The days are getting colder. It has snowed three times now, although it hasn't stayed. Tomorrow is November first. In two more weeks, I will start decorating the house: Christmas is coming, and of all the holidays in the year, I am most grateful for Christmas!

I love to give presents. Finding that perfect item for someone - and ten more as well - brightens my day. Just the thought of their pleasure when they open it makes my toes wriggle. I love it all: the whispering, the smuggling of bags up the stairs, the joyous warnings of "no one goes into my room from now till the 25th!" Even better is to make a present that I know will please the receiver. I am beside myself with barely suppressed excitement the whole season when that happens.

Some people talk about the commercialization of Christmas and complain that everyone gets too many presents. I nod as though I understand that this might be conceivable and make a mental note not to invite them over in December. Brightly-wrapped presents spread out from under my tree in a mountain of abandon, multiplying and creeping across the room as THE DAY approaches, until it is nearly impossible for the recipients to squeeze themselves into the room. On Christmas day I get up slowly. Oh, how I want to prolong the delicious anticipation of those waiting presents!

A gift is something entirely different. "Youth is a gift," we tell the young, shaking our heads as they appear to squander it. "Life is a gift," we remind those who are sad. "Love is a gift," we advise those who are focused on other things. Gifts are intangible things of great value, often overlooked, taken for granted until we face losing them. If presents are like sunshine, gifts are like air; one makes us smile, the other allows us to breathe. Allows us to live. Because people cannot live without the feeling of being gifted. Whether it's youth or age, life or love, hope or faith, talent or interest, without our sense of having received a gift, we die of depression, loneliness, despair, anger or bitterness.

I have not always felt gifted. At 23 I was diagnosed with a chronic, incurable illness. At times I thought it would define my life. But it hasn't. I have been hurt, as we all have, sometimes so badly I saw no reason to go on. I thought I would never heal. But I did. Don't ask me how. Being gifted is a mysterious, inexplicable ... well, gift.

So I take pleasure in this season of presents. I revel in a gluttony of giving. I give the lesser things that I can give, because I know how much I have been gifted.

Do you feel that you've been gifted? How? Have there been times in your life that you didn't feel gifted?

I am a "homebody". Place is important to me. I know light-footed travelers, people for whom "Home is where I hang my hat," or more sentimentally, "Home is wherever the people I love are."  Home is both of those things to me - a place to put my things, a place to love and be loved -  but there it is, in both those definitions - a place. Home is the place you belong. The place where your roots are nourished. The place where your roots are. I am a person who needs a place to put down roots.

So it's no surprise that so many of my childhood memories are of a tree. This tree. It grew beside a stream in the fields behind the street my house was on.

I grew up under this tree. In the summer, I climbed it, and built dams and caught frogs in the stream beside it, and picked wild strawberries and played with my dog in the fields around it. In the winter, I skated there, and built snow forts. I ran to my tree with all my childhood upsets to sit alone under it, until the sight of the sun in it's branches and the sound of the wind rustling its leaves eased my hurt or anger or sorrow. It never failed to entertain or comfort me, this tree.

I spread my wings and went off to university; and when I graduated, I spent three months backpacking around Europe. It was a difficult, sometimes lonely, but often exhilarating trip, and I have never lost the love of travel it engendered.

Nor have I ever forgotten coming home again, and sitting at the kitchen window with a cup of hot tea, watching an early snowfall, silent and pristine, float through the air and settle over the fields and tree that were so much a part of me. I grabbed a pen, and a piece of paper, and I wrote this poem, which sums up, for me, the difference between wings and roots.

FAMILIAR FIELDS

My travels are a dream
that held me
fitful and unresting
through the night.
The countries I have seen,
the castles and cathedrals
of the world,
are photos out of focus
in the sudden clarity
of snow
falling on familiar fields.

This week's theme is roots and wings - home and journeys. Since it's almost November, I've decided to reflect on one aspect of my writers' journey - NaNoWriMo.

Last year, November 2012, I decided to participate in NaNoWriMo for the first time. I knew many writer friends who had entered it previously and loved it, and I wanted to try it for myself. At the least, I expected that writing in tandem with other writers would strengthen my will-power to work on my manuscript daily.

Yes, my manuscript. There are many ways to do NaNoWriMo, besides the traditional method of using it to write a complete first draft, although that's probably the way to get the most out of the experience. However, I already had a complete manuscript - trouble was, it had been rejected by a number of agents and I knew it needed a complete re-write. Now, I've been collecting rejections for a decade, and I was at a low ebb, almost ready to give up. I knew I needed a push, so I entered NaNoWriMo as what they call a "rogue", with the intent of getting that rewrite I'd been putting off done finally.

