Festival of Writing 2015

I think most of you have heard that I'm attempting to write a book. Let me state that another way… I am writing a book and I am attempting to have it be good enough that other people may some day want to read it. In that vein, I have been learning a lot more about the art, craft, and business of writing. I have been reading books, blogs, and articles all while writing, writing, writing. 

Late last year I bookmarked a bunch of writing websites that I visit periodically. One website, the Writers' Workshop, is like a small, UK-based Writers' Digest that hosts a lot of seminars, on-line lectures, and the like. Their premier event is the Festival of Writing, which happens every September in York. Bill encouraged me to go, so I signed up and attended - what a whirlwind of learning and adventure it was!!

I attended a 4-hour seminar on Friday on how to edit your own novel hosted by Emma Darwin and Debi Alper. After that first session alone I knew I had gotten my money's worth, and I still had two full days of education ahead of me! 

During the weekend, I had two 10-minute one-on-one sessions, one with a book doctor (again with Emma Darwin), and the other with a literary agent. I had to send in my prospectus and first chapter of my book several weeks before the event so that Emma and the agent could read it and provide detailed feedback during our 10-minute window. I received a lot of good criticism that I have taken to heart as I edit my first draft manuscript. It will probably take a few more drafts before I feel ready to actually 'pitch' the book, so I'll keep plugging away! 

Oh! And a few weeks after the event, I was reading Emma's writing blog and realized, much to my surprise, that she is named after her great-grandmother, Emma Darwin, wife of Charles Darwin. CHARLES FREAKIN' DARWIN was her great grandfather!!  

York University Campus

Even though York University is only an hour away, I heeded their advice and stayed on campus for the duration of the weekend. All meals, parties, workshops, etc. are held within a few main buildings and all full-weekend attendees are given a private, en-suite dorm room to call their own, just a short way away from the event buildings. 

I couldn't help but wish I had some U2 posters and fairy lights to adorn my dorm room, but I was only there to sleep for two nights, so bare it stayed. 

My dorm room

In addition to Friday's editing workshop and my one-on-one sessions, I attended seminars on the craft of writing as well as business seminars taught by big-named book agents and publishers who want to find all the good writers out in the big wide world. The whole weekend was intimidating, informative, and inspirational. 

I met fledgling and seasoned writers alike and many publishing gurus and agents - all of whom came from all over the place to attend the Festival of Writing. Most attendees were from England, but I met a diplomat's wife who lives in The Hague, three or four writers from New York, a first-time writer (and winner of the festival's first chapter competition) from Australia, and an American living in Germany who had purple hair and donned a grand, vampire-esque cloak to the Saturday night gala. 

Every single person I met was so friendly, helpful, and encouraging. I can't wait to go back next year!  

Words, Part 2

Words are funny. Even the word 'Word' looks a little wonky, doesn't it? 

WORD UP! - not my photo

Since moving to the UK, I have spent a lot of time thinking about words. I have to choose my words carefully as they may not mean the same thing here as they did there. Shortly after moving to England I purchased some pants that needed alterations. A friend put me in touch with her seamstress and I called and left a message that went something like this:

"Hi Eliza, my name's Jennifer and I understand you're a seamstress. I have a pair of pants that need hemming and I was hoping that you have time this week to meet and hem my pants…" 

Halfway through that last word I remembered that in the UK, pants means underpants, and I instantly backpedaled:

"Um… I mean trousers. TROUSERS! I don't need you to hem my knickers, just my trousers... Um… you can call me back at XXXXX."

And I hung up the phone with that feeling you get when you know you've just left an absolutely asinine message for someone you don't even know. Gulp. (Eliza did call back and was super sweet about the whole thing, but still.)

The funny words aren't just the British ones. At my first appointment with an English hairdresser she asked me what I wanted to do about my fringe. "My fringe?" I replied, "Oh, you mean my bangs!" And then we proceed to have a conversation about fringe / bangs. Quite honestly, fringe makes way more sense, as the hair on and around your forehead fringes your face. What does the word 'bang' have anything to do with hair, anyway?*

The Brits love cutesy, short forms of words. For example, I have heard adults say the following sentences:

• brekkie = breakfast: Have you had your brekkie, luv?
• lippy = lipstick: Let me go put on a fresh coat of lippy.
• footy = football: Did you watch the footy last night?
• prezzies = presents: Only one more sleep until Father Christmas brings all the prezzies! 

I could go on and on, but you get the picture. I was initially put off by the cute-i-fication of words, but have caught myself using them more and more. Quite honestly, I have started to become kind of fond of them. Oh! And I cannot even tell you how many times I have introduced myself as Jennifer and the Yorkshireman or woman has proceeded to call me Jenny from there on out, and Jenny is typically the name only a few family and close friends have called me. It seems to me that all the shortened words are things people love (brekkie, lippy, footy, etc.) so I suppose I'm in good company. 

