Elephant makes stool, do you sit on it or step in it?

I recently followed a headline reading, “Elephant Makes Stool,” followed by “First Known Aha Moment for Species.”

Kandula uses stool to reach for fruit.

There's a child in my house.

Once, that child made a stool, too.

It came with an AHA moment, as well.

I believe that child may have thought something like “Eureka!”

The link I followed took me to a page showing the video of the defining moment for the baby elephant.

I thought I might see something humorous.

“Eureka!” I read, “Burst of insight may redefine elephant intelligence.”

In an apparent flash of insight, I realized the stool was, a stool.

Watch the video here.

Wonder what I'm thinking?

This is a picture of me that my daughter captured on a recent trip to China. I find it all very intriguing. Help me write the photo caption by leaving your thoughts in the comments section.

That could be intriguing, too.

Why I don't always have to be right, do you?

About seven years ago, I traded bedrooms with my daughter. The exchange gave me the quiet room on the back of the house, the one that overlooks the (mostly) well-kept expanse of backyard.

The room I vacated had a super abundance of what I call 'old-lady' wallpaper. I remember questioning my then grade school-aged daughter whether she would like the wallpaper changed. At the time it didn't bother her.

I was fine with that.

I did not relish the thought of tearing it down.

Now, several years later, the room your friends hang out in seems to carry a greater value. Personally, I would have complained far sooner, and campaigned quite diligently for a disruption of the flowery bonanza. My daughter seemed content.

Until now.

It's a holiday. We have an extra day off. It's time to attack the wall paper.

I agreed.

After all, I would have done it sooner, but it was a lovely pattern once to someone, and I could tell the paper had come from the expensive end of the wallpaper book. I wasn't looking for extra work way back then. Today, that postponed chore caught up with me.

When I start a project, I plan, gather supplies, get an early start, and quit when am I one arm's length past exhaustion. Which is to say, I don't loll around in bed and crawl out all sleepy-eyed, meandering across the hall, chat and spend some time deciding what to eat for breakfast.

When I finally saw the whites of my daughter's eyes, I'd already been to the store, purchased a wallpaper perforating tool, chemical remover, a high pressure sprayer, set up the purchased equipment and tested it.

I organized my gear in the kitchen and gave her instructions to protect the carpet and furniture, then took my trappings to her room. I realized she had lined everything up to begin work on the wall with the most wallpaper. I sucked air through my teeth and rolled my lips in and considered. "Here's my recommendation," I said. I pointed to the wall with the least amount of flower-ganza. "I'd start with that wall. You can probably finish it in one day. You'll learn a lot, and by the end of the day one wall will be completed."

She sighed, as if I always have to change things, as if I need to be right.

"If you start on this big wall and tucker out, it won't be finished, it will look like a mess. If you can get the other wall done, you'll feel like you accomplished something," I encouraged.

She agreed to my recommendation. I'm not one to usually back down. She's generally willing to learn.

I helped her get started and turned the tools over to her. About an hour later, I checked in. "Are you tired?"

Vigorous head nod.

"Aren't you glad I suggested the smaller wall?"

She smiled and said, "Mommy's always right."

I didn't like that assessment. It felt self-righteous. Argumentative. Not genuine. I arched a brow and said, "I don't have to be right. It would be better to say, 'Mommy has great ideas.'"

Those words sounded way more satisfactory slipping past my daughter's smile.

How about you? When's the last time you were right, and how did it feel when someone else realized it?

Taking life out of the box

I opened a box and peeled back the pages of my life. Nestled between official documents and immunization records was a little poem. It was scrawled in my handwriting and twice as long but edited to be succinct. It read . . .

Have you always been standing next to me,
Or was it just yesterday we became a family?
Wherever we go, whatever we do,
I'll always be mommy and I'll love you.

This time of year there is a birthday and a moment when we share what it means to be a family. It's the moment we pause under the rays of a warm sun, take a moment to hug and say, ‘I love you,’ and realize how very lucky we are.

Happy birthday, baby.

Love you lots,

Mom

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GUEST: Author Carolyn J. Rose

Today's post is by a unique guest, author and teacher Carolyn J. Rose. 

Rose shares her thoughts on growing up in the Catskill Mountains and how those memories can create a strong setting. Rose earned an honored position on the list of Celebrities Who've met ME! when I took both her Novel Writing Boot Camp classes. From that experience blossomed a loyal critique group that has produced two Pacific Northwest Writers Association winners--attesting to her  skill as a writing coach.

Carolyn' J. Rose is the author of several books, most recently Hemlock Lake available in hardback or Kindle.  Here's Carolyn . . .


In Washington, where I live now, the term I hear is “forest.” But when I grew up in the Catskill Mountains, the leafy realm that began at a dozen yards from our house was always called “the woods.

Trees dug in their toes at the edge of a scabby lawn sprouting through
rocky soil scraped into a semblance of level by a tractor blade. This was no spongy, springy, emerald green lawn. This was a pale lawn of ruggedly individualistic blades of grass, roots corkscrewed in among pebbles and stones, clinging to scant, glacier-scoured soil.

Each spring we reclaimed the edges of it from an advancing army of sumac, oak, and birch, from hemlock, pine, and cedar. We hacked away at brush and vines, lugging what we dropped to piles that would be set alight in the dark of winter.

The summer woods seemed impenetrable, the winter woods empty, bleak, and barren.

As a child, one of the biggest treats was a Sunday afternoon walk with my father. It was a pursuit of adventure, of wildness—it was piquant sauce for the predictability of the Sunday dinner of ham or roast, that Sunday sense of waiting for things to begin again with Monday’s dawn.

My father would identify tracks and droppings—deer, bear, raccoon, skunk. He’d name trees and point out nests aloft.

I’d try to walk silently, but winter winds had scattered twigs and branches that snapped beneath my shoes and slabs of shale slid underfoot when we climbed the ridges.

I became fearful when we left the landmarks I knew and could identify, worried we wouldn’t find our way back to the dinner simmering in that cast-iron kettle. But I was always confident that if I stayed by his side, we would return safely. After all, these were the woods he had roamed in childhood and if he’d found his way home as a child, he could surely do the same as an adult.

And this was no dense green-black forest of Douglas fir—no wall of forest, shadows, and night. This was a woods where sun spangled through the leaves of the hardwoods. This was a woods of saplings and bright autumn tints, of long, stark shadows cast by a weak winter sun. This was a woods where stone walls intersected like lines of longitude and latitude. Even humped under winter’s snow they provided a means of navigation.

Looking back, I realize how “tame” and “civilized” those woods were. And yet, they were mysterious, filled with unanswered questions: Who had left that sickle blade hanging in the crotch of a sapling and when had the tree grown around it? Who had left an ax leaning against a spur of stone wall and when had the handle rotted away? Whose initials were those scraped into lichen-scarred stone, carved into the puckered bark of a tree? Where had these people gone and when and why?

As I wrote Hemlock Lake, I often imagined myself back in the Catskill Mountains, back in those woods and I created mysteries of my own—a man who roamed the ridges seeking his lost self, ghosts, a man bent on vengeance, a killer. Hemlock Lake deals with universal themes—betrayal, revenge, love, loss, and redemption—but my memories of those woods make the story unique.

---

Editor: Thank you Carolyn for continuing to share yourself with your writing students and the reading community.

Listen to an interview of Carolyn J. Rose as she speaks about writing Hemlock Lake on The Author Show.

Purchase Hemlock Lake on Kindle here.

  
Read an interview of Carolyn J. Rose. It can be read in three parts:

• Carolyn J. Rose interview: Creative Process of Writing a Novel I
• Carolyn J. Rose interview: Creative Process of Writing a Novel II
• Carolyn J. Rose interview: Creative Process of Writing a Novel III

Carolyn J. Rose also founded the Vancouver Writers Mixer with Mel Sanders of Cover to Cover Books.

