books

Blog of the Week: The Faces We Live

July 5, 2012 by admin

Every now and then I run across a blog that demonstrates the genuine union of head and heart. Counselor, cancer “thriver,” author, wife, and mother are some of the many aspects of Dawn Novotny’s life. Her posts on The Faces We Live are meaty with experience and wisdom; she is a woman who has been there and done that. She’s not only lived to tell the tale, but does so in a way that inspires all of us to dip more deeply into our own inner wells. In exploring her own shadow with compassion, she teaches us by example to do the same.

Dawn has written a memoir, Ragdoll Redeemed: Growing Up in the Shadow of Marilyn Monroe. I haven’t read it yet, having only recently discovered her blog, but it looks interesting. Given the quality of her blog, I suspect it’s a fascinating read.

Have a great weekend! The construction here at the house drags on, but progress is being made. Next week I’m going to explain my latest obsessions (figs and labyrinths) and review a book that I can’t wait to share with you! It’s so good that it’s making anything else I pick up seem dull and lifeless in comparison. I hope you’ll stop by and visit!

Do you have a favorite blog that you’d like to see featured in the Thursday post? It could be yours! Go ahead and promote yourself or someone else in the comments, and I’ll be happy to take a look at them.

Good Books Tuesday: Healer by Carol Cassella

July 3, 2012 by admin

Each week I am on the hunt for good books to recommend. It’s not always easy, and there are plenty of books that don’t make the cut.

These days, though, I seem to have hit a string of good books. Not so long ago I reviewed Carol Cassella’s debut novel, Oxygen, and I was so intrigued that I couldn’t wait to read her follow-up, Healer.

This book begins with our heroine, Claire Boehning, living in reduced circumstances. Her husband is a mover and shaker in the biotech field, but problems with a drug he was developing have halted his ability to gather funds, run tests, and get the drug to market. He has bet their life savings and lost. They’ve had to sell their home and have set up in a run-down property once intended to be razed for a second home. He is traveling, continuing to seek investors, leaving her home with a sullen teenager.

A trained doctor who didn’t follow through on board certification and who never worked once her daughter was born (her complicated pregnancy adds dimension to this relationship and explains some of its complexities), she visits clinic after clinic to look for a job and provide income that she desperately needs. No one wants to take a chance on her. Finally she ends up at a clinic that runs on a shoestring, treating poor individuals, most of them migrant workers. The salary is low, but it allows her to keep her family fed.

As the book progresses, her life continues to unravel as she tries to hold home and family together. The marriage is strained. Questions about medical ethics unfold. Healer touches deeply on the ins and outs of a marriage that had lost its way, and the journey back to what really matters.

Cassella, a doctor herself, did substantial research on the biotech industry for this book, and it shows. She takes a complex topic and breaks it into bites that a reader can understand, without bogging down the narrative.

The great thing about good books is that I hate putting them down. Carol Cassella has done it again!

What good books are you reading?

Unraveled

June 27, 2012 by admin

“You’ve made a mobius,” hubby said.

“Is that a good thing?” I asked. Honestly, every now and then he speaks a foreign language to me. If we’re in a room full of other computer programmers, it takes less than five minutes for me to flee in panic.

As much as we share in common, he’s a math guy, and I can barely balance my checkbook. Still, I was curious, and I like to learn. What the heck is a mobius, and why do I care?

So, here’s the answer to the first part. Take a long strip of paper, give it a little half twist, and then connect the ends. When you draw a line on it starting at one of the seams, you somehow end up on the other side of the paper. This toy then creates amusement for math-type people with too much time on their hands as they explore all the implications.

So, how did I make a mobius and not know it? As you know, I decided to restart my knitting life with an absurdely complex project, a skirt. Turns out that I got my skirt in a bunch instead of my panties. I made a twist in the stitches somehow, and the skirt took on a lovely shape except for the part in the back where the knitted fabric turned over on itself, leaving a twist that would expose my unbunched panties. The only solution was to rip it out and start again.

