The Gatekeepers

 

Notice, I left the gate open.

I was rewriting old novels, editing. I don’t know if they’re real novels or practice ones, so far, they haven’t caught an agent's attention. Some say it’s harder to get an agent than it is to write the book in the first place, or even to get a publisher. But folks, if you are a writer, remember most of the books that make it have been rejected numerous times, even Harry Potter. Can you imagine those agents who rejected Harry Potter crying in their soup nightly because they missed it? Fifteen percent of a zillion bucks is what? Probably a billion.

About 20 years ago, when we lived in California, I took a workshop from a Screenplay agent in LA. At the time, my daughter and I were toying with a script. That agent, with her young daughter standing beside her the entire talk, said that agents invite a bunch of creative writing students to go through the slush pile. (Their stack of unsolicited manuscripts). First, they set them all in a room, throw in a pizza and packet of rejection slips, and lock the door.

That’s it.

I suspect it’s about the same with books. Maybe it has changed since publishers have more competition now that many authors are self-publishing their books and Indie publishers have best-sellers. I have the problem of thinking that few people want to spend the money on books with price tags publishers demand, but readers of Harry Potter must have forked out that money when the Harry Potter books were first released. And hey, who doesn’t want to believe in magic?

The success of JK Rowling and Harry Potter are not to be tampered with.

I don’t know why I began this blog as I did. I guess I am following my own advice to my grandson. Just begin writing, I told him, and see where it takes you.

He came up with a brilliant idea but doesn’t know how to implement it. He had compared what he calls “Culture,” meaning the youth of today, which includes artists, furies, Trans, and computer game creators, with religion. He says both wanted to give the people hope, and while religion says you can have it, you can find God, peace, salvation, all of those, he says Culture wants the same, but they believe it’s impossible.

That was so sad, a defeatist attitude, to want to express yourself only to believe you will never be successful at it.

That is the legacy we have given our young people.

He says he wants to give people HOPE.

That’s what I want too.

When I was editing those novels, and at home discussing theme, plot, the deciding moment, and the old saying that without conflict you have no story, I thought, I need to write a new book maybe it will hit the refresh button on my brain.

What if I, instead of following the convention that you must put your protagonist through hell, write a book where things work out? Yeah, yeah, I know, one must struggle first before events work out. But isn’t hope what we want? Don’t we want to believe that good is waiting for us—that life will get better?  And what about attitude and the belief that much is accomplished with a glad heart? Did we lose sight of those?

Is that boring? Think of the book Chicken Soup for the Soul. It stayed on the Best Seller List for 4 years.  What about Robert Fulghum's book, Everything I Know I Learned in Kindergarten which stayed on the New York Times Best Seller list for two years. And I loved the recent book Theo of Golden, basically uplifting—not that people didn’t have troubles, or were sad, but it was enchanting. You think people don’t want good news?

Every time I open my computer, it spits something depressing at me.  I’m tired of the Government's rabble. I’m tired bitching, snipping, and arguing. I want something that shows the goodness in people.

 

 

Are You Guys Writers?

 Are you guys writers?

I know you are readers, for you are here. Thank you. I appreciate you immensely.

I am encouraging reading and writing. Don’t let either go away. Ray Bradbury said, “You don’t have to burn books, you just have to get people not to read them.”

Don’t do that. Keep on reading. Keep on writing. Both are good for that beautiful brain of yours.

“In times of crisis,” I read this morning in the Epoch Times: “it’s easy for your mind to feel bombarded—notifications, headlines, endless scrolling. It feels like information overload, but science shows it’s worse: shallow, fragmented content actually changes your brain, training it for distraction.”

I know that extended, focused reading is good for the brain. A study published in Neuroscience News shows that consistent cognitive engagement such as reading can even delay cognitive decline by years.

“What you feed your brain defines how it performs. Shallow content trains distraction. Deep, quality reading trains focus and insight.”

We need to delve into something of substance once in a while, immerse ourselves. Perhaps I should write longer blogs. But people have little time, so they want to get through information quickly. I suggest you use your precious leisure time to read a book. Savor it. Devour it.  And after that, write out your feelings, frustrations, blessings. Your life has meaning; it deserves your attention.

I was so excited yesterday after completing Suzanne Redfearn's novel Where Butterflies Wander, especially after she explained in the author’s comments following the book how she came to write it and how it morphed along the way. It fell in step with a discussion I had with my grandson the night before on what a theme is, a plot, should you write the ending first, those sorts of things. As she was writing her novel, she found an article in a magazine about a man in a cabin, squatting on someone’s land, and used that idea in her book. It gave her story backbone she said. And it gave her an ending. I wanted to tell somebody, but it was met with crickets, and I realized, once again, that discovery gives its gift to the one who finds it. Plus, you must jump on an idea while it’s hot; otherwise, it flies away with the wild ducks.

 It seemed pertinent that the two books I completed in the morning, that is not normal for me, were by the same author, Suzanne Redfearn. In April I mentioned Walking the Camino, and now I am talking about Where the Butterflies Wander.

When my girls were starting school, and I was reading about alternative education, I came upon the book, Education and Ecstasy. The author asked if we had ever, in our 12,16 or 18 years of schooling, had a teacher who believed learning was ecstasy. That’s the way learning ought to be, but mine wasn’t during those early years.  (That book is on Amazon; by George B Leonard, I just looked it up. Yep, printed in the 60s. That sounds right.)

That book just popped into my mind. That’s the way the brain works, and the way I wrote my memoir, like a mountain stream that splashes against rocks, beavers dam it up, the water breaks free, logs fall into it, but I trust the river knows where it is going and will take us there with it. (To the Source.)

It may sound ludicrous to say I’m writing a memoir, I'm not illustrious. I’ve never been to Mars. I’m not a celebrity, had a near-death experience, or chewed off my arm stuck on a mountain. However, I trust Natalie Goldberg when she said everybody ought to write a memoir, and it doesn’t have to be your life story. It can be any moment. It can be for those moments that take your breath away.

I wanted to visit my little girl self again, the one who could jump rope and run, and fearlessly jump onto a horse’s bare back. I wanted to visit my father again, who left for the Second World War, but I didn’t see him again until 38 years later.

I wished my ancestors had been more expressive. That way I would know how my grandmother responded when her 16-year-old daughter informed her that she was pregnant.

They had their thoughts and the right to privacy, but then those thoughts and feelings died with them.

I’m up to 70,000 words.

  

I agree that these are tough times, so was the war. However, then we didn’t have a society built on fear. We didn’t have a would-be dictator. We believed that our President was pulling with us. We still believed in democracy.

Now, there are many Americans who ought to be ashamed of themselves.

 

A moment of Reprieve:

Let us be as gentle and loving as this Momma Goat protecting her baby at the Lane County Fair in Eugene, Oregon.