It's How You Look At It

I wrote several haiku poems during a workshop at the recent convention I attended. Kind of fun to jot them down using a list of words given as prompts. I used them as my submission this week for my wac group. I asked them to tell me which one they liked best and any other suggestions.

Talk about feedback! I had lots of critiques on the five short poems. The one they liked best was the one that was kind of an afterthought and one I even hesitated to send.

Another one left me a bit surprised. I had written about gravestones in France, thinking of the military cemetery we'd visited several weeks ago. What I wrote ended up being understood in two different ways. The poem is below. The word prompt was gravestones.

gravestones in France
all weep tears of anguish
senseless deaths, futile war

I meant that the visitors to the graves wept the tears, but some who read it took it to be the gravestones weeping. When I looked at the poem again, I saw how easily it could have been interpreted that way. So, I need to be more careful about doing that again. On the other hand, isn't poetry rather self-interpretive anyway? Maybe it's OK for different people to see different things in the same few words.  You might also like to know that some thought the last line a bit too 'already done' and suggested rewriting it. So far, I haven't come up with anything to replace that line.

The haiku that they liked best is this one. The word prompt was feather.

feather floats softly
on gentle autumn breeze
bird flies, loss unknown

The suggestion was to remove floats and gentle as they, too, are overused, perhaps even cliched words. Here it is in the new form, and I can see that it is stronger.

feather floats
on autumn breeze
bird flies, loss unknown

My own favorite is this one. The word prompt was came.


trembling hand grasps cane
diamond ring circles finger
life's chain of love

What you write may not be the same thing that readers see.

Handle Disappointment With Class

Last night, K-State played Nebraska for the final time. For nearly a century, these two schools have battled it out on a one-hundred yard field. Admittedly, Nebraska has won the vast majority, but K-State has been on top a few times, too. Nebraska is leaving the Big 12 conference next year for the Big 10. So this final game was definitely a significant one. K-State was pumped up as were the fans. The stadium was filled to capacity and then over a hundred more. Anticipation kept our community on a high all week. Besides all that, it was our coach's birthday. The team planned to give him a special birthday present in beating the mighty Nebraska Cornhuskers.

We couldn't have asked for a better night for football. Perfect weather. But things didn't work out like we'd hoped. In fact, they didn't even come close. Nebraska, with its greater speed and extremely talented quarterback, managed to beat us soundly. An embarrassing 48-13 loss for the Wildcats. The fans were deeply disappointed, and I'm sure the team was, as well. I watched people as they filed silently out to the parking lot, passing the hordes of Nebraska fans cheering and jeering, but our fans handled their disappointment with class.

It's much the same when we writers get a rejection on our work. Submitting a piece of writing and then waiting a long time to hear from an editor opens us up for major disappointment. It's not so much anger as it is having our hopes dashed. When we read that message which tells us our work isn't right for whatever publication, we experience the gamut of reactions--disappointment, anger, frustration, depression. We might feel like kicking the nearest piece of furniture or throwing something at a wall, but what does that get you in the end? Not much other than a sore foot or a dirty, maybe dented, wall.

We need to learn to handle rejection with class every bit as much as those fans who grapple with a crushing game defeat. Sure, you'll still be disappointed, but pick yourself and move on to the next market. Don't ever stop submitting something you've written after one rejection. It may not have been a fit for the first one, but it could be for the fourth or fifth. Before you submit again, go for a long walk and do some thinking about what you wrote. Was it your best effort? Is there a way it can be made better? Go home and read it with fresh eyes and then find your next market.

The Attic of Your Mind

The convention workshop on memoir writing brought a couple of memorable quotes for me. One I wrote about earlier was that we write memoir to taste life twice. The other statement by Carolyn Hall, the woman who presented the workshop is a good one, too. She said, "Go into the attic of your mind...."

What a vivid image going into the attic of our mind brings. I grew up in a third floor city apartment, and we had no attic. The only thing above us was a flat tar roof that sizzled on summer days. But I had the good fortune to spend a full summer with a great-aunt and uncle in southwestern Minnesota. Uncle Charlie farmed, and they lived in an old two story house. The outside was white, trimmed in black, Victorian looking. I loved that house mostly because of my Aunt Jane who was queen of the realm. The guest bedroom was on the main floor and the other bedrooms upstairs, reached by a narrow, steep staircase. There was a door at the bottom of the staircase that opened into the kitchen. At the top of the stairs, another door to the right led the way to the attic.

Aunt Jane took me with her one day to find something stored away in the attic. She opened the door and we walked up a short staircase into a huge room with sloping ceiling.It smelled a bit musty. Old trunks, boxes, a dressmaker dummy, a child's rocking horse and other things were neatly placed. A small window let in a bit of light and exposed dust motes dancing in the sunlight. A bare bulb hanging from the ceiling added more light. I followed Aunt Jane as she rummaged around in one trunk after another, mumbling as she did so. I don't remember what it was she searched for that day, but I do remember wishing I could spend time looking through the trunks all by myself. I envisioned a full, rainy day in the attic. My plan was squashed flat as we descended the stairs to the bedroom hallway. As she closed the door, my great-aunt said, "Don't ever go in there unless I'm with you." And from the steely glint in her blue eyes, I knew she meant it.

But now, all these years later, I can reach into the attic of my mind and find many treasures. The stuff stories are made of. Take some time and visit the attic of your mind and see what surfaces. It's yours to explore anytime you desire.

A Surprise Package

I went out to get our mail yesterday afternoon, irritated because it usually comes around 4, and the mail truck didn't pull up to our curb until after 5:30. Mail in hand, I picked up the evening newspaper from the drive and headed back to the house. I noticed a box sitting right next to the front door and wondered how I'd missed seeing it as I'd gone by. Obviously, I was a woman on a mission--the mail!

Simon and Schuster had been stamped on the side of the box, and I knew immediately what it contained. My ten copies of the brand new Chicken Soup for the Soul:  Christmas Magic book. The book of 101 Christmas stories is to be officially released next week on October 12th.

I hurried inside, dropped mail and paper and went back to retrieve the package. I opened it and smiled. The books were all snuggled together under some wrapping paper filler. I was delighted with the cover. It's eye-catching and appeals to our hearts that hold a special corner all for Christmas.

I leafed through the book and saw titles that sounded great, and then I flipped the pages of the book itself. Each section has a lovely piece of artowork to separate it from the preceding section. There are even small sketch-type illustrations with some of the stories. There's no doubt that Chicken Soup publishers have not used the same old, same old with every book. They keep adding small improvements as they go along which can only be appealing to the readers. 

Next, I searched for my story, "My Special Christmas Doll" and found it on page 40. It's a story about a doll Santa brought me the Christmas I was six. I saved it and passed it on to my daughter, and now she has done the same. My granddaughter, Jordan, has Katherine in her room. The doll is a bit worse for wear, but to me, she's every bit as beautiful as the day I received her. In a publisher's note near the back of the book, it was stated that there were 6,000 submissions for this book. 101 were selected, which made me feel mighty good.

Look for the new Christmas book beginning next week.

A Second Helping

During the convention I attended this past week-end, something one of the workshop presenters said has stayed with me. It keeps popping up in my mind at the oddest times. It must mean it's saying something special to me. Why else would it come to me while I'm unloading the dishwasher or emptying the trash?

The workshop dealt with writing memoir, and even though there was a lot of good material presented, the one thing that I remember the most is this. Writing memoir is like tasting life twice. We, who write memoir, have the great good fortune to relive the important things in our lives through the written word. Surely, they are important parts of our lives, or we would not remember them so clearly. Something about the event impressed us so much that it stays in our mind until we reach in and pull it out again.

It might be a pleasurable happening or could be a tragedy we experienced. Either way, writing about it allows us to re-examine that part of our life and perhaps see it from a different perspective after many years have rolled by. If it's a happy moment that we experienced, we get to experience that euphoria once again. If it's a sad time, maybe we taste it again with new understanding. Maybe we can finally realize what it did to us as a person.

Tasting life a second time through memoir brings benefit to both the writer and the reader. During the award ceremony at the convention, the contest manager mentioned that Memoir was the category with the greatest number of entries. He also said that, if you placed in that category, you should feel very satisfied as it was the most competitive.

I received an Honorable Mention for my story "Grandma, Raspberries and Cream" which allowed me to go back and taste an experience with my grandmother and grandfather again. It was not a happy time, as Grandpa was dying of cancer and had asked to see me, a child of nine. He lived in a boarding house and my grandmother had come to nurse him in his final days. They had been separated for many years, but she never hesitated to come when he needed her. I traveled alone on a train to spend a few days with them. There was so much at the time that I didn't understand, but I found that writing about it all these years later made many things more clear.

