I Blame my Brothers

I recently flew to Nashville and thought I would download a couple of ebooks onto my phone to read while on my trip.  I perused many options (you can't have too many books!), added a dozen or so to my wish list, and eventually selected a zombie apocalypse novel and a new mystery based on the world of Peter Wimsey created by Dorothy Sayers.  

Then I sat back and laughed.  At myself.  Zombies and post WWII England!  Could just as easily have been high fantasy and literary fiction.

I really do blame my brothers.  When I was young, in the summer I regularly took the bus to the library, often with my brothers and sister.  Books, books, books!  I was in Heaven!  We could each check out five books, and after I read mine I would then dip into those my brothers and sister brought home.  I didn't care that the books were typically above my reading level or what genre they selected.  Didn't matter one whit.  I consumed those books!  Pirates, pioneers, prisoners, or pomp (and circumstance).  Fairy tales, adventures, science fiction, or romance.  I relished each and every one.

Many years ago, when asked about my favorite books and the genres I preferred, I had great difficulty settling on just one or two.  I read and enjoy them all.  Sure, there's the occasional horror that's just too specific in its gore or torture scenes and I turn away, but that's a specific book, not the entire genre.  And yes, too much technical lingo in a military thriller will sometimes make my eyes glaze over, but if I care about the characters I read on.  And on, and on, and on.

So I want to thank my brothers and sister.  I hold them responsible for not only improving my reading skills but opening my eyes to so many genres.  And for sharing their books.

~ Folio

WRITER OF THE YEAR!

 

Hooray Sister Shannon (AKA Nib)!

 

Shannon won RMFW Writer of the Year! 

 

A good time (and champagne) was had by all Saturday at the comfy BookBar in Denver. 

 

A rowdy crowd of RMFW members were there to celebrate

along with fellow nominees 

Christine Jorgensen (who was also nominated for a Colorado Book Award this year)

and

Terry Wright (a long time contributor to the organization and small publisher) 

Talented writers all! 

Congratulations!

Can't We All Just Get Along?

by Nib

“You’re an idiot!”

Those terrible words slam over my six foot backyard fence. The irate holler is followed by a tone so filled with disgust it singes my skin. “Get your ass over here. Put that down.”

I am paralyzed. The scene I was working on vanishes from my mind’s eye and my breath catches.

“You stupid moron!”

A young voice, that of Aiden, my eight year-old neighbor, whines back in argument and what follows is five minutes of the grandfather and grandson sniping at each other with the “adult” flinging out more name-calling.

This scene plays out roughly once a week. I’ve only lived here for eight months and I’m sure this has been going on for a long time. The conflict isn’t confined to this one relationship. Three generations living next door wage frequent battle where I may not be able to overhear words but the tone is evident.

It stops me dead every time. I have a visceral reaction. My breath stutters, my heart races, my skin grows clammy. I’ve always hated conflict. Even as a kid, while my brother and sister clashed over any number of childhood problems, I’d be in the corner crying.

Why can’t my neighbors be nice to each other? Speak with kindness, encourage each other, especially Aiden?

I won’t guarantee Aiden isn’t an idiot. He might or might not be—he’s climbed our fence and done malicious mischief in our backyard, he dug a hole under a tree in the front, he threw rocks through our neighbor’s garage windows, and flung a case of empty jars against the fence in the alley shattering glass outside our yard. Obviously, he’s a troubled kid with needs I can only guess at. But I can’t imagine telling him that’s he’s a moron or an idiot will improve his IQ or his behavioral problems. I might even go so far as to say that kind of verbal battering might actually be at the root of the problem.

As disturbing as that situation is, and believe me, I am not making light of it, it brought home a powerful personal message to me.

While I was clenching my fists and teeth during one such episode, and thinking that some kindness and gentleness might bring about more cooperation and greater potential, a realization struck me. How often do I treat myself with that same impatience and contempt?

I know, we’re writers and a certain amount of that self-deprecating attitude with a dollop of insecurity goes with the job description. But I’ve been particularly abusive of myself lately. Whatever the details of my shortcomings, it all amounts to me calling myself a stupid moron and telling me to get my ass to my computer and write decent stuff.

