The Gift

The writer in me loves the voice of the book character below, and how well the author captures her essence in words. I just love this piece. Also, it is a description of old age that I embrace. I can see me being the same way.

From the book, On Agate Hill, by Lee Smith:

“Oh it was all so long ago. And yet here is that bad girl Molly stuck forever in this notebook, bursting from its pages. I thought I would not know her anymore, and yet I find that I am her, just as wild and full of spite and longing as ever, as I still am. For an old woman is like a child, but more than a child, for I know what I know yet I feel exactly the same in my heart. These young girls don’t know that, do they? It would surprise them. But that thing does not wear out. I could tell them. I could tell those girls a thing or two.

Oh I know what they say about me in town. I know I am old and sick. Yet inside I am just the same and I’ll swear it, still crazy with love and pain, still wanting who knows what. I am not sure what happened to that smart girl in between….It seems like only yesterday that she walked out the door and got lost someplace down that old Indian trail. But I would do it all over again, every bit of it.

Oh I know what they say about us in town, and I say, the hell with them! I tell you, I don’t give a damn. I have got to be an old woman in the twinkling of an eye, and it is sort of a relief, I can tell you. I do what I want to now. Last week I traded all our eggs for ice cream at Holden’s Grocery. Now that I have shrunk down little as a child, I figure I might as well act like one. I don’t care….We got to market in the car, Henry driving, me wearing Mitty’s old black hat, I know it scares the children, but you know what? I like to scare the children! And I believe they like it too.”

The Post – Stage Three: Coming Into My Own – Evolution TO a Novel

Initially, I was going to call this entry “Evolution of the Novel” thinking I would dig right in to the logistics of writing Under the Pier. But I realized before I could do that, I had to finish the process Uri Shulevitz outlined for the “Evolution of the WRITER.” From that it was clear that this entry’s title needed to be “Evolution TO a novel,” the final leg of coming into my own.

I have always struggled with the fact that others seem to do rings around me. My husband works in a job where not just every day, but every hour, the priorities change, the deadlines change, who he has working for him changes. It’s constant jumping. He has a quick, fast mind. My sisters and friends manage full-time jobs, more than one job, kids, house, pets, and other responsibilities. I thought maybe it’s a writer thing – writers just move at a slower pace. Yet I observe other writers producing novels, while writing articles, while chatting on the writers’ email lists, updating their web sites, promoting their books and doing school visits. It’s like trying to walk with someone who is always faster than you. The best you can do is maybe match them for a little while, but eventually, you always fall behind. For years it bothered me, and the competitive person inside kept trying to keep up or catch up. And I absolutely ABHORRED admitting to anyone, that I couldn’t keep up with them.

The title of last Thursday’s entry for Thich Nhat Hanh’s online course read: “Let Go.” The entry said: “Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything . . . we cannot be free.” That was the answer I’d finally come to in the last year or so. Just, let it go. Even playing racquetball – I always fought to win when I was younger. Now I never win, but I have grown to love the process of just playing my best. Coming into your own is the moment you finally choose to be free. You let go of the competition and comparisons and just accept who you are.

I am a plodder. Plodders do not have fast brains. While others are rushing around, plodders just stare at them from the sidelines with their mouths open. Instead of snap conclusions, plodders pull things apart, stare at the parts, put them back together differently, then stare some more. Confronted with a pile of seemingly useless, unrelated bits of information, plodders push them around for hours or days or years, until finally a whole picture emerges. The one thing about plodders is that they never quit. They just keep plodding until they find the big picture and make sense of things. They feel the questions and keep going until they have an answer to the question, “What is it?”

