Wet and Worried

Spent the last 24 hours worrying about Tori and Max and I'll continue to do so until mid-afternoon.

At Good Hope School the two fifth grade classes have an annual field trip to St. John, the third island in the U.S.V.I. St. John is mostly the national park. So they left Tuesday, flew to St. Thomas and took a ferry to St. John. The program was ambitious, hikes and swimming and snorkeling (St. John reputedly has the best snorkeling around) and ecology lessons. Thank God they have cabins, not tents.

Because yesterday it started raining and for the most part it hasn't stopped. There's a flash flood alert on for the territory - through Saturday evening. And, to help fray my nerves even more, the place they're staying has no cell phone reception, so the earliest I'll hear how they're doing is in a few hours when they ferry back to St. Thomas.

About 25 or so kids, give or take, the two teachers, and a handful of parents.

I'm just glad I convinced her to bring the rain hoodie - the only bit of wet weather gear we brought from Oregon. But I'll feel a LOT better when they're home.

And I do not sleep well anyway when she's not here. I've had three to four hours of sleep a night since they left.

I just hope they had a great time, and the rain becomes part of the legend, one of those things that grows in the telling, that you wear like a badge of honor.

Update: Tori called in at 10:50. All is well. They were about to board the ferry from St. John to St. Thomas, then fly home. She's tired and sore and wet, but they had a lot of fun, she said. It rained all day yesterday on their hike. Can't wait to see her.

My Secret Weapon

As I said yesterday, I’ve just completed a young adult novel which my agent will soon be peddling to publishers.

Hasn’t sold it yet. Of course, he couldn’t have. He won’t even be reading it until after the first of June. If he has nothing better to do than sit around his office waiting for me to send him manuscripts, he couldn’t be very good, right? And he is good. So I’m happy he’s busy and hope some of that busy-ness will rub off on me. After all, he doesn’t get paid until I get paid.

But that’s not what this is about. This is about my secret weapon that makes me feel really good about my chances to sell the book.

Tori teaches fifth grade at the Good Hope School, a wonderful private school right on the beach, about two miles from our home. Last fall she had me come to her class to talk about writing, plot and lots of stuff like that. She really pushed writing with the kids all year.

Anyway, one thing led to another and she suggested I read the novel to the kids as it progressed. So I did.

What a revelation! The kids were great. Every Tuesday and Thursday they’d ask Tori at the start of the day if I’d be coming with more chapters. I always tried to have two at a time for them, which kept me focused and productive. I hated to disappoint them.

When I was finished reading for the day and said, “And that’s all for today,” they’d always let out a group moan, “Aawwww!” Which suggested to me that they liked the story, or at least liked it better than they do, say, math tests. I’ll take that.

They were also really helpful, and not at all shy about letting me know when the day’s offering hadn’t measured up. “Kinda boring,” they said once. You’d better believe I worked my ass off to keep from disappointing them.

And as the story progressed, I was able to gauge how it was going and what I needed to do to clean up those problems. I actually was able to reorganize so that the second half of the story already was written as if I’d made the changes already. I’d explain to them what was going to happen in the rewritten version. When I finished (they applauded at the end, and loved the last line) and started on the second draft, I already had thought out what needed to happen. I tossed the first six chapters and condensed them into three, reworking it so that the same exposition was told in action instead of me talking. Thanks to those kids, the book is WAY better than it was.

And I like to think besides entertaining it was also educational for them. They saw the process of writing a novel, saw the truth that all writing is rewriting, and maybe got an idea of the difference between plot and story.

They will, of course, all be named and thanked in the acknowledgements. They also had plenty of ideas of what should happen next and while I don’t think I used any of them, they helped me see how the reader would perceive the story and how I could use those expectations in building the tale.

The only idea I rejected out of hand was the suggestion that I somehow include a vampire love story in my pirate novel. Sorry, Shania. That just wasn’t in the cards. And Mason and Ryan wanted every chapter to include explosions. That was their answer to everything – blow it up!

All in all, it was one of the best things I've ever done as a writer. I don't see how anyone could ever write a novel without a classroom of smart fifth graders to bounce it off of.