I didn't get it done. I'm not a fast writer. Life intrudes and I allow it to. But I had fun cheering on and encouraging other writers I connected with. When they were discouraged, all I had to say was, "Wow! Look how far ahead of me you are! Good going!" And they could see it was true, which made them feel better. Maybe it was their return encouragement, or the daily public embarrassment, but I did get a really good chunk of it re-written, which I wouldn't have if I hadn't entered NaNoWriMo. Enough to inspire and motivate me to complete it in December.

Early in the new year, I took that rewritten manuscript to a conference, and pitched it to a half-dozen agents. Several of them asked to read it, and one of them, Carrie Pestritto of Prospect Agency, loved it enough to sign me up. She now has it on offer, being read by several publishers. And just this past Saturday, October 19, it won first place in the Royal Palm Literary Awards, Historical Fiction, unpublished category.

Some people would say I did NaNoWriMo all wrong, and scoff because I didn't even complete what I set out to do. I have no doubt you'd gain even more doing it the right way, and completing it. But what strikes me is that even though I did it wrong, and didn't finish as much as I hoped to, the fellowship and encouragement of other writers was so inspiring, it led me toward success. There's room for turtles and hares in this race, and everyone who enters is closer to being a winner than if they hadn't. I fully intend to enter again this year - as a turtle again, not a hare.

Because I have another manuscript that needs to be re-written, and I'm determined to complete... well, at least the first half of it

Come find me on NaNoWriMo as JAMcL  Stop by to say hello as you pass me!

Hello OM&B Blog Challengers,

I am posting from sunny Florida, on the last day of the Florida Writers' Association Conference. Normally, I would be sending the participants in this blog challenge an email reminder of this upcoming week's theme and the three odd-numbered days on which we'll all be posting - October 21, 23, and 25.

However, I foolishly forgot to bring my list of all your email addresses - it is sitting on my computer desktop at home. So I hope you are all checking in and will see this, and I will send an email as soon as I get home on Oct. 23. Sorry about that.

This week's theme for Week 4 is: Roots and Wings. Memories/poems/pictures of home, of leaving or finding it, and/or of travel or journeys or changes. Where we have come from and where we are going: A theme that is often rich in imagery and emotion.

Oh, and since this is my last post for the week of secrets, here's one: It's something that you are going to be the first to know. Last night, at the Florida Writers' Association's Awards Dinner, my novel, the Sorrow Stone, won first prize in the Historical Fiction, unpublished, category. You can read the first chapter on the page, Historical Fiction, on this website.

I hope you agree with the judges' decision!

It seems to me, an author's professional relationships are particularly tricky. Let's examine the traditional route: an agent, a publisher. We're told a publisher will try to get every right away from us, take the baby with the book, for the rest of our lives. Publishers are portrayed as the modern-day Rumplestiltskins of the world. THAT's why we need an agent. To protect our rights, get us a good deal, make sure we get paid on time, etc.

Years and years ago, I signed with a terrible agent. She wouldn't talk to me, refused to tell me where she'd sent my book, sent my ms to the wrong address of an editor who asked me to send it to him during a conference, told me two publishers wanted to see something else from me, but she'd lost their names... If she'd been my boyfriend I'd have dumped her at once, but it took a more experienced author telling me to get out of the relationship to make me fire her.

Earlier this year, I worked with a publisher who's great. He let me alter anything in the contract, but showed me how things are related - these are his production costs, this is my royalty rate, this is the bookstore's cut, this is his profit if we sell the book at $X, or $Y or $Z. "You pick," he said to me. I asked about the clause in the contract about foreign rights. "We can take that out," he said. "If you get a better offer than my small production in England, I'm not here to stand in your way." Ended up, I became more concerned about protecting his rights than my own. (Warning: even among small publishers, this is very rare.) He was a dream to work with. I hope he makes a lot of money on my book. I feel like I'm marketing it for both our sakes.

And now I have an agent. I really like her. Despite the disparity in our ages, we are in many ways alike. I love her enthusiasm and energy, she emails me updates regularly, suggests good changes to my ms and accepts it well when I reject some of them. We write emails to each other with lots of exclamation! marks! in them!! (NOT the way I write a story, but kinda the way I talk and definitely the way I email) She loves my writing voice and I love her email voice!! We're a good fit. She works hard for me, and it's important to me to be working with someone I like and trust.

But the traditional route is S-L-O-W. And I have three SF manuscripts, which I wrote when I was starting out, and she doesn't rep SF. So I'm thinking of going hybrid, which means using both routes. Polish up these previous novels for self-publication, and send her my memoir and historical fiction for the traditional route. We discussed it before I signed, and it's good with her.