I sought help from my knitting books. Turns out that knitters know what a mobius is. Who knew? Sometimes they make them on purpose, in fact. I found instructions on how to make them. I did not, however, find the words to tell me how to not make one.

Online, though, other knitters like me have wailed and gnashed their teeth, and nice, polite knitting ladies set them straight on what went wrong and how to fix it. Nice to know I’m not alone, anyway! Isn’t it great to type “unintentional knitting mobius” into Google and actually get some hits?

Of course, I’m all about metaphor, so you know I’m looking for the Deeper Message in all of this. Yes, I know. The message is to take a knitting class. Still, I felt like there was another Life Lesson to be had. Based on the mess I made, it couldn’t be good.

A few days later, I knew exactly what I needed to know, or rather, admit, to myself. My novel in progress, Blood and Loam, is still a mess. Set in 1970 in the Midwest, it explores a lot of big themes: war, post-traumatic stress, the changing roles of women (and some resulting confusion), and even the beginnings of the agricultural changes that now affect how we eat. Yes, I’m writing about corn and trying to be entertaining at the same time. You see my dilemma.

Anyway, like the skirt, the story unravels at the beginning. I had to face facts: I was going to have to do a lot more heavy lifting to get this book done right.

Worse, between the construction noise and other interruptions, I wasn’t getting the focused brain time to fix the problem.

By Friday, I was ready to throw the whole thing out. Well, maybe “things” as in plural — the skirt and the novel. However, I am nothing if not stubborn. Hubby says I should say I’m tenacious. Tomato, to-mah-to. Anyway, I don’t give up. The skirt looks too pretty in the picture (will I look as thin and have the model’s great hair when I’m done, too?), and I think that Blood and Loam is worth the struggle. I think it just requires from me, like the skirt, a greater level of skill than I currently have. The only way to get to that level of skill is to keep working at it.

And so I took a deep breath and cast on new stitches. Then I sat down with a hard copy of the manuscript and started to read through it again, making notes. What if I introduced the villain later? What if the creepy triangle showed up later to pack a bigger “Ewww!!!” punch? What if I rearranged some chapters? What if I added a scene in the first chapter? Little by little, something better started to take shape. Hubby took a long bike ride and left me alone in the quiet on a Sunday, no construction workers around, to break the book into pieces and to start reconstructing it.

A funny thing happens when I solve one problem. I get ideas to solve other problems, too. I’ve never felt that Blood and Loam works as a second novel because of some controversies in it. I “saw” the book that will come second…and the one that will come third. I had a pattern to follow. Yes, I’ve had a pattern to follow with the darn skirt, and you see where that got me, but having a plan makes me feel better, at least. I started writing, writing, and writing, and I’m finding my way.

Perhaps unraveling is a good thing. The new skirt will get done, eventually. Blood and Loam will become the story it’s meant to be. It all suddenly makes sense, and the Universe is set right again.

As for the math, though, I’d prefer to leave that to the experts. I hope I never see another mobius again.

Book Of The Week: The Knitting Circle

June 26, 2012 by admin

I mentioned recently that I’m not great at reading instructions. I’m also not great at reading book blurbs, those nice descriptions on the back of the cover that are supposed to suck you in and make you want to read a book. Someone recommended The Knitting Circle to me, so I downloaded it. Without. Reading. What. It’s. About.

By the time I read the Prologue, I was having an uh-uh moment.

You know how TV shows have the little warning at the beginning about whether there are sex, drug, or violence references? Hubby says they need warnings for when something awful happens to a dog or a child. I stopped watching Mad Men after an episode where one of the characters abandoned his dog so he could drink. House M.D. lost me for a while when a child died. Shoot, when we saw War Horse on Broadway, I was a sobbing mess at intermission, and those horses weren’t even real — they had people underneath them, for God’s sakes.

So you can imagine my frame of mind when I learn that in The Knitting Circle, our heroine, Mary, is reeling from the sudden and unexpected death of her daughter.