It’s like when I did bacteriology. You start out with a confusing mass of all different kinds of bacterial colonies on an agar plate. You look it over until you spot the one that’s probably the culprit of the infection. You stare at the colony on the plate. What color is it? What’s its size, texture, smell? How does it look on different types of agar? What does it look like under the microscope? You run a battery of 20 or more biochemical tests. You end up with this heap of separate, seemingly unrelated bits of data, and the question – what is it? The answer comes from how all those pieces are assembled by a person too stubborn to quit. Assemble the bits like a mosaic and you have Staphylococcus aureus, or Escherichia Coli, or Enterobacter aerogenes, or my favorite, Campylobacter. 🙂

Maybe the thing that plodders and at least this writer have in common is the place inside where we carry both the tools to recognize the patterns, as well as the questions that need to be stared at.

I think stories come from the places within us that hold the unanswered questions. Those places hold the deepest hurts, the places of anger, confusion, sadness, the disappointments, the unsettled business, the tangles we never unknotted, the humiliations we’d like to forget, or the ugly things we don’t want to look at. And the happy moments. There’s the ultimate confusion in life: Why are some times happy and others abysmal? Plodders seek answers by picking through all the tangles, like a bag person picking through the garbage can. If the plodders also happen to be writers, they make their moments of picking through the trash, public. They write a story to document their quest for truth.

The story may not even resemble anything from the writer’s life. Last time I checked, no author has lived in futuristic space or slain any dragons. The story doesn’t have to be autobiography. What it must contain at its core are the questions that that writer carries in their heart. Writers then journey through what they write, to the ultimate whole picture, hopefully, the answer to their question. Some writers can express this journey to find their truth in a 4-line poem or succeed in capturing God in five words or less. Some write picture books. And some, like me, need the panoramic expanse of a longer, more meandering path. That means, novels.

It means plots and subplots, woven like twisted threads. It means primary characters, secondary characters, and maybe a few cardboard characters. It means diverse settings and tweaky, idiosyncratic details. I know this now, because I know me, now. I am exhausted and weary of trying to be what I am not. I am what I am, take it or leave it. Some will relate to my stories, some will hate them. No matter. I write, for me.

I’ve spent many, many years trying all different things on for size. I’ve tried to be what others are. Do what they did. I’m tired of that. I’m ready to be me. So I just, let go.

“Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.”

Cyril Connolly – 20th Century British literary critic.

UP NEXT: Okay, NOW Let’s Talk About Where Under the Pier Came From

The Post – Back to the Business of Life

Well, after everything from ER to fiddler crabs to grocery shopping, it’s back to the regular business of life today. Regroup and back to work. There’s bills, taxes, and yes, back to the last couple of installments in my journey to being a writer. I will resume the last one tomorrow with:

Stage Three: Coming Into My Own – The Evolution of a Novel

I am of course, not forgetting that I need to do the one on Writer’s Rooms vs. my Writer’s House, which is like that motile swarming bacteria, Proteus mirabilis. So for today, bills and taxes. I hate those tasks, but they must be done, so just get it over with. Have a great day.

The Gift

“You need a spiritual pilgrimage. Begin by closing your mouth.”

Sayings of the Egyptian Fathers, from: The Book of Mystical Chapters: Meditations on the Soul’s Ascent, from the Desert Fathers and other Early Christian Contemplatives

Seems that the Desert Fathers, and Uri Shulevitz, though centuries apart, understood one of the rules for being a writer – there are times you have to shut up.

The Post – A Sidetrip to Essays – But the Bus NEVER Came Up This Far on the Curb Before!

Before I start talking about the Under the Pier process, I need to address the one side that calls to me in a big way – essays. I’ve sold a couple already and I yearn to do more. While this blog is a collection of all the bits of me, perhaps the one area of my soul most fed, is the ability to “speak in essays.”

I have spent most of my time over the last 12 years calling myself a children’s writer, though I have noticed that a lot of my focus is geared toward adults. Is this a contradiction or betrayal of a certain writing path? I don’t think so. Perhaps Madeleine L’Engle handled it best. She used to hate it when she was referred to as a children’s writer, as if that was all she was or it was a special category considered “not quite a writer.” She insisted on being referred to as a writer and considered her children’s writing just one aspect of her career, though certainly not the easiest or least important. Her observation there was: “If I have something that is too difficult for adults to swallow, then I will write it in a book for children.”

