tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23307622458936807452024-03-14T12:06:37.761-07:00An Hour A DayA blog about writing, children's books, and time managementcmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.comBlogger1150125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2330762245893680745.post-50286330290483862392024-03-05T08:18:00.000-08:002024-03-05T08:20:30.708-08:00The Worst Thing about Being a Writer<p><span style="font-size: medium;">The best thing about being a writer is, for me, extremely obvious. It's the sheer joy of writing, of course! </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The worst thing about being a writer? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Waiting.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And by waiting, I mean, waiting for the world to render its verdict on what I have written. Waiting on the reaction of my writing group, my agent, my editor, the editorial board at my publisher, and (if the book is fortunate enough to be published) for trade reviews, reader reviews, and any kind of nice little fuss that might be made over it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I have spent most of 2024 so far waiting re two different projects: first, waiting to see if Book I Just Finished would be accepted for publication, and second, waiting for reviews on Book That Is Coming Out in June. Waiting as the minutes, hours, and days slipped by. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHP4j4NoQR9KUp6vWz1PHhxDdiuz6XOE0kULa9Kp9thKEJwHGoHTl61MwqKGhjrUnnHuCg6vfymAHLIXEmt3M0ZkvggKzPBe10xJ029uReXJQWz_kRY45vbC-pxnlVeM4g7t1A7b8llcjUyuK30vIbGHV8d6v_puPfyVd0356zoR7cEkSu6wF58NYRR7fB/s3264/photo%20hourglass.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHP4j4NoQR9KUp6vWz1PHhxDdiuz6XOE0kULa9Kp9thKEJwHGoHTl61MwqKGhjrUnnHuCg6vfymAHLIXEmt3M0ZkvggKzPBe10xJ029uReXJQWz_kRY45vbC-pxnlVeM4g7t1A7b8llcjUyuK30vIbGHV8d6v_puPfyVd0356zoR7cEkSu6wF58NYRR7fB/s320/photo%20hourglass.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Now, I do have to acknowledge that I am extremely lucky to be in this position, to have two different book projects that have cleared early hurdles and that I love with all my heart. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But it doesn't feel all that lucky when I'm waiting. It actually feels more like agony. And it feels hard to do anything else BUT wait, which is the very worst thing an author person can do. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Everyone says - and it's true - that instead of twiddling your thumbs and checking email on your phone every few minutes and consoling yourselves with nibbling all day long on Easter candy (Cadbury eggs! Russell Stover chocolate-covered strawberry-cream eggs! Jellybeans, the original Brach's ones of my childhood!), you should get busy WRITING THE NEXT BOOK.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But, gosh, that is hard. Because it's a lot more fun writing a book if there is at least SOME chance of its being read by somebody someday. And its chances of being read are greatly influenced by the outcome of the very things you are waiting on. In my long career, I've had one publisher reject a book of mine because of the disappointingness of my past sales - something that would doom the next book, too. And publishers are less likely to want your next book if the current book turns out to be a DUD. And I've had my share of duds.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Waiting for the editorial verdict on Book I Just Finished was complicated by the fact that my agent is currently spending a month in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. As any news from the publisher would go first to him, I looked up the time difference between Boulder, Colorado, and Ho Chi Minh City: 14 hours, so I could time my obsessive email checking accordingly. Plus, it's a very unusual book for the children's book market: a book about an emotionally intense sixth-grade girl who falls in love with - wait for it - ancient Greek philosophy (!) and uses it to navigate various crises at home and at school. The wisdom of dead white men is not a super-hot topic in the publishing world right now.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">As the weeks went by, my hopes for the book dimmed even more. When my editor loves a book of mine, she responds right away - last time, it was within FOUR HOURS of her receiving it! When she doesn't love a book, she takes her time to write a long letter laying out the faults of the book in excruciating detail. And "right away" had come and gone. And with it, any hope for the book. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Oh, well.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But then, last Thursday, Leap Year's Day, as I was driving along, I glanced at my phone at a stoplight, and there was an email from my agent with "Offer" in the subject line. (If it's bad news, or no news at all, he uses the subject line "Update"). Unbelievably, astonishingly, miraculously, they are going to publish my book. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I was too stunned even to be happy. But my sweetheart, David, was happy enough for both of us (after having been forced to listen to all my weeping and wailing as I waited). Here are the flowers he gave me to celebrate, with the manuscript next to them and some works of ancient Greek philosophy that star in the book.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJuJUBhG0kFb9nyfZClxMQi5OZr8vQVG6NUwUQK8a-Y5g1cyV-loMKZcG3cz-ejECE_3npVV41VkEhgr2RzjCcnPXN7xCJpYlDtd3GfRT1JBYQYgsaREUcwojk_yl_rU_5suBL_CjJnfZZEoPR0BpVLJ_mwasnMXuxh6y1JWrohiSR1kManKOsm2HAtCV7/s3456/photo%20flowers%20stoicism%20book.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3104" data-original-width="3456" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJuJUBhG0kFb9nyfZClxMQi5OZr8vQVG6NUwUQK8a-Y5g1cyV-loMKZcG3cz-ejECE_3npVV41VkEhgr2RzjCcnPXN7xCJpYlDtd3GfRT1JBYQYgsaREUcwojk_yl_rU_5suBL_CjJnfZZEoPR0BpVLJ_mwasnMXuxh6y1JWrohiSR1kManKOsm2HAtCV7/s320/photo%20flowers%20stoicism%20book.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">So now, I'm back to waiting for reviews on Book That Is Coming Out in June. More on that to come...</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>cmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2330762245893680745.post-63895218914239735452024-02-07T15:25:00.000-08:002024-02-07T15:25:16.070-08:00Just Write the Darned Thing!<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Sometime last year a professor friend invited me to contribute a chapter to an edited collection he was putting together on a certain Scholarly Topic. I love to accept invitations like this! I still want to remain professionally active, but I'm sick unto death of submitting articles to journals for the brutality of double-blind anonymous peer review. It's so much more fun to write an article for someone who actually WANTS something actually written by ME. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I didn't have much of an idea for what I might write, but the deadline to send in an abstract was looming, so I did some pondering and came up with an idea for the Thing I Would Write. I sent it off to my professor friend, and he liked the idea for this Thing. He got a contract for the book, as yet unwritten, with a table of contents that included me as a contributor and my Thing as one of the chapters.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But then, when I started seriously reading up on the Thing, I saw that the main thing I had wanted to say about the Thing had already been said, thirty years ago, by a Brilliant Prominent Scholar - and said vastly better than I was going to say it.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil1NOkoZaTH8SDWypl1_pqxK3Tbe6FbosR619jbXXLKxblDEGD3qhb-HfuCbL1b92CpJTwPYXcUiPS9_48qyI7V9Chq2-9MqgtW9gIR_NY_oTttvRSKredzDDk__kL5-hJuItMEZMCX5nhLACPvGrpWK0S2vclNGwnDBkCrSJpq_a2Jd3wxwgBwf_5AyXy/s4032/Photo%20Little%20Princess%20books.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil1NOkoZaTH8SDWypl1_pqxK3Tbe6FbosR619jbXXLKxblDEGD3qhb-HfuCbL1b92CpJTwPYXcUiPS9_48qyI7V9Chq2-9MqgtW9gIR_NY_oTttvRSKredzDDk__kL5-hJuItMEZMCX5nhLACPvGrpWK0S2vclNGwnDBkCrSJpq_a2Jd3wxwgBwf_5AyXy/s320/Photo%20Little%20Princess%20books.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Needless to say, this took a considerable amount of wind out of my sails. But it was too late to back out of the Thing. I somehow had to write the Thing anyway. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Still, I moped and whimpered and kept wishing I hadn't said yes to writing the Thing. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Finally, I realized that, as I wasn't going to back out, all I could do, limp as my sails were hanging, absent any stiff breeze to sail me along, was, yes, just Write the Darned Thing.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I plugged along on it diligently for an hour a day, day after day. I found some interesting background information to include about the history of the Thing. I came up with half a dozen fairly worthwhile insights of my own into the Thing. I reframed my discussion so that the part derivative from Brilliant Prominent Scholar was no longer the main point of the Thing, but just one of many points I made along the way, with plenty of effusive citations to her.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">When I had done the best I could do, with a sigh I pressed SEND.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And you know what? The editors read the Thing right away and thought it was just fine. In fact, they used the word "great." I don't think it's a Great Thing myself. I think it's a Nice Little Thing. The single best part of it is still the points made by the Brilliant Prominent Scholar. But hey, that's why she's a Brilliant Prominent Scholar, and not me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There's a ditty I learned as a child, from Henry Van Dyke: "Use what talents you possess. The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There is room in the world - and in the academic world, too - for lots of voices raised in song. In the end, I'm glad I said yes to singing my own little song and wrote this Nice Little Thing.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbe_9WqZDQlJitADApBUEuDcnu8BWk33HwXa8aXlMHxhyphenhyphenJq9n2GgFqxYw088yQ1tdxNaTgido29jX5W7EGgoI33hCYCAhSMJ_H57unEyRvtoNUY7MhJ8co57do0XD2wfH8U-UFhoXM9MLUP4B3rcmmeb9ACsVPz4dQZwiOyauAF_sMUtucIgVgfbEQ7edg/s1463/photo%20pygmy%20nuthatch%20at%20feeder.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1176" data-original-width="1463" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbe_9WqZDQlJitADApBUEuDcnu8BWk33HwXa8aXlMHxhyphenhyphenJq9n2GgFqxYw088yQ1tdxNaTgido29jX5W7EGgoI33hCYCAhSMJ_H57unEyRvtoNUY7MhJ8co57do0XD2wfH8U-UFhoXM9MLUP4B3rcmmeb9ACsVPz4dQZwiOyauAF_sMUtucIgVgfbEQ7edg/s320/photo%20pygmy%20nuthatch%20at%20feeder.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>cmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2330762245893680745.post-66627613995796855682024-02-02T04:34:00.000-08:002024-02-02T04:34:41.491-08:00 A Month Post Elbow Surgery: A Lovely Little Miracle Each Day<p><span style="font-size: medium;">It's almost a month now since I had my elbow surgery, on January 4, following my parking-lot fall and fracture two days before Christmas. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This was NOT how I had wanted to start 2024. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">2022 and 2023 had been two of the happiest years of my life, and both began SPLENDIDLY.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">2022 began with my taking myself all alone to Paris for a solo writing retreat and soon after going on Match.com for ONE HOUR and meeting the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">2023 began with having my editor - who had rejected my previous middle-grade novel - reading my submission of <i>The Last Apple Tree</i>, loving it instantly, and offering me a contract a week later. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">2024 began with elbow surgery. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Certainly, this was an omen that this would be a completely sucky year. I would spend months in painful recovery, unable to engage in any of my usual sweet life activities, and the whole year would be RUINED. Right? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Wrong! </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">If you have to break a bone, I heartily recommend breaking your non-dominant elbow. Yes, there was pain at first, and massive inconvenience, but a week after surgery, the doctor took off the bulky, incapacitating splint and sling and ordered me to PT. My sister sent me this bear, from Vermont Teddy Bear, to keep me company through all of it (note that he has a cast on HIS left elbow, too!)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE_BsjwUTbwWL6MgH8Q4ShE_2TnYdHXVPIM68F1M6bUXQVV1wxgP2jVRU05QWumwTBNruKg5BGyCXUzLoR1v5dkGS_92RqEnlEO38y_s7Dp7QHB5AHcV6fUwYeC0iyDEebzCIxur_ZHN1zVuh7_RIz0JRbxVN-XBK8VHbtznEDARlO3cTZ5e1Z4avnA3m8/s4032/photo%20bear%20with%20broken%20elbow.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE_BsjwUTbwWL6MgH8Q4ShE_2TnYdHXVPIM68F1M6bUXQVV1wxgP2jVRU05QWumwTBNruKg5BGyCXUzLoR1v5dkGS_92RqEnlEO38y_s7Dp7QHB5AHcV6fUwYeC0iyDEebzCIxur_ZHN1zVuh7_RIz0JRbxVN-XBK8VHbtznEDARlO3cTZ5e1Z4avnA3m8/s320/photo%20bear%20with%20broken%20elbow.JPG" width="240" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />Then the series of miracles began. One by one, day by day, I started to be able to do things I thought I could never do again. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">My first and best victory: getting a dab of jam on the index finger of my left hand and being able to LICK IT OFF!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">More victories followed.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Taking off my top ALL BY MYSELF without having to have someone else assist by giving one sleeve a little tug! </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Shampooing my hair with BOTH HANDS! And being able to get my left arm WET!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Sleeping comfortably on either side (HUGE)! And typing with both hands without discomfort (HUGEST OF ALL!). </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">At church last Sunday, my first time there since the surgery, when people asked how my recovery was going, I would demonstrate a few of these stunning accomplishments, e.g., reenacting the momentous licking of my index finger. But then to one woman I said, mournfully, "But I fear I have to face the fact that I will never again be able to reach behind my head to gather my hair into a rubber band." I started to dramatize the impossibility of doing this - the left arm just wouldn't GO that far - and suddenly realized that NOW I COULD!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Hooray for the licking of jam at will! Hooray for comfort in typing and sleeping! Hooray for being able to GET YOUR ARM INTO THE SLEEVE OF A COAT! And DRIVE A CAR! And FLOSS YOUR TEETH!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Hooray for learning how many fears are unfounded. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">2024 is turning out to be a wonderful year, after all. </span></p>cmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2330762245893680745.post-62983279834836510082024-01-20T10:27:00.000-08:002024-01-20T10:27:10.816-08:00How Should You Spend the First, Best Hour of Your Day? (Part II)<p><span style="font-size: medium;">In the previous post I confessed that I have been spending the first, best hour of my day NOT on writing (my passion, my profession, my identity, my bliss) but on <i>New York Times</i> word puzzles. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">My work-in-progress was stalled. I thought it was simply because I was <i>stuck</i>, unsure where the story should go next. In fact, I told myself, maybe sinking for hours into the La Brea Tar Pits of the puzzles might be, oh, I don't know, a sort-of meditative practice that might actually help me get <i>unstuck</i>. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But of course, the truth I was avoiding was that I was stuck <i>because</i> I was allowing myself to do <i>New York Times</i> puzzles instead of putting in a faithful hour a day sitting, pen in hand, trying to unstick myself. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It was my sweetheart, ruthless though loving truth teller that he is, who pointed this out to me. