Sorting Through the Roses

Sorting Through the Roses
A Sestina
By Anita Firebaugh

Leaves sway as winds blow the grass. 
Your flower bed dances with roses.
Buds fill the arbor, ache to bloom.
Showers of brightness move in the sun.
Aphrodite's roses raised in the sea
cannot match the grandeur of your garden. 

A circus of colors parades in your garden.

Highlighted, accented by alfalfa grass,

white, yellow, red waves rippling like the sea.
Misplaced carnations masquerade as pink roses,
fade against climbers reaching for sun.
Your summer rainbow, ready to bloom. 

You stand among roses watching them bloom.

With scissors you take a bouquet from your garden.
White Knights burst forth, iridescent in sun.
Crimson Glories--elegant, above the grass.
You smell the fragrance of musky roses--
down by the fence grow buds you can't see. 

But like Aphrodite who sprang from the sea

you lose your Adonis in summertime's blooms.
Yet the King's Ransom could not buy your roses--
Paradise is tangled, alive in your garden.
Your feet feel the earth, sympathize with the grass.
The Crown of your head tries to draw in the sun. 

You brush against bushes as you walk in the sun.

Thorns prick at your clothing.  Still you can't see
First Love flowering low in the grasses
or the sulky black roses waiting to bloom.
Orange and red blossoms overtake the garden.
They overwhelm when you stand in the roses. 

You cut only the best of the roses,

trim every stem, take the buds from the sun,
examine the leaves of each bush in your garden,
pull Aphrodite from the foam of the sea.
Scissors snip, you catch the best bloom.
You lay all your prizes in line on the grass. 

When the sun leaves your garden, you ache for the grass.

Each summer you ride on the wave of the bloom.
The roses return, like the foam of the sea.
You know the best rose grows here in your garden.
You stand back, watch the buds dance in sun
You have gathered your bouquet of roses.

****

A sestina is a structured poem. The last word of each line of the first stanza is repeated throughout, but rotated in a set pattern.

My sestina is a little off in that the last verse of six lines should really be a verse of three lines. So this is not a true sestina; it is a variation of the form.

The structure of the lines is this:

1. ABCDEF
2. FAEBDC
3. CFDABE
4. ECBFAD
5. DEACFB
6. BDFECA
7. (envoi) ECA or ACE

Additionally, in a true sestina, the last three lines will have the words from BDF within the final three lines so that all the words appear in the ending.

This is not a new poem; I wrote it several years ago and ran across it the other day. For those who may not know, many of the words used in this poem are actually the names of roses - Adonis, Aphrodite, King's Ransom, White Knights. I chose the names because they also evoke other images.

I have always loved form poetry and may have to try my hand at it again.

The Deer Whisperer

I thought I'd like some company this morning, so I sent out the secret signals to call the wild things.

The eight-point buck was the first to answer the call. He did not stay long, though, and vanished like grey smoke into the trees.

This doe arrived next.

I thought she might venture onto the deck

 and come visit me.

 She stood but 10 feet away

 while I snapped photos

 through the french door window.

She hung around for quite a while,

 but was not interested in close-up beauty shots.

Next I saw some does

 out the side window in the garage.

 I started to open the back door

 but realized I had yet another close visitor.

She was eating my bush.

 I have plastic fencing around my roses

 to keep the deer away;

 you can see it in the picture.

She liked the open corner

 of that part of the yard.

 No mesh fencing there

 to keep her from something tasty.

Yummy! Thank you, Deer Whisperer
 for planting this lovely bush.

I opened the garage door

 and she trotted about 20 feet away.

What did I do?

She said after I shooed her off.

Nothing, my dear.

 You just answered the Deer Whisperer's call!

Books: Body Surfing

Body Surfing
By Anita Shreve
Copyright 2008
Audiobook Version
Read by Lolita Davidovich
7.5 hours

Sydney has had a rough life. Before she is 30, she has been divorced and widowed.

Now she is spending the summer helping a developmentally slow 18-year-old girl, Julie, learn what she must to get into college.

She does this at the Edwards' summer house. And then Julie's brothers, Ben and Jeff, show up.

Jeff charms her. They fall in love. She moves in with him and they live together in Boston.

He asks her to marry him. Things go wrong. Sydney will not be a bride a third time. Will she live happily ever after, though?

This book is set at Fortune's Rock, though it is never explicitly spelled out. Shreve readers will know that this is the locale for The Pilot's Wife and Sea Glass.

Anita Shreve is a solid writer. Her books have strong characterization, good setting, and interesting plot. This book was not quite as strong as some of the others - I thought part of the ending was a little weak - but it was a worthy read.

Full Snow Moon, February 7, 2012 (evening)

Thursday Thirteen

Today I thought I'd list 13 things way to go about NOT being a successful writer. (I am writing this with a bad headache so I hope it makes sense.)

1. Don't write. This is easy enough, isn't it? Just leave the keyboard, pen, and pencil alone. Of course, you can still be a writer even if you don't write, but this is a good start if your goal is to not be a writer.

2. Kill the dream. And the daydreams. Don't do anything to feed that creative spark. That includes ditching all of the arts and crafts - put away the scrapbook and the crotchet. I suggest hours upon hours of reality TV. That'll kill creativity.

3. Don't read. Reading takes up a lot of time, anyway. Who wants to get ideas from other people's work? Because we all know everything we ever need to know, right? Let's not challenge ourselves by looking at other points of view, exploring fiction genres we might not have any affinity for, or reading biographies when all we want is a good fantasy. Don't ever stretch that intellect.

4. Read books about writing - and then don't remember anything you read. Or if you remember it, don't put it into practice. I mean, really, do we NEED capital letters at the beginning of sentences? Proper punctuation? Spelled out words? LOL! WCDYLI? (what century do you live in?)

5. If you do write, be sure to use extraneous phrases, cliches, and unoriginal wording. I mean, like, you know, who wants to read anything that they haven't already seen before?

6. Don't learn. It takes a little knowledge to be a writer - even with fiction there can be research involved. And you need a plot structure or characterization or something - and that requires a little thinking. If your thinker is atrophied, then it won't work well.

7. When you write something, write of things about which you you know nothing. If you live in the country, write about city life, and vice versa. If you have never been to Europe, be sure to set your character (who is completely different from you) down in the heart of some European metropolis. Who cares if there isn't a Plum Avenue in whatever town you choose?

8. Put a lot of porn and profanity in your pages. Never mind that most people don't like to read that - some do! Those folks might be pleased, even if there is no story line or plot. Being modern and footloose is all that matters.

9. Be sure you have imbibed of alcohol or some illegal substance when you sit down to do your best work. We all know how well that works, right?

10. Use big words, even if you don't know what they mean. And never mind if they are spelled properly (see #4).

11. Fake it. If you pretend you are a writer, someone might actually mistake you for one, even if you have absolutely nothing to indicate you write.

12. Don't listen to your editor. Even if that editor is another writer. Because remember, you know best, and know everything. So what can an editor possibly do for your work?

13. Give up. See #1. If you stop, and don't write, you'll never be a good writer. It takes practice and lots of work. It does not happen overnight.


Obviously, these should not be taken to heart at all. If anything, do the opposite! I was feeling, um, sarcastic and frustrated, I think. Writing is tough.

But never, ever give up the dream.


P.S. I consider anyone who wants to be a writer, deep down, a writer, even if they don't practice the craft. It is as much a state of mind as anything. The dream can be a great driving one, but terribly difficult to act upon. If this describes you, I hope you'll pick up a pen and paper, and see what comes out. Journals (or blogs) are good ways to start.



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 228th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Moon Set Over North Mountain, February 7, 2012 (morning)

Bears and Elephants - This is a Dream

I saw the bear, standing on its hind legs, from a distance, and then it dropped to all fours and scrambled over the green grass along the ridge of the farm. I chased after it with my camera. I ran on foot, stopping every now and then to take a picture.

It was a small black bear, a cub. I did not see its mother. I kept running after it. It was hard to breathe!

The bear stopped, and I did too. Suddenly from around the tree came two baby elephants - and they were white! They lifted up their trunks and blew at me.

I turned around and the bear was coming toward me! But just as it reached me, it turned into an elephant, too, and it reached out with its trunk, and kissed me!

That was a very vivid dream. Yes, it was in color. My dreams are always in color.

I woke up feeling my cheek for the elephant kiss, but nothing was there.

I have on my desk a very small paperback book called The Book of Dreams: a guide to the mystic meaning of your dreams. On the front it also says abridged from Zadkiel's Book of Dreams and Fortune Telling, and it marked with a price of 35 cents. It is a Dell Purse Book and its copyright is 1972. I rather think I have probably had it that long, which means I bought it when I was nine years old.

According to my little guide, "If you dream of seeing a bear, expect great vexations, and that some enemy will injure you. If you travel, you will meet with hardships, but the journey's end and intent will be safely accomplished."

But, if you dream of elephants, this "signifies luck, health, strength, and association with respectable society."

Grass also denotes prosperity.

So I would say that, according to this dream and the book's, whatever the vexation, I will overcome the problem.

Now, Zolar's Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Dreams gives a different interpretation.

According to this book, seeing a bear cub means "a friendly hint will be given" or that there will be "great competition in every pursuit." That I saw the cub standing for a time means "insecurities toward your mother."