So in the same vein, I am first drawn to writing for children as there is the very alive open child within me who wants to speak. However, like everything else in my life, I do not fit neatly into categories. The label “children’s” writer is not totally accurate because I find, I just write. Who it fits, I leave for the readers to determine.

As to my essays, they run the range – spiritual, humorous, nature-based, flippant. One current essay is a list I keep of irreverent things to put on my tombstone: “But it was HER fault, really!” “But I had the right of way!” or “But the bus NEVER came up this far on the curb before!” – the last one from a moment at Colonial Williamsburg where my husband and son expressed concern at how close to the bus stop curb I was standing. When I reassured them the bus never comes that far up, they offered to put that one on my tombstone. 🙂

I love to write essays because my right brain revels in being able to take a single quote or line of dialogue, a comic, photograph, painting or a life question, and just write. Something that starts in the specific and ends up at a universal truth. A journey where I start with the concrete and wander around always surprised where I end up, usually someplace emotional.

In a lot of respects, though I’ve started this blog in the midst of writing a novel for upper middle-grade/Young adult readers, a lot of it so far has been more essays, journaling, unearthing the soul of the writer, rather than a lot about the Children’s Writing business. That’s okay. I need to have that soul of the writer to do that novel. The reality is, that novel has been a journey to answers in life. Maybe in a way, novels are just one long essay because the characters in those fictions worlds still ask the same life questions we all do.

This blog is also my “raw material” that I can mine at will for whatever projects come along. It’s my toy box of thoughts that I can spin into something for adults or children. Truth, is truth.

My “internship of the essay craft” has involved continuing education classes at nearby Duke University, as well questions. Always, questions. They are the catalyst for life, for growth, for wisdom. At least to me, if I stop asking questions, I stop growing. I lose the path to peace

The internship has also included reading countless books. Fiction, philosophy, spirituality, nature guides, and of course, books on essay writing. One in particular is my favorite, and has been the most useful for seeing how to first collect, then transform life experiences. I recommend it highly:

Leaving a Trace: On Keeping a Journal – The Art of Transforming a Life into Stories, by Alexandra Johnson. She teaches memoir and creative nonfiction writing at Harvard and has been published extensively. The book is divided into three parts. It’s possible to only use one of the three at a particular time in life, or ever. The first is about having a journal – creating one, the various types, what raw material to collect; the second part is about transforming your life – finding the patterns and meaning in what you’ve collected; the third section is called “Crossover: Moving a Journal into a Creative Work.”

Whether you just collect raw material, mine it for meaning, or use it to create fiction and nonfiction works, the process changes you. Like that overly used cliched example of a rock thrown in a pond, change one thing and it touches places unseen. Even keeping a list of favorite phrases over a lifetime does something deep inside to your soul and alters your outlook on life.

So I am a writer for all ages. I love to write essays, whoever reads them. They are my journey to answers. They are the playground of the right brain, and the compost pile that fertilizes the rest of my works.

The Post – Apprenticeship, Take 2: Getting a Grip – The Anal-Retentive Takes Over

As I mentioned, I had reached that place in my Phase I apprenticeship where I had grasped that it takes a long time to become an overnight success. There is no way around paying your dues and learning your craft. You can’t short-change apprenticeship. I knew I did not want to give up my dream to write, so that meant going back to the drawing board, taking classes, and starting at the bottom, all of which would take time. This also meant I had to find some way to bring in an income while pursuing my goal. The most marketable skill I had was that I was an extremely detail-oriented anal-retentive, par excellance. As it turns out, not such a bad skill to have.

