Jackson!

 I'm on the road. Three Mississippi towns. 4 schools and counting. Having a ball- but blogging isn't too easy.

Who needs to create a blogpost when you have friends doing it for you?
Here's a link to Leslie's blog about my adventures.  
CLICK HERE to go there!

Things I Love- so much!

How I love my friends! Especially the ones who just sent me this amazing gift.

It's an adorable satiny bag, large enough for my iPhone and a few other necessities. With a swingy little cord that fits around my wrist, if need be. And a cute black and white checked ribbon on the zipper. 

Oh, I adore everything about it. So I guess today's Things I Love would be Leslie and Barbara this bag they sent.

Sometimes I wonder what I did to deserve friends like this!

Here's the website info, from inside the bag. Click on that link to see all the neat things from Tory Nicole.

I see it's called a wristlet, which makes me love it all the more. It sounds like something Pooh would carry his honey jar in.

I hope every time I reach for my bag someone will ask me about it. I can tell them about my book and about my writer friends.

Oh, wow. I've been smiling all day.

Related posts: Life and Art
My Meme
Another Thing I Love

Another Thing I Love

Looking forward to a reunion of our original New Jersey critique group next week. We moved in different directions when one moved to MA, one to TX and I mostly to FL.

But I learned so much and have so many terrific memories from our weekly meetings. GLORY BE was born on those Wednesday mornings.

Our primary mover and shaker, Leslie Davis Guccione, will visit via travels from her tenure at Seton Hill's MFA residency. Can't wait to hear all she learned, all she taught,  AND hear more about the upcoming publication of her book.

This quote, made perfect by Leslie's gift, on a razor clam shell (Did I say she's very creative?!) is the thing I'm loving today:

"Whatever our theme in writing, it is old and tired. Whatever our place, it has been visited by the stranger, it will never be new again. It is only the vision that can be new, but that is enough.”  

~ Eudora Welty

And that's seaglass, collected from a visit to her Massachusetts beach. What a treasure- all three!

What's Nature Got to Do With It?

It's my turn this month over at my group blog: A Good Blog is Hard to Find.

Which, in this case, really isn't. Such talented Southern writers! Many of your favorites. Check them out.

Click right here for my take on using nature in your writing.

And here's a preview of my inspiration!

A Good Blog...

It's my turn over at the group blog I write for. Although we have assigned topics about writing, we don't always have to follow. This time up, I took the guidelines and fiddled a bit. Our fearless leader, Kathy Patrick (who's vying for a spot on Dancing With the Stars! An author spot!) suggested we blog about books that have inspired us, who our favorite authors might be, who is our author Best Friend.

I wrote about two writers. One from my earliest writing and editing days in Cleveland High School. By my senior year, Miss Effie Glassco had taught senior English at CHS, possibly since my dad had been in school there. We studied the textbook I would use in my freshman college English class (which I was able to slide through because of Mrs. Glassco!), and for our literature assignments, there was no looking at the book during discussions. Either you knew it or you were mortified. This was in the days of "tracking" and we were probably what would now be AP English, and I'd never studied so hard in my entire high school career. But wow, did I learn a lot.

My second Author Best Friend, from the post, is the person frequently on the other end of my HELP! emails and phone calls, Leslie Guccione. She's one of those mentors who believes in passing the goodness around, paying it forward.

If you click over to the Southern Writers blog, be sure to spend some time there. Kerry Madden wrote a recent post about her favorite book, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Don't miss it. You'll probably find some of your Author Best Friends there, waiting to be read!

Diner Food...

As we pack up and head south each year, it's always bittersweet. The New Jersey leaves turn a breathtaking bright orange, yellow, red, but the nip of fall in the air and the nights requiring extra blankets remind me how much I do not like winter in any way, shape or form. No snow. No slush. No ice.





Leaving food is another thing. And local color, when it comes to food, is almost as bittersweet as missing the fall leaves. I especially love a good New Jersey diner. (Here's a great book on New Jersey diners. The writer, Peter Genovese once spoke at our local historical society. Terrific topic.)

