Book Em NC

The 2014 book festival season kicked off for me this past weekend in Lumberton, NC where Roberson Community College hosted Book Em NC. 

Seventy-five authors!

Hundreds of books!

Sessions on writing, sessions on publishing. How to, how not to. 

Author's lounge!

For me the most fun was touring the author tables and gleaning ideas. Oh, the candy bowls, wonderfully delicious. One author who writes about pirates had a treasure trunk full of chocolates.

So I'm not a professional photographer, but this photo I snapped of my table display shows my attempts at spreading the word about my books.

How do you sell mountain stories in the flatlands? 

Easy. You share techniques. You share processes and ideas. Yes, Lessons Learned is a story about a school in the South Mountains of North Carolina. But it is also the story about growing up in the forties, the fifties and sixties. It is unique and at the same time it is universal. The reader sees himself in the pages, no matter what decade or which century. That is the selling point.

And before you leave, look in the far right side of the display table. There in the glare of the camera's flash is the first hint to my newest project. Coming soon!

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

British Invasion

The British Invasion. That's how I remember the fifty years ago arrival of the Beatles. Yes, I was in love. Paul. No I wasn't one of the screaming fans in the streets, but I would have been if my mother had let me go all the way to New York City.

And that is the key. Not the distance. The mothers. And the fathers. Those parents who saw these Beatles as invaders. They didn't look threatening to me when Ed Sullivan brought them onstage. Threatening they were to an older generation.

So the boys in my school started wearing Beatles style hair cuts. The girls started wearing black. Not me, but a few of my friends. That didn't threaten me like an invasion should. I was young, having fun, forgetting that our nation's innocence was shattered only months before in Dallas, Texas. Nor did it threaten my mom. She laughed. She tsk-tsked. She knew it wouldn't last, as in "This too shall pass."

Ha!

Fifty years later the tributes keep coming.

Fifty years later their music keeps charming the hearts of young people.

Nearly fifty years later I captured Beatles stories for Lessons Learned. How the eighth grade students begged the teacher to play their music during after lunch quiet time. How one boy lost his mop-top wig during a Beatles impression in front of the PTA. How bluegrass music and Beatles music shared equal time at school dances.

I captured Kennedy assassination stories, too, from the same people. They didn't connect the two, neither did I until talking faces on TV this weekend pointed out that the timing of the Beatles phenomena wasn't all that a coincidence. It was us, the American youth, looking for relief from a tragedy not even three months old. Maybe it began our healing process.

Last week I interviewed a ninety-two year old man for a project I'm currently working on. He said one thing that reminds me that yes, we, those who lived back then, are authorities about the Beatles, about the Kennedy assassination, about the past.

This is who we are. It’s not that we’re so knowledgeable, but we lived what we know. If that makes any sense. The way we remember things is because we lived it. 

Remembering the Beatles, watching the tributes fifty years later, what joy that was to me, especially since three months ago the television and online buzz was all about a fifty year old sadness that never went away.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

Word of the Day

Every morning, one of my writer friends (Hi, Debbie!) posts a word of the day on her facebook page. She selects unusual words that I would never think to illuminate. But they work for her. Take for instance today's post that I read bright and early this morning:

The word for the day is outre. Life is so much more interesting when you show your kooky, quirky and wacky side.

See what I mean? Such a classy word, but when have I used it lately?

So borrowing from her, today my blog post shall be a Word of the Day that will showcase my kooky, quirky and wacky side, well at least outre enough to go along with an online tool I just discovered, Google Ngram Viewer. (Hi Joyce, thanks for the link to this!)  This new tool will be a great resource for me as a writer of period pieces to make sure my word selections match the era.

My selection shall be piccolo. Sounds familiar, a flute-like musical instrument, right? This word came up last week during an interview about my current project when the person I was talking with said she put money in the piccolo at the skating rink. We're talking early 1940's. Coin operated. I must have made a squishy face because she felt the need to explain it to me. It was a jukebox, the original brand name for jukebox, as in "Here's a nickel, put another song on the Piccolo."

Source:  Musikbox Treff Arietta Jukebox

So off I go to play (authors play with words, remember) on the internet. I check google, I check wikipedia, I check ngram. That's my newest toy, oops, tool, ngram, the frequency words appear in text in the last two hundred years, not only that, but actual samples of usage that demonstrate how word meanings change over the years. According to ngram, word usage for outre peaked in 1970, but is at its lowest usage now. I can also read samples of it in literature throughout those time periods. What a toy, er, tool!

Piccolo, sure enough, was on the charts from the beginning of their research target, 1800, but aha, peaking in 1937. (Takes a couple years to get to the backwoods of the Carolinas, so 1941 of my manuscript would fit the time frame.) Jukebox beginning in 1937, peaking in 2002. Interesting. I searched but didn't spend time to find when the two intersected. Instead I turned to another tool, my favorite because of its homepage picture of the day, Bing, and there it was, Piccolo, a jukebox. Bingo.

Word usage changes and authors must keep on their toes. I found that to be true often during my Pilot Mountain project as words that were commonly used in the forties and fifties had no connection to today. Anybody played with a mollypop lately? A taw?

Today I was going to post about a term writers use, pantsing, as in "Which writing technique works best for you, plotting or pantsing, outlining or writing by the seat of your pants?" But when I used ngram and checked the many usages of pantsing, I decided I would find a much tamer word. You are welcome to explore that one on your own. https://books.google.com/ngrams

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

Fallen Prey

There are two times a year that to me are the most conducive to reading a good book. One is in the dog days of summer when extreme temperatures and humidity can only be countered with a lazy session on the back porch swing. The other is like yesterday, when the weather outside was frightful, not even rising above the lower twenties. That I countered curled up under a blanket, cat on lap, computer shut down, reading a good book.