Maybe it’s time I treat myself with the same encouragement and pride I wish for Aiden. Instead of tossing aside the colorful crayon picture and focusing on the failing report card, I ought to pin the picture to the refrigerator and shrug over the F, promising that failure isn’t permanent and I will succeed if I keep trying.

Nothing good comes of negative talk, even if it’s only going on between my ears. So I’m making a pledge to start speaking nicer to myself. I’m going to treat me with the same courtesy and respect I try to give to others. It couldn’t hurt. It might help.

What kind of encouraging things do you do for yourself?

If you’ve got a moment, send a special thought into the universe for Aiden. And even if it’s only for today, be kind to yourself.   

One Man's Junk... Subjectivity

My personal essay, The Importance of a Penis, was a top 10 finalist in the Boulder Writers' Workshop Make Me Laugh Writing Contest.  The final round was judged by legendary TV comedy writer Gene Perret.  Ultimately I was invited to read the piece aloud earlier this year.

Red Line Magazine published the essay in their Power Issue number 5.  http://issuu.com/tobyvaughan/docs/issue_5/37?e=8987750/5479993

It had made it through their screening process and was accepted for publication.  Then the committee of writer/reader peers that put together the magazine reviewed each piece.  My review was mostly negative, which is yet more proof to me that taste is subjective.  The following is my first "bad" review of a published piece.  My skin is already super-duper thick after so many years of being a writer, but it did surprise me to have a magazine pick up work despite what was considered flawed.  It seems there were varying opinions about it.  One more piece of evidence that opinions on the strength of writing can be subjective.

"Given that this is a book club with members accustomed to Chinese Traditions and Writings, the story felt hackneyed to some, heartfelt to others.  Unfortunately the writing was staccato in style, more akin to disjointed pieces of text stuck together than the expected flow of a well-constructed short story.  While the vocabulary and grammar lacked precision (for example, many of our readers were turned off by the author’s use of the word ‘hubby’) some of the analogies and descriptive language seemed unique.  Although the basic premise of the story would be considered solid if indeed it reflected a personal experience, the author should have paid more attention to its pace and flow.  There was general agreement the story lacked maturity in style and flow."

One's man junk is another man's entertaining story.

-- from the Inkpot

Writing Department!

Me, too!

How the Sisters of the Quill came to be

Each Sister of the Quill was pursuing her writing dream independently in 1994 when, suddenly, she discovered kindred spirits walking alongside and linked arms. The group’s name only attached itself after Storm Petrel created an imaginary and tightly knit society of seventeenth-century penmen called the Brothers of the Quill for her current novel.

Storm Petrel struck up a conversation with Ink Pot at a Montessori School Christmas play, and discovered they lived in the same neighborhood. The core of an enduring critique group was born.

That spring, Storm Petrel spotted an unusual “Niwot” listing on Folio’s nametag at a Pikes Peak Writers Conference. They too discovered that they lived in the same neighborhood, and the fledgling critique group enfolded another kindred spirit.

We met Nib at a writing conference when she lived in the Nebraska Sandhills. The resulting e-mail correspondence paved the way for our daily (sometimes multiple daily) e-mail progress reports. Over the years Ink Pot, Nib, and Folio in particular became famous for hosting a party at each conference. Agents, editors, and writers shared the joy of their common obsession and became friends.

Because we were each at a different mile marker along the writer’s journey, we were equipped to help one another in unforeseen ways. Storm Petrel had been multi-published and her wisdom and willingness to share lessons learned has proven invaluable to her sisters. Now, Storm Petrel is not only putting the finishing touches on a carefully wrought, 17th century prequel to her Plumtree mystery series (Unsolicited, Unbound, Unprintable, Untitled, Unsigned, and Uncatalogued), an imaginative world of legendary libraries and nobility of spirit, she mentors high school students through the sometimes daunting and always complicated process of successfully applying to the colleges of their dreams.

