“Those who can truly be accounted brave are those who best know the meaning of what is sweet in life and what is terrible, and then go out, undeterred, to meet what is to come.” ― Pericles

My husband is a man of many cousins and this weekend we went to Elmira, New York to say farewell to one of them. The memorial service for Gary O’Connor was one of the most impressive I have ever attended. As a writer, I pay close attention to words. The words the eulogists used were carefully chosen, clearly articulated and spoke of a life both relished and well lived.

Sitting there, watching the widow as she cradled the flag, the word that kept rolling through my head was courage. A latecomer to the family, I was only with Gary once at a family party before he was diagnosed with ALS, more commonly called Lou Gehrig’s disease. Since then, I was struck by his ability, any time I was with him, to turn the focus away from his increasingly diminished body to the person he was talking to, so that you forgot that he was sick, as he drew you out about yourself.

We love stories about courage. Usually, the word is bolded and bracketed by gore and glory. The soldier, gun blazing, saving a wounded comrade or the firefighter racing into a burning building to rescue a child are what we love to read or hear about. I am not trying to take anything away from these brave acts, but courage comes in another form, too.  A muted but equally steely resolve to face the unthinkable without complaint, and meet destiny head on without calling attention to yourself. A courage easily overlooked in our busy world. This was the courage that Gary displayed for the last six years. It brings to my mind the following lines, written by the poet, Emily Dickinson:

To fight aloud, is very brave –

But gallanter, I know

Who charge within the bosom

The Cavalry of Woe –

…

We trust, in plumed procession

For such, the Angels go –

Rank after Rank, with even feet –

And Uniforms of Snow.

I will never read or write the word courage again without thinking first of Gary O’Connor.

Gary fought passionately against this horrific disease, raising thousands of dollars for the Robert Packard Center for ALS Research at Johns Hopkins. His team, Low & Slow, will be running in the Fiesta 5K again this year to raise money for ALS research. I know that personal life experience shapes our charitable giving, but if you are looking for a good cause, please consider helping to eradicate this terrible disease.

“Spring is God’s way of saying,  ‘One more time!’ “
— Robert Orben

I don’t know about you but I am very reactive to the seasonal transitions. Heading into fall and winter I am purposeful and determined. Armed with lists of goals and good intentions, I drive my family crazy with the insistence that they come up with action plans and to-do lists. Summer makes me lazy. If I could, I would mirror the cat and the dog. I would loll about in the shade doing nothing at all. They pretend to be dead but I would read.

Spring is different. Yesterday, stepping out of my office where I am incarcerated most of my waking hours, into the sunshine, I realized that spring makes me feel young again. Believe me when I say I am old enough to relish that. There is something in the quality of the light and the sharpness of the smells that takes me back to Long Lake in Littleton, MA where I grew up.

These are the things that spring will always remind me of:

NEW SNEAKERS:

Do you remember how the arrival of spring would signal a trip to the shoe store to buy new sneakers? I realize I am dating myself but I grew up in time when kids did not wear sneakers all year. We wore shoes. Serious leather shoes with buckles and laces not Velcro made by companies named Stride Rite and Buster Brown. This was a sure sign that freedom from school and the need to wear our hated uniforms was in sight.

BALLS:

Every spring my sister and I got a new ball. Given that I was (and I still am) the most uncoordinated person on this planet I am not sure why. I suppose because I wanted one. These balls were always rubber, varying between the size of a tennis ball and softball. We bounced them off the walls and on the sidewalks. Some girls (not me!) could perform elaborate moves like bouncing them under a leg and then catching them. The year that I was in the sixth grade, the thing to do was to have your friends write something on the ball with ballpoint pens. In hindsight, I suppose this was an “early cave girl” manifestation of what I see pouring off my news feed from the girls who are my friends on Facebook. And, yes, we had mean girls then, too.

JUMP ROPES:

I will be honest with you. I had a love/hate relationship with jump ropes. They both fascinated and repelled me. My parents paid money to send us to Catholic school. Our recreational facilities consisted of a large paved area surrounded by chain link fencing behind the school. There was a line painted down the center. Girls on the left and boys on the right patrolled by nuns who may or may not have had weapons hidden in the folds of their voluminous habits. Only a runaway ball justified crossing the line and that was frowned upon.

Jump ropes were not my friends. I could manage to hop my way through a game of Chinese jump rope but never the traditional game. I was a jump rope disaster. I would stand on the sidelines in awe of my fleeter classmates leaping through the flying ropes of Double Dutch to the chants of “A my name is Alice and my husband’s name is Al…”. The highlight of any recess consisted of successfully cajoling one of the good nuns to play. And boy, could some of those nuns jump.

So what do you think of when spring shines its sunny face in your window?

