Be Encouraged

"Correction does much, but encouragement does more." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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See this tree out on that rocky point. The lone cypress is one of the highlights on the 17 Mile Drive along the coastline between Monterey and Carmel. The brochure stated that the tree had survived on that open rocky point for over 250 years in spite of the storms that blew in off the ocean and the winds that tossed waves up on the rocks. Because it's become admired for its lone stand, a stone wall was built around its trunk to protect it from the sea. People are ready to do whatever they can to help it continue to cling to its lonely and at times harsh outpost. That's so we can stop on our drive, take pictures and be encouraged by the sight of one tree keeping its lone vigil.

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Be encouraged - that was the theme of Kyle Duncan's talk to us at the Books & Such Writers Retreat I attended last week in California. Kyle is an executive editor at Bethany House and is as friendly and approachable as his wonderful smile suggests. Actually his talk was titled "Five Things Your Editor Won't Tell You," but when he told us to be encouraged, that's when I sat up and paid notice.

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Everybody needs encouragement in his or her life. Especially writers. Sometimes we're like that lonely cypress tree out there on the point all by ourselves being buffeted by the winds of criticism and the waves of change in the publishing industry. We sit in front of our computers and write our stories and hope we'll be able to hang on in the face of whatever storms come our way. Perhaps personal storms that steal our writing time. Or professional storms that set our stories adrift in a sea of no interest. Or emotional storms of discouragement.

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I've been keeping a writing journal ever since I started writing seriously for publication. It's my way of having a record of what I've written and when I wrote it. I celebrate my writing victories there, but it's also the place I write about my frustrations and disappointments. I can open those notebooks up to some years and see some storm of rejections or dismay on most any page. I'll prove it. I'm opening a book at random. On a Tuesday in 1997 this is a bit of what I wrote in my journal. "I've been putting off writing here because things are so flat, so depressing. I got a rejection on Freaks finally - only took them 9 months this time....I'm so low I could crawl under a snake." Yikes, that sounds awful, doesn't it? But even when I was lowest I always tried to end my journal entry with a positive thought. That entry ends with "Courage! Willpower! Discipline!" Sometimes you have to be your own cheerleader, your own encourager.

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So it was good to hear Kyle tell us writers to be encouraged. The book industry is still looking for great books. Readers are still looking for books to entertain and enlighten them. Writers are still clinging to their lonely outposts and hoping that the words they're writing will find some sunshine and sparkle as their new stories sail out to readers. Sometimes those writers gather together together in a beautiful place to hear words of encouragement. Sometimes those writers have to chase after their own encouragement.

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May you be encouraged in whatever dream you're chasing this week. I'll leave you with another quote I came across "I am not afraid of tomorrow for I have seen yesterday and I love today." William Allen White.

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What encourages you?

Home Sweet Home

It's a long way from Kentucky to California and a long way back. Glad I wasn't walking the way the pioneers did or perhaps jogging along on a horse or in a covered wagon. One thing though, I'd have gotten a lot better look at the country that way. I watched out the planes' windows (I had window seats all but once) when we weren't above the clouds. I saw snow-covered mountains. I saw rivers snaking across the countryside. I saw shadows of the clouds on the ground. I saw lots of brown looking earth and mountains and cars that looked like ants trundling along strips of black.

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I also saw a beautiful sunset, but didn't attempt to take a picture. Once you're in one of those plane seats next to a big guy, you don't have room to shift your arm enough to turn a page in your book much less wrestle your bag out from under the seat in front of you to find your camera. Guess that's why Kindles are getting so popular with travelers. They don't require more than a whisk of the thumb or finger to get to the next page, or so they tell me. I'm still in the book age, the feel-it-in-your-hands and paper pages age. One good thing, you don't have to turn off a hard copy book when a plane is taking off.

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Monterey Bay was beautiful and it was fabulous meeting other Books & Such writers. Pictures are popping up all over Facebook. Laughing, smiling faces. Or very intense faces as we all tried to learn how to play Bocce. I had never even heard of Bocce before last week. It's sort of like horseshoes with rolling balls and no dirt. I played and promptly lost.

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Oh well, I had the ocean vistas to make up for any Bocce disappointments. The water was a beautiful blue and on the last day we were there the waves were crashing into the shore. Because of the rocky coastline, the waves can be fierce. We had thought about going out whale watching, but the boats wouldn't go out because of the high waves. So we drove down the coastline instead. Just as well. I wouldn't have been able to spot any whales if I was leaning over the rail losing my breakfast. What I really wanted to see was an eagle, but no such luck. That's on my bucket list. To see an eagle flying free in the sky.

