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A final NaNoWriMo writing prompt post to aid anyone dragging themselves to the finish line or to inspire a short story for December. We're not taking any time off for Christmas, right? Well maybe a day or seven.

I finally updated my Duotrope submissions tracker today and discovered I only have 12 stories out (and one of those I suspect has fallen down a black hole - 272 days to the wonderful ChiZine and no reply to a query letter of about 50 days ago), so I think most of December will be dedicated to spewing crafting some new short stories.

Today, I completed a flash fiction story, Black Heart Balloon, which I hoped to send to RetroSpec until it took a rather vicious turn. Darn those bird carcasses and evil avian lung stealing fiends, it was a quite delightful piece until they turned up. I shall have to think of something almost as delightful this week. I have (including today) the next ten days off work. Don't envy me too much though, I have to do all my Christmas shopping. I'm sure my family don't want gifts this year. I think they'd prefer I spent my week riding the Liverpool Eye or skating in the new, rather tiny, ice rink in the city centre.

Oh, and for all of those who have completed NaNo or ripped written your little hearts out a hearty CONGRATULATIONS. You're awesome and we who have put our feet up, devoured far too much internet and wasted November salute you.
 

NaNoWriMo Prompts:

Cobbler

Patchwork

Backwater

Masked Mayhem

Cartwheel

Skimming Pebbles

Void

Rehearsal

Rent Payments

I've only seen this anthology listed on LJ's Specific Markets, so I thought I'd post it here too...

Music For Another World: An anthology of Strange Fiction, is looking for speculative fiction stories between 2,000 and 6,000 words. Payment is £80.00 (that's about $130 - $140 depending on r.o.e. and one copy of the paperback), and the submission period is now until 30th April 2010. Click the above link for full details and good luck.

(Click on the picture and see all the little people gawping

Going against my reserved Britishness, I did something that has left me glowing like a baboon's bum. I joined the SFWA a couple of months ago as an associate member (by current calculations I should hit active status about 2058 - yay 90 year old me) and today I discovered I can nominate short stories, novelettes etc for the Nebula Awards. I can't vote of course, but I can scream semi-loudly and hope someone agrees with me. Of course, I haven't a clue what to choose. Except of course Lisa Mantchev's Eyes Like Stars which blew me away.

Anyhow, why am I glowing like a baboons ass, or any ass in general, I put up a link to Trench Foot and downloaded The Sour Aftertaste of Olive Lemon in the 'Please consider this...'** section, alongside people who are like way-way-way (add several hundred more ways) better than me, but I figured what the heck, they can only laugh and point at me and with a face like a... Well, I'm used to it. :D

**I should add that the Please Consider this section is just someplace to put your work and not an actual nomination, I would never actually nominate myself... Just in case anyone is confused... Eek!

I'm going to write about my biggest fear with Hang The Moon, the second book in the Sixties Trilogy, but I can't do it today. My friend and mentor died on Friday, and she is part of this Hang The Moon story, so first I want to tell you about her.

But I can't. I'm bereft and don't yet have the right words. So let me direct you to her website and her obituary, and let me say farewell in a most clumsy manner to Norma Fox Mazer today. I loved her and love her still. Her book When She Was Good knocked my socks off and was part of the reason I went to Vermont College to get my MFA in writing. Norma was my advisor for two semesters and became my friend. She loved me, too, with a fierce devotion that always surprised me. She demanded the best from me, and often I failed her miserably. And more than that, I cannot find the words to say.

I'll leave you instead with a piece I read this morning about a student and a teacher. It's Good Writing -- that phenomenon I love. Good Writing elevates the mind, and even life. And today I need a little elevating.

This piece is by novelist Alexander Chee, about his time studying with Annie Dillard. It will appear in the book Mentors, Muses & Monsters, edited by Elizabeth Benedict and published by Free Press/Simon & Schuster later this month.

Here's a tiny excerpt:

In that first class, she wore the pearls and a tab collar peeped over her sweater, but she looked as if she would punch you if you didn't behave. She walked with a cowgirl's stride into the classroom, and from her bag withdrew her legal pad covered in notes, a thermos of coffee and a bag of Brach's singly wrapped caramels, and then sat down. She undid the top of the thermos with a swift twist, poured a cup of coffee into the cup that was also the thermos top, and sipped at it as she gave us a big smile and looked around the room.