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I had to admit he might be on to something.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">So for two solid weeks back in December, I made a commitment to myself to return to devoting that first, best hour each day to writing. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I prepared everything the night before, carrying my writing materials and hourglass up to my writing nook and even filling the electric kettle with enough hot water for a pot of heavily sugared tea, with teapot, mug, and teabag in readiness on the kitchen table.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWvscSr2Ziy4lbu4kL4nA9j93GgKtpMCY3svAwW9XI-2HMZDLvpE9xHLpXRcItzdmg1a7l5O8x3TD65S_ctBgAkIuvqDl7VivTsEj-txCjHphaoF3z0HgOSYss_tp7bqF7bu7xXiOcx4E8G7ZNOlycqJx6MxqXKwhor2Ef3qd_vre5_BcYb2R4DbhxSt4E/s4032/photo%20teapot%20mug%20tea.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWvscSr2Ziy4lbu4kL4nA9j93GgKtpMCY3svAwW9XI-2HMZDLvpE9xHLpXRcItzdmg1a7l5O8x3TD65S_ctBgAkIuvqDl7VivTsEj-txCjHphaoF3z0HgOSYss_tp7bqF7bu7xXiOcx4E8G7ZNOlycqJx6MxqXKwhor2Ef3qd_vre5_BcYb2R4DbhxSt4E/s320/photo%20teapot%20mug%20tea.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">I allowed myself to get up even earlier than usual, at 4:00 (the earlier I get up, the happier I am all day, though impossibly smug). While the water heated - maybe for ten minutes - I did steal a peek at the puzzle. Cold turkey was a bit too daunting. But then, teapot filled, I tiptoed upstairs, settled myself on the loveseat, and wrote - WROTE! - till 5:30 or so.</span><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The pages came pouring out of me. I wrote the entire last third of a 45,000-word draft in those two weeks, and the scenes I wrote were GOOD. Dare I say, with an author's besotted love for her own creation, they were WONDERFUL. All day long, I hugged myself with happiness for what I had written and could hardly wait till the next morning to see what would happen next as the story hurtled toward its climax and denouement with the fabulous force of momentum making it happen. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Oh, and I still finished the puzzle every day, doing it in bits and pieces, as a palette cleanser between other activities, which turned out to be a much better way to approach puzzles, at least for me. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3fnNJMbpG8FTDCuRGBHDK0CLatiNQZ25l2fJgM3OIYn03DDhsCrcFiwk9B7Xx_FFzGPVcUh9c7xyJytpwvdfFaRVAhP8awXlFlXqmTFu_22du18XQJVHTlB28PSs877INaAdvqsF4ts7_TZ2uB-SwNTO8qF0CT8QaRtA8Wf8bU6O7VaXmgJBEYSvH-hFl/s2400/photo%20nyt%20spelling%20bee-1.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1260" data-original-width="2400" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3fnNJMbpG8FTDCuRGBHDK0CLatiNQZ25l2fJgM3OIYn03DDhsCrcFiwk9B7Xx_FFzGPVcUh9c7xyJytpwvdfFaRVAhP8awXlFlXqmTFu_22du18XQJVHTlB28PSs877INaAdvqsF4ts7_TZ2uB-SwNTO8qF0CT8QaRtA8Wf8bU6O7VaXmgJBEYSvH-hFl/s320/photo%20nyt%20spelling%20bee-1.png" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">Oh, dear ones, try using the best hour of YOUR day for what you love best. It might work as much magic for you as it has for me. <br /></span><p><br /></p>cmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2330762245893680745.post-89058121154971248452024-01-15T06:17:00.000-08:002024-01-15T06:17:35.709-08:00How Should You Spend the First, Best Hour of Your Day? (Part I)<p><span style="font-size: medium;">For most of my career as a children's book author, I published a book for young readers just about every year while working full-time as a tenured professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado and raising a family. My only secret was this: I devoted the first, best hour of the day to my writing. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That is the whole entire secret right there. Wired to be an early-morning person, I woke up every morning at 5 a.m. (without an alarm), made myself a steaming mug of Swiss Miss hot chocolate, and curled up on the couch with my beloved clipboard, pad of narrow-ruled white paper, and Pilot Razor Point pen, to write for exactly one hour, timed with my most-beloved-of-all hourglass. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgguT0aK5igmyK_cvXcHViQrv8lby59GaN80LqtlRVtf5IYbyzXM6FnJ6F1M6mhVgSWHqVZcglQDvXJKYEoTN7HPUozwbt4L-Srno67wjcSzZ0F0OYaHk8md8fpeO4W5XFJJtsmWaYUcQ5-2fXQbNL5FwEjPUyZlmcOv9RkXcOfgE6twLhqLqQn9Bj3YdIh/s3264/photo%20hourglass.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgguT0aK5igmyK_cvXcHViQrv8lby59GaN80LqtlRVtf5IYbyzXM6FnJ6F1M6mhVgSWHqVZcglQDvXJKYEoTN7HPUozwbt4L-Srno67wjcSzZ0F0OYaHk8md8fpeO4W5XFJJtsmWaYUcQ5-2fXQbNL5FwEjPUyZlmcOv9RkXcOfgE6twLhqLqQn9Bj3YdIh/s320/photo%20hourglass.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Then, almost a decade ago, I took early retirement from CU. Now I had all day to write! Now I could write whenever I wanted to, all day long!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I did keep on writing books for young readers. But - funny thing - I wrote not MORE but LESS than I had before. With all day to do it, I also had all day NOT to do it. NOT doing it started to become my default setting. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">What did I do instead with my first, best hour of the day? Well, some of it was spent helping to take care of live-in grandchildren, a worthy activity I don't regret. But in recent years - oh, this is terrible to say!! - I have been giving the first, best hour of the day to <i>New York Times</i> puzzles. First Wordle, which after all, does take just two minutes followed by the fun of texting my score to a select few recipients. The new Connections puzzle, though sometimes infuriating, can be dispatched in five or ten minutes. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But the Spelling Bee... oh, the Spelling Bee... </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdTludiiNpAXinZ6QVvQjJjD2hyphenhyphenUix5zhZCMEPPBXYivfKQbIWKRLBHlct9IqA5OKmHksUBsXeiNN4z1P4EO6JVQL8n0TQAtXHbhXbKP4WqfwGiFMECnpH9AsS1ryGzNZeKL6CZ8Bkxow2y1dH9t5ia-EjhPNq_PcHoDfPQOY9w5xBjNmf4bc6xYnVBcT_/s1500/photo%20nyt%20spelling%20bee.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1085" data-original-width="1500" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdTludiiNpAXinZ6QVvQjJjD2hyphenhyphenUix5zhZCMEPPBXYivfKQbIWKRLBHlct9IqA5OKmHksUBsXeiNN4z1P4EO6JVQL8n0TQAtXHbhXbKP4WqfwGiFMECnpH9AsS1ryGzNZeKL6CZ8Bkxow2y1dH9t5ia-EjhPNq_PcHoDfPQOY9w5xBjNmf4bc6xYnVBcT_/s320/photo%20nyt%20spelling%20bee.png" width="320" /></span></a></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It's possible to get lost in it for hours. Once upon a time I was satisfied if I got past the lower levels of Solid, Nice, Great, and Amazing, all the way to Genius. But then I learned there was the level of Queen Bee, where you found absolutely every word recognized by the puzzle. I became so obsessed with the NYT Spelling Bee that sometimes in the night I'd wake up and realize it was now past 1:00 a.m. here in Colorado (the puzzle for each day is released at 3 a.m. ET), and I'd actually leap out of bed to start doing it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Would you say I had a PROBLEM? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">To answer my original question: what you should be doing in your first, best hour of the day (whenever that falls for YOU in clock time) is what matters most to YOU (whatever that is in your own personal priorities). It should almost certainly NOT be hunting for one last eight-letter word starting with CO and one last six-letter word starting with PL. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In the next post I will share my somewhat successful journey toward reclaiming that first, best hour of the day for the purposes of my true, best self. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>cmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2330762245893680745.post-42226233730291489662024-01-11T08:11:00.000-08:002024-01-11T08:11:34.227-08:00Starting the New Year - 11 Days Late<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Things are looking up for me and my broken elbow! Surgery with the very young but very capable orthopedic doctor a week ago today! I am now the proud owner of six screws and one metal plate to hold my once-shattered elbow together from now until the grave. Then a few frustrating but healing days with the left arm cradled - i.e., imprisoned - in a huge, heavy, bulky, awkward, almost utterly incapacitating splint and sling. Then.... yesterday! ... the post-op visit where the loathed splint was removed and the arm was set free! Hooray! I can cuddle beside my sweetheart without this forbidding barrier of the enormous, lifeless arm lying in bed between us. I can type with both hands! </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">What else in life is needed for happiness? I now know that the answer to that is: nothing.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But. . . I am so far behind on EVERYTHING! The year went right ahead and got started WITHOUT ME and now I'm panting - with my still-depleted store of energy - to catch up. Already, on January 11, I'm ready to give up on 2024 and admit defeat. Maybe 2025 will be better? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But this would be just a tad premature, don't you think? I have to find a way to give myself permission to start the new year 11 days late - or maybe, start it on Monday, the 15th, halfway through January, which feels a little less random. Or even... just ease into it? Just start doing a few of my pleasant little piddly tasks (like writing this blog post) and see what happens?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I've already developed, over the past decades, a few ways to trick myself into summoning the motivational energy that comes from new beginnings even when these beginnings don't fall on the most auspicious times of day or month or year. I fell in love with my trusty, trademark hourglass in part because the new beginning began whenever I turned it over, whether right on the dot of 5 a.m. or at 5:03 or even - heaven forbid - at 7:30. I inaugurated the practice of starting a new life on the first day of each month just so I could have that "5-4-3-2-1 Happy New Year!" energy twelve times a year. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The saying popular in the years of my youth - "Today is the first day of the rest of your life" - was designed just to allow us to have a new beginning WHENEVER we need one. Today can always be the first day of SOMETHING.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">So: today is the first day of a life with a partially healed fractured elbow and partially restored level of functionality. I'm giving 2024 another chance.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Starting today.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjblLlFCE69JNKKni7Ft23ZJNqJaRqsHuUMOnbHdDJyhLNYW8RbBg27NSyCi6UD2YMG2WtfBd58A3S3-_M1T7H8nuUVxuvYL1V1R8Du2Eda63o8VOKyFVvo1TP3rKMpUSFhKdAchOG3Btv6GIh3urxbY0qlRSpO0jr8Zeg1Tp2QywdyUXsy0VXrT7be2SI/s4032/photo%20Rainbow's%20End%20writing%20in%20sunroom%20winter.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjblLlFCE69JNKKni7Ft23ZJNqJaRqsHuUMOnbHdDJyhLNYW8RbBg27NSyCi6UD2YMG2WtfBd58A3S3-_M1T7H8nuUVxuvYL1V1R8Du2Eda63o8VOKyFVvo1TP3rKMpUSFhKdAchOG3Btv6GIh3urxbY0qlRSpO0jr8Zeg1Tp2QywdyUXsy0VXrT7be2SI/w400-h300/photo%20Rainbow's%20End%20writing%20in%20sunroom%20winter.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>cmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2330762245893680745.post-20261653961705159762024-01-01T08:36:00.000-08:002024-01-01T08:36:20.746-08:00Starting All Over Again in the New Year - with One Big, Unexpected Hindrance<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> <span style="background-color: white; color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Happy new year!</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background: white; color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">As you may or may not have noticed, and as I myself barely
noticed, I haven't posted on this blog since May. I was too busy with my sweet
new romance, and feeling discouraged about the current children's book
marketplace, and trying to decide whether I would ever write another book again,
and then finally falling in love with a new book idea and spending the rest of
the year happily scribbling away in my upstairs writing nook on my hour a day
of writing bliss.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background: white; color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">But now it's the new year, and I was filled with plans for
starting all over again with every once-beloved activity under the sun.
Blogging again! Teaching an online course for the graduate programs in
children's literature at Hollins University! Working with my mentees through the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators! And revising my beautiful book
to share with my writing group and then with my agent and editor. I could
hardly wait for the new year to begin!</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background: white; color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Alas, two days before Christmas, I was off to the grocery
store with my two little granddaughters, and one of them was leaping and
bounding with wild, uninhibited joy for the coming holidays, when she leaped
and bounded so exuberantly that I tripped over her and fell hard onto the
parking lot of King Soopers. “Are you okay?” a concerned stranger asked me. “No!”
I wailed. Because I wasn't. He helped me up, both my grown sons were summoned,
I was off to urgent care, and it turned out to be a broken elbow, with surgery
now scheduled for this coming Thursday.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background: white; color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">What is to become of all my cherished plans? How can I type
with one arm in a sling? Thank goodness it is my left elbow and not my right,
but it is much harder than I realized to accomplish the tasks of daily life
with only one good arm. Adjustments will need to be made. In fact, I am composing
this right now, as an experiment, using the dictation feature on my laptop.
Somehow this will all work out, right? So many of my friends have had similar
surgeries, and they have survived. I suspect I will, too.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background: white; color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">At least I am writing this blog post today, just as I
promised myself I would do. So I'm counting this as an auspicious start to the
challenging first month of this new year.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background: white; color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Wishing all of you health and happiness, and avoidance of
