Fun with Photoshop

These are my little peeps. I’ve been having fun with Photoshop lately, giving myself a brief respite from writing. Actually, there really has been no respite from writing. I did a good chunk of work on my novel this morning and plan on doing more. I just wanted to do something else creative. I think this will be this year’s Christmas photo.

The glamorous life of a writer part 2

With a day off from my day job as a community newspaper journalist, I looked forward to a long weekend of rest. It wasn’t without work. I had one assignment; the assignment I have every year on the Fourth of July. Each year, for nine years, I’ve gotten up early on the Fourth to photograph the Village of Britton parade, which consists of fire trucks, baton twirlers, a single float with village council members, old cars (we are near the Motor City), kids on bikes and a line of John Deere tractors. Still, it’s my own little tradition and I look forward to seeing the people on my beat celebrating Americana in pretty darn genuine way.

That went as planned, so did dinner with my in-laws and their friends, though I was already a bit tired from my husband’s overnight brisket smoking project the previous night. I kept calling it the “baby” brisket, because we were up every two hours making sure the brisket was smoking properly. I made it through the evening and even gave in and decided to stay the night at my in-laws’ house, though I really wanted to wake up at home. But, I figured I could come home and nap and then work on my book or an essay or something.

The trouble began after breakfast this morning when I got in our Jeep Cherokee to drive home. The passenger window switch elicited a sound that normally comes from a garbage disposal and the window wasn’t going up, but it kept going down. When it was halfway down, I made the brilliant, writerly move of pushing it all the way down in the door by hand (Book smarts doesn’t equal smart smarts).

I rode home with my hood up because the window was down and there was still a bit of a morning chill. That would have been enough of a pain, but we had not made it home yet. When we did, I figured I’d throw some laundry in and take a nap. Of course, that didn’t happen. I went downstairs and noticed water by the upright freezer. My first thought was my husband retrieved something and didn’t close it all the way, but the door was closed properly and everything was frozen. Then I looked around and more than just that corner was flooded. Water was covering most of the basement. We looked for the source but couldn’t find it. I went outside and noticed my neighbor’s sprinkler was on. I figured that must be the only thing causing the flooding. He came out and turned the sprinkler off and told us that the night before he’d had another sprinkler on and forgotten about it all night. He apologized and we were just happy to know it wasn’t some pipe leaking somewhere. So, our Sunday afternoon project was sucking the water out with a Shopvac and throwing things away. Nothing of importance was damaged because we keep most things in plastic containers. The flood just forced us do some cleaning. I just wasn’t ready to do it today, and I really wanted to get more work done on my novel. Oh, well.

What I learned about writing from my vacation

Okay, so I didn’t bring work on vacation. That is, I didn’t bring my computer, but I brought a summer read that I could tell everyone I was reading for pleasure, while I worked at dissecting it…well sort of dissecting it. I was, after all, on vacation. The book was The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein.

So, the book is told from the first person point of view of a dog named Enzo who recounts his life with his owner, a Formula One racecar driver named Denny. The obvious would have been to look at voice and how Stein made of a dog a convincing character, but I’m not writing a novel that has anything to do with an animal having a voice. The book did, however, make me aware of what makes a character feel real. I think Stein carefully balanced the “human” nature of the dog with the “dog” nature of the dog. It was also interesting to see how he worked the story of Denny in there with the dog’s perspective limitations without it feeling forced. Talk about major limitations in first person. It could have been the result of too many s’mores by the campfire (we were tent camping on my vacation), but I began thinking, “Is this how our golden retriever sees us?”

Really what I focused on most as I read was how the story progressed and moved as I thought about the story that I am trying to tell in my novel. I’ve worried a bit that more needs to drive the narrative in the book I’m working on, and Stein’s book felt like the example I needed to see what worked to propel his novel. I noticed how he peppered the big guns and small guns throughout the book, so that I was looking for the explosions throughout the book. By guns, I’m referring to that saying, “If you bring a gun in during the first act, it will have to go off by the end of the play.” Stein had several guns that he placed in waves throughout the book, some smoking and some that would work in Denny’s favor. He had Denny’s mysterious parents. He had Denny’s wife’s mysterious illness and then the mysterious presence of a promiscuous young girl. All and more loom throughout the novel as things that could and do explode. So, what this makes me see as I work on my own novel is now I’m aware of where this may or may not be happening in my book, and how, perhaps, I can resolve to create a little of this with my characters and my narrative. It’s just something I’ll think about now.

