It was snowing tonight, on top of what we had here in northern Ill. It looked like sugar on top of white frosting when the sun went down and the light in our yard went on.
I can't believe another year has come and gone already. 2008 will be my 20th anniversary with same man. We've come a long way. Lots of ups and downs, deaths and births.
But I'm not going to get sentimental here. Just wondering where to go from here. Since this is out there, and I'm thinking of trying to get Not Far Enough published, I think I'll just back off on posting it here for now. I've actually got a tremendous amount of material in my journals, I don't really need to do that one.
I drive a bus for a university. It gets interesting from time to time. But I get sick of it--the cleavages, the butt cracks, the idiot drivers out there. Because it's a college run bus system, there isn't a whole lot going on during the summer. Only three buses run, instead of 14. I've seniority, so I get a run. I hate summer runs. Seems the weirdos and drunks come out of the woodwork.
I had one get on with a whole bunch of people, and I didn't know it. I thought someone was being overly loud, and after about half the people got off, I saw him. He started bugging the women on board.
I asked him where he was going. "Student Center," he said.
I groaned inwardly. He's going right back to where he got on!
After everyone got off, I'm all by myself with The Drunk, and I call into base, telling them what's going on. Meanwhile, I get a teenager on, a very nice kid, and he tells me to wait for a wheelchair guy--oh great! Now I'll have a kid, a wheelchair and a drunk on my bus. Could the run get any worse?
Well, it did. I looked back, after everyone is on, and I see The Drunk crawling around on the dirty floor of the bus, trying to retrieve his cigarette. And once he does he offers it to the kid, who wisely refuses it with "I don't smoke."
Meanwhile, my supervisor, John, tells me to hang on. He's calling the police, and I tell him where I'm at--I'm still driving down the road--a country road, and I'm turning back toward town.
I'm bumping along, and I see The Drunk Flick his Bic. I yell, "Don't you dare light that up!" in my harshest voice. And he stops and looks at me like I just hit him with a newspaper.
John tells me to not move another inch from where I am. I'm presently coming up to my next stop. And there's someone waiting for the bus. Oh, no. It's the homeless guy. He had a big gut on him, heavy build. My husband dubbed him "Caveman" because he rather resembles one.
Now I have a drunk, a kid, a wheelchair and the homeless guy on my bus. Sounds like the beginning of a lame joke. But it's not.
When Caveman gets on, and takes his seat quietly, like always--I've never had a problem with Caveman--The Drunk says, "Hey, Richard."
Caveman swings his dark head his way and glares at him. "I don't know you, and I don't know how you know my name."
Okay . . . this is getting way too interesting.
Wheelchair guy says, "You'd better get your ass off this bus, or the police are going to come and do it for you." That's telling him.
The Drunk just ignores this, has a Been-there-done-that sort of attitude. He says to Caveman. "Hey, Richard, you're crazy."
Okay, I have confirmation that police are on their way. I secure the bus, and grab the kid and I'm off the frigging bus before they go at each other.
Enter Policeman. The Policeman comes around from his car, looks into my bus after I tell him what's going on, and says, "Oh! Chris! I just had to take care of him!" Goodie. Maybe you should take him to the tank and keep him locked up a while????
It took about 45 minutes for my blood pressure to go back down. I really needed my vacation, and was happy it was in less than two weeks!
The above was from my journal entry of June of 2007.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
THE WRITING DRAGON
I know of no other occupation in which you do so much work and get zilch in return. And then the converse is true. I've read and heard many times of people who decided just yesterday to begin writing a book, like a romance, or a mystery, or whatever. They hammer it out and in a few months, they're done and send it out. And then boom! They're first time authors with a book contract.
There was one such story which I recall. In 1978/79 a teacher by the name of Lucy Phillips Stewart who lived in southern Illinois, had just read a romance novel, and thought it was really bad, and said to her husband, "I can do better." And he said, "Well, give it a try." And she did. In a matter of months, she'd written a Regency Romance, and sent it off to Dell--no agent, mind you--and they wrote back wanting to see the rest. They loved it, and bought it, and she wrote more novels, and I'm sure she retired well off.
Sometimes they haven't even gotten out of high school, and they have a book contract. Such is the case of Christopher Paolini, who wrote Eragon at age 15. At first he self-published and promoted his work with his parent's blessings, and was DISCOVERED by another novelist!
These are just a few examples of people who really had not had all the fun in collecting rejection slips, like a lot of us have.
I'm a Boomer--Baby Boomer--and I began writing when I was 16. I took a creative writing class in high school. I didn't write anything noteworthy, nothing literary. Just some poems and short stories. I liked the class so much, I took it again the next semester. Privately I wrote about my fantasies mostly. I had a big crush on Paul McCartney and my friends encouraged it. Then, one day I told my teacher that I liked writing so much that I planned on becoming a writer.
Did she encourage me? No. Instead she told me to choose another vocation because my spelling and grammar were really bad. Another vocation, you mean like get a job in a factory where I didn't have to use my brain?