Seeing an elephant means I "will enjoy much independence and influential connections" and since there was more than one, my "remarkable memory will lead your prosperity."

The bear was black, and a black animal means "transformation of unconscious drives." The elephants were white, and seeing white means I will "erase all previous problems and begin again."

And then there's The Dreamer's Dictionary, by Lady Stearn Robinson, et al, which tells me:

"To see wild animals in your dream is generally a good omen pertaining to business, but the interpretation depends on their attitude; if they were calm, your affairs will prosper, but if they attacked you you can expect some reverses."

The elephant means "an omen of great good luck."

Apparently I'm in for an interesting time of it, eh?

Thoughts on Pageantry

Yesterday, I noted in this blog entry that my 10-year-old niece had won a big state beauty pageant title.

As a liberal, educated woman, I have mixed feelings about any child's participation in these events, and those feelings are particularly keen when someone I love is involved.

I support my niece in what she wants to do - I must, for I love her and I want her to be happy. I am happy that she is successful in what she has chosen. She is learning a great deal about grace, body carriage, and how to look well, which are good skills to have that might take her far in life. She is enrolled in dance, and clogs for her talent - I saw a little skip in her step when she was on the runway yesterday that made me smile. You can't keep the jig out of the little Irish princess, I guess (yes, my father's family hails from the Emerald Isle).

She does seem to enjoy the activities; she loves the outfits, playing dress-up, learning to dance, etc. She has made many friends at these events, too.

My brother says that he has never witnessed the kind of monstrous child-screaming and parental shrieking that one sees on TV shows. He believes most of that is scripted. I imagine some of it is, though the little ones do get tired and irritable as the day wears on.

However, I am sure there are bad pageants, bad parents, and bad contestants. Bad things happen in everything so it is to be expected.

If you look up beauty pageants, you'll find discussion of the pros and cons. Most of the cons discuss price, time involved, and overbearing moms.

Those types of problems are not what concern me. I am concerned that beauty pageants teach these young women that all that matters is how they look. They have "interview" and "personality" components, but really, how much personality comes through in 1 minute soundbite? The child is being judged for something she has little control over - some kids are just born beautiful.

Others are not. And for that alone, they start out life in second place. For some of them, it is all downhill from there.

So perhaps my issues with beauty pageants are really more about the inherent unfairness of society, which judges you on a zillion things every day. Let's face it - the 20-year-old with the big bosom will get the job over the 40-year-old with experience, maybe not every time, but often enough for it to be a standard joke.

The Bible, which I am not fond of quoting but it does come in handy sometimes, says not to judge. Judge not lest ye be judged - Matthew 7. Or don't judge a book by its cover.

But we are a judgmental society. We judge people not only on looks, but actions. We judge on a smile, a frown, hair color, height, width, ethnicity, class, status, dress, vehicle, house, cell phone, sneaker manufacturer. We only judge on the whole person-package after we've taken time to know someone. And sometimes that takes a while.

I am as guilty as everyone else is, of course. We all make snap judgments based on what we see. We depend entirely too much on the visual cues and not enough on other things before we determine who is "good enough."

How long does it take to turn someone from an acquaintance into a friend, after all? A long time. Weeks, at least. Maybe months.

But there we are, judging beauty pageant queens and presidential candidates by the same standards - who smiles the best, who preens the best, who gives what we consider the right answers, whether or not we've thought through the questions.

Miss Ultimate

Yesterday my niece, who at the age of 10 is a veteran of the beauty pageant circuit, competed in a state competition held in Roanoke. The event was called Simply Gorgeous Girls. The winners go on to a national pageant held at Pigeon Forge, TN in April.

I went to watch. Most of these events take place far from here and I do not get to see my niece participate in them often.

Cameras were not allowed, so these pictures are not mine.

My brother took this shot yesterday with his cell phone.

I stole this one from my sister-in-law's FB page.

Stole this one, too. This is from a different pageant, though.

As you can see, my niece is quite lovely. In yesterday's event, she won most adorable, best dressed, interview, casual wear, and simply your choice wear in her age group. She also won the title of Ultimate Grand Supreme, which is to say she was the overall pageant winner.

Congratulations, Zoe!

I'm very proud!

Blue Ridge Sunrise, February 4, 2012

Thursday Thirteen

1. I'm most creative when I have done the research and I have the thing in front of me to write, or when the picture presents itself and cannot be ignored.

2. If I were a color, I'd be blue leaning toward purple. Blue is the color of the sky and the sea, purple means a little passion has been tossed in.

3. I often imagine myself as the heroine of a fantasy, fighting dragons with magic. I would love to be able to toss a lightning bolt at somebody, just every now and then.

