Inspiration

The Difference A Day Makes

Leave a comment
image

Sunshine outside my window this morning

Yesterday I posted about Rainy Days. Today, the landscape is entirely different, as you can see from the picture above, taken from the same vantage point as yesterday’s photo. The trees, decked in all their autumnal glory, seem almost to glow in the sunlight today, backed by robin egg skies and puffy white clouds.

But the change isn’t only in the outside world.

Today, my spirits are lighter. I’m making a concerted effort to focus on the positive around me and inside me, and to take baby steps toward keeping that balance I spoke of before. I, like many busy people who work full time at fulfilling but demanding careers (in my case two separate careers: teaching and writing), while also trying to be good spouses, parents, children, siblings, and friends, have times of feeling overwhelmed and unable to climb from beneath the pile of responsibilities, pressures, and even sadness or sense of helplessness. Lately, I seem to be having too many of those times.

But just as the world outside my window changes, so can I. Not much around us is truly in our control, but that much is.

My dear late father used to tell all us girls that, while we couldn’t control what happened to or around us, we could control our reaction to it. And therein lies a wealth of wisdom. In the years since his passing, I’ve found myself shifting away from remembering that like I should. I continue to miss his common-sense support, his unconditional love, and his wisdom-filled reminders. Sometimes I let the cares and worries overwhelm my days.

Today is a new day. Each day is a new day: a fresh page to fill with the writings of our own stories. Anne of Green Gables author Lucy Maud Montgomery captured the essence of this wonderfully when she said, “Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”

I’ve had a version of that quote posted on the wall of my classroom for 26 years. It is nice. And I’m going to try to remember that whether the rain comes down in torrents, the ice and snow blow and bluster, or the sun shines down…life – and each day in it – is what we decide to make of it. 🙂

Rainy Day

2 Comments
image

Misty rain outside my window this morning

“The rain to the wind said,
‘You push and I’ll pelt.’
They so smote the garden bed
That the flowers actually knelt,
And lay lodged–though not dead.
I know how the flowers felt.

                                                        ~Robert Frost

While poetry is not my usual choice of writing form (I tend to write too “long” to craft any good poems, LOL), I enjoy reading it…especially poems that evoke images, both sensory and emotional. Robert Frost is one of my favorite poets because he combines that with another of my great loves: Nature.

This poem seemed fitting to me today. I, too, know how the flowers felt, and yet there is something beautiful in that.

Without the more violent “pushing and pelting” in life, we would never fully appreciate our moments of sun-dappled peace.

Without the bitter we would never taste the sweet.

A Little Cup of Happy…

2 Comments
vintage coffee

Vintage Maxwell House Coffee ad

I’m not sure why ads like these from the 1940’s and 1950’s make me feel happy.

I wasn’t even born until the later half of the ’60’s. My mother, who was in her 20’s during the 1950’s, tells me her memories of the defined gender roles, limitations in career and other options for women etc. – and I have no desire to live in that context, preferring the freedoms and opportunities available to American women in this decade.

But vintage pictures like this coffee ad still make me feel a little nostalgic. Maybe it’s the (likely false) idea of a simpler time. In memory it looks lovely and easier to navigate, but in reality it would probably be stifling. Still, the era – and everything that came after it – are all part of the fabric of who we are here and now…

I don’t have the same affinity for any other decade of the 20th century – not even my heyday decade of the ’80’s.

I guess I’ll just leave off my efforts to figure it out for now, and just enjoy the way it makes me feel…happy. 🙂

 

The Real Things Haven’t Changed…

Leave a comment

A favorite quote by one of my favorite authors:

Laura

“The real things haven’t changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures; and have courage when things go wrong.”
                                                                    ― Laura Ingalls Wilder

Brushes With Authorly “Greatness”

4 Comments
Me, Lyssa and Julia Q framed

New York City, 2003: Me, NYT Bestselling authors Julia Quinn and Elizabeth Boyle, Adele Ashworth, Susan Kay Law, and Sari Robins with our fabulous editors Lyssa Keusch: Executive Editor at HarperCollins/Avon/Morrow, and May Chen: Senior Editor at Avon/Morrow

So, I’ve been fortunate to have had a few of these “brushes with authorly greatness” in the 21 years since I began pursuing a writing career (the last 14 of them as a published author with HarperCollins and later Cool Gus Publishing). Although I don’t have photos to commemorate all of the occasions,I’m sharing a few here and/or on my “Photos” page, accessed through the link in my sidebar.

