"F" is for Father (and a poem about flying with family in Idaho)

My family loves to fly. Dad was a WWII and Korean War bomber pilot, later a test pilot and then a private pilot until well into his 80s. Mom got her instrument rating in 1973, right after they bought their first plane: a six-passenger Beechcraft Bonanza A36.

One of their two sons is a private charter pilot and still flies. The other son loved dune buggies and, for me, it was horses. Home was Southern California; work was to get out and go. They flew everywhere and traveled with little Honda 50s in the back. When there was nowhere else to go, they'd land on a dirt runway pitch a pop-up Coleman tent and ride the little motorcycles into the nearest town to grab a burger or a bowl of soup.

Sometime in 1976, my father discovered the Bitterroot Wilderness of Idaho--something like one million acres of designated wilderness--and a series of U.S. Forestry Service-maintained runways truly in the middle of nowhere. Eventually, the family settled on Moose Creek (though there are lots of other wonderful places as well) and that was where we went.

Some families have lake cabins or mountain homes or places in the desert or at the seashore. We didn't. We had the beauty of Idaho, the bountiful rivers and lakes (most years) but sometimes couldn't fly in because of the fires, when the USFS would close the runways to all but fire-fighting use.

Over the years, Dad and Mom celebrated their anniversary at Moose Creek, camping all alone for a week, nearly every late September. Mom made cherry pies in the camp oven Daddy had bought her and he unearthed a cast iron griddle he kept buried in the hills (there was a treasure map to find it every year) and made hashed brown potatoes and bacon for breakfast.

In the summertime, we all went...kids, grand-kids, the odd great-grand-child and even my Alaskan Malamute, Wookie, who clambered on board quite cheerfully, sat herself in the second row with me and had a great old time, never noticing (apparently) that we were flying on our wingtip up a winding mountain cabin, a sparkling blue river a few thousand feet below. We hiked, we fished, we sat, we slept. We ate. And did it all over again. Especially the eating part.

Those times are over. One too many pacemaker replacements and Dad's pilot's licence went. Mom started having memory problems and wouldn't (and shouldn't) fly alone. It was time to pack it in. We made a few more trips with my brother, Ron, ferrying us all in and out.

The next-to-last trip was 2005--for my parents' 58th wedding anniversary and it was fabulous, memory-filled and the stuff that overwrites everything else. I even took my British fiance to meet the folks and whinge about sleeping on the ground with his feet hanging out of my parents' original 1970s pop tent while they lived like kings in the new Northface withstand-anything model.

The last trip was September 2007. Their 60th anniversary. And we almost made it to Moose Creek. Almost. Unfortunately, it was a fire year and, though we tried, visibility was compromised and we couldn't land. We turned and flew back south toward Boise and set up camp near Cascade Lake--sitting around the campfire pretending it was Moose Creek but knowing that it wasn't. And that there probably wouldn't be another trip to 'Moose'.

There wasn't. But 30 years in the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho? It's a lot to be thankful for.

I wrote this poem about my dad a few weeks ago as an exercise in a Sharon Bakar class in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The memories are so strong it might have been last month that we sat around the fire at Cascade Lake, not at Moose Creek. Dad and Mom are well, the plane has been sold but Ron still flies and takes my dad up for a go whenever he can. Daddy, this one's for you...

                             Bitterroot Mountains

He’s old, facing ninety head-on, deep lines

framed by the latest in high-tech camping hats,

polar fleece doubled up against the

Coumadin cold of now-thin blood. He sits,

hands pocketed,  reading embers.

It’s the last trip. It has that feel, lastness,

together we will crown their sixty years,

but Idaho consecrates this anniversary

with fire.  Smoke obscures the canyon—

instruments or not—and we fly back.

Almost Moose Creek, not quite there but nearly

there, hunkered down around this lesser fire,
its orange-red cincture catching each cinder,

sending sooty signals into the endless heavens

above that special place in the Bitterroot

we have family-worshipped for so long.

His heart is going, her mind has gone--

not that we Know it yet, unequivocally, but

he has guessed and keeps her safe from us,

draws circles around their memories with his

own smoky screen of love sixty decades wide

and a lifetime long. 