And oh, what a read.

It grabbed me from page one and thrilled me when the closing page gave a hint to the next book in the series. This book, Fallen Prey, was meant for middle grade students, aimed at them to get them where they need to be gotten, in their dabblings with online social media. True, the stranger danger theme has been drummed into the psyches of today's children until you'd think one more mention to preteens would send their eyes automatically rolling in disgust. But not this time. Not when sixth graders become detectives and protectors and victims, oh, my. 

I've met the author Ann Eisenstein. Our paths have crossed several times at conferences and book festivals. Her passion for young people is contagious. Her energy boundless. Her writing excellent. The combination of those elements leads to an excellent story. 

But.

I can't help but have a little nostalgia for the good old days. For the times when sixth graders could read a mystery series, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and not have the realities of evil happening to them and their friends. For the years Pilot Mountain School was open, the forties, the fifties, the sixties, before facebook and blogspot and texting. Back when meeting up with an unknown predator pretending to be a fellow preteen was unheard of. Back when a computer was science fiction. Back when the age of innocence really did exist. 

For some it did. They could hitch a ride to town, spend hours in the woods, speak to strangers, even take them into their homes. 

For others innocence ended almost at birth. We can't forget that evil existed everywhere, all the time. It might have come in different forms than for the great-grand children of those who sat in the desks at this school, but it was still there, no matter what school, what town, what universe. Alcoholic fathers (and mothers). Child abuse. Poverty. Not enough food, thread bare coats, worn out shoes. The list goes on and on. Some issues have been dragged into the open and today's children have resources to assist them. 

Other issues, like strangers who prowl the internet for innocent sixth graders, need more resources. This book is one. I highly recommend it.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

Judging Student Projects

Student projects!

Ah, the bane of parents everywhere, not to mention of the students themselves.

Last evening I helped judge senior projects at the Middle College here in the county. I had done this before, so no problem. I thought.

I soon found myself in over my head listening to elaborate technology related projects that go far beyond my knowledge of pressing start and stop, search and send. The future of the world is in these kids hands, and trust me, they know what they are doing, all four of the ones assigned to me. What they do with this knowledge only time will tell.

Time has told on the students who left Pilot Mountain School and made their way into the world. Most succeeded beyond what they could have imagined sixty years ago. A few faltered. A few met untimely deaths. But for the vast majority of students who once upon a time wiggled in those hard seats and played marbles on the gritty schoolyard, the footprints they left behind were significant. They were leaders. They were good citizens, good parents, good neighbors.

I won't be around in sixty years to write about those four students I was fortunate enough to listen to last night, so I'll write now. They will be leaders. They will be good citizens, good parents, and good neighbors.

Mark my words.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

John Kennedy - Fifty Years Later

Fifty years. Has it really been that long since I was sitting on the couch, in tears, watching John John salute his father's funeral procession? Fifty years seem like yesterday, it's that imprinted into my memory.

One thing I've noticed the last few days, it's been imprinted into virtually everyone's memory as well, those masses of us who sat huddled in silence beside a television, shocked into an unexpected grief. But I already knew that from doing this Pilot Mountain project. It was a defining moment for this little school, for the nation, the world. All the conspiracy theories that have cropped up since then have not distracted me from what I felt.

Only later did I realize this picture above of Jackie, her children, the Kennedy brothers, the picture of sadness in their faces, this one family portrait represents the moment we as a nation lost our innocence. Nothing was ever the same.

Fifty years, and we are still recovering.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

Moms

Today I'm extending a special welcome to those visitors from the Learn Like a Mom link. I'm thrilled you have taken a moment from your busy schedule. If you haven't had a chance to check out the link, please do, and make note of the subtitle: Embrace Life's Teachable Moments. What a concept!

Earlier this week I posted a blog about Grandparents and the role Abuelo, Grandfather, plays in my When Christmas Feels Like Home picture book. He is secondary, but essential to the story of how Eduardo adjusts to his new life. So, too, is Eduardo's mother. She is there for support, to comfort him when he wants to go back home and to help him through the adjusting process.

That's what moms do.

When they can.

Sometimes, like in my second book, Called to the Mountains: The Story of Jean L. Frese, that proves to be impossible. The mom in this very true book could not support, comfort, nor help her daughters through adjusting. She was a single mom in 1927, working as a maid in the local hospital. Her energy went into surviving and her girls went into family members' homes. She did the best she could with the limited resources available.

As I went through the interviewing process for the Lessons Learned: The Story of Pilot Mountain School, I caught (I consider myself a storycatcher) many stories about moms. Mothers in the forties had the additional responsibility of comforting their children during blackouts, rationing, and nightmares of war. Often they did this alone, all the while worrying about their husbands or brothers on the battlefield.

Mothers in the fifties chuckled, I'm sure, when June Cleaver of "Leave it to Beaver" fame appeared at the door of their ideal television house in her full skirt, tiny waist, and pearl necklace, welcoming her husband, Ward, with the perfect meal after his long hard day at the office. Some of the mothers of this era in the mountains of North Carolina were stay at home moms that had three complete meals on the table every day of the year, square meals they called it, those fresh biscuits at the break of dawn kind of mothers. Other mothers worked in the furniture factories or the chemical plants and depended on their own moms to handle child care.

Their war was against polio. They feared nightly as they tucked their children into bed and listened to them pray, "If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." That was their reality. It was happening across the nation, polio striking in the middle of the night, unpredicted.

Mountain mothers of the sixties didn't have time for hippies and love beads. They were busy raising children, working the gardens or the factories, being room mothers with Valentine cupcakes. Society was changing around them, yet they were the one constant the children had.

Styles change. Trends come and go and lead the world away from the known into the unknown. Through it all, mothers stand by their families and withstand the challenges.

That's what moms do.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen