Love Finds You in Messy Drawers (not that kind)

Here’s the thing, everyone knows that I am not exactly the queen of organization. So be it. There is a two-foot high pile on my desk that at this moment is teetering and will probably fall to the floor if I don’t remedy the situation. I will, I promise. But first I wanted to relate a little story. It’s a true story about my sorry lack of organizational skills. This happened a few years ago. My daughter, Rebekah was maybe five years old. I passed her room one afternoon and peeked inside. She was there, at the foot of her bed working diligently with three piles of underwear. Two on the bed, one on the floor. Upon further investigation I noticed she had a pair of panties, flat out, smoothed down on the bed.

Amused, I chose to say nothing and watched. She chose one pair of panties from the pile on her left and the then carefully placed it on top of what was obviously the control pair. This brought new meaning to the phase, control-top panties. She would then smooth the second pair out and if it didn’t match with the control pair it was discarded to the growing pile on the floor. If it was a match she dropped it into the pile on her right. After several minutes I decided to ask her about this.

“It’s okay, Mommy, I’m just sorting out the ones that fit.”


Waves of guilt flushed my face. “Oh, honey. That should probably be my job.”

There you have it. I couldn’t even keep my daughter’s underwear under control. She had to sort through her own drawers. It was even more humiliating to see that she had underwear in there from when she was potty-training. Yikes.

“I am so sorry, Rebekah,” I said. “Let Mommy help you.”

“No, it’s okay. I like it.”

“Really? Well, I have some drawers in my room that need sorting.”

She wasn’t amused.

BTW--that's Beck up there, all grown up, eating for two and learning to sort for three, well almost four now. That's right, another grandchild is on the way. Due December.

To Jump or Not to Jump

Here’s the thing, plunging into unknown depths is scary, very scary. But I suppose we’ve all had to do it at one time or other. Heck, remember taking your first steps? I don’t either, but still, there came a time in your little toddler brain when you connected some dots and realized it was possible to walk on two feet. So off you went. I remember watching my children do this. They usually started by pulling themselves up on something, a coffee table, a wall and then got up nerve and pushed off in whatever direction they faced. It took some tries but soon enough, my kids learned to walk. Not so bad. Then came other leaps and sometimes bounds. One after the other, kindergarten, shoe-lace tying, bike-riding, swimming, smoke-bomb building, etc. etc. They did it all, sometimes with their eyes closed, sometimes prematurely, and sometimes without permission but my children all found something they wanted to do and then did it—just did it. Took the plunge.

Seems to me that the older you get the harder it is to take that first dive, to jump in and start swimming. I’ve been thinking about this lately. The turning point, the decision factor, D-Day, the point of no return. What happens in the space between not-jumping and jumping? How do you know when it’s time to take the plunge?

Summer Time and the Living is Easy--Yeah, right

Here's the thing, yesterday I ended the school year and said good-bye to my fifth graders who are moving up to middle school. I really will miss them. Alison, the reader. She always had a book, sometimes reading two and three at a time. Paige--so sweet, so smart. She will go far. Mike-the prankster. He made me laugh when I knew I shouldn't and Marcus the talented athlete. Good luck guys. You'll do great. Come back and check in with me sometime. And also yesterday I watched my own fifth grader, Adam graduate. On to middle school--ah, the Wonder Years. He did great this year and I am so proud of him. He's my engineer/herpetologist. Yep, that's right. Maybe he'll do something in bio engineering.
So now that I have a few more hours it's time to get on to some writing projects. I have a novel due October 1. Don't worry, Barbara. But first, I have got to clean and organize my office area place. Holy cow, it's a mess. That's my plan for today, especially since it is so stinking hot. Geeze, it's the wind chill of a volcano out there. So I think I'll hunker down and attempt to organize. Not my strong suit. Anybody out there into it. Anybody who can help me get organized and STAY organized. I'm good at putting things in order. It's keeping it there that gives me the problems. I need pile maintenance.
And since yesterday was the first full day of summer I thought I would leave you with a touch of Emily to celebrate. They call this one Summer Shower--although she never did.

A drop fell on the apple tree,
Another on the roof;
A half a dozen kissed the eaves,
And made the gables laugh.

A few went out to help the brook,
That went to help the sea.
Myself conjectured, Were they pearls,
What necklaces could be!

The dust replaced in hoisted roads,
The birds jocoser sung;
The sunshine threw his hat away,
The orchards spangles hung.

The breezes brought dejected lutes,
And bathed them in the glee;
The East put out a single flag,
And signed the fete away.

Take Me to Your Leader

Here’s the thing. I upgraded my phone a couple of weeks ago. I went from a Blackberry to a Droid—for free, totally free, no money. What a hoot. A Droid. I actually own something called a Droid. It’s so . . . space-age. I mean I really thought, when I was ten, that by the year 2010 we’d all be driving hover-craft and moving sidewalks would have taken the place of cement. We’re not there yet, but I must say, I love my Droid. It has so many cool features and apps that I could spend all day looking through them. I’ve already downloaded the barcode reader, a task list thing, a couple of games, a note taker, the voice part of the GPS so it talks to me now and will keep me company on long trips to book signings or even for walks around the neighborhood. It just cracks me up.

The downside of course is that it has the potential to be a tremendous time-sucker distraction. So I have to limit my playtime. But that’s okay. I figure I’ll get kind of bored with it soon enough and it will be there for a purpose not for play. But right now, I am having fun, feeling very modern. My daughter said I was doing really well with technology for a woman my age—this after she helped me figure out the GPS. I could have done it myself. I just wanted to give Emily the opportunity to show-off (um cough).

But, I suppose in technology as in life no good thing can come without a down-side. The Droid’s battery is awful. Go figure—if they can build something this incredible why in the world can they not make a battery that lasts more than a few minutes—or so it seems. I mean really, why? Someone help me understand why the battery is so short-lived. I mean the battery in my MacBook Pro lasts forever! The battery in my old HP last ten minutes. What gives? Someone explain this to me. Aren’t batteries pretty much the same?

Narrative Destiny

Here's the thing, today I am officially hanging out the old shingle. After years of writing, teaching, reading and studying I have decided to share what I know about writing with aspiring authors. I have started a little thing I like to call Narrative Destiny. If you want to be a novelist but keep getting turned down or if you simply don't know what to do next or even if you can't quite put your finger on the issues, then Narrative Destiny could hold the answers.

You can check out the details here.

I am also offering a special set of critiques and discussions dedicated to the difficult subject of VOICE. It's one of my favorite writing issues to study. Call me crazy, but I like to wrangle with this illusive and often confusing aspect of an author's craft.

You can learn more about my special Voice Lessons here.

Here's what one student has said:“Joyce helped me work out a plan (for my novel) that was doable, and felt more creative. I could also see some obvious problems with the manuscript that I did not see before and I think this was a result of learning to look from above the work instead of from the vortex. (or would that be better worded outside than inside?). No - vortex is a much stronger word and communicates the way I feel while I’m working.” Karen Deikun

Here's the thing:

Sparrows are nesting in my window air conditioner. They are very cool birds.

Anadiplosis is not a Skin Disease

Here’s the thing, the other day I was rifling through a closet looking for something—I never found what I was looking for but I excavated a list of literary devices I had made a long time ago for a workshop I was teaching. It was fascinating to read because it included some really interesting devices like Anadiplosis which sounds like a skin disease but really is the repetition of the last word of one phrase, clause, or sentence at or very near the beginning of the next such as, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1.

How about this one: Epanalepsis repeats the beginning word of a clause or sentence at the end. The beginning and the end are the two positions of strongest emphasis in a sentence, so by having the same word in both places, you call special attention to it like, “Her nose was huge, yes, people often remarked about the size of her nose.”

Scesis Onomaton is not the leader of a rogue robot empire but emphasizes an idea by expressing it in a string of generally synonymous phrases or statements.

Anaphora is the repetition of the same word or words at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences as in She read the book. She read the book until she fell asleep. She read the book and dreamed about it.
Then there is the ever popular Zeugma which includes several similar rhetorical devices, all involving a grammatically correct linking of two or more parts of speech by another part of speech. The main benefit of the linking is that it shows relationships between ideas and actions more clearly.

But, of all the literary or rhetorical devices out there the one I like best is Hyperbole. Without it, I would be nothing. Gross hyperbole is pretty much what drives my work. I love to take simple, ordinary things and stretch them out, exaggerate the truth, the details just enough so that fiction becomes slightly more interesting than truth. Bright's Pond is pretty much a great big exercise in hyperbole. Not that ilife there isn't accurate, it's just exaggerated.

How about you? What’s your favorite literary device?

My New Website and other stuff

Here's the thing, it's been in the works a long time but I just didn't have the time to get a round to it. But today I am happy to announce the birth of joycemagnin.com. I would love it if you all would go and take a look, let me know what you think and if you would like me to include anything. Be sure to take the virtual tour of Bright's Pond. I will be making a tour of the Paradise Trailer Park soon.I had fun building the site. I love my Macbook Pro. I think a person can do pretty much anything on a Mac, except maybe fry an egg.

And I am also excited to tell you that Book Three of the Bright's Pond novels is finished--well it's with my editor, and I am just about ready to begin Book Four--Blame it on the Mistletoe--that's right, it's a Christmasy one.

The other day I asked my son to get my car keys out of my bag. He was gone for a very long time. When he came back he said, "Geeze Mom, it's a dungeon in there. I barely got out with my hand still attached to my wrist." Um, sorry Kiddo. But he's right. My bag is a dungeon--deep,dark and scary, but there you go--it's a bag.

I moved Emily into a house this weekend. It's off-campus living. She'll be a junior at West Chester University this fall. She'll be living with three other young women--YIKES! Funny, when I moved her into the dorm it was one thing but a house! It feels a little different.

Don't forget to pre-order your copy of Charlotte Figg Takes Over Paradise.

In the mean time, be bold, be brave, but most of all behave and have a slice of pie.