My thoughts regarding "Einstein's Beach House," Stories by Jacob M. Appel

Life can be stranger than fiction on any given day, so of course, the hedgehog is depressed, not the human who has focused her energies onto the small creature’s well-being—that only makes sense. The collection of stories in Einstein’s Beach House by Jacob M. Appel is an amusing, yet horrifying exploration of personalities and human flaws that is darkly humorous—in order to have light, you must have dark. These eight bite-sized human documents are light-hearted at their core. Populated by characters who have the best intentions that have gone awry; tail-chasing frustration; anxiety, depression, gullibility, family secrets, colossal failures, maddening second-guessing, nigh irreparable damage, on the verge of suicidal moments, and the moments in time that are barely saved—and amidst the flawed individuals seeking acceptance, there is still hope and generosity in spite of misgivings. We all know (and expect) the past has a knack for haunting the present, and it’s certain that the future will be full of that bothersome shit later, coming back up like a regretful meal—or a bad penny. It’s only logical that the neighborhood sex offender only liked boys, so two girls snooping around in his house should be safe; the tortoise would desire freedom; the imaginary friend would most certainly have parents; and the rightful ownership of a house that had been in the family for generations can be usurped by a misprint in a travel guide. In Strings, there is that extraordinarily familiar gut feeling when it comes to facing the “takers” who worm their way into your life because they know how to press your buttons—you know the ones, kindness and guilty conscience. They always demand more from you than you should give, and every time you give in to their pitiable self-inflicted dramas, you’re enabling them to continue to be the chaotic clinging vines they are—seriously, get an axe, start cutting, and don’t look back, you’re not going to be canonized for your patience (but of course, there wouldn’t be a story if you did.) These stories possess a palpable psychological tension—enough to make me grit my teeth while reading along at a steady heart-breaking clip—admirable squirm-factor, yet so nattily hi-lar-i-ous that the “squirm” is forgivable. Good show, I say, good show.

My thoughts on reading "Wolf Solent" by John Cowper Powys

Powys is one of the greatest novelists that not everybody knows about—I always make an effort to press him upon receptive readers—I’m a believer, a bookish zealot—I’m always more than happy to spread the word of literary awesomeness, I do realize that not every reader is going to dig Powys. Books by Powys have a knack to haunt a reader long after they’re done. His writing is magical, beautiful, rhapsodic, breathtaking, meandering, timeless—very dense classic prose. He’s in the company of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Proust, Hardy, D. H. Lawrence—Powys (dubbed by some as the anti-Hemingway—which I find funny, I love “Papa” too—he is his own writing beast, Powys is another unique species of writer.) He’s a writer’s writer. With the generous spirit of Shakespearean shrewdness, he evokes an aged skepticism of everything, and yet a youthful gullibility about everything—it’s all very enchanting and lovely, and far too good to miss. In this contemporary world of instant gratification, it would be far too easy to neglect this master storyteller, and it would be a shame to forget him just because his way of writing is out of fashion.

One of the things that makes a Powys novel like Wolf Solent special is how he lays down a historical foundation that is based on legends. In all legends, there’s a grain of truth—the old hills and dells, moors and coastlines of Wales and England (in particular) have a history and mythology that have deep roots in the lives of the people who live within the covers of his books. The people—they are many and varied, the beautiful and ugly of humanity are all well represented. Pagans and Christians—philosophy and superstition overlap and separate—mingling and repelling—they co-exist with a feigned ignorance or have the willingness to overlook “the matter” out of politeness, and more times than not, they are blatant with their venom—gossiping the next chance meeting with an ear waiting to listen—creating their own legends from the bits of truth of what was muddied by their own perceptions. There’s an intensity of life that is palatable; life is complicated, yet it’s simple. The density of the writing is so absorbing, that’s what makes it so dang fascinating—he creates a sense of place and time, textured and sensual—decadent (in the best sense of the term.) The thing I love so much about his writing is that I have to be on my toes through all of it—my brain is slowly dining on every word, savoring every last bit to the end. I found it hard to put the book down some nights—and I was haunted by it until I picked it up again.