It worked so well for both me and the class that Tori has already given me homework. There will of course be a new class of kids in the fifth grade next fall. And they’ll need a story.

I’m mulling ideas. Not pirates this time. It’s going be about the “curse” on my family.

Ebullient, then Nervous

Yesterday I sent the final draft of a new novel to my agent. It's a young adult novel with a pirate theme. Because we live in the Caribbean, I made sure it had plenty of Caribbean flavor. And some of it takes place on St. Croix. Because what the hell? We're a Caribbean island. Why shouldn't some of it take place here?

Anyway, I spent all of Tuesday feeling "ebullient." That quickly faded. I now wait in nervous anticipation for him to sell it. I am not naïve, I know this will take months - if I’m lucky. But you always think, “He’ll open the file, just to see what he’s got, and be so taken with the opening scene that he’ll sit down and read the whole thing, right then and there. And he’ll see the potential and be so fired up that by the next day he’ll have it in the hands of some high-powered editor at some big publishing house who will immediately offer me a huge, life-changing advance. This will all take about 24 hours, maybe 48.”

It’s not true, of course. But you always let yourself think that. Just for a day or two.

This is not my first attempt. My first novel went to a dozen houses. One of them held it for nine months, it made it all the way through the approval process until the very last meeting, the one where they decide these are the books we’re publishing next season. And for some reason I was never told, they passed on it. Last summer, after two years, my agent informed me that the book was “dead in the water, for now.” Not that it was bad, not that anyone had anything negative to say about it. Just that no one was willing to publish it.

I licked my wounds for two days. As it happened, when we had that conversation I happened to be reviewing a book for The Poopdeck. It was a good book, but nothing special. I said to myself, “You can do better than that. Hell, you DID do better than that. And you can do it again.” So I sat down and wrote the new one.

I took the feedback I’d gotten and started the new story. And yesterday I sent it off.

I had one rule and one secret weapon. The rule was articulated by Tori, who had just read the Percy Jackson series. She’s a fifth grade teacher and has to keep up with what the kids are into. The rule is: Your character has to fight a dragon in every chapter. Doesn’t have to win, but there has to be a dragon in every chapter.

Well, there are no dragons, of course, this is a pirate novel. But there’s plenty of “stuff.”

The secret weapon I will discuss tomorrow. It requires a little more space and time than I have right now.

One thing I have learned through the years is that no book would ever be published if it weren't for "lunch." The two books I co-wrote with Cap'n Slappy were both sold after lunch meetings between my agent and an editor. Everytime there was a glimmer of hope for the first novel it was after a lunch he'd had with someone. If agents and editors ever decided en masse to go on diets and cut out that middle of the day meal, the country's literary output would fall to nothing.

Just checked my e-mail again. Still nothing from my agent. That’s the other thing, when you don’t hear anything back right away, your mind starts telling you “That’s it. He hates it. In fact, he hates me personally, wonders why he ever signed me, and will probably quit the book business just to get away from me.” If – God forbid! – he were to die, I would blame myself, assuming reading my manuscript had sapped his will to live.

As I think I mentioned in the post about “Bird by Bird,” writers are crazy. I certainly am.

That was a mistake

I just accidentally re-posted something I'd posted two months ago. Sorry. Pulled it

I found it on my desktop and didn't realize I'd posted back then. Thought, "Well, went to all the trouble to write it."

My bad. And my apologies.

I will, however, be posting something else on writing, but not this week. Next Monday, I'm pretty sure. Because that's when I'll be done.

(And Alex finished her creative writing class, which she really enjoyed. The teacher was terrific, really inspired her.)

In the meantime, here's an update. Lots of mosquitoes right now. Seems to me we had a lot this time last year too, so that'd make it seasonal which means eventually this onslaught will end. I hope so. Killed eight within 15 minutes of waking up this morning. If I lose much more blood I'm likely to pass out.

