Happy Thanksgiving!

   It's thankful time! One thing I'm thankful for: soldiers who are spending their Thanksgivings and Christmases far away from home, for the good of others.
   A week or two ago I dropped off a box of hot chocolate and a card at the campus library. A group of ladies will send it and other gifts to deployed troops. If you like soldier stories like I do, then maybe this scenario will ring a story bell for you. Here's the card illustration (I worked hard on the coloring!).

What are you thankful for?

Fun Facts

   Making alliterations or poems out of my homework helps me remember it better. You should try it. It's fun! (Sorry for the messed formatting on the poems. They didn't fit!)

Bachelor Buchanan Balanced the Budget!

Buchanan

Shoemaker

Eugene Shoemaker

Never lived in a shoe

But he really, really --hankered

To go to the moon

He studied quite a lot

To be ready for his flight

And  found Earth's craters --fraught

With the mineral cozite

Giorgione

Giorgione was no phony

He changed Venetian painting --ways

'Twas oil on wood before his day

But he dismissed that as baloney

Venice has no roads you see

And to painters' great dismay

Importing quickly turned passé

(Góndolas struggled with loads --so hefty)

So Giorgione, Titian's master

Solved the problem of too much --water

Averting fearfully near disaster

Canvas he found to be the --answer!

Something to Chew On

   If the phrase "a raisin in the sun" sounds familiar, you may have already pondered what happens to dreams deferred, but what about voices unheard?

Courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

You've got the words to change a nation

But you're biting your tongue

You've spent a life time stuck in silence

Afraid you'll say something wrong

If no one ever hears it how we gonna learn your song?

So come, on come on

Come on, come on

You've got a heart as loud as lions

So why let your voice be tamed?

Baby we're a little different

There's no need to be ashamed

You've got the light to fight the shadows

So stop hiding it away

Come on, Come on 

I wanna sing, I wanna shout 

I wanna scream till the words dry out

--Emeli Sande, "Read All About It (Part III)"

   Beauty, enjoyment, travel, audience--I write for a lot of reasons, but one is so that I, who stammer for an answer in face-to-face conversation and think of good comebacks twenty minutes too late, may be eloquent. I write to free my voice that sometimes gets buried under layers of insecurity--to let it be heard.

How do you make your voice heard?

My Tribute on Veterans' Day

   I wrote this poem a few years ago. I've changed my mind now about how much I actually understand about freedom, nation, or sacrifice, but the patriotic gist of wanting to honor both those who died and those who survived rings true, and this is my tribute today.

Something More Than Dye

In this current day and age, I live in profound liberty.

Before I carry on this way

I’m first obliged to understand

Through portals writ in faded ink

Freedom, nation, sacrifice.

In images antique I see

A boy dressed up in soldier’s clothes

Broken for our liberty, while we are dressed in mockery;

A young girl, silent, bearing stripes and scars from whips most cruel,

While we object to wounded pride with curses from our lips.

I think I hear the echoed cries, I think I understand.

“Who else with me will carry on the cause for which they fought?”

Perhaps if you could see with me

The fields laid thick with those who fell,

Perhaps if you could feel with me

The burning tears of friend made foe by nation rent in two,

Perhaps if you could glimpse the fear

In marching headfirst into iron

From endless cannon blasts,

Perhaps if you could comprehend

You’d leave your foolish trifles be.

Do not let it be in vain that countless fell, indeed, to pay

The price that made this nation One

Or gave you this day liberty.

Take the gift before you now; don’t squander it away

With scoffing words, indifference, I see so oft today.

Above our heads waves fabric striped with something more than dye.

Before you hustle on with life, salute with me and say

What war-torn fields have always cried, “Under God, our Nation’s One.

The price has been full paid.”

Author Interview: Heather Dixon

Wentworth Castle Gardens (what do ya know?)
Courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

   Have you been looking forward to this? I have! Thanks to Heather Dixon (author of Entwined) for answering these q's!