The one above is special to me, as, not only does it feature extremely talented and gracious NYT Bestselling author Julia Quinn, who has been so kind as to provide several cover endorsements for my books over the years, but it also shows us after a fun evening out in New York City in 2003 with several other author pals and our fabulous editors Lyssa Keusch and May Chen.

Fortunately for me, my experiences with other talented authors began much earlier; back in 1993, in fact. I had recently earned my Master’s Degree in English literature, but I knew as well as anyone that degrees do not a writing career make. It would take six more years before I would be offered my first publishing contract from HarperCollins, and so in the interim I was in deep learning mode, attending conferences, joining writing organizations like my local chapter CNYRW, and writing. Always writing. Of course I’m still learning all the time – what fun would it be if we didn’t continue to learn and grow throughout our lives and careers? – but back then the gaining knowledge facet of a writing career was my primary focus.

Mary and Teresa Medeiros 2006 edited

Me with the fabulous NYT Bestselling Author Teresa Medeiros at a conference in Atlanta, GA in 2006

As is true with most writers, I’ve been an avid reader since childhood, and the kinds of books I enjoy vary greatly, from non-fiction, to literary, to commercial fiction. One of my favorite authors was then and is still now Teresa Medeiros. As a reader, she has taken me on many wonderful journeys of emotion, action, and adventure, and one of my dearest dreams in the early 1990’s was to meet her in person. In 1994 I attended my first National Writing Conference in New York City. At that Conference I was not so fortunate as to meet her, despite my best efforts. I made it to the Bantam authors autographing (her publisher at the time), only to be told she’d had to leave already in order to catch her flight home.

Ultimately, I did meet her at a conference a year later, and she was even more gracious, warm, funny, and welcoming than I had thought she’d be. Years later and much to my delight, I signed with the same literary agency that represents her, and then a few years after that, she and I both ended up being published by HarperCollins/Avon, and so I had more opportunities to rub elbows, chat, and have lovely conversations with her online and at every conference we both attended. This pic is of the two of us in 2006, after the RITA Award ceremony in Atlanta. I had a crushing headache that night, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to take a photo together. 🙂

RWA 94 Diana Gabaldon

Me with Diana Gabaldon in NYC at the Marriot Marquis, 1994

But back for a moment to that NYC conference in 1994: Disappointed but undeterred that I didn’t get to meet Teresa, I continued to visit other authors’ autographing tables and was able to get this lovely snap with the immensely-talented Diana Gabaldon, whose debut OUTLANDER had only been published three years earlier. Of course now it and all of the connected books to it have become an international phenomena, with the television series being broadcast now as well.

In a wonderful turn of the page, 13 years later I had the pleasure of attending an Historical Novelists conference in Albany, NY with Ms. Gabaldon  – only this time as a published author myself. We participated in the autographing session together (albeit at separate tables), and I remember thinking back to that first time I’d met her, and how I’d promised myself I would be autographing books as well someday. It’s funny how things come around, often reflecting the fruition of our goals, if we work at those goals long and hard enough.

There are many others I’ve been fortunate to meet at conferences or cocktail parties and chat with, including Meg Cabot (who like Teresa and I is also represented by the same literary agency), Nora Roberts, Dr. Michael Baden, Marion Roach, Lemony Snicket, Julianne MacLean, Eloisa James, Maggie Shayne, Jacquie D’Alessandro, Emma Cane, Christine Wenger, Molly Compton Herwood, Kris Fletcher, etc. etc. At one cocktail event at OTTO in New York City, I even had the pleasure of meeting and shaking the hand of chef Mario Batali! 🙂

The world of publishing is vastly different from the mostly solitary world of actual writing…the digging in and doing the job of producing words and paragraphs and pages that spill out an author’s innermost thoughts, emotions, and messages that are important and drive the work. Because it’s been a few years since I have actively published any new novels, this interactive, more “public” aspect of my writing career has slowed. I imagine it will pick up a little again with the release of my newest book, whenever and under whatever imprint it ends up being released by. Time will tell. Until then, it’s fun to look back and reflect on the fun times I’ve had, and the brushes I’ve enjoyed with many very talented people.

“A Country Kid”

Leave a comment
Ravine without Rebecca_edited-1

The ravine near the Homestead, where I’d find all sorts of natural treasures

I was always proud to bear the designation “country kid”, as opposed to what we’d (affectionately) call our metropolitan counterparts: “city slickers”. For most of my life, I didn’t know many kids from the city. There were only two who had the right to that title in my little world: two sisters from inner New York City who came up to live with our family through the “Fresh Air Fund” every summer. Over the years, those two girls (and later their two younger sisters) became a true part of our family, and we’ve kept in contact with them for the more than four decades since their last “Fresh Air” visit.