Maybe that's why I made the mistake. I must be light-headed from loss of blood.

jb

A Writer on Writing

I have been reading this terrific book on writing. It’s called “Bird by Bird,” and it’s by Ann Lamott. It’s not the best or the most useful writing book I’ve ever read, although it’s awfully good. The reason I like it is, first, it’s very funny. The funniest book on writing I’ve ever read. And it’s so true. She writes about writing as if it’s a mental illness, which it sort of is.

Lamott doesn’t come out and say, “By the way, all writers are crazy.” But she makes it pretty clear she and all the writers she knows are at least mildly crazy, paranoid, obsessive, with no sense of perspective. All the students in her writing classes are also crazy, she implies. They also mostly seem to want their money back. But that’s between Lamott and the students, I guess.

Anyway, buried in among all the very funny stuff about the ways in which writers’ minds works to keep them unhappy and worried that everyone including their immediate family is talking about them behind their backs – are some really excellent nuggets of advise, including allowing yourself to fail, not sitting down to "write a novel" but giving yourself small, manageable assignments each day that add up to a novel in the end, and my favorite – write a shitty first draft. It may be shitty, but you can’t fix it if you don’t write it down. Perfectionism, she observes, is the voice of the oppressor.

I came across the book, by the way, through our daughter Alex. She’s taking classes at UVI and one of them is a creative writing class and this is one of the texts. Unlike her other textbooks, this is one she won’t be selling back at the end of the semester. If she doesn’t want it, I’m taking it. So there's the island connection for this blog.

Seriously, if you’re at all interested in writers or writing or you just like a good read and enjoy a laugh, pick up “Bird by Bird.” Good book.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Another long lapse between posts - three months. Sheesh. Sorry. We'll try to do better.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

St. Croix celebrated, as it does every year, with a parade through Christiansted last Saturday. It’s kind of amazing, a combination of Irish and Island that has to be seen to be believed. Sort of "Erin go Bra-less.

I covered it for The Source; here is the story and here’s the video video I shot that went up on the site. For some reason my videos lately aren’t uploading well. This looked crystal clear and sharp when I made it on the computer, but it looks murky and fuzzy on the site. Gotta figure that out.

An old friend whose parents were both from the Auld Sod used to say with scorn that he never celebrated St. Patrick’s Day because, “I’m Irish 365 days a year. St. Patrick’s is amateur night.” And it was he who first pointed out to me the biggest Irish myth in America -- the song “Danny Boy.” It’s purportedly an old, traditional Irish tune sung from a father to his son going off to war and expressing patriotism and love of Ireland. In truth, my friend pointed out, the song was written by an English lawyer, and it’s a love song between a woman and a man. The lawyer actually supplied alternate lyrics for a man to sing, “Oh Ellie girl.”

As it happens, the song was written in 1910, so it’s exactly 100 years old now, not some timeless Irish ballad but one more example of British cultural imperialism. With which the Irish are of course intimately familiar. If you want to sing a real, traditional Irish ballad, try “Eileen Aroon.” Dates back at least 400 years.

Still, I think Dave took things a bit too seriously. St. Patrick’s Day is just fun, and if people whose family came from Poland or China or Nigeria or Brazil want to talk in corny Irish accents or drink green beer and eat cabbage, well, what’s wrong with that? I’m part Irish myself – from the Piper family, I’ve been told although I have no way of knowing if it’s accurate that that part of the family tree once hailed from Limerick – and it seems if the world wants to celebrate Irish heritage, even if they get a lot of it wrong, where’s the harm?

Seems to me it’s a good excuse for a party in a month where typically there’s not a lot to celebrate. And on St. Croix, they know how to celebrate in style.

Holidays 2009: Horses, Ducks and Christmas

I might have bought a horse on Christmas day. I don't think so, but the duck definitely did not survive.

The horse comes later in the story. First you have to understand that I apparently look almost exactly like some guy who either lives on St. Croix or used to. I've been mistaken for him four or five times. One guy challenged me rather aggressively when I claimed not to be him, asked me how my two sisters in Phoenix are. For the record, I have seven sisters, none of whom live in Phoenix although when we were kids we visited the Grand Canyon, which is in Arizona but I don't think that counts. Another guy was sure we used to work together. It took me several minutes to convince him we didn't. I've had people yell his name, "Winegar!" as I drove by. So I apparently look exactly like him and that may or may not have anything to do with this. (Winegar, by the way, must be a devilishly handsome fellow.)