4. I really wish I knew how to cook well. I can cook enough to feed us, but I would like to be able to cook like Julia Childs except in a healthy way. I don't want to give anybody diabetes.

5. I've love to spend a lazy Sunday visiting cemeteries in Scotland, with a big ol' castle looming nearby. Fog from moors and all that.

6. My secret talent is being able to answer many of the more obscure questions about authors and books on Jeopardy. I don't always get the popular culture ones, but ask a question about John Donne and I'm there.

7. When I am angry, I try to get over it quickly but sometimes it lingers. I am also slow to anger, but once I'm there, look out! You might as well get out of the way.

8. My college graduation is coming in May. It looks like it will happen - the thesis first draft was handed back to me with some red marks but nothing serious. A little rewriting and it will be done, I think. I am looking forward to the graduation, but I am also a little sad about it. I really enjoy school and learning.

9. My main goal in life has been, for quite some time, to be content and unfrazzled. I am thinking I need to aim for something else in my later years, though content and unfrazzled is nice.

10. I am pretty tired of people trying to foist their beliefs and values upon me and others. How did limited government also come to mean dictating who you marry, what you do with your own body, who you sleep with, and in what position you do the deed? Those just don't go together.

11. My husband has all of the love that I am capable of giving; I haven't looked at anyone else in the last 28 years and don't plan to look at anyone else ever again. Love is a strong, abiding emotion, love with friendshipo can withstand pretty much anything, I think.

12. Every morning I wake up, put on my robe, enter my office, switch on the computer, put my tea kettle on to boil, return to my office, check my email and Facebook, and then drink my tea. It's not a bad routine but I sometimes think I need to change it.

13. This Thursday Thirteen is the result of a combination of questions I saw asked of contributors to the February Oprah magazine and The Rainbow Meme, which does not exactly ask any of the last six things I wrote down but from which I took inspiration. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do.


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 227th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

February 1 Rainbow

That Damn Muse

When I was a young whippersnapper, one day in some English class, we had a discussion about writing novels and stories.

Crafted, the teacher said. Created with an outline. Every word chosen with care, knowing the significance of each and every nuance.

If an author puts in a work that it's a sailboat, not a steamboat, or that the sailor's eyes are yellow, there's a reason for that, said she.

What if they just want the eyes to be yellow? asked the whippersnapper.

No, they never just want them to be anything without it meaning something, said the teacher. If they want them to be yellow, it's to convey sickness or jealousy or some other emotion that we might connect with that color.

I think not, said the whippersnapper, whispering to herself.

Because I thought that stories were magic.

They sprang whole from the brains of the writer like Athena from the brain of Zeus, or a hobbit from the ground.

Sound. Complete. Finished. And most likely, they didn't realize half the time that when they made someone's eyes yellow, they meant for it to be dissected in an English class. They just meant for the eyes to be yellow, and if someone thought that meant the person was sick, well, so be it.

Sometime thereafter I learned about first, second, and third drafts, but that didn't sway me. Sure, they had to make changes. Nobody gets the commas right! Sometimes you get in a hurry when you're typing and you put a preposition at the end. You have to fix that stuff.

I believed in the call of the muse, I did. The whippersnapper thought the words danced around in the writer's head like music, each note a chime in the ear, a tickle on the brain, a taste of thyme on the tongue.

Just listen to that voice, thought the whippersnapper, and the words will flow.

And sometimes, that is how it happens. Sometimes the words do come falling out of the ether, tumbling into the mind like fluffy snowflakes from gray skies. Sometimes words just pour out like the waters of the Amazon, still one minute, rapid the next. It might wear you out to try to catch them.

But just as often, maybe more so, it's the craft that pulls the story along, not the waters flowing from the invisible fountain. It's the sitting and staring at the paper, ink pen at the ready, scribbling hither and yon, testing this word and that. Why not purple eyes, or blue? But then yellow ... no, that word is the best.

The whippersnapper and teacher both were right, I think. The muse speaks ... the craft guides the hand. The two work in tandem, one pushing the other.

But I lean too much on the muse. I wait too long for the whisper. I forget to steer the craft.

Because the darned boat will sink if I'm not careful, while I'm sitting there waiting on the muse to take up the oars.

For Local Writers

The Roanoke Regional Writers Conference has created a blog. I believe the intent is to foster a writer's community.

Writers can post events, book publishings, etc., on the blog, as well as, I suppose, have dialogue in the comments section.

5th Annual Roanoke Regional Writer's Conference

Yesterday I attended the 5th Annual Roanoke Regional Writers Conference at Hollins University.

While the event is held at the college, it was founded and apparently continues to be run by Dan Smith, who operates Valley Business Front. Dan has a blog, fromtheeditor, which will have other pictures about this event on it if you are interested.