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Family vacation, borders and flying suitcases

Family trips evoke horror ridden memories or gut wrenching cackles. During the trip to the homestead in Idaho a suitcase got left on the top of the car. The wind blew it off. We stopped to pick it up. Inside was a clock which, packed by my overly cautious uncle, suffered nary a scratch. He’d bought it during the trip and was flying home and had packed it to withstand airport handling.

The clock survived the flight off the car and the flight home.

My daughter’s memories include seeing all the license plates, falling asleep listening to a book on tape and not minding missing any of it as the nap made the travel time pass quickly. My dad’s vacation memories center around history and being in the middle of something exciting, for example, where fur traders traversed from Taos, Mexico to Yellowstone, or having sensory overload at places like Cabella’s.

My vacation memories usually center on leaving work with a clean desk—should someone need to find something in my absence the possibilities increase with each item I file or discard. Then there’s the thrill of finally being on the road and maybe driving fast with a radar detector.

Other family members might complain our hunger clocks are not in the same time zone, of restrooms too low or too tiny, of missing the correct turn-off, and keeping expenses straight so everyone pays their part.

I gaze out the car window and admire green velvet fields. I watch the breath of the wind blow across them and change their hue. I take in green and tan corn stalks stretching behind wood post fences, farmhouses, silos, irrigation wing spans, the rare red-roof barn, a gentle border of trees signaling a creek, a white steeple church, wind turbines, mile long trains that parallel us, blue sky sparsely peppered with dark clouds or glowing with white billows.

We drive.

We cross state boundaries and face personal ones. These borders of our soul help define who we are, what we are for or against, and what we want and do not want. And sometimes we find ourselves not strapped on, wheeling precariously across the roof of the car, the next bump and we disappear. We may pray someone notices, or we may pray they drive on without us.

If family neglect left you on top of the car, did you fly off and survive, or crack with a hurt too big to repair?

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Creative Process Part III by Little_Karol

By Guest Contributor Little_Karol. On the first of her series she shared her research on the novel writing process. The second piece encompassed her interview with author Carolyn Rose. Today she shares her interview with author Elizabeth Lyon.

Lyon is the author of six writing books on fiction and nonfiction, revision, and marketing: Manuscript Makeover, A Writer's Guide to Fiction, The Sell Your Novel Tool Kit, Nonfiction Book Proposals Anybody Can Write, The Writer's Guide to Nonfiction, and National Directory of Editors & Writers. Elizabeth Lyon lives in Springfield, Oregon. The December issue of "The Writer" magazine selected Manuscript Makeover as one of "10 Great Writing Books in 2008."

I sat down at my computer after a long day of cleaning the house. I connected to the internet and logged into Gmail, nothing out of the ordinary. I had e-mailed her earlier that week and was surprised when I saw, she had e-mailed back. I learned from Carolyn Rose that Lyon was supposed to be going on vacation soon. I thought she had already left, considering it took her a while to respond. I later found out she had responded to half of my questions, just to have accidentally deleted her answers.

“What is your creative process (What do you do when you are writing)? I know that seems kind of vague, but answer it to the best of your ability.”

“When I am writing something creative, like the memoir I have begun, I am back in the mental movie of the story. Most writers, I think, write from the movie in their minds and then revise more intellectually. When I write, I do a little of editing along the way, changing this word or that phrase, perhaps because I am an editor. I know, at least as a professional editor, that the best way to write a first draft is to just let the words blat out on the screen or page. Getting something written is most important of all. So my writing of my first draft is like a condensed version of what the final book will be. Like, just add water. Or, just add character depth through thought and feeling and reactions; add sensory detail; add description of Nature, man made objects, and of other characters; add similes and metaphors; harvest my own emotions as I relive the story as my character and add emotions.”

“How does you feel when your with an editor? What kind of thoughts go through your mind?”

“I have two forms of ‘editors’ for my work: my critique group friends and my New York editor who works for my publisher. Before my New York editor sees my work, I run it past my writing friends who give me their honest, constructive criticism. I always feel a bit anxious and insecure about what they will tell me. I have the same fears, hopes, and trepidations as most writers do when facing criticism. Afterwards, I'm relieved and excited, because they catch mistakes, not only in grammar and punctuation but also in facts, logic, and style. I feel grateful and relieved as well as eager to revise.

"By the time my in-house editor is reviewing my manuscripts, they have already been ‘vetted,’ so to speak by my critique group friends. I have had 6-7 different editors who worked for publishing houses, and they have all been astute, kind, and accurate. They have helped me save face by pointing out whatever is left that my writing friends did not address. As I wait for my editor's mark-ups and evaluation, I hope that she (I've had one male editor) will praise my work and be enthusiastic about it. Sometimes I have needed to directly ask the question, "Did you like it?" because they are focused on corrections. While waiting, I have days when I worry whether the book will not meet the editor's approval, but most of the time, I am confident that whatever is found is fixable.”

“What is it like when you’re presenting your work to an audience? Do you feel relaxed or do you still get butterflies?”

“Because my nonfiction books, six of them for writers, are typically presented in the form of workshops, here is how I feel: Before a workshop, I build up tension. Some of it is working tension that leads me to prepare, make photocopies, and think about my audience and how to present the work. The other portion of the tension I could do without: anxiety based on imagined scenarios, such as being dull-witted and "off," or being asked questions I cannot answer and looking like a fool, or having a non-responsive audience. I get more anxious when my audience is all pros. Then I worry that they will stump me or what I have to offer will be old hat. So far that has not been the case, but the anxiety says, "There is always a first time so watch out, missy."
Once I am in the room and am passing out handouts, I feel relaxed, cheerful, ready to have a good time as well as offer help to writers. I am a bit of a ham, so I crack jokes and fully enjoy meeting all of the people.

"If I am giving a speech, such as a keynote, that is a different story. Whereas I find teaching to now be natural, I find speeches to be unnatural. I know that I have to entertain, inform, and inspire. That is tough! I find speeches to be more formalized, best not done off the cuff, and giving them more like walking through a mine field. I try to structure in a laugh line in the first few sentences. If the audience laughs, I relax and feel as if I have purchased a little bit of extra rope, though I know I can still hang myself if I don't deliver. If they don't laugh, I sweat like an animal facing slaughter. When my speech succeeds and they clap--they actually clap--I'm soaring high on adrenalin. I summated Mt. Everest.”

“What is it like for you to find a publisher? What stages do you have to go through?”

“So far, I have been a self-publisher, then had my first two books published by a small Oregon publishing company that went out of business (so I was "orphaned"), then was picked up by a giant New York publisher for reprint of my first two books and for publication of two new books, and have had a small New York publisher who got bought out by a bigger fish and thus I was orphaned of all editorial support.

"In the beginning of my search for a publisher (outside of doing it myself), I wrote a proposal and a query. I already knew agents and one represented me, but was unsuccessful in selling the book (Nonfiction Book Proposals Anybody Can Write). I queried publishers directly and an editor at St. Martin's was very enthusiastic, only to have the sales/marketing people shoot it down in the editorial review process. The editor so believed in my book that he did independent market research and went back to the review committee and it still didn't sail. At the time, I had no prior publications (except a few magazine articles and a few contest wins) and my only "platform" (ability to sell books myself) was that I taught adult education writing classes and had an editing business (my current dba is Editing International). I put the project aside and worked on another proposal for a travel memoir, again represented by the agent I knew, and again rejected. In hindsight, I was not yet a strong enough memoir writer.

