Feb 16

Tall Tales

My husband’s grandmother, Roseanna, prominently displayed a picture of herself sitting atop a camel. The memory had been captured while she was on vacation in Egypt. The one time I visited her home, I noticed the photograph hanging on a wall. I silently admired her sense of adventure and her confidence in traveling alone to a far-away land. She reminded me a bit of the protagonist from the movie, Titanic. In that film, the main character, Rose, nearly froze to death in icy Atlantic waters. She survived and went on to experience life in a way most women of her time didn’t even consider. Passionate living and unconventional travel set these two women apart from others. “Am I anything like them?” I wondered as I examined my own interest in traveling.

During my childhood, my family and I went on summer vacations. The six of us woke before the sun, piled into our Oldsmobile Delta 98, and drove to our destinations. Early into each drive, Dad rolled his window down to let in crisp cool air. His maneuver to jostle us awake worked as we quickly shivered away our sleepiness. Our chattering coupled with the whipping wind to keep him alert.

On one trip, I squished beside my three siblings into the backseat of the car for a nearly week-long drive from Michigan to California to visit relatives. We didn’t have to wear a seatbelt back then. Frankly, I’m not sure cars even had them. Unrestrained, my younger brothers were small enough to take turns lying on the rear window ledge. That helped my sister and me because we had more room to stretch out on the cushy backseat itself. Before you scream, “That’s not fair!,” know that we girls needed the extra space so we could take turns strategically holding a white pail for those moments when our motion sickness couldn’t be contained. Besides, we were older and bigger than them, and I’m sure we had “Called it!” first.

Monotony made the drive close to unbearable. To pass time, we counted red cars to compare with the number of blue, gray, white and black ones. We played “I Spy.” We kept watch for different state license plates. There was no mistaking us as The Brady Bunch, however. We weren’t cheerfully singing any song but did manage to get through most of one, “99 Bottles of Beer,” after running out of other things to do.

We tried to come up with novel ways to have some excitement and fun along the way. Once, my family took a short break at a rest stop so we could stretch our legs (that wasn’t the fun or exciting part). After we got back into the car, my sister and I convinced my brother, Gary, to crunch down on the floor and hide, while we girls patiently held in and planned for an expertly timed exclamation. After several miles one of us yelled out, “Where’s Gary?!” LOL, right? It didn’t take long for Dad to find Gary and for all of us to see that Dad didn’t appreciate our joke. I can’t remember which of us took the most blame, but Mom swears that it was really an accident when I was lost on a later trip to an aquarium.

We eventually made it to Grandpa’s house where I met aunts, uncles, and second cousins for the first time. We visited Great-Grandpa who was a talented landscaper earlier in his life. In his backyard, we saw a tree that produced two different varieties of fruit. He had created his own hybrid by splicing a fig tree and grafting some different fruit tree onto it. I can’t remember what the second was. His peach tree, however, left a bigger impression on me. It was naturally free from pesticides and the peaches would probably be considered organic by today’s standards. I still wish I had known that before taking a bite and seeing little squirming, protein-enriched worms inside. For many years afterward, I couldn’t make myself eat another peach.

Dad risked his life on a number of different road trips. On several occasions, he’d spot turtles trying to cross the freeways we were on. He reacted by quickly veering off to the shoulder and parking the car. The rest of us would then watch as he dashed in and out of traffic to collect an additional traveling companion. The clean, emergency white bucket came in handy to hold our newfound friend. Dad always knew what kind of turtle it was. The sharp jagged edges at the rear of its shell gave away its identity as a snapper. A pretty red bottom meant it was a painted turtle. A box turtle was just that: boxy. It was never long before we released each back into the wild.

