What I Like About …

One of the things that makes me most sad about the weather over the past couple decades is the end of major snow storms.  Back in the 70s when my age was in the single digits, and even into the 80s and 90s, most winters had storms that saw ten inches of slightly wet snow that packed well.

We could make snowmen (and sometimes women), angels, igloos, sledding paths and awesome snowballs that were packed enough to fly but soft enough not to hurt unless it landed in the face. And a ski mask beat that.

But starting in the 1990s we get extremes for snow.  It’s the 2011 Halloween snow storm that was so wet it was useless for fun but great for damage; it’s the ice storms of 2007 that made walking to the garbage cans outside dangerous and driving impossible for days; or its a couple inches of fluff that is good for sledding the day it happens but erodes or melts so quickly as to make multi-day fun impossible.

This is the week before Christmas week, the time when winter unofficially starts. Outside it’s raining and 45 degrees at 6:25 in the morning.  Pitch black, four days from the real start of winter, and it’s 45 degrees and raining before most kids are awake.

People are upset about global warming after “superstorms” hit, and it’s finally getting some attention in the media.  But the evidence has been there for a while in our lousy winters.  It’s not that it’s warmer all the time — it’s not.  It’s that the pattern that has obtained for so long is disrupted, and no obvious pattern has taken it’s place.  Nature is unsure, confused and as a result we cannot prepare ourselves properly to protect from hurricanes, or to benefit for the joys of big, fluffy, fun snow in the winter.

That’s kind of sad.

First and foremost, I would like to thank Nathan for having me on his site. Thank you Nathan, I truly appreciate the opportunity.

I have been thinking a lot about the great American novel, and a question I heard asked recently – what do you want to write? Thinking of the GAN brings to mind an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, when Ray’s wife talked to him about just that topic, since he is a writer. His answer “…I realized that I didn’t even want to read the great American novel.” But, that’s the comedian in him. After some thought, I began to wonder what Alice Walker, Harper Lee, Margaret Mitchell and John Steinbeck had in mind when they set out to compose what has now been labeled – Classic. I don’t know the answer to that, but I would find it hard to believe they had somewhere in the back of their minds, I’m going to pen this book and make one million dollars. In fact, did you know, Gone With the Wind is the only published work of Margaret Mitchell, as well as Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird? I don’t know or could have ever known these greats, but let’s go a step further. Let’s think about a Pulitzer Prize for a second – would they have had that on their minds when beginning that first sentence, since they all won the award?

The Pulitzer Prize happened last month, and although there have been other years with no fiction winner, I think it’s always a surprise. In answer to the question, what books do you want to write? What about that book of your heart? I decided long ago, who cares what the market is screaming for – write what you like; what’s nagging to get out. We are told to compose stories of things around us, things of which you are familiar. That would put you in the field of your own expertise. For me that would mean legal. But, unlike John Grisham, that doesn’t interest me. I do not want to do this all day and then, carry it over into my spare time. I guess, in that case, how much you loved your job would be a definite factor.

But again, the question is a reasonable one, don’t you think? All of us aspiring a publishing contract know that first novel is of course, the book of the heart. When I began writing, I had no idea of genres. “Excuse me, what do you mean, what do I write?” Outside of children’s books, it took me one year and a conference to figure out, my genre lie in the women’s fiction arena. I asked one of my peers in a Q & A on my website, how she knew she wanted to write suspense? Her answer; “When a dead body kept showing up.” That’s one way to figure it out, huh? There is a quote that says something to the effect, if there is something you want to read that hasn’t been written, then, you have to write it – I say do it, and try your best at making it the great American novel. Out of whoever reads this, we should be able to come up with at least one – yes?