unpleasant encounters with gravity, in 2024!</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiges9UlRdoKgILkcqVgTf9AT-HdRe0pGm3q-BquW8-Aicfggkocd3LTS-HR6_LF-Lea5uW8RPGoWYhpvswKcfQ7y0WPmIOfWJ-RWU2PkRo7fHZLnju_N5gUCZTh3dSlYiQ6jR_YZwLbyh7Xc1w3zWPW_Nr9dXfp_CFwfZ2_4glchbNaQX36yDTYpnARhSF/s4032/photo%20Claudia%20brokem%20elbow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiges9UlRdoKgILkcqVgTf9AT-HdRe0pGm3q-BquW8-Aicfggkocd3LTS-HR6_LF-Lea5uW8RPGoWYhpvswKcfQ7y0WPmIOfWJ-RWU2PkRo7fHZLnju_N5gUCZTh3dSlYiQ6jR_YZwLbyh7Xc1w3zWPW_Nr9dXfp_CFwfZ2_4glchbNaQX36yDTYpnARhSF/s320/photo%20Claudia%20brokem%20elbow.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: white; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #201f1e; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>cmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2330762245893680745.post-72119081032578251632023-05-10T11:04:00.000-07:002023-05-10T11:04:22.444-07:00Help! I've Forgotten How to Write a Book!<p>Buoyed by my recent success (after a stretch of discouragement) in writing my most recent book, <i>The Last Apple Tree</i>, and selling it to my favorite publisher, I thought, hey, this was fun! I think I'll write another book! </p><p>So I gathered up my trusty clipboard, pad of paper, and Pilot P-500 pen, and prepared to start thinking about what my next book should be.</p><p>There was only one problem.</p><p>I had forgotten how to write a book. </p><p>Now, given that <i>The Last Apple Tree</i> will be my 63rd book, in a career spanning 40 years, plus my good-sized stack of unpublished and unpublishable books, you might think this is the kind of thing one would remember. Alas, you would be wrong. I believe it was Eudora Welty who said, "Each book teaches me how to write IT." But not how to write the next one.</p><p>Still, in case it might jog my memory, I dragged out the notes I had made when I was groping toward <i>The Last Apple Tree.</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz2xTU8nwz1T5iaZwlhLDvGofi2jmaR-XHtdKiB7lzSF99YVjg1N4-OmOzIWDaM6-EavVVncrWsn2PAGdBxJzdE8odZ-mfNGHx93WWdpsYDkPLQxKiVPEzyV4LEz9ge9yT5LZEhCF5r6SGUKBhvlNYS6ui45tz8XLo-fVLOSAH1GZVxg49w-1SDKe9ig/s4032/photo%20book%20notes-1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz2xTU8nwz1T5iaZwlhLDvGofi2jmaR-XHtdKiB7lzSF99YVjg1N4-OmOzIWDaM6-EavVVncrWsn2PAGdBxJzdE8odZ-mfNGHx93WWdpsYDkPLQxKiVPEzyV4LEz9ge9yT5LZEhCF5r6SGUKBhvlNYS6ui45tz8XLo-fVLOSAH1GZVxg49w-1SDKe9ig/s320/photo%20book%20notes-1.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><p>They are, to put it mildly, a mess. I started out jotting down something I had heard on NPR about the origin of song some 270 million years ago. Ooh! And then I wrote random things like, "firsts and lasts" and "noise and silence" and "noise pollution" and "FINDING YOUR OWN MUSIC." Plus unhelpful questions like: "How can this be made kidlike?" and "What can <i>children</i> do?" </p><p>Page 2 of the notes was not much better:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic_YbLeT6zTJ4vSXNPfHj4XkANTTg8o18pmKHFPPPRN5RzHD5-jyZIUM820NMXqlEpBXHdqlzgzibycsKhFbwq3UJindMDPU23fAlgLmzfhEYCzJC0JAjo29b3jeCmypxFCEMwSG3jNGIIqEG2c-898WLyftI1h9zhfff5oLkrp7qkqWM8ZidaKtRCiQ/s4032/photo%20book%20notes-2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic_YbLeT6zTJ4vSXNPfHj4XkANTTg8o18pmKHFPPPRN5RzHD5-jyZIUM820NMXqlEpBXHdqlzgzibycsKhFbwq3UJindMDPU23fAlgLmzfhEYCzJC0JAjo29b3jeCmypxFCEMwSG3jNGIIqEG2c-898WLyftI1h9zhfff5oLkrp7qkqWM8ZidaKtRCiQ/s320/photo%20book%20notes-2.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><p>By this point, I recalled that my plan HAD been to write something about heirloom apple trees. So I wrote lines like "orchards involve planning for the future" and "man plants a tree that will outlive him." This was barely a start, so I wrote, "but who are my <i>characters</i>? what is <i>their </i>story?" Yes, these would indeed be useful things for an author to know! More random notes: "2 dif. families" - "quiet book - but: <i>something</i> big? some <i>big</i> loss?" </p><p>On page 3, I start listing possible candidates for the "big sad thing": death, Alzheimer's, family shame, poverty, prison, bad thing in family history . . . </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieL0JqgY8s1cKSIMXbtYdqRzdyBCSUMVxLj5-NaggcXjAEbBWUBsVyuWL4wLc-_Y3XqnyAJGZSrugTyI9tSQeCu2BKcWSU93_9HLIv9hq_Gs0RDx_PUpdQ0nEp_S_hMTZS0x_Ec5yJJB_Ycz0ok5ZHivAPM6_-PokwHqus1L94xtoiuWNjqzOohfnZTQ/s4032/photo%20book%20notes-3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieL0JqgY8s1cKSIMXbtYdqRzdyBCSUMVxLj5-NaggcXjAEbBWUBsVyuWL4wLc-_Y3XqnyAJGZSrugTyI9tSQeCu2BKcWSU93_9HLIv9hq_Gs0RDx_PUpdQ0nEp_S_hMTZS0x_Ec5yJJB_Ycz0ok5ZHivAPM6_-PokwHqus1L94xtoiuWNjqzOohfnZTQ/s320/photo%20book%20notes-3.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><p>The pages of notes continued to accumulate, with more questions I struggled to answer: "HOW WOULD THIS TIE IN TO APPLES?" "What ELSE is going to happen?" "What do each of them WANT?" and some encouraging comments to myself such as "I am starting to love this book!" By page 11 of the notes, I was urging myself to start actually writing the thing: "JUST START WRITING - PLEASE DO THIS!" followed by the crucial question: "but: where does the book BEGIN?" </p><p><span>I did start writing, and I see on p. 14 of the notes that the writing is going badly. "MY WRITING TASK FOR TODAY - figure out why I have so little interest in this book and how to fix it!!!" with a list of "THINGS I STILL (think) I LIKE" and another list of "PROBLEMS WITH THE STORY - MANY!! Then, later on the same page in huge capitals: "HELP!!!" Then many pages headed "SALVAGING THIS BOOK" and" SALVAGING THIS BOOK, CONT'D" with the agonized question "SHOULD I THROW OUT EVERYTHING SO FAR?" And many sad-face emojis. </span></p><p>I went on to produce a total of 51 pages in the same tiny, scribbly writing, over a period of months, as I continued going back and forth between actual writing and reflecting on what I had written and what I might write next. And then: I had a full draft! And my writing group, the Writing Roosters, read it and gave me heaps and heaps of comments, and I made heaps and heaps of changes! And then my agent loved it, and my editor offered a contract on it, and I've now done three more rounds of revision/edits for her.</p><p>So did re-reading these old notes help me remember how to write a book? Sort of. The main thing they helped me remember was that <b>WRITING IS HARD! WRITING TAKES TIME! EXPECT FALSE STARTS! EXPECT A ROLLERCOASTER OF SELF-PRAISE AND SELF-DOUBT WITH OCCASIONAL DARK NIGHTS OF THE AUTHOR'S SOUL! </b></p><p>That <i>was</i> helpful, after all. </p><p>I might as well jump on that rollercoaster today.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>cmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2330762245893680745.post-29246246988772792122023-05-01T11:19:00.000-07:002023-05-01T11:19:07.659-07:00Spring Comes at Last to Rainbow's End <p><span style="font-size: medium;">Today is the first day of May! Hooray! So as I (almost) always do on the first day of a month, today I start a new life.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">It's also a new season, as spring has finally come to Valley Lane in Six-Mile Canyon where I live with my True Love in a funky treehouse-sort-of-house called Rainbow's End. </span></p><div class="x_elementToProof" style="border: 0px; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was only this past weekend that the weather was so lovely that David and I could sit on the deck for much of the day. </span></div><div class="x_elementToProof" style="border: 0px; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="x_elementToProof" style="border: 0px; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-style: inherit; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixVIEF05WUM_XyeT2YZsD-yszOvM94HXH4tlh-ukbWTr-ztQ_I5OtxDHGx7UhEva1A1BABZAM4hC0H_stB8t589dOYdpXI1A15eggwihsf6OOQ661PSMXPi-_AkUYIrZVE4WS7Ba1-V7LUXdUzjg_XqvcuwoxbMCV6dUKg9XkS0hKpfjCWcT1WdZBj-g/s4032/photo%20rainbow's%20end%20deck%20in%20spring.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixVIEF05WUM_XyeT2YZsD-yszOvM94HXH4tlh-ukbWTr-ztQ_I5OtxDHGx7UhEva1A1BABZAM4hC0H_stB8t589dOYdpXI1A15eggwihsf6OOQ661PSMXPi-_AkUYIrZVE4WS7Ba1-V7LUXdUzjg_XqvcuwoxbMCV6dUKg9XkS0hKpfjCWcT1WdZBj-g/s320/photo%20rainbow's%20end%20deck%20in%20spring.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"><div class="x_elementToProof" style="border: 0px; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"><br /></span></div>The hummingbirds have returned from their winter migration, so I filled the feeders we bought last year with nectar of four parts water to one part sugar, and we hung the new feeder for the pygmy nuthatches and Stellar's jays that we bought from a local bird store with the assistance of a pleasant and knowledgeable young man whose advice proved entirely correct on every point. What joy it is now to see the birds flocking to our bird buffet, as we sit with mimosas and David's fresh-baked sourdough bread spread with delectable </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"><i>fromage d'affinois</i></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">. Yesterday two deer lingered on the hillside, nibbling the coarse wild grass that is now making the rocky cliff emerald green. Forgotten is the toil of shoveling those 66 steps from the January snows that refused to melt, or trying to drive up the steep, icy hill at Coffin Corner, and talking more and more often about "when we move back to town." We love it here, we love it here, we love it here! We want to live here forever!</span></div><div class="x_elementToProof" style="border: 0px; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="x_elementToProof" style="border: 0px; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">So at the heart of May's new life: savor spring in David's arms.</span></div><div class="x_elementToProof" style="border: 0px; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="x_elementToProof" style="border: 0px; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">But addicted as I am to productivity, I have two writing goals as well. First: produce a good draft of a book chapter I'm writing on "the library as a liminal space in children's literature" for a scholar friend's edited collection. I've already hauled home dozens of books from the public library, read them all, and taken 43 handwritten pages of notes about them. But now I need to make notes on the notes! And think of something I actually want to SAY! </span></div><div class="x_elementToProof" style="border: 0px; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="x_elementToProof" style="border: 0px; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5jUHIkNt-exM8PeO4tpUtRNmwUd0SEIVnyEcd7Xn22wflUnYbyveSojdAePsNWUMQHDqodmghUvHRPqcFup4PVlDqIpzKd24kMNscOphdi6w5fP1nZrWuIsV6tqZ_5Am37r9_0S7TCNkIB4As8CezmmR9GRZcC9yS-pmPYMLVmoQHuF2y23mYJS8VtA/s4032/photo%20shelf%20of%20books%20about%20libraries.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5jUHIkNt-exM8PeO4tpUtRNmwUd0SEIVnyEcd7Xn22wflUnYbyveSojdAePsNWUMQHDqodmghUvHRPqcFup4PVlDqIpzKd24kMNscOphdi6w5fP1nZrWuIsV6tqZ_5Am37r9_0S7TCNkIB4As8CezmmR9GRZcC9yS-pmPYMLVmoQHuF2y23mYJS8VtA/s320/photo%20shelf%20of%20books%20about%20libraries.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">Second: start brainstorming ideas for a next children's book of my own. Some of my writer friends have dozens of ideas buzzing about in their feverish brains. I don't. I have little teensy scraps of things that might become ideas someday, but actual ideas come to me ONLY when I sit down with clipboard, pad of paper, and pen, and write at the top of the pages: IDEAS. Then, and only then, do a few pitiful ones start creeping out from their hiding places. I plan to spend all of May just gathering enough pitiful ideas that a few might grow into something that could become a real, live book.</span></div><div class="x_elementToProof" style="border: 0px; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="x_elementToProof" style="border: 0px; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Progress on both goals starting today!</div><div class="x_elementToProof" style="border: 0px; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br aria-hidden="true" style="background-color: white;" /></span></div><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Resume regular font. </span></p>cmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2330762245893680745.post-78125022262391870502023-04-25T09:24:00.000-07:002023-04-25T09:24:56.577-07:00Just When I Thought My Career Might Be Over . . . It Wasn't <p>I have given many motivational talks throughout my long career as a children's book author, cheering on fledgling authors through disappointment and discouragement. But I found out (to my shame) that it was harder to say these cheering things to <i>myself</i> when <i>I</i> was the disappointed and discouraged one. When the book I thought was my best book ever was published to fewer accolades than I had hoped, and when the next book (equally brilliant in my humble opinion) didn't get published AT ALL, I started to wonder if maybe it was time for this old gray mare to put herself out to pasture. </p><p>But then (as everyone in the universe knows by now) I fell in love in March of 2022, and suddenly everything that had previously seemed impossible started to seem possible again. Finding late-life love after loss does make one inclined to believe in miracles! And this new man turned out to be someone with a gift for brainstorming ideas - particularly, he informed me, ideas in fields he knows nothing about. </p><p>When David offered to do a brainstorming session with me, at first I balked. "But . . ." I tried to tell him as kindly I could, "your ideas are going to be DUMB! And then I'll feel embarrassed for you! And I won't adore you in the same way ever again!" He replied, "Of COURSE my ideas will be dumb. That's what happens all the time in brainstorming. But I think something will come unstuck for you."</p><p>So last April we brainstormed together. And he was right. I came unstuck. I had identified some features of the kinds of books I like to write - books that are "Claudia Mills" books. He typed them up on a sheet of paper; all the teensy writing here was my thoughts as they bubbled up in the course of our long conversation.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYH0oTlfzgYWpW4muheAkBaUFfpzigchhi5cSIDktNbWIxjVk5jHilkk9luTZo8XY9TtNQd9ziUI2X2E0PSpWdcmeatYUhRWmwEZcD7CjnEN1oW6uRjph8Irzix8H6Sdbz3nz-2qgPcf9FxrF_V_cFva9TIPIM8bPqV1a_ssSav3kbs849n53iaP9bfA/s4032/photo%20brainstorming.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYH0oTlfzgYWpW4muheAkBaUFfpzigchhi5cSIDktNbWIxjVk5jHilkk9luTZo8XY9TtNQd9ziUI2X2E0PSpWdcmeatYUhRWmwEZcD7CjnEN1oW6uRjph8Irzix8H6Sdbz3nz-2qgPcf9FxrF_V_cFva9TIPIM8bPqV1a_ssSav3kbs849n53iaP9bfA/s320/photo%20brainstorming.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Two of the items scribbled on this page spoke most deeply to me: 1) heirloom apple trees in need of saving (my previous book, <i>The Lost Language</i>, was about endangered languages in need of saving - I have a weakness for people who try to save things, even if their efforts to do so are ultimately doomed); 2) an intergenerational oral history project (oral history involves saving STORIES - so more saving!!). <div><br /></div><div>I began to grope... and to make voluminous notes... and then, timidly, to write. I read the first pages to David, and he offered just the right mix of big-picture questions about the story, smaller insights about particular details, and unfailing, enthusiastic encouragement. In December I shared the finished manuscript with my writing group, the Writing Roosters, for their many challenging comments. I revised mightily and sent the book to my agent right before Christmas; he sent it out to my editor at the start of the new year. She responded - a career first for me - within HOURS, saying she had only meant to take a peek, but had to finish it, and loved it... and a week later - also a career first for me - I had the offer for publication. </div><div><br /></div><div>Several rounds of revision remained, and it takes forever to get a contract finalized and signed, but I SIGNED IT YESTERDAY! <i>The Last Apple Tree</i> is set for publication in summer of 2024. I love the brief description of the book in the contract (which I didn't write): "<i>The Last Apple tree</i>, a middle-grade novel work of fiction, approximately 240 pages, about memory, generational grief, and the importance of difficult truth." Ooh! I would like to read this book myself!</div><div><br /></div><div>Here are the flowers David brought home for me on the day I got the email with the official publication offer, perched atop a stack of all my notes for the book. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXjy0Wj66iSDOFo381DmZ46fCxsQbo3zWlJ4GIMYCaBsFTZh8kUmlGDMr75Wbv8rNAAo98Z3R6i2d5XbW30AlBs-hjLkpPXDFEhx2QM8e_RFBCPqWtJqtjyv8XvIyRpzNUU4uZi1bcSuouIB8n-K8IjnNIAijF8MuMN03aVqHsiuR2ojJrsm1U5T64dg/s640/photo%20apple%20tree%20book%20flowers%20BEST.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="425" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXjy0Wj66iSDOFo381DmZ46fCxsQbo3zWlJ4GIMYCaBsFTZh8kUmlGDMr75Wbv8rNAAo98Z3R6i2d5XbW30AlBs-hjLkpPXDFEhx2QM8e_RFBCPqWtJqtjyv8XvIyRpzNUU4uZi1bcSuouIB8n-K8IjnNIAijF8MuMN03aVqHsiuR2ojJrsm1U5T64dg/s320/photo%20apple%20tree%20book%20flowers%20BEST.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><div>With <i>The Last Apple Tree</i> now in production and the bulk of my work on it completed, he asked me the other day if I'd like to have a brainstorming session for a new book. Um - yes??!!</div><div><p><br /></p></div>cmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2330762245893680745.post-58547402671600208922023-03-27T11:07:00.003-07:002023-03-27T11:09:09.923-07:00A Middle-Aged, Semi-Retired Academic Ponders Her Future <p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Years ago, when I was still a full-time, tenured professor of philosophy, navigating the rewards and frustrations of that career, I came up with this instruction to myself: "Do more of what you love, less of what you hate." That remains good advice for me now as I ponder the future direction of my professional life - and perhaps for you, too - for all of us.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Do more of what you love, less of what you hate.</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p><i><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Some things I love about the academic life:</span></i></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Talking with people I love who love the same books I love. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Writing thoughtful, insightful (but also critical) articles about the books I love.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Teaching eager, motivated students about the books I love.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><i><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Some things I hate about the academic life:</span></i></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Academic politics, conflicts, "call-outs," MEANNESS!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Jumping through other people's hoops, especially hoops held by anonymous strangers.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Feeling like a failure, a fraud, a fake - the "imposture syndrome" known to almost all academics.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">How can I get more of the former and less of the latter?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Well, one of the bad things about decades in a profession is feeling a bit worn out and washed up. But one of the FABULOUS things longevity provides is LOTS AND LOTS OF WONDERFUL FRIENDS. Some of my children's lit scholar colleagues are retired now - not just retired from the university, but retired, period. But others remain extremely active in the field, filled with ideas galore for organizing conferences, arranging symposia and discussion groups, and soliciting contributions for volumes they are editing on all kinds of delicious topics.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So: I no longer have to submit my work to scholarly journals for double-blind peer review, where usually one reviewer is kind and encouraging, and the other one is... not. On my most recent submission to a prestigious journal in my field, the first reviewer wrote, "This