Wolf walks a lot (like the character Porius in another Powys novel of that name)—here, there, and everywhere—if I were his wife, Gerda, I would’ve slapped him silly for his random acts of disappearing—“Where the Hell have you been Mr. Solent? I gave you up as dead in a ditch somewhere along the road—get in here, sit, and have your tea.” (As it is long before the convenience of cell phones, give the nearest lad a ha’penny and have him run a message home at least! Ah, but he doesn’t think of doing that until near the end of the book.) I can’t blame Gerda at all for feeling as she did, a young wife finding herself married to this peculiar, distracted, but mostly harmless fool. He mentally wandered in a self-absorbed state, what he called “sinking into his soul”, also known as his “mythology” a secret name for his secret habit of daydreaming—it is a carryover from childhood that appalled his mother, but his father encouraged. Daydreams are a beautiful thing to have access to—they feed the creative mind all sorts of goodies, but it can be detrimental for an adult to go about in a fantasy world. Absentmindedness is quaint to a point, after a while, people can become pretty annoyed when your distracted manner is no longer entertaining as you are causing inconvenience—one day you have your head in the clouds, the next day it changes to having your head firmly stuck up your ass (there’s a time and place for everything, you see.) Wolf’s walking seems directionless, yet he follows his nose like a canine; examining his internal world and then becoming suddenly enamored by the world outside of himself— the verdant curve of a hill, the muddy stillness of a pond, the blue of the sky, and the golden meadow brimming with buttercups; body and soul, dreams and realities, within and without, life and death, good and evil—his thoughts often veering over the edge into the supernatural. The dead and buried (in particular, his father and the young Redfern) live on in memories and imaginings—laughing at the arrogance of the living.
Truth be told, the fool needed to grow up and get ahold of himself. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Wolf and his ‘mythology’, he cracked me up quite often—from the beginning, he got sacked from his teaching job in London for his “malice-dance” in which he just went off on an inappropriate verbal jaunt that had nothing to do with teaching History to the boys in his charge...

“He was telling his pupils quietly about Dean Swift; and all of a sudden some mental screen or lid or dam in his own mind completely collapsed and he found himself pouring forth a torrent of wild, indecent invectives upon every aspect of modern civilization.”p.2

This is the prevailing attitude throughout the book—he has something eating at him.

“He felt as though, with aeroplanes spying down upon every retreat like ubiquitous vultures, with the lanes invaded by iron-clad motors like colossal beetles, with no sea, no lake, no river, free from throbbing, thudding engines, the one thing most precious of all in the world was being steadily assassinated.” P.3

I agreed with him on most things, yet there were times I found his obsessive waffling over the flirtatious and sexy Gerda and the solemn and thoughtful Christie to be comical, bordering on absurd—he wanted his cake and eat it until it made him sick. The reality of Wolf’s life is invading and destroying his ‘mythology’—the being in a rut, teaching history to boys at the school for thirty years just irks him to no end—he longs to have financial independence to allow him to live comfortably and to have freedom. I certainly didn’t want to see him lose that lovely imaginativeness that was natural—instinctive, nigh innocent (yet not entirely), but it was clear that his behavior was becoming a concern by those who knew him. It isn’t every day that your father-in-law (a monument maker) indicates his concern by saying:

“Tis no comfort,” he remarked, “though I be the man I be for cossetting they jealous dead, to think that ‘in a time and half a time,’ as Scripture says, I’ll be chipping “Rest in the Lord” on me wone son-in-law’s moniment. But since us be talking snug and quiet, mister, on this sorrowful theme”—Mr. Torp’s voice assumed his undertaker’s tone, which long usage had rendered totally different from his normal one—“’twould be a mighty help, mister, to I, for a day to come, if ye’d gie us a tip as to what word—out of Book or out of plain speech—ye’d like best for I to put above ‘ee?” p. 466

As he moped around on his many walks, at times considering that maybe he should go drown himself in Lenty Pond as alluded by those who believed it to be his destiny, (I seriously felt concerned that he would!) I wished I could’ve advised him—“You should write a book of your own—you really need to.” If anything could possibly reset and settle his mind, it would be that—writing clears the decks of a busy mind that wanders. Writing is one of our most intimate acts of creativity, it can center one and it can unravel one—one can be rattled to the core by the act of writing, sometimes there’s nothing more startling than to write down the thoughts that haunt you to the point of something comparable to madness. Eventually, it does work out those bothersome bugs and gives focus. Then it’s nigh terrifying to share one’s own words on paper with anyone else because they are so personal—private. For example, when Wolf reads Christie’s writing that she had hidden away, she was pissed when she found out—his reading it ruined it for her, she wasn’t ready to have anyone read her thoughts. The eccentric poet, Jason Otter, shared his poetry with Wolf on many occasions, but when Wolf suggests that he should send them to London to be published, Jason became angry—feeling certain that the Londoners would laugh at his poetry. Anyway, I can only hope that Wolf came to writing later in life beyond the last page—that’s another thing that I love about this book, there is a sense that life goes on after the book ends. His walk through the meadow of buttercups was the most sublime event—he had changed, “grown up” in a manner of speaking—he may have lost his “mythology”, but he gained a new sight and insight. Once again, he reveled in taking notice of the smallest things such as the beauty of a snail as it went creeping along from a dock-leaf to the boards of the pigsty shed. Accepting the reality—“I am I”—“Forget and enjoy”—“ Endure or escape”—it was his body that saved him—for this, his spirit is grateful.

John Cowper Powys (I could not find a credit for the image, tho' I'll keep looking and will amend should I find it.)