Mary joins a knitting circle at the suggestion of her mother, with whom she has had a distant, difficult relationship. At first she feels safe among these women who know nothing of her story. Of course, as she gets to know them…

Did you ever hear the Buddhist story about the woman whose baby had died? She went to the Buddha and begged him to bring her child back to life. The Buddha tells her he will do it under one condition: she must find a home where death and loss have not paid a visit. Of course, as she travels everywhere, she hears one story after another about the losses of others.

The Knitting Circle is like that. As Mary ventures back into the world and into new friendships, knitting all the while because knitting brings a sense of peace when nothing else does, she understands that she is not alone.

Author Ann Hood, whose own daughter died similarly to Stella, Mary’s child, brings a depth of understanding to a parent’s grief that only those who have been through it understand. Sometimes strangers provide the greatest kindness and compassion when friends and family don’t know what to say. Mary must learn to take the wound and to knit it into something beautiful.

Reading the story, I found myself angry and upset. Mary is falling apart, unable to function in those deep, early months of grief. I wanted her to get up. I wanted her to triumph. I wanted her to hold it together.

I wanted her to because I had to, because when it happened to me, I had no choice. My babies, two of them, died in utero in 1997, and the pain of those losses has never fully healed. I don’t hurt like I used to, but there are still days when it hits me, especially Mother’s Day and October 14, my daughter’s birthday.

It dawned on me that I wasn’t angry at Mary at all — I was angry that I didn’t get to grieve the way I needed to. I wanted to be the one to fall apart, and I didn’t get to be that person. As Mary’s marriage lurches and struggles through the agony, I remembered how my own marriage came to a loving but painful end when our different grieving styles exposed other incompatibilities.

Like Hood, I wrote about my pain, but in a different way. When a Grandchild Dies: What to Do, What to Say, How to Cope, came out of my experiences as a bereaved mother, when I discovered that I had books and support groups to turn to, while my mother did not. Writing that book changed my life in ways I couldn’t begin to imagine. Like Hood, I have emerged from my grief transformed, even though the scab remains.

Hood knits a beautiful story of loss and healing. It is authentic and true, down to the core. It is breathtakingly sad, but not hopeless. Life does, indeed, go on.

Book Recommendation: Eden’s Garden by Juliet Greenwood

June 19, 2012 by admin

Before I go into this week’s book recommendation, I just have to brag a little. I mean, I recommended Cheryl Strayed’s Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail several weeks ago, well before Oprah picked it up for her book club! So you heard it here first, folks. I’m just sayin’.

Now, to this week’s recommendation:

***

From a recent “Secret Garden” tour. The Latin inscription above the archway translates to “Break on through to the other side.” (Remember The Doors?)

Take a woman from present time with the typical dilemma of modern-day womanhood — balancing career and love. Combine her story with that of a mysterious woman from days gone by who carries a dark secret. Throw in that genetic “something” that draws us back to our roots and deepest desires with a bit of Welsh magic, and you end up with the Bronte-esque Eden’s Garden by Juliet Greenwood.

Let me say first that I don’t use the Bronte name lightly. I first read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte in the fourth grade and periodically pull it down from the shelf even today. I dragged hubby to the last incarnation of the movie version, which he loved, and I extracted a promise from him that we will visit Bronte country in England. While I didn’t enjoy sister Emily’s Wuthering Heights nearly as well, it also influenced my early reading life. It took me a long time to become willing to leave 19th century literature because of these wonderful writers. So when I say something is Bronte-esque, that translates to “major cool” in my brain.

In Eden’s Garden, Carys is the modern-day heroine, who returns to the town of her childhood to help her mother through hip-replacement surgery and recovery. She left as a young woman, jilting her childhood sweetheart to pursue her career dreams. At the time of her return, she is moving toward a career change, returning to her love of gardens, something she learned from her grandfather. The gardens of Plas Eden, a place where history and sad memories collide, draw her back. While her own life plans begin to unravel, she is drawn into an untold story of love and pain from ghosts of the past.

As a lover of gardens myself, I find that working in the garden connects me to my ancestors, and the same is true for Carys. The unique statues and mystery of the gardens at Plas Eden, a property struggling with disrepair and economic woes, add a further element of mysticism to these generational connections.