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But now back home to reality. Books don't get written by thinking about writing them or talking about writing them. Books only get written by fingers pressing down keys on a keyboard. Still it was great having a little one on one time with my agent and with my editor. They both asked me what next. I said a Shaker book, but they were meaning after the Shaker books. I'm thinking a new historical novel. But that's what the Shaker books are too - historical novels. So who knows? Now I'll just remember the ocean and the sound of the waves crashing and think about how each wave made its own new mark on the sandy beach or did its best to wear down the rocks. That's the way it'll be with my books. Each one will have to mark out its own path.

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Hope you're having a great week with lots of paths open to you. Good paths that lead you to happiness. I'm happy to be home and putting me fingers on that keyboard.

Writers' Retreat and Fun in Sunny California

No picture and I'm a day late. I'm doing my Wednesday blog on Thursday. Not only Thursday but Thursday in California and that means I'm even later. But it's not every time you can sit on your veranda watching and listening to the ocean crash against the rocky beach in your fancy hotel supplied robe and write back home to your friends. Okay, that was taking a germ of truth and turning it into fiction. I do have a very tiny veranda but it's still dark (my head can't get off Kentucky time) and the cord for my lap top that won't hold a charge isn't long enough to reach. And although the ocean is out there and making that great crashing noise it is on the other side of the hotel. You know where those people who weren't too cheap to pay the extra whatever amount of dollars to have that ocean outside their windows are sitting on their verandas. At least will be when the sun comes up. But I am writing home to friends and being very sorry I didn't bring the cord to connect my camera to the computer so I could share one of the beautiful pictures of the ocean with you.
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I have seen the ocean a lot because who wants to stay in her room when you can go out and walk beside the ocean. It's a beautiful place with a lot of history. I'm learning all about Cannery Row and why it's called Cannery Row. That's due completely to John Steinbeck's book. The town grabbed the name and now it's a tourist destination with lots of shops and restaurants. No more sardine canning factories.
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But back to the retreat. It's a fun time my agency Books & Such have organized to give their clients a chance to relax and learn and meet each other. I've never been to a writers' retreat. This is my year for firsts. I went to my first writers' conference and now a retreat. This is similar to the conference. I'm not holing up in a quiet secluded corner writing a bestseller. Some of the other writers here might be and I'm sure our agents would have no problem with us skipping some of the sessions if that was the result. I am getting some great writing tips and promoting tips and best of all meeting so many new writing friends. I met Lauraine Snelling who has to be the sweetest lady in the world. She endorsed my novel, Angel Sister, that's coming out in February. Even better, she gave me the friendliest hug when we met Tuesday night. There are famous writers all around me and I'm hoping their knowledge is rubbing off on me. I keep telling people you can't teach an old dog new tricks, but then in my heart I'm not all that old. I think I probably can learn a few more tricks.
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I'll be sharing more with you in the weeks ahead. My blog imagination has been grabbed by several ideas and you know you're going to have to be looking at some of these pictures I can't upload right now. LOL. But I'll close today with the two words that have been ringing in my ears since I heard Kyle Duncan, an editor with Bethany House, talk yesterday morning. He said to be encouraged. And so I am. I hope you are too - that you are encouraged on this day and that you carry the seeds of encouragement with you to share with others. Thanks for reading and I'll be anxious to talk to you Sunday. I'll be back on Kentucky time then for sure.

Naming Characters - What's in a Name?

I know this picture doesn't have a thing to do with naming characters. Or then again maybe I need to look deeper. The open gate, the roads running together speak of possibilities. I took this picture last week at the Shaker village near me. My new characters might walk down these very roads in my story. They will be facing new vistas, new paths. But first they have to have names.

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In a little book I have called Craft & Technique by Paul Raymond Martin, he has a paragraph about "The Name Game." He says some writers think they can't proceed with a story until they name their main characters. His advice is to pick a name, any name, just so you can get started writing. I'm one of those writers who has to have her characters named. At least my lead characters. How can I know who they are until I know their names? And saying just any Tim, Jim or Sally isn't going to work for me. I have to know what their names are. That's not to say that a character I forced a wrong name on didn't look me in the eye a few pages later and tell me emphatically that if I thought that was her name, I'd better think again.

