M is for Marathon . . .

I'm waiting for news:
Will another plane fall from the sky?
Here and not over there
in some sunburned, far-off land
where people speak an
entirely different language
of violence.

We endure this new commonplace.
What began with innocence,
an annual challenge,
now neighbors watch neighbor;
we notice with a sharp sense of readiness
when a package is left, abandoned,
and our police and firemen walk
once again into the smoke left by bombs.
We have entered the 
age of the marathon,
no longer does the race twist 
on subterfuge,
a dropped golden apple. 
Instead we light candles to remember the dead
and tell each other: Never again.

When we traveled in Italy recently, we were told not to eat at MacDonald's -- not for the food; the restaurant was a target for terrorists. So, of course, we ate there when we would rather be eating pasta, but we ate there to make a point. That terrorists or the threat of terrorism would not change what we could do.Throughout that short meal, I kept wondering what our families would think if that day had been chosen for an attack. In London, so many bomb threats have been made at Harrods, the famous department store, that people routinely file out at the sound of sirens. Now we have Boston to remember, and I wonder again what changes are ahead.

Read what others have written to celebrate April, National Poetry Month:
NaPoWriMo at http://www.napowrimo.net/participants-sites/
A-Z Challenge at http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com

I is for Indecently Blonde . . .

Blame the Romans. Cowed 
by Celtic women's indecent strength, 
their innards curled to ice; they required
prostitutes to wear blonde wigs 
near two millenia ago. 
Roman women rejoiced
when the Celts were ousted;
insults ended imitation.

Yet we women still color our hair.
In my twenties, I favored Hollywood blonde,
like my Swedish mother,  
and applied for work at a bank. 
The men swarmed out of their offices
on invented errands; I was hired
and then ignored as ash blonde
tangled with illicit brown roots.
Now I would not change a single
gray hair; I've earned them all.

Marion Henry (1941)
My mother, a Hollywood starlet

Today's poetry prompt (Day 10 and the letter "I") came from a visit to 2nd Look Books here in Spokane. Michael showed me a page from Terry Jones' Barbarians which retold how the Romans admired and feared Celtic, Germanic and Viking women for their strength, their fearsome pale beauty, and their furious tempers. Luckily I inherited none of these traits, but I was intrigued by what causes women particularly to assume a mask of protective coloring, something I once did. 

To celebrate National Poetry Month, read what others have written:
NaPoWriMo at http://www.napowrimo.net/participants-sites/
A-Z Challenge at http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/p/2012-to-z-challenge-sign-up-list.html
A Round of Words in 80 Days at http://aroundofwordsin80days.wordpress.com/

H is for hiatus . . .

Hiatus -- that moment between
endings and beginnings,
winter to spring.

Last night the weatherman,
his eyebrows wiggling,
predicted a 'late snow'.
This morning, I see clear sky,
and spring green grass.
White cherry blossoms line up
like popcorn strung
along bare branches.
I pause,
yet between words,
a natural fissure in this day,
content to balance what was
with what will be.

To read what others have written:
NaPoWriMo at http://www.napowrimo.net/participants-sites/
A-Z Challenge at http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/p/2012-to-z-challenge-sign-up-list.html

How would you define 'hiatus'? What happens 'between' that is important to you?

On the way to Mount Lemon, Tucson (Camp 2013)

B is for Blur . . .

"Blur"

You could not see his face
for you met on the internet.
His words drew you in,
until you were nearly lost in love,
words tumbling between you.
He lived somewhere
between London and Norway;
He searched for someone exactly like you,
offering love, marriage, a new life together.
I broke the bond.
An internet search brought
multiple photos, different names, and
the same fractured syntax, with stories
of other women like you:
One waited at the airport with her three children
for a lover who never arrived; another mortgaged her home.
You are safe for the moment.
Even face-to-face, we do not know each other.
We are but a blur in the cosmos,
vulnerable to our half-articulated hopes and dreams.
We say there are no easy answers, no easy
connections, but one day, you may yet find
that companion of your heart.

Older, newly widowed women who use the internet are particularly vulnerable to such scams. This happened to someone dear to me. If you have any doubts about someone you meet on line, do a key word search on Google, phrases, names, even photos. Check out this background article on Wikipedia which suggests a predictable pattern of establishing trust, 'grooming' the mark, and asking for money. If you are drawn into an online friendship and are asked for money, follow that old truism, "Trust but verify."  Consider checking names, photos, or text on romancescam.com

Today's poem falls under the umbrella of the 'A-Z Challenge' and NaPoWriMo -- to write a poem a day in April, National Poetry Month.

