My Real Book Share: Doubling Up on Dickens

Tonight the Colville Branch AAUW will meet for its annual Book Share. We'll exchange recommendations for books we've enjoyed this past year. My list includes Joan Didion's Blue Nights and half a dozen other books I've found engrossing. It concludes with Claire Tomalin's excellent new biography, Charles Dickens: A Life.

After I compiled my list I noticed I'd not included anything by Dickens himself. If there's anybody in the group who is not familiar with Dickens' novels, and I were forced at gunpoint to recommend just one, I'd elect his eighth.

You can win bar bets with this question: what was the full, original title of Charles Dickens' novel, now commonly alluded to as David Copperfield?

Take a deep breath, because you'll need it to repeat the answer:
The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account)

In the preface to the 1867 Charles Dickens edition, he wrote, "… like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is David Copperfield." It's my favorite, too, and I'm beginning to reread it this year for the Dickens Bicentennial. I've got it on my Kindle, and read a chapter a day. Then I flip over to Dombey and Son, and read a chapter there. These are the two Dickens books currently being discussed on the Yahoo Group, The Inimitable Boz, which I recently joined.

I'm looking forward to attending The Friends of Clark Park's 200th Birthday celebration in Philadelphia on February 5, where actors and musicians will recreate Dickens' world with songs and excerpts from his novels, and will parade to the famous bronze statue, crafted by Frank Elwell in the late nineteenth century, to sing Happy Birthday to The Inimitable.

I'll also be taking in the Free Library of Philadelphia's Rare Book Department. It's home to one of the finest collections of Dickens works in the world, as well as his stuffed pet raven “Grip,” said to be the inspiration for Edgar Allen Poe’s famous poem.

On February 7 I'll be dining in the Azalea Room of the luxurious Omni Hotel at Independence Park, where the Philadelphia Dickens Fellowship will stage a birthday banquet.  The Omni is at 4th and Chestnut, the site of the United States Hotel where Dickens stayed in 1842 and where he met with Edgar Allan Poe.

(For those who puzzle over Lewis Carroll's famous unanswered question, "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" it wasn't only Poe who wrote on both...so did Dickens in Barnaby Rudge, which Poe reviewed!)

During the week I'll also visit the Philadelphia Art Museum...you may remember its steps from the movie "Rocky." It's featuring an exhibit of Vincent van Gogh's later works. No, the artist and Dickens never met...Van Gogh was just seventeen at the time of Dickens' death. Dickens wasn't widely translated in those days.

It's a shame Vincent couldn't have read David Copperfield. I think it would have given him hope. I know it did me when I first read it at seventeen.

Lunatic Alarm!

There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls. ~George Carlin, Brain Droppings, 1997

When I stepped outside to photograph this last night it was just before midnight, right on time. American Indian tribes called this the Full Wolf Moon. Amid the cold and deep snows of mid-winter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages. I didn't hear anything ulalating in the surrounding hills of the Colville National Forest last night. Nonetheless, I could understand why any wolf would want to bay a bit...I had to muffle an inclination to do so myself, so stunning was this sight.

I'm inspired to write a story about winter solitude today for a new anthology collection on seasons. So since I was born under the sign of Cancer, I appreciated this information, gleaned from the Cleveland Examiner:

Today’s full moon expresses itself at home through the Goddess moon, a dynamic lunar cycle in the 18th degree of Capricorn and Cancer. This cardinal pair places the spotlight on effective communication, available resources and overall home security with emotions attached of course. Because cycles have a tendency to create déjà vu types of feelings, old familiar experiences may spring up for a little attention and or a lot of attention.

What are your reoccurring themes?

It may have roots in early childhood--during a time when the emergence of the martyr archetype, shifting and evolving in a patriarchal ruled society--dominated plenty home environments, as an intense tug-of-war between the Capricorn sun and Cancer moon suggest, or a home environment that tend to shape and mold emotional buttons to eventually become all too familiar. However this homebound full moon is played out, those with a Cancer moon sign may feel the effects of this full moon cycle, as well those with planets in the 4th house of the moon or sun sign in Capricorn.

It's clear I have to abandon that martyr archetype!

Steaming it Up

Back in the late '70s and early '80s I held the title of social welfare editor for Uncle Jam, a tabloid published irregularly (whenever we had enough people in one room to do it, publisher Phil Yeh used to claim) via the Cobblestone Gallery, a popular hangout for writers, artists and general societal misfits in Long Beach, CA.

The magazine covered arts, travel, books, health and author interviews, so I was given wide leeway in what I could write about. I mean really wide. My friend Chris Statler and I covered such activities as a Grand Prix wet T-shirt contest, floating in a sensory deprivation tank, and the Beatles tribute band, Rain. I wrote about Jackie Sorenson's aerobic dancing classes, and a Phillip Marlowe tour of downtown Los Angeles and Santa Monica sponsored by a San Fernando Valley mystery bookstore. I interviewed the late Alduous Huxley's spouse, Laura, about her Project Caress. I attended novelist Carolyn See's three annual literary conferences at Loyola Marymount and interviewed such writers as Herbert Gold, A. Scott Berg and Alice Adams. I wrote about New Year's Eve in New York City, seeing in the '80s, what we wrongly predicted would be the "New Renaissance." I covered my first trip to England, and seeing the ghost of Dr. Samuel Johnson. I even had a ball writing about how, from a child development stance, balls are the perfect toy choice for toddlers.

Not long ago, Phil resurrected this publication as a glossy full-color quarterly. I'm pleased to have rejoined the crowd, contributing such pieces as how to prepare to attend the University of Cambridge International Summer School, an interview with Peter S. Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn, and, for the 100th issue, online soon, why I love to sip cider in Somerset.

Last night Phil sent me a message on Facebook to let me know that the next Uncle Jam would be devoted to steampunk. Would I be interested in writing about its roots in Victorian literature? You bet. So I'll be revisiting H. G. Wells and Jules Verne...full steam ahead.



Uncle Jam 99 has been posted on line, and UJ100 will be coming soon:

http://issuu.com/wingedtiger/docs/uj99v37

December Doldrums

Christmas sunrise from Natty and Nami's playground

Each year I vow I'll get a lot of writing done between Christmas and New Year. It seems the perfect time...the shopping, baking, gift wrapping, card writing are all finished. Lots of time to settle down at the keyboard. But somehow I don't seem to do it.

Now it's nearly New Year's Eve, and just like the past two Decembers, I've failed to get much written at all. I blame the cold weather, but I doubt that's the real reason for this odd end-of-the-year inertia. It's not as if I don't have ideas, or that there's no looming deadlines. It's more like a seasonal affective disorder with a touch of attention deficit peppered in for good measure.

I did get the story written about body image and sent it off. But since then, I've been stalled. I've written a dozen openings for my story about my first trip to London and discarded them all. I've rewritten a few orphan stories and submitted them to new venues. I've not been entirely idle. Oh, no. I've cleaned out some writing files, discarded some old call outs for submissions, and even dusted my desk.

Tomorrow's my last chance for the year...I'm going to finish the England story. If I get that done, I'll be ready to greet the new year with renewed vigor. Cheers!

A Taste of Dickens for Christmas and 2012

I'm planning to start my Dickens Bicentennial celebration on Christmas Eve, even though the official onset isn't until New Year's Day. Charles Dickens, born in Landport, Portsmouth, England, on February 7, 2012, long has been a favorite of mine, and, of course, millions of others.

So next weekend I plan to settle down with some of the movies I've been taping from the Turner Classic Movies wondrous "Dickens in December" series, showing each Monday night. Here's my lineup so far for Christmas weekend:

• The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1935) with Claude Rains.
• Oliver Twist (1948) with Alec Guinness.
• Nicholas Nickleby (1947) with Cedric Hardwicke.
• A Christmas Carol (1938) with Reginald Owen.
• A Tale of Two Cities (1958) with Dirk Bogarde.
• Little Dorrit (1984) with Alec Guinness.