We all know John Steinbeck’s characters of family are always compelling. So, I had a discussion with my mother about our family. “Mom,” I asked. “Do you think our family has a strong enough history that would make an interesting book?” She answered, while jogging her head back and forth, “No, absolutely not.” I mulled it over in my mind and decided, maybe not, but at least I have a base with which to grow a story. It set me to work on my third novel, that’s a tale of three sisters set in 1950s Virginia. But, like I said, it’s another tale from the heart; something that had been rattling around in my head, nagging at me day and night. This publishing game is a frustrating journey, sprinkled with moments of excitement. But, after all the aggravation, and if it’s been a very long time, a person gets to a point where absolutely nothing else matters – all that is relevant is obtaining that contract. I remember as a child, I loved the new school year. Why? Because I would take each new school book, open it right at the middle, stick my nose to the crease, and inhale. In my opinion there is nothing sweeter than the fragrance of a brandy new book. Now, imagine that smell, but the only difference is, your name is plastered across the cover. The only thing left to say is, my new all time favorite exclamation – WOW! I’d like to thank Nathan again, and also invite everyone to my site at www.veronicalsingleton.wordpress.com

Hi, my name is Kate and I blog about my exotic travel experiences with my hunky husband.  The blog is called Hot Blogging with Chuck and can be found on my website www.katelutter.com or on www.katelutter.blogspot.com   But the only problem is . . . Chuck isn’t my husband, he’s my cat.

Not Kate Lutter's Hunky Husband, but Chuck

Few people take their cat with them when they travel.  And Bob, my husband, doesn’t jump with joy to know that Chuck is coming with us, stuffed into my carry-on, all the air deflated out of him, only to be pumped up upon arrival with my portable air pump and raring to go.

But it is a reality born of necessity.  Chuck was bored at home, and he was developing into a “over groomer.”

Feral and homeless, we adopted him, expecting some problems, but we didn’t expect that this cute and very adorable orange and white tabby would turn into an obsessively clean cat or that he would begin to groom the fur right off his body. In spots, of course.

The vet said Chuck was bored.  He needed stimulation.  Travel.  Fun.   Which explains what happened when the three of us flew to Nairobi to go on safari and decided to make a pit stop and pay homage to a famous writer by visiting her house.

I don’t know why I am such a fan of doing this, but I’ve been to Mark Twain’s house in Hartford, Connecticut, and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s house in Salem, Massachusetts, and I’ve seen the moors that inspired Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, to name a few.  And although I know that so much of writing happens inside the imagination, I scrutinize the houses and the furniture, the grounds and the landscapes, as if there’s some magic that I can imbibe and take away with me that will make me a better writer.

This time I was inspired by the famous movie–Out of Africa starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford– based on the biography of the author, Karen Blixen, a woman who came to Africa to marry a Baron, but who ended up also falling in love with a big game hunter, starting a coffee plantation that failed, and when her lover was killed tragically in a plane crash, returning to Norway, where she took the pen name Isak Dinesen.

I came to Karen Blixen’s house because I loved her writing, her stories, but I also loved THE STORY OF HER CAREER.  Her literary career didn’t begin until 1934, when she was 49 years old, after she returned to Norway.  Her first book, Seven Gothic Tales, was rejected by numerous publishers in Europe before it was published in New York and went on to receive the Book of the Month Award.  Yeah!  She went on to write her memoirs–her second book–which inspired the film Out of Africa.  Yeah!   And then she wrote a slew of other stories which eventually won her a Pulitzer Prize.  Yeah!

Wouldn’t you just love that to be your story???

I wanted to see this woman’s house.  I wanted to walk in her back yard.  I wanted to imagine myself living there–and yeah, I can hear what you’re thinking–as if I were the star of that Hollywood movie.

Her life was both grand and tragic.  I suspect that it was the years she lived in Africa that influenced her to write great literature.  Once she left Nairobi, she never went back, but Africa was never far from her thoughts.

Karen Blixon's farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills.

When I first read her memoir, Out of Africa, published in 1937,  I was awe struck by her opening line, “I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills.” Back then I tried to imagine those hills in the distance and how it would feel to gaze on their majesty everyday.

In Nairobi, when I stood in Karen Blixen’s back yard, I gazed into the distance and stared at those hills, hardly believing I was actually there.

I imagined that no matter what had happened to her when she lived in that house–the death of her lover, the destruction of her coffee plantation, the news that she’d contracted a near deadly disease (syphyllis)–all stuff of great drama, the hills remained a constant for her.

In truth, she’d written that she loved those hills and she was heard to say that if people could move mountains, those were the ones she would have taken with her back to Norway.

I love knowing that and knowing that I was there.

Karen Blixen’s house is a tourist stop, and you can see why with rooms like this. Oh, she was a pretty fair writer, too.