is a fascinating and informative article that stands to make an important
contribution to the scholarship [on topic x]." Reviewer #2 wrote, "</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">One of the key issues the author should consider addressing in revision
is the essay’s overall lack of purpose and coherence."!!!! Ouch!!! This, after my having published - I just counted - some 50 academic articles and book chapters over the last forty years! So I'm hardly a wet-behind-the-ears newbie! Should I try to revise this piece to please Reviewer #2, who went on to provide a full page with half a dozen similar comments, all scathing, and who will likely prove impossible to please? Or should I declare myself done-done-DONE! with trying to please all the Reviewer #2s of the world forever?</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">Farewell, Reviewer #2! I have realized that I can write - and publish - heaps of lovely academic articles just by working with fellow scholars who already like me and value what I do. They will want revisions, too, of course; they have appropriately high standards of their own. But this doesn't feel like jumping through endless hoops of fire. It feels like joyous collaboration with people I know and respect.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: medium;">I may continue to attend academic conferences, but smaller, friendlier ones. I will continue to teach, but at smaller, friendlier places. Hollins University (pictured below), where I have taught regularly for many years, offers graduate programs in children's literature that are BLISS for students and faculty alike. I told a new faculty member who was arriving as I was leaving from my first stint of teaching there, "You are entering the portals of paradise."</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2Wq53qZYD8bbywCJfrapABDRllVDAVq8QX5FctUgU75oR6-RnvGAQiTPQ5BG01bTQ2G6p9D-hH6XoW-NsV6LaLEHczwKGtWc4SexysmqHuy8-ACDPIbvvouJrXYl7gu-iphnOHHsWupxRqSAC8vFjHvhlRy7oJelwxVUxOfVq8U1IsbjVoWjgMMj82A/s960/photo%20hollins%20campus.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="960" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2Wq53qZYD8bbywCJfrapABDRllVDAVq8QX5FctUgU75oR6-RnvGAQiTPQ5BG01bTQ2G6p9D-hH6XoW-NsV6LaLEHczwKGtWc4SexysmqHuy8-ACDPIbvvouJrXYl7gu-iphnOHHsWupxRqSAC8vFjHvhlRy7oJelwxVUxOfVq8U1IsbjVoWjgMMj82A/s320/photo%20hollins%20campus.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">More of what we love, less of what we hate... sounds pretty good, no? <br /></span><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><i><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></i></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><b><br /></b></p>cmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2330762245893680745.post-75978650049976001462023-03-11T11:20:00.000-08:002023-03-11T11:20:25.511-08:00To Think or Not to Think: That Is the Question<p>My recent posts have focused on my search this year for some form of "closure" on my decades-long career as children's book writer and scholar. Note that "closure" does NOT have to mean full-out retirement or complete bailing on the work and world that I have loved. But it will likely mean closing at least some chapters of my story to make way for the chapters that follow.</p><p>These posts have struck a chord in many readers of my age cohort, but also prompted some affectionate questions of the form: "Um - aren't you, well, OVERTHINKING all of this?" One friend wrote, "Why must you decide? Why not just follow your whim? Follow your gut, follow your heart, follow how you feel when you wake up each morning." Another wrote, "Just amuse yourself with unapologetic, unjustified fun in whatever form it takes." A third advised me to "wait and see what happens."</p><p>This is excellent advice, of course, but something in me rebels against it. So here is how I am THINKING through the question of how much to be THINKING about all of this!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_plXdgdN_Hb2OlEXaCslOVapG384BrmzTdHh1X_TQgLWVPA-n24EvjtSSnrMjueS-Jw6yXtA-sre3KvHMyFHt-HVdVYrQtpcZ8thw6pOzjmmGFhWYDOFSaM84Pgw52wVuzvHNdd390SkaLMZ6TE_C5q-kTe5r-8nZF3yNHIebgihhlEJ2IVA-jvQZyw/s1791/rodin%20the%20thinker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1791" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_plXdgdN_Hb2OlEXaCslOVapG384BrmzTdHh1X_TQgLWVPA-n24EvjtSSnrMjueS-Jw6yXtA-sre3KvHMyFHt-HVdVYrQtpcZ8thw6pOzjmmGFhWYDOFSaM84Pgw52wVuzvHNdd390SkaLMZ6TE_C5q-kTe5r-8nZF3yNHIebgihhlEJ2IVA-jvQZyw/s320/rodin%20the%20thinker.jpg" width="214" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Well, first of all, I like to think. People who become philosophy professors are usually people who enjoy thinking. And I'm particularly drawn to thinking about - I might as well admit it - ME. I have long discussions with myself in my trusty little notebook, where I pour out my troubles and then write, "Little notebook, help!" and then the little notebook proceeds to give me excellent advice.<div><br /></div><div>All my writing - creative and scholarly - begins with my sitting down, pen in hand, and deliberately and self-consciously thinking about what I want to write. I NEVER EVER have an idea just pop into my head. I get ideas ONLY when I sit down with clipboard, pad of paper, and pen and write at the top of the page IDEAS. While I am not 100 percent a "plotter" as opposed to a "pantser" (one who flies by the seat of her pants) in creating a book, I'm closing to the plotter end of the spectrum (though not in a mechanized way). If I just waited to see what I ended up writing, I don't think I'd ever write anything.</div><div><br /></div><div>Most important, though, is that what I'm thinking about so hard these days is the relationship between writing and publication - and all that the search for publication involves. I'm a writer who cares about having readers who aren't just me. Even when I write in a journal - oh, this is a narcissistic confession! - I imagine future biographers reading it! When I write poems, I want to share them at least with a few friends. Do I want to get poems published? Well, I sort of do. Do I want this enough to research poetry journals and jump through the hoops required to submit my work, knowing that I will face a 15:1 rate of rejection to acceptance? I'm not sure. I AM sure that I would never just wake up one morning and FEEL like doing this. Doing this is not FUN. But I might decide that doing an UN-fun thing that I DON'T feel like doing will result in future satisfactions worth doing it anyway.</div><div><br /></div><div>I have LOVED publishing books! I have ADORED it! After 62 published books, it is still a joy to hold a brand-new published book BY ME in my hands. But the publication process involves much rejection, self-doubt, competition, and critique by total strangers. I'm at a season of my life where I need to THINK about whether, for me, the joy outweighs the misery. Of course, this is the kind of thing I can change my mind about, day by day. When I gave up my tenured position in the Philosophy Department at the University of Colorado, almost ten years ago now, I knew this was an irrevocable decision. The decision whether or not to keep on writing academic articles for POSSIBLE publication is not. Ditto for the decision to keep on writing children's books for POSSIBLE publication. Maybe on Monday I would wake up thinking I will take a few more whacks at a children's lit article - and on Tuesday decide I can't stand it - and on Wednesday give it a few more whacks again. But in this last third of my life, I'd like to have a bit more of a PLAN than this - because publication is more likely to turn from POSSIBLE to ACTUAL with serious, sustained effort than with waiting for the muse to visit. </div><div><br /></div><div>For now I THINK I need to keep on THINKING. But this is enough THINKING about THINKING for today!</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><p><br /></p><p><br /></p></div>cmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2330762245893680745.post-23939921974896597012023-03-04T10:13:00.000-08:002023-03-11T09:35:19.699-08:00More Thoughts on "Closure" - Slammed Door or Gently Closing Gate?<p>One of my first realizations when I began to ponder what "closure" might mean for me in this stage of my career as writer and scholar is that "closure" is akin to "enclosure" - not just what is fenced OUT, but what is fenced IN, enfolded, protected - not just what I DON'T want anymore from my career, but what I DO. <br /></p><p>I do NOT want to give up everything I love most! But I need to find a new way to love it, appropriate for this season of my life.</p><p>I have wanted to be a writer from the moment I could first hold a pencil or a crayon. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYzd_BRjxmd_BZmdqCIvXVc9rLfaoOeCC1HXQ6OJEVcjFVRsntY6zz7rUI-Nwxd-xvVbolY8Zr7s8xOcRF7eJxs8c6eXqaCewbrt_KPCZSxl3tV5ABvOG_BGfNfWHsB2e-5eTNy0SCJK__QiUW3OdInMoIZnJ4TnaE-Nzqmas-E7dCsXh7wyiWerPmvg/s3264/photo%20first%20book%20cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYzd_BRjxmd_BZmdqCIvXVc9rLfaoOeCC1HXQ6OJEVcjFVRsntY6zz7rUI-Nwxd-xvVbolY8Zr7s8xOcRF7eJxs8c6eXqaCewbrt_KPCZSxl3tV5ABvOG_BGfNfWHsB2e-5eTNy0SCJK__QiUW3OdInMoIZnJ4TnaE-Nzqmas-E7dCsXh7wyiWerPmvg/s320/photo%20first%20book%20cover.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><p></p><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmResHO2zu-R9yUe9T4yjrxN7OHj9DXuA9xTK_PwO7itwIwRAfFQqMoJOZmjy9jfWGWSkxsnkd9qs3bMl4KeopbDAGUFIrmcjsUCmVslUOOl6YB3p3Tk5Vae1sOI7rl1wwZe7SRZPKrZSS7gGhLkkYvVU3h__eXWwNhvgqMGDupOjOkArMbpwFI_DFMg/s3264/photo%20first%20book%20title%20page%20rotated.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmResHO2zu-R9yUe9T4yjrxN7OHj9DXuA9xTK_PwO7itwIwRAfFQqMoJOZmjy9jfWGWSkxsnkd9qs3bMl4KeopbDAGUFIrmcjsUCmVslUOOl6YB3p3Tk5Vae1sOI7rl1wwZe7SRZPKrZSS7gGhLkkYvVU3h__eXWwNhvgqMGDupOjOkArMbpwFI_DFMg/s320/photo%20first%20book%20title%20page%20rotated.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>I even included an "ad card" at the end to publicize future titles - precocious marketing maven that I was.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI04a5EYqAHSpZxAlQWpLEGXEvAHmgtoozV-GKm_bUog-y4vtBcR49NEG_tMTwpTxNCyBy1DiCv7jeIoCkP4EWYgeTTBrool_Qm6Rv7YqhyZ9WFX1qYwbGDrWYKbeEhTtzI995MApL3Gar6QTvbn3Wvza6zzpx7HdHkVYREGBXdPpxpUXGSlF0BH7Y9Q/s3264/photo%20first%20book%20ad%20card.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI04a5EYqAHSpZxAlQWpLEGXEvAHmgtoozV-GKm_bUog-y4vtBcR49NEG_tMTwpTxNCyBy1DiCv7jeIoCkP4EWYgeTTBrool_Qm6Rv7YqhyZ9WFX1qYwbGDrWYKbeEhTtzI995MApL3Gar6QTvbn3Wvza6zzpx7HdHkVYREGBXdPpxpUXGSlF0BH7Y9Q/s320/photo%20first%20book%20ad%20card.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7B34alOVge_uLbL6oMz4fYHLoYDCnGccAAVvDKuav1z1dntazpyOTyiB6ZVsZlj6PcQugAWs_mB4ha9iA6eJbq4w6d2b6hhNNqlNPfNySyOHtZcPqaHpBiaeoKf_BaaifIu3ssNT2fXE7uiHn8z1cMAoUll4TbxzPR2-RGwxd1mY9_LtcGwp-0GUcQQ/s3264/photo%20first%20book%20ad%20card-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7B34alOVge_uLbL6oMz4fYHLoYDCnGccAAVvDKuav1z1dntazpyOTyiB6ZVsZlj6PcQugAWs_mB4ha9iA6eJbq4w6d2b6hhNNqlNPfNySyOHtZcPqaHpBiaeoKf_BaaifIu3ssNT2fXE7uiHn8z1cMAoUll4TbxzPR2-RGwxd1mY9_LtcGwp-0GUcQQ/s320/photo%20first%20book%20ad%20card-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Sixty-two published books later, I'm certainly not ready to say farewell forever to writing - and not just writing for myself, but for others to read - and yes, writing for publication.<div><br /></div><div>And yet... I can't help but notice how much the world of children's book writing is changing. There is a rightful demand for and appreciation of new and diverse voices telling new and diverse stories - hooray for that! But I'm neither new nor "diverse" in the ways diversity is commonly understood. There is an almost insatiable demand on the part of young readers for graphic novels - an exciting literary form, but not "me." Stories for young readers are becoming ever more filled with (fun!) murder and (fun!) mayhem, but I'm not a murder and mayhem kind of person. My idea of a gripping survival story is a shy seventh grade girl surviving the middle school dance. And authors are increasingly expected to become adept self-promoters on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and platforms I haven't even heard of yet. </div><div><br /></div><div>My beloved Stoic philosopher Epictetus tells us, in so many words, "If you want to go the banquet, you have to flatter the tyrant. If you don't want to flatter the tyrant, then don't go to the banquet." It's as simple as that. But of course, what we want is for what worked for us forty years ago to continue to work for us now. <i>Ain't going to happen.</i> I have no right to expect it to happen. It's so good in so many ways that this is NOT happening! </div><div><br /></div><div>But still...</div><div><br /></div><div>So I need to figure out how to keep on writing the way I want in a world that may or may not want what I write. Can I find a way to change while still being true to who I am as a writer? Am I willing to do this? (Tentative answer: not really!). Or can I find a way to gain sweet satisfaction from writing with altered expectations (I think this is the more promising route!). </div><div><br /></div><div>I don't want to slam the door on my writing life. But on some parts of it, I think I'll be closing a gate... gently...</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><p><br /></p></div>cmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2330762245893680745.post-54862427417652487962023-03-01T16:25:00.001-08:002023-03-11T09:34:13.961-08:00Reflections on "Closure"<p>I read a piece of blogging advice some time ago. One thing it said was: "If you have a lapse in your blogging, don't call attention to it with any explanations (for who cares?). Just jump back in." Well, as I ignored the rest of the advice ("make sure to repeat lots of key words so you rise up in the algorithms for Google searches"), I'm ignoring this one, as well. </p><p>I drifted away from blogging toward the end of last year as part of a larger reconsideration of my entire career as a children's book author and scholar - of my entire LIFE! But now it's the first day of a new month, time to start a whole NEW LIFE, so here is the post I would have written on January 1, if I had been in a blogging mood then.</p><p>My poet friend Molly Fisk promotes the practice, not of making a resolution, but of choosing a <i>word</i> for a new year: a word to ponder, to reflect upon, to <i>live</i> with as a thought-provoking companion. Actually, she says sometimes it's not so much that <i>you</i> choose the word, but the word chooses <i>you</i>.</p><p>The word that chose me was "closure."