Warning - wonky verge ahead! - not my photo

And words in America do not mean the same in England. As I mentioned above, pants mean underpants, a Band-Aid is a plaster, a bin is only something you put your trash… errr, rubbish in. In the UK, a shoulder is only the top part of your arm, and a verge is what Americans call the "shoulder" of the road. And don't even get me started on whatever the hell an "adverse camber" is, but needless to say, if you see a sign on the road that says that, do not, and I repeat, do not pull over onto the verge! 

The more you know, the better off you'll be, and everything will go, as they say, tickety-boo! 

Ha! -not my cartoon

*According to several websites, the origin for the American hair term "bangs" has its origin in equine tail stylings. 

The word “bangtail” is defined in the OED as “a (horse’s) tail, of which the hair is allowed to grow to a considerable length and then cut horizontally across so as to form a flat even tassel-like end.”

Therefore, Americans wanted the hair on their forehead to look like a horse's tail. Ummm… okay! 

Resistance is Futile

I am a cyborg.

Seriously.

It didn't happen overnight, but rather over one, long, anxiety-filled week a few years back.

It all started when I dropped like a stone onto the kitchen floor in front of my husband after dinner one night. A short trip to our local hospital's emergency room turned into a long ambulance drive to a large teaching hospital in The City.

What I initially and flippantly chalked up to some sort of low blood pressure issue was actually ventricular tachycardia. If you don't know what ventricular tachycardia is, consider yourself lucky. In my case, the VT was caused by scar tissue from a childhood heart surgery. Said scar tissue decided it was time to wreak some havoc that particular night, and didn't pass along the signal that my heart had pumped. So my heart pumped again, and again, andagainandagainandagain... skyrocketing to the point where my heart was beating so fast it could no longer fill with blood. Therefore, no blood went to my brain, and down I went.

Thank God my husband was there, literally and figuratively, to catch me as I fell.

My body had the unfortunate timing to get sick right before a three-day weekend, so I had to bide my time at the hospital until the surgeons returned from their well-deserved breaks to deal with the likes of me. And I was on bed rest. Complete bed rest. Because every time I stood up, my new pal, VT, came to visit. 100% bed rest is very difficult. Especially when you're hooked up to God knows how many beeping machines and giant sticker-pads are affixed to your chest just in case the paddles, five feet away, have to be charged to bring you back from the edge of death.

But every time VT reared his ugly head, I sent him on his merry way without the paddles, thankyouverymuch!

The doctors returned and worked their miracles. Scar tissue was mapped and diffused. "However," they said, "there is still scar tissue lurking. What if we didn't get everything? What happens if the scar tissue decides to cause the same issue in two years? Ten?"

The answer is simple. Become a cyborg. Resistance is futile.

My new computer sits just below the skin under my left clavicle. It's about the size of a stack of business cards and has wires that trail down and affixed to several chambers of my heart. It monitors every heartbeat, and knows that if VT should ever come a'calling, to shock that son of a bitch away.

Thankfully, it has been years and there have been no visits from VT, and no shocks from my borg parts.

We are the Borg!

But I am different.

I am now a card-carrying member of the super-deluxe, full-on pat-down crowd at every security screening site.

Every six months I go to the hospital to synch up with the mother ship. It's a procedure that takes five minutes, but is rather unnerving. A small, metal plate is hung over my shoulder and lays on my chest in front of my under-the-skin computer. The large computer attached to the metal plate talks to my tiny computer and therefore, to my heart. The big computer checks my batteries. It tests my wires. The nurse tells his computer to tell my computer to make my heart speed up and slow down. We've got to ensure everything is in working order. It is very surreal.

I am a cyborg.

I'm not sure I'm completely on board with having a computer inside my body.

But it's better than the alternative.

Writing Group Excercise

A while ago I attended a local, weekly writing club for beginners. There were only four of us, but we'd meet in a local library conference room and work on our writing. One of us would bring a writing exercise and we'd take 30 minutes to write something based on the exercise. We would then take turns reading our piece and giving each other constructive criticism. 

It was a really welcoming and friendly group. Sadly, two of our group moved away and now it's just myself and a another who has a busy family life, so the group has mostly dissolved. There is a more professional writing club in town, and I'm steeling my nerves to attend one of their bi-monthly meetings. In the meantime, I've been trying to keep up with my writing exercises. The exercise below was a stream-of-consciousness type story, using 'story cubes' as writing prompts. Enjoy!

Rory's Story Cubes

*****

Last night's rain washed the city's top layer of dirt away, leaving everything one shade brighter than usual. As I stepped off the stairs of my brownstone, I took a deep breath of the crisp, clean air. The kind of air that's just cold enough to really wake you up and give your cheeks that incredible flush no blusher can ever really reproduce. 

"A rainbow!" I say out loud with a smile, thinking today's going to be a great day.

I set off towards my favorite bodega, the one where the attendant adds up my purchases using his grandfather's abacus from China. 

"A latte and today's paper, Jimmy." I request. 

"Ah, the usual," he says with a strained smile. As Jimmy's making my latte - well, making is a kind way of saying pushing a button marked 'Latte' on one of those new-fangled, ubiquitous machines - I notice the safe under the register is slightly ajar. I look back up at Jimmy and realize he's not his usual, jovial self. 

Looking around the little shop, I sense a tightness in the air. The hairs on the back of my arm prickle with the primitive fight-or-flight response, and I ease my hand down to my waist, quietly popping the safety latch on my holster. 

As cheerfully as possible, I say, "Jimmy, c'mon, you're moving as fast as a turtle. Everything okay?" 

"Oh, yeah. Everything's fine," he replies, but his eyes dart over to the magazine rack. 

I shift my weight and slightly turn towards the magazines  as I say, "Okay. Beautiful day, isn't it?" And then I see him in the security mirror, crouched behind the spinning rack of straight-to-DVDs, a man using what appears to be a nylon as a mask. 

I ease my gun out of the holster and give Jimmy a look that hopefully says 'don't move' and take a few, slow steps towards the DVDs. 

"NYPD! Come out with your hands up!" I shout as I level the gun and take steady aim. 

He jumps up and grabs the DVD rack, swinging it violently at me. I jump to the left, narrowly avoiding the rack and all of the b-movie projectiles that go flying. The masked robber is off balance for just a second and that's all I need to pin and cuff him. 

Ahh, just another day in the Big Apple. Yes, today's going to be a great day!

******

And for the record, I blame a recent Castle binge-watching session for this Kate Becket inspired story :-)

On a Spring Day

Two Toddlers kick a soccer ball back and forth, chubby legs all flailing about, as we watch from afar, sprawled out on the on the clover-strewn grass. Parents and grandparents strolling through the park with their bright-eyed mini-mes in tow. And my husband and I taking in both vitamin D and the bucolic scene on a rare sunny Spring afternoon in England. 

He in his favorite, discontinued 505 Levis, cotton shirt and vest, and I in a comically similar outfit. We didn't plan it, but we're hashtag-twinning. It has been over two years since we moved to England, but we are both still occasionally surprised when everyone around us has a posh accent. As happened just moments ago when a young girl on a scooter stopped to look back and plead with her mom, trailing behind her, "Mummy! Can I have an ice lolly?" 

A Sunny Sunday in the Park

The wind picks up and I am thankful for my vest, even though everyone else is sporting t-shirts, sundresses, and the occasional pair of shorts. The English are a hardy sort!

Before we parked ourselves on the grass, we walked through town, stopping to shop and grab a bite of lunch on our way to the park. As we walked toward the park, I realized I would be much more comfortable if I made quick use of a ladies' room. Public toilets are scarce, so I decide to go into the nearby pub/pizzeria to sneakily use their facilities before meeting back up with my husband in the park. 

I am not a person who normally breaks rules, and toilets are for paying customers and I wasn't a paying customer. But I needed to go, so I decided to break the rules. Cheery, beery groups were clustered around the outdoor tables, drinking in the sunshine and booze. I walk past them, looking left and right, feigning looking for a group of friends who are expecting me to join them, and then duck into the building. 

There are fewer people inside, but the pub/pizzeria are still doing good business. I continue to fake looking for my party as I secretly scan the room for the sign to the toilets, all the while worried that the establishment will toss me out if they find out what I'm doing. I'm breaking their rules! 

I see the sign to the toilets, pointing towards a nearby door in a darkish corner of the pub and without a backwards glance, I push through the door. As I open the door and step inside, the words "dough boys" on the door slowly registers as I see a man washing his hands next to the urinal. 

Oh, dear!

I stand stock-still, in full-on deer-in-headlights mode, as the man turns around and ever so nicely says, "You're in the men's, luv," walks past me, pulls the door open and holds it for me to exit. As I re-enter the pub, I see a party seated near the men's loo chuckle and I roll my eyes at them as a self-depricating survival technique. The kind gentleman who escorted me out of the men's points my way to the ladies'. I thank him and hustle across the room and dive into a cubicle in the women's (labeled "Dough Gals") as quick as I can. More from embarrassment than the need to pee, but since I was there…

I slink out of the pub/pizzeria after a few minutes, avoiding the table full of people who had witnessed my  earlier humiliation. 

Next time, I'll just buy a damn pizza.

On a Spring Day

I am a Muggle.

