Missed Callings

Welcome, all! You’re just in time for the monthly (1^st Wednesday) on-line gathering of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, where you’ll find helpful tips, handy resources, the latest trends in publishing, and a comfortable place for hundreds of writers – just like you and I – to  share our writing journeys! 

Feel free to meander and mingle. Our gracious co-hosts this month are:

Renee Scattergood, Sadira Stone, Jacqui Murray, Tamara Narayan, and LG Keltner!

For member news and often funny movie reviews, our founder, Alex Cavanaugh has it all!  

  

In fact, if not for his thoughtful review, I might not have watched SHAZAM during our first annual 4^th of July Movie Night in the Woods! There were giggles and snickers all around, and judging by the satisfied grins, the special recipe S’Mores were the perfect addition.

Then, it was back to the old summer grind; work for most, joyous play for others, and then there was me, coming to the realization that some callings are better off missed. For instance, thinking at age 4 that I would one day be a school teacher. Granted, the odds are stacked against success during summer break when cellphones and video games are much more appealing. On the bright side, I am a formidable Hall Monitor ;-)

On an even brighter side, I’ve amassed over 8500 words (various projects) and read two books. I’ve missed only one submission deadline, and am looking confidently forward to a few that loom in the near future! 

August 7 question: Has your writing ever taken you by surprise? For example, a positive belated response to a submission you’d forgotten about or an ending you never saw coming? Oh, yes! I love sweet surprises. Tortilla Bandits comes to mind. Unintended endings are as much fun as unplanned beginnings ;-)

But, enough about me. Has your summer been relaxing? Inspiring? How so?

Happy Writing!

 P.S. My computer crashed a week ago. I can't yet upload things like pics and IWSG badges!? sigh.

A Sentence

Wishing everyone a happy month of July! If you’re getting any rain, send us some out west ;-) Many of us desert dwellers are looking for things to do indoors, and perhaps you are as well. So why not revisit or begin journaling? Write an article, an essay or a trailer for the last good movie you watched – or your next bestseller? You could also sharpen your writing skills with any of the many great resources offered by the Insecure Writers Support Group, founded by Alex Cavanaugh, right here and right now on this first Wednesday of the month, when IWSG members convene through blogging, Facebook, and Twitter to talk about whatever is on our writing minds and agendas. See what we’re all talking about here.

What’s on my writing mind? Well,

In a vaguely defined though obviously freak accident at the age of three, the skirt of a future literary legend caught fire. 

While the child was unharmed, her mother was so deeply traumatized that the young girl was thereafter forced to wear boy’s trousers. This attire earned her the nickname ‘Little Jimmy,' by which she good-naturedly called herself until her early teens.  

Already a budding writer at age eleven, she was also designing her own book covers and including her own artwork in an enterprise she called “Urchin Publishing Co.” By the time she was in college she was going by the name ‘Peg’ and had chosen the mythical Pegasus as her icon. 

Regarding her writing, a demanding teacher once told her she had ability if she worked hard and would not be careless in constructing sentences. “A sentence,” she was told, “must be complete, concise and coherent."

She would later attribute her early inspiration for the book that put her name on the lips of the nation to images she’d both observed and perceived while on a buggy trip she took with her mother through devastated farmsteads where only chimneys remained of what had once been, and the solemn descriptions her mother gave.

“She talked about the world those people had lived in, such a secure world, and how it had exploded beneath them. And she told me that my world was going to explode under me, someday, and God help me if I didn't have some weapon to meet the new world”.

Three years after losing her mother to the Spanish flu, and having married a bootlegger, the young writer found she needed income for herself and took a job as a local journalist; whereby the first glimpses of her vividly descriptive style was breathlessly beheld by all.

“The tall white columns glimpsed through the dark green of cedar foliage, the wide veranda encircling the house, the stately silence engendered by the century-old oaks evoke memories of Thomas Nelson Page's On Virginia. The atmosphere of dignity, ease, and courtesy that was the soul of the Old South breathes from this old mansion...”

Being an avid reader came in handy when she had to quit her job as a journalist, due to an ankle injury, but her new and nicer husband grew weary of lugging hundreds of books home for her to read and asked

“For God's sake, Peggy, can't you write a book instead of reading thousands of them?”

And after he bought her a typewriter, she did just that. “Gone with the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell was published June 30, 1936, and in 1937 won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

“I had every detail clear in my mind before I sat down to the typewriter.”

 

Did you foreguess the writer's identity?

And so, dear fellow writers, my wordy answer to the optional Question of the Month “What is the one valuable lesson you’ve learned since you started writing?” can be found above, highlighted in green! 

If you’re interested, read about another writer who forged his way in history here.

If you had to give away one thing on your desk or in your writing space, what would it be?

Sometimes, They Come Back

As summer paints the western sky in burnished shades of yearning; to save the carefree summertime and autumn leaves from turning, my heart urges time to a standstill. Though the past has come; a midnight moon while stars were deep in slumber, a spirit rode on wings of loon and tore the dates asunder. Reluctant is the tiny bird that knows it must take wing, though winter songs are not yet heard as garden birds still sing.  The time is now as winter nears; the anxious hummer knows, and late one balmy August night, he’ll spread his wings for home. 

Whoever said, “Parting is such sweet sorrow” had it right, don’t you think? As you know, at many of the places I visit folks simply never leave. And they can get a bit testy when someone new moves in and wants to make a few changes; as we saw in my Cottonwood post, where at one home the ghostly resident repeatedly ripped up newly laid tile and dragged construction materials out on the lawn during renovations. 

As one might think, refurbishing a home or building that isn’t still “occupied” is a relief in itself. But can you imagine what could happen if sometimes, they come back?

When purchased by the former Sonora State Senator Carlos Velasco, back in 1878, it was no more than a three room adobe hut. By the time of his death in 1914, Velasco and his wife had lovingly transformed it into one of the finest manors in El Presidio; boasting 15 ft. ceilings with many fine Spanish and Old Mexico gildings that enhance the elegance of the enduring abode that spans nearly five acres in the middle of downtown Tucson, Arizona.

It wasn’t until renovations began in the late nineties on this 150+-year-old home that reports began circulating of a certain distinguished looking gentleman with a mustache, appearing out of nowhere with a keen interest in the on-going project at the old Velasco Pueblo.

Workers reported being watched at all times, only to turn and find not their supervisor, but the floating upper torso of a man with a direct, discerning gaze that seemed to express approval before the apparition vanished. He watched with particular interest as walls were refurbished in the burned-out room that had served as his office when he created and printed Tucson’s first Hispanic newspaper, and as the project neared completion, Velasco’s presence was further revealed in rearranged furniture, reset clocks (a particular fascination for Velasco in life), and pictures being moved from wall to wall. 

Throughout renovations and for years to follow, Velasco’s appearances continued; ever imparting a sense of contentment at his return home. There have been no reports of anyone minding his presence, and the privately-owned home is now listed on the National Register of Historic places.

Are you ready for summer’s end? Could you live with the ghost of Carlos Velasco? Might you be hanging around at your house to see how newcomers treat it?