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I'm thinking names now for my new book. I'll have lots of names before I'm through. Many of them will be minor characters I'll name on the spot when they make their entrance onto my story page. I want those names to be right too, so their names get changed more often than my main characters. I keep a running list of every character I name in a book and every dog, horse or cat plus all the place names. Saves a lot of grief a few pages on down the story road when I meet that character again and think "Oops! What was his or her name?"

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A list keeps me from using pet names I like over and over. Each book needs fresh names unless I'm letting an old character appear in a new book. I did that in The Seeker. Those of you who read The Outsider first know which characters I'm talking about. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to let any of my former characters make a cameo appearance in my next book. That could happen or not.

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Before I can even consider that possibility, I have to come up with my names. And so I'm searching through name books and waiting for the right names to leap off the page into my imagination. Then I write the name down and try it out with a last name. It has to sound right. I usually end up with a whole page full of names and I keep trying them out in my imagination to see which one is going to fit my character.

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Sometimes when I come up with a name, the character pops up too like a jack-in-the box saying "Here I am. Here I am." That's how it was with Lacey, my main female character in my Shaker book, The Blessed that will be out next summer. Other times my character lingers back in the shadows of my mind and is reluctant to come out where I can see if the name fits and if she is going to let me get to know her well enough to tell her story.

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So I'm trying to get the possibilites for the new story to come into focus along with the names. I hope you are having a week where possibilities of good things are coming along and that the names of the characters you're reading about or writing about fit them. I used to think my name didn't fit me. But now I think Ann is a good name for me. I'm just who I am, and a simple name with no pretentions fits. But when I was a kid I wished for a glamorous name with more than one syllable. LOL

Enthusiam and Yeast in Fiction

"You can do anything if you have enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes rise to the stars." ~ Henry Ford

I came across this great quote on Facebook the other day. I started to repost it, but then I wanted to say more than the FB police let me say. I always want to say more than the FB police will let me say. I make a game out of weeding out unnecessary words and letters on my posts. I don't know if I could ever get a tweet done, but I'm thinking about trying it just to practice brevity. And being enthusiastic about it.
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I'm a bread baker. I got some sourdough starter years ago and have been making bread ever since. I like making bread. I like eating bread. And my grandkids like making bread too. You can see the enthusiasm in the faces of these two dough kneaders. Of course with the enthusiasm my grandchildren show for kneading the bread, the floor and cabinets get dusted liberally with flour and sometimes their fingers get covered in gooey dough. But there is just something about kneading dough and then watching the yeast in it make it rise.
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That's what I liked about the quote - the idea of enthusiasm being yeast to make your hopes and dreams rise and take wing. If you can't be enthusiastic about your own hopes, then they're going to be like those grocery store helium balloons. Up for a while and then gradually losing air and sinking lower and lower until you can't find a hope anywhere.
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Oh, but enthusiasm can work wonders. And it's sometimes catching. One person's enthusiasm can shake awake another person's enthusiasm. And pretty soon the whole stadium is cheering. Or everyone on the team is playing his or her heart out. Or the whole church is on fire for the Lord. Or one author is sitting in front of her computer hitting keys as fast as she can to make words spread across the empty screen. Or a reader is telling all his friends about the great book he just read.
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It's easy to be enthusiastic about some things. Grandkids! New books coming out! The Seeker and then Angel Sister to start out the new year. New characters and new ideas! I'm grabbing hold of some enthusiasm to help me start writing Shaker number 5. You can do anything. That means it's going to do more than get me started. It's going to push me through the middle doldrums and right on past the panic of finding the perfect ending. Enthusiasm. I can do anything if I have enthusiasm. It's going to make my hopes rise the way my bread loaves do sitting on the counter next to a warm stove.
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Hopes and dreams? Find the ones that wake your enthusiasm and you can do anything. Do you believe that is true. That if you want something badly enough...