</p><p>I was discouraged about my career as children's book creator and as children's literature scholar. The world of both authors and scholars was changing so much, and I was feeling too old and weary to change along with it. I was also (joyously) distracted by suddenly, shockingly, stunningly, falling in love in a totally life-transforming way. So: did I even WANT to be part of this changing world? And if I did, did it still want ME? </p><p>One of my friends found out her husband was retiring when she heard him say, in a phone conversation, "Well, I guess it's time for me to hang up my spurs." Maybe it was time for me to hang up MY spurs and ride off into the sunset. When I took early retirement from my career as a tenured philosophy professor almost a decade ago, I told myself not to think of this as "retirement" but just as a career change. My self-given command was: "Do not go gentle into that good pasture." Now I found myself asking, "What's so bad about the pasture?" The pasture was starting to sound awfully alluring. It might be time to think about discovering some satisfying form of closure on the life I had lived for so long. </p><p>Another poet friend offered a writing prompt for January 1 that went like this: "fences that close, fences that open, pastures beyond." Ooh! THAT'S what I needed to be thinking about for this new year!</p><p>I've been thinking about this for two months now. In future posts, I'll share some of what I've figured out about what closure is coming to mean to me - and how different this is from what I thought it would be. Maybe it isn't closure at all? But whatever it is, I think I'm liking it....</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEielQjCvQ-wRdcRJJvExT341nKJc0JOnbE5sZz4T_nclYspmhmEEAGLpEB5RKTuNRTBu2AXfgfjvuvXcMJpIUnt8mZYPeRX1sTNp48E4y29btkru_iu1BXW0NjZZwPnyYb-l02vL_8nLPeUVfAGdSd4oBA3rl6F9z_yxGTeWKVze5snWNadOTbUvE6nsQ/s800/photo%20fence%20and%20pasture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEielQjCvQ-wRdcRJJvExT341nKJc0JOnbE5sZz4T_nclYspmhmEEAGLpEB5RKTuNRTBu2AXfgfjvuvXcMJpIUnt8mZYPeRX1sTNp48E4y29btkru_iu1BXW0NjZZwPnyYb-l02vL_8nLPeUVfAGdSd4oBA3rl6F9z_yxGTeWKVze5snWNadOTbUvE6nsQ/s320/photo%20fence%20and%20pasture.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>cmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2330762245893680745.post-13103867235282287532022-11-16T07:45:00.001-08:002022-11-16T07:45:45.160-08:00The Year of Poetry?<p> 2022 was supposed to be The Year of Poetry.</p><p>My actual stated goal for the year - oh, how I love stating goals for each year! - was "Reconnect with and Recommit to Creative Joy." But the biggest part of this was going to be immersing myself in poetry, because what could be more creatively joyous than that? I would read poetry, write poetry, and (gasp!) start submitting my poems for publication. And I would open the year by taking myself to Paris, because what better place to write poetry than in Paris?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdC2H_t495vB7WibfuxJzAO8EOQUWKUBFAarT2eydTeYg2zE3rEFS24kzpx3zxg9hGvfPhbvW6D1gTpeguyJb_yRYzt3gVJL2aUjy7Wv4khz2ozv59p6Y0WpnQBQVUWhVpQogP_uDKzTsixBO5Ukht-arokAwjG6svaotYSx_A5nXFDlvSlay2Y8slQg/s1280/photo%20Paris%202022%20Louve%20my%20bench.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdC2H_t495vB7WibfuxJzAO8EOQUWKUBFAarT2eydTeYg2zE3rEFS24kzpx3zxg9hGvfPhbvW6D1gTpeguyJb_yRYzt3gVJL2aUjy7Wv4khz2ozv59p6Y0WpnQBQVUWhVpQogP_uDKzTsixBO5Ukht-arokAwjG6svaotYSx_A5nXFDlvSlay2Y8slQg/s320/photo%20Paris%202022%20Louve%20my%20bench.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><p>I did take myself to Paris in January, but I wrote more blog posts and journal entries than poems while I was there, and also worked on revisions of a middle-grade novel. In February, however, I luxuriated in the online Poem-a-Day group run by brilliant and beloved poet <a href="https://www.mollyfisk.com/">Molly Fisk</a>, and I forced myself to submit just a few poems to just a few places. And two of them got accepted by <a href="https://www.thesunlightpress.com/">the Sunlight Press </a>- and they even agreed to pay me money for them. Actual money for being a poet!!! </p><p>But then in March, I got . . . distracted. Instead of falling ever more deeply in love with poetry, I fell in love... with a man. Who fell in love with me. And then all I cared about for the rest of the year, pretty much, was making a new life with him - though I have to say that nobody on earth could be more supportive of me as a writer than he has been. </p><p>I did keep on writing poetry - mainly love poems to him, of course. And I also (mostly) honored my life-long hour-a-day commitment to write (see the name of this blog!) and am close to finishing a full draft of another middle-grade novel which may be my magnus opus or may be an unpublishable dud. Who knows? Who cares? I wrote it with such joy that I can report that for the first time in my writing life I truly cared more about the process than the product. Being so deeply in love has proved transformative for me in many ways!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGntdc6TWvdlDl8aciOssbq0XsyAOy9eo7IZVCN86Zh_mu92-oFRH7FlTcFi2wXP6jk6o-igaV16NJ-MXh5bRfVU-jZnLsWxHk9xZuJD-iVIaQYHuBjdCp-6KTXFQnMSwwTG1LVhEZNg77iQi5my85vgQXq5ucs_VnzgaAvnGIAes1uUMuB9pWUf2XWw/s1280/Rainbow's%20End%20sunroom%20writing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGntdc6TWvdlDl8aciOssbq0XsyAOy9eo7IZVCN86Zh_mu92-oFRH7FlTcFi2wXP6jk6o-igaV16NJ-MXh5bRfVU-jZnLsWxHk9xZuJD-iVIaQYHuBjdCp-6KTXFQnMSwwTG1LVhEZNg77iQi5my85vgQXq5ucs_VnzgaAvnGIAes1uUMuB9pWUf2XWw/s320/Rainbow's%20End%20sunroom%20writing.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><p>I did Molly's Poem-a-Day group again in June and also in October - what a remarkable community of poets she has created and nourished! I also did a ZOOM each month with my friend <a href="http://jacquelinejules.com/">Jacqueline Jules</a>, a well-published poet whose poems I adore. In each session we critique three poems by each of us - what an insightful and encouraging critic she is!</p><p>What I did NOT do was continue to submit poems. It just seemed like so much trouble, so much bother. Wasn't writing them enough? Wasn't it enough just to put words on paper, share them with my new true love, and with Jackie, and with the Poem-a-Day folks? Well, yes. But to be a writer, for better or worse, is to want to connect with readers. And publication - I might as well admit it - is just so satisfying!</p><p>So I'm pleased to report that those two poems accepted by Sunlight Press back in the spring are now published - TODAY! Here's the <a href=" http://bit.ly/3Oe58hU">link</a> should you care to take a peek. Maybe 2023 will be the year when I get really serious about not only writing but publishing poetry - could there be a chapbook in my future? But today I'm just happy that both love AND poetry have been part of my life in 2022.</p>cmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2330762245893680745.post-2518915650955997382022-10-01T13:20:00.000-07:002022-10-01T13:20:28.370-07:00Logging "Nice Things and Accomplishments"<p>Happy first day of October! For those of you who, like me, start a new life on the first day of every new month, happy new life!</p><p>In my trusty little notebook, I keep a log for each month of its "nice things and accomplishments," so I won't look back at the end of the month and wail, "In this whole entire month, I did NOTHING AT ALL!" I'm both reasonably lax and reasonably strict as to what counts as either a nice thing or an accomplishment. So nice as it is, I wouldn't include a pleasant lunch with a good friend whom I see on a regular basis, but I would include a glorious extended visit from a friend from out of town. In the category of accomplishments, I wouldn't include writing individual blog posts, but I did include the blog post series back in January from my trip to Paris. I have standards here, folks!</p><p>Usually I end up with 7 or 8 items. January (month of the trip to Paris and its aftermath), I had a whopping 14. For February, I had only 5. But last month I had the most paltry total EVER: a mere three things. 1) I wrote a long-overdue substantive book review for the <i>Children's Literature Association Quarterly. </i>2) I made steady happy progress on my new middle-grade-novel-in-progress, with 100 pages done of the first draft. And 3) I had a perfectly beautiful first full month with my True Love at Rainbow's End where we deepened our already deep love and strengthened our already strong relationship - oh, and I started a practice of journaling about this every day - which I guess I could count as item number 4. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-IUGyNpH7VDqu5SNr7IanCv-4XCfgkmAQ6Z7FkJVO_kZKQKmqV0a3XuPfZwgr1RAQCkZz89J8NEuvjKKpClgJu8pcIeVU9HD75Kb77ntPRSKrBturbb2YWQ9rL_EzlbXFigw1MuBc760sGbX_WvPv_0yaoAuYn5PoZtswJX7ZZvuv94g6mvhmF26mXw/s4032/photo%20rainbow's%20end%20feeder.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-IUGyNpH7VDqu5SNr7IanCv-4XCfgkmAQ6Z7FkJVO_kZKQKmqV0a3XuPfZwgr1RAQCkZz89J8NEuvjKKpClgJu8pcIeVU9HD75Kb77ntPRSKrBturbb2YWQ9rL_EzlbXFigw1MuBc760sGbX_WvPv_0yaoAuYn5PoZtswJX7ZZvuv94g6mvhmF26mXw/s320/photo%20rainbow's%20end%20feeder.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><p>Item #2 could have been broken down into giving myself credit for each individual chapter I wrote, but the chapters are short and still feel so tentative and provisional, as if any one of them might be tossed out completely - nay, as if the whole project might be tossed out completely, And, as I just noted, #3 could count as two things - the beautiful happy month AND the faithful journaling about it. But...now that I think of it, is having a beautiful happy month itself a THING? Is it thing-like enough to BE a THING? Or is it just how my life is now? And I hope, how my life will be forever? Or at least for a good long while?</p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh93yPUtYVADUv8kvDiQczPvWSakkzjLd5YEBu-oz_6duD8y1jtJQVK7pKdIU0t0GuW_B8d_j44Ku9AQ5hnI1X-FIxFzA2LAFeacyOcqPcuWoslVHv-jEUwsqEhh2vCF77ZhnWstobAnGgGHIxoEfA7Hamk8ZnvlbuWze5b9OIZzTN993IiNVhP9tKAWA/s4032/photo%20rainbow's%20end%20hillside.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh93yPUtYVADUv8kvDiQczPvWSakkzjLd5YEBu-oz_6duD8y1jtJQVK7pKdIU0t0GuW_B8d_j44Ku9AQ5hnI1X-FIxFzA2LAFeacyOcqPcuWoslVHv-jEUwsqEhh2vCF77ZhnWstobAnGgGHIxoEfA7Hamk8ZnvlbuWze5b9OIZzTN993IiNVhP9tKAWA/s320/photo%20rainbow's%20end%20hillside.JPG" width="320" /></a></p><p>I have to confess that in the grip of this new love, I'm losing my mania for cataloging things. I even - gasp! - took off my Fitbit, for good, two days ago. Once I returned from the morning walk with David and Gaia-the-dog, I realized I had left it in the charger overnight and was getting credit for NONE of those steps, which at first threw me into the usual despair, for isn't any walk pointless if the steps aren't duly calculated? And then I realized.. um... no... because... there was the beauty of the misty morning on Valley Lane... and his hand in mine.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifFinVVUAUj-BXXWvzuIGyOrdxkEyJvFSGFg9ODQo4gZ2hgOONFuzW5M8vqy32Ek7oSTgh8eMq7TWQn6fWO1LWpy-BGMWDm2FnqNPrY-K_nntA9fl0wtlbr0pqtEnHr8dUsOs0CM2_pvHxSYvBUb6hhbV7Gq0YmRa1kjexuM444_ZmUeM62KfFKyc0CA/s4032/photo%20rainbow's%20end%20misty%20morning.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifFinVVUAUj-BXXWvzuIGyOrdxkEyJvFSGFg9ODQo4gZ2hgOONFuzW5M8vqy32Ek7oSTgh8eMq7TWQn6fWO1LWpy-BGMWDm2FnqNPrY-K_nntA9fl0wtlbr0pqtEnHr8dUsOs0CM2_pvHxSYvBUb6hhbV7Gq0YmRa1kjexuM444_ZmUeM62KfFKyc0CA/s320/photo%20rainbow's%20end%20misty%20morning.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><p>So, while I still think a monthly log of nice things and accomplishments has much to recommend it, as a hedge against underestimating our own productivity, I'm coming around to the view that if I can write on each month's list 1) FATHOMS DEEP IN LOVE and 2) OVERCOME WITH HAPPINESS, that might be enough (though I hasten to add that I did already log for October receipt of book royalties that were larger than I expected and a well-received talk via ZOOM for a literary organization). </p><p>But these days "being" satisfies me (almost?) as much as "doing" - even if I'm glad I wrote this blog post now and can cross it off my to-do list for October!</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>cmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2330762245893680745.post-22855141859831144392022-09-09T15:57:00.000-07:002022-09-09T15:57:04.154-07:00Helpful Hint for Writers from Sir Isaac Newton; or The Magic of Momentum<p>As I was working fitfully on my current middle-grade-novel-in-progress during the first part of the summer, I experienced a curious lack of energy, even though I was excited by the idea in theory. But in practice, I just couldn't get into that blissful state of flow where one word follows another onto the page, and one page follows another into a growing stack of chapters. </p><p>Why was this?</p><p>Was it because the idea in fact did NOT excite me that much? Was this a signal to me from the Muses to search for another idea that might prove more compelling?</p><p>Or was it because I was in fact only sitting down to work on the book for an hour or two every week or two?</p><p>I decided to try out the theory that the answer was: the latter. I vowed to MAKE myself sit down to my clipboard, pad, and pen for an hour every single day, and guess what happened when I did?</p><p>Yes, I fell in love with the book, and I now have 13 chapters done, and I look forward every day to another hour of being in the company of these characters and watching their story unfold. It turns out that writing really does go better when you actually do it! Who knew??!</p><p>Well, Sir Isaac Newton knew. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1WgnIa9_ErzEc_thP_AADq9olHe6Fe-e0w_r0GJIt6V0gvSzlv20xyAYHdH3p9m7LUs-TqJ-nmg-WSfRamYCK6LaVYKij0_fvRDUsCmwiGHrftx7XiCeOzI7IZf6UDyZdKED6VV-QzciIvnCzh0olem_joaiUUnxFtjEwBP1HF03iXFHPPD28jvC0eA/s1024/photo%20newton-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="615" data-original-width="1024" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1WgnIa9_ErzEc_thP_AADq9olHe6Fe-e0w_r0GJIt6V0gvSzlv20xyAYHdH3p9m7LUs-TqJ-nmg-WSfRamYCK6LaVYKij0_fvRDUsCmwiGHrftx7XiCeOzI7IZf6UDyZdKED6VV-QzciIvnCzh0olem_joaiUUnxFtjEwBP1HF03iXFHPPD28jvC0eA/s320/photo%20newton-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>Newton's very first law of motion is the law of inertia, that an object at rest tends to remain at rest and an object in motion tends to remain in motion, unless some external force acts upon them. I had been an object at rest. Of course, I tended to remain at rest! I might have remained at rest for the rest of my life and never written anything ever again. But once I decided to make my new resolution serve as the external force to act upon myself - glory be! - I became an object in motion and I've been in motion ever since.</p><p>Take today, for example. Our recent heat wave has broken, and it's downright chilly here at Rainbow's End, with a high in the mid-50s and gray misty skies: perfect writing weather. So I got cozy in the sunroom on this day without sun, with Gaia-the-dog standing guard to make sure I didn't waver in my resolve, and I prepared to write.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH92HevzSIh-cmt1Mhfno0uI7ir1a1FArajblF8fTFWE6za7xq6xgDRh-UUAxxPv72UUUvlAUa1IsUfpdj8APx2EcN_GwDHJZUsrnvvajLaOKIj9DFmL2Taf4iKhSLvpFR7RURjz14G1V1Aw7DEi5N9-NEwG29-A4CZXOMdQ4fgowk3ojItCwCU04mwA/s1280/Rainbow's%20End%20sunroom%20writing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH92HevzSIh-cmt1Mhfno0uI7ir1a1FArajblF8fTFWE6za7xq6xgDRh-UUAxxPv72UUUvlAUa1IsUfpdj8APx2EcN_GwDHJZUsrnvvajLaOKIj9DFmL2Taf4iKhSLvpFR7RURjz14G1V1Aw7DEi5N9-NEwG29-A4CZXOMdQ4fgowk3ojItCwCU04mwA/s320/Rainbow's%20End%20sunroom%20writing.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><p>I had been balking on Chapter 14 because I had no idea what should happen in it - a good reason to balk! Plus, I had the uncomfortable sense that the pacing of the book was beginning to lag, flag, and drag, not to mention sag. There is a reason why "the sagging middle" is a thing that all writers dread. But, as they say, "the only way out is through." The only way to figure out what needed to happen next was to sit there, pen in hand, and scribble little notes to myself. What ELSE could be going on in my character Zeke's life that might come into play at this point? I brainstormed. I got discouraged. I brainstormed some more. I was still stuck.