"A year or so later, I was having lunch at the Pacific Northwest Writer's Conference with a NY agent friend of mine, and she suggested I pitch my proposal book to a small press. She knew that Blue Heron Publishing (Hillsboro, OR) was starting a line of writing books. I had seen a note about that as well, but her encouragement led to me attending a group pitch meeting with one of the co-owners, Dennis Stovall. I tend to be intuitive and I felt fully in sync with Dennis--a meeting of the minds--and he requested my proposal. I spruced it up and sent it in, and I got that call: "We want to publish your book." Although I haven't won a lottery, the emotions I felt were what I imagined winning Lotto would feel like.

"Dennis and Linny Stovall, founders and editors of Blue Heron Publishing, published my proposal book in 1995 and followed with publishing "The Sell Your Novel Tool Kit" in 1997. To gain consideration of their publishing this second book was entirely different because now I was one of their authors. I wrote a short proposal and after answering their questions, we signed the contract.

"When they decided to end Blue Heron to pursue other life goals, I was then "orphaned" with rights reverted to me of my first two books. By year 2000, I had a New York literary agent I had met by going to conferences. As a freelance book editor, I sought to meet as many agents as possible for my clients and in the process, that meant I had an inside connection--and now I was a published author. On September 4, 2001, I flew with my daughter Elaine, then 17, to New York. We patched together the trip using frequent flier miles and staying with a client and friend of mine in the city. The budget trip to New York City. I took a stack of my two books to give to my agent, with the hopes that she could find a new "home" for them. It seemed like a long shot as publishers like to discover and acquire new books more than "retreads." I had also written another proposal, for a series of writing craft books, and I left 10 copies of the proposal with her as well.

"On September 11th, 2001, my daughter and boarded out United Airlines flight at 8:30, leaving LeGuardia and, we thought, to arrive home in Eugene, Oregon by afternoon. The pilot gave us the shocking news soon after we took off, and landed us at O'Hare. Amidst confusion and disbelief at what had happened, we lucked out and were among the displaced passengers who found a room at a nearby hotel. Three days later, when a rental car was returned to the airport, Avis gave us a one-way "distress" discount, and my daughter and I drove 2200 miles home. I could not have been more amazed than when my agent called six weeks later, only six weeks after 9-11, with a four-book deal. Perigee Books, an imprint of US Penguin, purchased reprint rights to my first two books, and agreed to publish two of my proposed books in the new writing series.”

“What will you do after you are done writing books?”

“I'm done writing *writing* books now. Which means that I am unleashing myself on projects I've wanted to do for a long time. Foremost among them is a memoir based on my being the only white student, at age 17 in 1967, at a summer program for high school kids held at Bennett College in Greensboro, NC. I think of this memoir as a 3-5-year project, art and craft, a "legacy" work that may or may not be publishable, but most of all, must meet my inner artistic satisfaction.

"Second, I've always wanted to write a book involving my hobby, which is astrology. That one might be commercial as I am writing it for the masses and not for astrologers per se. I've begun outlining and doing some first writing on it. Because I don't want to write under deadline pressure, and the advances have so far been inadequate to let me stop working and just write, I want to have at least half of this astrology book done before I hand the proposal over to my agent for representation. I'm thinking of this book as being on a one-year track, perhaps longer.

"Of course, I have many other books in the queue, including a young adult novel. It is germinating in the back of my mind, so I'm "working" on it in the fertile womb of imagination.”

“Reflecting back on your work, how do you feel you did?”

“I hope the question doesn't mean that I'm all done! I feel great about the contributions I have made to the how-to instruction for writers. I have always held myself to the standard of contributing something new to the topic and writing in the clearest way I possibly can. All of my books have been well-received and some have reviews that feel like winning the lottery.

"My one disappointment is that I thought there would be more sales, more royalties, from writing writing books. When I started out with publishing, I thought that after my third writing book, I would surely receive enough royalties to cover my expenses and buy time to write more creative works. I now have six books in print with two earning royalties (meaning, they have sold well enough to pay back the advance). If the books continue to be in print, I am now joking that they will be my IRA, my retirement income, in addition to the pathetic amount I'll get from social security--if it still exists. The reality is that my choice of writing nonfiction was for a niche market, a specialty readership and not for a mass audience.

"One way out is to now write a bestseller! How many writers dream of that? Don't answer that. I assume we all do. But, I have now paid considerable dues: I am a professional nonfiction writer, I have a great agent, and I know how to write proposals and develop an already-existing strong platform, which refers to my promotional ability to sell my book. So the only thing in my way is thinking of that bestselling idea and carving out time. I'm hoping my astrology book for the millions will be that book. . . .

"I know I will never ever run out of creative ideas. They swarm around all the time. I dream them, I stumble across them, they come beckoning on knees. Do me!”

“How many books have you had published?”

"Seven. The six writing books and a first self-published book (in 1981) called "Mabel--The Story of One Midwife." I published 200 hardback and 2000 paperback, and learned every aspect of this business. Mable Dzata was the midwife for my two children, who were born at home. The book is her biography plus a collection of home birth stories by the families she helped. I was told a few years ago that it is a "midwifery classic." It took 10 years to sell out all copies! I say I was a tad bit naive when I thought they would all sell in 3 months. That's when I learned that it is one thing to write a good book, and it is another thing to let a reader know it exists and then to get 'em to fork over money.”

“How do you know when your book is done?”

“Most writers of all levels of skill and experience don't know. We're so subjectively tied to your creation. When you've written the best you can and revised up the wazoo, and you can't see anything else to do, other than change a few words here and there, you're done. The work may not be close to the quality for publication, but you've done the best you can. You can market and will have confirmation of its readiness by acceptance or rejection. But no matter what, you should start a next project.

"The more experienced a writer becomes in all areas of craft, with more books under the belt--or in the drawer--the greater will be the writer's instinct for how much to revise. There is a point where too much revision makes the book slick, like newly waxed tile. It loses its edge and the sheen will push the reader away instead of making the reader stop, engage, and feel the character's emotions. Of course I am talking fiction and memoir here, not how-to or information writing.

"I think all writers need someone outside of them to give feedback, and criticism. Astute readers are one choice. Other choices include a fellow writing buddy, a critique group (in person or online), a writing teacher, or a professional freelance editor.

"Writers also need to cultivate an ability to tune into their own heart, soul, and gut. They need this to be able to discriminate between suggestions and criticism they agree with and those they do not agree with. As I've often said, The Writer Rules. Everyone else has opinions. In the end, deciding when your work is done is a solo job, just as writing the work in the first place. You simply get better at the decision.

"Even after books are published, probably every author you talk to will tell you that he or she can pick one of the published books off the bookstore shelf, read a bit and find something they would now change. It is the nature of creativity and the inability to be perfect.”

“Where do your ideas come from? Pete Fromm has an idea folder and I was wondering if you had something similar.”

“I formerly put ideas onto sticky notes and plastered them onto my file cabinet. Bad idea. The sun makes them fade. And I never looked at them again. I have three places where I put ideas: I carry a little spiral notepad in my purse. I make computer files with working titles for the projects I think will get developed. And I have an artist's sketchpad where I doodle, think on the page, use colored markers, and build a "playground" for ideas to come in without censorship.

"My view on where ideas come from is this: "Build a field and they will come." (Field of Dreams) The field for a writer is your imagination. Just stating the intention to receive ideas gets implanted, like an egg in the womb. It will be nurtured and return at odd times with an idea and some growth to it. The process for a writer is, I think, to facilitate the flow from imagination into thought, which is different than searching for a "where" to find the ideas. It is not like going out into a field and digging for a buried treasure. It is more like building up the soil for a great garden.

"For me, these activities or conditions help build that field, or add nutrients to the garden soil: water--taking showers and getting lost in your thoughts, washing dishes, swimming, soaking in a hot tub, eyes closed to see the inner movie screen; walking--moving the body, getting a rhythm where you don't have to think about walking but your mind is walking--into the imagination and coming back in thought with ideas; driving--same thing though not quite as safe! I do have my notepad open with a pen as I drive longer distances, to jot down "great ideas"--they always seem great when they arrive. I also nab dreams I remember and as soon as possible write down the basics of them. I have "received" several ideas for novels directly out of dreams. Brainstorming with writing friends is another source of ideas and problem-solving for existing writing. "What if" is the best phrase for writers to complete.