Now what's interesting about this is, if I self-pub, who is my professional relationship with? Why, it's with my readers, directly. I'm not writing for my agent or a publisher's tastes, but for my readers. No one but them will tell me what will sell, or whether I can cross genres, or how long the story should be. They'll tell me democratically, not autocratically - by voting with their money. I really like that relationship.

I like the concept of being a hybrid author - I think it's the best of both worlds. But it's a little sad that I needed the agent and the publisher telling me my work was good enough to be printed, before I had the confidence to decide to self-pub anything.

So now I'm asking myself, What is it about this topic that freezes me? (See previous post to understand what I'm talking about)

It isn't that I don't think interpersonal relations are important - in fact, I think they are more important than anything else in life. It's not that I can't maintain a relationship - au contraire, I almost NEVER lose people. If you become my friend, it's a life-time sentence. I HATE losing anyone. I mourn every friend I'm no longer in touch with. I go to extreme lengths to hold onto people. For example, I've been married to the same man for 37 years. Can't stand him. Never could. But I'll be damned if I'll lose him! (Okay, that bit about my husband is a joke, he's really a nice guy, although there have been a few times during our marriage when I've been tempted to misplace him for a while...)

Relationships. Well, here's the important thing to remember, the only thing that really matters: people die, and there's nothing you can do about it. You can never have them back. You can never spend another hour with them. So whoever you care about, as long as you both care about each other, hold on to them with everything you've got, like nothing else matters. Because nothing else matters.

I don't mean don't fight. The only time people don't disagree is when one is afraid to disagree with the other. Not healthy. I don't mean stay in a violent or emotionally harmful relationship - I am not a proponent of abusive or enabling relationships. But there are people who love each other - partners, friends who were once very close, siblings, parents and children - who haven't spoken to each other in years. They let go. Before they had to.

Not me. They'll have to pry my white-knucked fingers loose from the people I love to put them in the grave. And nothing short of death will do it.

That's all I've got to say about relationships. That's all I know about 'em.

The theme of this week's posts is relationships. I'm having a bit of trouble with this one, it's such a HUGE topic! Where do I start? Everything in life is relationships! Who am I to speak about relationships? What could I possibly have to say about relationships?
WHAT WAS I THINKING OF???

Ummm... That's not a great beginning to a post, is it? Especially from the "host" of this blog hop. But I thought I'd give you a chance to see the real me, before the writing me kicks in. (She hasn't kicked in yet.)
(Still hasn't)
(Where is she?!)
(...I think I'm on my own here...)

Okay...um...
...This is kinda how the beginning of a relationship feels...
It's just...like...where do you start...?

Next time, I'll try to do better. Really, you should see me on a second date! I'm much more coherent ...

Oh God, there won't be a second date, will there...?

(I'm such an idiot! Idiot! IDIOT!)

I hope you come back on the 9th. I'll dress prettier! I'll do my hair better! I'll clean my teeth! I'll think of something to say!!!

Well... goodnight. I...had a good time...

Last week, our financial adviser told us about a couple he works with who are worth over $3 million. The wife won't let the husband retire because she's afraid they don't have enough. It boggles my mind, and made me think about attitudes toward money, and where they come from...

I grew up in a generation when parents did not talk to their children about money. Especially not girls. We got a small weekly allowance and learned by experience that if we spent it on candy today we wouldn't be able to buy a comic book tomorrow. "You can't have your cake and eat it, too," our parents said, the sum total of our education in handling finances. It worked, to an extent, because they stuck to it; limited in spending money themselves, there was no hope they would shell out more than once a week.

The first thing I learned about money from this allowance business is the joy of competition. When my older brothers and sister were handed a nickle on Saturday morning, I wanted something, too. Mom gave me two pennies, because I was two years old. My siblings supported her by hiding their smirks and pointing out that I got two coins while they only got one. I was happy.

The coins were retrieved each week as soon as I forgot about them, and the story goes that I got the same two pennies for the next two years, until I was old enough to learn about stores! That realization increased my financial knowledge tremendously, and my allowance to a nickle. For years, Saturday morning was synonymous with popsicle, unless I was playing with a friend, when it would be enough penny candies for two.

When I was ten or eleven, I fell in love with horses. For the first time I wanted something too expensive for Mom or Santa or, apparently, even Jesus. I decided to save my allowance and buy my own horse! Mom told me I'd need a hundred dollars - an enormous sum. Thus I learned about saving. And persistence. At 50 cents a week, it would take years to buy a horse.  I doggedly saved every penny I got, and asked for peripheral equipment - a bucket to bring him water when I finally got him, a horse grooming kit - for birthdays and Christmas. I became, I'm embarrassed to say, a bit cheap about buying Christmas gifts for my family, but I did do so, setting back my horse fund as little as possible.