</p><p>Then I realized that what I needed to do was make a calendar for the book of all that had happened so far. To do this is, of course, to realize that one has created weeks with six or seven school days in a row, and a story that begins in mid-February but really needs to begin in late March, etc. etc. That in itself was a highly valuable way to spend a writing hour, as timeline problems are a beast to fix later on. Best, in the course of making the calendar and looking closely at everything that had already occurred, I achieved new clarity on what should happen next. I now have a plan!</p><p>Yay for being an object in motion! Yay for the magic of momentum!</p><p>P.S. As I downloaded a Sir Isaac Newton stock photo to use in this post, I saw that I already had one saved on my computer. Hmm. I must have blogged about Newton's first law of motion at some time in the past. I Googled myself, and sure enough, I had, <a href="https://claudiamillsanhouraday.blogspot.com/2018/11/overcoming-inertia.html">back in 2018!</a> But this current post reflects on inertia from a different angle, so I'm glad I wrote that old one and was quite interested to read it as I had forgotten it even existed; now my present and future self can benefit from the wisdom of my past self. And I'm glad I wrote this one, too, for future me to read. And maybe for some of you! </p>cmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2330762245893680745.post-17985137711986532182022-09-01T11:58:00.000-07:002022-09-01T11:58:07.694-07:00The Newest New Life Ever<p>It's the first day of the new month, so the day I start (as I always do on the first of every month) a WHOLE ENTIRE NEW LIFE. But this one feels like the newest new life EVER.</p><p>In March I fell in love - desperately, hopelessly, till-death-do-us-part in love. By May he and I were fathoms deep in this, going happily back and forth between my home in South Boulder and his gorgeous apartment on West Pearl Street in Boulder, nestled at the foot of the mountains but in easy walking distance from the coffee shops and bookstores of our famed car-free downtown shopping area. The drive from one to the other was a mere 12 minutes. It was all absolutely perfect for new love to take root and grow toward the sun.</p><p>But in May he found out his lease wasn't being renewed... and he had to move... and we had to throw ourselves into house-hunting in a tight and tense real estate market... and ponder what our future together would look like now. He made a list of what he was searching for in a rental and came up with these criteria: not more than 20 minutes away from Claudia's house, fenced yard for his beloved German shepherd, and no stairs as a wise choice for the two of us as we age. </p><p>Instead we both fell in love with a place with NONE of these features: far enough away from my house that the drive back and forth would be much less convenient, no yard at all, and stairs, stairs, and STAIRS!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV9PQXIn83o3ErlQKFi7wvR9z-AiMvP05fUwVVfCA4KjSfnQ0dJeUstfXQ7ZRTX1kyMlF69m1guggo0GB7_1R5ZD3PMPsHC5zyFYdiHsZemm-23HF5-LltzAp3upL6loPAkSN9CYCe2KIAtClngPhiUk8dVMT0vInr90gK_bM8P1CnKS7v9Wh3nFUf3g/s576/Rainbow's%20end%20photo%20house.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="576" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV9PQXIn83o3ErlQKFi7wvR9z-AiMvP05fUwVVfCA4KjSfnQ0dJeUstfXQ7ZRTX1kyMlF69m1guggo0GB7_1R5ZD3PMPsHC5zyFYdiHsZemm-23HF5-LltzAp3upL6loPAkSN9CYCe2KIAtClngPhiUk8dVMT0vInr90gK_bM8P1CnKS7v9Wh3nFUf3g/s320/Rainbow's%20end%20photo%20house.webp" width="320" /></a></div><p>He moved in at the start of August to this house in the near mountains, and now I'm pretty much here all the time, because it is SOOOO beautiful! It is the perfect place to be in love! AND the perfect place to write! And just.... perfect. The owner even gave it the name of Rainbow's End. What could be more perfect that that?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCmlDQfxFrZLhNX6tz4Lr6PjZYGLu4SXlkmWpaAmLRGVJDwHi7EStWquZ1zOKU2oom26zdH606Udt62e-zUMs4TsO8FMMWwBOkONxDeZYn3_gwJruVY1Sw_LPdoQmFcrnxKQEMjLy5RxVfWS3QtfaWLYKU5ZuK0mq8-vjn-xujVLVS1Pf0TTk60KbkbA/s384/Rainbow's%20End%20photo%20deck.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="288" data-original-width="384" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCmlDQfxFrZLhNX6tz4Lr6PjZYGLu4SXlkmWpaAmLRGVJDwHi7EStWquZ1zOKU2oom26zdH606Udt62e-zUMs4TsO8FMMWwBOkONxDeZYn3_gwJruVY1Sw_LPdoQmFcrnxKQEMjLy5RxVfWS3QtfaWLYKU5ZuK0mq8-vjn-xujVLVS1Pf0TTk60KbkbA/s320/Rainbow's%20End%20photo%20deck.webp" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgZP4vSdBFCivCQixZlrUNtxtrXF5J20cAVx_1KdTTqI-lgv_K_7rF-w-oYPinSsQiUnIifmdf7IHhxMrb2UIZCl0ION455qaaXpYvJLOsiZaV2GKiUBRILgqsxqjrys9lkoX2L0y2d-2Znd2EnWE2P2cjH2dXqHJJCfJQgKKd4Bm24hRKDCrxP0-npw/s384/Rainbow's%20End%20photo%20more%20deck.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="288" data-original-width="384" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgZP4vSdBFCivCQixZlrUNtxtrXF5J20cAVx_1KdTTqI-lgv_K_7rF-w-oYPinSsQiUnIifmdf7IHhxMrb2UIZCl0ION455qaaXpYvJLOsiZaV2GKiUBRILgqsxqjrys9lkoX2L0y2d-2Znd2EnWE2P2cjH2dXqHJJCfJQgKKd4Bm24hRKDCrxP0-npw/s320/Rainbow's%20End%20photo%20more%20deck.webp" width="320" /></a></div><p>So here I am, trying to figure out how to be BOTH a woman who loves this man AND a woman who loves to write. My old routines are no longer working, so I'm groping toward new ones.</p><p>Old routine for the last few years:</p><p>Wake up at 3:30 a.m., decide that getting up at that hour is much too ridiculous, so stay in bed till 3:45 (which after all is the same as quarter to 4, a perfectly respectable time to get up), write for a blissful hour, piddle on my phone with Wordle and Duolingo for a while, leave at 5:50 to meet a friend for a walk by the lake, home by 7:30, with so much already accomplished that I am downright giddy with smugness and pity for others' slothfulness. </p><p>Recent routine as a new lovebird:</p><p>Wake up at 5:30, cuddle in bed with my beloved till 6:30 or 7, sharing and analyzing our dreams and marveling that we could love anybody as much as we love each other, then long walk on a deserted lane tucked into a Ponderosa pine forest with Gaia-the-dog, back home by 8 or so, sit for an hour on the deck with coffee for him and hot chocolate for me, then stretching for him while I dally on my phone with games and our oatmeal slowly cooks, eat the oatmeal in a long leisurely breakfast on the other deck that ends at 11:00 - and OMG, the whole morning is gone and I have accomplished nothing!!! Nothing at all!!!</p><p>New routine for the new life:</p><p>Same as the lovebird routine, BUT with a dedicated hour-a-day of writing (timed with my hourglass) during part of the coffee-on-the-deck time and all the rest of the pre-breakfast time, with no time-wasting indulgences on my phone until after this is done, and then sweet reunion over the now well-earned oatmeal. I started this new regimen three days ago, on this past Monday; it's Thursday now, and I can report that I'm so much happier (despite having been extravagantly happy before). I'm a quarter or third of the way into a new middle-grade novel in progress that I adore - more on this to come. I finally have the momentum that comes from faithful, sustained commitment to a project.</p><p>Can I have love AND writing, too? On this first day of my newest new life ever, my answer is ... I think so?</p>cmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2330762245893680745.post-3681187682029598962022-06-01T14:58:00.000-07:002022-06-01T14:58:22.923-07:00New Month, New Life<p>For many years, I had the practice of starting a new life on the first day of each month. It's too daunting to start a whole entire new life on some random day partway through some random week; I needed to start a new life on a day of some significance, but not <i>extraordinary</i> significance, or I'd have to languish too long in the old life awaiting this rare fateful moment. So the first day of each month proved to be just right. </p><p>A new life meant: eating better! exercising more! no Sudoku puzzles on the I-pad! And most of all: making good on my commitment to write for an hour each day. Alas, the new life invariably petered out partway through the month, but I truly believe I owe everything I've ever achieved to my willingness to start my life anew on a regular basis.</p><p>Lately, EVERYTHING else in my life has petered out ever since I met MY TRUE LOVE (see previous post!). He, too, has neglected many things in his own life as well, consumed as we both are with this miracle the universe has sent our way. We both agreed that this was all right. After all, how many times does anybody have a chance to luxuriate in the intoxication of a new romance? </p><p>But now, two and a half months in, it does seem as if it we might consider giving some attention to those things that had once given our lives meaning and were now quietly whimpering from our neglect. For me, chief among these is writing.</p><p>So today I took my beloved hourglass to David's apartment and set it on a stool by his fireplace. (Among his many other gifts, he is a fabulous fire-builder, from heating a past home entirely by firewood). It was time to return to putting one word after another for a full sixty minutes.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlvQ4wb6h71nm9nn4QaaHWi1CYGjBgEVA7rpI0_UkoXDtygBClA4Nt_M84dmvdtfZpsIFBPdCPMFOAKuzXggHdiHZSofCKP_bGKualdG0BzBuAtf1JQgDHSUnTTW84DvU40tQR--NPdylCvkL1NWr7tfW2XA4ohZ-YpCYOSY1t0ofV4cG6l0MHoo_Yzw/s4032/photo%20hourglass%20at%20David.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlvQ4wb6h71nm9nn4QaaHWi1CYGjBgEVA7rpI0_UkoXDtygBClA4Nt_M84dmvdtfZpsIFBPdCPMFOAKuzXggHdiHZSofCKP_bGKualdG0BzBuAtf1JQgDHSUnTTW84DvU40tQR--NPdylCvkL1NWr7tfW2XA4ohZ-YpCYOSY1t0ofV4cG6l0MHoo_Yzw/s320/photo%20hourglass%20at%20David.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Oh, and among his many other gifts, he is a fabulous bread baker who just celebrated his fiftieth anniversary of baking all of his family's bread, so while I was writing, he was baking. Bliss!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAFnQqkSW6QIPTLrn1HwyhuzZct8eIDQ9_3d-QhPI5R_G0BQsMz0RKPN7jj1iFypV4K7FyV-NFUGIxZs5m88TrLwFCdY6qOySnSMxusWrtFR-65SC8BOaXvhEZAcgjuwft9EbAy4BADj5ODiDlmWPUKwODez5K38lSkG0neTveXy2WoqtWisR3kPYIDQ/s4032/photo%20David%20challah.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAFnQqkSW6QIPTLrn1HwyhuzZct8eIDQ9_3d-QhPI5R_G0BQsMz0RKPN7jj1iFypV4K7FyV-NFUGIxZs5m88TrLwFCdY6qOySnSMxusWrtFR-65SC8BOaXvhEZAcgjuwft9EbAy4BADj5ODiDlmWPUKwODez5K38lSkG0neTveXy2WoqtWisR3kPYIDQ/s320/photo%20David%20challah.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I wrote a couple of pages on what is sort of a work-in-progress, or would be if I had been doing any work on it so that it could have any progress. But today I did. And I even sort of liked the pages. And the only way to produce pages I DO like is to slog through scribbling pages I DON'T like, so it's good either way. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">PLUS, today I signed up for the every-other-month Poem-a-Day online group hosted by brilliant and beloved poet <a href="http://www.mollyfisk.com/">Molly Fisk</a>. I wrote a witty poem entitled "Mrs. Google Map Lady" for the June 1 prompt and posted it to the group, and so far five people have liked it and three people loved it and several wrote comments, too!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">PLUS, I wrote this blog post!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And I still love David as much as ever, and he still loves me as much as ever!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So right now I'm loving this month's new life. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p><br /></p>cmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2330762245893680745.post-28603763263177473152022-05-12T11:25:00.000-07:002022-05-12T11:25:37.968-07:00A Many-Splendored Thing<p> "It's been over two months since she posted," they say. "Is she ever going to post again?" they wonder. "Has something HAPPENED to her?" they worry. "Something BIG? Maybe even something . . . HUGE?"</p><p>Yes, dear ones. It HAS been over two months since I last posted. And now I AM posting again, and I plan to keep on posting. And, yes, something HAS happened to me. And yes, it's BIG, and yes, it's HUGE - and here's a clue - what happened to me is a MANY-SPLENDORED THING.</p><p>I have fallen in love.</p><p>I have fallen desperately, hopelessly, till-death-do-us-part in love, with a man who, miraculously, feels exactly the same way about me. </p><p>Almost exactly two months ago, on a night when I was feeling sad and lonely, and depressed about various writing disappointments, and inspired by the recent merriment a friend was having in her foray into online dating, on a whim I signed up for Match.com.</p><p>I met him in my first hour on that dating site. </p><p>At first I just got a lame and annoying message of "Hi" from a man who lives in Phoenix (hundreds of miles away) and another of "How are you?" from a man who lives in Grand Junction (many hours' drive from here). But then I got a thoughtful, insightful message from a man who had read my (hastily assembled) profile with great care and identified points of potential commonality between us. And... this man lives right here in Boulder.</p><p>I wrote back, he wrote back, I wrote back, and then he suggested a phone call. In that first call, on Thursday, March 10, we talked for two hours. On the next day, we talked for five hours, in two chunks followed by a brief break in between. I was already smitten enough that I canceled Match.com without asking for a partial refund of the $277 I had paid for a year's membership. I had already gotten my money's worth. </p><p>The following day my little granddaughters arrived for their week-long spring break visit, so I knew I'd be fully occupied with them, but all week long he and I had stolen chats and texts during the day and a two-hour conversation each night after they went to bed.</p><p>Then came the fateful day where we would meet for the first time in person. We walked into each other's arms and have barely let go since. </p><p>His name is David. He is a fellow academic/professor (in his case, of economics), one of our first points of commonality, and a brilliant teacher (and I, too, prioritized teaching throughout my academic career). But he was a tough, demanding grader and I was a softie. I'm delighted by all the ways we are alike AND by all the ways we are different. </p><p>We share fundamental values. But in temperament, he is the calmest person I have ever met and the most patient, while neither of those are my gifts. He also does everything slowly and precisely while I do everything quickly and sometimes carelessly. He's an introvert; I'm an extrovert. He is an extremely healthy eater and was appalled by my diet of jellybeans and Cadbury eggs; he is a master spreadsheet maker and was equally appalled by the botched job I do every morning of balancing my checkbook by hand. But we both hate April Fool's Day. And we are both as in love as two people could ever be. </p><p>"What do the two of you do for fun?" a friend asked. Well, mainly we just hold each other and talk, and talk, and talk. After almost a month together, we finally went to a restaurant. After almost two months together, we finally watched a movie on TV. But nothing beats talking our hearts out and holding each other close.</p><p>At first, in the throes of this new love, I lost interest in everything else in my life. Why had I ever cared about writing anything but love poems? Why had I ever wanted to share anything I wrote with anybody but him? But it turns out that he is also a wonderful person to talk about writing with... and a wonderful person for brainstorming ideas... and a wonderful person for critiquing a draft... and a wonderful cheerleader for me as writer. So now I AM writing again - so joyously! - and will resume blogging again (promising NOT just to blog about how wonderful this new man is!). Everything is more joyous now because of him.</p><p>"I know I'm getting borderline obnoxious about how in love I am," I told another friend recently. Then I had to correct myself. "I guess... not BORDERLINE obnoxious, right?" But she didn't blame me. She knew how sad I've been for so long about so many things. She was willing to let me be obnoxiously happy now.</p><p>And I am!</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqdHZjhvF63pd_otERJwo537Ke1FLrUcXhF4_gVcvllI4CnC1rgYDv8weB25WjVvA4_tb5wKK_cqUD0E_VHT5iW9tgTahtow1i0nfHxeZTsKtPsrhdB5kKjy-QeVAFzVd0Ulqlwpn5pZDIjStDGSnuGsC8MrRHaKAaUUBFwaUPbJxraqyaC6M_lb-E5w/s4032/photo%20David%20looking%20at%20Claudia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqdHZjhvF63pd_otERJwo537Ke1FLrUcXhF4_gVcvllI4CnC1rgYDv8weB25WjVvA4_tb5wKK_cqUD0E_VHT5iW9tgTahtow1i0nfHxeZTsKtPsrhdB5kKjy-QeVAFzVd0Ulqlwpn5pZDIjStDGSnuGsC8MrRHaKAaUUBFwaUPbJxraqyaC6M_lb-E5w/s320/photo%20David%20looking%20at%20Claudia.