Hi, she said, sort of through the smile.

My first meeting with Norma Mazer was very different. I'm writing about it for publication right now (I will post the link when it publishes) and I'm trying to get the words just-right. I want the tone, the detail, the feeling of it to come across... and -- once again -- I'm failing miserably. But I will continue to try.

This is what Norma would tell me to do -- write. Keep working. Try. I may be gone, but that is not an excuse for you not to do your job, not to meet your deadline. I know she is right. And I know I will find the words.

Norma was ever the teacher. So, in her honor, I will put on my teaching hat today, too:

Try. Open your notebook and sketch a scene about meeting one of your teachers -- a mentor, a muse, a monster. What was it like? Notice what works about the Alexander Chee paragraph above, and why it works. Take it apart and see how you can do the same in your own short piece about a teacher whose presence has stayed with you.

My wise husband says that some people leave a part of themselves within you when they die. I think he's right. Norma is still right here, right with me, in my mind and heart, as I write Hang The Moon. What a gift that is.

Thank you, Norma. Thank you for all you gave to your friends and family, to the world of children's literature, and to those of us who came to learn at your feet. How strange the world is without you. How lucky we are to have our memories... and your stories.

Home, friends. I am home. There's no place like it, and I'm glad to be here. Thanks for coming to the low country with me. I had no words last week, but I loved reading yours. Thanks for all the lovely mail. I savored every word.
And now... a return to our regularly scheduled program. I have breakfast with my editor this morning (Sunday). He's here for the Decatur Book Festival, so we will take some time to be together this morning, to meet face-to-face for the first time, and start getting to know one another in person.

If you've been reading One Pomegranate, you'll know that I lost my long time, beloved editor, Liz Van Doren, in early 2007 -- a devastating blow. We had worked together for 12 years. Over time, we had learned to complete each other's sentences as we talked about stories. We challenged each other. We made good books together.

Kate Harrison became my editor at that time. Within the year, she left Harcourt for Dial/Penguin, and I landed at Scholastic with Kara La Reau and David Levithan. The plan was that I would work on the first of the sixties trilogy with Kara, but eight months later, Kara was laid off, just as I was nearing the home stretch of a complete draft of book one.

David and I began working together less than a year ago. In that time I finished the draft, finished another, and another, and have gotten to know David through phone calls and email. He's a good editor. I don't know him well yet; we are learning to work with each other, and I understand that good working relationships take time and trust. It's not necessary for us to become friends, although that would be nice, but we are already colleagues in book making, and I am delighted by that.

At any rate, it will be good to have met face-to-face as we come into the home stretch of putting this novel to bed. There are a million things to talk about, to ask about, to learn. And to share. Many of them have nothing to do with books. I'm looking forward to breakfast. It's good to be home.

As for Charleston: we'll be back. It was good. Very good. And... I have a prompt for you (and your students):

Take a digital camera with you and take photos on a given day of objects that tug at your heart. Don't think too hard about why they tug, just trust your gut. Take as many photos as you want.

Then, take a look at your photos and select the four or five that can tell a story of that day in one word. That one word will be a theme, if you will. Let that one word title and those photos help you tell a story wordlessly. Let them evoke a memory, an emotion, a mood, a narrative. See what you come up with. You can use my posts from last week as a model or guide. This should be creative and fun -- and full of good ways to think about story.

I'd love to see what you come up with. It could be a notebook exercise. The photos, printed on computer or photo-quality paper, could be pasted into your notebook with your one word as a heading. (Conversely, if you are keeping a blog as scrapbook (One Pom is part scrapbook), you can easily construct this as a blog entry.)

So. Personal narrative in photos. I'd love to hear the discussion this engenders, too, and the ways that you adapt it for your own purposes.

And now: What to wear to brunch? It always comes down to the practical considerations, doesn't it?

Yesterday, we celebrated Richard's new job, which is a huge milestone in this awful economy. No one has been hiring, the unemployment rate is so high, and Richard has been working part-time, but it's not enough. Yesterday we celebrated full-time employment (at two part-time jobs) and a whipping of the recession's butt. We've won a round.
This called for smitten kitchen's summer squash and potato torte (especially since we had so much squash and so many potatoes from our CSA box). I didn't have a cup's worth of parmesan, so I filled out the cup with sharp cheddar. I didn't have green onions, so I made some small white ones do. I made two pies, and sliced tomatoes into one. Thanks, Hannah, for the link.
Then I set a chicken to bake with sliced sweet potatoes (skins on) and onions in the pot, along with a mix of curry powder, garlic, and the juice of one big orange. This is a crock pot recipe I adapted from here (thanks, DCR, for the link).