I also appreciated Stein’s racing expertise and how something like that not only can frame a novel but can enhance the story with theme and metaphor.

As far as the vacation went, it was tent camping to the full extent with rain and leaky tents. Thank goodness it was only a couple of days, time enough to start and finish a book and to enjoy swimming, fishing and s’mores with my dear partner J, our kids and Maggie, our dog.

This isn’t Enzo. This is Maggie, who is happily splashing in the Muskegon River near where we camped.

The glamorous writing life

I should have written about this a while ago, but I was focused on other things. While this bumper sticker does say something about what I’m spending my summer doing–revising my novel. I’m not necessarily putting anyone I know in the novel, but I couldn’t resist the bumper sticker. I wouldn’t normally put bumper stickers on my car, but this bumper sticker also serves as band-aid. In my glamorous writing life, my husband woke me up in the middle of the night one night and told me he’d backed into my new Saturn Ion and put a hole in it with his boat hitch. In my glamorous writing life, the repairs will have to wait until something more glamorous happens with my writing. I have to admit that I was pretty angry when it happened, but I’ve forgiven my dear husband and moved on with the help of this bumper sticker that’s covering the hole in my bumper.

I did see a woman read it today and smile when I drove by her in a grocery store parking lot, so at least it gives me a little entertainment. Tune in later this week when I discuss the things I learned from reading The Art of Racing in the Rain.

Oh Father

It’s Father’s Day, and I’ve taken a brief pause from my novel revision to reflect on fathers. Ironically, I’m working on a chapter in my book where my protagonist is hanging out with her dad. My book, on some level, deals with the father-daughter relationship since my protagonist, Rosa, only has one sibling–a sister named Frankie. The two are as close to their dad as any sons might be. They grew up fishing with their dad, they grew up shoveling snow with him and even played catch with him.

While this dad character I’ve created is not modeled after my own dad, the relationship certainly is. The closeness these girls feel for their father comes from the closeness I feel with my dad.

If my mother taught me the art of seeing, my father taught me the art of living. I’ve realized, as I’ve grown older, that my youth would not have been as rich were it not for my father’s insistence that we experience so much as a family and so much in general. He encouraged us to try all kinds of things and he worked hard to make it possible for us to do so.

Because of my dad, I’ve traveled all over Canada, hung out in the CN Tower in Toronto, watched the Carnaval festivities in Quebec, hung out in Montreal. I’ve traveled all over Europe and learned more about World War II history than I ever could have in a classroom. I learned to ice skate, I learned to ski, competitively, and skied mountains where world class skiers trained, and I learned to fly fish. I was able to learn to play the flute and achieve a level of competency that allowed me to attend Interlochen Arts Camp. There is likely not enough space in the blog-o-sphere to list everything he encouraged me to do and all that he gave me and my siblings. It’s been a rich life to be sure. Throughout my life, he’s been there to support me in so many ways, including being there during the two most important moments of my life–the birth of my son and the birth of my daughter.

We’ve had our share of challenges lately, but nothing can take any of that away.

Thanks Dad. Happy Father’s Day!

This photo of my dad was taken by my brother Paul Trapani, who is a professional photographer.

The Marathon Smile

I was driving home from work one day this week, and I realized that it was time to put on what I’ve referred to throughout my life as the “marathon smile”. I was listening to the National Public Radio, as I normally do–listening to the stories of auto dealers closing, of auto makers going bankrupt, of people losing jobs. We had just put the week’s paper to bed, an issue that showed more than one local organization’s desperate need for funds, as I thought about my husband’s own recent layoff and how we’d make it on my meager income. Then I did it. I looked at the road ahead and willed the marathon smile into being.