"Last of all, and you didn't ask this is to note the "right stuff" to succeed as a writer: A love of expressing yourself in writing; the courage to ignore the inner voices of criticism and overcome the silent forces of censorship; patience and perseverance to practice writing skills for years, not expecting instant success; openness to constructive criticism; commitment to the process of multiple if not seemingly endless revisions to produce a finished work; immersion in the business side of writing as a career, learning marketing and networking skills; and last: remembering always that your reason to write is for the joy it brings you.”

Added as a side note was “Good luck and I hope this proves valuable. PS: You may find something else useful from the YouTube shorties that were taken at the talk I gave at Cover to Cover where we met each other.

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Creative Process of Writing a Novel

By Guest Contributor Little_Karol. This piece written for a creative writing class and originally published at Writing My Heart.

Part I of III

MY QUESTION

“If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.” ~Toni Morrison

The start, the beginning of a long journey. It’s initiated with a page. A blank one at that. Staring me down until I’m sitting in a corner glaring at the page.. It’s intimidating. I have a need, I fill the need suppressed by fear with the ability to cover the page with words. Stuff pages with ideas spinning around my head. Of vivid characters, living life and colorful scenes. I know imagination lets the mind expand.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.” ~Albert Einstein

Developing a manuscript equals hours of editing thousands of papers with red pen marks. It rounds out to somewhere close to hours of sleep deprivation, shoulder tension, head aches from staring at the computer screen for days on end with aching fingers and hands. Take action! Get published.

If you’re turned down, keep trying. Doctor Theodore Seuss got turned down twenty-seven times until he got published by the twenty-eighth publisher. His visual art and creative writing teachers said he didn’t have it. Editors will evaluate you and catch every flaw. Every word misused, every coma misplaced. But share with agents and they will help you share with the world.

Your critique group will support you and help you refine your book. The critique group will help you to become published. How do you get there? Here is a teenager’s view of the creative process of writing a novel. From the first words to seeing your book in the local stores.

I came to the School of Arts and Academics to expand my inner artist. I took literary arts explore sixth grade year with Michael Carr. Through poetry I found more of myself than I had bothered to go searching for. I was never much of a writer before this. I loved writing assignments, but I always did the basics and never thought I went above and beyond to deserve the four out of four I received. I am now putting all my efforts into writing assignments teachers give.

My mom started writing a novel in 2007. She used me to bounce ideas. I gave her feedback that helped her start her writing. Now, 2009, two years later, she has her manuscript. She has her own world that comes with it. Where no one else is allowed to be. A world where something is always happening and no one can interrupt. This is a phase where she no longer talks to her child. Where she gets holed up in her room and only leaves to go to work and meet with her critique group.

I always wanted to know what went through her head while she was writing. This gave me the perfect opportunity. Now I had the just the right reason to ask her all the questions I wanted without her bugging me because I was interrupting her thoughts. This gave me a new insight to how my mother thinks when creating art. Wonders of her creative process aren’t wonders but rather questions answered.

All questions How do you know when your book is done? What are your judgment thoughts? What is it like to find an agent? What is it like to be published? What is your creative process? Are answered. I find questions popping into my head from books. I find myself asking about voice and style and about metaphors and ruts that you get stuck in and can’t seem to find a way out of.

“The third step is getting out of the rut. This is the hard part. Knowing and admitting a problem are not the same as solving it. But executing a solution saves you and gets you moving again.” (Tharp 189)


MY RESEARCH PROCESS

It started with reading Twyla Tharp’s book "The Creative Habit," and then reading some of Elizabeth Lyon’s guide, "Manuscript Makeover." I also read Lyon’s other book "A Writer’s Guide to Fiction." I expanded my searching to the internet. Usually I find something on my topic, but this was a little hard. I don’t think you can really find the creative process of doing a certain task. You may be able to find the creative process of one person. But it seems a little vague. I found little to nothing about the creative process using these resources. Little details came in handy along the way though.

What is the creative process of writing a novel? Is it each stage you go through to get to the final piece? Do the Fundamental Questions help you to answer the question, what’s next? You can ask all these questions, ask so many that their head will explode before you are finished asking; and you still might not have the answer you maybe wanted. Stopping at a stand point to find you have to go and discover those answers on your own. But where to start? I have hit a rut.

I figure this question is too… vague. It’s hard to find the answer I am looking for. No internet article seems to help; every interview seems to add to my curiosity and confusion. So, I’ll look at it this way. What is the creative process of one writer? Of just one novelist? Although I don’t think of her as a novelist, but well, let’s say a mom, she still has a lot of growth and tolerance for my never ending list of questions… sometimes.

No one can define your creative process; no one can cheat off of your work. We have techniques that many of us share when writing. It’s what we have in common, the rest is up to you. We all started with one page, we all end thinking something can be improved. We all have a reference point, when we turn to a critique group to help us get through the editing stages.

In her book, "A Writers Guide to Fiction," Lyon says “If you are new to writing fiction, you may wonder if there is a right way to ‘find’ a good story, to know how best to plan a story. The answer may not be a comfort to everyone: There is no right way; there is only your way. Anything can and has inspired writers and given them the kernel from which they’ve developed a story. No matter where you begin, you will have to fill in all the blanks.” (Lyon 11)

Don’t we all start out knowing what we want to write? Is it really that easy? Carol Doane pulled her inspiration from books and observing everyday life around her. In books you don’t hear about interracial couples very often, so she put one in her book. Hear about racism, sex, alcohol? Put it in her book as well. Her book pulls you into a fantasy world where everything is supremely real and any of these things can happen to you. Live in a life with metaphors that take time to grasp and understand? You find everyday life stories that sometimes go hidden shown to us through fiction.

We all begin somewhere. When Doane starts to draw inspiration, she pulls out her three by five cards. Scribbles of words and pictures of days long, long ago. Phrases from conversations that went through her mind everyday. As she flips each note card over and over again carefully, she begins rapid fire. Typing faster than most students… or her co-workers have ever heard. She’s on a roll and no one is getting in her way. Kind of like some demolition derby driver…

She has all her writing down and begins to transform her manuscript. Making metaphor after metaphor seamlessly flow throughout her paper. Taking sentence structures and tearing them down, just to come back to something fairly similar. Replacing words with words. Deleting sentence after sentence, just so another one could take its place.

She goes to her critique group to discover more and more revising is left to be done. Going back home, thoughts are still going through her mind. She won’t let me talk to her, scared they might escape. Every time she goes, less editing seems to need to be done. But she never stops. She adds and adds and adds, and then complains her manuscript is too long. So she goes back and decides to cut some areas, just find out later, they are replaced by new ideas.

What are some techniques for writing? Everyone has their own… but some are very similar. In Elizabeth Lyon’s book, "Manuscript Makeover," she talks about many techniques different writers use when editing their manuscript. Some examples will include: cultivating deep listening, silence critics; banish censors, practice riff-writing, revise from your truth, harvest your emotions and catch fireflies.

Each of these included a description of what they are and how to apply it to your editing stage in your manuscript. She also encourages you to: model favorite authors, revise for sentence variety and revise for impact These help with the simple revisions for style. Sections in the book help you to create similes, metaphors and a correct sentence structure.

Confined in her room another week, Doane prepares for another meeting with her critics. Revising again and again… to find yet another mistake. A vicious cycle of editing and sharing. Editing and sharing. Time after time again. After a year, less editing needs to be done. All metaphors and similes are woven throughout the book. All sentences run smoothly and all scenes make perfect sense. If you pay attention.

