In Memory…

Life doesn’t have to be perfect to be wonderful.

A quote from Annette Funicello, her birthday had been in October and I’d written a blog about her career and fight with MS. After her very recent death I found this quote to be very poignant…she led a wonderful life.

KW

Mark Twain, Sandra Chastain and getting myself published…

“You need not expect to get your book right the first time. Go to work and revamp or rewrite it. God only exhibits his thunder and lightning at intervals, and so they always command attention. These are God’s adjectives. You thunder and lightning too much; the reader ceases to get under the bed, by and by.”

~~~ Mark Twain in a letter to his son Orion Clemens, 23 March 1878

I often wonder how many authors have this problem. I write…then I re-write…then I edit…then I critique myself…then the cycle begins again. I believe I am my own worst critic. Is this the reason so many authors belong to critique groups? Could it be possible I truly am my own worst critic and need the fresh eyes of another writer?

My stories are fresh and unique. I love that about them. Not only are the novels of the vein most romance readers love but in the style I know and enjoy. Would joining a critique group make them better? I think this may be one avenue I may explore. However, I enjoy the solitude of writing, of getting into those characters in my head and giving them voice…would leaning on another author alter my style or enhance it?

While at Moonlight and Magnolias a few months ago I was honored to win a couple of raffles. One was the privilege (and it is indeed a privilege) to have a critique of my work by Sandra Chastain. Ms. Chastain not only is a lady with respect among her peers as a writer of fifty or so novels, she is a co-founder of the new imprint, BelleBooks, a Southern-oriented fiction publisher. Some of my contemporary and several of my historical storylines would fit her category perfectly. Perhaps this is the reason I am a bit nervous about having her see my work. It is an honor as well as a chance to let her examine my work through the eyes of a publisher and as a fellow writer. Could it lead to a new chapter in my writing life? Wouldn’t that be fabulous! Absolutely.

Chastain is a lovely lady, her influence in Georgia Romance Writers Chapter is obvious. An award for writers within the Moonlight and Magnolias Maggies annual event is named for her. She was one of their founding members and still attends today! This is what I love about her…the interest in the organization and in new members. The fact she actually co-founded BelleBooks and is now active in publication is inspiring! I met her once before through a new Georgia friend, Jackie Rodriquez, and was impressed with her knowledge and quick wit. She is an encouraging staple in the Southern writers’ community.

Twain, historically famous for his novels Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn as well as countless others, has been a long-time favorite author of mine. While he isn’t known for romance novels (Judith McNaught, you have the top spot in firing up my Regency aspirations!) he is a writer with a voice all his own. I lived through his work…and that is what I seek for my own readers. Much as I could feel that little kiss between Tom and Becky, I want my readers to feel the kisses in my books. The friendship and devotion between Tom and his friend, Huck, are colorful and alive. I loved that as a child and still do.

Ms. Chastain, Mr. Twain, Ms. McNaught. I love their influences on writers. Different genres, different styles, different readers. But what stands out in my mind…they all appeal to their own unique audiences.

After conquering a few dire weeks of writer’s block, of overcoming a few family and personal obstacles and simply dealing with my own self-doubts I am proud to say my work for Ms. Chastain is coming along nicely. I had written several chapters months ago and had them ready to submit to her for critique…then I’d re-written…then I’d edited. You get the picture, yes? Sometimes I feel I edit my voice out of my own work.

Today I am going back to page one. I am looking it over with a keen eye for my styling and my voice. And, as much as I’ll want to follow that old routine once again, I will be submitting my work to be critiqued and with just the right amount of thunder and lightning. Who knows, I may wind up with my original chapters…but I am determined to present my own voice to be critiqued.

I’m feeling the romance in writing!

KW

When life gives you lemons…

It seems ages since I’ve posted on my blog and I am so, so sorry. That old saying holds true, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!”…especially in my life lately.

While the beginning of the year was busy as well as productive, February hit with a vengeance. Not only was my writing experiencing a little block, my family seemed to hit a stumbling block as well. While one member of my family is far away and trying to decide on the next steps in establishing her career, others were at home or nearby experiencing health and life-threatening problems.

As shown on this photo from Alabama’s 13, an  EF4 tornado hit the college town of Hattiesburg, MS, last Sunday. This photo was taken seconds before it struck the home my youngest daughter was using while attending classes there. It destroyed her home and left her looking for a new place to live. Not only did it damage her home but she was unfortunate to be in the midst of this monster tornado. She was at a neighbor’s when it blew through her neighborhood taking down power lines, downing trees and destroying homes and cars. A traumatizing experience, I do not think she will forget this experience any time soon. But she is moving on…she’s found a new home with new roommates, she has already settled in and is happy and healthy. Most of all, she is unhurt.

Unknown to most, I was about two blocks down the street when this storm blew through. My husband had taken ill and was being seen at the hospital there. He got to experience the power outage while being given an MRI scan on a lower floor while I was on the topmost floor, in the hallway with visitors and patients, as the lights flickered and went out and that classic roar was heard overhead. It was a scary sound but nothing compared to the screeching winds my daughter experienced just blocks away as windows busted out of the home she was in and trees crashed around them.

The experience has given me new perspective on the delicate balance of time. As I stated in the title it has given me pause and has made me try to see the ‘lemonade’ in the world around me. Writer’s block? Gone. Busy? Still. Tired? Absolutely. But…

I have realized just how precarious our circumstances are. Life is not an absolute given but a delicate flower that can be blown away in the wind. Here today…gone tomorrow. We never know. Chasing my dream of writing is a fabulous and rewarding endeavor but I must treat it as I should. Sometimes I go off on different ventures, leaving my writing sometimes for days.

Back on my writing schedule, I am ready to resume my  normal life. This will be the year my work is available!

Have a glass of lemonade….I have,

KW

Musings about muses…

Most writers speak of their muse. Maybe it is a person or place or thing that inspires their work or a ‘state of being’ that comes over the writer that speaks volumes to him/her as the words flow onto the pages. I have to admit I have often ‘mused’ about this feeling. My personal muse is nothing tangible…it is just a feeling. But after reading and talking with other authors about their own muses…is mine simply the need to write?

I would love to hear from other authors about where and when their muse appeared. And, honestly, I’d love to know what inspires your work…what is your muse?

I am inspired to write at peculiar hours…perhaps at 3 a.m. on a quiet night or in the midst of a beautiful thunderstorm or early in the morning just as I finish my breakfast. Different scenarios in my work are inspired by different things. Hey, perhaps that quiet night or that thunderstorm or that great sunrise is my muse?

My late maternal grandmother was a teacher. My late paternal great great grandfather wrote his own life story of growing up and being in the Civil War. Maybe these ancestors have influenced my own thought processes, perhaps they are my muses. In fact, I feel they are definitely influential in my writing. I never met either, but I too love to put words onto paper. Maybe it has been an inherited need to write…a tiny piece of them that continues on in me.

Whatever it is for individual authors, we all have that overwhelming need to write. I believe inspiration comes from all sources, if you look hard enough. And, I believe that teensy spark that I feel in my mind when an idea seeded from that inspiration becomes a need to write…that teensy spark is the muse. Is that my inherited need to write? Is it my curiosity has sparked my imagination? Or is it just my creative imagination cranking into gear?

It is truly a bit of it all. I am curious about things, I have a vibrant imagination and I learned at an early age the wonder of books. My muse is life…wish I could capture it all on my pages,

KW

 

The writer’s life for me…and my muse…

“For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived, for fiction, biography, and history offer an inexhaustible number of lives in many parts of the world, in all periods of time.”  Louis L’Amour

As writers we find ourselves immersed in the lives of our characters. At their beck and call, if you will.

For those who read (and write) historical novels, there is nothing like the discovery of the way it felt to live all those years ago…be it mid-twentieth century or the Stone Age.

For those reading (and writing)  contemporary novels it is the opportunity to walk in someone else’s shoes. A really great book allows the reader the ability to see life through the eyes of the main characters…a chance to become someone else for a while.

Yes, I write mostly fiction, but can you imagine the lives of great people who lived before us! Those who fought and lived and loved and died to shape the world we live in today.

In studying genealogy I’ve come in contact with it all. The thrill of times past, knowing how some of my ancestors lived through some famed eras. They brought their own history to America from Europe as settlers in a new land. Some were already living on American soil before the arrival of those new pilgrims. Many fought in the American Revolution, the Civil War, the War of 1812; and settled land that has remained in my family for generations. My ancestors had even lived in the time of King Arthur, and one or two had fought in the War of the Roses.

The Great Depression and the World Wars shaped the lived of more recent ancestors. In fact, those particular times had a great deal to do with how my parents and grandparents grew up. And now, sometimes as I write, I hear those details they relived in stories to me…becoming words on my paper. Perhaps, and I think this is a wonderful thing, my muse is my own history.

As one paragraph on wisegeek.com states, “Whether the muse is spiritual or a person of flesh and blood, it is true that the world of the arts is indebted to its muses. Without these inspirational people who have loved and encouraged the artist, a wealth of paintings and music would be missing from the world.”