Mom washes dishes as she always does
and Debbie dries. One plastic tub with creek water
hand carried, another to rinse and maybe

they’ll be dry by breakfast-time

to do it all over again, Saunders-style.

The girls roast marshmallows and giggle,

Derek and Ron count endless stars in a blueblack sky

and name constellations as if they could best the best

(or perhaps it is to let him win just one more time)

‘That’s not Omega,’ laughs my father

rousing himself to point skyward and last-inning

take the game he knows oh so well

 “it’s Cassiopea; see the ‘W’ shape, right there?”

grunts and turns back to his fire.

Across the ring our eyes meet as they do

once every fifteen years or so and I abdicate

my speaker’s role to wait for a different ending.

“Christ, he doesn’t say much,’’ I think, and exhale

blatant longing. “But when did he ever?   

He clears his throat, leans back, waits…

‘Wonder what the poor folks are doin’ tonight?’

A chuckle, a wink, a nod affirm that his life

is rich, descendants all around, the fire crackling,

unspoken love and memories rising

in the unknowable Bitterroot night.

                                    (c) 2013 Cynthia Reed

"E" is for Edit...SmartEdit, if you please!

I'm in Edit mode with my novel right now. I've got plenty left to write, of course, but my manuscript also got to the point where it needed some serious smoothing out. I realised that the day I discovered that someone who did something in Chapter 34 had actually been killed in Chapter 22. Ouch. 

I've been using a tool in this process which I really like: SmartEdit. It's FREE. The full SmartEdit version can be downloaded and used for ten days, then either purchased OR you can opt for the free-forever package which contains the most used features of the larger product.

It's E-Day! Let me tell you about SmartEdit and how to try it out.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
WHAT IS IT? SmartEdit is a new, first-pass editing tool for writers. Not a replacement for a human editor or good proofreading, it's an aid--and easy helper for when you begin editing your work.

WHAT DOES IT DO: SmartEdit takes text or reads from an rtf file and runs all these checks on your document and produces a list. Imagine your surprise when you discover (as did I) that you have way too many adverbs or you've actually used the word 'actually' ten times in a chapter.

Or that 14 sentences begin with 'Mother had said'. Ouch. You can go through and change--or not change--them. I've found it a very useful writing tool, too, since it's identifying some things I do again and again.

WHAT ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING: We all have a hard time catching our own mistakes. If you're self-publishing, and you don't have a strong plan for outside editing, I think this is brilliant. It picks up things from a library of commonly-misused words (capital vs capital, for instance) and makes it simple to catch those before your first readers do. The dialog tag counter is great, too. Does your hero 'exclaim' or 'declare' everything? Give the boy a choice with some SmartEditing!

WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE: Here's a sample. Oh, those pesky adverbs! See all the sample pages in the SmartEdit gallery for a closer look.

p.s. Want an "E" bonus?
Check out Evernote...and 'Remember Everything'
I truly use this one for just about everything I do. I collect ideas, clip things from web pages, save whole web pages to it, capture the odd paragraph opening I write in Starbucks, research items wherever I am...at home or on the go...and sync it all between my PC, my iPad and my Android phone. I think it's fantastic. Check it out and download your copy at:

http://evernote.com/evernote/

#AtoZChallenge

"D" is for Dialogue...which fills me with dread, despair and despondency...

I've been an author of non-fiction, a sorta technical marketing author specialist type for IT and telecomms, for decades. That's my comfort zone. So when I set off to write this novel, for a long time I simply avoided the Dialogue part. It was easy during NaNoWriMo: I just blasted out 50,000 words and some of it was blah blah blah. I'd fill in the blanks later. 

Then I finally had to Do it. Write Dialogue. The very idea filled me with  a bunch of other "D" words: despair, doubt, distress and  despondency will do for starters.

Add to that the fact that I was writing historical fiction set in mid-19th century England and the Crimean Peninsula of what is now the Ukraine. Oh, woe...I had cast a Russian colonel, a Polish captain in the Russian army, an American doctor from Tennessee, a Turkish couple, the Russian Sisters of Charity nuns, the odd French Zoave, a few French women cantinières and maybe a Sardinian or two for good measure. And who knew when the bloody Cossacks would come riding in and cause a ruckus?