The marathon smile isn’t a happy-go-lucky, things will be okay smile. It’s an I’m hurting like hell, but I’m not going to let it get to me smile. Where did it come from? Way back when, before I had been married, before I had kids, before I was divorced, before I battled cancer, before nearly 60 additional pounds was added to my rear-, front- and mid-sections, I was a distance runner. I ran everywhere. I ran to the corner store. I ran to the next town. I couldn’t get enough of being on the road. I loved the challenge of running to improve my time, so I entered road races. Anyone who runs knows how addictive those can be and how quickly one can go from wanting to finish a five kilometer race to wanting to attempt a marathon. So, that’s what I did. I ran 5K races and soon 10K races and before I knew it I was competing in half marathons. All were distances I could handle pretty easily. The next step was the marathon, of course.  My first was the 1990 Detroit  Free Press Marathon. That’s where the marathon smile was born.

My good friend Mike helped me train for the race. As part of our training, we ran all over the Central Michigan University campus, where I was a senior at the time. We also went up to Mackinac Island for a special training day where we jogged around the island twice and then hopped on bikes for a third pass.

On the day of the race, the temperature was in the low 70s, a little warm for my running standards at the time. I loved running on cool, rainy days. I wasn’t worried, though. I had trained and was ready for anything. I went along fine for the first 13 miles. It was then that I got a stitch in my side that wouldn’t go away. I walked through it and jogged through it and at one point I just said, “Oh hell, I’m just going to pretend I’m enjoying this,” and I smiled through the end of the race. It hurt, but I finished. I did one more marathon after that in Toledo. While I didn’t get a stitch in that race, I did hit what marathon runners call “the wall” at about mile 20. At that point, you pretty much have to will yourself to make your body move. Out came the smile. I even recall someone along the route saying to me, “Hey, you look like you could run another 26.2 miles.”

So, here we are in the 20th mile of life’s agonizing endurance test. Job prospects are slim. It seems no job is safe.  Almost everyone I know is hurting and tired. I’m not smiling because I’m happy about it. I’m smiling, because, although everything is out of my control, I can still see the road ahead, I can still feel my feet under me, and I keep moving one step at a time.

My maple has been rained on. I have work to do.

My maple is full with red leaves and the rains from last night have left drops of water that cling and sparkle from each open leaf. They leaves look like small hands extended, holding something precious. I could look at this all day, but I have work to do. I’m working on my novel Sometimes the Smallest Things, revisiting the characters I let rest since Superbowl Sunday when I completed the entire draft, a day I wasn’t sure I’d ever see.

The project has been eight years in the making. There were days when I was sure I’d just toss it in a drawer and forget about it. There were months I never looked at it, busy with motherly duties or just plain too tired to write another word. There was a divorce and a marriage and many moves. There was breast cancer. There were any number of things that sprung up to try to hinder me. I came darn near letting them.

Much of the work was done under the watchful eye of instructors at Spalding University where I’ve spent the past three years working on an MFA in Writing degree. I think what that degree helped build, among other things, were stamina and confidence. I feel like I can come to a page and work hard to get results no matter what I’ve done all day. Even if I only come to the page for a few minutes, I feel like it’s worth something.

I graduated last week, so I won’t have such close attention from instructors as I move into revising my novel, but I’ve learned so much that the work I’ve already done is going in the right direction. I’m happy to revisiting my characters Rosa, her mother, Giovanna, her sister, Frankie, her father, Tony, her boss, Lillian, and even Rosa’s husband, Jake. They are old friends. Friends I’ve come to know well over the eight years I’ve been working on their lives. It was good to get away for a while. Now, it’s back to work. Many thanks go to my mentors Jeanie Thompson, Jody Lisberger, Crystal Wilkinson and Rachel Harper.