Hollins University has in recent years taken a more active role in this event, but I am not clear as to what exactly its role in this writers conference is. President Nancy Gray gave a little welcoming speech Friday night, and Cathyrn Hankla, Director of Hollins Creative Writing MFA program, gave a talk and she attended the events on Saturday. I also saw Hollins professor Jeanne Larsen there. They may have been other from Hollins in attendance whom I do not know.

I did not attend the reception and opening events on Friday night, so I cannot comment on that.

The event is good for networking and for seeing old friends. Becky Mushko, a fellow blogger, was there, along with a number of other folks I know, including Beth Rossi, Brenda Isaacs, Elizabeth Jones, Bonnie Cranmer, Peggy Shifflett, the aforementioned Hollins professors, and others.

The Roanoke Regional Writers Conference is essentially a lineup of 45 minute mini-classes, ranging in topic from "Advice from Literary Agents" to "The Memoir." There were 23 different classes to choose from throughout the day, and each is only offered one time. So you have to pick what you want for every particular hour and hope you get a good one.

Here are the classes I attended:

The Last Redoubt: Writing Short Stories for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Markets

Mike Allen, a reporter for The Roanoke Times and a science fiction writer, offered up great information about writing for this genre, including lots of links to various websites that all sound interesting. He discussed story length, submission times, and how to figure out if you're writing fantasy, horror, science fiction, or something else. He did a good job with the time he had, handling it well and continually moving the conversation forward. He introduced me to a new term, "Steampunk," which was not something I had heard of before.

Anytime I learn something, I am happy. I thought this was a good seminar.

Structuring Your (Nonfiction) Storytelling

Unfortunately, the person offering this seminar (I won't name names when it was bad) did not handle his time well. He was unable to make it through his handout (which he in fact did not hand out but I managed to snag a copy on my way out the door). He also stumbled through much of what he did talk about. I was quite disappointed.

His points (greatly parred down from his outline)
1. Outline
2. Learn the five-step writing process (idea, collect information, refocus, draft, polish).
3. How would you tell a friend this story in a hurry?
4. Use unorthodox sources (journals, emails, etc)
5. Use scenes (show don't tell - that's my note, not his)
6. Beginnings and endings
7. Rewrite, make it shorter
8. Think of it as a one-act play
9. Use sidebars and graphics
10. Consider multimedia

To me, even those points seem rather scattered, really. Perhaps he should have focused on the items in his #2 and left the rest alone.

Notice What You Notice: How to Find, Recognize and Hunt Down Story Ideas

Beth Macy, who is, hands down, the best writer The Roanoke Times has, wowed everyone with her talk about how to find stories and ideas.

When I was an undergraduate at Hollins, Beth and I were in several classes together. She was in the MA program, working on her creative writing degree, so we were students there at the same time though I was a lowly bachelor degree candidate. I have admired her work for some time; she has grown as a writer and a journalist to a great degree. We're about the same age, so I try to keep the envy down to a minimum. But it would be easy to be envious of her work. (You can read one of her stories in today's paper here.)

My notes from her talk go like this:

Be honest about the good and the bad
Reserve judgment
Figure out your own life theme

That's it. There is nothing magic about that, but it was a great talk and very inspiring.

Playing with Words: What Poetry Can Teach the Prose Writer About Metaphors and Word Play

Some of these folks need to work on their seminar titles, don't they? Anyway, Jim Minnick, a Radford University professor and author of The Blueberry Years, (full disclosure: I reviewed his book) led the seminar-attendees in an exercise about metaphor. He admonished us to "see beyond what's there" to find something new and exciting.

He also cautioned against using cliche, and said that all good writing is actually writing against cliche.

This was a fun and interactive 45 minutes.

Sources for Research

Hollins librarian Maryke Barber once again offered up very useful and terrific information for researchers and knowledge-seekers of all kinds. I have attended her seminars before, and worked with her a little while working on this masters degree, and she is fantastic.

Some of the websites she gave that I hope to look at soon:

http://www.doaj.org
http://www.europeana.eu
http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/small/vhp
http://www.worldcat.org
http://www.zuula.com
http://www.wolframalpha.com

And many others that I think will be fun to look at.

Very informative!

The Memoir

Since I am, for all intents and purposes, writing a memoir as my thesis, I thought this seminar would be worthwhile. I was right! Peggy Shifflett, a retired Radford University professor and author of The Living Room Bed and two other memoirs, gave a great presentation on writing memoir.

Full disclosure: I edited The Living Room Bed for her.

I took lots of notes in this seminar:

She suggested two books on memoir writing: How to Write a Memoir, by William Zinssar, and Your Life as a Story, by Tristin Ranior.

