I Won!

Posted on December 1, 2011 by literarylee

I wrote 51,722 words of my first novel, Marigold Man, in 30 days, from November 1 to November 30.  The folks who run National Novel Writing Month call that winning.  Here is a quote from the organization’s Winner’s Page:

Congratulations, novelist!  You won!  Here at NaNoWriMo HQ, we are partying hard in recognition of your epic accomplishment this month. One month ago, you committed yourself to this wild write-a-thon: 30 days of high-velocity, pedal-to-the-metal noveling.  And now, 50,000 words and one month later, you are a NaNoWriMo Winner!

National Novel Writing Month isn’t really a competition.  It’s actually more of an exercise for writers and writer wannabes like me.  The only prizes for winners are downloadable images like the one, below, plus a certificate.

My cyber laurel wreath. Winning is more than its own reward.

Reflecting on the experience, I made a list of the actual prizes I won:  Continue reading →

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The Shrimp

Posted on November 30, 2011 by literarylee

Ogden Nash

A shrimp who sought his lady shrimp
Could catch no glimpse
Not even a glimp.
At times, translucence
Is rather a nuisance.

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Hello from Bombay – A Letter I Wrote to American Schoolchildren

Posted on November 29, 2011 by literarylee

(Some of the earlier letters I had written home from Bombay had found their way to a local school.  The teacher asked if I could write about a typical day in our life in Bombay.  Here is the result.)

April 1998

Dear Friends:

I heard that you were interested to hear about my family’s life in Bombay, India.  I will tell you what a typical day is like.

One of the first things I do in the morning is brush my teeth.  I walk to the sink, take my toothbrush, and get it wet with drinking water from a bottle.   I also rinse my mouth out with water from a bottle.  The water from the faucet here in India can make you very sick if you drink it, so we have to boil it first, then pour it through a filter so it will be clean and good.  Our maid uses a big, big pot to boil water every few days.

When the whole family is awake Our maid/cook  serves us breakfast.  Her name is Patsy and she is from here in India.  In the United States only a very few people have servants, but here many, many people have servants.  Patsy cooks our meals, shops for food, washes the dishes after meals, does the laundry (she even irons my shirts!), and cleans the floors and bathrooms.  My wife I are used to doing things for ourselves, but Patsy gets frustrated when we do the jobs she thinks are hers to do and she says, “No madam (this is what she calls Anita, and she calls me sir), I can do that!”  Patsy is a very hard worker.  She is also very nice.  Continue reading →

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Duck 22

Posted on November 28, 2011 by literarylee

Stop peeking, duck!

Duck Series Gallery

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Autumn Movement Reflections

Posted on November 25, 2011 by literarylee

November, 2009

I’ve been reviewing the poem “Autumn Movement” by Carl Sandburg and watching Fall  beauty come and go and realizing the harder lesson of this season.  The easy thing Fall teaches is to be grateful for what we have and are.  We are surrounded by bushels of apples and piles of pumpkins, strings of braided garlic pulled last July and winter squash on shelves in the basement, not to mention the more precious gifts: family and friends.  This is the season of thanks giving.  It is the time of year we set things by, and then sit a spell to rest and celebrate the plenty.  We can relax a moment in the fullness of what we have been provided, and even take a minute or an hour to  give a portion of the excess to whoever doesn’t have enough.  This sense of satisfaction and completion, fullness and sharing is the first lesson Autumn teaches any who encounters it:  Autumn 101: Basic Celebration of Plenty.

This year, I find myself unwittingly enrolled in Autumn 201: Letting Go of What You’d Like to Keep.  With Sandburg, I’m having to recognize that “no beautiful thing lasts.”  With the poet, I am learning to cry at its loss, and to cry at my wanting to hold on to what is beautiful, at what I want to keep even if it’s time to let it go.  All my life  I have been focused on the holding and the satisfaction.  Now I’m thinking about the no-longer-holding part, the loss of all this beauty, from the garden and the leaves, to my comfort, to maybe even one of my dear ones (though thankfully I haven’t had to learn that lesson, yet).  I’m also trying to gain the wisdom that “new, beautiful, things come,” many even brought by the same force that took the original things away in the first place.

Dear God, make me thankful for abundance yet willing to give it up.  Help me trust the new, beautiful things I can’t see yet, but are just around the corner.  Amen

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Layered Landmarks

Posted on November 23, 2011 by literarylee

Heapin' Helpin' of Landmarks

I noticed this view way back in spring and note it almost every morning from the bus as it crosses the Potomac on the 14th Street Bridge traveling from Virginia to the District of Columbia.  I thought if I were standing in just the right spot, I could get these four landmarks, not often photographed together, in one shot.  If one part of photography is having an eye to see the picture, another is being at precisely the exact place to get it.  Maybe photographers wish they could defy gravity, at times, to capture the perfect angle.

