100 Statements/Questions About Grace at War

My latest ploy to get back into the novel, saving the good parts and changing the weak ones. It is a journey into thickets and dark corners. So trying. A trial. All my words are in the dock--and I am defendant, judge and jury.

Guest Post

Letting Go of Your Work
By Charlotte Rains Dixon
 
Letting go is hard to do, especially when you're trying to let go of your creative baby.  I know, because I'm in the midst of sending my novel to another round of agents.  Now, if you're in the muddle in the middle of your novel right now, it may be hard to anticipate that you'll ever have difficulty sending your work out because right now you feel like you'll never be done.  But, trust me.  It is indeed so.  All of a sudden you're nearing the end and your work slows way down.  All of a sudden the thought of sending your baby out into the world causes anxiety attacks of the highest order.  What to do?  Go through the following checklist to make sure you're ready.
 
1.  Critique.  Have you gotten a writing group (I'd not do a thing without mine) or found trusted critique partners with whom to share your work as you finish various drafts?  Have you gone through and over elements of plot and character and made sure they work together and contribute to the novel as a whole?
 
2.  Edit.  Have you gone through the final manuscript one more time, reading as a line editor would?  Have you checked over every bit of grammar and spelling?  And please, please, please, have you made sure there are no red or green underlinings left over from Word's grammar and spell check efforts?
 
3.  Research.  Have you looked for the right agent or publisher to whom to submit your work? Have you drawn up a list and made certain that your potential agents all work with whatever genre you're selling?  Have you carefully read the submission requirements?
 
4.  Gird yourself emotionally.  Have you prepared yourself for the process by remembering that rejection is part of it?  Do you have emotional reserves gathered through whatever works for you—meditation, exercise, yoga, prayer?
 
5. Send it off.  Enough said.
 
6.  Celebrate sending it off.  Are you willing to celebrate your accomplishment?  Of course you are.  Break out the bubbly!
 
7.  Keep working.  Are you ready to keep at it?  To work on building your author platform through social media and other outlets?  Are you willing to start on the next book or article?
 
Source:Writer, mentor, and coach Charlotte Rains Dixon is passionate about helping writers, coaches, entrepreneurs, and creative professionals succeed, achieve, and profit in their careers and lives through writing.  Visit her for more tips and techniques on writing—and living—at www.charlotterainsdixon.com.
 

Easter 1952

I entered this poem in the Pratt Library Poetry Contest! Fingers crossed!

Easter 1952

We march into the spring green cemetery,

the daffodils stupidly on fire and oblivious,

the whole world alive, save one

the one we are here to visit.

My black patent leather Mary Janes

squish in the soggy green grass

as my brother and I approach,

soldiers without weapons,

except for my black plastic zippered coin purse,

inside a dollar, a quarter and a nickel.

We, the reluctant soldiers, aged seven and nine,

are commanded by aunts in black coats and heavy

black- laced shoes,  

a buzzing black hive of grief

that may explode in tears at any minute.

The grass mined with the danger of it;

We are stoic, we are impassive.

We are motherless children

paying Easter respects at gun point of guilt

We advance on her grave, gripping grape hyacinths

To be planted by aunts kneeling on newspapers

Troweling into the living earth.

The ground cries out at our steps.

Leaving

I lose the purse.

One little loss

To stand for everything.

Back Into the Deep Water

Revising the end of the novel per marvelous comments from several editors who wanted more focus on the relationship of Grace and Worth and less on distracting antagonists.The war is the antagonist now as it always was. My agent and I agreed on a plan and a deadline. Briefly sidetracked by a poetry reading last night.
Two examples of new poems:

NYC Cops 1968

“They worked this place over real good,” says Cop 1.

“Yeah, your TVn stereo are gone,” says Cop 2.

The two cops are in my apartment, guns drawn,

I asked for help

When I came down the block and saw my open1st floor window.  

“Um, well, I didn’t actually have a stereo or TV,” I say.

Sorry to disappoint them.

“Look it in here,” Cop 1 is in the bedroom.

“They freakin’ tossed it,” says Cop 2.

True, my clothes cover bed and floor

Every bureau drawer gapes open.

“I left in kind of a hurry this morning,” I confess.

Cop 2 is shocked. “You left this mess?”

Cop 1 holsters his gun, smirks, “Next time, latch your window.”  

I imagine him cuffing and charging me--

bad housekeeping in the first degree.

Watching  Super Bowl XLVI in a Home Theater

Wow, the screen’s so big,

It’s like I’m there

In Lucas Oil Stadium

And Eli’s throwing the ball to me

Me!

Sitting in a comfy recliner

eating M&Ms,

Sorry, Eli.
I couldn’t catch a cold

Let alone a football.

Optimism

Forging ahead with novel 2
Hoping the best for Grace, 'tis true
In November started novel 4
Now 50,000 words (and more)!
As December 12 deadlines near
I believe 2011 is Grace's year

The Next Adventure for Grace at War!

Kate McKean and I met today in Baltimore and we agreed that she will represent the novel! Now begins the search for an editor who will love and nurture Grace into a form a larger audience can embrace. Embarking on this venture with Kate's sure hands on the helm feels just right!

Upon rereading the ms. of Grace at War this morning, I found I couldn't put it down! She had the same reaction reading it on her Kindle! Stay tuned!

Those Guys, That Day, This Heart

 As 9/11 Tenth Anniversary approaches I reprint my piece on "the boys in blue" with whom I worked in FDNY:
      
 Once I had a key that opened every firehouse in New York City. I went into a burning building in Bedford Stuyvesant. I rode with an arson squad in the Bronx. I had a scanner and knew the 10-code: 10-4 “acknowledge”; 10-9 “off the air”; 10-76 “fire in a high rise building.” I went to Medal Day parties and firefighters’ funerals, which had the same menus as the parties and where the same  stories flowed like beer.

 Those Guys

Jack pulled up to a house in Queens just as a firefighter came bursting through a third floor window, his turnout coat in flames. “Not a good way to start the day,” Jack said.

John knew of three young firemen who got trapped in a cellar and stopped communicating on the radio. Just stopped. “They could have been saved,” John said. “They could have been saved, if they had kept on talking.” Their silence still rang in his ears.

 Tommy told about waking up in the bunkroom on Great Jones Street to see the moon in the window, full-fisted, irresistible, calling him. He said, “I’m not afraid of dying in a fire; I’m afraid of dying alone in a chair in the dark.” 

Joey was at 23^rd Street where 12 guys died. “We come up to the scene at the same time as another company and the chief says to us, ‘Go there,’” Joey said. “So we go around the building this way. The chief tells the other company, ‘Go there.’ They go into the store, where, unknown to everyone, the fire’s spread. It’s right under where they go in. They move forward a few feet. The floor drops and they fall into the fire.

“We arrived the same time they did. It could have been us down there instead of those guys.”

That Day

That day 343 New York firefighters died. One of them was my friend, Lincoln Quappe. Linc always wanted to be where the action was—the busiest company, biggest fire, trickiest rescue. With Rescue 2 that day, he was in the heart of the heart of the action. People who knew him said later, “If he had a choice, he would do it again.”

 After Linc’s funeral in October, the local Long Island fire department had a spread. The sun shone, trucks gleamed, grills smoked, and beer flowed like stories. Firefighters from FDNY, from Long Island, and from out of state ate and drank and talked. That day, they talked about funerals and those guys still missing.

This Heart

        This heart is a burned-out building, steam rising from its blackened skeleton. This heart is a silent radio.

       Those guys. That day. This broken heart.