What's the difference between a memoir and an autobiography? A memoir is a memory from your life. An autobiography is the story of your life.

A formal memoir has a message. But a memoir can also be an informal family history, an oral history, or a combination of history and memory mixed. This blog you are reading is a memoir.

Do not dodge the traumatic or neglect the enjoyable.

Go ahead and have your own catharsis while you're writing your memoir. Your readers might have their own catharsis, too.

Start out with something important.

Use all of your senses when you're writing.

Build your writing muscle and write as often as you can.

Peggy, who is a friend, did a great job with this seminar. I hope she asked to return.

Final Thoughts

This wasn't a seminar, this is me summing up the day! I left after The Memoir; there was a panel discussion at the end but when I last attended in 2010 I found that to be a downer so I didn't go. I left on a high note and thus have warm and fuzzies from the event, even with the one clunker seminar in the early hours.

Writing is something that I will always do, and I can't imagine not doing it. But sometimes it is a challenge, and trying to make a living at it in recent years has gone beyond challenge into gut-wrenching and blood-letting. It is no wonder I have felt burned out.

This writer's conference, though, was very uplifting and I feel bouyed by the sense of community and by the conversations I had with others at the event.

Nice job!

Thursday Thirteen

Today, I thought I'd list some books about writing. All of these are in my office somewhere.

1. The Chicago Manual of Style, current edition. This is a style guide, but it contains great information about important things like sentence structure, comma placement, and capitalization. For fun, check out the monthly answers to questions that people ask at the Style website. You will be amazed.

2. Guide to Fiction Writing, by Phyllis A. Whitney. Published in 1982, this is one of the best guides for writing genre fiction that I have ever read. Phyllis Whitney authored many award-winning books, mostly mysteries and "gothics." I read her work when I was growing up. This book, which covers everything from plot to characterization, appears to be out of print, but if you have an interest in learning how to create genre fiction, I urge you to seek out a copy.

3. Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus, Roget's Desk Thesaurus, Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Roget's Thesaurus, The Random House Dictionary, The American Heritage Dictionary. Yes, I have all of these reference books at my fingertips. What can I say? If you're a writer, you should have a couple of good dictionaries and a thesaurus or two at the ready.

4. Writer's Market, current edition, from Writer's Digest. I tend to buy these every other year instead of annually, because they can get expensive. They offer good advice on writing and on the writing business in articles that come before listings of places that might buy your work, though.

5. Writing the Natural Way, by Gabrielle Rico. This book advocates something called clustering, which is a way to make unusual connections, that I have used for 20 years to good effect.

6. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard. This is not a writing book, per se, but I find it inspirational in one way, and an example of what not to do in others. The book is filled with wonderful description, but I often get bogged down in the words. It's a good reminder to me to find that fine line between overwriting and explanation, and drawing in the reader. I urge every writer to find that special book that makes them think and helps them transition from reading to writing. This is that book for me. Dillard also has a book called The Writing Life that you might find more to your liking, if you want to read something by a Pulitzer Prize winner.

7. The Courage to Write, by Ralph Keyes. Many writers, myself included, suffer anxiety when they sit down. The fear? Is it good enough, what if it is good enough, what do I do with it, am I worthy? - it's a long litany that runs through the head. This book helps calm the jitters and offers up suggestions on ways to keep the blank page from becoming a monster in your dreams.

8. If You Want to Write, by Brenda Ueland. One of the best books for inspiration and conviction I've ever read. It was written in 1938 and is just as relevant today as it was then.

9. Steering the Craft, by Ursula Le Guin. My thesis professor at Hollins uses this book to great effect in many of her creative writing classes. Having had several of those with her, I have been through the book and its exercises a couple of times. Highly recommended for self-teaching and as a reminder of things that we sometimes forget.

10. Becoming a Writer, by Dorothea Brande. Another great inspirational book, also written long ago (1934) and still relevant today.

11. On Writing Well, by William Zinsser. A classic cheerleader's book that offers advice about writing without preaching.

12. The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron. Cameron's "morning pages" are a classic, and if you can do them (I can't), then you have a great start to your day. Every now and then I pull this out and try again, but I cannot get in the habit of doing three pages of free writing every morning. I hope you can, though.

13. On Becoming a Novelist, by John Gardner. Another book about the writing life and the kind of dedication it takes to become an author.


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 226th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

How Do I Look?

I do not consider myself a stylish dresser. In fact, I think the word "frumpy" probably covers it better. I try to dress nice, but I lean toward a conservative look.

Most of my clothes are by Alfred Dunner, purchased at JC Penneys. In part, this is because of my fat butt and my pear-shaped body. I have a hard time finding clothes that fit.

While my weight loss has stalled, I am still attempting to keep the eating in check and trying to lose. I am down over 20 pounds.