Maybe I'll accompany this film fest with a little Dickensian punch:

• "Punch, my dear Copperfield, like time and tide, waits for no man ... His recent despondency, not to say despair, was gone in a moment. I never saw a man so thoroughly enjoy himself amid the fragrance of lemon-peel and sugar, the odour of burning spirit, and the steam of boiling water, as Mr Micawber did that afternoon. It was wonderful to see his face shining at us out of a thin cloud of these delicate fumes, as he stirred, and mixed, and tasted, and looked as if he were making, instead of a punch, a fortune for his family down to the latest posterity."--David Copperfield, Charles Dickens

In February I'm going to Philadelphia for the Dickens Fellowship and The Friends of Clark Park celebrations, and will be singing "Happy Birthday" to The Inimitable, as he dubbed himself, at his statue...the only one in the world...in Clark Park.
Then in June I'll be celebrating in London with Road Scholar's "The Best of Times." Kevin Flude, a Dickensian expert, will be leading this tour. Highlights include:

• A private viewing and reception at The Charles Dickens Museum, Doughty House.
• A pub crawl to Dickens' favorite haunts: The George Inn and the Prospect of Whitby.
• An outing to marshy Kent to see Bleak House, Dickens' occasional holiday retreat.
• A visit to Little Dorrit's church, St. George the Martyr.
• A coach trip to the historic waterfront city of Portsmouth, to the site of Dickens' birth, where now is located the Charles Dickens Birthplace Museum.

I'm not a recent convert to Dickens. I've been a follower since I was 17, when I first read David Copperfield. Back in the early '80s I attended one of the University of California Santa Cruz's "Dickens Universe" celebrations, where we discussed Martin Chuzzlewit, the American novel. In August 2010 at the University of Cambridge International Summer School I took a course on "Criminals and Gentlemen in Dickens' Oliver Twist and Great Expectations." I followed up by seeing a staging of Oliver at one of Dickens' favorite theatres, the Drury Lane.
As 2012 progresses, I'll read some of the lesser-known Dickens' works, already downloaded to my Kindle:

• The Seven Poor Travellers
• Somebody's Luggage
• Going into Society
• Mugby Junction
• The Haunted House
• Doctor Marigold

But for this next week, I'm rereading one of the Christmas stories, The Cricket on the Hearth.
And finally in January I'll at long last undertake the legal novel, Bleak House, that I've put off for so long. It's waiting for me on my Kindle, as well.

I'll also be ordering Charles Dickens: A Life, by Claire Tomalin, who wrote the wonderful book on Dickens' mistress, Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens.

I'm anticipating that 2012 for me indeed will prove to be "the best of times." It's not only Dicken's bicentennial...it will be my diamond jubilee!

All's Well that Ends Well?

I haven't decided whether I've been afflicted with writer's block or if I'm just a lazy bones. For five days I've been trying to work up energy to write a story about body acceptance for an anthology that's focused on positive attitudes towards weight. Yes, it's a weighty issue, and one that's plagued me since girlhood. I have some strong beliefs, some mixed feelings and, apparently, some weak-willed hesitance about actually getting the piece written.

Every time I sit down at the laptop something else seems to shout out, "Attend to me, first!" Either Natty, my newly diabetic and nearly blind dog, or Harpo, the world's most narcissistic cat, want to go outside. Or come inside.

Or I decide I'd better look at my notes just one more time for facilitating this next Thursday's book group discussion of Shakespeare's "All's Well that Ends Well." Should I bake oatmeal cookies or take the apple gingercake out of the freezer to thaw for our refreshments? Can I buy marzipan in Colville or should I drive to Spokane? After all, everybody in the Elizabethan court gorged on marzipan. Would the group settle for fudge? Weighty and time-consuming decisions.

I glance around the house. Oh, dear. The tiled entryway certainly could stand mopping. Nobody's scrawled "dust me" on the coffee table yet, but anybody could and probably should. Is it time to change my bedding? What about cleaning out those closets? Or can that wait until spring?

Should I take the afternoon off and watch a few more episodes of the BBC mystery series, "Pie in the Sky"? Oh, wait...don't I owe Jim or Annie or Honey an email? Should I write my annual Christmas letter and get it reproduced at the printers? What about addressing the Christmas cards?

