Category: Writing Life

Pick Up That Pen

Today is National Pen Pal Day.

I didn’t have a pen pal as a child, but years ago, while researching a book on lighthouses, I began a long correspondence with a lighthouse keeper. Though I had a computer and easy access to email by then, we kept in touch the old-fashioned way – with letters sent by mail. That process – writing and mailing the letters and then eagerly waiting for her to reply – took me back to childhood and pre-computer days when we relied on physical letters instead of emails and texts to keep in touch with out-of-town friends and family. A bit like how it was when pen pals first began.

Pen pals have been around for a long time. They began during the 1930s when a society called the Student Letter Exchange was formed so young students from different countries could connect through letters, mainly to learn about each other’s cultures. The pen pals were strangers, and the relationship was generally limited to letters, though occasionally, pen pals would meet. That’s how it was for Canadian Ruth Magee, who began a pen pal friendship with Brit Beryl Richmond in 1939. They’ve met twice over the years: once in 1986 and again in 2009. And their pen pal friendship continues today.

Pen pals, both real and imagined, have infused popular culture.

In 1997 Australian author Geraldine Brooks wrote Foreign Correspondence, a memoir about her childhood pen pals in Australia and overseas, and her travels as an adult searching for the people they’d become. 

In the Peanuts comic strip, Charlie Brown tries to write to a pen pal using a fountain pen, but when that doesn’t work, he switches to a pencil and refers to his pen pal as a pencil pal. And in the film adaptation, Charlie Brown’s pen pal issue has a happy ending when he becomes friends with his little red-haired dream girl.

In the 1998 film You’ve Got Mail, Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks develop a pen pal email relationship, unaware that they’re also business rivals. You’ve Got Mail was based on Shop Around the Corner, a 1940s film also focusing on a pen pal relationship.

These days, pen pal relationships are more likely to take place by email than snail mail, though there are a few groups dedicated to matching pen pals who want to connect through physical letters. These include the Letter Writers Alliance and a dedicated Facebook group called the Worldwide Snail Mail Pen Pals.

Happy writing!

Snakes and Slugs and Rabbits … Oh My!

 

A snake slithered across my foot as I walked to the greenhouse one morning last week. I felt it before I saw it, so I was a little startled when I glanced down and saw it slide off my toes and disappear under a nearby Hosta.  It made me smile. My cousins and I used to play with the garter snakes in my grandmother’s garden when we were kids, going so far as to bestow names and weave stories around them (yes, the storytelling seeds were germinating even then). So, seeing a snake in my garden brought back happy memories.

Some people hate snakes. They see them as horrifying, villainous creatures. But, for me, it’s rodents that I hate with an irrational passion. And these days, as the plants in the garden begin waking up from their winter slumber, I have a current hate on for the slugs and rabbits that are decimating the new growth. They are the current antagonists of my world.

Life is full of antagonists. Novels are too. The latter not only require antagonists, but they depend on them to drive a story forward. Without a great villain, the hero can’t shine. And the key to crafting a good antagonist or villain is making them well-rounded enough to be believable. Every villain should have at least one redeeming characteristic.

If I’m ever tempted to forget this, all I have to do is look outside. Snakes may be considered villainous to some, but they devour garden pests and even small mice.  Slugs are a great source of food for birds (thrushes love them), and they break down garden debris and turn it into nitrogen-rich fertilizer.  Wild rabbits are considered a keystone species, essential workers of a healthy ecosystem. In fact, populations are so low in the UK and parts of Europe that environmentalists are sounding the alarm and working to increase their numbers (too bad I can’t figure out a way to export mine; both my garden and my wallet would benefit). Even mice, creatures I will never tolerate anywhere close, link plants and predators in every terrestrial ecosystem.

Whatever antagonist you’re currently facing, whether it’s ravenous rabbits in the garden, a belligerent boss at work or wicked, uncooperative weather, a piece of advice: always wear shoes and watch where you step.

My April Reads

Spring continues to flirt with us. One minute the sun is shining, and the next minute, the hail falls. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a spring this cold. We’re weeks, if not an entire month, behind on outside tasks, which means May will be crazy busy. In the meantime, however, the cold, unpredictable weather leaves more time to read. And here’s what I’m reading this month:

The Keeper of Happy Endings by Barbara Davis

The Almost Wife by Gail Anderson-Dargatz

After by Bruce Greyson

Books read to date in 2022: 25

A Question of Light and Dark

An artist friend recently displayed two versions of a scene she’d painted – one was dark, rich and moody, while the other was a lighter, fresher portrayal of the same image. She asked us to state which we preferred. The feedback was mixed, but slightly more people liked the darker image than the lighter one. Artists particularly gravitated to the darker scene and, in one case, pointed to the depth of saturation as a reason for their choice. Both images were gorgeous, and it was hard to choose one over the other. But for me, having just lived through a dark and wet weekend that included a six-hour power outage, I craved something light. My need for sunshine and uplift reminded me of a recent newsletter written by foodie and cookbook author Laura Calder. You can read her post here:   https://www.lauracalder.com/april-2022

In part of her newsletter, Calder writes about leaving on vacation just as the Russians attacked Ukraine. She wrestled with whether or not it was in bad taste to post happy holiday shots on social media when there was so much pain and suffering in the world. Ultimately, believing that negativity needs to be beaten back with some delight or everyone would go mad, she decided to share some of her joy. “We have as much of a moral obligation to appreciate beauty, pleasure, and goodness when they’re presented to us as we do to confront evil and destruction when they show up on our path,” Calder wrote. “In fact, when we’re down in the dumps or anxious, it’s more important than ever to keep our senses sharpened for perceiving love and loveliness, because these can be the only things that keep us going.”