At some point, I will need some new clothes. Actually I will need a new outfit or two sooner rather than later.

I want a make over. A complete, total "gosh who is that" kind of makeover.

Sunday night I found myself entranced with a show called How Do I Look? This is not something I normally watch. Indeed, I had never seen it before and didn't konw it existed. But it came on after reruns of Sex and the City and I was reading, so I didn't change the channel. And then the next thing I knew, the book was forgotten and I was watching slovenly women being transformed into lovelies.

I want to be a lovely.

However, it hard to be a lovely when you don't know how to be a lovely. I also have some bad habits. For example, I chew my nails, still, though not as much as I once did. I am overweight, of course, and I tend to lean toward comfort over fashion. I do not like things that bind, and I need good, sturdy shoes. I need my glasses, too.

Every one of these women in these make overs lost the glasses, turned blond, and put on high heels. They looked good, but they did not look comfortable.

Sexy, yes. But not comfortable, or very practical. And definitely not me.

When I was about 14, my father hauled me off to a beautician, I guess because he was tired of my shaggy hair. This is the only time I remember him taking an interest in my appearance and I don't know what precipitated it; maybe someone said something. Anyway, the cut was way out there, for me, so much so that later that day, when I ran into my cousins at the mall, they did not recognize me.

Photos of me throughout the years show a woman who never knew what to do with her hair. I had perms that were wild; when I see the pictures I can't believe I looked like that. These days my hair lays against my head, no perm, and the gray shows. But it is gray and unpermed because I discovered I couldn't deal with the chemicals in the hair coloring and permanent solution. They made me ill.

When the time comes to buy new clothes, that time some months away when I have lost another 20 pounds and absolutely nothing in my closet fits, I hope I have the courage to step out of the Alfred Dunner section of the department store and try something else. Even if I don't get a different hair cut, or stop chewing my nails, I can purchase different clothes.

Maybe it is time I decide who I want to be, eh? It's only taken an entire lifetime! Time to find my personal style so that the answer to "How do I look?" is ... SMASHING.

Books: My Summer of Southern Discomfort

My Summer of Southern Discomfort
by Stephanie Gayle
Copyright 2007
Audio Book Version
7.75 hours
Read by Julie Dretzin

This first novel by a Pushcart Prize-nominated short story writer takes place in Macon, GA.

Natalie Goldberg, daughter of a noted civil rights attorney, is now a prosecutor with the Macon, GA district attorney's office. How she got there is part of the story - think heartache and betrayal and you won't be far off.

Now she's trying to find herself in her new surroundings. She's originally from Cambridge, MA and the job from which she is running was in New York.

The South takes a little getting used to.

Fortunately, author Stephanie Gayle manages to portray the south without resorting to caricature, and I was grateful for that. Her heroine is nicely portrayed and very human; she was someone I wouldn't mind getting to know and calling "friend." It's not always easy to portray a character to that degree. Her southern characters are done very well, too.

Throw in a capital murder trial for a girl who doesn't believe in the death penalty, and you have a thoughtful and occasionally gut-wrenching story about growing up, learning lessons, and finding yourself.

Highly recommended read.

Mark This One Off the Bucket List

Last night, my husband and I went to the Roanoke Civic Center to watch Guns and Hoses. This was a hockey game played by members of local police and fire departments, with all proceeds going to MDA.

It was my first-ever hockey game. The only thing I know about hockey is that players are supposed to put a puck into a net.

That I had never been to a hockey game will not surprise regular readers, who know I don't spend much time with sports or attend venues with large crowds.

The announcer said there were 8,000 people in attendance at this game.

It was a family event, and there were little children running everywhere. Loud rock music played at various intervals, and I fear it must do something to the little tot's nervous system, as there was much twitching and shaking every time the music came on. I enjoyed watching them. I didn't take any photos of them because, well, they weren't my children and I didn't want to put pictures up of kids I don't know on my blog without permission.

The firefighters wore red, while the policemen wore black.

The showdown began!

The police team took the first point.

During an intermission, the firefighters did the chicken dance out on the ice.

During a second intermission, this firefighter did a little striptease to win the "sexiest player" title, as demonstrated by much yelling from the crowd.

We left with four minutes left in the game; the firefighters were losing and I assume they did not take home a trophy.

Still, everyone had a good time for a good cause! And we did something besides stay home on a Saturday night.

The Humidity of it all

I am wondering how folks keep humidity in their homes during the winter months.

Increased humidity during the cold season can be beneficial. It helps with dry skin and stops static shock and static cling in clothes. Additionally, wood, leather, and other textiles benefit from having a little moisture in the air. If things become too dry, your woodwork and leather can crack or the paint might peel.