Bought a dozen ears of corn. Richard had never shucked corn so Hannah, a corn shucker from way back, taught Richard how. I watched them, chatting companionably while sitting on the front porch with a paper sack between them for the shucks and silks, as I set the water to boiling in the big pot.
The cake request was for "deep, rich chocolate with cream cheese frosting." I obliged. A spinach salad rounded out the meal (that's my bowl -- always a bowl -- with my squash-potato torte on top of my salad).
Our little party queued up to help plates. Richard was given the honorary first place in line. "Give us your best 'oh, yeah' look," I said. Is this a man feeling good about life or what? Is this a man who worked it, wrung it out, scoured the Craig's List ads, walked up and down Lawrenceville Highway with his resume in his hand and a lot of gumption, who stared into this recession's face and said I don't think so? I think so.
Later, after listening to the tale of his first day at the new job, after the meal was consumed and the freshly made peach ice cream came out of the freezer to accompany the cake, the candle was lit and Richard put his hands around the flame to keep the fan in Irene from snuffing out his light. Richard, I have a feeling nothing is going to snuff out your light. You go, man. Good for you. Congratulations.
So.

Here's a prompt for your notebook: write about your last celebration. Big, small, it doesn't matter... it could be a private celebration with just you. What did you honor? Why? And... what does it mean to celebrate? Why is it important? Think on these things.

Have a great weekend. Celebrate.

Pictured below is yesterday's haul at Book Nook in Decatur, Georgia. I almost never find anything affordable anymore at used book stores. Long gone are the days I rummaged through boxes of books on the side porch of a little thrift store in Vienna, Virginia and bought books there for a nickel a piece when I could afford the extra nickels.

I also bought my then-three-year-old daughter a nightgown for 45 cents, which stays in my mind for some reason -- even the very look of it I remember... it was soft, well-worn cotton, buttercream yellow with tiny lace trim on the sides and bottom. Oh, how A. wanted that nightgown.

It was 90 cents, and outside my very paltry budget that day, but the owner took one look at us, and especially at A., who had her hands clasped under her chin, longing for that nightgown, and said, "Today, it's half off." My daughter wore out that nightgown before she grew out of it.

I digress.
I am partial to thrifting. Years ago, it saved my life. Even though that sounds like a drastic statement, it's true, and one day I will write about that life. These days, thrifting sports a different hue, but is no less important to me. Most of my home is furnished with thrifted items, and most of the clothes I wear are thrifted.

(Another aside: I once worked in an IRA symposium with the wonderful Naomi Shahib Nye, who boasted at the microphone (because she'd been introduced this way) that she had not bought anything to wear in over 8 years. "Share with your friends!" she said. Say it, Sister!)

Ahem. To the books. I love old cookbooks and gardening books, and old, odd books about keeping house and parenting. Yesterday at Book Nook, I found so many good ones on the half-price bookcases. The entire haul cost me $11.77, with tax, which is harking back to those good old days before thrift stores really knew how much old books could bring.

Maybe these books are important only to me. That's fine. This winter I will savor The Encyclopedia of Cooking (1951), Farm Journal's Cooking for Company, The Winter Garden, and sooner than winter I will try some recipes from Our Daily Bread along with the Chocolate-Orange Meringue Pie ("Light and colorful with grated chocolate as a garnish and a surprise layer of chocolate under the orange custard filling" p. 228) from Farm Journal's Best-Ever Pies.

Wanna come for dessert? A recipe isn't complete until it's shared.

I'm thinking about cooking lately since I have time to cook these days (have made time), and because I see what a community cooking and eating together creates.

Michael Pollan was interviewed on Fresh Air yesterday. It's a 20-min. interview worth listening to. He'll have an article in the Sunday New York Times worth reading about the same topic -- we watch cooking shows, but we cook less than ever. Why is that? He posits that it may well be that it wasn't fire or even language that grew us up into human beings. It may be the act of cooking.

And thrifting. :> Finding new uses for old discards. Or repurposing what we already have. Kids do this instinctively -- the couch cushions turn into a rocket ship or a cave.

