Modesty Is For Suckers

July 6, 2015 · 8:05 am

Passive construction is not the enemy

(This post had been scheduled to post on June 23. I rescheduled it for now because this is still a writing blog, and I’m still a writer.)

In 1918, William Strunk, a professor at Cornell wrote the original Elements of Style. At the time, it was little more than a pamphlet, privately published in 1919, then by Harcourt in 1920. EB White (of Charlotte’s Web fame) had been a student of Strunk’s, and expanded upon his old prof’s work. In 1959, Macmillan published the Strunk and White’s, The Elements of Style, we are all familiar with today.

Strunk and White–those paragons of all things grammar, had a lot of great things to say. They also had a lot of opinion and personal preference down as fact. One of them was the absolute mandate that we eradicate passive voice from all written work. Writers are taught to always choose the stronger verb, and that is a good, basic rule. Many of us do it instinctively without ever really knowing why we do so, why it sounds better. But knowing why always makes it easier. Alors…

She was running down the street.

She ran down the street.

That’s the difference we often think of when we think passive vs active. Really, that’s the difference between the past progressive and the past. But we all know that “was” denotes passive, and it’s often true. If there’s nothing after the progressive form, then it’s not necessary to use it. But-:

She was running down the street when the meteor hit her.

Would you write–She ran down the street when the meteor hit her? No, you wouldn’t. It’s awkward. See? How about this one:

She ran slowly down the street.

She jogged down the street.

There is nothing grammatically wrong with either, but the first is passive and telly, while the second is stronger, and always preferred by readers, writers, and editors alike. But then there’s this kind of passive voice:

She kissed him.

She gave him a kiss.

They say completely different things, and this is what is meant by “sometimes passive voice is ok.” It’s never saying we should use the progressive willy-nilly, or an adverb when a stronger verb is available. Using the more passive phrasing is right when it changes the meaning of a sentence. In the first, it’s an open-ended thing. She kissed him. It might have been long and sensual, short and sweet. Those three words open the door wide, and context will give the reader the clues needed to decide what, exactly, they mean. It’s powerful, and infinite, and open to interpretation.

She gave him a kiss. What do you “see?” You get that it was a peck, done and over with. Context will show if it was reluctantly done, or innocently, coyly, seductively. But it was one kiss. Done and over. Let’s expand just a little.

They stood in the doorway, avoiding one another’s eyes. A long night ahead for both of them if the past was anything to go by. He opened his mouth, to speak or shout or wail. She kissed him. The tension in his body eased. “Don’t go,” she said. And he didn’t.

Insert she gave him a kiss, instead. Yeah, doesn’t work so well in this context, does it. Now try this one:

They stood in the doorway, avoiding one another’s eyes. A long night ahead for both of them if the past was anything to go by. She wasn’t ready, even if the tension in him proved his need. She gave him a kiss. “Good night,” she said. and ducked inside.

Insert “she kissed him.” Well, it works better than the other flip, but it doesn’t say it completely. She kissed him could have been longer, maybe with a little French action going on. But she gave him a kiss is the nervous peck easily envisioned. No guessing. Not up for interpretation. Sometimes, it’s what we need.

I tend to be more prescriptive* in my writing. The descriptive** route will often date a piece of work, make it less identifiable to readers a decade down the line. The same holds true with prescriptive grammar, because grammar rules change, and what we consider proper grammar now won’t be in a hundred years. Like split infinitives. Don’t get me started. You might be surprised to see which way I lean on those.

*prescriptive grammar: A set of norms or rules governing how a language should or should not be used rather than describing the ways in which a language is actually used.

**descriptive: An objective, nonjudgmental description of the grammatical constructions in a language.

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July 1, 2015 · 1:34 pm

Of signs and comfort

This isn’t going to turn into a tribute site for my son. Promise. Modesty is for Suckers is a writer’s blog, not a grieving mother’s blog, but I’ve always worn my heart on my sleeve. I keep no secrets. I hold nothing back. And this is now part of my life. It’s going to be reflected in my writing. Thirty years after my first husband’s death, he still makes it into everything I write. This will be no different. Nothing’s going to stop it, even if I try.

