Lifescapes

An El Nino Treat

I know that  many of you are sick of snow and wish it would go away so you can get on with your everyday lives. But snow falls seldom in the Hill Country (the last serious snowfall here occurred on Valentine's Day, 2004) and it's a treat for us--especially when it's a soft, fluffy snow, like the three inches that arrived yesterday, courtesy of El Nino. No blowing, no drifting, just soft, gentle snow. A blessing for the bluebonnets, a delight for the dogs, and a pleasure for Bill and me. Even the garden enjoys a generous helping of snow, melting moisture into the seedbeds.

But the storm has passed, the sun is shining and the snow will be gone by noon, and Bill (who delayed his trip because of the weather) is on his way to our place in New Mexico for a few weeks of late-winter alone time. Alone time for me, too--we're both looking forward to it.

I finished the galley of AN EXTRAORDINARY YEAR and mailed it off to the University of Texas Press on Monday. This wasn't an easy book to lay out, and my decision to use margin quotations has caused extra work for everyone. But one more pass should see all the problems cleaned up, and the book is on track for publication in September. I love the helpful, make-it-happen attitude of the team there. Meanwhile, still waiting for the copy-edit of the first in the DARLING DAHLIAS series. The book's schedule was shortened by a couple of months, and various events have conspired to slow the project down. Still hoping for publication in July, though--I'll keep you posted. This is a busy year for books, and a record for me: HOLLY BLUES in April, THE DARLING DAHLIAS AND THE CUCUMBER TREE in July, and THE TALE OF OAT CAKE CRAG and AN EXTRAORDINARY YEAR OF ORDINARY DAYS in September.

Several people have asked about the paperback publication of WORMWOOD. In case you're wondering too, the paperbacks in most mystery series appear a year after the hardcover publication. China's hardcover this year is HOLLY BLUES (April 6); the paperback of WORMWOOD will appear the same day. Oh, yes--wanted to remind you that the first chapter of HOLLY is posted on the website for you to read.

Some Story Circle news: If you're buying books from Amazon through my website, please know that a portion of your purchase goes to support the Story Circle Network. Also, we've just posted the online class offerings for our Spring 1 term. You'll find them here. We have an especially strong list of classes this term--maybe there's one just right for you! (Personally, I'd love to take Lorraine's poetry class, if I had a little extra time.)

Now, for a hot cup of tea and a few moments of quiet snow-gazing out the window...

Reading note: Being alone gives me back myself. When I’m alone, apart, I’m not tempted to construct the self I think others would like to see. I can listen to myself and what’s inside and around me. And listening – whether I’m listening through journaling, serious reading, silent meditation, or simply renewing my wonderment at the world – has become my most important spiritual practice.--Together, Alone: A Memoir of Marriage and Place, by Susan Wittig Albert

Mulching: late winter ritual

At our place, this is one of our most important late-winter rituals: mulching. For the last couple of weeks, Bill, the tall guy in camo, has been trimming the lower limbs from the what is locally called cedar but is really eastern Ashe juniper. He and Miles (our weekend helper) rented a shredder for a few hours and shredded the branches. The result: a four-foot pile. The later result, mulched paths in the garden (click for a larger view). I've been weeding the paths for the past couple of weeks; yesterday, newspapers on the cleared paths, and then the mulch. This usually keeps the weeds at bay until late next winter, when we do it all over again. Gardening is not a one-season affair.

The two freshly planted beds (lower right) are this spring's potatoes: Red Lasodas and Yukon Gold, planted last week. If there's a crop (some years yes, some no), I'll be digging them around Mother's Day, and filling these two beds with beans. Out of sight far left: the bed where I've planted carrots, beets, and peas, and the small stock tank where the lettuces live. Into the ground this coming week, weather permitting: spinach and kale. (We're very fond of cooked greens.) The week after: more peas. I try to plant peas--English peas, snow peas--every couple of weeks so they don't all come on at once, and I try not to plant more of anything than we'll eat right away, freeze, can, or dry. (We're still eating fall's peas and beans, from the freezer.) We live in Burnet County, next door to Travis County, so I use the Travis County Extension Agent's planting guide--very helpful. (Your county, or a neighboring county, may have something like this.) As always, I'm full of hope as I look ahead to the gardening season. Last year, the garden suffered during a terrible drought, but still bravely produced. This year (an El Nino year), I'm hoping for better.

On the desk: the galley of AN EXTRAORDINARY YEAR OF ORDINARY DAYS. This was a complicated project for the page designer, because the book (my journal of 2008) includes quotations in the margins. Looks like we'll need another pass, to make sure that the quotes are lined up with the right entries. I'm very much enjoying re-reading the text. What an amazing year that was, globally, nationally, and right here at Meadow Knoll. Coming this week (I hope): the copy-edited manuscript of THE DARLING DAHLIAS AND THE CUCUMBER TREE, which will need a very quick turn-around. The book is due out in July and its a little behind schedule. But we do have a cover! Peggy and I will try to get it posted this week. (We're a little behind schedule ourselves: still catching up after the conference!)

