Lifescapes

Quiet Time

I'm spending some solitary time at Coyote Ridge, our New Mexico cabin. We're on the eastern slope of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, looking out over a quiet valley rimmed on the north by a snow-covered ridge that rises to about 8500 feet. It's still summer in Texas: in the 70s yesterday. Here: 12 degrees this morning, with bright blue skies.

My writing studio here is in the loft, with a view up the mountain. No dogs on this trip: Molly stayed home to take care of Bill and the chickens and warn the deer out of her yard. No television, so I'm spared the D.C. train wreck.

My project for this time alone: research/reading on Gertrude Bell. Wikipedia describes her as "an English writer, traveler, political officer, administrator, spy and archaeologist who explored, mapped, and became highly influential to British imperial policy-making due to her knowledge and contacts, built up through extensive travels in Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Arabia. Along with T. E. Lawrence, Bell helped support the Hashemite dynasties in what is today Jordan as well as in Iraq." I have a stack of books, including her unpublished diaries of her 1913-1914 journey through unexplored, unmapped central Arabia, rich in political intrigue. I also have her letters to her lover, Charles Doughty-Wylie. It's a fascinating project that is taking me into new (for me) territory--a place I love to go!

Reading note: All the earth is seamed with roads, and all the sea is furrowed with the tracks of ships, and over all the roads and all the waters a continuous stream of people passes up and down - traveling, as they say, for their pleasure. What is it, I wonder, that they go out to see?--Gertrude Bell

 

Here Is a Thing You Can Do

 

Jill Stein, of the Green Party, is spearheading a recount. Yesterday, the donations grew from $30,000 to $2.5 million in 12 hours. I knew that this is a thing I can get behind and push. If you feel that way, too, please go here and donate.

From the Stein press release:

Jill Stein observed, “After a divisive and painful presidential race, reported hacks into voter and party databases and individual email accounts are causing many American to wonder if our election results are reliable. These concerns need to be investigated before the 2016 presidential election is certified. We deserve elections we can trust."

In an election surrounded by hacks, the use of systems that have been demonstrated to be easily hacked should concern every American.  Some of the machines used in Wisconsin, have been banned in California after they were shown to be highly vulnerable to hacking and malicious reprogramming, due to the lack of security features. Leading election security experts have been calling for exactly this sort of recount as a critical safeguard against cyberattacks.

The deadline for filing for a recount in Wisconsin is this Friday, November 25th, at a cost of $1.1 million. The Stein/Baraka campaign, along with election integrity advocates, are beginning in a massive [crowd source] fundraising effort to obtain the needed funds before Friday afternoon.

On this Thanksgiving Day, I'm grateful to live in a country and at time where we can peaceably register our concerns, raise our voices, and stand with those taking action.

This is a thing we can do.

Because None of This is Normal

Our first cold front went through last weekend, about three weeks late. It was the warmest October on record here (maybe where you are, too). The ice packs at the poles are melting at a record rate, rising seas are drowning islands, and the government is finally beginning to notice. Meanwhile, back at Trump Tower, the president-elect has just picked a notorious climate-denier to enforce our environmental laws and is looking for ways to trash the Paris climate agreement. 

None of this is normal.

This is not a normal Thanksgiving week. I am still stunned and angry, as you are, perhaps. Like many of you, I feel vulnerable, defenseless, helpless.

But not hopeless. I am grateful for the W. H. Auden poem that Neal Gabler quoted earlier this month on Bill Moyers' America:

Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

I'm grateful to be able to join the chorus of those exchanging messages. I'm grateful for organizations like Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union, which continue to show an affirming flame. There are others, too. They give me hope.

Please. Find an organization that speaks for you, that gives you hope. Join it. Support it with your money and your time and your voice. Make it your aim to send your own message, wherever you are, however you can.

Please. Because none of this is normal.

 

Another Prize for LOVING ELEANOR!

And more good news for Loving Eleanor! The book--the true story of the enduring friendship of Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok, has won a Best Book Award. This is especially important for me, because Loving Eleanor is one of the soon-to-be three books published by my own Persevero Press: A Wilder Rose (2013), Loving Eleanor (2016), and The General's Women: A Novel (coming in 2017). I love learning new ways to do things and exploring new landscapes, and publishing my own work is immeasurably satisfying.

But Persevero Press could not be a success without readers. Thanks to you for your support and friendship!

Bright Spots

I'm delighted to let you know that the Library Journal has named Loving Eleanor an Indie Ebook of 2016! The reviewer's comment: "Albert deftly writes in Hick’s compelling and opinionated voice and conveys an emotional vantage point that will resonate strongly with romance fans. The happy ending is not traditional. Rather it is found in Hick allowing herself to share her love story at all."

Indeed. I remain profoundly grateful to Lorena Hickok for the courage she showed in preserving the letters that tell the story. The relationship between Eleanor and Hick could so easily have been lost to history, and to us--and so easily denied by those who wanted to "protect" ER. The letters tell the truth, the whole truth.

Homestead report. The potatoes are growing like gangbusters, but I'll have to cover them this weekend. First freeze on the way. The spinach, kale, and onions will be fine. Feeling lucky to have some physical work to keep me focused.

Book report. The copyedited files of The General's Women went off to the formatter  yesterday. Big thanks to copyeditor Sandra Spicher for her diligent work. We're on track for March publication. I'll have a cover reveal in a few days, so stay tuned! Not doing creative work yet--that requires a spirit I don't have this week. Grateful for the publishing chores that have to be done and don't need much imagination. 

