes, I still refer to paper maps – LOVE them!) and deciding which ones are worth a sunny  Sunday drive with the camera bag in the back seat. Time for fun research, and pretty much free too.

Settings are out there waiting to be discovered and plots will find a way of unfolding before me.

Attention Shoppers:

The next time you’re surfing the aisles for a Blue Light Special or just standing in line at the Deli Counter, be forewarned:

You Are Being Watched.

I’m not talking about the discreet cameras above you, I’m referring to…me.

No shopper is safe when we are under the same roof. I have come across some of the most fascinating people who also happened to repel me at the same time in some cases. Others have left me guessing and fantasizing about their lives.

And that’s how the plots just seem to form like vapor on the windows when I’ve been running the humidifier too long and too high – just like my imagination.

There was the time I was standing in the frozen food aisle looking for some dinners for my husband (I had some evening meetings coming up and I prefer not to hear him bitch and moan about starving to death) and the spot I needed was monopolized by a woman who kept looking in hoped the boxes she was scrounging through would magically change. They did not.  I asked if I could help her find something. She was looking for a particular type of chicken breast dinner.  I was able to find not one, but two. She only wanted one. It happened to be on the top shelf. She was shorten than me, and I managed to do a minor gymnastic move to claim them for her. I finally got a good look at her when I gave her the singular boxed dinner. She was elderly (80 as it turned out) but still bleached her hair, dressed in a black leather motorcycle jacket and black stretchy pants, a gold lame top and black Keds. She didn’t leave home without her black eyeliner or lipstick. She proceeded to tell me her life’s story for the next half hour. An act of kindness led to another, because I offered to help. Her story was an example of remembering to be thankful for what and who I have in my life. Beware the daughter who claimed to have turned a new leaf. Your jewelry may go missing one day.

But the time that still resonates with me after ten years – and they are going in a book – I just need a few more characters to compliment these “ladies” as I use the term very loosely, is the mother and daughters I wound being behind several times in the course of an hour at the grocery store. For a long time I thought it only a mother and one daughter. The daughter would pick up an item, make a snarky comment and the mother would laugh and giggle like this bottle blonde teen goddess of her womb was perfection personified. I would have barfed but my stomach was empty – I know, not a wise thing to do when grocery shopping. It wasn’t until I got behind them at the check out, with my overburdened cart, did I realize there was another daughter. This daughter (a brunette) didn’t stay close. In fact, she bought a small bag of chips in the express lane and they proceeded to heckle her from afar, calling her “fattie” even. By the time they left, the checkout girl and I were seething.

You ladies will be in one of my books, and it will not be flattering nor will be an honor. I’m pretty certain if you read my blog (I’m sure you don’t), you wouldn’t even know it was you I was talking about because… (hit that chord)…you’re so vain.

Many stories of Grandma in her later years involved the police.

Once when taking a nap she woke up to find that when she opened her curtain in her room, she had a bullet hole in window. The police were called and in true W****gan fashion, five squad cars responded to the call.

Another time, and now a true classic: a police car pulled up to the house. Now, anyone else would be mildly curious. However, Julia #1, ran about the house shrieking “Polizia! Polizia!,” fearing deportation (we think) or Gestapo tactics. The officer at the door explained that there was a tense hostage situation in the neighborhood and it would be best if the ladies left. Grandma, in her best matriarchal voice, “But VEE have NO place to go!” (Remember her thick German accent.) The officer told them to stay away from the back windows.

What did they do? Go sit at the kitchen table – to look out the back window and watch the activity.

An hour later, when things heated up, there was a knock on the door. The officer insisted they leave (probably having seen them through the windows). Grandma again claimed they had no place to go. So Officer Slick Thinking radioed for a paddy wagon and it took Grandma and not hysterical Julia #1 to the police station for their own protection. That lasted an hour until Grandma decided she’d had enough, and Julia #1 probably fainted by this time. The paddy wagon made its return trip and the ladies returned to their favorite pastime – staring out the back window. Until hours later, the hostage situation was resolved. No one was harmed.

But the image of Grandma with Julia in tow climbing into the back of paddy wagon cracks a smile on the gloomiest of days.

So when you need a character, sometimes you don’t have to look too far. Your files contain some pretty colorful ones already. Whether they are the crazy aunt (an early post) or the German Grandma who tried to feed you bad fruit cocktail, or the Uncle who expected you to kiss his ring (a future post, I promise!); all these characters are just a memory away.

Keep on writing!