Lines

I'm in crazy writer, editor, submit to magazines, be a mom, clean the house, listen to records, oh yeah I have to take a shower mode. So I'll just post some simple artwork and say I love you.

Curses to Cursive

Recently in the news there was a story about doing away with cursive. I guess the argument was that since we are all on computers, or texting, there is no longer a need for that form of writing to be taught. It's difficult to check for mistakes in cursive, and children these days do all their reports in word processing anyway.

Growing up, cursive was one of those coming-of-age events. I think it was around third grade that they really began to push it on us kids. I remember, because my handwriting, regular or cursive, has always been horrible and there was a lot of hard practice going of after third grade lunch hour. I always felt inadequate. But I despite that, I loved the elegance of writing letters all flowy and connected. It was so grown-up and almost like learning a foreign language. I do handwrite stories from time to time, and use cursive. I'd hate to see something so organic and real be tossed to the wind just because society thinks it is a worthless art.

How do you feel about this?

Friday nights, and how we talked

I just took Henry for a walk, and the temperature in the air, the sound of birds, I'm not sure, but a combination of things brought back memories of going to the lake with my friends on Friday nights. We had a claim on a secluded beach area, though mind you this is Kansas so instead of sand we had pebbles and mushy, slimy lake floor to squish our toes into. On a good night the water would be just the right temperature and you could swim forever in that fresh lake water. Sometimes we'd build a fire and sit and talk way past midnight.

There were a couple of times when we brought alcoholic beverages. Schnapps, wine, straight Jack. It had been a complicated operation: dress one of us up like an attorney fresh from work, skirt suit and all, hair pulled back, and heels, and go casually purchase it with money we'd all thrown in together. In the end, we'd had to ask some older boys to buy it for us.

I remember standing on the lake shore, it was night and the moon was out, the water lapped back and forth and I kept taking swigs. I liked the happy way I felt, because something in me was always tuned to sadness. My friends told me I was more fun after a few drinks. I was also more reckless. Half naked, I swam way out and just floated, eyes on the moon. One night we invited boys, and they got roaring drunk. One in particular was too skinny to hold his liquor. He barfed the whole drive home. It didn't take long for me to realize that getting drunk was temporary, and being sick took a whole day getting over. So believe me when I tell you, those days are over.

On another night, we had a fire going and were about to start the party when a strange car pulled outside the beach area and turned its lights off. We started to freak out and one of my friends broke a glass bottle to make a weapon. Nothing ever came of it, but I do remember thinking I was around a lot of riffraff, and what the heck was I doing out there in the middle of nowhere about to get in a fight?! Not my scene at all.

We used to have the best conversations. My friend Renee and I had similar thoughts on life, and we could go on talking forever. She thought I was a riot with my crazy antics and willingness to do just about anything to make someone laugh. She also was interested in how completely strange I was, how deep my feelings and thoughts ran on just about everything. We used to share Beatle fantasies, mine with John, and hers with Ringo—this, decades after they'd broken up. We liked to do things different. I had no desire to be like anyone else in this world, because I knew I wasn't. It's always better to invent yourself instead of trying to fit in. So, if I wanted to love a Beatle, why not?

Those days of lakes and campfires are gone. When you're there it feels as if life will never change, there will always be Fridays and lakes and talks until midnight. It's funny, but you still can smell the air of the lake, and hear the gentle ring of laughter, and feel warm water rushing through your toes.

The Money Exchange

When I was seven I stole some money that my brother had been saving to buy a boy's play set, a mountain with army men and tanks and all that. One night I heard my mother and brother talking about how he had almost saved enough, and I was right next to my mother's purse, and I could see the packet of money. It was right there, all this fortune that would never be mine because I was the youngest and couldn't mow the lawn to earn cash, or anything else handy like that. We earned a quarter or two every Saturday for helping to clean the house, but it was always spent on the ice cream man. It really burned me, that need, that desire to have some of his money. So I took a five-dollar bill from the packet and ran upstairs.

For a week or two I was a cursed child. That money had a hold on me; it taunted me, kept me awake at night, singed a place into my thigh through the very fabric of my jeans. As much as I had wanted it, I now was desperate to erase it from my life. I couldn't put it back because Mother had noticed it being gone from the packet, and to produce it would put immediate blame on me.