With each week the characters begin to develop. They gain their own colors. “To make characters live and breathe, writers must write ‘from the inside out’ to the ‘outside in’” (Lyon 19). Characters overcome problems throughout her book, adding more depth to their description. Making them seem more real with every twist and turn of an event.

Lyon says to not read to a group, but read in monotone to yourself as to not “perform” your writing (Lyon 8). Doane finds that reading to a critique group helps her catch more mistakes than she does alone. So, every method you try may not work for you, but it will work for someone. Trial and error. Find the one that works for you, the one that will help you more than frustrate you during the editing process.

How can you ask a writer about her experience with publishing a book if she is unpublished? Although Doane has queried to about half a dozen agents and a small publisher asked to see the first four chapters; she still remains unpublished, work not fully completed.

So I turned to two published writers to learn what the development stage of the creative process is when it comes to writers. Carolyn J. Rose is a fiction writer.

Here is what Rose had to say….

More tomorrow in Part II of III

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Social Media? I'm sure its a short term addiction *cough*

When I embarked on my book writing adventure I buried myself in manic bouts of typing. I radiated atomic concentration waves. An illusive feel or thought pulse fluttered within grasp and I stretched to reach it. During these hiatuses from real life, my pre-teen started her Facebook page. By their terms she was too young to have one. I took it down. Then, once newly birthday-ed, she re-upped and was back surfing through social media heaven with her friends.

Her offense was not discussing her foray with me.

I decided not to wage a Facebook battle, Instead, I got my own Facebook page to keep an eye on her, and within 48 hours I was hooked, sifted down through the rabbit of hole of profiles, activities, interests, favorite music, movies, books, quotes, political and religious views. Oh, and how many pictures of my kid can I upload? We traded the laptop back and forth each evening in congenial family fashion so we could each check our growing list of friends.

During one of our exchanges, I lamented that my bud Rij had neglected to give me a quote on the cost to develop an ’author’ Web-site. After investing a year into my novel I knew it was more than a hobby and I needed to begin an online presence, a platform, to launch myself. Rij builds web pages for a living and we had discussed at length what I envisioned. He and I had parted with a promise of a ‘family and friends’ rate.

Two weeks after my grumbling my daughter turned the laptop my direction and showed me my new Web-site, a Facebook fan page. I was stunned, first, that she listened to my cranky complaint, second that she took creative action to support an addiction that mostly siphoned time away from her. To insure I duly appreciated her efforts, she detailed, in encyclopedic specificity, how difficult the fan page set up was to decipher and that she had mirrored it after Eeyore’s page. (No dumb-ass jokes, please).

I rifled through the site, noted she had a couple of misspellings, didn’t have time at the moment to attack them, closed the page, and frankly, I forgot about it.

Two weeks after that a co-worker passed me in the hall and said, “I’m a fan!” Startled, I stopped mid-stride and tried to understand what in the world she was referring to. It dawned on me. The Facebook Fan Page. The misspellings. Oh, horror. How can you proclaim to be a writer and leave a blatant trail of misspelled words in your wake?

I scrambled home that night and broke into a cold sweat when I logged on and realized I had 6 WHOLE FANS. People who knew me. People who now thought I couldn’t spell. My fingers rattled over the keyboard and I attacked the editing task. Then I played with the page. What would make it interesting, how could I draw in more fans?

Okay, I could stop right here and tell you I was not really enamored with having a fan base, half of which I have coerced to follow me, but I can’t lie like that! I love my fan page.

I also love my daughter who embraces my quirks and feeds my addiction, then writes all about it in her term paper. I'll tell you about THAT next time.

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What evil lurks in social media? A mom knows...now.

Little_Karol, my daughter, sat in a cube after hours at the office. The computer screen in front of her glowed as she checked her email. At least that’s what she told me she was doing. I strode into my office, crashed behind the desk and plunged into an evening of catch up.

It had never happened before, that our wires had crossed, even though she always used my log-in to get to the internet, but an absent-minded mouse flick on my part altered the screen I stared at. Suddenly, I shadowed her computer movements. It shocked me how quickly I rocketed into the bad-mom-universe. I was the bad mom. What flickered before me alarmed me.

Facebook.

I had shuddered at every horrid child abuse story in regards to social media, and had nodded sagely, arrogantly even, knowing my capable parenting skills would never find me the subject of a sad news story. I was too intelligent to raise a child who would fall prey. My child was too bright to fall to a predator. But there it was. Facebook. The ultimate child predator.

MySpace drifted in semi-consciousness as: ‘places not to visit.’ LinkedIN sounded like the online bar of hook-ups. Bloggers were anal politicos who needed a forum to rant, or self absorbed punks who didn’t get enough ‘me-time’ and needed to hear their own voices, so they posted what remained of their dribble online: me-me-me. Twitter had barely hit my radar and sounded inane, a test to drill your most profound thought to 140 characters. What kind of a character is that? Did a space count as a character? Ignorance foamed and huffed at me and I choked on its fumes.

My fingers trembled as I stared at my child’s Facebook wall. What the heck is a wall? Why would I be encouraged to write on it? I clicked through the other places of her Facebook page. Oh my effing gee, she has posted pictures! If that isn’t a predator call I don’t know what is.

That was it.

She was done.

I am a woman of action.

I took control and did the most sensible thing.

I read the Facebook terms and conditions.

I had her.

She was toast.

I called her into my office and I sounded mean. I confronted her Facebook abuse. I gave her a piece of paper and a pen and ordered her to write down every email, gmail, yahoo-mail, hotmail and every Web-site she was on that required a log-in and I demanded her passwords. Her dark eyes flooded with panic and tears pushed at her lashes. She took in a shaky breath, her little knees collapsed, and she sunk into the guest chair. One-by-one, she proceeded to disclose her secrets. That’s when I learned she had a blog. I had never read a blog. I was ignorant.

I shut down Facebook and doled out strong words. She was underage. Facebook had a minimum age requirement. She did not qualify. My strong lecture lasted up through her birthday. Midnight clicked over and back up went her Facebook.

Second discovery went as well as expected.

I yelled.

I gave up.

I got a Facebook page.

Boring until the gunshot

Air damp with the night’s rain whipped through the cracked window. I took my foot off the gas to exit I-5 and rode the 179th Street off ramp down, not slowing, hoping to make the green light that gleamed at its base. I grabbed a hard left, straightened the car in the unusual August morning fog, and allowed stanchions and flags to ease me along the familiar route to the county fair grounds.

My fluorescent orange credential parking pass dangled from the rear-view mirror of my white Chevy Malibu. I flicked it with my finger until I got the attention of the safety-vested kid inside the gate. Mid yawn he waved me through.

I took the circle drive around the grounds at a steady five miles an hour above the posted limit and pulled into the parking area closest to the commercial building that housed the office. Avoiding the loose gravel, I steered the car onto the over-sized asphalt sidewalk and peered down each aisle gawking for the first row not roped off. Easy in and out access seemed to be my solitary purpose for this three-year, ego boosting, volunteer position on the county fair board.

Can't wait for it to be over.

After shifting into park, I glanced in the mirror and mussed my wet hair. Lemon verbena wafted into the space and I closed the window, grabbed my bag, and strode toward my early morning appointment: fair safety meeting.

Boring.

Nearing the commercial building I passed a handful of carnival workers whose conversations grew silent as the sound of my clicking Ferragamo’s overtook them. What secrets could they have, I wondered, and smiled at my own. Nordstrom Rack coup, clearly a return and deeply discounted. I enjoyed the little flash of toe-buckle with each swish of my cotton cream slacks.

Inside the building I slipped past the rows of canned goods. I slung through the four-foot gate, built to keep the public at bay, and closed in on the bad coffee brewing in the break room. Last year, I’d brought fragrant gourmet grounds for our ten-consecutive day morning meetings, but I had not managed it this year. Bad economy, real job churning in constant crisis, overseeing the active social schedule of a teenager involved with boys, 4-H, and dogs sucked up all available mom brain cells and any extra time.