European Bee-eaters (Wikipedia)
Note the female in the front who waits for the male's offering.

To read what others have written:
NaPoWriMo at http://www.napowrimo.net/participants-sites/
A-Z Challenge at http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/p/2012-to-z-challenge-sign-up-list.html
A Round of Words in 80 Days at http://aroundofwordsin80days.wordpress.com/

A is for April

A is for April, another round of ROW80 begins today, as does the A-Z Challenge and a-poem-a-day to celebrate National Poetry Month.  So, first the poem:

"Anniversary"

Two camellia trees lean together,

like old friends, like lovers

who put roots down

when the house was new and filled with children.

Blossoms red and white litter the garden

an invitation to stroll here

as spring rounds another year, and

old friends tell stories of long ago.

Even an early morning rain

cannot take away these moments,

now memories, cherished, of a couple

who made a home 

filled with beauty and love.

Two Camilla Trees, Berkeley (Camp 2013)

We visited friends who live next to Berkeley, California, and who introduced us so long ago. We celebrated our reunion with dinner at Zaki's, Mediterranean food and music, haunting eastern style, and the most fabulous chicken/rice dish I have ever eaten -- Malouba (and I now have the recipe) with fresh mint lemonade (still searching for that recipe). The poem is for them.

Now for ROW80 which begins with ROW80 GOALS (April 1 - June 20).

WRITING:

--Write 100 words a day.

--Write a BLOG column once a week.

--Write a POEM a day for National Poetry Month (April).

--Complete A-Z CHALLENGE w/daily post (also April).Theme: Research for Rivers of Stone.

--Write AFTERWORD for Years of Stone and Standing Stones. Work by section to identify historical persons. Maybe use List of characters? How do other writers of historical fiction handle this issue?

--BEGIN research on Rivers of Stone. Read preliminary notes. OUTLINE. Write character sketches of major/minor characters. BUILD a timeline. PULL SCENES together. Make scene cards. Plot character arcs. Create SCHEDULE w/deadlines.

OTHER GOALS are more difficult for me to nail down.

·       

READING/CRAFT: Read at least one book and 2 magazines a month on writing craft. Reread PDF/Research files for Years of Stone and Rivers of Stone. Continue critting other writers at Internet Writers Workshop (NOVELS-L), at least 2 critiques each month and one subbed chapter each month.. Need to read Bound for Australia http://boundforsouthaustralia.net.au/

MARKETING/OUTREACH: 

·        WEEKLY: Use DuoLit daily to get marketing plan organized and to identify ACTION STEPS. Research marketing strategies and update Marketing Plan. Send out press release for Mermaids. Update author bio. Set up author website (Word Press). Pursue readings at Hastings, Book End, Barnes & Noble. Post book club invite/questions to website. Offer Mermaid Quilt freebie on GoodReads. 

PUBLISHING/SALES:  

·         Take Mermaid Quilt to WSQ Yard Sale (April 6). Publish Mermaid Quilt on Smashwords.   Track sales monthly for Mermaid Quilt on Amazon, CreateSpace.   Submit story and poems x 2 each month with new bio that includes The Mermaid Quilt.  Make a final round of indie presses for Standing Stones and Years of Stone (see list of 40 potential indie publishers). Set self-pub plan if no results by June 20. 

I think these goals are more specific, perhaps more measurable than in the past. We're still on the road until April 5, but then I will have an office again, my research materials, and a big screen for my little netbook. Whoopie. May ROW80 go well for you. Be tenacious! Make commitments! Write on!

I

April and poetry, etc, etc.

I write and no matter where I am,
or in which century,
each word builds story
as the doves chitter and sit on the garden wall
in this Tucson morning sun.
Already the mountain laurel and the marguerites bloom,
the wind chime tinkles softly,
and the palo verde glows green with spring.

April promises to be intense. I'm getting ready for the next round of ROW80 (A Round of Words in 80 Days), which runs from April 1 to June 21 by refining and setting my writing, research and publishing goals.

The A-Z Challenge also runs in April. This year my theme will be writing about research for Rivers of Stone. My characters will cross 19th Century Canada and the United States to reach Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River. Some people write their entries ahead of time, but I like the spontaneity of connecting my writing and reading to the letter-of-the-day. 

April is also National Poetry Month, and it's kind of fun to try to write a poem a day just for April. For me, writing fiction is a way of exploring story, history, characters, ideas, and working out conflicts, but poetry is a way of centering into the present.

Are you in?

