NO GREEN STRING ZONE

Remember those old fogies who sighed into their easy chairs after a long, hard day of work while their guitars, propped on stands in corners, grew dust as thick as winter blankets? Remember how you watched those strings turn green—literally—green from not being used, and how you wanted to cry for those poor, sad, lame, geezers? Remember how you swore you’d never be that old—even when you were a hundred and eighty?

Yeah. My guitar reminds me of that regularly. Demands that we do not drift off into fogy-land, no matter how many hours I’ve spent ripping old manuscripts to shreds. (Sometimes, doesn’t it feel more like building houses than it does writing a book???)

All I can say is, demand away…

SHEER BADNESS

Uh, so, um, yeah. What did I say again? That I’d snap a few firecracker pics for the blog, like it was no big deal? Show off the great south Springfield display? Oh, sure—because everyone knows how incredibly easy digital photography is, right? No such thing as a bad photographer anymore, right?





Right.

SIMPLE PLEASURES

Watermelon. Tank top. Potato salad. Flip-flops.

Sounds like some sort of Child’s Garden of Verses rhyme (yes, wouldn’t we all still like to go up in a swing?), but actually, it’s my plan of action for the Fourth of July…that, and sitting on the back porch, where I can view the sky-encompassing fireworks from a nearby country club. Probably while humming “Yankee Doodle Dandy” or “Born in the USA” (or, has been the case the past few days, the guitar riff / bass line of “Smooth Criminal”) while downing a cherry limeaid (my newest addiction...and as hot as it's been, the drink really is an -aid, not an -ade).

Ahhhhh…

JAKE SCHINDLER, SCENE STEALER

It’s actually my pooch’s best summer trick, stealing outdoor scenery. This is the Finley River, where I was enjoying getting a good chunk of my daily writing done (very Thoreau-ian of me, huh?) while Jake got in plenty of tree sniffing and growling at geese:

Now that summer’s decided to sit her big sweaty self right on top of Missouri (and it's turned far too hot for such a heavy-coated dog to be outside), my scenery looks more like a vent. Nope—scratch that. Looks like a Pekingese lying spread eagle on top of a vent, while the air conditioning licks his tummy. He won’t peel himself off till September. Seriously. He eats on top of that vent.

Who am I to deny him such a simple pleasure? And how could I ever get any writing done at the river without him?

That dog has me wrapped around his dewclaw, I swear…

LITERARY SALT

I’m not really sure when a book can be considered worth its literary salt…I only know when I’ve personally fallen in love.

I mean, sure—some spines on my bookshelf get sold, traded, given away, like trinkets from long-lost exes. But a select group of special others get held onto long after their paperback covers, stained with sunscreen and melted lipstick, have warped, then curled in on themselves like hair taken straight out of a hot roller.

What amazes me are those books that manage to strike such a loud, vibrating chord with so many readers…as a person, we daydream about that special one who falls for us. But there are some books out there that have managed to get thousands to open their hearts and give in. It’s pretty spectacular, when you think about it…

WHAT IF EMILY DICKINSON HAD BLOGGED?

Seriously. What if the supposed shut-in had chronicled her life online in utterly exhaustive, meticulous detail?

What if F. Scott and Zelda had exchanged “love tsunamis” on Twitter?

What if we had all watched Poe stagger, drunk, into a gutter on YouTube?

Would any of it seem romantic anymore? Would we still troll their pages, mining each passage for clues as to who these poetic giants really were? Or would our literary heroes have been reduced to the train-wreck status of a Lindsay Lohan?

I was just wonderin’.

GONNA PARTY LIKE IT'S 1987

My brother turned the big 3-1 over the weekend; before the Schindler shindig, I found this bottom-of-the-shoebox pic of his big 0-9 at Skateland. (Brother John’s third from the left, in the striped shirt, and I’m on the far right—yes, and actual picture of moi—in that radical penguin T.)




My piano / guitar students have been informing me for years that skating parties are passé, blasé, and in no way cool. But does this photo not prove them ALL wrong? I mean, the skates with the neon orange wheels! The music—Tears for Fears practically oozes off this picture! The arcade—Tag Team Wrestling? Yes, please!

Ah, the 80’s…I swear, if I could only get my Big Wheel back (a green mode of transportation!), I’d be SOOOO happy…

YES, ACTUALLY

I, Holly Schindler, took a weekend (GASP!!!). Okay, so I took it with a notebook. And so I had the first chapter of the current book I’m revising tucked under the cooler in the backseat. And so I worked out a plan to revamp the start of that novel.