Ink Pot was a literary writer who had been published in poetry journals. She apprenticed herself to commercial writing with a vigor that intensified over the years until she was writing a novel and a several screenplays in a single year—this in addition to being Mother of the Year in everybody’s book. She won nearly every prize offered in regional writing contests, and over her long apprenticeship has experienced all the agony and ecstasy an aspiring writer could know. As she acquired more and more expertise in the craft, she began to teach, first her sisters and then at conferences. Now she edits and presents courses regularly. Ink Pot is also known for delivering magical soup and sustenance of all kinds when her sisters hit rough spots along the way.

For more than a decade Folio had been getting up at ungodly hours of the morning to write by the time we met. She would rise daily at three-thirty or four to write for a couple of hours before heading off to run one of Colorado’s hottest architectural firms. Folio already had several works in her drawer, having served a long apprenticeship to fiction writing. She possesses a naturally effortless writing style that everyone just wants to keep reading forever. If you’ve read her first novel, Soliloquy, you understand. Folio is, like Ink Pot, an extremely detail-oriented editor and a topnotch brainstormer, and we relished celebrating publication of Fogg in the Cockpit, a collaborative non-fiction effort between Folio and her husband. Folio came up with the titles for all of Storm Petrel’s books after the first, including the unifying title theme.

Nib was cranking out chapters of an ambitious novel with great determination at the counter of her family’s feed store in Hyannis, Nebraska when we met. She is our action-packed, hot-topic thriller writer and has also served a long and fruitful apprenticeship to the craft. Several eventful years only served to make her more dedicated and prolific, and since publication of Tainted Mountain and Broken Trust she has already submitted the third in that series as well as what we hope will be the first novel in a new, long-lived series. She manages to turn out ideas and pages constantly, a real powerhouse.

Ink Pot, Folio and Nib have volunteered tirelessly at local writers conferences for many years, and are now famous in their own right for the generosity of their service. Storm Petrel’s modesty and gentle tenacity inspires all.

Sisters of the Quill. Sisters of the heart.

DAD’S SYMBOLS (with tears on my keyboard)

Last month, when my father’s pneumonia/COPD took a turn for the worse, I flew to Connecticut.  Alongside my brother and cousin, I was with him as he passed on as peacefully as one can with life-sustaining oxygen removed, morphine compassionately administered.  Afterward, we faced the bittersweet removal of Dad’s things from his assisted-living efficiency at St. Mary's Home.   His was a tiny place, but packed wall-to-wall with his last years’ lifestyle, outlook, and convictions.  He was sharp to the end, so it was a surprise when we discovered he obsessively collected certain items.  I reflected on who he was as I imagined the symbolism of each. 

 

Shame:  Dad had hidden empty liquor bottles and beer cans.  He could have anonymously taken those bags out to the dumpster just around the corner in the hall, but he’d struggled with alcoholism his entire life.  His secret drinking had undermined his sense of worth.  He was ashamed of this weakness, attempting to hide it from the world.  

 

  Unclean, Unsafe, Unhealthy:  Dad had sanitizer bottles, various levels of full, all around his apartment.  One or two would suffice if he’d worried over germs.  Thus I suspect they were secret conversations with himself, perhaps related to his sneak drinking and a few other past indiscretions he wished he could wash from his soul.

 

Seeking Comfort:   Dad had always had dry skin but it must have grown more so over the years because he had a dozen different tubes and bottles of lotion scattered about.  It may have been simply necessary after using so much alcohol based sanitizer, but either way, using it meant comfort.

His Past Career:  Office supplies, pens, paper clips and organizing boxes.  Dad had been a successful manager of over 170 people.  He knew his business inside-out, treated his employees well, was organized, efficient, and capable.  Despite all his later troubles, he continued to keep well-filed records of his bills, payments, resumes, etc. 

Vulnerability and Fear:  Dad had a dozen depleted oxygen bottles, rentals he should have returned.   Dad knew he was winding down.  And we could hear it in his voice when he started to call us more often.  The heavy green bottles stood there as reminders that smoking had sucked the life right out of him.