I'm quite fond of these shiny metal places to eat, even if the food is horrendously bad for me.


(Galaxy Diner, Butler, NJ on a beautiful summer afternoon)







The placemats are always worth keeping.
Master hypnotist,anyone?



Summit, NJ is a neighboring town where I've spent a lot of time. Worked there, wrote there, walked there, did a lot of eating there. But all this while, I never knew this story of the locally revered Summit Diner. Rumor/ urban legend has it that the Hemingway short story "The Killers" used the Diner as setting. A movie was made from the story. I've eaten at the Summit Diner a few times.

But a famous literary diner, in my very midst-
How did I not know this, Leslie, Ann, and Lee???



Related post: New Jersey in my Rear View Mirror

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers

Just last week, esteemed writing coach Leslie Guccione called me on a grammar thing. OK, not really incorrect grammar, but a stylistic error. She pointed out something that marked me as unsophisticated, in a writerly way. Me? No!

She didn't really say it that way, but I'd asked for her help and Leslie is nothing if not honest in her critiques. She was part of my original writing group, along with a small group of other fabulous writers. Recently, a few of us reconvened online and I'd submitted an essay for their consideration. In other words, I should have known better. I asked for it.

I'd committed a mistake the writers of SELF-EDITING FOR FICTION WRITERS: How to Edit Yourself Into Print address in Chapter 11 of the second edition of this book--Mistakes they claim show a lack of "Sophistication." And by the way, it's not just a book for fiction writers.

Here's what Leslie pointed out to me, chapter and verse:
"One easy way to make your writing seem more sophisticated is to avoid two stylistic constructions that are common to hack writers," namely:

Pulling off her gloves, she turned to face him.
and
As she pulled off her gloves, she turned to face him.

Nothing my fabulous high school English teachers would object to enough to bring out the red pencil. BUT both examples take a bit of the action and tuck it away into a dependent clause. According to Self-Editing, this makes some of the action seem unimportant.

You also need to beware the -ing and the as thing if it gives "rise to physical impossibilities."

While an occasional use won't wreck your writing, in a 700-word essay (such as what I asked Leslie to critique for me so of course it glared at her when I did that -ing thing...), too many of these constructions will soon jump right off your page. And not in a good way.

An oldie but a goodie, this book. Better yet, call it a classic. My copy was dusty and buried on the shelf, only occasionally opened since I first embarked on this writing thing ten years ago. I knew how to write back then, but Leslie and the rest of the critique group pushed me to improve. Books like SELF-EDITING FOR FICTION WRITERS showed me the way. Great book. I'll remember some of the fiction tips as I slog my way through early drafts of my new project.

(Note to self: when introducing new characters, include physical descriptions with concrete, idiomatic details. Chapter 2: Characterization and Exposition.)

Now back to work.

For related posts on craft, search Writing Tips in the search box, or click here or here.

Celebrate!

Today, the mail was worth walking to the mailbox for. Two surprises!

My magic bean from Joyce Sweeney. A very, very special honor. Yes, indeed, I am in good company! Thanks, Joyce, for everything. I will plant my bean on my bookshelf, next to my handmade book made by my friend Leslie, the shell with a Eudora Welty quote beautifully written on it (also from Leslie), and my birthday card with the picture of Elvis's Tupelo house. (No need to say who made that one!)

Here's my bean. Outside enjoying the fresh air and the Black-eyed Susans. Now safely on my collections shelf.




And then, a truly unique, perfect beyond words, congratulatory/ birthday gift from my college friend. I've consulted with Patty-- and a whole bunch of others-- on my story off and on for eight years. I've asked what it was like growing up in North Carolina during the 1960s. I reached out to my friend Beverly about being a true PK in small town Mississippi (that's Preacher's Kid, for the uninitiated). And more emails than they'd care to remember to my sister and brother-in-law about playing football in the South and other questions so arcane that they were un-googleable. Googliable? Unable to google.

So a big thanks to all of you out there at the other end of my questions.

And a huge thanks to Patty for this most appropriate gift. In more ways than are obvious, it made me smile with delight.

Yes, Home is certainly where my story began...