The other woman from the past? We don’t know for a long time, but as her story unfolds, it intertwines with Carys’ narrative, and we discover her, bit by bit. As she is revealed, Carys makes her own discoveries about life, love, and what really matters.

As rich and varied as the garden of Plas Eden itself, this story covers multiple generations of a woman’s struggle and heartache with a deft touch. Sensual and romantic, the story swept me away with its strong female characters. We are reminded how much better we women have it these days — and yet, even now, we must often make difficult choices. How do we manage both work and love in our modern, driven society?

One warning: once I got about halfway through, I could NOT put this book down. It is filled with Welsh charm and romance, and delights with a sweet, lovingly tended story that leaves the reader deeply satisfied, much as we would by strolling through a magnificent garden. Of course, now I have to get to Wales to explore some more on my own!

Vampires, Sex, and…Dan Rather?

June 13, 2012 by admin

A visit to NYC is always good for several blog posts, but Julie Farrar of Traveling Through asked me to share my experiences at Book Expo America (BEA), so that seems like the place to start.

My much-beloved editor, Jill Bailin, met me at BEA on its last day, Thursday, June 7. Jill and I met via Elance for The Foreign Language of Friends, and she’s now shepherding me through Blood and Loam, showing great kindness and compassion as I work through this challenging novel. She’s also a BEA veteran, having been a few times before, so she showed me the ropes.

Here’s me with my book at the New Title Showcase at BEA.

BEA, for those not familiar, is a trade show that connects publishers to booksellers. Attendees can hobnob both with emerging and well known authors, and I was just a few feet away from Dan Rather himself as he chatted with those in a long queue to meet him. Dan looks pretty good, even better than on television, I think. Even at my age, I can get a bit starstruck at times.

Before Jill came along I had about an hour to myself, so I explored the electronic publishing booths. I’ve learned a few things from e-publishing The Foreign Language of Friends (which I’ll probably blog about at some point), so I had LOTS of questions for potential future vendors. Of course, I made my way over to the Amazon booth, where they were presenting their Kindle Direct Publishing program. We heard from Diane Darcy, a successful e-book author who has made more than a million bucks in the past few years through the program. Darcy is a prolific writer of romance with “a touch of magic”. Although I don’t see it emphasized on her website, I heard “vampires” when she was introduced. It seems as though the book-buying public still can’t get enough of vampires and zombies. Darcy has slapped up something like 27 books onto Amazon in the past few years. I don’t know how many of them she had already written, but e-publishing seems to work in favor of volume producers. I can’t say I learned anything from the talk, but it’s always inspiring to see an author in person who is doing well.

And, of course, sex sells. If you have any questions, just look at the 50 Shades of Gray trilogy. At one point Jill and I meandered over to a booth with a huge banner of a man and woman in a steamy embrace. The guys working the booth had shaved heads, bulging muscles, and tight t-shirts that said, “Got Sex?” You know, I’m not a prude, but I am…private…about certain things. We chatted politely with the guys in the booth and then slipped away.

Jane Friedman wrote about self-published authors walking up and down the aisles trying to get reviews or other exposure. One guy was handing out bookmarks saying, “I’ve decided that I’m going to change my title. I’d love to hear from you about what you think would be a better one.” I kind of thought that was clever. Besides, I’m sympathetic to authors and know that it’s hard to get heard above the noise.

It’s clear that publishing continues to change, and even BEA doesn’t know exactly what to do with those changes. This year, for the first time, they let readers in, so they’re aware of the need to appeal directly to book buyers who may not go into bookstores anymore. In the meantime, we walked aisle after aisle of beautiful books, many still lovingly crafted. I ran across a gardening book filled with gorgeous, four-color illustrations, and drooled (not on the book, mind you). There will always be a market for vampires and sex, but the good book still exists. The reader still exists. Those who love to hold hardback or paperback books still exist. In this crazy e-book world, a world which I have embraced, a crowd still comes out to celebrate books, and that’s a good thing.

I”m sure I’ll be sharing more about NYC, but for now, I”ll leave you with a few pics: