Beckie Weinheimer Blogs About Writing

Win A Signed Copy of Converting Kate and Read about the real places in Maine that Created Kate's World

2010-07-03T06:10:00.000-04:00

Leave a comment below to be part of the contest to win a signed copy of Converting Kate!
Converting Kate Viking Books*2008 ALA Best Books
*Kliatt:Editors' Choice
*Books of the Teen Age-NYPL*CBC Notable Book
www.Beckieweinheimer.org

Have you ever wonder what inspires a story?
For me it was visiting Maine for the past 15 summers (counting this summer--I leave on July 7th and YES I AM SO COUNTING THE DAYS!!!!)

In my book Kate and her mother run Aunt Katherine's Whispering Woods Inn inspired by the real life Grey Rock Inn in Northeast Harbor, which is surrounded by Acadia National Park and was the town that inspired Kate's Puffin Cove. The Grey Rock in is a bit pricey but if you are looking for a five star B & B to stay in, this is the place. And is just as wonderful as Kate's fictional inn.

As I put freshly laundered sheets on beds, I imagine the original owners who, in the early 1900's, were rich enough to build this seven-suite mansion for their summer home. Each room has hardwood floors and thick area carpets decorated with period antiques, lace-curtains and satin spreads covering the four-poster beds. All the suites have a fireplace and a private deck with views out to the woods or the ocean. After our small stucco house in Phoenix, with its Spanish tile floors and pale green walls, and Dad’s drab apartment, The Whispering Woods Inn seems like a fairy-book home to me. And besides, in Puffin Cove everything is green and alive, instead of brown and hot and dead.

At the edge of Northeast Harbor near the ocean is a small, historic church, called St. Mary's-by-the-Sea. I visited that church none summer and the musty smell stirred something deep inside of me. I began weeping and I didn't know why. I told my husband I have to write a story about this church and so I did.
At the end of the road, Jamie pauses in front of an old stone church. It’s beautiful. The sun hits the northeast corner, leaving one side in the light and the other in the darkness. Decades of moss cover several stones. Was the moss here thirty years ago? Fifty? A hundred? Who went to this church then? Did they come in horse and buggy? It’s so pretty. Like one of those sappy Thomas Kinkade paintings Mom always wants to buy. Only not. The faded red door could use a fresh coat of paint. The bricks in the walkway are worn down and cracked with age. My kind of perfect.
The church is surrounded by a grove of pines. And behind the really old, gray granite building with its stained-glass windows, the ocean peeks through. It’s so quiet and peaceful. And yes! Water! That’s why Jamie stopped. She’s grinning at it and then at me.
“Yes!” I say. “Let’s.”

This summer I'm going to stay in another of my favorite little towns called Southwest Harbor. It's called the quiet side of the island. You can watch lobster fisher-men-women at their work, eat fresh lobster at the Beals lobster pound and stop by the Quiet Side Cafe for the best homemade cookies, pies and ice cream.

But the best deal in Soutwest Harbor, and my very favorite place to stay on a budget is Acadia Cabins, a five minute walk from the heart of town, the library, shopping, wonderful bakery, restaurants, organic grocery and farmer's market, but so tucked into the woods that all you hear are the singing frogs and the trickling streams. The cabins are four star quality at an affordable price and your hosts Gordon and Lisa are the best! When I decide to extend my visit on impulse last week they scrambled to find me a place to stay even though they were totally booked including inviting me to stay in their own house. Lisa bakes cookies that make their way to your cabin while still warm from the oven. Its the best writer's retreat ever and only a short distance from my favorite swimming place, Echo Lake where I have gone swimming to the haunting sounds of loons overheard and hiked the steep mountain for a panaramic view of Acadia National Park.

I haven't even mentioned the hikes, kayaking,biking, whale watching and puffin searching boat tours, nor one of my favorites, a boat ride on a lobster boat with a working Maine fisher-man-woman which is where I learned enough about lobstering to write about Will.

“Here,” Will hands me a pair of over-sized rubber boots. “Put these on,” he directs. I sit on a bench attached to the side of the boat. The spray from the water and the wind hit my face as we leave the harbor and the boat picks up speed. After getting the boots on, I stand and try to keep my feet steady. When Will moves toward the back of the boat, I tag along, grabbing onto whatever I can. He begins sorting through a pile of metal cages.
    “Are those cages for the lobster?” I shout.
    He smiles and hollers, “Yep, guess you could call them that. We call them traps,” he says as he pulls one up and ties a long piece of black rope around the top.
    “Oh. Can I help?” I call out.
    Will nods, cupping his hands around his mouth and says, “When we stop at our buoys, you can help re-bait the traps, after Pop and I empty them.”

Okay writing this has made me even more excited for my Maine Vacation. The skies are blue when a sudden rain storm isn't passing by. The days are in the lovely 70's and nights can be chilly enough for a fire, or at least hot tea or cocoa. Blueberries are everywhere, if you sit on the ground, you might just sit on a wild patch of berries without even knowing it. And check out the libraries, they have the best librarians and I might even be giving a writer's workshop!

To Take a Writing Critique or Not to Take a Writing Critique: From Someone who Just Finished and Sent in Her New Novel!

2010-02-12T09:13:00.002-05:00

View From My Bedroom Window

Hello, I'm so cold today, I'm not even in my office. I'm sitting in my bed with the electric blanket on high. The wind is howling out my window, but the world is white and sunny. I love snow mixed with sun because it makes my world bright, and really what I think I hate most about winter is not the cold, or even the shorter days, but the brown and gray. If I could have snow all winter, I would be a happier camper. Now if I could have beach and sun and 75, well I would be in Nirvana!

So two days ago I finished the last of the edits from my husband, daughter and my pseudo-son-in-law on a novel I've been working on for a long time. Yes, my dear family in VA spent two of their snow days earlier this week reading my manuscript one more time to find the tiny problems like bus, spelled bust, and two as in more than one, spelled too. It happens, no matter how hard I try. And then found tons of such mistakes. I know I would never write a book, never probably even post this blog (which I do not have anyone critique--so please forgive typos) without my dear close writing friends and family's help. My younger daughter a, journalist, showed me how to put in links, see above. You can find out what Nirvana means in case you don't know, because she showed me how to put in the link. She also showed me how to link my blog entries, so if you want to find out about writer's tips, you can find them, and if you want to see an author interview you can find that. Isn't that cool? And aren't I lucky to have such supportive family?

I guess what I'm trying to say here is it takes a village to write a book or post a blog.

Even though writing is something you do alone--getting published is not something you do alone.

I don't know a single writer who doesn't have trusted friends who edit their writing, to find the small things like two and too and the bigger things, like "this whole chapter is boring" (which is what my husband said to me last week about one of my chapters, when I thought I was almost done with my novel and ready to send it in!).
I love these words from a popular song, "You are the wind beneath my wings." And that's what I think of all my family, and friends who help me get published. I couldn't fly without their wind. I couldn't write without their edits.

And so here's my writer's tip. Woods I Walk In

Find two or three maybe even four people you really trust, and let them help you, and critique your writing.

But never, never, let 10 or 20 people all give you feedback that you actually take.

A few trusted friends' edits can help your writing. Too many people who don't know you that well can actually ruin your writing. In one of my first attempts at writing, I did that, I let everyone and anyone read my story and took every piece of advice and I lost the heart of my story. My story became a hodgepodge of other people's words and edits--as was only worth throwing in the garbage. Only we the writer's know what we want to say at the core, at the heart, from our soul. It is true that we may not always be able to get it out right, so we need people who we trust to help us perform that miracle, but they should be people who trust your soul, trust your story, and aren't going to rewrite it into their own story.

Accepting a writing critique is something one should do with grace and dignity. Even if someone totally rips apart your story. Thank them. But then go home, and trust your own gut. I know advice is good when it rings a bell inside of me, when I can see that doing this will make my story better. But if it feels like someone just put a big X through the heart of my story, I smile, say thank you and then go home and throw, rip, toss the critique away.

Do not let anyone take away your heart, your soul, your passion. Ever!!!!!!!!!

That's my two cents.

And so today on this day of days when my novel is finished (at least for the moment--I know there will be rewrites ahead) I want to thank those in my life, who trust my story, who believe in me as a writer, and are still willing to tell me, this chapter is boring! To you, the wind beneath my wings. I say thank you!

* Be the first to leave a comment below or email me at beckieweinheimer@gmail.com and
1)Define--Nirvana
2)Define--Hodgepodge
3) Tell me who composed (2) The Wind Beneath My Wings
and you'll win a critique of two poems or ten pages of your writing.
(As long as you haven't won in the past two months.)

Writer's Tip Sentence Completion. Fill out this Handy Dandy Worksheet and I Promise It will Provide Miracles!

2010-02-05T06:53:00.002-05:00

Hello from Icy Cold Grey Bleak New York City. The good news about the grey skies, it means the Groundhog didn't see his shadow earlier this week and we'll have an early spring. We will see. I tend to be a skeptic about that, living in this icy cold city where winter goes on and on and on! And sigh, no, this picture is not my back yard, its my dream world, the place I go in my head this time of year, to keep my warm and sane.

So enough complaining. I've got another fun writing exercise for you. It's called Sentence Completion, and I cannot remember who shared this with me, but I did learn about it at Vermont College. Thank you unknown saint! I'd give you credit if my brain were not so forgetful!

Sentence Completion
This is a great exercise to use for each character in your story/poem

Complete each sentence with the first thought that comes to your head. Do it for each character. It’s amazing what you will find out! This taps into our subconscious and magical part of our brain. I use this with everything I write and I ALWAYS find out new things about each character that helps me write their story with more depth.

1. Work is

2. I sleep

3. My mother

4. Men usually

5. Eating

6. No one

7. My greatest flaw

8. I love

9.   Fighting is

10. My worst fear is

11. My father is

12. Sex

13. I feel lonely

14. My biggest secret

15. Religion

16. Traveling

17. I am most proud

18. I am happiest

19. I am most ashamed

20. My dreams

21. I hate

22. My clothes

23.   I am embarrassed

24. My willpower

For Example I'll use my main character in Converting Kate...

Character: Kate

1. Work is something my mom expects to do around the inn
2. I sleep in the basement next to my mother’s room
3. My mother is my biggest trial in life
4. Men usually ignore me
5. Eating is something l love to do after a long run
6. No one knows about what I have in my closet
7. My greatest flaw is not having the courage to say what I think
8. I love the ocean, the woods and running
9. Fighting is something I do with Mom
10. My worst fear is I will never see my dad again
11. My father is hard to understand but I love him
12. Sex is something I know so little about
13. I feel lonely when I think about Dad
14. My biggest secret is I don’t know if I believe in God
15. Religion is my biggest trial
16. Traveling is something I have hardly ever done
17. I am most proud when I run fast
18. I am happiest when I am with Aunt Katherine
19. I am most ashamed of the way Members of the Church of the Holy Divine try to seek out new converts
20. My dreams are so simple, to read books to listen to music to go to a dance to shop at a mall, to wear    something stylish, to flirt with a guy, to just be “normal.”
21. I hate Men who think they rule religion and have the monopoly on God
22. My clothes are not cool
23. I am embarrassed by my mom
24. My willpower is strong. I can push myself physically past endurance

So try it out and let us know what you think. Comments welcome. Also feel free to share a Sentence Completion Form for one of your characters. Either use the comment option or email it to me at Beckieweinheimer@gmail.com and I'll add it to this page!