On Christmas Eve Tori had gone with a co-worker to another co-worker’s home and killed I think eight ducks, cleaning them and plucking them. She came home with one for Christmas dinner, the hunter gatherer returning with the feast and many gory stories about viscera. Also a bit of blood on her clothes. Our son Jack was visiting us from the Bay Area and Christmas morning was great. Then Tori set about roasting the duck – which apparently involves as many steps as launching a small weather satellite – while I had to work briefly. I walked down to Budhoe Park to cover a Christmas concert that was supposed to happen at 6 p.m. Not a bad walk, mile and a little bit, maybe a mile and a half.

Got there, and there was no one. No one was there. No concert. Nothing. That happens more often than you'd think. Something is planned and then canceled, and everyone just seems to know that it isn't going to happen, but I just don't seem to be hooked into whatever kind of social telegraph would have tipped me off. Disappointing, because I get paid by the story, but I saw a gorgeous sunset in the balmy weather. I hung around for a while, just in case, but it was, after all, Christmas day, and a really good dinner was coming up, so I turned around and started walking home.

Walking up King Street I found myself drawing up on an old woman with a cane who was laboring up the hill a bit slower than me. As I passed her, I said, "Good night," which is required, it's part of living here - Good morning, good afternoon, good night.

Anyway, she answered "Good night," then as I pulling away, she said what sounded like, "Savwok."

I turned. She said it again. I said, "I'm sorry, but what?" She repeated it, then seeing I didn't get it, said, "You're going home, right?" I said yes. She said, drawing it out and over-enunciating as you would to a small child, "Have a safe walk."

"Oh, I've been here over a year, but that's a new one on me, thanks," I said. Merry Christmas."

"You too dahlin."

So I head off, walking down the road, and here comes a guy on a horse. So I stepped back to give him the right of way, but he stops, so his horse is blocking me, and tells me he knows me. Well, maybe. Maybe he knows Winegar. Or maybe he's just stoned, which in fact he was.

I'm told people sometimes talk about the white family in Smithfield who never sleep: “De lights and de noise be on all de time.” That would be us. Definitely not the family Winegar, although they may have curious sleeping habits as well.

Anyway, the stoned horseman – for he was indeed seriously stoned – points to my hat and mentions the race car. No, it's my Seattle Seahawks cap but I decide not to press the point.

The guy starts talking about his horse. I think he said something like, "Next time I bring you one, you see." Then I think he was comparing his horse to a dog, with the dog coming out second best but both rating high in intelligence and loyalty. Or he might not. There seemed to be a part with how the horse is around children although I could have gotten that wrong. It might have been something completely different. The point is, I couldn't understand a word he was saying, but he was saying it in a very friendly, enthusiastic way, and that's always kind of entertaining.

The guy was seriously Crucian, which means his patois is right on the edge of my understanding in the best of circumstances. Others in the family have much less trouble, but this guy also was stoned, so there was that. He might have been comparing horses and boll weevils, or Ukrainians. Or it might have had nothing to do with horses, although he did pat the wiry steed vigorously several times. His sweeping hand gestures, which twice almost toppled him from his mount, weren't helping convey whatever the message was.

At the five-minute mark I was looking hard for a way to end it. Every time there was a slight slowing in the flow of words I'd try, "Well, gotta ..." but that's as far as I got. We shook hands two or three times, fist bumped a few more. He wasn't going to stop until he'd said what he wanted to say. Finally I heard something that again sounded like, "You see. I show you. I bring you one next time." And, smiling and nodding, I thanked him again and finally was back on my way.

It was a safe walk, and an interesting one. And as I neared the house and the fabulous Christmas dinner of roast duck and pork and potatoes and salad and fresh bread rolls, a thought hit me. In my nodding and smiling and all, had I just agreed to buy a horse that the stoned horseman would bring over “next time?”

I don’t think so, but if I did, I hope Winegar has a place to keep it.