Life Imitating Art? Or at least the beauty and order of it?

"This is kind of like life. Life is all about balance. Then you just have to step back and take it all in."

Leslie Davis Guccione, on the occasion of rearranging my corner cupboard for the third time. A masterful job that we had stepped back to admire.

I'd removed some of the blue, left all of the silver on one shelf, had the creamer and sugar bowl off kilter. She fixed it.

Leslie also has an amazing ability to look at my writing this way.

It's good to have friends who can put your Stuff in perspective, isn't it?

I'm working very hard to learn to see better. No, I'm not getting new eyeglasses. But I've learned since I slid over from the very bookish world of a school library into the more creative side of my brain that I'm much too literal. It's hard work to see things in a different way. I know, I know, sometimes a rose is just a rose. But then there are those days when you need to think of "what if" over and over until just the perfect scene comes into your story. And that's when it pays to have an artist on the other end of your emails. And if she's an artist who also writes, all the better.

So I've been missing my friend Leslie Guccione's sage advice. Her ability to point her writing students in new directions and tell us what we're missing, where to look next for a character or a plot point. I've also been missing her funny, funny stories this week. Leslie's husband died of the most terrible disease, ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease. Joe and Leslie were a perfect couple, devoted, encouraging, loving to each other.

Yesterday as I walked on the beach, I remembered when they visited us and we laughed that Joe was bringing his foul weather gear to the Gulf of Mexico. Didn't he know that Florida in the early spring was nothing like the coast of Massachusetts, where his own boat was moored? Leslie and I rolled our eyes. But Joe had the last laugh. The day we ventured down the canals, Joe was the only one warm enough to enjoy the trip. The weather had turned and the wind was blowing. Nothing like New England. But nothing like Florida either.

I'd never seen beach glass until I visited their beach. Now I walk and hope I'll find a tiny specimen on our soft white sand. Yesterday I thought I had. Turned out to be just a clear-as-glass jingle shell. I picked it up anyway. I stared at it and thought about how it might fit into a story. How the perfect round shape might mean something more than just a shell found on a walk on the beach. I know Leslie would create a history of how many times it had been trampled upon, and by whom. It would be a funny story, characters who love each other but fight just the same, flawed, as characters should be, but so worth the telling.

Naming Names

Choosing names is a lot more fun than picking a title. Early on I learned from the best. My friend and critique buddy, Leslie Guccione, guided me as I wrote a mid-grade novel in my first critique group. At first the sisters were named Virginia and Alice Ann. Nope, kids might be confused by Virginia. Even though the story takes place in 1964 and Virginia was more popular then, we (my critique group) decided most kids nowadays think of Virginia as a state. Then Jesslyn popped into my head, and it was the perfect name for a bossy, big sister. Alice Ann was working just fine until I read a new book, set in approximately the same time, with a main character named--you guessed it-- Alice Ann! So Alice Ann became Gloriana, Glory for short. Great name changes. Both girls grew into their names and were better for it.

In my current manuscript, the character is a 12-year-old boy who longs to play the piano. His uncle forbids him to, but he manages to find a way around Uncle Chester's rules. He started out as Shelton. Don't ask. The name appeared to me. I began this manuscript in the amazing Writing for Children class at the New School, taught by Bunny Gabel. A Southerner like me, she understands how wonderfully unusual Southern names might be but she pointed out that, on the first page of the earliest version, she didn't have a clear idea of whether Shelton was male or female. It took me over a year to go back to the drawing board and find him a new name. This piano-playing character is now named Theo, short for Thelonious Monk Smith. Destiny!

I love names, collect them in my head and in notebooks and on pieces of paper tucked into boxes. Southerners seem particularly adept at names. Names like Squirrel (it's true!), double-named girls, Big Jack and Little Jack (my brother and dad). Play around with the USA DeepSouth website if you want to know everything there is to know about Southern names.


Perhaps choosing the perfect name for a character is my way of avoiding the perfect plot. I could create names forever, but without a problem to solve, thorny issues to get in the way, and an interesting backstory, it's just a group of kids and their grownups sitting on the porch under the ceiling fan.