What Holland Feels Like 11 Years Later

I read Emily Perl Kingsley’s story “Welcome to Holland” again today after my good friend Deb Wuethrich brought it up while talking about the new book Cup of Comfort for Parents of Children With Special Needs. I hadn’t read Kingsley’s story in years, not since my daughter, Kiki, who was born with a rare form of dwarfism called Kniest syndrome, was a toddler, though I’ve never forgotten the story. Deb’s own story of her daughter, who was born with Spinal Muscular Atrophy, winning a mall Halloween costume contest for her creativity and ingenuity in incorporating her wheelchair into her costume is part of the Cup of Comfort collection. She gave me a copy of the book today, which I am grateful for on so many levels.

We’ve become good friends over the years and made the connection in particular because we are parents of special needs children. Her daughter, who would have been a few years younger than me, passed away when she was 11. My daughter turns 11 tomorrow.

There was grace in the timing of receiving this book to be sure. On Friday,  Kiki received the motorized scooter that she’s been waiting for for months. She can walk, but long distances are difficult and keeping up with her peers, impossible.The stiffness in her joints makes it hard for her to run.

Until now, she’s used an industrial sized tricycle to get around school and relied on friends to carry her books from room to room. Until now, going to the grocery store by myself with her has been a challenge. There are no optimal ways to get a nonambulatory kid around while pushing a shopping cart, and at 11 she’s a little too big to be in the back of a cart. Until now, a walk around the block was tricky if I was pushing Kiki in her wheelchair and trying to walk the dog. She could never just jump up and walk beside me through the woods.

I knew the scooter would help her, but I didn’t know just how much until she jumped on it and cruised down the hall on it Friday. That was when I was fully aware of how much easier life will be with her scooter and how much more independent it would allow her to be. Still, I hadn’t fully realized the beauty of having that scooter until yesterday when I said I was going for a walk in the woods with our golden retriever, Maggie. Kiki excitedly said, “Hey Mom! Can I go?” For the first time, I was able to say yes.

It was warm. The wooded path by our house was dry, and Kiki moved with ease on the dirt path. She laughed and picked dandelions as we walked my normal route and let Maggie off the leash for a bit, showing Kiki that this is my usual  ritual, which she can now be a part of. We must have been gone 45 minutes just enjoying being outdoors on an adventure together.

In Kingsley’s essay, she relates having a child with special needs to planning a trip to Italy, but ending up, without notice, in Holland. We’ve been in Holland a long time now, and I still look forward to seeing the vibrant colored tulips in spring.

Readings all the time

So, while millions of people are clicking on Susan Boyle’s video, I noticed Bret Lott didn’t get quite as big an audience. It makes sense that writers would be on Youtube, I’d just never really considered looking for them there. I live to hear writers and poets read their own work. I find it inspiring and relaxing. Now, I can do that anytime I want to with Youtube. I found almost every writer I could think of had a some type of video on Youtube–W.S. Merwin, Grace Paley, Anne Carson and I’m finding many more. I decided I’d begin sharing my literary video findings right here on this blog.

I chose Bret Lott first because I just heard him read in Chelsea. He read a story from his collection The Difference Between Women and Men, which I subsequently purchased and he subsequently signed.

More Poetry Month

What I love about April, along with the sun and greenery, is that there is so much poetry in the air. Finally, after so many years, it seems that there is a little more buzz about National Poetry Month than in past years. It also comes with many opportunities to hear poetry read and to read poetry. Just Thursday, I attended a reading by Robert Fanning, a wonderful Michigan poet whose new collection American Prophet is truly amazing. He read from his collection and introduced us to a modern day prophet who searches for answers to profound questions at such offbeat venues as the Ypsilanti Elvisfest, a superstore or a typical city arcade.

After his reading, my daughter and I read our own writing. Well, my daughter sang hers. Having that opportunity, along with hearing Robert read, was incredibly inspiring to me and to my daughter who has been writing more songs since our evening of poetry.

What’s even more inspiring is that April isn’t over, yet, and there are so many other things to do that involve writing and poetry. I’m eager to take in more.

I also wanted to share that the poetry.org site also lists many things going on this month, including Poetry In Your Pocket, which is being held April 30. For Poetry In Your Pocket, you carry poems in your pocket to randomly hand out to people. Well, I have a few in mind.