Check these websites for more information:

A Round of Words in 80 Days at http://aroundofwordsin80days.wordpress.com/

A to Z Challenge at http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/

Ways to celebrate National Poetry Writing Month, started by the Academy of American Poets. See http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/41

ROW80 Update . . .

ROW80 (A Round of Words in 80 Days) begins officially with Monday and Wednesday posts, January 7 through March 20. We have set goals and now will climb the hill of accountability every week. On this last Monday, one ROW80 writer cleverly separated 'writing about goals' from 'writing about writing', so that's what I will try to do with today focusing on goals.

Writing: I would like to finish another round of editing of Years of Stone. This last week has seen a breakthrough as one of my major characters comes into her own. Of course, being somewhat demanding, she requires a complete rewrite. She will not faint. She will drink more than tea. She will confront dragons (figuratively). She is challenging me to rethink her every action, and I will.

Being part of several writing communities, the Internet Writing Workshop, the Ultimate Blog Challenge, and ROW80, as well as keeping up my travel blog makes me wonder if I've stretched myself too thin. Especially for the travel blog, I find it difficult to keep posts current, unless we are on the road somehow. This last six weeks, I've been writing about our trip to Africa. I'm now posting about one entry a week. But each morning begins with writing on Years of Stone first. So far.

Reading. Aargh! I'm feeling undisciplined. I'm reading four books, maybe five, right now: Sally Mitchel's Daily Life in Victorian England; Orson Scott Card's Characters & Viewpoint; Ken McGoogan's Lady Franklin's Revenge (nonfiction); and Kate Grenville's The Secret River.  But late at night, the Kindle calls with its lovely, oversized print. Of these, so far, Card has been most useful in digging into ideas I need to understand, particularly re character motivation. I did sign up for GoodRead's challenge to read 50 books this year.The mail also brings in Writer's Digest and The Writer to keep me thinking about writing craft.

Marketing/Publishing/Outreach. Today, I submitted Standing Stones to an independent publisher specializing in historical fiction. Big step. Lots of paperwork. Now I wait 5-10 weeks and may hear nothing at all. But the book is out there once again.

In addition to ROW80, I'm posting daily for the Ultimate Blog Challenge (UBC) through January. Most UBC participants are not writers, but they have marketing and technical skills galore. I'm learning new vocabularies and new ways of thinking about what marketing strategies will work for me. One lesson: Work on the 'business' side of writing every day. My goal: To have a specific list of actionable steps I can take to improve my marketing by the end of January.

Do you have your 2013 calendar yet? For the first time, I have listed writing goals throughout the year. Yes, I will submit to the Pacific Northwest Writers Association literary contest in February. Yes, I will write a month of poetry in April for National Poetry Month and participate in NaNoWriMo this November for Rivers of Stone (after a summer of research).

My favorite quote just now is from poet Sharon Olds. I met her one rainy weekend at a writing retreat on the Oregon coast. She says: "Writing or making anything -- a poem, a bird feeder, a chocolate cake -- has self-respect in it. You're working. You're trying. You're not lying down on the ground, having given up."  So, respect yourself. Respect the process. And may your writing (or other projects) go well. May you celebrate each day with joy.

Masaii Women in welcome dance, Tanzania, November 2012

PAD Challenge #3: Apology

For every moment I have faltered,
or chosen to run away, it comes to this,
that moment I must humble myself.
No reason or rationale or flimsy excuse
separates me from that awful reality, the knowing
our days are numbered and 
intentions are simply not enough.

So I will revel in each of these numbered days, 
these loves, and this constructed reality.
I have lived long and well. When that last night comes,
I will go gently.



Robert Lee Brewer's prompt today for National Poetry Month (PAD poem a day) was to write an apology poem . . . or to write an unapologetic poem. This morning, facing down two April challenges, my thoughts turned to limits that we all face, and one at least I don't think of often, but this last month has been full of death.

April National Poetry Month: #1 and #2

Already I'm behind in following Robert Lee Brewer's challenge to write a poem a day through Poetic Asides. Yet here are the first two poems for April, the first I've written in a very long time. Brewer provides the prompts, and we write. PAD means poem a day.

PAD Challenge #1: Communication

Al punto, together

Violin and viola, two musicians,

a man and a woman face each other,

al punto, together,

perfectly in tune and time,

fast, then slow, measures of

Bach, then Mozart,

and then Bach again.

The notes in phrases answer each other,

balance and circle round, counterpoint.

Each player nods to the other,

a pause,

each lifts a bow,

and music fills up the room.