What about you? What do you thrift or repurpose, and how do you do it, and why? What's the greatest, neatest, coolest, funkiest, funniest or most amazing thing you ever scored/thrifted/yard saled/repurposed?

Write about that. Short. One seed of the pomegranate. Just one story. Beginning, middle, end. Take a snapshot, draw a picture, give it some heart, make it a song. I'd love to see it, hear it, savor it. It will enrich my life every bit as much as that Chocolate-Orange Meringue Pie. Less calories, too.

It's why we're here, to share our stories with one another.

You’ve had one of those magical mornings when the words are flowing from your pen in a steady stream, and you're reluctant to stop because you fear the words may never come this smoothly again.Have you ever felt this way?It isn’t easy to pull yourself away from the page--to pull yourself out of the water--at these moments, but sometimes you can’t help it.You have to pick up a child at school or

We've had the best rain this week. Thunder, darkening skies, steady showers, even downpours, then clearing and the sun shines again. For a drought-weary city, this rain has been a blessed relief. The garden lives again (no amount of watering helps a parched garden, especially when watering restrictions are in effect), and there are indoor things to do.
A rainy evening calls for cookies. Thanks Hannah.
A rainy afternoon calls for a cucumber/tomato salad... the last of the farmer's market produce this week. We eat in Irene and watch the rain sluice all around us, like a curtain. The smell of rainwater on dry earth is exquisite. My Aunt Mitt used to say, "Just smell the earth! I like to think God washed it!"
A little hula hoop practice is good for the rain-bound soul.
And a little administrivia. Web page building, email answering, work-related phone calls, and bill paying. All a distraction while waiting for the sun to come back out.
Thanks for all the anniversary good wishes yesterday! We had a wonderful day doin' nuthin' much.

What do you do on a day when you do nuthin' much? What do you do when it rains? Pull out your notebook and write one paragraph, one pomegranate, full of the most luscious details you can muster. Write with nouns and verbs.

Have a great weekend.

I've disabled comments, in an effort to streamline mail. You'll see my email address now listed in the left-hand column. If you're using my old email address, please keep doing so; all mail will migrate to one address. Blah blah blah. Housekeeping!

Here's what I'm thinking about this morning as regards the novel and the sixties:

When I was a kid, I used to lie in bed at night, after saying my prayers with my mother listening, after reading under the covers with a flashlight, after listening to my parents' television in the bedroom next to me sing out "Heeeeeere's Johnny!"... after all that, I drifted to sleep to a letter I composed in my head, to Nikita Khruschev. It was 1962, and in school I was ducking and covering under my desk, practicing for an air raid, afraid of the Russians and rockets and war.

The idea of peace seemed so simple to me. I was sure that if I could just sit down with Chairman Khruschev and President Kennedy in a room together all by ourselves, I could explain to them how easy it was to understand that we shouldn't hurt one another, because we all had mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and sons and daughters and... well, we all liked meatloaf and potatoes and we all liked to play kickball or baseball or lie on our backs in the grass and spy rabbits or cars or George Washington in the clouds.

I'd lie in bed, staring at the pink canopy in shadow above me, and marvel at how I could see this and they could not. I also thought I must possess some sort of mystical, magical something that allowed me to see this -- it was so clear! And yet I never talked about this to anyone. It was just something I knew, and yet at the same time I felt wildly unsure of saying it out loud to anyone... I mean, who was I to know such a thing, after all? I was nine years old.

In October 1962, Americans gathered around television sets and listened to JFK tell them about the threat of attack from Russia using missles from Cuba, and I fell asleep composing my letter to President Kennedy, asking him to allow me some time to speak with Chairman Khruschev.

I never wrote that letter... but maybe, in my novel, Franny does. That's what I'm thinking about this morning.

Have you ever had that thought, "if they'd just listen to me, I could explain it"? What did you want to explain? And to whom? Write a page about it in your journal or writer's notebook. Try to make it about one clear moment in time. See what comes up. You never know where it might take you:

"If they'd just listen to me, I could explain it, I could help." Were you scared? Were you angry? Were you... what? Write from your head, your heart, and your gut, the three places that story comes from: what you know and remember, what you feel, and what you can imagine. Then -- share it with someone. A story becomes complete when it is shared.

photo from the U.S. State Dept. in the JFK Library and Museum, Boston