The round robin report on non-events had already begun. I grabbed a chair at the end of one of the scattered tables and plopped my steaming white Styrofoam cup in front of me. The previous night’s demolition derby had failed to incite any bad behavior, grand stands full, but aggressive competitors failed to pitch the cheering crowd into overload. Next. Vendor heaven after the show. Next. Volunteer Horse Patrol rode a quiet evening, no smuggled in booze. No nothing.

This has got to be the safest place in the state. I sipped the dastardly brew.

Yesterday, largest day in the carnival area, today and Sunday should go gangbusters. Next. Thirty kids participated in the Special Olympics, big thanks to Funtastic Shows for the stuffed animal prizes…

I gazed out the conference room window. I’d have nothing to add when they came to me. The fair scholarships had been awarded, and the account had not been replenished, as I knew they’d hoped. The rich cousins remained on the east coast. The outlaw cousins, my branch of the family, had fled to the wild west and never gained foothold in the lucrative trade that flourished when Fort Vancouver organized commerce in this area.

Welcome to the middle class.

My eyes skimmed over the dock dog set up. A black lab swam circles in the pool nipping at the waves he created. Paddle. Nip. Paddle. Nip. He climbed up the ramp, paused, and flung himself back into the oasis of blue.

“We lost…” I tuned back into the meeting. A lime clad Coast-to-Coast security representative said, “About 150 parking spaces due to tonight’s tough trucks and pro AM. Thirty rigs were here when I arrived at six, and they’re still pulling in.” His voice betrayed his exhilaration for the upcoming big-noise event.

Movement outside caught the corner of my eye and my attention reverted to the open stretch near the swimming dog. A fair Carney in a dirty gray t-shirt spoke with force, fists opening and closing, a dark charcoal, triangle patch visible in his arm pit area when he flapped his limbs. He glanced toward the conference room, gestured my direction.

Is he signaling me? I straightened. No, Carol Jo, it’s not always about you.

I flicked my eyes over the room. The gentle buzz of the reports continued. I twisted my pen, pretended to write and peered through the sparkling window to the glistening outdoors. The gray-shirted Carney muscled in on someone. His scuffed brown boots bit into the grass as he drug his foe into range. The younger, twenty-something kid, yanked off balance, lurched forward and pushed the Carney’s grimy hands off his shirt. He regained composure and jammed his hands deep in the pockets of his ragged jeans. Both men appeared aged by wear and tear, no evidence of the natural progression of comfortable lives. The heated, mostly one-sided conversation continued. The younger pulled his hands out and ran them over his thighs.

Sweaty palms?

“Someone loaded their four-horse trailer through the yellow gate,” chuckled the parking supervisor. “He wound through the back and ended up on the mid-way. We’re marking that as a new path to the horse barn.” The group chortled. Outside the muted shouting of the Carney ramped up. The younger man looked away, rolled his neck, twisted his head, eyes flitting over the grounds, pain or something else. He looked directly at me.

Fear.

Inside, a fresh scrubbed fireman spoke. I peered at the uniformed man's bland face, not even a freckle. I looked at my half bare arms, my spattering of freckles had developed into age spots.

Goodbye thirties. Hello forties.

“Three calls yesterday,” the fireman reported, then as an after thought, “Aspirin, band-aid, wrong number.”

Next.

The announcements droned. 4-H heifer sale successful, our average price per pound beat out Chehalis’ top price.

Outside the younger man sputtered and shook. His chest heaved. He inhaled a deep breath.

Is he going to cry?

The veterinarian's voice cracked. “Sent a sick bull cow home. Received a 4 AM call on a crashing goat.” He cleared his throat.

I wondered aloud what ‘crashing goat’ meant, imagined small hooves kicking the slats of the pen until the wood cracked and splintered, a goat crashing out onto the mid-way heading straight for the misdirected horse trailer, and spearing it with its tiny goat horns.

“Dying,” the woman to my right answered.

“Oh.” I said

Back outside, the younger man exploded, shouted lip readable obscenities exposing a huge gap between his teeth. He puffed his cheeks and pounded his hands on his thighs. His head bobbed between me and the Carney.

The Carney glanced my way and stepped back. The kid jumped forward and pushed the gray shirted man in the chest. They scuffled out of sight. I signaled the security guy across the room. Danny, the captain. He smiled, waved back, made a motion as if writing, and moved his right hand to his ear as if holding a phone.

Shit. He wants my number.

“Down hill from here,” the marketing manager wrapped up.

“Let’s hope not,” replied the executive director.

Group chuckle.

Meeting over, I moved quickly out the side door directly into the break room. I dumped the remnants of my bad brew into the sink, not bothering to rinse the tinted brown stream down the drain, tossed the cup, and ran to the door leading into the hall. The handle twisted in my hand. The door opened. I stared straight into the name tag: Danny Stevens, Security Captain. My eyes crept up his barrel chest to his slow grin.

“Gotta run,” I stammered. “Catch you later.”

“Where you headed?” he asked, a lazy smile stretched his chubby cheeks. His shirt microphone crackled. He plucked at it and pressed a button on the mic. “Be right there.” He clicked the switch off. “I’ll see you in the dog barn.” I groaned, covered it with a cough and rushed the front door. “What color do you call that?” He said, pointing to his head. “Your hair color.”

“Auburn,” I said, and then to myself, flecked with gray.

I dodged the growing flood of incoming vendors and two slow moving electric wheel chairs. The disabled pair squeezed hands, and I felt a pang of jealousy. What the hell's wrong with me? I sighed took a breath and relaxed to a normal pace. A crash to my right startled me. Too much coffee makes a jittery morning at the county fair. My ankle twisted on the gravel path when the metal cracked against metal a second time. My eyes tore through the carnival area as the non-rhythmic clanging continued. I searched for where it reverberated.

There.

The Carney stood with his back to me and swung a shovel between the Ferris wheel and the Tilt-A-Whirl, sinewy arms slicing through the air, more muscle than I imagined. The younger man dodged the make shift weapon, screamed, and thrust his arm my direction. The Carney turned and stared. Twenty-something cracked Carney's jaw just then. The Carney crumpled into himself and the shovel thunked on the ground. The kid retreated hopping and flipping his hand.

Must have hurt.

The crowd, who had hovered on the edges while the shovel swung, drew close, a growing murmur. I heard heavy boots pounding behind me. A county sheriff crashed past. His protruding elbow hit my shoulder and knocked me to the ground. My arms flew out and my bag flipped out of my hand. An angry ‘hey,’ stuck in my throat. I swallowed when I noticed the officer’s hand reaching to his holster and unsnapping the clasp.

The two fighting men were at it again, grunting, wrestling, pulling apart, panting. I surveyed the contents of my bag strewn about, moaned and brushed at the dirt and grass smudges on my slacks. I stood, shook my pants only to be knocked down by the next officer to run past.

What am I? Invisible?

Shouts. Commands. Escalating orders. I crouched, gathered my spiraled contents, rolled my feet under me and rose. The Carney stilled with his hands in the air. The young man lay on his chest. He held a dark... walkie-talkie? His hands shook. He pointed it my direction.

That’s odd.

I noted the flash of the camera and thought the noise that followed bizarre. A burning split me sharp as any migraine, creased my hip, and pitched me into a spin. My head jerked. My knees buckled. For a third time I thumped to the ground. Fireplay of flashes blinged. Pop. Pop. Pop. Dazed, I watched with curiosity a spurt of leaping blood. Whose is that? I reached for where my side stung. My hand felt sticky, warm.

I think…it’s…my blood.