Mostly, though, humidity helps your sinuses. My husband and I both have sinus troubles, and regular readers know I also have asthma. Both conditions benefit from increased moisture in the air.

A hydrometer, available at any hardware store, will measure the humidity in the air. Humidity below 40 percent is considered low, but humidity above 50 percent is too high.

If the humidity is too high, you run the risk of mold growth, particularly if you keep the house heated at 70 degrees or more.

You can increase the humidity in many ways, and I think we have tried most of them. Low tech methods include leaving pots of water sitting around and letting that evaporate into the air. Wet towels will do the same thing, though I think you run the risk of mildew doing that. You can put a pot of water on the stove and let it boil, or place a kettle on the fireplace or woodstove and listen to it whistle.

Controlling humidity has been a battle for us for several years. When we built our home in 1987, we installed a whole-house warm steam humidifier. It worked rather like the toilet bowl in that it had a ball valve that lowered as the water in a little tank lowered. We had a humidistat on the wall and would set it for 40 percent and viola, we had humidity throughout the house.

The only thing we had to replace on this humidifier was the heating element. We cleaned it regularly because we have hard water, but after a few years it would corrode and we'd need another.

You can guess what happened. Eventually we could no longer find the heating element. Without that crucial part, the whole-house humidifier became useless.

Several years ago we replaced it with the newer version of the same thing. Alas, it was no longer the excellent product it was initially. It had a computer chip in it. It wouldn't work with the old humidistat on the wall, and it never seemed to regulate with the humidstat that it came with. We would set the humidity for 40 percent and the thing wouldn't turn on. We would set it higher and it would come on and saturate the house with water, which of course was not desirable at all.

We sent it back to the company several times for repair and work, but it never worked properly. I didn't trust it and would not go off and leave it running for fear I'd come home and find water oozing out of the heating duct work.

We looked at other whole-house warm mist humidifiers but decided that, in light of the fact that the new models all have been "improved" to the point of uselessness, that we would go with portable units in the house.

I bought an expensive warm mist humidifier for the bedroom, which we used successfully for two years, along with occasional use of the whole-house humidifier to subsidize it. Then the portable unit started leaking.

So I bought another portable unit for the bedroom, a different kind because of course the one I had purchased before was no longer available. This was a cranky appliance; it used mineral pads to keep down mineral deposits and if they were not situated exactly so on its little spot, it wouldn't run. It also required distilled water, and we were using over 10 gallons a week. I was glad when its water holder developed a leak, too.

Meanwhile, the whole-house unit became so unreliable that using it at all became out of the question. So we turned it off forever.

Two years ago, we bought a large cool mist humidifier. We put that in the hallway, and used a small, cheap warm mist humidifier in the bedroom. That worked well and we were able to control the humidity levels.

Cool mist is evaporative humidity, but the humidifier uses a fan to force the moisture into the air. Warm mist creates a steam. Warm mist is actually better for sinus conditions, but it heats the water.

All of these units require daily cleaning and a weekly maintenance routine. I'm not going to say I did it every day, but I think I was as diligent about cleaning the machines as most people would be. Maybe more so because, with my allergies and asthma, I really needed for the machines to stay in proper working order.

This year we again used the large cool mist humidifier. The weather here has been tricky, and it's been dry and warmer than normal. I've had a difficult time keeping the humidity at a good level. We switched to a small cool mist humidifier in the bedroom, too, mostly because it would use tap water and not distilled water.

In both of these, we used a humidifier cleaner product to keep down bacteria and mold.

After the new year, my asthma kicked in. It seemed I could breathe better outside and away from home. I couldn't find the problem. Something in the house was bothering me. I looked everywhere for mold or dust. I watched my diet to see if I was eating something I shouldn't.

Finally, earlier this week, I took a flashlight and peered into the motor of the large cool mist humidifier. Along the ridges of the underside of the fan, down inside where I couldn't reach to clean, and where you couldn't see without turning things upside down and taking things apart with a screwdriver, I saw a bit of mold.

I am highly allergic to mold.

I threw the humidifier outside immediately, and set to work spraying Lysol and checking to be sure there was no mold growth in the area where the humidifier had been sitting.

Whether or not this was the problem with my asthma, I don't know, but it seems likely. This morning, for the first time this month, my peak flow meter numbers (used to monitor your breathing) are out of the "caution you're in trouble" range.

It also is very apparent to us that in order to humidify the house, we may have to purchase new appliances every year. I will not have something that has mold in it in the house, and obviously there is no way to clean every part to guarantee that there is no mold. Purchasing a new item annually seems to be the only way to ensure no mold. But that will get expensive.

So I am curious. Do other people have this problem? And if so, how do you deal with it? Any recommendations?