So, it turns out that school vacation and ICLW don't really make for a great combo what with kids wanting my undivided attention and all...but PROMISE if have or do leave me a comment I'll be sure to reciprocate!!!**
Anyway - do you remember this recent post of Mel's? Yeah the one with the near midnight euphoria at holding a copy of her very own book - published - and everything!
And, do you also recall her big news that the release date has been moved up - to May 1st!
Well - imagine my surprise when I checked my email about three minutes ago and saw this:
"Greetings from Amazon.com.We thought you'd like to know that we shipped your items, and that this completes your order....
1 Navigating the Land of If:... Shipped via USPS"
Yuppers - it's on its way to my hot little hands!!! And, may potentiall arrive BEFORE May 1st!!
Hey - Mel - Congrats, again. Your hard work, 'fitting your job around the needs of your family' has paid off, big time.
** UPDATED TO ADD THAT I JUST BUSTED THROUGH 50 ICLW POSTS...*WHEW* YOU ALL HAVE SOME EXCITING STUFF GOING ON!
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Friday, April 24, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Connections...Are you an artist??
This forum is the foundation for connections of all kinds.
In this space I spoke of Share.
Sara emailed me and connected me to Charlotte's Mama.
She was a wealth of information and connceted me to this group.
Through the group I found the hood-spa to start our own group and in the process met the very talented Birdie's Mama and put her sweet girl on The Wall of Angels.
Last week I received this email from her.
"Charlotte's Mama and myself are going to be working on a book, a book that will be for the young siblings of babylost parents, a book that talks about the baby who is not there but is talked about and cherished.
However, we are looking for an illustrator, and I would like to find either a babylost Mama or Papa to be that person. If you can, would you mind putting the word out to your SHARE group, or by another means of getting the word out?
I have not had any luck in my calls for such an illustrator, and it seems so important to have the whole book be made by babylost parents."
A book like this is so needed. PLEASE...contact her if you feel like your talent might match their vision.
In this space I spoke of Share.
Sara emailed me and connected me to Charlotte's Mama.
She was a wealth of information and connceted me to this group.
Through the group I found the hood-spa to start our own group and in the process met the very talented Birdie's Mama and put her sweet girl on The Wall of Angels.
Last week I received this email from her.
"Charlotte's Mama and myself are going to be working on a book, a book that will be for the young siblings of babylost parents, a book that talks about the baby who is not there but is talked about and cherished.
However, we are looking for an illustrator, and I would like to find either a babylost Mama or Papa to be that person. If you can, would you mind putting the word out to your SHARE group, or by another means of getting the word out?
I have not had any luck in my calls for such an illustrator, and it seems so important to have the whole book be made by babylost parents."
A book like this is so needed. PLEASE...contact her if you feel like your talent might match their vision.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Backsplash - A Review of all kinds
It is great when something makes a splash - literally or figuratively.
A rock breaks the surface plunging into the water, but our eyes watch the ripples to see how far back the splash will go.
A child dives into the water for the first time and we focus on how deep they will submerge before they appear again.
A movie takes the nation by storm and we 'fall in love' with the lead actor, researching his early films when we were none-the-wiser to the fame that would become him.
We happen upon a blog we've never been to before, perhaps via this oh-so-useful-monthly-portal called ILCW, and are struck by the post in front of us. We could have written those words. We feel an instant connection to the author of the site and, go back - into the archives, reading, searching, devouring what they did, 'before'.
And then, there are books. If I made it my life's goal to read every book ever published - I would fall short, not by lack of motivation - but our restrictor - time. If, however a book makes that perfect splash, I find myself asking, What came before this? What other literary works came from this person's head and travelled to the page for me to read?
Elizabeth McCracken's most recent book, An Exact Replica of a Figment of my Imagination made that splash. There was the O-magazine excerpt, the major publishing house backing the book, the Exhale interview, and - of course - the cover, with its small, capitalized letters running across the top; BY THE AUTHOR OF THE GIANT'S HOUSE.
Every time I opened that book, and believe me I have done so too many times to count, I saw that phrase, and found myself intruiged. What came before this? What kind of words poured from her before the tragic death of her Pudding? And so, I checked it out of the library.
It is a novel - fiction based on real life experience as her many years with the title, Librarian. It is fantastical, over-the-top, and filled with that astounding way she writes that can simultaneously draw me in to the story line and cause me to re-read with the sole purpose of marveling the arcitechual design of the writing itself.