Try writing a slice of your past life. Enjoy your second helping.

Convention Report

The Kansas Authors State Convention offered many good workshops and panel discussions. Enough to inspire me to want to hurry home and write! And that's one of the real reasons to attend conferences and conventions with other writers. Another is to be able to talk with other writers and see what they've been doing with their work. 

Those who have published books had copies to sell in the Book Room, and it was most interesting to browse there among the many different types of books. Everything from poetry books to recipe books with a whole lot of in-between.

Nancy Pickard, award-winning mystery author, was the keynote speaker after the Saturday night banquet. She spoke about her writing career, the eighteen novels she's had published and ended with some encouraging words to the many writers in the room. Nancy lives in Kansas City and her last two novels have been set in Kansas, as will the next two. It amazed me that she has the next two already planned. 

Sunday, I left the awards luncheon a happy woman. I'd entered my work in eight categories and four placed in the state contest. The entries had to be in by June 18th so it had been a long wait to see if I had any winners. The rule states that they cannot be published prior to the convention time, so it's also a long wait to hold up new work before submitting it to publishers. I won two Honorable Mentions, a second and a first place. 

Now, I have to decide where to submit each of those winners. If any of your work has won an award, be sure to state that in the cover letter you send with your submission. It just might make an editor look a bit more carefully at the submission. And do send your work to contests. You can't win unless you do!

October Musings

Happy First Day of October. I'm leaving in minutes to attend the Kansas Authors State Convention. I'll have a report on the meeting on Monday. But since today is the first day of a new month, I'm posting a memoir piece I once wrote about October during my growing-up years in Chicago.

October Musings In the 1940’s October skies often smelled of newly-raked leaves burning by curbsides. My family lived in a big apartment building in suburban Chicago surrounded with more concrete than grass or trees. But when I walked home from school, I’d pass single-family homes where piles of smoldering leaves left a pungent odor that tickled my nose. Or I’d see kids rake leaves into huge piles, toss the rakes aside, and take a flying leap into the center, shrieking with glee. It looked like fun, but I never got to try it. Every October, our grade school scout troop journeyed to a local forest preserve,   hidden away from city sights and sounds. It seemed like someone gathered a piece of forest, rolled it up, and brought it to the city In this setting, we enjoyed the same things as country kids. We hiked through the woods, identified trees and plants, and heeded warnings to watch out for poison ivy. We gathered around a crackling fire to roast hot dogs and marshmallows on the end of a stick. Every Girl Scout learned how to prepare S’Mores with graham crackers, chocolate bars, and fire-blackened, gooey marshmallows. Squash the chocolate and marshmallow between two graham crackers, and you have a real treat. We made full meals on grills, too. My favorite main dish was Bags Of Gold--a big pot of canned tomato soup, and dumplings made with a square of Velveeta cheese in the center. That creamy soup and the soft pillow-like dumplings with their golden center ranks as my favorite outdoor meal.   October also meant Halloween parties where bobbing for apples proved the most popular activity. I really hated that game. My long hair, curly and auburn red, always managed to get wet before I captured an apple between my teeth from the tub of water. I’m sure there were other games played, but those miserable little apples floating merrily around the tub have stayed in my mind as one of the memories better pushed into the deep recesses of my brain. School art classes concentrated on leaves and pumpkins, witches and black cats. Our teacher read scary stories, and we planned Halloween parties. On Halloween Day, the entire school lined up wearing costumes, most of them created from things we had at home. Only a few bought a costume. Mothers watched as we marched around the outside of the school. Back in our classrooms, we played games, including that awful bobbing for apples, and then had frosted sugar cookie pumpkins, apple cider and a nut cup filled with candy corn and peanuts. As soon as darkness descended Halloween night, we went in groups to Trick or Treat, younger siblings tagging along. We visited all fifty-two units in our building, climbing three flights of stairs in each vestibule. Great exercise, but we only looked at it as a means to get candy. Mother put our haul in a big bowl and allowed us only a piece or two each day.   October in Chicago brought frosty mornings and chilly evenings, but often pleasant afternoons with occasional cold, rainy days. It was time to bring out the flannel pajamas, sweaters and jackets. October brought a blaze of color that soothed the soul, but as the leaves dropped and swirled in the winds, we knew winter waited just around the corner.