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p><br /></p>cmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.com44tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2330762245893680745.post-70533870033040384742022-03-10T09:33:00.000-08:002022-03-10T09:33:05.526-08:00Passing the (Writing) Torch to a New Generation<p>A few weeks ago a small envelope arrived in the mail. The name on the return address was familiar, but I couldn't quite place it; the street was just a few blocks from my home. Hmmm.</p><p>I opened to find a card written in exquisitely tiny handwriting, from a girl (now a young woman) who had been my older son's classmate at Mesa Elementary School over two decades ago. She wrote that she still remembered how inspired she had been as a child from a talk I gave on writing to her class. She had recently rekindled her own interest in writing, begun reading my books for young readers, and had been following the Paris posts on my blog. She just wanted me to know that I was continuing to inspire her to follow her writing dreams.</p><p>Well! THAT certainly makes up for any number of recent career disappointments!</p><p>I wrote her back right away, with a handwritten note of my own, though lacking her meticulous, miniscule printing, and invited her to come for tea. Via email, she accepted the invitation, and last week presented herself at my door, with a shy smile and a Mason jar filled with flowers.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjnN1AtmzGUOyTQ57IB3xl-Geg6qw2rd93yQABeCK3o4hWfaSaq8VFLG94SwsKVUXwgACUyL_qX_-u0r4ixZCM3Jk33RwhbAP-8mMR0-Xn2Xn_uTccMzO5zqWJf0Im7pJCBj1l0tGrYjVkR42pX5tEYmcrzPNqn1k9E-3lDdQBe20yOJ4fhBYj9WMDRbw=s1280" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjnN1AtmzGUOyTQ57IB3xl-Geg6qw2rd93yQABeCK3o4hWfaSaq8VFLG94SwsKVUXwgACUyL_qX_-u0r4ixZCM3Jk33RwhbAP-8mMR0-Xn2Xn_uTccMzO5zqWJf0Im7pJCBj1l0tGrYjVkR42pX5tEYmcrzPNqn1k9E-3lDdQBe20yOJ4fhBYj9WMDRbw=s320" width="240" /></a></div><div><br /></div>And then we talked, and talked, and talked. I wanted to hear all about her post-Mesa-Elementary life, and she was willing to share it. I poured out all I could think of to tell a young writer starting her journey to an author of children's books. Join SCBWI (the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators). Read editor Cheryl Klein's brilliant book <i>The Magic Words</i>. Make friends with the wonderful owners of our terrific local indie bookstores that support children's book events: <a href="https://www.secondstartotherightbooks.com/">Second Star to the Right</a>, <a href="https://www.twjbookshop.com/">Wandering Jellyfish</a>, and <a href="https://www.bookbardenver.com/">BookBar</a>/<a href="https://thebookies.com/">Bookies</a>. And much, much more.<div><br /></div><div>By the end of our time together I had shared with her some of the challenges of my own work-in-progress, a creative historical-nonfiction picture book, and she (with her multiple degrees in history) ended up being the one to offer ME encouragement. We were peers and colleagues already.</div><div><br /></div><div>The flowers are a teensy bit wilted now, but still make me happy every time I walk by them. </div><div><br /></div><div>I feel like a Wise Old Woman! Or actually, more like a Wise Middle-Aged Woman. Or maybe just a Person Who Has Been Writing Books for a Very Long Time and Has a Big Bunch Insights to Share. </div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, I've already had many opportunities to share my children's book wisdom, such as it is, with my students in the Graduate Programs in Children's Literature at Hollins University and with writing mentees through the Michelle Begley Mentor Program. Those have been wonderful experiences, too. But there was something especially poignant about this encounter with a childhood classmate of my son, maybe also because I'm increasingly wondering what the future holds for me as a professional author. This felt particularly like "passing the torch to a new generation."</div><div><br /></div><div>Fortunately, the beauty of this kind of torch-passing is that you can light someone else's torch without extinguishing your own. It's not so much a passing of the torch but a sharing of the light, where two candles, or ten, or a thousand, or a million, just make the world that much brighter. </div><div><br /></div><div>In lighting Sarah's candle, I relit mine, too. Thanks to my delightful time with this new friend, I sent off my nonfiction picture book manuscript to my agent this morning!</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgFSh1UI_otSapFyuo-_Z8xvZWqHBX621Ky8DRe1mIkWZftKe0bI8esqD0FMxA00c6qZcIGsuSb7jjhbwqlcuADAF8qhsvnODN6pdikEEgYqFS7ZUJ4eriYAxKInR1g4h5--00f4WAtkSCxz9kvq1Cpy7hMmbBQkGckhq15sQfaX18o-HvDkjfA3Woy1A=s272" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="272" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgFSh1UI_otSapFyuo-_Z8xvZWqHBX621Ky8DRe1mIkWZftKe0bI8esqD0FMxA00c6qZcIGsuSb7jjhbwqlcuADAF8qhsvnODN6pdikEEgYqFS7ZUJ4eriYAxKInR1g4h5--00f4WAtkSCxz9kvq1Cpy7hMmbBQkGckhq15sQfaX18o-HvDkjfA3Woy1A" width="272" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p></div>cmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2330762245893680745.post-6009461425262874212022-03-01T08:15:00.000-08:002022-03-01T08:15:13.431-08:00Finding Out What DOESN'T Work Is Progress, Too, Right?<p>So February was a not-so-good month. </p><p>On the plus side: </p><p>I did write a poem every day from a photo-and-text prompt given by brilliant poet/teacher <a href="http://www.mollyfisk.com/">Molly Fisk</a> in an online poetry group she facilitates every other month. I don't think any of my poems were very good, but, hey, I wrote them and forced myself to share them. I faithfully kept this commitment I made to myself.</p><p>I also forced myself to submit a batch of older poems somewhere each week. So far I haven't heard from one place, received rejections from two (though one where the editor did note which of the five poems submitted was strongest in his view), and got one acceptance. My poem "Earth and Moon" will be featured on <a href="http://www.yourdailypoem.com/">Your Daily Poem</a> for August 12. </p><p>But my other two writing projects for the month led to nothing but failure. </p><p>The first was groping toward writing some kind of thing (middle grade novel? young adult novel? adult memoir?) based on my own turbulent adolescent years during the equally turbulent years of the late 1960s. I have enormous amounts of (in my view) fabulous material that I wrote in junior high and high school, plus such vivid memories. Surely I could turn this into a book somehow?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiChyZGeTKt4-LzQ8FA7xJ2VXKwQ0tQQlTSA2dEdCEhrpiHygkz5hf91YB-iywP1nkxOa9eY9TiTe5QsXmuboFoGuJYUHMGAT09fo5oeG37mRq43scuABiUj30IV2fN3Kp-9jEr_kR02_jSo2VSGcViB1-hEqqGHIlmt3efiRN2s1IAiJDPdg03f0FIUA=s1280" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiChyZGeTKt4-LzQ8FA7xJ2VXKwQ0tQQlTSA2dEdCEhrpiHygkz5hf91YB-iywP1nkxOa9eY9TiTe5QsXmuboFoGuJYUHMGAT09fo5oeG37mRq43scuABiUj30IV2fN3Kp-9jEr_kR02_jSo2VSGcViB1-hEqqGHIlmt3efiRN2s1IAiJDPdg03f0FIUA=s320" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p>The second was figuring out how to turn my decades- long fascination with the Lowell mill girls of the first half of the 19th century into the text for a nonfiction picture book. Right now creative nonfiction in picture book form is some of the most exciting work being published for young readers. Surely there was some story here that I could share for this audience?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZpV38XeGHBWAusOGFPfaMFAXXPxuut_tGoUjKNnoydpAgDgCFEzx6Fq5eQ0ksUDekimnr4G0ZpZNKv1QgTBMq9d6OX8kSz5eCc4R9QU0LIv8M7OBvnv-rST9oAo0SqtU_l0ykZ5hUg1F6f-wl-RNcV39OsPfwhl9eO-eoF9T9QTLTl0U6UnQB56A01w=s597" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="597" data-original-width="380" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZpV38XeGHBWAusOGFPfaMFAXXPxuut_tGoUjKNnoydpAgDgCFEzx6Fq5eQ0ksUDekimnr4G0ZpZNKv1QgTBMq9d6OX8kSz5eCc4R9QU0LIv8M7OBvnv-rST9oAo0SqtU_l0ykZ5hUg1F6f-wl-RNcV39OsPfwhl9eO-eoF9T9QTLTl0U6UnQB56A01w=s320" width="204" /></a></div><p>Or... maybe not. </p><p>Right now, after working steadily for a month on these, I'm worried that both would be chiefly of interest to . . . well . . . to me. The 1960s project feels like an exercise in middle-aged white woman's nostalgia - not a booming area of children's book publishing at the current moment (and it's children's book publishing which is still dearest to me). The writing I've done on the Lowell mill girls material is so prosy and flat, filled with so much necessary but dense background material - hardly what would appeal to picture book readers.</p><p>Sigh.</p><p>And sigh.</p><p>Thomas Edison famously said, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,00 ways that won't work." </p><p>I guess I can say that February was the month of finding two ways toward publication that aren't going to work for me. </p><p> I'm not sure, however, whether I've found two <i>projects </i>that aren't going to fly, or merely found two <i>approaches</i> to these projects that aren't quite right. For the 1960s project, maybe I just need to distance myself more from autobiography and work on finding a plot structure stronger than my own life story. For the Lowell mill girls project, maybe I need to find some angle toward the material that will allow for a text that is simpler, more lyrical, and more kid-friendly.</p><p>Edison also famously said, "The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time." But did he mean "try one more time to make <i>this</i> project work"? Or "try one more time to find <i>another</i> project that might work better"? </p><p>I don't know. But right my plan for the month of March, which begins today, is going to be to try one more time on both these projects, as both have been dear to my heart for decades and I can't bear yet to let them go.</p><p>I will try, try again.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>cmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2330762245893680745.post-78724757240215319132022-02-04T11:26:00.000-08:002022-02-04T11:26:17.258-08:00Should I "Do Something" with My Poetry?<p>One of my writing goals for this year is to take my lifelong love of poetry and to "get serious about it" and "do something with it." </p><p>I loved writing poetry as a child. In my very first book, written at age six, I included an advertisement at the end for a future "big book" of "POWATREE." </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhz32KRLjlyWQ3o547dETYkm1cuC6pBaeZSGckDIpt6bEqQW-3u7clK14kpA1I54T3Nbr07TiVjBlxupoTGoAyhnnS0lfpvftJCgA5EJy6LH5quZVe7HPUVGDmSm_v7i5PJdxIQNyLFF_urPd15ZdBztSBPWg3fW6Jlg1DDCcBPNfcx_2f6mb-KtjLbzg=s3264" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhz32KRLjlyWQ3o547dETYkm1cuC6pBaeZSGckDIpt6bEqQW-3u7clK14kpA1I54T3Nbr07TiVjBlxupoTGoAyhnnS0lfpvftJCgA5EJy6LH5quZVe7HPUVGDmSm_v7i5PJdxIQNyLFF_urPd15ZdBztSBPWg3fW6Jlg1DDCcBPNfcx_2f6mb-KtjLbzg=s320" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>I wrote huge quantities of poetry throughout elementary school, junior high, and high school, many of them love poems to the poor persecuted boy with whom I fell in love on October 17, 1967, such as this one, dated October 3, 1968, the fall of my freshman year of high school:<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">The leaves
are bruised with scarlet,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">The sky is
seared with blue;<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">The hills
are wrung in purple,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">The grass
is weeping dew – <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">To leave
with all that agony<o:p></o:p></span></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">They must
have loved you, too.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">But then, as an adult, I pretty much stopped writing poetry, until I began attending an annual poetry-writing retreat held each January, first in a country inn in the Poconos and then in a convent in New Jersey, where attendees greeted the new year by writing poetry for a glorious weekend under the direction of various guest teachers.</p><p class="MsoNormal">The poet teachers were all wonderful, but the one who influenced me most was <a href="http://www.mollyfisk.com/">Molly Fisk</a>. Molly celebrated sheer creative generativity: making something, sharing something. She enforced a $5 fine if we apologized for our poems before sharing them. She prioritized appreciation over critique, generally receiving each poem read aloud simply with a quiet "Thank you." In the online poetry groups she facilitates, in which I've participated many times since then, she in fact bans critique, or even "helpful suggestions." This has proved an excellent environment for me to flourish as a poet.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Now, however, I'm wondering if I want to try to publish some of my poems... share them not just with a small circle of fellow poets or friends, but with the wider world. But will this spoil the joy I've had in writing poetry just for the sake of writing it? Will this put me back into the trap I recently escaped of breaking my heart over letting myself care too much for writing's external rewards?</p><p class="MsoNormal">The rewards of publishing my poems, were they to come, would be small in any case. The places that would accept my work are almost guaranteed to be publications that pay only in copies (if "copies" there are - most are now online only) and attract a readership that may be only in the single digits. A well-published friend, who has published her own poems in over a hundred different venues, told me to expect, at best, a rejection to acceptance ratio of 15:1. If I should dream of publishing a book of my poems, even the extremely modest dream of selling a hundred copies may be doomed to disappointment.</p><p class="MsoNormal">So: why do this? </p><p class="MsoNormal">Well, the very smallness of the payoff in terms of fame and fortune would bring some security from being carried away by crass ambition. Though even in Molly's online group, I find myself coveting not only "like" emoticons on what I share, but heart-shaped ones... or even - gasp - a morsel of praise from the lips of Molly herself. I can't seem to get past caring whether somebody else on this earth gives a warm welcome - or an ESPECIALLY warm welcome - to my little poem children. </p><p class="MsoNormal">In any case, for better or worse, I've decided to do it. I submitted a first batch of poems this past week, and I plan to submit one batch a week for the rest of the year (where these can include poems recycled from previous rejections). And maybe one of these days, I will be a PUBLISHED POET, and that will be a fact I can cherish for the rest of my days. I'll be able to share my PUBLISHE POEM on Facebook! And then fifty of my friends will like it, and some will love it, and maybe some will even choose to share it with others. </p><p class="MsoNormal">I think I owe this effort toward publication to the POWATREE-dreaming child I was. </p><p class="MsoNormal">In a month daffodils will start to bloom.... and maybe some of my poems will bloom with them.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhxHfTv9obAMqp8NGODSrh-catD3c-Obuk_JibUs0Go5o3TtqGf7-GgXUsWjsL3O0NuSUTWTVfgaK9u6mzFBb6SICBd1Kmf5j6hj-a5c7EzPRBH79qp7SsixaZelD6y739eyiPZVkwUIXPyhYDmrOFJ7EusWGFe-bqo5tLMq-REYnomQCKd7WJhQ4HqJg=s3264" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhxHfTv9obAMqp8NGODSrh-catD3c-Obuk_JibUs0Go5o3TtqGf7-GgXUsWjsL3O0NuSUTWTVfgaK9u6mzFBb6SICBd1Kmf5j6hj-a5c7EzPRBH79qp7SsixaZelD6y739eyiPZVkwUIXPyhYDmrOFJ7EusWGFe-bqo5tLMq-REYnomQCKd7WJhQ4HqJg=s320" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>cmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2330762245893680745.post-2473980180805105182022-01-22T12:04:00.001-08:002022-01-22T12:04:53.149-08:00Home from Paris: Now What?<p>I've been home from Paris for a week now, after my pilgrimage there to rekindle creative joy in my writing. First, of course, I had to deal with all that is involved with reentry into one's life after a long time away: recovering from jet lag, facing accumulated LTs (Loathsome Tasks), and giving attention to the dog who had pined for me so mightily during my absence. </p><p>But now it's time to prove myself worthy of Paris by fulfilling the promises I made to myself there.</p><p>I don't have any current works-in-progress, so this is going to be the year of creative reinvention. My goal as of this moment is to head in two different directions.