In the past five years, though, this term has also applied (in my imagination) to a very important character in my upcoming novel, which is based loosely on my fun, crazy, tragic, poignant always love-filled life growing up as one of seven daughters in an old-fashioned family living in a little “Cape Cod” style house at the foothills of the Adirondacks.  Of course he’s a fictional character, but I had a great time playing with the stereotypes again and utilizing some of the fun and teasing that can develop between people of two different social experiences. Maybe it’s not a surprise that one of my favorite childhood stories was “The Country Mouse and The City Mouse”!

Being a country kid means a lot of things to various people. To me, it meant the opportunity to live much of my childhood outdoors. During school months that meant an hour or two in the evenings and any weekend time not taken up by dance lessons or play rehearsal for whatever production I or my sisters were in…but in summer, it meant hours upon hours roaming the woods, investigating and enjoying nature. Many an evening at dusk, I would come home with burdocks tangled in my hair and dirt smeared on my hands, knees, and usually my shorts (from my unconscious habit of wiping my dirty hands on whatever was covering my legs).

5 of 7 daughters Mary and Deb

Me (on the left) with my sister Deb when I was around age 8, with long hair probably hiding snarls just behind my ears, and holding one of the walking sticks we would find and use to hike all over the woods

In fact, until I was around 12 and began to notice boys, I used to try every trick in the book to stop my mother from having to “help” me with my long hair. This included brushing or washing it. I told her I wanted to be a big girl and do it myself (using all of my acting skills) mostly because I didn’t want her to see the ever-growing matted snarls I had that I could never be bothered to comb through, instead just covering them with some brushed out hair over the top of them to hide them.

The picture at the top of the post is a location of much of my summer wandering, sometimes by myself and sometimes with a couple sisters, friends, or Pa (in those days of the late 70’s/early 80’s, we didn’t need to worry about kidnappings and such if we were out there by ourselves…it was a sense of freedom I so enjoyed and regret the loss of for my own children in current society). This is a ravine less than 200 yards from the Homestead. The base of it is dry in this picture, but you can see where the water would run  after snow melt and rains. The ravine was formed when glaciers moved through, carving out the Adirondack mountains after the Ice Age, and I was always finding interesting and wonderful things along its sides and bottom.

More than once, I found evidence of a prehistoric leaf or creature left in the fossilized shale. Growing or fallen along the bottom of the ravine I’d find plants of all kinds, flowers, leaves…and of course the occasional animal or bird carcass or bleached white bones. I learned quite a bit from examining the weathered skeleton of an owl, the skulls or jawbones of several small animals like opossum, fox, or raccoon. And once we stumbled upon the body of a large golden eagle whose wingspan was more than five feet.

I’ve lived and travelled both nationally and abroad, but nothing compares to the wonderful, free, nature-and-love-filled childhood that I enjoyed. I guess the old saying is true: there’s no place like home!

Seasons Change and So Do We…

1 Comment
The author and her father at a river fishing spot in the late 1980's

The author and her father at a river fishing spot in the late 1980’s

So, although I’ve done some guest blogging in the past, I’ve never really ventured into the blogging world on a regular basis myself. But as my mother always told all seven of her girls when we faced something challenging – there’s no time like the present! So here I am, ready to share some of my ponderings, anecdotes, book-related “behind-the scenes”, and various other kinds of musings.

As the inaugural post, it seems only fitting that I should write about the shift from my historical roots, leading to almost six years spent writing a quirky, poignant, comical and from-the-heart contemporary novel. I hesitate to call it Women’s Fiction, even though it showcases the emotional journey of a late-30’s female protagonist, because the story engages far more universal issues of life, death, and the afterlife.

The idea took root long before I actually started writing the book, but once my final contract for the third and last of my Templar Knights books was complete, it kept percolating in the back of my mind. I dabbled with more historical fiction, but I kept coming back to the idea and the characters, who are loosely based in some factual aspects of my own life, growing up as one of seven daughters in an old-fashioned family (living in a little house with only two “kid” bedrooms and one bathroom!) at the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. My father’s death in 2011 served as a watershed moment, allowing me to see the book with new eyes and undertake the task of finally completing it.

So there you have it. A new direction that like my romances sprang from the heart, only in a much more personal way. Where this path will lead, only time will tell, but in the meantime, I’m delighted to share my tales with you. Stay tuned for more updates as the publishing schedule is established.