Stay warm. Drink the favorite warm beverage of your choice and if you are living in a place where it gets to 70 this time of year, yes I'd love to come visit you, thanks for the invite!

**Also look in Carissa's Young Aspiring Author Interview For a Clue to Winning A Signed Copy of my book! No one has found out how yet! Be a sleuth!

Writer Tip--Why Is This Day Different From Every Other Day?

2009-12-05T12:43:00.002-05:00

Greetings Fellow Writers:

It's me again. Still in my office. Still in my apartment in NYC. It's raining today. And cold. But I'm warm because I'm dog sitting my daughter's two Yorkshire Terriers and they like to cuddle!

So I've decided it's time to talk to you about where to start your story or poem, it's time to talk to you about beginnings.

Did I ever mention that when I decided I wanted to learn how to write a novel, I went back to school? I was 42 years old and I enrolled in an MFA Masters In Fine Arts Program at Vermont College.And it while sitting on a very uncomfortable white plastic chair in a crowded class room, watching snow fall outside, in Montpelier, Vermont on a cold January day that I heard Adam Rapp give a life altering lecture about beginnings.

*Warning Sidetrack ahead. When I was in college the first time around,18 years old, and my hometown was Phoenix, Arizona, I loved the poem Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost, so much that I had a copy of it along with a photograph of the Vermont Woods hanging abov my bed in my apartment. I told people I was going to live in Vermont after college--nor more desert for me. Ha! Well I finally did sort of live in Vermont for a month each year for two years exactly 22 years later while I did my residency part of my distance program at Vermont College. Sometimes dreams take a long time in coming.

Cough, sputter. Okay now back to the main story, while at Vermont College, one of my mentors, (full time authors who worked with students one on one for six months at a time), was Adam Rapp, a young playwright and author. Yes, if you go to college at my age, there is a good chance your professor will be younger than you. Adam was much younger than me. He still is! Adam has written many great books and plays. My favorite is Under the Wolf Under the Dog. Adam taught me how to find the beginning of my story. Here is his famous question. What makes this day different from every other day? And that is where you start your story.

For example in my book Converting Kate which Adam reviewed, edited and critqued, I began Kate's story on a certain day. Now a lot of new things happened on that day.

She started a new school

She met some new friends.

She decided to join Cross Country.

But the reason that this day was diffrerent from every other day in Kate's life is that this is the day she told people "No I do not belong to the Church of the Holy Divine." That statement made by Kate made this day different from every other day because up until that point in her life, Kate had been a member of the Church of the Holy Divine.

Okay, so what makes this day different in your character's life? In your poem, or in your story. In an earlier blog I posted a poem I wrote called Friday Night At the Santa Monica Promenade. Even a poem will be a better poem if it has a reason for being told. In the case of this poem, I often went to the Santa Monica Promenade on Friday nights, when I lived near by in Pacific Palisades. I would meet my husband there for dinner, movie or a walk. Often we'd bring our children and watch all the street performers. But this Friday night that I chose to write about was different, because this night besides all the normal acts I heard a mournful beconning sound in the distance. I heard bagpipes, and I didn't normally hear them. And that made my night different listening to those bagpipes took me to a magical mystical place that made me want to write a poem.

Does this make sense?

So here's a little questionnaire you can fill out and check your poems and your stories, to see if they have a strong enough reason for being. Sometimes we have a great story, or poem, we just haven't picked the right day to talk about. For example, when I first wrote Converting Kate, the story began three months earlier. It began when Kate and her mother moved from Arizona to Maine, I had them packing up their house, I had them flying on the plane,I had them unpacking and getting settled in their new house in Maine, all before school started, or before Kate denied she belonging to The Church of the Holy Divine. And those were all new things that happened to Kate, but those things were not at the heart of what Kate's story was about, it wasn't just about moving to a new town, it was about deciding to break away from her religious past. So I had to pitch the first 60 pages of my novel and start where Kate's story really began. When I could answer the question, what makes this day different from every other day in Kate's life.

The Questionnaire

This is a story about ____________________.
Who wants _________________.
But _______________ is stopping her/him.
The story begins when ____________________.
This story ends when ______________________.

For Example

This is a story about Beckie Weinheimer
Who wants to write a blog about beginnings
But her daughter's dogs who are visiting want attention and this is stopping her.
The story begins when Beckie says, "Okay Doggies, time for you to be on your own."
This story ends when Beckie finally sits down at her computer, ignores her growling stomach, her stinky body that needs a bath, the dogs who have now cuddled on the couch and gone to sleep and begins writing her blog.

Okay that is a really boring story. Here's a more exciting, realistic example.

For example:
Let’s say this story is about Sarah.
Who wants to get away from her abusive father.
But not having any where else to go is stopping her.
This story begins when Sarah decides to go to her school counselor for help.
This story ends when Sarah moves in with her Aunt and has learned to stand up to her father.

The place to start the story is the day that is different for Sarah. It’s the day she decides to get help for her situation.

For fun, we could ask ourselves the same question about books most of us have probably read.

What makes the day Harry Potter's story begins (in book one) different from every other day?

In Twilight what makes Bella's first day different from every other day?

In Larie Halse Anderson's Speak, what makes Melinda's first day different from every other day?

And for and old classic, What makes Scarlett's first day different from every other day in Gone With The Wind?

Just leave the answers here as a comment or email me at Beckieweinheimer@gmail.com with your answer and I'll post it for you. The first person to answer a question correctly (please only one answer per person) will win a free critique of two poems or up to five pages of your writing. By cough sputter, me! If you leave a comment please leave contact information for me. Thanks.
:)
Happy Writing.

Writing Dialog: Tips for Writers Part II

2009-11-20T13:54:00.032-05:00

So, hello, it's me again. Still in my New York City apartment, and it's still Autumn outside. Last time (in part I) I chatted with you I chatted about setting scenes.

Now today I'm going to talk about dialogue--with you. Yes, you are going to talk back to me. Hey, I write fiction, I can make your part up, easy as pie. Oops, easy as pie is an overused metaphor--avoid them at all costs, rack your brain think until you can come up with a unique metaphor of your own, it helps if it relates to what you are writing about. For example, I am writing about writing, so perhaps off the top of my head as simple as a poet penning a two line poem--hey, cool I also organically added some alterations-- "poet," "penning" and "poem,"--all p words. Cool!

**Wikipedia tells us that alliteration is a literary or rhetorical stylistic device that consists in repeating the same consonant sound at the beginning of several words in close succession. An example is the Mother Goose tongue-twister Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers...

I even picked P at random and so did Wikipedia. Okay, I'm getting all jazzed about this writing thing. And oops I haven't even mentioned dialogue. Sometime soon I'll have to do a writer tip blog about rewrites and cutting out the boring, unimportant parts of your writing, which would mean, if I was practicing what I preach that this entry would begin right here...

But then that would contradict the whole message of voice, which is basically this--ignore the rules of writing, listen to your heart, write from your soul, use your unique way of saying things, to thine own self be true....

Okay, so my authentic voice is chatty, and often digresses from the point, but I happen to think my diversions are fun, sometimes entertaining and hopefully informative.

I also like myself, did you notice?

Okay to Dialogue.

Once again a definition from Wikipedia. Sorry, Maria (My friend Maria is a librarian and she absolutely hates Wikipedia because it is often--shock--not accurate!).

A dialogue (sometimes also dialog in North American English) is a conversation between two or more people. It is also a literary form in which two or more parties engage in a discussion.

I am sort of a British Wannabe, hence I spell dialogue with a "ue" on the end.

To explain dialogue, I'm going to steal an idea from a writer I admire, because she was so cool when I heard her explain it and besides that's what writers do, we copy ideas we read about, we are like tape recorders eavesdropping on interesting conversations that we will later use in our stories, in short we are thieves.

But I will give credit for the floating dialogue--to the great and famous and wondrous Jane Yolen.

So here is an example of "floating dialogue." The kind you don't want to have in your stories.

"Hello," I say.

"Hi," you reply.

"So you want to know about dialogue?"

"Um, sure."

"Okay do you want the short story or the long story on dialogue?" I ask.

You reply, "Um, the short?"

"To create a solid story normally there are several important elements, narration, scene setting, plot, believable, well developed characters and dialogue."

"Oh."

"Dialogue helps move the story along, often revealing parts of a character that would be much more boring with narration alone. It would be like a news caster on television just giving you the news and not ever interviewing anyone live. Do you see what I mean?"

"I guess."

"Good, then you're off to write the best darn story in the world. Good luck."

"Um, thanks?"

Okay that is floating dialogue.

Now for un-floating dialogue, grounded dialogue or for lack of a better term, dialogue that works!

Notice carefully that I will use all the same words as before, but I will ground the dialogue, you will know where it comes from, instead of just letting it float on the page in front of you.

"Hello," I say as I spot the young writer walking into the Starbucks cafe where we had agreed to meet.

"Hi," you reply, and sit down across from me in the corner booth.

"So you want to know about dialogue?" I ask sipping my chai-latte tea. I've just discovered this heaven in a cup. I thought only coffee came in latte form, but I was so wrong. Yum. Sip, sip.

"Um, sure." you say, taking off your white, "I love New York beanie and picking up the menu.

"Okay do you want the short story or the long story on dialogue?" I ask between sips of my latte. Lattes are so great, if she requests the long version I'm seriously going to order another one.

You reply, "Um, the short?" and then eye the menu again.

"To create a solid story normally there are several important elements, narration, scene setting, plot, believable, well developed characters and dialogue." I say. I actually looked these elements up this morning on Wikipedia. To be honest I have no idea what makes up a good story. I just write whatever the hell comes out of my head.

"Oh." You fumble with the menu and it drops to the ground.

"Dialogue helps move the story along, often revealing parts of a character that would be much more boring with narration alone. It would be like a newscaster on television just giving you the news and not ever interviewing anyone live. Do you see what I mean?" I really can pull this off. Maybe I'll meet with one new writer every morning and then I can deduct my tea latte as a business expense. How great is that?

"I guess." You pick up the menu from off the floor and then play with your I Love New York Beanie.

"Good, then you're off to write the best darn story in the world. Good luck." I sip the last of my latte. I have decided after she leaves I'm going to get another one. It's my life and I can drink what I want.

