Surprise!

       This weekend I finished Jodi Picoult's Leaving Time. In fact, I got up an extra half hour early to finish it... on a Saturday morning... when I had a 7 A.M. workshop to present at... it was that good.

       Around 30 or 40 pages from the end, I was a bit confused. Not terribly, but just experiencing a slight sense of disequilibrium. What is going on? I wondered.

        However, I soon understood--I was going around a major twisty-turn that Picoult had crafted like the talented pro that she is.

         Read Leaving Time. You won't be able to predict the ending until you get there (I almost guarantee it).

        And if you want to find out more about the elephant sanctuary in Tennessee, go here.

          What surprise have you been "gifted" with lately? (It could be a pleasant surprise--like, "Wow, Radar wasn't digging this time," or it could be not so pleasant, like "I'm amazed my arm can be pulled out of its socket several times a day when I walk the 73-pound puppy and I haven't experienced permanent damage yet.")

A Good Book is Hard to Find

        This the kind of book that makes you want to have a reason to spend a long time in the bathroom... the kind of novel that makes you not mind getting stuck at the tracks while a never-ending, slow-moving train clanks by... the kind of story you're going to miss when you read the last line on the last page.

        Okay, I admit it. I'm not finished with it yet. I'm somewhere between two-thirds and three-fourths of the way through it. However, only one of Picoult's novels was a disappointment to me, and I didn't like that one from close to the beginning, so I'm fairly confident this will be wonderful til the very end.

       It's part mystery (a mother has been missing for ten years) and part elephant journal. If you love elephants, if you hate circuses (because of the animal acts), if you'd like an insider's view into an elephant sanctuary, this is the book for you. Picoult did research at the Tennessee sanctuary (there's only one other in the U.S.--it's in California) and in the wild in Botswana. If you read it, you'll learn a lot about how elephants grieve...and what wonderful mothers elephant mamas are.

      Below is a link to a page that includes an interview with Jodi Picoult about the book. 

      And since I'll be finished with this book soon, what are some recommendations for my next one?

Silver Bells? Silver Linings?

          Sometimes bad experiences have a "silver lining." Sometimes you only have to look at things from a different perspective to see the positive side of things.
      
        I had a story rejected by Chicken Soup for the Soul (a Christmas anthology) a couple of years ago. In fact, I had two of them rejected. Okay, to be honest, the ones that don't make it don't ever get a rejection notice. You just end up never hearing about them. In this instance, no news is bad news... After all, I like to increase my odds. If I send in three stories, I get the chance to get disappointed three times. But I also think they might get so tired of reading my stuff, they'll occasionally accept one just to shut me up.
       
           Yesterday I submitted one of those Christmas stories again. I had completely revamped it, took out some details and fleshed out others. Today, I reworked a story I submitted to CS's "Hope and Miracles" collection. They passed on it, so perhaps a warmed-up second helping of the same tale--completely rewritten--will be a tastier treat. I'll be bringing it to my critique group to see what they think of it, and then will submit it for the "Think Possible" anthology.

          This is a kind of jazzy version of "Silver Bells," sung by Meaghan Smith. (I had to get in silver bells somehow.) It was either this, or the Twisted Sister version. Perhaps people who are buried under in snow can enjoy these snow-free winter scenes...

          

        What have you rewritten or reworked or revamped lately? It could be a room, a recipe, or a writing piece. My nosey self wants to know...

 

Editing and Performing

       Yesterday I saw an interview with Jodi Picoult. Her newest novel (number 22) is Leaving Time. It has two storylines--one about a missing mother and one about elephants. Picoult traveled to one of the two elephant sanctuaries in the U.S. (Tennessee; the other is in California) and she also went to Botswana to work with a woman who studies elephants in the wild.

       If you know Jodi Picoult's books, you know there is going to be some twists and turns, and you also know you're going to learn something--in this case, a lot about elephants. In her past books her readers benefitted from her research on the Amish, wolves, and various medical conditions.

       In the interview, she said "You can edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank page."  She also talked about the limited amount of writing time she had when her kids weren't in school yet. She learned to write in spite of it. When her kids were all in school, she had most of the day to write--it was such a luxury--and now doesn't consider "writer's block--a valid thing, since she became so adept at writing in small snatches of time.

       As far as performing... It might not be too late to submit to the Listen to Your Mother show that's nearest to you. The St. Louis show's deadline for submissions is February 16. They are looking for stories that fall under the "motherhood" umbrella, so even if you don't have any kids, you have/had a  mother, and they might even snap at a story about your four-legged babies. If you're not in the St. Louis area, find out where the nearest show is going to be (it's always around Mother's Day) and submit...

         How about you? Do you have lots of bad pages now or lots of blank pages? And are you going to submit to your local Listen to Your Mother show? If not, why not? Pushy minds want to know...

Perseverance Pays Off

     A couple of years ago I took violin lessons right next to my third grade students. I did it because--year after year--I tried to encourage them to keep practicing, to not give up... I talked the talk, telling them they would learn so much in less than a year, that it would get easier.

     It was incredibly hard when I walked the walk. My fat, uncoordinated fingers strained to produce close approximations of the notes. The violin teacher cheated--I think--and passed me on some songs simply because she didn't want to hear any more of the caterwauling my bow created.

      Most of my students learned 8-12 songs that year. I learned 3 (and at least one of those "passes" was a gift from the violin instructor)...and I sweated bullets each time I had to perform as I was tested on each song.  

      Today one of my kids reluctantly went to violin class. Last week she had a tough time during the lesson. I'm hoping she sticks with it. She'll be really proud of herself in a few months if she doesn't give up.

       What did your family teach you about persistence and perseverance? What have been some of the toughest tasks--or the funniest--to slog through? Non-musical minds want to know... 

Could I Have Cheese With That Whine?

       I just finished Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken. The woman really does her research, that's for sure. (She also wrote Seabiscuit, and although I adore the movie, I've never read the book.)  If you haven't read it, do so before you watch the movie. I know the film couldn't cover everything in the book, and it's worth the anguish you'll experience as you read Louie Zamperini's account of getting shot down, surviving for over forty days on a raft with no food and little water, getting captured by the Japanese troops and surviving unbelievably bad treatment in a Japanese POW camp.

         In my mind, most people are either whiners or sloggers. There are people who complain about what they don't have. They grouse about their job. They whine about their lot in life. At least they are alive, they have a job and there is always someone who was born into a worse situation.

        Sloggers keep plugging along. They might be moving at a slow pace. They might have trouble sometimes just putting one foot in front of the other. But they keep moving forward.

        What do you do when you're stuck with a whiner or you encounter one? Impatient minds want to know...