PAD Challenge #2: Visitor

At first you are as nebulous

as a sonagram’s image

traced on a screen by an anonymous technician,

your heartbeat, faint but fast, 

a thump, thump, thump

that makes your parents stare at each other in wonder,

unable to forget the very essence of you,

nameless, temporarily floating inside,

filling a certain span of months with hope

and mystery, a future tiny child-to-be,

a visitor who will always be welcome.

Killdeer . . .

Out on the mud flats, a killdeer with red eye ring
plucks his way along the water-soaked land.
He’s alone in this wide field as dusk falls.
He runs forward in short bursts,
a few steps and then he stops.
He turns away invisible,
his feathers blend brown and gray with the land.
We wait. In a moment or two, he runs forward again,
bobbing his head slightly,
his black double-banded breast a beacon,
his sharp cry piercing the silence.

We walk on, a simple Sunday walk
and stop for birding now and then.
The days pass, grasses grow,
a killdeer returns and nests,
but how that cry lingers.

The Bowerbird

In the spring, the bowerbird gathers leaves and flowers.
We suppose, being male, he doesn’t have a nest in mind.
He brings a certain rock or mushroom in his beak,
found or stolen from another bowerbird nearby,
and lays in pattern all those elements of art --
color, texture, line -- to entice her eye.

And once she comes, he sings and
dances while she watches.
She may return.
They may mate.
Then she moves on alone to
build a nest, the bower abandoned,
in the forest or the field, a singular work:
he tidies up; he preens for the next female.

We marvel at these elaborate patterns here,
for what if the artful bower just does not appeal?
What if she doesn’t come, drawn by some strange mix
of biologic chemistry and art made by birdy eye and birdy beak?
Even in the deepest forest, art is created, unknown to human eye.
We make our nests, and sing and dance,
And believe all is left to chance.


April begins National Poetry Month where some writers commit to writing a poem a day (see NaPoWriMo). I may not post every day, but I will be writing a poem a day and sharing some.

National Geographic had an article by Virginia Morrell on bowerbirds last year. The images of their precisely arranged "bowers" are fascinating. These are not nests. The male bowerbirds of New Zealand and Australia make them to attract the females for mating. The bowers are just lovely, intricate, a mix of materials. One photograph from the article shows a bowerbird painting sticks in his "nest" with "paint" the bird actually made himself. Sorry the line breaks don't come out properly here; I wanted the shape of the poem to be like a bower . . .

#5 Coming to the mountains . . .

We drove up from the belly of Spokane
into pine-tree studded lakelands,
rolling grassy hills, saw a few cows,
turned west past Ritzville,
clipping along at 70 towards Seattle,
stopped for coffee twice,
then those cloud-shrouded hills came into view,
foothills of the Cascades,
flanked by just plowed fields with signs:
wheat, radishes,
more wheat, more radishes,
apple trees and cherry trees, tidy orchards
barely in bloom, into the Wenatchee Valley,
closer, always closer to the mountains,
unexpected triangles to the sky,
snow-covered, pine-dotted, sky-glazed,
this place
a home for the soul.

#209 Mentor . . .

This April afternoon,
sweeping sheets of sleet swirl
and cover this grassy field;
a young deer shelters under pines,
almost invisible.
I'm remembering a hike last summer.
Deep into a nature preserve,
we stood at the edge of the path
to watch a deer come fearlessly
towards us. Nose lifted,
she hesitated for long moments.
We held our breath.
Together we stood very still by the path.
Not a sound.
Not a bird.
Around us the warmth of summer,
the cool of the woods.
Come, trusted love, guide me into spring,
Let us begin anew.

This week's prompt from Sunday Scribblings is simply "mentor".

Spring Song to Witches

All hail to the merry, merry month of May.
We're wayward dancers celebrating spring.
The moon shall rise,
e'en the night doth smell of sweet green grass,
and the frogs call from deep in the reeds.
We'll lift our skirts, insatiable;
we'll twist and twirl,
eyes closed to forget that last dance,
gibbets placed at every cross road.
Confess: Take back each word, every curse.
Undo Death. Ah, April Fools we.
Except the red bud blooms,
and my bare feet want to dance.

April begins National Poetry Month. Last night faint sleet fell, tiny bits of ice, and yet, the red bud does bloom here; a shimmering red haze covers bare trees. Crocus blossoms and the first iris leaves poke from the ground. For some reason I thought of the persecution of witches during the late middle ages, those thousands and thousands of people, primarily women, who were killed. That might have begun after a particularly hard winter.