Category Archives: authors

Write Anyway

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Every birthday I consider what the past year has brought and what I hope the upcoming year will bring. This year as I entered a new decade, my focus was also tempered by the awareness that my time isn’t unlimited, and I want to use it well. What will the coming days and years consist of? Family and friends, health upkeep, travel, fun and for me, writing. 

At first, asking what role writing will play in my life seems silly. Creative writing isn’t something you have to retire from. I can write as long as the words and ideas come. But the deeper question is—What are my expectations about publication?

Widely published authors like Stephen King and Joyce Carol Oates can continue publishing as long as they care to. It’s a different matter for the writers I know, who have a modest number of publications. Like it or not, the marketplace may decide for them. Because it’s a personal and potentially painful decision, writers don’t always discuss the dilemma.

In the past 20 years, I’ve written two book-length memoirs, but I’m not seeking publication for either of them. I learned what I could about writing books, but it wasn’t enough. The real gift is what I discovered about myself through the writing process. I’m proud of myself for doing the work. I’m at peace with the idea the books won’t be out in the big world. 

Instead, I’m focusing on writing short memoirs, essays and blogs. My talents and skills are better suited to short pieces. Most years I publish one or two. Not a breath-taking record, but enough for me. Knowing my words and ideas find an audience in an anthology, literary journal or blog is plenty. 

Publication plays a small part in my commitment to writing. I write because it helps me make sense of my world.

Two quotes sum up my outlook. The first comes from a blog by Amy Grier who was struggling with her writing and the state of the world in November 2020. Her thoughts are still relevant:

“Writing tethers me to the world in a way nothing else does . . . I don’t know who will be president, what’s happening to my country, even what will happen to me. But I’m going to write anyway. It’s my remedy for despair. It’s how I will survive.”

The next comes from an interview with Margaret Atwood, who offered a few rules for writers. After making practical writerly suggestions, she also said this:

“Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don’t whine.”

For as long as it pleases me I will honor my creative nature and write anyway.

Home and Away

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College recruiting, corporate management and consulting carried me across much of the United States. Although some of that travel prompted future visits, a suitcase in one hand, briefcase in the other wasn’t the most satisfying way to explore cities and countryside. There are cities I enjoy, mountains worth the travel, lovely ocean sides. Driving across the plains or open lands remind me how different our life experiences are from fellow citizens.

The Midwest continues to be where I am comfortable living my life. Green spaces, cities, the Great Lakes, agriculture, forests blend well. We considered moving during our careers, imagining our lives in desert lands or other river cities, even one Canadian possibility. Except for Canada, I don’t regret passing up those changes.

Something moved me in the childhood lands of Pat Conroy and Flannery O’Connor. The charm of old Savannah and the Lowcountry areas of Georgia and South Carolina felt homey. I wanted to stay for a year, maybe two, and learn about the rhythm of that region’s residents. To walk where azaleas and trees blossomed in March, to witness the loggerhead turtle’s journey, to try Sunday church once more, to celebrate holidays differently.  Biscuits tasted better, seafood fresher, crayfish better than a slab of whitefish. 

Weeks in Maine challenged my Midwest assumptions that farms were farms, days on the shore universal, that New England was an area of wealth and education. Spending weeks in a London flat introduced reality to daydreams of living in a congested metropolitan area. Nearly two weeks in a small Irish community felt nice, but I wanted to go home. This stretch of the south felt like it could be home as if the slower movement of my mature life would be acceptable in a place that has nurtured so many artistic folks.

When the roof needs repair, spring returns to stormy winter, property taxes increase, daydreams happen about a mythical life in a charming setting where all seems lovely. But roofs deteriorate there, summer temps and humidity can be high, history and today’s politics lean away from my values. Best to keep Savannah on my writing retreat list and my home in the Midwest. I’ll be back with a notebook, laptop, and good walking shoes during azalea season.

Squirrels and Party Dresses

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October has a predictable rhythm in our home centered around visits from out-of-town relatives and birthday celebrations with the quiet drumbeat of Halloween building under the other excitement. This year the family has a tiny new trick or treater to help greet neighborhood kids. Somewhere close to this week pumpkins appear on our porch or in the yard, hopefully to last through October 31.

Oak trees have not unloaded acorns this year which may be why the squirrels are treating our first batch of pumpkins like a grand buffet, digging through the flesh and dragging seeds out every hour of day or night. The fluffy tailed evil ones demolish any fun had in mixing and matching ghost pumpkins with long necked gourds around the classic Jack-o-Lantern designee. Foul combinations of hot sauce and vinegar with a generous dusting of hot pepper flakes appears to extend the squirrel vs people struggle until dew or rain washes away pumpkin protection.

Squirrel battles added to an already full month. The huge event squeezed into the calendar is October 15 when we head to the regional Emmy awards dinner at the invitation of Pioneer PBS Postcard production team whose episode on 40 Thieves on Saipan has been nominated for an award in the Historical/Cultural/Nostalgia–Long Form Content category. Joseph Tachovsky is having adjustments made to his tuxedo and a new black dress hangs in my closet waiting for a night in the media world. If like other award programs, we’ll people watch while eating, doing anything until we know how the Thieves’ story fares. Pioneer PBS Postcards crew did an amazingly creative job. And they have an enviable record of earning regional Emmys. Fingers crossed.