Another time, he picked up three fiddler crabs and placed them in a paper cup for Gary to hold on the car ride. “Don’t spill them,” was barely uttered before those little creatures toppled over and scattered for hiding places. My sister and I shrieked and squirmed to get out of the backseat as quickly as possible. There was no way we were getting back in that car until those creepy crawly things were recaptured. The problem was that Dad could only find two. He wasn’t afraid of getting pinched by the renegade, so he tried to find that third crab by reaching into crevices of the cushions. Eventually, my sister and I were forced to get back into the car and we all continued on our way. That was a long, worrisome ride, but we were never bothered by the phantom fiddler, which had proven to be a great escape artist.

Dad had flown in tiny airplanes as part of the Air National Guard, and he vowed to never go on a larger commercial flight because he wouldn’t be given a parachute. If I were ever going to experience flying, it wasn’t going to be with him and the family. Therefore, my first plane ride was with friends on a trip to Florida for Spring Break. For several years, I could recall the handful of times I had flown. Most often, I dreaded air travel. Turbulence made me tense. I fervently reminded myself that flying really was safer than driving and that nothing was better than arriving at my destination in hours instead of days.

My interest in traveling grew after I married. My husband and I looked forward to annually visiting his brother and sisters who lived in California. After he and I had children of our own, I could no longer remember how many flights I had been on and my nervousness about flying was easing. Our children actually helped me get more comfortable with that. Their take on air turbulence was far different than mine. When we hit a rough patch for their first time, they squealed with delight instead of holding onto their armrests for dear life. What I feared, they loved.

When a friend of mine recently asked if I had a favorite vacation spot, I admitted that I didn’t. Each place I’ve been to has offered something unique and charming. Soon, I’ll tell you about them. You see, I’m afraid if I wait too long, I won’t be able to recall the details very well or that my perceptions will evolve into tall tales. While trying to verify some facts about Roseanna and her inspiring photograph, I found out that no one in the family remembers her having gone to Egypt…or having posed for a picture on a camel.

Feb 15

Ice Fishing in 1954

Ice Fishing in 1954 by Jon Reed

Have you ever been ice-fishing? I was thirteen-years-old and couldn’t feel my face in a bitter Lake St. Clair wind as the sky was just turning pink. I was waiting to go ice-fishing, and gusts of wind blew sheets of snow across an expanse of white. My father was inside a bait-shop renting a shanty after our 3:30 am drive to Caseville. I wore a parka over two winter coats, a sweater, several shirts, three pair of pants and socks, and heavy boots. I wouldn’t admit it, but I worried about being miles from shore on a foot of ice over twelve feet of water. A lump of ancient Model T Ford pickup that would take us out sat chuffing a few yards away.

A classmate friend, Eddie, and his father waited inside a big Dodge staying warm. Arriving a half-hour before to rent their own shanty, Eddie was a little slow and yet to figure out we had to sit on the flatbed exposed to the elements. My father came out and we climbed onto the flatbed, handing up thermos bottles of coffee and soup and treble-point fish spears more suitable for Roman gladiator coliseums. We were soon bouncing and roaring our way across Anchor Bay, unable to hear over the open exhaust, flailing tire chains, and wind. After a while, I stood up clinging to the top of the cab for a better view. It was clear for miles and I pulled a scarf over my face for better protection.

Tiny shanties appeared in the distance and we shuddered to a stop near two of them a few minutes later. Typical boxes of 4’ X 8’ plywood, there was room inside for only two people. They were cheaply-constructed because many were lost each year. Inside, a small oil stove would take the chill off. Each shanty was positioned over a pre-cut hole in the ice to fish through after a lid in the floor was removed. Without windows or lights, each shelter provided a clear view into green water below, like staring at a luminescent television screen. Before leaving, our driver said he would return with two more fishermen for the third shanty.

It was odd, watching him drive off, seeing how far away from the shore we were. Caseville was only a line of bare trees miles away. The wind picked up and the shanty stovepipes’ smoke flattened sideways. If there was a problem, we were alone.