One day after school, we headed up to Main Street to Kuhn's old-time grocery store. Kuhn was getting on in his age; his freezer bins were full of half-defrosted chicken, his dry goods sometimes had worms. Near the front register was a bin full of stale penny candy: taffy, gum, jaw breakers and candy cigarettes. I thought about buying some of that candy--five dollars worth. That would get rid of the money, and I would have a lot of candy. For the longest time I squatted in front of that bin, deciding. Finally, after getting yelled at by my siblings, I decided against the plan and followed them to the register where they each bought candy with good, clean, guilt-free money. My stomach was so sour I couldn't have eaten anything anyway.

Mr. Kuhn had his eyes on me. Marshall and Cathy were already outside the store opening wrappers with a ravenous fervor, and I had lingered at the register. "Can I help you with somthin' little girl?"

In silence, I reached into my pocket and produced the five. I aked him if he could give me five ones in exchange. He gave me a strange look and said he could, opening the register too loud. He counted the money with a slow deliberance.

"One." Where did you get all this cash little girl?

"Two." I know your mother, she works just across the street.

"Three." Ain't I seen you around here, lookin' at all my candy like you might take some without buyin'?

"Four." You know what happens to kids that takes things that ain't theirs, dontcha?

"Five." But you couldn't be one of those kids. You just couldn't.

"There you go. Sure you don't want to buy somethin'?

I shook my head and ran out of the store.

Back home I found my sister's toy safe and, having gotten the combination from her in earlier times, opened the lock and shoved the money inside. Then I hid the safe under a bed and tried to resume what could have been such a happy life, but it wasn't happy anymore. Every second pulsed, every day crept by slowly.

One morning, just before heading off to school, my brother and sister began a witch hunt. They had found the safe, and the five ones inside. I ran to hide under the piano bench, and listened with a wild beating heart as they rambled through the house, yelling, "Oh whooooo could have taken this money? Someone who lives here, that's who. I wonder where they are? We'll find the little thief, we'll find her and wring her neck."

My ears were flooded with the sound of my own blood swooshing and swirling like river in a rainstorm. My chest was tight. I couldn't think, couldn't swallow. A hot blush colored my skin fire-red, and my hands were cold like a dead fish. I wanted them to find me, to get this over with. But I was so terribly frightened that they would find me, and then what? Shame, horrible shame. That I had been so greedy and so evil. That I had taken what was not mine. That I had had the guts to defy them, and God, and even my mother.

Finally the axe dropped and they were standing near the bench. I could see their feet, tapping with impatience. All of me shook, but I made myself stand to face them.

"Did you do this?"

"Yes. Yes, I did it. I took the money."

They both looked at each other in disbelief, because they hand't really thought I could do such a thing. My brother cocked his head, "I'm just curious, how did you change the five into five ones?"

I never answered. It was time to go to school anyway, and, perhaps I needed that secret. It was true, I had been a thief, but not a happy thief. Telling the tricks of that lifestyle would be gloating and all I wanted was to forget.

That night I ate dinner, and for the first time in weeks could actually taste the food. I slept and did not toss and turn the whole night through. I was cured--no more stealing, ever. No more lies or false living for me.

Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe

I used to frequent a little shop in a town just south of where I live called the Golden Nugget. It was located in an old building, you know, one of those old western fronts. I figured it used to be some old millinery shop or general store. Glass windows decorated the whole front entrance, with antiques displayed inside to tempt you in: 1920's dresses on yellowed mannequins, tricycles, paintings, buffet tables, a rocking horse.

Bells rang when I entered through the front door, and there was a smell of musty wood and dust. The floor creaked under my feet. The clerk would give a small, unenthusiastic wave as I stepped in, because she was too busy with a customer to give a proper hello or to care that I was touching the ancient Gibson all propped up next to a broken down amp.