“Millions of miles of blue sky; and beyond that, millions of miles of sky that could scarcely be called blue or any other colour—pure  unalloyed emptiness, stretching outwards from where he sat—with his stick and coat opposite him—to no conceivable boundary or end!” p. 10


I simply adored this book and could easily read it again—I have a few bits here from some of the many dog-eared pages, and then I’m done with my wordy testimony…

“Every time the hedge grew low, as they jogged along, every time a gate or a gap interrupted its green undulating rampart, he caught a glimpse of that great valley, gathering the twilight about it as a dying god might gather to his heart the cold, wet ashes of his last holocaust.” P. 25

“Nature was always prolific of signs and omens to his mind; and it had become a custom with him to keep a region of his intelligence alert and passive for a thousand whispers, hints, obscure intimations that came to him in this way. Why was it that a deep, obstinate resistance somewhere in his consciousness opposed itself to such a solution?” p 274

Thoughts about The Shadow of the Wind...and other stuff

The Shadow of the Wind is an epic, a mystery with romance, and it has just enough Gothic creepy edge to it to make it special—it’s a lovely book, read it, get lost in it, find and absorb all the good from it—and it’s got the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, what more can I ask for as a book lover?

"This is a place of mystery, Daniel, a sanctuary. Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down the pages, its spirit grows and strengthens. This place was already ancient when my father brought me here for the first time, many years ago. Perhaps as old as the city itself. Nobody knows for certain how long it has existed, or who created it. I will tell you what my father told me, though. When a library disappears, or a bookshop closes down, when a book is consigned to oblivion, those of us who know this place, its guardians, make sure that it gets here. In this place, books no longer remembered by anyone, books that are lost in time, live forever, waiting for the day when they will reach a new reader's hands."  From page 5-6

This is the quote that caught me firmly into the teeth of this book—only because of my own life experience and emotional connection to books put me there. When I walk into antique shops, I go find their corners where there are old books and I search for ones that I must adopt—it always makes me sad to see them languishing, unread—being the imaginative person that I am, I feel these inanimate objects have an essence about them that is in a sense alive—a soul—it is the spirit of the person who wrote them, the person who bought them, the person who read them (loved them.)

I often look at all of the books in our personal library and wonder—“Will I ever get around to reading them again or reading the ones I haven’t read yet?” And then I sometimes go the extra step further to make it worse and wonder, “Who will take care of my books after I’m gone?” (Painful isn’t it?)

So...with that said...I recently went with my sister to Bouckville, NY to do antique shopping...and of course, I look for old books to "adopt" this time, I found Kipling's Jungle Books, Volumes 1 and 2, illustrated by Aldren Watson, published by Double Day & Co. 1948...they are gorgeous! Volume 2 is his collected short stories, which I was very happy to find...I mean, who doesn't love Rikki-Tikki Tavi?

He creeps up the little creeks that men think would not hide a dog...

Kaa...I always thought he was a very cool serpent...

 Of course, the books were not all that I adopted! I found lots of cool old goodies...

An iron bank (very rusty) and it's a donkey! I could not pass it up!

A compass and a scribe

A pretty yellow ware bowl, not as old as others that I have, but I like the blue stripe...

Old bridle bits...I wish they weren't painted black, but I guess someone thought it would make them more "decorative" that way...paint comes off (but it isn't a priority at the moment.)

I'm still slowly recovering from the shingles (it's been two months already.) The good news is, it isn't the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning, so that's progress. What a wretched illness to have...I went all day yesterday without taking my pain meds, I did very well, I hardly thought about the pain at all, but today I am, which is not a good start to the day, it is what it is...so I'm going to mellow out and not let it get me down. I do believe the rash part is finally done...one trick I learned out of desperation...use Listerine on that shitty rash! It stings like crazy, but sends the itch away with its tail tucked between its legs...there is something very satisfying about that sting, trust me on this. Other things I've done to take the edge off when the drugs seem like they're not working (there have been days when it seemed pointless to take stuff that only made me feel dull witted or loopy): gentle stretching does help A LOT, a TENS unit is also a good thing to invest in and use as needed...most of all, patience and be good to yourself, REST (I read a lot and I played a lot of Majong just to concentrate on something else.) That is my advice for shingles.

In spite of being sick and having the shittiest concentration in the world because of pain and pain killers, I have continued to work my way through my manuscript Drinking from the Fishbowl. Even if I work on a paragraph or two at night, I am happy that I've done something that resembles progress. I'm currently in chapter 36, which was once two chapters (36 and 37), but it is now only one...I've practically rewritten the whole thing, there's barely anything original left...I "killed some darlings" that came from the first draft, and I'm happy they're gone. How does one do that? Well, it's not an easy decision to make, but once I made up my mind to do it and carried it out, there was a sense of relief and the flow continued. Let's just say, it wasn't my favorite pair of chapters, and they came from a "different place" than where the book is today, it has evolved and matured beyond its initial conception. I am constantly reminded that this manuscript is only the second novel I ever wrote, and it was initially loaded with some goofy shit that no longer fit in...I'm still tweaking it, nursing it along...of course, whenever large swaths of text are cut out, there's that stone tossed into the pond thing that happens, the ripples travel into other chapters and I have to be vigilant as I travel into these final chapters. Nothing is written in stone in this manuscript...this book can continue to grow and change (evolve.) I even had a crazy thought about wiping out even more, three chapters (34, 35 and even 36)...this possibility is still being investigated (since I'm still thinking about it), but I don't think I can disentangle parts that are deeply ingrained into the structure...a fresh printing of the chapters in question and a pair of scissors might help me piece it together... it's a work in progress. (I love it!)