Eddie and his father turned toward their hut twenty yards away and my father and I trudged through the snow with them to make sure they were alright. Fishing shanties aren’t necessarily built by the most intelligent people on Anchor Bay, much less to local building codes. They’re slapped together by fishermen, not architects. This particular one had its three foot square hole in the floor just inside the door. After lighting their oil stove a few minutes before, the driver had thrown the lid to one side before removing the overnight skim ice so they could begin fishing. It was an accident waiting to happen.

Too late, no one told my friend to look carefully before entering the hut. Poor Eddie dropped straight down through the hole, with a horrifying yelp, into twelve feet of freezing Anchor Bay. Fortunately, my father was standing just outside and grabbed Eddie’s collar as his head was disappearing in a splash of foam and ice.

“Whoa there, son. We can’t lose you that way. C’mon back here.”

After he had a good grip, he hauled Eddie back out and stood him in the lee of the hut. Eddie was wide-eyed, shaking, his hair turning to icicles as we watched. Eddie’s father stared, gulping soundlessly like a just-caught fish.

If someone falls through ice miles from shore, he’s in a lot of trouble unless he has a quick-thinking father like mine. Rescue from above is impossible. The instant swimmer better have taken a deep breath before going through and able to climb back out in less time than it takes to describe. If he hits his head going down, he’s gone. Rescuers might find him in a couple of months next spring when the ice melts. Eddie would have been dead for sure. As it was, he was lucky to be standing there, much less slowly freezing.

“Are you alright, Eddie? Eddie, can you hear me?” my father asked as Eddie stood there freezing. But Eddie couldn’t get a word out, fast turning blue.

It was obvious his day was done. My father flagged down the Model T returning from checking another shanty, and my friend was bundled inside while his father sat on the pickup bed. That was the last I saw of him for a few weeks. Shaking off images of a dead Eddie floating under a foot of ice, we went back to our shanty to bait minnows and think about a near miss. At the end of the day, we had a bucket full of good eating perch and I had a father who had saved a life.

Feb 10

Black Wings

The sun lit fire to the still and quiet water as it set. It was the exact opposite of how Melanie felt. Her insides boiled like an acid stew, her shame the meat of it. What she’d ended had poisoned her so deep that she would never be clean again. Beholden to her creator, she’d done even worse to herself. Time had stopped, holding its breath to see what she would do next as she sat on the black beach, the place was not familiar, but there was nowhere to go. All she knew was she was dead.

Callum had made promises, promises that had held Melanie together for a long time. To find out they were all lies…

The picture of his lean and muscular body came to her mind. He always got out of bed without a care about his nakedness. She lay sated after a forceful and wild coupling. He had marked her skin, making it red, his grip tight and unforgiving, just how she liked it. When she stared at him as he dressed, she had become quite aware of what he was doing when, with a satisfied and smug smile, he pulled out a gold band and slid it on his ring finger, slicing apart her heart as if he held the knife himself.

The one word, “married,” echoed throughout the small one room cabin that they had been coming to for over six months, bitten out through her swollen pink lips, as she lost all control.

Melanie had screamed her rage making her throat raw, attacking him with fists, teeth and nails, making him bleed for what he had done to her. His grunts joined their struggle until he grabbed her by her arms and threw her away onto the bed. Melanie looked around, her eyes wild, until they lit on the knives in small kitchen. Before Callum knew what she was doing, as he drew on his coat and headed for the door, she grabbed the biggest blade and launched herself at him, the knife coming down and into his chest over and over as she kept yelling, “Bastard, bastard, bastard,” with each strike of the knife.

She yelled the word now at the still water, the scream so powerful, if she had had super powers the water would have rippled as if hit by shockwave after shockwave of sound. She looked down at the blood congealed on her wrists, hers and Callum’s blood mixed as one. The tears that came did not wash away her sin.

“Melanie,” the male voice boomed all around her, behind her, inside her. She froze, her hands digging into the sand as if she could hide the gaping wounds she had cut into her skin. Afraid to move, afraid to speak she waited for her punishment.