Those colourful folks are on top of the variations that might show up from the different regions of Britain; after all, many thousands of soldiers went to The Crimea from all over England, Scotland, Wales--and Ireland, too.

How would they all speak? What would they say? What could possibly sound real? I still don't know; I just keep trying to get out of the way and let them find their voices. Slowly, slowly, each claims a voice. I hope they'll get it right!

The other problem I have with Dialogue goes deeper still--I have been Dreading actually sharing any of my writing with anyone. It's Difficult to imagining actually publishing a book, by whatever means, without actually Delivering a written word on the page, isn't it? Decidedly so. I joke about having the unpublished manuscript tossed on my funeral pyre but I'd really rather have someone read it (I think).

So...herewith...my first attempt at throwing a relatively small, inconsequential section of my novel out there for anyone who happens to come along and have the time and interest read it. It might work and it might not. I have about 20,000 words to cut, I'm guessing, and it could well be some or all of these.

This is about 2,000 words from the middle an early chapter. I picked it because it had a lot of Dialogue. Two young Coldstream Guards officers are riding off to meet a ship to sail to the Crimea (and war) the next morning. It's got children and adults, broken hearts, some past hurts, a broken almost-engagement, a lot of unresolved stuff and some good information about the longest river in Britain, and swans, in case you've been wondering about swans.

Am I feeling Despair that I ever had this idea? Yes.  At the moment I am. But I'm going to DoItAnyway. Isn't that what the #AtoZChallenge is all about?

All that Dread aside, let me say that (1) I'm doing this just to do this and get over it; and (2) I welcome feedback from anyone who wants to send some. Hate it? That's OK. Please tell me why. Like it? What about it do you like? Feel free to email me at CynthiaReedWrites@gmail.com if you really want to rant. Or coo.

  Click on Read More (below) to jump to the story excerpt.                      

"C": Crimea, Coldstream & Cardigan?

                     

       

#AtoZChallenge

I'm Cynthia, also with a "C". I'm writing a book about The Crimean Conflict called "Coldstream". Oh, yes, and there's that Cardigan thing.

My novel began as something of a lark. A challenge from a friend about writing a "quick historical romance". Who know it would fit the AtoZ Blog Challenge Day #3 so well!

Back in 2002, when I first wrote the synopsis and then put it away (and lost the challenge) I knew nothing about The Crimean War (1853-1856). Now I'm a paid-up member in good standing of The Crimean War Research Society (CWRS) and devour every quarterly journal and monthly newsletter when it arrives.

Sometimes I wonder: What on earth prompted me to write about The Crimean War? And then I remember. It was simple: an article in that day's newspaper, probably commemorating a battle or a birth or a new statue being erected in London 'in honour of'. More likely, looking back, it was a story about a woman named Mary Seacole that may have caught my eye. 

So much for that  sage and trusted advice to "write what you know". I didn't. Like most people (and probably you included) I knew that the Crimean War was about Florence Nightingale (the Lady with the Lamp) and The Charge of the Light Brigade (made famous by Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem). 

My book is about neither of those things.

I wrote the first 50,000 words of the book I call "Coldstream" during NaNoWriMo 2010 and, in the ensuing 2+ years, the scope seemed to grow and grow as my knowledge grew and my interest to know more increased exponentially. It took a while for it to become an obsession but, eventually, I caved in and I admit it: it's an obsession.

Yes, I've learned a lot since then. More than a lot. Enough to pepper 165,000 words (and cutting) of very rough manuscript with detail and information about this most fascinating of conflicts. Enough to fill boxes and binders and desktop PC folders with more than anyone would ever want to know. Except me. And anyone else who comes across it and thinks, "How did I misss that one?"

The most important thing I learned along the way is that this was an important war--for a lot of reasons. Though it almost seems like 'the war world history forgot' in many respects, nestled there in some backwater of Europe on a time continuum between the Battle of Waterloo and the The First World War, it's not that at all. It's a fascinating piece of history that can still teach us lessons and broaden our understanding of other conflicts--even today.