I am a writer. Those of you who claim the same know that we think differently. It’s our job to make characters, their worlds and their circumstances, believable. We notice things others don’t, because in those tiny details, our stories not only come to life, they dive to depths a reader might not actively notice, but will absorb all the same.

During these harrowing days, I’m still noticing. I’m not looking for signs from my son that he’s near, and maybe that’s why he’s been so blatant about nudging me. It wasn’t just finding his door open the day after it all happened, when I know my husband had purposefully shut it the night before, or his cat being in there and refusing to come out. It wasn’t just the little black squirrel at the feeder when I’ve never seen one before or since. It’s not all the people sending me messages about spotting deer and having an overwhelming feeling of him. It’s not my friend showing up with a gift for me, a little turtle with the words, “One Day At A Time” on it’s back–she had no idea his nickname for me was Turtle. It’s not even the tapping on my shoulder through the shower curtain yesterday, or waking up this morning to find last night’s locked door wide open to the new day. Coincidence? Chris? As I said in my last post, whatever it is, so be it. I’ll choose to believe what I wish.

Aside from the poem I wrote about in my prior post, there was one undeniable message that I think you’d have to have been here to truly believe. I’ll do my best, but I’m still kind of stunned and trying to find a scientific explanation for what happened.

Chris’ girlfriend spent the night with us a few nights ago, and mentioned that it upset her to see his door closed. My son was always freaky about keeping his door closed, even when he was little. He didn’t like the cats in his room (maybe because Gyro peed on his bed twice when we first got him!) It was just his thing. But I agreed with his girlfriend. I didn’t want the door closed either. So upstairs I went, armed with one of those rubber, wedge doorstops. I jammed it under the door, tested it to make sure it would stay, and got to work writing in my loft.

Hours later, the door gently closed. Not a slam, just softly. There really wasn’t a breeze, but I hadn’t been paying attention. I opened the door up again, but found that the rubber stopper wasn’t there. It hadn’t wriggled free. It hadn’t been pushed with the door as it closed. The damn thing was all the way across the room, as if kicked, and in the opposite direction of what it would have been had the wind closed the door. I tried every which way to get it to do it again, but there’s just no physical way the stopper could have ended up where it was, especially given that the door gently closed, not slammed.

I said, “Fine, Chris. I’ll leave the door closed for now, but only for now.”

His room is mostly empty. We kept a few things. I don’t want to erase him from this house, but I can’t bear leaving things as if he’s still here, either. I’m not going to see that smile, hear him call me Turtle, get wrapped up in one of those big hugs of his, but I feel him whether I like it or not. He’s going to make sure of it. And I’m so glad.

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June 28, 2015 · 4:06 pm

Again, life changes

I wrote about bats in my last post, and how Bat symbolizes death and rebirth. I had no anticipation of it foreboding something as literal as my son’s death. But Bat told true. Chris died, and we are embarking upon discovering a life without him in it, physically. I know my son is with me, now and always. He’s free of all the chaos in that beautiful head of his. And his gentle heart can love without conflict. No more pain in his leg, his foot, in his mind. Free, free, free. That is the word that keeps echoing through my brain.

I am not a religious person. I don’t believe in God or the Devil, in Heaven or Hell. Modesty may be for suckers, but I am not arrogant enough to believe I’m capable of understanding the universe and all its secrets. But there is a reason I write ghost stories, and in each of them is another facet of what might be, some facet I hold in the possibility of true. There is no one afterlife, just like there is no one existence in this physical realm. Maybe because I’m a writer, someone who doesn’t believe in one truth, I am open to those possibilities. I choose to notice, to find meaning, and to take comfort from little signs I get that he’s near.