The other day I finally got to where I needed to be: on a pedestrian walkway along the westbound lane of the same bridge.  I have to say, the resulting photo wasn’t quite as magical as I expected.  A blue sky and full sun would have helped.  I also think I should have been standing another hundred feet closer but that would have required hovering about 25 feet above the river.  I have been known to break a few rules, but I’m not good at defying gravity.

My next challenge was finding the right caption.  Pile o’ Landmarks?  Continue reading →

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A Raw, Unedited Marigold Man Excerpt

Posted on November 22, 2011 by literarylee

(In which Paul’s neighbor, Condor, suggests that Project Marigold might be more successful with a team of people planting plants, instead of just Paul planting seeds on his own.  Note:  I haven’t re-written or edited this.  It is raw, baby, raw.  No apologies for any mistakes, errors, or things that sound dumb.)

Condor and I stepped outside onto his terrace.  It was as if a wet blanket had been spread on the neighborhood, the humid, moist air hung so heavily.  The sky had grown darker, too, great gray clouds sailing above us, great ships, heavy with their wet cargo.  “Looks like it’s really going to storm, soon.  Should we move the operation indoors?” I asked.  “No way, man.  Are you kidding?  I’m not going to let a little rain spoil grilling.”  Grilling was one of Condor’s hobbies, almost one of his loves.  He knew all about rubs and mops and what wood should smoke what meat.  His grilling abilities were famous.  He had even won a few ribbons.  He lighted the charcoal, got it settled and set, and turned to me and said, “Paul, look at me.  Look me in the eye and tell me you’re ready to give this thing up.”  I didn’t say anything for a minute.  I watched the smoke rise from the charcoal and rise up into the sky, joining the huge gray ships overhead.  The flotilla was increasing, more and more joining, all hugely laden with rain.  In the distance I heard thunder, cannon fire from one of the ships.  “No, Condor, I don’t.  You know I don’t.  But I’m a little stuck.  Continue reading →

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Mum’s The Word Update

Posted on November 21, 2011 by literarylee

Once upon a time in the distant recesses of garden history, those heady, hopeful, virile days of tilling soil and planting seed, I started 24 mum plants.  Each was simply a few inches of snipped chrysanthemum hope, dipped in a little hormone powder (hormones and spring, a natural pair) and plunged into a pot of soil.

Whither these mumlets?  What was their fate?

They set up shop in a shady place under some bushes and on top of almighty ivy in our front yard in the Lorelei Herb Garden Annex (LHGA).  Shaded from the merciless rays of this summer’s particularly hot sun, and watered regularly and abundantly, they grew and thrived.  I neither snipped nor clipped them once (I should have), yet they branched out nicely enough.  By mid-July when we went to a family reunion, they had become cute little bushlets, good enough for gifts.  I gave several of these new mums away, including to my parents, a symbol of my gratitude, I suppose, for their fortuitous life-creating many, many ages ago.  Back home, we gave more away to friends and relatives, gifts that cost me only a few shekels for the soil and the re-used pots, and a summer of watching and waiting.

I kept a trio of the original 24, a nice odd number of now flowering mum plants to brighten the fall display and remind me of inexorable, beautiful life.

Before the last gifting left three for me

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Autumn Movement

Posted on November 18, 2011 by literarylee

Carl Sandburg

I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.

The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper
sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.

The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes,
new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind,
and the old things go, not one lasts.

 

Autumn Movement reflections

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Epitaph Collection – part 2

Posted on November 17, 2011 by literarylee

I first discussed my interest in epitaphs in October, a month I thought appropriate for such things, not only because of Halloween, but also because October 14 is the anniversary of the Female Stranger‘s death.  I will be sharing other epitaphs over the coming months.  I find them fascinating because they show a snippet of a person’s life.  In theory, you’d think the epitaph writer would have chosen the most important parts.  I find myself wanting to fill in the blanks and write a story about the deceased based on the tombstone’s words.  Sometimes when I am in a cemetery collecting epitaphs, I just write them down in a notebook.  Other times, like with these, I make notes.  I try to copy the epitaph with the same word spacing and order as it appears on the stone.

The first two are from the large old cemetery in Alexandria.  CSA, by the way, stands for Confederate States of America.

Captain Austin D. H, C.S.A.
63rd Regiment
Died October 6, 1890
Aged 46 years
A true soldier of the Cross and the (hard to read).

Notes:  He was in his late teens during the Civil War, a young man and an officer.  I wonder if he was enlisted or volunteered later in the war as fighting men of age were harder to come by?

In Memory of Julia S.
Beloved Wife of Harry (hard to read)
Born December 10, 1872
Died February 6, 1920
Farewell Dear Wife
Thou art at rest
And shall forever be,
You could not stay on
earth with me
But I can come to thee.

Notes: She died at 48.  What an almost suicidal note at the end of the epitaph.  Interestingly, I couldn’t find his grave in the near vicinity of this one.  I found his brothers and sisters and some children, but not Harry.  Did he re-marry and then, when he died, get buried elsewhere?  Continue reading →

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