“Lack of clarity is a writer’s truth” ― Amy Tan

The first time that I ever encountered mahjong was in Amy Tan’s wonderful novel, The Joy Luck Club. This is the story of a woman who forms the Joy Luck Club for the purpose of playing the game of mahjong during World War II as a way of coping with the horror surrounding her. She forms a second club with three friends she meets at church after she immigrates to America. If you haven’t read it yet, treat yourself. The story celebrates the complex relationship between mothers and daughters.

Mahjong is a game that originated in China, commonly played by four players. It is played with a set of 136 tiles based on Chinese characters and symbols, although some regional variations use a different number of tiles. In most variations, each player begins by receiving thirteen tiles. There are fairly standard rules about how a piece is drawn, the kinds of melds, and the order of dealing and play.

Last winter, I was thrilled when my neighbor invited me to be part of a group of women she was getting together to play. We use the mahjong set that her mother, who was Japanese, brought with her when she came to this country from Japan. The set, consisting of tiles made from ivory and backed with the smoothest of wood, is old and very lovely. The writer in me can’t help but think of all the women who have touched those tiles since the set was made. I wonder what they talked about as they played. We often mention Mary’s mother even though we never met her.

None of the three women invited had played before. We all love the game and enjoy the feel of the tiles in our hands  and the clacking sound they make as we play.

Yesterday, we met for third time congratulating ourselves that we are definitely getting better. Although I have not yet won a hand, I found myself “waiting” twice which means that I was very close.

Most women have enjoyed playing cards since they were young girls. I can remember spending hours over the summer as a preteen playing endless games of canasta or gin rummy with my friend Phyllis. We giggled about boys and shared secrets as we played.

Yesterday, our hostess made a delicious chicken curry salad for lunch. We enjoy snacks (calories don’t count) as we play and share laughs and a secret or two even though we are no longer girls. We have a rule that what we discuss around the mahjong table stays there.

Last month we decided to swap unwanted jewelry. Yesterday it was cookbooks. We all went home happy after spending a pleasant afternoon together.

Do you get together with your women friends on a regular basis? What is that you do together?

“Writing is…. being able to take something whole and fiercely alive that exists inside you in some unknowable combination of thought, feeling, physicality, and spirit, and to then store it like a genie in tense, tiny black symbols on a calm white page. If the wrong reader comes across the words, they will remain just words. But for the right readers, your vision blooms off the page and is absorbed into their minds like smoke, where it will re-form, whole and alive, fully adapted to its new environment.”” ― Mary Gaitskill

I am just back from meeting with a delightful group of women in Estero, Florida. I was invited by my cousin to talk about MacCullough’s Women with her book group. I had a great time and I hope they did as well.

Writing is a lonely business. Most writers are racked with insecurity, especially those, like me, just starting out. We thrive on talking with our readers. It is a joy when someone “gets” the book or tells me that they love a certain character. This may surprise you, but I also feel very gratified when a reader tells me that they don’t like a character or are surprised or unhappy with an action that a character has taken. As a writer, I am trying to make my readers care about what they are reading. Their reactions don’t need to be positive to make me feel that I have been successful.

Every time I have talk with my readers, either at a signing or when meeting with a book group, I learn something. I am able to see my characters or an incident in the book in a new light because of what they tell me. The characters in MacCullough’s Women continue their stories in Francesca’s Foundlings, the second book in the Lynton Series. Readers’ insights, comments and suggestions have helped me clarify some of the actions in the next book in the series.

I want to thank the Estero ladies for being so welcoming. I loved southwest Florida. Of course, I had been to Disney World – I am an American mother, after all – but I had never really seen Florida. It was so beautiful. I have to go back again because everyone talked about “her” alligators (Alligators!) One lady told me she had an alligator sunning himself (or herself) in the driveway yesterday morning. All I ever see are some very loud gray squirrels in my icy driveway.

“A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.”  –  Samuel Johnson

I am posting this blog a day early as tomorrow I am heading down to Florida to meet with a book group. I love meeting my readers because every time I chat with someone about MacCullough’s Women I see the story through a different set of eyes. I am always interested in hearing how readers relate to my characters. The last time I met with a book group, a woman launched into a spirited defense of Drew MacCullough when a member of the group questioned his character. Another reader told me that she despised Desmond Sheerin. I am sure you can imagine that as the person who created these people and sent them off into the world, I love hearing this and find it fascinating.

Hearing from readers either in person or on my author page on Facebook has helped me in shaping my second book. Every writer tries to make the next book better than the last. The way they do that is by listening to what their readers have to say.

Ordinarily, I would not be getting on an airplane to go to a book group but this is a special case. One of the members is my cousin. She has been hugely supportive of my writing and she asked me to come. Spending three days in Florida in March is a treat.