</p><p>First, I want to get serious about growing as a poet and trying to "do something" with the poems I've been writing for the past decade - and for my whole life really. With this goal in view, I've dragged out craft books I've purchased over the years: <i>The Sounds of Poetry</i> by Robert Pinsky, <i>Structure and Surprise: Engaging Poetic Turns</i>, edited by Michael Theune, <i>Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within</i> by Kim Addonizio, and <i>The Poetry Home Repair Manual</i> by Ted Kooser. I've made a stack of slim books of poetry published by friends and other poets I admire.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgWHCax6j7jDuApPjMxunEnMygj6iAKaw2Cse-mym3uHqxcv_WwQ4SF5zz50ugy7LiqIcmjtwv-SjWiSF0dUcM93fTMlavLXvZLKjfPuG2sR2MU6_2rMw4c8vE4AFuxsrh8-sQG36YUFalCp2K1boq4fhv5-oLztuwjJvfEwrVFAm86fhqMHYbhENIH5Q=s1280" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgWHCax6j7jDuApPjMxunEnMygj6iAKaw2Cse-mym3uHqxcv_WwQ4SF5zz50ugy7LiqIcmjtwv-SjWiSF0dUcM93fTMlavLXvZLKjfPuG2sR2MU6_2rMw4c8vE4AFuxsrh8-sQG36YUFalCp2K1boq4fhv5-oLztuwjJvfEwrVFAm86fhqMHYbhENIH5Q=s320" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I plan to sign up for the Poem-a-Day group that poet <a href="http://www.mollyfisk.com/">Molly Fisk</a> hosts online every month, and to attend an online poetry seminar, and to do a monthly ZOOM with a poet friend to share our work. I will immerse myself in poetry!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">My other creative pull is toward immersing myself in the past: to grope toward an autobiographical novel based on my own turbulent adolescence in the turbulent late 1960s - for middle-grade readers? for young-adult readers? for adults? Who knows? I've unearthed the two 100-plus page books I wrote (and typed on an old-fashioned typewriter) while I was in eighth grade. <i>T is for Tarzan</i> is a collection of humorous episodes about various hijinks; <i>Maybe in Heaven</i> is a chronological account of my doomed love for a boy I called Apollo (the Sun God), who (very wisely!) didn't love me back. The title expresses the hope that he might love me back someday... in heaven. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjVqXH-voEbMtXk-3F7DD0U8vgbFRyDrR6khl7_kPk1vhaGQ4ckjqq8FHB-tx8-hCpuIkqvrZGvfg5hjJ8Fmr9aYV5qjoMm4NtUVLysud_mBxI043FPLPeGM-v592H0xEsuhvcShEjAqwrCIltL4YgkpBWvf48CKMo57uos6fB--2RaQUAtSkU2x9ys2A=s3264" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjVqXH-voEbMtXk-3F7DD0U8vgbFRyDrR6khl7_kPk1vhaGQ4ckjqq8FHB-tx8-hCpuIkqvrZGvfg5hjJ8Fmr9aYV5qjoMm4NtUVLysud_mBxI043FPLPeGM-v592H0xEsuhvcShEjAqwrCIltL4YgkpBWvf48CKMo57uos6fB--2RaQUAtSkU2x9ys2A=s320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi4iLwunu0uGq_b0Eg7SXtsGr0yA0pfzwSNvEUP_L3Pt7Oud42J7c2AxeW36IFTxab2-LeKo8Yl-cxtklWIYQHAsBk2BpthwHZLaxBfavmqP8Ui_YuVCJvInw10JPbN1ZRn6ajhTdljZSp0iqlENcV_14nUPKon0mLVQCukdFnhkmz1zCxmP_h2D7Q4mw=s1280" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi4iLwunu0uGq_b0Eg7SXtsGr0yA0pfzwSNvEUP_L3Pt7Oud42J7c2AxeW36IFTxab2-LeKo8Yl-cxtklWIYQHAsBk2BpthwHZLaxBfavmqP8Ui_YuVCJvInw10JPbN1ZRn6ajhTdljZSp0iqlENcV_14nUPKon0mLVQCukdFnhkmz1zCxmP_h2D7Q4mw=s320" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And, oh, the poems! Shoeboxes full! Many of them love poems to this same greatly persecuted boy.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZMYfy5jG6S3E79onLbrOPBFMqdFnJns9vSxsHOaO5LqDp25t69DqGGcX3E_Pqh85jj1wZXq8_2rY150v6R_hESipY0iyx_bQGfDptn6PC_Ule7HpXEmkv5X9EFJKO7daMSfC0ELXkBitGNFkEeUMzMhSGftuUV1hk8bYLPs7P8fKVUpFdLFVlV0KCAA=s1280" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZMYfy5jG6S3E79onLbrOPBFMqdFnJns9vSxsHOaO5LqDp25t69DqGGcX3E_Pqh85jj1wZXq8_2rY150v6R_hESipY0iyx_bQGfDptn6PC_Ule7HpXEmkv5X9EFJKO7daMSfC0ELXkBitGNFkEeUMzMhSGftuUV1hk8bYLPs7P8fKVUpFdLFVlV0KCAA=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">I have journals, too, filled with so much pain that I have to take a break after reading every few dozen pages, and the start of an autobiographical novel about all of this that I was working on during winter break from my freshman year in college.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The girl I was in those years was so intensely passionate and troubled; she loved so much, and so loudly; she felt so deeply, and shared it so fully. (She cheerfully allowed these ridiculously personal and embarrassing books to be circulated among the entire student body). It's as if she didn't have any skin, but was rubbed raw from how hard - but also how glorious - it was to be alive. So I may try to tell her stories now, enriched by all I've learned about writing and about life in the past half century. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">My younger son's girlfriend sent me a special candle for Christmas, intended for those homesick for France. The label describes its fragrance in this way: </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhzji-_6Z_1pkgV_GF3Rnu-oLoBMfsNXwLNitPxj5Evh11gBNDp0pqioA4bFZwzRIc9tLgbUmsAc13qa5ve8FpGJslzGS_gQr2WFajvnBj-57AA9xOugHQEwM0ha-Em5QI7QXvQXsQ-LGMYGEbRvgr2MhF6bV-r2GkJKhLivJ2fXD_gClR_ARAbsB3QSQ=s1280" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhzji-_6Z_1pkgV_GF3Rnu-oLoBMfsNXwLNitPxj5Evh11gBNDp0pqioA4bFZwzRIc9tLgbUmsAc13qa5ve8FpGJslzGS_gQr2WFajvnBj-57AA9xOugHQEwM0ha-Em5QI7QXvQXsQ-LGMYGEbRvgr2MhF6bV-r2GkJKhLivJ2fXD_gClR_ARAbsB3QSQ=s320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">I'm burning it now.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj2Wb_gKKLKe099pjvMbRR3A4RnXLAgvsJWFpEQ689XiUqakVRelmjZH7UpnRetIm9L_bt0VL1PyYnBwwQ6bw5h8x1TwlCw-nsEfkQqg4QEADQMyhLBUdjuk2qFyLNZon64tA8e7Uqn-8biybDEYJj3AwW1VozpYQydkxrjgraaSskHgI6Pjl3FBc68ZQ=s333" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="250" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj2Wb_gKKLKe099pjvMbRR3A4RnXLAgvsJWFpEQ689XiUqakVRelmjZH7UpnRetIm9L_bt0VL1PyYnBwwQ6bw5h8x1TwlCw-nsEfkQqg4QEADQMyhLBUdjuk2qFyLNZon64tA8e7Uqn-8biybDEYJj3AwW1VozpYQydkxrjgraaSskHgI6Pjl3FBc68ZQ=s320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div>cmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2330762245893680745.post-83150964061443269152022-01-13T22:36:00.002-08:002022-01-15T09:48:51.428-08:00My Last Day in Paris (for now!)<p>Yesterday was my last full day in Paris before flying home this afternoon. So of course it had to begin as all last days of international travel must do at this moment: with a COVID test taken any time on the calendar day preceding the day of departure.</p><p>Fortunately this was very easy to accomplish here. The pharmacy that is just a block from my hotel sets up a little tent every day for walk-in tests with immediate results.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhZLS1lZO10EPqClRZYb_TS6IV0JL9U60-bA82fDoPG8TVZ6vkTpKApNeQ7VEeJ5EKKNBwd7lbyr0wD7N2U2vxl8fme2vOuRlFYvettlVB90q127CF5XvRjH-VKoMo-u6wVN2h_3JwSKK32ukEJENQK4qLhx1ZAiFgKtKs99tcGLa_YRsc9tJnvDNZemw=s1280" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhZLS1lZO10EPqClRZYb_TS6IV0JL9U60-bA82fDoPG8TVZ6vkTpKApNeQ7VEeJ5EKKNBwd7lbyr0wD7N2U2vxl8fme2vOuRlFYvettlVB90q127CF5XvRjH-VKoMo-u6wVN2h_3JwSKK32ukEJENQK4qLhx1ZAiFgKtKs99tcGLa_YRsc9tJnvDNZemw=s320" width="240" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>I was there right when the pharmacy opened at 9, but a short line was already forming. I submitted my identification, paid my 29 euros, had the swab up the nose, and came back in twenty minutes for my results. The document was entirely in French, but the only two things I needed to be able to read on it were my name and the crucial word "NEGATIF"!!! So hooray for that. </div><div><br /></div><div>The weather was cold, gray, and gloomy. "But you always say you like this kind of weather best," I reminded myself. Still, I planned an outing full of sparkle as compensation. I have walked everywhere on this trip, partly to avoid the (excellent) Paris Metro system for fear of crowds and also because my favorite part of a trip like this just is the walking. So I set off on an hour-long walk to a museum I had never visited before, the Jacquemart-Andre Museum, which, in the words of the ever-reliable Rick Steves guidebook, "showcases the lavish home of a wealthy art-loving Parisian couple" and their collection of European masters.</div><div><br /></div><div>I crossed the Seine on the ornate, ostentatious Pont Alexandre III:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi5o0zWygGdtzT5E_avc25BSC3_4Vg6w7HGkkrufnoZyzTxS627FEV-Ly8pMo20cAUmLE39K0PyIN6R-0nnR7qyxJEalO49CCQFMrjWbJLmM_-GAB0QwrsjJoIljrGNvTHoUuVoIiTtqtOYGKI2LeFpQf3lMkhQPqgsb0NuZ8aGOUDlh0t9jkQTON-oxw=s1280" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi5o0zWygGdtzT5E_avc25BSC3_4Vg6w7HGkkrufnoZyzTxS627FEV-Ly8pMo20cAUmLE39K0PyIN6R-0nnR7qyxJEalO49CCQFMrjWbJLmM_-GAB0QwrsjJoIljrGNvTHoUuVoIiTtqtOYGKI2LeFpQf3lMkhQPqgsb0NuZ8aGOUDlh0t9jkQTON-oxw=s320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjTprB0TGqoOdhuiFk71hC1zeztja-JovGZ24p-F2rPHCUAfB_WHuQZQAUNbOqWlr62XrHhZivz5n3WLEspAziD5IaCJrllx35ANltPCgYnspIeGbNjAKbMrDo7oiRV38eDHff7k8m1Pc8Qi0HQWETWi_0hfwQgwZzPC5uM79QncKZqrVPvhIeMnpT5uw=s1280" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjTprB0TGqoOdhuiFk71hC1zeztja-JovGZ24p-F2rPHCUAfB_WHuQZQAUNbOqWlr62XrHhZivz5n3WLEspAziD5IaCJrllx35ANltPCgYnspIeGbNjAKbMrDo7oiRV38eDHff7k8m1Pc8Qi0HQWETWi_0hfwQgwZzPC5uM79QncKZqrVPvhIeMnpT5uw=s320" width="240" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>When I reached the museum, it was as lovely as I had been told it was. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhSmWGEnktooCKUTrgtRkOwspSzgqZ8jVhSvaVVea4bmVPlk-N7ka8ccVZJI3rRccukPqaovF_1eHCQEhywdjdKYNHH2AqZEpaFabNI9mv09fWQ3EdmXPmDSJs0cAIeJQQkf-SFFtZ7JCTwwnNa3GH3bq_XqaFohfcO9QH14ZzehuAqfNHrw0smvY0jDg=s1280" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhSmWGEnktooCKUTrgtRkOwspSzgqZ8jVhSvaVVea4bmVPlk-N7ka8ccVZJI3rRccukPqaovF_1eHCQEhywdjdKYNHH2AqZEpaFabNI9mv09fWQ3EdmXPmDSJs0cAIeJQQkf-SFFtZ7JCTwwnNa3GH3bq_XqaFohfcO9QH14ZzehuAqfNHrw0smvY0jDg=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjJpyR9OEP0tIpl17S9uNXGDj0-BK7hpVNfMmsdjOEitwAnzZIA5MM6nDQhFKwZjqnqvyqMb0EkATH5VxaCd5Y-iIAbtoLYLNZxLDwH8VU90reZ2E4UOyBX1ZxCG2Vd_HDtEubEs6g0KxBpoOmsfmNLa_pjbPjFGXhvmnQkme9hv9XnwoZFKLe5PIBYDw=s1280" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjJpyR9OEP0tIpl17S9uNXGDj0-BK7hpVNfMmsdjOEitwAnzZIA5MM6nDQhFKwZjqnqvyqMb0EkATH5VxaCd5Y-iIAbtoLYLNZxLDwH8VU90reZ2E4UOyBX1ZxCG2Vd_HDtEubEs6g0KxBpoOmsfmNLa_pjbPjFGXhvmnQkme9hv9XnwoZFKLe5PIBYDw=s320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div>There was a Botticelli exhibit upstairs so I sighed in the presence of his beautiful Madonnas. But then I settled myself to write while sitting on the most appealing bench I'd found in any museum so far:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEijsFttrugTqC7TaGlnFdIULu4AINIeC3a_swyQqdAyu4JeAlLj9gKLga_amAqfhW0HLGYsUiiFFGYhbDGQ_Y_acosY44xDKkkfM7bZGvLDLlWd7muBXID0WSnMSyHQ6hEctRNnYMWkxnwYWrc4wdfW62uS0oUCCC5CmCQ_BW7IRVhddnKPbkXXv-Gecw=s1280" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEijsFttrugTqC7TaGlnFdIULu4AINIeC3a_swyQqdAyu4JeAlLj9gKLga_amAqfhW0HLGYsUiiFFGYhbDGQ_Y_acosY44xDKkkfM7bZGvLDLlWd7muBXID0WSnMSyHQ6hEctRNnYMWkxnwYWrc4wdfW62uS0oUCCC5CmCQ_BW7IRVhddnKPbkXXv-Gecw=s320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div>I would like to say that I wrote a poem worthy of the red velvet cushions, or found an idea for the book that will be my career-culminating masterpiece. But I felt a bit shy with its splendor and just wrote in my journal.</div><div><br /></div><div>The museum's cafe is equally splendid, and I treated myself to lunch there, including selecting a delectable pastry from the dessert case. Most of the other patrons seemed to be French ladies having lunch with other French ladies; I was the only person without a companion, but I was happy to be an American lady having lunch with her journal.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjteXtmqIB6yfToj3__KgQ5ODCRF8l0PT-D9I-XSkYlf1NELRvDY2lLsdtM71octRBFHJHd3vy-NrT7F590oT29_EVsQN9EX1DaQ8oN2fRKHX-liGm8KG7zP3CD1wwuOnKPiCzhJ3IZ5FLXuXeWsWTiKNM4hKdk9kDfb9KzE0hvt804BZogOLWo03Sn4A=s1280" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjteXtmqIB6yfToj3__KgQ5ODCRF8l0PT-D9I-XSkYlf1NELRvDY2lLsdtM71octRBFHJHd3vy-NrT7F590oT29_EVsQN9EX1DaQ8oN2fRKHX-liGm8KG7zP3CD1wwuOnKPiCzhJ3IZ5FLXuXeWsWTiKNM4hKdk9kDfb9KzE0hvt804BZogOLWo03Sn4A=s320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh289xAMJ-Kifb4PCAqvb0K0NFh5ORAYnDgEXtyRltR288mUAuS-EsnDbWp4iQJcZB_k4ASPABulYfquYLfTlNpfg2P49tqqosBcSVGoxOawxpMkFMNLKOx-XVB8PfCr6xxMmTEcy1t4KNOGmO-68NnKrPMLRKKW0x4n5Et5UyfTMQ6YW1ty1PWD3Y8Eg=s1280" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh289xAMJ-Kifb4PCAqvb0K0NFh5ORAYnDgEXtyRltR288mUAuS-EsnDbWp4iQJcZB_k4ASPABulYfquYLfTlNpfg2P49tqqosBcSVGoxOawxpMkFMNLKOx-XVB8PfCr6xxMmTEcy1t4KNOGmO-68NnKrPMLRKKW0x4n5Et5UyfTMQ6YW1ty1PWD3Y8Eg=s320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div>My next stop was less satisfying. Boulevard Hausmann, where the museum is situated, is also the site of Paris's two grand department stores: Galeries Lafayette and Printemps. I had bought a brightly colored tropical plush toy bird there on a trip to Paris back when I was in my 20s, which I then had to lug in a shopping bag on the rest of the European tour. But this time I just found both stores overwhelming. They have now sprawled into adjacent buildings as well, and as I entered I saw so many signs for Prada, Gucci, and Chanel that I knew this was not the place for frumpy, dumpy, dowdy me. Here is the famous rotunda of Galeries Lafayette: </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg7NhmMLKiurKq-juLLbzIPfiKCS6Si3i-0AUQDtSPQ5vPWKiJc83Q-j5PQJErNaKEAlxamwMqLfm7w0BiPR58sdpi-b11_jvTuD_ameZEuUmHN1tPqNrGiF6R53Wdih7l5JkcHyQ59ca3CZu5tSLUMrt863Q2sf1mt8HGTXCkgSVApjwgEq3zc_J8JSA=s1280" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg7NhmMLKiurKq-juLLbzIPfiKCS6Si3i-0AUQDtSPQ5vPWKiJc83Q-j5PQJErNaKEAlxamwMqLfm7w0BiPR58sdpi-b11_jvTuD_ameZEuUmHN1tPqNrGiF6R53Wdih7l5JkcHyQ59ca3CZu5tSLUMrt863Q2sf1mt8HGTXCkgSVApjwgEq3zc_J8JSA=s320" width="240" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>I will confess that I had visions, when I planned this trip, of returning from Paris completely transformed. Maybe I would change my hair style from the same way I have worn my hair since high school! Maybe I would return chic and stylish, as Audrey Hepburn does in <i>Sabrina</i>. Before her trip to Paris, she is merely the chauffeur's daughter with a hopeless crush on the son of the manor. But upon her return, she is such a stunner that now he is the one smitten. When her father worries that she is still "reaching for the moon," she is able to tell him, "No, Papa. Now the moon is reaching for me."</div><div><br /></div><div>Well, I slunk away from the Galeries Lafayette sadly sure that the moon will NOT be reaching for me. The only way this transformation could happen would be that I would have to want it much more than I do, spend much more money that I am willing to spend, and most important, have a stylish friend with infinite patience to take me on as a project. </div><div><br /></div><div>Oh, well. My true goal had been, not to transform my wardrobe, but to transform my writing. So on this last day of the trip it was time to ask myself: had I achieved that goal? I have to answer: not really. I wrote less than I had planned and mainly focused on children's book projects - what I've always written - instead of something daringly new-for-me. </div><div><br /></div><div>But the real goal of the trip hadn't been so much to change who I am as a writer but to recover who I have always been - someone who finds deep joy in the act of writing itself and in being part of a supportive community of other creators. </div><div><br /></div><div>And that I did, both as I sat writing in the Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay, the Centre Pompidou, and on a velvet bench in the Jacquemart-Andre, and as I spent three wonderful days with Catherine Stock in Rignac. </div><div><br /></div><div>I hereby declare this trip a SUCCESS! Now I just need to get home today despite various logistical challenges that are too boring to talk about. And really, there is no scenario I can imagine on which I don't get back home sooner or later.. and with renewed joy in my heart. </div><div><br /></div><div>Au revoir, Paris!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgcgYvC_pe5ky2gB2FvZRk0c-oyef6m7M54E9pcurByd3_CzimwsYZ13nDmvtjabMQlVjtpDeCcp7j2qES2DG0N1y5HWgIe0baL-UDZAI4DAzwToz7RKOe1qS6o_1_IFrx4rQnRPhXcco2-teHs5Ph_b0Azx0WDKy2LvQD1GUUr2IuOqAxSmjd2X2PgdQ=s1280" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgcgYvC_pe5ky2gB2FvZRk0c-oyef6m7M54E9pcurByd3_CzimwsYZ13nDmvtjabMQlVjtpDeCcp7j2qES2DG0N1y5HWgIe0baL-UDZAI4DAzwToz7RKOe1qS6o_1_IFrx4rQnRPhXcco2-teHs5Ph_b0Azx0WDKy2LvQD1GUUr2IuOqAxSmjd2X2PgdQ=s320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>cmillshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03128598629089024454noreply@blogger.com6