Seeing the light…

OK, it’s back to focusing on writing, rather than on reading! That said, it’s hard to put down a book that is wonderfully written, holds our attention, and is the subject of our friends’ book club meeting on New Year’s Eve very soon.

And that’s where I’ve been during most of my “empty” moments these past few weeks, immersed in Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, All the Light We Cannot See. And though this post is not going to be a review of the book, let me simply say that the writing is beautiful, portraying the people and places inside the story in a very special light.

The story traces the lives of a blind French girl, Marie-Laure, and a young German boy, Werner, whose lives are forever altered because of World War II. In reading every page, I couldn’t help but wonder, what might have been for these two young people. Then I realized that for all who lived during this cataclysmic time, the same could be said. Human kindness is too often smothered in the throes of war, yet we see it still existing in Werner throughout. I loved the book and recommend it as a holiday gift to someone or to oneself.

Now, I’m awaiting the arrival of Robert Harris’s An Officer and a Spy, which I need to read for our men’s book club at church the second Saturday of the new year. I suspect that the busy times are keeping things moving at a snail’s pace, and it will get here when it gets here! Ordered from Barnes & Noble over a week ago, it should have been here—under “normal” circumstances—so I’m getting edgy, to say the least.

In the meantime, while Vince Guaraldi’s soundtrack from Charlie Brown’s Christmas plays in my earbuds, I have my Scrivener opened up to write this, as well as my novel. It is beckoning me to get back to work on it! My goal is to have it rewritten, edited, and published by spring. Whenever I think the story is not really worth spending any more time on (it’s been a few years now), I wake in the night, thinking of the characters and places where the whole thing takes place! Call me wacky, but maybe that’s a sign that I shouldn’t abandon the story just yet. And so, I shall persist on this stop-and-go journey of telling a tale.

Now, as this rainy morning comes awake here in northern Illinois, I realize that Christmas is creeping ever closer. All of the Christmas cards/letters went out yesterday, the gifts are wrapped and ready for the attack of the grandsons, and the house—inside and out—is adorned with very nice lights and decorations.

I’m not sure how many posts I’ll be able to get in before the end of 2015, so I will take this time to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Happy New Year! In our very troubled times, I hope the goodness that lies within people will be the guiding light to achieve peace and well-being. As the wise men found their way to the simple stable one dark night long ago, may our journeys also be meaningful and full of hope.

My Favorite Holiday Stories…

Every year about this time, I like to dig out and re-read my favorite stories with holiday themes. I never tire of going back to them, and they, more than anything else, provide the impetus to move me into the spirit of the seasons. Today’s post will mention a few of my favorites.

Of course, anyone who knows me would say that all things Dickens is at the top of my list. A Christmas Carol and its theme of human kindness and redemption is what makes it a true classic, and one I look forward to reading in the days leading up to the big day.

But there are others as well, if not as well-known. For instance, O. Henry’s “Gift of the Magi” has always been a good Christmas story with it’s ironic twist of Jim and Della each giving up something that was truly precious to each in order to purchase a gift for the other. I’ve always liked O. Henry’s characters and the hardships of which they try to cope, and this short story is a rather excellent example of unselfish love and what true giving is all about.

Another O. Henry favorite is “The Cop and the Anthem,” although not specifically a Christmas tale. It is, however, set in the heart of New York City, with the chill and unforgiving winds of winter arriving. A homeless soul named Soapy prepares for his annual winter trip to the Island—Riker’s Island—where he can be taken care of at the expense of the taxpayer—warm meals, warm beds, and a roof over his head. Of course, every attempt to get arrested results in just the opposite, frustrating Soapy immensely. Finally, hearing the beautiful strains of a church choir singing inside the church, Soapy thinks of his mother and has an epiphany and decides to turn his life around before it’s too late. Before he can do anything more, though, he is collared by a policeman for loitering and dragged off for sentencing! Love those O. Henry trademark twists!

I remember reading Lincoln Steffens’s “A Miserable Merry Christmas,” in fifth or sixth grade as a pre-Christmas assignment. The little tale runs the gamut of the young boy’s emotions from complete despondency, when he discovers an empty stocking and no pony—the only present he wanted—on Christmas morning, to total rapture when the delivery person shows up—hours late—riding the aforementioned pony. For whatever reason, I somehow was able to relate to the boy, although I never received a pony for Christmas.

There are others, of course, and I look forward to enjoying them late at night, after the writing is finished and the rush of the day is over. There will be a fire in the fireplace to add a festive holiday flavor to the occasions. The winds and swirling rain, sleet, or snow will be up to no good on the outside, while I’m comfortably ensconced within our cozy living room.

What favorite Christmas stories do you have?