Last week, my amazing friend, Diana showed up. She lives outside of Philadelphia, three hours away. Such love, all that way when she couldn’t even stay. She handed me a book and told me, “Before I left my house, I said, ‘Christofer, if I have something in my home that’s going to give your mother comfort, show me.’ ” Her eyes went immediately to a book–A Year with Rilke. Ok, strange. But whatever. She opened it up directly to this poem:

The Departure of the Prodigal Son

To go forth now
from all the entanglement
that is ours and yet not ours,
that, like the water in an old well,
reflects us in fragments, distorts what we are.

From all that clings like burrs and brambles—
to go forth
and see for once, close up, afresh,
what we had ceased to see—
so familiar it had become.
To glimpse how vast and how impersonal
is the suffering that filled your childhood.

Yes, to go forth, hand pulling away from hand.
Go forth to what? To uncertainty,
to a country with no connections to us
and indifferent to the dramas of our life.

What drives you to go forth? Impatience, instinct,
a dark need, the incapacity to understand.

To bow to all this.
To let go—
even if you have to die alone.

Is this the start of a new life?

Coincidence? Maybe. I choose to believe it was my son fulfilling the loving request of my friend. There have been so many strange little things that I could put off as coincidence, or me wanting to see something to give me comfort. To that I say, so be it.

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June 18, 2015 · 3:29 pm

Bats, rebirth, and listening to the universe

A friend of mine recently sold her first book to the publisher of her dreams. She is seventy-one. Coincidentally, I became acquainted with another woman who just celebrated the release of her first traditionally published novel. She is seventy-four. I, myself, was published for the first time when I was forty-six (Finder, November 2010 from Hadley Rille Books.) At fifty, I wrote my first romance (Seeking Carolina, October 2015 from Kensington/Lyrical Shine.) At fifty one, got another two books contracted with Kensington. Many, many of my writer friends were first published over the age of forty. Put that on the back burner for a moment.

We had a bat in the house the other night. Try as we did to catch it or lure it to one of the opened windows, it just wasn’t getting it. We finally left the windows open and went to bed. The whole thing was a bit harrowing, ending at 3:45 am with the poor little thing injured by my kitties of wonder and squeaking us awake. We managed to capture it and get it outside, but it could only scrabble away. It wasn’t there in the morning, so I’m hoping it eventually managed to fly off. When I reported this adventure on Facebook the next morning, my friend Karin Gastreich commented, “So I’m assuming you’ve looked up the meaning of Bat?”

brown bat

Medicine Cards are a kind of Tarot based in Native American lore and culture. Karin introduced them to me and all the dollbabies a few years ago in Virginia Beach. It became a staple of our trip. I also ended up buying my own set. They’re a tool when you want to focus your thoughts, and a fabulous meditation tool. It is the Bat in this set of cards Karin referred to.

Long and short–Bat symbolizes rebirth. Change. It asks us to listen to the universe, to our inner selves, and not fight the change, this breaking of old habits. I listened, not just for myself and my household, but applied it to the world around me. And this is why these meditation cards are so wonderful–they make us notice things we might not have.

In my household, we are on the brink of many “rebirths.” The kids are no longer children, and mostly out of the house. For each and every one of them, rebirth is taking place in some form. My oldest daughter leaves life with infants behind for the next phase in their lives. My oldest son is between jobs, and searching for his true path. My youngest son, who’d moved out for a job in a town too far to commute to, decided it was more important to finish his degree. My youngest daughter and her boyfriend of nearly seven years broke up, and she is rediscovering who she is. My stepson embarks upon “life with teens.” His oldest is thirteen this November. And, of course, Frank and I step into a new world of being, for the first time, just the two of us. We got a taste of it during the two months our son lived elsewhere. I can say without qualm that I’m looking forward to empty nest.