I don’t think I was born with that skill. It became second nature from the 15 years I worked in a hospital lab. In a hospital, there is no acceptable margin of error. You have to be right. No matter what I did in the lab, whether it was a crossmatch for someone’s transfusion, a glucose level for a diabetic, a blood count for a leukemia patient, or a drug level for someone’s medication dosage – I knew that the results I reported would directly affect someone’s life. A doctor would base a decision to treat, or not treat, change a dosage or a medicine, based on what I reported. If I was wrong, their lives would pay the price. That training deepened when I worked in the pharmaceutical company. There I validated hundreds of thousands of pieces of data with an allowable error level something in the neighborhood of 0.01 %. The bottom line – details mattered – and in becoming a writer, that wasn’t such a bad place to start.

I decided with that kind of skill, perhaps I could find some editing jobs. Phase I was supposed to be about going “out there” and experiencing, experimenting, and trying new things. So I searched both locally and nationally. I cold-called countless managing editors in all of the publishing houses to let them know I was available for work. I was so terrified on each call, I had my “script” written in front of me while I talked. I sounded assured and confident, even as I sat there rapidly skimming every book on copy-editing, proofreading, content editing, and freelance editing that I could get my hands on. This was survival. I HAD to make this work or I had to find another 40-hour, 9-5 job. If I had to go back to that, I had to give up my writing dream. That, to me, would have been failure. I had given up good jobs, and good income. I just couldn’t give up the dream, too.

I did a few copy-editing jobs for major publishers. That was an interesting time, including the one publisher who didn’t like my work because the editor in charge of that project was a semi-retired person who liked stickies with notes in brown colored pencil . . . ONLY brown-colored pencil. I used the wrong color. No one told me about the colored pencil thing. They later acknowledged that that particular editor was a little “persnickety.” Whatever. I moved on.

A local vanity publisher hired me as their editor – copy-editor, substantive editor, press release writer, you name it, I did it. The money was terrible – flat rate no matter how long the job – but it was money, and it was training. I learned a LOT. After a while I could quote sections of the Chicago Manual of Style by heart and knew it inside and out. The trouble with that local publisher involved getting paid. When their cash-flow stopped, so did mine. It took an attorney to collect from them, so I vowed, no more small self-publishers.

In keeping with experimenting, I answered an online position announcement on the copyeditors email list, for a “native speaker of US English who had experience with other cultures.” It turns out that Bloomsbury, a publisher in the UK was doing a “Global English dictionary.” They needed someone to review all entries to make sure all definitions were there for each word, that they were culturally correct, and sounded “American.” I didn’t expect much but went ahead and sent a note indicating I grew up in a very multi-ethnic community and had just spent 4 years in a British drug company. They gave me an online-test and I passed, so my next title became “lexicographer.” I am listed as one of the lexicographers in the Encarta World English Dictionary, as well as in a thesaurus. They were GREAT to work with and I recommend the experience highly. It was all done by email and overnight overseas deliveries of work, and they paid well . . . and on time. Their Barclays Bank checks were so beautiful that if I hadn’t needed the income, I would have kept one just to frame.

During this time I also became associated with a medical ethics board that would be the mainstay of my freelance work for 10 years. I reviewed the research study documents, and edited, and often rewrote the consent forms that the research subjects would sign. This job spoke to my heart. It used every bit of my medical and pharmaceutical background and then some, REQUIRED someone picky and anal-retentive, and it tapped something else in me – the strong desire to protect. My job was to protect these people by making sure we gave them consent forms that told them fully, what the research might do to them, good and bad. I was well-suited for the work, well-paid, and the job did not require a large chunk of my time each week. That meant – I still had time to write.

I went ahead and did the other direction for Phase I: get outside knowledge. I took courses through the Duke University continuing education program. Classes in essay-writing, picture books, fiction, and how to run a freelance business. I also took and completed two children’s writing courses through the Institute of Children’s Literature. I joined the SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) and attended their conferences. I joined writing groups and paid authors to critique some of my work. And of course, collected more rejection letters.