I wobbled and attempted to stand. A shooting stab blinded my vision. I sank. My forehead hit something solid. Earth. I rolled on my back. Someone spoke. My eyes fluttered. Danny knelt beside me and stared all color drained from his cherubic cheeks, his hands reaching toward my arm. I was twenty pounds overweight and didn’t want him to figure that out when he pulled me up, so I pushed his groping paws away. I heard the cart before I saw it. A wheel of the stretcher came into view along with the paramedic’s boots. Someone behind him stumbled, the cart plowed into the paramedic, he fell into Danny, who thundered on top of me.

Ooof.

My head lolled to one side. I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed I'd be able to breath again. The pain was horrific. I struggled to refill my lungs and caught a glimpse of the great beyond past Danny's ear. Heaven? The blue of the sky steered into focus and wisps of clouds drifted. No, heaven would be a man in Danny's position, except it would feel good.

Our eyes locked. He stuttered, but I understood his sentence. “Why was the guy aiming at you?”

The paramedic’s hand twitched and grabbed my wrist.

“Get off,” I said to Danny, and I wasn’t polite. I heard the splash at the dock dogs pool, coughed and then the real pain started. I grimaced.

I'm going down in fair history as the director who took a bullet, if that's not a reason to quit, I don't know what is.

Danny fondled my hand. I wanted to pull away but lacked the strength. I wished I could have spit when he ran his fingers through my hair. “You're going to need to wash it again,” he said. “What is that fragrance?”

I started to speak, but another odor hit my olfactory, and a cold muzzle snorted over my cheek. “Dog shit.” I whispered, and passed out.

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Jake the alligator man and why my daughter has a new sweatshirt

There are the things that dreams are made of, and then there are the dark remnants that drift into our nightmares.

Consider Jake the Alligator Man. He fully intrigued me as a child, even captured my attention into young adulthood. I grappled with the facts of his leathery, dark hide looking for the stitch line that proved a human head had been attached to an alligator's body. I could never find the seam.

Perhaps, I believed he was real. Perhaps, that tainted the story as I spun the tale of the alligator man to my daughter and promised she would meet him.

"Some folks claim Jake the Alligator Man was a valet in a New Orleans whorehouse," I read from the complimentary brochure provided by Marsh's Free Museum. "Others claim to have seen him in carnivals, crawling around, nods of his head communicating yes or no."

My daughter grew astonished at the prospect of being face-to-face with Jake the Alligator Man.

She should have been sickened. I don't think even a mother could love his face...but she wasn't repulsed by JAKE.

Instead, she was disappointed in the way only a teenager can truly experience.

It's the one thing, the most important thing your mom neglects to explain which destroys all your hopes in life.

"I thought he would be ALIVE!" she roared when she finally saw him behind the glass case. She crossed her skinny little arms over her chest and stated, "You owe me." Her eyes narrowed in on me. "Buy me a hoody."

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The Tempest leaves town

Vacation Day One
I can be a pleasant person to vacation with. Really.

I’m just not a pleasant person to be around when trying to leave on vacation. I stomp and storm. Not pretty.

The tempest is the build up of stress, the need to flee work pressure, to escape constant deadlines, to shed the dozens who appear at my cube every ten minutes, or so, with questions, questions, questions. The patience it drains to consider each one, decide yes or no, and further, to explain the philosophy behind my responses—believing if they understand the why, they’ll be able to craft their own decisions, and the right ones, in the field—takes boundless energy.

Personal power piddled down to an unsteady drip of a leaky faucet. No energy. Except to, well, yell.

I was so horribly prepared for this week off my dear daughter did my packing. She started an hour before we left. That is quite possibly child labor in some homes, but in mine a gesture of love. Sweet love, someone loves me very much. I am grateful.

When I finally slid behind the wheel, all energy pumped out, forced out into cleaning and scouring so we wouldn’t come home to the same old mess, and seriously bled dry by not enough pre-planning, I was exhausted.

All I craved was a couch and a cover to crack. Hardbound, paperback, didn’t matter. I crated two dozen and threw them in the trunk. A partial tank of gas later, we arrived.

The next issue was the others who love me. The rest of the family. I heard them plainly as each mile passed between us and home. “No computer.” “Stop reading.” “Come with us.” But the physical hurdle to overcome crossed The Columbia.

A bridge. It's 6.545 miles long, merely 28 ft wide, and 196 ft at high tide. It's the longest continuous truss bridge in North America. We crossed it.

We arrived 10PM, hungry, everything closed except Chen's Chinese. We grabbed our take-out and dodged horses clopping on the sidewalk. Seriously. We are totally in the Wild West, which isn't a problem per se, it's the road apples that annoy.

At the condo, I turned on my computer. I grappled through a few pages of my book. I slipped into bed….

I think they call that sleep.

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For my daughter and all in love

Wishing you happy journeys, always, and not just in fiction.

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Saxophone lessons on life

It occurs to me occassionally, I should save my current manuscript-in-process on a jump drive. That thought flutters marginally prior to another fleeting butterfly, jump drive should be stored separate from laptop.

Loss of an expensive piece of equipment I could shrug off, in a teeth gnawing sort of way, but lose current manuscript? That would be cause for major eruption of emotion.

For the above reason, I sit in the cool, dimly lit interior of Ape Over Music while daughter receives her first saxophone lesson. Why saxophone? Good question. I have NO idea.

At age five I began piano lessons and continued through college. Somewhere in-between I took accordion lessons, and still love the blast of the bellows every few years or so, (whether anyone needs it or not). I tried to teach myself the recorder and the ukulele, and I’ll admit to picking up the guitar and the violin with intense longing, but no perseverance. My musical taste is quite eclectic. My talent is not.

Saxophone. Hm. Assembling fragments of ideas suggest my daughter was drawn to the saxophone because cute guys inhabit band. This idea scattered at the first concert. All the really cute guys are in the advanced class, including ‘The Magician,’ the blond boy everyone has a crush on, except my daughter.

I carefully download part one and part two of the current manuscript and store on the jump drive that's been bouncing around my laptop bag. I consider wearing the jump as jewelry, then pause and listen for the sound of the sax.

My daughter took piano lessons for a year and a half. No break. I usually took summers off. She wanted to keep going. Unfortunately, she hit the wall of burn-out, plunked the cover down on the piano keys, and took a year and a half off. Her desire to receive instruction from a different teacher has not met with success. I can’t find one!

Enter saxophone lessons. At first meeting the teacher, Mr. Gregorio, spent five minutes talking to me about the student who had just left, five more minutes on my kid’s school and their over emphasis on jazz. I blew out a breath and eyed my watch. A third of the lesson gone, I jostled check book, coffee and pen in an effort to move this forward. Check in hand, he showed no signs of slowing the chit chat, so I interjected a formal introduction to my daughter, and extracted myself to laptop-land.

I tap my fingers around the keyboard, piddle-play with words, moving sentence parts, piecing, re-threading. Five minutes before the predicted end of the lesson, I hear the sound of the sax. Hmm. I think we have a talker here. I hope we also have an avid listener.

My mother dropped me off for umpteen-thousand lessons. Shelled out cash for good teachers, one bad-smelling, but well dressed old lady, and a few exceptional professors who drove me toward muddy goals. First stop for me was to look pretty playing the piano, just like mom. Next stop: to play better than my sister. Third: to play better than anyone I knew. That worked well until higher education. Some of my co-keyboardists make a living at performing, composing and recording. They were tough competitors. (The First Carol waves at Michael and Jim).

The guys behind the counter serenade my keyboard tepid clicks with a mix-tape from a friend’s band. It wafts over gently tugging and pulling out feathers of feelings and mixed images.

Music-and-men. In my twenties, I chased many musical crushes and thankfully never landed one. Artists should be admired not married. I spent a long summer on the road as a singer in a group. That grueling experience insured I would never be lured by a career in the music entertainment industry. Not everyone is nice climbing a career. It’s not the glamour we fantasize. You can get really sick of restaurant food when that’s the only choice you have.

