Month: August 2019

Where I’m Home

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During a recent SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) local meeting, we had a session of ‘flash writing’ from a prompt. Here’s my prompt:

“Regardless of where you were born, where do you feel you’re from?” Taken from the book, 642 Tiny Things To Write About, by the San Francisco Writers Grotto, purchased at Watermark Books, Wichita, KS.

Here’s my answer, originally penned (I only use Bic soft feel medium pens) into my small, tan, soft-covered Moleskine notebook I carry everywhere:

“I was born, I feel, in Box Canyon, on Ghost Ranch, on the Piedra Lumbre Grant, on the Colorado Plateau. Late of the Genízaro, earlier of the Pueblo, who took over the ground from the Anasazi.

Somehow I only recharge when I step up onto that last boulder in the Box part. I lay on my back, arched, with my eyes closed. I listen to the canyon wrens, the raven’s burring call, the soft percussion of the seeping water.

I wear both blue jeans and moccasins. I wear both a straw cowboy hat and a string bag called a bilum, which I’ve brought from the other side of the globe. I have a bicycle parked at the trailhead, a camper in the campground, and a stack of books waiting for me.

I’m from the many, many worlds I’ve read into existence, but I’m truly home in Box Canyon.”

A Legacy, Planted

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My parents came to visit the other day, and we got to talking about the history or the plants we love.

My dad brought me some hollyhocks to plant. This was at least five years ago, maybe 10. I now have little colonies of hollyhocks around our side- and back-yards that bring great joy to me when those papery blossoms shout joy from the spindly stalks 4 feet off the ground. It turns out the hollyhocks have a lineage: They come from Dad, who got them from his mom. At one point, those hollyhocks came from Bern, Switzerland, where our my Gfeller ancestors used to live. I have living history in my yard. That’s pretty special.

We also planted, way back in the ’90’s (last century kids!), some Eastern Cedar trees. Sometimes I call them Junipers. I’ve trimmed them so a person can walk under them and enjoy the shade and that sharp juniper tang. It turns out the cedars that I love so much are from the 5-acre lot across the old highway from the old Foster farm north of El Dorado on Highway 77. If you’ve driven around with my relatives, you’d know how to get there. If you haven’t, come on over and we can take a drive.

I’ve planted Columbine flowers around the yard, too. Their fragile blossoms arrive best when I’ve planted them among rocks. They don’t bloom as well without some adversity in the rising. I’ve loved columbines ever since we saw them every summer on our family camping and backpacking trips. You can only see them when you get out of the city, off the highway, and into the mountains, where, if you step away from the trail, the land has changed little in centuries.

Lastly, the plural of Iris is Iris (right?). I’ve got at least 5 whole sections of flower garden that are fecund with Iris bulbs that launch a riot of blue and purple blooms in the post-frost days of spring. We had iris plants in our own backyard when I was growing, and the neighbors had them, too. Maybe there was a Works Progress Administration project that featured Iris for a few years.

Anyway, I wanted you to know how much joy I get from looking at something so simple as a plant because it reminds me of how rich my history and heritage are.

Do you have any plants like that?A

You Get 1 Minute

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1 minute to sum up your current life’s effort. Camera in your face. Lights throwing heat at you. Experts judging every word. Every piece of clothing, too.

20 of those Dem candidates had an opening and a closing statement. Although I didn’t time any of the speeches, the moderators said they had ‘one minute for your opening remarks’. It seemed like they all stuck pretty close to that, didn’t it? Maybe 2.

Still… try to summarize you in that amount of time.

It struck me that, if a person ever asks me ‘what’s your book about?’, I would be totally unprepared to give them a summary that takes 1 minute or less. That’s the classic ‘elevator pitch’ that we are all supposed to prepare. It’s the ‘executive summary’. It’s the ‘thumbnail’. Every writer’s book says this on or near page 1. It’s not like I don’t know what to do, so why haven’t I done it?

I have no excuse for not preparing a 1 minute campaign speech for each of my novels, other than it’s a daunting thing. That’s one of the things I’m going to work on. Because, again someday, I’ll have a story written that I have pushed past the 60-70% completion point – the point where it’s hard to finish stitching together the rough main ideas – and want to actually take the plunge and send it to some experts to see if they want to publish it.

And I’ll make sure that I smile at the end of the speech.