...[he] stands alone, a solitary tree in an open field of emotions. - from Chapter 18, Drinking from the Fishbowl

Reading Janet Frame, The Edge of the Alphabet

I’m continuing my journey discovering Janet Frame; The Edge of the Alphabet is yet another magical book of prose, experimental and challenging, a timeless narrative about the beauty and ugliness of the human condition. She plunges right in, starting on the first page:

Man is the only species for whom the disposal of waste is a burden, a task often ill judged, costly, criminal—especially when he learns to include himself, living and dead, in the list of waste products.

The creator of the world did not employ a dustman to collect the peelings of his creation.

Now I, Thora Pattern (who live at the edge of the alphabet where words like plants either grow poisonous tall and hollow about the rusted knives and empty drums of meaning, or, like people exposed to a deathly weather, shed their fleshy confusion and show luminous, knitted with force and permanence), now I walk day and night among the leavings of people, places and moments. Here the dead (my goldsmiths) keep cropping up like daisies with their floral blackmail. It is nearly impossible to bribe them or buy their silence. Page 3

…and it is non-stop to the last page:

The edge of the alphabet where words crumble and all forms of communication between the living are useless. One day we who live at the edge of the alphabet will find our speech.

Meanwhile our lives are solitary; we are captives of the captive dead. We are like those yellow birds which are kept apart from their kind — you see their cages hanging in windows, in the sun—because otherwise they would never learn the language of their captors.

But like the yellow birds have we not our pleasures? We look long in mirrors. We have tiny ladders to climb up and down, little wheels to set our feet and our heart racing nowhere; toys to play with.

Should we not be happy?  Page 303

It can leave one breathless...

Janet Frame’s books never cease to fascinate me — I have dog-eared several pages of this one (like others) marking where I want to return someday to explore a word-scape of unique beauty. The entire book is loaded with the most exquisite language — precious, priceless. She created geographical territory in which the borders of social inclusion and exclusion are investigated with an emphasis on language (communication or the lack of communication). The ghosts of the past are haunting, memories of lost relatives or events linger with a zealous desire to be remembered. There are surreal essences of despair, fear, failure — fragile dreams and disquieting realities—the human condition of those existing on the margins, marginalized — to be blunt, reality sucks. Sadly, this is a generous portion of our world’s population — life is not glamor, romance, and drama — to look away and deny it is negligent. Life is gritty with filth — our manmade rubbish, self-made madness, and life-long sickness. Some people are incapable of coping with life — some just do not have the tools to cope as they are flawed by disabilities (Toby’s epilepsy) or disabled by life (Zoe’s ignorance.) They are people easily discarded and ignored — yet Janet Frame writes in a way that makes the ugliness of life beautiful — and in all the trauma, there are comic pleasures that wink with a sweet wit that isn’t frivolous, if anything, the absurdity is very grounding.

A first kiss leading to the private research of identity, which leads to the creation of a sculpture from the silver paper of a cigarette pack, and then a life ended. A novel, The Lost Tribe, left unwritten because the writer is illiterate. Paintings destroyed, talent unrealized by an artist overcome by despair. And a life spent just getting by, going through the motions of life’s expectations to the point of not truly living.


“Just how much blank paper do you need, sir, to match your blank life?” Page 278

~

“He’s getting above himself, going overseas.”…there is an affliction of dream called ‘overseas’, a suffering of sleep endured by the prophetic, the bored, the retired, and the living who will not admit that it is easier and cheaper to die, die once and forever and travel as dust. But being dust how can you return and have your name in the paper and yourself pointed out in the street as having been “overseas” and your conversation filled with the names of places you have visited, your words received with wonder, as prophecies… How, if you are not Marco Polo or Herodotus? Page 49-50

~

Shall I write a book? Everybody is going to write a book. Memoirs on writing paper, toilet paper, café wall, pavement, or stone column in a city cemetery where borders of trees provide a trip-wire into silence. Shall I write? Shall I engage in private research of identity? Page 99

~

And then she laughed out loud to think that she had never known, that she had always believed that people were separate with boundaries and fences and scrolled iron gates, Private Road, Trespassers Will be Prosecuted; that people lived and died in shapes and identities with labels easily recognizable, with names which they clutched, like empty suitcases, on a journey to nowhere. Page 106

~

The day is patched with long silences between the communication of people, give rise to dread; as if the time itself held a reserve of opinion too terrible to express. In the cracks of the silence the people’s voices grow like bright feverish weeds whose stalks are hollow and whose shallow roots are separated from the earth (or water) with one tug of a hand or breeze; now and again people’s voices disappear in the gaps that open with the continual shock of Time. Page 215

~

“Did you make it?” he asked Zoe. “How did you think of it?”