2013…A very good year to wear my “writer’s hat”

Late December is here—almost Christmas—and the snow falls outside. Much yet remains to be completed on the revising and editing of The Bet, my current novel I’m hoping to publish soon, but I’m making progress on that all the same. Just need to get through the busy days ahead and get back on track once again. No excuses…just fact!

2013 has certainly been a year filled with many highlights for me. Meeting several new friends in the blogging world and in various other online communities has been fun and rewarding. I have truly enjoyed sharing common interests—particularly the love of words and writing—with a wide array of folks “out there” in the blogosphere. Reading their many thoughts and ideas, I usually learn something and actually feel that I’m a better writer after doing so. At least I hope that I am better when I post my own thoughts and ideas, striving to be as interesting and “readable” as those I read and follow.

The best thing that happened to my writing this year, though, was my discovery of, and immersion into, the world of Scrivener, a fantastic tool for writers! At first, I had very little idea what it was all about or how it really worked. Fortunately, however, I found Gwen Hernandez’s Scrivener for Dummies and spent February and March taking her online course Scrivener for Mac, and the rest is history, if I may throw out a hackneyed cliché.

Cliché aside, Scrivener has made my writing—novels and blogs—more organized, and the whole process much easier. Using Scrivener to write my novel for NaNoWriMo in November was a fun and well-organized, challenging experience. Of course, when creating my stories, I still have to come up with the right words that will successfully tell the tale, but Scrivener, from Literature & Latte, helps me do so. Without a doubt, it has become my best friend when I’m wearing my writer’s hat! Anyone reading this, who has not tried Scrivener, should do so and take advantage of the 30-day free trial. It would make for a wonderful last-minute Christmas gift as well.

English: merry christmas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So on this snowy morning here in northern Illinois, I send good wishes to all readers and fellow writers who, like me, need to get back to work on writing, revising, and editing. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! May 2013 close out warm and happy for you all, and 2014 hold many wonderful and exciting adventures every day.…CortlandWriter

 

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Christmas Morning Excitement, Afternoon Quiet…

Winter Holiday Village (Photo credit: Mairead Fitzgerald)

 

Christmas morning. Up early and down the eleven miles to our son and his wife’s place for breakfast and to watch the two grandsons open their gifts from Santa. It’s always a hectic flurry of excitement as the wrapping is removed in record time and what’s inside is quickly  shuffled aside to make way for the next one. When this routine is finished, everyone goes their separate ways to attend to whatever plans are at hand for the rest of the day.

 

As it turns out, the son and wife and the two grandsons will be going to one of her aunt’s for a large family gathering and dinner and more hubbub for the rest of the day. The wife and I are home and enjoying the quiet and warmth of our home. No place to go and no place we want to go! I have writing to do, blog posts to update, and some much-neglected reading I want to fit in. The stereo plays some nice Christmas music while I work here, and our dinner of ham cooks slowly out in the kitchen (Its wonderful aroma is very tantalizing already!).

 

I’m not sure if it’s another sign that I’m getting older, but I have been looking forward to this after-the-gift-opening time very much. True, I love my kids and grandsons, but I don’t feel one bit guilty for savoring this peaceful time–just the wife and me–and time to do what we want to do today! I really don’t mind being left to my own thoughts and tasks on this Christmas Day.

 

I think of family and friends who are spread out all across this country, and I wonder if they are having a nice day as well. I wish for them much peace and happiness in whatever way they are celebrating this day. I hope their day will be as nice as mine has been so far: Morning excitement and anticipation full of smiles and loud voices; Afternoon and evening quiet and restful. Merry Christmas…CortlandWriter

 

Quiet and Alone (Photo credit: IzaD™)

 

Winter storms & hibernation…

christmas card (Photo credit: Stephen Rees)

It’s a dark, rainy, dreary morning here in northern Illinois, and a winter storm warning hangs over us for later today and all through the coming night. This driving rain is supposed to change to snow later on, and perhaps we’ll have our first measurable bit of snow since last March. Unbelievable as that may be to fathom, it’s a fact. Normally, we northern Illinoisans have had to deal with snow and ice in November. The past couple of years, something has been out of kilter in regards to the norm. Global warming? I don’t really care to go there, but I do have my thoughts and opinions about that topic. Perhaps another time, another post.

Quite frankly, I am ready for a blast of winter, although the wife will be traveling home from work this evening during the period of time that things are supposed to get really treacherous. Before she left a short time ago, she had the keen foresight to pack an overnight bag, just in case she’s forced to stay with friends who live close to her work. As I understand it, the weather is supposed to be much worse out here than where she works, some fifty miles away.

As the rain pelts against my window, nearly obscuring my normal vista out over the large barren fields to the east, and the water tower standing sentinel alongside the railroad tracks a few hundred yards from where I write this, I feel good to be inside and with no place I have to go today, other than a quick trip to the post office to mail a couple of letters.