Reading note. I am grateful for every ordinary day, knowing that these will draw to a close somewhere beyond our seeing. I hope to go on picking vegetables, pulling bindweed out of the fields, enjoying the birds, the dogs, even our elderly cat, whose last season this likely will be. . . . Going on is, after all, the ultimate pleasure of our lives.--Maxine Kumin

An Inside Look at the SCN Conference

Over on the HerStories blog, I've posted a behind-the-scenes look at SCN's 2010 conference. I was the conference co-chair, a job that spanned about nine months and (especially toward the end) generated bushels of emails. Peggy Moody (SCN's Executive Director) was my co-chair and her web skills made the job much easier--as did the many people who made the conference happen: the chairs and members of a dozen planning committees, the conference presenters and panelists, the coaches, the vendors, the hotel staff.

If you'll glance through my HerStories post, you'll get an idea of the remarkable work of just one committee, the gals who managed our silent auction. Multiply that creative energy times a dozen women-powered committees, and you'll see why the conference was such a huge success.

You might also check my post at womensmemoirs.com, about the Heart-to-Heart Coaching segment of the conference program.

Spring green

At this time of year, I love anything green. Found this symmetrical, spiky beauty growing beside the path one gray morning when I was out with the dogs. The thistle is a nuisance for farmers, maybe, but she's beautiful in her own right. Later in the year, she'll look like this, and the insects and I will love her even more.

As I step carefully around her, I think: there's a lesson here, about starting small. About roots and seeds and seedlings. I often think we often want too much, too soon, that we want to be instantly gratified. But most glories come slowly. They take a while to bloom. And you can't always tell what's going to be beautiful, sweet, and nurturing by looking at its small, bare beginnings.

The last two weeks have been all about the Story Circle conference for me. I'll tell you all about it in a wrap-up on Wednesday. Totally wonderful--but more about that later.

Sporadically working on Mourning Gloria, with too many interruptions. I'm sure that other writers manage interruptions better than I do: for me, a couple of days' absence from a writing project is a major setback. A couple of weeks is huge. I'm really reluctant to try to get back to it: the copyedited file of The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree will be coming in another week, which means another big interruption. So I asked for (and got) a couple of extra weeks on Gloria, through the middle of April. In the meantime, I have some Story Circle work to do (the next online class term will be starting in a few weeks, and there's still plenty of conference wrap-up and related planning), and the garden.

Oh, yes, the garden. We've been eating winter greens, onions, and carrots. As soon as the soil dries out (maybe mid-week) I'll be planting spinach, carrots, kale, and potatoes. The seed potatoes are sprouting (in trays on the bedroom dresser, where else?) and will be ready to go into the ground in another week. So there's plenty to keep me busy.

Thanks so much for your comments on the previous blog post. Lots of good books/authors mentioned there, and some excellent comments on the nature/evolution of fictional formulas. Somebody ought to write a book about this, don't you think?

Reading note: from my memoir, Together, Alone: A Memoir of Marriage and Place:

In order to have the kind of life I wanted, I had to leave the life I had. And on the day I walked out of the university, I felt astonishingly, astoundingly free—as free as those wild birds—and I could sing my own glorious hurrah. It was only a step, but it was the first, and it was necessary.

More thoughts on formulas

Thanks for your comments on yesterday's post, and on Thyme of Death. It's nice to know that you appreciate China (you're all totally great--yes, you are!)

But I really did mean to open a conversation about fictional formulas. I've been reading novels for more decades than I care to count, and I know how difficult it is to do something really new and different, especially in genre fiction, and even more especially in series.

Let's just take the occupation of the female series protagonist, as one example. In Death on Demand (1987), Carolyn Hart set up her protagonist in a small town bookstore. To my knowledge (I may be missing something--you're sure to tell me), this was the first appearance of what we might call the "female small business owner" formula. Diane Mott Davidson gave it a twist in 1990 with Catering to Nobody, and Mary Daheim gave it another with her bed-and-breakfast heroine in Just Desserts (1991). Thyme of Death (1992) made the shop owner an ex-lawyer and put her in a green business, in partnership with a flaky friend. After that, it was granny-bar-the-door. More female protagonists, some with "new" and "different" occupations.

See what I mean? As writers, we inherit fictional formulas the way animals (including humans) inherit genetic codes and cultures inherit memes. The trick is finding ways to work with, within, around, and outside the formulas in a way that appeals to readers' current (and always evolving) interests, expectations, and experience.

So tell us this. Just considering the female protagonist's occupation, what's your favorite? (China Bayles, I hope, but let's set China aside.) When was the first book in the series published? What does it owe (if anything) to previous expressions of the formula? How is it different from previous expressions? (And don't say you can't find all this stuff out. If you don't have the book in front of you, the information is on the Internet.)

Go for it!