Life Goes On...

Yes, Virginia, there is life after NaNoWriMo. I proved in 2005, 2006, and 2007 that I could write a 50,000-word novel in one month. I'm very proud that I completed the challenge in those years. This year, however, I had broken several of my previous rules -- I told people that I was doing NaNoWriMo and even what my story was about, I didn't wear a silly hat, and I let the goal overtake the fun of the writing -- and that spelled disaster.

Am I sad that I didn't reach 50,000 words? You betcha. But, I am glad that I reached 22,093 words. That told me a great deal about what I was missing in the process. I was missing a central situation that was compelling enough to carry me through to the target word count. I was missing a sketch of the story to help carry me along. A mere line or two would have helped.

By mid-month, I knew I was in trouble. Then, when it became clear that I wasn't willing to give up my entire life to make the target, I gave up the challenge and I forgave myself.

That's a good thing.

But, I'm not going to give up. I'm reading Stephen King's "On Writing," searching out online resources about revising a manuscript (www.hollylisle.com has some interesting things to say on the subject), and getting energy up for restarting the fiction-writing habit, especially with the upcoming holiday.

When you get thrown from a horse, it's good to get back up and start riding again.

NaNoWriMo2008

I've been slogging through my fourth novel, wondering what's going to happen next and how I'm going to complete 50,000 words by Nov. 30. I'm not that far off target right now, but I'm still not where I should be.

It's not easy being a month-long novelist. There's persistence, creative problem solving, forgetting/ignoring the daily pressures of life, giving up watching TV in prime time, and self-trickery/bribery involved (no candy until you finish 1,667 words!). All in my spare time, the little that I have of it.

I'm savvy now to my writing ways, though. That's part of the problem. I've always been a seat-of-the-pants fiction writer. I start out not knowing ANYTHING significant about the novel except the first line. It doesn't always stay the first line, but it always starts there. Some years I've had vague, random situations and images floating in my brain in the days before.

I couldn't catch them easily. They were like shadows passing in the night. Some years, I had a great opening situation and the characters took off improvising their lines and actions in a wild romp.

The first year was the easiest, I think, to quote my wise niece Nico, because I didn't know I didn't know. I didn't know that I didn't know what I was doing. I just did it! I didn't know what I was doing, what to expect, and the sky was the limit. Since then, I've come to think that I know a little something about crafting a work of fiction. Oooohhhh... that was dangerous. Now I have expectations that my first draft won't be crap.

But all first drafts are crap, to paraphrase Hemingway.

So here's the situation: I've crafted 17,550 words so far....and until this morning, I didn't know what the heck was going on. I had vague notions. My two main characters were running around the desert, young girls who should have been back home spending their summer vacation bored and complaining like most self-respecting pre-pubescents. But, no, my characters had to go flying off in a magic carpet for adventure.

As the word count grew, I was throwing all sorts of trouble their way -- mysterious assailants, losing their valuables, running away from danger, buying a donkey that they couldn't take back home with them -- but they weren't growing, the tension wasn't building, and, frankly, I didn't know how I was going to pull 50,000 words out of them.

But now, this morning, I thought, I'd better sit down and figure out, even if it's still vague, some sort of plot arch. What are they doing so far from home? Why did matter that they were there, now? So what started out as a fantasy novel has turned, I think, into a geopolitical thriller involving magic carpets that can travel through time and space, family secrets, a bloodless coup d'etat in a major Middle Eastern country, spies, and poor judgment by a 12-year-old who just might end up changing the course of history.

Who'd have thunk it?

Between Keys

Another longtime friend, Suzé DiPietro, has published her second novel as well! (These literati are coming out of the woodwork these days! See the next post.)

This rock 'n rollers-meet-vampires romp, entitled, Between Keys, is available on Barnes and Noble's Web site.

I'm so proud of her, as well. I have the added pleasure of having been there when the plot was just an intriguing idea to talk about as we walked along the Ocean City beach lo those many years ago.

Sticky Wicket Vol. 2: Watkins Fights Back

I'm very proud of my longtime friend and former editor, Ewart Rouse, for publishing his second very funny book about cricket and the cast of South Jersey fellows who are obsessed with the sport. Read a review in his former newspaper, the Inquirer.