Everyone admired the shape once again. Zoe was not used to being the center of attention; not for something she had made—when in her life had she ever made anything? It’s only a bit of paper, she said to herself, but she throbbed with warmth. How strange that it had so affected the others, had evoked in them feelings which they could only consider and explore by sitting there, as all three were doing now, silent, staring at the silver sculpture… How extraordinary, Zoe thought, that such feeling should be roused by seeing a conventional paper shape twisted at random, in idleness, among strangers whom I shall never meet again. Page 272

Janet Frame writes with this special vision about social identity, a textual borderland — a wonderland — an Is-land — the post-colonial experience, New Zealand and England—being an alien within one’s homeland and within one’s own skin, living in the margins — at the edge of the alphabet…

And sometimes it seemed too much like being excluded from the mystical long-division sum, like being the odd number at the bottom or at the side of the column, the mental afterthought, the carrying number put there for mere convenience and erased when the answer to the sum is worked out. Page 297

Honestly, who hasn’t spent time living on the edge of the alphabet…

Thoughts on writing...some advice

Me with Dusty Waters at my first book signing, May, 2009

I’ve always wanted to be a writer, since I could scribble, I wanted to write something that mattered—it took a long time to get there, I had a good deal of false starts. It’s been 15 years since I wrote the manuscript Washed Glass and saw it through to the finish. (Oh, I thought I knew what I was doing, but I totally had no idea.) This effort is still unpublished and certainly nowhere near ready to have a cover designed for it. It’s a densely written monster that has everything and the kitchen sink in it, and it’s rife with first-novel-itis, but I know the story is good enough to take the time to make it right—not every first manuscript is good enough. Even tho’ I do cringe a little when I think about going back to it, but now that I know more about what I’m doing, I know what I must do, so I will revisit where I started all those years ago—someday. I will always have a soft spot for it—it was my first, from there, the rest of my work with words followed, and they nod with reverence to what happened before them because without Washed Glass, Dusty Waters and The Fractured Hues of White Light wouldn't have happened. 

My "Girls"

For what it’s worth, here’s my advice for aspiring writers (young and old):

It’s never too late to start. Just do it.

Write. Even if it’s pure nonsense, if it’s there in your head, write it. Unfortunately, we learn from our mistakes, and you’re not going to learn by being afraid of fucking up.

Read—read a lot—especially read outside your comfort zone, if you have resisted reading the classics, read them—experience them and learn from them. Keep your mind wide open to receive knowledge, grow your mind, grow your vocabulary—read the dictionary (you know, one of those old-fashioned cloth bound books illustrated with line art, get one.) Familiarize yourself with the basic rules of grammar and punctuation too. Keep a Thesaurus handy.  Honestly, you’ll need something to do during those dead zones when you’re not staring out the window thinking.

Be humble.
Write and write some more.
No, you’re not crazy, you’re writing a book. Keep writing—just let it flow.
Be brave.
Write.

Here are the Don’ts:

Don’t listen to those dissenting voices within you or from the others who are on the outside looking in—for goodness sakes, don’t let anyone tell you “you can’t do that” because it’s hard. Damn right it’s hard and don’t you forget it.

Don’t rely on spell check and grammar check on your computer to catch your errors because words like dairies and diaries are both spelled correctly and if you’re a little bit dyslexic at all it’s easy enough to screw them up. The brain has this amazing self-correction thing it does when you’re too close to your writing and you know what you want to say, so beware when dealing with words, especially when writing tens of thousands of them.

Don’t be a hermit.
Don’t forget to live.
Don’t forget to breathe.
Write.

So you finished writing your manuscript—your first book. Do a happy dance, scream, laugh, and cry. Tell all your friends and family—celebrate. It’s a wonderful thing, it’s an accomplishment, and an achievement worthy of a pat on the back.

Don’t be surprised if you feel sad—because you will. You will “miss” being there, being in your head with your characters—it can be a little scary to feel depressed like that, but don’t worry, you’re all right.

Do you think you’re done with it?

"Done" means it has a beginning and an end with a bunch of shit happening in the middle. I know it will be hard to do it, but walk away from it—leave it for months—start something new or just write nonsense. Keep reading more books to pass the time. No matter how tempting it is to fool around with it, leave it alone. Forget it long enough to “forget it” in a sense that will allow you to be objective when you read it again.

It’s nice if you can find a first reader who can honestly tell you what they think of it—it’s nice if the first reader doesn’t sit on it for months and not read it. A book, especially a raw first draft isn’t easy to hand off to someone and expect them to read it—it’s not like showing someone a drawing you made—reading is an investment of time—and first drafts can be SO ROUGH it’s not fun to read them.  When you do go back to it, be honest with yourself—is it how you envisioned it? Aim high, raise the bar for yourself, take pride in your work, OWN IT. Edit the darn thing—make it bleed red ink—be prepared, this process can go on for several drafts. If you can find an editor that you can afford—one you can trust to work within your vision, go for it. But not everyone can afford one, not everyone has access to such creatures, so it’s good for a writer to learn how to self-edit.