Of course, there is loss - death I mean. What story doesn't have it, in some form, in some permeation? And the main character is lost, really - and so the underlying ripple throughout the whole book is her grief of lost, never-to-be-achieved possibilities. But then, there was this passage:
"I believed then that the thought James is dead would be the key that swung open my heart and then broke off in the lock. It would ruin me. I believed I was making a choice. I could carry on, I could do my work and think of him and iron my clothes in the morning; or I could become so wrecked by grief that I wandered the streets, my fingers stuck in my hair and my hair struck in my mouth, strangers running from me as I said, wait a minute, I only want to tell you about somebody. I thought these were the only two paths before me, that they diverged so wildly that, as I stepped onto the sensible ordered path, my lifelong choice, I would not see or think of the other path again; it would lead to another neighborhood entirely. I did not know that walking on one, I would be always in sight of the other; that they crossed one another sooner rather than later; and then crossed each other, again and again."
It strikes me that if you substitute the name Pudding for James, the intent of the paragraph still stands. In fact, I believe you could insert any of our lost baby's names: Emma, Hope, Charlotte, Andrew, Michael, Christopher, the comprehensive list of names at the Wall of Angels even, and it would read perfectly.
But more than that - it strikes me, to the very core, that she - in her character development, in her study of and readings of grief, was able to embody that perceived fork in the road we all face after the death of a true love.
I'm just stricken by this woman and her writing, her depth and emotion - both pre and post Pudding. This is what I hope for as I write. That my words can be so authentic, so real and true as they travel from my heart to my head, down the muscles of my arms and pour out of my tapping fingertips; that they speak to the reader, Yes - I've sat where you sit, Yes - I've cried oceans of tears, Yes - I can smile and even laugh again, and Yes - life as we know it will never be the same.
There are more books in her backsplash - I'll be checking one out today.
A rock breaks the surface plunging into the water, but our eyes watch the ripples to see how far back the splash will go.
A child dives into the water for the first time and we focus on how deep they will submerge before they appear again.
A movie takes the nation by storm and we 'fall in love' with the lead actor, researching his early films when we were none-the-wiser to the fame that would become him.
We happen upon a blog we've never been to before, perhaps via this oh-so-useful-monthly-portal called ILCW, and are struck by the post in front of us. We could have written those words. We feel an instant connection to the author of the site and, go back - into the archives, reading, searching, devouring what they did, 'before'.
And then, there are books. If I made it my life's goal to read every book ever published - I would fall short, not by lack of motivation - but our restrictor - time. If, however a book makes that perfect splash, I find myself asking, What came before this? What other literary works came from this person's head and travelled to the page for me to read?
Elizabeth McCracken's most recent book, An Exact Replica of a Figment of my Imagination made that splash. There was the O-magazine excerpt, the major publishing house backing the book, the Exhale interview, and - of course - the cover, with its small, capitalized letters running across the top; BY THE AUTHOR OF THE GIANT'S HOUSE.
Every time I opened that book, and believe me I have done so too many times to count, I saw that phrase, and found myself intruiged. What came before this? What kind of words poured from her before the tragic death of her Pudding? And so, I checked it out of the library.
It is a novel - fiction based on real life experience as her many years with the title, Librarian. It is fantastical, over-the-top, and filled with that astounding way she writes that can simultaneously draw me in to the story line and cause me to re-read with the sole purpose of marveling the arcitechual design of the writing itself.
Of course, there is loss - death I mean. What story doesn't have it, in some form, in some permeation? And the main character is lost, really - and so the underlying ripple throughout the whole book is her grief of lost, never-to-be-achieved possibilities. But then, there was this passage:
"I believed then that the thought James is dead would be the key that swung open my heart and then broke off in the lock. It would ruin me. I believed I was making a choice. I could carry on, I could do my work and think of him and iron my clothes in the morning; or I could become so wrecked by grief that I wandered the streets, my fingers stuck in my hair and my hair struck in my mouth, strangers running from me as I said, wait a minute, I only want to tell you about somebody. I thought these were the only two paths before me, that they diverged so wildly that, as I stepped onto the sensible ordered path, my lifelong choice, I would not see or think of the other path again; it would lead to another neighborhood entirely. I did not know that walking on one, I would be always in sight of the other; that they crossed one another sooner rather than later; and then crossed each other, again and again."
It strikes me that if you substitute the name Pudding for James, the intent of the paragraph still stands. In fact, I believe you could insert any of our lost baby's names: Emma, Hope, Charlotte, Andrew, Michael, Christopher, the comprehensive list of names at the Wall of Angels even, and it would read perfectly.
But more than that - it strikes me, to the very core, that she - in her character development, in her study of and readings of grief, was able to embody that perceived fork in the road we all face after the death of a true love.
I'm just stricken by this woman and her writing, her depth and emotion - both pre and post Pudding. This is what I hope for as I write. That my words can be so authentic, so real and true as they travel from my heart to my head, down the muscles of my arms and pour out of my tapping fingertips; that they speak to the reader, Yes - I've sat where you sit, Yes - I've cried oceans of tears, Yes - I can smile and even laugh again, and Yes - life as we know it will never be the same.
There are more books in her backsplash - I'll be checking one out today.
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