"Um, thanks?" You put your beanie on and leave the table without ever ordering. Should I have ordered you a latte?

Okay, that is first-person,singular point of view. Mine. We could switch main characters, its normally the main character who's thoughts and point of view the writer shares if she/he is doing a limited point of view. You can write in first--I or third--Beckie and still only see one person's point of view. Now for fun let's switch main characters and let you be the main character with the same dialogue.

"Hello," Beckie says and waves to me as I enter the Starbucks.

"Hi," I say as I sit down across from her in the corner booth. Beckie Weinheimer, the author, looks older and a bit more chunky in the flesh than she does on her website. How long ago was that photo taken? Can you say Photoshop?

"So you want to know about dialogue?" She asks as she sips her drink.

"Um, sure."Her drink looks warm, and I am so cold. I hope someone waits on me soon.

"Okay do you want the short story or the long story on dialogue?" She asks.

"Um, the short?" I scan the menu, they have hot cider with caramel. Will she think I'm a wimp for not ordering a caffeinated drink?

"To create a solid story normally there are several important elements, narration, scene-setting, plot, believable, well developed characters and dialogue." She smiles, like she's extremely proud, and I swear her answer sounds like it came off Wikipedia, but that can't be. I mean she's a published author, with Viking no less. And she made the ALA list. She's got to know her stuff, right?

"Oh." I drop the menu so I can look for a waiter. I'm so cold and thirsty. I can't see a waiter. Hello I'm thirsty here, wait on me.

"Dialogue helps move the story along, often revealing parts of a character that would be much more boring with narration alone. It would be like a newscaster on television just giving you the news and not ever interviewing anyone live. Do you see what I mean?" she asks sipping more of her warm, warm drink.

"I guess." I have no idea what she's said. Seriously, she is boring and so smug with her big warm drink, I want to scream, get me a drink, get me a drink.

"Good, then you're off to write the best darn story in the world. Good luck." She says not even looking at me, she's opening her purse and counting her change. She's standing to leave.

"Um, thanks?" I say and decide what I already knew--Starbucks sucks, writers suck, and I'm going to listen to my dad and get that degree in history and hide myself inside a library doing research for the rest of my life. And I will never use Wikipedia for anything!

Okay I had too much fun making myself the bad person. I do admit to having just discovered about tea latte's however and must also confess to ocasionally checking Wikipedia. Sorry Maria.

Now if we wanted to write with an omniscient point of view, which allows the writer and the reader to get into more than one head, then we could add the two single viewpoint together into one story line and you get the idea.

One more point. You don't need to ground every piece of dialogue nor probably should you, as it would be really heavy, hard to read or slug through. It's very fine to have several exchanges with just dialogue alone, but by grounding your dialogue every once in a while, you can use dialogue to let your reader know where the character is while they talk, what they are doing while they talk and for me the most fun of all, what they are thinking while they talk.

Any questions. Just leave a message here or email me at Beckieweinheimer@gmail.com. Your question could inspire my next blog!

Continue reading, if you missed the Writer Tip on Setting Scenes.

Bye. I'm going to go get a latte, at, um, Starbucks??

I write poem sometimes. . .

2009-11-11T10:30:00.002-05:00

Friday Night
At the Santa Monica Promenade

I hear its mournful sound
Beckoning in the distance
So Faint I wonder. . .

I push through throngs of
teenage girls in spaghetti-strap tops and skinny leg jeans
young men in pants belted below their boxers
a homeless man huddled by a lamppost
shaking coins in a paper cup
around two lovers arm in arm
past the buzz of the outdoor cafes
with their chinking of glass and table chatter
I am not tempted by the aromas of basil and garlic
But press on past the onlookers gathered around the clown
shaping balloons into animals
beyond the young boy, maybe ten years old,
dressed in a tux too big for his body
break-dancing to music
from a boom box rusty and splattered with paint
I do not pause to gape at the contortionist escaping his chains
nor to listen to the woman with long braided hair
Strumming her guitar
Humming a melancholy tune

But only stop when I see him—
Yes, he is here
Beyond the dinosaur vine fountain
He stands legs apart with his bag and pipes
Under the lit doorway of a store now closed
The sound fills my ears
And suddenly
The ground is green
The hills are purple with heather
An ancient stone castle sits before me
The wind, salty and wet
Whips through my hair
And brings a thousand voices from the past
I see their kilts and plaids
And hear the names of those before me
Stewart and McMinn
My eyes grow wet with the foggy mist
My heart swells with feeling
For a hidden part of myself
I do not know

People ask me if I’ve ever been to Scotland
And I don’t know what to say
Because I’ve been to the Promenade in Santa Monica on a Friday night
And heard the bagpipes play

By Beckie Weinheimer

-- Post From My iPhone

Tips for Writers and Questions Answered--Just Ask Away!

2009-10-27T12:22:00.004-04:00

It's a wet autumn day in New York City. From the window beside my office desk in my 11th floor apartment I can hear the rain tap tap, tapping. I wish there were smells of hot bread, or tea, because my stomach is growling, but its noon and I've been too busy writing, to even eat or cook so my apartment smells like nothing. Empty nothing, unless computer keys smell. Sniff. No smell.

Okay that's a bit about setting. If you want to start a story its a good thing to let us see where the story is set.
Mine is set in my apartment. Give a few details. Desk, window, 11th floor.
And then give us some sensory detail.

Wet--touch
rain tapping--sound
smells (absence of in this case)

I heard an author I admire say he tries to use three out of five senses in each when setting up a scene.

This is a first draft, and I barely, sort of have three.

If I took time to make my blog writing look as pretty as my novel writing, well I'd never get to the novel. In novels I rewrite, and rewrite and rewrite. I did eight complete drafts of Converting Kate.

But I have had so many teens writing wanting advice on writing, I've decided to start adding tips, even if they are just first draft tips.

If you have a question you'd like answered about writing (not that I'm any expert, but practice does make perfect and I do have a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and a published book, so through trial and error I have learned a few things) please email me at beckieweinheimer@gmail.com and I'll feature your question on my blog. Or leave a question here on the comment option.

Notice the first sentence in the last paragraph above. That is a really long, bad sentence. You may also learn how NOT to write, by reading my tips!

:)

Happy Autumn!

From Beckie Weinheimer, who is going to stop writing and fix herself some Earl Grey cream tea and whole grain toast. And as she sips at her tea and nibbles at her toast, she will gaze out her window to the tall buildings, the rain and the autumn colors. The orange, yellow and red leaves will beckon her to desert her computer that does not smell, climb into her pink wellies, her pink raincoat, and take a splish splash walk in the six miles of woods across the street! Yes, Beckie can see tall buildings and woods out her window. She can see red oak, white oak and pine trees as well as the Empire State building from her bedroom window. Even when she is lying down in bed! Now that is something to get excited about!

*Photo taken by me with my iphone--Forest Park Across the street from where I live

Seeing Through a Glass Darkly-- Why Not--Meg Cabot did and so did Greg Mortenson

2009-08-17T16:12:00.002-04:00

"For now we see through a glass, darkly." I Corinthians 13:12

I love this imagine and verse from Corinthians in the Bible. And to me it is so true. If we could see through a glass in good light, we'd have an almost perfect picture, but to see through a glass in dark light, or with limited light, well it’s a lot of guess work. This week I've been reminded of how true that is, with my writing, through hearing other writer's stories, and with my own life.

I pride myself on having intuition. Last week my nephew was here visiting me. We were on the subway heading from Queens to Manhattan on one of our crazy adventures. He's twenty, I'm fifty-one, but to hear us talking you'd think we were two teenage boys, maybe 14. We have fun together. For example on one long subway ride when we could not sit next to each other but had to sit across from each other, we talked in sign language. At the beginning of our subway ride, we both knew the signed alphabet. I knew a few more signs from a course I took long ago. But by the end of our hour plus subway ride, I had not only taught my nephew almost every sign I knew but we had made up several of our own, finger spelling them, then showing the sign, then laughing at our brilliance and were actually communicating silently, with a bit of skill and having a lot of fun. So we are silly and creative.

But the next day on our planned trip to Manhattan, we were sitting next to each other and out of the blue I started talking about my nephew's sister, my niece and I began crying. I could not stop crying. I really didn't know why. I said "I just miss her," because it was getting uncomfortable, and I didn't know what else to do to explain my tears. But I knew in my heart it was more. I just didn't know what it was. Later I talked to her on the phone and discovered that she was very sad. Ironically we had both been crying at the same exact time. So my intuition told me something was wrong, but did it tell me what was the matter? No clue at all---hence the "through a glass darkly."

Now this morning I was on the dread-mill as I like to call that machine in our gym that lets you pretend to walk or jog and burn of calories indoors because it's 90 and 90% humidity outside and sane people do not exercise outside in that weather. Okay I'm a wimp. I admit it. Welcome to the East coast summers!

But any-who, I was listening to a wonderful pod-series I subscribe to (free) by Barnes and Noble where they interview authors. Today I listened to Meg Cabot and Greg Mortenson. Not only did both authors have different goals than they eventually accomplished (seeing through a glass darkly) when they first started out in pursuit of their dreams, but they had to keep on despite road blocks at every turn. And it was the combination of these two things--the unclear vision and the roadblocks in their way--that gave me hope this morning and made me determined to hold tight to my dreams, even if they aren't that very well defined and the glimmer is dim.

Meg Cabot wanted to write. She wanted to write a story about a 30 year old girl whose mom started dating one of her (the daughter's) old school teacher's. Meg Cabot wrote the story and let her friends read the book.

Feedback?

It's good but who cares about a 30 year old woman being upset at her mom for who she's dating? Change the age.

So Meg Cabot, whose dream had been to write about a 30 year old character, changed the character in her story from age 30 to age 14. And even then the Princess Diaries, according to Ms. Cabot was seen by every editor in NYC before it was finally sold=perseverance and seeing through a glass darkly.

The second interview I listened to was with Greg Mortenson. He was a climber, and was hiking to the top of K2 in tribute to his sister who had recently died. He wanted to place her ring on top of the mountain. That never happened. Instead he ended up turning around before he reached the summit, ill and half dead, and was cared for in a remote village by the local people. While recuperating he observed that the only teaching going on in this village was outside with sand and sticks. He changed his goal from climbing K2 in tribute to his sister to building a school in this remote village in her memory. Several years later, tons of fund raising, and many difficult hurdles and he had not only built a bridge for the small town but the first of many schools he has built in this remote area of the world. So his tribute to his sister was never completed as he first envisioned it, but instead became a much grander tribute in the end, because of the detours and trials he suffered along the way to his first goal--in other words his vision for his sister was seen through a glass darkly.