My mother never discouraged me. I'm sure after two years she began praying I'd lose my love of horses before I reached my goal of $100. And she was right. I never did get that horse, but I could have, if I had wanted to. And I learned to save, to put off small gains for larger future goals. And most important, I learned that goals, no matter how apparently unrealistic, were achievable if you stuck with them.

Mutual funds? GICs? RRSPs? TFSAs? I had to learn all that myself, but it all started with that 2-cent allowance!

What experiences taught you about money, and goals, when you were young?

I hurry down the hall toward the school doors until, unable to help myself, I break into a run. It is spring, I can see the sun shining outside through the door windows; I'm almost free at the end of another school day and I know I can reach those doors before a teacher has time to call "No running in the hall!"

I burst outside, already thinking about what I will do from now to supper - play with my dog? finish building my tree fort? call on one of my friends? - when I notice a group of boys clustered in a circle and yelling. Their excitement draws me, but not because I share it - already I feel a tightness in my belly. These are the rough boys, the ones who pick on others. They don't like me, and I don't like them, but they leave me alone because they have found I have a quick tongue and can make them look foolish in front of our classmates.

My dread is justified. As I approach their circle, I see one of the leaders jumping up and down, with another boy's head caught between his knees. The boy is on his knees, crying, hurt and unable to free himself while the others jeer and encourage the boy who has trapped him. I stare a moment, horrified, feeling my own head hurt just watching.

I am not a fighter. Physical confrontation frightens me. I could never throw a punch. But I cannot turn away, either - the boy's pain is too real to me. Without thinking, I run up and grab the cap from the head of the jumping bully and smack him across his ear - in case grabbing his hat didn't get his attention. Then, clutching his cap, I whirl and take off for home.

Behind me I hear the jeers of the  boys change to surprise, then laughter, now turned on their leader. It's unthinkable for a girl to best one of the toughs, to intervene in their sport. He has to let go of his victim and follow me; I have his cap. His mom will ask what he did with it. I hear the furious bully start racing after me.

I want to drop the hat right now. He'll stop and pick it up, giving me time to get away. But I can't: I have to lead him away from his victim, give the weaker boy enough time to escape. I clutch the cap tightly and run for my life.

Is he gaining on me? He'll beat me up if he catches me. I am terrified, running as I''ve never run before, holding the cap I want desperately to let go of. Way down the street I see my house. I sprint towards it, my heart pounding as I race for safety. I can hear the bully breathing at my back. He's bigger, faster than me.

One short block from my house I drop the cap. I've done the best I could for their victim. I dare not look back to make sure the bully stops for his hat, but charge toward my house, not even slowing till I'm at the door, yanking it open and tumbling inside where I stand gasping for breath.

As my heart begins to return to normal, I slowly smile.
***
Do you remember a time when you empathized with someone, even if you didn't want to?

What an interesting idea - that the first thing you remember is the birth of your identity. I assume the author, Wharton, means that this is the birth of her self-awareness, her self-consciousness, because you have to be self-aware in order to remember. You are no longer passively taking things in, but consciously noticing them, recording them in your memory from a point of view - yours.

But she doesn't say self-awareness, she says identity. Yes, self awareness, having a personal point of view, implies a singular identity, but Wharton's quote goes beyond this, I think, to include WHAT you remember. What is so important to you that it actually brings into existence that first spark of self-awareness, that first recorded memory? And why is it so important to you?

My first memory is of my older sister reading to me. We are in her room (a rare treat in itself, being allowed inside her room) and she has brought down one of her books from the shelf in her closet, while I wriggled in anticipatory excitement on her bed. Then she is lying on the bed beside me, reading to me. It's a chapter book, Maggie Muggins. No pictures. I lie still while she reads. I am very grown up. I am probably four years old, because we moved out of that house just before I turned five.

Another of my earliest memories is of my sister reading me C.S. Lewis's Narnia series. Once again, we are lying on her bed, side-by-side as she reads. I must be five or six, because this memory takes place in our "new" house. I remember her gravely telling me how lucky I am to be hearing these books for the first time, and that she wished she were reading them for the first time. I remember feeling a little surprised and awed by my unexpected good fortune.

It isn't surprising to me that I remember the attention from my older sister, or even being read to: it's that I remember the books themselves, the titles, the characters, even some of the words ("My goodness, I wonder what will happen tomorrow?" Maggie said at the end of every chapter). As though the very words were crucial, the stories themselves becoming part of me, important enough to make me notice, to make me become aware of myself noticing, to strike that spark of self-awareness in me. 

By the time I was seven, I was writing very short stories, and bad but rhyming poems, myself. But I was a writer before that. I was a writer the day I became aware that I was in love with words. Our first memory is our identity.

What's your first memory? Why do you think that's the first thing you remember? What does it say about who you are?