I, like 90% of the human race, voraciously read the Harry Potter series. I discovered the series shortly after book  three was released when I still worked one day a week at a Waldenbooks (mostly for the book discount). I quietly checked out book one from the store (another perk of being a trusted employee), quickly read it and checked out book two, then three. By the time book four came around, I slowly acknowledged to friends and family that I, too, was reading the children's book series. By then, the Harry Potter momentum was on the upswing and it was becoming more acceptable for adults to proclaim their love of the book series.

The story itself was and is amazing. Once I read all seven books, I re-read them again (and again), and was surprised by how well thought out the series was, from beginning to end. But what captured me the most was the magical world in which Harry Potter lived. Hogwarts, Gryffindor, Dobby the house elf, the ministry of magic, owl mail carriers,  Nearly-headless-Nick, etc. — all of it truly transported me into a realm so far removed from my own. 

No mail for this muggle!

And then I moved to England. One of the first days I was on my own, I walked up to the Sainsbury Local (a neighborhood grocery store) and a nearby school had just let out. Scads of teenagers in crested-jackets, ties, plaid skirts, and knee-high socks swarmed the Sainsbury Local buying after school snacks. They moved in packs, as teenagers do, chatting and laughing in their posh British accents and I stood there, dumbfounded. I felt as though I had been plopped down in the midst of a school break to Hogsmead! I was a muggle amongst the magical elite!

I stood there to soak it all in. Yes, yes, I know, England is not really the magical realm JK Rowling created in her book series, but she created such an all-encompassing world I thought was truly fictional. 

And then I moved to England. 

I have since learned that the schools here run very similar to Hogwarts… or, I should say, Hogwarts is just a British school, albeit a magical one. In England you are placed into a house upon arrival at the school (a house you will remain a part of until you move away or graduate), and each year you and your housemates compete for point, with an end-of-year celebration for the winning house. The school uniforms, prefects, head boy and head girl, all standard fair in the British school system. They play cricket (Which I have since seen played, and it was so confusing, there could have been a quaffle and golden snitch, for all I know!) and have a headmaster. 

As the similarities between the two worlds began to emerge, I initially felt duped. Damn, you, JK Rowling!! I thought you had made it ALL up! 

Not headed to Hogwarts

But as the dust settled, I realized that the magical world of Harry Potter is still magical. And her book series continues to be one of my favorite things ever. It's just that I took for granted that all schools must work the same way the American school system works. Why was I so surprised that this wasn't so? 

Aside from my birth in Minnesota, I have lived my life entirely in California, until we embarked on our British adventure. England's primary language is English, it is a first world country, and the US and UK have so much in common. Yet each week I seem to learn a new lesson about the world around me and the people who live in it that I never would have learned living in my comfortably understood life in California. 

I realize that not many people can move to another state, let alone another country. But understanding that there is a great big world of people out there whose norms are so different than my own is something I strive to acknowledge. That vastly different world may be on an entirely different continent, or just down the road.

That strange gal across the street? She may be caught in an epic battle against he-who-must-not-be-named, so I should probably cut her some slack. The world in which she lives may be a far more magical (or frightening) world than my own.  

An unknown and mystifying world doesn't have to be a magical platform away.

History, Revisited

I was a European history major in college and I have always loved history. Not necessarily the battles and who won what war, but the stories of how people lived; how the ramifications of war, a new King/Queen, or a plague affected the population. How people coped, what they did to earn their keep, how they survived. In a nutshell, I am a cultural history nerd. 

Bolton's Abbey

I once took an entire university course devoted to Henry VIII and his dissolution of the Catholic church in England. But it wasn't until I moved here and started visiting the local abbeys that were torn down shortly after England's separation from Rome, did I understand the magnitude of Henry VIII's decision. Yes, it was so he could legally wed & bed Anne Boleyn, but it was also an attempt to secure a healthy male heir. That need of a healthy male heir, and the lengths that the King would go in the hopes of getting one, changed the lives of so many and altered the course of history forever. 

Rievaulx Abbey

The abbeys were large and provided food and a place of healing (albeit leeches, herbs, and the like) for the local population, and education for the males with talent or money. The Abbeys weren't all peaches and cream, though. Some abbeys, Fountains Abbey in particular, were said to be quite corrupt by the time of their undoing. I find this stuff so completely fascinating.

Fountain's Abbey

That first year of living in England really re-ignited my love for history. I mean, how could it not? There is so much history in this country, even written history going back 2000+ years. So cool!

And so I began teaching myself about a young Celtic queen who reigned during the time of the Roman arrival on the isle of Britannia (circa 40AD). I am currently attempting to write a novel about her life and times. It hasn't been easy, as there is a lot of conjecture and theories about the pre-Roman Celts, but not a lot about them is truly known. Quite a bit was written about them from their Roman contemporaries, but having only one side of a story can be more challenging than helpful. So basically, I'm attempting to research and write a very complex story as my first try at writing anything of any length. Wish me luck :-) 

I have no idea if I'll ever have a single person read the tale I am writing, but for now, it's keeping me busy.