But: the point is, I turned the computer off and drove to an actual lake far from the sound of actual car engines and spent time in the actual sun. Barbecued ribs. Laughter. Stones skipping and pe-lunking across the skin of the water.

...I also really love checking in on my own favorite authors’ blogs to see their landscapes. To find out what the sunlight’s dancing off of when they wake in the morning: seashores, city blocks, mountaintops.

This is my landscape. Or a slice of it, anyway.

Yes, actually.

HARD-BOILED BABIES AND SOCK DRAWER MANUSCRIPTS

So you’re thinking: Good God A’mighty, Gertrude, what’s with all this talk of revision? Revision, rewrite, rework…re, re, re…Sure, the girl’s promised to be off and running on a new draft—but has she? Hmm? Has she started a single new project lately, or is she still revising old ones? More importantly: how many old projects can the girl possibly have?

Uh, well, um, a lot. And I mean. A lot. I’ve got manuscripts crammed in my sock drawer and the breadbox. The crisper in the Frigidaire. The glove compartment in the Mercury. They fall out of the linen closet when I reach for clean pillowcases.

I have, after all, been writing full time since ’01.

And sure, those books didn’t exactly work the first time around, but hey, I lost track of exactly how long this female cardinal attempted to build her nest at my house. First she tried the sill of my office window, then the porch light, then an awning, each time getting only about halfway through before the nest toppled from the too-small sill, or slid down the awning, or, okay, got destroyed by a do-gooding writer (that porch light gets so hot, it would have hard-boiled her babies, I swear). But she kept at it…and since I haven’t seen her in a while, I feel it’s safe to assume that she finally found the perfect answer to it all.

…And eventually, the same will be said of all my old manuscripts…

RED SKY AT NIGHT, WRITER'S DELIGHT

Okay, so this sunset's actually more gold than red, but the point is, I'm really pleased with the current OCEAN FLOOR rewrite I've been polishing up for Flux...

And I'm getting so close to an official title and cover art, the roots of my hair tingle!

...Stay tuned...

EVERYTHING'S JAKE

My Peke’s contribution to the revision process:

‘Scuse me, ‘scuse me. HEY. Are you seriously going to stare at that computer all day? When there are leaf blowers out there to attack? Wild onions to sniff?

Come on—ten minutes. Get in the car; we’ll let our ears ripple in the wind.

You don’t even have to pay me for my excellent idea. Or maybe you do. I’ll take a cookie or a belly rub.

Your choice.

THE EVER-EXPANDING DEFINITION OF A WRITER

The ink is barely dry on my long-coveted first contract, and already, I’ve learned that Webster got the definition of a writer (“one who writes esp. as an occupation”) totally wrong. Here’s a better description:

writ-er \׳rīt-ər\ n : a tech-guru, photographer, pitch-man, publicist, advertising specialist, short movie producer, public speaker, networking expert, and, oh, yeah, an individual who pens novels.

I’m sure I’ll only be adding to this definition as my publication date draws near…and I absolutely love hearing from fellow authors (what an ambidextrous bunch) about all the odd-ball know-how they’ve acquired during the course of their writing careers. Their stories make me so anxious and excited to find out where this (already) amazing ride will take me next...

PURPLE PASSAGE

Redbud trees (sigh—mine died in the Springfield Ice Storm of ’07) aren’t really red any more than red onions are. They’re purple—just like the march of spring across the Ozarks.

Funny place to be in, winding down one novel’s rewrite (coming closer to an end) just as Missouri’s in the midst of a new beginning, tugging open a pastel rainbow of buds—white, pink, and, yes, purple. (I love the way the blooms pictured here are clumped like waded-up balls of paper, as though a frustrated writer’s first attempts are hanging from the limbs. Hmmm. Could this be the Revision Tree?)

Soon, blue robin’s eggs will crack open like the spines of books for the first time.

…And I will be off on a new adventure, tramping through the mud of another rough draft.

TREASURE HUNTING

I am in the process of rewriting two novels. This is not a typo. And, yes, I have read Millay and her warnings about candles with two fiery ends.

I am deep-sea diving in two separate oceans, alternating between the two, spending a whole day on one coast, then a day on another.

Actually, taking a day off one project means that, when I return to it, I find new avenues for exploration, new crevices in which to do a little literary treasure hunting.

…As long as I can keep it straight, which ocean I’m in…