Perhaps she didn't know it--possibly no one knew it, because I didn't--that I was dyslexic. I didn't know I was dyslexic until my late 40's. By then it was too late to discourage me. The writing bug had bitten me really bad.
Ignoring my teacher in high school, I went on to college and took another creative writing course. This time the teacher didn't eye my work for errors. He encouraged us all. He was, after all, a published writer, himself. I'd learned as much as I could, had fun learning something for a change. I had moved on from my crazy girlish fantasies and worked on poetry and tried my hand at more serious writing. And I began keeping a journal--I called it a diary, then--and still do to this day.
It wasn't until 1983, when I had begun communicating with other writers, I had a chance to join a writing critique class when I thought I might have a chance to be published, finally. I was writing horror fiction, at the time, and was in contact with another writer who'd had his book published--as well as a number of other things--and encouraged me to take his writing class. We'll call him James, and he lived in the next state over. It was too far for me to drive everyday, so he worked it out that I could stay in his house--pay him room and board. I didn't know where this would lead, because at the time I didn't know he was married, not until just up to the point when I accepted the deal.
I can't say that it was a life-changing experience, but it did give me an insight into a life I hadn't experience before. I got to rub elbows with other writers--all of them authors of one sort or another. But also, I must report, I knew just from the letters he'd written me, and the one time I'd met him for lunch in Savannah, that I would have to watch myself around him.
And rightly so, because he kissed me, right there in his house one day. It wasn't great by any stretch of the imagination. I mean it didn't make my toes curl, or give me a chill down my back, or make me want to sing the Hallelujah Chorus. It was more like being kissed by my paunchy, balding, cigar-smoking uncle. If I had a paunchy, cigar-smoking uncle. If anything, it made me want to turn tail and run.
In my next entry, I'd like to write about this experience--in segments, of course. I call it Not Far Enough
There was one such story which I recall. In 1978/79 a teacher by the name of Lucy Phillips Stewart who lived in southern Illinois, had just read a romance novel, and thought it was really bad, and said to her husband, "I can do better." And he said, "Well, give it a try." And she did. In a matter of months, she'd written a Regency Romance, and sent it off to Dell--no agent, mind you--and they wrote back wanting to see the rest. They loved it, and bought it, and she wrote more novels, and I'm sure she retired well off.
Sometimes they haven't even gotten out of high school, and they have a book contract. Such is the case of Christopher Paolini, who wrote Eragon at age 15. At first he self-published and promoted his work with his parent's blessings, and was DISCOVERED by another novelist!
These are just a few examples of people who really had not had all the fun in collecting rejection slips, like a lot of us have.
I'm a Boomer--Baby Boomer--and I began writing when I was 16. I took a creative writing class in high school. I didn't write anything noteworthy, nothing literary. Just some poems and short stories. I liked the class so much, I took it again the next semester. Privately I wrote about my fantasies mostly. I had a big crush on Paul McCartney and my friends encouraged it. Then, one day I told my teacher that I liked writing so much that I planned on becoming a writer.
Did she encourage me? No. Instead she told me to choose another vocation because my spelling and grammar were really bad. Another vocation, you mean like get a job in a factory where I didn't have to use my brain?
Perhaps she didn't know it--possibly no one knew it, because I didn't--that I was dyslexic. I didn't know I was dyslexic until my late 40's. By then it was too late to discourage me. The writing bug had bitten me really bad.
Ignoring my teacher in high school, I went on to college and took another creative writing course. This time the teacher didn't eye my work for errors. He encouraged us all. He was, after all, a published writer, himself. I'd learned as much as I could, had fun learning something for a change. I had moved on from my crazy girlish fantasies and worked on poetry and tried my hand at more serious writing. And I began keeping a journal--I called it a diary, then--and still do to this day.
It wasn't until 1983, when I had begun communicating with other writers, I had a chance to join a writing critique class when I thought I might have a chance to be published, finally. I was writing horror fiction, at the time, and was in contact with another writer who'd had his book published--as well as a number of other things--and encouraged me to take his writing class. We'll call him James, and he lived in the next state over. It was too far for me to drive everyday, so he worked it out that I could stay in his house--pay him room and board. I didn't know where this would lead, because at the time I didn't know he was married, not until just up to the point when I accepted the deal.
I can't say that it was a life-changing experience, but it did give me an insight into a life I hadn't experience before. I got to rub elbows with other writers--all of them authors of one sort or another. But also, I must report, I knew just from the letters he'd written me, and the one time I'd met him for lunch in Savannah, that I would have to watch myself around him.
And rightly so, because he kissed me, right there in his house one day. It wasn't great by any stretch of the imagination. I mean it didn't make my toes curl, or give me a chill down my back, or make me want to sing the Hallelujah Chorus. It was more like being kissed by my paunchy, balding, cigar-smoking uncle. If I had a paunchy, cigar-smoking uncle. If anything, it made me want to turn tail and run.
In my next entry, I'd like to write about this experience--in segments, of course. I call it Not Far Enough
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