But let’s take those over-forty writers off the back burner. It is not just my small world on that moment of change. My dear friend, my new acquaintance–reborn in their seventies. Where else is Bat flying? Another writer-friend who just moved from the town she’d raised her children in to a town across the country. Another friend who just launched her new website. Another friend who is out of work for the first time–at age fifty-eight–since she was a teenager. And yet another friend who finally moved into the new house she and her family had been dreaming of, and working on, for three years.

Of course, I was aware of all these things, but Bat made me aware of them in a different way. A collective way. Change is all around us, all the time. We need to listen to the universe and notice the connections. Honor the changes and how they alter not only our own lives, but those around us.

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June 9, 2015 · 9:36 pm

Words are strange

I love language. All languages. All words and dialects. The study of language entertains and intrigues me. Words. What are they? Utterances that embody objects that sometimes change, sometimes die out. These utterances were eventually written down, lines and pictures strung together to give form to those utterances. On rock, vellum, papyrus, wood*. Scribes created lists that tell us what our long-ago ancestors bought, sold, traded. Those who knew how to create and translate such things were magical. Then came those who compiled more than lists; they put those lines and curves of utterances to work telling stories. They created books.

Words. Lists. Stories. Books. Magical things. Spells cast and generations of humanity enthralled by these simple lines and curves joined together to make words that call up those utterances once only spoken. It wasn’t so long ago that this magic was reserved for the wealthy, for those with leisure time to learn how these strung-together symbols made words into stories, into histories.

All this got me to thinking, about the ever-present alien looking down on Earth, trying to figure out what we are doing, staring at lines and symbols**, in print and on screen. I imagine it wondering, “What is so intriguing about those squiggles that so many will stare at them for hours?” And that led into me thinking about how easy, how thrilling it is to lose oneself in a story, but also how odd. Sitting in one place (or not) staring at words that make a story that creates a whole world inside our heads–how does that even happen? What is the science behind it? Or is it, as our ancestors must have believed, truly magic?

Why does H O U S E mean the edifice one lives in? Where did that word come from? Not house, itself. I know it is from the Proto-Germanic word, husan. Before that, it might have been Goth. But what about before that? How did words come to mean things? Who grunted the first sounds that would become house?

And I am intrigued all over again, a circle I never tire of spinning round and around. Maybe I’m weird, but I have a feeling many of you reading this get it completely.

*Did you know that runes are mostly slanted versions of the Roman alphabet? Why slanted? Because they were being carved into wood, and the grain of wood made getting it consistently legible with straight, horizontal lines a bit precarious.

**Because not all languages on Earth have a writing system, so maybe aliens don’t either. There are some 7,105 living languages, and only 3,570 have a developed writing system.

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May 27, 2015 · 3:59 pm

Why do you write?

No, really. Why do you? Is it fame? Money? (Cough-choke-wheeze!! Sorry…I just choked on something. I think it was innocence.) Are you the artiste who simply must or die? What are your hopes? Your expectations, both practical and not-so-practical? We all have them, and I’m curious.

I was sparked this morning by a blog post on a friend’s page. She’d recently gone to Bath, England, and discovered some things about Jane Austen she didn’t know before–one of them being that Ms Austen didn’t see her name in print during her lifetime. How is that even possible? It got me thinking about her, and other artists, who never saw fame or fortune in their lifetimes, but committed to their art anyway.

Most of us are never going to see fame or fortune, in our lifetime or posthumously. Still, we do what we do. We write our stories, sing our songs, paint or sculpt, strum and drum. We don costumes and become someone else. We create the costumes. We plant our gardens. Sometimes art is big and sometimes it’s small. It exists for itself, and without it, we’re nothing.

Me? I write because I have the talent. Modesty is for suckers, y’all. My life is kind to my art, and I get to create it full-time without having to slot it in when time allows. Mostly, I write because I can’t imagine not doing so.