I am positive this holds true for writers as well,

KW

 

 

 

MICKEY MOUSEeeeee…Happy Birthday Annette…

Click for surprise!

I grew up watching reruns of many Walt Disney television shows and loving the light-hearted movies he produced. I can close my eyes and still see in my mind’s eye all those original Mouseketeers lined up…shouting their name and smiling into the camera. One that always stood out then, and even now, was Annette Funicello. She had the darkest eyes and a huge smile. And, in her early teens, became one of America’s sweethearts. Today is Annette’s 70th birthday and I wish her a very happy day! After filming movies with Disney such as The Monkey’s Uncle and The Shaggy Dog, Annette began filming beach movies with Frankie Avalon (remember him…he sang Beauty School Dropout to a throng on roller-haired beauties in the hit Grease starring Olivia Newton John and John Travolta). Beach Blanket Bingo, Muscle Beach Party, Beach Party and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini….to name a few….were some of her hits in the 60′s. Remember that type movie? Girl meets guy on beach, girl and guy fall in love on the beach, maybe girl and guy surf…..sweet romances. I loved them as a little girl and still get a kick out of these happy movies.

Annette was paired with Frankie Avalon in most movies that I saw, and as a child I figured they’d always be a couple. Frankie, however, had married in 1960. He and his wife are the parents of eight children and have many grandchildren. Annette married in 1963. She married Jack Gilardi (at the age of 23) and they divorced in 1981. She and Gilardi had three children.

One note of sweet trivia as I relate their real love stories. Singer and songwriter Paul Anka wrote a song called Puppy Love (Donny Osmond also made a recording of the same song) while dating Annette in their early careers.

In 1986, Annette married her current husband, Glen Holt.

In 1987, 1989 and 1990 Annette and Frankie paired up to act in Back to the Beach and to stage a concert tour. Then, as suddenly as she’d reappeared on America’s stage…Annette retired.

Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 1987, she struggled with the neurological disease. MS attacks the brain and spinal cord and can cause numbness, blurred vision, tingling…followed by degenerative neurological problems. Patients can lose the ability to talk, to walk, to swallow…

For a while, in the early 1990′s, I would see Annette on television shopping networks as she marketed a line of collectible teddy bears, the Annette Funicello Teddy Bears. Part of the proceeds from these sales went to the Annette Funicello Research Fund for Neurological Diseases. She was brave and sweet, educating us on this disease that ravages neurological systems.

Today, as I have said, is her birthday. I hope all of you take time to visit The Annette Connection to check out her site as she continues to fight against this disease. Sales, from her webpage, of movies, books, etc. donate to that research fund still. There is also a link to an interview granted by her husband and caregiver, Glen Holt, that explains her current condition and her long fight. I must remind old fans (and new as well) that this is a heart-wrenching portrait of America’s sweetheart today.

Again, thank you so much Ms. Funicello, for making my childhood television viewing time a happy one.  Annette, your movies and television shows often aired on Walt Disney’s television show while I was a little girl growing up and I looked forward to them all…and I still have fond memories of them.

Perhaps today I will search for some of your music, or one of the beach movies, and (if no one is watching) do a little beach-blanket dancing and singing. I know it will make me smile.

Here’s wishing you a wonderful birthday, Annette,

KW

Have books, will travel…

How many of you are writers who have attended author conventions? I love these events…if, for no other reason, it is because I come home with loads of books, excerpts, bookmarks, goodies and other writing aids.

But. Yes, these days there is always a ‘but’. Travel is becoming more difficult when you leave home with one suitcase and come home with that one suitcase…and loads of other goodies that you really hadn’t planned on stuffing into that one suitcase along with your clothing. Well over half of said suitcase is filled with paperback novels. Alongside these novels are bookmarks, business cards, handy-dandy post-it pads, etc. Plus, this year I actually won a raffle (I was shocked, I never win stuff!) that contained delightful goodies like coffees, chocolates, items for pampering myself like soaps and gels, a mug for said coffees, wine glasses and wine, an eReader and more!

That one suitcase has reached a definite fifty pound limit…so I have filled the complimentary book sack I’d received with some items and, when it was filled, I filled my gift bag (quite large thank goodness) that had come in the original book sack. Some things are stuffed into my extra-large purse (at least I remembered to bring that one this year) and I may have some things in my jacket pockets! Hope no one bumps me in line…I promise I am not a bookstore thief! I like the rattan basket that contained my cute gifts so I’ll be toting it too..

So, if you see a crazy lady lugging an overly stuffed suitcase with an overly stuffed purse on one shoulder and an overly stuffed book bag on the other…and dragging an empty basket…I am truly not crazy, just headed back to the comforts of home,

KW