To pick up your own copy, go to this page on Amazon.com, but be sure to read "Sticky Wicket Vol. 1: Watkins at Bat" first!

John and the boys...

Feeding Creativity

Read more here:

NYT: "Can you become a Creature of New Habits?"

More to come...

Northern California, September 2004

This morning I was remembering our great trip to California in 2004 and dug out these old journal entries. Enjoy!

"Don't worry -- I break for emus," I call out from the car as we ride slowly, verrrrryy slowly, down the gravel drive to the Alpicella Vineyard.

Betsy is doing her best to shoo Edwina, their newest emu, out of the way so I can park. Betsy motions the bird to my left and my car to the right, but Edwina bolts to the right.

I'm laughing so hard that I go a little faster than the bird expects, and it spooks her. She rounds on the hood of the car and I have visions of speckled emu feathers flying through the air to land, slow motion, on the gravel driveway, another victim of modern man.

I stop. Just in case.

Betsy finally coaxes the bird toward her and I quickly park. John and I are out of the car in seconds, and words are spilling out. I'm talking to Dan about the emu and he's apologizing ("She's new and got out of the pen. We don't usually let the animals run around.") and John is getting the lowdown on the emu from Betsy ("She's new. Our other emu was killed by a mountain lion earlier this year. They hunted the animal down and killed her, but I think there are still two not-quite-grown cubs out there.").

Alpicella Vineyard, 1,500 feet above Santa Rosa in Sonoma County, California. The sign at the entrance says "The End of the World 500 feet" and when you arrive and see the two emus, the two llamas, the two miniature Italian donkeys, the deck overlooking the valley, the wine cellar where Dan ferments his wine, and the pool that Betsy says you can skinny dip in, it is true. You are the end of the earth. And it feels really nice.

There is just one cottage available for rent on the property and we're the lucky residents for the three-day weekend. Betsy shows us around the place -- the deck, the pool, the grape orchard down below, and the cottage. The cottage is an appendage to the main house, but completely separate. The Tuscan kitchen with its terra cotta tiles transports you overseas and, looking out the back window at the mountain rising above you, you know why the Italians settled Napa and Sonoma to grow grapes.

A complimentary bottle of organic 1998 Alterra Sangiovese wine is waiting for us in the kitchen and the light is getting just right. Time for sunset and Sangiovese on the pool deck.

We capture the sunset in dozens of photos before we finish a hunk of cheese and one glass each.

It's heaven. Wine with the reddening horizon and a crescent moon shining like a slivered pearl descending into the west.

How could anyone think of living any other way?

* * *

The next morning, we have a leisurely breakfast on the back porch of our cottage. Grapes grow next to the railing. Tiny black fruits are shriveling down to raisins on the vine. Then, it was off to the grape harvest. Goal: two tons, with the help of four expert pickers, along with Dan, Betsy, and their friend David.

The workers use a sharp curved knife and economy of motion to fill yellow tub after yellow tub with rich blue-purple grapes. In the time Betsy takes to fill one tub, the workers have moved up and down both sides of an entire row. The workers, only one of whom speaks English, work in pairs. The first would move ahead fast, pulling off leaves that hid the grapes and giving the other worker a clear view of the dozens of grapes hanging down. After a few yards, the first worker doubles back and begins cutting bunches off the vines.

As they work, the leave two lines of leaves and, every few yards, a tub of grapes.

Betsy hands John a bunch to taste. I don't know how many he's had, but he wants to try his own hand at cutting the grapes, so he hands the small bunch of grapes to me. Each grape tastes sweeter and richer than any I have ever tasted. Sangiovese grapes aren't the usual supermarket fare. I spit out the seeds as I go and instead of taking picture after picture, I watch the grape pickers. They ignore me, as they should. I'm just a tourist -- they are there to work.

Two hours, two tons. "We only have 15 minutes left," Dan calls out. "Betsy, you'll have to help."

We leave them to their work, walking back up the hill. Their work that day will yield 400 gallons of wine.

* * *

The stampede starts around sunset.

Cuca, a miniature Italian donkey, is full of energy, just like any youngster.

John and I have our wine glasses and cameras at the ready.

There are six members of the ranch herd: Eddie and Edwina Emu, Bahama Llama and Rama Llama, and the donkeys, Momma and Cuca.

Cuca just can't settle down. He runs at his mother and she ignores him. Perhaps she's been worn out by his boundless energy all day.

The llamas and emus are another story.

Cuca runs at them and they bolt, thundering hooves and bird feet hammering the dry soil. They run yards and yards to the right, rounding the edge of the house, which is perched on the side of a hill. There are fences to keep them confined near the house and hopefully to keep more mountain lions out. The sounds fade and we have a moment's respite to sip our wine.

Then the thundering starts again.

This time, Cuca is dashing back towards us, emus and llamas following close behind. I track the donkey's progress with my camera lens as they pass. Got it.

They reach the next fence to the far left and the ritual repeats.

"They do this every night," Betsy tells me.

The sun fades. We relax and enjoy the spectacular view. The animals eventually tire and quiet settles over the vineyard.

Ezra and Soren in Sycamore Park

Past, Present, Future

In January, my mother's high school friend Hannah mailed me photos from more than 50 years ago.

In a 2-inch by 2-inch black and white photo, standing on the beach in Wildwood Crest, N.J., was my father, Mauro, tanned and healthy in his 30s, alongside my blond mother, Jeanette, in her mid-20s. There is no ring on my mother's left hand, so it must have been before they were married in 1957.

"Your mom was so beautiful and your dad so handsome," Aunt Hannah told me when I called to thank her for the pictures. She's not my genetic aunt, but she and my mother were once so close they were like sisters.

Mom's been gone for five years now. My father died of cancer in 1971 when I was 10. In the 1960s, we had a happy, energy-filled household. I was the eldest of five. My sister and I formed a duo, with myself insisting on playing the heroine in every fairy tale, while my three brothers -- including twins -- formed their own boys' club of rough and tumble fun.

My mother was an artist and my father an attorney -- the ultimate yin and yang. They kept the family going while my father went through chemotherapy and my mother wondered what the future held. Now that both are gone, me and my siblings live on memories. If we don't share them or write them down, those memories will be gone.

Luckily, something deep inside of us remembers many things.

Last year, I scraped the inside of my cheeks to send my DNA to the National Geographic Society's Genographic Project to find out things that are hidden deeply inside my cells that even my mother, who gave them to me, never knew about.

Watching the National Geographic/PBS production called The Journey of Man, I was fascinated that geneticists can trace the entire human ancestry back to its distant past, just by noting the mutations along the double helix strand of deoxyribonucleic acids or DNA. The DNA compounds have their own natural match -- A (adenine) links to T (thymine) and C (cytosine) goes with G (guanine) -- like yin and yang, light and dark, positive and negative, male and female -- to make a whole.

My test would only reveal my mother's genetic line through my mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), tracing back through time to the original woman in Africa, the genetic Eve, whose pattern of A/T and C/G markers have been preserved through the millennia from mother to daughter. One of my brothers would have do the test to trace our father's genetic line because only they have inherited his y-chromosome.

A few weeks after sending in my sample, I typed my ID number into the Genographic project Web site.

The window that opened showed a world map and a diverging series of paths moving from East Africa northward and eastward until finally heading westward into Europe. My "Certificate of mtDNA Testing" also included these words: "Maura belongs to Haplogroup H."

The journey my ancestors, Haplogroup H, took over time is astounding. Some 150,000 years ago, my maternal predecessors were in East Africa. Each woman in successive generations went with her tribe into the Near East, probably following game, favorable weather, and survival. About 15,000 years ago, humans re-colonized Europe after the glaciers retreated from the last major ice age. Today, my mother's genetic line is shared with some 40 to 60 percent of all females of European descent. My great-grandmother made the greatest migration of all when she traveled from Ukraine to Pennsylvania before the turn of the last century.

In her last days, my mother talked about her destiny that she didn't seem afraid of. "Don't be maudlin when I'm gone," she commanded, lying in her hospital bed and soothed by the morphine drip. I was grateful that the opiate let her talk with us in those final days. I promised I wouldn't be maudlin. But I would try to remember.

"There is no antidote against the opium of time," said Sir Thomas Browne, the 17th century scientist/philosopher who famously tried to measure the spirit by weighing a chicken before and after death. "But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity."

With my poor memory and Sir Thomas's warning, what am I to do? I can't forget that my mother and father once stood smiling on the beach. I can't forget how proud my mother was of all of her creative children: an engineer, a toy designer, a model-maker, a film/video special effects editor, and, myself, a writer, who makes her living putting other people's memories and thoughts to paper (and maybe a few of her own) and scrapes her own DNA to learn some of the distant details of our family's history.

I may forget little things -- like my lunch last Friday -- but my DNA remembers the big things. How far my ancestors have journeyed. Why I have brown hair, brown eyes, and pale skin like my maternal grandmother. Why Danielle is blond like my mother. Why Stephen has dark hair, dark eyes, and olive skin like my father. Why the twins, David and Richard, have light brown hair but my mother's hazel eyes.

Today, Mauro and Jeanette's genes are carried down to seven grandchildren -- four boys and three girls. What we do and say may not be remembered forever, but we will be remembered through our DNA. It's our past, present, and future.

Time and Again

Earlier this week I was rejoicing -- the sun had returned to my morning routine. Although I was still awakening before the alarm, I was greeted by the first beams of sunrise, which brought me joy and energy.

Looks like I can kiss that feeling goodbye for another month at least.

In 2005, Congress approved a change in the start and ending date of Daylight Savings Time. It went into effect last March. And again early this morning.

Last year, I felt it instantly on Monday morning. Gone was the thin light outside my window at 6 a.m. Gone was the sunshine lighting up the landscape as I drove to work. Gone was the jolt of happiness that allowed me to say, spring is almost here.

We're in mid-winter light again, dang it.

I need the sun. I don't see so much of it during the day. I sit desk- and phone-bound to get my work done and some days I venture into the sunlight only when I'm heading to lunch or on an errand. My office is cave-like during the afternoon because I have to pull the shades down on my west-facing windows to see my computer without glare.

I really need the morning sun.

I guess my body never got the message that Congress has the power to mess with the clock too early in the year. Or that lobbyists can too: The Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association and the National Association of Convenience Stores successfully lobbied for the 2007 extension to U.S. DST.

Here's the Wikipedia explanation behind it:

Economic effects

Retailers, sporting goods makers, and other businesses benefit from extra afternoon sunlight, as it induces customers to shop and to participate in outdoor afternoon sports.^[32] For example, in 1984 Fortune magazine estimated that a seven-week extension of DST would yield an additional $30 million for 7-Eleven stores, and the National Golf Foundation estimated the extension would increase golf industry revenues $200 million to $300 million.^[33] Conversely, DST can adversely affect farmers and others whose hours are set by the sun.^[3] For example, grain harvesting is best done after dew evaporates, so when field hands arrive and leave earlier in summer their labor is less valuable.^[34] DST also hurts prime-time broadcast ratings^[4] and drive-in and other theaters.^[35]

Clock shifts correlate with decreased economic efficiency. In 2000 the daylight-saving effect implied an estimated one-day loss of $31 billion on U.S. stock exchanges.^[36] Clock shifts and DST rule changes have a direct economic cost, since they entail extra work to support remote meetings, computer applications and the like. For example, a 2007 North American rule change cost an estimated $500 million to $1 billion.[37]

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time#_note-Beam)

Good grief! Convenience stores add $30 million to their coffers, Golf Clubs get $200 to $300 million, but the overall North American economic impact was a cost of $500 million to $1 billion, not to mention the $31 billion loss on the U.S. stock exchanges? Who is watching our national bankbook? People who can't do basic math?

I'll have to slog through a day or two before I reset my internal body clock to wake up at my normal time. I will have to struggle and suffer to pull myself out of bed so I don't get to work late. I will adjust, slowly, but I won't be happy and those around me won't be either. They'll be grumpy and groggy too, so productivity will plummet. Some economic benefit, huh?

Well, I guess I can look at the bright side that convenience stores are reaping the benefits. Someone has to, since 300 million U.S. citizens aren't.