That’s really it. My goal is to write my stories, to make them the best I possibly can. The rest is gravy. Now, maybe I can say that because I’ve had a modicum of success at this writing gig, but it was true before I ever sold my first book, so I’m pretty sure it still is. Would I love to see my book in every bookstore? Lines of fans waiting for me to sign their books? A movie deal? Six figures? Five? Guest spots on talk shows across the country? Are those even real questions? Sure I would, but that’s not my reason for writing. It doesn’t fuel my desire to create.

Some will read the above and think I’m nuts. Why spend all this time on something without the ultimate pay-off, validation? That’s just me. The validation I’ve received so far makes me exceedingly happy. It’s truly more than I ever expected. Are my ambitions low? No. I just don’t need outside validation to fuel me. Do you? Is writing into a void wasting time? Does it kill your creativity? There is no right or wrong here. I’m just curious about experiences outside of my own.

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May 19, 2015 · 5:48 pm

Bad Storytelling

(SPOILER ALERT!)

George Martin’s novels depict the grimmest of the grim, the most horrendous of the horrendous. It happens across the board from the nobility to the peasantry. He spares no one. And it is good storytelling. I highly approve of some of the necessary changes made to the HBO series, like the intermingling of plots I had wished for in the fourth and fifth books. I do not approve of others, the biggest of which is the unnecessary use of rape the powers that be have decided to implement.

It’s not rape itself. Martin’s world is, as established, a grim one. Rape is a means to power as ancient and effective as any other violent act. Mr. Martin uses it brutally, some may even say he overuses it. Okay, I’ll buy that. But I want to talk about the places he did not use it, for a purpose.

Let’s start with Daenerys Targaryen and Khal Drogo. If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume you know the story well enough to be spared a long and drawn out backstory. Dany is given to Drogo in marriage. In the books, she is fourteen; he is in his thirties. HBO made her a little older to lessen the squick-factor there. Okay, fine. In the book, we are expecting Dany’s wedding night to be a brutal affair–not unanticipated, but nonetheless horrific for a fourteen year old girl forced to marry a Dothraki Khal. And yet, with all the rape, murder, blood and gore that started on page one of A Game of Thrones, Drogo doesn’t rape Daenerys on their wedding night. He waits for her to come to him. This is the crux of her absolute love and devotion, and makes believable all that comes after.

Ok, now how about Cersei Lannister? Yes, it’s super-creepy for her and her twin to be having a lifelong affair that results in three children. It’s even creepier when they have sex beside their son’s funeral bier. But that was the point, now, wasn’t it? These two have engaged in this relationship since childhood. Squicky, yes, but again, that’s the point. Their love is absolute. They not only thumb their noses at convention, they hock luggies on it…and then have sex on it. Having consensual sex in the presence of their dead son punctuates this and many character points. Mr. Martin’s good storytelling, however twisted, shines.

Finally–Sansa Stark. In Mr. Martin’s books, Sansa is betrothed to Joffrey. He abuses her. He beheads her father. He does everything humanly possible to humiliate and hurt her–but he doesn’t rape her. And then she’s forced to marry Tyrion, who treats her kindly and–wait for it–does not rape her. Then Littlefinger whisks her away. He steals a kiss, but no rape. In the Eyrie, no rape. Sansa Stark manages to traverse the length and breadth of Westeros without being raped. There is a reason she maintains her status as “Virgin Queen.” It’s good storytelling, dammit.

The writers and producers of the HBO show, however, made some decisions about these three powerful women, and that decision can be wrapped up in one sentence–A woman’s power extends only as far as appeasing a man’s dick allows.

I’m not going to argue that this is not true. Historically, it is. What I’m arguing is that in the world of Martin’s creation, these three women are spared the stripping of their power for a reason, and that reason got taken away. Not only did it get taken away, it is completely counter to story arcs, character arcs, and good storytelling. This decision was bad storytelling at it’s worst, because it took subtle, truly powerful points and turned them upside down. For no apparent reason.