I started to have a few successes in my writing efforts. I sold an essay to two parenting magazines about the heartbreak I felt every morning dropping my son at day care. I sold an essay to The Writer, and articles to Boys’ Life magazine. I even wrote two CliffsNotes – a result of one of the cold calls I’d made a year or two earlier – one for Dickens’ Great Expectations, and one for Michael Shaara’s, The Killer Angel. I still collected more rejection letters, but the quality of the rejections were getting better. 🙂 Busy editors took time to write personal notes on the form letters. Sometimes they even requested another revision or two before they said no. Overall, a good sign.

All in all, Phase I had taken a turn for the better, and I was learning a great deal very fast. My goal of seeing my name on the cover of a picture book, however, kept eluding me. Yes. Like many others, I had the idea that I should write picture books. They’re short, easy, quick to bang out, and besides, isn’t that what children’s writers write? I banged my head against the brick wall of the picture book writer idol for a long time before I finally surrendered to the truth that even my husband pointed out: I do NOT have a voice for picture books. He also noted I wasn’t getting any younger and maybe I should stop trying to be something I’m not, and focus on what my real strengths appeared to be . . . longer stories. When I finally accepted that truth, I also came to accept another set of truths: a good picture book writer, like a good poet, is rare. It takes special talent and voice, and writing a picture book is about the hardest, at least for me, of all children’s writing. Don’t let short deceive. Like the Tao Te Ching, those short entries are the hardest to do well.

UP NEXT: FINALLY, I GRADUATE TO PHASE II – FOCUSING THE LENS

 

The Post – Okay, So Now That You’ve Met My Fiddler Crabs, Who is This Deb Bailey Writer Person?

I’ve been promising the “where have I been, what am I doing, and where am I going?” piece. You’ve met the fiddler crabs and know that I’m doing some kind of strange book involving crustaceans and humans. And since it’s fiction, not nonfiction, God only knows what it’s about, right? You’re aware I am interested in everything from Nancy Drew, photography, and Tonka trucks (the old metal ones only!!!) to borescopes, poodles, and Buddhism. So, you know I’m odd.

My story as a writer – short version. Plan A: I had a dream. Left a job. Wrote a bunch of stuff. Submitted it. Waited for the money to roll in. It didn’t. So I was forced to move to Plan B: Take a step back. Scratch my head. Get a grip, then do what every writer since the cave man has done – learn my craft and build a business. SLOWLY. While earning paychecks to keep the bills paid.

I decided this story might be useful? Or at least entertaining, to any new writers who have illusions about how this business works. Maybe it will either inspire or make you laugh when you want to cry, so you realize you are not alone. Or you will run screaming from the room and say you never want to be a writer. That’s always a fair answer, too. But I have to tell you, writing . . . it’s a life-long affliction.

If you were born infected with the desire to write, you can run, but you can’t hide from that voice pulling at you to put words down. If you are honest, you will admit to secretly ripping a strip off of a paper napkin while driving because you just CAN’T let that thought go by. You might even admit to having torn bits of envelopes, doctor bills, the back of your son’s first draft of a term paper, or your hand, covered in scribbles of things you JUST CAN’T let escape from your brain without being written down. If it progresses to the more advanced stages, you may find yourself living with your walls, stairwells, garage, kitchen table and living room floor, covered in maps, sketches, notes, paintings, story outlines, books, articles, and half-written manuscripts. Let’s not even discuss what’s packed into storage boxes, onto book shelves, under the pool table or in desk drawers. Like I said, it’s an affliction. You just learn to live with it. And like Stephen King said, he’d do this job even if they didn’t pay him.

In any event, I will split this over a few posts. I think that way, it will also give living examples to the three stages of writer development as outlined by author and illustrator, Uri Shulevitz. The man has a tremendous body of work, has won awards from the Caldecott Medal to the Golden Kite Award, and I think, knows a few things about this business.

I have this old faded email from 8/27/96 from the Children’s Writing email group, where someone very kindly shared Mr. Shulevitz’s comments from a conference. By the way, if you want to write for children, that email group is a great group to be subscribed to. The writers range from the famous to the beginner, and the people there are generous, knowledgeable, and good-hearted. Just don’t show up and say – “I want to write for kids. What do I do?” Or the ever popular, “I wrote something. Where should I send it?” Do some of your own homework, first. Get a copy of:

Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market 2008 (Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Market) Read the beginning pages. They have great basic get-started information about the profession – and it is a profession – of children’s writing. For that matter, Writer’s Digest Book Club has a ton of great writing books, some slanted for children’s writing. Just get or borrow some of these books, read them, then come to the list with your questions. They’ll be happy to help. To subcribe, send a message to:

childrens-writers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

You can also visit the group’s home page at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/childrens-writers.

To finish up today’s post and set the stage for the rest of this project, I’ll leave you with Mr. Shulevitz’s thoughts about the process a person goes through to become a writer. Most of us will travel this road I suspect, unless you’re Isaac Asimov, who could write almost perfect first drafts, and over his life wrote or edited over 500 books, an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards, and whose works have been published in 9 of the 10 major categories of the Dewey Decimal System. He missed out only in Philosophy. If you’re not another Asimov, here’s the stages:

The Three Stages of Writer Development (as paraphrased by the email author who apologized for not being as eloquent as Mr. Shulevitz):

Stage One: The Journey of Apprenticeship

Learn about the craft with an open mind. Set aside your preferences. Experiment, experience, try new techniques, look at different eras and styles. Copy other writers to understand their techniques. Survey all styles of children’s books to see what makes the best, good, and the worst, bad. In short: Gather Outside Knowledge

Stage Two: Search Inside

a) Find your own voice and vision. Seek solitude. Be alone with yourself. Seek a sanctuary where you can sort out the voices within and without. Achieve inner silence.

b) Be who you are. You must listen to yourself from your own depths and become acquainted with your own true self and sort out all you have gathered in your apprenticeship. Sort out what you learned from your apprenticeship and learn which is you and which is NOT you. You are what you truly love. Find themes which continue to repeat themselves within you and your work. Examine what may be to some, unpopular beliefs.

c) You will work alone in the end. Any teacher can only take you to your own frontier. You will have to take it from there.

Stage Three: Joy of Working

After the first two stages, you are ready to begin WORKING. You know yourself so well you can lose yourself in your work. Your work will be free and spontaneous because you know yourself so well, but not yet easy or simple.

And by the way, he notes: Sometimes you might have to go back to Stage One or Two once in a while.

UP NEXT: My apprenticeship

The Gift – a writer’s extra

I had the chance to visit the website of writer and inspirational speaker, Donna Shepherd. She describes herself as someone who “looks at everyday life and finds God’s fingerprints everywhere.” She’s a columnist, poet, pastor’s wife and is pursuing a Theology degree. There’s quite a variety on the site, everything from blogs for children and hidden picture puzzles, devotionals, info on her books for both children and adults, to a page with helpful links for writers. To check it out just click here or on the blogroll.

The Post – Admiral Byrd was NOT Worshipping Me or The Aquarium Light

Over the last 2 days my husband noticed that Admiral Byrd has been spending a LOT of time, meaning almost ALL of his time, up on top of the gravel hill or the decorative cave rock, or the live rock, or just about anywhere else in the tank, waving his claw. He looked so funny up on the cave rock. He seemed to be staring up at the aquarium tank light, waving his claw as if paying homage to a god. We figured either he held the aquarium light or my hand in high esteem.

My husband has joked that he thinks the crabs go inside the live rock so much because it’s actually their holy site. He thinks they’ve cobbled together a crude altar made of gravel and on the altar they’ve fashioned a shrimp pellet image of their deity, the hand that feeds them . . . basically mine. As he put it, imagine that every day a hand comes down out of the sky and places steak or shrimp or pancakes in front of us. That’s what it must be like every time my hand drops algae or shrimp pellets near them.