Book award programs usually attract people in interesting artsy or nice dress clothes, but television people pull on the sparkles and sophistication when honoring their best programming. Shopping for a party outfit changed the nature of typical autumn shopping for new long-sleeve shirts, a sweater or two, and a new pair of jeans.

Forgetting the squirrel pumpkin conflicts, October looks like a good month.

 

 

 

The Best Books I Read in 2020

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I’m no Oprah or Bill Gates, but like them, I create a yearend list of books that have impacted me. Most years, doing so is easy. Not this year.

Thanks to the pandemic, instead of reading a book a week, I read more than twice that. These are a few that I found particularly absorbing, entertaining, thought-provoking or behavior-changing.

Nonfiction

The 5 Second Rule: Transform Your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage by Mel Robbins. Despite the fact that she has a huge social media following and regularly appears on CNN, I’d never heard of Robbins until one of my friends sent me this book. The premise is simple: You need a get-started ritual to overcome your inertia. For Robbins, that ritual is simple: just count 5-4-3-2-1 and then act … get out of bed, send that email, clean the dirty sink. I’m amazed at how often the ritual has transformed my to-dos into ta-dones.

Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything by BJ Fogg. I was familiar with Fogg because I write a lot about behavior change, but I had no idea how powerful his approach could be. Essentially it’s a simple recipe: After I _________, I will __________. After I brush my teeth, I will do five pushups. After I get into bed, I will name three things I’m grateful for.

Die with Zero: Getting All You Can From Your Money and Your Life by Bill Perkins. As a lifelong saver who has often put my future self ahead of my present self, this book opened my eyes to maximizing the value of my life experiences now, not at some distant point in the future when I may no longer have my health. And while I used to think that running out of money would be awful, I now think that having piles of it that I never got to enjoy would be even worse.

Fiction

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid. A fast-paced romp that made me slightly uncomfortable yet kept me laughing, this debut novel brought me face to face with inequities I, as a white woman in my 60s, barely have reason to notice. I enjoyed the flashbacks to high school and could relate to both the anger and embarrassment main character Alix experiences after having sex for the first time, and I walked away with newfound appreciation for all the nuances of discrimination.

Velva Jean Learns to Drive by Jennifer Niven.The first in a series of three, this book, which I listened to rather than read, captured my heart as Velva Jean follows her mother’s dying wish that she “live out there in the great wide world.” In doing so, Velva Jean travels from an abusive marriage in Appalachia (the audiobook narrator does a great job of bringing the area’s accents to life) to the Grand Ole Opry. Along the way, she teaches herself to drive the bright yellow truck gifted to her by her brother Johnny Clay, who is also featured in the two subsequent books in which Velva Jean learns to fly and becomes a World War II spy.

Stars Over Clear Lake by Loretta Ellsworth. Another historical novel, this book is set in the 1940s in Clear Lake, Iowa, where I used to gather with girlfriends each summer for an annual “no guys, no kids, no dogs” weekend that included a Saturday night dinner at the Surf Ballroom where much of the book takes place. The book—half love story, half mystery—explores the impact of buried secrets and the courage it takes to follow one’s heart.

What books are on your best of 2020 list? I and my fellow Word Sisters would love to hear. Please share.

Celebrating the WordSisters

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This month, the WordSisters celebrate eight years of blogging and sharing our love of words and stories.

Why a Blog?

The WordSisters name came from our longstanding writer’s group (Elizabeth, Jill, Brenda, Jean, Rosemary, Lisa, and me). Several of us were working on books and the first tagline, “In it together from inspiration to publication,” reflected the blog’s original purpose.

In 2012, Elizabeth and I had memoir manuscripts we hoped to publish. Experts recommended blogging as a way to attract agents and publishers. In 2016, North Star Press published Elizabeth’s memoir, House of Fire.

Create. Connect. Inspire.

Early on, Elizabeth and I were the primary bloggers. Attracting agents and publishers was our original motivation, but soon we were blogging for the pleasure of writing. We had things to say and stories to share. Plus, the discipline of contributing several blogs per month kept us writing. Some have been classic blogs; others are short personal essays. The blog’s tagline evolved to “Create. Connect. Inspire.”

 Since 2012, Our Circle Has Grown.

Through the years Jill, Brenda, and Jean have also contributed. Cynthia, author of five novels and coauthor of 40 Thieves on Saipan joined us in 2017. Bev, author of What Do You Really Want? How to Set a Goal and Go for It! A Guide for Teens added her voice this year. Now the WordSisters is a collection of voices—each with a distinct style.

The joy of writing brought us together under the banner of WordSisters. At eight years and counting, we’re still going strong.

Thank you to our followers (4,900 now). Your likes, comments, and support mean so much!