Howling from My Mountain

Along the riverfront there were fireworks, and I could hear them from my hotel last ngiht. I saw few spray-sprinkle-sparkes round up over the tops of the buildings. The moon was a fingernail, a sliver, a side-way's slit of a grin. Yesterday, we walked downtown - I bought the most wonderful jam, now if I can remember the type of berry, that would be a wonderful hint. (and no, not Georgia, Gandalfe!)

 

Lavender must be a local flower - I bought a group of lavenders yesterday, gave some to someone, and some to another, and kept a few sprigs for myself. One sprig I wrapped around the tip I left for the room cleaners.

 

So, I guess that's all my hints...the waterfront fireworks, the lavender. Later , I'll find the name of the berry jam and use that as a hint.

 

Namaste.

I am where I am...you may already know where I am - but if you don't GUESS and I'll give you some hints *teehee* -- I arrived last night, called Good Man Rog and said, "how is the mountain?" The Tourists are out in full force, so maybe I'm here at a good time. I could hear our chimes and the birds through the phone wires. This morning, I found out I could partially open the window to my hotel room...Joy! I heard  birds singing and the first stirrings of the city. I don't hear "City" noises at home. It was a gentle awakening though.

 

Here is a hint: There sure are a lot of pine trees here.

 

(and Walker: yes, it is as if I am always 'on vacation' where I live in the Smokies! Ahhhhh!)

 

 

“Nobody’s Perfect,” I thought as I took my mountain walk this morning. “Is this a feeling of joy?” I wondered as I inhaled clean mountain air. Alongside the road I walked are many wildflowers and wild grown plants and some unique and rare and beautiful. A Daisy caught my eye, then another and another. I wondered, “A perfect circle of yellow?”

 

I am not a mathematician, and indeed, mathematics puzzles me, frustrates me—always logical, always right, always perfect? When I am illogical and oftentimes (many many oftentimes) flawed. I wondered then, if a mathematician were to measure the golden inside of the Daisy, would it be a perfect circle? It looks to the eye to be. Is it? If a mathematician, or mathematics-type person is out there, now I need to know, the eye gauge is not enough this morning; is the soft sun inside of the Daisy a perfect circle? Who will measure for me and then let me know? (And if it is not, would I enjoy the Daisy any less? Why of course not. I just have a need to know if there is some order to the Daisy that I never noticed before—is the round a perfect circle?) This is not a moral or a lesson or a metaphor—I just have that need to know, simply. If someone does this for me, because they are curious too perhaps?, then put it in the comments section, or email me. Now I must know.

 

A great interview with The Rose & Thorn's managing editor Barbara Quinn. It's about an hour or a bit less long. (I even had a mention towards the end (teehee). )

 

If you are curious about ezines, publishing your work or reading about publishing work, how an ezine works, our wonderful staff behind the scenes at R&T, etc., then this is a well-done informative interview done by Lillian Brummit at Conscious Discussions - a radio program. Enjoy!

  

 

or

 

 

And from my writer friend Patresa Hartman re: her friend Wendy Jans (who has a beautiful soulful voice; I have her CD):

 

"My very talented friend, Wendy Jans, has made her first music video.
 
Click here to watch the video

 

(or:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCYaOcPBZNQ )

Click here to visit her website: http://www.wendyjans.com
And here to visit her myspace: http://www.myspace.com/wendyjans
 
Spread the word of Wendy! -- Patresa"

 

And for Patresa Hartman's website (a gifted writer you must read) click HERE

 

 

 

Sometimes I'll come across a story I felt compelled to write and then just let languish in my files. It's not necessarily a "bad" story, but it's not quite "good" enough or ready to send out for possible publication - sometimes I will take these stories and fix them to send out. Sometimes I don't want to, for various reasons: maybe I just like it as it is, simple and true, maybe I'm busy working on other things and the years pass and the story stays lost in my files until once again I come across them, look at them, love the character, and after I read again, I think, “Poor little character, stuck here in my files, poor story.”

 

I did that today with Pudgy. Pudgy’s been hanging around for years. He first came to me at a writer’s conference in Houma, Louisiana. I was waiting for a panel discussion and I couldn’t get this kid out of my head. So, I wrote up something and forgot about it. Long time later, I found it and typed it up. Long time later I found it in my lost files and fiddled with it. Long time later, which is today, I found it again – mainly because what I thought was Pudgy kept talking to me while I walked on the mountain this morning—I saw him sitting on some steps waiting alone until it was dark, and he said to me, “let me out! Here I am!” So, I went in to change Pudgy. But something happened. As I read, I realized I could not change Pudgy at all. He had to stay where he was. The other voice must be another character asking to be written.

 

I decided I’d take my lost stories that languish in my files, those that I may never publish, and publish them on my site. Why not? If someone gets joy or loves the character with me, then that’s better than the story forever hidden.

 

Pudgy, this gentle little sad story with a gentle little ending, is HERE: PUDGY. Read if you like. Don’t read if you like. Pudgy is what it is. The story is simple. I have nothing more I want to say. Nothing more I want to write. Especially not when so many other voices are begging me to write them. I sometimes just have to let some stories be. So then, once in a while, I will post a long lost story from my long lost files.

 

For those of you wondering where Clementine has gone—she is in hiding right now. Too much static in the way because of happenings at Pen to Press. Static. Voices. Noises. I can’t get her to come out. She is stubborn. But, more, she knows I have some things to do. She waits. She’ll be tapping at my head again, oh yes. They always do. They always come. Always always. I can’t shut them up. I can’t make them stop. But, I don’t want them to stop, this I know.

In the post below, I let loose a bit about New Orleans. I’d like to talk about the food, and some other things, but I want to mention the Pen to Press Writer’s Retreat first. I’ve been to a few writers’ conferences, and I will say that I’m about sixty-forty on whether I thought I got my money’s worth, or whether I was glad I attended—with sixty being not so glad and not so much thinking I got my money’s worth, and forty with I suppose I did. Put it this way: I’d said I would from now on be very choosy about what writer’s conferences I attended by researching them and thinking of costs, authors, instructors, my goals, etc., before I went to another one.

 

However, Pen to Press surprised me. I signed up, wincing at the fee. It’s not cheap. And, New Orleans is not cheap. Neither is either air fare or driving, if you do not live in the city, or near enough to drive, which I do not. I bit the clichéd bullet and signed up, made the hotel and travel arrangements (it helps to have roommates to share the hotel costs), and forgot about it until time for the conference. I had one thing in my favor as a sign this conference would be done “Right” and that one thing is author and friend Deborah Leblanc. I knew if she had her hand on it, it would be top rate. And it was.

 

Pen to Press will be held every other year, so the opportunity will not come again until 2010. If you are interested in being an author, and you are serious about your work, then start saving and preparing for Pen to Press in 2010. This is a conference you will walk away from knowing you were heard. Knowing you were worked. Knowing the instructors and Deborah really care about you and your writing career. My instructors were authors Alex Sokoloff and Scott Nicholson. I will admit something here: I thoroughly thought it would be a little waste of my time to have two authors yammervate to me about how they were published…big whoop! I’ve heard that how many times now? Only at most of the conferences I’ve attended, where the authors look out at us writers from a panel and tell us never to give up. Okay, I know that. I know never to give up—I say that, and I mean it, they mean it, but I don’t want to pay money to hear it! I was pleasantly surprised to see the level of INSTRUCTION we received in our class (classes were broken down into three, with each class separated by something I’m not aware of, but the conference and instructors did to make the classes work best for the writers).

 

For me, learning something, anything, new was worth the costs. But, not only did I learn new ways of looking at my work—and this will help my editing work as well—but, the instructors helped me write a kick-arse synopsis. And if it isn’t kick-arse, it surely is 90% better than the laughable swill I had before Pen to Press. They talked to us about pitching to the agents, who came on the last two days of this five-day “retreat.” I will say here that even though we talked about our pitches, and practiced our synopsis, once I was face to face with the four agents (in individual sessions), I winged it. I didn’t want to take in notes, and I didn’t want to try to script it out; I knew that wouldn’t work for me. As a result, I received some kind of interest from all four I pitched to. Will it mean a contract? Who knows? Those things are never a sure thing. But, at the very least, it got me back into the query process, and this time with a new sparkly shiny synopsis that I can send off to other agents. Once I hear back from these four agents, and if the answer is No (and it could very well be) then I am off to the races—never give up, right?

 

Alex Sokoloff wrote up this “thing” this wonderful “thing” on a board in the class—this Thing that I looked at and suddenly the clouds cleared (or mostly anyway *laugh*) and I saw my manuscript in a different way. I always said it was “character-driven” and “didn’t have a plot” – she said, “every novel has a plot!” and after she showed us her diagram, I sat back and said, “YES!” (Alex is multi-talented, and by gawd knows her stuff). The way she explained it, well, it finally made sense to me. And, uncannily, she knew our work well-enough to ask us pointed questions to RIP out of us what we needed to see not only a way to a good synopsis, but, a way to see our work in units that make up the whole. Cool Stuff.

 

Scott was quieter, but his advice and lecture was no less pertinent. In fact, from the five-page sample of my novel he read, he saw something that I knew had been bugging me deep inside in this place that says, “hmmmmmm….” But I kept ignoring it since no one else said anything (and I should always trust my instincts)…well, when he asked me about it, a bell rang, a light flashed, and I knew immediately what I needed to do. Out that section came. It solved my dilemma.

 

All in all, I was very much impressed with Pen to Press. Keep your eyes on this one, folks. I have a feeling it will get bigger and bigger – and since they are choosey about picking writers to attend (you must send in a sample writing, and they must approve you before you can sign up), you are among only the “serious” – and I mean “serious” as in, you are a writer with a mission, with a plan, with a want and a need and a desire.

 

Now, I still want to talk about the food in New Orleans. But, I wanted to let you all know how impressed I am with Deb Leblanc’s Pen to Press. Everything she touches is a success! I’m telling you – watch out for Deborah Leblanc. I am proud of her, so dang proud to be her friend. One of a kind, nope, you’ll not find another like her anywhere.

New Orleans, and the way I pronounce it in my head makes me a true hillbilly now and no longer a South Louisianian, makes me a Tourist now. I am a tourist now. I’m saying it in my head like this: “New Or-Leens.” South Louisianians don’t say it like that; there is no “leens” in New Orleans. I digress (I love saying “I digress”…). I visited New Orleans for the Pen to Press Writer’s Retreat end of May, first of June (and more on that conference later, for it was damn awesome). It was my first time back to the Crescent city, The “Big Easy” (and there I go again…who in So Louisiana calls New Orleans “The Big Easy?”) since 2003—that’s pre-Katrina, of course. When I arrived in the city, I felt a little star-struck at first. It was early afternoon, and my friends and I were sharing a room at the Monteleone hotel, an old stately hotel with a carousel bar that turns round and round. Early afternoon, in the not yet as hot as it’s going to get heat, in the French Quarter. There is a smell and feel and energy to New Orleans that you have to experience, it can’t quite be explained, even by the most brilliant of writers who have tried—writers can only hint of it, tease you on.

 

When evening came on and my friend and I walked the Quarter, including Bourbon Street, I then experienced the seedy loud drunken debauched side of New Orleans. From living in So Louisiana, and visiting New Orleans often in my adult years, I know there is much more to N.O. than the French Quarter, but that is what most people think of when they hear “New Or-leens” – Mardi Gras, French Quarter, Debauchery. And there it all was, coming at me in a locomotion roar of people, lights, sound, smells. You haven’t lived until you have smelled Bourbon street—an odor that repels and fascinates—parts horse or mule excrement, parts human piss and sweat and vomit, parts old city mold, parts spicy food wafting, parts spilled beer fermenting even more on the heated streets, parts body odor, parts rotting garbage. The noise is In Your Face—drunken calls, men shouting lewd comments, scantily-clad women (or men who look like women) enticing tourists inside their lair, clip-clop of horse-drawn carriages and the carriage masters tales, music that is parts jazz blues rock stripper-sleaze country. The sights—half-dressed women and men, faces slack with drunken stupors and lust and greed for this City’s offerings, neon lights buzzing, restaurant waiters standing in the doorways hoping to lure you in, derelicts wandering with vacant eyes or hungry eyes or desperate eyes, people with no good in their irises who stare with malcontented ill intention, and huge-eyed tourists who can’t snap it all up in one eye-bulging gulp. The Feel—this energy, this feel, this New Orleans, how can I tell you in such a short post that is ever-growing? I can’t! I need more time and space! And some of it will ever remain a mystery, unless you go there yourself.

 

And know this: if you do go, the New Orleanians will be appreciative. I’ve never seen a peoples so damned happy to have you eat at their restaurants, drink coffee in their cafes, buy trinkets at their shops, stay in their hotels—more than any time I’ve been in the Great Madam City of New Orleans, this I felt on this recent visit: they want us to come back. With any tourist city, and I know this from living in the Smokies, there is a Love-Hate relationship with tourists—we need your money, we hate how you change our towns into something anamorphically weird and monstrous. But, New Orleans had a taste of what it felt like to lose the tourists, the people who make New Orleans bulge like that crawfish sack, and it wasn’t a nice feeling at all, to understate. Right now, the Love-Hate is more like Love—visit visit and spend your money…the appreciation is in their eyes, their smiles, the way they say, “Thank you for coming, thank you,” and you know they mean it.

 

I want to say more, but I best stop here and maybe say more later if I’m a mind to. Yet, there is a New Orleans in the early morning, which I captured in some of my photos above. The New Orleans before tourists and hawkers and traffic and horse/mule carriages are about. When the street sweepers are sweeping, when the owners of establishments have washed the tourists vomit and pee and spills away, when the morning sun is peeking over the cities history…that is when I loved New Orleans the best (other than the food-oh, the food is a post all on its own).  I’ll be back…