Dany goes from being a woman loved, a woman who believably sacrifices everything for Drogo to the raped-falls-in-love-with-her-rapist trope. (Remember General Hospital? Luke and Laura? No?) Instead of her true power being awakened by her sexuality because of a conscious choice she made–good storytelling!–she is diminished. Later, in the HBO series, Dany “seduces” Drogo, riding him rather than being ridden; but it is at her brother’s demand more than it is Dany’s claiming of her own power.

Cersei is evil, depraved, ruthless. This we know. She gets her comeuppance, but it is not at the hands of her beloved brother. Cersei’s love for Jaime pales beside her love for power. Not so for Jaime. He will do anything for her, for her love. What he would not do is rape her. Why did the HBO powers decide to go that route? Is their relationship not twisted enough? Or was it, again, consciously or not, stripping another powerful woman in the series of her power in this way?

And Sansa, who never even meets Ramsay Bolton in the book, is not only in Winterfell but forced to marry him, and in marrying him, raped on her wedding night with her “foster brother” in attendance. The Virgin Queen has fallen to yet another man’s dick. Why? So Stannis wasn’t riding to Winterfell to save Jayne Poole who was pretending to be Arya and not Sansa at all? (Ok, so he wants Winterfell, too. Stannis isn’t that noble despite his own delusions.) Maybe I’m giving GRRM more credit than I should, but wasn’t at least part of the point of this plotline to show the futility and mindlessness of this war when the White Walkers were on their way? There was no purpose to this straying from the book. It’s bad storytelling, once again, that detracts from both story and character arcs. Condensing the whole Motte Cailin/Theon/Bolton storylines was a good idea. If you’re going to go as far as putting Sansa in Jayne’s role and squeezing the storyline into a new shape, why not have Theon save Sansa before her wedding? Why take from her what I consider a huge chunk of her character?

There is lots of rape in GoT, both in the books and in the series. It’s as common and used as Littlefinger’s smirk, the stink in Flea Bottom and Tyrion’s love of wine. That makes those places Martin spared the women of Westeros stand out, and in standing out, makes a point. Good storytelling is what it is.

David Benioff–you wrote one of my favorite books of all time (City of Thieves) but even I can’t forgive you for this.

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May 11, 2015 · 4:37 pm

Words, the Sea, and Thee…

I just got back from a week in Virginia Beach–Dollbaby Week. I’ve been taking this week away to write among women, beside the sea, since 2002. Some of these women have been with me since that first (Bald Head Island) trip. Others have come and gone through the years. The gathered group has been pretty steady for about five years now. I love them beyond words, past and present. Dollbabies all, and some of my dearest friends.

I could go on and on about the food, the sangria, the daily-fresh-baked cake. The brilliant quiet of eleven women writing to the music of waves crashing. I could regale you with the bliss of walking along the beach beside someone you only see once a year, or waking to the sun yawning over the ocean, the scent of coffee brewing, and the sound of soft laughter trying not to rise too loud. I could, but I won’t.

I write five days a week, anywhere between five and seven hours a day most of those days. Dollbaby Week is not necessarily a time I get much done. I have the privilege of squandering writing time there that I don’t take at home. But something magical always happens in VAB. Last year, I finished Seeking Carolina. This year, the perfect missing detail for a major story arc in Waking Savannah simply…appeared.

I probably didn’t add more than 2K* words all week. I’d actually be surprised if I added that many. But in among the detritus of writing when one’s mind is not exactly on the story, I tossed in a scene that was neither planned nor particularly necessary. As I closed down for the day, I was already pondering deleting the scene. It just wasn’t necessary.

But…

I start each writing day going over what I’d done the day before. Nothing new there. Most writers do a variation of the same, as a way of reconnecting to the story with a sort of running start. As I went over that scene and came upon the old, burned-out foundation I tossed in as a cool but unnecessary discovery for my main characters, I gasped. Out loud and not just in my head. You know that heady feeling you get when epiphany takes over your brain and floods your body with joy? Got it. Started in my prickling hair follicles and tingled right down to my toes. One, throwaway detail–once again!–and everything fell into place.