I feel like that is so much of life. I went to Vermont College and earned an MFA so I could learn how to write a specific novel, a novel that I am still working on. In the meantime, while I was trying to figure out this novel (which is making progress and gaining hope every day) I wrote another novel--Converting Kate, which wasn't in the plan at all.

I am coming to believe that diversions, unforeseen bends in the roads, detours, or seeing through a glass darkly may be the best things about life. Instead of a ring on top of K2 thousands of remote villages now have schools. Instead of another book about a 30something female, millions of teenage girls including my own daughter have enjoyed the Princess Diaries. And I have a book published, by accident, while I was on the road to trying to figure out book one, I wrote book two.

Isn't life strange?

More Pieces of Maine

2009-07-13T13:24:00.001-04:00

I'm home in NYC. I'm sad. I miss Maine. I miss the people, my new and old Maine friends, the libraries, the librarians, the patrons, the ocean, the pines, the frog that made music each night outside my cabin, and the freezing cold oceans and ponds and lakes to swim in!

More Pieces of Maine

2009-07-08T20:23:00.001-04:00

Pieces of Maine

2009-07-08T19:48:00.002-04:00

Maine news, events, photos, videos, and blogs - Bangor Daily News - Maineville

2009-05-29T23:52:00.001-04:00

Maine news, events, photos, videos, and blogs - Bangor Daily News - Maineville

Shared via AddThis

You Look Fantastic! Are You Married? (photos taken with iphone:honeysuckle, garlic mustard, the woods)

2009-05-22T15:22:00.001-04:00

Yes, those words were said to me today, by a man I don't know, standing beside me at a stop light, resting against his bike, wearing biker shorts, a helmet and biker gloves. We were stopped at the same stop light waiting to cross the street. Just the two of us--how cozy.

And I've been trained how to answer, or instructed what to do when I get hit on or harassed on the street. My daughter is one of the leading advocates in this country to stop street harassment. http://www.stopstreetharassment.com/index.htm

And I promise if it had been a dark night and this man had approached me on a deserted street I would have panicked. But it happened with two police cars, sirens, jammed and honking traffic, all surrounding a very smashed up car, all within twenty feet of where we stood.

I had just finished the running part of my daily run/walk I take through our local woods. Yes, I live in Queens NY, and yes I live a half hour subway ride from Time Square, and before I moved here I thought Queens was miles and miles of beat up old row houses, but I was wrong. We live by a six mile wooded park. I exercise there most days. Half way through the park you come to a busy road--Woodhaven Boulevard--the scene of today's horrible crash.

Let me backtrack. I am having computer troubles. I had to delete my old blog today and create a new one and I didn't really know how. It took me forever and I was ready to throw my laptop across the room and revel in seeing it smash into tiny pieces. Yesterday my computer froze repeatedly, as I tried for hours to burn CD's. I finally gave up. I think I need a new laptop. I hope the gods of laptops will help me find one that doesn't drive me CRAZY!

I got up early this morning and worked on the "damn computer." I was listening to the news. It is going to get hot today. It's probably reached the 85 degrees it was supposed to hit by now. But this morning the radio told me it was 67 out and that meant I better get my butt in gear and go run/walk in the woods before it became too hot. Poor Beckie. Besides all her tragic computer problems she gets sick in the heat and sun. She gets nauseated and headaches and feels faint. Poor Beckie.

So I went into the bathroom to comb my hair. I've been trimming it every morning for the past week, too cheap and not trusting enough to go let a professional do it. Every day I think, I can make it look good this time. By next week if things don't improve I'm going to be bald. I'm going to have to wear a wig like so many of my seriously religious Jewish neighbors who are not allowed to show their hair in public. I look horrible. I was so mad at my hair and my computer and was really feeling in a poor Beckie mood.

But the sun was getting warmer as I stewed over my hair, so I put on a hat and sunglasses to hide the no make-up, blood-shot, blurry eyes and headed out.

I ran into the woods, listening to my ipod music and trying to ignore the pain in my shins, the burning inside of my lungs, and made my mind focus on just getting to that stoplight a mile and a half ahead. Then in my rules after that it's okay to walk the rest of my work out.

And that's when I saw it, waiting for the light to turn green at Woodhaven, sweaty and tired and out of breath. It was a little convertible so smashed up I knew the person or people in it did not walk away. The passengers were already gone. A wrecker was backing up to the mess to load what was left of, an hour ago, stunning little convertible onto his flat bed. Hospitals, ICU's and funeral homes filled my mind. Tears filled my eyes. And as I stood at the cross walk, trying to take this fresh tragedy in, an unknown biker approached me and said, "You look fantastic. Are you married?"

I felt so many things at once. Did he really say I looked fantastic? Must remember to always wear a hat and sunglasses because I really looked like shit! But I couldn't look at him or really concentrate, because all I could see was that smashed up tiny car. Instead of saying all things I've been trained to say, or walk away, I just asked him, "Do you know what happened?" And instead of continuing to hit on me, he told me it was the driver of the other car, he pointed to a second car pulled aside, barely damaged, that had been at fault.

"It's so sad," I said back to him. I don't know why, but I just wanted to sit down and cry. I mean I see sad things all the time. But this was so close. Maybe if I hadn't taken time to trim some more of my ever shrinking hair this morning, or if I hadn't struggled so long with the damn computer, maybe I would have seen it, maybe I would have been hit, maybe I would be dead. I looked past him to the tiny car. It's all I could see.

His voice brought me back, "Are you married?" he asked again. I finally looked at him. He was a normal enough looking guy, a biker, about my age, nice gear, a decent vocabulary.

"Yes." I said, and then my eyes went back past him to the crushed metal object that had not so long ago, even minutes earlier been a car.

"Oh, too bad," he said and then jumped on his bike and headed down the street.

The light had changed and I walked across the busy street leaving behind the wreck, police cars,jammed up traffic, and one overly friendly biker. I headed into the woods again.

I hate it when it takes a flirting biker and a serious car accident for me to wake up from my "poor Beckie" mode. But it worked. I walked through the rest of the woods, admiring each tree, enjoying every stroke of the cool breeze as it floated across my sweaty body. I called out tree and plant names in my head. My heart rate slowed, my anxiety about life and hair and computers, and smashed up cars lifted.

My niece has been living with us since January, and she's a forestry major. She knows her plants and soil! When we take walks together its a wonderful learning experience for me. She has patiently been pointing out plants and trees and with her enthusiasm for our plant brothers and sister, I'm discovering the many wonderful stories that live right in my woods.

And after only a few walks with her, I can now tell the difference between red and white oak trees. I can point out a tulip poplar, a wine berry bush and garlic mustard. I also know that the smaller newer leaves on the garlic mustard are more tender and have a stronger less bitter flavor. We gathered some last week and had it in our green salad. I'm gathering garlic mustard for my salad like I live in a cabin in the back woods instead of in the middle of New York City.

Mostly, though, today as I walked, I was searching for honeysuckle. I spotted a bunch yesterday--the first of the season. Honeysuckle is very special to me, and it's my youngest daughter's favorite flower. I wondered today as I searched if she loves it for the same reason I do. I've never asked.

I have (or had) three daughters. My oldest daughter died at age 12. It was this time of the year, when everything is just out, green, alive and blooming. Today as I spotted the first of this season's honeysuckle blooms and breathed in their fragrance, I remembered the day after her death. I gathered my my two living daughters, and their best friends and we went exploring in the woods behind our house, like we had so often done with Heidi. We gathered wild flowers and lots of honeysuckle and took it back to the house and put it in a vase for Heidi's funeral.

Every year when I first smell honeysuckle, I remember. I say to myself--this is when she died--when the honeysuckle was in bloom. This is when we went into the woods to make sure she had wildflowers at her funeral. She loved wildflowers. We all did. She and her sisters and their friends half lived in our tree house set in the Kentucky woods behind our home. Every day the kids would collect wildflowers for Heidi and she would play with them on her wheelchair tray while they scampered about her side.

Honeysuckle is sacred to me. Life is sacred. I have to write about it. If I don't, on days like today I think I'll explode with sadness, or sweetness, or so many other feelings I can't even name them all.

Counting My Blessings

2009-05-22T14:33:00.001-04:00

1) I have a computer to write my stories with. I've heard (maybe myth) that Tolstoy wrote 17 rewrites of Anna Karina. By hand of course. I would have never become a writer without my computer. I took creative writing classes in college and my professor encouraged me to do a rewrite of a short story I wrote and submit it to a magazine. I never did. I would have had to retype ten single spaced pages. It was too much for this lazy writer! But with a computer I can cut and paste to my heart's content.

2) I have spell check (Imagine this post without it)! I cannot spell! I'm horrible at spelling!

3) I have a husband and critique friends and daughters who are great at spelling and grammar. Sadly they do not edit my posts so you are seeing the real me, minus spelling errors. I'm not only bad at spelling but worse at grammar. If I took the time to have them review my posts I would never post so I hope you will think of my posts as "first drafts."

4) I have an iphone. With my iphone I can record ideas either in a note pad or on a recording program as I'm walking or cleaning or doing something where I am not near a computer, and thus have the idea for good before it floats as quickly as it came out of my mind.

I can listen to books in an audible format. Which is great because when I like a book I tend to skim so I can get to what happens next and often miss some of the best lines. But the audible format forces me to hear every single word.

I can take pictures when I am out researching, or see something that I just might want to remember for something I am working on.

I can look at my own book, or others in e-format if I'm stuck in the subway or in a doctor's office. I actually started reading my book a few weeks ago when I was waiting for my doctor appointment far longer than I anticipated. I have never read CONVERTING KATE, edited it yes, but never read it from cover to cover. I was surprised at what had made the final cut (I'd forgotten). I was amused by my own writing. I found myself thinking, well this isn't all bad. Fortunately I only had to read about 30 pages and haven't had the desire since. But I can if I want to. And for books I am researching from for other writing, it is a wonderful way to easily reference. Thank you E Book Reader!

5) I have free time when my house is empty and quiet. Not always as much as I would like, but I find I can't write with anyone in the house, so as much as I love the people I live with I'm glad they occasionally leave!

6) I have the gift of persistence and hope. Besides just loving to write, and wanting to tell your story, it seems that having the fortitude to never give up on a project you are passionate about is important. I know this because I have received tons of rejections letters but I just keep plugging away! I was told by a dear friend, and quite famous author, who was a mentor of mine at Vermont College that books with a religious theme were very hard to sell to a publisher. But I wrote my book anyway, because I just had to. And CONVERTING KATE sold very quickly.

7) I am grateful to be able to blog. Blogging clears the cobwebs out of my head and lets me express my two cents whenever the urge strikes! Thank you BLOGGER!

Okay now that I have counted my writer blessings I'm going to go work on that unfinished novel, on the computer, with spell check.

I Write to Live and Live to Write

2009-05-22T14:32:00.001-04:00

Easter week has been great for me. I even went to church! Trinity Church on Wall Street had a Easter Spiritual/Musical TENEBRAE. The haunting unaccompanied choirs sang from different corners of the church and their music rose to the arched ceilings filling the church with Latin chants and harmony that gave me shivers up and down my spine.

Central Park in spring, is a big patch of wonder surrounded by honking taxis, endless traffic, skyscrapers, sirens and people, people, people. It was amazingly quiet and tranquil on Saturday morning in this lovely spring setting.

Montauk. Wild, Windy, Wet, the end of the world and so much fresh air you could bottle it and live on it for a week.

Easter Parade, with our daughters dogs was a huge hit we discovered. We were interviewed by New York 1, photographed over a 1,000 times, I'm sure, and got to meet this elderly couple ages 97 and 94 who used to come to the Easter Parade in a horse and buggy.

I often think about the mix between living and writing. Sometimes I am living life so fully I find no time to write, sometimes I am writing so much I find little time to live. But to write well with passion and depth I believe one must live life to the fullest. To write with feeling, one must feel life to the fullest. To write with color one must explore the world to the fullest. To write with love, one must embrace the world to the fullest.

I had a wonderful life of living this past week and now I'm going to write, write, write!

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Wars, and Why We Read and Why We Write What We Do

2009-05-22T14:31:00.001-04:00

I love this book. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society By Barrows Annie Fiery and Shaffer Mary Ann Fiery.

I feel like I took a trip back in time and visited the British Channel Islands during World War II and saw these Island people's lives under occupation. I could smell their roast pig. I could hear the fishing boats coming into the dock. I could see the waves lapping into the windy shore. I could hear the voices of all the Guernsey people who wrote letters(well that helps because I listened to Guernsey on Audible.) It's the best book I've read in a long time.

Will it be everyone's best book? I don't know. And that made me start thinking about why we connect to certain books we read, and why we choose against all odds to write about certain subjects, times, places and people.

I have been haunted by two wars.

The Civil War because my great grandmother Rebecca, for whom I was named, was born on a southern plantation, she and my great grandfather grew up in families who owned slaves. As a young couple they joined the Mormon Church, left the South and moved to Canada to a tiny Mormon community. I grew up in Utah, and always associated myself with the North. We weren't for slavery. But when I found this out about my past,about my great grand parents, it was probably the same year that I began reading Gone With the Wind. I read it every summer, starting at age 13, because I wanted to know why, how, what, when and where of the whole war.

I read Gone with the Wind every summer even when I came home from college. I stayed up all night to finish it. I cried and was depressed for two days and didn't want to talk to anyone. I was haunted by my heritage.

I am also haunted by World War II.

My father was born in Canada in a tiny Mormon community, ironically nearby where my mother's mother with Southern slave owning parents was born and raised. His people, his parents came from Poland, but were German speaking, German people. My German grandparents left all their siblings and parents behind in Poland. I was able to finally meet my father's people in East Germany the year before the wall came down.

One of my great uncles I met had been a prisoner of war in Scotland. Two of my other great uncles I met fought for Germany. My great aunt who I met was displaced, and homeless during and after the war, her four daughters and husband scattered. The four daughters and mother were finally reunited, but they never heard of or found their father, her husband my great uncle.

My father, back in Canada had an older brother who did not get along with their father, my grandfather. Uncle Eric left home when he was 13 and lived with a near by neighbor and worked on their farm. When World War II came along my uncle could have received permission not to enlist in the war because he was needed on the farm. All he had to do was ask his father to sign the papers. Instead of stooping to ask his father who he did not like, he joined up to fight with the Canadian military against his cousins in Germany.

Uncle Eric was killed in the invasion of Normandy. My father says although he's lived in the states since he was in his early twenties, he could still go back to their farm, in Welling, Alberta, Canada, and still find the very piece of ground in the middle of the fields where the Currier came to deliver the telegram about Uncle Eric's death. My father cannot talk about his brother all these years later without tearing up.

My Uncle Eric found happiness in England. He found a young woman who he was in love with, who he wanted to marry. But then he was shipped off to France, and then he was killed. I often think about that woman that brought my uncle happiness. I wonder what happened to her, if she knows someone in New York City at four a.m. on the morning of March 27th, 2009 is thinking about her? I am haunted by this story. I am haunted that my other relatives were part of the Nazi resume, that they were part of that horror.

So reading Guernsey somehow helped make sense of it all. I don't know why. But somehow for me, it brought England and the place my Uncle found joy, and my German relatives together on the Channel Islands and helped me imagine more fully what their lives had been like.

I know my writing comes from other stories that haunt me, my religious past, my heritage, my love of my daughter who died. Some things are so deep in us, that they need to find a way out, a safe, quiet way that won't tear the memories apart, but keep them precious. If that makes sense.

My niece is living with us for a few months between college semesters. She's reading Gone with the Wind for the first time. The same old copy I read every summer when I was growing up. After she finishes it, I'm going to tell her about her great great grandmother Rebecca, the slaves, the plantations and our heritage.

I love books. I love reading them. I love writing them. I love the places they take me.

A Writing Day With No Writing

2009-05-22T14:30:00.001-04:00

8:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. Reading and editing friend's 250 page novel manuscript
10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. *Update Author Bio
*Update Promotional Converting Kate postcards
*Update Query Letter for Middle grade novel manuscript
*Check through publishers/agents for somewhere to send middle
grade manuscript
*print out query letter and sample chapters prepare mailing
packet
*autograph and pack copies of Converting Kate for upcoming
radio interviews
break for lunch

3:30 p.m. *walk to post office listening to English Victorian novel
(I'm listening to a lot of Austen, Dickens, Elliot,
and Gaskell in preparation for next novel set in
Victorian Britain)
4:00 p.m. *Mail off books and query packet
5:00 p.m. *Answer emails including author fan mail
8:00 p.m. *Phone interview with book club in Connecticut reading
Converting Kate

What a day and no writing on adult novel which has 200 pages completed and probably 200 more pages to go. I'm hoping Monday I can write on my novel. But some days are like this for writers. It isn't all sitting at the computer and making this wonderful dream world that's in our heads come to life! But those are the days I live for!

What Should Writers Read--A Debate

2009-05-22T14:29:00.001-04:00

In September, I had the honor of hearing Jane Yolen speak, and this week I had the opportunity to read an article in the Washington Post about my mentor and friend, and author of Octavian Nothing Part's One and Two, M. T. Anderson.

And here's my question for all your writers out there. What do you read when you are working on a novel?

Here's what the Washington Post said about my friend, Tobin, M. T. Anderson, " He was so obsessed with getting Octavian's voice right that for the better part of six years, he restricted his reading to books written in or relating to the 18th century." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/28/AR2008112802766.html

And when I heard Jane Yolen speak at the New School in New York City she said when she was in the midst of writing a particular book, she would avoid all other books in that genre or on that topic. (My words not hers, so don't quote me, but its the gist of what I remember). So here we have two great authors who chose a very different route. Jane Yolen's point was she was afraid some of the other author's writing would slip into her voice.

I wish I was that good of a listener, or mimic. I can imagine reading, "Beckie Weinheimer's writing has a familiar ring, a voice similar to that of Laurie Halse Anderson in her popular award winning novel Speak," or better yet, Ms. Weinheimer's voice is sweet, and strong and sure, much ike that of Haper Lee's in her classic To Kill A Mockingbird." Nope. Isn't happening for me.

The voice inside my head seems sadly to be my own, for better or worse, and so like M. T. Anderson, I surround myself in literature from the period, or genre that I am writing about. But not to the extent that M. T. Anderson did. I do allow myself the occasional other book. And since I am normally working on more than one project at a time, right now an adult contemporary drama, and a time travel book to Victorian England, my reading is broad and varied. I'm reading a lot of George Elliot, Charles Dickens, and historical books like Ellen Howard's Gate in the Wall, Phillip Pullman's Ruby in the Smoke series, and any others I can get my hands on. I am not forcing myself to read them so my writing will be better, rather, I am drawn to these books because my mind is on the same subject or time period, or place.

And since I have read few "adult" books in my life, and am making my first attempt at an adult novel I am reading the award winners, and mysteries, (my adult book has a lot of twists and turns) and having a blast doing it. And I think all this reading is helping my writing. I don't think I'm stealing the other writer's voices but its more like a travel experience for me, the book takes me to the place I want to learn more about anyway and does make my writing richer. I may read about some law in Victorian England that I knew nothing about, so I google it and research and suddenly I have a whole new scene or idea for my novel. That's how it works for me.

So what's your point of view on the subject?

To read or not to read?

Let me know! Comments welcome!

*Photo is a church in the tiny coastal town of Penally, Wales, where my great great great grandfather was baptized and which inspired my whole time travel story. Being able to travel to Wales and visit this ancient stone church while reading my ggg grandfather's diary written in the mid 1800's may be the closest I'll ever get to time travel. :)

Riding A Greyhound Bus From Iowa City, Iowa to NYC

2009-05-22T14:28:00.001-04:00

I've had a lot of people request a report of my cross country travel on Greyhound. So here it is for better or worse!

I am currently writing a novel for adults (not to be confused with Adult books which are I think porno). It's just that I normally write for young adults or younger audiences. In this novel, my main character lives in Iowa City Iowa (I lived there 18 years ago and really loved the setting so that's why I chose it for a book). For reasons I won't get into here, this mother of 11 leaves home, runs away and wants no trail behind her, for her abusive husband to follow. So using cash she buys a one way ticket from Iowa City to New York City. I've had this idea for a novel for several years, but felt I would have to do a lot of research to make the New York City part accurate. However, when we moved to NYC two years ago, and since then as I have traveled to different parts of the city, my mind has often filled with my character and why she would be at this place. Soon she was taking over a lot of my mind, and everywhere I went, to the subway, the local grocery, or to a museum, I would think, what she would do in this place. And so I began writing the novel.

When an invitation came to speak at a library in Iowa early this fall, I was thrilled. I flew out, I rediscovered Iowa City, which had changed in 18 years, met lots of lovely writers--young and old, teachers and librarians, spoke in three high schools, two libraries and found the grey hound bus station and the fictional home where my character would take her last walk from to the bus station.

And then I got on the bus for 35 long eventful hours after which I finally arrived in NYC, tired, with lost luggage, a new wonderful friend Shirley, an iphone full of photos and notes from all that had happened to me, and now hopefully will vicariously happen to my character.

One of my main questions before getting on the bus is why people would choose to ride on the bus. My one way plane ticket to Iowa, admittedly thought about and purchased far in advance, was only $86.00. My one way bus ticket, also bought in advance, was $166.00. So it was cheaper to fly and I can tell you from having just done both, much easier and more comfortable to fly.

So why do people ride the greyhound bus?

My character gave me one of the first reasons. She paid cash and even in this post September 11th era (my story is based in the year 1999 for very particular reasons which would take a very long time to explain), in my cross country bus travel I was never asked for any I.D. So if you don't want to leave a paper trail, ride the bus.

Another reason I believe is because not only can you pay in cash, but travel at about the same cost whether you book a month in advance or the day you are traveling. My new met on the bus friend Shirley, who will play into my story later, often rides the bus. She's in her 70's and told me her adult children would much rather she fly, but she is a spontaneous traveler, and by the time she decides to go to Mobile, Alabama her hometown for example or in this case Chicago, from NYC, it is much cheaper to ride the bus. Plus she has been doing it all her life and she feels safer with this mode of travel.

I think a third reason is that people don't have credit cards or perhaps they don't have good credit. And most of air travel is paid for over the phone or on the internet with a credit card.

But I think a strong reason one the stayed with me as I observed situations arise on our trip, fit into my character's reasons. No paper trail.

We had a long stop at the bus station in Chicago. I was walking around the two room bus stop, stretching my legs, trying to get all the kinks out when I noticed one police officer, then two, then four all questioning one woman who had two small children with her and garbage bags of their belongings on the floor around them. She was nursing the baby and she and her toddler aged daughter were sharing a very small hamburger from the café at the bus stop. I can tell you, bus stop food is horrible! I am glad I bought two apples, yogurts and some peanuts before I started the trip.

I began to think of my character as I saw the police women and men two of each, closing in on this woman. My character could have already have a missing person's report on her. What would she do? Hide in the bathroom? Keep her head down low? But if she hid, she'd miss the muffled call for her particular bus. It was hard to hear the buses being called out in all the confusion that seemed to exist at every bus stop, so I began to depend on Shirley a fellow bus rider, who rode the buses a lot, and was also heading to NYC to know when we should stand in line at a particular door to board our bus again.

This woman and her two children and all her garbage bags of belongings were taken. I stood at the glass doors and watched as the police loaded them into a van and took them away. I don't know if the mother was arrested, was a runaway, or abused and needed protective custody. All I know is my character who thought once she got on the bus she would be safe, would now feel frightened.

I was so afraid someone would steal my wallet if I slept that night that I bought one of those travel neck purses and put all my important id, credit cards, cell phone and cash in it, and kept it hidden under my zipped hoodie. I did sleep on the bus. And the next morning I awoke to the sun shining golden on the corn fields, small towns with white steeple churches surrounded by vibrant trees of red, yellow and orange.

About mid morning in this heavenly setting a woman came running up to the bus driver. She was frantic. She told him that an older woman was unconscious and the woman's daughter could not revive her. She told him he needed to call 911 and get an ambulance. Many of us (me included) had headphones on, listening to whatever, I was listening to an Alexander McCall Smith book on audible on my iphone. Other people were talking on their cell phones. Our bus driver called 911 and pulled over to the side of the road. Everyone took their head sets out. Everyone stopped talking on their phones. We all held our breath as the woman who had gone to the bus driver and the daughter of this unconscious woman tried to revive her. Finally they did. She took a sip of water. By this time the highway patrol had arrived, a few minutes before the ambulance. A state trooper came aboard. I wanted to turn my face and hide, even though it was only what my character would want to do. Once again I realized she would feel very vulnerable with the trooper's presence. And now here is where I got mad. This elderly woman had had some sort of medically traumatic episode. She could not speak English, she was Latino. The first question out of the officer's mouth was not, "How are you Mam? Are you okay?" But "Would you please show me your I.D.?" None of us had been asked for ID to board the bus, but now this seemed to be the most important question. I had a sick feeling that if I, a Caucasian woman with proper ID had had the heart attack instead of this woman I would not have been asked for my I.D. I believe I would have been asked, if I was okay.

This poor woman only had a foreign passport. She did not want to get on the ambulance. She did not want to go to the hospital. I felt so badly for her. The medics arrived and they took her stats and she kept insisting through her daughter, who spoke English that she did not want to leave the bus. But the EMT's said her stats were very bad and she needed to go to the hospital for her own well being. What a mess. They finally got her to go. I assume if she got well, she and perhaps her daughter were deported. Obviously I am letting my bias on illegal visitors to our country be known here. And I could go into a tirade of how people like this woman work long hard hours doing work most Americans don't want to do and how these same American are more than happy to pay cheap wages for illegal workers to do the work they don't want to do themselves. Okay enough on that. But in my head my character was scared until the ambulance was loaded and the state trooper finally left our bus.

Everyone was silent for a long time, still no cell phones, or use of head sets. It was like we were all respectfully worried for this woman, and we just gave her some moments of silence. I felt at one with my fellow bus riders at this time. An hour later however, we were back to our normal bus routines, eating out of our bags of food, calling loved ones on cell phones, and me, back to listening to my Alexander McCall Smith mystery.

Things went fine and calm until we stopped in Philadelphia at the bus stop for our bus to get refueled. We were told it would be a very short stop and that we could leave our personal belongings on the bus.

Shirley was sitting where I could see her, talking on the phone to someone in her family. I kept my eyes on her as I walked around the bus station talking to my husband on the phone. He didn't know how to put a new audio book on his ipod. I always did it for him, so I was walking him through the instructions and keeping my eyes on Shirley so I would know when we were called to go to the bus. Time passed, I successfully instructed my husband, and now he had a new book to listen to on his Ipod. We were chatting and I was walking around the bus stop when I finally thought I should ask Shirley why we weren't reloading yet?

Well to make a long story short, Shirley had been watching me not listening for the bus call and I in turn was watching her and not listening for the bus call and sadly we missed our bus. All Shirley's medicines and coat and of course our luggage was stowed away on the bus that had already pulled out and headed for NYC without us. We were devastated, and anxious, she for her medicines, me for a cute coat I had got at a bargain price and would not be able to replace.

The bus station people were nice to us, and told us the next bus to NYC would leave in two hours and we could be on it. They gave us a free voucher for dinner. I declined. It was horrible food. Shirley took a coffee and cinnamon bun, but the bun was too dry in the end to eat. We talked more and I told her why I was riding the bus and she thought it was so funny that I would ride across country just to get into my character's point of view. She told me about being a spontaneous traveler and how her children wished she wouldn't ride the bus. She told me about coming to NYC in 1961 from Mobile, Alabama to become a Domestic Engineer, and about putting herself through Queens College so she could get a better job. We discovered we lived less than three miles from each other in Queens.

We did get on the next bus and miracle of miracles all our belongings were in a holding cage at the bus station in NYC. We were so relived. Well, until the next day when I would discover someone must have taken my new camera my daughter has just bought me out of my lunch bag, but left me the apple and peanuts. Thank you very much. My husband picked Shirley and me up at two a.m. Shirley, spunky and self reliant had been going to carry all her luggage on the subway and then walk the several blocks from the subway home alone in the middle of the night. She was very grateful for the ride.

I learned a lot from riding the bus. My fellow riders were respectful and polite and caring, and but of course someone was a little quick with their fingers to steal my camera. Still all in all it was a good experience, and one I will not be repeating. I am not a spontaneous traveler. And I have proper ID and a credit card. I feel very grateful for those simple things I had taken for granted until my cross country trip on Greyhound. I will be using planes for future travel. But I will not forget why people ride the greyhound bus. And I will remember this one cross country ride for the rest of my life!

Young Adult Librarians are The Gods and Goddesses of This World

2009-05-22T14:26:00.001-04:00

This week at my local library, I met a new Young Adult Librarian. She's a "floater," she said. Which she explained means she works at whatever Queens Branch needs her. She was a wonderful librarian, eager to help me, kind and gentle, instantly making me feel heard hopeful that she would help me solve my problem. She was at the information desk when I approached her and asked for help in trying to locate a copy of last Sept/October 07 Horn Book Magazine. Why did I want the magazine? Because Joel Shoemaker, a reviewer for School Library Journal, who wrote a nice review of my book Converting Kate, told me I had a review in Horn Book. I met Joel because he lives in Iowa City and heard I was coming and he wanted to meet me. I'll include a picture, you can see how much I liked him and Jill, who is a librarian for West High School. They took me to dinner after Jill had driven me around all day to different high schools in Iowa and listened to my same talk FIVE times. That alone should grant her sainthood. And that's what I want to say.

Young Adult Librarians are saints.

Over the past year and a half since my book came out I have spent many afternoons or evenings with librarians and their lively young patrons. Meeting so many librarians up close I have concluded-- there are no bad Young Adult librarians. Or at least I haven't met them. They are the champion of books, the gods and goddesses of free expression, and the nurturers who feed the hungry with a rainbow of literature. I love Young Adult Librarians. And why do these saints disguised as humans become librarians?

For the money?

Ha!

I believe it is because they genuinely love teens and teen literature. And they KNOW Young Adult literature. They are walking encyclopedias of information about books for teens. And thanks to them I always have a list of books they recommend so I am never at a loss as to what to read next.

One librarian I met recently did something very brave and noble. She cataloged a book for a particular patron. That patron was my friend. I can't go into the story but I was so in awe of Jet Kofoot a librarian from the Algona Library, in a tiny town in the middle of corn fields in Iowa. She put her patrons first. She helps teens find books, books they need. Wow.

When I go into a new library, or school to meet the librarian, I admit I'm a bit nervous, but within seconds we are talking about teens, about the latest John Green novel, or another good book we have both just read. And I am at ease. I am with people who fill me with this dream. I would wish for the library doors to lock, a bushel of apples to appear, the drinking fountain and toilets to work, and then just let me stay in that cozy YA section of the library and just read and read and read for days, for weeks for months--maybe because they are so teenish--I'd wish to be in the Rockport Library, or the Coralville Library, or the Southwest Harbor (because they have these really comfy bean bag chairs). All I know is in the teen sections of libraries, with the librarians close by, helping, and smiling, I feel warm, safe and hopeful.

Thank you Young Adult Librarians, this one's for you!

Algona Public Library, Algona, IA
Iowa City High Schools, Iowa City, IA
Coralville Public Library , Coralville, IA
Northeast Harbor Library Northeast Harbor, ME
Southwest Harbor Library, Southwest Harbor, ME
Rockland Library, Rockland, ME
Rockport Library Rockport, ME
Camden Public Library, Camden, ME
Potomac Library, Potomac, MD
Twinbrook Library Rockville, MD
Rockville Library, Rockville, MD
George Mason University's Fall for the Book Festival Fairfax, VA
Richmond Hill Library, Richmond Hill, NY
Oxford Library, Oxford, CN

Can I be a Musician and A Writer?

2009-05-22T14:25:00.001-04:00

So since my brother in law died two weeks ago I've done a few things I hadn't planned besides crying, going to a funeral and trying to comfort Ed's kids and grandkids. I also made extra sure my kids knew I loved them. I hugged my husband a lot. I tried to patch up a few shaky relationships. And I took a walk with a musical instrument I bought a few years back (still in it's like new black leather case) to a big guitar and drums store a mile away from me on Queens Blvd.