The coffee is not kicking in, and Moonrat’s challenge to write your @$$ off is drowned in reminiscing instead of productive effort. Sigh.

The lesson continued past the allotted half hour, sneaking up on the hour. Quality sound intermixed with sophomoric pulses burst past the less than sound-proof teaching rooms. Teacher and student emerged. Triumphant. Smiles. New plan.

“Your daughter will progress quickly,” Mr. Gregorio, predicts, and I notice his right eye waters and appears cloudy. “I’ll help her skip a year and advance to the next level.”

Ahhh, I comprehend. Skip forward and sit next to those cute guys in advanced band. So, that was the push for saxophone lessons.

It’s not always easy to be a parent, but sometimes it’s kinda fun, like playing a grand detective game, and I think I may have figured this one out.

So what's your gig: musician, misplacer of valuable assests, detective, or prying parent?

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First Friday is for Friends

Affinity to art and creative people is in my nature, so naturally, I was attracted to downtown Friday night and the effervescent First Friday Artwalk. The evening began at the Marketplace, the venue for the previously mentioned Mayoral campaign kick-off. The hub event, sponsored by Pacific Continental Bank, offered an array of finger foods and their beverages flowed freely. Veronica from the bank remembered me AND my name. Can you imagine I make an impression on people? Watch out world. And thank God there are still folks in it who believe part of customer service is connecting with something important, the customer’s name. I only mention that because it’s a sub-theme in the book, being a people person vs. a strictly numbers person. I get that yin-yang thing going whenever I can.

To make sure no one felt snubbed, I made the rounds clutching my plastic cup of Pinot Gris, checking in with all the celebrities who have previously met me. My performance was flawless except for that stumble when I called former mayor Bruce, ‘Dave.’ I was distracted glancing at the name tag of the president of the bank, and since he'd never met me, I introduced myself. Duly impressed by my friendly banter, he smiled, and I took license to chat with said president about how my daughter had met Bruce/Dave when she was investigating her own future, political career. As soon as they chuckled I was on my way. I am here to make people laugh first, promote myself second.

First Friday continued to jam to the creative vibe of indigenous artists and I moved eagerly from Evergreen Boulevard over to Main to haunt Angst Gallery and mix it up with the less connected non-old-boys-network. The un-suits, i.e., the casual bring-it-on-world spilled onto the street and became the welcoming committee for artist Christine Eagon.

At the front door I encountered fabric artist Eliza Lane (pictured left) and exchanged a quick hug. Woman (pictured right) I’d previously crossed paths with in Uptown Village. She had swirled a mural wall with fantasy images and a celebration ensued. Both artists continue to create their unique and exquisite work as a side job to the other parts of life.

Most of my correspondence with Eliza comes via Facebook and blogs. Cherry Bombastic makes me laugh out loud. Lord, laughing feels good. This up close and personal encounter in the real world was akin to walking out of the black and white movie of your life into the land of Oz.

Eliza and I met in grade school, our kids’ grade school. Her blond son had sufficient crush on my dark-haired daughter to create elementary curiosity, a need to check in with each other at regular intervals, a movie ‘date’ that Eliza chaperoned, and lots of proximity planning. If "The Magician" was going to be somewhere, Kai maneuvered her way there, too. He plans on becoming a chef, and I delighted at the opportunity to have someone in our sphere who could cook. At this point, though, Eliza and I have concluded what is of utmost interest in fourth grade loses luster in eighth. Both kids have other diversions at the moment.

Eliza happily announced her acceptance into the master’s program at Portland State University. I shouted “Oooo, Oooo, OOLIGAN!” at the news. Last year, Ooligan Press met me at the Willamette Writers conference and expressed interest in my first four chapters, since rewritten four thousand times, so that now they might be good, but I still have to smooth out that first chapter; damn this writing career. Although, nothing came of their inquiry—I neglected to enclose the obligatory SASE to receive their form rejection via post—I did not lost interest in their mission to publish local writers with a bent to highlighting the local area. I worked my way through some of their published books and am currently in love, and I mean deeply, down to the soul smitten, with writer Geronimo Tagatac. His use of language in his short story collection, The Weight of the Sun, actually made me swoon. For real.

The right words wielded in the right way can pierce you.

My next move is to determine how to cross paths with Tagatac so I can fly in his orbit and dig into his brain and see where those words come from. If anyone knows him, please pass on my passion to share a cup of coffee and a chat. I am totally harmless and can offer references to back that up.

At the door step of Angst Gallery, I was mid-stream divulging how I embarrassed myself in front of the chancellor of the local university during Congressman’s Mfume’s event (fodder for future celebrity post), only to discover, that the woman Eliza had been talking to when I ran up all exuberant to get that girl talk going, was related to said chancellor. Erin assured me her dad would have found my antics humorous. I gave her a sideways glance and tried to convince myself it was true.

Inside the gallery I gave Christine Eagon heartfelt greetings and congratulations on her successful show, checked in with gallery owner Leah. Leah met me in that same grade school, yes she is the mother of a BOY, my daughter is networked with half of them in the city. I invest a couple of hours on Saturdays to give Leah relief, banking on future ‘mom’ and ‘art’ credits, and to support a friend fierce about our community, our kids and the world they'll inherit. Before departing, I entered into a quick chat with a man, yeah, I still look, and hustled out to figure out next steps for my Friday evening.

This may not come as a surprise, but I am not shy, and whenever I observe someone who’s face is vaguely familiar I cannot rest until I put the pieces together. I struck up the song, “Where do I know you from?” with this young lady, Cara. We decided probably no-where, paths just crossed on previous gallery events. The Cara conversation led to introduction of this man, Christopher Luna, the poet and blogger.

Now, I would have bought his book when I first noticed it, my daughter is unusually oriented to poetry, but he uses a bad word and I am a mom with standards, however, that does not prevent me from finding people the most interesting thing on the planet.

Well, we were just all so utterly interesting and fascinating and jibbering like fully intelligent people, when all of a sudden Cara pulled out her microphone to record our nonsense for KOUG RADIO.

How does an unpublished author find such good fortune? Well, you work hard, you mix it up, and you get lucky, and you don’t forget to plug your blog for the podcast. I named 'pearlofcarol.blogspot.com' about three times, gathered up everyone’s business card and promised to bug them into infinity to become my fan on Facebook.

I am competively challenged, I MUST WIN. There is a New York Times best-selling author with 16 books to her name and only 195 Facebook fans. Currently, I have 77. Daily, I imagine the smug sensation when I best her.

Okay, and don’t get me started on my LinkedIN status. I finally threw myself into the fray and am clawing my way up to get over 546,800 network connections and beat KenB. Computer geeks have the most intensive networks. Oh, and by the way, thank you Dave, you shot me up 90,000 with your connection and I am grateful (film producers seem to have quite a following, too). And just in case you're wondering, pictures don’t lie, Cara was sufficiently impressed with my progress, she just had a rough time when I neglected to mention Koug Radio as a source when she asked where people should search for information about First Fridays.

My evening on the town ended in the park. Me and the transients snuggled on comfortable park benches. I dodged squirrels and leaves navigating towards laptop, and a couple of curious bugs to download event pictures to Facebook. I sat silent, basking in the glow of the beautiful city where I live and the great people who plan and promote creativity and looked sadly over to the building where I used to work… The $42 million structure stands empty, devoid of the necessary cash flow from our media business to pay the rent. We moved out end of year and continue to struggle in this volatile economy.

In that world, I am present, first, to lead a dedicated sales team fighting to make a dent in that debt, and second to leave them smiling when they’ve had a bad day, or at minimum to offer comfort, creative ideas on how to attack tomorrow, and shore up with praise, as I believe I work with the best individuals in the community.

We will make it through this year.

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