In any event we weren’t sure why Admiral Byrd decided to spend an entire day paying homage to me or the light. Why all of the sudden? There’s been nothing new going on in the tank otherwise, all three crabs have been actually pretty placid, out and about feeding, and generally happy. Was this some sort of designated crab “Holy Day” that just happens to coincide with Lent?

As it turns out, alas, neither the aquarium light nor my hand are the object of Admiral Byrd’s devotions. Melanie Hamilton is.

From the Fiddler Crab page on the Chesapeake Bay Program’s bay restoration site:

“When looking for a mate, he stands near the edge of the burrow, often alongside a string of other males and their (similarly well-maintained) burrows, while the females, returning from foraging, walk past. The male waves his large fiddler claw until he attracts the attention of an interested female, who then stares at him for a short period.. The male resumes his claw-waving, and if the female remains receptive, the male runs toward her, then runs back to his burrow, and repeats this motion several times until she either moves on or follows him to the burrow. ”

Apparently, mating behaviors take place not just when the female forages, but also when she molts. I happened to notice this pale, upside down body lying under the water filter this morning and immediately my heart hurt. I thought “Oh no! Melanie Hamilton died!” But not so. Looking closer, I saw that it was the pale ghost of Melanie Hamilton. It was that eerie translucent white, like Scarlett O’Hara’s was, though much more petite given that Melanie Hamilton is so dainty. Melanie Hamilton sat right behind it. I would have gotten pictures for this blog but she had tucked herself and her tiny ghost so far under the water filter that I could not get a shot. If only I had fiber optic cable, maybe I could get footage! I have concluded that the fiddler crabs have designated the “under the water filter space” as the “molting place.” All 3 have used it now. I think it has enough stretching room to shrug off the old shell, but is sheltered enough to keep everyone else away while their new shell hardens.

Admiral Byrd of course, was well aware of events in the tank. He was standing just a few inches from the water filter hoping to catch her eye. Alas, while Admiral Byrd is a true romantic and his efforts were truly heroic – I mean he has to be exhausted after almost 24-hours straight claw-waving – Melanie Hamilton is having none of it. She has turned her back on him and remains secluded under the water filter.

But anyway, the mystery is solved. Admiral Byrd doesn’t give a darn about the tank light or the hand that feeds him. He apparently can sense the approach of “molting” and was doing the crab Valentine’s Day equivalent of serenading his lady.

Sorry no pictures, though. I told my husband if he ever decides to spend money on expensive jewelry or clothes for me, I would prefer one of those borescopes like they use for colonoscopies. That would work GREAT in the tank for closeups of everybody! 🙂

Coming up this week:

Now that you’ve gotten to know me a bit – a cross between sea life maniac and soulful – I’ll start to introduce some of the projects I’m working on. I’ll share what I’ve done, what I’m doing and where I see myself going. Children’s writer and illustrator, Uri Shulevitz, described three stages of a writer’s development at a conference about 12 years ago. I’ve kept them as a kind of road map in my development and will use them to describe what I’m doing.

Also to come, a Writer’s bio page of what I’ve already written.

Happy Monday!

The Gift – a writer’s extra

Just an FYI. Every day, even if I don’t post, I try to put up a gift of some kind. This new group “a writer’s extra” has evolved. I put these up in addition to the regular gifts. Whenever I come across something of interest to writer’s – web pages, books, blogs, whatever – I post them as extra gifts.

I’ve been mentioning blogs of various writers. There is one I have to mention, Anastasia Suen’s blog and website. It is a wealth of information on the writing business, including information on editors, other authors, agents. etc. She is the author of 106 books, a children’s literature consultant, former elementary school teacher, and writing workshop instructor. Her blog also has a gold mine of “author blogs” listed under alphabetical headings. If you’re looking for an author blog, chances are, she might have it. She also has two of her own blogs. Everything can be accessed at Anastasia Suen’s Blog Central.