Here, then, an incomplete list of reasons and facts which led me to conclude that the Crimean War is fascinating, interesting and important to history:

• A major underlying political cause of the war was disagreement over who controlled Jerusalem (not much has changed, has it?)  Russia was willing to go to war against the Ottoman Empire; Britain, France and Sardinia jumped in to help the Turks. (Of course, it suited them to try and knock out Russia's Black Sea fleet as well...)
• This was the first war with the media "embedded" on-site and sending reports back (via telegraph) instantly. (William Howard Russell, of the London Times, and others). Russell went on to cover the American Civil War as well.
• It was the first major conflict to be photographed. Hundreds, if not thousands, of excellent images exist. (Roger Fenton and others). An interesting debate about one of Fenton's photographs was recently settled: the proof is here.
• There are hundreds of untold stories of women in The Crimea which are fascinating and were virtually unknown until Helen Rapport Published No Place for Ladies: The Untold Story of Women in the Crimean War. The book was just re-leased on International Women's Day, March 7, and is available as an ePub, Kindle Version or as an Audible book. I have all three and it's a book about incredibly brave women which stands on its own, whatever your interest.
• The Siege of Sebastopol--which is essentially what my book is centred on, was one of the classic sieges of all time, lasting 349 days.
• The Siege was the subject of Russian soldier Leo Tolstoy's Sebastopol Sketches and the subject of the first Russian feature film, Defence of Sevastopol. (the Tolstoy book predates War and Peace and is fascinating--at least to me).
• Sometimes referred to as one of the first "modern" wars, the Crimean War introduced technical changes which affected the future course of warfare, including the first tactical use of railways and the electric telegraph.  
• Major medical advances--such as the use of chloroform, medical ambulances, sanitation as a means of disease control, surgical techniques and more--were first used on a wide scale (and would be used in the American Civil War, less than ten years later, and then the First World War.)
• About 40 American doctors traveled to the Crimea and worked on the side of the Russians (against England, France and Turkey). Nearly all died of disease; some of the survivors served in the American Civil War as well.
• The American gun manufacturers made lots of money--Colt and other American companies sold weapons to both the Russians and the Allies so that they could kill each other. (this really shocked me, no question about it)
• There was also a "Charge of the Heavy Brigade" and Tennyson wrote a poem about that, too. (It never caught on the way the other one did). If you like poetry, it's an interesting comparison to the other.
• And, finally, several articles of clothing we still wear and use today came to us from the Crimean War: the balaklava (as in Battle of Balakalva), the cardigan (Lord Cardigan) and the raglan sleeve (so called after Lord Raglan, who'd lost an arm in the Napoleanic Wars and had a specific sleeve designed).

Oh, yes, about Mary Seacole. Still a subject of controversy, she was important, too. While not as famous as Florence Nightingale, Seacole definitely has her own place in history and in the hearts of those who served in the Crimea. (AND a new statue in London, itself the subject of controversy). Helen Rappaport's book has wonderful information about her, too. Mary's also got a nice part in my book...Helen just gets my undying gratitude for so much help with the research!

The A to Z Blog Challenge

The Letter "B"                         

         #AtoZChallenge

One down and twenty-five to go. Today is the letter B. For Bones. Or Books. Or Both.

Yesterday I bought an Audible copy of Natalie Goldberg's old classic, "Writing Down the Bones". First published in 1986, when I lived in Boise, Idaho, it (and nearly all of my hundreds of books) didn't make the cut when I moved to the UK in 1999. What was I thinking? I don't know--it was expensive and I was foolish.

Over the years, between then and 2011, when I moved to Malaysia, I re-purchased many of my old books, both books on writing and books not on writing. Mostly not on writing; at that time, busy working as a technical author and marketing maven wannabe, it would only have served to remind me that I wasn't writing the fiction I had long longed to write.

When we moved to Malaysia, I only brought two or three books, all for my camera and Photoshop (my own personal nemesis software). Everything else was sold on Amazon or Freecycled, though a few I-can't-live-without-these treasures remained behind in UK storage because we didn't think we'd be here long.