I have been working on a list of discussion questions for book groups to use. I am planning a page for book groups for this website but it is still a work in progress.

Every time I fly, I am reminded of the first time I was on an airplane. I was fifteen years old and flying from Boston to Denver to visit my mother’s sister and her family. I was the first person in my immediate family to fly. My anxious mother pinned fifty dollars to my bra. Fifty dollars was a lot of money then. I am not sure  exactly when she thought I was going to be robbed because in those calmer and gentler times you could be both accompanied to and met at the gate. After securing the money, she handed me a lemon meringue pie to take to her sister. I flew across the country with that pie on my lap. The pie arrived in Colorado intact and everyone enjoyed it. And nobody robbed me on the plane, either.

Tomorrow all of my money will be in my wallet and I will not be bringing a pie just my iPad. I can’t wait to meet some new members of my tribe

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” ─ Winston Churchill

Whoever thought that blogging would be so difficult? Especially for someone who in the words of her husband, “never shuts up.” I think I have figured out my problem. I have tried to come up with great thoughts for you. Most days those great thoughts seem to elude me. And then I realized that the blogs I like provide a glimpse into the daily lives of the writers whose books I read. Take a look at the blog that Erin Morgenstern, author of The Night Circus, writes and you will see what I mean.

I love hearing about their writing process. I love knowing that they have problems and challenges similar to my own. I love knowing that they often eat too many chocolate kisses and deeply regret it or not. Why? Because they give me hope that someday I can get where they are with my own writing.

“Use your own voice.” This is the first tip given to wannabe bloggers. My own voice is usually having a one-sided argument with a cat as to why she is not getting more page time in my novel in progress or something like that. This is the reality of my writing life.

My last couple of weeks have been focused on getting MacCullough’s Women on the shelf in libraries. One of my early blog posts was about how much the Rueben Hoar Library (a name I couldn’t make up if I tried, with all apologies to Mr. Hoar) in Littleton MA meant to me when I was growing up. I still love libraries and always enter them with a sense of gleeful anticipation of herein lies a treasure.

February 23^rd I participated in  “Local Author” night at the Nashua Public Library. This event provides area writers with a great way to meet the public and one another. It reminded me a lot of the science fairs that I participated in when I was in grade school. There were 28 authors representing genres from poetry to fantasy. It was fun to wander around and check out other writers’ giveaways, posters and goodies. I shared a table with Gina Leuci whose romance novel is entitled A Lesson in Love and with Mary Johnson whose memoir, An Unquenchable Thirst, details her life as a Missionary of Charity working with Mother Teresa. Mary’s book, which I borrowed from the library, kept me riveted last weekend. I had a great time and even sold two books.

Last week, the Bedford (NH) Public Library accepted a copy of MacCullough’s Women for the library collection. The book is already in the Amherst (NH) library where the staff has showcased it as a “staff pick”.  I have also given it to the library here in Nashua.

For me, Bedford was a “hug yourself to make sure you’re still real” moment. I never dreamed that someday my own book would be on the shelf there. When I first moved to Bedford in 1976, I would walk up Bedford Center Road to the yellow clapboard library pushing my daughter in her carriage. Later, I was a volunteer there under the Frances Wiggin and her staff. One of those lovely ladies was Betty Thatcher, an avid doll collector, who started me on the road to collecting dolls of my own. And that’s how Franny MacCullough became a doll collector.

I love my characters and wanted people to read their story. I am happy to think of them as perched on the shelves in those three libraries waiting to be taken home and enjoyed.

 “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ─ Anais Nin

The last Saturday in January I did a book signing at The Toadstool Bookshop in Milford, New Hampshire. The Toadstool, as it is called by readers in this area, is a gem. A small independent bookstore, The Toadstool reaches out a hand to local authors and I was thrilled to be sitting there for my first book signing. I have attended several book signings held by authors I admire. Signing MacCullough’s Women was definitely an experience I would describe as a thrill enhanced by hearing the event advertised on New Hampshire Public Radio earlier in the week as I was driving home.

The staff did a fantastic job making me feel welcome. The weather cooperated by handing me a sunny day, unusually warm for the end of January in New Hampshire. I had already been warned not to feel bad if nobody came because frankly that’s the way it often goes especially for first time authors. It would be pretty hard for me to feel anything but pleasure in a bookstore. They have always been, and continue to be, my places of refuge. I love to watch people as they browse the shelves finding treasures. The Toadstool, with it squishy couches, chairs tucked into corners and walls papered with posters of bookcovers, is especially appealing.

Several friends came out to lend moral support. I was so happy to see friendly faces. I chose a scene from MacCullough’s Women to read that I feel provides readers a view into the complicated relationship between Brid, Drew and Neil.

I am always in search of my tribe – the readers who enjoy the kind of fiction I am writing and I love to read. It was fun to hear how people felt about my characters and to learn what they hope will be in future books in the Lynton Series.  

It was gratifying to have several people stop to buy the book after they overheard my conversation with the people around me. I did have cookies but not everyone took one so, I am pretty sure they bought the book because the story appealed to them.

I would love to hear what your idea of a book signing should be: author signing books, author doing a Q&A, author doing a reading. Which scenario do you prefer?

 “True life is lived when the tiny changes occur.”  ─ Leo Tolstoy

 January trundles along and New Hampshire remembers, at last, that it is supposed to be cold here. Temperatures have been in the single digits the last few mornings. The icy draft sneaks in my office window and wraps itself around me in the late afternoon as I work huddled over my computers. The gaiety of Christmas has been packed into boxes and returned to the attic. It is easy to take a tally on where I am in terms of meeting the goals I set on the first day of the year and feel discouraged. But why?

 It is important to remember that most  permanent changes take place slowly.  Rarely are we allowed the luxury of altering the demands of the lives in which we are attempting to make these changes. My two goals: Become healthier and more fit and Publish Francesca’s Foundlings must take place against the same constraints that were obstacles to success last year, the largest of which is lack of time.

 It is important then to observe and celebrate the tiny changes in our lives as Tolstoy suggests. I wanted to go the gym five days last week but managed to find the time go twice. Instead of mourning over this, I have bought a package of shiny stars and  I slap them the on the calendar to mark the days that I have gone.  Childish and silly? Maybe but you should try it, it works. Each star is worth a dollar of mad money that I can collect at the end of the month and spend on whatever I wish.  

January, February and March can be discouraging here is New England. One way I have found to combat that is by making tiny changes. I try to read some poetry, buy fresh flowers and honor celebrations both large and small. As a nation we celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. today.

At my house, we celebrate the birthday of our resident canine, Admiral Grace who is ten today. The joy she gives us is immeasurable.

Happy Birthday, Grace!

 “By perseverance the snail reached the ark.”  ─ Charles  Haddon Spurgeon

Today is the second day of January. This is the day that I’m glad that I no longer make New Year’s Resolutions. The word resolution sounds so final. Maybe that’s why it is easy to give up on them the first time we “break” them. People have told me that they don’t make resolutions because not keeping them made them feel like they had failed.

In my day job I am an Instructional Designer. The first thing I do for any training or communication that I’m working on is to set the goal. Part of the process is to actually formalize it: Upon completion of this training, the student should be able to…A goal is something that we work toward. We are not expected to get there immediately. This is why I like them. They allow for imperfections and are much friendlier.

I love the image of the two snails slowly making their way to the ark while being passed by thundering rhinos, zebras, gazelles and everyone else.  The point is that the snails got there.

My writing career is a lot like that. I took a long time publish MacCullough’s Women leaving it at the bottom of my desk drawer when life got busy. I set two goals for 2012. After thinking about it, I decided that two was enough for this year. The first was to publish Francesca’s Foundlings and the second was to get as fit as I possibly can be.

Think of 2012 as a diary filled with blank pages waiting to be written on. Life is a journey best enjoyed by moving purposefully toward your goals at your pace. The point is to get there.

Did you set any goals for 2012 ?

 “Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child’s loss of a doll and a king’s loss of a crown are events of the same size.”  ─ Mark Twain

Francesca’s Foundlings, the second book in the Lynton Series, is named for a doll shop bearing the same name. There is both a long and a short answer to the question why I chose this for the background of the story. The long answer is hidden in the character of Franny MacCullough. You will have to read MacCullough’s Women to discover what it is.

The short answer is that the writer (me) has always loved dolls. I had numerous dolls, each with his or her unique name and personality, when I was a little girl. As an adult, I, like Franny, collected dolls and have had the pleasure of visiting several wonderful doll shops like the one that Franny owns in Francesca’s Foundlings.

Here are some of the dolls that you will find in the window of the Franny’s shop in Lynton.

  The baby doll in this picture is wearing a christening dress and hat featuring lace that was made by hand by grandmother almost hundred years ago. My mother made this outfit for the doll and gave it to me one Christmas.

This picture is of   “Kathy” a baby doll made by the Alexander Doll Company in the 1950s.  I had a larger version of this doll dressed in pink given to me by Santa for Christmas when I was a little girl.  Unfortunately I no longer have my own doll, but I found this smaller one in a doll shop in Maine. “Kathy” will make a cameo appearance in Francesca’s Foundlings.

Do you have a cherished toy that you have kept from your own childhood?