My artist friend who posted her work for us to see is just one of many creatives I know who continue to paint, play music, create mosaics and write books, among many other artistic pursuits. With the world feeling quite dark these days, it may feel indulgent or superfluous to do those things, and yet, as Laura Calder reminds us, there are times when a single touch of loveliness or one spot of brightness truly can keep us going.  

The Pencil is Mightier Than the Pen

                    

March 30th is National Pencil Day. I don’t usually give pencils much thought; I’m more of a pen fanatic. But as soon as I found out that a day was set aside to honor the lowly pencil, I did a little digging into pencil trivia. And here’s what I learned: The average pencil can be sharpened 17 times, draw a line 50 kilometers long and can write roughly 45,000 words. To put that word length to the test, a group of volunteers at the Hollidaysburg Public Library in Pennsylvania came together to copy To Kill a Mockingbird word-for-word with one pencil. They started May 4th 2007 and finished on June 6th of the same year.

An average-sized tree can make 300,000 pencils.

Although the content of a pencil is referred to as lead, pencils actually don’t contain lead. They contain a mix of graphite and clay.

Before the eraser was invented, people used balls of moistened bread or breadcrumbs to remove their mistakes.

Originally, pencils were only manufactured to be round, but people were frustrated by the fact that the pencils often rolled off surfaces. So, the popular hexagon shape was introduced.

More than 14 billion pencils are produced in the world annually. That’s enough to circle the globe 62 times.

Do you know why most pencils are yellow? In the 19th century, the best graphite came from China, and in China, the color yellow is associated with royalty and respect. So, to give off a luxurious, high-quality vibe, American manufacturers started painting their pencils yellow.

And finally, I was surprised to learn how many authors have favored pencils over pens, including William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, John Steinbeck, Mary Norris, Henry David Thoreau and Earnest Hemmingway to mention only a few. that’s probably because pencils don’t bleed, burst, run dry or freeze like ink pens do. For that reason, Margaret Atwood sites pencil-carrying during travel as one of her number one rules for writers. 

“Take a pencil to write with on airplanes,” she writes.  “Pens leak. But if the pencil breaks, you can’t sharpen it on the planes because you can’t take knives with you. Therefore, take two pencils.”

I’m going to try a pencil. Maybe it will make my points clearer!

My January Reads

                                                                     

In terms of my reading habits, 2021 was pretty typical (it’s nice that something was typical last year!). I read 95 books, close to my average of reading two books a week. If you follow my blog, you may remember that my reading fell off in 2020. I only read about 70 books that year which surprised me because, with Covid restrictions, I had more quiet time at home. However, back then, libraries were locked down for long stretches at a time, and I couldn’t borrow electronically. At least not easily (my Kindle is not library compatible) or in a way that would have made reading enjoyable. Thankfully, that issue is behind me, and I’m now able to borrow both physical and electronic books from our library system. And thank goodness. While lockdowns seem to be a thing of the past, Covid is still with us, so who knows what the future holds? One thing is certain, though, there will be plenty of good books to read. Here’s what I’m reading this month.

Night of Miracles by Elizabeth Berg

Lovish by Karen Rivers

Jackpot by Michael Mechanic

Books read to date in 2022: 2

Thoughts for the Day

I’m protecting my productivity this week (see last week’s blog if you missed the reason why) and that means keeping this blog short.  

As I mulled over what to write, I googled ‘this day in history’ for ideas. Though I think of spring as a time for new beginnings, a few new beginnings or creative undertakings were launched on this date over the years.

German engineer Gottlieb Daimler unveiled the world’s first motorcycle, the Daimler, on this date in 1885. Sesame Street was launched on November 10th, 1969. And author Neil Gaiman was born on November 10th 1960. Gaiman, who has written Neverwhere, Coraline, and Stardust among others, is a dedicated user of fountain pens and writes the first draft of all his books with one.

That takes commitment. And time. And since my time is committed this month, I’ll leave you with two Neil Gaiman quotes to inspire you.

“The world always seems brighter when you’ve just made something that wasn’t there before.”

“The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So, write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.”

Seeing Flowers with New Eyes

 A few weekends back, I zoomed into an all-day writing workshop. One of the speakers was author Jeff Elkins.

Elkins spoke at length about how we can develop and deepen our characters through the use of dialogue. As soon as he brought up what he called the character daisy, I was hooked (anything that relates gardening or food to writing gets my immediate and full attention).

Flowers grow in a predictable order: roots, stems and blooms. Jeff believes that order is reflected in the way we develop as individuals too. We also start off with roots: the genetics we inherit from our family, our ethnicity and nationality, and our gender and family history. Our stem grows out of our roots. That stem represents our hopes and dreams, our strengths and weaknesses, and the inner facets of the personality we bring to the world. The flower is the outer way we show up: what we focus on in our lives, how we talk, live and interact. The bloom is, in essence, our gift to the world in the same way flower blossoms are gifts to the garden.

Literature is full of references to flowers. An old French proverb says, “Wherever life plants you, bloom with grace.”  Saint Francis de Sales, the Bishop of Geneva, made the phrase more colloquial in the early 1600s when he urged his followers to “bloom where you are planted,” and artist Mary Engelbreit picked it up and turned it into a catchphrase in the 1990s.

Author Stephen Richards links flowers to the way we think. “Minds are like flowers; they open only when the time is right,” he says.

Musician Aaron Neville says flowers offer lessons on how to behave. “Be honest, be nice, be a flower, not a weed.”

Poet E.V. Rogina believes flowers can teach us about inner growth. “Like wildflowers, you must allow yourself to grow in all the places people thought you never would,” she says.

And last but definitely not least is John Lennon: “Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow.”

So, as the last of my summer flowers slowly succumb to cooler temperatures, and we hunker down for fall and winter, I’ll focus on the words of poet Jennae Cecilia:  

Taking Chances

 Lately I’ve been thinking about risk tolerance. The phrase came up in a news conference this week when our province announced its staged reopening plan based on our rate of immunization and our Covid numbers. Because even though the government is establishing guidelines, we’ll have to make personal decisions about how interactive we want to be.  As Dr. Bonnie Henry put it, we will have to decide our own level of risk tolerance.

People take chances all the time. In fiction, we need our characters to do exactly that. I’ve started reading a suspense novel, Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter. It’s fast-paced and gritty and so far, the main character is taking a lot of chances. I’m okay with it because she’s well-motivated and the action is plausible. There are times in books or movies, however, when a character goes too far and deliberately walks into danger when there’s absolutely no reason for it. In the writing community, we refer to that character as being TSTL – too stupid to live.  But if risk tolerance is well-motivated that’s a different thing. In the Slaughter novel the character is young and under pressure; she’s terrified for her mother and acting in the heat of the moment. It all goes to plausibility and it works for me even though I’m naturally risk-averse.

Take the black bears, for instance. They’re back in our neighborhood. Not just one, but five. At least. There’s a mama and two cubs. A solitary male that’s been described as ‘a very large boy’ and two juveniles who travel together and like to knock over compost bins. Clearly the bear equivalent of teenagers. And if my neighbor to the east is to be believed there’s another one roaming around too, for a count of six.

Just last week we had to turn back on the trail while walking Team Sheltie because the lone big boy was up ahead. Yesterday morning, we narrowly missed the two juveniles having a go at the compost bins one street over. A few hours ago, we saw signs of a recent bear visit on the other side of our back fence. I’m watchful and uneasy. Bears pose a risk I’m not inclined to tangle with.

Yet some people feel quite differently. One neighbor finds it thrilling to know they’re so close. Her back yard isn’t fenced and she enjoys it when they wander through. Mind you, she enjoys them from the safety of her house. Another neighbor, Richard, was so intrigued when he spotted the large loner bear on the trail the other day that he followed him. Yes, you read that right. He followed the black bear for ten minutes at least, giving the animal enough space so he didn’t feel threatened but close enough to allow Richard a decent view.

Richard was born and raised on acreage in South Africa where wildlife was common. Respect and common sense are key, he said. To him, following a black bear on a paved trail with houses nearby felt quite tame. He indulged his curiosity, stepping into what he considered a minimally risky situation.

No wonder I’ve been thinking about risk tolerance. I can’t bear the thought of taking those kinds of chances.  

Happy National Limerick Day

                                        

There is a writer who lives by the shore

And sometimes her words simply soar

But her finger is broken

And, no, she’s not jokin’

So today it’s a rhyme and no more.

Okay, so maybe a little more.

Today, May 12th, is National Limerick Day. It’s held to mark the birthday of Edward Lear, the English writer who popularized the limerick in his A Book of Nonsense, which was published way back in 1846.

Limericks are those recognizable five-line poems consisting of a single stanza and an AABBA rhyming scheme. They’re known for their humorous themes, they’re almost always trivial, and they often appear as children’s nursery rhymes:

Hickory, dickory, dock.

The mouse ran up the clock.

The clock struck one.

The mouse ran down.

Hickory, dickory, dock.

Regardless of content, limericks are designed to make you smile, and that’s why they’ve been popular for well over a century.

I can’t say I’m smiling over my broken finger, but putting pen to paper (figurately speaking) and making light of it, helps ease the pain.

Finally, for writers who read this blog, here’s a limerick written by editor Monica Sharman that may strike a chord:

Relentless, insatiable deadlines!

This manuscript’s still full of red lines.

First, I’ll sweat through the edits

And check all the credits

Then chill with my favorite red wine.

Happy National Limerick Day!