I do my own editing partly because I’m a control freak, and partly because I love doing it—I love the whole process of revising and editing. I will read a chapter backwards, sentence by sentence just to take it out of the flow to make sure it’s what I want it to say. Then I will read the chapter forwards again to see if I catch anything wonky. I go through it until I make no more changes. Then I leave it alone to forget it, then read it again. If I make no changes, that’s a good thing. I’ve been known to take the scissors to a chapter that I had thought was perfect two weeks ago and reorganize the paragraphs, tape it back together, make the revision, and then start over reading it in the new configuration. I read it and revise it until I make it right.

Reading hard copy is always a good idea.

It does get better—trust me on this.

Final thoughts:
Keep writing. 
Don’t settle.
Make it right. Make it perfect.
Practice, Patience, Persistence.


(For the record, I won't edit anyone's work, so don't ask...you can't pay me enough to do it.)

Dusty Waters, A Ghost Story

Four years ago I was editing, proofreading, making changes, reading, making more changes, having my Fred run it through InDesign, the font was selected, formatting line by line, chapter by chapter, and then a PDF came into being. Which of course meant more reading, more fussing over formatting, more proofreading, more changes... somewhere in the midst of all this, I dug out old photos I took of the Fox Sister's house in Hydesville before they tore it down, and used them for the book cover... then finally, a file was created and the first paperback came in the mail a few days later. Of course there was more to do to it...other odd formatting problems, a couple of misspelled words...a word that wasn't misspelled, but was just the wrong word...and then eventually a block of ISBN #'s were purchased, and one more file created, another proof came, it was examined page by page, and then, it was done. I never looked back, never regretted that I didn't try one more time to go the traditional route...


Four years after its publication, I still love this little book of mine, and have found the reactions of readers very interesting—no surprises—it’s one of those ‘love it’ or ‘hate it’ sort of books, I guess. It still amazes me that I wrote it, and I'm always grateful when someone tells me they loved it and what their favorite part was, or what made them cry...

It just makes me cry that I was able to write it...it took years to write it...I carried much of it within me since I was quite young, before I knew what to do with any of it...they were stories I made up, told to my friends, and then got into trouble over them because...well because they weren't true. I was called a liar for making such things up. (Imagine that.)

Dusty Waters, A Ghost Story is a literary fiction novel, it is not the usual ghost story with a haunted house—oh, yes, Tanglewood is very haunted—but it’s a ghost story as much about life as it is about death. It’s a coming of age story and a story about coming to terms with the past. Dusty Waters, as a little girl with a gift of seeing ghosts, is haunted by the spirits drifting in the hallways of her ancestral home, and haunted by the past encompassing a family history, a nation’s history, and a generation’s history, as well as her personal story. Dusty Waters, as a woman, standing well over six feet tall, wild curly blond hair with big feet and a big nose, is a folksinger in the tradition of folksingers of the Boomer generation with a growling voice like Janis Joplin, but her guitar is tuned with the Punk edge of the Gen-X kids who show up at her concerts looking to hear songs about the truth of “what was” and presently that “it goes like this.” She pulls no punches as she belts out her songs, but in her own personal life, she’s barely scratching the surface of being honest with herself. She’s scared to go home to face the ghosts that haunt her there, and scared to live without them. Coming home at last, she has steeled herself to sit down with her friend, Katharine, to tell her story for the official biography of the folksinger—but there are parts of that story she will never tell a soul—except maybe one, but she lost him along the way and needs to go find him.

Me at my first book signing on May 2, 2009 at Fat Cats in Johnson City, NY

Look at that smile—and those poor old tortie glasses bit the dust long ago, I loved them until they fell apart and were beyond repair—oh, they got me through many hair-pulling edits of that little ghost story I’m holding in my hands—I just loved writing this book and have enjoyed meeting people to talk about it and although I'm so small time being an indie on my own, I can't complain, she sells one book at a time.

Four years later...here is a lifetime I can hold in my hands and share.

From my acre of the world...

Autumn Glory...I planted a package of Heavenly Blue Morning Glories and they came up purple...go figure...

This Walking Stick came marching up to me with such purpose, I thought for sure he had something to say to me...

Oh, Wooly Bear...what are you trying to tell me with those colors of yours? Will we have a real winter this year?

The Spider's House

Solitary leaf

One of my favorite blues...

I'm always amazed when my shaky hands snap a good shot...

A duo...

Summer is winding down and I'm getting closer to finishing my manuscript, Drinking from the Fishbowl...I'm taking my sweet old time with it, being very careful...perhaps too cautious...at times I fear it has become a monster, but then, as soon as I return to it, I realize that it isn't at all, it is exactly the way I've wanted it to be, and I've been taking great care to trim away what is unnecessary and embellishing the details to tell the story. I've been a bit distracted, so when my focus is off, I don't bother trying to do any editing when I'm like this, and I turn my attention to other things, short things like poems or something like sifting through all of my photos and picking the best ones for possible prints some day...