Why?

A few years back my brother in law Ed, who died this month, and I had gone with his brother to Berea, KY which is a tiny town in the backwoods of Kentucky. Berea is a mecca for Appalachian Crafters to sell their wares. Ed and I were totally blown away in one store by a man playing a dulcimer. Ever heard of a dulcimer? If not you are not the only one.

And before we knew it, the music has swept all reason away and we each plunked down over 300 dollars so we could have our very own dulcimer. I learned later that they are similar in sound to bagpipes. No wonder all my reason fell away. I have been a sucker for bagpipes my whole life and explain my total loss of reason when bagpipes are playing to people by explaining that my genealogy shows that from 1800's to 1600s my people lived in Scotland. I don't know where they lived before then, but the way my heart aches and swells whenever I hear a bagpipe, I figure they lived there from when time began. And now it was the same with the dulcimer.

After our great adventure to Berea, hosted by my other brother in law who lived in Lexington KY we traveled back to his house that night. Once settled, once everyone had seen our new toys, we dutifully started practicing our little instruments with the beginners music book the musician/artisan provided. (Oh and my dulcimer was made from tulip poplar wood taken from a jail house when it was torn down. Jail House Rock and Folsom Prison began strumming through my mind as the creator told me this).

Anyway Ed's wife and my husband who had stayed in Lexington for the day just rolled their eyes. They knew we had been taken and that we would never play the instruments again and said as much.

Ed replied, "Hey I know I won't play this again. But It will look nice in my house."

I was determined I would learn to play the dulcimer. But see those little post-its on the instrument in the picture. I put them there over three years ago, when I was learning to play. After two days I broke a string trying to tune my instrument. So I put it away waiting for some free time to go get a new string. True confessions--until this week my beloved dulcimer sat in its nice little case, hidden in some back storage room. But when we got home from the funeral, I got it out and made a new vow. To learn to play the dulcimer, for Ed. For Me. To help me grieve.

But first I had to get the string fixed. Hence my walk to the store. I have only received as much attention as I got in that store twice before in NYC, and both times it was by association of being cool, not being cool myself.

Two years ago I got my husband a waterproof cover for his ipod so he could swim with it on. Oh my gosh, that night after our swim at the local Y you would have thought he had the iphone a smart car, or something way cool. Everyone in his locker room and mine were talking about it. In his, Where did you get it? How cool? Does is really work?

And in my female locker room. Did you see the guy swimming with the ipod? I want one. Where did he get it? Did I speak up. No I just beamed as everyone talked about it. For at least a night at the Y I had made my husband a star.

And then my daughter adopted two Yorkies. I dog sat a while back and when I took them for a walk, you would have thought I was walking with the Olsen twins. I never felt so important and special.

But when I was at the guitar store, huge by the way, I must say I made a hit on my own with just my dulcimer. I was waiting in line behind several people. At the head of the line was this guy who had come in while his driver and Lincoln Town car waited outside. "I want the newest and the best you have, as soon as possible," he barked importantly to the clerk behind the counter.

And finally after the line calmed down the guitar/musician/my day job is at this store/clerk wanted to know how he could help me. So I told him I had a broken string on my dulcimer and I needed it tuned. He opened my case and just stared like he had opened something Holy. What is it called again?"

"Um a dulcimer. It's an Appalachian Mountain instrument."

He had to get all his buddies to come take a look. They had never seen one before either.

He didn't know how to tune it. Together we read the little book that came along with my dulcimer, that I had luckily brought a long. I learned my dulcimer has four strings. The highest is tuned to G and the the lower strings are all tuned to D, all in the same octave. Don't ask me why. I don't understand yet. But when the clerk who quickly became my friend had it in tune and I strummed it, I may as well have been in the highlands of Scotland, or the tops of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I was in heaven. Customers came over to take a look. One asked, can I touch it?"

I let them all. I beamed. My insides seemed to turn into four strings that strummed a happy tune.

I had come on a determined mission. I had been sad. I wish Ed was there with me. He would have loved it that no one, not any of these very musical people in big famous New York City had ever seen a dulcimer. He would have loved it and I loved knowing that he would have loved it.

I used to play the piano. A lot.

I used to sew and design clothes. A lot.

Then I discovered reading and writing.

And now I read and write a lot.

And I find not enough creativity left in me for the other things.

Other artists have shared similar stories. You can't do it all. Only so much creativity is inside.

But I pray to the God of arts, whomever and wherever she/he is that I will find the energy and continued passion to read, write and play the dulcimer. For Ed. And for me.

Mormon Ladies Get To Show Off Their Hair

2009-05-22T14:24:00.001-04:00

Do you know the roots of why you are who you are? What made you decide to become a scientist, a dentist, a doctor, or teacher? I think I might have discovered today what first made me want to become a writer.

I was on my way to the CVS Drugstore this morning for some hair dye and as I walked down a busy street in Queens, my mind went to the ongoing debate I have with myself. The debate came to my mind, because it was Saturday and I live in a community with a lot of Jewish people. The kind of Jewish people you can tell are Jewish just by by the way they dress, and temple, service, or whatever they call it, was getting out. I watched the women. I always do. We also have Hindu and Muslim people in our neighborhood. I observe the women of each culture/religion and how they dress. What is my ongoing debate? It's this. Would I rather be Muslim, Hindu or Jewish, based on clothing alone? Hindu--no debate. Why?

Simply because they get to show their hair.

Muslim women, have head scarves.

In the sect of religious Jews that we live around, all the adult women either wear wigs or scarves, scarves that are wound tightly around their head, not to be mistaken or confused with the more flowing head scarves of the Muslim women. But the majority of Jewish women in our area wear wigs. I read a book recently, THE ROMANCE READER about an Hasidic Jewish girl growing up in NYC in the 70's. On the morning after she was married her mother came to her house and shaved off all her hair and handed her a wig. I have seen hair sticking out of some of the Jewish women's head scarves. But I wonder if the ones who wear wigs are like the girl in the book and have shaved heads?

That would for me, be the worst possible type of religious requirement. Far worse than just hiding my hair behind some sort of head scarf. Why? I have always liked my hair. Okay. I love my hair.

Anne of Green Gables thought her nose was her one true beauty, but I knew growing up that my one true beauty was my hair.

By the time I was eight my hair was down to my knees and had never been cut. My mother took great care of it. I had beautiful ringlets or long elegant braids. I got complimented, ooohed and ahhed at, and I think both my mother and I lapped up the attention. So I knew things had to be bad when she announced one day, a year or so after my triplet sisters were born, that she was going to cut all my hair off. I wasn't mad at her, it made sense. She had too much to do. But my heart was broken. My hair. My one true beauty, to be cut off?

By the time I was six, I was the eldest of 8 children. Four year old twins, two year old twins, and baby triplets. No wonder my mother had no time for my hair. But she made this drastic announcement in front of my grandmother, her mother, who had moved next door after the triplets were born so she could help my mother. I wonder now if my mother too was trying to save my hair and this was her last desperate hope to save it. My grandmother was at our house every morning to help with the feedings, and baths and the little attention and care that could be spared for the rest of us.

"I'll take care of her hair," my grandmother said. We grandkids all called her Mom. I don't know why we did. But my grandmother was Mom and my grandfather was Pop, which led me to call my own mother, Mother after I grew out of the Mommy stage.

I had always loved Mom, she would give us cookies when we'd go next door to visit, and always called me Honey Child, which made me feel special. And on the first day of school every year, when I would get so scared to go that I would vomit, she would hold the vomit bowl and put her arms around me.

And then she became my savior--literally, because if I had to have my hair cut off like my four younger sisters who had pixie cuts, I would have lost my specialness.

I adored her then and still do for simply saving my hair. I was so grateful that morning. We weren't a hugging kind of family so I didn't rush over to her and wrap my arms around her, but inside I was jumping up and down when only a minute earlier after my mother's announcement, like Anne Shirley I had been in the depths of despair.

When you are the eldest of eight, and your dad works two jobs and your mother is working almost 24/7 just trying to keep everyone fed and dressed, you like any positive attention you get, and I got it for my hair.

So the oohs and ahhs continued. My one true beauty was still in tact and the wonderful hidden bonus I had no idea about that morning so long ago was that as Mom combed my hair every morning she would also tell me stories about her people. She was a professional genealogist, and she had the most wonderful stories to tell. My neck tingled as she talked and combed. I learned about James Crane, a poor bastard Welsh boy who had been my great great grandfather. I learned about Rebecca Kilgrow, my great grandmother, Mom's mom who was a real southern lady and grew up in Tennessee and who I was named for. Mom told me she never went outside without her gloves and hat on to keep her lovely skin white. Is it no wonder I read GONE WITH THE WIND every summer from that time on? I wanted to know about that world my great grandmother Rebecca, had belonged to. Besides in full disclosure, it was one of the few novels we actually had in our house, tucked in-between Mormon Doctrine and The Book Of Mormon on our bookshelves.

Also, because I hadn't experienced a lot of touches and hugs, this little tingling running up and down my neck as her soothing voice told me stories, was the best feeling I'd ever had. And Saturdays were the greatest. That day she washed my hair in the kitchen sink and then she combed it out. We didn't have cream rinse and it hurt to have the tangles combed out, but I looked forward to that day the most, because it took so much longer. I got so much more time with Mom. And my neck still tingled as she talked even though my scalp was burning with pain from combing out the snarls.

I loved Mom very much. She became a mentor for me in many things. When I went away to college I also began doing genealogy. I would later visit some of the places "our people" came from, like Wales and Tennessee. I remembered the stories she told me, found out more about our people and I've used some of their stories in my fiction.

So as I walked home today with hair dye in hand, the debate about which would be the least awful religion to be a part of, purely on the basis of hair was put aside. Instead I began to count my blessings, as I was taught to do from my Mormon youth. And I was grateful 1)that I was raised Mormon, not Jewish, so I could keep my hair, and 2)that Mom had saved my hair and was the first storyteller in my life.

And then I stopped on the sidewalk and pondered. I wondered for the first time, if it was Mom who had planted the seed inside my soul to actually become a writer, a teller of stories. Had she done far more than save my one true beauty? Had she not also planted the seed for whom I was to become?

Gum Chewers, Police and Some Library Books

2009-05-22T14:20:00.001-04:00

I went on an adventure yesterday. I went to NYC. Now mind you, for me, that's only a half mile walk to the subway, and then a half hour subway ride. But I wasn't in the best of mental shape. I lost a good friend and brother in law unexpectedly last week and I haven't had a good night sleep since until the night before I went to NYC. Then I took a sleeping pill. It was tiny and blue but I slept and slept and when I woke up, well, my brain wasn't quite right. It was groggy and still half asleep. I was most of the way to the subway stop when I realized I had forgotten to bring my cell phone with me. Worse, I had forgotten to bring ear plugs.