Why don't I just park myself at the laptop and write that story? I think I have a title. "Elephants Never Forget."

And while I'm at it...here's a few more stories still waiting to be born:

• Black Friday madness in Arizona, for NYMB, "The First Time."
• Samuel Johnson's ghost for NYMB, "The First Time."
• Auntie Dorothy and the clergyman, for NYMB, "Sharing Secrets."
• My search for assistance from St. Teresa on Seychelle's La Digue island, for an anthology about sacred or secular pilgrimages.
• A senior high school year, joining my mom with the Jehovah's Witnesses.
• Staying at the YWCA in Chicago, 1957, for Midwest Stories anthology which tentatively is titled, "Sowing Wild Oats."

I'm heading for the laptop...I'm going to get the introductory paragraphs written on that fierce fatty tale this afternoon...and finish it and send it off tomorrow. I'm already a week late, so I owe the publisher!

Maybe it's neither laziness nor a block of any kind...maybe it's ambivalence about the topic. Do I really feel it's all right to be flabulously fat? I'll know when I write the piece. It may not make it into the book, but at least I get to express myself on a topic that's still weighing on my mind. So to speak.

Hmmmm. Shakespeare. I wonder if the good Bard of Avon ever found himself struggling with writer's block...and then I remembered his "lost years," those seven years between the birth of his twins and his emergence in the London theater scene. He may have been employed as a teacher or tutor, and lost himself in reading the Decameron...or he may have been simply stargazing. He might even have been a lazy bones, and made up for it in later years. Nobody knows.

I'm heading for the laptop...just as soon as I let Natty back in.

Not Your Mother's Book...On Sharing Secrets, and The First Time

It's no secret...I've become a "co-creator." For somebody who thinks "author" is a bit grandiose, I'm not certain how I feel about billing myself as such, but like it or not, that's my new title. So far in my literary career, I've been a writer, a journalist, a reporter, an editor, a teacher, a mentor, a coach, and a contributor. Now, however, I find myself elevated to a loftier status...co-creator.

I'm partnering with Dahlynn and Ken McKowen of Publishing Syndicate on two books in the new series, Not Your Mother's Book. My titles are "Sharing Secrets" and "The First Time." I've yet to write my own contributions for the pair...but have stories in mind.

The story submission guidelines for these books, as well as twenty-six other titles in the series, can be found here:

http://publishingsyndicate.com/publishing_syndicate/submissions/nymb_submit_guidelines.html


Here's some tips on putting together your stories for this new collection, courtesy of Lyndsey D'Arcangelo, who will be compiling My Story is Out, another Publishing Syndicate enterprise.
Not Your Mother's Book:

Do's and Don'ts

Everyone has a story to tell, but not everyone knows how to write good story. Use the following Do’s and Don’ts to help you organize your thoughts and create the perfect story for anthology submissions.

Do make sure that your story is original, honest and a true account of real-life events.
Don’t write a fictional story.

Do try and explain what lesson you learned, if any, from your experience by weaving it into the story itself.
Don’t be preachy or judgmental—it’s the quickest way for your lesson to get lost in the mix.

Do mention real people that are relevant to the story.
Don’t mention your friend’s names just for fun or make up fictional characters.

Do address important social issues if they apply to you and your experience.
Don’t write a speech about political incorrectness or rants about inequality.

Do make sure your story is properly organized and that it has a beginning, middle and end.
Don’t ramble on without any structure or direction. The reader will lose interest.

Do write your story in the first person. (“I rode the bus to school.”)
Don’t write your story in the third person. (“She rode the bus to school.”)

Do write about your personal experience, whether it is a wonderful, courageous, difficult, joyful, funny or extraordinary situation.
Don’t focus on dark and depressing stories with agonizing outcomes. Even the most difficult situations can have a positive impact.

Do read through and edit your story before submitting it. It also helps to have someone else look at it and provide feedback as well.
Don’t submit your story without rereading it or checking it for errors.

Do try your hardest to create the best story you can.
Don’t give up if your story is not selected. It may not fit with this particular book, but might be a great fit for an upcoming book instead.

I look forward to reading your stories soon...don't be afraid to share your secrets.