Yeah, right. And then it seemed we be'd here longer than planned. That's a good thing but, hey, my books! So I've been off re-re-buying (again) some of the key books--and some new ones--mostly as Kindle versions so I would never, ever, ever have to give them up again. Ever.

Last year I added, at the suggestion of Kuala Lumpur writing instructor and publisher extraordinaire, Sharon Bakar, of Word Works, the Kindle version of Goldberg's "Old Friend From Far Away". It's been great for inspiration and writing prompts. But I somehow didn't think to add the the Kindle version of "Bones". Why? I just didn't. I thought of it later and filed it away for "next time".

Next time arrived, right on schedule, yesterday. In an attempt to not do what I was supposed to be doing (writing) I checked my Audible member account and, deep joy, I had an unspent credit! Did Audible have "Bones"? Indeed they did; they had two versions! It was a sign. There's no going back from that sort of purchase indicator, is there? Now to choose which.

I'm glad I read the descriptions carefully--and here's the point of the "B is for Bones" blog post: the 2006 Audible edition (you should order it now!)* is a re-recorded version and, in it, Goldberg reflects on what she wrote fourteen years previously. Her commentary is wonderful.

Audible calls it a "collector's edition". I do, too. Whatever it is, it's fascinating to listen to; I close my eyes and have the sense that I'm sitting in a room listening to the Natalie Goldberg read to me and tell me what she thinks as a 50-year-old compared to what she felt when she wrote the original book at age 36. Her personal reflections add a lovely dimension to the book that's been called the "magic manual for all writers".

It was always great. But that made it even Better. You know, that's "B" for better.

* It's also on the US Audible site here. But it's on sale on the UK site.

The A to Z Blog Challenge Begins

MONDAY, APRIL 1st:  The Letter "A"

A to Z Challenge

I couldn't resist. When Rebecca Bradley, a crime novel writer I "met" during NaNoWriMo 2010, blogged that she was going to do this month-long blog challenge...well, off I went. I was the 1,103rd person to sign up (there are now 1,759) and here I am, on the first of April, wondering if I've lost my mind yet again.

Why did I sign up for it? I asked myself a few times over the past two weeks. The answer was easy, even if the execution of the month month of blogging didn't sound easy. But, hey, I'm just finishing another Deepak Chopra 21-Day Meditation Challenge, so why not?

And, I had been wanting, intending and even planning to go back to regular blogging. Not because I believe I have particularly wonderful things to say to the world at this time--I just wanna finish my novel!--but because I like the focus that the various challenges, courses and on-line projects I've done over the past two years bring to my writing life. So why not?

This blog, ReedWrites, is about my writing life. Which is actually, though filled with fits and starts over the past two years while I wasn't blogging, going pretty well. I am liking it and more determined than ever that this is what I do. I simply want to do it more and better--and think this challenge can be one more good way to do what I love to do and add another good habit at the same time.

The Blogging from A to Z Challenge, which you can read about here, asks two simple questions: Can you post every day except Sundays during the month of April? And, can you blog thematically from A to Z while you do it? (In a happy coincidence, most Aprils, with Sundays subtracted, have 26 days, one for each letter of the alphabet.)

Using this premise, then, today is April 1st and I am beginning with the letter A and it's something related to my theme which, very loosely, is "my writing life". I thought about choosing "Attention", which is something I struggle with endlessly, but it was too convenient to simply begin with the A to Z Challenge title itself to get myself fired up. And so I did. And now I am.

The point for me, like so many things in life, is simply to do it. So I am doing it. Not making a big deal about it, just setting a timer and telling myself I'll write till the bell rings and it ought to be under 500 words. The rules say it doesn't even have to be a word to meet the qualification--it can be a proper noun, the day's letter used as a symbol, or the letter itself.  Latitude. I like latitude. It's good for Attitude. It's only the first and I've got a good Attitude.

Oops, there's the bell. Day 1, Letter A, job done. Thanks for reading! Oh, yeah, one more thing...

The ulterior motive disclaimer: It's common wisdom that authors need an on-line presence and ought to get more followers to that presence. So, if you arrived here, you're qualified! Please feel free to Share, Tweet, Follow, Sign-up or click on whatever button in the right-hand column strikes your fancy. With my gratitude and a deep bow.



     

Buying Another Shovel is Not Digging A Hole.

Fellow on-line student and writer Steven Bluestone's words, posted in the ToDo Institute's Taking Action course forum earlier in the week, really hit home:

Buying another shovel is not digging a hole.

That one simple sentence says a lot. I am definitely a shovel purchaser, always off at the implement shop adding this or that to my collection.

In truth, perhaps I should have been a researcher. Or a research assistant? What is the correct term for someone who, given a thread of information, can go off and find all the bits and pieces to end up with both the warp and woof of an excellent piece of cloth? That's me, Alice, down the rabbit hole. I thrive on it.

I realise, as I write this, that it doesn't do to just blame myself for being inefficient and not getting the job done, which is sortof what I've been doing this past week (or quarter or half a year) while I've been enthralled with exploration and adventures into my topic. Why haven't I increased my word count this week? I asked, as if the number of words was the only measure of success at this juncture.

As I think back over my professional writing career -- the past two decades or so -- I know that everything I worked on as an author required some amount of research. Often, it required a lot. A few times, the learning and research was 90% of the job and the actual writing 10%. Though it seems strange now, that's the way it was. Sometimes, I was given piles of paper, schematics, competitive information and Powerpoint presentations by the client--while at othertimes, I was sent off to dig for the information, the diagrams, the statistics, the history, even the basics of the technology.

And, from all of that, I would craft a brochure, an annual report, a technical review, a training presentation, a glossy marketing piece, a white paper, a user manual or a whole campaign to reward the sales people who trained themselves and sold the largest number of the widgets that I was researching and writing about. I have some incredible experience in the high tech and telecommunications fields, come to think of it. Being a good researcher really helped.

Today, where I am in the novel (just under 79,000 words, headed towards 120,000 perhaps) suddenly feels much the same. I simply do not know all that I need to know and I now have to get the information. I began knowing nothing about this Crimean War thing beyond the intriguing overviews I'd read and the history that related to Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole.  I'd heard of Raglan and Cardigan but didn't hardly realise they were more than types of sleeves on a sweater.

Now I know a great deal about this 'conflict', along with my more specific recent work on the 349-day-long Siege and the City of Sebastapol itself (today spelled Sevastapol) in the Ukraine, or the Crimean Peninsula. Think Black Sea. Constantinople. That one. At last, I know where the harbour, barracks, trenches, city centre and cemeteries lay and how they were approached, defended, attacked, reapaired and attacked again.

I still don't know where the hospitals were located but, judging from the number of dead, I'll bet they weren't far from the cemeteries with all the mass graves. There's are books on the way that will give me that information--e.g. it turns out that Tolstoy (yes, that one) was stationed there and wrote an account of the siege. Plus, I've located an online seller of antiquarian maps who has an original, detailed Russian map from the period. What a find that could be!

The pile of documents I've printed, the megabytes of electronic books in .pdf format and in my Kindle application, the tiled maps I've lovingly printed, trimmed and taped together and hung on the walls--are all a testament to that long history of having to research everything before I write it. It's useful to have a lot of shovels if you're going to write historical fiction.

So, at the same time I am reminding myself that buying another shovel is not the same as digging a hole, I'm also accepting that I chose to write historical fiction--not a fluffy romance with no historical, costume or societal detail added--and that this care to detail and attention to accuracy is what I've been honing for the past twenty years. Indeed, it's part and parcel of what will make the story a good one. If I fail to provide it, my readers will be disappointed. Or there won't be any.

So I do seem to need lots of shovels. Note to Self: It's ok to get more shovels so long as I don't forget that the ultimate objective is to dig a great big hold and fill it with a wonderfully "sweeping" and accurate piece of historical fiction that tells the story of my heroine and her adventures in life against the broad expanse of this piece of world history which began as nothing to me and has now come very much alive for me.

I accept it. Last week I spent a lot of time and some money at the hardware store, arming myself. Coffee. Check. Shovels. Check. This week I will dig a big hole and fill it with all the things I've learned. Thanks, Steven, for reminding me!