Prepare and Protect:  White Towels that should have been returned to St. Mary’s laundry were everywhere.  I doubt the white meant purity.  St. Mary's only distributed white towels.  In their terrycloth-soft way, they’d protected him.  He’d wrapped them around his chair arms and back, cushioning them since he spent much of his time there, even while sleeping.  Maybe he feared pressure sores.  He’d draped more white towels over this oxygen bottles, collected them in his closet, tucked them beside furniture--emergency sop ups for his now-and-then incontinence.  They were preparation and prevention, maybe even embarrassment.

Limited Time:  Dad had little dime-store alarm clocks everywhere, as if he needed one visible from any spot he sat or stood.  He hadn’t taken good care of himself, smoking so many years, at times drinking himself into homelessness, even threatening his own life.  Miraculously his liver never suffered.  But his lungs told him he lived on borrowed time.

 

 Isolation:  Unable to even walk a few blocks, Dad came to feel detached from the wide world he had influenced in his political heyday.  He had a huge collection of magazines, CDs and DVDs that must have helped him feel a part of the world again.  Classics to new-release movies (rated G to X), CDs of all sorts--country music his preference, and magazines about his favorite topics, horses, sports, and what he always read “for the articles” --  Playboy.  These items offered vicarious connection. 

Nostalgia:  Calling to mind a teenage bedroom, magazine cut-outs of beautiful women were taped to his walls.  Maybe he wanted to be reminded of a time when he was a handsome, charismatic, female magnet.  It was only because he was loved that St. Mary's turned a blind eye to the half-clad display.

The athletic days: At least a dozen baseball caps hung on a wall:  He was reminded of his athletic days.  Growing older with a bad back was hard on him.  He used to play baseball, ride horses, and golf.

Conscientious about the World:  Cloth and canvas bags were everywhere.  It seemed as if he’d shopped in many places and bought a $1 bag each trip.  He must have set each aside and forgotten to take one with him when he went out shopping again. He could have asked for plastic but sacrificed what little he had to make the environmental choice.

Self-consciousness:  One might argue that sucking on mints was a practical thing to do given Dad’s lack of good teeth.  But I felt the hundreds of packets of hard candies and gummy chews—most not even opened—were my father’s way of reassuring himself that he could pop some flavor and keep his breath fresh.  He’d always been a good-smelling, clean, well-dressed statesman.  He still had pride in his presentation despite having very few good teeth in his mouth.  

Powerlessness:  Dad was naturally fastidious, but he’d become incapable, leaving dirty dishes strewn about and piled in the sink.  The unused stove was covered with a towel.  Luckily St. Mary's Home served meals.

Preserving and Protecting:   Dad had tissues everywhere.  Wads shoved over half eaten dried cranberries in paper cups, apparently meant to protect and preserve.  Sometimes those cups also had take-out plastic drink lids laid over them to further protect munchies from drying out.

 

Connecting/Reconnecting:  Dad had many little calendars and tiny address books with contacts and long lists of birthdates, friends and family he wanted to send cards to for Valentine’s Day (names checked off), fellow assisted-living residents to buy little gifts for.  Tucked inside were greeting cards he’d received and found precious enough to keep—one was from me, my last to him in which I wrote, “Dad you taught me to care what I think of myself rather than what others think of me.  You taught me to stand up to the bullies.  You taught me to care about the world around me.”  I had tucked a check into that card.  Only weeks before, he had sent the check back to me asking that I spend it on my sons.

 Follow Through:  He didn’t only make gift lists, he followed through.  On a window sill sat little figurines and tiny pots with silk flowers.  Dad wasn’t a figurine and flowers type.  But as my brother and I scooped Dad’s life into boxes to be donated or otherwise distributed, Dad’s fellow residents popped their heads through the door, expressing their sadness, showing us little gifts he’d given them on holidays and birthdays, items he must have picked up at the nearby thrift store.  Little pieces of his love.  Despite his oxygen depleted state, he’d thought of everyone. 

Dad’s things had no monetary value, but they told the story of his last few years, his reminiscences, what he regretted, what he cherished.   -- InkPot