Dollbaby magic? The always-crashing sea? Chance? Fate? The cosmos aligning? Who can say? Maybe it was all of those things coming together. Maybe it was just that glowing section of my brain that keeps secrets from me until I need to know about them, tossing out exactly what it knew the storyteller piece of my brain needed. I’m not here to pick that apart. I’m sure the science behind it is cool. I’m happy leaving it a mystery.

Getting words on a page is the goal, but there are times it’s not about word count. Sometimes it’s about freeing up your brain so it can throw things at you. If you’re focused on the word count, you just might biff the catch.

*Strangely enough, I discovered 5,295 words were added to the manuscript last week. Totally surprised me.

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May 4, 2015 · 7:48 am

My Lovely Blog

It has been a long time since I’ve done one of these Lovely Blog things. Never on this site, anyway. When sister in Hadley Rille Books and Heroines of Fantasy Louise Turner asked me to join in, I thought, “Oh, no.” Let’s be honest, most of you reading right now know pretty much everything about me you want to know, right? But the topics for this lovely blog thing are quite different, and I actually got excited about it. So, without further disclaimering…

What is your first memory?
My first memory, one that I know I remember without the help of old pictures, movies, or retellings, is of my dad. Anyone remember Palisades Park in New Jersey? Starting in 1961, they held the Little Miss America pageant, into which my parents entered me in 1969. I was five. I remember my dress–an aqua dotted swiss my mom made. She and my baby sister had matching dresses. Wonder of wonders, I was a finalist. And here is my first memory.

I don’t think I’m in there, but you get the idea.

I had no idea what was going on. I was only five, after all. They called my number. They called it again. Someone gently nudged me from behind and, looking in all directions, I still had no idea what was going on. People were cheering and clapping. Looking out into the sea of faces, I saw my daddy, tears in his eyes, urging me forward. I remember my little heart boinging, because my dad didn’t exactly cry. He’d get teary, but never let them fall. They were falling, but he was smiling, and I knew it was okay. To this day I can imagine his face in the crowd. To this day, it brings tears to my own eyes.

(An aside–the runners up, of which I was one, had to come back the following week. While backstage, the angelic little blonde with long baloney curls, a big white bow in her hair, wearing a red dress and white gloves standing behind me, waited for that second I was called onto the stage to stick her little white-gloved hands into my hair and muss it completely. And that is how I went out onto the stage. Crying.)

What books do you love?

What books don’t I love? There are so many favorites, but the ones that stick with me most are:

The Giver, Lois Lowry. Od Magic, Patricia McKillip. The Gold Coast, Nelson DeMille. City of Thieves, David Benioff. Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern. All the Harry Potter Books. All the Lord of the Rings books. Dove Isabeau, Jane Yolen. Stargirl, Jerry Spinelli. Lamb, Christopher Moore, and The Once and Future King, TH White.

Libraries or bookshops?

I was a library fiend as a child and teen. Not so much once I got older. Never, since Amazon made it so easy to have books delivered first to my door, then directly into my Kindle. Does this make me a bad person?

Learning?

I wasn’t quite sure what this question meant. A.)Do I like learning? B.) What schooling I’ve had? C.) Am I in favor of old dogs learning new tricks? All of the above?

I love learning. It never ends. Whether I’m teaching myself to write (which I did) or listening to my endless courses on CD (almost always linguistics or history) I am constantly learning. There is always something new, something exciting to discover. My formal education ended with high school. I considered going to college once my kids were all in school, but it was either that or write. I chose writing.

Writing?

I am currently at work on Waking Savannah, the third in my Bitterly Suite. There are several more waiting in the wings–Being Charlotte (book 4 in The Bitterly Suite,) Into the Light (a spinoff series,) Traegar’s Lunatics (not a romance) and The Shadows One Walks (fantasy.) I can’t wait to have at them.

Writing is something I do full-time. I am fully aware of how lucky I am to be able to do so. Monday through Friday, from 10-4, I’m at my desk. And while I’ll take a Facebook break now and again, I’m spending all that time either working on a manuscript, or doing some other writing-related thing–like this.

What’s your passion?

Aside from writing and my family (which includes my cats) my passion is linguistics. My love of language is what fuels my love of writing, and vice versa. I’ve “taken” seven linguistics classes via The Great Courses (marvelous thing.) Some of them I have listened to twice. I will even admit to listening with tears in my eyes sometimes, because I’ll learn something about words and language and history that hits me like a beautiful piece of music, or a painting, or a horse race*.

*I can’t watch a horse move without weeping. I’ve never made it through a horse race without bawling.

And I am also passionate about cooking. Cooking is an art and I am really good at it, I believe, because I truly see it as an art, not just food. If I were not an author, I would have a restaurant called “One the Fire,” serving Italian country style–whatever is on the fire that day. I use the name in (Dreaming August.)

Part of this game is tagging other blogs. So… LM Pampuro

Reference the source of the tag at the start, and choose as many others as you see fit to carry on after you – I just opted for two on this occasion. I don’t think there are any timescales, and I’m not likely to put my post up until Friday at the earliest…

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April 27, 2015 · 2:52 pm

Story Sacredness

While reading over coffee this morning (A Sudden Light, by Garth Stein. Amazing book!) I got to a point where I wantedsobadlysosobadly to flip ahead and see if my suspicions were correct. It took all my readerly reserve to stop myself. If a book is only okay, I’ll often flip ahead to see if it’s going where I think it is. Sometimes, it’s the only excitement I have throughout the reading. But with a book like this one–oh, how delicious the suspense, and the abstinence. There’s the satisfying feel of pages under your fingertip, place saving with another. The tactile/olfactory nature of reading, for those of us who did not grow up with smartphones and tablets, is a real thing. It evokes every book we’ve ever read. The rainy days, the sunshine on pages, the beach, the library. No need for power chargers or wifi; all one needs is enough light to read by. And if the tide comes up and drenches a book, sunshine will dry it out. Failing that, replacing it with another copy of said book is far less expensive than replacing an ereader.

But…

Don’t you know there are always “buts” in my posts? I love my ereader. No matter how many pages the book is, my Kindle always weighs the same. I can bring my entire library with me on vacation, and if I read through all my books, another one is a click away. The pesky desire to page ahead gets quashed before I think the thought, because it really is a pain in the butt to do so on an ereader. (I’ve a Paperwhite, not the more sophisticated versions.) If I can’t sleep in the middle of the night, I don’t have to worry about waking Frankie D with a reading light or leave my comfy bed to spare him. I can read anytime, anywhere. And, though I don’t need to do so yet, I can adjust the size of the text for my ever-aging eyes.

Ebooks are almost always less expensive, comparing like with like. And while I can often buy a print book for pennies on Amazon second-hand, I can usually spend a little more for the e-version and ensure the writer gets paid a royalty. As a writer myself, that means something to me. If I read a book on my ereader and really love it, I’ll buy a print copy. I seek out first edition, hard covers and/or signed copies first–after all, I already bought the book once so the author will forgive me for losing out on a second royalty–to add to my collection.

Oral history was sacred. The keepers of the stories were the most important in any tribe. Respected. Revered. Magical. Writing made oral history accessible to all who could read. Widespread literacy (a fairly new phenomenon, I might add) made it accessible to everyone. However you absorb a story, be it audio, electronic, or print, it is sacred. Some more than others, perhaps. There is no better way to get a story into our brains, there is only different. And, currently, a multitude of ways to do so.

How do you read? Audiobooks? Ebooks? Print books? And why? Curious oysters want to know.

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