“Melly. Stand up.” Her entire being, down to her soul, jerked with the word. She stood instantly, her body not in her control. Fear raced up her spine. The only person who had ever called her Melly was her mother. Social workers had taken Melanie away from her. She was only six.

“Turn to me, Melly.”

Her body shook as she complied with his command. The choice to turn was her own as she stamped down her fear of what might happen.

Melanie’s mouth went dry as a surge of heat, so strong, went straight to her core, almost causing her to fall to her knees. He was the most magnificent man she had ever seen. His chest bare, the muscles forming like he were a god, his skin tone glowing bronze to the suns red, the black designer slacks he wore fitting as if born to him, and his eyes hot as he took her in from her polished toes to unruly golden hair. She shook her head back and forth. Melanie shouldn’t be feeling anything for anyone. She didn’t deserve to feel good.

“You turn to me freely?” She shrugged her shoulders, not willing to show how much he unnerved her. There was nothing really to say anyway. Melanie was ready to accept whatever punishment she deserved.

His gaze bored into hers as if he was reading her soul. Maybe he was. Eyes firing brighter than the sun, she couldn’t cover her own as invisible arms came around her holding her body still. There was no need. It was as if the light was coming into her, filling, pressing to every corner of her mind; peeling away all her layers, her secrets. Everything.

She sobbed.

“I know what you have done to your lover.” She said nothing. He came closer lifting one of her wrists. “You dare take your own life.” His words reverberated through her making her shiver.

“There will be an agreement between you and me,” he said, his arms wrapping around her in truth, his light surrounding them both. The light was cold and fractious. It wasn’t warm, as she would have thought, making her bones ache and her want to wrench herself from his arms. His grip tightened. “The agreement is really no agreement at all. You are mine, one of many in my army, but special nonetheless. Your sins demand it.” His hand reached out as he looked down on her, as his fingers stroked her cheek and came down to her neck and back to her nape. He gripped hard and she sucked in a breath. “For taking your own life you are mine to command and do with as I will it.” She thought about what she had done to Callum.

With a piercing tear, Melanie’s body arched as his fingers became claws tearing through her skin and bones, just below her shoulder blades, reaching in and taking hold. She screamed and screamed. The pain was so great she couldn’t see and collapsed, but his arms still held her until he drew his claws out, his hold now onto something else that felt foreign yet a part of her. Her breaths bellowed from her chest and out of her mouth, her distress searing his skin. Her heart beat frantically banging against his chest as he held her with one arm, when suddenly, she saw lustrous black wings, spread so wide behind him, she stopped breathing. And when he let her go raising his arms behind her back she tried to step away but then he yanked hard on something that was…attached…to her.

“Oh, God!”

She wrenched her neck around and gasped. Mirroring his wings, were a pair of wings so black, so grand, they sucked up all the light. She had no words.

Melanie looked up into this being eyes, not a man at all. “What are you?” she whispered grabbing onto the taut skin of his shoulders, her balance unexpectedly shifting.

“I am what you are.” He paused, taking her shoulders and bringing her up so her lips were an inch from his. “I am vengeance!”

She licked her lips as her eyes dropped to his.

“And you are mine.”

His lips came down hard on hers and somehow she knew that the promise in his kiss was more than anything she had ever known, the warmth that starved the original chill suffusing them both, sealing something between them forevermore.

Feb 08

Write This Not That

Completing a 100,000 word manuscript is a daunting task. Craft elements can go rogue and crash a well-intended plot. Months, and yes, years pass in the process of writing and editing. Babies are born. Children graduate from school. And everyone grows older except for the fledgling characters in the story. For many, even writers disciplined enough to attend writers’ groups, workshops or conferences, the hurdle of a completed manuscript is too high, at least initially. If the goal is publication, then contests are an opportunity to build a writing resume.