Today Karen Blixen’s house is a tourist stop.  You can’t walk through the house unescorted.  Which is a problem for me because the tour goes much too fast.   I can’t absorb my surroundings that quickly, and I like to look at everything and imagine myself in each room, imagine how her day would be, and then how I would live each day in each room.  So I’m always the laggard on every tour.

And then, there’s my rascal cat Chuck.

He’s stuffed inside my smart bag, itching to poke his whiskered face out and get a peek.  All he wants is to be let loose so he can sniff around.

When the house tour is concluded, tourists are free to wander around the back yard.  When the crowds thin out, I finally allow Chuck out of the smart bag, and at first he sniffs around, more sedate than usual, until he discovers the arbor along the side of the house.  Shady, stone-terraced and dripping with beautiful flowers, it’s perfect for Chuck.  He can’t resist munching on some of the grasses nearby.

Of course, this house and the hills mean nothing to Chuck and everything to me.

I manage to scoop him up, seconds before the gift shop woman emerges just to make sure everything is okay.

Karen Lutter's Wild Point Island

As I walk away, I think of my first book Wild Point Island soon to be published this year.  Is it too late to add some hills in the background?  Some Ngong Hills . . . Only kidding, of course, but then I wonder if someday some young author won’t pilgrimage to my house . . .

And, oh, if you, like me, enjoy paying tribute to your favorite authors by visiting where they used to live or seeing the landscapes that inspired them, a wonderful resource is a book entitled Literary Trips: Following in the Footsteps of Fame, Editor Victoria Brooks, 2000.

It’s not a bad way to spend your time when you’re not writing but looking to keep inspired.

Thanks, Nathan, for allowing me to guest blog today.

P.S.  I would love to hear if anyone else has ever visited a site, inspired by a movie or the locale of a favorite book or, perhaps, the homestead of a favorite author. 

Just about every television show has a character at some time say it, either in reference to themself or someone else and either positively or negatively. If you watch the boob tube you will hear is said. Bitch changes meaning depending on the speaker, the object, the pronunciation (bitch! vs. beee-yatch), the volume, the tone, etc., etc,. etc. As such it’s a very popular television word used by girls and grandmas, priests and prostitutes.

This is Atty, my beagle, yellow Labrador, golden retriever mix of a bitch.

Yet for some reason you can’t write the word down on television. GCB on ABC had to change it’s name from “Good Christian Bitches,” and Don’t Trust the B—- In Apartment 23 on FOX is pretty obviously missing four letters. What’s really funny is that I don’t think I’ve heard anyone in either show actually say bitch but I’ve heard it in a dozen or more others this year alone!

Heck, on this week’s Harry Law we had an F-bomb dropped and  the show-runner decided to have a lot of fun with it, not only bleeping the sound but also pixelating Kathy Bates’ lips so we couldn’t lip sync even though we all knew what she was saying. As if it was any harder to figure out that B—- is really bitch.  The whole thing is amazingly hypocritical and, really, stupid.

The there’s the question of why bitch is an epithet anyway.  Jeff Cohen of There’s A Dead Man In The Living Room goes to town on the whole issue:

So the little TV show about the “B” in Apt. 23, I’ll admit, simultaneously amuses and baffles me. Because I’ll be damned if I can figure out how the expression “bitch” became a curse word.

It’s a female dog. That’s what the word means. And yet, say it out loud in front of many people, and they will look as if you’ve suggested they are of a sexual deviance so lurid and perverse that to identify oneself in such a way would be to have committed a crime against society. All you’ve done is compare a woman, presumably, to a female dog.

Try it with a man: “You dog, you.” “He’s a real hound.” “He follows her around like a Golden Retriever.” Where’s the offense? It might not be the most complimentary term imaginable, but a vulgarity? Hardly. My dog doesn’t mind when we call him a dog. Of course, he has no idea what the heck we’re talking about, but even if he did, I don’t think it would bother him much.

I’d read the whole thing (hell, I subscribe to the RSS feed and read it all the time) so you can get infuriated and laugh hysterically. Jeff’s pretty funny and spot on.

My daughter’s a big fan of homonyms.  It’s the first language thing that really blew her mind, and we played games with them.

Tonight we’re going to be having a lot of fun with this chart teaching her (and me) new words and language things.  Yippee!