There was a big front room with millions of nicknacks, and a cluster of small rooms for toys and special items in a hallway—I figured the rooms used to be closets of some sort. Then there was another large room in the back and a smaller one way at the end. After looking through all the nicknacks, I'd head to the middle room because that's where all the records were. I swear I found so many good LPs in that room. I could never figure out why anyone would want to get rid of them. For an hour I'd sit there flipping through the whole stack, and become ecstatic when something caught my attention. There was also a good selection of books and videos, but hardly ever anything worth my time.

The back room was for all the breakables. The dainty milk glass and handcrafted furniture; quilts, vases, artwork. I always felt so paranoid going back there, but it was worth the stress just to see all the items that I knew were fresh from someone's house out in the country.

The Golden Nugget is no longer around and I miss it so much. It was the perfect place to go and escape for awhile. You could go there and leave all tingly with the junk you'd found, go across the street and get an ice cream cone, maybe stop at the library or the park, and then head home. Today is one of those days where I need some Nugget therapy. Wish it were still open.

Plucking words

Notes I've been taking using editor suggestions.

Delete all chapter inserts

Delete paragraph tabs

Try to get rid of ellipses

Replace em dashes with --

Try to eliminate words like: Really, very, just

Most semi-colons could probably be commas

Try to find exclamation points and see if they can be periods instead

These things I can fix using 'find' in Mac pages, it's the other, more elusive issues that will be harder to self-learn. Things like run-on sentences. I have a problem with that. Someone once told me I had amazing flow, which was very nice of them to say. I guess it comes from being a songwriter and a musician. I like to make sentences roll along. But, I guess it's not always a beautiful thing.

Some people are pulling weeds from their gardens today. I am pulling verbal weeds : )

I've got the revision blues . . .

Well, here I am drawing blood, er . . . starting the first round of editor suggested revisions. The email came friday. Not so bad. I'm sure it's perfectly normal to have that many edits on each page, right? Heh, heh. No one just writes a book and has it sent straight to the pressing house. I'm not alone in this (shut up perfect people).

It is painful to see all that things I did wrong, and to hear about the things I should change. But the fact is I am very grateful for my editor. I am lucky, lucky, lucky, and even if I do cringe a little when I see something that I thought was so cute and stylistic being crossed out, I know it's all for the best. Someone who is actually good at this writing stuff has touched my manuscript. They touched and loved on it a little, and that's a fine thing.

But still . . . here's video showing how much fun this whole process is. Have a great Sunday.

Short Story Submissions

I wrote a story last week that has now become one of my favorites, so today I think I will do some research on submission letters. I've sent things out before, but I get so darn nervous with the whole submission process, editors, and all that. For lack of better words, my brain freaks out. If anyone has advice on these things, go ahead and lay it on me.

Also, I should be receiving notes from my editor any day now. I feel nervous about that, because it's almost like someone looking through your dirty laundry, isn't it? They are lookingfor weak areas, mistakes to be fixed. Shiver. Whatever she finds, I won't berate myself in shame, I'll just accept that we cannot always see flaws in our manuscripts, and thank heavens I have an editor to see what I couldn't see! Then, I'll work my butt off to do said changes (well, after procrastinating for half a day).

Yesterday I recorded another radio spot with my friend Marshall Rimann. It was a lot of fun! How cool is it to be allowed to go in a radio station and see all the inner workings of those folks? I love it. Completely cool experience!

Long time . . .

Summer has completely thrown me off track. Any change in schedule does that to me. But I'm getting to the point where I can carry around a notebook and pen and try to produce a short story or thoughts on something for the future. Switching between music and writing is kind of crazy as well. You wouldn't think there would be such a difference, but there is. I've really started to realize these last few years that being a musician means you possess somewhat of an ego. There's a certain level of confidence needed to call and get gigs, and then to go play gigs. Being a writer is about honing your craft and knowing that someday success will happen. There's a lot of grace in writing, I love it. And I love being a musician. But I need grace. I need serenity. I'm very self-destructive and can't dwell in something that asks me to pump myself up all the time, 'cause that's just not something I can do. So, yeah, it's crazy.

Anyway, you can see my dilemma, my twisted thought process, like catching clouds.

I forgot to say, there's a new kitten in the house. That's what has really messed-up my schedule. But in a good way, 'cause she's a sweet little adorable thing. Julia wanted to name her Grape.