Why would any sane person need earplugs just to commute from Queens to Manhattan?

Well I can't stand gum chewers. The sound of them popping their gum, chewing away with open mouths--like cows chewing on their cud is revolting, disgusting and down right hurts my ears. But you can't smoke on the subway so guess what people do---you guessed it. And when it happens that I am seated by a gum chewer (the odds are in my favor), I simply get out my ear plugs, put them in, close my eyes, because even the sight of them chewing insults me, and manage to endure the ride.

My nerves were already raw because of the death and funeral and seeing my adult nieces and nephew so distraught. And now no earplugs. So I nestled down in a far corner of the subway car, closed my eyes, burrowed my head and used my fingers for earplugs. I survived.

The streets of NYC were busy. They always are. But the humid, unmoving heat wave of air I had left in Queens had a slight breeze on fifty ninth and Lexington and so I began my walk. I had to go to the post office first, and then I could get back on the subway or walk the 16 blocks to the library where I had books on hold. Four books to be exact. I decided to walk. It was lovely out. The breeze made it perfect. I browsed store windows and stopped when I found a really cool trendy shoe store with beautiful hot pink dress shoes, with a strap. A strap! Why a strap. The problem is that I like to dress like a teen, or someone much younger than my fifty years, but my feet are fifty years old. I wear orthodic inserts and I have to find shoes with straps to keep the orthodics in place as I walk. Yippee. They fit and were on clearance. So I bought the 20 dollar bargain and almost skipped on forward the library, so happy I was with my thrifty find. I was almost to the library when I found a funky paper supply store. Bright pink, purple and yellow paper, labels and 9 X 11 mailers. Cool. I could jazz up all the stuff I have to send out. They even had purple glitter pens?. I like to sign CONVERTING KATE in purple glitter. Yeah, I'm a kid at heart. Can I just tell you back in the stone ages when I was in school we did NOT have GLITTER pens? I love them. They make my words, well sparkle!

So I now had bright pink shoes, bright pink mailers and purple sparkle pens and I was on my way to the library where I had four books on hold. I was so excited to get these books. One was a book to read for a book group I signed up for on GOOD READS, which by the way is a fun site for readers and writers. I'll probably post this blog on my profile page there. I've met very cool people who like the same books I do and we talk about them. Anyway I have not been able to join in on the discussions of the Victorian Lit group because I didn't have the book they are reading. But the book for the group was sitting only minutes ahead at the library.

I got to the library at five. They close at six. I looked everywhere for my books on hold. Finally I went to the information desk. Is this the Donn ell Library?

"No."

Duh. I have spoken at the Donnell Library. The information man told me it's on Fifth between 52 and 53rd. I was on fifth and 42. It was now five thirty. Maybe the little blue pill was still at work muddling my mind? A half hour to go eleven and a half blocks. I could make it. I could. I thanked the information man and scurried out, well scurried once I got through the bag check. Yes, they had to check out my pink shoes and my bright office supplies and my bright pink purse. Okay I was in a bright mood.

Once on the street, I began dodging around people trying to time the lights on each corner. Have you ever been on Fifth Avenue in the 50 streets at five thirty pm on a week day? Of course you have. Everyone in the world has. OR it seemed to me that everyone in the entire world was there yesterday, blocking my way, keeping me from the library.

Finally I saw a policeman at the inner edge of the crowd. No one was around him. I jumped in right behind him and followed him for two blocks. He was moving fast and I could move fast in his shadow. Finally he turned around, we almost bumped into each other, and both moved quickly out of each other's way.

"Is something the matter?" He asked.

When I realized he wasn't going to arrest me from stocking him I said, "Um well, I'm following you because I'm in a hurry and you seem to be able to make it quickly through these crowds."

He walked companionably beside me at the same fast clip, and began to talk. "What just happened there?" he asked me

I was confused. What did he mean.? Would I have understand had I not taken the tiny blue pill?

I ventured a guess. "I was following you?"

"I mean why didn't we bump into each other. We both made the effort not to bump into each other, right?"

"Um, right?"

"Life is so hard," said like he was confiding his soul, as we clipped on down the busy street. "I try so hard to be nice, but it's so hard to be nice and to let people know you want to be nice."
"Rough day?" I ask.

"Yes." He sighed.

"Well you have been nice to me and it's cheered up my day." I offer.

"Really?"

Gosh, this guy was easy. "Yes. You really did. You know what I think?"

"What?" he asked like I had the wisdom of Buddha or something

"I figure all we can do is be nice to the people we do come in contact with, and hope that makes them be nicer with others and hope that is might spread. The niceness I mean."

"I like that idea."

"Can I tell you something?" I ask and then don't wait for an answer. "I think you might be too hard on yourself, I tell him. I can tell you are a nice human being.

Really? You can tell?

"I can tell". I said it with authority. Like my day job was to go around and decide who's nice and who's not.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome." I smiled back to him.

We walked four more blocks together and then he stopped at the light and said, "I hope you make it to where ever you are trying to get to."

"Thank you. Remember you are making a difference."

He smiled and waved.

Okay I have this really opinionated idea about military, police officers and security people. I think most go into these fields for the glory of power and control and sadly, in my opinion a much smaller, group enter these same careers with true altruistic feelings. They actually want to make the world a safer, nicer place. I had just met one such man.

So I scurried on. I got to the place where the library was supposed to be. No library. I ran to the corner. Another police officer. They are everywhere, and I think it makes our city really safe and it's also a great way to get directions. Only this officer didn't know where the library was. So I ran on, I saw a man outside one of the most posh of posh Men's stores on Fifth Avenue. In desperation, even though his nice suit cost more than a million books so why would he know where the measly little library was that loaned out free books? I mean if he read books he probably buys them, right? But still I asked, "By any small chance do you know where the Donnell Library is?"

He did. He knew exactly and he gave me great directions and even gave me the time on his watch that probably cost more than my husband's car. They directions I had previously given according to Mr. Posh were one block off. I ran, dodging through the crowds. His watch said six minutes to six. I had six minutes to make one and a half blocks. I could do it. I knew I could. I ran, I dodged. I scurried through almost red lights at cross walks. I got to the library just as the security guard was in the act of locking the door. "Help, please, let me in ,"I begged tapping on the glass door he was locking.

"Sorry Mam."

"But I've been walking two hours (okay and a bit of shopping) to get here. Please. Please. Please." I heard my voice. I was begging. And loudly, on a street in NYC.

"I can't mam. Sorry," he said as he unlocked the door to let some other lucky library patrons out.

"I'll just be a second I said through the crack as he was relocking the door. "My books are on hold. People are still in there. You could let me in. You could if you wanted to".

"Sorry." His voice was firm. And something else I heard in it. Could the sound be enjoyment? Did I actually hear enjoyment? I am quite sure I did.

I stood watching him for five whole minutes.

The guy who was cooking gyros out on the street came over to me. "What he do to you?" he asked in broken English. He had his big metal spatula in his hand, and looked like Don Quixote who was going to fight for my honor.

"He won't let me get my books." I said. My voice sounded like a sad little girl who was to get a prize at the end of her journey and didn't.

"Bad man," he said to me. He shook his head and then walked back to his cart letting the spatula dangle uselessly from the bottom of his arm.

I stood there. So sad. So close. But so far. I didn't want to accept defeat. I wanted my damn books. I was in denial.

Now if this were fiction, I would let the good guy win. Me, I would get my books. And the bad guy--The security guard, would lose. His boss would come, she would say, this is Beckie Weinheimer. She volunteers her time at NYC libraries, she can come in. We will give her, her books.

But this is not fiction. This is a blog. The bad guy won. As I walked away I thought, well he's certainly fits the criteria for one of my law enforcement stereotypes. I'd seen both ends of the spectrum in less than a half hour.

Dejected, tired and weary, I got on the subway. It was packed like sardines. No room to sit, hardly room to hold on to the hand grip bar above. The smell of body odor was overwhelming. The AC was not working and I had just entered Dante's Hell. And of course to make it complete where was I standing? You guessed it. Right next to a very loud gum chewer. My hands were full of bags I had to stand and use one hand to hold the bags the other to hold on to the rail. My new pink shoes were getting crushed. No plugging my ears with my fingers this time. This last episode in my semi drugged day was taking the last ounces of sanity and reasonability left in me. Chomp chomp chomp, like a hateful drummer, beating away before they guillotined me for crimes against humanity.

And then the subway unexpectedly lurched to a full stop. We all jostled and bumped and looked at each other like, what the?

And then the voice. The voice from the driver you never see. "Please everyone exit. Our train is leaking water. Wait for the next train."

So like sheep following the leader, we got off. I got away from the gum chewer in the exodus. Praise Allah. (No I am not Muslim but after September 11th I started saying this just to remind people that we can believe in different things and not be suicide bombers). And without the gum chewer chomping incessantly in my ear, I stood watching a woman I had admired on the train. It was obvious gum chewing didn't bother her. It was obvious crowds of people and foul body odor didn't affect her either. She had a book in her hands, standing, reading, as if she and the book were alone in the world. She walked off the train, reading, she stood in the line we all made formed while waiting for the next subway train, reading. I think if the subway station had suddenly caught on fire I would have had to nudge her, "Hello, sorry to bother you and all, but your book is about to burn, you are about to burn." She had the best concentration. She was certainly a reader. But was she a writer?

I had my doubts. I have about zero concentration, unless I am alone in a room with no nose. Otherwise I tend to see and smell and hear everything. So many other writers I talk to, are like this too. They have to move away from the popcorn cruncher in the movie, so they can even hear the movie, one writer, is so stimulated by the sensory detail around him, he wears a knit cap over his eyes and ears, and types blindfolded so he cannot see anything but the world he is creating. It makes sense that people who write see and feel and hear things, things maybe other people don't. I know for me, if I didn't write, all the sensory input I take in daily would drive me crazy. Writing is a way to release the overload.

So are you a writer? What guidelines do you have to survive by when you write? What bothers you when you out in public?

And do you love books like they were your comforter, or special stuffed animal?

I do. I have this fantasy every time I am in a library. Let the door lock. Leave me several bushels of apples. Make sure the bathrooms and water fountain are working. And then just leave me there in lock up for a year or two with the lovely, dear sweet enchanting books that have taken me places I'll never go, and told me things I would have never thought.

I love books. I love it that I have written a book. I want to write more. But more than that I want to read more.

Here's to hoping I get my books on Saturday and actually get to the library before it closes. Here's hoping I don't see a certain security guard. I might have four books in my arms. I wouldn't trust me not to bang them over his little arrogant head.

Got a favorite writer experience about sensory overload? I'd love to hear about it?