How old is Azalea?

She's 15 at the beginning of the book, and 16--nearly 17--by the end.

Who was the inspiration for hilarious Lord Teddie?

That would be Bertie Wooster, of PG Wodehouse fame (who I'm kind of in love with). In fact he was originally named Lord Bertie...but it was decided he would be better at a Lord Teddie.  He's my favorite fella in the story ;)

When you started writing Entwined did you hope to get it published, or were you writing for a smaller audience?

I didn't think much about publishing or audience.  In the beginning, I thought it would be fun to write it as an illustrated story!  In the end, I just wrote what felt right, and tried to make the best story I can.  After I'd been working 2 or 3 years on it, I was lucky enough to attend a writing conference where an editor like the story as much as I did.  I think the best thing to do with writing is to write for yourself and the story first.

Did you use your many sisters as sounding boards as you wrote? I read online that one of them came up with the title.

You are quite right!  My second-to-youngest sister, Lilli, came up with the title "Entwined".  She was 17 at the time.  My sisters were also the first people to read the story, and they were more than honest in what they thought worked and what didn't.  I'm pretty lucky to have them.

How does your faith affect your writing?

Hmmm.  This is an interesting question, and one I've never been asked before.  I'm actually pretty religious (though you probably can't tell from my blog) and it does affect my story work.  On the surface, it's simple things; Family is important in the story, and I don't like to have profanity or innuendoes in my work; that's not my style.  (Of course that doesn't make me shy from going dark!)  On a deeper level, I feel very strongly about redemption, and try to make it the focus of every story I write.  I feel like that's the theme of everyone's life.  It certainly has been that way for me.

Heather Dixon's  blog: StoryMonster

Other interviews: The Book Rat
                             Melanie's Musings
                             The Bookish Type
                             Tynga's Reviews
                             Fantastic Book Review (hilarious comment about police uniforms)
                             Jean Book Nerd
                             ADR3NALIN3 (this interview is in white letters against black screen--it kind of hurt my eyes)
  

Happy November+Book Review: Entwined

   Happy November! If it's cold outside where you are, make yourself some apple cider or pumpkin muffins and read! If you're a fan of ABC's "Once Upon a Time," or just like fairytales in general, I recommend Entwined for your fall reading.

   Entwined is the Victorian Era retelling of the Grimm Brothers' fairy tale The Twelve Dancing Princesses (my fave since before I could read). In it, the alphabetically named and nearly penniless Wentworth princesses and the King live in the kingdom of Eathesbury. When their mother dies, the household goes into mourning. They aren't allowed to go outside, their colorful clothes is dyed black, drapes cover the windows to block out sunlight, and worst of all, they aren't allowed the one activity that helps them cope and gives them joy--dancing. On top of that the King treats his children coldly. Soon, though, the oldest daughter, Azalea  discovers a magical pavilion owned by a mysterious but handsome gentleman named Keeper. To the sisters' delight, he invites them to come back and dance to their hearts' content! Will the pavilion be the solution to, or a whole nother set of problems?

   There are so many things I loved about this book. It has all the best bits of a fairytale: dancing, flowing gowns, graceful curtsies, handsome gentlemen, secret passages, gardens, horseback riding in the rain. It has shy (Clover) and bold (Bramble) and lovable (Lord Bradford and Lord Teddie) characters, hilarious lines, and darker tones of a curse, and a really sinister villain to balance out the floofty business. I was stuck to this book for two days, eating it up like a delicious cookie.

   I only had a couple of complaints. One was that Azalea (and the next two oldest sisters) were quite rash and immature (especially childish in how they treated their father), but that turned out all right because they learned better in the end. The other was that, well, it was so good and so what I would like to write, that I'm slightly jealous it's already been written! But that's okay, too, because I got to read it, and I got to interview the humble, bubbly, funny, talented author, Heather Dixon, specially for the Well in the Wood! Keep your eye out for it in the next post!

*free photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net