Bright Spots. I want to find ways to join the chorus of opposition in our current national political turmoil. One of the things I can do is be a bearer of better news, highlighting women who are changing the world--our world--by being who they are. Meet Ilhan Omar, a former Somali refugee, a Muslim, a mother of three, and now the first Somali-American lawmaker in the United States. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"I think I bring the voice of young people," Omar says. "I think I bring the voice of women in the East African community. I bring the voice of Muslims. I bring the voice of young mothers looking for opportunities." Minneapolis: kudos to you for saying yes to diversity and no to hatred and bigotry.

Reading note. All our silences in the face of racist assault are acts of complicity.--bell hooks

 

Soaked to the Skin

 

"Smiley was soaked to the skin and God as a punishment had removed all taxis from the face of London."--John Le Carré

I'm not a pessimist. A pessimist couldn't have lived the life I've lived for seven-plus decades. For me, the glass has always been half full, the road ahead beckoning, the sky bright (even when it's cloudy), the day long and interesting, the challenges compelling. I don't disregard the dark; I choose not to live in it.

But not this week--and if our president-elect's list of likely members of his administration are any indication, not for the next four years. This man was swept into office on a toxic tsunami of racism, misogyny, bigotry, homophobia, xenophobia, and fear. We're swamped in this filthy, poisonous stuff. We're soaked to the skin. How can anyone feel optimistic about that?

My challenge (and maybe yours) is how to deal with this unaccustomed pessimism. How to shape my sadness, anger, loathing, and apprehension into a vehicle that can carry me forward, positively, through the next four years. How to find the best ways to speak up against this dark, deplorable side of American populism. How to use whatever gifts I've been given to support what's good and right and bright and true in the American spirit. How to act from the place on the planet I live, out of the body I live in, with the resources I have.

It's all well and good for Clinton and Obama to speak about "unity." That's a politically correct answer, and I know why they use it. But "unity" isn't for me. This man is not my president. I will not paper over the differences that are so visible in values, beliefs, and an understanding of what America is all about and who it is for. I haven't found an answer yet, although words like opposition and resistance come to mind.

I'm thinking out loud here, with no conclusions in sight. I'll let myself live for a while longer with my anger, anxiety, and gut-wrenching loathing. But it's not a place I want to be, and I won't be here forever. 

Taxi? Taxi!

 

 

From Manuscript to Book: Part 4, Getting Close

(This is Part 4 in this series. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3)

As you know if you’ve been following this series on copyediting, copyeditor Sandra Spicher is an important member of the editorial team that is bringing you The General’s Women, my upcoming (March 2017) biographical/historical novel. I've just spent a rather intense but enjoyable few days reviewing Sandra's work on the manuscript I sent her a couple of weeks ago.

I might have enjoyed a few (quite a few?) glasses of wine while I was writing this book, but it wasn't written drunk. It is definitely being edited sober, however. The copyediting stage of the project isn’t quite finished: Sandra still has to do a final run-through of the whole thing and make sure it is clean and ready to go the formatter. But we’re almost there. And I enjoyed (really truly!) working through the manuscript carefully, line by line, paying close attention to Sandra’s suggestions. Readers deserve a text that's free of errors, so I’m very glad for her help.

I've been writing for decades and I like to think that my work is pretty clean, but I'm always surprised at the things that get past me. Here are several examples of the kind of suggestions Sandra made. My responses are in italic.

• Suggest using British spelling “grey” for “gray.” This was a major choice in the very beginning, since one of the point-of-view characters is British. My decision: stay with American spelling and punctuation throughout.
• Instead of “in Brompton Road,” should it be “on Brompton Road”? Decided to stay with “in Brompton Road,” as a dialect marker for Kay, the British character. There are several other British markers: smashing, jolly, bloody.
• He lit his cigarette at the top of this page [correcting a second cigarette lighting]. Ack. Why didn’t I catch this? So careless!
• There are several ways to handle headlines. Suggest small caps—but whatever you decide, make it consistent. Right. Small caps it is, throughout.
• You might have another way to get around the parentheses (or you might decide to keep them). Sandra feels that parentheses interrupt the reader’s flow of thought and helped me see when I was using them unnecessarily. Usually, I could restructure the sentence to get rid of the interruptions (but not always).
• Brand names aren’t usually italicized. I’m glad that copyeditors know things like this, so I don’t have to remember.
• Be careful with the timing of this one [mention of the U.S. Air Force, in 1944] : the U.S. Air Force didn’t exist as a separate service until 1947. Before that, it was called the U.S. Army Air Forces. Yikes! Sandra is right! I’m so glad she caught my anachronism.
•  “Soberly” isn’t wrong, but some people think it is (meaning “not drunkenly”), so I usually suggest changing to “somberly.” Excellent suggestion. I like the way Sandra reads the text with the reader in mind.
• Parker ‘51. The pen was named for Route 51 and the company’s 51st anniversary, so no apostrophe is needed. Another interesting factoid. Now I know!

Working through the copyedited manuscript of this long (125,000-word) book took four full seven-hour days, but it was enjoyable work that took me back into the text. I deeply appreciated Sandra’s critical engagement, her intelligence, and her experience. Her work made this book much better, and I’m grateful.

Another blog post coming soon: Developing the cover for this author-published book.

Reading note: Discriminating readers look for reasons to trust a writer and reasons not to. Sloppy expression and carelessness in the details are two reasons not to. The copy editor’s job, then, is to ferret out such infelicities. We do this in order to help the writer forge a connection with the reader based on trust— trust that the writer is intelligent and responsible, and that her work is a reliable source. We do it to help craft an article that pleases, a report that allows the reader to coast along through its ideas without slowing for red lights at every corner. And we do it— don’t we?— because we derive satisfaction and pride from knowing how.--Carol Fisher Saller,The Subversive Copy Editor