A Day at Shaker Village

I met a writing friend for lunch at the Pleasant Hill Shaker Village near here last week. And as always I was drawn to the beautiful curving stairways in the Trustee's House. I made those stairways a reason for Adam to go to the village in my book, The Seeker. It's fun to use places in the real Shaker village in my fictional Harmony Hill Shaker village. But I am writing fiction so at times I have to find a new place that will work in my scene.
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I bring that up because my writer friend asked me about the pool of water in The Believer. She wondered where it was in the village, and I had to admit I invented that particular spot. I thought there could be a pool of water like that on the extensive Shaker property, especially with the river on one side, but I hadn't actually seen one like it or read about one like it. I made it up because I needed a way to get Elizabeth and Ethan together in a scene. That can be difficult in a Shaker village where the leaders are determined to keep the men and women separate.
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My friend was a little surprised by my admission, but a writer does what a writer has to do to make her story work. That's not to say that I play fast and loose with the village setting. I don't. I like staying true to the layout of the village buildings and to the village's history. But a pool of water in the middle of the woods seemed to be an okay invention.
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It was a stressful day for my friend. She had an auto accident on the way to Shaker Village and had to have her car towed. Her phone wouldn't work, but the deputy sheriff was kind enough to bring her on out to Shaker village to meet me. (I posted a picture of her getting out of the sheriff's car on Facebook. She was a real sport and kept her million dollar smile on her face.) Our meal wasn't nearly as relaxing as she'd hoped since she had to keep thinking about what she was going to do next and how to get a rental to get home and where and how to get her car to a repair shop in Louisville where she lives. Her cell phone wasn't getting a signal so she had to borrow mine or the village's to make the necessary calls. Then we look at the beautiful staircases and she gets ready to take a picture and her new camera won't turn on. I know about then she's thinking what else can go wrong while she was wishing she'd stayed home and never ventured out to meet me. But she put on a brave face. We ate our lunch, strolled around the grounds, met the oxen, Star and Moon, in training, and then headed for the car rental agency. We had to go all the way to Frankfort for that because the one in nearby Danville didn't have a car to rent. We get to Frankfort and all they have in a gold colored truck. Mary decided gold would work.
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But the village was beautiful as always, or perhaps even more so because of the beautiful fall colors and being with a friend. Mary's hoping to write an article about the Shaker village and maybe about a writing friend who likes to write stories about the village. Or one very like it.
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Hope you have a good beginning to an even better week.

Simple Gifts

My editor e-mailed me with some questions about the Shaker song, "Simple Gifts" this week and that got me to thinking about the song. "Tis the gift to be simple, tis the gift to be free" is probably the best known line of a Shaker hymn. Many people sing it incorrectly as "Tis a gift to be simple," but that little change of the to a makes a world of difference in the meaning of the song. The lyrics and music were written in 1948 by Shaker Elder Joseph Brackett of the Sabbathday Lake Village during what the Shakers called an "Era of Manifestations" or "Mother's Work." During this time many Shakers received what they considered "gift" songs from the spiritual realm.

I'm not sure if this elder felt that divine inspiration, but his song has certainly come to represent Shaker music. But it's gone farther than that. It began its rise to popularity in the "world" in 1944 when it was used by Aaron Copland in the ballet Appalachian Spring. Many who hear the song think it has a Celtic background. It does have a very lyrical sound and you can almost imagine someone playing the song on a flute as they dance across green fields. Of course the Shakers didn't have musical instruments until very late in their history. Their voices were their musical instruments.

"Simple Gifts" has been adapted and arranged many times over the years. You sometimes see the song with two additional verses that were not of part of the Shaker song. Perhaps the best known adaptation of the tune is Sydney Carter's "Lord of the Dance" in 1966. But it's been on t.v. (Little House on the Praire) and in the political realm too. John Williams incorporated the tune into "Air and Simple Gifts" that was performed at President Obama's inauguration in 2009. It's gone off to school and been a popular piece for various schools' drum corps and marching bands including the WV Mountaineer Marching Band.

The Shakers might have liked the idea of people marching to their song since many of their dances were marches. In this one they bowed and turned as they danced and sang. It is one of the songs the historical interpreters use when they demonstrate the Shaker worship at Pleasant Hill, the Shaker Village near where I live. Popular songs were shared between villages and this is one sung by all the villages.

So now you know more than you probably ever wanted to know about a Shaker song, but for fun you can click on the video above and listen to a beautiful rendition of the original words and tune by Judy Collins. Enjoy. I may post a different video of the song on my Facebook page. Come on over and join my page. I post something at least once a day. You can just search for Ann H Gabhart and look for my author page or click on it from the Facebook symbol on this blog or my website.

Talk to you again on Sunday. Oh yeah, and to the winners of the birthday celebration giveaway, your books are in the mail. Except Amy's. She still hasn't gotten into touch with me.