friends – Sharon M. Scarborough-Author

Chin Up

Many of my friends have stopped watching the news. It’s depressing and after you’ve heard a dozen variations on virus symptoms, dangers, treatment, etc., it gets even more depressing with repetition.

What to do? What to do? As a writer, I wish I could write funny novels-nothing roll-in-the-floor funny, but light with a giggle or two. It’s beyond me. Sigh.

I can’t even remember jokes for over an hour, even though I do love jokes. And, let me be clear, I am still frightened, but I have got to think about something else in order to survive.

So, I will pass on some of the “doings” that help me keep the chin up.

1. Meditate. I try for three minutes and hope to get to more as I get better.

2. Count my blessings. I know, I know,that is such a cliche, but as someone who didn’t know four years ago how long I would live, it’s truth.

3. Throw the ball for my dog to fetch and understand how happy he is with that simple action.

4. Eat a bowl of ice cream and enjoy how creamy and sweet and absolutely decadent it tastes.

Once in my past I would have thought that if I’d been confined to my house, for whatever reason, that I would easily write that great novel that is inside of me. Alas, that is not true. I am flummoxed and astonished at the difficulty I am having in composing one sentence, let alone enough for a novel.

The circumstances of this confinement are not good.

Finally, I heard or read, that I am suffering from grief. And from expectations that far outweigh my strength right now. Because I am sad, not sleeping well, like many people in this world, I feel worn out.

The help is to be kinder to myself. That may not cure everything but it will help.

Quit demanding too much of your self. Understand that you are grieving. Rest, watch a sunset, read a book, walk the dog (Maxx would agree to that), but take care of yourself.

We will get through this. It will not be quick and painless, but we will survive and laugh and love again.

Breathtaking

Just when I think I’ve sort of got a handle on finding out what is really important in life, someone, in this case Maxx, makes me see that I don’t have a clue.

I’ve been rushing around trying to finish the next book and Mother Nature hits us with a winter freeze. Now, what those two things have in common (the book and frigid weather) is that many people are affected by this weather, and no one is affected if my book doesn’t make it to Amazon immediately.

The result is I have slowed to consider front and back matter in the book. I actually meditated today. And Maxx has chased the ball a lot but will do more tomorrow.

What happened—it’s those big brown eyes that shows a dog does have empathy, and he does need attention, and he gives big returns on love.

Librarians

Just because I love books…..

I just re-read about the horsewomen of Kentucky who worked for the WPA delivering library books on horseback to remote towns and homes. Part of the article from Atlas Obscura (8/31/17) follows:

“They were known as the “book women.” They would saddle up, usually at dawn, to pick their way along snowy hillsides and through muddy creeks with a simple goal: to deliver reading material to Kentucky’s isolated mountain communities.

The Pack Horse Library initiative was part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA), created to help lift America out of the Great Depression, during which, by 1933, unemployment had risen to 40 percent in Appalachia. Roving horseback libraries weren’t entirely new to Kentucky, but this initiative was an opportunity to boost both employment and literacy at the same time.”

The article is amazing.

Edits

I’m working on edits of the next Nightingale novel. I hesitate to mention this because there will be many, many, more go rounds of this process because I want it to be done well, to be professional, and enjoyable for a reader. I strive to have no errors in the final book.

In a workshop this past week one of the attendees said she was really disappointed in the errors in the books she had bought on line. That’s what I want to avoid. That’s why I pay an editor and proofreader and cover designer. Why would anyone ever buy another book with my name on it if the first one he/she bought is full of errors?

So, that’s my story. . . it’s in progress, but Nightingale and Garrick are restless to get busy. Stay tuned.

Songs

I’ve been shuffling papers lately, working on the new manuscript, throwing out old bills, re-stacking some stacks of items I want to re-read. It seems the bane of my existence is reading. Of course, I mean that in a good way. Reading has always sheltered me from some storms and delivered me from others.

One of the things I’ve found was a copy of the lyrics of “Make Someone Happy.” Essentially, the song says, “Make just one heart the heart you sing to.” And, if you devote yourself to that one person, you’ll make someone happy, “And you will be happy too.”

Reading those lyrics made me smile—in the midst of taxes, rainy days, and a stubborn manuscript—I smiled. Look the song up, it might make you smile too.

New Produce

Our memories from childhood are the things that often resurface when we get older. I have a vivid memory of biting into a fresh tomato, still warm from being on the vine in the garden and the juice running down my face onto the front of my top. Then, of course, I added salt to the ripened red fruit. Disclaimer—scientifically a tomato is a fruit; to me it’s still a vegetable. And there was nothing better tasting to me. I have not found a tomato to match that taste in several decades.

The problem is that in my memory nothing can match that atmosphere of sitting on the front porch and eating tomatoes.

Unless it was sitting on the porch and eating watermelon. Now that was really a treat. My grandparents didn’t grow watermelons. They were smart and admitted their limitations. Grandmother was magic in the garden, but she never mastered watermelons. Truth be told, it took a certain soil to raise good watermelons.

At any rate, Granddaddy usually was the picker. After looking over a truckload of melons and thumping and looking at the field spot (you know, that flattened yellow spot where the melon sat and grew, soaking up moisture and sunshine slowly, getting sweeter and juicer each day) he would commit to a purchase. Then, after a trip home, the melon got rolled under the bed on the linoleum in the coolest room and left there for at least a day to be as cool as possible before cutting.

Sadly, most melons and tomatoes today don’t taste as good as they used to. I think that’s due to memories setting the goal so high, but also to the rush. Farmers are rushed to get produce to market. And you know what happens when you mess with (rush) Mother Nature.

One of my girls is going to have a raised garden next year. It will be hard, hot work, but she’s excited to get to it. I know my grandmother will be there in spirit, cheering her on.

“You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.”

-Annie Proulx

Home

When do we start calling a place home? I started calling the different house “home” the first night I slept there. We (I’m including Maxx in this because he whines when we get near home) were eager to get into new digs. Photo from Unsplash by Annie Spratt

Maxx has already settled into home by napping in the sunshine or running after a squirrel. I began being more at home after unpacking a few boxes and setting up the computer for writing. I have been pretty good at writing something everyday since we’ve moved.

Sometimes I only get a few sentences done, but I try to not be too hard on myself. I’m still learning and will continue to learn about this craft called writing as I settle into a new home.

Love to Write?

Photo from Unsplash by Annie Spratt

When I mentioned Dwight Swain’s book in an earlier post I started thinking about people who write because they love to write for themselves. Every writer I know loves to write because they enjoy putting words on paper, but ultimately, they want to share.

Does any writer put words on paper and then put the paper in a desk drawer? (Yes, I know, first drafts should never see the light of day, forever in the trunk or drawer or burned. Some of my prose….aye yah yuk.; but I digress.)

What I’m getting at is that some people write because they love writing, and some people write because they are good at it and want to get paid for their work. So, books about the craft may address the esoteric reasons for writing and some may simply address how to make your essay or novel clearer.

No matter what the reason for writing, if it makes you feel better to get the words on paper, I think its valuable—maybe even therapeutic. And read—reading makes a better writer, but that’s a different post.

Category: friends