Tomorrow is a different story, but today is one for hibernating here and getting some much-needed writing accomplished. It’s time, I think, to pull the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo last month out of its “holding tank” and get busy revising, editing, smoothing out, polishing, and all things necessary for the next stage toward publication.

I’m in the right frame of mind to do just that. The place is decorated, the annual family Christmas letter has been mailed, and  the shopping is complete. Now, a coffee refill is in order, and then I shall open that “holding tank” and let the manuscript breathe and take on some kind of life. It’s all good…CortlandWriter

Winter Storm Warning (74) (Photo credit: tommaync)

Birthdays and Holiday Chaos…

 (Photo credit: Live And Basic)

 

It’s a gray day, but not quite that kind of gray day, when there’s no chance for the sun to break through at any minute or the temperatures to climb up to near 40°. It’s just another one of those days, in a long string of days, that seem to be “just there!” Perhaps if I were currently working on my novel, which is “resting” at the moment from the intense month of November and NaNoWriMo, I might find this day to be one worth lots of accomplished writing.

 

Instead, I’ve spent the majority of the day—my wife’s birthday—doing little chores and helping her get her iPhone settings configured and up and running. That done, I was pleased that I could get it all done without creating any other glitches or problems. I must say, these iPhone things are pretty snappy!

 

She’s out with friends for her birthday lunch and then to do some other odds-and-ends and also pay a visit to her aunt in an assisted living residence not too far from here. That’s the kind of person my wife is, one who’d rather spend her day making others (especially a favorite aunt, her dad’s sister) feel good and cared for. She is definitely an inspiring force, and I’m damned lucky to have her along for this ride.

 

Tonight, we’ll go down to our son’s house and have a nice birthday dinner and cake with him and his wife and our two wonderful grandsons. I always kid my wife about her birthday falling so close to Christmas and, because of that, I can’t buy her a gift. Of course, that always is met with venomous stares, which always convey the message: That’s tough! Get over it and make sure there’s a birthday gift awaiting. I don’t care how close Christmas is!

 

And so it goes. I love this time of the year, not because of the necessity to go shopping (I hate it for the most part!) but because the complete chaos that begins swirling as soon as my wife’s birthday edges ever closer, colliding with all of the Christmas hub-bub. It all just adds to the boiling cauldron of the season!

 

Tonight will be good. Our grandsons will enjoy singing the birthday song and showering Grandma with the best wishes and for many more to come. We’ll enjoy a wonderful meal, followed by delicious cake and candles, and become fully immersed in a night of laughs and good times.

 

Candles spell out the traditional English birthday greeting (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

I have enjoyed a brief “pause” in the writing life, but I’m now ready to get back to that tale I pounded out in November. I’m still not sure about the title, but I’m still liking the “working” title: The Bet, and I believe that it could work in the final product. Time will tell, but stay tuned for updates on the progress of the novel as it goes into rewriting, revising, editing, polishing, scrubbing, beating…

 

Now, I need to begin to get ready for the birthday dinner and the celebration that is sure to happen….CortlandWriter

 

 

Hey, December!

writing desk with medieval documents (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

All right, November proved to be a month with nearly too much to handle, but I have survived!

Jumping into the interesting and challenging program called NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), where the challenge is to write a draft of a novel that has a minimum of 50,000 words by November 30, was just one of the items which kept me moving during the month. It required many long stretches of pounding out words at my desk here–words that needed to work for a story and not simply random stream of consciousness–and many chunks of minutes with which to hit that completed 50,000 word mark.

I’m happy to report that I exceeded 50,000 a bit and verified the word count with the NaNoWriMo folks on Thursday morning (one day early) and now have a pretty good first draft to work with–revising, re-writing, editing, proofing–during the next couple of months. I’m planning to make this my next published book. Stay tuned for further developments!

Had a weekend pheasant hunt not come into play in the middle of November, or a five-day Thanksgiving annual family event here in northern Illinois, or a three-day trip to Detroit for a football championship game and visit to daughter Laura’s, I probably wouldn’t have had to write over three thousand words at a stretch. But I’m beginning to believe that I still function best when that deadline is looming ever closer–much the way I operated through my 35-year teaching career. I don’t really recommend “seat-of-the-pants” functioning, but sometimes its the best–and only–way to get things done.

Now, I’m glad December is here and the novel challenge is complete and I was a winner. I have something on which to build a good book (I hope!) and can also now realize that the wife’s birthday is next week and I haven’t done one lick of shopping…not to mention that thing called Christmas hanging just a short hop away! Well, it seems as though I’m about to jump right back into things with time tight and a deadline staring me in the face. It never ends…CortlandWriter