Ah contests, I remember them well – working each entry until the last minute before the midnight deadline, correcting stupid (and stupider) mistakes and editing phrases or lines to finish with the right word count or page number. For the price of a contest entry fee, you get all this nail-biting and neurotic sort of fun.

Fortunately, contests also provide a test market for your work, a marking to market of your ability. In other words, how do I compare to a pool of equally aspiring writers? Sometimes, the winners, especially in literary magazines, are so amazing I’m tempted to abandon writing and begin any number of long neglected chores like taxes, continuing education or even cleaning. Other times, the winning entries bring a jaw dropping, head scratching, and audible “huh.” Writing is the quintessential Olympic ice dancing event as opposed to the timed or measured track and field sport.

You can slant the odds in your favor. Creative pursuits require sound project management grounded in probability. For example, is it possible that I might get my first-ever written manuscript published? Yes, but it’s not probable. Can I hone my skills and compete in contests with a possibility of publication? More probable. A combination of strategy, research, practice and numbers makes small wins lead to bigger wins.

Strategy begins with contest selection. Highly advertised contests receive more entries. If my odds of getting struck by lightning are higher than winning – all ego aside – I’m skipping the contest. Contests held by non-writing organizations draw a wider range of writing levels and are better for increasing the odds of placing at the top. Note – the uber literary MFA types are less likely to enter a short story contest sponsored by Ducks Unlimited. Competing against unpublished writers, defined differently by each contest, is another viable strategy. Additionally, research can enhance strategy. I read the publications hosting the contest or writing samples of the past winners. If the judge is announced, I research (i.e. internet literary stalk) the judge’s style, education, publications and demographic factors that might make an entry emotionally connect with him or her. Know the audience. My writing improves from the research alone (if I’m not driven to binge cleaning by the past years’ winners).

Compared to the first two steps, practice is the easy part of the process. This year, my practice area is short stories, and in the coming blog posts, I will share more about short stories, contests, and publications. Finally, the contest process depends on the law of averages – the numbers. The more contests a writer enters (assuming strategy, research and practice) determines the likelihood of success. With that in mind, here is my plan for the coming year, and perhaps, your plan also:

  1. Search for smaller, less publicized contests.
  2. Compile a contest spreadsheet sorted by deadline and word count lengths.
  3. Assess your current writing inventory available for contests.
  4. Look for opportunities to experiment with different lengths or genres.
  5. Identify specific contest deadlines within the next three months.
  6. Research the publication, contest winners, and judges.
  7. Write. Edit. Edit. Write.

Submit. Wait. Submit again.

Feb 06

For Love of Books

“When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes.” –Erasmus

I don’t know when my love of books began, but I do know it hasn’t ended. Hence, I chose the moniker, Book Lover. It is difficult for me to walk past a bookstore without entering to buy a book or two. My book shelves overflow with murder mysteries, romance novels, science fiction stories, historical books, biographies, as well as “how to” books on writing.

Imagine my joy at seeing our two year old granddaughter’s delightful reaction to visiting a bookstore for the first time. Each of our subsequent visits to her city included a trip to “her” store. Alas, that bookstore is now closed.

Like fellow blogger, John McCarthy, I visit bookstores and libraries whenever I travel. Recently on a Holland America cruise to the Caribbean, I took pictures of the ship’s library which I’ve always visited and taken for granted. There are separate large sections of books for Travel, Best Sellers, Leisure, Large Print books, several game tables including one with chess pieces in place, magazines, 12 to 16 computers, and the librarian distributes a new Sudoku puzzle daily and a daily crossword puzzle or word search. The library amenities can easily satisfy travelers.

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

These are a few of the pictures I took at the library on Holland America’s Eurodam cruise ship.

Every visit to a bookstore or library now reassures me that we haven’t yet reached the world depicted in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 or Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief where books are burned.

Where would we be without books?

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES