To Edit

/ Lisa / 3 Comments

Next week we will leave the rain, the forest, and the mountains for holidays with family in the high open plains of northeastern Montana. As far north and east as you can get and still be in the state. The days will be longer because there is nothing to block the light, compared to here at this time of year, when the sun is too weak to lift itself up from behind the ridge. And it will be very, very cold; already below zero.

I will be spending time with family, enjoying the holidays of course, and enjoying the break from chores and responsibilities at home. But even more than that, I am going to have lots of writing time because I seem to be the odd one in the family, who gets up before noon.

The first, very rough, draft to The Memory Keeper‘s sequel was finished several weeks ago. It has been left to its own devices while I started on a new project. As most know, that gestation time is important in order to allow time to distance yourself from the words. It allows you to be more objective when you finally return to the page. Every time something is finished, I wonder as I set it aside, how long it will have to sit. Some will tell you to leave it a few weeks, some a few months.

As with most things to do with writing, it depends on the writer. I know, for me, it’s time to start the first edit when I find myself starting to wonder about the story again. When it first gets put away, I won’t think about it at all. Relief will be the overriding emotion. Relief that it’s finally finished. But eventually I find myself wondering if I remembered to do something, or if a character remembered to say something. Sometimes I even wonder what I wrote.

If I’ve reached the point that I can’t remember the story, that to me is the starting edit bell.

And it’s perfect timing since I have this vacation approaching. And so as I pack this coming week, I’ll be packing the three-ring binder with all the printed pages, the highlighters, the blank paper for all the revisions, and the red pen. The story may be worse than I think, or better than I think. But either way it’s going to be fun.

Home for the holidays

An Occasional Memory

/ Lisa / 4 Comments

My grandfather, a heavy drinker, raised my mom alone for a while. Until one night a woman drove by their house and saw a chimney fire. Ethel stopped to tell them and, as the story goes, ended up coming back as a housekeeper and to take over raising my mom. So to us, Ethel was like a grandmother even though we called her Auntie.

Her house at Christmas is one of my most vivid memories and has shaped what the holidays are for me.

Picture a short woman with ‘an immense bosom’ who never left the house without the wool suit, purse, gloves, heels, and pill-box hat matching. And then add a very firm, earthy, and fearless personality.

Her home was heated with oil and a boiler sat in the dining room. It made scary noises and the pilot flame was visible at the bottom. I knew the thing would blow up some day. There is a distinctive smell to that oil and it permeated the house.

A fireplace in the living room held a magic fire on Christmas Eve. Auntie had some sort of sparkly powder that, when tossed on the fire, made the flames a myriad of colors. From the mantle hung ugly red plastic mesh stockings full of oranges, walnuts, those gross hard candies that had some sort of mashed fruit in the middle, and bottles of school paste. As awful as the stockings were, I would have been heartbroken if they had ever held anything different.

The tree was small and the decorations quite old. I remember white birds sitting on the branches. A string of lights that were porcelain Santa heads. Another string of tiny metal bells. The Santa heads caught on fire one year. But I still have one left, strung with fraying ribbon, that I hang on my tree.

The presents were always functional. Socks, underwear, etc. Each package came with one stick of Wrigley’s gum taped to it. Occasionally one of us will still put a stick of gum on a package.

But the best part about Christmas Eve at her home was the smell. Not the oil burner. She was one of those cooks from an era of no recipes, just handfuls and pinches. There would be this heavy dark cake made with applesauce, cloves, allspice, and cinnamon, and no eggs. She called it her depression era cake. I called it a winter cake. I’m the one that makes it these days, and to me that dark, spicy denseness speaks of snow and packages and magic fire.

So house smelled of spices. Fried chicken and fried smelt. And candles and the resin sap of the tree. Of age and old mohair armchairs that scratched your skin. Of even older Reader’s Digest magazines stacked and unread. Of beeswax from polishing the upright piano. Of Pledge from dusting all the photos on top of the piano.

Christmas Eve to me was smothering hugs from Auntie (remember those large bosoms?), flour on the apron, firelight, Christmas tree lights on packages, all my favorite foods, the sense of being safe and loved, and the knowledge that if any dreams were going to come true, they would do so as I sat, dreaming, next to the multi-colored flames.

If I feel myself losing the magic of the winter solstice, of that slow turning toward sleep of the world around me, all I have to do is conjure up Auntie’s house.

I wish for you the return of good memories and old magic for your holidays.

 

 

The Same Old Question

/ Lisa / 2 Comments

Every November, people ask ‘what are you thankful for?’ and then go on to list all the things they are thankful for. I hate to admit it, but I cringe every time I hear that question.

First off, the word ‘thankful’ bugs me. It implies a sense of humbleness in the person asking the question, which is then sometimes missing in their answer. Most times their lists sound more like bragging. It reminds me of an old comic of a woman standing very proudly, wearing a sign that reads ‘I’m more humble than you’. But that’s the cynical side of me that sometimes rears up.

Is ‘grateful’ a better word? I’m more comfortable with that. A little.

I heard someone today say she was thankful she was a cancer survivor. That she’d won the battle. ‘Survivor’ and ‘battle’ bug me, too. I never felt like I was battling something, and don’t feel I have the right to wear a badge of ‘survivor’ and proclaim it to everyone like I had anything to do with winning a war. What I did was hunker down, withdraw, isolate with my husband and son, and wait out the time until treatments convinced the cancer to move on. I didn’t fight anything.

Am I thankful the cancer moved on? Am I thankful writing came back? Or thankful for all the things we always list to answer that too-common question? Family, friends, loved ones, a roof over our heads, food on the table, etc… Of course I am.

I just wish there was a word that was stronger. Not so common. Maybe it’s time to pull out the thesaurus.

It is in the nature of writers to worry a word, like a dog does a bone, or a cat does a mouse.

So until something better comes to mind I guess I have to say it. I’m thankful.

Well, grateful.

Hmmm. Appreciative?

Interestingly enough, if you look up ‘thankful’ in the thesaurus, one word that come up is ‘beholden’. Now that resonates with me. Beholden. I guess thankful feels like I’ve earned something while ‘beholden’ implies something more along the lines of gratitude.

The things that mean the most to me are not things I have earned. They are gifts. And for that I am beholden.

And now I’m done worrying the word. Unless some of you have suggestions to replace ‘thankful’ with. Or share with me the things you are grateful for. I’d love to hear that; I just don’t want to ask you what you’re thankful for!

I don’t have a photo of a turkey, so hopefully this one of a wild fool’s hen that visited one day will suffice.