It is a balancing act that I perform everyday...and everyday I remind myself how fortunate that I am, in spite of so much that could have held me back, and the overwhelming pain and other peculiar symptoms that I deal with on my FMS bad days, I have kept going forward...

My novel...

The Fox Sister's homestead site, photo c. 1985

 This is a post to promote my novel, Dusty Waters, A Ghost Story...so, please, forgive me, every now and then I feel that I must dive in to promote my novels, so allow me to indulge as it is a necessary evil as an author in this day and age…especially those of us who are indie and have to do it ourselves…honestly, I’d much rather be doing something more fun…but I'm in bed with a crappy head cold so...anyway...

Dusty Waters is a ghost story, there is no doubt about that because I wrote it that way. I’m telling you this just so you’re not mislead to believe otherwise—it is a ghost story, but it isn’t the typical ghost story in the paranormal/supernatural genre that jumps out with a “Boo!” I wanted it to be more than that. Expect it to be different, leave behind all preconceptions of a ghost story when you enter this one. It is a ghost story, from a long line of the telling of ghost stories, which I adore, but I wrote it my way, to tell a story about a young woman, who possesses the ability to see and communicate with ghosts. Her ancestral home is full of the spirits of her relatives who have not moved on for whatever reason, her sweetheart, who died too young, waits for her at their favorite meeting place—she grows older, he remains the same 17 year old boy who she loved with all her heart. As he tells her to live her life, he has sworn to wait for her. It is a book about life as much as it is about the dead, it is about the metaphorical ghosts that haunt her, haunt others, haunt all of us. The ghosts of our past are a natural element of the human condition—so you see, it is more than just a ghost story.

The book…the zygote of the book rolled around in my brain for many years, pieced together from bits of stories that I made up as a kid, part of a fascination with the supernatural, part of it fascination with some of the old houses on my street, (Lyons is an old town full of history), and part of it I wanted to write about someone on a life journey, one that is not finished yet. A woman alive and well among the living, and able to speak with the dead…one of the elements that I wanted to explore in this novel was how someone who can see and speak to spirits deals with that, is it a gift or is it a curse? I could only imagine that it is a burden and could have a negative impact on them...it's a character building ordeal, I'm sure.

 With that said, let me give a little bit of the back story about the making of the book. The book cover, designed by my Fred, and conceived through photographs that I took at the Fox Sisters homestead site in Hydesville, New York, the birthplace of Spiritualism. I grew up in Lyons, New York, just a few miles away from this place and the idea of the rappings and séances inspired me. Many years ago, (over twenty) I went with my family to the old homestead and photographed the site as it was at that time; the cottage had been burned, vandalized, neglected and eventually torn down. When I heard that it was gone, I made certain to keep these photos safe thinking someday they’d be of use to me in a project (I was young and full of grand ideas at the time.) I wish I had more photos, but this was a time before digital cameras and 4GB memory disks, I had a roll of 24 shots and most of the roll was full of photos taken up at Sodus Bay...

Doorway with birds nest

The burned door

Monument outside the house near the road

There is no death, there are no dead…I’m so glad that I photographed the monument at the time…life is consciousness, the consciousness never dies, this is one of the beliefs of the spiritualist movement…I don’t align myself with any particular religion, but I am a spiritual person with my own beliefs about the way things are, and the idea of the body as a vessel of the soul is a very evocative belief for me.

The cover design

Once I decided to bite the bullet to publish independently, my Fred started to work on ideas for the cover, and I pulled out these old photographs of the Fox Sister’s homestead site. As soon as he presented the design to me, there was no turning back, the cover is its birthmark, it is home—every author can only hope to have the right cover for their book. I’ve heard so many authors complain how they hate their book’s cover—that must be heartbreaking, to put all that work into a novel and get to the publication part, only to have a cover that isn't what you imagined or clearly looks like the designer had no clue what the book was about. I love this cover…it is gorgeous. It means a great deal to me because of the place and time, and what it represents. It isn't a girly book...quite a tomboy.

Dusty Waters is a book steeped in history, lots of it made up history overlapping with history of a time and place, but it's a history created for this book...a book about a young woman, growing up in a small town, surrounded by the ghosts of the past...and she has a pooka named Lucy in the shape of a Chinese dragon living underneath her bed to block bad dreams.

"Around her quiet streets, voices seem to murmur the refrain, 'once upon a time.' Once upon a time, men who moulded the destinies of the frontier lived in the pillared brick colonial houses on the hills above the town. Later on, in Lyons's commercial heyday, other powerful men built the more ornate Victorian mansions under the stately trees. There, once upon a time, flowered an old regime, a gracious way of life, a social elegance, and cultural interest that was distinctively Lyons." - Arch Merrill, The Towpath

I could say more, but I will leave it here for now. 

Dusty Waters is available in paperback original through Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble (or just about anywhere you want to order the real deal paper books.) It is also available for Nook and Kindle for those who prefer e-reading.

Spring forward...

Abstraction (old door), 3/10/2012

Layers (a collage of last autumn's debris), 3/4/2012

I really wish they'd leave the clock alone...this time change business is truly socially unacceptable...I hate the feeling that I'm "late"...that I "slept in"...grrrrr. It already feels like half the day is gone...

Blue, a pussy willow leaf, 3/4/2012

Layers, lace and leaves, 3/4/2012

Layers, 3/4/2012

Taking Flight (cornfield pigeons), 3/10/2012

The snow on the ground today should be gone by tomorrow...the morning sun is out making springtime shadows on the trunks of trees and the ground, the sky is that amazing blue and the temperature is creeping above freezing...tho' it will be warm out, there will be the chill of melting snow in the air...it is my intention to spend time in the sunshine from my favorite chair on the porch...the first time since...? Pre-Halloween October...maybe I got one or two times in November since it was an "unusual" November.

Painting...writing...I'm always tinkering with something. I'm going to try to wrap up chapter 35 of Fishbowl today, I'm looking for one more word to set right the first paragraph, (I'll get it with a bit of time, a walk around the acre with Max will help.) The rest of it is done...then I'll move on forward...I'm working my way from the end to the beginning, you see, so I'll be in chapter 34 next, it's part of my editorial system, read it forward, read it backward, line by line, paragraph by paragraph, out of context/in context...when I look back at the beginning, the early drafts of this book, it started in 2000-2001, and grew into a monster of epic proportions sometime around 2003-2004. I've been taming that monster ever since, and have been working diligently for a year getting it publication ready. (It's almost there.)

March roaring in...part 2

How cool are these? My Fred treated me to a photo fest on Friday afternoon, these old steel-faced printing blocks are gorgeous!

This is how books used to be done...some day, I'd like to work with a letterpress (like Syracuse's very own Boxcar Press or Amaranth Press and Bindery) and make a limited edition book of Po-emz...gotta write some first (well, I do have a few, just not sure if they should see the light of day or not.)

Wow, it's been a while since I posted here...

Snowing today, rain by tomorrow or Tuesday...sunny and 50's by Wednesday (snow all gone until the next time a front passes by with some to share.) For now, the wind that blew away February has calmed down, the flurries are falling in a gentle manner, steady and abundant, reminding us that it is winter after all...

A red squirrel and a gray squirrel were fighting over a peanut outside my studio window a little while ago...a very dramatic furry fight...gray squirrel held on to that peanut, red squirrel just bitched about it while rifling through the leaves at the base of the lilac bush, the gray bushy tail with pale ears munching the prize...once the peanut was eaten the fight was over, gray squirrel went one way, red squirrel went the other...gotta love the backyard drama...

I've been painting much of today and yesterday, and when not painting, editing Chapter 35 of Drinking from the Fishbowl...it's coming along, tightening up, expanding a bit, these last few chapters were always a little thin and felt rushed to me. I'm glad to be spending time with them and making them right...it's a long process, at times arduous (writing a book is a lot about patience), but I'm enjoying the immersion now that I'm returning to the rhythm of it after being so out of sorts for several months, I felt like I was reading and not comprehending anything I had written. Sometimes it's hard to talk about what I'm working on only because I fear boring people with the process, it's like watching grass grow, okay? Some nights I'll work on one paragraph...and the next night, the same paragraph, only I change a word here, add another sentence there...the next night, take that sentence out, change that word back to the original word. (See what I mean?) You'd think I'd know what I want to say by now...I don't believe a book is ever truly finished, I could go back and rework it endlessly...the story will remain the same, but the words might be rearranged to tell it better. (What the hell right? If Stephen King can say the Dark Tower series is done at last, and then add another book in the middle of it a few years later, that's entirely up to him - it's his story to tell, and if it's still being told, let him tell it. If I want to shake my fist and say: "You bastard!" That's fine too. ) I do love Fishbowl, even though I've had such a time with it, the darn thing came from my earliest efforts as a writer, before I really had my literary shit together. I'm sure not everyone will like it just because they can, but the ones who will like it, will appreciate it for what it is...it's a psychological study, the loyalty of friends, a love story (with a little bit of a nod to soap opera's, which makes it a social comedy of sorts, tho' a little darker in a grim sort of way)...it's a book about dreams and realities. I'm glad that I haven't rushed it...it's going to be a better book for the extra effort on my part. I'm sure everyone who has an opinion will try to tell me how to write it, but see, the thing is...it is written the way I want to tell it, it has it's own voice, and who's to say that voice is right or wrong. I'm quite satisfied so far...but then, it's been several years in the making, and I haven't read the first chapter since March 16th of last year...so you see...who knows what I'll find when I pick up the printed hard copy later this spring once I'm ready to do the final pass through this summer! I'm a different writer now than I was a year ago, my vision has sharpened, not that I'm going to carry it off to another realm, there might be something that I've learned since then that I will need to apply to the earlier chapters...

I know I'm excited. It's a beautiful thing.